Demonax | Hellenic Library Beta

This page is read only. You can view the source, but not change it. Ask your administrator if you think this is wrong.
Elegy and Iambus. with an English Translation by. J. M. Edmonds. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1931. 2.

====== Mamercus: Poems ======


“1For cities immediately sent envoys to ask if they might join him, and Mamercus, the despot of Catana, a military ruler with plenty of money, made alliance with him.” 

Plutarch Life of Timoleon 

----

“When Timoleon was besieging the despot Mamercus, who had deceived and put to death a large number of people whom he had sworn to spare, he succeeded in outwitting him. The despot had agreed to surrender to him on condition that he should stand his trial before the Syracusans, Timoleon not to be the accuser; and Timoleon took an oath that he would not. The condition accepted, Mamercus came to Syracuse. Bringing him into the assembly, Timoleon said ‘I shall not accuse him, for that I have promised, but I bid you put him immediately to death. It is only just that one who has deceived others so many times should in like manner be deceived once himself.’” 

Polyaenus Stratagems

----

===== Inscription =====


Most of the Syracusans were incensed by the contumely of the tyrants. For even Mamercus, who plumed himself on the poems and tragedies he wrote, when he defeated the mercenaries boasted of it, and when he dedicated their shields to the Gods, inscribed upon them the following insulting couplet:

//These purple-painted shields of gold and ivory and electrum we took with little shields that cost us cheap.//





Plutarch Life of Timoleon


----


1 See also Plut. Tim. 30, 34, Nep. Timol. 2, and Diod. Sic. 16. 69 （344 B.C.）, where Hiller v. Gart. would keep the MS. form of the name, ‘Marcus,’ comparing I.G. 4. 1504 which prob. refers to a son of this man called after his father; the two are doubtless forms of the same name.