When the rumor of this act was spread about, the better and more generous of the Corinthians highly applauded Timoleon for the hatred of wrong and the greatness of soul that had made him, though of a gentle disposition and full of love and kindness for his family, think the obligations to his country stronger than the ties of consanguinity, and prefer that which is good and just before gain and interest and his own particular advantage. For the same brother, who with so much bravery had been saved by him when he fought valiantly in the cause of Corinth, he had now as nobly sacrificed for enslaving her afterward by a base and treacherous usurpation. But when he came to understand how heavily his mother took it, and that she likewise uttered the saddest complaints and most terrible imprecations against him, he went to satisfy and comfort her, but he found that she would not endure so much as to look upon him, but caused her doors to be shut that he might have no admission into her presence, and with grief at this he grew so disordered in mind and disconsolate, that he determined to put an end to his perplexity with his life, by abstaining from all manner of sustenance. But through the care and diligence of his friends, who were very persistent with him, and added force to their entreaties, he promised at last that he would endure living, provided it might be in solitude, and remote from company; so that, quitting all civil transactions and commerce with the world, for a long while after his first retirement he never came into Corinth, but wandered up and down the fields, full of anxious and tormenting thoughts, and for almost twenty years did not offer to concern himself in any honorable or public action.
The Wound of PhilopoemenCleomenes, king of the Lacedaemonians, surprised Megalopolis by night, forced the guards, broke in, and seized the market-place.
Awhile after, king Antigonus coming down to succor the Achaeans, they marched with their united forces against Cleomenes; who, having seized the avenues, lay advantageously posted on the hills of Sellasia. Antigonus drew up close by him, with a resolution to force him in his strength. Philopoemen, with his citizens, was that day placed among the horse, next to the Illyrian foot, a numerous body of bold fighters, who completed the line of battle, forming, together with the Achaeans, the reserve. Their orders were to keep their ground, and not engage till they should see a red coat lifted up on the point of a spear from the other wing, where the king fought in person. The Achaeans obeyed their order and stood fast; but the Illyrians were led on by their commanders to the attack. Euclidas, the brother of Cleomenes; seeing the foot thus severed from the horse, detached the best of his light-armed men, commanding them to wheel about and charge the unprotected Illyrians in the rear. This charge put things into confusion, and Philopoemen, considering that those light-armed men could be easily repelled, went first to the king's officers to make them sensible of what the occasion required. But when they did not mind what he said, slighting him as a hare-brained fellow (as indeed he was not yet of any repute sufficient to give credit to a proposal of such importance). he charged with his own citizens, and at the first encounter disordered, and soon after put the troops to flight with great slaughter. Then, to encourage the king's army further, to bring them all upon the enemy while he was in confusion, he quitted his horse, and fighting with extreme difficulty in his heavy horseman's dress, in rough, uneven ground, full of water-courses and hollows, had both his thighs struck through with a thonged javelin. It was thrown with great force, so that the head came out on the other side, and made a severe though not a mortal wound. There he stood awhile, as if he had been shackled, unable to move. The fastening which joined the thong to the javelin made it difficult to get it drawn out, nor would anybody about him venture to do it. But the fight being now at the hottest, and likely to be quickly decided, he was transported with the desire of partaking in it, and struggled and strained so violently, setting one leg forward, the other back, that at last he broke the shaft in two, and thus got the pieces pulled out.
Being in this manner set at liberty he caught up his sword, and running through the midst of those who were fighting in the first ranks, animated his men, and set them afire with emulation.
