24.29
Not
many days elapsed before a deputation came from Leontini begging for a
force to protect their territory. This request seemed to afford a most
favourable opportunity for relieving the city of a number of insubordinate
and disorderly characters and getting rid of their leaders. Hippocrates
received orders to march the deserters to Leontini, with these and a large
body of mercenaries he made up a force of 4000 men. The expedition was
welcomed both by those who were despatched and those who were
despatching them: the former saw the opportunity, long hoped for, of
effecting a revolution; the latter were thankful that the dregs of the city were
being cleared out. It was, however, only a temporary alleviation of the
disease, which afterwards became all the more aggravated. For Hippocrates
began to devastate the country adjacent to the Roman province; at first
making stealthy raids, then, when Appius had sent a detachment to protect
the fields of the allies of Rome, he made an attack with his entire force upon
one of the outposts and inflicted heavy loss. When Marcellus was informed
of this he promptly sent envoys to Syracuse to say that the peace they had
guaranteed was broken, and that an occasion of war would never be wanting
until Hippocrates and Epicydes had been banished far away, not only from
Syracuse, but from Sicily. Epicydes feared that if he remained he should be
held responsible for the misdeeds of his absent brother, and also should be
unable to do his share in stirring up war, so he left for Leontini, and finding
the people there sufficiently exasperated against Rome, he tried to detach
them from Syracuse as well. "The Syracusans," he said, "have concluded a
peace with Rome on condition that all the communities which were under
their kings should remain under their rule; they are no longer content to be
free themselves unless they can rule and tyrannise over others. You must
make them understand that the Leontines also think it right that they should
be free, and that for two reasons; it was on Leontine soil that the tyrant fell,
and it was at Leontini that the cry of liberty was first raised, and from
Leontini the people flocked to Syracuse, after deserting the royal leaders.
Either that provision of the treaty must be struck out, or if it is insisted upon,
the treaty must not be accepted." They had no difficulty in persuading the
people, and when the Syracusan envoys made their protest against the
massacre of the Roman outpost and demanded that Hippocrates and
Epicydes should go to Locri or any other place which they preferred so long
as they left Sicily, they received the defiant reply that the Leontines had
given no mandate to the Syracusans to conclude a treaty with Rome, nor
were they bound by any compacts which other people made. The Syracusans
reported this to the Romans, and said that the Leontines were not under their
control, "in which case," they added, "the Romans may carry on war with
them without any infringement of their treaty with us, nor shall we stand
aloof in such a war, if it is clearly understood that when they have been
subjugated they will again form part of our dominions in accordance with the
terms of the treaty."