Head of Timoleon (detail), by Italian artist Giuseppe Patania (1780-1852). Plutarch (?45-120), reflecting that ‘not only all larks must grow a crest, but every democracy a false accuser’, recorded that not long after Timoleon had liberated Syracuse from Dionysius II’s dictatorship a popular politician named Laphystius summoned the liberator before a court. The public were outraged on Timoleon’s behalf, and rose up in his defence; but Timoleon reassured them, saying that equality before the law was fundamental to democracy. Demaenetus was another popular figure in Syracuse, who publicly accused Timoleon of misconduct on the battlefield; Timoleon replied in the same fashion, saying that the right of free speech was the very thing he had spent eight years fighting for.
THE best Princes have ever encouraged and promoted Freedom of Speech; they know that upright Measures would defend themselves, and that all upright Men would defend them. Tacitus, speaking of the Reign of some of the Princes above mention’d, says with Extasy: A blessed Time, when you might think what you would, and speak what you thought.*
The same was the Opinion and Practice of the wise and virtuous Timoleon, the Deliverer of the great City of Syracuse from Slavery.* He being accused by Demaenetus,* a popular Orator, in a full Assembly of the People of Several Misdemeanors committed by him while he was General, gave no other Answer, than that He was highly obliged to the gods for granting him a Request that he had often made to them, namely, that he might live to see the Syracusians enjoy that Liberty of Speech which they now seem’d to be Masters of.
* These words come from the opening lines of Tacitus’s Histories, I.i, where he explains that he will write about the controversial Emperors now, “because of the rare good fortune of an age in which we may feel what we wish and may say what we feel.” He would save the placid reigns of Nerva (r. 96-98) and the current Emperor, Trajan (r. 98-117), for later on, he said, just in case he needed some light, uncontroversial material to write about under another Nero. Tacitus lived to see the reign of Hadrian (r. 117-138).
* Timoleon (?411–337 BC) unseated Dionysius II of Syracuse (r. ?367-345 BC) in 345 BC. Timoleon was a Corinthian general who dedicated his life to toppling tyrants, a term which in those days implied power concentrated in one man’s hands rather than raging violence. That said, Dionysius was not unusual in maintaining his position by mercenary forces and by suppressing vocal opposition. Timoleon retired from politics in 337 BC and died soon afterwards, having put down several other petty tyrants in the region and rebuffed a Carthaginian army in 341 BC. The people of Syracuse loved him, and gave him a grand funeral. Dionysius’s father Dionysius I (r. 405-367 BC) was the ruler who was so impressed by the friendship of Damon and Pythias.
* Trenchard is paraphrasing Plutarch’s Timoleon 37 here; Plutarch names a second critic as Laphystius.
Précis
In the ‘Cato Letters’, written in George I’s time, John Trenchard and Thomas Gibson agreed with Tacitus that free speech was the mark of a golden age. The best Roman Emperors fostered it, and after ousting the dictator of Syracuse Timoleon had borne slanderous accusations good-humouredly, remarking that Syracuse’s politicians could not have criticised the previous regime like that. (59 / 60 words)
