Dionysius arrived in the dead of winter. Snow
and ice--I can hardly credit it--whitened and roughened these ravines, a
new ally to the besieged; but the tyrant thought to betray them by a
false security in such a season. On a bitter night, when clouds hooded
the hilltop, and mists rolled low about its flanks, he climbed
unobserved, with his forces, up these precipices, and gained two outer
forts which gave footways to the walls; but the town roused at the sound
of arms and the cries of the guards, and came down to the fray, and
fought until six hundred of the foe fell dead, others with wounds
surrendered, and the rest fled headlong, with Dionysius among them, hard
pressed, and staining the snow with his blood as he went. This was the
city's first triumph.
Not only with brave deeds did Taormina begin, but, as a city should,
with a great man. He was really great, this Andromachus. Do you not
remember him out of Plutarch, and the noble words that have been his
immortal memory among men? "This man was incomparably the best of all
those that bore sway in Sicily at that time, governing his citizens
according to law and justice, and openly professing an aversion and
enmity to all tyrants.
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