This man crossed a second time into Italy, since affairs in Sicily were not proceeding to his liking because his leadership did not seem regal to the cities but despotic. For after being brought into Syracuse by Sosistratus, who held power in the city at that time, and by Thoinon the commander of the garrison, and having received from them money and some 200 bronze-rammed ships in all and having brought all of Sicily under his control except for the city of Lilybaeum,[1] which was the only city that the Carthaginians still held, he started exhibiting a tyrannical wilfullness. When the worst and most impious of his associates, Euegorus son of Theodorus, Balacrus son of Nicander and Deinarchus son of Nicias, saw that he was in a predicament and in search of any kind of revenues, being the adherents of the most godless and accursed teachings they propose to him a source of impious funds: the opening of the sacred treasuries of Persephone; for it was a shrine rich in gold, which had been kept untouched for all time. In it there was a sort of bottomless pit of gold, situated below ground out of the sight of the general public. Led astray by these toadies, and considering his need more important than anything, he employed as accomplices in the sacrilege the men [who devised] the plan, put the gold into ships and sent it off to Tarentum.[2] But righteous Providence put her power on display; for the ships were wrecked, and the gold was given back to the shrine.