Nor can I approve the terms in which he speaks of Agathocles, even if that prince were the most impious of men.
I allude to the passage at the end of his story in which he says that Agathocles in his early youth was a common prostitute, ready to yield himself to the most debauched, a jackdaw, a buzzard, who would right about face to anyone wished it.
And in addition to this he says that on his death his wife lamenting him called out in her wail, "What did I not do to you? What did you not do to me?"
In this instance we are not only inclined to repeat the protest we made in the case of Demochares, but we are positively astonished by the excess of rancour displayed.
For that Agathocles had great natural advantages is evident from Timaeus's own account of him.
For if at the age of eighteen he reached <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Syracuse&groupId=994&placeId=1753">Syracuse</a>, escaping from the wheel, the kiln, and the clay, and in a short time,
starting from such small beginnings, became master of the whole of <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Sicily&groupId=973&placeId=1724">Sicily</a>, exposed the Carthaginians to extreme peril, and having grown old in his sovereign position, died with the title of king,
must not Agathocles have had something great and wonderful in him, and must he not have been qualified for the conduct of affairs by peculiar mental force and power? Regarding all this a historian should lay before posterity not only such matters as tend to confirm slanderous accusations, but also what redounds to the credit of his prince; for such is the proper function of history.
But Timaeus, blinded by his own malice, has chronicled with hostility and exaggeration the defects of Agathocles and has entirely omitted to mention his shining qualities, being unaware that it is just as mendacious for a writer to conceal what did occur as to report what did not occur. I myself, while refraining in order to spare him from giving full expression to my hostility to Timaeus, have omitted nothing less to the object I had in view.. . . .
Walbank Commentary