Titus Livius (Livy), The History of Rome, Book 24
Frank Gardener Moore, Professor Emeritus in Columbia University, Ed.

31. And in fact the Cretans shouted to them to take courage, saying they would share every lot with them. [2] During this conversation the standards had halted and the column was being held up. And word had not yet reached the generals as to what was the cause of the delay. When the report that Hippocrates and Epicydes were there did reach them, and down the whole length of the column there was a shout of evident joy over their coming, at once the [p. 275]generals made their way at a gallop to the head¹ of the column. [3] Asking what a practice, what a breach of discipline, it was on the part of the Cretans to [4??] join in conversation with an enemy and to admit the men to their own column without orders from the generals, they ordered them to be arrested and Hippocrates² to be put in chains. [5] Upon that command such an outcry was first raised by the Cretans, and then caught up by others, that it was easy to see that if they took any further steps they would have to fear for themselves. [6] Troubled and uncertain as to their own situation, they ordered a retreat to Megara, from which they had set out, and sent messengers to Syracuse to report how matters stood.

While men were inclined to suspect everything, Hippocrates also resorted to a ruse. [7] After sending some of the Cretans to lie in wait by the roads, with the pretence that it had been intercepted, he publicly read a letter written by himself: “The magistrates of Syracuse to the Consul Marcellus.”³ [8] Following the customary greeting it was stated that he had been entirely right in sparing no one at Leontini; [9] but that the situation of all the mercenary soldiers was the same, and Syracuse would never have peace so long as there were any foreign auxiliaries in either the city or its army. Therefore he should take measures to reduce to submission the men who were encamped at Megara under the command of their own generals, and by their punishment to set Syracuse free at last. [10] After this had been read, they rushed to arms with such shouting that during the confusion the generals rode away in alarm to Syracuse. [11] And the mutiny was not quelled even by their flight; but attacks were repeatedly made on the Syracusan soldiers. [12] [p. 277]Nor would they have spared any of them, had not⁴ Epicydes and Hippocrates opposed the enraged multitude, not out of pity and a humane intent, but in order not to cut off the hope of their own return, and that they might not only keep the men themselves as [13??] loyal soldiers and at the same time hostages, but also win over their relatives and friends, first by so great a service, and then by the personal security.⁵ [14] And having learned how empty or faint a breath moves the crowd, they took a soldier from among those who had been besieged at Leontini and bribed him to carry to Syracuse a message in agreement with what had been falsely reported at the Mylas, and by showing [15??] himself to vouch for it and by relating the doubtful as things that he had seen, to inflame men's anger.