CHAPTER XLIII.

EVENTS IN SICILY DOWN TO THE EXPULSION OF THE GELONIAN DYNASTY AND

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF POPULAR GOVERNMENTS THROUGHOUT THE ISLAND.

I have already mentioned, in the third volume of this history, the

foundation of the Greek colonies in Italy and Sicily, together with

the general fact, that in the sixth century before the Christian era,

they were among the most powerful and flourishing cities that bore

the Hellenic name. Beyond this general fact, we obtain little insight

into their history.

Though Syracuse, after it fell into the hands of Gelo, about 485 B.

C., became the most powerful city in Sicily, yet in the preceding

century Gela and Agrigentum, on the south side of the island, had

been its superiors. The latter, within a few years of its foundation,

fell under the dominion of one of its own citizens, named Phalaris;

a despot energetic, warlike, and cruel. An exile from Astypalæa

near Rhodes, but a rich man, and an early settler at Agrigentum,

he contrived to make himself despot, seemingly, about the year 570

B. C. He had been named to one of the chief posts in the city, and

having undertaken at his own cost the erection of a temple to Zeus

Polieus in the acropolis (as the Athenian Alkmæônids rebuilt the

burnt temple of Delphi), he was allowed on this pretence to assemble

therein a considerable number of men; whom he armed, and availed

himself of the opportunity of a festival of Dêmêtêr to turn them

against the people. He is said to have made many conquests over

the petty Sikan communities in the neighborhood: but exaction and

cruelties towards his own subjects are noticed as his most prominent

characteristic, and his brazen bull passed into imperishable memory.

This piece of mechanism was hollow, and sufficiently capacious to

contain one or more victims inclosed within it, to perish in tortures

when the metal was heated: the cries of these suffering prisoners

passed for the roarings of the animal. The artist was named Perillus,

and is said to have been himself the first person burnt in it, by

order of the despot. In spite of the odium thus incurred, Phalaris

maintained himself as despot for sixteen years; at the end of which

period a general rising of the people, headed by a leading man named

Telemachus, terminated both his reign and his life.[417] Whether

Telemachus became despot or not, we have no information: sixty years

afterwards, we shall find his descendant Thêron established in that

position.

[417] Everything which has ever been said about Phalaris is

noticed and discussed in the learned and acute Dissertation

of Bentley on the Letters of Phalaris: compare also Seyffert,

Akragas und sein Gebiet, pp. 57-61, who, however, treats the

pretended Letters of Phalaris with mere consideration than the

readers of Dr. Bentley will generally be disposed to sanction.

The story of the brazen bull of Phalaris seems to rest on

sufficient evidence: it is expressly mentioned by Pindar, and the

bull itself, after having been carried away to Carthage when the

Carthaginians took Agrigentum, was restored to the Agrigentines

by Scipio when he took Carthage. See Aristot. Polit. v, 8, 4;

Pindar, Pyth. i, 185; Polyb. xii, 25; Diodor. xiii, 90; Cicero in

Verr. iv, 33.

It does not appear that Timæus really called in question the

historical reality of the bull of Phalaris, though he has been

erroneously supposed to have done so. Timæus affirmed that the

bull which was shown in his own time at Agrigentum was not the

identical machine: which was correct, for it must have been

_then_ at Carthage, from whence it was not restored to Agrigentum

until after 146 B. C. See a note of Boeckh on the Scholia ad

Pindar. Pyth. i, 185.

It was about the period of the death of Phalaris that the Syracusans

reconquered their revolted colony of Kamarina (in the southeast of

the island between Syracuse and Gela), expelled or dispossessed the

inhabitants, and resumed the territory.[418] With the exception of

this accidental circumstance, we are without information about the

Sicilian cities until a time rather before 500 B. C., just when the

war between Kroton and Sybaris had extinguished the power of the

latter, and when the despotism of the Peisistratids at Athens had

been exchanged for the democratical constitution of Kleisthenês.

The first forms of government among the Sicilian Greeks, as among

the cities of Greece Proper in the early historical age, appear to

have been all oligarchical: we do not know under what particular

modifications, but probably all more or less resembling that of

Syracuse, where the Gamori—or wealthy proprietors descended from

the original colonizing chiefs—possessing large landed properties

titled by a numerous Sikel serf population called Kyllyrii, formed

the qualified citizens, out of whom, as well as by whom, magistrates

and generals were chosen; while the Demos, or non-privileged

freemen, comprised the small proprietary cultivators who maintained

themselves, by manual labor and without slaves, from their own lands

or gardens, together with the artisans and tradesmen. In the course

of two or three generations, many individuals of the privileged

class would have fallen into poverty and would find themselves more

nearly on a par with the non-privileged; while such members of the

latter as might rise to opulence were not for that reason admitted

into the privileged body. Here were ample materials for discontent:

ambitious leaders, often themselves members of the privileged body,

put themselves at the head of the popular opposition, overthrew the

oligarchy, and made themselves despots; democracy being at that time

hardly known anywhere in Greece. The general fact of this change,

preceded by occasional violent dissensions among the privileged

class themselves,[419] is all that we are permitted to know, without

those modifying circumstances by which it must have been accompanied

in every separate city. Towards or near the year 500 B. C., we

find Anaxilaus despot at Rhegium, Skythês at Zanklê, Têrillus at

Himera, Peithagoras at Selinus, Kleander at Gela, and Panætius at

Leontini.[420] It was about the year 509 B. C. that the Spartan

prince Dorieus conducted a body of emigrants to the territories of

Eryx and Egesta, near the northwestern corner of the island, in hopes

of expelling the non-Hellenic inhabitants and founding a new Grecian

colony. But the Carthaginians, whose Sicilian possessions were

close adjoining, and who had already aided in driving Dorieus from

a previous establishment at Kinyps in Libya,—now lent such vigorous

assistance to the Egestæan inhabitants, that the Spartan prince,

after a short period of prosperity, was defeated and slain with most

of his companions: such of them as escaped, under the orders of

Euryleon, took possession of Minoa, which bore from henceforward the

name of Herakleia,[421]—a colony and dependency of the neighboring

town of Selinus, of which Peithagoras was then despot. Euryleon

joined the malcontents at Selinus, overthrew Peithagoras, and

established himself as despot, until, after a short possession of

power, he was slain in a popular mutiny.[422]

[418] Thucyd. vi, 5; Schol. ad Pindar. Olymp. v, 19; compare

Wesseling ad Diodor. xi, 76.

[419] At Gela, Herodot. vii, 153; at Syracuse, Aristot. Politic.

v, 3, 1.

[420] Aristot. Politic. v, 8, 4; v, 10, 4. Καὶ εἰς τυραννίδα

μεταβάλλει ἐξ ὀλιγαρχίας, ὥσπερ ἐν Σικελίᾳ σχεδὸν αἱ πλεῖσται τῶν

ἀρχαίων· ἐν Λεοντίνοις εἰς τὴν Παναιτίου τυραννίδα, καὶ ἐν Γέλᾳ

εἰς τὴν Κλεάνδρου, καὶ ἐν ἄλλαις πολλαῖς πόλεσιν ὡσαύτως.

[421] Diodorus ascribes the foundation of Herakleia to Dorieus;

this seems not consistent with the account of Herodotus, unless

we are to assume that the town of Herakleia which Dorieus founded

was destroyed by the Carthaginians, and that the name Herakleia

was afterwards given by Euryleon or his successors to that which

had before been called Minoa (Diodor. iv, 23).

A funereal monument in honor of Athenæus, one of the settlers

who perished with Dorieus, was seen by Pausanias at Sparta

(Pausanias, iii, 16, 4).

[422] Herodot. v, 43, 46.

We are here introduced to the first known instance of that series

of contests between the Phenicians and Greeks in Sicily, which,

like the struggles between the Saracens and the Normans in the

eleventh and twelfth centuries after the Christian era, were destined

to determine whether the island should be a part of Africa or a

part of Europe,—and which were only terminated, after the lapse

of three centuries, by the absorption of both into the vast bosom

of Rome. It seems that the Carthaginians and Egestæans not only

overwhelmed Dorieus, but also made some conquests of the neighboring

Grecian possessions, which were subsequently recovered by Gelo of

Syracuse.[423]

[423] Herodot. vii, 158. The extreme brevity of his allusion is

perplexing, as we have no collateral knowledge to illustrate it.

Not long after the death of Dorieus, Kleander, despot of Gela, began

to raise his city to ascendency over the other Sicilian Greeks, who

had hitherto been, if not all equal, at least all independent. His

powerful mercenary force, levied in part among the Sikel tribes,[424]

did not preserve him from the sword of a Geloan citizen named

Sabyllus, who slew him after a reign of seven years: but it enabled

his brother and successor Hippokratês to extend his dominion over

nearly half of the island. In that mercenary force two officers,

Gelo and Ænesidêmus (the latter a citizen of Agrigentum, of the

conspicuous family of the Emmenidæ, and descended from Telemachus,

the deposer of Phalaris), particularly distinguished themselves. Gelo

was descended from a native of Têlos near the Triopian cape, one

of the original settlers who accompanied the Rhodian Antiphêmus to

Sicily. His immediate ancestor, named Têlinês, had first raised the

family to distinction, by valuable aid to a defeated political party,

who had been worsted in a struggle, and forced to seek shelter in

the neighboring town of Maktorium. Têlinês was possessed of certain

peculiar sacred rites (or visible and portable holy symbols, with

a privileged knowledge of the ceremonial acts and formalities of

divine service under which they were to be shown) for propitiating

the subterranean goddesses, Dêmêtêr and Persephonê; “from whom he

obtained them, or how he got at them himself (says Herodotus) I

cannot say:” but such was the imposing effect of his presence and

manner of exhibiting them, that he ventured to march into Gela at the

head of the exiles from Maktorium, and was enabled to reinstate them

in power,—deterring the people from resistance in the same manner as

the Athenians had been overawed by the spectacle of Phyê-Athênê in

the chariot along with Peisistratus. The extraordinary boldness of

this proceeding excites the admiration of Herodotus, especially as

he had been informed that Têlinês was of an unwarlike temperament:

the restored exiles rewarded it by granting to him, and to his

descendants after him, the hereditary dignity of hierophants of the

two goddesses,[425]—a function certainly honorable, and probably

lucrative, connected with the administration of consecrated property

and with the enjoyment of a large portion of its fruits.

[424] Polyænus, v, 6.

[425] See about Têlinês and this hereditary priesthood, Herodot.

vii, 153. τούτους ὦν ὁ Τηλίνης κατήγαγε ἐς Γέλην, ἔχων οὐδεμίαν

ἀνδρῶν δύναμιν, ἀλλ’ ἱρὰ τούτων τῶν θεῶν· ὅθεν δὲ αὐτὰ ἔλαβε, ἢ

αὐτὸς ἐκτήσατο, τοῦτο οὐκ ἔχω εἶπαι. τούτοισι δὲ ὦν πίσυνος ἐὼν,

κατήγαγε, ἐπ’ ᾧ τε οἱ ἀπόγονοι αὐτοῦ ἱροφάνται τῶν θεῶν ἔσονται:

compare a previous passage of this history, vol. i, chap. i, p.

26.

It appears from Pindar, that Hiero exercised this hereditary

priesthood (Olymp. vi, 160 (95), with the Scholia ad loc. and

Scholia ad Pindar. Pyth. ii, 27).

About the story of Phyê personifying Athênê at Athens, see above,

vol. iv of this history, chap. xxx, p. 105.

The ancient religious worship addressed itself more to the eye

than to the ear; the words spoken were of less importance than

the things exhibited, the persons performing, and the actions

done. The vague sense of the Greek and Latin neuter, ἱερὰ, or

_sacra_, includes the entire ceremony, and is difficult to

translate into a modern language: but the verbs connected with

it, ἔχειν, κεκτῆσθαι, κομίζειν, φαίνεν, ἱερὰ—ἱεροφάντης, etc.,

relate to exhibition and action. This was particularly the

case with the mysteries (or solemnities not thrown open to the

general public but accessible only to those who went through

certain preliminary forms, and under certain restrictions) in

honor of Dêmêtêr and Persephonê, as well as of other deities in

different parts of Greece. The λεγόμενα, or things _said_ on

these occasions, were of less importance than the δρώμενα and

δεικνύμενα, or _matters shown and things done_ (see Pausanias,

ii, 37, 3). Herodotus says, about the lake of Sais in Egypt,

Ἐν δὲ τῇ λίμνῃ ταύτῃ ~τὰ δείκηλα~ τῶν παθέων αὐτοῦ (of Osiris)

νυκτὸς ποιεῦσι, τὰ καλέουσι μυστήρια Αἰγύπτιοι: he proceeds to

state that the Thesmophoria celebrated in honor of Dêmêtêr in

Greece were of the same nature, and gives his opinion that they

were imported into Greece from Egypt. Homer (Hymn. Cerer. 476):

compare Pausan. ii, 14, 2.

~Δεῖξεν~ Τριπτολέμῳ τε, Διόκλεΐ τε πληξίππῳ

~Δρησμοσύνην ἱερῶν~· καὶ ἐπέφραδεν ~ὄργια~ παισὶ

Πρεσβυτέρῃς Κελέοιο...

Ὄλβιος, ὃς ~τάδ’ ὄπωπεν~ ἐπιχθονίων ἀνθρώπων, etc.

Compare Euripid. Hippolyt. 25; Pindar, Fragm. xcvi; Sophocl.

Frag. lviii, ed. Brunck; Plutarch, De Profect. in Virtute, c.

10, p. 81: De Isid. et Osir. p. 353, c. 3. ὡς γὰρ οἱ τελούμενοι

κατ’ ἀρχὰς ἐν θορύβῳ καὶ βοῇ πρὸς ἀλλήλους ὠθούμενοι συνίασι,

~δρωμένων~ δὲ καὶ ~δεικνυμένων τῶν ἱερῶν~, προσέχουσιν ἤδη

μετὰ φόβου καὶ σιωπῆς: and Isokratês, Panegyric. c. 6, about

Eleusis, τὰ ἱερὰ καὶ νῦν ~δείκνυμεν~ καθ’ ἕκαστον ἐνιαυτόν.

These mysteries consisted thus chiefly of exhibition and

action addressed to the eyes of the communicants, and Clemens

Alexandrinus calls them a mystic drama—Δηὼ καὶ Κόρη δρᾶμα

ἐγενέσθην μυστικὸν, καὶ τὴν πλάνην καὶ τὴν ἀρπαγὴν καὶ τὸ

πένθος ἡ Ἐλευσὶς δᾳδουχεῖ. The word ὄργια is originally nothing

more than a consecrated expression for ἔργα—ἱερὰ ἔργα (see

Pausanias, iv, 1, 4, 5), though it comes afterwards to designate

the whole ceremony, matters shown as well as matters done—τὰ

ὄργια κομίζων—ὀργίων παντοίων συνθέτης, etc.: compare Plutarch,

Alkibiad. 22-34.

The sacred objects exhibited formed an essential part of the

ceremony, together with the chest in which such of them as were

movable were brought out—τελετῆς ἐγκύμονα μυστίδα κίστην (Nonnus,

ix, 127). Æschines, in assisting the religious lustrations

performed by his mother, was bearer of the chest—κιστόφορος

καὶ λικνόφορος (Demosthen. de Coronâ, c. 79, p. 313). Clemens

Alexandrius (Cohort. ad Gent. p. 14) describes the objects

which were contained in these mystic chests of the Eleusinian

mysteries,—cakes of particular shape, pomegranates, salt,

ferules, ivy, etc. The communicant was permitted, as a part of

the ceremony, to take these out of the chest and put them into a

basket, afterwards putting them back again: “Jejunavi et ebibi

cyceonem: ex cistâ sumpsi et in calathum misi: accepi rursus, in

cistulam transtuli,” (Arnobius ad Gent. v, 175, ed. Elmenherst,)

while the uninitiated were excluded from seeing it, and forbidden

from looking at it “even from the house-top.”

Τὸν κάλαθον κατιόντα χαμαὶ θασεῖσθε βέβαλοι

Μήδ’ ἀπὸ τῶ τέγεος.

(Kallimachus, Hymn. in Cererem, 4.)

Lobeck, in his learned and excellent treatise, Aglaophamus

(i, p. 51), says: “Sacrorum nomine tam Græci, quam Romani,

præcipuè signa et imagines Deorum, omnemque sacram supellectilem

dignari solent. Quæ res animum illuc potius inclinat, ut putem

Hierophantas ejusmodi ἱερὰ in conspectum hominum protulisse,

sive deorum simulacra, sive vasa sacra et instrumenta aliave

priscæ religionis monumenta; qualia in sacrario Eleusinio

asservata fuisse, etsi nullo testimonio affirmare possumus, tamen

probabilitatis speciem habet testimonio similem. Namque non solum

in templis ferè omnibus cimelia venerandæ antiquitatis condita

erant, sed in mysteriis ipsis talium rerum mentio occurrit, quas

initiati summâ cum veneratione aspicerent, non initiatis ne

aspicere quidem liceret.... Ex his testimoniis efficitur (p. 61)

sacra quæ Hierophanta ostendit, illa ipsa fuisse ἄγια φάσματα

sive simulacra Deorum, eorumque aspectum qui præbeant δεῖξαι τὰ

ἱερὰ vel παρέχειν vel φαίνειν dici, et ab hoc quasi primario

Hierophantæ actu tum Eleusiniorum sacerdotum principem nomen

accepisse, tum totum negotium esse nuncupatum.”

Compare also K. F. Hermann, Gottesdienstliche Alterthümer der

Griechen, part ii, ch. ii, sect. 32.

A passage in Cicero de Haruspicum Responsis (c. 11), which is

transcribed almost entirely by Arnobius adv. Gentes, iv, p.

148, demonstrates the minute precision required at Rome in the

performance of the festival of the Megalesia: the smallest

omission or alteration was supposed to render the festival

unsatisfactory to the gods.

The memorable history of the Holy Tunic at Treves, in 1845, shows

what immense and wide-spread effect upon the human mind may be

produced, even in the nineteenth century, by ἱερὰ δεικνύμενα.

Gelo thus belonged to an ancient and distinguished hierophantic

family at Gela, being the eldest of four brothers, sons of

Deinomenes,—Gelo, Hiero, Polyzelus, and Thrasybulus: and he further

ennobled himself by such personal exploits in the army of the despot

Hippokratês as to be promoted to the supreme command of the cavalry.

It was greatly to his activity that the despot owed a succession of

victories and conquests, in which the Ionic or Chalkidic cities of

Kallipolis, Naxos, Leontini, and Zanklê, were successively reduced to

dependence.[426]

[426] Herodot. vii, 154.

The fate of Zanklê,—seemingly held by its despot Skythês, in a

state of dependent alliance under Hippokratês, and in standing feud

with Anaxilaus of Rhegium, on the opposite side of the strait of

Messina,—was remarkable. At the time when the Ionic revolt in Asia

was suppressed, and Milêtus reconquered by the Persians (B. C.

494-493), a natural sympathy was manifested by the Ionic Greeks in

Sicily towards the sufferers of the same race on the east of the

Ægean sea. Projects were devised for assisting the Asiatic refugees

to a new abode, and the Zanklæans especially, invited them to form a

new Pan-Ionic colony upon the territory of the Sikels, called Kalê

Aktê, on the north coast of Sicily,—a coast presenting fertile and

attractive situations, and along the whole line of which there was

only one Grecian colony,—Himera. This invitation was accepted by

the refugees from Samos and Milêtus, who accordingly put themselves

on shipboard for Zanklê; steering, as was usual, along the coast

of Akarnania to Korkyra, from thence across to Tarentum, and along

the Italian coast to the strait of Messina. It happened that when

they reached the town of Epizephyrian Lokri, Skythês, the despot of

Zanklê, was absent from his city, together with the larger portion

of his military force, on an expedition against the Sikels,—perhaps

undertaken to facilitate the contemplated colony at Kalê Aktê: and

his enemy the Rhegian Anaxilaus, taking advantage of this accident,

proposed to the refugees at Lokri that they should seize for

themselves, and retain, the unguarded city of Zanklê. They followed

his suggestion, and possessed themselves of the city, together with

the families and property of the absent Zanklæans; who speedily

returned to repair their loss, while their prince Skythês farther

invoked the powerful aid of his ally and superior, Hippokratês. The

latter, however, provoked at the loss of one of his dependent cities,

seized and imprisoned Skythês, whom he considered as the cause of

it,[427] at Inykus, in the interior of the island; but he found it at

the same time advantageous to accept a proposition made to him by the

Samians, captors of the city, and to betray the Zanklæans whom he had

come to aid. By a convention, ratified with an oath, it was agreed

that Hippokratês should receive for himself all the extra-mural, and

half the intra-mural, property and slaves belonging to Zanklæans,

leaving the other half to the Samians. Among the property without

the walls, not the least valuable part consisted in the persons of

those Zanklæans whom Hippokratês had come to assist, but whom he now

carried away as slaves: excepting, however, from this lot, three

hundred of the principal citizens, whom he delivered over to the

Samians to be slaughtered,—probably lest they might find friends to

procure their ransom, and afterwards disturb the Samian possession of

the town. Their lives were however spared by the Samians, though we

are not told what became of them. This transaction, alike perfidious

on the part of the Samians and of Hippokratês, secured to the former

a flourishing city, and to the latter an abundant booty. We are glad

to learn that the imprisoned Skythês found means to escape to Darius,

king of Persia, from whom he received a generous shelter,—imperfect

compensation for the iniquity of his fellow Greeks.[428] The

Samians, however, did not long retain possession of their conquest,

but were expelled by the very person who had instigated them to

seize it,—Anaxilaus, of Rhegium. He planted in it new inhabitants,

of Dorian and Messenian race, recolonizing it under the name of

Messênê,—a name which it ever afterwards bore;[429] and it appears to

have been governed either by himself or by his son Kleophron, until

his death about B. C. 476.

[427] Herodot. vi, 22, 23. Σκύθην μὲν τὸν μούναρχον τῶν

Ζαγκλαίων, ὡς ἀποβαλόντα τὴν πόλιν, ὁ Ἱπποκράτης πεδήσας, καὶ τὸν

ἀδελφεὸν αὐτοῦ Πυθογένεα, ἐς Ἴνυκον πόλιν ἀπέπεμψε.

The words ὡς ἀποβαλόντα seem to imply the relation preëxisting

between Hippokratês and Skythês, as superior and subject; and

punishment inflicted by the former upon the latter for having

lost an important post.

[428] Herodot. vi, 23, 24. Aristotle (Politic. v, 2, 11)

represents the Samians as having been first actually received

into Zanklê, and afterwards expelling the prior inhabitants: his

brief notice is not to be set against the perspicuous narrative

of Herodotus.

[429] Thucyd. vi, 4; Schol. ad Pindar. Pyth. ii, 84; Diodor. xi,

48.

Besides the conquests above mentioned, Hippokratês of Gela was on the

point of making the still more important acquisition of Syracuse, and

was only prevented from doing so, after defeating the Syracusans at

the river Helôrus, and capturing many prisoners, by the mediation of

the Corinthians and Korkyræans, who prevailed on him to be satisfied

with the cession of Kamarina and its territory as a ransom. Having

repeopled this territory, which became thus annexed to Gela, he was

prosecuting his conquests farther among the Sikels, when he died or

was killed at Hybla. His death caused a mutiny among the Geloans, who

refused to acknowledge his sons, and strove to regain their freedom;

but Gelo, the general of horse in the army, espousing the cause of

the sons with energy, put down by force the resistance of the people.

As soon as this was done, he threw off the mask, deposed the sons of

Hippokratês, and seized the sceptre himself.[430]

[430] Herodot. vii, 155; Thucyd. vi, 5. The ninth Nemean Ode of

Pindar (v, 40), addressed to Chromius the friend of Hiero of

Syracuse, commemorates, among other exploits, his conduct at the

battle of the Helôrus.

Thus master of Gela, and succeeding probably to the ascendency

enjoyed by his predecessor over the Ionic cities, Gelo became the

most powerful man in the island; but an incident which occurred a

few years afterwards (B. C. 485), while it aggrandized him still

farther, transferred the seat of his power from Gela to Syracuse.

The Syracusan Gamori, or oligarchical order of proprietary families,

probably humbled by their ruinous defeat at the Helôrus, were

dispossessed of the government by a combination between their

serf-cultivators, called the Kyllyrii, and the smaller freemen,

called the Demos; they were forced to retire to Kasmenæ, where

they invoked the aid of Gelo to restore them. That ambitious

prince undertook the task, and accomplished it with facility; for

the Syracusan people, probably unable to resist their political

opponents when backed by such powerful foreign aid, surrendered to

him without striking a blow.[431] But instead of restoring the place

to the previous oligarchy, Gelo appropriated it to himself, and

left Gela to be governed by his brother Hiero. He greatly enlarged

the city of Syracuse, and strengthened its fortifications: probably

it was he who first carried it beyond the islet of Ortygia, so

as to include a larger space of the adjacent mainland (or rather

island of Sicily) which bore the name of Achradina. To people this

enlarged space, he brought all the residents in Kamarina, which

town he dismantled,—and more than half of those in Gela; which was

thus reduced in importance, while Syracuse became the first city

in Sicily, and even received fresh addition of inhabitants from

the neighboring towns of Megara and Eubœa. Both these towns, like

Syracuse, were governed by oligarchies, with serf cultivators

dependent upon them, and a Dêmos, or body of smaller freemen,

excluded from the political franchise: both were involved in war with

Gelo, probably to resist his encroachments,—both were besieged and

taken. The oligarchy who ruled these cities, and who were the authors

as well as leaders of the year, anticipated nothing but ruin at the

hands of the conqueror; while the Demos, who had not been consulted

and had taken no part in the war (which we must presume to have been

carried on by the oligarchy and their serfs alone), felt assured

that no harm would be done to them. His behavior disappointed the

expectations of both. After transporting both of them to Syracuse,

he established the oligarchs in that town as citizens, and sold

the Demos as slaves, under covenant that they should be exported

from Sicily. “His conduct (says Herodotus[432]) was dictated by

the conviction, that a Demos was a most troublesome companion to

live with.” It appears that the state of society which he wished to

establish was that of Patricians and clients, without any Plebs;

something like that of Thessaly, where there was a proprietary

oligarchy living in the cities, with Penestæ, or dependent

cultivators, occupying and tilling the land on their account,—but

no small self-working proprietors or tradesmen in sufficient number

to form a recognized class. And since Gelo was removing the free

population from these conquered towns, and leaving in or around the

towns no one except the serf-cultivators, we may presume that the

oligarchical proprietors when removed might still continue, even as

residents at Syracuse, to receive the produce raised for them by

others: but the small self-working proprietors, if removed in like

manner, would be deprived of subsistence, because their land would

be too distant for personal tillage, and they had no serfs. While

therefore we fully believe, with Herodotus, that Gelo considered the

small free proprietors as “troublesome yoke-fellows,”—a sentiment

perfectly natural to a Grecian despot, unless where he found them

useful aids to his own ambition against a hostile oligarchy,—we must

add that they would become peculiarly troublesome in his scheme of

concentrating the free population of Syracuse, seeing that he would

have to give them land in the neighborhood or to provide in some

other way for their maintenance.

[431] Herodot. vii, 155. Ὁ γὰρ δῆμος ὁ τῶν Συρηκοσίων ἐπιόντι

Γέλωνι παραδιδοῖ τὴν πόλιν καὶ ἑωϋτόν.

Aristotle (Politic. v, 2, 6) alludes to the Syracusan democracy

prior to the despotism of Gelo as a case of democracy ruined by

its own lawlessness and disorder. But such can hardly have been

the fact, if the narrative of Herodotus is to be trusted. The

expulsion of the Gamori was not an act of lawless democracy,

but the rising of free subjects and slaves against a governing

oligarchy. After the Gamori were expelled, there was no time

for the democracy to constitute itself, or to show in what

degree it possessed capacity for government, since the narrative

of Herodotus indicates that the restoration by Gelo followed

closely upon the expulsion. And the superior force, which Gelo

brought to the aid of the expelled Gamori, is quite sufficient

to explain the submission of the Syracusan people, had they been

ever so well administered. Perhaps Aristotle may have had before

him reports different from those of Herodotus: unless, indeed,

we might venture to suspect that the name of _Gelo_ appears in

Aristotle by lapse of memory in place of that of _Dionysius_.

It is highly probable that the partial disorder into which the

Syracusan democracy had fallen immediately before the despotism

of Dionysius, was one of the main circumstances which enabled him

to acquire the supreme power; but a similar assertion can hardly

be made applicable to the early times preceding Gelo, in which,

indeed, democracy was only just beginning in Greece.

The confusion often made by hasty historians between the names

of Gelo and Dionysius, is severely commented on by Dionysius

of Halikarnassus (Antiq. Roman. vii, 1, p. 1314): the latter,

however, in his own statement respecting Gelo, is not altogether

free from error, since he describes Hippokratês as _brother_

of Gelo. We must accept the supposition of Larcher, that

Pausanias (vi, 9, 2), while professing to give the date of Gelo’s

occupation of _Syracuse_, has really given the date of Gelo’s

occupation of _Gela_ (see M. Fynes Clinton, Fast. Hellen. ad ann.

491 B. C.).

[432] Herodot. vii, 156. Μεγαρέας τε τοὺς ἐν Σικελίῃ, ὡς

πολιορκεόμενοι ἐς ὁμολογίην προσεχώρησαν, τοὺς μὲν αὐτῶν παχέας,

ἀειραμένους τε πόλεμον αὐτῷ καὶ προσδοκέοντας ἀπολέεσθαι διὰ

τοῦτο, ἄγων ἐς τὰς Συρακούσας πολιήτας ἐποίησε· τὸν δὲ δῆμον

τῶν Μεγαρέων, οὐκ ἐόντα μεταίτιον τοῦ πολέμου τούτου, οὐδὲ

προσδεκόμενον κακὸν οὐδὲν πείσεσθαι, ἀγαγὼν καὶ τούτους ἐς τὰς

Συρακούσας, ἀπέδοτο ἐπ’ ἐξαγωγῇ ἐκ Σικελίης. Τὠυτὸ δὲ τούτου

καὶ Εὐβοέας τοὺς ἐν Σικελίῃ ἐποίησε διακρίνας. Ἐποίεε δὲ ταῦτα

τούτους ἀμφοτέρους, νομίσας δῆμον εἶναι συνοίκημα ἀχαριτώτατον.

So large an accession of size, walls, and population, rendered

Syracuse the first Greek city in Sicily. And the power of Gelo,

embracing as it did not merely Syracuse, but so considerable a

portion of the rest of the island, Greek as well as Sikel, was the

greatest Hellenic force then existing. It appears to have comprised

the Grecian cities on the east and southeast of the island from

the borders of Agrigentum to those of Zanklê or Messênê, together

with no small proportion of the Sikel tribes. Messênê was under the

rule of Anaxilaus of Rhegium, Agrigentum under that of Thêro son of

Ænesidêmus, Himera under that of Terillus; while Selinus, close on

the borders of Egesta and the Carthaginian possessions, had its own

government free or despotic, but appears to have been allied with or

dependent upon Carthage.[433] A dominion thus extensive doubtless

furnished ample tribute; besides which Gelo, having conquered and

dispossessed many landed proprietors and having recolonized Syracuse,

could easily provide both lands and citizenship to recompense

adherents. Hence, he was enabled to enlarge materially the military

force transmitted to him by Hippokratês, and to form a naval force

besides. Phormis[434] the Mænalian, who took service under him and

became citizen of Syracuse, with fortune enough to send donatives to

Olympia,—and Agêsias, the Iamid prophet from Stymphâlus,[435]—are

doubtless not the only examples of emigrants joining him from

Arcadia; for the Arcadian population were poor, brave, and ready for

mercenary soldiership; nor can we doubt that the service of a Greek

despot in Sicily must have been more attractive to them than that of

Xerxes.[436] Moreover, during the ten years between the battles of

Marathon and Salamis, when not only so large a portion of the Greek

cities had become subject to Persia, but the prospect of Persian

invasion hung like a cloud over Greece Proper, the increased feeling

of insecurity throughout the latter probably rendered emigration to

Sicily unusually inviting.

[433] Diodor. xi, 21.

[434] Pausan. v, 27, 1, 2. We find the elder Dionysius, about

a century afterwards, transferring the entire free population

of conquered towns (Kaulonia and Hipponium in Italy, etc.) to

Syracuse (Diodor. xiv, 106, 107).

[435] See the sixth Olympic Ode of Pindar, addressed to the

Syracusan Agêsias. The Scholiast on v. 5, of that ode,—who says

that not Agêsias himself, but some of his progenitors migrated

from Stymphâlus to Syracuse,—is contradicted not only by the

Scholiast on v. 167, where Agêsias is rightly termed both Ἀρκὰς

and Συρακόσιος; but also by the better evidence of Pindar’s own

expressions,—συνοικιστήρ τε τᾶν κλεινᾶν Συρακοσσᾶν,—οἴκοθεν

οἴκαδε, with reference to Stymphâlus and Syracuse,—δύ’ ἀγκύραι

(v, 6, 99, 101 = 166-174).

Ergotelês, an exile from Knôssus in Krete, must have migrated

somewhere about this time to Himera in Sicily. See the twelfth

Olympic Ode of Pindar.

[436] Herodot. viii, 26.

These circumstances in part explain the immense power and position

which Herodotus represents Gelo to have enjoyed, towards the

autumn of 481 B. C., when the Greeks from the isthmus of Corinth,

confederated to resist Xerxes, sent to solicit his aid. He was

then imperial leader of Sicily: he could offer to the Greek—so the

historian tells us—twenty thousand hoplites, two hundred triremes,

two thousand cavalry, two thousand archers, two thousand slingers,

two thousand light-armed horse, besides furnishing provisions for

the entire Grecian force as long as the war might last.[437] If this

numerical statement could be at all trusted, which I do not believe,

Herodotus would be much within the truth in saying, that there was no

other Hellenic power which would bear the least comparison with that

of Gelo:[438] and we may well assume such general superiority to

be substantially true, though the numbers above mentioned may be an

empty boast rather than a reality.

[437] Herodot. vii, 157. σὺ δὲ δυνάμιός τε ἥκεις μεγάλης, καὶ

μοῖρά τοι τῆς Ἑλλάδος οὐκ ἐλαχίστη μέτα, ἄρχοντί γε Σικελίης: and

even still stronger, c. 163. ἐὼν Σικελίης τύραννος.

The word ἄρχων corresponds with ἀρχὴ, such as that of the

Athenians, and is less strong than τύραννος.

The numerical statement is contained in the speech composed by

Herodotus for Gelo (vii, 158).

[438] Herodot. vii, 145. τὰ δὲ Γέλωνος πρήγματα μεγάλα ἐλέγετο

εἶναι· οὐδαμῶν Ἑλληνικῶν τῶν οὐ πολλὸν μέζω.

Owing to the great power of Gelo, we now for the first time trace an

incipient tendency in Sicily to combined and central operations. It

appears that Gelo had formed the plan of uniting the Greek forces in

Sicily for the purpose of expelling the Carthaginians and Egestæans,

either wholly or partially, from their maritime possessions in the

western corner of the island, and of avenging the death of the

Spartan prince, Dorieus;—that he even attempted, though in vain, to

induce the Spartans and other central Greeks to coöperate in this

plan,—and that, upon their refusal, he had in part executed it with

the Sicilian forces alone.[439] We have nothing but a brief and

vague allusion to this exploit, wherein Gelo appears as the chief

and champion of Hellenic against barbaric interests in Sicily,—the

forerunner of Dionysius, Timoleon, and Agathoklês. But he had already

begun to conceive himself, and had already been recognized by others,

in this commanding position, when the envoys of Sparta, Athens,

Corinth, etc., reached him from the isthmus of Corinth, in 481 B.

C., to entreat his aid for the repulse of the vast host of invaders

about to cross the Hellespont. Gelo, after reminding them that they

had refused a similar application for aid from him, said that, far

from requiting them at the hour of need in the like ungenerous

spirit, he would bring to them an overwhelming reinforcement (the

numbers as given by Herodotus have been already stated), but upon one

condition only,—that he should be recognized as generalissimo of the

entire Grecian force against the Persians. His offer was repudiated,

with indignant scorn, by the Spartan envoy: and Gelo then so far

abated in his demand, as to be content with the command either of the

land-force or the naval force, whichever might be judged preferable.

But here the Athenian envoy interposed his protest: “We are sent here

(said he) to ask for an army, and not for a general; and thou givest

us the army, only in order to make thyself general. Know, that even

if the Spartans would allow thee to command at sea, _we_ would not.

The naval command is ours, if they decline it: we Athenians, the

oldest nation in Greece,—the only Greeks who have never migrated from

home,—whose leader before Troy stands proclaimed by Homer as the best

of all the Greeks for marshalling and keeping order in an army,—we,

who moreover furnish the largest naval contingent in the fleet,—_we_

will never submit to be commanded by a Syracusan.”

[439] Herodot. vii, 158. Gelo says to the envoys from

Peloponnesus:—Ἄνδρες Ἕλληνες, λόγον ἔχοντες πλεονέκτην,

ἐτολμήσατε ἐμὲ σύμμαχον ἐπὶ τὸν βάρβαρον παρακαλέοντες

ἐλθεῖν. Αὐτοὶ δὲ, ἐμεῦ πρότερον δεηθέντος βαρβαρικοῦ στρατοῦ

συνεπάψασθαι, ὅτε μοι πρὸς Καρχηδονίους νεῖκος συνῆπτο,

ἐπισκήπτοντός τε τὸν Δωριέος τοῦ Ἀναξανδρίδεω πρὸς Ἐγεσταίων

φόνον ἐκπρήξασθαι, ὑποτείνοντός τε τὰ ἐμπόρια συνελευθεροῦν, ἀπ’

ὧν ὑμῖν μεγάλαι ὠφελίαι τε καὶ ἐπαυρέσιες γεγόνασι· οὔτε ἐμεῦ

εἵνεκα ἤλθετε βοηθήσοντες, οὔτε τὸν Δωριέος φόνον ἐκπρηξόμενοι·

τὸ δὲ κατ’ ὑμέας τάδε ἅπαντα ὑπὸ βαρβάροισι νέμεται. Ἀλλὰ εὖ γὰρ

ἡμῖν καὶ ἐπὶ τὸ ἄμεινον κατέστη· νῦν δὲ, ἐπειδὴ περιελήλυθε ὁ

πόλεμος καὶ ἀπῖκται ἐς ὑμέας, οὕτω δὴ Γέλωνος μνῆστις γέγονε.

It is much to be regretted that we have no farther information

respecting the events which these words glance at. They seem

to indicate that the Carthaginians and Egestæans had made

some encroachments, and threatened to make more: that Gelo

had repelled them by actual and successful war. I think it

strange, however, that he should be made to say: “_You_ (the

Peloponnesians) have derived great and signal advantages from

these seaports;”—the profit derived from the latter by _the

Peloponnesians_ can never have been so great as to be singled

out in this pointed manner. I should rather have expected, ἀπ’

ὧν ~ἡμῖν~ (and not ἀπ’ ὧν ~ὑμῖν~),—which must have been true in

point of fact, and will be found to read quite consistently with

the general purport of Gelo’s speech.

“Athenian stranger (replied Gelo), ye seem to be provided with

commanders, but ye are not likely to have soldiers to be commanded.

Ye may return as soon as you please, and tell the Greeks that their

year is deprived of its spring.”[440]

[440] Herodot. vii, 161, 162. Polybius (xii, 26) does not

seem to have read this embassy as related by Herodotus,—or

at least he must have preferred some other account of it;—he

gives a different account of the answer which they made

to Gelo: an answer (not insolent, but) business-like and

evasive,—πραγματικώτατον ἀπόκριμα, etc. See Timæus, Fragm. 87,

ed. Didot.

That envoys were sent from Peloponnesus to solicit assistance from

Gelo against Xerxes, and that they solicited in vain, is an incident

not to be disputed: but the reason assigned for refusal—conflicting

pretensions about the supreme command—may be suspected to have arisen

less from historical transmission, than from the conceptions of the

historian, or of his informants, respecting the relations between

the parties. In his time, Sparta, Athens, and Syracuse were the

three great imperial cities of Greece, and his Sicilian witnesses,

proud of the great past power of Gelo, might well ascribe to him

that competition for preëminence and command which Herodotus has

dramatized. The immense total of forces which Gelo is made to promise

becomes the more incredible, when we reflect that he had another and

a better reason for refusing aid altogether. He was attacked at home,

and was fully employed in defending himself.

The same spring which brought Xerxes across the Hellespont into

Greece, also witnessed a formidable Carthaginian invasion of Sicily.

Gelo had already been engaged in war against them, as has been above

stated, and had obtained successes, which they would naturally seek

the first opportunity of retrieving. The vast Persian invasion of

Greece, organized for three years before, and drawing contingents

not only from the whole eastern world, but especially from their

own metropolitan brethren at Tyre and Sidon, was well calculated to

encourage them: and there seems good reason for believing that the

simultaneous attack on the Greeks both in Peloponnesus and in Sicily,

was concerted between the Carthaginians and Xerxes,[441]—probably

by the Phenicians on behalf of Xerxes. Nevertheless, this alliance

does not exclude other concurrent circumstances in the interior of

the island, which supplied the Carthaginians both with invitation

and with help. Agrigentum, though not under the dominion of Gelo,

was ruled by his friend and relative Thêro: while Rhegium and

Messênê under the government of Anaxilaus, Himera under that of

his father-in-law Terillus, and Selinus, seem to have formed an

opposing minority among the Sicilian Greeks; at variance with Gelo

and Thêro, but in amity and correspondence with Carthage.[442] It

was seemingly about the year 481 B. C., that Thêro, perhaps invited

by an Himeræan party, expelled from Himera the despot Terillus, and

became possessed of the town. Terillus applied for aid to Carthage,

backed by his son-in-law Anaxilaus, who espoused the quarrel so

warmly, as even to tender his own children as hostages to Hamilkar

the Carthaginian suffes, or general, the personal friend or guest of

Terillus. The application was favorably entertained, and Hamilkar,

arriving at Panormus in the eventful year 480 B. C., with a fleet of

three thousand ships of war and a still larger number of storeships,

disembarked a land-force of three hundred thousand men: which would

even have been larger, had not the vessels carrying the cavalry and

the chariots happened to be dispersed by storms.[443] These numbers

we can only repeat as we find them, without trusting them any farther

than as proof that the armament was on the most extensive scale. But

the different nations of whom Herodotus reports the land-force to

have consisted are trustworthy and curious: it included Phenicians,

Libyans, Iberians, Ligyes, Helisyki, Sardinians, and Corsicans.[444]

This is the first example known to us of those numerous mercenary

armies, which it was the policy of Carthage to compose of nations

different in race and language,[445] in order to obviate conspiracy

or mutiny against the general. Having landed at Panormus, Hamilkar

marched to Himera, dragged his vessels on shore under the shelter

of a rampart, and then laid siege to the town: while the Himeræans,

reinforced by Thêro and the army of Agrigentum, determined on an

obstinate defence, and even bricked up the gates. Pressing messages

were despatched to solicit aid from Gelo, who collected his whole

force, said to have amounted to fifty thousand foot, and five

thousand horse, and marched to Himera. His arrival restored the

courage of the inhabitants, and after some partial fighting, which

turned out to the advantage of the Greeks, a general battle ensued.

It was obstinate and bloody, lasting from sunrise until late in the

afternoon; and its success was mainly determined by an intercepted

letter which fell into the hands of Gelo,—a communication from the

Selinuntines to Hamilkar, promising to send a body of horse to his

aid, and intimating the time at which they would arrive. A party

of Gelo’s horse, instructed to personate this reinforcement from

Selinus, were received into the camp of Hamilkar, where they spread

consternation and disorder, and are even said to have slain the

general and set fire to the ships: while the Greek army, brought to

action at this opportune moment, at length succeeded in triumphing

over both superior numbers and a determined resistance. If we are to

believe Diodorus, one hundred and fifty thousand men were slain on

the side of the Carthaginians; the rest fled partly to the Sikanian

mountains, where they became prisoners of the Agrigentines,—partly

to a hilly ground, where, from want of water, they were obliged

to surrender at discretion: twenty ships alone escaped with a few

fugitives, and these twenty were destroyed by a storm in the passage,

so that only one small boat arrived at Carthage with the disastrous

tidings.[446] Dismissing such unreasonable exaggerations, we can

only venture to assert that the battle was strenuously disputed, the

victory complete, and the slain as well as the prisoners numerous.

The body of Hamilkar was never discovered, in spite of careful

search ordered by Gelo: the Carthaginians affirmed, that as soon

as the defeat of his army became irreparable, he had cast himself

into the great sacrificial fire, wherein he had been offering entire

victims (the usual sacrifice consisting only of a small part of the

beast),[447] to propitiate the gods, and had there been consumed.

The Carthaginians erected funereal monuments to him, graced with

periodical sacrifices, both in Carthage and in their principal

colonies:[448] on the field of battle itself also, a monument

was raised to him by the Greeks. On that monument, seventy years

afterwards, his victorious grandson, fresh from the plunder of this

same city of Himera, offered the bloody sacrifice of three thousand

Grecian prisoners.[449]

[441] Ephorus, Fragment. 111, ed. Didot; Diodor. xi, 1, 20.

Mitford and Dahlmann (Forschungen, _Herodotus_, etc., sect. 35,

p. 186) call in question this alliance or understanding between

Xerxes and the Carthaginians; but on no sufficient grounds, in my

judgment.

[442] Herodot. vii, 165; Diodor. xi, 23: compare also xiii,

55, 59. In like manner Rhegium and Messênê formed the opposing

interest to Syracuse, under Dionysius the elder (Diodor. xiv, 44).

[443] Herodotus (vii, 165) and Diodorus (xi, 20) both give the

number of the land-force: the latter alone gives that of the

fleet.

[444] Herodot. vii, 165. The Ligyes came from the southern

junction of Italy and France; the gulfs of Lyons and Genoa. The

Helisyki cannot be satisfactorily verified: Niebuhr considers

them to have been the _Volsci_: an ingenious conjecture.

[445] Polyb. i, 67. His description of the mutiny of the

Carthaginian mercenaries, after the conclusion of the first Punic

war, is highly instructive.

[446] Diodor. xi, 21-24.

[447] Herodotus, vii, 167. σώματα ὅλα καταγίζων. This passage

of Herodotus receives illustration from the learned comment

of Mövers on the Phenician inscription recently discovered at

Marseilles. It was the usual custom of the Jews, and it had been

in old times the custom with the Phenicians (Porphyr. de Abstin.

iv, 15), to burn the victim entire: the Phenicians departed from

this practice, but the departure seems to have been considered as

not strictly correct, and in times of great misfortune or anxiety

the old habit was resumed (Mövers, Das Opferwesen der Karthager.

Breslau, 1847, pp. 71-118).

[448] Herodot. vii, 166, 167. Hamilkar was son of a Syracusan

mother: a curious proof of _connubium_ between Carthage and

Syracuse. At the moment when the elder Dionysius declared war

against Carthage, in 398 B. C., there were many Carthaginian

merchants dwelling both in Syracuse and in other Greco-Sicilian

cities, together with ships and other property. Dionysius

gave license to the Syracusans, at the first instant when he

had determined on declaring war, to plunder all this property

(Diodor. xiv, 46). This speedy multiplication of Carthaginians

with merchandise in the Grecian cities, so soon after a bloody

war had been concluded, is a strong proof of the spontaneous

tendencies of trade.

[449] Diodor. xiii, 62. According to Herodotus, the battle of

Himera took place on the same day as that of Salamis; according

to Diodorus, on the same day as that of Thermopylæ. If we are

forced to choose between the two witnesses, there can be no

hesitation in preferring the former: but it seems more probable

that neither is correct.

As far as we can judge from the brief allusions of Herodotus,

he must have conceived the battle of Himera in a manner totally

different from Diodorus. Under such circumstances, I cannot

venture to trust the details given by the latter.

We may presume that Anaxilaus with the forces of Rhegium shared in

the defeat of the foreign invader whom he had called in, and probably

other Greeks besides. All of them were now compelled to sue for

peace from Gelo, and to solicit the privilege of being enrolled as

his dependent allies, which was granted to them without any harder

imposition than the tribute probably involved in that relation.[450]

Even the Carthaginians themselves were so intimidated by the defeat,

that they sent envoys to ask for peace at Syracuse, which they are

said to have obtained mainly by the solicitation of Damaretê, wife

of Gelo, on condition of paying two thousand talents to defray the

costs of the war, and of erecting two temples in which the terms of

the treaty were to be permanently recorded.[451] If we could believe

the assertion of Theophrastus, Gelo exacted from the Carthaginians

a stipulation that they would for the future abstain from human

sacrifices in their religious worship:[452] but such an interference

with foreign religious rites would be unexampled in that age, and we

know, moreover, that the practice was not permanently discontinued

at Carthage.[453] Indeed, we may reasonably suspect that Diodorus,

copying from writers like Ephorus, and Timæus, long after the events,

has exaggerated considerably the defeat, the humiliation, and the

amercement, of the Carthaginians. For the words of the poet Pindar,

a very few years after the battle of Himera, represent a fresh

Carthaginian invasion as matter of present uneasiness and alarm:[454]

and the Carthaginian fleet is found engaged in aggressive warfare

on the coast of Italy, requiring to be coerced by the brother and

successor of Gelo.

[450] I presume this treatment of Anaxilaus by Gelo must be

alluded to in Diodorus, xi, 66: at least it is difficult to

understand what other “great benefit” Gelo had conferred on

Anaxilaus.

[451] Diodor. xi, 26.

[452] Schol. ad Pindar. Pyth. ii, 3; Plutarch, De Serâ Numinis

Vindictâ, p. 552, c. 6.

[453] Diodor. xx, 14.

[454] Pindar, Nem. ix, 67 (= 28 B.) with the Scholia.

The victory of Himera procured for the Sicilian cities immunity

from foreign war together with a rich plunder. Splendid offerings

of thanksgiving to the gods were dedicated in the temples of

Himera, Syracuse, and Delphi: and the epigram of Simonidês,[455]

composed for the tripod offered in the latter temple, described

Gelo with his three brothers Hiero, Polyzêlus, and Thrasybulus, as

the joint liberators of Greece from the Barbarian, along with the

victors of Salamis and Platæa. And the Sicilians alleged that he

was on the point of actually sending reinforcements to the Greeks

against Xerxes, in spite of the necessity of submitting to Spartan

command, when the intelligence of the defeat and retreat of that

prince reached him. But we find another statement decidedly more

probable,—that he sent a confidential envoy named Kadmus, to Delphi,

with orders to watch the turn of the Xerxeian invasion, and in case

it should prove successful (as he thought that it probably would

be) to tender presents and submission to the victorious invader

on behalf of Syracuse.[456] When we consider that until the very

morning of the battle of Salamis, the cause of Grecian independence

must have appeared to an impartial spectator almost desperate, we

cannot wonder that Gelo should take precautions for preventing the

onward progress of the Persians towards Sicily, which was already

sufficiently imperiled by its formidable enemies in Africa. The

defeat of the Persians at Salamis, and of the Carthaginians at

Himera, cleared away, suddenly and unexpectedly, the terrific cloud

from Greece as well as from Sicily, and left a sky comparatively

brilliant with prosperous hopes.

[455] Simonidês, Epigr. 141, ed. Bergk.

[456] Herodot. vii, 163-165: compare Diodor. xi, 26; Ephorus,

Fragm. 111, ed. Didot.

To the victorious army of Gelo, there was abundant plunder for

recompense as well as distribution: among the most valuable part

of the plunder were the numerous prisoners taken, who were divided

among the cities in proportion to the number of troops furnished

by each. Of course the largest shares must have fallen to Syracuse

and Agrigentum: while the number acquired by the latter was still

farther increased by the separate capture of those prisoners who

had dispersed throughout the mountains in and near the Agrigentine

territory. All the Sicilian cities allied with or dependent on Gelo,

but especially the two last mentioned, were thus put in possession

of a number of slaves as public property, who were kept in chains

to work,[457] and were either employed on public undertakings for

defence, ornament, and religious solemnity,—or let out to private

masters so as to afford a revenue to the state. So great was the

total of these public slaves at Agrigentum, that though many

were employed on state-works, which elevated the city to signal

grandeur during the flourishing period of seventy years which

intervened between the recent battle and its subsequent capture by

the Carthaginians,—there nevertheless remained great numbers to be

let out to private individuals, some of whom had no less than five

hundred slaves respectively in their employment.[458]

[457] Diodor. xi, 25. αἱ δὲ πόλεις εἰς πέδας κατέστησαν τοὺς

διαιρεθέντας αἰχμαλώτους, καὶ τὰ δημόσια τῶν ἔργων διὰ τούτων

ἐπεσκεύαζον.

For analogous instances of captives taken in war being employed

in public works by the captors, and laboring in chains, see the

cases of Tegea and Samos in Herodot. i, 66; iii, 39.

[458] Diodor. xi, 25. Respecting slaves belonging to the public,

and let out for hire to individual employers, compare the large

financial project conceived by Xenophon, De Vectigalibus, capp. 3

and 4.

The peace which now ensued left Gelo master of Syracuse and Gela,

with the Chalkidic Greek towns on the east of the island; while

Thêro governed in Agrigentum, and his son Thrasydæus in Himera. In

power as well as in reputation, Gelo was unquestionably the chief

person in the island; moreover, he was connected by marriage, and

lived on terms of uninterrupted friendship, with Thêro. His conduct

both at Syracuse and towards the cities dependent upon him, was

mild and conciliating. But his subsequent career was very short: he

died of a dropsical complaint, not much more than a year after the

battle of Himera, while the glories of that day were fresh in every

one’s recollection. As the Syracusan law rigorously interdicted

expensive funerals, Gelo had commanded that his own obsequies should

be conducted in strict conformity to the law: nevertheless, the zeal

of his successor as well as the attachment of the people disobeyed

these commands. The great mass of citizens followed his funeral

procession from the city to the estate of his wife, fifteen miles

distant: nine massive towers were erected to distinguish the spot;

and the solemnities of heroic worship were rendered to him. Nor

did the respectful recollections of the conqueror of Himera ever

afterwards die out among the Syracusan people, though his tomb was

defaced, first by the Carthaginians, and afterwards by the despot

Agathoklês.[459] And when we recollect the destructive effects caused

by the subsequent Carthaginian invasions, we shall be sensible how

great was the debt of gratitude owing to Gelo by his contemporaries.

[459] Diodor. xi, 38, 67; Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 29; Aristotle,

Γελώων Πολιτεία; Fragm. p. 106, ed. Neumann.

It was not merely as conqueror of Himera, but as a sort of second

founder of Syracuse,[460] that Gelo was thus solemnly worshipped. The

size, the strength, and the population of the town were all greatly

increased under him. Besides the number of new inhabitants which he

brought from Gela, the Hyblæan Megara, and the Sicilian Eubœa, we

are informed that he also inscribed on the roll of citizens no less

than ten thousand mercenary soldiers. It will, moreover, appear that

these new-made citizens were in possession of the islet of Ortygia,

and the portion of the city closely bordering on it, which bore the

name of Achradina,[461]—the interior strongholds of Syracuse. It has

already been stated that Ortygia was the original settlement, and

that the city did not overstep the boundaries of the islet before

the enlargements of Gelo. We do not know by what arrangements Gelo

provided new lands for so large a number of newcomers; but when we

come to notice the antipathy with which these latter were regarded by

the remaining citizens, we shall be inclined to believe that the old

citizens had been dispossessed and degraded.

[460] Diodor. xi, 49.

[461] Diodor. xi, 72, 73.

Gelo left a son in tender years; but his power passed, by his own

direction, to two of his brothers, Polyzêlus and Hiero; the former

of whom married the widow of the deceased prince, and was named,

according to his testamentary directions, commander of the military

force,—while Hiero was intended to enjoy the government of the city.

Whatever may have been the wishes of Gelo, however, the real power

fell to Hiero,—a man of energy and determination, and munificent

as a patron of contemporary poets, Pindar, Simonidês, Bacchylidês,

Epicharmus, Æschylus, and others; but the victim of a painful

internal complaint, jealous in his temper, cruel and rapacious in

his government,[462] and noted as an organizer of that systematic

espionage which broke up all freedom of speech among his subjects.

Especially jealous of his brother Polyzêlus, who was very popular

in the city, he despatched him on a military expedition against the

Krotoniates, with a view of indirectly accomplishing his destruction:

but Polyzêlus, aware of the snare, fled to Agrigentum, and sought

protection from his brother-in-law, the despot Thêron; from whom

Hiero redemanded him, and, on receiving a refusal, prepared to

enforce the demand by arms. He had already advanced on his march as

far as the river Gela, but no actual battle appears to have taken

place: it is interesting to hear that Simonidês the poet, esteemed

and rewarded by both these princes, was the mediator of peace between

them.[463]

[462] Diodor. xi, 67; Aristotel. Politic. v, 9, 3. In spite of

the compliments directly paid by Pindar to Hiero (πραῢς ἀστοῖς,

οὐ φθονέων ἀγαθοῖς, ξείνοις δὲ θαυμαστὸς πατὴρ, Pyth. iii, 71

= 125), his indirect admonitions and hints sufficiently attest

the real character (see Dissen ad Pindar. Pyth. i, and ii, pp.

161-182).

[463] Diodor. xi, 48; Schol. Pindar, Olymp. ii, 29.

The temporary breach, and sudden reconciliation, between these two

powerful despots, proved the cause of sorrow and ruin at Himera. That

city, under the dominion of the Agrigentine Thêro, was administered

by his son Thrasydæus,—a youth whose oppressive conduct speedily

excited the strongest antipathy. The Himeræans, knowing that they had

little chance of redress from Thêro against his son, took advantage

of the quarrel between him and Hiero to make propositions to the

latter, and to entreat his aid for the expulsion of Thrasydæus,

tendering themselves as subjects of Syracuse. It appears that Kapys

and Hippokratês, cousins of Thêro, but at variance with him, and

also candidates for the protection of Hiero, were concerned in this

scheme for detaching Himera from the dominion of Thêro. But so soon

as peace had been concluded, Hiero betrayed to Thêro both the schemes

and the malcontents at Himera. We seem to make out that Kapys and

Hippokratês collected some forces to resist Thêro, but were defeated

by him at the river Himera:[464] his victory was followed by seizing

and putting to death a large number of Himeræan citizens. So great

was the number slain, coupled with the loss of others who fled for

fear of being slain, that the population of the city was sensibly

and inconveniently diminished. Thêro invited and enrolled a large

addition of new citizens, chiefly of Dorian blood.[465]

[464] Schol. ad Pindar. Olymp. ii, 173. For the few facts which

can be made out respecting the family and genealogy of Thêro, see

Göller, De Situ et Origine Syracusarum, ch. vii, pp. 19-22. The

Scholiasts of Pindar are occasionally useful in explaining his

brief historical allusions; but they seem to have had very few

trustworthy materials before them for so doing.

[465] Diodor. xi, 48, 49.

The power of Hiero, now reconciled both with Thêro and with his

brother Polyzêlus, is marked by several circumstances as noway

inferior to that of Gelo, and probably the greatest not merely

in Sicily, but throughout the Grecian world. The citizens of the

distant city of Cumæ, on the coast of Italy, harassed by Carthaginian

and Tyrrhenian fleets, entreated his aid, and received from him a

squadron which defeated and drove off their enemies:[466] he even

settled a Syracusan colony in the neighboring island of Pithekusa.

Anaxilaus, despot of Rhegium and Messênê, had attacked, and might

probably have overpowered, his neighbors, the Epizephyrian Lokrians;

but the menaces of Hiero, invoked by the Lokrians, and conveyed

by the envoy Chromius, compelled him to desist.[467] Those heroic

honors, which in Greece belonged to the œkist of a new city, were

yet wanting to him; and he procured them by the foundation of the

new city of Ætna,[468] on the site and in the place of Katana, the

inhabitants of which he expelled, as well as those of Naxos. While

these Naxians and Katanæans were directed to take up their abode

at Leontini along with the existing inhabitants, Hiero planted ten

thousand new inhabitants in his adopted city of Ætna: five thousand

from Syracuse and Gela,—with an equal number from Peloponnesus.

They served as an auxiliary force, ready to be called forth in the

event of discontents at Syracuse, as we shall see by the history of

his successor: he gave them not only the territory which had before

belonged to Katana, but also a large addition besides, chiefly at the

expense of the neighboring Sikel tribes. His son Deinomenês, and his

friend and confidant, Chromius, enrolled as an Ætnæan, became joint

administrators of the city: its religious and social customs were

assimilated to the Dorian model,[469] and Pindar dreams of future

relations between the despot and citizens of Ætna, analogous to those

between king and citizens at Sparta. Both Hiero and Chromius were

proclaimed as Ætnæans at the Pythian and Nemean games, when their

chariots gained victories; on which occasion the assembled crowd

heard for the first time of the new Hellenic city of Ætna. We see,

by the compliments of Pindar,[470] that Hiero was vain of his new

title as founder; but we must remark that it was procured, not, as in

most cases, by planting Greeks on a spot previously barbarous, but by

the dispossession and impoverishment of other Grecian citizens, who

seem to have given no ground of offence. Both in Gelo and Hiero we

see the first exhibition of that propensity to violent and wholesale

transplantation of inhabitants from one seat to another, which was

not uncommon among Assyrian and Persian despots, and which was

exhibited on a still larger scale by the successors of Alexander the

Great in their numerous new-built cities.

[466] The brazen helmet, discovered near the site of Olympia,

with the name of Hiero and the victory at Cumæ inscribed on it,

yet remains as an interesting relic to commemorate this event: it

was among the offerings presented by Hiero to the Olympic Zeus:

see Boechk, Corp. Inscriptt. Græc. No. 16, part i, p. 34.

[467] Diodor. xi, 51; Pindar, i, 74 (= 140); ii, 17 (= 35) with

the Scholia; Epicharmus, Fragment, p. 19, ed. Krusemann; Schol.

Pindar. Pyth. i, 98; Strabo, v, p. 247.

[468] Ἱέρων ~οἰκιστὴς ἀντὶ τυράννου βουλόμενος εἶναι~, Κατάνην

ἐξελὼν Αἴτνην μετωνόμασε τὴν πόλιν, ἑαυτὸν οἰκιστὴν προσαγορεύσας

(Schol. ad Pindar. Nem. i, 1).

Compare the subsequent case of the foundation of Thurii, among

the citizens of which violent disputes arose, in determining who

should be recognized as œkist of the place. On referring to the

oracle, Apollo directed them to commemorate _himself_ as œkist

(Diodor. xii, 35).

[469] Chromius ἐπίτροπος τῆς Αἴτνης (Schol. Pind. Nem. ix, 1).

About the Dorian institutions of Ætna, etc., Pindar, Pyth. i,

60-71.

Deinomenês survived his father, and commemorated the Olympic

victories of the latter by costly offerings at Olympia (Pausan.

vi, 12, 1).

[470] Pindar, Pyth. i, 60 (= 117); iii, 69 (= 121). Pindar.

ap. Strabo. vi, p. 269. Compare Nemea, ix, 1-30, addressed to

Chromius. Hiero is proclaimed in some odes as a Syracusan;

but Syracuse and the newly-founded Ætna are intimately joined

together: see Nemea, i, _init._

Anaxilaus of Rhegium died shortly after that message of Hiero which

had compelled him to spare the Lokrians; but such was the esteem

entertained for his memory, and so efficient the government of

Mikythus, a manumitted slave whom he constituted regent, that Rhegium

and Messênê were preserved for his children, yet minors.[471] But

a still more important change in Sicily was caused by the death

of the Agrigentine Thêro, which took place, seemingly, about 472

B. C. This prince, a partner with Gelo in the great victory over

the Carthaginians, left a reputation of good government as well

as ability among the Agrigentines, which we find perpetuated in

the laureate strains of Pindar,—and his memory doubtless became

still farther endeared from comparison with his son and successor.

Thrasydæus, now master both of Himera and Agrigentum, displayed on a

larger scale the same oppressive and sanguinary dispositions which

had before provoked rebellion at the former city. Feeling himself

detested by his subjects, he enlarged the military force which had

been left by his father, and engaged so many new mercenaries, that

he became master of a force of twenty thousand men, horse and foot.

And in his own territory, perhaps, he might long have trodden with

impunity in the footsteps of Phalaris, had he not imprudently

provoked his more powerful neighbor, Hiero. In an obstinate and

murderous battle between these two princes, two thousand men were

slain on the side of the Syracusans, and four thousand on that of

the Agrigentines: an immense slaughter, considering that it mostly

fell upon the Greeks in the two armies, and not upon the non-Hellenic

mercenaries.[472] But the defeat of Thrasydæus was so complete, that

he was compelled to flee not only from Agrigentum, but from Sicily:

he retired to Megara, in Greece Proper, where he was condemned to

death and perished.[473] The Agrigentines, thus happily released from

their oppressor, sued for and obtained peace from Hiero: they are

said to have established a democratical government, but we learn that

Hiero sent many citizens into banishment from Agrigentum and Himera,

as well as from Gela,[474] nor can we doubt that all the three

were numbered among his subject cities. The moment of freedom only

commenced for them when the Gelonian dynasty shared the fate of the

Theronian.

[471] Justin, iv, 2.

[472] So I conceive the words of Diodorus are to be

understood,—πλεῖστοι τῶν παραταξαμένων Ἑλλήνων πρὸς Ἕλληνας

ἔπεσον (Diodor. xi, 53).

[473] Diodor. xi, 53. ἐκεῖ θανάτου καταγνωσθεὶς ἐτελεύτησεν. This

is a remarkable specimen of the feeling in a foreign city towards

an oppressive τύραννος. The Megarians of Greece Proper were much

connected with Sicily, through the Hyblæan Megara, as well as

Selinus.

[474] Diodor. xi, 76. Οἱ κατὰ τὴν Ἱέρωνος δυναστείαν ἐκπεπτωκότες

ἐκ τῶν ἰδίων πόλεων—τούτων δ’ ἦσαν Γελῶοι καὶ Ἀκραγαντῖνοι καὶ

Ἱμεραῖοι.

The victory over Thrasydæus rendered Hiero more completely master

of Sicily than his brother Gelo had been before him. The last

act which we hear of him, is, his interference on behalf of his

brothers-in-law,[475] the sons of Anaxilaus of Rhegium, who were

now of age to govern. He encouraged them to prefer, and probably

showed himself ready to enforce, their claim against Mikythus, who

had administered Rhegium since the death of Anaxilaus, for the

property as well as the sceptre. Mikythus complied readily with the

demand, rendering an account so exact and faithful, that the sons

of Anaxilaus themselves entreated him to remain and govern,—or more

probably to lend his aid to their government. This request he was

wise enough to refuse: he removed his own property and retired to

Tegea in Arcadia. Hiero died shortly afterwards, of the complaint

under which he had so long suffered, after a reign of ten years.[476]

[475] Hiero had married the daughter of Anaxilaus, but he seems

also to have had two other wives,—the sister or cousin of Thêro,

and the daughter of a Syracusan named Nikoklês: this last was the

mother of his son Deinomenês (Schol. Pindar. Pyth. i, 112).

We read of Kleophron, son of Anaxilaus, governing Messênê during

his father’s lifetime: probably this young man must have died,

otherwise Mikythus would not have succeeded (Schol. Pindar. Pyth.

ii, 34).

[476] Diodor. xi, 66.

On the death of Hiero, the succession was disputed between his

brother Thrasybulus, and his nephew, the youthful son of Gelo, so

that the partisans of the family became thus divided. Thrasybulus,

surrounding his nephew with temptations to luxurious pleasure,

contrived to put him indirectly aside, and thus to seize the

government for himself.[477] This family division,—a curse often

resting upon the blood-relations of Grecian despots, and leading to

the greatest atrocities,[478]—coupled with the conduct of Thrasybulus

himself, caused the downfall of the mighty Gelonian dynasty. The bad

qualities of Hiero were now seen greatly exaggerated, but without his

energy, in Thrasybulus,—who put to death many citizens, and banished

still more, for the purpose of seizing their property, until at

length he provoked among the Syracusans intense and universal hatred,

shared even by many of the old Gelonian partisans. Though he tried

to strengthen himself by increasing his mercenary force, he could

not prevent a general revolt from breaking out among the Syracusan

population. By summoning those citizens whom Hiero had planted in

his new city of Ætna, as well as various troops from his dependent

allies, he found himself at the head of fifteen thousand men, and

master of the interior strongholds of the city,—the island of Ortygia

with Achradina, while the great body of the revolted Syracusans

were assembled in the outer city called Tychê. Though superior in

number, yet being no match in military efficiency for the forces of

Thrasybulus, they were obliged to invoke aid from the other cities in

Sicily, as well as from the Sikel tribes,—proclaiming the Gelonian

dynasty as the common enemy of freedom in the island, and holding out

universal independence as the reward of victory. It was fortunate

for them that there was no brother-despot, like the powerful Thêro,

to espouse the cause of Thrasybulus: Gela, Agrigentum, Selinus,

Himera, and even the Sikel tribes, all responded to the call with

alacrity, so that a large force, both military and naval, came to

reinforce the Syracusans: Thrasybulus was totally defeated, first

in a naval action, next on land, and obliged to shut himself up in

Ortygia and Achradina, where he soon found his situation hopeless.

He accordingly opened a negotiation with his opponents, which ended

in his abdication and retirement to Lokri, while the mercenary

troops whom he had brought together were also permitted to depart

unmolested.[479] The expelled Thrasybulus afterwards lived and died

as a private citizen at Lokri,—a very different fate from that which

had befallen Thrasydæus, son of Thêro at Megara, though both seem to

have given the same provocation.

[477] Aristotel. Politic. v, 8, 19. Diodorus does not mention the

son of Gelo.

Mr. Fynes Clinton (Fasti Hellenici, App. chap. 10, p. 264,

_seq._) has discussed all the main points connected with

Syracusan and Sicilian chronology.

[478] Xenophon, Hiero, iii, 8. Εἰ τοίνυν ἐθέλεις κατανοεῖν,

εὑρήσεις μὲν τοὺς ἰδιώτας ὑπὸ τούτων μάλιστα φιλουμένους, τοὺς

δὲ τυράννους πολλοὺς μὲν παῖδας ἑαυτῶν ἀπεκτονηκότας, πολλοὺς δ’

ὑπὸ παίδων αὐτοὺς ἀπολωλότας, πολλοὺς δὲ ἀδελφοὺς ἐν τυραννίσιν

ἀλληλοφόνους γεγενημένους, πολλοὺς δὲ καὶ ὑπὸ γυναικῶν τῶν ἑαυτῶν

τυράννους διεφθαρμένους, καὶ ὑπὸ ἑταίρων γε τῶν μάλιστα δοκούντων

φίλων εἶναι: compare Isokratês, De Pace, Orat. viii, p. 182, §

138.

So also Tacitus (Hist. v, 9) respecting the native kings of

Judæa, after the expulsion of the Syrian dynasty: “Sibi ipsi

reges imposuere: qui, mobilitate vulgi expulsi, resumptâ per arma

dominatione, fugas civium, urbium eversiones,—_fratrum, conjugum,

parentum, neces,— aliaque solita regibus ausi_,” etc.

[479] Diodor. ix, 67, 68.

Thus fell the powerful Gelonian dynasty at Syracuse, after a

continuance of eighteen years.[480] Its fall was nothing less than

an extensive revolution throughout Sicily. Among the various cities

of the island there had grown up many petty despots, each with his

separate mercenary force; acting as the instruments, and relying on

the protection, of the great despot at Syracuse. All these were now

expelled, and governments more or less democratical were established

everywhere.[481] The sons of Anaxilaus maintained themselves a

little longer at Rhegium and Messênê, but the citizens of these two

towns at length followed the general example, compelled them to

retire,[482] and began their era of freedom.

[480] Aristotel. Politic. v, 8, 23.

[481] Diodor. xi, 68.

[482] Diodor. xi, 76.

But though the Sicilian despots had thus been expelled, the free

governments established in their place were exposed at first to

much difficulty and collision. It has been already mentioned that

Gelo, Hiero, Thêro, Thrasydæus, Thrasybulus, etc., had all condemned

many citizens to exile with confiscation of property; and had

planted on the soil new citizens and mercenaries in numbers no less

considerable. To what race these mercenaries belonged, we are not

told: it is probable that they were only in part Greeks. Such violent

mutations, both of persons and property, could not occur without

raising bitter conflicts, of interest as well as of feeling, between

the old, the new, and the dispossessed proprietors, as soon as the

iron hand of compression was removed. This source of angry dissension

was common to all the Sicilian cities, but in none did it flow more

profusely than in Syracuse. In that city, the new mercenaries last

introduced by Thrasybulus, had retired at the same time with him,

many of them to the Hieronian city of Ætna, from whence they had been

brought; but there yet remained the more numerous body introduced

principally by Gelo, partly also by Hiero,—the former alone had

enrolled ten thousand, of whom more than seven thousand yet remained.

What part these Gelonian citizens had taken in the late revolution,

we do not find distinctly stated: they seem not to have supported

Thrasybulus, as a body, and probably many of them took part against

him. After the revolution had been accomplished, a public assembly

of the Syracusans was convened, in which the first resolution

was, to provide for the religious commemoration of the event, by

erecting a colossal statue of Zeus Eleutherius, and by celebrating

an annual festival to be called the Eleutheria, with solemn matches

and sacrifices. They next proceeded to determine the political

constitution; and such was the predominant reaction, doubtless

aggravated by the returned exiles, of hatred and fear against the

expelled dynasty,—that the whole body of new citizens, who had

been domiciliated under Gelo and Hiero, were declared ineligible

to magistracy or honor. This harsh and sweeping disqualification,

falling at once upon a numerous minority, naturally provoked renewed

irritation and civil war. The Gelonian citizens, the most warlike

individuals in the state, and occupying, as favored partisans of

the previous dynasty, the inner and separately fortified sections

of Syracuse,[483]—Achradina and Ortygia,—placed themselves in open

revolt; while the general mass of citizens, masters of all the outer

sections of the city, were not strong enough to assail with success

this defensible position. They could only block it up, and intercept

its supplies, which the garrison within were forced to come out and

fight for. This disastrous internal war continued for some months,

with many partial conflicts both by land and sea: the general body

of citizens became accustomed to arms, while a chosen regiment of

six hundred trained volunteers acquired especial efficiency. Unable

to maintain themselves longer, the Gelonians were forced to hazard

a general battle, which, after an obstinate struggle, terminated

in their complete defeat. The chosen band of six hundred, who

had eminently contributed to this victory, received from their

fellow-citizens a crown of honor, and a reward of one mina per

head.[484]

[483] Diodor. xi, 73. τήν τε Ἀχραδινὴν καὶ τὴν Νῆσον· ἀμφοτέρων

τῶν τόπων τούτων ἐχόντων ἴδιον τεῖχος, καλῶς κατεσκευασμένον.

Diodorus goes on to say that the general mass of citizens τὸ

πρὸς τὰς Ἐπιπολὰς τετραμμένον αὐτῆς ~ἐπετείχισαν~.,—if we could

venture to construe this last word rigidly, we might suppose that

the parts of the city, _exterior_ to Achradina and the island,

had before been unfortified.

Aristotle (Politic. v, 2, 11) mentions, as one of his

illustrations of the mischief of receiving new citizens, that

the Syracusans, after the Gelonian dynasty, admitted the foreign

mercenaries to citizenship, and from hence came to sedition and

armed conflict. But the incident cannot fairly be quoted in

illustration of that principle which he brings it to support. The

mercenaries, so long as the dynasty lasted, had been the first

citizens in the community: after its overthrow, they became the

inferior, and were rendered inadmissible to honors. It is hardly

matter of surprise that so great a change of position excited

them to rebel; but this is not a case properly adducible to prove

the difficulty of adjusting matters with new-coming citizens.

After the expulsion of Agathoklês from Syracuse, nearly two

centuries after these events, the same quarrel and sedition was

renewed, by the exclusion of his mercenaries from magistracy and

posts of honor (Diodor. xxi, Fragm. p. 282).

[484] Diodor. xi, 72, 73, 76.

The meagre annals, wherein these interesting events are indicated

rather than described, tell us scarcely anything of the political

arrangements which resulted from so important a victory. Probably

the Gelonians were expelled: but we may assume as certain, that

the separate fortifications of the island and Achradina were

abolished, and that from henceforward there was only one fortified

city, until the time of the despot Dionysius, more than fifty years

afterwards.[485]

[485] Diodorus, xiv, 7.

Meanwhile the rest of Sicily had experienced disorders analogous in

character to those of Syracuse. At Gela, at Agrigentum, at Himera,

the reaction against the Gelonian dynasty had brought back in

crowds the dispossessed exiles; who, claiming restitution of their

properties and influence, found their demands sustained by the

population generally. The Katanæans, whom Hiero had driven from their

own city to Leontini, in order that he might convert Katana into his

own settlement Ætna, assembled in arms and allied themselves with the

Sikel prince Duketius, to reconquer their former home and to restore

to the Sikels that which Hiero had taken from them for enlargement of

the Ætnæan territory. They were aided by the Syracusans, to whom the

neighborhood of these Hieronian partisans was dangerous: but they did

not accomplish their object until after a long contest and several

battles with the Ætnæans. A convention was at length concluded, by

which the latter evacuated Katana and were allowed to occupy the town

and territory,—seemingly Sikel,—of Ennesia, or Inessa, upon which

they bestowed the name of Ætna,[486] with monuments commemorating

Hiero as the founder,—while the tomb of the latter at Katana was

demolished by the restored inhabitants.

[486] Diodorus, xi, 76; Strabo, vi, 268. Compare, as an analogous

event, the destruction of the tomb of Agnon, the œkist of

Amphipolis, after the revolt of that city from Athens (Thucyd. v,

11).

These conflicts, disturbing the peace of all Sicily, came to be so

intolerable, that a general congress was held between the various

cities to adjust them. It was determined by joint resolution to

readmit the exiles and to extrude the Gelonian settlers everywhere:

but an establishment was provided for these latter in the territory

of Messênê. It appears that the exiles received back their property,

or at least an assignment of other lands in compensation for it.

The inhabitants of Gela were enabled to provide for their own

exiles by reëstablishing the city of Kamarina,[487] which had been

conquered from Syracuse by Hippokratês, despot of Gelo, but which

Gelo, on transferring his abode to Syracuse, had made a portion

of the Syracusan territory, conveying its inhabitants to the city

of Syracuse. The Syracusans now renounced the possession of it,—a

cession to be explained probably by the fact, that among the

new-comers transferred by Gelo to Syracuse, there were included not

only the previous Kamarinæans, but also many who had before been

citizens of Gela.[488] For these men, now obliged to quit Syracuse,

it would be convenient to provide an abode at Kamarina, as well as

for the other restored Geloan exiles; and we may farther presume that

this new city served as a receptacle for other homeless citizens

from all parts of the island. It was consecrated by the Geloans as

an independent city, with Dorian rights and customs: its lands were

distributed anew, and among its settlers were men rich enough to send

prize chariots to Peloponnesus, as well as to pay for odes of Pindar.

The Olympic victories of the Kamarinæan Psaumis secured for his new

city an Hellenic celebrity, at a moment when it hardly yet emerged

from the hardships of an initiatory settlement.[489]

[487] Diodor. xi, 76. μετὰ δὲ ταῦτα Καμαρίναν μὲν Γελῶοι

κατοικίσαντες ἐξ ἀρχῆς κατεκληρούχησαν.

See the note of Wesseling upon this passage. There can be little

doubt that in Thucydides (vi, 5) the correction of κατῳκίσθη ὑπὸ

Γελώων (in place of ὑπὸ Γέλωνος) is correct.

[488] Herodot. vii, 155.

[489] See the fourth and fifth Olympic odes of Pindar, referred

to Olympiad 82, or 452 B. C., about nine years after the Geloans

had reëstablished Kamarina. Τὰν νέοικον ἕδραν (Olymp. v, 9); ἀπ’

ἀμαχανíας ἄγων ἐς φάος τόνδε δᾶμον ἀστῶν (Olymp. v, 14).

Such was the great reactionary movement in Sicily against the

high-handed violences of the previous despots. We are only enabled to

follow it generally, but we see that all their transplantations and

expulsions of inhabitants were reversed, and all their arrangements

overthrown. In the correction of the past injustice, we cannot

doubt that new injustice was in many cases committed, nor are we

surprised to hear that at Syracuse many new enrolments of citizens

took place without any rightful claim,[490] probably accompanied by

grants of land. The reigning feeling at Syracuse would now be quite

opposite to that of the days of Gelo, when the Demos, or aggregate

of small self-working proprietors, was considered as “a troublesome

yoke-fellow,” fit only to be sold into slavery for exportation: it is

highly probable that the new table of citizens now prepared included

that class of men in larger number than ever, on principles analogous

to the liberal enrolments of Kleisthenês at Athens. In spite of all

the confusion, however, with which this period of popular government

opens, lasting for more than fifty years until the despotism of the

elder Dionysius, we shall find it far the best and most prosperous

portion of Sicilian history. We shall arrive at it in a subsequent

chapter.

[490] Diodor. xi. 86. πολλῶν εἰκῇ καὶ ὡς ἔτυχε πεπολιτογραφημένων.

Respecting the Grecian cities along the coast of Italy, during the

period of the Gelonian dynasty, a few words will exhaust the whole

of our knowledge. Rhegium, with its despots Anaxilaus and Mikythus,

figures chiefly as a Sicilian city, and has been noticed as such in

the stream of Sicilian politics. But it is also involved in the only

event which has been preserved to us respecting this portion of the

history of the Italian Greeks. It was about the year B. C. 473, that

the Tarentines undertook an expedition against their non-Hellenic

neighbors the Iapygians, in hopes of conquering Hyria and the other

towns belonging to them. Mikythus, despot of Rhegium, against the

will of his citizens, despatched three thousand of them by constraint

as auxiliaries to the Tarentines. But the expedition proved signally

disastrous to both. The Iapygians, to the number of twenty thousand

men, encountered the united Grecian forces in the field, and

completely defeated them: the battle having taken place in a hostile

country, it seems that the larger portion, both of Rhegians and

Tarentines, perished, insomuch that Herodotus pronounces it to have

been the greatest Hellenic slaughter within his knowledge.[491] Of

the Tarentines slain, a great proportion were opulent and substantial

citizens, the loss of whom sensibly affected the city; strengthening

the Demos, and rendering the constitution more democratical. In what

particulars the change consisted we do not know: the expression of

Aristotle gives reason to suppose that even before this event the

constitution had been popular.[492]

[491] Herodot. vii, 170; Diodor. xi, 52. The latter asserts that

the Iapygian victors divided their forces, part of them pursuing

the Rhegian fugitives, the rest pursuing the Tarentines. Those

who followed the former were so rapid in their movements, that

they entered, he says, along with the fugitives into the town of

Rhegium, and even became masters of it.

To say nothing of the fact, that Rhegium continues afterwards, as

before, under the rule of Mikythus,—we may remark that Diodorus

must have formed to himself a strange idea of the geography of

southern Italy, to talk of pursuit and flight _from Iapygia to

Rhegium_.

[492] Aristotel. Polit. v, 2, 8. Aristotle has another passage

(vi, 3, 5) in which he comments on the government of Tarentum:

and O. Müller applies this second passage to illustrate the

particular constitutional changes which were made after the

Iapygian disaster. I think this juxtaposition of the two passages

unauthorized: there is nothing at all to connect them together.

See History of the Dorians, iii, 9, 14.