Chapter XLIII (1)

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.