of Syracuse terior of Sicily death of But the return of this energetic enemy was not B.C. 446. the only mischief which the Syracusans suffered. Conquests Their resolution to spare Duketius had been adopted in the inwithout the concurrence of the Agrigentines, who had helped to conquer him; and the latter, when they Duketius. saw him again in the island and again formidable, were so indignant that they declared war against Syracuse. A standing jealousy prevailed between these two great cities, the first and second powers in Sicily. War actually broke out between them, wherein other Greek cities took part. After lasting some time, with various acts of hostility, and especially a serious defeat of the Agrigentines at the river Himera, these latter solicited and obtained peace'. The discord between the two cities however had left leisure to Duketius to found the city of Kalê Aktê, and to make some progress in reestablishing his ascendency over the Sikels, in which operation he was overtaken by death. He probably of their commonwealth. They permitted, or rather encouraged, him to establish a colony of mixed people, Greeks and Sicels, at Calé Acté, on the northern coast of the island” (ch. xviii. sect. i. vol. iv. p. 13). The statement that "the Syracusans brought back Duketius, or encouraged him to come back or to found the colony of Kalê Aktê,” is a complete departure from Diodorus on the part of Mr. Mitford; who transforms a breach of parole on the part of the Sikel prince into an ambitious manœuvre on the part of the Syracusan democracy. The words of Diodorus, the only authority in the case, are as follows (xii. 8) : Οὗτος δὲ (Duketius) ὀλίγον χρόνον μείνας ἐν τῇ Κορίνθῳ, τὰς ὁμολογίας ἔλυσε, καὶ προσποιησάμενος χρησμὸν ὑπὸ τῶν θεῶν ἑαυτῷ δεδόσθαι, κτίσαι τὴν Καλὴν ̓Ακτὴν ἐν Σικελίᾳ, κατέπλευσεν εἰς τὴν νῆσον μετὰ πολλῶν οἰκητόρων· συνεπελάβοντο δὲ καὶ τῶν Σικελῶν τινες, ἐν οἷς ἦν καὶ ̓Αρχωνίδης, ὁ τῶν Ερβιταίων δυναστεύων. Οὗτος μὲν οὖν περὶ τὸν οἶκισμὸν τῆς Καλῆς ̓Ακτῆς ἐγίνετο· Ακραγαντῖνοι δὲ, ἅμα μὲν φθονοῦντες τοῖς Συρακουσίοις, ἅμα δ' ἐγκαλούντες αὐτοῖς ὅτι Δουκέτιον ὄντα κοινὸν πολέμιον διέσωσαν ἄνευ τῆς ̓Ακραγαντίνων γνώμης, πόλεμον ἐξήνεγκαν τοῖς Συρακουσίοις. 'Diodor. xii. 8. B.C. 440. B.C. 439. left no successor to carry on his plans, so that the Syracusans, pressing their attacks vigorously, reduced many of the Sikel townships in the island— regaining his former conquest Morgantinê, and subduing even the strong position and town called Trinakia', after a brave and desperate resistance on the part of the inhabitants. By this large accession both of subjects and of tribute, combined with her recent victory over Agrigentum, Syracuse was elevated to the height of power, and began to indulge schemes for extending her ascendency throughout the island: with which view her horsemen were doubled in number, and one hundred new triremes were constructed2. Whether any, or what steps were taken to realise her designs, our historian does not tell us. But the position of Sicily remains the same at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war: Syracuse, the first city as to power-indulging in ambitious dreams, if not in ambitious aggressions; Agrigentum, a jealous second, and almost a rival; the remaining Grecian states maintaining their independence, yet not without mistrust and apprehension. 1 Diodor. xii. 29. For the reconquest of Morgantinê, see Thucyd. iv. 65. Respecting this town of Trinakia, known only from the passage of Diodorus here, Paulmier (as cited in Wesseling's note), as well as Mannert (Geographie der Griechen und Römer, b. x. ch. xv. p. 446), intimate some scepticism; which I share so far as to believe that Diodorus has greatly overrated its magnitude and importance. Nor can it be true, as Diodorus affirms, that Trinakia was the only Sikel township remaining unsubdued by the Syracusans, and that, after conquering that place, they had subdued them all. We know that there were no inconsiderable number of independent Sikels, at the time of the Athenian invasion of Sicily (Thucyd. vi. 88; vii. 2). 2 Diodor. xii. 30. and power Though the particular phænomena of this period, Prosperity however, have not come to our knowledge, we see of Agrienough to prove that it was one of great prosperity for Sicily. The wealth, commerce, and public monuments of Agrigentum, especially, appear to have even surpassed those of the Syracusans. Her trade with Carthage and the African coast was both extensive and profitable; for at this time neither the vine nor the olive were much cultivated in Libya, and the Carthaginians derived their wine and oil from the southern territory of Sicily', particularly that of Agrigentum. The temples of the city, among which that of Olympic Zeus stood foremost, were on the grandest scale of magnificence, surpassing everything of the kind in Sicily. The population of the city, free as well as slave, was very great: the number of rich men, keeping chariots, and competing for the prize at the Olympic games, was renowned-not less than the accumulation of works of art, statues and pictures2, with manifold insignia of ornament and luxury. All this is particularly brought to our notice, because of the frightful catastrophe which desolated Agrigentum in 406 B.C. from the hands of the Carthaginians. It was in the interval which we are now describing, that such prosperity was accumulated; doubtless not in Agrigentum alone, but more or less throughout all the Grecian cities of the island. movement Empedo Nor was it only in material prosperity that they Intellectual were distinguished. At this time, the intellectual in Sicilymovement in some of the Italian and Sicilian towns was very considerable. The inconsiderable town of KoaxElea in the Gulf of Poseidonia nourished two of the Gorgias. 1 Diodor. xiii. 81. 2 Diodor. xiii. 82, 83, 90. Tisias greatest speculative philosophers in Greece-Parmenidês and Zeno. Empedoklês of Agrigentum was hardly less eminent in the same department, yet combining with it a political and practical efficiency. The popular character of the Sicilian governments stimulated the cultivation of rhetorical studies, wherein not only Empedoklês and Pôlus at Agrigentum, but Tisias and Korax at Syracuse, and still more, Gorgias at Leontini-acquired great reputation'. The constitution established at Agrigentum after the dispossession of the Theronian dynasty was at first not thoroughly deinocratical, the principal authority residing in a large Senate of One Thousand members. We are told even that an ambitious club of citizens were aiming at the re-establishment of a despotism, when Empedoklês, availing himself of wealth and high position, took the lead in a popular opposition; so as not only to defeat this intrigue, but also to put down the Senate of One Thousand and render the government completely democratical. His influence over the people was enhanced by the vein of mysticism, and pretence to miraculous or divine endowments, which accompanied his philosophical speculations, in a manner similar to Pythagoras. The same combi 1 See Aristotle as cited by Cicero, Brut. c. 12; Plato, Phædr. p. 267, c. 113, 114; Dionys. Halic. Judicium de Isocrate, p. 534 R, and Epist. II. ad Ammæum, p. 792; also Quintilian, iii. 1, 125. According to Cicero (de Inventione, ii. 2), the treatises of these ancient rhetoricians ("usque a principe illo et inventore Tisiâ") had been superseded by Aristotle, who had collected them carefully, "nominatim," and had improved upon their expositions. Dionysius laments that they had been so superseded (Epist. ad Ammæ. p. 722). 2 Diogenes, Laërt. viii. 64-71; Seyfert, Akragas und sein Gebiet, sect. ii. p. 70; Ritter, Geschichte der Alten Philosophie, vol. i. ch. vi. p. 533 seqq. nation of rhetoric with physical speculation appears also in Gorgias of Leontini; whose celebrity as a teacher throughout Greece was both greater and earlier than that of any one else. It was a similar demand for popular speaking in the assembly and the judicatures which gave encouragement to the rhetorical teachers Tisias and Korax at Syracuse. cities proceed ings at first break ing out of the Peloponnesian B.C. In such state of material prosperity, popular poli- Sicilian tics, and intellectual activity, the Sicilian towns their condi were found at the breaking out of the great struggle tion and between Athens and the Peloponnesian confederacy in 431 B.C. In that struggle the Italian and Sicilian Greeks had no direct concern, nor anything to fear from the ambition of Athens; who, though she had war, 431 founded Thurii in 443 в.c., appears to have never aimed at any political ascendency even over that town-much less anywhere else on the coast. But the Sicilian Greeks, though forming a system apart in their own island, from which it suited the dominant policy of Syracuse to exclude all foreign interference' were yet connected by sympathy, and on one side even by alliances, with the two main streams of Hellenic politics. Among the allies of Sparta were numbered all or most of the Dorian cities of Sicily-Syracuse, Kamarina, Gela, Agrigentum, Selinus, perhaps Himera and Messênê— together with Lokri and Tarentum in Italy: among the allies of Athens, perhaps, the Chalkidic or Ionic Rhegium in Italy 2. Whether the Ionic cities in 1 Thucyd. iv. 61-64. This is the tenor of the speech delivered by Hermokrates at the congress of Gela in the eighth year of the Peloponnesian war. His language is remarkable: he calls all non-Sicilian Greeks ἀλλοφύλους. The inscription in Boeckh's Corpus Inscriptt. (No. 74. Part I. |