The

of

Massalia;

of Alalia.

Carthage was also confronted by the Greeks. The Phocaeans of Phocaeans: Massalia planted colonies and won influence on the coast of Spain. We are told that in the days of Cambyses "the Phocaeans gained repeated victories over the Carthaginians by sea." Moreover the new Phocaean settlement at Alalia in Corsica was a challenge to Carthage in what she regarded as her own domain. But Greek Alalia was short-lived. Carthage and her powerful Etruscan allies nearly annihilated the Phocaean fleet; and the crews which escaped were only able to rescue their families and goods. Alalia was deserted; Corsica fell under the power of the Etruscans, and the coasts of Sardinia were gradually appropriated by Carthage. Thus the chance of establishing a chain of Greek settlements between Massalia and Sicily was frustrated.

Battle of
Alalia,
C. 535 B. C.

(See above, 1. 208.)

It now remained for Carthage to establish and extend Phoenician power in Sicily. We have seen how Dorieus, son of a Spartan king, made an attempt to do somewhat the same thing which the Cnidian adventurer had essayed-to gain a footing in Sicily within the Phoenician circle. He too failed; but such incidents brought home to Carthage the need of dealing another and a mightier blow at the rival power in Sicily. She was occupied with the conquest of Sardinia and with a Libyan war, and the struggle was postponed ; but the hour came at last, and the Carthaginians put forth all their power to annihilate colonial Greece at the very time when the Great King had poured forth the resources of Asia against the motherSicily men- country. It was, in the first instance, an accident that the two aced by struggles happened at the same moment. The causes which led to Carthage. the one were independent of the causes which led to the other. But

Tyrants in
Sicily.

the exact moment chosen by Carthage for her attack upon Sicily was probably determined by the attack of Xerxes upon Greece; and although the two struggles ran each its independent course, there is no reason to question the statement that the courts of Susa and Carthage exchanged messages, through the mediation of the Phoenicians, and were conscious of acting in concert against the same enemy.

In the second decade of the fifth century Greek Sicily was dominated by four tyrants. Anaxilas of Rhegium had made himself master of Zancle, which from this time forward is known as Messana, and he thus controlled both sides of the against the passage of Etruscan pirates. was tyrant of Himera. Over against this stood another family group in the south: Gelon of Syracuse and his father-in-law Theron of Acragas.

straits, which he secured Terillus, his father-in-law, family group in the north

Gelon had been the general of Hippocrates, a tyrant of Gela, who had extended his sway, whether as lord or over-lord, over Naxos,

tyrant of
Gela.
[Battle

of the Helorus, 492 B.C.]

Gelon, tyrant of Gela,

491 B. C.;

Zancle, and other Greek cities, and had aimed at winning Syracuse. HippoHippocrates had defeated the Syracusans on the banks of the crates, Helorus, and would have seized their city, if it had not been for the intervention of Corinth and Corcyra. But Syracuse was forced to cede her dependency, Camarina, to the victor. Hippocrates died in besieging Hybla; and the men of Gela had no mind to allow his sons to continue their father's tyranny. But Gelon, son of Deinomenes, a general who had often led the cavalry of Gela to victory, espoused the cause of his master's heirs, and as soon FIG. 84.-Coin of Gela, as he had gained possession of the city brushed them aside and took the tyranny for himself. The new lord of Gela achieved what his predecessors had vainly striven to accomplish. The Gamori or nobles of Syracuse had been driven out by the commons, and they appealed to Gelon to restore them. Syracusan people, unable to resist the forces which Gelon brought cuse: against them, made terms with him, and he established his power in Syracuse over oligarchs and democrats alike. It seems probable that Gelon was either at once or at a later stage of his rule appointed formally "General with full powers"; we find his brother Hieron, his position who succeeded to his position, addressed by the poet Bacchylides there. as "General" of the Syracusan horsemen.

early (obverse). Bull
with human head, fore-

part [legend: TEAAZ.]

The wins Syra

and docks,

The tyrant of Gela now abandoned his own city and took up his abode in Syracuse, making it the centre of a dominion which embraced the eastern part of the island. Gela had for a short space enjoyed the rank of the first of Sicilian cities; she now surrendered it to Syracuse, which was marked out by its natural site for strength and domination. Gelon may be called the second founder of Syra- He enlarges cuse. He joined the Island of Ortygia with the fortified height of Syracuse; Achradina which looked down upon it. In the course of the sixth his walls century a mole had been constructed connecting the Island with the mainland, so that the city, though it was still called the Island, had become strictly a peninsula. Gelon built a wall from the Achradina fort down to the shore of the Great Harbour. Thus Achradina and Ortygia were included within the same circuit of wall; Achradina became part of the city, Ortygia remained the "acropolis." The chief gate of Syracuse was now in the new wall of Gelon, close to the Harbour; and near it a new agora was laid out, for the old agora in the Island no longer sufficed. Hard by docks were built, for Syracuse was to become a naval power. She was now by far the greatest Greek city in the west.

his court

and class

his treatment of

other cities;

Gelon, belonging to a proud and noble family, sympathised and most willingly consorted with men of his own class, and looked with prejudice; little favour on the people, whom he described in a famous phrase as "a thankless neighbour." He held court at Syracuse like a king, surrounded by men of noble birth. He tolerated the Syracusan commons; he was not unpopular with them; but he showed elsewhere what his genuine feelings were. One of his first needs was to find inhabitants to fill the spaces of his enlarged town. For this purpose he transplanted men on a large scale from other places of his dominions. His own town Gela was sacrificed to the new capital; the half of its citizens were removed to Syracuse. Harder was the fate of luckless Camarina, which was now for the second time blotted out from the number of Greek cities. Two generations had hardly passed since she had been swept away by the Syracusan republic; and now the Syracusan tyrant carried off all the inhabitants and made them burgesses of the ruling state. Megara, the next-door neighbour of Syracuse on the north, and Euboea higher up the coast, also contributed to swell the population of Gelon's capital. Megara became an outpost of Syracuse, while Euboea was so entirely blotted out that its very site is uncertain. But in both these cases the policy of Gelon strikingly displayed the prejudice of his class. He admitted the nobles of Megara and Euboea to Syracusan citizenship; he sold the mass of the commons in the slave market. In abolishing cities and transplanting populations Gelon set an example which we shall see followed by later tyrants. He also invited new settlers from elder Greece, and he gave the citizenship to 10,000 mercenary soldiers.

his family.

Gelon was supported in his princely power by his three brothers, Hieron, Polyzālus, and Thrasybulus. He entered into close friendship with Theron, his fellow-tyrant, who made Acragas in wealth a power second only to Syracuse itself. Theron, like Gelon, was a noble, belonging to the family of the Emmenids, and his rule was said to have been mild and just. Gelon married Damareta, the daughter of Theron; and Theron married a daughter of Polyzalus. The brilliant lords of Syracuse and Acragas, thus joined by close bonds, were presently associated in the glorious work of delivering Greek Sicily from the terrible danger which was about to come against her from over-seas.

SECT. 10. THE CARTHAGINIAN INVASION OF SICILY,
AND THE BATTLE OF HIMERA

A quarrel between Theron of Acragas and Terillus tyrant of Himera led up to the catastrophe which might easily have proved

tervention of Carthage.

fatal to the freedom of all the Sicilian Greeks. The ruler of Acragas Terillus crossed the island and drove Terillus out of Himera. The exiled invites intyrant had a friend in Anaxilas of Rhegium; but Rhegium was no match for the combined power of Acragas and Syracuse, and so Terillus sought the help of Carthage, the common enemy of all.

Carthage was only waiting for the opportunity. She had been making preparations for a descent on Sicily, and the appeal of Terillus merely determined the moment and the point of her attack. Terillus urging the Phoenician FIG. against Himera plays the same part as Hippias urging the Persian against Athens, but in neither case is a tyrant's fall the cause of the invasion. The motive of the Carthaginian expedition against Sicily at this particular epoch is to be found in a

85.-Coin of Rhegion, fifth century (reverse). The Rhegine People seated [legend: PETINO2].

far higher range of politics than the local affairs of Himera or the interests of a petty despot. There can hardly be a doubt that Carthage the Great King and the Carthaginian republic were acting in concert, and Persia. and that it was deliberately planned to attack, independently but at the same moment, eastern and western Greece. While the galleys of the elder Phoenicia, under their Persian master, sailed to crush

the elder Hellas, the galleys of the younger Phoenician city would cross over on her own account against the younger Hellas. In the Phoenicians of Tyre and Sidon, Xerxes had willing intermediaries to arrange with Carthage the plan of enslaving or annihilating Hellas. The western island mattered little to Xerxes; but it mattered greatly to him that the lord of Syracuse should be hindered from sending a powerful succour in men and fifth century (obverse). ships to the mother-country. We have already Himera, the nymph, seen how the mother-country sought the help sacrificing at altar; satyr of Gelon, and how the danger of Sicily forced bathing himself at a hot

spring.

him to refuse.

When the preparations were complete, The Punic Hamilcar, the shophet of Carthage, sailed with a large armament armament. and landed at Panormus; for the call of Terillus determined that the recovery of Himera should be the first object. It is said that the army consisted of 300,000 men, conveyed by more than 200 galleys and 3000 transports; but we can lay no stress on these figures. From Panormus this great host moved along the coast to Himera,

accompanied by the warships, and proceeded to besiege the city, which Theron was himself guarding with a large force. Hamilcar made two camps in front of the town. The sea camp lay on the low ground between the hill of Himera and the beach; the land

camp stretched along the low hills on the western side of the town. A sally of the besieged resulted in loss, and Theron sent a message to Syracuse to hasten the coming of his son-in-law. With 50,000 foot-soldiers and 5000 horsemen Gelon marched to the rescue without delay. He approached the town on the east side and formed a strong camp on the right bank of the river.