Not long after this, Doriaus the Lacedæmonian built Heraclea; which the Phoenicians and Carthaginians, fearing the neighbourhood of the Spartans, soon after invaded and ruined, though the same were again ere long reedified.

Selinus also was built by a colony of Megara, and Zancle was taken by the Messenians; who, having lost their own country, gave the name thereof unto this their new purchase. Such were the beginnings of the greatest cities in this island.

§. 3.

Of the government and affairs of Sicily before Dionysius's tyranny.

THE most part of the cities in Sicily were governed by the rule of the people, till such time as Phalaris began to usurp the state of Agrigentum, and to exercise all manner of tyranny therein.

This was that Phalaris to whom Perillus, the cunning artificer of a detestable engine, gave an hollow bull of brass, wherein to enclose men, and scorch them to death; praising the device with this commendation, that the noise of one tormented therein should be like unto the bellowing of a bull. The tyrant gave a due reward to the inventor, by causing the first trial to be made upon himself. He reigned one and thirty years, saith Eusebius; others give him but sixteen: howsoever it were, one Telemachus, in the end, fell upon him with the whole multitude of Agrigentum, and stoned him to death; being thereto animated by Zeno, even whilst the tyrant was tormenting the same Zeno, to make him confess some matter of conspiracy.

After the death of Phalaris, the citizens recovered their liberty, and enjoyed it long, till Thero usurped the government of the commonweal: at which time also Panatius made himself lord of Leontium, and Cleander of Gela: but Cleander, having ruled seven years, was slain by one of the citizens. Cleander being dead, his brother Hippocrates succeeded in his room, and greatly afflicted the people of Naxos, of Zancle or Messana, and of Leontium; whom, with divers other of the ancient inhabitants, he forced to acknowledge him their lord. He also made war with the

Syracusians, and in the end got from them, by composition, the city of Camerina. But when he had reigned seven years, he was slain in a battle against the Siculi, before Hybla.

At this time did the Syracusians change their form of government from popular to aristocratical; a preparation towards a principality, whereinto it was soon after changed. After the death of Hippocrates, Gelon, (descended from the Rhodians, which together with the Cretans had long before, among other of the Greeks, seated themselves in Sicily,) that had commanded the forces of Hippocrates in the former war with notable success, became lord of Gela. He, after his master's death, breaking the trust committed unto him by Hippocrates over his children, and being in possession of Gela, took the occasion and advantage of a contention in Syracuse between the magistrates and the people. For coming with a strong army to the succour of the governors driven out by the multitude, they elected him their prince, being the first, and indeed the most famous, that ever governed the Syracusians. This change happened in the second year of the threescore and twelfth Olympiad ; wherein the better to establish himself, he took to wife the daughter of Thero, who had also usurped the state of Agrigen

tum.

z

Now this Gelon, the son of Dinomenes, had three brethren, Hiero, Polyzelus, and Thrasybulus; to the first of which he gave up the city of Gela, when he had obtained the principality of Syracuse: for after that time, all his thoughts travailed in the strengthening, beautifying, and amplifying of Syracuse. He defaced Camerina, that a little before was fallen from the obedience of the Syracusians who built it, and brought the citizens to Syracuse. The Megarians, that had moved a war against him, he overcame; the richer sort he brought to Syracuse, and the people he sold for slaves. In like manner dealt he with other places upon like occasion. Not long after this, Thero, a prince of the Agrigentines, having dispossessed Terillus of his city Hi

z Pausan. 1. 6.

Ge

mera, the Carthaginians were drawn into the quarrel by Anaxilus, lord of Messana, father-in-law to Terillus; and Gelon also was solicited by his father-in-law, Thero. lon was content, and in fine, after divers conflicts, the Carthaginians and other Africans, led by Amilcar, were overthrown by a Gelon; and an hundred and fifty thousand of them left their bodies in Sicily.

This Gelon it was to whom the Athenians and Lacedæmonians sent for succour, when Xerxes with his huge army passed the Hellespont. He for their relief having armed thirty thousand soldiers and two hundred ships, refused nevertheless to send them into Greece, because they refused him the commandment of one of their armies, either by sea or by land. So he used to their ambassadors only this saying, That their spring was withered; accounting the army by him prepared, to be the flower of the Greek nations.

The Carthaginians, after this great loss received, fearing the invasion of their own country, sent to Gelon by their ambassadors to desire peace, who grants it them on these conditions: that from thenceforth they should not sacrifice their children to Saturn; that they should pay him two thousand talents of silver, and present him with two armed ships, in sign of amity. These conditions the Carthaginians not only willingly accepted, but with the two thousand talents and the ships for war, they sent unto Demarata, Gelon's wife, a crown, valued at an hundred talents of gold, with other presents. Whereby we see that some nations and some natures are much the better for being well beaten. The wars ended, and Sicily in peace, Gelon beautified the temples of the gods, and erected others in honour of them. So being exceedingly beloved and honoured of his subjects, he left the world, and left for his successor his brother Hiero. Philistus and Pliny report, that when his body was burnt, according to the custom of that age, a dog of his, which always waited on him, ran into the fire, and suffered himself to be burnt with him.

To Gelon, Hiero his brother succeeded; a man rude,

Herod. et Diod.

cruel, covetous, and so suspicious of his brethren Polyzelus and Thrasybulus, as he sought by all means to destroy them. Notwithstanding all this, by the conversation which he had with Simonides, he became of better condition, and greatly delighted with the study of good arts. Divers quarrels he had, as well with Theron of Agrigentum, as with other cities; all which he shortly after compounded, and gave a notable overthrow to the Carthaginians, whom Xerxes had incited to invade Sicily, fearing the succours which Gelon had prepared to aid the Grecians against him. He also overthrew in battle Thrasydæus, the son of Theron, and thereby restored the Agrigentines to their former liberty. But in the end he lost the love of the Syracusians; and after he had reigned eleven years, he left the kingdom to his brother Thrasybulus, who became a most unjust and bloody tyrant. Thrasybulus enjoyed his principality no longer than ten months: for notwithstanding the force of mercenary soldiers which he entertained for his guards, he was beaten out of Syracuse by the citizens; to whom, being besieged in Acradina, he restored the government, and was banished the island. From whence he sailed into Greece, where he died a private man among the Locrians.

And now had the Syracusians recovered again their former liberty, as all the rest of the cities did, after which they had never sought, had the successors of Gelon inherited his virtue, as they did the principality of Syracuse. For in all changes of estates, the preservation ought to answer the acquisition. Where a liberal, valiant, and advised prince hath obtained any new seigniory, and added it to that of his own, or exalted himself from being a private man to the dignity of a prince, it behoveth the successor to maintain it by the same way and art by which it was gotten.

To conclude, Syracuse (though not without blows, ere she could cleanse herself of the creatures and lovers of Gelon) was now again become mistress of herself, and held herself free well near threescore years, to the time of Dionysius; though she were in the mean while greatly endangered by a citizen of her own, called Tyndario.

Now to prevent the greatness of any one among them for the future, they devised a kind of banishment of such among them as were suspected, taking pattern from the Athenian ostracism. They called this their new devised judgment of exile petalismus, wherein every one wrote upon an oliveleaf (as at Athens they wrote upon shells) the name of him whom he would have expelled the city. He that had most suffrages against him was banished for five years. Hereby, in a short time, it came to pass, that those of judgment, and best able to govern the commonweal, were by the worst able either suppressed or thrust out of the city. Yea such as feared this law, though they had not yet felt it, withdrew themselves as secretly as they could, seeking some place of more security wherein to maintain themselves. And good reason they had so to do; seeing there is nothing so terrible in any state, as a powerful and authorized ignorance. But this law lasted not long: for their necessity taught them to abolish it, and restore again the wiser sort to the government; from which, the nobility having practised to banish one another, the state became altogether popular. But after a while, being invaded by Ducetius king of the Sicilians, that inhabited the inner part of the island, (who had already taken Enna, and some other of the Grecian cities, and overthrown the army of the Agrigentines,) the Syracusians sent forces against him, commanded by an unworthy citizen of theirs, called Bolcon. This their captain made nothing so much haste to find Ducetius, against whom he was employed, as he did to flee from the army he led, as soon as Ducetius presented him battle. So for want of conduct the greatest number of the Syracusians perished.

But making better choice among those whom they had banished, they levy other troops; by whom, in conclusion, Ducetius being beaten submitteth himself, and is constrained to leave the island for a time. Yet it was not long ere he returned again, and built the city Collatina on the sea-side. Ducetius being dead, all the Greek cities did in a sort ac

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