HISTORY OF GREECE

CHAPTER LXXXI

SICILIAN AFFAIRS AFTER THE DESTRUCTION OF THE ATHENIAN

ARMAMENT BEFORE SYRACUSE.

IN the sixtieth chapter of this work, I brought down the history of the Grecian communities in Sicily to the close of the Athenian siege of Syracuse, where Nicias and Demosthenes with nearly their entire armament perished by so lamentable a fate. I now resume from that point the thread of Sicilian events, which still continues so distinct from those of Peloponnesus and Eastern Greece, that it is inconvenient to include both in the same chapters. If the destruction of the great Athenian armament (in September 413 BC) excited the strongest sensation throughout every part of the Grecian world, we may imagine the intoxication of triumph with which it must have been hailed in Sicily. It had been achieved (Gylippus and the Peloponnesian allies aiding) by the united efforts of nearly all the Grecian cities in the island, for all of them had joined Syracuse as soon as her prospects became decidedly encouraging; except Naxos and Katana, which were allied with the Athenians, and Agrigentum, which remained neutral. Unfortunately we know little or nothing of the proceedings of the Syracusans, immediately following upon circumstances of so much excitement and interest. They appear to have carried on war against Katana, where some fugitives from the vanquished Athenian army contributed to the resistance against them. But both this city and Naxos, though exposed to humiliation and danger as allies of the defeated Athenians, contrived to escape without the loss of their independence. The allies of Syracuse were probably not eager to attack them, and thereby to aggrandize that city farther; while the Syracusans themselves also would be sensible of great exhaustion, arising from the immense efforts through which alone their triumph had been achieved. The pecuniary burdens to which they had been obliged to submit known to Nicias during the last months of the siege, and fatally misleading his judgment, were so heavy as to task severely their powers of endurance. After paying, and dismissing with appropriate gratitude, the numerous auxiliaries whom they had been obliged to hire, after celebrating the recent triumph, and decorating the temples, in a manner satisfactory to the exuberant joy of the citizens there would probably be a general disposition to repose rather than to aggressive warfare. There would be much destruction to be repaired throughout their territory, poorly watched or cultivated during the year of the siege. In spite of such exhaustion, however, the sentiment of exasperation and vengeance against Athens, combined with gratitude towards the Lacedaemonians, was too powerful to be balked. A confident persuasion reigned throughout Greece that Athens could not hold out for one single summer after her late terrific disaster; a persuasion, founded greatly on the hope of a large auxiliary squadron to act against her from Syracuse and her other enemies in Sicily and Italy. In this day of Athenian distress, such enemies of course became more numerous. Especially the city of Thurii in Italy, which had been friendly to Athens and had furnished aid to Demosthenes in his expedition to Sicily, now underwent a change, banished three hundred of the leading philo-Athenian citizens (among them the rhetor Lysias), and espoused the Peloponnesian cause with ardor. The feeling of reaction at Thurii, and of vengeance at Syracuse, stimulated the citizens of both places to take active part in an effort promising to be easy and glorious, for the destruction of Athens and her empire. And volunteers were doubtless the more forward, as the Persian satraps of the sea-board were now competing with each other in invitations to the Greeks, with offers of abundant pay. Accordingly, in the summer of the year 412 BC (the year following the catastrophe of the Athenian armament,) a Sicilian squadron of twenty triremes from Syracuse and two from Selinus, under the command of Hermokrates, reached Peloponnesus and joined the Lacedaemonian fleet in its expedition across the Aegean to Miletus. Another squadron of ten triremes from Thurii, under the Rhodian Dorieus, and a farther reinforcement from Tarentum, and Lokri, followed soon after. It was Hermokrates who chiefly instigated his countrymen to this effort. Throughout the trying months of the siege, he had taken a leading part in the defence of Syracuse, seconding the plans of Gylippus with equal valor and discretion. As commander of the Syracusan squadron in the main fleet now acting against Athens in the Aegean (events already described in my sixty-first chapter), his conduct was not less distinguished. He was energetic in action, and popular in his behavior towards those under his command; but what stood out most conspicuously as well as most honorably, was his personal incorruptibility. While the Peloponnesian admiral and trierarchs accepted the bribes of Tissaphernes, conniving at his betrayal of the common cause and breach of engagement towards the armament, with indifference to the privations of their own unpaid seamen, Hermokrates and Dorieus were strenuous in remonstrance, even to the extent of drawing upon themselves the indignant displeasure of the Peloponnesian admiral Astyochus, as well as of the satrap himself. They were the more earnest in performing this duty, because the Syracusan and Thurian triremes were manned by freemen in larger proportion than the remaining fleet.

The sanguine expectation, however, entertained by Hermokrates and his companions in crossing the sea from Sicily, that one single effort would gloriously close the war, was far from being realized. Athens resisted with unexpected energy; the Lacedaemonians were so slack and faint-hearted, that they even let slip the golden opportunity presented to them by the usurpation of the Athenian Four Hundred. Tissaphernes was discovered to be studiously starving and protracting the war for purposes of his own, which Hermokrates vainly tried to counter-work by a personal visit and protest at Sparta. Accordingly, the war trailed on with fluctuating success, wad even renovated efficiency on the part of Athens; so that the Syracusans at home, far from hearing announced the accomplishment of those splendid anticipations under which their squadron had departed, received news generally unfavorable, and at length positively disastrous. They were informed that their seamen were ill-paid and distressed; while Athens, far from striking her colors, had found means to assemble a fleet at Samos competent still to dispute the mastery of the Aegean. They heard of two successive naval defeats, which the Peloponnesian and Syracusan fleets sustained in the Hellespont (one at Kynossema, 411 BC, a second between Abydos and Dardanus, 410 BC); and at length of a third, more decisive and calamitous than the preceding, the battle of Kyzikus (409 BC), wherein the Lacedaemonian admiral Mindarus was slain, and the whole of his fleet captured or destroyed. In this defeat the Syracusan squadron were joint sufferers. Their seamen were compelled to burn all their triremes without exception, in order to prevent them from falling into the hands of the enemy; and were left destitute, without clothing or subsistence, on the shores of the Propontis amidst the satrapy of Pharnabazus. That satrap, with generous forwardness, took them into his pay, advanced to them clothing and provision for two months, and furnished them with timber from the woods of Mount Ida to build fresh ships. At Antandrus (in the Gulf of Adramyttium, one great place of export for Idaean timber), where the reconstruction took place, the Syracusans made themselves so acceptable and useful to the citizens, that a vote of thanks and a grant of citizenship was passed to all of them who chose to accept it.

In recounting this battle, I cited the brief and rude dispatch, addressed to the Lacedaemonians by Hippocrates, surviving second officer of the slain Mindarus, describing the wretched condition of the defeated armament. "Our honor is gone. Mindarus is slain. The men are hungry. We know not what to do". This curious dispatch has passed into history, because it was intercepted by the Athenians, and never reached its destination. But without doubt the calamitous state of facts, which it was intended to make known, flew rapidly, under many different forms of words, both to Peloponnesus and to Syracuse. Sad as the reality was, the first impression made by the news would probably be yet sadder; since the intervention of Pharnabazus, whereby the sufferers were so much relieved, would hardly be felt or authenticated until after some interval. At Syracuse, the event on being made known excited not only powerful sympathy with the sufferers, but also indignant displeasure against Hermokrates and his colleagues; who, having instigated their countrymen three years before, by sanguine hopes and assurances, to commence a foreign expedition for the purpose of finally putting down Athens, had not only achieved nothing, but had sustained a series of reverses, ending at length in utter ruin, from the very enemy whom they had pronounced to be incapable of farther resistance.

It was under such sentiment of displeasure, shortly after the defeat of Kyzikus, that a sentence of banishment was passed at Syracuse against Hermokrates and his colleagues. The sentence was transmitted to Asia, and made known by Hermokrates himself to the armament, convoked in public meeting. While lamenting and protesting against its alleged injustice and illegality, he entreated the armament to maintain unabated good behavior for the future, and to choose new admirals for the time, until the successors nominated at Syracuse should arrive. The news was heard with deep regret by the trierarchs, the pilots, and the maritime soldiers or marines; who, attached to Hermokrates from his popular manner, his constant openness of communication with them, and his anxiety to collect their opinions, loudly proclaimed that they would neither choose, nor serve under, any other leaders. But the admirals repressed this disposition, deprecating any resistance to the decree of the city. They laid down their command, inviting any man dissatisfied with them to prefer his complaint at once publicly, and reminding the soldiers of the many victories and glorious conflicts, both by land and sea, which had knit them together by the ties of honorable fellowship. No man stood forward to accuse them; and they consented, on the continued request of the armament, to remain in command, until their three successors arrived Demarchus, Myskon, and Potamis. They then retired amidst universal regret; many of the trierarchs even binding themselves by oath, that on returning to Syracuse they would procure their restoration. The change of commanders took place at Miletus.

Though Hermokrates, in his address to the soldiers, would doubtless find response when he invoked the remembrance of past victories, yet he would hardly have found the like response in a Syracusan assembly. For if we review the proceedings of the armament since he conducted it from Syracuse to join the Peloponnesian fleet, we shall find that on the whole his expedition had been a complete failure, and that his assurances of success against Athens had ended in nothing but disappointment. There was therefore ample cause for the discontent of his countrymen. But on the other hand, as far as our limited means of information enable us to judge, the sentence of banishment against him appears to have been undeserved and unjust. For we cannot trace the ill success of Hermokrates to any misconduct or omission on his part; while in regard to personal incorruptibility, and strenuous resistance to the duplicity of Tissaphernes, he stood out as an honorable exception among a body of venal colleagues. That satrap, indeed, as soon as Hermokrates had fallen into disgrace, circulated a version of his own, pretending that the latter, having asked money from him and been refused, had sought by calumnious means to revenge such refusal. But this story, whether believed elsewhere or not, found no credit with the other satrap Pharnabazus; who warmly espoused the cause of the banished general, presenting him with a sum of money even unsolicited. This money Hermokrates immediately employed in getting together triremes and mercenary soldiers to accomplish his restoration to Syracuse by force. We shall presently see how he fared in this attempt. Meanwhile we may remark that the sentence of banishment, though in itself unjust, would appear amply justified in the eyes of his countrymen by his own subsequent resort to hostile measures against them.

CONSTITUTION OF SYRACUSE.

The party opposed to Hermokrates had now the preponderance in Syracuse, and by their influence probably the sentence against him was passed, under the grief and wrath occasioned by the defeat of Kyzikus. Unfortunately we have only the most scanty information as to the internal state of Syracuse during the period immediately succeeding the Athenian siege; a period of marked popular sentiment and peculiar interest. As at Athens under the pressure of the Xerxeian invasion the energies of all the citizens, rich and poor, young and old, had been called forth for repulse of the common enemy, and had been not more than enough to achieve it. As at Athens after the battles of Salamis and Plataea, so at Syracuse after the destruction of the Athenian besiegers the people, elate with the plenitude of recent effort, and conscious that the late successful defence had been the joint work of all, were in a state of animated democratical impulse, eager for the utmost extension and equality of political rights. Even before the Athenian siege, the government had been democratical; a fact, which Thucydides notices as among the causes of the successful defence, by rendering the citizens unanimous in resistance, and by preventing the besiegers from exciting intestine discontent. But in the period immediately after the siege, it underwent changes which are said to have rendered it still more democratical. On the proposition of an influential citizen named Diokles, a commission of Ten was named, of which he was president, for the purpose of revising both the constitution and the legislation of the city. Some organic alterations were adopted, one of which was, that the lot should be adopted, instead of the principle of election, in the nomination of magistrates. Furthermore, a new code, or collection of criminal and civil enactments, was drawn up and sanctioned. We know nothing of its details, but we arc told that its penalties were extremely severe, its determination of offences minute and special, and its language often obscure as well as brief. It was known by the name of the Laws of Diokles, the chief of the Committee who had prepared it. Though now adopted at Syracuse, it did not last long; for we shall find in five or six years the despotism of Dionysius extinguishing it, just as Peisistratus had put down the Solonian legislation at Athens. But it was again revived at the extinction of the Dionysian dynasty, after the lapse of more than sixty years; with comments and modifications by a committee, among whose members were the Corinthians Kephalus and Timoleon. It is also said to have been copied in various other Sicilian cities, and to have remained in force until the absorption of all Sicily under the dominion of the Romans.

We have the austere character of Diokles illustrated by a story (of more than dubious credit, and of which the like is recounted respecting other Grecian legislators), that having inadvertently violated one of his own enactments, he enforced the duty of obedience by falling on his own sword. But unfortunately we are not permitted to know the substance of his laws, which would, have thrown so much light on the sentiments and position of the Sicilian Greeks. Nor can we distinctly make out to what extent the political constitution of Syracuse was now changed. For though Diodorus tells us that the lot was now applied to the nomination of magistrates, yet he does not state whether it was applied to all magistrates, or under what reserves and exceptions such, for example, as those adopted at Athens. Aristotle too states that the Syracusan people, after the Athenian siege, changed their constitution from a partial democracy into an entire democracy. Yet he describes Dionysius, five or six years afterwards, as pushing himself up to the despotism, by the most violent demagogic opposition; and as having accused, disgraced, and overthrown certain rich leaders then in possession of the functions of government. If the constitutional forms were rendered more democratical, it would seem that the practice cannot have materially changed, and that the persons actually in leading function still continued to be rich men.

The war carried on by the Syracusans against Naxos and Katana, after continuing more than three years, was brought to a close by an enemy from without, even more formidable than Athens. This time, the invader was not Hellenic, but Phoenician the ancient foe of Hellas, Carthage.

It has been already recounted, how in the same eventful year (480 BC.) which transported Xerxes across the Hellespont to meet his defeat at Salamis, the Carthaginians had poured into Sicily a vast mercenary host under Hamilkar, for the purpose of reinstating in Himera the despot Terillus, who had been expelled by Theron of Agrigentum. On that occasion, Hamilkar had been slain, and his large army defeated, by the Syracusan despot Gelon, in the memorable battle of Himera. So deep had been the impression left by this defeat, that for the seventy years which intervened between 480-410 BC, the Carthaginians had never again invaded the island. They resumed their aggressions shortly after the destruction of the Athenian power before Syracuse; which same event had also stimulated the Persians, who had been kept in restraint while the Athenian empire remained unimpaired, again to act offensively for the recovery of their dominion over the Asiatic Greeks. The great naval power of Athens, inspiring not merely reserve but even alarm to Carthage, had been a safeguard to the Hellenic world both at its eastern and its western extremity. No sooner was that safeguard overthrown, than the hostile pressure of the foreigner began to be felt, as well upon Western Sicily as on the eastern coast of the Aegean.

From this time forward for two centuries, down to the conclusion of the second Punic war, the Carthaginians will be found frequent in their aggressive interventions in Sicily, and upon an extensive scale, so as to act powerfully on the destinies of the Sicilian cities. Whether any internal causes had occurred to make them abstain from intervention during the preceding generations, we are unable to say. The history of this powerful and wealthy city is very little known. We make out a few facts, which impart a general idea both of her oligarchical government and of her extensive colonial possessions, but which leave us in the dark as to her continuous history. Her possessions were most extensive, along the coast of Africa both eastward and westward from her city; comprehending also Sardinia and the Balearic isles, but (at this time, probably) few settlements in Spain. She had quite enough to occupy her attention elsewhere, without meddling in Sicilian affairs; the more so, as her province in Sicily was rather a dependent ally than a colonial possession. In the early treaties made with Rome, the Carthaginians restrict and even interdict the traffic of the Romans both with Sardinia and Africa (except Carthage itself), but they grant the amplest license of intercourse with the Carthaginian province of Sicily; which they consider as standing in the same relation to Carthage as the cities of Latium stood in to Rome. While the connection of Carthage with Sicily was thus less close, it would appear that her other dependencies gave her much trouble, chiefly in consequence of her own harsh and extortionate dominion.

All our positive information, scanty as it is, about Carthage and her institutions, relates to the fourth, third, or second centuries BC, yet it may be held to justify presumptive conclusions as to the fifth century BC, especially in reference to the general system pursued. The maximum of her power was attained before her first war with Rome, which began in 264 BC; the first and second Punic wars both of them greatly reduced her strength and dominion. Yet in spite of such reduction we learn that about 150 BC, shortly before the third Punic war, which ended in the capture and depopulation of the city, not less than seven hundred thousand souls were computed in it, as occupants of a fortified circumference of above twenty miles, covering a peninsula with its isthmus. Upon this isthmus its citadel Byrsa was situated, surrounded by a triple wall of its own, and crowned at its summit by a magnificent temple of Aesculapius. The numerous population is the more remarkable, since Utica (a considerable city, colonized from Phoenicia more anciently than even Carthage itself, and always independent of the Carthaginians, though in the condition of an inferior and discontented ally), was within the distance of seven miles from Carthage on the one side, and Tunis seemingly not much farther off on the other. Even at that time, too, the Carthaginians are said to have possessed three hundred tributary cities in Libya. Yet this was but a small fraction of the prodigious empire which had belonged to them certainly in the fourth century BC, and in all probability also between 480-410 BC. That empire extended eastward as far as the Altars of the Philaeni, near the Great Syrtis, westward, all along the coast to the Pillars of Herakles and the western coast of Morocco. The line of coast south-east of Carthage, as far as the bay called the Lesser Syrtis, was proverbial (under the name of Byzacium and the Emporia) for its fertility. Along this extensive line were distributed indigenous Libyan tribes, living by agriculture; and a mixed population called Liby-Phoenicians, formed by intermarriage and coalition of some of these tribes either with colonists from Tyre and Sidon, or perhaps with a Canaanitish population akin in race to the Phoenicians, yet of still earlier settlement in the country. These Liby-Phoenicians dwelt in towns, seemingly of moderate size and unfortified, each each surrounded by a territory ample and fertile, yielding large produce. They were assiduous cultivators, but generally unwarlike, which latter quality was ascribed by ancient theory to the extreme richness of their soil. Of the Liby-Phoenician towns the number is not known to us, but it must have been prodigiously great, since we are told that both Agathocles and Regulus in their respective invasions captured no less than two hundred. A single district, called Tuska, is also spoken of as having fifty towns.

COLONIES AND ARMIES OF CARTHAGE.

A few of the towns along the coast, Hippo, Utica, Adrumetum, Thapsus, Leptis, etc., were colonies from Tyre, like Carthage herself. With respect to Carthage, therefore, they stood upon a different footing from the Liby-Phoenician towns, either maritime or in the interior. Yet the Carthaginians contrived in time to render every town tributary, with the exception of Utica. They thus derived revenue from all the inhabitants of this fertile region, Tyrian, Liby-Phoenician, and indigenous Libyan; and the amount which they imposed appears to have been exorbitant. At one time, immediately after the first Punic war, they took from the rural cultivators as much as one-half of their produce, and doubled at one stroke the tribute levied upon the towns. The town and district of Leptis paid to them a tribute of one talent per day, or three hundred and sixty-five talents annually. Such exactions were not collected without extreme harshness of enforcement, sometimes stripping the tax-payer of all that he possessed, and even tearing him from his family to be sold in person for a slave. Accordingly the general sentiment among the dependencies towards Carthage was one of mingled fear and hatred, which rendered them eager to revolt on the landing of any foreign invader. In some cases the Carthaginians seem to have guarded against such contingencies by paid garrisons; but they also provided a species of garrison from among their own citizens; by sending out from Carthage poor men, and assigning to them lots of land with the cultivators attached. This provision for poor citizens as emigrants (mainly analogous to the Roman colonies), was a standing feature in the Carthaginian political system, serving the double purpose of obviating discontent among their own town population at home, and of keeping watch over their dependencies abroad.

In the fifth century BC, the Carthaginians had no apprehension of any foreign enemy invading them from seaward; an enterprise first attempted in 316 BC, to the surprise of every one, by the boldness of the Syracusan Agathocles. Nor were their enemies on the land side formidable as conquerors, though they were extremely annoying as plunderers. The Numidians and other native tribes, half-naked and predatory horsemen, distinguished for speed as well as for indefatigable activity, so harassed the individual cultivators of the soil, that the Carthaginians dug a long line of ditch to keep them off. But these barbarians did not acquire sufficient organization to act for permanent objects, until the reign of Masinissa and the second Punic war with Rome. During the fifth and fourth centuries BC, therefore (prior to the invasion of Agathocles), the warfare carried on by the Carthaginians was constantly aggressive and in foreign parts. For these purposes they chiefly employed foreign mercenaries, hired for the occasion from Italy, Gaul, Spain, and the islands of the Western Mediterranean, together with conscripts from their Libyan dependencies. The native Carthaginians, though encouraged by honorary marks to undertake this military service, were generally averse to it, and sparingly employed. But these citizens, though not often sent on foreign service, constituted a most formidable force when called upon. No less then forty thousand hoplites went forth from the gates of Carthage to resist Agathocles, together with one thousand cavalry, and two thousand war-chariots. An immense public magazine, of arms, muniments of war of all kinds, and provisions, appears to have been kept in the walls of Byrsa, the citadel of Carthage. A chosen division of two thousand five hundred citizens, men of wealth and family, formed what was Called the Sacred Band of Carthage, distinguished for their bravery in the field as well as for the splendor of their arms, and the gold and silver plate which formed part of their baggage. We shall find these citizen troops occasionally employed on service in Sicily : but most part of the Carthaginian armies consists of Gauls, Iberians, Libyans, etc., a mingled host got together for the occasion, discordant in language as well as in customs. Such men had never any attachment to the cause in which they fought, seldom, to the commanders under whom they served; while they were often treated by Carthage with bad faith, and recklessly abandoned to destruction. A military system such as this was pregnant with danger, if ever the mercenary soldiers got footing in Africa; as happened after the first Punic war, when the city was brought to the brink of ruin. But on foreign service in Sicily, these mercenaries often enabled Carthage to make conquest at the cost only of her money, without any waste of the blood of her own citizens. The Carthaginian generals seem generally to have relied, like Persians, upon numbers, manifesting little or no military skill; until we come to the Punic wars with Rome, conducted under Hamilkar Barca and his illustrious son Hannibal.

Respecting the political constitution of Carthage, the facts known are too few, and too indistinct, to enable us to comprehend its real working. The magistrates most conspicuous in rank and precedence were, the two kings or suffetes, who presided over the Senate. They seem to have been renewed annually, though how far the same persons were reeligible, or actually rechosen, we do not know, but they were always selected out of some few principal families or Gentes. There is reason for believing that the genuine Carthaginian citizens were distributed into three tribes, thirty curiae, and three hundred gentes something in the manner of the Roman patricians. From these gentes emanated a Senate of three hundred, out of which again was formed a smaller council or committee of thirty principes representing the curiae; sometimes a still smaller, of only ten principes. These little councils are both frequently mentioned in the political proceedings of Carthage; and perhaps the Thirty may coincide with what Polybius calls the Gerusia, or Council of Ancients, the Three Hundred, with that which he calls the Senate. Aristotle assimilates the two kings (suffetes) of Carthage to the two kings of Sparta and the Gerusia of Carthage also to that of Sparta; which latter consisted of thirty members, including the kings who sat in it. But Aristotle does not allude to any assembly at Carthage analogous to what Polybius calls the Senate. He mentions two Councils, one of one hundred members, the other of one hundred and four; and certain Boards of Five, the pentarchies. He compares the Council of one hundred and four to the Spartan ephors; yet again he talks of the pentarchies as invested with extensive functions, and terms the Council of one hundred the greatest authority in the state. Perhaps this last Council was identical with the assembly of one hundred Judges (said to have been chosen from the Senate as a check upon the generals employed), or Ordo Judicum; of which Livy speaks after the second Punic war, as existing with its members perpetual and so powerful that it overruled all the other assemblies and magistracies of the state. Through the influence of Hannibal, a law was passed to lessen the overweening power of this Order of Judges; causing them to be elected only for one year, instead of being perpetual.

These statements, though coming from valuable authors, convey so little information and are withal so difficult to reconcile, that both the structure and working of the political machine at Carthage may be said to be unknown. But it seems clear that the general spirit of the government was highly oligarchical; that a few rich, old, and powerful families, divided among themselves the great offices and influence of the state; that they maintained themselves in pointed and even insolent distinction from the multitude; that they stood opposed to each other in bitter feuds, often stained by gross perfidy and bloodshed; and that the treatment with which, through these violent party-antipathies, unsuccessful generals were visited, was cruel in the extreme. It appears that wealth was one indispensable qualification, and that magistrates and generals procured their appointments in a great measure by corrupt means. Of such corruption, one variety was, the habit of constantly regaling the citizens in collective banquets of the curiae or the political associations; a habit so continual, and embracing so wide a circle of citizens, that Aristotle compares these banquets to the phiditia or public mess of Sparta. There was a demos or people at Carthage, who were consulted on particular occasions, and before whom propositions were publicly debated, in cases where the suffetes and the small Council were not all of one mind. How numerous this demos was, or what proportion of the whole population it comprised, we have no means of knowing. But it is plain, that whether more or less considerable, its multitude was kept under dependence to the rich families by stratagems such as the banquets, the lucrative appointments with lots of land in foreign dependencies, etc. The purposes of government were determined, its powers wielded and the great offices held suffetes, senators, generals, or judges, by the members of a small number of wealthy families; and the chief opposition which they encountered, was from their feuds against each other. In the main, the government was conducted with skill and steadiness, as well for internal tranquility as for systematic foreign and commercial aggrandizement. Within the knowledge of Aristotle, Carthage had never suffered either the successful usurpation of a despot, or any violent intestine commotion.

EGESTA AND SELINUS.

The first eminent Carthaginian leader brought to our notice, is Mago (seemingly about 530-500 BC), who is said to have mainly contributed to organize the forces, and extend the dominion, of Carthage. Of his two sons, one, Hasdrubal, perished after a victorious career in Sardinia; the other, Hamilkar, commanding at the battle of Himera in Sicily, was there defeated and slain by Gelon, as has been already recounted. After the death of Hamilkar, his son Giskon was condemned to perpetual exile, and passed his life in Sicily at the Greek city of Selinus. But the sons of Hasdrubal still remained at Carthage, the most powerful citizens in the state; carrying on hostilities against the Moors and other indigenous Africans, whom they compelled to relinquish the tribute which Carthage had paid, down to that time, for the ground where on the city was situated. This family are said indeed to have been so powerful, that a check upon their ascendency was supposed to be necessary; and for that purpose the select One Hundred Senators sitting as judges were now nominated for the first time. Such wars in Africa doubtless tended to prevent the Carthaginians from farther interference in Sicily, during the interval between 480-410 BC. There were probably other causes also, not known to us, and down to the year 413 BC, the formidable naval power of Athens (as has been already remarked) kept them on the watch even for themselves. But now, after the great Athenian catastrophe before Syracuse, apprehensions from that quarter were dissipated; so that Carthage again found leisure, as well as inclination, to seek in Sicily both aggrandizement and revenge.

It is remarkable that the same persons, acting in the same quarrel, who furnished the pretext or the motive for the recent invasion by Athens, now served in the like capacity as prompters to Carthage. The inhabitants of Egesta, engaged in an unequal war with rival neighbors at Selinus, were in both cases the soliciting parties. They had applied to Carthage first, without success, before they thought of sending to invoke aid from Athens. This war indeed had been for the time merged and forgotten in the larger Athenian enterprise against Syracuse; but it revived after that catastrophe, wherein Athens and her armament were shipwrecked. The Egestaeans had not only lost their protectors, but had incurred aggravated hostility from their neighbors, for having brought upon Sicily so formidable an ultramarine enemy. Their original quarrel with Selinus had related to a disputed portion of border territory. This point they no longer felt competent to maintain, under their present disadvantageous circumstances. But the Selinuntines, confident as well as angry, were now not satisfied with success in their original claim. They proceeded to strip the Egestaeans of other lands indisputably belonging to them, and seriously menaced the integrity as well as the independence of the city. To no other quarter could the Egestaeans turn, with any chance of finding both will and power to protect them, except to Carthage.

The town of Egesta (non-Hellenic or at least only semi-Hellenic) was situated on or near the northern line of Sicilian coast, not far from the western cape of the island, and in the immediate neighborhood of the Carthaginian settlements, Motye, Panormus (now Palermo), and Soloeis or Soluntum. Selinus also was near the western cape, but on the southern coast of Sicily, with its territory conterminous to the southern portion of Egesta. When therefore the Egestaean envoys presented their urgent supplications at Carthage for aid, proclaiming that unless assisted they must be subjugated and become a dependency of Selinus, the Carthaginians would not unreasonably conceive, that their own Sicilian settlements would be endangered, if their closest Hellenic neighbor were allowed thus to aggrandize herself. Accordingly they agreed to grant the aid solicited; yet not without much debate and hesitation. They were uneasy at the idea of resuming military operations in Sicily, which had been laid aside for seventy years, and had moreover left such disastrous recollections at a moment when Syracusan courage stood in high renown, from the recent destruction of the Athenian armament. But the recollections of the Gelonian victory at Himera, while they suggested apprehension, also kindled the appetite of revenge; especially in the bosom of Hannibal, the grandson of that general Hamilkar who had there met his death.  Hannibal was at this moment king, or rather first of the two suffetes, chief executive magistrates of Carthage, as his grandfather had been seventy years before. So violent had been the impression made upon the Carthaginians by the defeat of Himera, that they had banished Giskon, son of the slain general Hamilkar and father of Hannibal, and had condemned him to pass his whole life in exile. He had chosen the Greek city of Selinus; where probably Hannibal also had spent his youth, though restored since to his country and to his family consequence, and from whence he brought back an intense antipathy to the Greek name, as well as an impatience to wipe off by a signal revenge the dishonor both of his country and of his family. Accordingly, espousing with warmth the request of the Egestaeans, he obtained from the Senate authority to take effective measures for their protection.

His first proceeding was to send envoys to Egesta and Selinus, to remonstrate against the encroachments of the Selinuntines; with farther instructions, in case remonstrance proved ineffectual, to proceed with the Egestaeans to Syracuse, and there submit the whole dispute to the arbitration of the Syracusans. He foresaw that the Selinuntines, having superiority of force on their side, would refuse to acknowledge any arbitration; and that the Syracusans, respectfully invoked by one party but rejected by the other, would stand aside from the quarrel altogether. It turned out as he had expected. The Selinuntines sent envoys to Syracuse, to protest against the representations from Egesta and Carthage; but declined to refer their case to arbitration. Accordingly, the Syracusans passed a vote that they would maintain their alliance with Selinus, yet without impeachment of their pacific relations with Carthage : thus leaving the latter free to act without obstruction. Hannibal immediately sent over a body of troops to the aid of Egesta : five thousand Libyans or Africans; and eight hundred Campanian mercenaries, who had been formerly in the pay and service of the Athenians before Syracuse, but had quitted that camp before the final catastrophe occurred. In spite of the reinforcement and the imposing countenance of Carthage, the Selinuntines, at this time in full power and prosperity, still believed themselves strong enough to subdue Egesta. Under such persuasion, they invaded the territory with their full force. They began to ravage the country, yet at first with order and precaution; but presently, finding no enemy in the field to oppose them, they became careless, and spread themselves about for disorderly plunder. This was the moment for which the Egestaeans and Carthaginians were watching. They attacked the Selinuntines by surprise, defeated them with the loss of a thousand men, and recaptured the whole booty. The war, as hitherto carried on, was one offensive on the part of the Selinuntines, for the purpose of punishing or despoiling their ancient enemy Egesta. Only so far as was necessary for the defence of the latter, had the Carthaginians yet interfered. But against such an interference the Selinuntines, if they had taken a prudent measure of their own force, would have seen that they were not likely to achieve any conquest. Moreover, they might perhaps have obtained peace now, had they sought it; as a considerable minority among them, headed by a citizen named Empedion, urgently recommended : for Selinus appears always to have been on more friendly terms with Carthage than any other Grecian city in Sicily. Even at the great battle of Himera, the Selinuntine troops had not only not assisted Gelon, but had actually fought in the Carthaginian army under Hamilkar; a plea, which, had it been pressed, might probably have had weight with Hannibal. But this claim upon the goodwill of Carthage appears only to have rendered them more confident and passionate in braving her force and in prosecuting the war. They sent to Syracuse to ask for aid, which the Syracusans, under present circumstances, promised to send them. But the promise was given with little cordiality, as appears by the manner in which they fulfilled it, as well as front the neutrality which they had professed so recently before; for the contest seemed to be aggressive on the part of Selinus, so that Syracuse had little interest in helping her to conquer Egesta. Neither Syracusans nor Selinuntines were prepared for the immense preparations, and energetic rapidity of movement by which Hannibal at once altered the character, and enlarged the purposes, of the war. He employed all the ensuing autumn and winter in collecting a numerous host of mercenary troops from Africa, Spain, and Campania, with various Greeks who were willing to take service.

ARMAMENT OF HANNIBAL. SIEGE OF SELINUS

In the spring of the memorable year 409 BC, through the exuberant wealth of Carthage, he was in a condition to leave Africa with a great fleet of sixty triremes, and fifteen hundred transports or vessels of burthen; conveying an army, which, according to the comparatively low estimate of Timaeus, amounted to more than one hundred thousand men; while Ephorus extended the number to two hundred thousand infantry, and four thousand cavalry, together with muniments of war and battering machines for siege. With these he steered directly for the western Cape of Sicily, Lilybaeum; taking care, however, to land his troops and to keep his fleet on the northern side of that cape, in the bay near Motye, and not to approach the southern shore, lest he should alarm the Syracusans with the idea that he was about to prosecute his voyage farther eastward along the southern coast towards their city. By this precaution, he took the best means for prolonging the period of Syracusan inaction. The Selinuntines, panic-struck at the advent of an enemy so much more overwhelming than they had expected, sent pressing messengers to Syracuse to accelerate the promised help. They had made no provision for standing on the defensive against a really formidable aggressor. Their walls, though strong enough to hold out against Sicilian neighbors, had been neglected during the long-continued absence of any foreign besieger, and were now in many places out of repair. Hannibal left them no time to make good past deficiencies. Instead of wasting his powerful armament (as the unfortunate Nicias had done five years before) by months of empty flourish and real inaction, he waited only until he was joined by the troops from Egesta and the neighboring Carthaginian dependencies, and then marched his whole force straight from Lilybaeum to Selinus. Crossing the river Mazara in his way, and storming the fort which lay near its mouth, he soon found himself under the Selinuntine walls. He distributed his army into two parts, each provided with battering machines and movable wooden towers; and then assailed the walls on many points at once, choosing the points where they were most accessible or most dilapidated. Archers and slingers in great numbers were posted near the walls, to keep up a discharge of missiles and chase away the defenders from the battlements. Under cover of such discharge, six wooden towers were rolled up to the foot of the wall, to which they were equal or nearly equal in height, so that the armed men in their interior were prepared to contend with the defenders almost on a level. Against other portions of the wall, battering rams with iron heads were driven by the combined strength of multitudes, shaking or breaking through its substance, especially where it showed symptoms of neglect or decay. Such were the methods of attack which Hannibal now brought to bear upon the unprepared Selinuntines. He was eager to forestal the arrival of auxiliaries, by the impetuous movements of his innumerable barbaric host, the largest seen in Sicily since his grandfather Hamilkar had been defeated before Himera. Collected from all the shores of the western Mediterranean, it presented soldiers heterogeneous in race, in arms, in language, in everything, except bravery and common appetite for blood as well as plunder.

The dismay of the Selinuntines, when they suddenly found themselves under the sweep of this destroying hurricane, is not to be described. It was no part of the scheme of Hannibal to impose conditions or grant capitulation; for he had promised the plunder of their town to his soldiers. The only chance of the besieged was, to hold out with the courage of desperation, until they could receive aid from their Hellenic brethen on the southern coast, Agrigentum, Gela, and especially Syracuse, all of whom they had sent to warn and to supplicate. Their armed population crowded to man the walls, with a resolution worthy of Greeks and citizens; while the old men and the females, though oppressed with agony from the fate which seemed to menace them, lent all the aid and encouragement in their power. Under the sound of trumpets, and every variety of war-cry, the assailants approached the walls, encountering everywhere a valiant resistance. They were repulsed again and again, with the severest loss. But fresh troops came up to relieve those who were slain or fatigued; and at length, after a murderous struggle, a body of Campanians forced their way over the walls into the town. Yet in spite of such temporary advantage, the heroic efforts of the besieged drove them out again or slew them, so that night arrived without the capture being accomplished. For nine successive days was the assault thus renewed with undiminished fury; for nine successive days did this heroic population maintain a successful resistance, though their enemies were numerous enough to relieve each other perpetually, though their own strength was every day failing, and though not a single friend arrived to their aid. At length, on the tenth day, and after terrible loss to the besiegers, a sufficient breach was made in the weak part of the wall, for the Iberians to force their way into the city. Still however the Selinuntines, even after their walls were carried, continued with unabated resolution to barricade and defend their narrow streets, in which their women also assisted, by throwing down stones and tiles upon the assailants from the house-tops. All these barriers were successively overthrown, by the unexhausted numbers, and increasing passion, of the barbaric host; so that the defenders were driven back from all sides into the agora, where most of them closed their gallant defence by an honorable death. A small minority, among whom was Empedion, escaped to Agrigentum, where they received the warmest sympathy and the most hospitable treatment. Resistance being thus at an end, the assailants spread themselves through the town in all the fury of insatiate appetites, murderous, lustful, and rapacious. They slaughtered indiscriminately elders and children, preserving only the grown women as captives. The sad details of a town taken by storm are to a great degree the same in every age and nation; but the destroying barbarians at Selinus manifested one peculiarity, which marks them as lying without the pale of Hellenic sympathy and sentiment. They mutilated the bodies of the slain; some were seen with amputated hands strung together in a row and fastened round their girdles; while others brandished heads on the points of their spears and javelins. The Greeks (seemingly not numerous) who served under Hannibal, far from sharing in these ferocious manifestations, contributed somewhat to mitigate the deplorable fate of the sufferers. Sixteen thousand Selinuntines are said to have been slain, five thousand to have been taken captive; while two thousand six hundred escaped to Agrigentum. These figures are probably under, rather than above, the truth. Yet they do not seem entitled to any confidence; nor do they give us any account of the entire population in its different categories, old and young, men and women, freemen and slaves, citizens and metics. We can only pretend to appreciate this mournful event in the gross. All exact knowledge of its details is denied to us.

It does little honor either to the generosity or to the prudence of the Hellenic neighbors of Selinus, that this unfortunate city should have been left to its fate unassisted. In vain was messenger after messenger dispatched, as the defence became more and more critical, to Agrigentum, Gela, and Syracuse. The military force of the two former was indeed made ready, but postponed its march until joined by that of the last; so formidable was the account given of the invading host. Meanwhile the Syracusans were not ready. They thought it requisite, first, to close the war which they were prosecuting against Katana and Naxos, next, to muster a large and carefully-appointed force. Before these preliminaries were finished, the nine days of siege were past, and the death-hour of Selinus had sounded. Probably the Syracusans were misled by the Sicilian operations of Nicias, who, beginning with a long interval of inaction, had then approached their town by slow blockade, such as the circumstances of his case required. Expecting in the case of Selinus that Hannibal would enter upon the like elaborate siege, and not reflecting that he was at the head of a vast host of miscellaneous foreigners hired for the occasion, of whose lives he could afford to be prodigal, while Nicias commanded citizens of Athens and other Grecian states, whom he could not expose to the murderous but thorough-going process of ever-renewed assault against strong walls recently erected, they were thunderstruck on being informed that nine days of carnage had sufficed for the capture. The Syracusan soldiers, a select body of three thousand, who at length joined the Geloans and Agrigentines at Agrigentum, only arrived in time to partake in the general dismay everywhere diffused. A joint embassy was sent by three cities to Hannibal, entreating him to permit the ransom of the captives, and to spare the temples of the gods; while Empedion went at the same time to sue for compassion on behalf of his own fugitive fellow-citizens. To the former demand the victorious Carthaginian returned an answer at once haughty and characteristic : "The Selinuntines have not been able to preserve their freedom, and must now submit to a trial of slavery. The gods have become offended with them, and have taken their departure from the town". To Empedion, an ancient friend and pronounced partisan of the Carthaginians, his reply was more indulgent. All the relatives of Empedion, found alive among the captives, were at once given up; moreover permission was granted to the fugitive Selinuntines to return, if they pleased, and reoccupy the town with its lands, as tributary subjects of Carthage. At the same time that he granted such permission, however, Hannibal at once caused the walls to be razed, and even the town with its temples to be destroyed. What was done about the proposed ransom, we do not hear.

Having satiated his troops with this rich plunder Hannibal now quitted the scene of bloodshed and desolation, and marched across the island to Himera on its northern coast. Though Selinus, as the enemy of Egesta, had received the first shock of his arms, yet it was against Himera that the grand purpose of his soul was directed. Here it was that Hamilkar had lost both his army and his life, entailing inexpiable disgrace upon the whole life of his son Giskon : here it was that his grandson intended to exact full vengeance and requital from the grandchildren of those who then occupied the fated spot. Not only was the Carthaginian army elate with the past success, but a number of fresh Sikels and Sikans, eager to share in plunder as well as to gratify the antipathies of their races against the Grecian intruders, flocked to join it; thus making up the losses sustained in the recent assault. Having reached Himera, and disposed his army in appropriate positions around, Hannibal proceeded to instant attack, as at Selinus; pushing up his battering machines and towers against the vulnerable portions of the walls, and trying at the same time to undermine them. The Himeraeans defended themselves with desperate bravery; and on this occasion the defence was not unassisted, for four thousand allies, chiefly Syracusans, and headed by the Syracusan Diokles, had come to the city as a reinforcement. For a whole day they repelled with slaughter repeated assaults. No impression being made upon the city, the besieged became so confident in their own valor, that they resolved not to copy the Selinuntines in confining themselves to defence, but to sally out at daybreak the next morning and attack the besiegers in the field. Ten thousand gallant men, Himeraeans, Syracusans, and other Grecian allies, accordingly marched out with the dawn; while the battlements were lined with old men and women as anxious spectators of their exploits. The Carthaginians near the walls, who, preparing to renew the assault, looked for nothing less than for a sally, were taken by surprise. In spite of their great superiority of number, and in spite of great personal bravery, they fell into confusion, and were incapable of long resisting the gallant and orderly charge of the Greeks. At length they gave way and fled towards the neighboring hill, where Hannibal himself with his body of reserve was posted to cover the operations of assault. The Greeks pursued them fiercely and slaughtered great numbers (six thousand according to Timaeus, but not less than twenty thousand, if we are to accept the broad statement of Ephorus), exhorting each other not to think of making prisoners. But in the haste and exultation of pursuit, they became out of breath, and their ranks fell into disorder. In this untoward condition, they found themselves face to face with the fresh body of reserve brought up by Hannibal, who marched down the hill to receive and succor his own defeated fugitives. The fortune of the battle was now so completely turned, that the Himeraeans, after bravely contending for some time against these new enemies, found themselves overpowered and driven back to their own gates. Three thousand of their bravest warriors, however, despairing of their city and mindful of the fate of Selinus, disdained to turn their backs, and perished to a man in obstinate conflict with the overwhelming numbers of the Carthaginians.

Violent was the sorrow and dismay in Himera, when the flower of her troops were thus driven in as beaten men, with the loss of half their numbers. At this moment there chanced to arrive at the port a fleet of twenty-five triremes, belonging to Syracuse and other Grecian cities in Sicily; which triremes had been sent to aid the Peloponnesians in the Aegean, but had since come back, and were now got together for the special purpose of relieving the besieged city. So important a reinforcement ought to have revived the spirit of the Himeraeans. It announced that the Syracusans were in full march across the island, with the main force of the city, to the relief of Himera. But this good news was more than countervailed by the statement, that Hannibal was ordering out the Carthaginian fleet in the bay of Motye, in order that it might sail round cape Lilybaeum and along the southern coast into the harbor of Syracuse, now defenseless through the absence of its main force. Apparently the Syracusan fleet, in sailing from Syracuse to Himera, had passed by the bay of Motye, observed maritime movement among the Carthaginians there, and picked up these tidings in explanation. Here was intelligence more than sufficient to excite alarm for home, in the bosom of Diokles and the Syracusans at Himera; especially under the despondency now reigning. Diokles not only enjoined the captains of the fleet to sail back immediately to Syracuse, in order to guard against the apprehended surprise, but also insisted upon marching back thither himself by land with the Syracusan forces, and abandoning the farther defence of Himera. He would in his march home meet his fellow citizens on their march outward, and conduct them back along with him. To the Himeraeans, this was a sentence of death, or worse than death. It plunged them into an agony of fright and despair. But there was no safer counsel to suggest, nor could they prevail upon Diokles to grant anything more than means of transport for carrying off the Himeraean population, when the city was relinquished to the besiegers. It was agreed that the fleet, instead of sailing straight to Syracuse, should employ itself in carrying off as much of the population as could be put on board, and in depositing them safely at Messene; after which it would return to fetch the remainder, who would in the mean time defend the city with their utmost force.

Such was the frail chance of refuge now alone open to these unhappy Greeks, against the devouring enemy without. Immediately the feebler part of the population, elders, women, and children, crowding on board until the triremes could hold no more, sailed away along the northern, coast to Messene. On the same night, Diokles also marched out of the city with his Syracusan soldiers; in such haste to get home, that he could not even tarry to bury the numerous Syracusan soldiers who had been just slain in the recent disastrous sally. Many of the Himeraeans, with their wives and children, took their departure along with Diokles, as their only chance of escape; since it was but too plain that the triremes could not carry away all. The bravest and most devoted portion of the Himeraean warriors still remained, to defend their city until the triremes came back. After keeping armed watch on the walls all night, they were again assailed on the next morning by the Carthaginians, elate with their triumph of the preceding day and with the flight of so many defenders. Yet notwithstanding all the pressure of numbers, ferocity, and battering machines, the resistance was still successfully maintained; so that night found Himera still a Grecian city. On the next day, the triremes came back, having probably deposited their unfortunate cargo in some place of safety not so far off as Messene. If the defenders could have maintained their walls until another sunset, many of them might yet have escaped. But the good fortune, and probably the physical force, of these brave men, was now at an end. The gods were quitting Himera, as they had before quitted Selinus. At the moment when the triremes were seen coming near to the port, the Iberian assailants broke down a wide space of the fortification with their battering-rams, poured in through the breach, and overcame all opposition. Encouraged by their shouts, the barbaric host now on all sides forced the walls, and spread themselves over the city, which became one scene of wholesale slaughter and plunder. It was no part of the scheme of Hannibal to interrupt the plunder, which he made over as a recompense to his soldiers. But he speedily checked the slaughter, being anxious to take as many prisoners as possible, and increasing the number by dragging away all who had taken sanctuary in the temples. A few among this wretched population may have contrived to reach the approaching triremes; all the rest either perished or fell into the hands of the victor.

SACRIFICE OF PRISONERS.

It was a proud day for the Carthaginian general when he stood as master on the ground of Himera; enabled to fulfill the duty, and satisfy the exigencies, of revenge for his slain grandfather. Tragical indeed was the consummation of this long-cherished purpose. Not merely the walls and temples (as at Selinus), but all the houses in Himera, were razed to the ground. Its temples, having been first stripped of their ornaments and valuables, were burnt. The women and children taken captive were distributed as prizes among the soldiers. But all the male captives, three thousand in number, were conveyed to the precise spot where Hamilkar had been slain, and there put to death with indignity, as an expiatory satisfaction to his lost honor. Lastly, in order that even the hated name of Himera might pass into oblivion, a new town called Therma (so designated because of some warm springs) was shortly afterwards founded by the Carthaginians in the neighborhood.

No man can now read the account of this wholesale massacre, without horror and repugnance. Yet we cannot doubt, that among all the acts of Hannibal's life, this was the one in which he most gloried; that it realized, in the most complete and emphatic manner, his concurrent inspirations of filial sentiment, religious obligation, and honor as a patriot; that to show mercy would have been regarded as a mean dereliction of these esteemed impulses; and that if the prisoners had been even more numerous, all of them would have been equally slain, rendering the expiatory fulfillment only so much the more honorable and efficacious. In the Carthaginian religion, human sacrifices were not merely admitted, but passed for the strongest manifestation of devotional fervor, and were especially resorted to in times of distress, when the necessity for propitiating the gods was accounted most pressing. Doubtless the feelings of Hannibal were cordially shared, and the plenitude of his revenge envied, by the army around him. So different, sometimes so totally contrary, is the tone and direction of the moral sentiments, among different ages and nations. In the numerous wars of Greeks against Greeks, which we have been unfortunately called upon to study, we have found few or no examples of any considerable town taken by storm. So much the more terrible was the shock throughout the Grecian world, of the events just recounted; Selinus and Himera, two Grecian cities of ancient standing and uninterrupted prosperity, had both of them been stormed, ruined, and depopulated, by a barbaric host, within the space of three months. No event at all parallel had occurred since the sack of Miletus by the Persians after the Ionic revolt (495 BC), which raised such powerful sympathy and mourning in Athens. The war now raging in the Aegean, between Athens and Sparta with their respective allies, doubtless contributed to deaden, throughout Central Greece, the impression of calamities sustained by Greeks at the western extremity of Sicily. But within that island, the sympathy with the sufferers was most acute, and aggravated by terror for the future. The Carthaginian general had displayed a degree of energy equal to any Grecian officer throughout the war, with a command of besieging and battering machinery surpassing even the best equipped Grecian cities. The mercenaries whom he had got together were alike terrible from their bravery and ferocity; encouraging Carthaginian ambition to follow up its late rapid successes by attacks against the other cities of the island. No such prospects indeed were at once realized. Hannibal, having completed his revenge at Himera, and extended the Carthaginian dominion all across the north-west corner of Sicily (from Selinus on the southern sea to the site of Himera or Therma on the northern), dismissed his mercenary troops and returned home. Most of them were satiated with plunder as well as pay, though the Campanians, who had been foremost at the capture of Selinus, thought themselves unfairly stinted, and retired in disgust. Hannibal carried back a rich spoil, with glorious trophies, to Carthage, where he was greeted with enthusiastic welcome and admiration.

Never was there a time when the Greek cities in Sicily, and Syracuse especially, upon whom the others would greatly rest in the event of a second Carthaginian invasion, had stronger motives for keeping themselves in a condition of efficacious defence. Unfortunately, it was just at this moment that a new cause of intestine discord burst upon Syracuse; fatally impairing her strength, and proving in its consequences destructive to her liberty. The banished Syracusan general Hermokrates had recently arrived at Messene in Sicily; where he appears to have been at the time when the fugitives came from Himera. It has already been mentioned that he, with two colleagues, had commanded the Syracusan contingent serving with the Peloponnesians under Mindarus in Asia. After the disastrous defeat of Kyzikus, in which Mindarus was slain and every ship in the fleet taken or destroyed, sentence of banishment was passed at Syracuse against the three admirals. Hermokrates was exceedingly popular among the trierarchs and the officers; he had stood conspicuous for incorruptibility, and had conducted himself (so far as we have means of judging) with energy and ability in his command. The sentence, unmerited by his behavior, was dictated by acute vexation for the loss of the fleet, and for the disappointment of those expectations which Hermokrates had held out; combined with the fact that Diokles and the opposite party were now in the ascendant at Syracuse. When the banished general, in making it known to the armament, complained of its injustice and illegality, he obtained warm sympathy, and even exhortations still to retain the command, in spite of orders from home. He forbad them earnestly to think of raising sedition against their common city and country; upon which the trierarchs, when they took their last and affectionate leave of him, bound themselves by oath, as soon as they should return to Syracuse, to leave no means untried for procuring his restoration.

The admonitory words addressed by Hermokrates to the forwardness of the trierarchs, would have been honorable to his patriotism, had not his own conduct at the same time been worthy of the worst enemies of his country. For immediately on being superseded by the new admirals, he went to the satrap Pharnabazus, in whose favor he stood high; and obtained from him a considerable present of money, which he employed in collecting mercenary troops and building ships, to levy war against his opponents in Syracuse and procure his own restoration. Thus strengthened, he returned from Asia to Sicily, and reached the Sicilian Messene rather before the capture of Himera by the Carthaginians. At Messene he caused five fresh triremes to be built, besides taking into his pay one thousand of the expelled Himeraeans. At the head of these troops, he attempted to force his way into Syracuse, under concert with his friends in the city, who engaged to assist his admission by arms. Possibly some of the trierarchs of his armament, who had before sworn to lend him their aid, had now returned and were among this body of interior partisans.

BANISHMENT OF DIOKLES.

The moment was well chosen for such an enterprise. As the disaster at Kyzikus had exasperated the Syracusans against Hermokrates, so we cannot doubt that there must have been a strong reaction against Diokles and his partisans, in consequence of the fall of Selinus unaided, and the subsequent abandonment of Himera. What degree of blame may fairly attach to Diokles for these misfortunes, we are not in a condition to judge. But such reverses in themselves were sure to discredit him more or less, and to lend increased strength and stimulus to the partisans of the banished Hermokrates. Nevertheless that leader, though he came to the gates of Syracuse, failed in his attempt to obtain admission, and was compelled to retire; upon which he marched his little army across the interior of the island, and took possession of the dismantled Selinus. Here he established himself as the chief of a new settlement, got together as many as he could of the expelled inhabitants (among whom probably some had already come back along with Empedion), and invited many fresh colonists from other quarters. Reestablishing a portion of the demolished fortifications, he found himself gradually strengthened by so many new-comers, as to place at his command a body of six thousand chosen hoplites, probably independent of other soldiers of inferior merit. With these troops he began to invade the Carthaginian settlements in the neighborhood, Motye and Panormus. Having defeated the forces of both in the field, he carried his ravages successfully over their territories, with large acquisitions of plunder. The Carthaginians had now no army remaining in Sicily; for their immense host of the preceding year had consisted only of mercenaries levied for the occasion, and then disbanded.

These events excited strong sensation throughout Sicily. The valor of Hermokrates, who had restored Selinus and conquered the Carthaginians on the very ground where they had stood so recently in terrific force, was contrasted with the inglorious proceeding of Diokles at Himera. In the public assemblies of Syracuse, this topic, coupled with the unjust sentence whereby Hermokrates had been banished, was emphatically set forth by his partisans; producing some reaction in his favor, and a still greater effect in disgracing his rival Diokles. Apprised that the tide of Syracusan opinion was turning towards him, Hermokrates made renewed preparations for his return, and resorted to a new stratagem, for the purpose of smoothing the difficulty. He marched from Selinus to the ruined site of Himera, informed himself of the spot where the Syracusan troops had undergone their murderous defeat, and collected together the bones of his slain fellow citizens; which (or rather the unburied bodies) must have lain upon the field unheeded for about two years. Having placed these bones on cars richly decorated, he marched with his forces and conveyed them across the island from Himera to the Syracusan border. Here as an exile he halted; thinking it suitable now to display respect for the law, though in his previous attempt he had gone up to the very gates of the city, without any similar scruples. But he sent forward some friends with the cars and the bones, tendering them to the citizens for the purpose of being honored with due funeral solemnities. Their arrival was the signal for a violent party discussion, and for an outburst of aggravated displeasure against Diokles, who had left the bodies unburied on the field of battle. "It was to Hermokrates (so his partisans urged) and to his valiant efforts against the Carthaginians, that the recovery of these remnants of the slain, and the opportunity of administering to them the funeral solemnities, was now owing. Let the Syracusans, after duly performing such obsequies, testify their gratitude to Hermokrates by a vote of restoration, and their displeasure against Diokles by a sentence of banishment". Diokles with his partisans was thus placed at great disadvantage. In opposing the restoration of Hermokrates, he thought it necessary also to oppose the proposition for welcoming and burying the bones of the slain citizens. Here the feelings of the people went vehemently against him; the bones were received and interred, amidst the respectful attendance of all; and so strong was the reactionary sentiment generally, that the partisans of Hermokrates carried their proposition for sentencing Diokles to banishment. But on the other hand, they could not so far prevail as to obtain the restoration of Hermokrates himself. The purposes of the latter had been so palpably manifested, in trying a few months before to force his way into the city by surprise, and in now presenting himself at the frontier with an armed force under his command, that his readmission would have been nothing less than a deliberate surrender of the freedom of the city to a despot.

Having failed in this well-laid stratagem for obtaining a vote of consent, Hermokrates saw that his return could not at that moment be consummated by open force. He therefore retired from the Syracusan frontier; yet only postponing his purposes of armed attack until his friends in the city could provide for him a convenient opportunity. We see plainly that his own party within had been much strengthened, and his opponents enfeebled, by the recent maneuver. Of this a proof is to be found in the banishment of Diokles, who probably was not succeeded by any other leader of equal influence. After a certain interval, the partisans of Hermokrates contrived a plan which they thought practicable, for admitting him into the city by night. Forewarned by them, he marched from Selinus at the head of three thousand soldiers, crossed the territory of Gela, and reached the concerted spot near the gate of Achradina during the night. From the rapidity of his advance, he had only a few troops along with him; the main body not having been able to keep up. With these few, however, he hastened to the gate, which he found already in possession of his friends, who had probably (like Pasimelus at Corinth) awaited a night on which they were posted to act as sentinels. Master of the gate, Hermokrates, though joined by his partisans within in arms, thought it prudent to postpone decisive attack until his own main force came up. But during this interval, the Syracusan authorities in the city, apprised of what had happened, mustered their full military strength in the agora, and lost no time in falling upon the band of aggressors. After a sharply contested combat, these aggressors were completely worsted, and Hermokrates himself slain with a considerable proportion of his followers. The remainder having fled, sentence of banishment was passed upon them. Several among the wounded, however, were reported by their relatives as slain, in order that they might escape being comprised in such a condemnation. Thus perished one of the most energetic of the Syracusan citizens; a man not less effective as a defender of his country against foreign enemies, than himself dangerous as a formidable enemy to her internal liberties. It would seem, as far as we can make out, that his attempt to make himself master of his country was powerfully seconded, and might well have succeeded. But it lacked that adventitious support arising from present embarrassment and danger in the foreign relations of the city, which we shall find so efficacious two years afterwards in promoting the ambitious projects of Dionysius.

Dionysius, for the next coming generation the most formidable name in the Grecian world, now appears for the first time in history. He was a young Syracusan of no consideration from family or position, described as even of low birth and low occupation; as a scribe or secretary, which was looked upon as a subordinate, though essential, function. He was the son of Hermokrates, not that eminent person whose death has been just described, but another person of the same name, whether related or not, we do not know. It is highly probable that he was a man of literary ability and instruction, since we read of him in after-days as a composer of odes and tragedies; and it is certain that he stood distinguished in all the talents for military action, bravery, force of will, and quickness of discernment. On the present occasion, he espoused strenuously the party of Hermokrates, and was one of those who took arms in the city on his behalf. Having distinguished himself in the battle, and received several wounds, he was among those given out for dead by his relations. In this manner he escaped the sentence of banishment passed against the survivors. And when, in the course of a certain time, after recovering from his wounds, he was produced as unexpectedly living, we may presume that his opponents and the leading men in the city left him unmolested, not thinking it worthwhile to reopen political inquisition in reference to matters already passed and finished. He thus remained in the city, marked out by his daring and address to the Hermokratean party, as the person most fit to take up the mantle, and resume the anti-popular designs, of their late leader. It will presently be seen how the chiefs of this party lent their aid to exalt him.

SECOND INVASION FROM CARTHAGE.

Meanwhile the internal condition of Syracuse was greatly enfeebled by this division. Though the three several attempts of Hermokrates to penetrate by force or fraud into the city had all failed, yet they had left a formidable body of malcontents behind; while the opponents also, the popular government and its leaders, had been materially reduced in power and consideration by the banishment of Diokles. This magistrate was succeeded by Daphnaeus and others, of whom we know nothing, except that they are spoken of as rich men and representing the sentiments of the rich, and that they seem to have manifested but little ability. Nothing could be more unfortunate than the weakness of Syracuse at this particular juncture : for the Carthaginians, elate with their successes at Selinus and Himera, and doubtless also piqued by the subsequent retaliation of Hermokrates upon their dependencies at Motye and Panormus, were just now meditating a second invasion of Sicily on a still larger scale. Not uninformed of their projects, the Syracusan leaders sent envoys to Carthage to remonstrate against them, and to make propositions for peace. But no satisfactory answer could be obtained, nor were the preparations discontinued.

In the ensuing spring, the storm gathering from Africa burst with destructive violence upon this fated island. A mercenary force had been got together during the winter, greater than that which had sacked Selinus and Himera; three hundred thousand men, according to Ephorus, one hundred and twenty thousand, according to Xenophon and Timaeus. Hannibal was again placed in command; but his predominant impulses of family and religion having been satiated by the great sacrifice of Himera, he excused himself on the score of old age, and was only induced to accept the duty by having his relative Imilkon named as colleague. By their joint efforts, the immense host of Iberians, Mediterranean islanders, Campanians, Libyans, and Numidians, was united at Carthage, and made ready to be conveyed across, in a fleet of one hundred and twenty triremes, with no less than one thousand five hundred transports. To protect the landing, forty Carthaginian triremes were previously sent over to the Bay of Motye. The Syracusan leaders, with commendable energy and watchfulness, immediately dispatched the like number of triremes to attack them, in hopes of thereby checking the farther arrival of the grand armament. They were victorious, destroying fifteen of the Carthaginian triremes, and driving the rest back to Africa; yet their object was not attained; for Hannibal himself, coming forth immediately with fifty fresh triremes, constrained the Syracusans to retire. Presently afterwards the grand armament appeared, disembarking its motley crowd of barbaric warriors near the western cape of Sicily.

Great was the alarm caused throughout Sicily by their arrival. All the Greek cities either now began to prepare for war, or pushed with a more vigorous hand equipments previously begun, since they seem to have had some previous knowledge of the purpose of the enemy. The Syracusans sent to entreat assistance both from the Italian Greeks and from Sparta. From the latter city, however, little was to be expected, since her whole efforts were now devoted to the prosecution of the war against Athens; this being the year when Kallicratidas commanded, and when the battle of Arginusae was fought.

Of all Sicilian Greeks, the Agrigentines were both the most frightened and the most busily employed. Conterminous as they were with Selinus on their western frontier, and foreseeing that the first shock of the invasion would fall upon them, they immediately began to carry in their outlying property within the walls, as well as to accumulate a stock of provisions for enduring blockade. Sending for Dexippus, a Lacedaemonian then in Gela as commander of a body of mercenaries for the defence of that town, they engaged him in their service, with one thousand five hundred hoplites; reinforced by eight hundred of those Campanians who had served with Hannibal at Himera, but had quitted him in disgust. Agrigentum was at this time in the highest state of prosperity and magnificence; a tempting prize for any invader. Its population was very great; comprising, according to one account, twenty thousand citizens among an aggregate total of two hundred thousand males, citizens, metics, and slaves; according to another account, an aggregate total of no less than eight hundred thousand persons; numbers unauthenticated and not to be trusted farther than as indicating a very populous city. Situated a little more than two miles from the sea, and possessing a spacious territory highly cultivated, especially with vines and olives, Agrigentum carried on a lucrative trade with the opposite coast of Africa, where at that time no such plantations flourished. Its temples and porticos, especially the spacious temple of Zeus Olympius, its statues and pictures, its abundance of chariots and horses, its fortifications, its sewers, its artificial lake of near a mile in circumference, abundantly stocked with fish, all these placed it on a par with the most splendid cities of the Hellenic world. Of the numerous prisoners taken at the defeat of the Carthaginians near Himera seventy years before, a very large proportion had fallen to the lot of the Agrigentines, and had been employed by them in public works contributing to the advantage or ornament of the city. The hospitality of the wealthy citizens, Gellius, Antisthenes, and others, was carried even to profusion. The surrounding territory was celebrated for its breed of horses, which the rich Agrigentines vied with each other in training and equipping for the chariot-race. At the last Olympic games immediately preceding this fatal Carthaginian invasion (that is at the 93rd Olympiad, 408 BC), the Agrigentine Exaenetus gained the prize in a chariot-nice. On returning to Sicily after his victory, he was welcomed by many of his friends, who escorted him home in procession with three hundred chariots, each drawn by a pair of white horses, and all belonging to native Agrigentines. Of the festival by which the wealthy Antisthenes celebrated the nuptials of his daughter, we read an account almost fabulous. Amidst all this wealth and luxury, it is not surprising to hear that the rough duties of military exercise were imperfectly kept up, and that indulgences, not very consistent with soldier like efficiency, were allowed to the citizens on guard. Such was Agrigentum in May 406 BC , when Hannibal and Imilkon approached it with their powerful army. Their first propositions, however were not of a hostile character. They invited the Agrigentines to enter into alliance with Carthage; or if this were not acceptable, at any rate to remain neutral and at peace. Both propositions were declined.

Besides having taken engagements with Gela and Syracuse, the Agrigentines also felt a confidence, not unreasonable, in the strength of their own walls and situation. Agrigentum with its citadel was placed on an aggregate of limestone hills, immediately above the confluence of two rivers, both flowing from the north; the river Akragas on the eastern and southern sides of the city, and the Hypsas on its western side. Of this aggregate of hills, separated from each other by clefts and valleys, the northern half is the loftiest, being about eleven hundred feet above the level of the sea the southern half is less lofty. But on all sides, except on the southwest, it rises by a precipitous ascent; on the side towards the sea, it springs immediately out of the plain, thus presenting a fine prospect to ships passing along the coast. The whole of this aggregate of hills was encompassed by a continuous wall, built round the declivity, and in some parts hewn out of the solid rock. The town of Agrigentum was situated in the southern half of the walled enclosure. The citadel, separated from it by a ravine, and accessible only by one narrow ascent, stood on the north-eastern hill; it was the most conspicuous feature in the place, called the Athenaeum, and decorated by temples of Athene and of Zeus Atabyrius. In the plain under the southern wall of the city stood the Agrigentine sepulchers. Reinforced by eight hundred Campanian mercenaries, with the fifteen hundred other mercenaries brought by Dexippus from Gela, the Agrigentines awaited confidently the attack upon their walls, which were not only in far better condition than those of Selinus, but also unapproachable by battering-machines or movable towers, except on one part of the south-western side. It was here that Hannibal, after reconnoitering the town all round, began his attack. But after hard fighting without success for one day, he was forced to retire at nightfall; and even lost his battering train, which was burnt during the night by a sally of the besieged.

Desisting from farther attempts on that point, Hannibal now ordered his troops to pull down the tombs; which were numerous on the lower or southern side of the city, and many of which, especially that of the despot Theron, were of conspicuous grandeur. By this measure he calculated on providing materials adequate to the erection of immense mounds, equal in height to the southern wall, and sufficiently close to it for the purpose of assault. His numerous host had made considerable progress in demolishing these tombs, and were engaged in breaking down the monument of Theron, when their progress was arrested by a thunderbolt falling upon it. This event was followed by religious terrors, suddenly overspreading the camp. The prophets declared that the violation of the tombs was an act of criminal sacrilege. Every night the specters of those whose tombs had been profaned manifested themselves, to the affright of the soldiers on guard; while the judgment of the gods was manifested in a violent pestilential distemper. Numbers of the army perished, Hannibal himself among them; and even of those who escaped death, many were disabled from active duty by distress and suffering. Imilkon was compelled to appease the gods, and to calm the agony of the troops, by a solemn supplication according to the Carthaginian rites. He sacrificed a child, considered as the most propitiatory of all offerings, to Kronus; and cast into the sea a number of animal victims as offerings to Poseidon. These religious rites calmed the terrors of the army, and mitigated, or were supposed to have mitigated, the distemper; so that Imilkon, while desisting from all farther meddling with the tombs, was enabled to resume his batteries and assaults against the walls, though without any considerable success. He also dammed up the western river Hypsas, so as to turn the stream against the wall; but this maneuver produced no effect. His operations were presently interrupted by the arrival of a powerful army which marched from Syracuse, under Daphnaeus, to the relief of Agrigentum. Reinforced in its road by the military strength of Kamarina and Gela, it amounted to thirty thousand foot and five thousand horse, on reaching the river Himera, the eastern frontier of the Agrigentine territory; while a fleet of thirty Syracusan triremes sailed along the coast to second its efforts. As these troops neared the town, Imilkon dispatched against them a body of Iberians and Campanians; who however, after a strenuous combat, were completely defeated, and driven back to the Carthaginian camp near the city, where they found themselves under the protection of the main army.

Daphnaeus, having secured the victory and inflicted severe loss upon the enemy, was careful to prevent his troops from disordering their ranks in the ardor of pursuit, in the apprehension that Imilkon with the main body might take advantage of that disorder to turn the fortune of the day, as had happened in the terrible defeat before Himera, three years before. The routed Iberians were thus allowed to get back to the camp. At the same time the Agrigentines, witnessing from the walls, with joyous excitement, the flight of their enemies, vehemently urged their generals to lead them forth for an immediate sally, in order that the destruction of the fugitives might thus be consummated. But the generals were inflexible in resisting such demand; conceiving that the city itself would thus be stripped of its defenders, and that Imilkon might seize the occasion for assaulting it with his main body, when there was not sufficient force to repel them. The defeated Iberians thus escaped to the main camp; neither pursued by the Syracusans, nor impeded, as they passed near the Agrigentine walls, by the population within.

Presently Daphnaeus with his victorious army reached Agrigentum, and joined the citizens; who flocked in crowds, along with the Lacedaemonian Dexippus, to meet and welcome them. But the joy of meeting, and the reciprocal congratulations on the recent victory, were fatally poisoned by general indignation for the unmolested escape of the defeated Iberians; occasioned by nothing less than remissness, cowardice, or corruption, (so it was contended), on the part of the generals, first the Syracusan generals, and next the Agrigentine. Against the former, little was now said, though much was held in reserve, as we shall soon hear. But against the latter, the discontent of the Agrigentine population burst forth instantly and impetuously. A public assembly being held on the spot, the Agrigentine generals, five in number, were put under accusation. Among many speakers who denounced them as guilty of treason, the most violent of all was the Kamarinaean Menes, himself one of the leaders, seemingly of the Kamarinaean contingent in the army of Daphnaeus. The concurrence of Menes, carrying to the Agrigentines a full sanction of their sentiments, wrought them up to such a pitch of fury, that the generals, when they came to defend themselves, found neither sympathy nor even common fairness of hearing. Four out of the five were stoned and put to death on the spot; the fifth, Argeius, was spared only on the ground of his youth; and even the Lacedaemonian Dexippus was severely censured.

How far, in regard to these proceedings, the generals were really guilty, or how far their defence, had it been fairly heard, would have been valid, is a point which our scanty information does not enable us to determine. But it is certain that the arrival of the victorious Syracusans at Agrigentum completely altered the relative position of affairs. Instead of farther assaulting the walls, Imilkon was attacked in his camp by Daphnaeus. The camp, however, was so fortified as to repel all attempts, and the siege from this time forward became only a blockade; a contest of patience and privation between the city and the besiegers, lasting seven or eight months from the commencement of the siege. At first Daphnaeus, with his own force united to the Agrigentines, was strong enough to harass the Carthaginians and intercept their supplies, so that the greatest distress began to prevail among their army. The Campanian mercenaries even broke out into mutiny, crowding, with clamorous demands for provision and with menace of deserting, around the tent of Imilkon; who barely pacified them by pledging to them the gold and silver drinking-cups of the chief Carthaginians around him, coupled with entreaties that they would wait yet a few days. During that short interval, he meditated and executed a bold stroke of relief. The Syracusans and Agrigentines were mainly supplied by sea from Syracuse; from whence a large transport of provision-ships was now expected, under convoy of some Syracusan triremes. Apprised of their approach, Imilkon silently brought out forty Carthaginian triremes from Motye and Panormus, with which he suddenly attacked the Syracusan convoy, no way expecting such a surprise. Eight Syracusan triremes were destroyed; the remainder were driven ashore, and the whole fleet of transports fell into the hands of Imilkon. Abundance and satisfaction now reigned in the camp of the Carthaginians, while the distress, and with it the discontent, was transferred to Agrigentum. The Campanian mercenaries in the service of Dexippus began the mutiny, complaining to him of their condition. Perhaps he had been alarmed and disgusted at the violent manifestation of the Agrigentines against their generals, extending partly to himself also. At any rate, he manifested no zeal in the defence, and was even suspected of having received a bribe of fifteen talents from the Carthaginians. He told the Campanians that Agrigentum was no longer tenable, for want of supplies; upon which they immediately retired, and marched away to Messene, affirming that the time stipulated for their stay had expired. Such a secession struck every one with discouragement. The Agrigentine generals immediately instituted an examination, to ascertain the quantity of provision still remaining in the city. Having made the painful discovery that there remained but very little, they took the resolution of causing the city to be evacuated by its population during the coming night.

A night followed, even more replete with woe and desolation than that which had witnessed the flight of Diokles with the inhabitants of Himera from their native city. Few scenes can be imagined more deplorable than the vast population of Agrigentum obliged to hurry out of their gates during a December night, as their only chance of escape from famine or the sword of a merciless enemy. The road to Gela was beset by a distracted crowd, of both sexes and of every age and condition, confounded in one indiscriminate lot of suffering. No thought could be bestowed on the preservation of property or cherished possessions, Happy were they who could save their lives; for not a few, through personal weakness or the immobility of despair, were left behind. Perhaps here and there a citizen, combining the personal strength with the filial piety of Aeneas, might carry away his aged father with the household gods on his shoulders; but for the most part, the old, the sick, and the impotent, all whose years were either too tender or too decrepit to keep up with a hurried flight, were of necessity abandoned. Some remained and slew themselves, refusing even to survive the loss of their homes and the destruction of their city; others, among whom was the wealthy Gellius, consigned themselves to the protection of the temples, but with little hope that it would procure them safety. The morning's dawn exhibited to Imilkon unguarded walls, a deserted city, and a miserable population of exiles huddled together in disorderly flight on the road to Gela.

For those fugitives, however, the Syracusan and Agrigentine soldiers formed a rear-guard sufficient to keep off the aggravated torture of a pursuit. But the Carthaginian army found enough to occupy them in the undefended prey which was before their eyes. They rushed upon the town with the fury of men who had been struggling and suffering before it for eight months. They ransacked the houses, slew every living person that was left, and found plunder enough to satiate even a ravenous appetite. Temples as well as private dwellings were alike stripped, so that those who had taken sanctuary in them became victims like the rest : a fate which Gellius only avoided by setting fire to the temple in which he stood and perishing in its ruins. The great public ornaments and trophies of the city, the bull of Phalaris, together with the most precious statues and pictures, were preserved by Imilkon and sent home as decorations to Carthage. While he gave up the houses of Agrigentum to be thus gutted, he still kept them standing, and caused them to serve as winter-quarters for the repose of his soldiers, after the hardships of an eight months' siege. The unhappy Agrigentine fugitives first found shelter and kind hospitality at Gela; from whence they were afterwards, by permission of the Syracusans, transferred to Leontini.

TERROR THROUGHOUT SICILY.

I have described, as far as the narrative of Diodorus permits us to know, this momentous and tragical portion of Sicilian history; a suitable preface to the long despotism of Dionysius. It is evident that the seven or eight months (the former of these numbers is authenticated by Xenophon, while the latter is given by Diodorus) of the siege or blockade must have contained matters of the greatest importance which are not mentioned, and that even of the main circumstances which brought about the capture, we are most imperfectly informed. But though we cannot fully comprehend its causes, its effects are easy to understand. They were terror striking and harrowing in the extreme. When the storm which had beaten down Selinus and Himera was now perceived to have extended its desolation to a city so much more conspicuous, among the wealthiest and most populous in the Grecian world, when the surviving Agrigentine population, including women and children, and the great proprietors of chariots whose names stood recorded as victors at Olympia, were seen all confounded in one common fate of homeless flight and nakedness when the victorious host and its commanders took up their quarters in the deserted houses, ready to spread their conquests farther after a winter of repose, there was hardly a Greek in Sicily who did not tremble for his life and property. Several of them sought shelter at Syracuse, while others even quitted the island altogether, emigrating to Italy.

Amidst so much anguish, humiliation, and terror, there were loud complaints against the conduct of the Syracusan generals under whose command the disaster had occurred. The censure which had been cast upon them before, for not having vigorously pursued the defeated Iberians, was now revived, and aggravated tenfold by the subsequent misfortune. To their inefficiency the capture of Agrigentum was ascribed, and apparently not without substantial cause; for the town was so strongly placed as to defy assault, and could only be taken by blockade; now we discern no impediments adequate to hinder the Syracusan generals from procuring supplies of provisions; and it seems clear that the surprise of the Syracusan store-ships might have been prevented by proper precautions; upon which surprise the whole question turned, between famine in the Carthaginian camp and famine in Agrigentum. The efficiency of Dexippus and the other generals, in defending Agrigentum (as depicted by Diodorus), stands sadly inferior to the vigor and ability displayed by Gylippus before Syracuse, as described by Thucydides : and we can hardly wonder that by men in the depth of misery, like the Agrigentines, or in extreme alarm, like the other Sicilian Greeks these generals, incompetent or treasonable, should be regarded as the cause of the ruin.

Such a state of sentiment, under ordinary circumstances, would have led to the condemnation of the generals and to the nomination of others, with little farther result. But it became of far graver import, when combined with the actual situation of parties in Syracuse. The Hermokratean opposition party, repelled during the preceding year with the loss of its leader, yet nowise crushed, now re-appeared more formidable than ever, under a new leader more aggressive even than Hermokrates himself. Throughout ancient as well as modern history, defeat and embarrassment in the foreign relations have proved fruitful causes of change in the internal government. Such auxiliaries had been wanting to the success of Hermokrates in the preceding year; but alarms of every kind now overhung the city in terrific magnitude, and when the first Syracusan assembly was convoked on returning from Agrigentum, a mournful silence reigned; as in the memorable description given by Demosthenes of the Athenian assembly held immediately after the taking of Elateia. The generals had lost the confidence of their fellow-citizens; yet no one else was forward, at a juncture so full of peril, to assume their duty, by proffering fit counsel for the future conduct of the war. Now was the time for the Hermokratean party to lay their train for putting down the government. Dionysius, though both young and of mean family, was adopted as leader in consequence of that audacity and bravery which even already he had displayed, both in the fight along with Hermokrates and in the battles against the Carthaginians. Hipparinus, a Syracusan of rich family, who had ruined himself by dissolute expenses, was eager to renovate his fortunes by seconding the elevation of Dionysius to the despotism; Philistus (the subsequent historian of Syracuse), rich, young, and able, threw himself ardently into the same cause; and doubtless other leading persons, ancient Hermokrateans and others, stood forward as partisans in the conspiracy. But it either was, from the beginning, or speedily became, a movement organized for the purpose of putting the scepter into the hands of Dionysius, to whom all the rest, though several among them were of far greater wealth and importance, served but as satellites and auxiliaries.

Amidst the silence and disquietude which reigned in the Syracusan assembly, Dionysius was the first who rose to address them. He enlarged upon a topic suitable alike to the temper of his auditors and to his own views. He vehemently denounced the generals as having betrayed the security of Syracuse to the Carthaginians, and as the persons to whom the ruin of Agrigentum, together with the impending peril of every man around, was owing. He set forth their misdeeds, real or alleged, not merely with fullness and acrimony, but with a ferocious violence outstripping all the limits of admissible debate, and intended to bring upon them a lawless murder, like the death of the generals recently at Agrigentum. “There they sit, the traitors! Do not wait for legal trial or verdict; but lay hands upon them at once, and inflict upon them summary justice”.

Such a brutal exhortation, not unlike that of the Athenian Critias, when he caused the execution of Theramenes in the oligarchical senate, was an offence against law as well as against parliamentary order. The presiding magistrates reproved Dionysius as a disturber of order, and fined him, as they were empowered by law. But his partisans were loud in his support. Philistus not only paid down the fine for him on the spot, but publicly proclaimed that he would go on for the whole day paying all similar fines which might be imposed, and incited Dionysius to persist in such language as he thought proper. That which had begun as illegality, was now aggravated into open defiance of the law. Yet so enfeebled was the authority of the magistrates, and so vehement the cry against them, in the actual position of the city, that they were unable either to punish or to repress the speaker.

Dionysius pursued his harangue in a tone yet more inflammatory, not only accusing the generals of having corruptly betrayed Agrigentum, but also denouncing the conspicuous and wealthy citizens generally, as oligarchs who held tyrannical sway, who treated the many with scorn, and made their own profit out of the misfortunes of the city. Syracuse (he contended) could never be saved, unless men of a totally different character were invested with authority; men, not chosen from wealth and station, but of humble birth, belonging to the people by position, and kind in their deportment from consciousness of their own weakness. His bitter invective against generals already discredited, together with the impetuous warmth of his apparent sympathy for the people against the rich, were both alike favorably received. Plato states that the assembly became so furiously exasperated, as to follow literally the lawless and blood-thirsty inspirations of Dionysius, and to stone all these generals, ten in number, on the spot, without any form of trial. But Diodorus simply tells us, that a vote was passed to cashier the generals, and to name in their places Dionysius, Hipparinus, and others. This latter statement is, in my opinion, the more probable. Such was the first stage of what we may term the despot's progress, successfully consummated. The pseudo-demagogue Dionysius outdoes, in fierce professions of antipathy against the rich, anything that we read as coming from the real demagogues, Athenagoras at Syracuse, or Cleon at Athens. Behold him now sitting as a member of the new Board of generals, at a moment when the most assiduous care and energy, combined with the greatest unanimity, were required to put the Syracusan military force into an adequate state of efficiency. It suited the policy of Dionysius not only to bestow no care or energy himself, but to nullify all that was bestowed by his colleagues, and to frustrate deliberately all chance of unanimity. He immediately began a systematic opposition and warfare against his colleagues. He refused to attend at their Board, or to hold any communication with them. At the frequent assemblies held during this agitated state of the public mind, he openly denounced them as engaged in treasonable correspondence with the enemy. It is obvious that his colleagues, men newly chosen in the same spirit with himself, could not as yet have committed any such treason in favor of the Carthaginians. But among them was his accomplice Hipparinus; while probably the rest also, nominated by a party devoted to him personally, were selected in a spirit of collusion, as either thorough-going partisans, or worthless and incompetent men, easy for him to set aside. At any rate, his calumnies, though received with great repugnance by the leading and more intelligent citizens, found favor with the bulk of the assembly, predisposed at that moment from the terrors of the situation to suspect every one. The new Board of generals being thus discredited, Dionysius alone was listened to as an adviser. His first and most strenuous recommendation was, that a vote should be passed for restoring the exiles; men (he affirmed) attached to their country, and burning to serve her, having already refused the offers of her enemies; men who had been thrown into banishment by previous political dispute, but who, if now generously recalled, would manifest their gratitude by devoted patriotism, and serve Syracuse far more warmly than the allies invoked from Italy and Peloponnesus. His discredited colleagues either could not, or would not, oppose the proposition; which, being warmly pressed by Dionysius and all his party, was at length adopted by the assembly. The exiles accordingly returned, comprising all the most violent men who had been in arms with Hermokrates when he was slain. They returned glowing with party antipathy and revenge, prepared to retaliate upon others the confiscation under which themselves had suffered, and looking to the despotism of Dionysius as their only means of success.

The second step of the despot’s progress was now accomplished. Dionysius had filled up the ranks of the Hermokratean party, and obtained an energetic band of satellites, whose hopes and interests were thoroughly identified with his own. Meanwhile letters arrived from Gela, entreating reinforcements, as Imilkon was understood to be about to march thither. Dionysius being empowered to march thither a body of two thousand hoplites, with four hundred horsemen, turned the occasion to profitable account. A regiment of mercenaries, under the Lacedaemonian Dexippus, was in garrison at Gela; while the government of the town is said to have been oligarchical, in the hands of the rich, though with a strong and discontented popular opposition. On reaching Gela, Dionysius immediately took part with the latter; originating the most violent propositions against the governing rich, as he had done at Syracuse. Accusing them of treason in the public assembly, he obtained a condemnatory vote under which they were put to death and their properties confiscated. With the funds so acquired, he paid the arrears due to the soldiers of Dexippus, and doubled the pay of his own Syracusan division. These measures procured for him immense popularity, not merely with all the soldiers, but also with the Geloan Demos, whom he had relieved from the dominion of their wealthy oligarchy. Accordingly, after passing a public vote testifying their gratitude, and bestowing upon him large rewards, they dispatched envoys to carry the formal expression of their sentiments to Syracuse. Dionysius resolved to go back thither at the same time, with his Syracusan soldiers; and tried to prevail on Dexippus to accompany him with his own division. This being refused, he went thither with his Syracusans alone. To the Geloans, who earnestly entreated that they might not be forsaken when the enemy was daily expected, he contented himself with replying that he would presently return with a larger force.

A third step was thus obtained. Dionysius was going back to Syracuse with a testimonial of admiration and gratitude from Gela, with increased attachment on the part of his own soldiers, on account of the double pay, and with the means of coining and circulating a new delusion. It was on the day of a solemn festival that he reached the town, just as the citizens were coming in crowds out of the theatre. Amidst the bustle of such a scene as well as of the return of the soldiers, many citizens flocked around him to inquire, “What news about the Carthaginians?”. “Do not ask about your foreign enemies (was the reply of Dionysius); you have much worse enemies within among you. Your magistrates, these very men upon whose watch you rely during the indulgence of the festival, they are the traitors who are pillaging the public money, leaving the soldiers unpaid, and neglecting all necessary preparation, at a moment when the enemy with an immense host is on the point of assailing you. I knew their treachery long ago, but I have now positive proof of it. For Imilkon sent to me an envoy, under pretence of treating about the prisoners, but in reality to purchase my silence and connivance; he tendered to me a larger bribe than he had given to them, if I would consent to refrain from hindering them, since I could not be induced to take part in their intrigues. This is too much. I am come home now to throw up my command. While my colleagues are corruptly bartering away their country, I am willing to take my share as a citizen in the common risk, but I cannot endure to incur shame as an accomplice in their treachery”. Such bold allegations, scattered by Dionysius among the crowd pressing round him, renewed at length, with emphatic formality in the regular assembly held the next day, and concluding with actual resignation, struck deep terror into the Syracusan mind. He spoke with authority, not merely as one fresh from the frontier exposed, but also as bearing the grateful testimonial of the Geloans, echoed by the soldiers whose pay he had recently doubled. His assertion of the special message from Imilkon, probably an impudent falsehood, was confidently accepted and backed by all these men, as well as by his other partisans, the Hermokratean party, and most of all by the restored exiles. What defence the accused generals made, or tried to make, we are not told. It was not likely to prevail, nor did it prevail, against the positive deposition of a witness so powerfully seconded. The people, persuaded of their treason, were incensed against them, and trembled at the thought of being left, by the resignation of Dionysius, to the protection of such treacherous guardians against the impending invasion. Now was the tune for his partisans to come forward with their main proposition : “Why not get rid of these traitors, and keep Dionysius alone? Leave them to be tried and punished at a more convenient season; but elect him at once general with full powers, to make head against the pressing emergency from without. Do not wait until the enemy is actually assaulting our walls. Dionysius is the man for our purpose, the only one with whom we have a chance of safety. Recollect that our glorious victory over the three hundred thousand Carthaginians at Himera was achieved by Gelon acting as general with full powers”.

DIONYSIUS DICTATOR.

Such rhetoric was irresistible in the present temper of the assembly, when the partisans of Dionysius were full of audacity and acclamation, when his opponents were discomfited, suspicious of each other, and without any positive scheme to propose, and when the storm, which had already overwhelmed Selinus, Himera, and Agrigentum, was about to burst on Gela and Syracuse. A vote of the assembly was passed, appointing Dionysius general of the city, alone, and with full powers; by what majority we do not know. The first use which the new general-plenipotentiary made of his dignity was to propose, in the same assembly, that the pay of the soldiers should be doubled. Such liberality (he said) would be the best means of stimulating their zeal; while in regard to expense, there need be no hesitation; the money might easily be provided. Thus was consummated the fourth, and most important, act of the despot's progress. A vote of the assembly had been obtained, passed in constitutional forms, vesting in Dionysius a single-handed power unknown to and above the laws, unlimited and unresponsible. But he was well aware that the majority of those who thus voted had no intention of permanently abnegating their freedom, that they meant only to create a temporary dictatorship, under the pressing danger of the moment, for the express purpose of preserving that freedom against a foreign enemy, and that even thus much had been obtained by impudent delusion and calumny, which subsequent reflection would speedily dissipate. No sooner had the vote passed, than symptoms of regret and alarm became manifest among the people. What one assembly had conferred, a second repentant assembly might revoke. It therefore now remained for Dionysius to ensure the perpetuity of his power by some organized means; so as to prevent the repentance, of which he already discerned the commencement, from realizing itself in any actual revocation. For this purpose he required a military force extra-popular and anti-popular; bound to himself and not to the city. He had indeed acquired popularity with the Syracusan as well as with the mercenary soldiers, by doubling and ensuring their pay. He had energetic adherents, prepared to go all lengths on his behalf, especially among the restored exiles. This was an important basis, but not sufficient for his objects without the presence of a special body of guards, constantly and immediately available, chosen as well as controlled by himself, yet acting in such vocation under the express mandate and sanction of the people. He required a farther vote of the people, legalizing for his use such a body of guards. But with all his powers of delusion, and all the zeal of his partisans, he despaired of getting any such vote from an assembly held at Syracuse. Accordingly, he resorted to a maneuver, proclaiming that he had resolved on a march to Leontini, and summoning the full military force of Syracuse (up to the age of forty) to march along with him, with orders for each man to bring with him thirty days’ provision. Leontini had been, a few years before, an independent city; but was now an outlying fortified post, belonging to the Syracusans; wherein various foreign settlers, and exiles from the captured Sicilian cities, had obtained permission to reside. Such men, thrown out of their position and expectations as citizens, were likely to lend either their votes or their swords willingly to the purposes of Dionysius. While he thus found many new adherents there, besides those whom he brought with him, he foresaw that the general body of the Syracusans, and especially those most disaffected to him, would not be disposed to obey his summons or accompany him. For nothing could be more preposterous, in a public point of view, than an outmarch of the whole Syracusan force for thirty days to Leontini, where there was neither danger to be averted nor profit to be reaped; at a moment too when the danger on the side of Gela was most serious, from the formidable Carthaginian host at Agrigentum.

Dionysius accordingly set out with a force which purported, ostensibly and according to summons, to be the full military manifestation of Syracuse; but which, in reality, comprised mainly his own adherents. On encamping for the night near to Leontini, he caused a factitious clamor and disturbance to be raised during the darkness, around his own tent, ordered fires to be kindled, summoned on a sudden his most intimate friends, and affected to retire under their escort to the citadel. On the morrow an assembly was convened, of the Syracusans and residents present, purporting to be a Syracusan assembly; Syracuse in military guise, or as it were in Comitia Centuriata, to employ an ancient phrase belonging to the Roman republic. Before this assembly Dionysius appeared, and threw himself upon their protection; affirming that his life had been assailed during the preceding night, calling upon them emphatically to stand by him against the incessant snares of his enemies, and demanding for that purpose a permanent body of guards. His appeal, plausibly and pathetically turned, and doubtless warmly seconded by zealous partisans, met with complete success. The assembly, Syracusan or quasi-Syracusan, though held at Leontini, passed a formal decree, granting to Dionysius a body-guard of six hundred men, selected by himself and responsible to him alone. One speaker indeed proposed to limit the guards to such a number as should be sufficient to protect him against any small number of personal enemies, but not to render him independent of, or formidable to, the many. But such precautionary refinement was not likely to be much considered, when the assembly was dishonest or misguided enough to pass the destructive vote here solicited; and even if embodied in the words of the resolution, there were no means of securing its observance in practice. The regiment of guards being once formally sanctioned, Dionysius heeded little the limit of number prescribed to him. He immediately enrolled more than one thousand men, selected as well for their bravery as from their poverty and desperate position. He provided them with the choicest arms, and promised to them the most munificent pay. To this basis of a certain, permanent, legalized, regiment of household troops, he added farther a sort of standing army, composed of mercenaries hardly less at his devotion than the guards properly so called. In addition to the mercenaries already around him, he invited others from till quarters, by tempting offers; choosing by preference outlaws and profligates, and liberating slaves for the purpose. Next, summoning from Gela Dexippus the Lacedaemonian, with the troops under his command, he sent this officer away to Peloponnesus, as a man not trustworthy for his purpose and likely to stand forward on behalf of the freedom of Syracuse. He then consolidated all the mercenaries under one organization, officering them anew with men devoted to himself. This fresh military levy and organization was chiefly accomplished during his stay at Leontini, without the opposition which would probably have arisen if it had been done at Syracuse; to which latter place Dionysius marched back, in an attitude far more imposing than when he left it. He now entered the gates at the head not only of his chosen body-guard, but also of a regular army of mercenaries, hired by and dependent upon himself. He marched them at once into the islet of Ortygia (the interior and strongest part of the city, commanding the harbor), established his camp in that acropolis of Syracuse, and stood forth as despot conspicuously in the eyes of all. Though the general sentiment among the people was one of strong repugnance, yet his powerful military force and strong position rendered all hope of open resistance desperate. And the popular assembly, convoked under the pressure of this force, and probably composed of none but his partisans, was found so subservient, as to condemn and execute, upon his requisition, Daphnaeus and Demarchus. These two men, both wealthy and powerful in Syracuse, had been his chief opponents, and were seemingly among the very generals whom he had incited the people to massacre on the spot without any form of trial, in one of the previous public assemblies.

One step alone remained to Decorate the ignoble origin of Dionysius, and to mark the triumph of the Hermokratean party by whom its elevation had been mainly brought about. He immediately married the daughter of Hermokrates; giving his own sister in marriage to Polyxenus, the brother of that deceased chief. Thus was consummated the fifth or closing act of the despot's progress, rendering Dionysius master of the lives and fortunes of his fellow-countrymen.

The successive stages of his rise I have detailed from Diodorus, who (excepting a hint or two from Aristotle) is our only informant. His authority is on this occasion better than usual, since he had before him not merely Ephorus and Timaeus, but also Philistus. He is, moreover, throughout this whole narrative at least clear and consistent with himself. We understand enough of the political strategy pursued by Dionysius, to pronounce that it was adapted to his end with a degree of skill that would have greatly struck a critical eye like Machiavelli; whose analytical appreciation of means, when he is canvassing men like Dionysius, has been often unfairly construed as if it implied sympathy with and approbation of their end. We see that Dionysius, in putting himself forward as the chief and representative of the Hermokratean party, acquired the means of employing a greater measure of fraud and delusion than an exile like Hermokrates, in prosecution of the same ambitious purposes. Favored by the dangers of the state and the agony of the public mind, he was enabled to simulate an ultra-democratical ardor both in defence of the people against the rich, and in denunciation of the unsuccessful or incompetent generals, as if they were corrupt traitors. Though it would seem that the government of Syracuse, in 406 BC, must have been strongly democratical, yet Dionysius in his ardor for popular rights, treats it as an anti-popular oligarchy; and tries to acquire the favor of the people by placing himself in the most open quarrel and antipathy to the rich. Nine years before, in the debate between Hermokrates and Athenagoras in the Syracusan assembly, the former stood forth, or at least was considered to stand forth, as champion of the rich; while the latter spoke as a conservative democrat, complaining of conspiracies on the part of the rich.

In 406 BC, the leader of the Hermokratean party has reversed this policy, assuming a pretended democratical fervor much more violent than that of Athenagoras. Dionysius, who took up the trade of what is called a demagogue on this one occasion, simply for the purpose of procuring one single vote in his own favor, and then shutting the door by force against all future voting and all correction, might resort to grosser falsehood than Athenagoras; who, as an habitual speaker, was always before the people, and even if successful by fraud at one meeting, was nevertheless open to exposure at a second. In order that the voting of any public assembly shall be really available as a protection to the people, its votes must not only be preceded by full and free discussion, but must also be open from time to time to re-discussion and correction. That error will from time to time be committed, as well by the collective people as by particular fractions of the people, is certain; opportunity for amendment is essential. A vote which is understood to be final, and never afterwards to be corrigible, is one which can hardly turn to the benefit of the people themselves, though it may often, as in the case of Dionysius, promote the sinister purposes of some designing protector.

CHAPTER LXXXII

SICILY DURING THE DESPOTISM OF THE ELDER DIONYSIUS AT SYRACUSE.