Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/379

FOUNDATION OF SYRACUSE. 363 Grecian colonies ; for the Phenicians down to this time had not founded any territorial or permanent establishments, but had con- tented themselves with occupying in a temporary way various capes or circumjacent islets, for the purpose of trade with the in- terior. The arrival of formidable Greek settlers, maritime like themselves, induced them to abandon these outlying factories, and to concentrate, their strength in the three considerable towns above named, all near to that corner of the island which ap- proached most closely to Carthage. The east side of Sicily, and most part of the south, were left open to the Greeks, with no other opposition than that of the indigenous Sikels and Sikans, who ^ ere gradually expelled from all contact with the sea-shore, except on part of the north side of the island, and who were indeed, so unpractised at sea as well as destitute of shipping, that in the tale of their old migration out of Italy into Sicily, the Sikels were affirmed to have crossed the narrow strait upon rafts at a moment of favorable wind. 1 In the very next year 2 to the foundation of JSaxos, Corinth began her part in the colonization of the island. A body of set- tlers, under the cekist Archias, landed in the islet Ortygia, farther southward on the eastern coast, expelled the Sikel occupants, and laid the first stone of the mighty Syracuse. Ortygia, two Eng- lish miles in circumference, was separated from the main island only by a narrow channel, which was bridged over when the city was occupied and enlarged by Gelon in the 72d Olympiad, if not earlier. It formed only a small part, though the most secure and best-fortified part, of the vast space which the city afterwards occupied ; but it sufficed alone for the inhabitants during a considerable time, and the present city in its modern decline has again reverted to the same modest limits. Moreover, Ortygia offered another advantage of not less value ; it lay across the entrance of a spacious harbor, approached by a narrow mouth, and its fountain of Arethusa was memorable in antiquity both for the abundance and goodness of its water. We should have been glad to learn something respecting the numbers, char- 1 Thucyd. vi, 2. 2 Mr. Fyncs Clinton discusses tlic era of Syracuse, Fasti Hellenic!, su B. c. 734, ami the same work, vol. ii. Appendix xi, p. 2G4.