Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/397

ZALEUKUS THE LOKEIAN. 381 In describing the Grecian settlers in Sicily, I have already stated that they are to be considered as Greeks with a consider- able infusion of blood, of habits, and of manners, from the native Sikels : the case is the same with the Italiots, or Italian Greeks, and in respect to these Epizephyrian Lokrians, especially, we find it expressly noticed by Polybius. Composed as their band was of ignoble and worthless men, not bound together by strong tribe- feelings or traditional customs, they were the more ready to adopt new practices, as well religious as civil, 1 from the Sikels. One in particular is noticed by the historian, the religious dig- nity called the PhialGphorus, or censer-bearer, enjoyed among the native Sikels by a youth of noble birth, who performed the duties belonging to it in their sacrifices ; but the Lokrians, while they identified themselves with the religious ceremony, and adopted both the name and the dignity, altered the sex, and conferred it upon one of those women of noble blood who constituted the or- nament of their settlement. Even down to the days of Poly- bius, some maiden descended from one of these select Hundred Houses, still continued to bear the title and to perform the cere- monial duties of Phialephorus. We learn from these statements how large a portion of Sikels must have become incorporated as dependents in the colony of the Epizephyrian Lokri, and how strongly marked was the intermixture of their habits with those of the Greek settlers ; while the tracing back among them of all eminence of descent to a few emigrant women of noble birth, is a peculiarity belonging exclusively to their city. That a body of colonists, formed of such unpromising materials, should have fallen into much lawlessness and disorder, is noway surprising ; but these mischiefs appear to have become so utterly intolerable in the early years of the colony, as to force upon every one the necessity of some remedy. Hence arose a phe- nomenon new in the march of Grecian society, the first pro- pcrhaps the accounts all come from the Syracusan historian Antiochus, who exaggerated the intervention of his own ancestors. 1 "Nil patrium, nisi nomcn. habct Romnnus alumnus," observes Properties (iv, 37) respecting the Homans : repeated with still greater bitterness in the epistle in Sallust from Mithridatos to Arsac-Cs, (p. 191, Delph. ed.) Th remark is well-applicable to Lokri.