Page:History of Greece Vol V.djvu/237

SICILIAN AFPAHtS.-GELO AND HIS DYNASTY. 213 feon who had instigated them to seize it, — Anaxilaus, of Rhegium. He planted in it new inhabitants, of Dorian and Messenian l-ace, recoloni^ing it under the name of Messene, -^a name which it ever afterwards bore ;' aad it appears to have been governed either by himself or bj his son Kleophron, until his death about B.C. 476. Besides the conquests above mentioned, Hippokrates of Gela was on the point of making the still more important acquisition of Syracuse, and was only prevented from doing so, after defeat- ing the Syracusans at the river Helorus, and capturing many prisoners, by the mediation of the Corinthians and Korkyr^eans, who prevailed on him to be satisfied with the cession of Kama- rina and its territory as a ransom. Having repeopled this terri- tory, which became thus annexed to Gela, he was pr&secuting his conquests farther among the Sikels, when he died or was killed at Hybla. His death caused a mutiny among the Geloans, who refused to acknowledge his sons, and strove to regain their freedom ; but Gelo, the general of horse in the army, espousing the cause of the sons with energy, put down by force the resist- ance of the people. As soon as this was done, he threw off the mask, deposed the sons of Hippokrates, and seized the sceptre himself.2 Thus master of Gela, and succeeding probably to the ascend- ency enjoyed by his predecessor over the Ionic cities, Gelo be- came the most powerful man in the island ; but an incident which occurred a few years afterwards (b.c. 485), while it aggrandized him still farther, transferred the seat of his power from Gela to Syracuse. The Syracusan Gamori, or oligarchical order of proprietary families, probably humbled by their ruinous defeat at the Helorus, were dispossessed of the government by a com- bination between their serf-cultivators, called the Kyllyrii, and the smaller freemen, called the Demos ; they Avere forced to retire to Kasmente, where they invoked the aid of Gelo to restore them. That ambitious prince undertook the task, and accomplished it with facility ; for the Syracusan people, ' Thucyd. vi, 4 ; Schol. ad Pindar. Pyth. ii, 84 ; Diodor. xi, 48. ^ Herodot. vii. 155 ; Thucyd. vi, 5. The ninth Nemean Ode of Pindar (v, 40), addressed to Chromius the friend of Hiero of Syracuse, commem- orates, among other exploits, his conduct at the battle of the Helorus.