Page:History of Greece Vol V.djvu/241

SICILIAN AFFAIBS.-GELO AXD HIS DYNASTY. 217 emigrantv^ joining him from Arcadia ; for the Arcadian popula- tion were poor, bnive, and ready for mercenary soldiersliip ; nor can we doubt that the service of a Greek despot in Sicily must have been more attractive to them than that of Xerxes. i More- over, during the ten years between the battles of Marathon and Salamis, when not only so large a portion of the Greek cities had become subject to Persia, but the prospect of Persian inva- sion hung like a cloud over Greece Proper, the increased feeling of insecurity throughout the latter probably rendered emigration to Sicily unusually inviting. These circumstances in part explain the immense power and position which Herodotus represents Gelo to have enjoyed, towards the autumn of 481 B.C., when the Greeks from the isth- mus of Corinth, confederated to resist Xerxes, sent to solicit his aid. He was then imperial leader of Sicily : he could offer to the Greek — so the historian tells us — twenty thousand hoplites, two hundred triremes, two thousand cavalry, two thousand arch- ers, two thousand slingers, two thonsand light-armed horse, besides furnishing provisions for the entire Grecian force as long as the war might last.^ If this numerical statement could be at all trusted, which I do not believe, Herodotus would be much within the truth in saying, that there was no other Hellenic power which would bear the least comparison with that of Gelo : 3 cuse, — is contradicted not only by the Scholiast on v. 167, where Agesias is rightly termed both 'Ap/caf and 'LvpaKOGio^ ; but also by the better evi- dence of Pindars own expressions. — GvvoLKLarjjp te tuv kascvuv J-vpanoG- aav. — o'lKo^ev olnade, with reference to Stymphalus and Syracuse, — cJy' uyKvpai (v, 6, 99, 101 = 166-174). Ergoteles, an exile from Knossus in Krcte, must have migrated some- where about this time to Himera in Sicily. See the twelfth OljTnpic Ode of Pindar. ' Herodot. viii, 26. ' Herodot. vii, 157. ai) 6e SvvafiLor te f/Ketg fiEyuATiQ, Koi /locpu roc rij^ 'E/J.uSoc ovK E?.axlarri fiera, upxovri ye 'Z,iKe/ui]c ■ and even still stronger, c. 163. etjv ^iKE/.'iTic Tvpavvo^. The word apx<^v corresponds vnth. apx^i, such as that of the Athenians, and is less strong than rvpawor. The numerical statement is contained in the speech composed by Herod- otas for Gelo (vii, 158). ^ Herodot. vii, 145. to, 6e Ve'Auvo^ npffyfiara UEyu?M, iXiycTO Eivai ■ ov6ar uHv 'EP.A^jvi.'civ TUV ai iroXXbv fiiQu. VOL. V. 10