Page:History of Greece Vol V.djvu/259

SICILIAN AFFAIRS. -GELO AND HIS DYNASTY. 235 ated under Gelo and Hiero, were declared ineligible to magis- tracy or honor. This harsh and sweeping disqualification, falling at once upon a numerous minority, naturally provoked renewed irritation and civil war. The Gelonian citizens, the most war- like individuals in the state, and occupying, as favored partisans of the previous dynasty, the inner and separately fortified sec- tions of Syracuse,! — Achradina and Ortygia, — placed them- selves in open revolt ; while the general mass of citizer.s, masters of all the outer sections of the city, were not strong enough to assail with success this defensible position. They could only block it up, and intercept its supplies, which the garrison within were forced to come out and fight for. This disastrous internal war continued for some months, with many partial conflicts both by land and sea : the general body of citizens became accus- tomed to arms, while a chosen regiment of six hundi'ed trained volunteers "Acquired especial efiiciency. Unable to maintain themselves longer, the Gelonians were forced to hazard a gen- eral battle, which, after an obstinate struggle, terminated in their complete defeat. The chosen band of six hundred, who had ' Diodor. xi, 73. rijv -e 'AxpaSiv^v Kal rtjv Nyaov u/xdoTepuv ruv tottuv TovTuv kxovTuv Idiov Telxoc, Kokijg KareffKEvafffiEvov. Diodoras goes on to say that the general mass of citizens rd Trpbg rac 'ETTiTTOAaf TETpaji^Evov avTijg ET:e~Eixi-<y 0.V 1 — if we could ventare to construe this last word rigidly, we might suppose that the parts of the city, exterior to Achradina and the island, had before been unfortified. Aristotle (Politic, v, 2, 11) mentions, as one of liis illustrations of the mischief of receiving new citizens, that the Syracusans, after the Gelonian dynasty, admitted the foreign mercenaries to citizenship, and from hence came to sedition and armed conflicts But the incident cannot fairly be quoted in illustration of that principle which he brings it to support. The mercenaries, so long as the dynasty lasted, had been the first citizens in the community : after its overthrow, they became the inferior, and wese ren- dered inadmissible to honors. It is hardly matter of curprise that so great a change of position excited them to rebel ; but this is not a case properly adducible to prove the difiiculty of adjusting matters with new-coming citizens. After the expulsion of Agathokles from Syracuse, nearly two centuries after these events, the same quarrel and sedition was renewed, by the exclu- sion of his merc<?Tiaries from magistracy and posts of honor (Diodor xxi, Fragm. p. 282).