Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 22.djvu/30

 16 SICILY [HISTORY. 7th cent.- 454 B.C. Prosper- ous Greek period. Growth of tyran- nies. Gelon. the other hand, seem more distinct and more steadily hostile. The Phoenicians, now shut up in one corner of the island, with Selinous on one side and Himera on the other founded right in their teeth, are bitter enemies ; but the time of their renewed greatness under the headship of Carthage has not yet come. The 7th century B.C. and the early part of the 6th were a time in which the Greek cities of Sicily had their full share in the general prosperity of the Greek colonies everywhere. For a while they out- stripped the cities of old Greece. Their political constitu- tions were aristocratic ; that is, the franchise was confined to the descendants of the original settlers, round whom an excluded body (5?}//,os or plebs) was often growing up. The ancient kingship was perhaps kept on or renewed in some of the Sikeliot and Italiot towns ; but it is more certain that civil dissensions led very early to the rise of tyrants. The first and most famous is Phalaris of Akragas, whose exact date is uncertain, whose letters are now cast aside, and whose brazen bull has been called in question, but who clearly rose to power very soon after the foundation of Akragas. Under his rule the city at once sprang to the first place in Sicily, and he was the first Sikeliot ruler who held dominion over two Greek cities, Akragas and Himera. This time of prosperity was also a time of intel- lectual progress. To say nothing of lawgivers like Char- ondas, the line of Sikeliot poets began early, and the cir- cumstances of the island, the adoption of many of its local traditions and beliefs perhaps a certain intermingling of native blood gave the intellectual life of Sicily a char- acter in some things distinct from that of old Hellas. Stesichoros of Himera (c. 632-556 B.C.) holds a great place among the lyric poets of Greece, and some place in the political history of Sicily as the opponent of Phalaris. The architecture and sculpture of this age have also left some of their most remarkable monuments among the Greek cities of Sicily (see SYRACUSE). The remains of the old temples of Selinous, attributed to the 7th century B.C., show us the Doric style in its earlier state, and the sculp- tures of their metopes (preserved at Palermo) are as dis- tinctly grotesque as any Romanesque sculpture of the llth or 12th century. In both ages the art of the builder was far in advance of that of the ornamental carver. This first period of Sicilian history lasts as long as Sicily remains untouched from any non-Hellenic quarter outside, and as long as the Greek cities in Sicily remain as a rule independent of one another. A change begins in the 6th century and is accomplished early in the 5th. The Phoeni- cian settlements in Sicily become dependent on Carthage, whose growing power begins to be dangerous to the Greeks of Sicily. Meanwhile the growth of tyrannies in the Greek cities was beginning to group several towns together under a single master, and thus to increase the greatness of particular cities at the expense of their freedom. Thus Theron of Akragas (488-472), who bears a good character there, acquired also, like Phalaris, the rule of Himera. One such power held dominion both in Italy and Sicily. Anaxilaos of Rhegion, by a long and strange tale of treachery, occupied Zankle and changed its name to Mes- sana. But the greatest of the Sikeliot powers began at Gela in 505, and was in 485 translated by Gelon to Syra- cuse. That city now became the centre of a greater dominion over both Greeks and Sikels than the island had ever before seen. But Gelon, like several later tyrants of Syracuse, takes his place and it is the redeeming point in the position of all of them as the champion of Hellas against the barbarian. The great double invasion of 480 B.C. was planned in concert by the barbarians of the East and the West (Diod., xi. 20 ; schol. on Pind., Pyth., i. 1 46 ; Grote, v. 294). While the Persians threatened old Greece, Carth- age threatened the Greeks of Sicily. There were Sikeliots who played the part of the Medizers in Greece : Selinous was on the side of Carthage, and the coming of Hamilkar was immediately brought about by a tyrant of Himera driven out by Theron. But the united power of Gelon and Theron crushed the invaders in the great battle of Himera, won, men said, on the same day as Salamis, and the victors of both were coupled as the joint deliverers of Hellas (Herod., vii. 165-167; Diod., xx. 20-25; Pind., Pyth., i. 147-156; Simonides, fr. 42; Polyainos, i. 27). But, while the victory of Salamis was followed by a long war with Persia, the peace which was now granted to Carthage stayed in force for seventy years. Gelon was followed by his brother Hieron (478-467), the special Hierou subject of the songs of Pindar. Akragas meanwhile 1 - flourished under Theron ; but a war between him and Hieron led to slaughter and new settlement at Himera. These transplantings from city to city began under Gelon and went on under Hieron. They made speakers in old Greece (Thuc., vi. 17) contrast the permanence of habi- tation there with the constant changes in Sicily. Hieron won the fame of a founder by peopling Katana with new citizens, and changing its name to Aitna. None of these tyrannies were long-lived. The power of Theron fell to pieces under his son Thrasydaios. When the power of Hieron passed in 467 B.C. to his brother Thrasyboulos the freedom of Syracuse was won by a combined movement of Greeks and Sikels, and the Greek cities gradually settled down as they had been before the tyrannies, only with a change to democracy in their con- stitutions. The mercenaries who had received citizenship from the tyrants were settled at Messana. About fifty years of general prosperity followed. We have special pictures of almost incredible Avealth and luxury at Akra- gas, chiefly founded on an African trade. Moreover art, science, poetry, had all been encouraged by the tyrants, and they went on flourishing in the free states. To these was now added the special growth of freedom, the art of public speaking. Epicharmos (540-450), carried as a babe to Sicily, is a link between native Sikeliots and the strangers invited by Hieron; as the founder of the local Sicilian comedy, he ranks among Sikeliots. After him Sophron of Syracuse gave the Sicilian mimes a place among the forms of Greek poetry. But the intellect of free Sicily struck out higher paths. Empedokles of Akragas is best known from the legends of his miracles and of his death in the fires of ^Etna ; but he was not the less philosopher, poet, and physician, besides his political career. It is vaguely implied (Diog. Laert., viii. 2, 9) that he refused an offer of the tyranny or of authority in some shape. Gorgias of Leontinoi (c. 480-375) had a still more direct influence on Greek culture, as father of the technical schools of rhetoric throughout Greece. Architecture too advanced, and the Doric style gradually lost somewhat of its ancient massiveness. The temple at Syracuse which is now the metropolitan church belongs to the earlier days of this time. It is followed by the later temples at Selinous, among them the temple of Zeus, which is said to have been the greatest in Sicily, and by the wonderful series at Akragas, crowned by the Olympian temple, with its many architectural singularities. This, like its fellow at Selinous, was not fully finished at the time of the Carthaginian inroad at the end of the century. During this time of prosperity there was no dread of Condi- Carthaginian inroads. But in 454 B.C. we read of a Avar tion of between Segesta and Lilybaion (Lilybseum). There was as j^ d e s yet no town of Lilybaion ; but, if the war was waged gikans. against any Phoenician settlement, the fact is to be noticed, as hitherto Segesta has been allied with the Phoenicians against the Greeks. Far more important are our notices of the earlier inhabitants. For now comes the great Sikel