Page:History of Greece Vol V.djvu/231

 SICILIAN AFFAIRS. -GELO AND HIS DYNASTY. 207 the Spartan prince Dorieus conducted a body of emigrants to the territories of Eryx and Egesta, near the northwestern corner of ihe island, in hopes of expelHng the non-Hellenic inhabitants and founding a new Grecian colony. But the Carthaginians, whose Sicilian possessions were close adjoining, and who had already aided in driving Dorieus from a previous establishment at Kinyps in Libya, — now lent such vigorous assistance to the Egestsean inhabitants, that the Spartan prince, after a short period of prosperity, was defeated and slain with most of his companions : such of them as escaped, under the orders of Eury- leon, took possession of Minoa, which bore from henceforward the name of Herakleia,i — a colony and dependency of the neighboring town of Selinus, of which Peithagoras was then despot. Euryleon joined the malcontents at Selinus, overthrew Peithagoras, and established himself as despot, until, after a short possession of power, he was slain in a popular mutiny .2 We are here introduced to the first known instance of that series of contests between the Phenicians and Greeks in Sicily, which, like the struggles between the Saracens and the Nor- mans in the eleventh and twelfth centuries after the Christian era, were destined to determine whether the island should be a part of Africa or a part of Europe, — and which were only ter- minated, after the lapse of three centuries, by the absorption of both into the vast bosom of Rome. It seems that the Cartha- ginians and Egest£eans not only overwhelmed Dorieus, but also made some conquests of the neighboring Grecian possessions, which were subsequently recovered by Gelo of Syracuse.^ Not long after the death of Dorieus, Kleander, despot of Gela, began to raise his city to ascendency over the other Sicilian Greeks, ' Diodorus ascribes the foundation of Ileraklcia to Dovieus ; this seems not consistent with the account of Herodotus, unless we are to assume that the town of Herakleia which Dorieus founded was destroyed by the Cartha- ginians, and that the name Herakleia was afterwards given by Euryleon or his successors to that which had before been called Minoa (Diodor. iv, 23). A funereal monument in honor of Athenteus, one of the settlers who per- ished with Dorieus, was' seen by Pausanias at Sparta (Pausanias, iii, 16, 4). ^ Herodot. vii, 158. The extreme brevity of his allusion is perplexing, M we have no collateral knowledge to illustrate it.
 * Herodot. v, 43, 46.