Page:History of Greece Vol VII.djvu/144

126 I2(J HISTORY OF GREECE. By this large accession both of subjects and of tiibute, oonv bined with her recent victory over Agrigentum, Syracuse was elevated to the height of power, and began to indulge schemen for extending her ascendency throughout the island : with which view her horsemen were doubled in number, and one hundred new triremes were constructed. 1 Whether any, or what, steps were taken to realize her designs our historian does not tell us. But the position of Sicily remains the same at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war: Syracuse, the first city as to power, indulging in ambitious dreams, if not in ambitious aggressions ; Agrigentum, a jealous second, and almost a rival ; the remaining Grecian states maintaining their independence, yet not without mistrust and apprehension. Though the particular phenomena of this period, however, have not come to our knowledge, we see enough to prove that it was one of great prosperity for Sicily. The wealth, commerce, and public monuments of Agrigentura, especially appear to have even surpassed those of the Syracusans. Her trade Avith Car- thage and the African coast was both extensive and profitable ; for at this time neither the vine nor the olive were much culti- vated in Libya, and the Carthaginians derived their wine and oil from the southern territory of Sicily, 2 particularly that of Agri- gentum. The temples of the city, among which that of Olympic Zeus stood foremost, were on the grandest scale of magnificence, eurpassing everything of the kind in Sicily. The population of the city, free as well as slave, was very great : the number of rich men keeping chariots and competing for the prize at the Olympic games was renowned, not less than the accumulation of Respecting this town of Trinakia, known only from the passage of Di- odorus here, Paulmier (as cited in Wesseling's note), as well as Mannert (Geographic der Griechen und Riiiner, b. x, ch. xv, p. 446), intimate some skepticism ; which I share so far as to believe that Diodorus has greatly overrated its magnitude and importance. Nor can it be true, as Diodorus affirms, that Trinakia was the only Sikel to^-nship remaining unsubdued by the Syracusans, and that, after conquer- ing that place, they had subdued them all. We know that there were IMJ inconsiderable number of independent Sikels, at the time of the Athenias invasion of Sicily (Thutyd. vi, 88 ; vii, 2). ' Diodor. xii, 30.
 * Diodor. xii ;, 81.