Page:History of Greece Vol VII.djvu/161

143 PILE AX IN SICILY. 143 especially with Lokri, which had hitherto stocd aloof from Athens ; and his first addresses in Sicily appeared to promise Euccess. His representations of danger from Syracusan ambi- tion were well received both at Kamarina and Agrigentum. For on the one hand, that universal terror of Athens, which had dic- tated the pacification of Gela, had now disappeared ; while on the other hand, the proceeding of Syracuse in regard to Leontini was well calculated to excite alarm. We see by that proceeding that sympathy between democracies in different towns was not universal : the Syracusan democracy had joined with the Leon- tine aristocracy to expel the Demos, just as the despot Gelon had combined with the aristocracy of Megara and Euboea, sixty years before, and had sold the Demos of those towns into slavery. The birthplace of the famous rhetor Gorgias was struck out of the list of inhabited cities ; its temples were deserted ; and its territory had become a part of Syracuse. All these were circumstances so powerfully affecting Grecian imagination, that the Kamari- nacans, neighbors of Syracuse on the other side, might weLVfear lest the like unjust conquest, expulsion, and absorption, should soon overtake them. Agrigentum, though without any similar fear, was disposed from policy, and jealousy of Syracuse, to second the views of Phseax. But when the latter proceeded to Gela, in order to procure the adhesion of that city in addition to the other two, he found himself met by so resolute an opposition that his whole scheme was frustrated, nor did he think it advisable even to open his case at Selinus or Himera. In returning, he crossed the interior of the island through the territory of the Sikels to Katana, passing in his way by Brikinnies, where the Leontine Demos were still maintaining a precarious existence. Having encouraged them to hold out by assurances of aid, he proceeded on his homeward voyage. In the strait of Messina, he struck upon some vessels conveying a body of expelled Lokrians from Messene to Lokri. The Lokrians had got possession of Alessene after the pacification of Gela, by means of an internal todition ; but after holding it some time, they were now driven VJt by a second revolution. Phaeax, being under agreement with T.okri, passed by these vessels without any act of hostility. 1 1 Thueyd v, 4. 5