Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/424

 402 HISTORY OF GREECE. their present disadvantageous circumstances. But the Selinuntines, confident as well as angry, were now not satisfied with success in their original claim. They proceeded to strip the Egestseans of other lands indisputably belonging to them, and seriously menaced the integrity as well as the independence of the city. To no other quarter could the Egestaeans turn, with any chance of finding both will and power to protect them, except to Carthage. 1 The town of Egesta (non- Hellenic or at least only semi-Hellenic) was situated on or near the northern line of Sicilian coast, not far from the western cape of the island, and in the immediate neighbor- hood of the Carthaginian settlements, Motye, Panormus (now Palermo), and Soloeis or Soluntum. Selinus also was near the western cape, but on the southern coast of Sicily, with its territory conterminous to the southern portion of Egesta. When therefore the Egestaean envoys presented their urgent supplications at Car- thage for aid, proclaiming that unless assisted they must be subju- gated and become a dependency of Selinus, the Carthaginians would not unreasonably conceive, that their own Sicilian settle- ments would be endangered, if their closest Hellenic neighbor were allowed thus to aggrandize herself. Accordingly they agreed to grant the aid solicited ; yet not without much debate and hesitation. They were uneasy at the idea of resuming military operations in Sicily, which had been laid aside for seventy years, and had moreover left such disastrous recollections 2 at a moment when Syracusan courage stood in high renown, from the recent destruc- tion of the Athenian armament. But the recollections of the Gelonian victory at Hirnera, while they suggested apprehension, also kindled the appetite of revenge ; especially in the bosom of Hannibal, the grandson of that general Hamilkar who had there met his death. Hannibal was at this moment king, or rather first of the two suffetes, chief executive magistrates of Carthage, as his grandfather had been seventy years before. So violent had been the impression made upon the Carthaginians by the defeat of Himera, that they had banished Giskon, son of the slain general Hamil- kar and father of Hannibal, and had condemned him to pass hia whole life in exile. He had chosen the Greek city of Selinus ; where probably Hannibal also had spent his youth, though restored 1 Dio 1' ir. xiii, 43. * Dicdor. xiii, 43.