Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/504

 482 HISTORY OF GRHKCP. this ought to be au imperative stimulus for attacking her. at once, and rescuing their Hellenic brethren, before she had time to recover. 1 These motives were really popular and impressive. There was besides another inducement, which weighed with Dionysius to hasten the war, though he probably did not dwell upon it in his public address to the Syracusans. He perceived that various Sicil- ian Greeks were migrating voluntarily with their properties into the territory of Carthage ; whose dominion, though hateful and oppressive, was, at least while untried, regarded by many with less terror than his dominion when actually suffered. By commencing hostilities at once, he expected not only to arrest such emigration, but to induce such Greeks as were actually subjects of Carthage to throw off her yoke and join him. 2 Loud acclamations from the Syracusan assembly hailed the proposition for war with Carthage ; a proposition, which only con- verted into reality what had been long the familiar expectation of every man. And the war was rendered still more popular by the permission, which Dionysius granted forthwith, to plunder all the Carthaginian residents and mercantile property either in Syra- cuse or in any of his dependent cities. We are told that there were not only several domiciliated Carthaginians at Syracuse, but also many loaded vessels belonging to Carthage in the harbor, so that the plunder was lucrative. 3 But though such may have been the case in ordinary times, it seems hardly credible, that under the actual circumstances, any Carthaginian (person or property) can have been at Syracuse except by accident ; for war with Carthago 1 Diodor. xiv, 45. * Diodor. xiv, 41. 8 Diodor. xiv, 46. There were also Greeks, and seemingly Greeks of some consideration, who resided at Carthage, and seemed to have continued resident there throughout the war between the Carthaginians and Dionysius (Diodor. xiv, 77). We should infer, from their continuing to reside there, that the Car- thaginians did not retaliate upon them the plunder now authorized by Dio- nysius against their countrymen resident at Syracuse ; and farther, it affords additional probability that the number of Carthaginians actually plundered at Syracuse was not considerable. For instances of intermarriage, and inter-residence, between Carthage and Syracuse, see Herodot. vii, 166 ; Livy, xxiv, 6. Phoenician coins have been found in Ortygia, bearing a Phoenician in- scription signifying The Island, which was the usual denomination of Or- tygia (Movers, Die Phonizier, ii, 2, p 327).