Page:History of Greece Vol XII.djvu/425

 SYRACUSE AN OLIGARCH f. 393 When such begging missions are the deeds, for which Athens both employed and recompensed her most eminent citizens, an liistorian accustomed to the Grecian world as described by Hero- dotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon, feels that the life has depart- ed from his subject, and with sadness and humihation brings his narrative to a close. CHAPTEK XCVII. SICILIAN AND ITALIAN GREEKS.— AG ATHOKLES. It has been convenient, throughout all this work, to keep the history of the Italian and Sicilian Greeks distinct from that of the Central and Asiatic. We parted last from the Sicilian Greeks,! at the death of their champion the Corinthian Timo- leon (337 b. c), by whose energetic exploits, and generous po- litical policy, they had been almost regenerated — rescued from foreign enemies, protected against intestine discord, and invigor- ated by a large reinforcement of new colonists. For the twenty years next succeeding the death of Timoleon, the history of Syr- acuse and Sicily is an absolute blank ; which is deeply to be re- gretted, since the position of these cities included so much novel- ty — so many subjects for debate, for peremptory settlement, or for amicable compromise — that the annals of their proceedings must have been peculiarly interesting. Twenty years after the death of Timoleon, we find the government of Syracuse described as an oligarchy ; implying that the constitution established by Timoleon must have been changed either by violence or by con- sent. The oligarchy is stated as consisting of 600 chief men. Compare Carl Miiller ad Democharis Fragm. apud Fragm. Hist. Graec. roL ii. p. 446, ed. Didot. ' See my last preceding Vol. XI. Ch. Ixxxv. p. 196