Page:History of Greece Vol XII.djvu/426

 •394 HISTORY OF GREECE. imono' whom Sosistratus and Herakleides appear as leaders.' We hear generally that the Syracusans had been engaged in wars, and that Sosistratus either first originated, or first firmly established, his oligarchy, after an expedition undertaken to the coast of Italy, to assist the citizens of Kroton against their inte- rior neighbors and assailants the Bruttians. Not merely Kroton, but other Grecian cities also on the coast of Italy, appear to have been exposed to causes of danger and decline, similar to those which were operating upon so many other portions of the Hellenic world. Their non-Hellenic neigh- bors in the interior were growing too powerful and too aggres- sive to leave them in peace or security. The Messapians, the Lucanians, the Bruttians, and other native Italian tribes, were acquiring that increased strength which became ultimately all concentrated under the mighty republic of Rome. I have in my preceding volume recounted the acts of the two Syracusan des- pots, the elder and younger Dionysius, on this Italian coast.' Though the elder gained some advantage over the Lucanians, yet the interference of both contributed only to enfeeble and hu- miliate the Ilaliot Greeks. Not long before the battle of Chaj- roneia (340-338 B. c), the Tarentines found themselves so hard pressed by the Messapians, that they sent to Sparta, their mother- city, to entreat assistance. The Spartan king Archidamus son of Agesilaus, perhaps ashamed of the nuUity of liis country since the close of the Sacred "War, complied with their prayer, and sailed at the head of a mercenary force to Italy. Plow long his operations there lasted, we do not know; but they ended by his being defeated and killed, near the time of the battle of Chae- roneia* (338 B. c). About six years after this event, the Tarentines, being still pressed by the same formidable neighbors, invoked the aid of the Epirotic Alexander, king of the Molossians, and brother of ' Diodor. xix. 3. It appears that Diodorus had recounted in liis eigh- teenth Book the previous circumstances of these two leaders : but this part of his narrative is lost: see Wesseling's note. ^ See Vol. XI. Ch. Ixx.xiii. p. 22 ; Ch. Ixxxv. p. 133. ^Diodor. xvi. 88; Plutarch, Camill. 19; Pausan. iii. 10, 5. Plutarch even says that the two battles occurred on the same day.