Page:History of Greece Vol XII.djvu/477

 AGATHOKLES IN SICILY. 445 the complete ojnquest of Cartilage was beyoud his strength — and though it was still more beyond his strength to prosecute effective war, simultaneously and for a long time, in Sicily and in Africa. The African subjects of Carthage were not attached to her ; but neither wei-e they attached to him ; — nor, on the long run, did they do him any serious good. Agathokles is a man of force and fraud — consummate in the use of both. His whole life is a series of successful adventures, and strokes of bold ingenuity to extricate himself from difficulties ; but there is wanting in him all predetermined general plan, or measured range of ambition, to which these single exploits might be made subservient. After his passage from Africa, Agathokles landed on the west- ern corner of Sicily near the town of Egesta, which was then in alliance with him. He sent to Syracuse for a reinforcement. But he was hard pressed for money ; he suspected, or pretended to suspect, the Egestaeans of disaffection ; accordingly, on receiv- ing his new force, he employed it to commit revolting massacre and plunder in Egesta. The town is reported to have contained 10,000 citizens. Of these Agathokles caused the poorer men to be for the most part murdered ; the richer were cruelly tortured, and even their wives tortured and mutilated, to compel revela- tions of concealed wealth ; the children of both sexes were trans- ported to Italy, and there sold as slaves to the Bruttians. The original population being thus nearly extirpated, Agathokles changed the name of the town to Dikaeopolis, assigning it as a residence to such deserters as might join him.^ This atrocity, more suitable to Africa^ than Greece (where the mutilation of women is almost unheard of,) was probably the way in which his savage pride obtained some kind of retaliatory satisfaction for the recent calamity and humiliation in Africa. Under the like less, Valerius Maximus (vii. 4, 1 ) represents liim as having actually done it, and praises his sagacity on that ground. Here is an example how little careful these collectors of anecdotes sometimes are about their facts. 1 Diodor. xx. 71. We do not know what happened afterwards with this town under its new population. But the old name Egesta was afterwards lesnmcd. 2 Compare the proceedings of the Greco-Lihyan princess PheretlmS (of the Battiad family) at Barka (Herodot. iv. 202). VOT. XTT. 38