Diodorus Siculus, Library 8-40

§ 13.67.7 The Athenians returned the city to the Byzantines, having first made them allies, and then came to terms with the suppliants at the altars: the Athenians would take away their arms and carry their persons to Athens turn them over to the decision of the Athenian people.

§ 13.68.1 At the end of the year the Athenians bestowed the office of archon upon Euctemon and the Romans elected as consuls Marcus Papirius and Spurius Nautius [410 BCE], and the Ninety-third Olympiad was celebrated, that in which Eubatus of Cyrene won the “stadion.” About this time the Athenian generals, now that they had taken possession of Byzantium, proceeded against the Hellespont and took every one of the cities of that region with the exception of Abydus.

§ 13.68.2 Then they left Diodorus and Mantitheus in charge with an adequate force and themselves sailed to Athens with the ships and the spoils, having performed many great deeds for the fatherland. When they drew near the city, the populace in a body, overjoyed at their successes, came out to meet them, and great numbers of the aliens, as well as children and women, flocked to the Peiraeus.

§ 13.68.3 For the return of the generals gave great cause for amazement, in that they brought no less than two hundred captured vessels, a multitude of captive soldiers, and a great store of spoils; and their own triremes they had gone to great care to embellish with gilded arms and garlands and, besides, with spoils and all such decorations. But most men thronged to the harbours to catch sight of Alcibiades, so that the city was entirely deserted, the slaves vying with the free.

§ 13.68.4 For at that time it had come to pass that this man was such an object of admiration that the leading Athenians thought that they had at long last found a strong man capable of opposing the people openly and boldly, while the poor had assumed that they would have in him an excellent supporter who would recklessly throw the city into confusion and relieve their destitute condition.

§ 13.68.5 For in boldness he far excelled all other men, he was a most eloquent speaker, in generalship he was unsurpassed, and in daring he was most successful; furthermore, in appearance he was exceedingly handsome and in spirit brilliant and intent upon great enterprises.

§ 13.68.6 In a word, practically all men had conceived such assumptions regarding him that they believed that along with his return from exile good fortune in their undertakings had also come again to the city. Furthermore, just as the Lacedemonians enjoyed success while he was fighting on their side, so they expected that they in turn would again prosper when they had this man as an ally.

§ 13.69.1 So when the fleet came to land the multitude turned to the ship of Alcibiades, and as he stepped from it all gave their welcome to the man, congratulating him on both his successes and his return from exile. He in turn, after greeting the crowds kindly, called a meeting of the Assembly, and offering a long defence of his conduct he brought the masses into such a state of goodwill that all agreed that the city had been to blame for the decrees issued against him.

§ 13.69.2 Consequently they not only returned to him his property, which they had confiscated, but went further and cast into the sea the stelae on which were written his sentence and all the other acts passed against him; and they also voted that the Eumolpidae should revoke the curse they had pronounced against him at the time when men believed he had profaned the Mysteries.

§ 13.69.3 And to cap all they appointed him general with supreme power both on land and on sea and put in his hands all their armaments. They also chose as generals others whom he wished, namely, Adeimantus and Thrasybulus.

§ 13.69.4 Alcibiades manned one hundred ships and sailed to Andros, and seizing Gaurium, a stronghold, strengthened it with a wall. And when the Andrians, together with the Peloponnesians who were guarding the city, came out against him en masse, a battle ensued in which the Athenians were the victors; and of the inhabitants of the city many were slain, and of those who escaped some were scattered throughout the countryside and the rest found safety within the walls.

§ 13.69.5 As for Alcibiades, after having launched assaults upon the city he left an adequate garrison in the fort he had occupied, appointing Thrasybulus commander, and himself sailed away with his force and ravaged both Cos and Rhodes, collecting abundant booty to support his soldiers.

§ 13.70.1 Although the Lacedemonians had entirely lost not only their sea force but Mindarus, the commander, together with it, nevertheless they did not let their spirits sink, but they chose as admiral Lysander, a man who was believed to excel all others in skill as a general and who possessed a daring that was ready to meet every situation. As soon as Lysander assumed the command he enrolled an adequate number of soldiers from the Peloponnesus and also manned as many ships as he was able.

§ 13.70.2 Sailing to Rhodes he added to his force the ships which the cities of Rhodes possessed, and then sailed to Ephesus and Miletus. After equipping the triremes in these cities he summoned those which were supplied by Chios and thus fitted out at Ephesus a fleet of approximately seventy ships.

§ 13.70.3 And hearing that Cyrus, the son of King Darius, had been dispatched by his father to aid the Lacedemonians in the war, he went to him at Sardis, and stirring up the youth's enthusiasm for the war against the Athenians he received on the spot ten thousand darics for the pay of his soldiers; and for the future Cyrus told him to make requests without reserve, since, as he stated, he carried orders from his father to supply the Lacedemonians with whatever they should want.

§ 13.70.4 Then Lysander, returning to Ephesus, called to him the most influential men of the cities, and arranging with them to form cabals he promised that if his undertakings were successful he would put each group in control of its city. And it came to pass for this reason that these men, vying with one another, gave greater aid than was required of them and that Lysander was quickly supplied in startling fashion with all the equipment that is useful in war.

§ 13.71.1 When Alcibiades learned that Lysander was fitting out his fleet in Ephesus, he set sail for there with all his ships. He sailed up to the harbours, but when no one came out against him, he had most of his ships cast anchor at Notium, entrusting the command of them to Antiochus, his personal pilot, with orders not to accept battle until he should be present, while he took the troop-ships and sailed in haste to Clazomenae; for this city, which was an ally of the Athenians, was suffering from forays by some of its exiles.

§ 13.71.2 But Antiochus, who was by nature an impetuous man and was eager to accomplish some brilliant deed on his own account, paid no attention to the orders of Alcibiades, but manning ten of the best ships and ordering the captains to keep the others ready in case they should need to accept battle, he sailed up to the enemy in order to challenge them to battle.

§ 13.71.3 But Lysander, who had learned from certain deserters of the departure of Alcibiades and his best soldiers, decided that the favourable time had come for him to strike a blow worthy of Sparta. Accordingly, putting out to sea for the attack with all his ships, he encountered the leading one of the ten ships, the one on which Antiochus had taken his place for the attack, and sank it, and then, putting the rest to flight, he chased them until the Athenian captains manned the rest of their vessels and came to the rescue, but in no battle order at all.

§ 13.71.4 In the sea-battle which followed between the two entire fleets not far from the land the Athenians, because of their disorder, were defeated and lost twenty-two ships, but of their crews only a few were taken captive and the rest swam to safety ashore. When Alcibiades learned what had taken place, he returned in haste to Notium and manning all the triremes sailed to the harbours which were held by the enemy; but since Lysander would not venture to come out against him, he directed his course to Samos.

§ 13.72.1 While these events were taking place Thrasybulus, the Athenian general, sailing to Thasos with fifteen ships defeated in battle the troops who came out from the city and slew about two hundred of them; then, having bottled them up in a siege of the city, he forced them to receive back their exiles, that is the men who favoured the Athenians, to accept a garrison, and to be allies of the Athenians.

§ 13.72.2 After this, sailing to Abdera, he brought that city, which at that time was among the most powerful in Thrace, over to the side of the Athenians. Now the foregoing is what the Athenian generals had accomplished since they sailed from Athens.

§ 13.72.3 But Agis, the king of the Lacedemonians, as it happened, was at the time in Deceleia with his army, and when he learned that the best Athenian troops were engaged in an expedition with Alcibiades, he led his army on a moonless night to Athens.

§ 13.72.4 He had twenty-eight thousand infantry, one-half of whom were picked hoplites and the other half light-armed troops; there were also attached to his army some twelve hundred cavalry, of whom the Boeotians furnished nine hundred and the rest had been sent with him by Peloponnesians. As he drew near the city, he came upon the outposts before they were aware of him, and easily dispersing them because they were taken by surprise he slew a few and pursued the rest within the walls.

§ 13.72.5 When the Athenians learned what had happened, they issued orders for all the older men and the sturdiest of the youth to present themselves under arms. Since these promptly responded to the call, the circuit of the wall was manned with those who had rushed together to meet the common peril;

§ 13.72.6 and the Athenian generals, when in the morning they surveyed the army of the enemy extended in a line four men deep and eight stades in length, at the moment were at first dismayed, seeing as they did that approximately two-thirds of the wall was surrounded by the enemy.

§ 13.72.7 After this, however, they sent out their cavalry, who were about equal in number to the opposing cavalry, and when the two bodies met in a cavalry-battle before the city, sharp fighting ensued which lasted for some time. For the line of the infantry was some five stades from the wall, but the cavalry which had engaged each other were fighting at the very walls.

§ 13.72.8 Now the Boeotians, who by themselves alone had formerly defeated the Athenians at Delium, thought it would be a terrible thing if they should prove to be inferior to the men they had once conquered, while the Athenians, since they had as spectators of their valour the populace standing upon the walls and were known every one to them, were ready to endure everything for the sake of victory.

§ 13.72.9 Finally, overpowering their opponents they slew great numbers of them and pursued the remainder as far as the line of the infantry. After this when the infantry advanced against them, they withdrew within the city.

§ 13.73.1 Agis, deciding for the time not to lay siege to the city, pitched camp in the Academy, but on the next day, after the Athenians had set up a trophy, he drew up his army in battle order and challenged the troops in the city to fight it out for the possession of the trophy.

§ 13.73.2 The Athenians led forth their soldiers and drew them up along the wall, and at first the Lacedemonians advanced to offer battle, but since a great multitude of missiles was hurled at them from the walls, they led their army away from the city. After this they ravaged the rest of Attica and then departed to the Peloponnesus.

§ 13.73.3 Alcibiades, having sailed with all his ships from Samos to Cyme, hurled false charges against the Cymaeans, since he wished to have an excuse for plundering their territory. And at the outset he gained possession of many captives and was taking them to his ships;

§ 13.73.4 but when the men of the city came out en masse to the rescue and fell unexpectedly on Alcibiades' troops, for a time they stood off the attack, but as later many from the city and countryside reinforced the Cymaeans, they were forced to abandon their prisoners and flee for safety to their ships.

§ 13.73.5 Alcibiades, being greatly distressed by his reverses, summoned his hoplites from Mitylene, and drawing up his army before the city he challenged the Cymaeans to battle; but when no one came out of the city, he ravaged its territory and sailed off to Mitylene.

§ 13.73.6 The Cymaeans dispatched an embassy to Athens and denounced Alcibiades for having laid waste an allied city which had done no wrong; and there were also many other charges brought against him; for some of the soldiers at Samos, who were at odds with him, sailed to Athens and accused Alcibiades in the Assembly of favouring the Lacedemonian cause and of forming ties of friendship with Pharnabazus whereby he hoped that at the conclusion of the war he should lord it over his fellow citizens.

§ 13.74.1 Since the multitude soon began to believe these accusations, not only was the fame of Alcibiades damaged because of his defeat in the sea-battle and the wrongs he had committed against Cyme, but the Athenian people, viewing with suspicion the boldness of the man, chose as the ten generals Conon, Lysias, Diomedon, and Pericles, and in addition Erasinides, Aristocrates, Archestratus, Protomachus, Thrasybulus, and Aristogenes. Of these they gave first place to Conon and dispatched him at once to take over the fleet from Alcibiades.

§ 13.74.2 After Alcibiades had relinquished his command to Conon and handed over his armaments, he gave up any thought of returning to Athens, but with one trireme withdrew to Pactye in Thrace, since, apart from the anger of the multitude, he was afraid of the law-suits which had been brought against him.

§ 13.74.3 For there were many who, on seeing how he was hated, had filed numerous complaints against him, the most important of which was the one about the horses, involving the sum of eight talents. Diomedes, it appears, one of his friends, had sent in his care a four-horse team to Olympia; and Alcibiades, when entering it in the usual way, listed the horses as his own; and when he was the victor in the four-horse race, Alcibiades took for himself the glory of the victory and did not return the horses to the man who had entrusted them to his care.

§ 13.74.4 As he thought about all these things he was afraid lest the Athenians, seizing a suitable occasion, would inflict punishment upon him for all the wrongs he had committed against them. Consequently he himself condemned himself to exile.

§ 13.75.1 The two-horse chariot race was added in this same Olympic Festival; and, among the Lacedemonians Pleistonax, their king, died after a reign of fifty years, and Pausanias succeeded to the throne and reigned for fourteen years. Also the inhabitants of the island of Rhodes left the cities of Ielysus, Lindus and Cameirus and settled in one city, that which is now called Rhodes.

§ 13.75.2 Hermocrates, the Syracusan, taking his soldiers set out from Selinus, and on arriving at Himera he pitched camp in the suburbs of the city, which lay in ruins. And finding out the place where the Syracusans had made their stand, he collected the bones of the dead and putting them upon wagons which he had constructed and embellished at great cost he conveyed them to Syracuse.

§ 13.75.3 Now Hermocrates himself stopped at the border of Syracusan territory, since the exiles were forbidden by the laws from accompanying the bones farther, but he sent on some of his troops who brought the wagons to Syracuse.

§ 13.75.4 Hermocrates acted in this way in order that Diocles, who opposed his return and was generally believed to be responsible for lack of concern over the failure to bury the dead, should fall out with the masses, whereas he, by his humane consideration for the dead, would win the multitude back to the feeling of goodwill in which they had formerly held him.

§ 13.75.5 Now when the bones had been brought into the city, civil discord arose among the masses, Diocles objecting to their burial and the majority favouring it. Finally the Syracusans not only buried the remains of the dead but also by turning out en masse paid honour to the burial procession. Diocles was exiled; but even so they did not receive Hermocrates back, since they were wary of the daring of the man and feared lest, once he had gained a position of leadership, he should proclaim himself tyrant.

§ 13.75.6 Accordingly Hermocrates, seeing that the time was not opportune for resorting to force, withdrew again to Selinus. But some time later, when his friends sent for him, he set out with three thousand soldiers, and making his way through the territory of Gela he arrived at night at the place agreed upon.

§ 13.75.7 Although not all his soldiers had been able to accompany him, Hermocrates with a small number of them came to the gate on Achradine, and when he found that some of his friends had already occupied the region, he waited to pick up the late-comers.

§ 13.75.8 But when the Syracusans heard what had happened, they gathered in the market-place under arms, and here, since they appeared accompanied by a great multitude, they slew both Hermocrates and most of his supporters. Those who had not been killed in the fighting were brought to trial and sentenced to exile;

§ 13.75.9 consequently some of them who had been severely wounded were reported by their relatives as having died, in order that they might not be given over to the wrath of the multitude. Among their number was Dionysius, who later became tyrant of the Syracusans.

§ 13.76.1 When the events of this year came to an end, in Athens Antigenes took over the office of archon and the Romans elected as consuls Gaius Manius Aemilius and Gaius Valerius. About this time Conon, the Athenian general, now that he had taken over the armaments in Samos, fitted out the ships which were in that place and also collected those of the allies, since he was intent upon making his fleet a match for the ships of the enemy.

§ 13.76.2 And the Spartans, when Lysander's period of command as admiral had expired, dispatched Callicratidas to succeed him. Callicratidas was a very young man, without guile and straightforward in character, since he had had as yet no experience of the ways of foreign peoples, and was the most just man among the Spartans; and it is agreed by all that also during his period of command he committed no wrong against either a city or a private citizen but dealt summarily with those who tried to corrupt him with money and had them punished.

§ 13.76.3 He put in at Ephesus and took over the fleet, and since he had already sent for the ships of the allies, the sum total he took over, including those of Lysander, was one hundred and forty. And since the Athenians had Delphinium in the territory of the Chians, he sailed against them with all his ships and undertook to lay siege to it.

§ 13.76.4 The Athenians, who numbered some five hundred, were dismayed at the great size of his force and abandoned the place, passing through the enemy under a truce. Callicratidas took over the fortress and levelled it to the ground, and then, sailing against the Teians, he stole inside the walls of the city by night and plundered it.

§ 13.76.5 After this he sailed to Lesbos and with his force attacked Methymne, which held a garrison of Athenians. Although he launched repeated assaults, at first he accomplished nothing, but soon afterward, with the help of certain men who betrayed the city to him, he broke inside its walls, and although he plundered its wealth, he spared lives of the inhabitants and returned the city to the Methymnaeans.

§ 13.76.6 After these exploits he made for Mitylene; and assigning the hoplites to Thorax, the Lacedemonian, he ordered him to advance by land with all speed and himself sailed on past Thorax with his fleet.

§ 13.77.1 Conon, the Athenian general, had seventy ships which he had fitted out with everything necessary for making war at sea more carefully than any other general had ever done by way of preparation. Now it so happened that he had put out to sea with all his ships when he went to the aid of Methymne;

§ 13.77.2 but on discovering that it had already fallen, at the time he had bivouacked at one of the Hundred Isles, as they are called, and at daybreak, when he observed that the enemy's ships were bearing down on him, he decided that it would be dangerous for him to join battle in that place with triremes double his in number, but he planned to avoid battle by sailing outside the Isles and, drawing some of the enemy's triremes after him, to engage them off Mitylene. For by such tactics, he assumed, in case of victory he could turn about and pursue and in case of defeat he could withdraw for safety to the harbour.

§ 13.77.3 Consequently, having put his soldiers on board ship, he set out with the oars at a leisurely stroke in order that the ships of the Peloponnesians might draw near him. And the Lacedemonians, as they approached, kept driving the ships faster and faster in the hope of seizing the hindmost ships of the enemy.

§ 13.77.4 As Conon withdrew, the commanders of the best ships of the Peloponnesians pushed the pursuit hotly, and they wore out the rowers by their continued exertion at the oars and were themselves separated a long distance from the others. Conon, noticing this, when his ships were already near Mitylene, raised from his flagship a red banner, for this was a signal for the captains of the triremes.

§ 13.77.5 At this his ships, even as the enemy was overhauling them, suddenly turned about at the same moment, and the crews raised the battle-song and the trumpeters sounded the attack. The Peloponnesians, dismayed at the turn of events, hastily endeavoured to draw up their ships to repel the attack, but as there was not time for them to turn about they had fallen into great confusion because the ships coming up after them had left their accustomed position.

§ 13.78.1 Conon, making clever use of the opportunity, at once pressed upon them, and prevented their establishing any order, damaging some ships and shearing off the rows of oars of others. Of the ships opposing Conon not one turned to flight, but they continued to back water while waiting for the ships which tarried behind;

§ 13.78.2 but the Athenians who held the left wing, putting to flight their opponents, pressed upon them with increasing eagerness and pursued them for a long time. But when the Peloponnesians had brought all their ships together, Conon, fearing the superior numbers of the enemy, stopped the pursuit and sailed off to Mitylene with forty ships.

§ 13.78.3 As for the Athenians who had set out in pursuit, all the Peloponnesian ships, swarming around them, struck terror into them, and cutting them off from return to the city compelled them to turn in flight to land. And since the Peloponnesians pressed upon them with all their ships, the Athenians, seeing no other means of deliverance, fled for safety to the land and deserting their vessels found refuge in Mitylene.

§ 13.78.4 Callicratidas, by the capture of thirty ships, was aware that the naval power of the enemy had been destroyed, but he anticipated that the fighting on land remained. Consequently he sailed on to the city, and Conon, who was expecting a siege when he arrived, began upon preparations about the entrance to the harbour; for in the shallow places of the harbour he sank small boats filled with rocks and in the deep waters he anchored merchantmen armed with stones.

§ 13.78.5 Now the Athenians and a great throng of the Mitylenaeans who had gathered from the fields into the city because of the war speedily completed preparations for the siege. Callicratidas, disembarking his soldiers on the beach near the city, pitched a camp, and then he set up a trophy for the sea-battle. And on the next day, after choosing out his beside ships and commanding them not to get far from his own ship, he put out to sea, being eager to sail into the harbour and break the barrier constructed by the enemy.

§ 13.78.6 Conon put some of his soldiers on the triremes, which he placed with their prows facing the open passage, and some he assigned to the large vessels, while others he sent to the breakwaters of the harbour in order that the harbour might be fenced in on every side, both by land and by sea.

§ 13.78.7 Then Conon himself with his triremes joined the battle, filling with his ships the space lying between the barriers; and the soldiers stationed on the large ships hurled the stones from the yardarms upon the ships of the enemy, while those drawn up on the breakwaters of the harbour held off those who might have ventured to disembark on the land.

§ 13.79.1 The Peloponnesians were not a whit outdone by the emulation displayed by the Athenians. Advancing with their ships in mass formation and with their best soldiers lined up on the decks they made the sea-battle also a fight between infantry; for as they pressed upon their opponents' ships they boldly boarded their prows, in the belief that men who had once been defeated would not stand up to the terror of battle.

§ 13.79.2 But the Athenians and Mitylenaeans, seeing that the single hope of safety left to them lay in their victory, were resolved to die nobly rather than leave their station. And so, since an unsurpassable emulation pervaded both forces, a great slaughter ensued, all the participants exposing their bodies, without regard of risk, to the perils of battle.

§ 13.79.3 The soldiers on the decks were wounded by the multitude of missiles which flew at them, and some of them, who were mortally struck, fell into the sea, while some, so long as their wounds were fresh, fought on without feeling them; but very many fell victims to the stones that were hurled by the stone-carrying yardarms, since the Athenians kept up a shower of huge stones from these commanding positions.

§ 13.79.4 The fighting had continued, none the less, for a long while and many had met death on both sides, when Callicratidas, wishing to give his soldiers a breathing-spell, sounded the recall.

§ 13.79.5 After some time he again manned his ships and continued the struggle over a long period, and with great effort, by means of the superior number of his ships and the strength of the marines, he thrust out the Athenians. And when the Athenians fled for refuge to the harbour within the city, he sailed through the barriers and brought his ships to anchor near the city of the Mitylenaeans.

§ 13.79.6 It may be explained that the entrance for whose control they had fought had a good harbour, which, however, lies outside the city. For the ancient city is a small island, and the later city, which was founded near it, is opposite it on the island of Lesbos; and between the two cities is a narrow strait which also adds strength to the city.

§ 13.79.7 Callicratidas now, disembarking his troops, invested the city and launched assaults upon it from every side. Such was the state of affairs at Mitylene.

§ 13.79.8 In Sicily the Syracusans, sending ambassadors to Carthage, not only censured them for the war but required that for the future they cease from hostilities. To them the Carthaginians gave ambiguous answers and set about assembling great armaments in Libya, since their desire was fixed on enslaving all the cities of the island; but before sending their forces across to Sicily they picked out volunteers from their citizens and the other inhabitants of Libya and founded in Sicily right at the warm (therma) springs a city which they named Therma.

§ 13.80.1 When the events of this year came to an end, in Athens Callias succeeded to the office of archon and in Rome the consuls elected were Lucius Furius and Gnaeus Pompeius. At this time the Carthaginians, being elated over their successes in Sicily and eager to become lords of the whole island, voted to prepare great armaments; and electing as general Hannibal, who had razed to the ground both the city of the Selinuntians and that of the Himeraeans, they committed to him full authority over the conduct of the war. When he begged to be excused because of his age, they appointed besides him another general, Himilcon, the son of Hanno and of the same family.

§ 13.80.2 These two, after full consultation, dispatched certain citizens who were held in high esteem among the Carthaginians with large sums of money, some to Iberia and others to the Baliarides Islands, with orders to recruit as many mercenaries as possible.

§ 13.80.3 And they themselves canvassed Libya, enrolling as soldiers Libyans and Phoenicians and the stoutest from among their own citizens. Moreover they summoned soldiers also from the nations and kings who were their allies, Maurusians and Nomads and certain peoples who dwell in the regions toward Cyrene.

§ 13.80.4 Also from Italy they hired Campanians and brought them over to Libya; for they knew that their aid would be of great assistance to them and that the Campanians who had been left behind in Sicily, because they had fallen out with the Carthaginians, would fight on the side of the Sicilian Greeks.

§ 13.80.5 And when the armaments were finally assembled at Carthage, the sum total of the troops collected together with the cavalry was a little over one hundred and twenty thousand, according to Timaeus, but three hundred thousand, according to Ephorus. The Carthaginians, in preparation for their crossing over to Sicily, made ready and equipped all their triremes and also assembled more than a thousand cargo ships,

§ 13.80.6 and when they dispatched in advance forty triremes to Sicily, the Syracusans speedily appeared with about the same time number of warships in the region of Eryx. In the long sea-battle which ensued fifteen of the Phoenician ships were destroyed and the rest, when night fell, fled for safety to the open sea.

§ 13.80.7 And when word of the defeat was brought to the Carthaginians, Hannibal the general set out to sea with fifty ships, since he was eager both to prevent the Syracusans from exploiting their advantage and to make the landing safe for his own armaments.

§ 13.81.1 When news of the reinforcements which Hannibal was bringing was noised throughout Sicily, everyone expected that his armaments would also be brought over at once. And the city, as they heard of the great scale of the preparations and came to the conclusion that the struggle was to be for their very existence, were distressed without measure.

§ 13.81.2 Accordingly the Syracusans set about negotiating alliances both with the Greeks of Italy and with the Lacedemonians; and they also continued to dispatch emissaries to the cities of Sicily to arouse the masses to fight for the common freedom.

§ 13.81.3 The Acragantini, because they were the nearest to the empire of the Carthaginians, assumed what indeed took place, that the weight of the war would fall on them first. They decided, therefore, to gather not only their grain and other crops but also all their possessions from the countryside within their walls.

§ 13.81.4 At this time, it so happened, both the city and the territory of the Acragantini enjoyed great prosperity, which I think it would not be out of place for me to describe. Their vineyards excelled in their great extent and beauty and the greater part of their territory was planted in olive-trees from which they gathered an abundant harvest and sold to Carthage;

§ 13.81.5 for since Libya at that time was not yet planted in fruit-trees, the inhabitants of the territory belonging to Acragas took in exchange for their products the wealth of Acragas and accused fortunes of unbelievable size. Of this wealth there remain among them many evidences, which it will not foreign to our purpose to discuss briefly.

§ 13.82.1 Now the sacred buildings which they constructed, and especially the temple of Zeus, bear witness to the grand manner of the men of that day. Of the other sacred buildings some have been burned and others completely destroyed because of the many times the city has been taken in war, but the completion of the temple of Zeus, which was ready to receive its roof, was prevented by the war; and after the war, since the city had been completely destroyed, never in the subsequent years did the Acragantini find themselves able to finish their buildings.

§ 13.82.2 The temple has a length of three hundred and forty feet, a width of sixty, and a height of one hundred and twenty not including the foundation. And being as it is the largest temple in Sicily, it may not unreasonably be compared, so far as magnitude of its substructure is concerned, with the temples outside of Sicily; for even though, as it turned out, the design could not be carried out, the scale of the undertaking at any rate is clear.

§ 13.82.3 And though all other men build their temples either with walls forming the sides or with rows of columns, thrown enclosing their sanctuaries, this temple combines both these plans; for the columns were built in with the walls, the part extending outside the temple being rounded and that within square; and the circumference of the outer part of the column which extends from the wall is twenty feet and the body of a man may be contained in the fluting, while that of the inner part is twelve feet.

§ 13.82.4 The porticoes were of enormous size and height, and in the east pediment they portrayed The Battle between the Gods and the Giants which excelled in size and beauty, and in the west The Capture of Troy, in which each one of the heroes may be seen portrayed in a manner appropriate to his role.

§ 13.82.5 There was at that time also an artificial pool outside the city, seven stades in circumference and twenty cubits deep; into this they brought water and ingeniously contrived to produce a multitude of fish of every variety for their public feastings, and with the fish swans spent their time and a vast multitude of every other kind of bird, so that the pool was an object of great delight to gaze upon.

§ 13.82.6 And witness to the luxury of the inhabitants is also the extravagant cost of the monuments which they erected, some adorned with sculptured race-horses and others with the pet birds kept by girls and boys in their homes, monuments which Timaeus says he had seen extant even in his own lifetime.

§ 13.82.7 And in the Olympiad previous to the one we are discussing, namely, the Ninety-second, when Exaenetus of Acragas won the “stadion,” he was conducted into the city in a chariot and in the procession there were, not to speak of the other things, three hundred chariots belonging to citizens of Acragas.

§ 13.82.8 Speaking generally, they led from youth onward a manner of life which was luxurious, wearing as they did exceedingly delicate clothing and gold ornaments and, besides, using strigils and oil-flasks made of silver and even of gold.

§ 13.83.1 Among the Acragantini of that time perhaps the richest man was Tellias, who had in his mansion a considerable number of guest-chambers and used to station servants before his gates with orders to invite every stranger to be his guest. There were also many other Acragantini who did something of this kind, mingling with others in an old-fashioned and friendly manner; consequently also Empedocles speaks of them as Havens of mercy for strangers, unacquainted with evil.

§ 13.83.2 Indeed once when five hundred cavalry from Gela arrived there during a wintry storm, as Timaeus says in his Fifteenth Book, Tellias entertained all of them by himself and provided them all forthwith from his own stores with outer and under garments.

§ 13.83.3 And Polycleitus in his Histories describes the wine-cellar in the house as still existing and as he had himself seen it when in Acragas as a soldier; there were in it, he states, three hundred great casks hewn out of the very rock, each of them with a capacity of one hundred amphoras, and beside them was a wine-vat, plastered with stucco and with a capacity of one thousand amphoras, from which the wine flowed into the casks.

§ 13.83.4 And we are told that Tellias was quite plain in appearance but wonderful in character. So once when he had been dispatched on an embassy to the people of Centoripa and came forward to speak before the Assembly, the multitude broke into unseemly laughter as they saw how much he fell short of their expectation. But he, interrupting them, said, “Don't be surprised, for it is the practice of the Acragantini to send to famous cities their most handsome citizens, but to insignificant and most paltry cities men of their sort.”

§ 13.84.1 It was not in the case of Tellias only that such magnificence of wealth occurred, he says, but also of many other inhabitants of Acragas. Antisthenes at any rate, who was called Rhodus, when celebrating the marriage of his daughter, gave a party to all the citizens in the courtyards where they all lived and more than eight hundred chariots followed the bride in the procession; furthermore, not only the men on horseback from the city itself but also many from neighbouring cities who had been invited to the wedding joined to form the escort of the bride.

§ 13.84.2 But most extraordinary of all, we are told, was the provision for its lightning: the altars in all the sanctuaries and those in the courtyards throughout the city he had piled high with wood, and to the shopkeepers he gave firewood and brush with orders that when a fire was kindled on the acropolis they should all do the same;