The story of the brazen bull of Phalaris seems to rest on sufficient evidence: it is expressly mentioned by Pindar, and the bull itself, after having been carried away to Carthage when the Carthaginians took Agrigentum, was restored to the Agrigentines by Scipio when he took Carthage. See Aristot. Polit. v, 8, 4; Pindar, Pyth. i, 185; Polyb. xii, 25; Diodor. xiii, 90; Cicero in Verr. iv, 33.
It does not appear that Timæus really called in question the historical reality of the bull of Phalaris, though he has been erroneously supposed to have done so. Timæus affirmed that the bull which was shown in his own time at Agrigentum was not the identical machine: which was correct, for it must have been then at Carthage, from whence it was not restored to Agrigentum until after 146 B. C. See a note of Boeckh on the Scholia ad Pindar. Pyth. i, 185.
[418] Thucyd. vi, 5; Schol. ad Pindar. Olymp. v, 19; compare Wesseling ad Diodor. xi, 76.
[419] At Gela, Herodot. vii, 153; at Syracuse, Aristot. Politic. v, 3, 1.
[420] Aristot. Politic. v, 8, 4; v, 10, 4. Καὶ εἰς τυραννίδα μεταβάλλει ἐξ ὀλιγαρχίας, ὥσπερ ἐν Σικελίᾳ σχεδὸν αἱ πλεῖσται τῶν ἀρχαίων· ἐν Λεοντίνοις εἰς τὴν Παναιτίου τυραννίδα, καὶ ἐν Γέλᾳ εἰς τὴν Κλεάνδρου, καὶ ἐν ἄλλαις πολλαῖς πόλεσιν ὡσαύτως.
[421] Diodorus ascribes the foundation of Herakleia to Dorieus; this seems not consistent with the account of Herodotus, unless we are to assume that the town of Herakleia which Dorieus founded was destroyed by the Carthaginians, and that the name Herakleia was afterwards given by Euryleon or his successors to that which had before been called Minoa (Diodor. iv, 23).
A funereal monument in honor of Athenæus, one of the settlers who perished with Dorieus, was seen by Pausanias at Sparta (Pausanias, iii, 16, 4).
[422] Herodot. v, 43, 46.
[423] Herodot. vii, 158. The extreme brevity of his allusion is perplexing, as we have no collateral knowledge to illustrate it.
[424] Polyænus, v, 6.