Ergotelês, an exile from Knôssus in Krete, must have migrated somewhere about this time to Himera in Sicily. See the twelfth Olympic Ode of Pindar.
[436] Herodot. viii, 26.
[437] Herodot. vii, 157. σὺ δὲ δυνάμιός τε ἥκεις μεγάλης, καὶ μοῖρά τοι τῆς Ἑλλάδος οὐκ ἐλαχίστη μέτα, ἄρχοντί γε Σικελίης: and even still stronger, c. 163. ἐὼν Σικελίης τύραννος.
The word ἄρχων corresponds with ἀρχὴ, such as that of the Athenians, and is less strong than τύραννος.
The numerical statement is contained in the speech composed by Herodotus for Gelo (vii, 158).
[438] Herodot. vii, 145. τὰ δὲ Γέλωνος πρήγματα μεγάλα ἐλέγετο εἶναι· οὐδαμῶν Ἑλληνικῶν τῶν οὐ πολλὸν μέζω.
[439] Herodot. vii, 158. Gelo says to the envoys from Peloponnesus:—Ἄνδρες Ἕλληνες, λόγον ἔχοντες πλεονέκτην, ἐτολμήσατε ἐμὲ σύμμαχον ἐπὶ τὸν βάρβαρον παρακαλέοντες ἐλθεῖν. Αὐτοὶ δὲ, ἐμεῦ πρότερον δεηθέντος βαρβαρικοῦ στρατοῦ συνεπάψασθαι, ὅτε μοι πρὸς Καρχηδονίους νεῖκος συνῆπτο, ἐπισκήπτοντός τε τὸν Δωριέος τοῦ Ἀναξανδρίδεω πρὸς Ἐγεσταίων φόνον ἐκπρήξασθαι, ὑποτείνοντός τε τὰ ἐμπόρια συνελευθεροῦν, ἀπ’ ὧν ὑμῖν μεγάλαι ὠφελίαι τε καὶ ἐπαυρέσιες γεγόνασι· οὔτε ἐμεῦ εἵνεκα ἤλθετε βοηθήσοντες, οὔτε τὸν Δωριέος φόνον ἐκπρηξόμενοι· τὸ δὲ κατ’ ὑμέας τάδε ἅπαντα ὑπὸ βαρβάροισι νέμεται. Ἀλλὰ εὖ γὰρ ἡμῖν καὶ ἐπὶ τὸ ἄμεινον κατέστη· νῦν δὲ, ἐπειδὴ περιελήλυθε ὁ πόλεμος καὶ ἀπῖκται ἐς ὑμέας, οὕτω δὴ Γέλωνος μνῆστις γέγονε.
It is much to be regretted that we have no farther information respecting the events which these words glance at. They seem to indicate that the Carthaginians and Egestæans had made some encroachments, and threatened to make more: that Gelo had repelled them by actual and successful war. I think it strange, however, that he should be made to say: “You (the Peloponnesians) have derived great and signal advantages from these seaports;”—the profit derived from the latter by the Peloponnesians can never have been so great as to be singled out in this pointed manner. I should rather have expected, ἀπ’ ὧν ἡμῖν (and not ἀπ’ ὧν ὑμῖν),—which must have been true in point of fact, and will be found to read quite consistently with the general purport of Gelo’s speech.
[440] Herodot. vii, 161, 162. Polybius (xii, 26) does not seem to have read this embassy as related by Herodotus,—or at least he must have preferred some other account of it;—he gives a different account of the answer which they made to Gelo: an answer (not insolent, but) business-like and evasive,—πραγματικώτατον ἀπόκριμα, etc. See Timæus, Fragm. 87, ed. Didot.
[441] Ephorus, Fragment. 111, ed. Didot; Diodor. xi, 1, 20. Mitford and Dahlmann (Forschungen, Herodotus, etc., sect. 35, p. 186) call in question this alliance or understanding between Xerxes and the Carthaginians; but on no sufficient grounds, in my judgment.