[442] Herodot. vii, 165; Diodor. xi, 23: compare also xiii, 55, 59. In like manner Rhegium and Messênê formed the opposing interest to Syracuse, under Dionysius the elder (Diodor. xiv, 44).
[443] Herodotus (vii, 165) and Diodorus (xi, 20) both give the number of the land-force: the latter alone gives that of the fleet.
[444] Herodot. vii, 165. The Ligyes came from the southern junction of Italy and France; the gulfs of Lyons and Genoa. The Helisyki cannot be satisfactorily verified: Niebuhr considers them to have been the Volsci: an ingenious conjecture.
[445] Polyb. i, 67. His description of the mutiny of the Carthaginian mercenaries, after the conclusion of the first Punic war, is highly instructive.
[446] Diodor. xi, 21-24.
[447] Herodotus, vii, 167. σώματα ὅλα καταγίζων. This passage of Herodotus receives illustration from the learned comment of Mövers on the Phenician inscription recently discovered at Marseilles. It was the usual custom of the Jews, and it had been in old times the custom with the Phenicians (Porphyr. de Abstin. iv, 15), to burn the victim entire: the Phenicians departed from this practice, but the departure seems to have been considered as not strictly correct, and in times of great misfortune or anxiety the old habit was resumed (Mövers, Das Opferwesen der Karthager. Breslau, 1847, pp. 71-118).
[448] Herodot. vii, 166, 167. Hamilkar was son of a Syracusan mother: a curious proof of connubium between Carthage and Syracuse. At the moment when the elder Dionysius declared war against Carthage, in 398 B. C., there were many Carthaginian merchants dwelling both in Syracuse and in other Greco-Sicilian cities, together with ships and other property. Dionysius gave license to the Syracusans, at the first instant when he had determined on declaring war, to plunder all this property (Diodor. xiv, 46). This speedy multiplication of Carthaginians with merchandise in the Grecian cities, so soon after a bloody war had been concluded, is a strong proof of the spontaneous tendencies of trade.
[449] Diodor. xiii, 62. According to Herodotus, the battle of Himera took place on the same day as that of Salamis; according to Diodorus, on the same day as that of Thermopylæ. If we are forced to choose between the two witnesses, there can be no hesitation in preferring the former: but it seems more probable that neither is correct.
As far as we can judge from the brief allusions of Herodotus, he must have conceived the battle of Himera in a manner totally different from Diodorus. Under such circumstances, I cannot venture to trust the details given by the latter.
[450] I presume this treatment of Anaxilaus by Gelo must be alluded to in Diodorus, xi, 66: at least it is difficult to understand what other “great benefit” Gelo had conferred on Anaxilaus.