Compare Polybius, i, 18; ix, 27.
Pindar calls the town ποταμίᾳ τ’ Ἀκράγαντι—Pyth. vi, 6: ἱερὸν οἴκημα ποταμοῦ—Olymp. ii, 10.
[933] Diodor. xiii, 85.
We read of a stratagem in Polyænus (v, 10, 4), whereby Imilkon is said to have enticed the Agrigentines, in one of their sallies, into incautious pursuit, by a simulated flight; and thus to have inflicted upon them a serious defeat.
[934] Diodor. xiii, 86.
[935] Diodor. xiii, 87.
It appears that an eminence a little way eastward from Agrigentum still bears the name of Il Campo Cartaginese, raising some presumption that it was once occupied by the Carthaginians. Evidently, the troops sent out by Imilkon to meet and repel Daphnæus, must have taken post to the eastward of Agrigentum, from which side the Syracusan army of relief was approaching. Seyfert (Akragas, p. 41) contests this point, and supposes that they must have been on the western side; misled by the analogy of the Roman siege in 262 B.C., when the Carthaginian relieving army under Hanno were coming from the westward,—from Heraklei (Polyb. i, 19).
[936] Diodor. xiii, 87.
The youth of Argeius, combined with the fact of his being in high command, makes us rather imagine that he was of noble birth: compare Thucydid. vi, 38,—the speech of Athenagoras.
[937] Mention is again made, sixty-five years afterwards, in the description of the war of Timoleon against the Carthaginians,—of the abundance of gold and silver drinking cups, and rich personal ornaments, carried by the native Carthaginians on military service (Diodor. xvi, 81; Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 28, 29).