And that these men were held in high estimation among the Sicilians, we learn from Alexander the Ætolian, a composer of tragedies, who, in an elegy, speaks as follows:—
The man whom fierce Agathocles did drive
An exile from his land, was nobly born
Of an old line of famous ancestors,
And from his early youth he lived among
The foreign visitors; and thoroughly learnt
The dulcet music of Mimnermus' lyre,
And follow'd his example;—and he wrote,
In imitation of great Homer's verse,
The deeds of cobblers, and base shameless thieves,