Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 1.djvu/421

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B. VI. C. II. § 4.
SICILY. SYRACUSE.
407

preferred wealth and Myscellus health, upon which the oracle assigned Syracuse to the former to found, and Crotona to the latter. And certainly, in like manner as it fell out that the Crotoniatæ should inhabit a state so notable for salubrity as we have described,[q 1] so such great riches have accrued to the Syracusans that their name has been embodied in the proverb applied to those who have too great wealth, viz. that they have not yet attained to a tithe of the riches of the Syracusans. While Archias was on his voyage to Sicily, he left Chersicrates, a chief of the race of the Heracleidæ,[1] with a part of the expedition to settle the island now called Corcyra,[p 1] but anciently called Scheria, and he, having expelled the Liburni who possessed it, established his colony in the island. Archias, pursuing his route, met with certain Dorians at Zephyrium,[p 2] come from Sicily, and who had quitted the company of those who had founded Megara; these he took with him, and in conjunction with them founded Syracuse. The city flourished on account of the fertility[2] of the country and the convenience of the harbours, the citizens became great rulers; while under tyrants themselves, they domineered over the other states [of Sicily], and when freed from despotism, they set at liberty such as had been enslaved by the barbarians: of these barbarians some were the aboriginal inhabitants of the island, while others had come across from the continent. The Greeks suffered none of the barbarians to approach the shore, although they were not able to expel them entirely from the interior, for the Siculi, Sicani,[3] Morgetes, and some others,[4] still inhabit the island to the present day, amongst whom also were the Iberians, who, as Ephorus relates, were

  1. ↑ Book vi. chap. 1, § 12.
  1. ↑ At present Corfu.
  2. ↑ Cape Bruzzano.
  1. ↑ According to other authorities he was descended from Bacchus.
  2. ↑ Cicero’s Oratio Frumentaria supports this character of the country. Silius Italicus, lib. xiv. vers. 23, thus celebrates the richness of the soil,
    “Multa solo virtus: jam reddere fœnus aratris,
    Jam montes umbrare olea, dare nomina Baccho;
    Nectare Cecropias Hyblæo accendere ceras:”

    and Florus terms it Terra frugum ferax.
  3. ↑ Strabo makes a distinct mention of Siculi and Sicani, as if they were different people. Philologists have been much divided as to whether they were not different appellations of the same nation.
  4. ↑ Such as the Elymi, or Helymi, who occupied the districts bordering on the Belici in the western part of the island.
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