[667] Diodor. iv, 21, v, 71; Polyb. iii, 91; Pliny, H. N. iii, 5; Livy, viii, 22. “In Baiano sinu Campaniæ contra Puteolanam civitatem lacus sunt duo, Avernus et Lucrinus: qui olim propter piscium copiam vectigalia magna præstabant,” (Servius ad Virg. Georgic. ii, 161.)

[668] Strabo, v, p. 243. Καὶ εἰσέπλεόν γε οἱ προθυσόμενοι καὶ ἱλασόμενοι τοὺς καταχθονίους δαίμονας, ὄντων τῶν ὑφηγουμένων τὰ τοιάδε ἱερέων, ἠργολαβηκότων τὸν τόπον.

[669] Dionys. H. iv, 61-62, vi, 21; Livy, ii, 34.

[670] See, respecting the transmission of ideas and fables from the Æolic Kymê to Cumæ in Campania, the first volume of this History, chap. xv, p. 457.

The father of Hesiod was a native of the Æolic Kymê: we find in the Hesiodic Theogony (ad fin.) mention of Latinus as the son of Odysseus and Circê: Servius cites the same from the Ἀσπιδοποιΐα of Hesiod (Servius ad Virg. Æn. xii, 162; compare Cato, Fragment. p. 33, ed. Lion). The great family of the Mamilii at Tusculum, also derived their origin from Odysseus and Circê (Livy, i, 49).

The tomb of Elpênôr, the lost companion of Odysseus, was shown at Circeii in the days of Theophrastus (Hist. Plant. v, 8, 3) and Skylax (c. 10).

Hesiod notices the promontory of Pelôrus. the strait of Messina, and the islet of Ortygia near Syracuse (Diodor. iv, 85; Strabo, i, p. 23).

[671] Livy, ii. 9.

[672] Niebuhr, Römisch. Geschicht. vol. i. p. 76, 2d edit.

[673] The history of Aristodêmus Malakus is given at some length by Dionysius of Halikarnassus (viii, 3-10).

[674] Livy, ii, 21.

[675] Velleius Patercul. i, 5.

[676] Compare Strabo, v, p. 250; vi. p. 264. “Cumanos Osca mutavit vicinia,” says Velleius, l. c.

[677] Diodor. xi, 51; Pindar, Pyth. i, 71.

[678] Thucyd. vi, 3; Strabo, vi, p. 267.

[679] The admixture of Naxian colonists may be admitted, as well upon the presumption arising from the name, as from the statement of Hellanikus, ap. Stephan. Byz. v. Χαλκίς.

Ephorus put together into one the Chalkidian and the Megarian migrations, which Thucydidês represents as distinct (Ephorus ap. Strabo, vi, p. 267).

[680] Thucyd. vi, 3; Diodor. xiv, 59-88.

[681] Mannert places the boundary of Sikels and Sikans at these mountains: Otto Siefert (Akragas und sein Gebiet, Hamburg, 1845, p. 53) places it at the Gemelli Colles, rather more to the westward,—thus contracting the domain of the Sikans: compare Diodor. iv, 82-83.

[682] Thucyd. vi, 2.

[683] Mr. Fynes Clinton discusses the era of Syracuse, Fasti Hellenici, ad B. C. 734, and the same work, vol. ii. Appendix xi, p. 264.

[684] See Colonel Leake, notes on the Topography of Syracuse, p. 41.

[685] Athenæ. iv, 167; Strabo, ix, p. 380.

[686] Diodor. Frag. Lit. viii, p. 24; Plutarch, Narrat. Amator. p. 772; Schol. Apollon. Rhod. iv, 1212.

[687] Polyænus (v. 5. 1) describes the stratagem of Theoklês on this occasion.

[688] Polyænus details a treacherous stratagem whereby this expulsion is said to have been accomplished (v, 5. 2).

[689] Thucydid. vi, 3. Ὕβλωνος τοῦ βασιλέως προδόντος τὴν χώραν καὶ καθηγησαμένου.

[690] Thucydid. vi, 4; Diodor. Excerpt. Vatican. ed. Maii, Fragm. xiii, p. 13; Pausanias, viii, 46, 2.

[691] Thucydid. vi, 4.

[692] Strabo, vi, p. 272.

[693] Stephanus Byz. Σικανία, ἡ περίχωρος Ἀκραγαντινῶν. Herodot. vii, 170; Diodor. iv, 78.

Vessa, the most considerable among the Sikanian townships or villages, with its prince Teutus, is said to have been conquered by Phalaris despot of Agrigentum, through a mixture of craft and force (Polyæn. v, 1, 4).

[694] Of these Sikel or Sikan caverns many traces yet remain: see Otto Siefert, Akragas und sein Gebiet, pp. 39, 45, 49, 55, and the work of Captain W. H. Smyth,—Sicily and its Islands, London, 1824, p. 190.

“These cryptæ (observes the latter) appear to have been the earliest effort of a primitive and pastoral people towards a town, and are generally without regularity as to shape and magnitude: in after-ages they perhaps served as a retreat in time of danger, and as a place of security in case of extraordinary alarm, for women, children, and valuables. In this light, I was particularly struck with the resemblance these rude habitations bore to the caves I had seen in Owhyhee, for similar uses. The Troglodyte villages of Northern Africa, of which I saw several, are also precisely the same.”

About the early cave-residences in Sardinia and the Balearic islands, consult Diodor. v, 15-17.

[695] Thucydid. vi, 45. τὰ περιπόλια τὰ ἐν τῇ χώρᾳ (of Syracuse).

[696] Respecting the statical and monetary system, prevalent among the Italian and Sicilian Greeks, see Aristot. Fragment. περὶ Πολιτειῶν, ed. Neumann, p. 102; Pollux, iv, 174, ix, 80-87; and above all, Boeckh, Metrologie, ch. xviii, p. 292, and the abstract and review of that work in the Classical Museum, No. 1; also, O. Müller, Die Etrusker, vol. i, p. 309.

The Sicilian Greeks reckoned by talents, each consisting of 120 litræ or libræ: the Æginæan obolus was the equivalent of the litra, having been the value in silver of a pound-weight of copper, at the time when the valuation was taken.

The common denominations of money and weight—with the exception of the talent, the meaning of which was altered while the word was retained—seem to have been all borrowed by the Italian and Sicilian Greeks from the Sikel or Italic scale, not from the Grecian,—νούμμος, λίτρα, δεκάλιτρον, πεντεκοντάλιτρον, πεντούγκιον, ἑξᾶς, τετρᾶς, τριᾶς, ἥμινα, ἡμιλίτριον (see Fragments of Epicharmus and Sophron, ap. Ahrens de Dialecto Doricâ, Appendix, pp 435, 471, 472, and Athenæ. xi, p. 479).

[697] Thucyd. vi, 88.

[698] Thucyd. vi, 62-87; vii, 13.

[699] Cicero in Verrem, Act. ii, lib. iv, c. 26-51; Diodor. v. 6.

Contrast the manner in which Cicero speaks of Agyrium, Centuripi, and Enna, with the description of these places as inhabited by autonomous Sikels, B. C. 396, in the wars of the elder Dionysius (Diodor. xiv, 55, 58, 78). Both Sikans and Sikels were at that time completely distinguished from the Greeks, in the centre of the island.

O. Müller states that “Syracuse, seventy years after its foundation, colonized Akræ, also Enna, situated in the centre of the island,” (Hist. of Dorians, i, 6, 7). Enna is mentioned by Stephanus Byz. as a Syracusan foundation, but without notice of the date of its foundation, which must have been much later than Müller here affirms. Serra di Falco (Antichità di Sicilia, Introd. t. i, p. 9) gives Enna as having been founded later than Akræ, but earlier than Kasmenæ: for which date I find no authority. Talaria (see Steph. Byz. ad voc.) is also mentioned as another Syracusan city, of which we do not know either the date or the particulars of foundation.

[700] Ahrens, De Dialecto Doricâ, sect. 1, p. 3.

[701] Plato, Epistol. vii, p. 326; Plautus, Rudens, Act i, Sc. 1, 56; Act ii. Sc. 6, 58.

[702] Timokreon, Fragment. 5 ap. Ahrens, De Dialecto Doricâ, p. 478,—Σικελὸς κομψὸς ἀνὴρ Ποτὶ τὰν ματέρ᾽ ἔφα.

Bernhardy, Grundriss der Geschichte der Griech. Litteratur, vol. ii, ch. 120, sects. 2-5; Grysar, De Doriensium Comœdia, Cologne, 1828, ch. i, pp. 41, 55, 57, 210; Boeckh, De Græcæ Tragœd. Princip. p. 52; Aristot. ap. Athenæ. xi, 505. The κότταβος seems to have been a native Sikel fashion, borrowed by the Greeks (Athenæus, xv, pp. 666-668).

The Sicilian βουκολιασμὸς was a fashion among the Sicilian herdsmen earlier than Epicharmus, who noticed the alleged inventor of it, Diomus, the βούκολος Σικελιώτης (Athenæ. xiv, p. 619). The rustic manners and speech represented in the Sicilian comedy are contrasted with the town manners and speech of the Attic comedy, by Plautus, Persæ. Act. iii. Sc. 1, v, 31:—

Compare the beginning of the prologue to the Menæchmi of Plautus.

The comic μῦθος began at Syracuse with Epicharmus and Phormis (Aristot. Poet, v, 5).

[703] Zenobius, Proverb. v, 84.—Σικελὸς στρατιώτης.

[704] Diodor. xi, 90-91; xii, 9.

[705] See Dolomieu, Dissertation on the Earthquakes of Calabria Ultra, in 1783, in Pinkerton, Collection of Voyages and Travels, vol. v, p. 280.

“It is impossible (he observes) to form an adequate idea of the fertility of Calabria Ultra, particularly of that part called the Plain (south-west of the Apennines, below the gulf of St. Eufemia). The fields, productive of olive-trees of larger growth than any seen elsewhere, are yet productive of grain. Vines load with their branches the trees on which they grow, yet lessen not their crops. All things grow there, and nature seems to anticipate the wishes of the husbandman. There is never a sufficiency of hands to gather the whole of the olives, which finally fall and rot at the bottom of the trees that bore them, in the months of February and March. Crowds of foreigners, principally Sicilians, come there to help to gather them, and share the produce with the grower. Oil is their chief article of exportation: in every quarter their wines are good and precious.” Compare pp. 278-282.

[706] Mr. Keppel Craven observes (Tour through the Southern Provinces of Naples, ch. xiii, p. 254), “The earthquake of 1783 may be said to have altered the face of the whole of Calabria Ultra, and extended its ravages as far northward as Cosenza.”

[707] Aristot. Polit. vii, 9, 3.

[708] Strabo, vi, p. 263. Kramer, in his new edition of Strabo follows Koray in suspecting the correctness of the name Ἰσελικεὺς, which certainly departs from the usual analogy of Grecian names. Assuming it to be incorrect, however, there are no means of rectifying it: Kramer prints,—οἰκιστὴς δὲ αὐτῆς ὁ Ἰσ...Ἑλικεὺς: thus making Ἑλικεὺς the ethnicon of the Achæan town Helikê.

There were also legends which connected the foundation of Krotôn with Hêraklês, who was affirmed to have been hospitably sheltered by the eponymous hero Krotôn. Hêraklês was οἰκεῖος at Krotôn: see Ovid, Metamorph. xv, 1-60; Jamblichus, Vit. Pythagor. c. 8, p. 30, c. 9, p. 37, ed Kuster.

[709] Herodot. i, 145.

[710] Strabo, vi, p. 262; Livy, xxiv, 3.

[711] Aristot. Polit. v, 2, 10

[712] Strabo, vi, p. 263, v, p. 251; Skymn. Chi. v, 244; Herodot. vi, 21.

[713] Stephan. Byz. v. Τέρινα—Λαμητῖνοι; Skymn. Chi. 305.

[714] Thucydid. v, 5; Strabo, vi, p. 256; Skymn. Chi. 307. Steph. Byz. calls Mataurum πόλις Σικελίας.

[715] Herodot. viii, 47. Κροτωνιῆται, γένος εἰσὶν Ἀχαιοί: the date of the foundation is given by Dionysius of Halikarnassus (A. R. ii, 59).

The oracular commands delivered to Myskellus are found at length in the Fragments of Diodorus, published by Maii (Scriptt. Vet. Fragm. x, p. 8): compare Zenob. Proverb. Centur. iii, 42.

Though Myskellus is thus given as the œkist of Krotôn, yet we find a Krotoniatic coin with the inscription Ἡρακλῆς Οἰκίστας (Eckhel, Doctrin. Numm. Vet. vol. i, p. 172): the worship of Hêraklês at Krotôn under this title is analogous to that of Ἀπολλὼν Οἰκίστης καὶ Δωματίτης at Ægina (Pythænêtus ap. Schol. Pindar. Nem. v, 81). There were various legends respecting Hêraklês, the Eponymus Krotôn, and Lakinius. Herakleidês Ponticus, Fragm. 30, ed. Köller; Diodor. iv, 24; Ovid, Metamorph. xv, 1-53.

[716] Strabo, vi, p. 259. Euantheia, Hyantheia, or Œantheia, was one of the towns of the Ozolian Lokrians on the north side of the Krissæan gulf, from which, perhaps, the emigrants may have departed, carrying with them the name and patronage of its eponymous œkist (Plutarch, Quæst. Græc. c. 15; Skylax, p. 14).

[717] Polyb. xii, 5, 8, 9; Dionys. Perieget. v, 365.

[718] This fact may connect the foundation of the colony of Lokri with Sparta; but the statement of Pausanias (iii, 3, 1), that the Spartans in the reign of king Polydorus founded both Lokri and Krotôn, seems to belong to a different historical conception.

[719] Polyb. xii, 5-12.

[720] Strabo, vi, p. 259. We find that, in the accounts given of the foundation of Korkyra, Krotôn, and Lokri, reference is made to the Syracusan settlers, either as contemporary in the way of companionship, or as auxiliaries: perhaps the accounts all come from the Syracusan historian Antiochus, who exaggerated the intervention of his own ancestors.

[721] “Nil patrium, nisi nomen, habet Romanus alumnus,” observes Propertius (iv, 37) respecting the Romans: repeated with still greater bitterness in the epistle in Sallust from Mithridatês to Arsacês, (p. 191, Delph. ed.) The remark is well-applicable to Lokri.

[722] Aristot. ap. Schol. Pindar. Olymp. x, 17.

[723] Proverb. Zenob. Centur. iv, 20. Ζαλεύκου νόμος, ἐπὶ τῶν ἀποτόμων.

[724] Strabo, vi, p. 259; Skymnus Chius, v, 313; Cicero de Legg. ii, 6, and Epist. ad Atticum, vi, 1.

Heyne, Opuscula, vol. ii, Epimetrum ii, pp. 60-68; Göller ad Timæi Fragment, pp. 220-259. Bentley (on the Epistles of Phalaris, ch. xii, p 274) seems to countenance, without adequate reason, the doubt of Timæus about the existence of Zaleukus. But the statement of Ephorus, that Zaleukus had collected his ordinances from the Kretan, Laconian, and Areiopagitic customs, when contrasted with the simple and far more credible statement above cited from Aristotle, shows how loose were the affirmations respecting the Lokrian lawgiver (ap. Strabo, vi, p. 260). Other statements, also, concerning him, alluded to by Aristotle (Politic. ii, 9, 3), were distinctly at variance with chronology.

Charondas, the lawgiver of the Chalkidic towns in Italy and Sicily, as far as we can judge amidst much confusion of testimony, seems to belong to an age much later than Zaleukus: I shall speak of him hereafter.

[725] Dêmosthen. cont. Timokrat. p. 744; Polyb. xii, 10.

[726] Strabo, vi, p. 257; Pausan. iv, 23, 2.

[727] Strabo, vi, p. 258. ἴσχυσε δὲ μάλιστα ἡ τῶν Ῥηγινῶν πόλις, καὶ περιοικίδας ἔσχε συχνὰς, etc.

[728] Strabo, vi. p. 263; Aristot. Mirab. Ausc. c. 106; Athenæ. xii, p. 523. It is to these reputed Rhodian companions of Tlêpolemus before Troy, that the allusion in Strabo refers, to Rhodian occupants near Sybaris (xiv, p. 655).

[729] See Mannert, Geographie, part ix, b. 9, ch. 11, p. 234.

[730] Archiloch. Fragm. 17, ed. Schneidewin.

[731] Herodot. vi, 127; Strabo, vi, p. 263. The name Polieion seems to be read Πλεῖον in Aristot. Mirab. Auscult. 106.

Niebuhr assigns this Kolophonian settlement of Siris to the reign of Gygês in Lydia; for which I know no other evidence except the statement that Gygês took τῶν Κολοφωνίων τὸ ἄστυ (Herodot. i, 14); but this is no proof that the inhabitants then emigrated; for Kolophôn was a very flourishing and prosperous city afterwards.

Justin (xx, 2) gives a case of sacrilegious massacre committed near the statue of Athênê at Siris, which appears to be totally different from the tale respecting the Kolophonians.

[732] Herodot. viii, 62.

[733] Strabo, vi, p. 264.

[734] Strabo, vi, p. 264.

[735] Strabo, l. c.; Justin, xx, 2; Velleius Paterc. i, 1; Aristot. Mirab. Auscult. c. 108. This story respecting the presence and implements of Epeius may have arisen through the Phocian settlers from Krissa.

[736] The words of Strabo—ἠφανίσθη δ᾽ ὑπὸ Σαυνιτῶν (vi, p. 264) can hardly be connected with the immediately following narrative, which he gives out of Antiochus, respecting the revival of the place by new Achæan settlers, invited by the Achæans of Sybaris. For the latter place was reduced to impotence in 510 B. C.: invitations by the Achæans of Sybaris must, therefore, be anterior to that date. If Daulius despot of Krissa is to be admitted as the œkist of Metapontium, the plantation of it must be placed early in the first half of the sixth century B. C.; but there is great difficulty in admitting the extension of Samnite conquests to the gulf of Tarentum at so early a period as this. I therefore construe the words of Antiochus as referring to the original settlement of Metapontium by the Greeks, not to the revival of the town after its destruction by the Samnites.

[737] Strabo, l. c.; Stephanus Byz. (v. Μεταπόντιον) identifies Metapontium and Siris in a perplexing manner.

Livy (xxv, 15) recognizes Metapontium as Achæan: compare Heyne Opuscula, vol. ii, Prolus. xii, p. 207.

[738] Partheniæ, i. e. children of virgins: the description given by Varro of the Illyrian virgines illustrates this phrase: “Quas virgines ibi appellant, nonnunquam annorum xx, quibus mos eorum non denegavit, ante nuptias ut succumberent quibus vellent, et incomitatis ut vagari liceret, et liberos habere.” (Varro, De Re Rusticâ, ii, 10, 9.)

[739] For this story respecting the foundation of Tarentum, see Strabo, vi, pp. 278-280 (who gives the versions both of Antiochus and Ephorus); Justin, iii, 4; Diodorus, xv, 66; Excerpta Vatican. lib. vii-x, ed. Maii, Fr. 12; Servius ad Virgil. Æneid. iii, 551.

There are several points of difference between Antiochus, Ephorus, and Servius; the story given in the text follows the former.

The statement of Hesychius (v. Παρθενεῖαι) seems on the whole some what more intelligible than that given by Strabo,—Οἱ κατὰ τὸν Μεσσηνιακὸν πόλεμον αὐτοῖς γενόμενοι ἐκ τῶν θεραπαίνων· καὶ οἱ ἐξ ἀνεκδότου λάθρα γεννώμενοι παῖδες. Justin translates Partheniæ, Spurii.

The local eponymous heroes Taras and Satyrus (from Satyrium) were celebrated and worshipped among the Tarentines. See Cicero, Verr. iv, 60, 13; Servius ad Virg. Georg. ii, 197; Zumpt. ap. Orelli, Onomasticon Tullian. ii, p. 570.

[740] Compare Strabo, vi, p. 264 and p. 280.

[741] Strabo, vi, p. 278; Polyb. x, 1.

[742] Juvenal, Sat. vi, 297. “Atque coronatum et petulans madidumque Tarentum:” compare Plato, Legg. i, p. 637; and Horat. Satir. ii, 4, 34. Aristot. Polit. iv, 4, 1. οἱ ἁλιεῖς ἐν Τάραντι καὶ Βυζαντίῳ. “Tarentina ostrea,” Varro, Fragm. p. 301, ed. Bipont.

To illustrate this remark of Aristotle on the fishermen of Tarentum, as the predominant class in the democracy, I transcribe a passage from Mr. Keppel Craven’s Tour in the Southern Provinces of Naples, ch. x, p. 182. “Swinburne gives a list of ninety-three different sorts of shell-fish which are found in the gulf of Taranto; but more especially in the Mare Piccolo. Among these, in ancient times, the murex and purpura ranked foremost in value; in our degenerate days, the mussel and oyster seem to have usurped a preëminence as acknowledged but less dignified; but there are numerous other tribes held in proportionate estimation for their exquisite flavor, and as greedily sought for during their respective seasons. The appetite for shell-fish of all sorts, which seems peculiar to the natives of these regions, is such as to appear exaggerated to a foreigner, accustomed to consider only a few of them as eatable. This taste exists at Taranto, if possible, in a stronger degree than in any other part of the kingdom, and accounts for the comparatively large revenue which government draws from this particular branch of commerce. The Mare Piccolo is divided into several portions, which are let to different societies, who thereby become the only privileged fishermen; the lower classes are almost all employed by these corporations, as every revolving season of the year affords occupation for them, so that Nature herself seems to have afforded the exclusive trade most suited to the inhabitants of Taranto. Both seas abound with varieties of testacea, but the inner gulf (the Mare Piccolo) is esteemed most favorable to their growth and flavor; the sandy bed is literally blackened by the mussels that cover it; the boats that glide over its surface are laden with them; they emboss the rocks that border the strand, and appear equally abundant on the shore, piled up in heaps.” Mr. Craven goes on to illustrate still farther the wonderful abundance of this fishery; but that which has been already transcribed, while it illustrates the above-noticed remark of Aristotle, will at the same time help to explain the prosperity and physical abundance of the ancient Tarentum.

For an elaborate account of the state of cultivation, especially of the olive, near the degenerate modern Taranto, see the Travels of M. De Salis Marschlins in the Kingdom of Naples (translated by Aufrere, London, 1795), sect. 5, pp. 82-107, 163-178.

[743] Skylax does not mention at all the name of Italy; he gives to the whole coast, from Rhegium to Poseidonia on the Mediterranean, and from the same point to the limit between Thurii and Herakleia on the gulf of Tarentum, the name of Lucania (c. 12-13). From this point he extends Iapygia to the Mount Drion, or Garganus, so that he includes not only Metapontium, but also Herakleia in Iapygia.

Antiochus draws the line between Italy and Iapygia at the extremity of the Metapontine territory; comprehending Metapontium in Italy, and Tarentum in Iapygia (Antiochus, Frag. 6, ed. Didot; ap. Strabo, vi, p. 254).

Herodotus, however, speaks not only of Metapontium but also of Tarentum, as being in Italy (i, 24; iii, 136; iv, 15).

I notice this discrepancy of geographical speech, between the two contemporaries Herodotus and Antiochus, the more especially, because Niebuhr has fallen into a mistake by exclusively following Antiochus, and by saying that no writer, even of the days of Plato, would have spoken of Tarentum as being in Italy, or of the Tarentines as Italiots. This is perfectly true respecting Antiochus, but is certainly not true with respect to Herodotus; nor can it be shown to be true with respect to Thucydidês,—for the passage of the latter, which Niebuhr produces, does not sustain his inference. (Niebuhr, Römische Geschichte, vol. i. pp. 16-18, 2d edit.)

[744] Herodot. vii, 170: Pliny, H. N. iii, 16; Athenæ. xii, p. 523; Servius ad Virgil. Æneid. viii, 9.

[745] Herodot. iv. 99.

[746] Servius ad Virgil. Æneid. vii, 691. Polybius distinguishes Iapygians from Messapians (ii, 24).

[747] Pausanias, x, 10, 3; x, 13, 5; Strabo, vi, p. 282: Justin, iii, 4.

[748] See a description of the French military operations in these almost inaccessible regions, contained in a valuable publication by a French general officer, on service in that country for three years, “Calabria during a Military Residence of three years,” London, 1832, Letter xx, p. 201.

The whole picture of Calabria contained in this volume is both interesting and instructive: military operations had never before been carried on, probably, in the mountains of the Sila.

[749] See Theokritus, Idyll, iv, 6-35, which illustrates the point here stated.

[750] Suidas, v. Ῥίνθων; Stephan. Byz. v. Τάρας: compare Bernhardy, Grundriss der Römischen Litteratur, Abschnitt ii, pt. 2, pp. 185-186, about the analogy of these φλύακες of Rhinthon with the native Italic Mimes.

The dialect of the other cities of Italic Greece is very little known: the ancient Inscription of Petilia is Doric: see Ahrens, De Dialecto Doricâ, sect. 49, p. 418.

[751] Aristophan. Vesp. 1260. Αἰσωπικὸν γελοῖον, ἢ Συβαριτικόν. What is meant by Συβαριτικὸν γελοῖον is badly explained by the Scholiast, but is perfectly well illustrated by Aristophanês himself, in subsequent verses of the same play (1427-1436), where Philokleon tells two good stories respecting “a Sybaritan man,” and a “woman in Sybaris:” Ἀνὴρ Συβαρίτης ἐξέπεσεν ἐξ ἅρματος, etc.—ἐν Συβάρει γυνή ποτε Κατέαξ᾽ ἐχῖνον, etc.

These Συβάρια ἐπιφθέγματα are as old as Epicharmus, whose mind was much imbued with the Pythagorean philosophy. See Etymolog. Magn. Συβαρίζειν. Ælian amused himself also with the ἱστόριαι Συβαριτικαί (V. H. xiv, 20): compare Hesychius, Συβαριτικοὶ λόγοι, and Suidas, Συβαριτικαῖς.

[752] Thus Herodotus (vi, 127) informs us that, at the time when Kleisthenês of Sikyon invited from all Greece suitors of proper dignity for the hand of his daughter, Smindyridês of Sybaris came among the number, “the most delicate and luxurious man ever known,” (ἐπὶ πλεῖστον δὴ χλιδῆς εἷς ἀνὴρ ἀφίκετο—Herodot. vi, 127), and Sybaris was at that time (B. C. 580-560) in its greatest prosperity. In Chamæleon, Timæus, and other writers subsequent to Aristotle, greater details were given. Smindyridês was said to have taken with him to the marriage one thousand domestic servants, fishermen, bird-catchers, and cooks (Athenæ. vi, 271; xii, 541). The details of Sybaritic luxury, given in Athenæus, are chiefly borrowed from writers of this post-Aristotelian age,—Herakleidês of Pontus, Phylarchus, Klearchus, Timæus (Athenæ. xii, 519-522). The best-authenticated of all the examples of Sybaritic wealth, is the splendid figured garment, fifteen cubits in length, which Alkimenês the Sybarite dedicated as a votive offering in the temple of the Lakinian Hêrê. Dionysius of Syracuse plundered that temple, got possession of the garment, and is said to have sold it to the Carthaginians for the price of one hundred and twenty talents: Polemon, the Periegetes, seems to have seen it at Carthage (Aristot. Mirab. Ausc. 96; Athenæ. xii, 541). Whether the price be correctly stated, we are not in a situation to determine.

[753] Herodot. vii, 102. τῇ Ἑλλάδι πενίη μὲν αἰεί κοτε σύντροφός ἐστι.

[754] Varro, De Re Rusticâ, i, 44. “In Sybaritano dicunt etiam cum centesimo redire solitum.” The land of the Italian Greeks stands first for wheaten bread and beef; that of Syracuse for pork and cheese (Hermippus ap. Athenæ. i, p. 27): about the excellent wheat of Italy, compare Sophoklês, Triptolem. Fragm. 529, ed. Dindorf.

Theophrastus dwells upon the excellence of the land near Mylæ, in the territory of the Sicilian Messênê, which produced, according to him, thirty-fold. (Hist. Plant. ix, 2, 8, p. 259, ed. Schneid.) This affords some measure of comparison, both for the real excellence of the ancient Sybaritan territory, and for the estimation in which it was held; its estimated produce being more than three times that of Mylæ.

See in Mr. Keppel Craven’s Tour in the Southern Provinces of Naples (chapters xi, xii, pp. 212-218), the description of the rich and productive plain of the Krathis (in the midst of which stood the ancient Sybaris), extending about sixteen miles from Cassano to Corigliano, and about twelve miles from the former town to the sea. Compare, also, the picture of the same country, in the work by a French officer, referred to in a previous note, “Calabria during a Military Residence of three years,” London, 1832, Letter xxii, pp. 219-226.

Hekatæus (c. 39, ed. Klausen) calls Cosa,—Κόσσα, πόλις Οἰνωτρῶν ἐν μεσογαίᾳ. Cosa is considered to be identical, seemingly on good grounds, with the modern Cassano (Cæsar, Bell. Civ. iii, 22): assuming this to be correct, there must have been an Œnotrian dependent town within eight miles of the ancient city of Sybaris.

[755] Diodor xii, 9.

[756] Athenæus, xii, p. 519.

[757] Herodot. vi, 21. Respecting the great abundance of ship-timber in the territory of the Italiots (Italian Greeks), see Thucyd. vi, 90; vii, 25.

The pitch from the pine forests in the Sila was also abundant and celebrated (Strabo, vi, p. 261).

[758] Herodot. iii, 138.

[759] Athenæus, xii, p. 519.

[760] Festus, v. bilingues Brutates.

[761] Strabo, vi, p. 262.