Carthaginians, were slain, together with their general. The
number of the combatants is doubtless exaggerated, but we may believe that
the force was very great. Gelo was now supreme in Sicily, and the victory
of Himera, which he had gained, enabled him to distribute a large body of
prisoners, as slaves, in all the Grecian colonies. It appears that he was
much respected, but he died shortly after his victory, leaving an infant
son to the guardianship of two of his brothers, Polyzelus and Hiero, who
became the supreme governors of the island. A victory gained by Hiero over
the tyrant of Agrigentum gave him the same supremacy which Gelo had
enjoyed. On his death, B.C. 467, the succession was disputed between his
brother, Thrasybulus, and his nephew, the son of Gelo; but Thrasybulus
contrived to make away with his nephew, and reigned alone, cruelly and
despotically, until a revolution took place, which resulted in his
expulsion and the fall of the Gelonian dynasty. Popular governments were
now established in all the Sicilian cities, but these were distracted by
disputes and confusions. Syracuse became isolated from the other cities,
and a government whose powers were limited by the city. The expulsion of
the Gelonian dynasty left the Grecian cities to reorganize free and
constitutional governments; but Syracuse maintained a proud pre-eminence,
and her power was increased from time to time by conquests in the interior
over the old population. Agrigentum was next in power, and scarcely
inferior in wealth. The temple of Zeus, in this city, was one of the most
magnificent in the world. The population was large, and many were the rich
men who kept chariots and competed at the Olympic games. In these Sicilian
cities the intellectual improvement kept pace with the material, and the
little town of Elea supported the two greatest speculative philosophers of
Greece--Parmenides and Zeno. Empedocles, of Agrigentum, was scarcely less
famous.

(M539) Such was the state of the Sicilian cities on the outbreak of the
Peloponnesian war. Being generally of Dorian origin, they sympathized with
Sparta, and great expectations were formed by the Lacedaemonians of
assistance from their Sicilian allies. The cities of Sicily could not
behold the contest between Athens and Sparta without being drawn into the
quarrel, and the result was that the Dorian cities made war on the Ionian
cities, which, of course, sympathized with Athens. As these cities were