CHAPTER XCVII.

SICILIAN AND ITALIAN GREEKS.-AGATHOKLES.

established

leon at

exchanged

It has been convenient, throughout all this work, Constitution to keep the history of the Italian and Sicilian Greeks by Timo distinct from that of the Central and Asiatic. We Syracuseparted last from the Sicilian Greeks', at the death of for an olitheir champion the Corinthian Timoleon (337 B.C.), garchy. by whose energetic exploits, and generous political policy, they had been almost regenerated-rescued from foreign enemies, protected against intestine discord, and invigorated by a large reinforcement of new colonists. For the twenty years next succeeding the death of Timoleon, the history of Syracuse and Sicily is an absolute blank; which is deeply to be regretted, since the position of these cities included so much novelty-so many subjects for debate, for peremptory settlement, or for amicable compromise that the annals of their proceedings must have been peculiarly interesting. Twenty years after the death of Timoleon, we find the government of Syracuse described as an oligarchy; implying that the constitution established by Timoleon must have been changed either by violence or by consent. The oligarchy is stated as consisting of 600 chief men, among whom Sosistratus and Herakleides appear as leaders2. as leaders2. We hear generally that the Syracusans had been engaged in wars, and

1 See my last preceding Vol. XI. Ch. lxxxv. p. 277.

2 Diodor. xix. 3. It appears that Diodorus had recounted in his

Italian Greekspressed upon by enemies from the interior

king of

Sparta slain

in Italy.

that Sosistratus either first originated, or first firmly established, his oligarchy, after an expedition undertaken to the coast of Italy, to assist the citizens of Kroton against their interior neighbours and assailants the Bruttians.

Not merely Kroton, but other Grecian cities also on the coast of Italy, appear to have been exposed to causes of danger and decline, similar to those which were operating upon so many other portions Archidamus of the Hellenic world. Their non-Hellenic neighbours in the interior were growing too powerful and too aggressive to leave them in peace or security. The Messapians, the Lucanians, the Bruttians, and other native Italian tribes, were acquiring that increased strength which became ultimately all concentrated under the mighty republic of Rome. I have in my preceding volume recounted the acts of the two Syracusan despots, the elder and younger Dionysius, on this Italian coast'. Though the elder gained some advantage over the Lucanians, yet the interference of both contributed only to enfeeble and humiliate the Italiot Greeks. Not long before the battle of Chæroneia (340-338 B.C.), the Tarentines found themselves so hard pressed by the Messapians, that they sent to Sparta, their mothercity, to entreat assistance. The Spartan king Archidamus son of Agesilaus, perhaps ashamed of the nullity of his country since the close of the Sacred War, complied with their prayer, and sailed at the head of a mercenary force to Italy. How long his

eighteenth Book the previous circumstances of these two leaders; but this part of his narrative is lost; see Wesseling's note.

See Vol. XI. Ch. lxxxiii. p. 30; Ch. lxxxv. p. 187.

CHAP. XCVII.]

ALEXANDER OF EPIRUS.

533

operations there lasted, we do not know; but they ended by his being defeated and killed, near the time of the battle of Charoneia' (338 B.C.).

Rise of the kingdom of

Molossian

Epirus by

aid-Alex

king, bro

Olympias.

About six years after this event, the Tarentines, being still pressed by the same formidable neighbours, invoked the aid of the Epirotic Alexander, Macedonian king of the Molossians, and brother of Olympias. ander the These Epirots now, during the general decline of Molossian Grecian force, rise into an importance which they ther of had never before enjoyed?. Philip of Macedon, having married Olympias, not only secured his brother-inlaw on the Molossian throne, but strengthened his authority over subjects not habitually obedient. It was through Macedonian interference that the Molossian Alexander first obtained (though subject to Macedonian ascendency) the important city of Ambrakia; which thus passed out of a free Hellenic community into the capital and seaport of the Epirotic kings. Alexander farther cemented his union with Macedonia by marrying his own niece Kleopatra, daughter of Philip and Olympias. In fact, during the lives of Philip and Alexander the Great, the Epirotic kingdom appears a sort of adjunct to the Macedonian; governed by Olympias either jointly with her brother the Molossian Alexander-or as regent after his death".

1 Diodor. xvi. 88; Plutarch, Camill. 19; Pausan. iii. 10, 5. Plutarch even says that the two battles occurred on the same day.

2 The Molossian King Neoptolemus was father both of Alexander (the Epirotic) and of Olympias. But as to the genealogy of the preceding kings, nothing certain can be made out: see Merleker, Darstellung des Landes und der Bewohner von Epeiros, Königsberg, 1844, p. 2-6.

3 A curious proof how fully Olympias was queen of Epirus is preserved in the fragments (recently published by Mr. Babington) of the

B.C. 332331.

The Molossian Alex

ander

Italy to

assist the

Tarentines.

His exploits and death.

It was about the year after the battle of Issus that the Molossian Alexander undertook his expedition into Italy'; doubtless instigated in part by emulacrosses into tion of the Asiatic glories of his nephew and namesake. Though he found enemies more formidable than the Persians at Issus, yet his success was at first considerable. He gained victories over the Messapians, the Lucanians, and the Samnites; he conquered the Lucanian town of Consentia, and the Bruttian town of Tereina; he established an alliance with the Poediculi, and exchanged friendly messages with the Romans. As far as we can make out from scanty data, he seems to have calculated on establishing a comprehensive dominion in the south

oration of Hyperides in defence of Euxenippus, p. 12. The Athenians, in obedience to an oracular mandate from the Dodonæan Zeus, had sent to Dodona a solemn embassy for sacrifice, and had dressed and adorned the statue of Diônê there situated. Olympias addressed a despatch to the Athenians, reproving them for this as a trespass upon her dominionsὑπὲρ τούτων ὑμῖν τὰ ἐγκλήματα ἦλθε παρ' Ολυμπιάδος ἐν ταῖς ἐπιστολαῖς, ὡς ἡ χώρα εἴη ἡ Μολοσσία αὐτῆς, ἐν ᾗ τὸ ἱερόν ἐστιν· οὔκουν προσῆκεν ἡμῖν τῶν ἐκεῖ οὐδὲ ἓν κινεῖν. Olympias took a high and insolent tone in this letter (τὰς τραγῳδίας αὐτῆς καὶ τὰς κατηγορίας, &c.).

The date of this oration is at some period during the life of Alexander the Great-but cannot be more precisely ascertained. After the death of Alexander, Olympias passed much time in Epirus, where she thought herself more secure from the enmity of Antipater (Diodor. xviii. 49).

Dodona had been one of the most ancient places of pilgrimage for the Hellenic race-especially for the Athenians. The order here addressed to them, that they should abstain from religious manifestations at this sanctuary—is a remarkable proof of the growing encroachments on free Hellenism; the more so, as Olympias sent offerings to temples at Athens when she chose and without asking permission-we learn this from the same fragment of Hyperides.

1

Livy (viii. 3-24) places the date of this expedition of the Molossian Alexander eight years earlier; but it is universally recognized that

this is a mistake.

CHAP. XCVII.] HIS VICTORIES AND DEATH IN ITALY.

535

of Italy, over all its population-over Greek cities, Lucanians, and Bruttians. He demanded and obtained three hundred of the chief Lucanian and Messapian families, whom he sent over as hostages to Epirus. Several exiles of these nations joined him as partisans. He farther endeavoured to transfer the congress of the Greco-Italian cities, which had been usually held at the Tarentine colony of Herakleia, to Thurii; intending probably to procure for himself a compliant synod like that serving the purpose of his Macedonian nephew at Corinth. But the tide of his fortune at length turned. The Tarentines became disgusted and alarmed; his Lucanian partisans proved faithless; the stormy weather in the Calabrian Apennines broke up communication between his different detachments, and exposed them to be cut off in detail. He himself perished, by the hands of a Lucanian exile, in crossing the river Acheron, and near the town of Pandosia. This was held to be a memorable attestation of the prophetic veracity of the oracle; since he had received advice from Dodona to beware of Pandosia and Acheron; two names which he well knew, and therefore avoided, in Epirus-but which he had not before known to exist in Italy'.

the

sent by the

to Kroton

The Greco-Italian cities had thus dwindled down Assistance into a prize to be contended for between the Epirotic Syracusans kings and the native Italian powers-as they again first rise of became, still more conspicuously, fifty years after- Agathokles. wards, during the war between Pyrrhus and the Romans. They were now left to seek foreign aid, where they could obtain it, and to become the prey

1

Livy, viii. 17-24; Justin, xii. 2; Strabo, vi. p. 280.