SICILY BECOMES DEPENDENT. 611 CHAP. XCVII.] Hellenic Sicily con tinues pre- tholes, and The becomes ordinate to during the life of then sub derant Agathokles, however, though among the worst of Greeks, was yet a Greek. During his government agency in of thirty-two years, the course of events in Sicily continued under Hellenic agency, without the ponderant intervention of any foreign power. power of Agathokles indeed rested mainly on foreign mercenaries; but so had that of Dionysius and preponGelon before him; and he as well as they, kept up foreigners. vigorously the old conflict against the Carthaginian power in the island. Grecian history in Sicily thus continues down to the death of Agathokles; but it continues no longer. After his death, Hellenic power and interests become incapable of self-support, and sink into a secondary and subservient position, overridden or contended for by foreigners. Syracuse and the other cities passed from one despot to another, and were torn with discord arising out of the crowds of foreign mercenaries who had obtained footing among them. At the same time, the Carthaginians made increased efforts to push their conquests in the island, without finding any sufficient internal resistance; so that they would have taken Syracuse, and made Sicily their own, had not Pyrrhus king of Epirus (the son-in-law of Agathokles) interposed to arrest their progress. From this time forward, the Greeks of Sicily become a prize to be contended for-first between the Carthaginians and Pyrrhus-next, 1 Diodor. xx. 63. saliots maintained their own relations of commerce, friendship or hostility with their barbaric neighbours, the Ligurians, Gauls, and Iberians, without becoming involved in the larger political confederacies of the Hellenic world. They carried out from their mother-city established habits of adventurous coast-navigation and commercial activity. Their situation, distant from other Greeks and sustained by a force hardly sufficient even for defence, imposed upon them the necessity both of political harmony at home, and of prudence and persuasive agency in their mode of dealing with neighbours. That they were found equal to this necessity, appears sufficiently attested by the few general statements transmitted in respect to them; though their history in its details is unknown. Their city was strong by position, situated upon a promontory washed on three sides by the sea, well-fortified, and possessing a convenient harbour securely closed against enemies'. The domain around it however appears not to have been large, nor did their population extend itself much into the interior. The land around was less adapted for corn than for the vine and the olive; wine was supplied by the Massaliots throughout Gaul. It was on shipboard that their courage and skill was chiefly displayed; it was by maritime enterprise that their power, their wealth, and their colonial expansion was obtained. In an age when piracy was common, the Massaliot ships and seamen were effective in attack and defence not less than in 1 Cæsar, Bell. Gall. ii. 1; Strabo, iv. p. 179. CHAP. XCVIII.] COMMERCE AND POWER OF MASSALIA. 615 transport and commercial interchange; while their numerous maritime successes were attested by many trophies adorning the temples1. The city contained docks and arsenals admirably provided with provisions, stores, arms, and all the various muniments of naval war2. Except the Phenicians and Carthaginians, these Massaliots were the only enterprising mariners in the Western Mediterranean; from the year 500 B.C. downward, after the energy of the Ionic Greeks had been crushed by inland potentates. The Iberian and Gallic tribes were essentially landsmen, not occupying permanent stations on the coast, nor having any vocation for the sea; but the Ligurians, though chiefly mountaineers, were annoying neighbours to Massalia as well by their piracies at sea as from their depredations by land3. To all these landsmen, however, depredators as they were, the visit of the trader soon made itself felt as a want, both for import and export; and to this want the Massaliots, with their colonies, were the only ministers, along the Gulfs of Genoa and Lyons, from Luna (the frontier of Tuscany) to the Dianium (Cape della Nao) in Spain. It was not until the first century before the Christian era that they were outstripped in this 1 Strabo, iv. p. 180. 2 Strabo (xii. p. 575) places Massalia in the same rank as Kyzikus, Rhodes, and Carthage; types of maritime cities highly and effectively organized. 3 Livy, xl. 18; Polybius, xxx. 4. 4 The oration composed by Demosthenes πрòs Zŋvóðeμiv, relates to an affair wherein a ship, captain, and mate, all from Massalia, are found engaged in the carrying trade between Athens and Syracuse (Demosth. p. 882 seq.). CHAP. XCVIII.] COLONIES OF MASSALIA. 617 guard on the walls, or at least held themselves prepared to do so. How long these strict and fatiguing precautions were found necessary, we do not know; but after a certain time they were relaxed, and the intervening wall disappeared, so that Greeks and Iberians freely coalesced into one community'. It is not often that we are allowed to see so much in detail the early difficulties and dangers of a Grecian colony. Massalia itself was situated under nearly similar circumstances among the rude Ligurian Salyes; we hear of these Ligurians hiring themselves as labourers to dig on the fields of Massaliot proprietors. The various tribes of Ligurians, Gauls, and Iberians extended down to the coast, so that there was no safe road along it, nor any communication except by sea, until the conquests of the Romans in the second and first century before the Christian era3. cal ment of The government of Massalia was oligarchical, Oligarchicarried on chiefly by a Senate or Great Council of govern Six Hundred (called Timuchi), elected for lifeand by a small council of fifteen, chosen among political this larger body to take turn in executive duties1. tration. 1 Livy, xxxiv. 8; Strabo, iii. p. 160. At Massalia, it is said that no armed stranger was ever allowed to enter the city, without depositing his arms at the gate (Justin, xliii. 4). This precaution seems to have been adopted in other cities also: see Eneas, Poliorket. c. 30. 2 Strabo, iii. p. 165. A fact told to Poseidonius by a Massaliot proprietor who was his personal friend. In the siege of Massalia by Cæsar, a detachment of Albici,-mountaineers not far from the town, and old allies or dependents—were brought in to help in the defence (Cæsar, Bell. G. i. 34). 3 Strabo, iv. p. 180. 4 Strabo, iv. p. 181; Cicero, De Republ. xxvii. Fragm. Vacancies in the senate seem to have been filled up from meritorious citizens generally-as far as we can judge by a brief allusion in Aristotle (Polit. vi. 7). Massaliaprudent adminis |