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[2] Who, indeed, would have believed that, putting ashore with two1 merchantmen, he could actually have overcome the despot who had at his disposal four hundred ships2 of war, infantry numbering nearly one hundred thousand, ten thousand horse, and as great a store of arms, food, and money as one in all probability possessed who had to maintain lavishly the aforesaid forces; and, apart from all we have mentioned, had a city which was the largest of the cities of Hellas, and harbours and docks and fortified citadels3 that were impregnable, and, besides, a great number of powerful allies?

1 Confirmed by Plut. Dion 25.1. The port was Heracleia Minoa, halfway between Acragas and Selinus (see below, sect. 4).

2 Confirmed by chap. 70.3; Plut. Dion 14.2; Aelian Varia Historia 6.12. Nepos Dion 5.3 gives "quingentis longis navibus."

3 Of Ortygia and Epipolae, the work of Dionysius I. See Book 14.7.1-3, 5; and Book 14.18 for these and other constructions.

Diodorus Siculus. Diodorus of Sicily in Twelve Volumes with an English Translation by C. H. Oldfather. Vol. 4-8. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989.

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