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When all the Greeks, at the time Xerxes was about to cross over into Europe,1 dispatched an embassy to Gelon to discuss an alliance, and when he answered that he would ally himself with them and supply them with grain, provided that they would grant him the supreme command either on the land or on the sea, the tyrant's ambition for glory in his demanding the supreme command thwarted the alliance; and yet the magnitude of the aid he could supply and the fear of the enemy were impelling them to share the glory with Gelon.2

1 480 B.C.

2 See Hdt. 7.157 ff. But Gelon himself was in danger from an attack of the Carthaginians upon the Greeks of Sicily.

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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