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Ἱέρωνι: Hieron, brother and successor of Gelon, and second only to his predecessor in ability and splendour, is mentioned by Hdt. in this one place (a patent illustration of how much Hdt. might have recorded that he has left unsaid<*>). Besides Hieron (a significant name in this hierophantic family) there were two other brothers, Polyzelos and Thrasyboulos, not mentioned by Hdt. Cp. Simonides 141 [196]. Bergk, P. L. iii.4 p. 485—an epigram which Hauvette, de l'Authenticité des Epigrammes de Simonide, p. 123, classes with the doubtful. The names, however, are probably correct. ὃ δέ: on this resumption of the subject, with δέ in a pseudo-antitbesis for the sake of rhetorical point, cp. cc. 6, 10, 13, 51, etc. ἐκράτυνε, in connecting Achradina, already a fortified suburb, with Ortygia, already a peninsula, by a wall (cp. Freeman, ii. 138 ff.), which doubtless added fresh territory to the city itself. This hypothesis seems more reasonable than the <*>iew that Gelon made no considerable addition to the area of the city, whatever the exact truth about the remains of the ‘Gelonian wall’ may be. (Lupus, die Stadt Syracus, pp. 87 ff., represents the said CavallariHolm'schen view.) Cp. infra.
ἦσάν οἱ πάντα αἱ Συρήκουσαι: an admirable harbour, other physical advantages of the site, a position on the east coast, facing Italy, Hellas, Asia, all tended to make Syracuse, not merely more important than Gela, but potential capital of the island, and seat of a great Mediterranean power. Such had been the dream of Hippokrates, and that dream was now realized by Gelon. He enlarges and fortifies the city, and multiplies the population, by the wholesale transfer of citizens from Kamarina, Gela, Megara, Euboia. Room had to be found for this mass of men. The ‘Cavallar<*>-Holm’ view is that the immigrants went to fill up gaps on Achradina, that the quarter Tycha was added by Gelon, and that the lower part of Achradina in the immediate neighbourhood of the island was somewhat enlarged (Lupus, p. 99).
ἀνά τ᾽ ἔδραμον καὶ ἔβλαστον. Freeman, ii. 138 n.2, quaintly regards these words as “not ill-chosen to set forth the climbing up of the city from Ortygia to the height of Achradina”; but the words are purely metaphorical, cp. the description of Sparta 1. 66 οἷα δὲ ἔν τε χώρῃ ἀγαθῇ καὶ πλήθεἰ οὐκ ὀλίγων ἀνδρῶν, ἀνά τε ἔδραμον αὐτίκα καὶ εὐθηνήθησαν.
Καμαριναίους ἅπαντας: i.e. the settlers established at Kamarina by Hippokrates but a few years before as sn outpost of Gela against Syracuse: the altered position of Syracuse under Gelon involved the reversal of that policy; but Kamarinawas destined toanother restoration, Thuc. 6. 5. 3.
τὸ ἄστυ κατέσκαψε does not necessarily imply that the place had been walled, or fortified (cp. 6. 72 τὰ οἰκία οἰ κατεσκάφη), rather all the habitations were razed to the ground. Γελᾠων ὑπερημίσεας τῶν ἀστῶν: ‘above half of the citizens of Gela’ were transferred to Syracuse; this would not merely weaken Gela as a possible rival of Syracuse, but strengthen the Greek and Dorian element in the new capital.
Μεγαρέας: cp. c. 155 supra. The παχέες (cp. 5. 30, 5. 77, 6. 91) or ‘men of substance’ would be the Hellenic and Dorian element, or the cream thereof. The δῆμος would, perhaps, include nonHellenic elements. After this unexpected ‘judgement of Gelon’ Megara was a solitude (cp. Thuc. 6. 49. 4), and the old Isthmian rival of Korinth lost its point d'appui in the West. Euboia, similarly treated, disappears completely from history, so that its very site is not exactly known (Freeman, i. 380): as a foundation from Leontinoi it represented an out-post of the Chalkidic interest; cp. Strabo 272, 449.
ἀπέδοτο ἐπ᾽ ἐξαγωγῇ, ‘sold them as slaves for exportation.’ Hdt, seems barely aware of the grim irony of their fate. Their destmations will have been in Italy and Africa, probably, rather than the East. With the phrase cp. 5. 6 πωλεῦσι τὰ τέκνα ἐπ᾽ ἐξαγωγῇ (Demosth. uses the gen. case). ἐξαγ. in a somewhat different sense 4. 179.
δῆμον εἶναι συνοίκημα ἀχαριτώτατον. Gelon appears to have been something of a huntorist, and this bonmot may be genuine: not so the one ascribed to him in c. 162 infra. The deeper aspects of Gelon's statecraft Hdt. either misses, or will not spoil his lively logography by discussing. Gelon plainly understood the art of governing by division. He effects a huge συνοικισμός in Syracuse; as a rule such centralisations promoted democracy (Mantineia, Athens, Megalopolis), and perhaps in the long run in μεγαλοπόλιες Συρακοῦσαι too; but for the time, at least, Gelon eliminated the elements, which might most easily have coalesced into an unmanageable and graceless proletariate, and rehed upon the divided interests of his composite citizen body all centring upon its creator. συνοίκημα, apparently an Hapaxlegomenon, suggests an element or factor in a συνοικισμός, as well as an item in a household (like ΔΗΜΟΣ in The Knights).
ἀχάριτος=ἄχαρις occurs also in 1. 207.
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