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The two-horse chariot race1 was added in this same Olympic Festival2; and among the Lacedaemonians Pleistonax, their king, died after a reign of fifty years, and Pausanias succeeded to the throne and reigned for fourteen years. Also the inhabitants of the island of Rhodes left the cities of Ielysus, Lindus, and Cameirus and settled in one city, that which is now called Rhodes. [2]

Hermocrates,3 the Syracusan, taking his soldiers set out from Selinus, and on arriving at Himera he pitched camp in the suburbs of the city, which lay in ruins. And finding out the place where the Syracusans had made their stand, he collected the bones of the dead4 and putting them upon wagons which he had constructed and embellished at great cost he conveyed them to Syracuse. [3] Now Hermocrates himself stopped at the border of Syracusan territory, since the exiles were forbidden by the laws from accompanying the bones farther, but he sent on some of his troops who brought the wagons to Syracuse. [4] Hermocrates acted in this way in order that Diocles, who opposed his return and was generally believed to be responsible for the lack of concern over the failure to bury the dead, should fall out with the masses, whereas he, by his humane consideration for the dead, would win the multitude back to the feeling of goodwill in which they had formerly held him. [5] Now when the bones had been brought into the city, civil discord arose among the masses, Diocles objecting to their burial and the majority favouring it. Finally the Syracusans not only buried the remains of the dead but also by turning out en masse paid honour to the burial procession. Diocles was exiled; but even so they did not receive Hermocrates back, since they were wary of the daring of the man and feared lest, once he had gained a position of leadership, he should proclaim himself tyrant. [6] Accordingly Hermocrates, seeing that the time was not opportune for resorting to force, withdrew again to Selinus. But some time later, when his friends sent for him, he set out with three thousand soldiers, and making his way through the territory of Gela he arrived at night at the place agreed upon. [7] Although not all his soldiers had been able to accompany him, Hermocrates with a small number of them came to the gate on Achradine, and when he found that some of his friends had already occupied the region, he waited to pick up the latecomers. [8] But when the Syracusans heard what had happened, they gathered in the market-place under arms, and here, since they appeared accompanied by a great multitude, they slew both Hermocrates and most of his supporters. Those who had not been killed in the fighting were brought to trial and sentenced to exile; [9] consequently some of them who had been severely wounded were reported by their relatives as having died, in order that they might not be given over to the wrath of the multitude. Among their number was also Dionysius, who later became tyrant of the Syracusans.5

1 Until this time the only chariot race had been that with teams of four horses (cp. Paus. 5.8.10).

2 The ninety-third, 408 B.C.

3 The narrative is resumed from the end of chap. 63.

4 Cp. chap. 61.6.

5 405-367 B.C.

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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