Houliang Lyu, Sicily as the Frontier of Ancient Greek Civilization in the Classical Age: Its Duality and Historical Development

Abstract   In the context of historians in the high classical age, such as Herodotus and Thucydides, Sicily with her mixed population, primary culture and dubious political cause serves as a barbarous frontier at the edge of Greek world. Nevertheless, the historical work by Diodorus preserves for us a positive description of Sicily, the frontier of Greek civilization in the western end, by confirming her role as a military barrier of the Greek world, an active stage for Greek culture, and a utopia with admirable morality. The positive image of Sicily as the frontier of Greek civilization was not simply invented by Timaeus and other Hellenistic historians. Sicilian tyrants, notably Gelon and Hiero, together with early classical writers from Greece proper, such as Pindar and Aeschylus, played an active role in its formation. The dramatic decline of this notion reflects the profound transformation of the political attitude and the anti-barbarian ideology of Athenian intellectuals in the classical period. 

Key Words   Sicily; the frontier of civilization; pan-Hellenism; historical memory 

　　  

　　I. Sicily as a “Barbarous Frontier” in the Historical Memory of the High Classical Age 

　　  

　　In 481 B.C., under the pressure of the Persian army led by Xerxes, the alliance of Greeks sent envoys to Syracuse, so as to ask for the assistance of the powerful tyrant Gelon. Gelon arrogantly called these envoys “Greeks (Ἄνδρες Ἕλληνες)”, and recalled the indifference of inhabitants on the Greece proper when he had been seeking for help from them. Then Gelon claimed that he could forget about these unpleasant experiences and provide a huge army of 200 triremes, 20000 hoplites, 2000 cavalry, 2000 archers and 2000 light troops, on condition that the Greek alliance nominated him as the sole leader of all Greeks. As his proposal was refused, Gelon coldly cursed that the Greek alliance without his support was like a year without spring. However, he afterwards secretly sent Scythes to watch the warfare with precious gifts, and prepared to offer these gifts to the Persians after their victory. As things turn out, when the Greek alliance won unexpectedly, Gelon offered sacrifice to Delphi, as the compensation of his previous inactiveness. 

　　In the autumn of 413 B.C., the cruel Syracusan victors threw no fewer than 7000 Athenian captives into a narrow cave, and forced them to suffer the heat of sunshine, the freezing wind at night, as well as the disease and hunger. After the torture of about 70 days, survivors of these captives were sold as slaves by the Sicilian “Greeks”. The historian Thucydides implores that the suffering of Athenians in this defeat was beyond measure (τοῖς διαφθαρεῖσι δυστυχέστατον).  

　　In the 98th Olympic Games held in 388 B.C., Dionysius the Elder sent his brother Thearides to take part in the competition with his horses lavished dressed, and employed by a high price the best reciter at that time to recite his awkward poems. The audience at first spoke highly of the beauty of the Syracusan horses and the moving voice of the reciter; but their praise was soon replaced by mockery of the bad poems composed by Dionysius the Elder. The orator Lysias stood up and proposed to expel the team sent by an impious tyrant from this Panhellenic and holy ceremony. Although Dionysius the Elder was the richest and the most powerful figure all over the Greek world, he still had to worry about his security for his betrayal of common interest of Greeks and his oppression over his subjects, and even had to replace his barber (who might contrive against his life someday) with his own daughter. 

　　The three episodes of historical memory comes respectively from Herodotus, Thucydides, Diodorus and Cicero. They represent for the fundamental image of Sicily and her history in the minds of intellectuals in Greece proper in the late 5th century B.C. and the 4th century B.C. Although the participating figures and the ages are totally different, they help to shape the same image of Sicily as a barbarous frontier. In the context of Greek (mainly Athenian) historiography in the high classical age, the inhabitants on the island of Sicily (including Magna Graecia) are very different from “pure” Greeks living in Greece proper. The residents in the colonial Greek cities there are barbarous and uncultivated. They tend to vacillate in front of the barbarians hostile to Greeks, and adopted the cruel and dark tyranny. Sicily and Magna Graecia serve as a transitional area between the westernmost of the Greek world and the barbarians, and are considered as the “barbarous frontier” between light and darkness, rationality and ignorance, humanity and brutality, as well as freedom and slavery. 

　　In the extant ancient Greek texts, the identity of Sicily as the cultural frontier of the Greek world is never questioned. Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea and a “mini-continent”. Throughout the classical age, Sicily and Magna Graecia were accepted as one part of the Greek world, and were almost always separated and at war against their neighbours, namely the Carthaginians and the Etruscans. On the other hand, the complexity of the ethnicity of the Sicilian residents forces even Pan-Hellenic and local historians, such as Diodorus, to admit that the Greek civilization on the island of Sicily is very different from her mainland counterpart. Archaeological evidence seems to indicate that Greeks and Phoenicians almost simultaneously started to settle on Sicily during the 8th and the 7th centuries B.C.; and the relationship between the two forces were often quite complex. The coexistence, cooperation and competition between Greeks and Phoenicians, as well as the interaction between those civilizations and the indigenous culture, constructed an extremely complicated ethnical and cultural network. In order to attract migrants, Sybaris in Magna Graecia opened her citizenship to all ethnicities. Down to the age of Dionysius the Elder, Syracuse, which had been frequently at war against Carthage, still owned a large population of Carthaginians. The intermarriage among different ethnicities was already quite common in the 5th century B.C. In spite of all these, before the end of Dionysius the Elder’s reign, the dominance of Greek civilization on Sicily was never lost. Sicily, as well as Magna Graecia, was always considered a legitimate part of the Greek world. However, Diodorus’s Bibliotheke, which makes great contribution to the preservation of the history of Sicily during the classical age, tells us that the image of Sicily as the “cultural frontier” of the Greek world among ancient writers was not stereotypical. 

　　The historian Diodorus, who was perhaps born in 90 B.C. in Agyrium, enjoyed an advantage when he recorded the history of his homeland. His Bibliotheke consults lost works of Sicilian historians such like Antiochus of Syracuse, Philistus and Timaeus; it is also possible that he could get access to the records of other early Sicilian writers, for example Hippys of Rhegium. In that case, though the quality of the Bibliotheke is not always impressive, the material on Sicily it provides still deserves the notice of modern historians. Although Diodorus lavishly cites from classical authors, such as Herodotus and Thucydides, Sicily’s image as a “cultural frontier” in his context is very different from the historical memory of classical intellectuals from Greece proper. 

　　  

　　II. The Positive Description of Sicily as a Cultural Frontier in the Bibliotheke 

　　  

　　In the context of Diodorus, one of the most important duties of Sicily and Magna Graecia is to defend the Greek world against hostile “barbarians” in the West, such as Carthaginians and Etruscans, so as to ensure the survival and continuity of the “pure” Greek civilization, and provide a peaceful external environment for the prosperity and cultural development of the whole Greek world. In that sense, the military struggles in Sicily plays a key role in the history of Greek civilization. 

　　The military glory of Sicily was first of all conveyed by the Battle of Himera won by the tyrant Gelon. According to Diodorus, Xerxes negotiated with the Carthaginians before his invasion of Greece proper; and they decided to invade the Greek world from both sides simultaneously. Carthaginians kept their promise and sent Hamilcar with no less than 300000 soldiers and 200 warships to invade Himera on the northern coast of Sicily. But the tyrant Gelon led no fewer than 50000 infantrymen and 5000 cavalries and defeated the invaders by excellent tactics, and therefore saved Himera and even the whole Greek civilization. Diodorus passionately declares that the honour earned by Gelon in the Battle of Himera is parallel to that of the Spartan general Pausanias in the Battle of Plataea and that of Themistocles in the Battle of Salamis. The Sicilians believe that the only reason why Gelon failed to offer support to Greeks fighting against the Persians is the pressure from the West. Nevertheless, the victory in Himera achieved by him was also of key importance for the very survival of the Greek civilization. The battle took place simultaneously with the Battle of Thermopylae or the Battle of Salamis, the fact of which reveals the will of the gods to save the Greek civilization. The victory of Himera was the highest achievement of Sicily as the western military frontier of the Greek world in the war against the alliance of Persians and Carthaginians. It broke the malicious rumours that Sicilian Greeks contributed nothing in the Persian War. The successor of Galen, the tyrant Hiero of Syracuse, also made his contribution by relieving the Cumaeans (who were also Greek) from the oppression of Tyrrhenians (that is to say Etruscans). 

　　It is noteworthy that although Diodorus frequently adopts noble excuses, the principle of international relations he believes is actually extremely xenophobic and aggressive. First of all, Diodorus seems to suggest that all “neighbours” of Sicily and Magna Graecia were hostile to Greeks and were pitiless. According to his record, after their capture of Cumae in 421 B.C., the Campanians plundered savagely and sold all captives into slavery; afterwards they settled in the site of Cumae permanently. The grandson of the defeated general Hamilcar near Himera, the Carthaginian commander Hannibal, was one of the most dangerous enemies of the Greek world and was named “μισέλλην”. After brilliant resistance, the Sicilian city Selinus was captured and razed to the ground, with her citizens slaughtered, women raped and temples plundered. After the destruction of Selinus, Carthaginians’ next goal was to capture the whole island of Sicily. Therefore, the residents of the prosperous city Acragas had to migrate and suffer all kinds of misery, while whoever chose to stay were slaughtered by Hamilcon’s Carthaginian troops without exception. This Hamilcon also plundered the temple of Apollo outside Gela and razed the Sicilian Messenê to the ground. In Diodorus’ opinion, the only feasible solution to the cruel slaughter of enemies is an eye for an eye. He took all colonial conquests and invasions of Greeks against other ethnicities on the island of Sicily as an enterprise justified. The Syracusans conquered the aboriginal Siceni led by Ducetius by force, and slaughtered all residents of Trinaciê, the last town which dared to offer a resistance. Afterwards, the Syracusans also imposed have taxes on the conquered Siceni, so as to maintain their own army. The Sicilian Greeks were equally pitiless to the Carthaginians. Even the tyrant Gelon, who was set up as a positive moral example in the Bibliotheke, ordered to execute every Carthaginian his soldiers captured. After the capture of Motyê, Dionysius the Elder allowed his soldiers to plunder the city and crucified the Greek traitor Daïmenes, who had cooperated with the Carthaginians. In his record of the retreat of Carthaginians from Sicily, Diodorus openly cursed the “invaders” of the cultural frontier of the Greek world in the name of τύχη. 

　　Obviously, Diodorus himself must know the imperialism praised in his Bibliotheke might appear brutal and disgusting for some of his readers. Nevertheless, in Diodorus’ eyes, the war against the barbarians on Sicily is holy for the Greeks. That is because the cruel warfare protected the freedom and safety of Greece proper, as well as the prosperity of the Greek culture. In the preface of Book 12, he argues that there are neither absolute good nor absolute evils in this world (οὔτε γὰρ τῶν νομιζομένων ἀγαθῶν οὐδὲν ὁλόκληρον εὑρίσκεται δεδομένον τοῖς ἀνθρώποις οὔτε τῶν κακῶν αὐτοτελὲς ἄνευ τινὸς εὐχρηστίας). The invasion of Xerxes into the Greek world was on the one hand a disaster, but on the other hand also motivated Greeks to unite and fight against the common enemy, so as to gain glory and freedom, as well as to improve the mutual friendship among themselves. The glorious achievements of Pheidias, Plato and Aristotle were all produced in the peace and prosperity provided by the victory of the Persian War. Similarly, the peace and development of Sicily during the 5th and the 4th centuries B.C., which lasted as long as 70 years, were also the direct result of the Battle of Himera. In Books 13-14 of the Bibliotheke, Carthage serves as one typical “the Other” of Sicily, as well as the Greek civilization it was defending. The Sicilian Greeks fought against the Carthaginians to gain their independence and prove their own values. At the same time, they also confirmed their civilized identity in the resistance and conquer against the Carthaginian “barbarians”. In the context of the Bibliotheke, the cultural value of Sicily is highlighted by her rich cultural achievements and praiseworthy morality, which is considered by Diodorus not inferior to the standard of the Greece proper. 

　　In his reconstruction of the debate in the Athenian assembly on the eve of the second expedition against Sicily, Diodorus praises Sicily through the mouth of Nicias as “the largest island in the inhabited world (ἡ μεγίστη τῶν κατὰ τὴν οἰκουμένην νήσων)” and “the most powerful one among the islands (ἡ κρατίστη τῶν νήσων)”. But in Diodorus’ mind, the unique value of Sicily is first of all represented by her culture and morality instead of her size or military strength. Although cultural history is not the main theme of the Bibliotheke, and Diodorus’ record of the achievements of philosophy, art and literature in other parts of the Greek world is generally very concise, he often offers exhaustive narratives whenever he has a chance to introduce the cultural contributions and representative intellectuals in Sicily and Magna Graecia. For example, in 3.1-11.2 of the Book 10, Diodorus provides a lengthy record of Pythagoras’s life and his school, in which he offers a passionate eulogy of the cultural contribution of his hometown. In the context of the Bibliotheke, the cities in Magna Graecia and Sicily highly emphasize the importance of improving the cultural education through legislation, and are proud of the profound learning and elegant taste of their citizens. For example, Thuri in Magna Graecia passed laws to regulate elementary education of reading and writing. The orator Nicolaus claimed that every Syracusan citizen received good training of oratory skills and cultural education (ὅσοι μὲν γὰρ λόγου καὶ παιδείας ἐν τῇ πόλει μετεσχήκατε). In his record of the diplomatic transactions between Leotini and Athens, Diodorus emphasizes the impressive image of Gorgias, the leader of the embassy of Leotini, on the Athenian audience, who were born good speakers themselves. He goes on to point out that Gorgias was the inventor of many oratory skills, which were later fully developed in Athens. In all, Diodorus tries hard to show in his Bibliotheke that, although Sicily and Magna Graecia are the western frontier of the Greek world, they are by no means an uncivilized or barbarous region in the cultural sense. The residents there made glorious cultural achievements, which was not inferior to Greece proper. Talented intellectuals from that area, for instance Gorgias, even made substantial contribution for the Athenian oratory. 

　　As a highly moralized historical work, the Bibliotheke depicts a series of virtuous Sicilian heroes. In Nicolaus’ speech, which seems to be composed by Diodorus himself, the speaker repeatedly emphasized that the Sicilian Greeks were born to be kind-hearted, so that the virtuous Syracusans should be merciful to the Athenian captives. And his proposal received positive response from the audience for a while. In the narrative of the Bibliotheke, Hippocrates, the tyrant of Gela, was pious to the gods, and made great efforts to protect a temple of Zeus, though it located in the territory of his enemies (the Syracusans). Theron, the tyrant of Acragas, was virtuous and was honoured by his subjects after death. Micythus, the regent appointed by Anaxilas the tyrant of Zanklê, was loyal to the latter’s two young sons, maintained good government for the city. When the two princes grew up, Anaxilas immediately submitted his power and set for Tegea in Arcadia to live as a private person in the praise of the citizens of Zanklê. And Gelon, the tyrant of Syracuse, plays the role of the example of the supreme virtue in the Bibliotheke together with Julius Caesar. According to the depiction of Diodorus, Gelon emphasizes the importance of justice, leads a simple life, enjoys the friendship of his followers, and wins the respect of all Sicilian Greeks. In order to stop the luxury customs of Syracuse, Gelon ordered that his own funeral must be very modest; but he still received memory and honour as a hero after death by all Syracusans. 

　　Diodorus further points out that the admirable morality of Sicily and Magna Graecia is based on the wise laws passed in every city there. In his Bibliotheke, he offers a lengthy introduction of the legislation in Thuri by Charondas, the legislation of Zaleucus among the Locri, and the legal reformation of Diocles in Syracuse. Diodorus believes that these legislations and legal reforms successfully regulated the daily behaviours of the local inhabitants, played a positive role in the moral education, and shaped Sicily into a paradise of the Greek world.  

　　In all, in his Bibliotheke, Diodorus exhibits for us a positive and energetic image of Sicily as a cultural frontier. Sicily and Magna Graecia are the westernmost part of the Greek civilization; but it does not mean that their military, economic, cultural and moral importance must be inferior or secondary. In the context of Diodorus, Sicily offers defense and protection for the Greek civilization; it is the cradle of the school of Pythagoras and the Attic oratory, and a holy site of morality and virtuous heroes. Of course, as Diodorus is not indeed a great thinker, he failed to provide a systematic theory comparable to Frederick Jackson Turner, the founding father of the American frontier thesis. His views are often buried in a huge quantity of scattered, sometimes contradictory materials. His writing style is aggressive and exaggerative. In spite of all these, the positive image of Sicily as a cultural frontier preserved in Diodorus, which is obviously varied from that in Herodotus, Thucydides and Cicero, is still noteworthy. As the Bibliotheke is a compilation of historical materials, it is beyond any doubt that its presentation of Sicily as the cultural frontier of the Greek civilization must come from the authoritative record of former writers. In that case, is the positive and even exaggerated image constructed by local historians of Sicily, or inherited from the collective memory of all Greek intellectuals? Is this context very ancient, or produced recently by Hellenistic historians from Sicily to rival against the depiction of Herodotus, Thucydides and others of Sicily as a barbarous frontier of the Greek world? 

　　  

　　III. The Charge on Timaeus’ Distortion of Historical Truth 

　　  

　　It is well known that the history of Sicily composed by Timaeus of Tauromenium in Sicily, who lived roughly during 350-260 B.C., was one key source of Diodorus’ Bibliotheke. Two learned scholars in the Hellenistic Age, Polybius and Plutarch, offered serious criticism against Timaeus’ history. One important charge of them is exactly that Timaeus “distorted” the authoritative records of writers in the high classical age on the history of Sicily. In the Histories, Polybius devotes one whole book (Book 12) to criticise Timaeus’ history of Sicily (it is deplorable that quite a large part of it has been lost). Polybius believes that Timaeus’ history is full of nonsense (ἐνύπνια), visions (τέρατα) and exotic tales (μῦθοι ἀπίθανοι); he distorted the authoritative narrative offered by Aristotle, Theophrastus, Callisthenes, Ephorus and Demochares. Plutarch also blames Timaeus for his obvious partiality for the Sicilians, as well as his serious distortion of some basic historical facts already known to former scholars. 

　　Based on the comments of Polybius and Plutarch, quite a few modern scholars believe that the positive image of Sicily constructed in Diodorus’ Bibliotheke ultimately comes from the distortion of the narrative of classical authors by Timaeus. Lionel Pearson, who thoroughly studied the development of historiography in the West of the Greek world, points out that the narrative of the history of Sicily established by Timaeus dominated the historical tradition after him, and was considered as the authoritative version of the history of Magna Graecia and Sicily. On the one hand, hardly any records of the history of Sicily before Timaeus can be taken as mature historical works. Some so-called early Sicilian historians mentioned in Suda and other late sources, such as Hippys of Rhegium, did not really contribute much to the historical memory of Sicily at all. Their achievements were even much inferior to the treatment of Sicily in the universal history of Ephorus, although the latter’s attention mainly focuses on Greece proper. On the other hand, although Polybius and Plutarch knew well that the history of Sicily composed by Timaeus was unsatisfactory, they could not find any ideal substitution of his work in their own historical narrative of the events of Sicily. This fact proves that the tradition of history of Sicily before Ephorus and Timaeus hardly exists at all. The source of the history of Sicily composed by Timaeus and preserved in Diodorus’ Bibliotheke cannot be earlier than Aristotle and Ephorus, and comes to us only after the severe distortion by Timaeus. Therefore, its historical value must be very limited. 

　　Most modern researchers of ancient Sicilian historiography accept Pearson’s basic judgment. Murray believes that Timaeus plays the role of Herodotus by his invention of the tradition of history of Sicily. Michael Rathmann calls Timaeus a historian who sticks to “Localpatriotismus”. After her through analysis of Timaeus’ work, Lisa Irene Hau believes that the moralization in Books 13-14, Books 19-21 of Diodorus mostly comes from the record of Timaeus. Certain scholars went further to imagine the motive of Timaeus’ historical composition. They suppose that Timaeus, a historian who settled in Athens and missed his hometown very much, attempted to substitute the traditional narrative of Greek history focusing on Athens by his emphasis of the importance of history of Sicily, and therefore overrated the historical image of Sicily and Magna Graecia. 

　　Nevertheless, as the latest monograph on Timaeus by Christopher Baron points out, the judgment of Pearson on Timaeus and his historical achievements by Pearson is actually problematic, as it is too philological and narrow in vision. In my opinion, in their analysis of the sources of Timaeus and Diodorus, Pearson and other scholars limited themselves by the modern and anachronistic concept of “historiography”, and neglect the rich evidence in the poetry, archaeological materials, constructions and dramas from the early classical age, whose importance might not be inferior to the historical works of Herodotus and others for the shaping of the historical memory of ancient Greek intellectuals. Although Timaeus, Diodorus and other local historians of Sicily in the Hellenistic Age enriched the narrative of history of Sicily, and perhaps inserted certain “dramatic elements” criticized by Polybius, the positive image of Sicily as a cultural frontier and its core elements already took shape in the early classical age. Timaeus’ history of Sicily and Diodorus’ Bibliotheke only inherited that old tradition, which should be still famous in Sicily in their lifetime. 

　　  

　　IV. The True Source of the Positive Image of Sicily as A Cultural Frontier 

　　  

　　In the context of ancient Greek society, literature, historiography and religion were closely linked together, poetry, monuments, votive sacrifices and drama performance usually played roles parallel to historiography and sometimes even more universally recognized. For instance, down to the age of Pausanias the traveller (2nd century A.D.), epics of Homer were still recognized by quite a few Greek intellectuals as the most authoritative historical evidence. Throughout the classical age, ode and history always shared a lot of common features in their narrative structures and rhetorical skills. In the case of the positive image of Sicily as a cultural frontier, the Boeotian poet Pindar already left us key clues in his fifteen odes for the victors of Sicily in athletic competitions in the early 5th century B.C. These texts convincingly prove that, the two core elements of Sicily as a cultural frontier in the context of Timaeus and Diodorus, namely the value in the protection of Greek civilization and the extraordinary morality, were already created in Pindar’s time; and their influences were not limited to Sicily only. 

　　The Pythian I of Pindar expresses the notion to take Sicily as the cultural frontier and military line of defence of the whole Greek world. After the praise of Hiero for his feat of establishing Aetna on a “fertile soil (εὐκάρπος γαῖα)”, Pindar passionately praises as follows:  

　　  

　　εἰ γὰρ ὁ πᾶς χρόνος ὄλβον μὲν οὕτω  

　　 καὶ κτεάνων δόσιν εὐθύ- 

　　   νοι, καμάτων δ’ ἐπίλασιν παράσχοι·    

　　ἦ κεν ἀμνάσειεν, οἵαις ἐν πολέμοισι μάχαις  

　　τλάμονι ψυχᾷ παρέμειν’, ἁνίχ’ εὑρί- 

　　σκοντο θεῶν παλάμαις τιμάν  

　　οἵαν οὔτις Ἑλλάνων δρέπει  

　　πλούτου στεφάνωμ’ ἀγέρωχον. νῦν γε μὰν  

　　   τὰν Φιλοκτήταο δίκαν ἐφέπων  

　　ἐστρατεύθη· σὺν δ’ ἀνάγκᾳ νιν φίλον  

　　καί τις ἐὼν μεγαλάνωρ ἔσανεν.  

　　φαντὶ δὲ Λαμνόθεν ἕλκει 

　　τειρόμενον μεταβάσοντας ἐλθεῖν  

　　ἥροας ἀντιθέους Ποίαντος υἱὸν τοξόταν·  

　　ὃς Πριάμοιο πόλιν πέρσεν, τελεύτα- 

　　   σέν τε πόνους Δαναοῖς,  

　　ἀσθενεῖ μὲν χρωτὶ βαίνων, ἀλλὰ μοιρίδιον ἦν.  

　　οὕτω δ’ Ἱέρωνι θεὸς ὀρθωτὴρ πέλοι  

　　τὸν προσέρποντα χρόνον, ὧν ἔραται καιρὸν διδούς. 

　　May all time to come keep on course, as heretofore, 

　　his happiness and the gift of riches, 

　　and provide him with forgetfulness of his hardships: 

　　surely time would remind him in what battles in the  

　　course of wars 

　　he stood his ground with steadfast soul,  

　　when with divine help he and his family were winning 

　　such honor as no other Hellene enjoys 

　　as a proud crown for wealth. Just now, indeed, 

　　  after the fashion of Philoctetes,  

　　he has gone on campaign, and even one who was proud 

　　found it necessary to fawn upon him as a friend.  

　　They tell that the godlike heroes came to fetch him 

　　from Lemnos, wasting from his wound, 

　　Poeas’ archer son, who destroyed Priam’s city and ended 

　　the Danaans’ toils;  

　　he walked with flesh infirm, but it was the work of destiny. 

　　In like fashion may the god uphold Hieron  

　　in the time that comes, and give him due measure of  

　　his desires. (William H. Race, tr.) 

　　  

　　In this passage, Pindar adopts poetic language and expression to introduce the legendary Greek hero Philoctetes parallel to Hiero, so as to demonstrate vividly the key role Sicily played as a cultural frontier in the victory of the Greek world against the “barbarians”. In the legend of the Trojan War, The excellent archer Philoctetes was once deserted by his Greek comrades for his severe injury, and was trapped on the island of Lemnos and became a “surplus man” who had nothing to do with the war. But he was destined to play an indispensable role in the victory of the Greeks against Trojans. Similarly, the conquering brothers Gelon and Hiero are sometimes forgotten by Greeks living on the mainland, but their glorious victories in Himera and Cumae saved the Greek civilization and won immortal honour for themselves. These texts of Pindar serve as a response to the blame of Gelon’s behaviour in the Persian War by some Greeks recorded in Herodotus. Pindar also explains the parallel status of Battle of Himera won by Gelon, support of Cumae by Hiero, Battle of Salamis won by the Athenians and Battle of Plataea won by the Spartans: 

　　  

　　λίσσομαι νεῦσον, Κρονίων, ἥμερον 

　　ὄφρα κατ’ οἶκον ὁ Φοίνιξ ὁ Τυρσα- 

　　  νῶν τ’ ἀλαλατὸς ἔχῃ, ναυ- 

　　σίστονον ὕβριν ἰδὼν τὰν πρὸ Κύμας,  

　　οἷα Συρακοσίων ἀρχῷ δαμασθέντες πάθον,  

　　ὠκυπόρων ἀπὸ ναῶν ὅ σφιν ἐν πόν- 

　　  τῳ βάλεθ’ ἁλικίαν,  

　　Ἑλλάδ’ ἐξέλκων βαρείας δουλίας. ἀρέομαι  

　　πὰρ μὲν Σαλαμῖνος Ἀθαναίων χάριν  

　　μισθόν, ἐν Σπάρτᾳ δ’ ἐρέω πρὸ Κιθαιρῶνος μαχᾶν,  

　　ταῖσι Μήδειοι κάμον ἀγκυλότοξοι,  

　　παρὰ δὲ τὰν εὔυδρον ἀκτὰν  

　　Ἱμέρα παίδεσσιν ὕμνον Δεινομένεος τελέσαις,  

　　τὸν ἐδέξαντ’ ἀμφ’ ἀρετᾷ, πολεμίων ἀνδρῶν  

　　καμόντων. 

　　I beseech you, son of Cronus, grant that the war cry 

　　of the Phoenicians and Etruscans may remain quietly 

　　at home, now that they have seen their aggression 

　　bring woe to their fleet before Cyme, 

　　such things did they suffer when overcome by the leader 

　　of the Syracusans, who cast their youth 

　　from their swiftly sailing ships into the sea 

　　and delivered Hellas from grievous slavery. I shall earn 

　　from Salamis the Athenians’ gratitude 

　　as my reward, and at Sparta I shall tell of the battle 

　　before Cithaeron, 

　　in which conflicts the curve-bowed Medes suffered 

　　defeat; 

　　but by the well-watered bank of the Himeras I shall pay 

　　to Deinomenes’ sons the tribute of my hymn, 

　　which they won through valor, when their enemies were 

　　defeated. (William H. Race, tr.) 

　　  

　　In this passage, Pindar directly mentions the pressure and menace of Carthaginians (Phoenicians in the ode) and Etruscans (Tyrrhenians in the ode) to Sicily as the cultural frontier of the Greek civilization, and compared Hiero’s reinforcement to Cumae and the victory of Gelon in the Battle of Himera to the key battles in the Persian War, namely the Battle of Salamis and the Battle of Plataea (the battle before Cithaeron), therefore makes the four battles the greatest events by which Greek civilization are saved. Another piece of texts in the same ode considers Aetna built by Hiero as the extension of Doric culture in the frontier of the Greek civilization, which is typically Pan-Hellenic. Pindar’s treatment is very similar to the apology of Sicilians in Herodotus and that of Diodorus. 

　　Other odes relevant to Sicily and composed by Pindar also refers to the two core elements in the positive image of Sicily as a cultural frontier in the Bibliotheke. His Nemean IX emphasizes the “defensive” war against the barbarians organized by Greeks on the island of Sicily. The Olympian I compares Hiero to Pelops, the ἥρως ἐπώνυμος of the Peloponnesian peninsula, and is obviously Pan-Hellenic; it also praises Hiero as a good example of virtuous monarch. In fact, all the 4 odes by Pindar and dedicated to Hiero have a strong moral sense; they praise or admonish Hiero, who serves as a virtuous king who is pursuing perfect morality. Of course, Pindar the poet was sponsored by Hiero and other Sicilians for his odes relevant to Sicily. But Pindar the Boeotian was not a local resident of Sicily. His positive comments on the morality, virtuous kings and military contributions of the island of Sicily (at least the topic he chose) must to some extent reflect the recognition of the contemporary intellectuals from Greece proper for Sicily as a cultural frontier. Other evidence of history of Sicily in the early classical age further indicates that the positive image of Sicily as a cultural frontier was built by both Syracusan tyrants, such as Gelon and Hiero, and intellectuals from Greece proper. 

　　During 1929 to 1930, archaeologists organized excavation for the Temple of Athena (or Apollo) built by Gelon nearby the battlefield after his victory at Himera. The outcome indicates that the temple was equal to the Syracusan Temple of Apollo in size, but introduced significant revolution in structure. It abandoned the unique and traditional style of temple buildings on the island of Sicily, and imitated the popular style in Greece proper, which was shown clearly in its adoption of the Doric order. This adjustment seems to be an expression of Pan-Hellenism, whose intention is to describe the Battle of Himera as a vital victory by Dorians and even all Greeks against the “barbarians”. Besides, Gelon dedicated a tripod made of 16 talents of gold to Delphi after the victory of Himera. This dedication seems to be almost identical to the tripod dedicated to Delphi by the Greek allies after the victory of Plataea in 479 B.C., which perhaps suggests the common belief of the Sicilians, other Greeks, priests in Delphi, and the artists who built the two tripods that the values of the two historic events were comparable. In all, the limited and accidental evidence seems to tell us that, the equal status (or at least the fame in the propaganda accepted or tolerated by most Greeks) of the Battle of Himera and several key events in the Persian War (Thermopylae, Salamis or Plataea) was constructed by both Gelon the tyrant and politicians, artists and priests from Greece proper. 

　　It is quite noteworthy that the four texts listed at the beginning of this paper, which helped to shape the negative image of Sicily as a frontier, are all to some extent produced in the Athenian context (Thucydides was an Athenian exile; Herodotus perhaps recited his history in Athens; Diodorus’ main source Timaeus lived in Athens for the most part of his life; and Cicero used to study in Athens). This fact is of course not accidental, but is due to the central position of Athens in the Greek culture since the high classical age. But what was the overall attitude of the Athenian writers living in the early classical age to the positive evaluation of Sicily as a cultural frontier by the contemporary intellectuals? 

　　According to certain classical tradition, the Syracusan tyrant Hiero paid attention to cultural education and political propaganda, and invited famous writers, such as Aeschylus, Phrynichus, Epicharmus, Xenophanes, Simonides, Pindar and Bacchylides to his court. The two tragic poets on this list are both Athenian. According to some later texts, the Athenian tragic poet Phrynichus, the author of a Pan-Hellenic tragedy The Fall of Miletus, was buried on the island of Sicily. Aeschylus also settled in Gela, a Sicilian city, and passed away there in 456/5 B.C. It is beyond doubt that the lost tragedy Aetnaeae by Aeschylus was composed to celebrate the construction of this new city by Hiero on the island of Sicily. The Vita Aeschyli, which was probably composed in the late antiquity, claimed that Aeschylus’ Persae was performed for a second time in Sicily by the invitation of Hiero. Many modern researchers believe it is credible that the Persae was first performed in Athens in 472 B.C., and performed again on the island of Sicily in around 470 B.C. Since the 19th century, some scholars even suggest that Aeschylus actually composed his Persae directly for his Sicilian audience. This hypothesis can help to explain the contemporary theme, the substitution of “Athenians” by “Greeks”, the introduction of the ghost of Darius I, the praise of “the wise king”, and other features atypical of Attic tragedy. In any case, the performance of the Persae on the island of Sicily did serve for the propaganda of Pan-Hellenism and mobilising the Sicilian Greeks to defend themselves against the Carthaginian “barbarians”. Hiero’s intention to invite Phrynichus and Pindar to compose laudatory works for Sicilian cities must be similar. Although information from Hellenistic commentaries and biographies is not totally trustworthy, the basic fact below seems to be beyond any doubt: During the reign of Hiero, some Athenian tragic poets, such as Aeschylus and Phrynichus, were attracted by the generous payment of the Syracusan court, and went to Sicily to organize Pan-Hellenic performances and settled there for a while, and therefore played active roles in the shaping and development of the positive image of Sicily as a cultural frontier. 

　　  

　　V. The Development of the Cultural Memory of Sicily among Ancient Greek Intellectuals 

　　  

　　Based on the textual and material evidence listed above, I suggest that the shaping of the positive image of Sicily and Magna Graecia as the cultural frontier of the Greek world started as early as the reigns of Gelon and Hiero, which left a rich cultural memory by odes, tragedies, constructions and votive artworks. This set of ideological propaganda glorifies Sicily as the military line of defense of the Greek civilization, the paradise of art and culture, and the holy site of virtues. It was created in the 5th century B.C. by both the Sicilian tyrants and intellectuals from Greece proper, including the Athenian tragic poets such as Aeschylus and Phrynichus. This set of cultural memory was kept and spread across the island of Sicily, and influenced the historical compositions of local writers, such as Timaeus and Diodorus. Nevertheless, the historical memory of the positive image of Sicily as a cultural frontier was gradually forgotten or even resisted in Greece proper, and was finally substituted by the negative and hostile cultural memory which considers Sicily as a barbarous frontier we see at the beginning of this paper. This development is of course not accidental, but is closely related to the economic, cultural and military relationship between the colonial cities on the island of Sicily and Magna Graecia and Greece proper.  

　　Down to the end of the 6th century B.C., the knowledge of the eastern Greek world to Sicily was still vague and full of errors. Homer knew little about people living in the western part of the Mediterranean, and considered the island of Sicily as the adobe of ghosts and the hometown of slaves. Greek texts written before the 5th century B.C. seldom mention Sicily and Magna Graecia at all. This tendency is due to the fact that the communication between Sicily and Greece proper was still very weak at that age. Before the end of the 6th century B.C., Greek cities on the island of Sicily were politically divided and scattered, and economically at the subsistence level. Their communications with the remote poleis in Greece proper or on the islands of the eastern Mediterranean are naturally very limited. As the island of Sicily naturally lacks metals, her attraction to Greek merchants and colonists is inferior to the Aegean islands. However, from the 530s B.C. on, marked by the construction of the local Temple of Apollo, Temple of Olympian Zeus and the mass production of coins, Sicily stepped into a new age of prosperity, which lasted for almost 100 years. As the local soil was suitable for the cultivation of wheat, the Sicilian Greeks established the worship of Demeter and Kore very early, and adopted the image of wheat on their coins. In the early 5th century B.C., the island of Sicily began to provide considerable supply of wheat for Greece proper. After the annexation of Egypt by the Persian Empire in 480 B.C., Sicily became the most important granary of Greece proper, which was in short of arable lands itself. When Hiero became the tyrant of Syracuse, the island of Sicily was already famous for her prosperity and powerful cities across the Greek world. In that context, Sicily as the westernmost frontier of the Greek world began to receive attention from writers living in Greece proper; and Gelon the tyrant also raised enough money to dedicate precious offerings to Olympia and Delphi frequently, so as to elevate the fame of Sicilian cities such as Gela and Syracuse. The ideological propaganda, which distributed equal importance to Sicily the cultural frontier and central Greek poleis, such as Sparta and Athens, was thus created. And the good performance of Sicilian athletes in the four Pan-Hellenic Games, the odes written by Pindar for Sicilian athletic champions during 476-466 B.C., the popularity of drama performance on the island of Sicily, the appearance of some western Greek poets including Epicharmus, Stesichorus and Ibycus, as well as the colorful cultural life in the court of Hiero further consolidated the positive image of Sicily as a cultural frontier in the minds of all Greek intellectuals. 

　　The emphasis of the value of Sicily as a frontier, especially her military importance was on the one hand advocated by Hiero and other local politicians of Sicily, on the other hand supported by some eastern Greek writers, such as Pindar, Bacchylides and Aeschylus. After the Persian War, the historical sense of Greeks was awoken, and the discussion of the contributions of each polis in the war was brought in. In that context, the victories of Gelon and Hiero against the invading “barbarians” were elevated to the height comparable to the Battle of Thermopylae, the Battle of Salamis and the Battle of Plataea. Of course, this type of narrative must contain exaggerations in it. We should not suppose that Pindar, Aeschylus and other writers from Greece proper would sincerely believe that the importance of the victories achieved by Gelon and Hiero in the remote battlefield is equal to the Persian War. Nevertheless, the praise of the military, cultural and morality of Sicilian Greeks would be helpful to the unification of the Greek world and the spread of Pan-Hellenism. With the encouragement of the rewards offered by Hiero’s court, the systematic propaganda was accepted into the texts of Pindar, Bacchylides and Aeschylus, and left vivid historical memory in the minds of Hellenistic Sicilian historians, for example Timaeus and Diodorus. 

　　After the tyranny of Thrasybulus, the brother of Hiero, was overthrown by Syracusan people, many Greek cities on the island of Sicily established democracy. According to the limited information for this period, it seems that Sicily once established intimate friendship with Athens, who also adopted and supported democracy at that time. Syracuse imitated the ὄστρακον from Athens and published her own πετᾶλισμος. In around 440 B.C., the Syracusan citizen Cephalus was invited by Pericles to immigrate to Athens with his son, the future Athenian orator Lysias. In 427 B.C., the politician Gorgias visited Athens with the embassy of Leotini, and introduced new oratory skills to the Athenians. These cases indicate the close relationship once existed between the island of Sicily and Athens. 

　　However, exactly during the Peloponnesian War, in which Gorgias paid his visit to Athens, the Athenians who already controlled the cultural discourse power of the Greek world turned to be indifferent, and even hostile to Sicily. According to the narrative of Thucydides, when the Athenians called an assembly in 415 B.C. to discuss the issue of the second Sicilian expedition, most of them had no idea of the size of Sicily and the population of Greeks and barbarians on it. In my opinion, this transition was produced by several causes. The exclusiveness of the Athenian democracy, the hostility against the Dorians and the development of the idea of “barbarians” among Greek intellectuals all played a role in that process. 

　　As the representative polis of democracy in the Greek world, the comments on the Sicilian tyrants, such as Gelon, Hiero and Dionysius the Elder, must be with some reservation. The direct and indirect influence of the democratic ideology are even clearly reflected in the texts of Timaeus and Diodorus. Modern scholars believe that Timaeus, who lived in Athens for most part of his life, had a spirit of “Tyrannenhaß”, and was always hostile to the tyrant Agathocles. Diodorus is very careful to use the traditional title “τύραννος” to call his hero Gelon, and alternatively adopts other titles such as “εὐεργέτης”, “σωτήρ” and “βασιλεύς” instead. In spite of that, both Diodorus and his readers must know well that Gelon was considered as a typical tyrant in the classical context. These direct or indirect cultural pressures could be harmful to the positive images of Sicilian tyrants who governed the cultural frontier of the Greek world. 

　　Nevertheless, even among Attic writers, we can still find quite a lot of anti-democratic authors, such as Plato and Aristotle. Therefore, the hostility against tyrants cannot fully explain the interruption of the historical memory of the positive image of Sicily among Athenian intellectuals. The military competition between Athens and Sparta during the Peloponnesian War serves as another significant cause of the hostility of the Athenians against the Dorians. The establishment and early development of the Sicilian Greek cities were mainly completed by the Dorian colonists. For instance, Syracuse, the most powerful Sicilian city during the classical age, was at first a Corinthian colony (though was later greatly expanded and attracted all kinds of immigrants). Down to the classical age, the Syracusan tyrant Hiero still cited the legend of the return of Dorians to the Peloponnesian peninsula and Laconia to celebrate his establishment of Aetna. What matters more than ancient history and myths is of course the military conflicts between Athenians and Sicilians in reality. As Syracuse and some other Sicilian cities took side with the Spartan League in the Peloponnesian War (though they did not take active military actions at first), the Athenians always attempted to cut off the communication between Sicily and the Peloponnesian peninsula. They organized two expeditions against Sicily, the latter of which left very sad memory for them. After the Peloponnesian War, Sparta in the hegemony retained her alliance with Syracuse, and supported the tyranny established by Dionysius the Elder in the city. These feuds must to some extent lead the Athenian intellectuals to avoid mentioning the former achievements of Gelon, Hiero and other Syracusan tyrants, so as to distort the historical memory of the Athenians for the positive image of Sicily as a cultural frontier.  

　　In spite of all these, in my opinion, the fundamental cause for the transition of the attitude to Sicily of the Greek intellectuals is the development of the idea of “barbarians” in the Greek context. Hippocrates (active in the late 5th century B.C.) claims in the Airs, Waters, Places that the bodies, characters, martial spirits and obedience of people are varied and closely related to the geographical environments and climates. The environmental variety determines the difference between the European civilization and its Asian counterpart. According to that theory, as the frontier between Greek civilizations and the barbarians of Carthage and Etruria, the island of Sicily and Magna Graecia must be both “Greek” and “barbarous”. Its cultural achievements, spirit of freedom and loyalty to the Greek civilization must be inferior to “pure” Greeks. In the Epistle 7 of Plato (either by Plato himself or by one of his students), which was composed in the fourth century B.C., the author’s disdain to the luxury custom of Sicily and Magna Graecia, his fear to the interference of Sicily by the neighbouring barbarians, and his doubt to whether the Sicilian Greeks can keep their freedom are clearly shown. In the Hiero, a dialogue discussing the virtues of monarchs, Xenophon also believes that the Sicilian Greeks are different from the Spartans; while the latter can be regulated simply by the wise law of Lycurgus, the former cannot be governed without violence and deceit. He claims that the Syracusan people “are like horses—the more they get what they want, the more unruly they are apt to become. The way to manage men like that is to put the fear of the bodyguard into them (ὅτι ὥσπερ ἐν ἵπποις οὕτως καὶ ἐν ἀνθρώποις τισὶν ἐγγίγνεται, ὅσῳ ἂν ἔκπλεα τὰ δέοντα ἔχωσι, τοσούτῳ ὑβριστοτέροις εἶναι. τοὺς μὲν οὖν τοιούτους μᾶλλον ἂν σωφρονίζοι ὁ ἀπὸ τῶν δορυφόρων φόβος)”. (E.C. Marchant, tr.) It is a bit ironical that Greek intellectuals’ Orientalism, which was gradually developed after the Persian War, on the one hand attempted to confirm that the Greeks are naturally superior to the “barbarians” in almost every way, on the other hand questioned the Greek identity of Sicily and other cultural frontiers, which had been beyond any question in the earlier age. The vision of Greek civilization became narrower in her expansion; and the Greek spirit became more conservative in her arrogance. These paradoxical transitions reveal the complexity of history itself. 

　　The influences of the elements listed above are vividly reflected in the negative historical memory of Dionysius the Elder, the notorious Syracusan tyrant in the late 5th century B.C. to the early 4th century B.C. According to the standard of judgment for Gelon in the Bibliotheke, Dionysius the Elder should have been described as another virtuous monarch who successfully gained military and cultural achievements for Sicily as a cultural frontier. Dionysius the Elder loved poetry; he used to invite Plato to teach philosophy in his Syracusan court. He tried to make reformation of his tyranny in his old age, and invited soldiers and citizens to dine with himself together, so as to relieve the social conflicts. His greatest historical achievement is to defend Sicily against the invasion of the Carthaginians, which won support of almost all Sicilian Greeks, and finally drove the Carthaginian power out of Sicily for a while. However, the relevant record of Diodorus, which probably ultimately came from the historical narrative of Greek intellectuals living in the 4th century B.C., is extremely negative. The Bibliotheke emphasizes that the source of Dionysius the Elder is totally illegal (which contrasts to his careful avoidance of calling Gelon “tyrant”); Diodorus also points out that Dionysius the Elder was hated by his own subjects, so that he had to wear armours under his cloak for precaution in daily life. On the other hand, Dionysius the Elder’s warfare against the Carthaginians is denounced as political tricks to control his subjects by terror. His passion for composition of poetry was mocked by the contemporary critics, and was arbitrarily explained as an insane madness and the cause of his sudden death. In all, the sources of the Bibliotheke, namely the writings of the recorders of Dionysius the Elder in the 4th century, made use of all kinds of rhetorical skills, and distorted the image of this competent monarch into a typical tyrant who was evil, foolish and vague; and the island of Sicily governed by Dionysius the Elder, which still held admirable economic and military power, became a secondary “barbarous frontier” again. The negative description of the reign of Dionysius the Elder in the Bibliotheke differs dramatically from the positive image of Sicily as a cultural frontier in Books 11-13, which indicates the transition of dominating ideology in the Greek culture after the high classical age and its profound impact on the historical memory of Greek intellectuals. 

　　During the reign of Dionysius the Younger, the hegemony of Syracuse fell into rapid decline, and was finally destroyed by the civil wars and the next wave of the Carthaginian invasion together. The Greek cities on the island of Sicily failed to produce heroes such as Gelon, Hiero or Dionysius the Elder again. The glorious historical memory of Sicily, the westernmost frontier of the Greek world, was gradually forgotten by the intellectuals living in Greece proper. When Polybius and Plutarch grew up in the Hellenistic Age and read the tradition about the positive image of Sicily preserved in Timaeus’ work, they simply denounced it as the fictional invention of Timaeus himself. The Greek writer Aelian, who lived in the age of the Roman Empire, could understand the evidence of the extraordinary academic and cultural achievements in the reign of Hiero, who was only a king governing a “barbarous” land, and had to adopt a supernatural explanation, so as to claim that Hiero was at first as illiterate and vague as his subjects, but was bestowed an elegant taste by the gods after his recovery from a serious disease. The influence of the cultural bias against Sicily even lasted to the modern age. Down to 1968, Classicist John Cook still wrote in his book review of M.-P. Loicq-Berger’s Syracuse: Histoire culturelle d’une cité grecque that “apart from a historical school of some sort, a taste for farce, and very high standards in the selection of die-engravers, Syracuse had no lasting literary or artistic tradition.” However, the analysis of the relevant tells us that the image of Syracuse and Sicily rose and fell during the classical age of ancient Greece. Although the relevant records must be to some extent exaggerated, this cultural frontier of the Greek world did own her military, economic and cultural glory in the 5th century B.C., which was fully recognized by the contemporary Sicilian Greeks as well as the Athenian tragic poets. It is a difficult but valuable task for us to take caution of the disturbance of forgetfulness and bias in human history, and objectively reconstruct the true historical role played by Sicily and other cultural frontiers neglected in the contexts of all kinds of civilization-oriented theories. 

　　  

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　　（Information of the Author: Houliang Lyu, PhD in Classics, University of Edinburgh. He is associate researcher in Section of Ancient and Medieval History, Institute of World History, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. ）