This text is part of:
πρός, adverb: cp. cc. 154 supra, 184 infra. τάδε λέγουσι refers to the asserted synchronism between the battles of Himera and Salamis, which is thus a Sikeliote assertion, and veryimportant for the argument. Aristot. Poet. 23=1459A seems to be reflecting on this account: “ὤσπερ γὰρ κατὰ τοὺς αὐτοὺς χρόνους ἥ τ᾽ ἐν Σαλαμῖνι έγένετο ναυμαχία καὶ ἡ ἐν Σικελίᾳ Καρχηδονίων μάχη οὐδὲν πρὸς τὸ αὐτὸ συντείνουσαι τέλος οὕτω κτλ.” Diodor. 11. 24 makes the day of Himera coincide with the last day of the fighting at Thermopylai, which would have given time for the news of Himera to have reached the Greeks—and the Persians —before Salamis.
Καρχηδόνιον ἐόντα πρὸς πατρός, μητρόθεν δὲ Συρηκόσιον: πρὸς π., cp. c. 99 supra. This notice of Hamilkar's ‘Syracusan’ mother is unfortunately not quite articulate: what was her name, status, race? His father's marriage would have fallen probably at least half a century before, for Hamilkar is the younger of two sons, and has apparently three grown up sons of his own —a Hanno among them (Trogus 19. 2). In 530 B.C. the Gamoroi had not yet been driven out of Syracuse by the Kyllyrioi (cp. c. 155 supra); and Hamilkar's mother must (one supposes) have belonged to the Greek aristocracy. The Greek marriage gives some slight plausibility to the proposal to connect the Greek version of the Periplus of Hanno, Geogr. min. i., with a Hanno of this house and period, whether it be with the son or with the father of this Hamilkar—if the father's name was Hanno after all. Mueller (op. c. p. xxii) decides in favour of the son; and the possibility that the father's name was Mago, not Hanno, is another feather in the same scale. Cp. previous c.
βασιλεύσαντά τε κατ᾽ ἀνδραγαθίην Καρχηδονίων: a point in which the Carthaginian is superior to the Spartan constitution is the elective character of the kingships, according to Aristotle, vide c. 165 supra; and cp. the case of Dorieus, 6. 42. Aristotle says the kings (sofetes) and generals (strategoi), whom he appears to distinguish, were elected with reference to wealth (πλουτίνδην) as well as worth (ἀριστίνδην), Pol. 2. 11. 9=1273A. The aorist itself suggests the limited term of the office (not βασιλεύοντα).
συμβολή: a word of many meanings here, as in 1. 66, 74, 4. 159, 6. 110, of ‘battle,’ ‘conflict’ (contr. 4. 10 τοῦ ζωστῆρος); cp. συμβάλλειν absolutely, or τινί passim, for ‘to do battle’ ‘to engage.’
ἀφανισθῆναι πυνθάνομαι: such cases interest Hdt., cp. 4. 14, and he apparently made special inquiries about the case of Hamilkar, and believed Gelon to have done so too before him. This disappearance takes the place of the battle-piece, to which Hdt. does no sort of justice.
διζήμενον: cp. c. 142 supra.
The National Endowment for the Humanities provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.