Note 973 — Chapter LXXXII · SICILY DURING THE DESPOTISM OF THE ELDER DIONYSIUS AT SYRACUSE.

Diodor. xiii, 114.

Diodorus begins this chapter with the words,—Διόπερ ὑπὸ τῶν πραγμάτων ἀναγκαζόμενος Ἰμίλκων, ἔπεμψεν εἰς Συρακούσας κήρυκα, παρακαλῶν τοὺς ἡττημένους διαλύσασθαι. Ἀσμένως δ’ ὑπακούσαντος τοῦ Διονυσίου, τὴν εἰρήνην ἐπὶ τοῖσδε ἔθεντο, etc.

Now there is not the smallest matter of fact either mentioned or indicated before, to which the word διόπερ can have reference. Nothing is mentioned but success on the part of the Carthaginians, and disaster on the part of the Greeks; the repulse of the attack made by Dionysius upon the Carthaginian camp,—his retreat and evacuation of Gela and Kamarina,—the occupation of Gela by the Carthaginians,—the disorder, mutiny, and partial dispersion of the army of Dionysius in its retreat,—the struggle within the walls of Syracuse. There is nothing in all this to which διόπερ can refer. But a few lines farther on, after the conditions of peace have been specified, Diodorus alludes to the terrible disease (ὑπὸ τῆς νόσου) which laid waste the Carthaginian army, as if he had mentioned it before.

I find in Niebuhr (Vorträge über alte Geschichte, vol. iii, p. 212, 213) the opinion expressed, that here is a gap in Diodorus “intentionally disguised in the MSS., and not yet noticed by any editor.” Some such conclusion seems to me unavoidable. Niebuhr thinks, that in the lost portion of the text, it was stated that Imilkon marched on to Syracuse, formed the siege of the place, and was there visited with the terrific pestilence to which allusion is made in the remaining portion of the text. This also is nowise improbable; yet I do not venture to assert it,—since the pestilence may possibly have broken out while Imilkon was still at Gela.

Niebuhr farther considers, that Dionysius lost the battle of Gela through miserable generalship,—that he lost it by design, as suitable to his political projects,—and that by the terms of the subsequent treaty, he held the territory around Syracuse only under Carthaginian supremacy.