MARCH OF DIONYSIUS. 483 had been long announced, not merely in current talk, but in the more unequivocal language of overwhelming preparation. Nor is it easy to understand how the prudent Carthaginian Senate (who probably were not less provided with spies at Syracuse than Dio- nysius was at Carthage) 1 can have been so uninformed as to be taken by surprise at the last moment, when Dionysius sent thither a herald formally declaring war ; which herald was not sent until after the license for private plunder had been previously granted. He peremptorily required the Carthaginians to relinquish their dominion over the Greek cities in Sicily, 2 as the only means of avoiding war. To such a proposition no answer was returned, nor probably expected. But the Carthaginians were now so much prostrated (like Athens in the second or third years of the Pelo- ponnesian war) by depopulation, suffering, terrors, and despondency, arising out of the pestilence which beset them in Africa, that they felt incompetent to any serious effort, and heard with alarm the letter read from Dionysius. There was, however, no alternative, so that they forthwith despatched some of their ablest citizens to levy troops for the defence of their Sicilian possessions. 3 The first news that reached them was indeed appalling. Dio- nysius had marched forth with his full power, Syracusan as well as foreign, accumulated by so long a preparation. It was a power, the like of which had never been beheld in Greece ; greater even than that wielded by his predecessor Gelon eighty years before. If the contemporaries of Gelon had been struck with awe 4 at the superiority of his force to anything that Hellas could show else- where, as much or more would the same sentiment be felt by those who surrounded Dionysius. More intimately still was a similar comparison, with the mighty victor of Himera, present to Dio- nysius himself. He exulted in setting out with an army yet more imposing, against the same enemy, and for the same purpose of liberating the maritime cities of Sicily subject to Carthage ; 5 Diodor. xiv, 55. TOVTO 6 1 EjajxavqaaTO ('Ifii^Kuv) npb<; rb fujdiva TUP tuv uTrayyet/lai TOV KOTUTT^OVV r<i Aiovvaicj, etc. 8 Diodor. xiv, 46, 47. 3 Diodor. xiv, 47. 4 Herodot. vii, 145. T de Pe/lwvof 'Kp^yfj.ara //eyaAa {iXeyero tlvat, ov6a~ fiuv 'E7i?iT]viKuv TUV ov TToA/ldv [J.E&. Compare c. 160-162.
- Ilerodot. vii, 158. Gelon's speech to the Lacedaemonians who come to
solicit his aid againai Xerxes.
