PROFESSOR FREEMAN'S SICILY.*
The History of Sicily, By Edward A. Freeman, Vol. IV. Edited by Arthur J. Evans, M.A. London s The Clarendon Pros,. 1894. PROFESSOR FREEMAN'S death left his great work on Sicily unfinished. It had been conceived, indeed, on such a scale that the ordinary expectation of life would scarcely have sufficed for its completion. Considerable fragments, however, more or less ready for publication, were found among his papers. One set of these, extending over a little more than a century (405.300 B.C.), has been pieced together, along with some other material, in this volume. Its contents may be thus described :—(1) Fragments of the Hisbory of Sicily (these may amount, at a rough calculation, to three-fourths of the whole); (2) Extracts from Professor Freeman's volume on Sicily, in the "Story of the Nations" Series. These have been used to supply lacunx in the narrative. It is of course incon- venient that they belong to a work planned on a wholly different scale, and intended for a different class of readers. Still, they are very useful, and the courtesy of the publisher, Mr. T. Fisher Unwin, in giving a free use of them, is appropriately acknowledged in the preface. (3) The supplementary matter furnished by the editor. This is considerable in bulk and of great value. Almost all the notes are from his pen. The author had indeed marked passages, which, in his judgment, required annotation; but, in the great majority of cases, had done nothing more, not even indicating the references to be made. And there are additional chapters and separate essays in illustration of important points in the history. To some of these we shall make special reference. Generally, we may say that they add greatly to the value of the book. Mr.
Evans is very modest about his qualifications for the editor's task. As a matter of fact, he has not only peribrmed this exceedingly well, but has made some most interesting con- tributions drawn from his special knowledge of Sicilian arch Ecology and numismatics. The work could not have fallen into more competent hands.
This century of the story of Sicily brings before us three of the most striking figures in Greek history,—Dionysius I., Timoleon, and Agathocles. There is something about all of them whieh transcends the measure of even the greatest statesmen of Greece Proper. There is nothing in the history of Athens or Sparta that can be matched with the imperial schemes of Dionysius, the heroic virtues of Timoleon, the daring strategy of Agathocles. Of the first, Professor Freeman says :— "By the settlement of Italian mercenaries in the island he fore- shadows and prepares the way for the subjugation of Sicily, first of all lands out of Italy, to an Italian power. Yet, on the whole, his reign is, in a certain sense, a time of Greek advance, in the same sense, that is, in which the reigns of the Macedonian con- querors is a time of Greek advance. No earlier Greek bad such widely spread dealings with many lands, Greek and barbarian. Besides his dominion in Sicily and Southern Italy, he is the firet Sikeliot ruler who becomes a power in Old Greece and in the lands to the north of Greece ; he plants Greek colonies on both sides of the Hadriatic ; he extends his power, and thereby the name and influence of Greece, by hiring mercenaries to the west and to the north, in Spain and in Gaul, and employing them in the wars not only of Sicily, but of Greece itself. Forerunner of Agathokl&s, in some sort forerunner of Pyrrhos, his dominion has far more in common with that of the Macedonian princes than with that of any Greek ruler of earlier times. He has enslaved his native city ; he has made his fellow-citizens his subjects ; but he has made Syracuse the greatest city of the European world, and he has made her the head of a dominion such as the European world had never before seen. With Dionysios then we may fairly place the beginning of that extended Greek life of Macedonian times, in which Greek freedom of the old typo, the freedom of the several city-commonwealths, gives way to the wider field of action, the more varied political relations, which give us a foreshadowing of modern times such as is not to be found in the elder political system of Greece."
This is excellently illustrated by the supplements furnished by the editor on the Monarchy and the Adriatic Colonies of Dionysius. The latter is a peculiarly interesting subject, because it shows in a very marked way the statesmanlike breadth of view which characterised the man. The eastern coast of the Adriatic was the nearest point to Sicily of the great trade route which had been followed long before the dawn of history from the Baltic to Southern Europe. It was this region that Dionysius, in remarkable anticipation of Venetian ambition, made great efforts to occupy. Mr. Evans discusses the details of his schemes, so far as they are made known to us by the imperfect information that we have, —how one wishes that Diodorus had bad something of Thucydidean insight ! One of his most valuable contribu- tions to the discussion, is the highly probable location of the chief of these Adriatic Colonies with Issa, (now Lissa), rather than with Lissoa (the modern Alesio). Lissa, as one of the most important of modern naval battles reminds us, is the key of the Adriatic.
The narrative of the exploits of Timoleon has to be supplied in more than one place from the shorter Story of Sicily, bat its crowning achievement, the victory of Krimisos (Orimessus), was after "the greatest pitched battle, simply as a battle, ever fought between Greeks and Phoenicians," is described at length. Professor Freeman, picking out, it would seem, the critical points of the history, bad of course not passed by this most decisive of battles. If Marathon saved Mainland Greece from Persia, Krimisos saved Sicily from Carthage. The eleven thousand of Athens at Platma could at least see their enemy on the plain before them ; but there must have been something peculiarly trying to the courage when Timoleon's army, scarcely equal, as it was, to the Greek numbers at Marathon, heard the noise of the huge host of Carthage moving to the attack, but could not see them for the morning mist. Here is how the historian describea the final scene when the stars in their courses fought against Carthage The fight began again ; but at this stage, so men deemed at the time, the gods of Hellenic Sicily openly put forth all their strength to crush the barbarian invader. The clouds from the heights come down on the plain ; a fearful storm of rain, hail, and thunder broke forth. The elements wore on the side of Greece. The storm fell only on the backs of Timoleon's soldiers, while rain and hail dashed right in the faces of the barbarians. The sound of the rain and hail, and the clashing of the weapons, made such a confused din that no man could hear the orders of his officers. The ground was now muddy with the rain ; the heavy-armed Carthaginians were exposed to the nimble attacks of the lighter Greeks ; many stumbled and fell, and under the weight of their harness they could not rise again. Still for a while they fought on. A band of four hundred who held the first rank in what we may call the second army was cut to pieces by the Greeks. Then the whole host fled as it might, horse, foot, and chariots, in utter con- fusion. Some were trodden down by their comrades or smitten by their weapons ; many strove again to cross the river, but the Greek horsemen followed them, cutting them down from behind. But by this time the stream of Krimisos was swollen by the rain ; torrents, fiumare, were pouring wildly down every gorge and combs in the hills. Many, perhaps men from the Iberian mountains, looked to the hills for help, and strove to climb; but the Greek light-armed could deal with them. The more part, horse, foot, and chariots, were swept away by the waters. The stars in their courses once more fought against the chariots and horses of Canaan, and Krimisos, on that day of deliverance, did well the work of elder Kishon."
The story of the third of the great Sicilian soldiers is told at length, with but two or three brief interruptions, and a marvellous story it is. "His career," says Professor Free- man, "is a series of the strangest ups and downs recorded in the life of any man." He is reduced at home to the last extremity, and he boldly transfers the war to the enemy's country, and changes defeat into triumph. He abdicates his power, and suddenly recovers it more completely than ever. Apart from these sudden revolutions of fortune, the history of his rule is remarkably full of interest, regarded as a lesson in polities. And here we have a happy illustration drawn by the editor from his own peculiar province of numismatics. The plate which faces p. 850 (wrongly inscribed "Coins of the three Periods of Agathocles ") is a curious comment on the constitutional history of Syracuse. Of Dionysius there is but one coin, and it has no peculiar significance. The coins in Timoleon's time are such as a free city might use. When we (some to Agathocles, we find them inscribed with his name, and finally, even having the royal. title "Agathocles Basileus." But even the Basileus did not put his image, though he did nut his superscription.
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