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ἴσα ἔτεα: to wit, seven, c. 154: 498-491 B.C.
κατέλαβε ἀποθανεῖν: cp. 3. 118 κατέλαβε impersonal. πρὸς πόλι Ὕβλῃ: πρός, ‘hard by,’ ad, apud; cp. Thuc. 2. 79. 2 “πρὸς” [v.l. ὑπ᾽] αὐτῇ τῇ πόλει. There were three places of the name of Hybla in Sicily, all originally Sikel, Hybla being a native deity (Freeman, Sicily, i. 159). (i.) A holy place giving a title to Megara, and therefore in its neighbourhood: this Freeman identifies with ‘Greater Hybla,’ though it was overshadowed by Megara. (ii.) Galeatic Hybla, just south of Aitna, at the modern Paternò, which Freeman identifies with the Lesser Hybla. (iii.) Ἠραία, in the south, between Syracuse and Kamarina: this might be the one mentioned in the text.
τῷ λόγῳ ... τῷ ἔργῳ: not a very frequent antithesis with Hdt., cp. 6. 38, nor is it here used quite strictly.
Εὐκλείδῃ τε καὶ Κλεάνδρῳ: nothing is known of them, save what Hdt. affords; they were presumably minors; Gela refused to acknowledge them, one or both, and for a moment became a Republic—Freeman, ii. 122, thinks ‘doubtless a democracy’—only to be overthrown by Gelon, as the nominal champion of the young princes. Gelon had perhaps been with the army at Hybla.
μετά: apparently not long after. Gelon's régime in Syracuse lasted circa 485-478 B.C. εὕρημα: cp. εὔρημα ευ<*>´ρηκε c. 10 supra, εὕρημα εὑρήκαμεν 8. 109—all three cases with a slightly different significance: here discreditable; above, pure luck; below, of a just and welldeserved, if unexpected, success. τοὺς γαμόρους καλεομένους: Hdt. preserves the dialectal form, the rather for the addition of the participle. The Marm. Par. 36 (Flach 52) dates the government of the γεωμόροι at Syracuse to the archon Kritias=595 B.C. Ol. 46. 2, and they are exhibited as exercising a judicial function in a very obscure passage of Diodoros: 8. 9 (the Agathokles there mentioned is not enumerated in the list of thirty-three men of that name ap. PaulyWissowa, i. 748 ff.). The name was known to old Attica (γεωμόροι), Plutarch, Theseus, 25 (=Ἀθ. π.?), and at Samos long after (Thuc. 8. 21). At Syracuse as at Samos they undoubtedly represent the landowners (or landlords, cp. 5. 29), an aristocracy, or oligarchy, Hellenic and Dorian, driven out to Kasmene by the Demos and the serf-population. The Demos may have included a Greek element; the serfs were doubtless uatives, and probably ‘Sicels’ rather than ‘Sicans.’ The Kallikyrii were, indeed, compared by ‘Aristotle’ (Συρακοσίων πολιτεία) to the Helots in Lakonia, the Penestai in Thessaly, the Klarotai in Krete (V. Rose, Fragm. 586=Photius, sub v.), but a complete ethnic division will no more have obtained between Demos and Kyllyrioi at Syracuse than between Perioikoi and Heilotes at Sparta. The analogy of the Argive γυμνῆτες or γυμνήσιοι, and Ὀρνεᾶται (Perioikoi), cp. 8. 73 infra, 6. 83 supra, might be invoked.
ἐκπεσεῖν ὐπό: 8. 141, cp. ἀποθανεῖν ὑπό c. 154 supra.
καλεομένων δὲ Κυλλυρίων: the name appears in Photios Lex. and Suidas s. v. Καλλικύριοι, professedly from ‘Aristotle’ (cp. Rose, Frag. 586, where the ref. to Suidas should be added) ὠνομάσθησαν δὲ ἀπὸ τοῦ εἰς ταὐτὸ συνελθεῖν παντοδαποὶ ὄντες. How the word should have that meaning is not clear. Κυλλύριοι might well be the name of a particular Sicel tribe (cp. Ὀρνεᾶται= Perioikoi at Argos): Καλλι-κύριοι looks like a parody of that.
ἐκ Κασμένης πόλιος: the town is mentioned, Thuc. 6. 5. 2, as a Syracusan settlement founded about ninety years after the metropolis: Freeman, i. 150, map, places it in the SE. corner of the island, upon an earlier Sicel site.
παραδιδοῖ τὴν πόλιν καὶ ἑωυτόν. Aristotle, Pol. 5. 3. 5=1302 B, instances Syracuse before Gelon as a case of Democracy ruined by its own lawlessness and disorder (ἀταξίας καὶ ἀναρχίας). Grote, iv. 304 n., suspects Aristotle of having substituted the name of Gelon for that of Dionysios, ‘by lapse of memory.’ Freeman, Sicily, ii. 126 n. defends Aristotle's memory. But the two other instances alleged by Aristotle (Thebes, Megara) in front of Syracuse fall into proper chronological sequence on Grote's supposition, for which there is on other grounds, given by Grote, something to be said: Freeman himself admits that Aristotle's reference is ‘hasty, not thought out with much care.’ On the great significance of the acquisition of Syracuse, and the transter of government, Grote and Freeman (ll.c.) may be consulted.
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