chest parts of the
country for near three hundred years before any Hellenes came to Sicily;
indeed they still hold the centre and north of the island. There were
also Phoenicians living all round Sicily, who had occupied promontories
upon the sea coasts and the islets adjacent for the purpose of trading
with the Sicels. But when the Hellenes began to arrive in considerable
numbers by sea, the Phoenicians abandoned most of their stations, and
drawing together took up their abode in Motye, Soloeis, and Panormus,
near the Elymi, partly because they confided in their alliance, and also
because these are the nearest points for the voyage between Carthage and
Sicily.

These were the barbarians in Sicily, settled as I have said. Of the
Hellenes, the first to arrive were Chalcidians from Euboea with
Thucles, their founder. They founded Naxos and built the altar to
Apollo Archegetes, which now stands outside the town, and upon which the
deputies for the games sacrifice before sailing from Sicily. Syracuse
was founded the year afterwards by Archias, one of the Heraclids from
Corinth, who began by driving out the Sicels from the island upon which
the inner city now stands, though it is no longer surrounded by water:
in process of time the outer town also was taken within the walls and
became populous. Meanwhile Thucles and the Chalcidians set out from
Naxos in the fifth year after the foundation of Syracuse, and drove
out the Sicels by arms and founded Leontini and afterwards Catana; the
Catanians themselves choosing Evarchus as their founder.

About the same time Lamis arrived in Sicily with a colony from Megara,
and after founding a place called Trotilus beyond the river Pantacyas,
and afterwards leaving it and for a short while joining the Chalcidians
at Leontini, was driven out by them and founded Thapsus. After his death
his companions were driven out of Thapsus, and founded a place called
the Hyblaean Megara; Hyblon, a Sicel king, having given up the place and
inviting them thither. Here they lived two hundred and forty-five years;
after which they were expelled from the city and the country by the
Syracusan tyrant Gelo. Before their expulsion, however, a hundred
years after they had settled there, they sent out Pamillus and founded
Selinus; he having come from their mother country Megara to join them in
its foundation. Gela was founded by Antiphemus from Rhodes and Entimus
from Crete, who joined in leading a colony thither