herodotus

of the mysteries of the Earth goddesses,[141] an office which wasacquired by Telines one of their ancestors in the following manner:--certain of the men of Gela, being worsted in a party struggle, hadfled to Mactorion, the city which stands above Gela: these men Telinesbrought back to Gela from exile with no force of men but only with thesacred rites of these goddesses; but from whom he received them, orwhether he obtained them for himself,[142] this I am not able to say;trusting in these however, he brought the men back from exile, on thecondition that his descendants should be priests of the mysteries ofthe goddesses. To me it has caused wonder also that Telines shouldhave been able to perform so great a deed, considering that which I amtold; for such deeds, I think, are not apt to proceed from every man,but from one who has a brave spirit and manly vigour, whereas Telinesis said by the dwellers in Sicily to have been on the contrary a manof effeminate character and rather poor spirit. 154. He then had thusobtained the privilege of which I speak: and when Cleander the son ofPantares brought his life to an end, having been despot of Gela forseven years and being killed at last by Sabyllos a man of Gela, thenHippocrates succeeded to the monarchy, who was brother of Cleander.And while Hippocrates was despot, Gelon, who was a descendant ofTelines the priest of the mysteries, was spearman of the guard[143] toHippocrates with many others and among them Ainesidemos the son ofPataicos. Then after no long time he was appointed by reason of valourto be commander of the whole cavalry; for when Hippocrates besiegedsuccessively the cities of Callipolis, Naxos, Zancle, Leontini, andalso Syracuse and many towns of the Barbarians, in these wars Gelonshowed himself a most brilliant warrior; and of the cities which Ijust now mentioned, not one except Syracuse escaped being reduced tosubjection by Hippocrates: the Syracusans however, after they had beendefeated in battle at the river Eloros, were rescued by theCorinthians and Corcyreans; these rescued them and brought the quarrelto a settlement on this condition, namely that the Syracusans shoulddeliver up Camarina to Hippocrates. Now Camarina used in ancient timeto belong to the men of Syracuse. 155. Then when it was the fate ofHippocrates also, after having been despot for the same number ofyears as his brother Cleander, to be killed at the city of Hybla,whither he had gone on an expedition against the Sikelians, then Gelonmade a pretence of helping the sons of Hippocrates, Eucleides andCleander, when the citizens were no longer willing to submit; butactually, when he had been victorious in a battle over the men ofGela, he robbed the sons of Hippocrates of the power and was rulerhimself. After this stroke of fortune Gelon restored those of theSyracusans who were called "land-holders,"[144] after they had beendriven into exile by the common people and by their own slaves, whowere called Kyllyrians,[145] these, I say, he restored from the cityof Casmene to Syracuse, and so got possession of this last city also,