Italy from the Alps to Mount Etna . era by Gelon, in 480. After that the prosperityof the island reached a pitch of the greatest luxuriance. But Athens fell ; and her fall determined the fate of Sicily. The Carthaginiansonce more advanced in devastating force from the west of the island, where they hadobtained a firm settlement, and conquered Acragas. Selinus and the strong Panormus THE ISLAND UNDER THE VEIL OF LEGEND AND HISTORY. 451 also fell into their hands. Then both the first and the second Dionysius, favoured by thegeneral confusion, seized all power in their own hands, to the destructi
Italy from the Alps to Mount Etna . era by Gelon, in 480. After that the prosperityof the island reached a pitch of the greatest luxuriance. But Athens fell ; and her fall determined the fate of Sicily. The Carthaginiansonce more advanced in devastating force from the west of the island, where they hadobtained a firm settlement, and conquered Acragas. Selinus and the strong Panormus THE ISLAND UNDER THE VEIL OF LEGEND AND HISTORY. 451 also fell into their hands. Then both the first and the second Dionysius, favoured by thegeneral confusion, seized all power in their own hands, to the destruction of liberty ; andthe cruel Agathocles raised himself from the humble position of a potter, to be a the Greeks and Carthaginians struggled against each other with varying success. The Second Punic War had already begun when the Carthaginian party in the islandmade a league with Hannibal, thus drawing on themselves the avenging sword of theRomans. Marcellus appeared before Syracuse with the Roman legions. He besieged it. SHIPPING OFF CAPTIVE BRIGANDS. for two years, and then it fell, the strong Agrigentum,—and the fate of Sicily was became and remained a Roman province : the first which the Romans added to thoseon the Italian peninsula, and, in fact, the corner-stone of the subsequent colossal edificecalled the Roman Empire. This occurred in the year 210 Stern and avaricious governors at once began to drain the new, rich, land in thecruellest manner. They cared nothing for Hellenic art and culture, nor for the ancientrights and laws which existed before their time. The noble sea-cities fell to ruin ; thepeople were oppressed and crushed into abject slavery, and their daily task thenceforwardwas to fill the grain ships of their Roman tyrants with corn. Sicily came to be thegranary of distant Rome,—and nothing else; for arts, industry, and commerce ceasedthere. All the cultivated land fell into the hands of rapacious Roman knights, whospeedily foun
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Keywords: ., bookauthorcavagnasangiulianidig, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870
