Sicilian Carousel by Lawrence Durrell

neighboring tyrant at Akragas, Theron by name. But his real chance came when he received an invitation from the aristocratic party in Syracuse to come and govern the city. He seized it with both hands, happy to see his powers extended further still in a three-cornered diplomatic federation which was to stand the acid test of the Carthaginian assault at Himera.
    The numerologists insist that both in individual lives and in the lives of nations there are fateful days and fateful years; for England 1066, 1588, 1814, 1940.… For ancient Greek culture there came such a day in 480 BCE when the Greek spirit asserted once and for all its powers of light and its resolve to flower into its prime. On this same day while Gelon and his confederation were securing for Sicily almost a century of peace and security, the Athenian forces were defeating the Persian armies and clearing themselves a same sort of space in which to grow and flower and assume their birthright as a mature nation. It is not recorded whether the astrologers played any part in predicting these two immortal victories. Even at this remove in time they seem by no means a predictable thing—when one considers the massive forces ranged against the Greeks, both Sicilian and metropolitan. Yet the historians do not seem to be unduly surprised, or perhaps we do not catch their tone correctly. But nothing more decisive could be imagined, and in the aftermath of victory there came a flush of triumphant andtriumphal building, of which this fine cathedral is one of the late results. Thousands of slaves were taken prisoner after Himera and set to work on these projects. The new temple of Athena was especially designed to reflect and celebrate the decisive battle. Gelon’s reign was astonishingly short—as short as it was decisive. Yet he had burst open the doors of Greek history.
    As for the famous temple, he did not live to see it completed as he died in 478, but he bequeathed all he had to his brother Hieron I who had been his deputy at Gela. His was not a long rule either but such had been the decisiveness of the victory over the Carthaginians at Himera that he could afford to draw breath. A period of peaceful prosperity and culture dawned in Syracuse; Hieron showed himself a discriminating patron of the arts and the list of visiting luminaries is impressive; it allows one to have some reservations as to the appalling portrait of Hieron painted by worthy Diodorus, who says he was as avaricious as he was violent, and an utter stranger to sincerity and nobility of character. We must weigh this bit of character assassination against the fact that Pindar, Aeschylus, and Simonides all found a generous welcome at his court. Pindar (am I wrong to think of him as a somewhat laborious poet?) stayed a whole year and extolled his host’s skills in several unusual domains like chariot racing. Aeschylus seems to have had quite a love affair with Sicily; it is believed that he had the luck to get his Prometheus Bound and Prometheus Freed produced inthe theater here, presumably at a time when his work was still felt to be modern and rather revolutionary in style. But then there is so much that we don’t know, presumably may never know. Eighty of his plays are known only by title, and a mere seven survive. In the puzzling epitaph he wrote upon himself he seems to extol his military service at the expense of his art—which makes Deeds rather distrustful of his sincerity. The soldier has an absurdly high opinion of men who can write, and not much use for the “service mentality” as he calls it. But then civilians are always prouder of having borne arms than regulars are. At any rate the dramatist actually retired to Gela to live out his declining days; perhaps the very things which made old Gelon fume with impatience—the absence of a harbor, the seclusion of the quiet little town on its promontory high over the sea, its remoteness from the bustle of everyday