History of the Peloponnesian War

Sicily was settled originally in the following manner, and the whole number of the nations that occupied it were these. Most ancient of all those who are reported to have settled in any part of the island were the Cyclopes and Laestrygonians, as to whom, however, I am able to tell neither their stock nor whence they came nor whither they went;

let it suffice as the story has been told by the poets,[*](Homer, no doubt, especially, as also in 1.10.1; 1.11.3; 1.20.1) and as each man has formed his opinion about them. The Sicanians appear to have been the first to settle there after them, indeed, as they themselves assert, even before them, as being indigenous, but as the truth is found to be, they were Iberians and were driven by the Ligurians from the River Sicanus in Iberia. From them the island was then called Sicania, having been called Trinacria before;

and they still inhabit the western parts of Sicily. But on the capture of Ilium some of the Trojans, who had escaped the Achaeans, came in boats to Sicily, and settling on the borders of the Sicanians were called, as a people, Elymi, while their cities were named Eryx and Egesta. And there settled with them also some of the Phocians, who on their return at that time from Troy were driven by a storm first to Libya and thence to Sicily.

The Sicels, again, crossed over from Italy, where they dwelt, to Sicily, fleeing from the Opicans—as is probable and indeed is reported— on rafts, having waited for their passage till the wind was from the shore; or perhaps they sailed thither in some other way also. Even now there are Sicels still in Italy; and the country was named Italy after Italus, a king of the Sicels who had this name.

These crossed over to Sicily in a vast horde and conquering the Sicanians in battle forced them back to the southern and western parts of the island, causing it to be called Sicily instead of Sicania. They settled there after they had crossed and held the best parts of the land for nearly three hundred years before the Hellenes came to Sicily; and even now they still hold the central and northern parts of the island.

Phoenicians, too, had settlements all round Sicily, on promontories along the sea coast, which they walled off, and on the adjacent islets, for the sake of trade with the Sicels. But when the Hellenes also began to come in by sea in large numbers, the Phoenicians left most of these places and settling together lived in Motya,[*](On the little island of S. Pantaleon near the promontory of Lilybaeum.) Soloeis[*](East of Palermo, now Salanto.) and Panormus[*](Now Palermo.) near the Elymi, partly because they trusted in their alliance with the Elymi and partly because from there the voyage from Sicily to Carthage is shortest. These, then, were the barbarians and such was the manner in which they settled in Sicily.