History of the Peloponnesian War

Thucydides

Thucydides. The history of the Peloponnesian War, Volume 1-2. Dale, Henry, translator. London: Heinemann and Henry G. Bohn, 1851-1852.

Now it was settled originally in the following manner, and these were all the nations that occupied it. The earliest people said to have lived in any part of the country are the Cyclopes and Laestrygones; with regard to whom, I can neither tell their race, nor whence they came into it, nor whither they departed out of it: but let that suffice which has been said by the poets, and which every body in any way knows of them.

The Sicanians appear to have been the first who settled in it after them; indeed, as they themselves assert, even before them, as being the aboriginal population; but as the truth is found to be, they were Iberians, and were driven from the river Sicanus, in Theria, by the Ligurians. And it was from them that the island was at that time called Sicania, having previously been called Trinacria; and still, even to this day, they inhabit Sicily in its western districts.

But on the capture of Troy, some of the Trojans, having escaped the Greeks, came in vessels to Sicily, and having settled in the neighbourhood of the Sicanians, they were all together called Elymi, and their cities, Eryx and Segesta. There were also settled with them some of the Phocians, who, while returning from Troy, were carried by a tempest, first to Libya, and then from that country to Sicily.