A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

1. Tyrant of Gela, was the son of Pantares, and succeeded his brother Cleander, who had ruled over Gela as tyrant during seven years, B. C. 498. Hence he found his power already firmly established at Gela, and soon extended it by numerous wars against the other cities of Sicily, in which he was almost uniformly successful. Callipolis, Naxos, and Leontini, besides several smaller places, successively fell under his yoke. Being called in by the people of Zancle to assist them against the Samians, who had made themselves masters of their city by treachery, he suddenly turned against his allies, threw their king Scythes into chains, and reduced the mass of the people into slavery, while he gave up three hundred of the principal citizens to the mercy of the Samians, whom he allowed to retain possession of Zancle, in consideration of receiving half the booty they had found there. He also made war upon the Syracusans, whom he defeated in a great battle at the river Helorus, and appears even to have threatened Syracuse itself, as we hear of his encamping by the well-known temple of the Olympian Zeus, in the immediate neighbourhood of that city. But the intervention of the Corinthians and Corcyreans induced him to consent to the conclusion of a treaty of peace, by which the Syracusans, in exchange for the numerous prisoners he had taken at the Helorus, ceded to him the territory of Camarina, and he immediately proceeded to rebuild that city, which had been lately destroyed by the Syracusans. His last expedition was one against the Sicels, in the midst of which he died, while engaged in the siege of Hybla (B. C. 491), after a reign of seven years. He left two sons, Cleander and Eucleides, who, however, did not succeed him in the sovereignty, being supplanted by Gelon. (Hdt. 6.23, 7.154, 155; Thuc. 6.5; Diod. Exc. Vales. p. 558; Schol. in Pind. Ol. 5.19, Nem. 9.95; Polyaen. 5.6.)