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And at once there came to him ambassadors from both the cities and rulers which had formerly opposed him, asking forgiveness for their past mistakes and promising for the future to carry out his every command. With all of them he dealt equitably and concluded alliances, bearing his good fortune as men should, not toward them alone but even toward the Carthaginians, his bitterest foes. [2] For when the ambassadors who had been dispatched from Carthage came to him and begged him with tears to treat them humanely, he granted them peace, exacting of them the expense he had incurred for the war, two thousand talents of silver, and requiring them further to build two temples in which they should place copies of the treaty. [3] The Carthaginians, having unexpectedly gained their deliverance, not only agreed to all this but also promised to give in addition a gold crown to Damarete, the wife of Gelon. For Damarete at their request had contributed the greatest aid toward the conclusion of the peace, and when she had received the crown of one hundred gold talents from them, she struck a coin which was called from her a Damareteion. This was worth ten Attic drachmas and was called by the Sicilian Greeks, according to its weight, a pentekontalitron.1 [4]

Gelon treated all men fairly, primarily because that was his disposition, but not the least motive was that he was eager to make all men his own by acts of goodwill. For instance, he was making ready to sail to Greece with a large force and to join the Greeks in their war against the Persians. [5] And he was already on the point of setting out to sea, when certain men from Corinth put in at Syracuse and brought the news that the Greeks had won the sea-battle at Salamis and that Xerxes and a part of his armament had retreated from Europe. Consequently he stopped his preparations for departure, while welcoming the enthusiasm of the soldiers; and then he called them to an assembly, issuing orders for each man to appear fully armed. As for himself, he came to the assembly not only with no arms but not even wearing a tunic and clad only in a cloak, and stepping forward he rendered an account of his whole life and of all he had done for the Syracusans; [6] and when the throng shouted its approval at each action he mentioned and showed especially its amazement that he had given himself unarmed into the hands of any who might wish to slay him, so far was he from being a victim of vengeance as a tyrant that they united in acclaiming him with one voice Benefactor and Saviour and King.2 [7] After this incident Gelon built noteworthy temples to Demeter and Core3 out of the spoils, and making a golden tripod4 of sixteen talents value he set it up in the sacred precinct at Delphi as a thank-offering to Apollo. At a later time he purposed to build a temple to Demeter at Aetna, since she had none in that place; but he did not complete it, his life having been cut short by fate. [8]

Of the lyric poets Pindar was in his prime in this period. Now these are in general the most notable events which took place in this year.

1 i.e. a "fifty-litra," the litra being a silver coin of Sicily.

2 This acclaim recognized his rule as constitutional, not "tyrannical."

3 The two chief deities of Sicily; cp. Book 5.2.

4 The Scholia to Pind. P. 1.152 give the inscription, which has been attributed to Simonides (fr. 106 Diehl, 170 Edmonds); the text and translation are from Edmonds:“ φαμὶ Γέλων᾽, Ἱέρωνα, Πολύζαλον, Θρασύβουλον,
παῖδας Δεινομένεος, τοὺς τρίποδας θέμεναι
ἐξ ἑκατὸν λιτρᾶν καὶ πεντήκοντα ταλάντων
Δαμαρετίου χρυσοῦ, τᾶς δεκάτας δεκάταν,
βάρβαρα νικάσαντας ἔθνη: πολλὰν δὲ παρασχεῖν
σύμμαχον Ἕλλασιν χεῖρ᾽ ἐς ἐλευθερίαν.
”"I say that Gelo, Hiero, Polyzalus, and Thrasybulus, sons of Deinomenes, dedicated these tripods out of fifty talents and a hundred litres of the gold of Damarete, being a tithe of the tithe of the booty they had of their victory over the Barbarian nations when they gave a great army to fight beside the Greeks for freedom."

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