Angell, Samuel: Sculptured metopes discovered amongst the ruins of the ancient city of Selinus in Sicily by William Harris and Samuel Angell in the year 1823 (London, 1826)

In the seventy-fifth Olympiad, on the great invasion of Greece
by Xerxes, the Selinuntians alone of all the Sicilians were
among those Greeks, who, unmindful of their origin, took part
with the barbarians. To this abandonment of the common
cause they were probably instigated by their enmity to Gelon, on
account of his recent destruction of their parent city, Hybla
Megara1. Whatever may have been their motive, they leagued
with the Carthaginians, when these, in concert with the Per-
sians, and in order to divert the aid which Gelon and the Syra-
cusans were preparing to afford the Greeks, invaded Sicily with
a large armament under Hamilcar, and laid siege to Himera.
Gelon, with the forces he had collected for the assistance of
Greece, marched with all speed to the relief of Himera. Both
armies were encamped under the walls of the city, when a for-
tunate accident made the Selinuntians the innocent cause of the
destruction of the barbarians. Some Syracusan scouts having
intercepted a message which announced to Hamilcar the ap-
proach of a promised reinforcement of Selinuntine cavalry,
Gelon, after ascertaining the purport of the despatch, caused it
to be forwarded to its destination. He then ordered a body of
his own troops, personating the Selinuntians, to appear before the
entrenchments of the enemy, a short time previous to the hour ap-
pointed for the arrival of the expected auxiliaries. The stratagem
was attended with complete success : the disguised Syracusans
were unsuspectingly admitted as friends, and they immediately
commenced the dreadful slaughter, which terminated in the death
of Hamilcar, and the total annihilation of the Carthaginian host2.
This event, so glorious to the Sicilians, is said to have occurred

1 Herod, lib. vnr. 156. Thucyd. lib. i
■ Diod. Sic. lib. xi. 20, 21, ct seq.