DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61301#0183
THE METOPES OF SELINUS.
153
colonist seems always to have looked first for a high,
steep hill, which he might fortify and crown with a
temple to his fathers’ gods, to keep him always in pious
memory of his fatherland. The young city grew apace,
grafting into its strength no doubt some elements of
vigour from the surrounding population of native Sikans.
Though small, the city was rich and influential; of this
her coinage, stamped with the parsley leaf, still bears
witness. In its short, brilliant history we can note only
two events. Once, when the city was plague-stricken
with ague from the marsh between the hills, its citizens
issued forth in solemn procession, parsley crowned, to
seek from the mystic sage at Agrigentum, the great
Empedocles, help and healing; he drained the marsh
and the city was saved. A little later Selinus was
involved in a bitter quarrel with the Phoenician city
Egesta ; a quarrel of little import in itself, but fraught
with the most tragic consequences. It issued in the
saddest story history has ever told, the disastrous ex-
pedition of the Athenians to Syracuse.
Again a few years and the end comes. Selinus, the
green parsley city, the brave outpost, the fortress which
had stood as it were as a symbol of Greek power in the
west, provokes the wrath of Carthage, is besieged and
taken. She falls B.C. 409 in the height of her prosperity;
her citizens still busy decking her two fair hills with
temples to the gods who had deserted her. In the quarries
153
colonist seems always to have looked first for a high,
steep hill, which he might fortify and crown with a
temple to his fathers’ gods, to keep him always in pious
memory of his fatherland. The young city grew apace,
grafting into its strength no doubt some elements of
vigour from the surrounding population of native Sikans.
Though small, the city was rich and influential; of this
her coinage, stamped with the parsley leaf, still bears
witness. In its short, brilliant history we can note only
two events. Once, when the city was plague-stricken
with ague from the marsh between the hills, its citizens
issued forth in solemn procession, parsley crowned, to
seek from the mystic sage at Agrigentum, the great
Empedocles, help and healing; he drained the marsh
and the city was saved. A little later Selinus was
involved in a bitter quarrel with the Phoenician city
Egesta ; a quarrel of little import in itself, but fraught
with the most tragic consequences. It issued in the
saddest story history has ever told, the disastrous ex-
pedition of the Athenians to Syracuse.
Again a few years and the end comes. Selinus, the
green parsley city, the brave outpost, the fortress which
had stood as it were as a symbol of Greek power in the
west, provokes the wrath of Carthage, is besieged and
taken. She falls B.C. 409 in the height of her prosperity;
her citizens still busy decking her two fair hills with
temples to the gods who had deserted her. In the quarries