Before the meeting between the Greek ambassadors and Gelon, which aimed to convince Syracuse to support the Greek contingent against the Persians, Herodotus dedicates a brief digression to Gelon. He, who had been a valiant commander of the cavalry of Gela, after the death of Hippocrates first seized power from the legitimate descendants and became tyrant of the city, and then occupied Syracuse, which surrendered without a fight. The historian describes the sudden development of the city, which expanded thanks to Gelon’s political decisions concerning the citizenry: the inhabitants of Camarina, whose asty was completely demolished, and more than half of the Geloi became citizens of Syracuse. In addition to these, even the wealthiest citizens of Megara Iblea were granted citizenship, despite having been responsible for a war against the tyrant; the people, on the other hand, who were not at fault, were sold into slavery. Gelon behaved in the same way towards the inhabitants of Euboea in Sicily, distinguishing them according to their social class. These choices, explains Herodotus, were dictated by hostility towards the demos, which was detested by the tyrant and with which he had no intention of coexisting within the same community.
Gelon’s choices were therefore not simply dictated by a desire to expand the city of Syracuse, but were political decisions aimed at weakening the poorest part of the population and increasing the political power of the wealthier classes. It is a demographic and social engineering operation aimed at radically reducing the role of the demos within the social body of the city (Vannicelli 2017, 494-5). According to one interpretation, this is one of the first historically documented examples of synoecism (see the attestation of the extremely rare term synoikema), thanks to which Gelon was able to incorporate the populations and territories of the major cities of south-eastern Sicily; he became the only leader in this area of Sicily and at the same time strengthened the largest centre of the island (Moggi 1976, 106). According to another interpretation, Gelon’s decisions should be viewed in a more nuanced way, integrating the “formal legality” of the measures taken with the great freedom with which the tyrant seemed to act, deciding, for example, to deliberately exclude part of the population from citizenship (Luraghi 1994, 296-297).
Herodotus narrates the events from a particular perspective describing the refounding of Syracuse as a cynical and brutal displacement of people (ibid., 289). Diodorus, for example, mentions another measure that is not mentioned at all by the historian of Halicarnassus and that seems to have little to do with the events narrated in the Histories: the integration of ten thousand mercenaries into the citizen body of Syracuse (XI, 72; for an analysis of other sources, see Moggi 1976, 100-114; Luraghi 1994, 288-304; Mafodda 1996, 70-80). Finally, it should be noted that Gelon’s easy conquest of Syracuse is mentioned in the context of the return to the city of the γαμόροι, the landowners who had previously been driven out by the people and slaves (VII, 155; on this term, see Bravo 1992, 85; Mignosa 2021, 19-20). It is still unclear how much land was allocated to the new citizens and what institutional measures were taken after the city was refounded (Luraghi 1994, 300-302).
7.156.1: ὁ δὲ ἐπείτε παρέλαβε τὰς Συρηκούσας, Γέλης μὲν ἐπικρατέων λόγον ἐλάσσω ἐποιέετο, ἐπιτρέψας αὐτὴν Ἱέρωνι ἀδελφεῷ ἑωυτοῦ, ὁ δὲ τὰς Συρηκούσας ἐκράτυνε, καὶ ἦσάν οἱ πάντα αἱ Συρήκουσαι· [2] αἳ δὲ παραυτίκα ἀνά τ᾽ ἔδραμον καὶ ἔβλαστον. τοῦτο μὲν γὰρ Καμαριναίους ἅπαντας ἐς τὰς Συρηκούσας ἀγαγὼν πολιήτας ἐποίησε, Καμαρίνης δὲ τὸ ἄστυ κατέσκαψε, τοῦτο δὲ Γελῴων ὑπερημίσεας τῶν ἀστῶν τὠυτὸ τοῖσι Καμαριναίοισι ἐποίησε· Μεγαρέας τε τοὺς ἐν Σικελίῃ, ὡς πολιορκεόμενοι ἐς ὁμολογίην προσεχώρησαν, τοὺς μὲν αὐτῶν παχέας, ἀειραμένους τε πόλεμον αὐτῷ καὶ προσδοκῶντας ἀπολέεσθαι διὰ τοῦτο, ἀγαγὼν ἐς τὰς Συρηκούσας πολιήτας ἐποίησε· τὸν δὲ δῆμον τῶν Μεγαρέων οὐκ ἐόντα μεταίτιον τοῦ πολέμου τούτου οὐδὲ προσδεκόμενον κακὸν οὐδὲν πείσεσθαι, ἀγαγὼν καὶ τούτους ἐς τὰς Συρηκούσας ἀπέδοτο ἐπ᾽ ἐξαγωγῇ ἐκ Σικελίης. [3] τὠυτὸ δὲ τοῦτο καὶ Εὐβοέας τοὺς ἐν Σικελίῃ ἐποίησε διακρίνας. ἐποίεε δὲ ταῦτα τούτους ἀμφοτέρους νομίσας δῆμον εἶναι συνοίκημα ἀχαριτώτατον.
Now that he had Syracuse, he was less interested in the government of Gela; he let his brother Hiero take care of Gela while he proceeded to strengthen Syracuse, which was the only place he cared about. In no time at all Syracuse shot up and began to flourish. In the first place, he demolished the town of Camarina and moved all the inhabitants to Syracuse, where he enrolled them as citizens, and then he did the same to half the inhabitants of Gela. Also, when the Megarian community in Sicily agreed to-terms after being besieged by him, he took the men of substance, and instead of killing them as they expected, because it was they who had started the war, he moved them to Syracuse and added them to the citizen body. As for the general Megarian populace, who were not to blame for the war and therefore expected to remain unpunished, he brought them to Syracuse too-and sold them for export from Sicily. He treated the Euboean community in Sicily in exactly the same way, with the same distinction between rich and poor. The reason for this, in both cases, was that he regarded the general populace as extremely annoying to live with (tr. by R. Waterfield, Oxford 1998).
- B. Bravo, Citoyens et libres non-citoyens dans les cités coloniales à l’époque archaïque. Le cas de Syracuse, in R. Lonis (éd.), L’Etranger dans le monde grec, II, Nancy 1992, 43-85.
- N. Luraghi, Tirannidi arcaiche in Sicilia e Magna Grecia. Da Panezio di Leontini alla caduta dei Dinomenidi, Firenze 1994.
- G. Mafodda, La monarchia di Gelone tra pragmatismo, ideologia e propaganda, Messina 1996.
- V. Mignosa, Decreto per i discendenti dei gamoroi dall’area di Palazzolo Acreide, in Axon 5 (2021) 7-29.
- M. Moggi, I sinecismi interstatali greci 1, Pisa 1976.
- P. Vannicelli (a cura di), Erodoto, Le Storie, Libro VII, Serse e Leonida, Milano 2017.