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This chapter argues that the epitaph on Aeschylus cited by his ancient biographer and others — which commemorates him as one who fought bravely at Marathon without mentioning his poetry — while unlikely to be by Aeschylus himself was probably written soon after his death by a member of his family and inscribed on his tomb at Gela. Features of its language which have been claimed to be Hellenistic are in fact well attested in the classical period, and the unusual use of alsos in the sense ‘level expanse’ (instead of ‘sacred grove, glade, sacred enclosure’) is confined to Aeschylus and his contemporaries.

Rhodes represents a case of a “back-ripple effect” of Mediterranean networks, when overseas experiences and colonizing activities condensed the distinct poleis of the island into “Rhodian” ones long before the official synoikismos (unification and foundation of the new city of Rhodos). It indicates the role of (island) regionalism in shaping collective identity. This finds its expression in Rhodian myths (Tlepolemos) that stress overseas, common action; in the short-lived commercial port of Vroulia; and especially in overseas trade and colonization in Sicily and across the Mediterranean in the early sixth century. The more comprehensive nature of Rhodian identity overseas (Olympia, colonization in Sicily at Gela and Akragas) reflected on the home island. Finally, at Egyptian Naukratis, “Rhodes,” acting as a single polis (not so at home, where Lindos Kameiros and Ialysos kept their identity), shared in the most articulate expression of Hellenic identity (again, “overseas”) at the common Greek temple of the Hellenion.

This chapter focuses on Agathokles’ involvement in eastern and central Sicily, which was the core of his domain throughout his reign. It argues that Agathokles rose to power largely from conflicts particular to the domestic situation in Syracuse after Timoleon and that the driver of Agathokles’ establishment of a large kingdom in Sicily was not primarily the example of the Diadochoi in the East. Rather it was the interlocked nature of civic conflict in Sicily and the model for dealing with this provided by earlier Sicilian history.

This chapter recounts the events surrounding the “Operation Delouse,” by which leaders of Maasani Rule were arrested. Early on the morning of August 31, 1947, three forces commanded by Donald Cameron, Wilfred Marquand, and David Trench staged surprise raids in north Malaita. They came on ships with squads of police from the Western Solomons. Houses were searched for incriminating documents. The next day Roy Davies jailed Nori on minor charges in ʻAoke, where Kifo and Basi were also picked up and Belo was already in custody. Arrests had started earlier on Makira, Isabel, Gela, and Guadalcanal, and over the next two months operations would move south across Malaita.

To get a sense of the relationship between karst geology and Greek settlement, we will look at examples from the Greek mainland, the islands of the Aegean, and Sicily. There is no attempt here to be comprehensive, as the necessary field work has not been done to make that possible, but rather these examples are selected to suggest the way that karst water potential played an important role in site selection and development. The major examples selected are Athens and Corinth for mainland Greece, Rhodes for the Aegean Islands, Assos and Priene for Ionia, and Syracuse and Akragas for Sicily. Other places will be cited briefly if the details from those sites are particularly illuminating. Karst phenomena, as we have seen, are found throughout the Greek world. Since Athens is perhaps the best documented Greek city, and has in addition a phenomenal karst system as its monumental focus, it receives here a section of its own, Chapter 18, The Well-Watered Acropolis. In Chapter 11, Planning Water Management, we discuss Corinth’s water system in comparison with that of her daughter city Syracuse. Here, however, we will consider the aspects of water at Corinth that derive from the karst geology of the area. This city is an excellent example of the adaptation of urban requirements to karst terrane, the siting of an ancient Greek city to take advantage of this natural resource. Ancient Corinth was built on gradually sloping terraces below the isolated protuberance of Acrocorinth, which acts as a reservoir, with the flow of waters through it resulting in springs (Fig. 8.1). That karst waters are to be found in perched nappes even at high altitudes accounts for the spring of Upper Peirene not far below the summit of Acrocorinth, as well as the two fountains half-way down the road from its citadel, and the fountain called Hadji Mustapha, at the immediate foot of the citadel (as reported by the late seventeenth century traveler, E. Celebi, cited in Mackay, 1967, 193–95.) The aquifers also supply the aqueduct (probably ancient) from Penteskouphia southwest of Acrocorinth.

A city is the locus of both sociocultural and physical-technical elements in a society. To begin to understand the importance of both kinds of factors, ancient cities are convenient examples to study, especially dead ones that do not “wiggle” under the microscope. By isolating one urban system (water management) we can begin to understand the complication and variability that characterize these early cities, and hence gain insight into the development of other urban systems, as well as the role that water management plays in the evolution of all cities. The received wisdom about the placement of cities usually rates defense as the primary factor, with access to arable land and concentration of trade activities being the other two important factors. A hill top, a protruding ridge, a peninsula or an isthmus between two rivers—all were sites easily defended by walls and hand weapons. Even a broad plain could be utilized if there were a slight rise that could be fortified, such as at the Mycenaean city of Tiryns in Greece. A city on a slight rise in the midst of broad fields of arable and irrigable soil was ideal. Such a formulation leaves out the possibility of deliberately choosing as a site a port city that tapped directly into grazing lands, or the importance of a balance of either fish or meat complementing cereals in the diet. It is more accurate to say that two kinds of food were necessary, either crops and fish or crops and meat. This concept broadens the number and kinds of “ideal” sites. Trade routes, the third factor, also are more complex in form and have more varied effects on urban location than early theories would admit. There are at least three kinds: 1. Overland routes (e.g., the Santa Fe Trail, with its two terminals at Independence, Mo., and Santa Fe., N.M., with Santa Fe being a crossroads where routes from Los Angeles and Mexico City also converged) 2. Land and water interchanges (the north-south land route through France crossing at Paris the east-west river route along the Seine) 3. Water-water interchanges such as New Orleans (Gulf of Mexico and Mississippi River) or Amsterdam (Rhine River and Atlantic Ocean)

The polity of Rhodes, with Cretan assistance, founded Gela on the south coast of Sicily in 688 B.C.E. (Herodotus, VII, 153) and assisted in the foundation of Akragas/ Agrigento farther northwest on the same coast in 580 B.C.E. Akragas’s foundation was part of the second wave of Greek city building in Sicily, about 150 years after the founding of Syracuse and other east coast settlements. Much of the Rhodian situation was replicated in the new cities. Settlers found familiar terrain like Gela, on a steep ridge facing the sea, surrounded by generous plains. At Gela, the acropolis at the east end is near the River Gelas, which waters the plains. Agrigento is bracketed by two rivers with plains to the south, and its lower ridge is visually equivalent to the site of Gela. An irrigation system of the Greek period like that known a little to the east at Camarina could have facilitated growing food in the alluvial soil between the two rivers, to the south of the temple ridge (Di Vita 1996: 294). If we notice geological similarities and extrapolate too freely from them to architectural similarities, we may introduce chronological fuzziness to our study. The island-wide Rhodian tradition of dealing with water resources was carried to Sicily by the colonists along with other aspects of the culture. Exchange of ideas continued during the centuries between the founding of Akragas and the synoecism of Rhodes City centuries later. For instance, the grottoes of the acropolis of the city of Rhodes are “cut into the bioclastic limestones of the Rhodes formation, with, in some cases, the floor cut down into clayey and marly units that correspond to a line of seepage” (E. Rice, personal communication). At Akragas as at Rhodes, the builders cut down through the stone to the impermeable clay and marl units, to tap the line of seepage. With similar geology, it is not surprising that many elements of the water system of the two places were similar, developed indepen dently from the old tradition. New concepts of water management were carried from place to place by expert builders, from the seventh through the fifth century B.C.E.

While the war between Athens and Sparta for control of the Aegean was at its peak, other conflicts, further to the west, embroiled Greek cities in struggles for their life. Carthage was as significant a naval power in its sector of the Mediterranean as Athens was further to the east. In 415, the Carthaginians were content to look on while the Athenians attacked Syracuse. They could see that the Greeks were divided among themselves and too busy squabbling to turn their attention against the Phoenician trading stations on Sicily. From their point of view, anything that weakened Greek power in Sicily was welcome. On the other hand, the destruction of the Athenian forces posed a new problem, to which they found themselves responding rapidly. Not for the first time the Syracusans threatened to dominate the island. However, the real troublemakers proved once again to be the Elymian inhabitants of Segesta, who, not content with the havoc they had wreaked by calling in the Athenians, now appealed to Carthage for help against their old rivals, the Greeks of Selinous. The Carthaginians had good reason to support Segesta. It lay in an area dotted with Punic, that is Phoenician, colonies, notably Panormos (Palermo) and Motya. When in 410 the Segestans offered to become dependants of Carthage in return for protection, the Carthaginian assembly realized that the time had come to consolidate their city’s hold on western Sicily. The Segestan appeal marked a decisive moment in the transformation from a loose confederation of allies and trading stations presided over by Carthage to a Carthaginian empire that included among its subjects not just fellow-Phoenicians but subject peoples – ‘Libyans’, as the Berbers of North Africa were called by Greek writers, Elymians, Sikels and Sikans in Sicily, not to mention Sards and Iberians. There were other, personal factors at work among the Carthaginian elite, for the city was at this time controlled by a group of powerful dynasties that dominated its Senate. A prominent Carthaginian with the common name Hannibal is said to have conceived a passionate hatred for all Greeks after his grandfather Hamilcar was killed in battle against the Syracusan army at Himera in 480 BC.