A.C. 409.

Ambition and thirst of plunder having led the Carthaginians into Sicily, their general opened the campaign by laying siege to Agrigentum, an opulent and well-fortified city. In order to construct terraces and causeways, the besiegers destroyed the tombs which environed the city, which sacrilege cost both parties very dear, for the effluvia which escaped the violated graves bred a most destructive pestilence. Thousands of soldiers were carried off daily, and among them Hannibal, the general of the Carthaginians, fell an early victim to the disease. We think we scarcely need remind our young readers that this was not the great Hannibal: they all know how he died. The multitude beheld, in this affliction, a punishment from the gods for the profanation of the ashes of the dead. To render them again propitious, prayers and offerings were made, and even a young child was sacrificed to Saturn. Notwithstanding these pious vows, famine, a no less redoubtable scourge, was added to the calamities of the besieged, who, without hope and without resources, began to speak of surrendering. The Carthaginians refused to make any terms with them. Only one resource was left to the unfortunate Agrigentines; that of abandoning their city and taking refuge in the neighbouring states. They must either leave their aged and sick to the mercy of a barbarous enemy, or remain and perish all together. Necessity prevailed over humanity; never was exhibited a stronger scene of desolation than of the Agrigentines, so recently happy and wealthy, departing for ever from their homes, abandoning their sick or aged relations, their property, and all they held dear. In their misfortunes they received a friendly welcome from their neighbours, the inhabitants of Gela, whilst the cruel Carthaginians pillaged the city, and massacred every inhabitant who had been left behind.

Agrigentum was one of those cities from which enormous wealth and the easy indulgence in every luxury had banished temperance and morality. The inhabitants were more addicted to drunkenness than any people of Greece. There is a story told of a company of young men who were intoxicated to such a degree as to be convinced by one of their party they were in a ship in distress, and, in compliance with his advice, threw all the splendid furniture of the room out of the windows, to save the vessel from sinking. Almost the only virtue this people had was hospitality.

We cannot dismiss the subject of Agrigentum without reverting to the tyrant Phalaris and his brazen bull. Perillo, a goldsmith, by way of paying his court to Phalaris, a tyrant of Agrigentum, made him a present of a brazen bull of excellent workmanship, hollow within, and so constructed, that the voice of a person shut up in it, sounded exactly like the bellowing of a bull. The artist pointed out to the tyrant what an admirable effect this must produce, were he to shut up a few criminals in it, and make a fire underneath. Phalaris, struck with the horror of this idea, and perhaps curious to try the experiment, told the goldsmith that he himself was the only person worthy of animating his bull, as he must have studied the notes that made it roar to the greatest advantage, and that it would be unjust to deprive him of any part of the honour of the invention. Upon which, he ordered the goldsmith to be shut up, and a great fire to be kindled round the bull, which immediately began to roar, to the admiration and delight of all Agrigentum. Cicero says this bull was carried to Carthage, at the above taking of Agrigentum, and was restored again by Scipio, after the destruction of the former city. Empedocles, the philosopher, born in Agrigentum, has a memorable saying concerning his fellow-citizens: “That the Agrigentines squandered their money as excessively every day, as if they expected not to live till the morrow; and that they built edifices to live in, as if they fancied they should never die.”

In the first Punic war, Agrigentum, of which the Carthaginians had made a place of arms, was taken by the Romans, after a siege of seven months,—A.C. 262.

Some years after, the Carthaginians retook Agrigentum in a few days, and completely razed it to the ground. It was, however, afterwards rebuilt, and is now called Gergenti.