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These two pictures are shown at the same altitude.

Women, slaves and foreigners were excluded.

The most famous Olympic athlete was Milo of Croton, a city in Southern Italy; he won 6 times at Olympia, 7 times at Delphi, 10 times at Isthmia and 9 times at Nemea; 536 BC is the most recurrent date.  Then the Spartan Hipposthenes won  5 times, followed by Gorgos from Elea, again from Southern Italy, who won 4 times. Elea was founded by Xenophones from Lydia in 545BC. Chronis of Laconia won 4 times, then Arrachion from Arcadia won 3 times, and others like Theogenes from Thassos, Leonidas and Diagoras both from Rhodes.

The Founder of the Attic Literary Prose was a Greek Sicilian, Gorgias of Leontinoi

Although the invention of Rhetoric is generally attributed to the two Greek Sicilians, Corax of Syracuse and Tisias of Hymera, my studies indicate that in the V century BC two other Sicilian philosophers/poets played a key role in what was to become the apex of Athenian thought. 

1. The first was a "scientific" philosopher called Empedocles,  Ἐμπεδοκλῆς, 490-430 BC, from Acragas (Agrigentum).
2. The second was Gorgias, Γοργίας, 483-376 BC, from Leontinoi.

Empedocles is considered the last of the pre-Socratic philosophers to write his ideas in the same hexameter verse used by Homer to write the Iliad and the Odyssey, assuming here that Homer did write the Odyssey. Empedocles was born and bred in Acragas. This is an important point to which I will come back again in support of the Authoress Paradox, as it closes the literary style of that Homeric period before the onset of the following genres.

Gorgias, on the other hand, invented Literary Prose and transplanted it from his native Sicily to Attica thus making the Attic dialect the language of literary prose. Gorgias, as a Sophist, travelled extensively throughout the Hellenic world to give oratory performances and tutoring. He made a wealthy living from this profession. He settled in Athens, lived to the grand old age of 105, and had a major influence on later philosophers and statemen of Athens. It is instructive to list the key accomplishments of Gorgias:

1. Plato dedicated one of his dialogues to Gorgias
2. Scholars have traced much of Aristotle's aesthetics and poetics to Gorgias.
3. Aristotles mentions that Isocrates was a student of Gorgias.
4. The Souda (Σοῦδα), a massive 10th century Byzantine encyclopedia of the ancient Mediterranean world, attributed to the author Suidas, mentions Pericles, Polus and Alcidamas as students of Gorgias.
5. Diogenes Laertius mentions Antisthenes as a student of Gorgias.
6. Philostratus also mentions Critias, Alcibiades, Thucydides and Agathon as students of Gorgias or influenced by Gorgias.  

These facts being established defines Gorgias the very founding father of Greek literary prose, and in the Attic language, at that. This finding has surprised me and made me wonder why scholars of Classics have underestimated the importance of this deduction over so many centuries.  

The People of Sicily

Thucydides, writing around the period of the Peloponnesian War, 431BC-404BC (this specific section must have been written in 415BC) refers to three groups of inhabitants:

1. An aboriginal group that lived on the island before the Hellenic settlers arrived. They were called Sicanians, and Thucydides affirms, without poetical license but after establishing the facts, that the Sicanians thought of themselves as being the first of all aboriginal people on the island. Yet, Thucydides says, these Sicanians were settlers from the Iberian Peninsula who lived along the river Sicanus, modern Júcar around the region of Valencia, pursued out of their own territory by the Ligurians from Northern Italy.  When this chase of the Sicanians out of Spain occurred we do not know, but considering that these Sicanians living in Sicily considered themselves the foremost Sicilian aborigines, we must think that this migration took place a long time before the Hellenes arrived in the VIII century BC. The Island before the arrival of the Sicanians was called Trinacria, but after the installation of these Iberian settlers, the Island came to be known as Sicania. We do not know what language the Sicanians spoke, but it is fair to assume they spoke some celtic version of Iberian dialect as the Romans hadn't yet been to the Iberian Peninsula.
   
   
2. The second group were the Sicels. These settlers were Italic people living in central-southern Italy who moved across to Sicania with a large army and crossed the Strait of Zancle (i.e. Messina) on rafts; as they advanced from the east, they forced the Sicanians to move Westwards. The more Sicels came across the more Sicanians moved Westwards till, eventually, the Sicanians were forced to concentrate in the most western tip of the Island, the area in and around modern Trapani. The Sicels now became the dominant aborigines and the island changed its name from Sicania to Sicilia. These Sicels spoke Oscan as they were a group of Sabellic tribes with their stronghold in Samniun. It is believed that they came to Samnium from the nearby land of the Sabines from whom they descended. The Oscan dialect was similar to the Umbrian dialect and Latin language. 
   Thucydides adds that the shift of the Sicanians westward coincided with the arrival of some Trojan settlers who, on the fall of Ilium, came in ships to Sicily and settled next to the Sicanian under the general name of Elymi; their towns being called Eryx and Egesta. With them also came some Phocians carried on their way from Troy by a storm. Phocia was a Region of ancient Greece, north of the Gulf of Corinth and west of Boeotia. The Phocian War 355–346 BC ended in the conquest of Phocis by Philip II of Macedonia. This former event therefore dates the first Hellenic settlers into Sicily to around 1188 BC; a fact and not speculation.   
   See note below.                                                                                                 Illustration from Wikipaedia
   
                                                                                                                           
3. The third group were the Hellenes. They also settled into the Sicilian Island starting from the East. The first Greek settlers landed in Naxos and arrived from Euboea, hence they were Chalcideans from Euboea and their founder was Thucles, an Athenian by birth. Euphorus reports that a number of Ionians were mingled with the Chalcideans from Euboea. A year after Corinthian settlers landed in Syracuse and found that city under their leader Archia. Three years after the foundation of Naxos, some of those Chalcideans joined by new ones from Euobea and its capital Chalcis, and found Leontini and Catana the year after. Evarcus was the founder of Catana. Settlers continued to move in from Megara, Rhodes, Crete and other places from Greece and quickly they displaced the Sycels, who like the Sicanians previously, were forced to concentrate westward in the centre of the island. In this way the majority of the island, from north to south, became inhabited by Greek settlers up to around Selinus on the South-West of the island. The poleis of Zancle became Messina after the original country of the tyrant from Rhegium, Anaxiles, who came from Messenia in the South-West of the Peloponnese.
   
   
   

   Let's take a bird's eye view of the status of ethnic groups in the island that is today still known as Sicilia. The advance of the Sicels from the mainland of Italy which derived its name from the king of the Sicels called Italus, forced the Sicanians to concentrate on the most western tip of the Island and there they were joined by settlers from Troy and Phocia, and this group came to be known as the Elymoi; the area that became Erix and Segesta, nowadays in the Province of Trapani. Thucydides says that, quote, "there were also Phoenicians living all around Sicily, who had occupied promontories along the coast and the adjacent small islands for the purpose of trading with the Sicels." Their presence in Sicily was therefore one of convenience for the benefit of trade carried out at their stations rather than a movement of settlers. In fact, "When the Hellenes began to arrive in considerable numbers by sea, the Phoenicians abandoned most of their stations, and grouping together moved their stations to Motye, Soloeis and Panormus, near the Elimi, partly because they confided in their alliance and partly because those were the nearest points for the voyage between Carthage and Sicily." Thucydides Book VI.

                                                                                              
   

                                                                                                                               
 

Table In preparation

	Poleis	Settlers From	Founder	Date B.C.
1	Eryx	Trojans and Phocians		1187
2	Egesta	Trojans and Phocians		1187
3	Naxos	Chalcidians from Euboea	Thucles	735
3	Syracuse	Corinthians	Archia	734
3	Leontini	Chalcidians from Naxos		729
4	Catana	Chalcidians from Naxos	Evarchus	729
5	Trotilus	Megara	Lamis	728c
6	Thapsus		Lamis	728c
7	Hyblaean Megara	Megara	Hyblon	728c
8	Selinus	Hyblaeam Megara + Megara	Pamillus	625c
9	Gela	Rhodes + Crete	Antiphenus	689
10	Acragas	Geleans	Aristonous + Pystilus	582
11a 11b 11c 11d	Zancle     Messene	Pirates from Cumae a Chalcidian town in the Oscan country Settlers from Chalcis & the rest of Euboea Samians & other Ionians flying from the Persians Samians expelled by Anaxiles from Messenia	Perieres from Cumae Crataemenes from Chalcis    Anaxiles	VIII c.     494
12	Himera	Chalcidians from Zancle + exiles from Syracuse	Euclides, Simus and Sacon
13	Acrae	Syracusans
14	Casmenae	Syracusans	Daxon + Menecolus
15	Camarina	Syracusans + Geleans	Hyppocrates tyrant of Gela

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

N.B.:

"Zancle was founded by the Sycels because it is shaped like a sikle, and the name for sikle in Oscan is Zanclon." Thucydides, Bk VI. Zancle, therefore, must have been founded before 1200 BC.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(For the benefit of my research on this subject the following section is subject to Copyright, Copyright © 2010 A.L. Grasso)


At this point it is necessary to make a statement which is contrary to the accepted view of scholars, viz., "that all ancient writers have agreed in representing Naxos as the most ancient of all the Greek colonies in Sicily." The analysis just presented shows that around 450 years earlier the first Greek colonists from Troy and Phocia had arrived into Sicily and mingled with the Sicanian to found Eryx and Egesta. The poleis of Eryx is today a district of the city of Trapani and Egesta is the modern Segesta, also in the Province of Trapani. 

 

I believe that Samuel Butler came to the conclusion that the Homeress of the Odyssey was from Trapani largely on the account of the geographic matching of that location with the description that Ulysses gives to the Phaecians about his country of origin. I am hereby giving additional evidence in support of Samuel Butler Paradox that:

1. The area of Eryx and Egesta were founded in and around the period following the fall of Ilium during the Trojan War.
   
2. That migrants from the Greek region of Troy and some from the mainland of Hellas, the Phocians, together with the local Sicanians, found those two cities.
   
3. That the Greek language must have been the main language of that western area as amply reported by Thucydides when Egaesta sent envoys to the Athenian Assembly to enlist their help against the rival poleis of Selinus.
   
4. That, peculiarly, of all the Greek Temples in Magna Grecia the only one that does not follow the Doric Order is that of Segaesta. In fact, the pillars follow, in my view, the Tuscanic Order because they have no flutes and each pillar has a base, another point whose significance has been much underrated by previous scholars.
   My view is that this might well have been an influence contributed by the advance of the Sicels into the Island who, in their turn, knew of this architectural order from the Etruscans with whom they were neighbours on the mainland of Italy. Remember that the Etruscan territory ended on the north bank of the river Tiber, hence in Rome, and a narrow strip of land along the coast down all the way to Cumae, north of Naples, thus deep into the Oscan territory, was still Etruscan territory. It is instructive to remember that the first inhabitants of Cumae were the Latins, Greeks and Etruscans. However, when the growing power of the Cumaean Greeks, led by Aristodemus, prevailed over the other tribes, it led many indigenous tribes of the region to organize against them; and under the leadership of the Etruscan Capuans, notably the Dauni and Aurunci, they defeated the Greek Cumaeans in 524 BC. Aristodemus later became a tyrant, overthrew the aristocratic faction, but was finally assassinated. When the Roman Republic was established, in 510BC, the last king of Rome, the Etruscan Tanquinius Superbus was forced to flee fron Rome and he lived his life in exile with Aristodemus at Cumae.
   Finally, the combined fleets of Cumae and Syracuse defeated the Etruscans at the Battle of Cumae in 474 BC. (add 3 quotations here)
   
5.  I submit that the Phocians of Eryx and Egesta were the Phæcians of the Odyssey, hence the home and country of Queen Arete and Nausicaa were Eryx and Egesta.
   
6.  The corollary of the statement in 5 above, which we can take as true for now, is that the social conditions of the women of Eryx and Egesta were much more emancipated vis-a-vis those of a typical Greek woman. This was due to the social influence derived from the Sicels and Etruscans where women enjoyed a much higher level of freedom, especially in Etruria where they were equal to men.
   
7.  That the identity of King Alcinous, Queen Arete and Nausicaa could be reasonably linked to Tisias, more popularly known as Stesychorus, and his two daughters, both poetesses, who both married illustrious men from the city of Catana. If this point can be proved then Catana, the adopted city of Stesychorus, could also have been the home of Queen Arete and Nausicaa. This statement expands point 5 above to include Hymera and Catana.
   
8.  That Sicily was the birthplace of the art of rhetoric; Tisias and Corax the inventors of rhetoric and Gorgias of Literary prose.
   
9.  Tisias (alias Stesychorus-Στησίχορος) settled in Catana and is attributed the merit of establishing the first chorus to accompany poetry recitals. His alias, in fact, means "he who sets up the chorus", hence "choirmaster". My current studies prompt me to speculate that Stesychorus could have been the possible author of the Homeric Hymns; or even Homer himself; this statement sounds paradoxical but it embeds, also, a measure of significant logic which merits serious and unprejudiced study.
   
10.   The emerging picture is that in pre-Socratic Greece, the Greeks from Magna Grecia and Sicily played a most important role in the development of Greek phylosophy and epic poetry; more specifically, the Sicilian Greeks played the dominant role in the development of Greek prose which later saw its golden splendour in IV century Athens.
    
11.   A further line of investigation must be linked to Sappho who traveled to Syracuse and stayed there for eight years (603-595) and a statue was erected in her honour in Syracuse. Sappho was a contemporary of Pittakos, Alkaeus (her lover?) and Stesychorus. She could easily have created the Novel as a visitor to Syracuse and Sicily. I know this statement is likely to raise many eyebrows in professional scholars of this discipline, but I feel that given the abundant philological formulae and epithets to suit the metrics in the Homeric compositions, this connective assertion merits further investigation.

Note: From Diodorus Siculus

τὸ τελευταῖον πολλαῖς γενεαῖς ὕστερον ἐκ τῆς Ἰταλίας τὸ τῶν Σικελῶν ἔθνος πανδημεὶ περαιωθὲν εἰς τὴν Σικελίαν τὴν ὑπὸ τῶν Σικανῶν ἐκλειφθεῖσαν χώραν κατῴκησαν. ἀεὶ δὲ τῇ πλεονεξίᾳ προβαινόντων τῶν Σικελῶν, καὶ τὴν ὅμορον πορθούντων, ἐγένοντο πόλεμοι πλεονάκις αὐτοῖς πρὸς τοὺς Σικανούς, ἕως συνθήκας ποιησάμενοι συμφώνους ὅρους ἔθεντο τῆς χώρας· περὶ ὧν τὰ κατὰ μέρος ἐν τοῖς οἰκείοις χρόνοις ἀναγράψομεν.Diod. 5.6.3-4.

Last of all, many generations later, the people of the Sicels crossed over in a body from Italy into Sicily and made their home in the land which had been abandoned by the Sicani. And since the Sicels steadily grew more avaricious and kept ravaging the land which bordered on theirs, frequent wars arose between them and the Sicani, until at last they struck covenants and set up boundaries of their territory, upon which they had agreed. With regard to these matters we shall give a detailed account in connection with the appropriate period of time.

Diod. 5.6.3-4.