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To return to Demosthenes and Eurymedon: the Thurians having now got ready to join in the expedition with seven hundred heavy infantry and three hundred darters, the two generals ordered the ships to sail along the coast to the Crotonian territory, and meanwhile held a review of all the land forces upon the river Sybaris, and then led them through the Thurian country.
At Croton grew up a school of medicine which glorified Magna Graecia. "Healthier than Croton," said a proverb; for the spot was unsurpassed in salubrity; beauty and strength distinguished its inhabitants, who boasted their champion Milon. After the fall of Sybaris, Croton became so populous that its walls encircled twelve miles.
For the rest I laid in an eighteen-gallon cask of beer on credit, and a trustful baker came each day. It was not, perhaps, in the style of Sybaris, but I have had worse times. I was a little sorry for the baker, who was a very decent man indeed, but even for him I hoped. Certainly if any one wants solitude, the place is Lympne.
China, that most glorious of all living monuments of Antiquity, tells us nothing of her own chemistry, but we know that it is there. Peep into a Chinese town, walk through its narrow streets, thronged but quiet, wherein there is neither rumbling of coaches nor rattling of wheels, and you shall see the nearest thing on earth to what we hear of Sybaris.
This proclamation, as was natural, roused warm hopes in many youthful breasts, and within the sixty days there had gathered at Sicyon thirteen noble claimants for the charming prize. From the city of Sybaris in Italy came Smindyrides, and from Siris came Damasus. Amphimnestus and Males made their way to Sicyon from the cities of the Ionian Gulf.
In this way the Greek characteristics, which were able elsewhere to retain a vigorous vitality notwithstanding all political misfortunes, disappeared more rapidly, more completely, and more ingloriously in Sybaris and Metapontum, in Croton and Posidonia, than in any other region; and the bilingual mongrel peoples, that arose in subsequent times out of the remains of the native Italians and Achaeans and the more recent immigrants of Sabellian descent, never attained any real prosperity.
The shepherds may sing of Crathon, or Sybaris, or Himeras, waters so sweet that they seem to flow with milk and honey. Again, Theocritus may encounter his rustics fluting in rivalry, like Daphnis and Menalcas in the eighth idyl, 'on the long ranges of the hills. Their kine and sheep have fed upwards from the lower valleys to the place where
See also the same poet's Occultation of Orion: "The Samian's great AEolian lyre." Sybaris, a neighboring city to Crotona, was as celebrated for luxury and effeminacy as Crotona for the reverse. The name has become proverbial. A war arose between the two cities, and Sybaris was conquered and destroyed. Milo, the celebrated athlete, led the army of Crotona.
Your eye embraces the snow-clad heights of Dolcedorme and the Ionian Sea, wandering over forests, and villages, and rivers, and long reaches of fertile country; but it is not the variety of the scene, nor yet the historical memories of old Sybaris which kindle the imagination so much as the spacious amplitude of the whole prospect. In England we think something of a view of ten miles.
Of all the Greek settlements, that which retained most thoroughly its distinctive character and was least affected by influences from without was the settlement which gave birth to the league of the Achaean cities, composed of the towns of Siris, Pandosia, Metabus or Metapontum, Sybaris with its offsets Posidonia and Laus, Croton, Caulonia, Temesa, Terina, and Pyxus.
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