CHAPTER VII

ITALIAN POLITICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Now we must relate how he traveled, what places he first visited, and what discourses he made, on what subjects, and to whom addressed; for this would illustrate his contemporary relations. His first task, on arriving in Italy and Sicily, was to inspire with a love of liberty those cities which he understood had more or less recently oppressed each other with slavery. Then, by means of his auditors, he liberated and restored to independence Crotona, Sybaris, Catanes, Rhegium, Himaera, Agrigentum, Tauromenas and some other cities. Through Charondas the Catanaean, and Zaleucus the Locrian, he established laws which caused the cities to flourish, and become models for others in their proximity. Partisanship, discord and sedition, and that for several generations, he entirely rooted out, as history testifies, from all the Italian and Sicilian lands, which at that time were disturbed by inner and outer contentions. Everywhere, in private and in public, he would repeat, as an epitome of his own opinions, and as a persuasive oracle of divinity, that by any means so ever; stratagem, fire, or sword, we should amputate from the body, disease; from the soul ignorance; from the belly, luxury; from a city, sedition; from a household, discord; and from all things so ever, lack of moderation; through which he brought home to his disciples the quintessence of all teachings, and that with a most paternal affection. For the sake of accuracy, we may state that the year of his arrival in Italy was that one of the Olympic victory in the stadium of Eryxidas of Chalcis, in the sixty-second Olympiad. He became conspicuous and celebrated as soon as he arrived, just as formerly he achieved instant recognition at Delos, when he performed his adorations at the bloodless altar of Father Apollo.