Romans, who should touch at Sardinia, or that part of Sicily which belonged
to the Carthaginians, should be received there in the same manner as the
Carthaginians themselves. They must, however, soon afterwards have been
driven out of the island; for at the time of the invasion of Greece by
Xerxes, (which happened about thirty years after the expulsion of the
Tarquins,) Gelon, the king of Syracuse, expressly states that they no
longer possessed any territory there, in a speech which he made to the
ambassadors of Athens and Sparta, the Cathaginians having united with
Xerxes, and he having offered to ally himself with the Greeks. The
circumstances and even the very nature of the victory which Gelon gained
over the Carthaginians, which ended in their expulsion from Sicily, cannot
accurately be ascertained: but from a comparison of the principal
authorities on this point, it would, appear that it was a naval victory; or
at least that the Carthaginian fleet was defeated as well as their army.
Their loss by sea was enormous, amounting to nearly the whole of their
ships of war and transports, the former consisting of 2000 and the latter
of 3000.

Such is a short sketch of the island of Sicily, so far as its commercial
facilities and its history are concerned previously to its conquest by the
Romans. It was peculiarly valuable to them on account of its extreme
fertility in corn; and by this circumstance it seems to have been
distinguished in very early times; for there can be no doubt that by its
being represented by the poets as the favourite residence of the goddess
Ceres, the fertility of the island in corn, as well as its knowledge of
agriculture, were intended to be represented. When Gelon offered to unite
with the Greeks in their war with Xerxes, one of his proposals was that he
would furnish the whole Greek army with corn, during all the time of
hostilities, if they would appoint him commander of their forces. In the
latter period of the Roman republic, it became their principal dependence