A small hilltop town in the eastern central highlands of Sicily, Agyrium (modern day Agira) was a Sicel settlement which had become the central power in the Sicilian highlands by the fourth century b.c.e.Footnote 1 Agyrium was a city whose prominence was equal to that of Syracuse, whose soldiers were strong enough to turn back the Carthaginians, and whose inhabitants were the first canonical worshippers of Hercules. This is all, of course, according to Diodorus Siculus, who called Agyrium home.
Outside of Diodorus Siculus’ Bibliothêkê Historikê—a Late Republican forty-book work of didactic universal history—Agyrium makes few appearances in the historical record. The city’s population receives mild attention in Cicero’s In Verrem as one of Verres’ victims, and appears only briefly in later catalogues: it is recorded by Pliny as enjoying Latin rights, and Stephanus of Byzantium merely references its existence.Footnote 2 Moreover, the archaeological record of Agyrium is not well understood. The site has not been systematically excavated, though evidence suggests that the ancient theatre was in the area of the churches of SS Peter and Augustine, and that the ancient city centre is occupied by the Swabian castle.Footnote 3 Agyrium’s comparative non-existence in the historical record makes the Diodoran accounts all the more eye-catching. Diodorus refers to his home town multiple times throughout the Bibliothêkê, always in the most positive light. It is Agyrium the prosperous, the city of great prominence, the pious benefactor. These references often appear at the end of a chapter, leaving a positive impression of Agyrium and highlighting the importance of his home town in the readers’ minds before the narrative shifts.Footnote 4 If this city was so prominent, then, why is Diodorus’ account the only one to acknowledge this? Are these accounts crass self-aggrandizement or ahistorical invention? Building upon the rehabilitation of Diodorus in recent decades as an independent thinker, this article argues that Diodorus’ presentation of Agyrium in the Bibliothêkê is best understood in light of the author’s historical context and authorial intent, and as a reflection of the contemporary political and literary climate of a Republic in crisis.Footnote 5 Through the three appearances of Agyrium as prosperous, prominent and benefactory, Diodorus deploys his home town of Agyrium in the Bibliothêkê to pass implicit critique of contemporary Roman rule during a period of provincial anxiety and civil unrest, in line with the didactic purpose of the text. More than simple ‘self-promotion’, Diodorus uses his home town to engage in the contemporary practice of aggrandizing one’s pedigree. Just as Cicero extolled the virtues of his home town of Arpinum and the great Roman citizens it produced to counter allegations of being a foreigner (peregrinus), the citizens of Diodorus’ Agyrium are pious, beneficent and militarily strong, its surrounding landscape is always beautiful, and its grain production is essential to Rome’s food security—all topical characteristics in Late Republican Rome.Footnote 6
AGYRIUM THE PROSPEROUS
Agyrium was a Sicel hilltop settlement before the town was colonized in 339/8 by the Corinthian Timoleon. It was thereafter recognized as a Greek polis. Following his victory over the Carthaginians in 339, Timoleon continued his campaign against Sicilian tyranny and placed it instead under the rule of himself and Syracuse (Diod. Sic. 16.77–82). As part of the peace negotiations, the Carthaginians were forbidden from lending aid to any tyrant at war with Syracuse (16.82.3). This included Hicetas of Leontini, Nicodemus of Centuripae, and Apolloniades of Agyrium. Timoleon proceeded to defeat each one, though of his victory over Apolloniades Diodorus notes that Timoleon ‘gave Syracusan citizenship to its freed inhabitants’ and ‘ten thousand [settlers were sent] to Agyrium, because of its extent and quality’ (16.82.5). Following these conquests in 338, the east of Sicily (Agyrium in particular) was restored to its former glory, since (16.83.1, 16.83.3):
For many years, because of domestic troubles and border wars, and still more because of the numbers of tyrants who kept constantly appearing, the cities had become destitute of inhabitants and the open country had become a wilderness for lack of cultivation, producing no useful crops … Among the lesser cities is to be reckoned Agyrium, but since it shared in the increase of settlers owing to this agricultural prosperity, it built the finest theatre in Sicily after that of Syracuse, together with temples of the gods, a council chamber and a market. There were also memorable towers, as well as pyramidal monuments of architectural distinction marking graves, many and great.
Such information, which does not appear in the biographies of Timoleon in Plutarch or Cornelius Nepos, serves to highlight the fertility of the region and the benefits that stem from such agricultural bounty.Footnote 7 Despite being left untended, Agyrium’s lands remained fertile, allowing a swift recovery from defeat that put its civic centre on par with that of Syracuse. The imagery is not dissimilar from that used by Cicero to describe Enna, Agyrium’s neighbour, a city famed for its fertility and close affiliation with Ceres/Demeter (Verr. 2.4.107–8):
Round [Enna] are many lakes and groves and beautiful flowers at every season of the year; so that the place itself appears to testify to that abduction of the virgin which we have heard of from our boyhood … for such was the authority and antiquity of the reputation for holiness of [Enna] that, when [Roman priests] went thither, they seemed to be going not to a temple of Ceres but to Ceres herself.
In quoting Cato the Elder elsewhere in the oration, Cicero reminds his audience that ‘Sicily is the nation’s storehouse, the nurse at whose breast the Roman people is fed’.Footnote 8 Owing to decades of civil war and unrest which had devastated farmland across Italy and Sicily, allusions and references such as Cicero’s were a powerful tool in the literary toolbox of the Late Republic—in Connolly’s words, landscape was ‘a heavily loaded component of the Roman image-repertoire’ which permeated all literary genres.Footnote 9 Writing in this context, Diodorus’ approach to geography is moralizing first, historical-political second, and descriptive third, and so when Diodorus is given the opportunity to describe the fecundity of the Heraean mountain chain, he holds nothing back, as Agyrium rests on the edge of this chain (4.84.1–2):
For [the Heraean Mountains] possess many springs of exceptionally sweet water and are full of trees of every description. On them also is a multitude of great oak-trees which bear fruit of extraordinary size, since it is twice as large as any that grows in other lands. And they possess as well some of the cultivated fruits, which have sprung up of their own accord, since the vine is found there in profusion and tree-fruits in quantities beyond telling. Consequently, the area once supported a Carthaginian army when it was facing starvation, the mountains supplying many tens of thousands of soldiers with sources of food for their unfailing sustenance.Footnote 10
Returning to the previous passage, Diodorus extends this construction to Agyrium’s urban landscape as well. He tells us that the stability and influx of settlers to Agyrium following Timoleon’s victory over the tyrants led to the building of a temple to the gods, a council chamber and a marketplace. Of note is his registration of the construction of ‘the finest theatre in Sicily after that of Syracuse’ (16.83.3). The theatre as object and space played a key role in fourth-century Sicilian economic and cultural politics, serving as a mark of status amongst cities as much as it was an entertainment venue.Footnote 11 The reference to ‘memorable towers, as well as pyramidal monuments of architectural distinction marking graves’ is also significant, since they invoke the kind of tomb complexes and memorials that would not look out of place along the Via Appia of contemporary Rome. With these references to Agyrium’s renewed agricultural, infrastructural and political prosperity post-Timoleon, Diodorus demonstrates that in former times war and the overthrowing of tyrannies were followed by a period of recovery that benefitted all. A similar recovery was difficult for many Romans to see in the 30s. Contemporary anxieties amongst the urban populace associated unrest in Sicily with food insecurity and civil war, while urban, rural and provincial populations alike had been living with political unrest at the hands of Rome’s political elite for the better part of a decade.Footnote 12 Pompeius Magnus bestowed numerous Sicilians with Roman citizenship, and Julius Caesar extended the Latin franchise to Sicily before his death in 44, with Mark Antony granting full citizenship later that year.Footnote 13 From 43 to 36, Sicily was under the control of Sextus Pompeius Magnus Pius, the son of Pompeius Magnus, blockading Roman grain imports. The island became a symbol of opposition against the young Caesar Octavianus and his allies at Rome, with archaeological evidence suggesting that the province was prosperous under Sextus.Footnote 14 In 36, the younger Caesar (or at least his general Agrippa) defeated the Pompeian fleet at the Battle of Naulochus and ejected the faction from Sicily (App. B Ciu. 5.127). As punishment for backing Pompeius, Sicily (save Messana) was fined with an indemnity of 1,600 talents, stripped of its citizen rights and suffered large-scale land confiscations and mass relocations of populations.Footnote 15 Taxation was reinstated, and large areas of the central and eastern farmlands which had emptied during the conflict were purposefully left depopulated.Footnote 16 Tauromenium had its population displaced before being resettled by veterans, and Morgantina, near Diodorus’ Agyrium, was systematically destroyed by 35.Footnote 17 According to Strabo, the Catanian plain, which lay between the two, was ‘practically depopulated’ (6.2.4). Diodorus’ only explicit reference to these actions against Sicily occurs in Book 16, where he notes that the younger Caesar expelled the people of Tauromenium, a city of ‘considerable repute’ (ἀξιόλογον ἀξίωμα), and established a colonia there.Footnote 18 While Diodorus passes no explicit judgement, the expulsion is the only reference to contemporary history in a narrative otherwise focussed on Dionysius II of Syracuse, and he criticizes similar actions of the Romans elsewhere in the text.Footnote 19 Hesitation in writing about contemporary events was common amongst Greek intellectuals of the Late Republic, and it seems reasonable that Diodorus felt it unwise to directly criticize a man who had achieved de facto autocratic rule, adopted the title of diui filius, and orchestrated the political assassinations of hundreds of Roman citizens.Footnote 20 Indeed, Diodorus has the dubious honour of having survived one of the bloodiest periods in Roman history, seemingly making it through the political maelstrom of the Late Republic with his wealth, political independence and life intact. He moreover grew up during the governorship of Verres, during which, according to Cicero, his home town of Agyrium suffered (Verr. 2.3.47):
The ager of Herbita and Henna, of Murgentia and Assorus, of Imachara and Agyrium was for the most part so completely abandoned that we looked in vain not only for the cattle but also for the proprietors who were once so numerous.Footnote 21
Diodorus visited Egypt between 60 and 57, possibly placing him in Egypt during the rule, ousting and reinstatement of Ptolemy XII Auletes.Footnote 22 Sometime after 55, Diodorus moved to Rome to make use of the capital’s libraries and wealth of materials, where he lived until his death in the late 30s.Footnote 23 Once at Rome, Diodorus was seemingly uninterested in tutoring the youth of the Roman elite, a common position for Greek intellectuals during the Late Republic that afforded them an income and the ability to engage in the politics of the state that now ruled the Mediterranean.Footnote 24 This lack of interest may be the result of personal wealth, with Cicero noting the wealth of his Agyrian clients, to whom Diodorus may have had connections or whose patronage he may have enjoyed (Verr. 2.3.67). Diodorus may have wilfully disengaged from an increasingly predatory state that mistreated its non-citizen subjects, or any patrons he may have been courting were possibly killed, exiled or stripped of their estates during the political maelstrom of the 40s.Footnote 25 This life experience impacted on not only Diodorus himself but also the subject matter, structure and delivery of the Bibliothêkê.Footnote 26 As Green notes with regard to Diodorus’ views about Roman rule, ‘Agyrium lay at the very heart of the area that Octavian devastated’; and, as Sacks points out, ‘the notion [the success of clement rule over despotic rule] so pervades the Bibliothêkê, applied even to events involving Diodorus’ home town of Agyrium (22.2.4), that it must reflect his own attitude and not simply that of a specific source’.Footnote 27 In this context, Diodorus found in Timoleon an exemplary figure whose actions restore agriculture, economic stability and prestige to Agyrium and east Sicily; the implication is that the unjust rule of contemporary Rome has devastated crops, upheaved populations and brought Sicily low. Thus, in this account of the year 339/8 and through emphasizing the success of his home town, Diodorus offers a strong example for how he constructed Agyrium as a city of great prominence, featuring it as a Sicilian Corinth, Carthage or Numantia, on par with Syracuse and Rome.
AGYRIUM, THE CITY OF GREAT PROMINENCE
The Diodoran world-view, with its focus on just rule and the relationships between benefactors and subjects, awards selected cities with the honour of ‘cities of great prominence’.Footnote 28 Corinth, Carthage and Numantia are called out as ἐπιφανεστάτων πόλεων, ‘the most eminent cities’.Footnote 29 Fifth-century Athens was ἐπιεικεστάτην, ‘the most clement’ (11.59.3); Alexandria ‘the most beautiful of all cities’ (17.52). These cities, all of which had come under Roman control by Diodorus’ day, are invoked to teach a lesson in ruling morally and to show the consequences that follow an inability to treat imperial subjects with moderation and humanity. In Book 32, Diodorus brings the moral implications of besieging or sacking ‘cities of great prominence’ to the fore (32.5):
Because of their surpassing humanity, therefore, kings, cities and whole nations went over to the Roman standard. But once they held sway over virtually the whole inhabited world, they confirmed their power by fear and by the destruction of the most eminent cities (τῇ τῶν ἐπιφανεστάτων πόλεων). Corinth they razed to the ground, the Macedonians they rooted out, they razed Carthage and the Celtiberian city of Numantia, and there were many whom they cowed by terror.
These sackings loom large over the moralizing socio-political landscape of the Late Republic, marking the argued loss of Rome’s metus hostilis: the ‘fear of the enemy’, which was believed to have kept Rome and its political elite just and virtuous, and these sackings were the turning point for Rome’s claims to just rule.Footnote 30 As a provincial author whose complicated attitude towards Rome permeates his text, Diodorus ‘was less concerned with what occurred within Roman society than with how Rome treated its subjects’.Footnote 31 Diodorus admires Rome’s mastery over Sicily where others had failed, and is in general thankful that Rome put an end to the string of tyrannies that had long plagued his homeland (19.1.5). He refers to the budding empire as the ‘most brilliant and greatest’, and appears proud of the role Sicily played in its success.Footnote 32 Sicily is at the centre of Diodoran historical causation, and so it is not surprising that his homeland, ‘the largest and most powerful of islands’, endowed Rome with the gift of empire, only for her to abuse this gift with immoral rule.Footnote 33 So, when Diodorus is positive towards Rome, he is referring not to the contemporary political elite, whom he deems decadent, immoral and incapable of just rule, but to their predecessors.Footnote 34 Diodorus’ account of the siege of Syracuse in 214–212, sixty years before the sackings of Corinth, Carthage and Numantia (and so, the loss of metus hostilis), paints the Romans in a positive light, owing to the morality of Claudius Marcellus.Footnote 35 By the first century b.c.e. the literature concerning the siege focussed on Claudius Marcellus, who reportedly grieved over the death of Archimedes, cried at the sight of Syracuse falling, and demanded his men restrain themselves in their looting.Footnote 36 Diodorus’ account presents Marcellus as the exemplum of a proper victor, content with confiscating the property of freeborn Syracusans and sparing their lives.Footnote 37 Marcellus’ behaviour is so just that it awards him immunity from any associated charge stemming from the fact that these same Syracusans then sold themselves into slavery so they could afford to eat, with Diodorus instead placing blame at the feet of luck—‘Fortune imposed defeat upon the defeated Syracusans’ (26.20.2). Hence Diodorus presents the razing of cities of great prominence as a test of character, one which the Romans pass before the loss of the metus hostilis.
Diodorus highlights a similar conclusion when discussing Agyrium’s military history, demonstrating that Rome’s moral character has not improved as it continues to raze ‘cities of great prominence’. In 392, the Carthaginians marched once more into Sicily (14.95). Magon and his 80,000 troops captured many Sicel towns and convinced others to defect from Dionysius of Syracuse except for Agyrium. Diodorus tells us that Magon was forced to camp on the banks of the Chrysas River, near the road to Morgantina, since he had received news that Dionysius had marched out from Syracuse, and Magon had been unable to sway the Agyrinaeans to join his side. When Dionysius arrived at the Carthaginian camp, however, he found himself outnumbered four-to-one. He thus sent a message to Agyris, the tyrant of Agyrium, who possessed the ‘strongest armament (μεγίστην εἶχε δύναμιν) of any of the tyrants of Sicily at that time after Dionysius’ and was ‘lord of practically all the neighbouring fortified communities’ (14.95.4). Promising him a large portion of neighbouring territory, Dionysius convinced Agyris to join him against the Carthaginians. Magon found himself in a terrible position, caught between the Syracusan forces to the south-east and the Agyrinaean forces to the north. Diodorus notes the effectiveness of the Agyrinaeans, whose guerrilla tactics and knowledge of the landscape allowed them to disrupt Punic supply lines (14.96.1). As noted above, Diodorus places Agyrium at the forefront of Sicilian cities, boasting of the city’s military prowess and twenty thousand citizens, a city second only in status to Syracuse. Later, in the 280s, Agyrium is the first city to revolt from the tyranny of the ruthless Phintias of Acragas (22.2.3):
Hence, since [Phintias] had shown himself a bloodthirsty murderer, all the cities subject to him came to loathe him and drove out their garrisons, the first to revolt being the people of Agyrium. Since Phintias ruled the cities by main force and put to death many of the wealthy men, his lawlessness won him the hatred of his subjects; consequently, since all were at the point of revolt, he was soon humbled, changed his ways, and by a more humane rule held his subjects under control.
Diodorus would have his readership believe that the political and military sway of Agyrium was such that not only was it able to lead a successful rebellion against an unjust tyrant but also in initiating such a rebellion the despot would learn the error of his ways and change for the better. By the late first century b.c.e. the predation of provincial populations by governors, generals and tax farmers had long since bruised the reputation of Rome abroad. As Rome’s behaviour towards its subject states was seen to be becoming more rapacious, the belief that only responsible behaviour could assure loyalty became more topical, as did the moral utility of the genre of history—empires did not collapse because of economic recession, administrative disruption or territory loss, but because their leaders were arrogant and unjust.Footnote 38 This notion—that clemency and moderation (ἐπιείκεια and φιλανθρωπία) are essential for successful rule—is central to the text and underpins much of Diodorus’ world-view, which urged rulers to act with clemency, moderation and humanity if they wished to maintain their position.Footnote 39 It is through this approach—which builds upon the historiographical traditions of Thucydides, Polybius and Posidonius, contends with discourses of the metus hostilis, and centres Sicily in the historical narrative of Rome’s burgeoning empire—that the Bibliothêkê establishes its didactic relationship with the reader. While the parallel Diodorus draws between Agyrium in the 280s and his own day is clear, the message is not so much a call to action as a didactic reminder of what makes a just ruler, what befalls those who raze ‘cities of great prominence’, and what has historically occurred during and after revolt or conflict in Sicily.Footnote 40 Thus Diodorus depicts Agyrium not only as one of the cities of prominence but also as a city surpassing the others in its piety.
AGYRIUM, THE PIOUS BENEFACTOR
Book 4 of the Bibliothêkê recounts the labours of Hercules, including the returning of Geryon’s herd.Footnote 41 During this journey, Diodorus’ Hercules circumnavigates Sicily. Diodorus’ Sicilian periplus was derived from an epic foundation narrative on which the Western Greeks built their traditions, and blends Greek mythic traditions with Sicilian religious practices.Footnote 42 One example of this in a material form is the Doric Temple to Hercules at Acragas, which was constructed in the period from the late sixth to the early fifth centuries, within a century of the city’s foundation (Cic. Verr. 2.4.94). In the alternate accounts of Apollodorus and Hyginus, Hercules only visits Eryx in the north-east whilst retrieving an errant member of the herd.Footnote 43 In the Bibliothêkê, upon reaching the Strait of Messina, Hercules expresses a wish to ‘make a circuit’ of the island, shifting Hercules’ presence in the region from necessity to desire.Footnote 44 After landing in Sicily, Hercules makes for Eryx, stopping off in the healing waters of Himeraea and Egestaea along the way (4.23.1). Upon arrival in Eryx, Hercules defeats and dethrones its king in a wrestling match, hands the land over to the native Elymians until such a time that Hercules’ descendants should colonize the land, and highlights the Sicilian foundation of the famed sanctuary of Venus Erycina.Footnote 45 Hercules then arrives in Syracuse, where he founds the rites to Persephone/Kore by sacrificing a bull in the goddesses’ name in the Cyane spring, which feeds into the Great Harbour.Footnote 46 In offering land to the Elymians, and establishing the sacrificial rites instituted in Syracuse, Hercules is made a culture hero of Sicily.Footnote 47
A central theme throughout the Bibliothêkê is the role of gods and heroes as benefactors of culture, or as culture heroes.Footnote 48 The relationship of veneration and benefaction between culture heroes and mortals is a cornerstone of Diodoran thought and critical to his critique of contemporary Roman rule, building on values central to Hellenistic social and political philosophy and the systems of patronage and euergetism among the Roman elite.Footnote 49 Prominent mythic individuals received offerings and displays of piety from mortals, and in return they bestowed new technologies or cities upon them. In return for these benefactions, these individuals are often elevated to godhood, a recorded phenomenon which occurs almost seventy times within the first pentad of the Bibliothêkê (Sacks [n. 3], 68–71). Prometheus is a cultural hero for bestowing the gift of fire, Demeter for bestowing grain and laws, Dionysus for bestowing wine, and Hercules for bestowing a whole number of rituals, genealogies and city foundations.Footnote 50 The narratives associated with these figures aligned with, and supported, the Diodoran world-view, where benefaction (εὐεργεσία) contributed to the development of all civilizations, including that of Rome. The deification of mortal rulers who possessed these values is a feature of Diodorus’ historical framework, wherein ‘the deified culture bringers are the most inspirational and beneficial leaders of them all’, providing absolute exempla for his readers.Footnote 51
Despite its perceived decline, Diodorus does not deny Rome the ability to produce its own exemplary models. Mortal Romans who upheld the moral standard of a just rule are utilized by Diodorus as exempla, especially when that rule concerns provincial subjects.Footnote 52 For example, Quintus Mucius Scaevola (RE 22) and Lucius Sempronius Asellio (RE 18) are noted for their beneficent terms as provincial governors in Asia in 94 and Sicily c.93 respectively, an appreciably rare occurrence in the light of the contemporary attitudes towards governors.Footnote 53 Diodorus (potentially drawing from the memoir or works of Scaevola’s legate, Publius Rutilius Rufus) draws special attention to Scaevola’s rule, which Asellio would later emulate—‘The governor [Scaevola], by his prudence and timely relief, put an end to the hatred with which Roman rule was regarded’.Footnote 54 Pompeius Magnus is lauded on similar grounds, while Diodorus attributes Julius Caesar’s deification to the magnitude of his good deeds.Footnote 55 The relationships between culture heroes and the cities or peoples that praise them and receive their benefactions are reciprocal, with each party benefitting from the deal. The outcome for those who receive benefaction is a powerful claim to relevance in a cultural milieu that elevates heritage and ancestry, and it is in this cultural context, amidst the uncertain political landscape, the sacking of the cities of Sicily, and the popularized impiety of Caesar Octavianus, that Diodorus records Hercules’ final stop on his Sicilian periplus—Agyrium.
Returning to Hercules, the hero is immediately met with honours equal to those of an Olympian god when he reaches Agyrium, with sacrifices, festivals and games held in his name. Diodorus explicitly notes that this is the first time Hercules was allowed to enjoy such behaviour, since ‘the deity was giving intimations to him of his coming immortality’.Footnote 56 This is not the first time in the text that Diodorus awards Sicily with a first, since earlier in this same book Diodorus claims that the Sicilians were the first to receive the gift of grain from Demeter.Footnote 57 As thanks for the offers given, Hercules built a lake outside the city, four stades in circumference, and founded two sacred precincts in the city—one in honour of Geryon, the other in honour of Hercules’ nephew Iolaus. Diodorus records that each of these precincts were honoured into his own day, noting that the Iolaus precinct is filled with such majesty that ‘the boys who fail to perform the customary rites lose their power of speech and become like dead men’ (4.24.5). Moreover, Diodorus reports that Hercules fought and slew many Sicanians on his way to Agyrium, including ‘distinguished generals who receive the honours accorded to heroes even to this day’ (4.23.5). This not only elevates Hercules into a position above that of hero and prepares him for godhood, but also places Agyrium at the centre of a mythological narrative which establishes the dominance of the Greeks over the Sicanians, and thus the Greek peoples’ divine claim to Sicily.
Through these constructions of Hercules as benefactor of mankind and culture hero, Diodorus presents the people of Agyrium not only as pious and worthy of benefaction but also as the canonical first true worshippers of Hercules. Thus in the Diodoran world-view, Agyrium transcends from benefaction to the role of benefactor, as all subsequent worship of Hercules now stems canonically from Agyrium. This religious primacy trickles down to other deities in text—later in Book 4, Agyrium supplies stone (for a payment) to neighbouring Engyum for the construction of their temple to the Mother Goddess, famed for its size and cost, despite the distance between the two cities being ‘nearly one hundred stades apart’.Footnote 58 These acts place a primacy not only on Sicily within the greater Mediterranean context but also on the Sicilian highlands and east coast, ravaged by a man who was repeatedly deemed impious by his contemporaries.Footnote 59 As with his presentation of Agyrium’s fertility and military prowess, Diodorus demonstrates how his home town and thus the whole of Sicily reap the benefits from holding the virtues that the young Caesar was perceived as lacking in the 30s before his rebranding as Augustus—control over food security, competency in command, and piety to the gods.
CONCLUSION
Agyrium stands out in the Bibliothêkê because Diodorus made sure it does. Each appearance of Agyrium in the history of Sicily affords Diodorus the opportunity to exalt his home town as one of the most fertile, most pious and most influential of cities. By Diodorus’ day, Sicily had long been used as a strategic piece in the game of Roman rule, and the region around Diodorus’ home town lost much of its land, populace and influence during his lifetime. In response, Diodorus believed that Rome had not met the necessary preconditions for benefaction in quite some time, simultaneously critiquing the actions of contemporary elites while exalting his homeland and highlighting the necessity of moral and just rule if Rome wished to continue to garner the benefactions from Sicily that made her empire. With the future security and prosperity of his homeland uncertain, Diodorus employed contemporary dialogues of landscape, morality and piety to demonstrate to his audience the primacy and importance of his home town (and thus all of Sicily), and to highlight the benefits its happiness and security brought to itself and its ruler. Less concerned with Rome’s dominance than with Rome’s treatment of its subjects, Diodorus sought to venerate Sicily and his home town of Agyrium as a form of opposition to a regime which he saw to be demonstrating its disregard for its subjects in the clearest of ways.
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