(M535) The next important operation of the war was the siege and conquest of Melos, a Dorian island, by the Athenians, B.C. 416. The inhabitants were killed, and the women and children were sold as slaves, and an Athenian colony was settled on the island. But this massacre, exceeding even the customary cruelty of war in those times, raised a general indignation among the allies of Sparta. (M536) But an expedition of far greater importance was now undertaken by the Athenians—the most gigantic effort which they ever made, but which terminated disastrously, and led to the ruin and subjugation of their proud and warlike city, as a political power. This was the invasion of Sicily and siege of Syracuse. Before we present this unfortunate expedition, some brief notice is necessary of the Grecian colonies in Sicily. (M537) In the eighth century before Christ Sicily was inhabited by two distinct races of barbarians—the Sikels and Sikans—besides Phœnician colonies, for purposes of trade. The Sikans were an Iberian tribe, and were immigrants of an earlier date than the Sikels, by whom they were invaded. The earliest Grecian colony was (B.C. 735) at Naxos, on the eastern coast of the island, between the Straits of Messina and Mount Ætna, founded by Theocles, a Chalcidian mariner, who was cast by storms upon the coast, and built a fort on a hill called Taurus, to defend himself against the Sikels, who were in possession of the larger half of the island. Other colonists followed, chiefly from the Peloponnesus. In the year following that Naxos was founded, a body of settlers from Corinth landed on the islet Ortygia, expelled the Sikel inhabitants, and laid the foundation of Syracuse. Successive settlements were made forty-five years after at Gela, in the southwestern part of the island. Other settlements continued to be made, not only from Greece, but from the colonies themselves; so that the old inhabitants were gradually Hellenized and merged with Greek colonists, while the Greeks, in their turn, adopted many of the habits and customs of the Sikels and Sikans. The various races lived on terms of amity, for the native population was not numerous enough to become formidable to the Grecian colonists.