The extraordinary fertility of Sicily was a great attraction to the Greek colonists. Naxos, on the eastern coast of the island, was founded about the year 735 B.C.; and in the following year some Corinthians laid the foundations of Syracuse. Ge'la, on the western coast of the island, and Messa'na, now Messï'na, on the strait between Italy and Sicily, were founded soon after. Agrigen'tum, on the south-western coast, was founded about a century later, and became celebrated for the magnificence of its public buildings. Pindar called it "the fairest of mortal cities," and to The'ron, its ruler from 488 to 472, the poet thus refers in the second Olympic ode: Come, now, my soul! now draw the string; Bend at the mark the bow: To whom shall now the glorious arrow wing The praise of mild benignity? To Agrigentum fly, Arrow of song, and there thy praise bestow; For I shall swear an oath: a hundred years are flown, But the city ne'er has known A hand more liberal, a more loving heart, Than, Theron, thine! for such thou art. Yet wrong hath risen to blast his praise; Breath of injustice, breathed from men insane, Who seek in brawling strain The echo of his virtues mild to drown, And with their violent deeds eclipse the days Of his serene renown. Unnumbered are the sands of th' ocean shore; And who shall number o'er Those joys in others' breasts which Theron's hand hath sown? --Trans. by ELTON. In the mean time the Greek cities Syb'aris, Croto'na, and Taren'tum had been planted on the south-eastern coast of Italy, and had rapidly grown to power and opulence. The territorial dominions of Sybaris and Crotona extended across the peninsula from sea to sea. The former possessed twenty-five dependent towns, and ruled over four distinct tribes or nations. The territories of Crotona were still more extensive. These two Grecian states were at the maximum of their power about the year 560 B.C.--the time of the accession of Pisistratus at Athens--but they quarreled with each other, and the result of the contest was the ruin of Sybaris, in 510 B.C. Tarentum was settled by a colony of Spartans about the year 707 B.C., soon after the first Messenian war. No details of its history during the first two hundred and thirty years of its existence are known to us; but in the fourth century B.C. the Tar'entines stood foremost among the Italian Greeks, and they maintained their power down to the time of Roman supremacy.