A reference to his own text justifies our disbelief in the essential difference between the Sikani and the Sikeli, implied by Thucydides. That such was the case was the opinion of only the historian; whilst, on his own showing, it was not the opinion of the Sicanians themselves. After the Cyclopes and Læstrygones the “Sikani are the first inhabitants. As they say themselves, they are even earlier, being _autokhthones_; but, in real truth, they are Iberians from the river Sikanus, driven out by the Ligyes; and from them the island as well was named Sikania, being first called Thrinakria.”[8] The Iberic doctrine is evidently an inference from the name of the river; an inference which the incompatible opinion of the Sikanians themselves opposes, and, in my mind, outweighs. But the objections do not end here. The evidence of Diodorus is as follows; _i.e._, that Philistus supported the Thucydidean view, but that Timæus proved him wrong, and clearly showed that they were Autokhthones. Hence, the testimony that we set against that of Thucydides is the testimony of an equally competent local antiquary, though an inferior general historian: for less influence than this cannot well be attributed to the name of Timæus. The statement respecting the Phocians is remarkable. It shows the existence of Greeks anterior to the colonial era; Greeks whose presence was inexplicable, except under the idea of a return from a doubtful expedition. Who the Elymæans really were is uncertain. Assuming that they constituted a variety of the Sicilian population, and asking whence they may best be derived, the answer is Sardinia--Middle Italy, and Mauritania. In this latter case they belong to the original Libyan, Gætulian, Numidian or Mauritanian stock, rather than the Punic. Or they may have been Tuscans. Possibly, Phœnicians _direct_ from Phœnicia, or Canaanites, or Jews. That true Mauritanians, as opposed to the Phœnicians of Carthage, existed, in at least one Sicilian locality, is a reasonable inference from the name of a town on the eastern coast--_Thapsus_. This is a word which now only occurs on the northern coast of Africa, but has a meaning in the modern Berber, where _thifsah_ means _sand_; a likely name for the low coast of the part which Virgil calls _Thapsum jacentem_. In the Elymæan country were two rivers, one called _Simoïs_, and the other _Scamander_. How they came to be called so is unknown. The effect was to engender the story of the Trojan colony; unless, indeed, we choose to argue that such a phenomenon proves too much, and is evidence in favour of the reality of a Trojan war, and a subsequent dispersion of Trojan colonists. Or they have been Sardinian _Tli_-enses.