The means of creating the diversion were both obvious and easy. Persia, through the intermediary of her subjects the Phœnicians, had excellent means of communicating with and influencing the great Carthaginian power. This influence must have been largely increased by the favour which Persia showed to the Phœnician as against the Greek trader. It is unnecessary to point to the fact that Carthage would presumably require but little persuasion to attack the rival Greek in Sicily at a time when no help could possibly be given from Greece itself. ◆H vii. 166.◆ The Sicilian Greek seems to have had no sort of doubt as to the connection between the invasion of his own island and that of the mother country. ◆H. vii. 165. _ad init._◆ Herodotus, even in spite of his bias towards the Greek version of the story, ◆H vii. 166.◆ gives some hint of a different version in Sicily. ◆Frag. Hist. Græc.◆ He does not apparently know much about it, as he does not mention Himera as the locality of the decisive battle. ◆Frag. III. Schol. Pind.◆ It is in a fragment of Ephoros that occurs the first extant historical reference to the connection between the two expeditions. ◆Pyth. i. 146.◆ He says that Persian and Phœnician ambassadors were sent to the Carthaginians, “ordering” them to invade Sicily with as large an expedition as possible, and after subduing it, to come on to the Peloponnese. Discredit has been cast on the passage in consequence of the use of the word “order,” because, so it is said, the Persians were not in a position to give orders to Carthage. But, supposing the use of the word is not merely an instance of verbal inaccuracy, it is quite conceivable that a Greek historian might use such an expression to describe the supposed relations between the mother state of Phœnicia and her colony. ◆Diod. xi. 1.◆ The historian Diodorus recognizes the same connection between the two expeditions. He does not, however, make any reference to Phœnician agency in the matter, nor does he speak of an “order,” but of a diplomatic agreement.[106] #SICILIAN TRADITION.# One question remains: Did Gelo ever seriously entertain the idea of sending help to the mother country? It is hardly conceivable that he did. The Carthaginian preparations were on such a scale that he must have been long forewarned of the coming storm. Whether he made any sort of offer to the Greek embassy is quite another question.