Homer adverts in two lines, strongly marked by that power, which he singularly possessed, of expressing the deepest pathetic in the simplest terms, to the catastrophë of the family of Œneus, king of the country, as to a story well known among his contemporaries.

While then the Athenian arms pressed upon the Syracusans and their allies, the Egestans were relieved; but, with the catastrophë of the Athenian forces, followed by the downfal of the influence of Hermocrates, their situation became even more perilous than before; inasmuch as the exasperation of their enemies was increased, the hope and liberality from Syracuse was lessened, and all prospect of a protecting power anywhere among the Grecian states was done away.