Book 12
59
But Diodorus Siculus, in his books On the Library, says that the citizens of Agrigentum prepared for Gelon a very costly swimming-bath, being seven stadia in circumference and twenty cubits deep; and water was introduced into it from the rivers and fountains, and it serve for a great pond to breed fish in, and supplied great quantities of fish for the luxury and enjoyment of Gelon. A great number of swans also," as he relates, flew into it; so that it was a very beautiful sight. But afterwards the lake was destroyed by becoming filled with mud. And Duris, in the tenth book of his History of Agathocles, says that near the city of Hip- ponium a grove is shown of extraordinary beauty, excellently well watered; in which there is also a place called the Horn of Amalthea; and that this grove was made by Gelon. But Silenus of Calatia, in the third book of his History of Sicily, says that near Syracuse there is a garden laid out in a most expensive manner, which is called Mythus, in which Hiero the king used to transact his business. And the whole country about Panormus,The modern Palermo. in Sicily, is called The Garden, because it is full of highly-cultivated trees, as Callias tells us in the eighth book of his History of Agathocles.
