Hermocrates

Syracusan aristocrat, the dominant Sicilian Greek statesman of the 420s and 410s. His 424 BC speech at the Gela congress calling for a pan-Sicilian alliance against any mainland intervention (Thuc. 4.59–64, the locus classicus of the 'Sicily for the Sicilians' line) prefigured the Syracusan reaction to the 415 invasion eleven years later. Elected one of the three Syracusan strategoi at the outbreak of the siege, consistently pushed for the most aggressive counter-measures — the diplomatic mission to Sparta and Corinth that produced Gylippus's relief force, the naval offensive in the Great Harbour that boxed in the Athenian fleet, the extension of the counter-walls across Epipolae. Exiled by Syracusan factional politics in 410 after an unsuccessful command in the Aegean, killed in 407 trying to force his way back into the city (Diod. 13.75.2–9; Xen. *Hell.* 1.1.27–31 covers the exile context).

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