Syrakosai had grown into a major trading post on the eastern edge of Sicily. The Greek explorers brought their culture, their food, and their merchants to this island in the Middle Sea, seeing it as another outpost for Magna Graecia, expanding on their settlements on the mainland of Italy and the surrounding islands.
They came from Corinth, fleeing that city during this time of trouble. Wars were breaking out between the ruling kings of the Bacchiads in their home country and while the stop-and-go revolution carried on for a generation or more, these Corinthian Greeks decided to escape aboard their merchant ships and settle on the edge of the sea, in this area they named Syrakosai. Greek citizens had already established settlements on the island and reports that came back to Corinth were
