 The first historical reference to Hermocrates comes from Thucydides, where he appears at the congress of Gela in 424 BC giving a speech demanding the Sicilian Greeks stop their quarrelling.In 415 BC he proposed a coalition that would even include non-Sicilian cities (as well as non-Greek cities such as Carthage) in an alliance against Athens.He was elected as one of Syracuse's three "strategoi", along with Heracleides and Sicanus, but was dismissed from this position after a short period because of his lack of success in battle.