Diodorus ascribes the erection of the first fort to rebel Assyrian captives in the reign of Sesostris, and Ctesias (Persica) dates it to the time of Semiramis; but Josephus (l. c.), with greater probability, attributes its structure to some Babylonian followers of Cambyses, in 525 BC.
The city was of Siculian origin, and its foundation is related by Diodorus, who informs us that in 403 BCE the inhabitants of Herbita (a Siculian city), having concluded peace with Dionysius I of Syracuse, their ruler or chief magistrate Archonides determined to quit the city and found a new colony, which he settled partly with citizens of Herbita, and partly with mercenaries and other strangers who collected around him through enmity towards Dionysius.
Thus, in 314 BCE, Diodorus tells us that, by the treaty between Agathocles and the Carthaginians, it was stipulated that Heracleia, Selinus and Himera should continue subject to Carthage as they had been before.
Strabo, a contemporary of Diodorus, stated in his Geography that British tin was shipped from Massalia on the Mediterranean coast of Gaul.
The Pythagorean tradition considered the "founder" of their order to have studied with Zoroaster in Chaldea (Porphyry Life of Pythagoras 12, Alexander Polyhistor apud Clement's Stromata I.15, Diodorus of Eritrea, Aristoxenus apud Hippolitus VI32.2).
We also know that in 359 BC, Argeas, former enemy of Amyntas (father of Philip II of Macedon), or according to certain historians (Diodorus, XVI, 3, 5.) one of his sons, had just obtained a fleet of 3,000 hoplites from the Athenians: The troops disembarked and then set up in Methoni.
About 280 BC, according to Diodorus and Pausanias, they moved in three directions: toward Macedonia and Illyria, toward Greece, and toward Thrace.
For example, both Diodorus and Myron placed Aristomenes in the first Messenian war, which is not universally accepted as accurate.
Ancient historian Diodorus claims that at the Battle of Thermopylae the Spartans attempted to assassinate Persian King Xerxes by infiltrating his camp at night.
Ctesias (as known from Diodorus) also related that after the death of Ninus, his widow Semiramis, who was rumored to have murdered Ninus, erected to him a temple-tomb, 9 stadia high and 10 stadia broad, near Babylon, where the story of Pyramus and Thisbe (Πύραμος; Θίσβη) was later based.
Diodorus places it 22 years earlier, or 650 BCE, and Hieronymus still further back, 654 BCE.
Virgil reckons it among the colonies of Alba, and must therefore have considered it as a Latin city (Aen. vi. 776): it is found also in the list of the same colonies given by Diodorus (vii. Fr. 3); but it seems certain that it had at a very early period become a Volscian city.