SICILIAN AFFAIRS AFTER THE DESTRUCTION OF THE ATHENIAN ARMAMENT
BEFORE SYRACUSE.
In the sixtieth chapter of this work, I brought down the history
of the Grecian communities in Sicily to the close of the Athenian
siege of Syracuse, where Nikias and Demosthenes with nearly their
entire armament perished by so lamentable a fate. I now resume from
that point the thread of Sicilian events, which still continues so
distinct from those of Peloponnesus and Eastern Greece, that it is
inconvenient to include both in the same chapters.
If the destruction of the great Athenian armament (in September 413
B.C.) excited the strongest sensation throughout every part of the
Grecian world, we may imagine the intoxication of triumph with which
it must have been hailed in Sicily. It had been achieved (Gylippus
and the Peloponnesian allies aiding) by the united efforts of nearly
all the Grecian cities in the island,—for all of them had joined
Syracuse as soon as her prospects became decidedly encouraging;
except Naxos and Katana, which were allied with the Athenians,—and
Agrigentum, which remained neutral.[835] Unfortunately we know
little or nothing of the proceedings of the Syracusans, immediately
following upon circumstances of so much excitement and interest. They
appear to have carried on war against Katana, where some fugitives
from the vanquished Athenian army contributed to the resistance
against them.[836] But both this city and Naxos, though exposed to
humiliation and danger as allies of the defeated Athenians, contrived
to escape without the loss of their independence. The allies of
Syracuse were probably not eager to attack them, and thereby to
aggrandize that city farther; while the Syracusans themselves also
would be sensible of great exhaustion, arising from the immense
efforts through which alone their triumph had been achieved. The
pecuniary burdens to which they had been obliged to submit—known
to Nikias during the last months of the siege,[837] and fatally
misleading his judgment,—were so heavy as to task severely their
powers of endurance. After paying, and dismissing with appropriate
gratitude, the numerous auxiliaries whom they had been obliged to
hire,—after celebrating the recent triumph, and decorating the
temples, in a manner satisfactory to the exuberant joy of the
citizens[838]—there would probably be a general disposition to repose
rather than to aggressive warfare. There would be much destruction to
be repaired throughout their territory, poorly watched or cultivated
during the year of the siege.
[835] Thucyd. vii, 50-58.
[836] Lysias, Orat. xx, (pro Polystrato) s. 26, 27.
[837] Thucyd. vii, 48, 49.
[838] Diodor. xiii, 34.
In spite of such exhaustion, however, the sentiment of exasperation
and vengeance against Athens, combined with gratitude towards the
Lacedæmonians, was too powerful to be balked. A confident persuasion
reigned throughout Greece that Athens[839] could not hold out for one
single summer after her late terrific disaster; a persuasion, founded
greatly on the hope of a large auxiliary squadron to act against her
from Syracuse and her other enemies in Sicily and Italy. In this day
of Athenian distress, such enemies of course became more numerous.
Especially the city of Thurii in Italy,[840] which had been friendly
to Athens and had furnished aid to Demosthenes in his expedition
to Sicily, now underwent a change, banished three hundred of the
leading philo-Athenian citizens (among them the rhetor Lysias), and
espoused the Peloponnesian cause with ardor. The feeling of reaction
at Thurii, and of vengeance at Syracuse, stimulated the citizens of
both places to take active part in an effort promising to be easy
and glorious, for the destruction of Athens and her empire. And
volunteers were doubtless the more forward, as the Persian satraps of
the sea-board were now competing with each other in invitations to
the Greeks, with offers of abundant pay.
[839] Thucyd. viii, 2; compare vii, 55.
[840] Thucyd. vii, 33-57; Dionysius Halikarn. Judic. de Lysiâ, p.
453.
Accordingly, in the summer of the year 412 B.C. (the year following
the catastrophe of the Athenian armament,) a Sicilian squadron of
twenty triremes from Syracuse and two from Selinus, under the command
of Hermokrates, reached Peloponnesus and joined the Lacedæmonian
fleet in its expedition across the Ægean to Miletus. Another
squadron of ten triremes from Thurii, under the Rhodian Dorieus,
and a farther reinforcement from Tarentum, and Lokri, followed soon
after. It was Hermokrates who chiefly instigated his countrymen to
this effort.[841] Throughout the trying months of the siege, he
had taken a leading part in the defence of Syracuse, seconding the
plans of Gylippus with equal valor and discretion. As commander of
the Syracusan squadron in the main fleet now acting against Athens
in the Ægean (events already described in my sixty-first chapter),
his conduct was not less distinguished. He was energetic in action,
and popular in his behavior towards those under his command; but
what stood out most conspicuously as well as most honorably, was
his personal incorruptibility. While the Peloponnesian admiral and
trierarchs accepted the bribes of Tissaphernes, conniving at his
betrayal of the common cause and breach of engagement towards the
armament, with indifference to the privations of their own unpaid
seamen,—Hermokrates and Dorieus were strenuous in remonstrance, even
to the extent of drawing upon themselves the indignant displeasure
of the Peloponnesian admiral Astyochus, as well as of the satrap
himself.[842] They were the more earnest in performing this duty,
because the Syracusan and Thurian triremes were manned by freemen in
larger proportion than the remaining fleet.[843]
[841] Thucyd. viii, 26, 35, 91.
[842] Thucyd. viii, 29, 45, 78, 84.
[843] Thucyd. viii, 84.
The sanguine expectation, however, entertained by Hermokrates and his
companions in crossing the sea from Sicily,—that one single effort
would gloriously close the war,—was far from being realized. Athens
resisted with unexpected energy; the Lacedæmonians were so slack
and faint-hearted, that they even let slip the golden opportunity
presented to them by the usurpation of the Athenian Four Hundred.
Tissaphernes was discovered to be studiously starving and protracting
the war for purposes of his own, which Hermokrates vainly tried
to counter-work by a personal visit and protest at Sparta.[844]
Accordingly, the war trailed on with fluctuating success, and even
renovated efficiency on the part of Athens; so that the Syracusans
at home, far from hearing announced the accomplishment of those
splendid anticipations under which their squadron had departed,
received news generally unfavorable, and at length positively
disastrous. They were informed that their seamen were ill-paid and
distressed; while Athens, far from striking her colors, had found
means to assemble a fleet at Samos competent still to dispute the
mastery of the Ægean. They heard of two successive naval defeats,
which the Peloponnesian and Syracusan fleets sustained in the
Hellespont[845] (one at Kynossema,—411 B.C.,—a second between Abydos
and Dardanus,—410 B.C.); and at length of a third, more decisive and
calamitous than the preceding,—the battle of Kyzikus (409 B.C.),
wherein the Lacedæmonian admiral Mindarus was slain, and the whole
of his fleet captured or destroyed. In this defeat the Syracusan
squadron were joint sufferers. Their seamen were compelled to burn
all their triremes without exception, in order to prevent them from
falling into the hands of the enemy; and were left destitute, without
clothing or subsistence, on the shores of the Propontis amidst the
satrapy of Pharnabazus.[846] That satrap, with generous forwardness,
took them into his pay, advanced to them clothing and provision for
two months, and furnished them with timber from the woods of Mount
Ida to build fresh ships. At Antandrus (in the Gulf of Adramyttium,
one great place of export for Idæan timber), where the reconstruction
took place, the Syracusans made themselves so acceptable and useful
to the citizens, that a vote of thanks and a grant of citizenship was
passed to all of them who chose to accept it.[847]
[844] Thucyd. viii, 85.
[845] Thucyd. viii, 105; Xen. Hellen. i, 1, 7.
[846] Xen. Hellen. i, 1, 19.
[847] Xen. Hellen. i, 1, 23-26.
In recounting this battle, I cited the brief and rude despatch,
addressed to the Lacedæmonians by Hippokrates, surviving second
officer of the slain Mindarus, describing the wretched condition of
the defeated armament—“Our honor is gone. Mindarus is slain. The men
are hungry. We know not what to do.”[848] This curious despatch has
passed into history, because it was intercepted by the Athenians, and
never reached its destination. But without doubt the calamitous state
of facts, which it was intended to make known, flew rapidly, under
many different forms of words, both to Peloponnesus and to Syracuse.
Sad as the reality was, the first impression made by the news would
probably be yet sadder; since the intervention of Pharnabazus,
whereby the sufferers were so much relieved, would hardly be felt
or authenticated until after some interval. At Syracuse, the event
on being made known excited not only powerful sympathy with the
sufferers, but also indignant displeasure against Hermokrates and
his colleagues; who, having instigated their countrymen three years
before, by sanguine hopes and assurances, to commence a foreign
expedition for the purpose of finally putting down Athens, had not
only achieved nothing, but had sustained a series of reverses, ending
at length in utter ruin, from the very enemy whom they had pronounced
to be incapable of farther resistance.
[848] Xen. Hellen. i, 1, 23. Ἔῤῥει τὰ καλά. Μίνδαρος ἀπεσσούα·
πεινῶντι τὤνδρες· ἀπορέομες τί χρὴ δρᾷν.
It was under such sentiment of displeasure, shortly after the defeat
of Kyzikus, that a sentence of banishment was passed at Syracuse
against Hermokrates and his colleagues. The sentence was transmitted
to Asia, and made known by Hermokrates himself to the armament,
convoked in public meeting. While lamenting and protesting against
its alleged injustice and illegality, he entreated the armament to
maintain unabated good behavior for the future, and to choose new
admirals for the time, until the successors nominated at Syracuse
should arrive. The news was heard with deep regret by the trierarchs,
the pilots, and the maritime soldiers or marines; who, attached
to Hermokrates from his popular manner, his constant openness of
communication with them, and his anxiety to collect their opinions,
loudly proclaimed that they would neither choose, nor serve under,
any other leaders.[849] But the admirals repressed this disposition,
deprecating any resistance to the decree of the city. They laid down
their command, inviting any man dissatisfied with them to prefer his
complaint at once publicly, and reminding the soldiers of the many
victories and glorious conflicts, both by land and sea, which had
knit them together by the ties of honorable fellowship. No man stood
forward to accuse them; and they consented, on the continued request
of the armament, to remain in command, until their three successors
arrived—Demarchus, Myskon, and Potamis. They then retired amidst
universal regret; many of the trierarchs even binding themselves
by oath, that on returning to Syracuse they would procure their
restoration. The change of commanders took place at Miletus.[850]
[849] Xen. Hellen. i, 1, 27.
[850] Xen. Hellen. i, 1, 27-31.
Though Hermokrates, in his address to the soldiers, would doubtless
find response when he invoked the remembrance of past victories, yet
he would hardly have found the like response in a Syracusan assembly.
For if we review the proceedings of the armament since he conducted
it from Syracuse to join the Peloponnesian fleet, we shall find that
on the whole his expedition had been a complete failure, and that
his assurances of success against Athens had ended in nothing but
disappointment. There was therefore ample cause for the discontent
of his countrymen. But on the other hand, as far as our limited
means of information enable us to judge, the sentence of banishment
against him appears to have been undeserved and unjust. For we
cannot trace the ill-success of Hermokrates to any misconduct or
omission on his part; while in regard to personal incorruptibility,
and strenuous resistance to the duplicity of Tissaphernes, he stood
out as an honorable exception among a body of venal colleagues. That
satrap, indeed, as soon as Hermokrates had fallen into disgrace,
circulated a version of his own, pretending that the latter, having
asked money from him and been refused, had sought by calumnious
means to revenge such refusal.[851] But this story, whether believed
elsewhere or not, found no credit with the other satrap Pharnabazus;
who warmly espoused the cause of the banished general, presenting
him with a sum of money even unsolicited. This money Hermokrates
immediately employed in getting together triremes and mercenary
soldiers to accomplish his restoration to Syracuse by force.[852]
We shall presently see how he fared in this attempt. Meanwhile we
may remark that the sentence of banishment, though in itself unjust,
would appear amply justified in the eyes of his countrymen by his own
subsequent resort to hostile measures against them.
[851] Thucyd. viii, 85.
[852] Xen. Hellen. i, 1, 31; Diodor. xiii, 63.
The party opposed to Hermokrates had now the preponderance in
Syracuse, and by their influence probably the sentence against him
was passed, under the grief and wrath occasioned by the defeat of
Kyzikus. Unfortunately we have only the most scanty information as
to the internal state of Syracuse during the period immediately
succeeding the Athenian siege; a period of marked popular sentiment
and peculiar interest. As at Athens under the pressure of the
Xerxeian invasion—the energies of all the citizens, rich and poor,
young and old, had been called forth for repulse of the common
enemy, and had been not more than enough to achieve it. As at Athens
after the battles of Salamis and Platæa, so at Syracuse after the
destruction of the Athenian besiegers—the people, elate with the
plenitude of recent effort, and conscious that the late successful
defence had been the joint work of all, were in a state of animated
democratical impulse, eager for the utmost extension and equality
of political rights. Even before the Athenian siege, the government
had been democratical; a fact, which Thucydides notices as among the
causes of the successful defence, by rendering the citizens unanimous
in resistance, and by preventing the besiegers from exciting
intestine discontent.[853] But in the period immediately after the
siege, it underwent changes which are said to have rendered it still
more democratical. On the proposition of an influential citizen named
Dioklês, a commission of Ten was named, of which he was president,
for the purpose of revising both the constitution and the legislation
of the city. Some organic alterations were adopted, one of which
was, that the lot should be adopted, instead of the principle of
election, in the nomination of magistrates. Furthermore, a new code,
or collection of criminal and civil enactments, was drawn up and
sanctioned. We know nothing of its details, but we are told that
its penalties were extremely severe, its determination of offences
minute and special, and its language often obscure as well as brief.
It was known by the name of the Laws of Dioklês, the chief of the
Committee who had prepared it. Though now adopted at Syracuse, it did
not last long; for we shall find in five or six years the despotism
of Dionysius extinguishing it, just as Peisistratus had put down
the Solonian legislation at Athens. But it was again revived at the
extinction of the Dionysian dynasty, after the lapse of more than
sixty years; with comments and modifications by a committee, among
whose members were the Corinthians Kephalus and Timoleon. It is also
said to have been copied in various other Sicilian cities, and to
have remained in force until the absorption of all Sicily under the
dominion of the Romans.[854]
[853] Thucyd. vii, 55.
[854] Diodor. xiii, 33-35.
We have the austere character of Dioklês illustrated by a story (of
more than dubious credit,[855] and of which the like is recounted
respecting other Grecian legislators), that having inadvertently
violated one of his own enactments, he enforced the duty of obedience
by falling on his own sword. But unfortunately we are not permitted
to know the substance of his laws, which would have thrown so much
light on the sentiments and position of the Sicilian Greeks. Nor can
we distinctly make out to what extent the political constitution
of Syracuse was now changed. For though Diodorus tells us that the
lot was now applied to the nomination of magistrates, yet he does
not state whether it was applied to all magistrates, or under what
reserves and exceptions—such, for example, as those adopted at
Athens. Aristotle too states that the Syracusan people, after the
Athenian siege, changed their constitution from a partial democracy
into an entire democracy. Yet he describes Dionysius, five or six
years afterwards, as pushing himself up to the despotism, by the most
violent demagogic opposition; and as having accused, disgraced, and
overthrown certain rich leaders then in possession of the functions
of government.[856] If the constitutional forms were rendered more
democratical, it would seem that the practice cannot have materially
changed, and that the persons actually in leading function still
continued to be rich men.
[855] Compare Diodor. xiii, 75—about the banishment of Dioklês.
[856] Aristotel. Politic. v, 3, 6. Καὶ ἐν Συρακούσαις ὁ δῆμος,
αἴτιος γενόμενος τῆς νίκης τοῦ πολέμου τοῦ πρὸς Ἀθηναίους, ἐκ
πολιτείας εἰς δημοκρατίαν μετέβαλε.
v, 4, 4, 5. Καὶ Διονύσιος κατηγορῶν Δαφναίου καὶ τῶν πλουσίων
ἠξιώθη τῆς τυραννίδος, διὰ τὴν ἔχθραν πιστευθεὶς ὡς δημοτικὸς ὤν.
The war carried on by the Syracusans against Naxos and Katana, after
continuing more than three years,[857] was brought to a close by an
enemy from without, even more formidable than Athens. This time, the
invader was not Hellenic, but Phœnician—the ancient foe of Hellas,
Carthage.
[857] Diodor. xiii, 56.
It has been already recounted, how in the same eventful year (480
B.C.) which transported Xerxes across the Hellespont to meet his
defeat at Salamis, the Carthaginians had poured into Sicily a vast
mercenary host under Hamilkar, for the purpose of reinstating in
Himera the despot Terillus, who had been expelled by Theron of
Agrigentum. On that occasion, Hamilkar had been slain, and his large
army defeated, by the Syracusan despot Gelon, in the memorable battle
of Himera. So deep had been the impression left by this defeat, that
for the seventy years which intervened between 480-410 B.C., the
Carthaginians had never again invaded the island. They resumed their
aggressions shortly after the destruction of the Athenian power
before Syracuse; which same event had also stimulated the Persians,
who had been kept in restraint while the Athenian empire remained
unimpaired, again to act offensively for the recovery of their
dominion over the Asiatic Greeks. The great naval power of Athens,
inspiring not merely reserve but even alarm to Carthage,[858] had
been a safeguard to the Hellenic world both at its eastern and its
western extremity. No sooner was that safeguard overthrown, than the
hostile pressure of the foreigner began to be felt, as well upon
Western Sicily as on the eastern coast of the Ægean.
[858] Thucyd. vi, 34. Speech of Hermokrates to his countrymen at
Syracuse—δοκεῖ δέ μοι καὶ ἐς Καρχηδόνα ἄμεινον εἶναι πέμψαι. Οὐ
γὰρ ἀνέλπιστον αὐτοῖς, ἀλλ’ ἀεὶ διὰ φόβου εἰσὶ μή ποτε Ἀθηναῖοι
αὐτοῖς ἐπὶ τὴν πόλιν ἔλθωσιν, etc.
From this time forward for two centuries, down to the conclusion of
the second Punic war, the Carthaginians will be found frequent in
their aggressive interventions in Sicily, and upon an extensive
scale, so as to act powerfully on the destinies of the Sicilian
Greeks. Whether any internal causes had occurred to make them
abstain from intervention during the preceding generations, we are
unable to say. The history of this powerful and wealthy city is very
little known. We make out a few facts, which impart a general idea
both of her oligarchical government and of her extensive colonial
possessions, but which leave us in the dark as to her continuous
history. Her possessions were most extensive, along the coast of
Africa both eastward and westward from her city; comprehending also
Sardinia and the Balearic isles, but (at this time, probably) few
settlements in Spain. She had quite enough to occupy her attention
elsewhere, without meddling in Sicilian affairs; the more so, as
her province in Sicily was rather a dependent ally than a colonial
possession. In the early treaties made with Rome, the Carthaginians
restrict and even interdict the traffic of the Romans both with
Sardinia and Africa (except Carthage itself), but they grant the
amplest license of intercourse with the Carthaginian province of
Sicily; which they consider as standing in the same relation to
Carthage as the cities of Latium stood in to Rome.[859] While the
connection of Carthage with Sicily was thus less close, it would
appear that her other dependencies gave her much trouble, chiefly in
consequence of her own harsh and extortionate dominion.
[859] Polybius, iii, 22, 23, 24.
He gives three separate treaties (either wholly or in part)
between the Carthaginians and Romans. The latest of the three
belongs to the days of Pyrrhus, about 278 B.C.; the earliest to
508 B.C. The intermediate treaty is not marked as to date by
any specific evidence, but I see no ground for supposing that
it is so late as 345 B.C., which is the date assigned to it by
Casaubon, identifying it with the treaty alluded to by Livy, vii,
27. I cannot but think that it is more likely to be of earlier
date, somewhere between 480-410 B.C. This second treaty is far
more restrictive than the first, against the Romans; for it
interdicts them from all traffic either with Sardinia or Africa,
except the city of Carthage itself; the first treaty permitted
such trade under certain limitations and conditions. The second
treaty argues a comparative superiority of Carthage to Rome,
which would rather seem to belong to the latter half of the fifth
century B.C., than to the latter half of the fourth.
All our positive information, scanty as it is, about Carthage and
her institutions, relates to the fourth, third, or second centuries
B.C., yet it may be held to justify presumptive conclusions as to the
fifth century B.C., especially in reference to the general system
pursued. The maximum of her power was attained before her first war
with Rome, which began in 264 B.C.; the first and second Punic wars
both of them greatly reduced her strength and dominion. Yet in spite
of such reduction we learn that about 150 B.C., shortly before the
third Punic war, which ended in the capture and depopulation of the
city, not less than seven hundred thousand souls[860] were computed
in it, as occupants of a fortified circumference of above twenty
miles, covering a peninsula with its isthmus. Upon this isthmus its
citadel Byrsa was situated, surrounded by a triple wall of its own,
and crowned at its summit by a magnificent temple of Æsculapius.
The numerous population is the more remarkable, since Utica (a
considerable city, colonized from Phœnicia more anciently than even
Carthage itself, and always independent of the Carthaginians, though
in the condition of an inferior and discontented ally), was within
the distance of seven miles from Carthage[861] on the one side, and
Tunis seemingly not much farther off on the other. Even at that time,
too, the Carthaginians are said to have possessed three hundred
tributary cities in Libya.[862] Yet this was but a small fraction of
the prodigious empire which had belonged to them certainly in the
fourth century B.C., and in all probability also between 480-410 B.C.
That empire extended eastward as far as the Altars of the Philæni,
near the Great Syrtis,—westward, all along the coast to the Pillars
of Herakles and the western coast of Morocco. The line of coast
south-east of Carthage, as far as the bay called the Lesser Syrtis,
was proverbial (under the name of Byzacium and the Emporia) for its
fertility. Along this extensive line were distributed indigenous
Libyan tribes, living by agriculture; and a mixed population called
Liby-Phœnicians, formed by intermarriage and coalition of some of
these tribes either with colonists from Tyre and Sidon, or perhaps
with a Canaanitish population akin in race to the Phœnicians, yet of
still earlier settlement in the country.[863] These Liby-Phœnicians
dwelt in towns, seemingly of moderate size and unfortified, but each
surrounded by a territory ample and fertile, yielding large produce.
They were assiduous cultivators, but generally unwarlike, which
latter quality was ascribed by ancient theory to the extreme richness
of their soil.[864] Of the Liby-Phœnician towns the number is not
known to us, but it must have been prodigiously great, since we are
told that both Agathokles and Regulus in their respective invasions
captured no less than two hundred. A single district, called Tuska,
is also spoken of as having fifty towns.[865]
[860] Strabo, xvii, p. 832, 833; Livy, Epitome, lib. 51.
Strabo gives the circumference as three hundred and sixty stadia,
and the breadth of the isthmus as sixty stadia. But this is
noticed by Barth as much exaggerated (Wanderungen auf der Küste
des Mittelmeers, p. 85).
[861] Appian. Reb. Punic, viii, 75.
[862] Strabo, _ut sup._
[863] This is the view of Movers, sustained with much
plausibility, in his learned and instructive work—Geschichte der
Phœnizier, vol. ii, part ii, p. 435-455. See Diodor. xx, 55.
[864] Livy, xxix, 25. Compare the last chapter of the history of
Herodotus.
[865] Diodor. xx, 17; Appian, viii, 3, 68.
A few of the towns along the coast,—Hippo, Utica, Adrumetum, Thapsus,
Leptis, etc.,—were colonies from Tyre, like Carthage herself.
With respect to Carthage, therefore, they stood upon a different
footing from the Liby-Phœnician towns, either maritime or in the
interior. Yet the Carthaginians contrived in time to render every
town tributary, with the exception of Utica. They thus derived
revenue from all the inhabitants of this fertile region, Tyrian,
Liby-Phœnician, and indigenous Libyan; and the amount which they
imposed appears to have been exorbitant. At one time, immediately
after the first Punic war, they took from the rural cultivators as
much as one-half of their produce,[866] and doubled at one stroke
the tribute levied upon the towns. The town and district of Leptis
paid to them a tribute of one talent per day, or three hundred and
sixty-five talents annually. Such exactions were not collected
without extreme harshness of enforcement, sometimes stripping the
tax-payer of all that he possessed, and even tearing him from his
family to be sold in person for a slave.[867] Accordingly the general
sentiment among the dependencies towards Carthage was one of mingled
fear and hatred, which rendered them eager to revolt on the landing
of any foreign invader. In some cases the Carthaginians seem to have
guarded against such contingencies by paid garrisons; but they also
provided a species of garrison from among their own citizens; by
sending out from Carthage poor men, and assigning to them lots of
land with the cultivators attached. This provision for poor citizens
as emigrants (mainly analogous to the Roman colonies), was a standing
feature in the Carthaginian political system, serving the double
purpose of obviating discontent among their own town population at
home, and of keeping watch over their dependencies abroad.[868]
[866] Colonel Leake observes, with respect to the modern Greeks,
who work on the plains of Turkey, upon the landed property of
Turkish proprietors—“The Helots seem to have resembled the
Greeks, who labor on the Turkish farms _in the plains_ of Turkey,
and who are bound to account to their masters for one-half of the
produce of the soil, as Tyrtæus says of the Messenians of his
time—
Ὥσπερ ὄνοι μεγάλοις ἄχθεσι τειρόμενοι
Δεσποσύνοισι φέροντες, ἀναγκαίης ὑπὸ λυγρῆς,
Ἥμισυ πᾶν, ὅσσον κάρπον ἄρουρα φέροι.
(Tyrtæus, Frag. 5, ed. Schneid.)
The condition of the Greeks in the mountainous regions is not so
hard” (Leake, Peloponnesiaca, p. 168).
[867] Polybius, i, 72; Livy, xxxiv, 62.
Movers (Geschichte der Phœnizier, ii, 2, p. 455) assigns this
large assessment to Leptis Magna; but the passage of Livy can
relate only to Leptis Parva, in the region called Emporia.
Leptis Magna was at a far greater distance from Carthage, near
the Great Syrtis.
Dr. Barth (Wanderungen durch die Küstenländer des
Mittelländischen Meers, p. 81-146) has given a recent and
valuable examination of the site of Carthage and of the
neighboring regions. On his map, however, the territory called
Emporia is marked near the Lesser Syrtis, two hundred miles from
Carthage (Pliny, H. N. v, 3). Yet it seems certain that the name
Emporia must have comprised the territory south of Carthage and
approaching very near to the city; for Scipio Africanus, in his
expedition from Sicily, directed his pilots to steer for Emporia.
He intended to land very near Carthage; and he actually did land
on the White Cape, near to that city, but on the north side, and
still nearer to Utica. This region north of Carthage was probably
not included in the name Emporia (Livy, xxix, 25-27).
[868] Aristotel. Politic. ii, 8, 9; vi, 3, 5.
In the fifth century B.C., the Carthaginians had no apprehension
of any foreign enemy invading them from seaward; an enterprise
first attempted in 316 B.C., to the surprise of every one, by the
boldness of the Syracusan Agathokles. Nor were their enemies on
the land side formidable as conquerors, though they were extremely
annoying as plunderers. The Numidians and other native tribes,
half-naked and predatory horsemen, distinguished for speed as
well as for indefatigable activity, so harassed the individual
cultivators of the soil, that the Carthaginians dug a long line of
ditch to keep them off.[869] But these barbarians did not acquire
sufficient organization to act for permanent objects, until the
reign of Masinissa and the second Punic war with Rome. During the
fifth and fourth centuries B.C., therefore (prior to the invasion
of Agathokles), the warfare carried on by the Carthaginians was
constantly aggressive and in foreign parts. For these purposes they
chiefly employed foreign mercenaries, hired for the occasion from
Italy, Gaul, Spain, and the islands of the Western Mediterranean,
together with conscripts from their Libyan dependencies. The native
Carthaginians,[870] though encouraged by honorary marks to undertake
this military service, were generally averse to it, and sparingly
employed. But these citizens, though not often sent on foreign
service, constituted a most formidable force when called upon. No
less then forty thousand hoplites went forth from the gates of
Carthage to resist Agathokles, together with one thousand cavalry,
and two thousand war-chariots.[871] An immense public magazine,—of
arms, muniments of war of all kinds, and provisions,—appears to have
been kept in the walls of Byrsa, the citadel of Carthage.[872] A
chosen division of two thousand five hundred citizens, men of wealth
and family, formed what was called the Sacred Band of Carthage,[873]
distinguished for their bravery in the field as well as for the
splendor of their arms, and the gold and silver plate which
formed part of their baggage. We shall find these citizen-troops
occasionally employed on service in Sicily: but most part of the
Carthaginian armies consists of Gauls, Iberians, Libyans, etc., a
mingled host got together for the occasion, discordant in language as
well as in customs. Such men had never any attachment to the cause
in which they fought,—seldom, to the commanders under whom they
served; while they were often treated by Carthage with bad faith,
and recklessly abandoned to destruction.[874] A military system such
as this was pregnant with danger, if ever the mercenary soldiers got
footing in Africa; as happened after the first Punic war, when the
city was brought to the brink of ruin. But on foreign service in
Sicily, these mercenaries often enabled Carthage to make conquest at
the cost only of her money, without any waste of the blood of her own
citizens. The Carthaginian generals seem generally to have relied,
like Persians, upon numbers,—manifesting little or no military skill;
until we come to the Punic wars with Rome, conducted under Hamilkar
Barca and his illustrious son Hannibal.
[869] Appian, viii, 32, 54, 59; Phlegon, Trall. de Mirabilibus,
c. 18. Εὔμαχος δέ φησιν ἐν Περιηγήσει, Καρχηδονίους
περιταφρεύοντας τὴν ἰδίαν ἐπαρχίαν, εὑρεῖν ὀρύσσοντας δύο
σκελετοὺς ἐν σόρῳ κειμένους, etc.
The line of trench however was dug apparently at an early stage
of the Carthaginian dominion; for the Carthaginians afterwards,
as they grew more powerful, extended their possessions beyond the
trench; as we see by the passages of Appian above referred to.
Movers (Gesch. der Phœniz. ii, 2, p. 457) identifies this trench
with the one which Pliny names near Thenæ on the Lesser Syrtis,
as having been dug by order of the second Africanus—to form a
boundary between the Roman province of Africa, and the dominion
of the native kings (Pliny, H. N. v, 3). But I greatly doubt such
identity. It appears to me that this last is distinct from the
Carthaginian trench.
[870] A Carthaginian citizen wore as many rings as he had served
campaigns (Aristotel. Politic. vii, 2, 6).
[871] Diodor. xx, 10.
[872] Appian, viii, 80. Twenty thousand panoplies, together with
an immense stock of weapons and engines of siege, were delivered
up to the perfidious manœuvres of the Romans, a little before the
last siege of Carthage.
See Bötticher, Geschichte der Carthager, p. 20-25.
[873] Diodor. xvi, 8.
[874] See the striking description in Livy, of the motley
composition of the Carthaginian mercenary armies, where he
bestows just admiration on the genius of Hannibal, for having
always maintained his ascendency over them, and kept them in
obedience and harmony (Livy, xxviii, 12). Compare Polybius, i,
65-67, and the manner in which Imilkon abandoned his mercenaries
to destruction at Syracuse (Diodor. xiv, 75-77).
Respecting the political constitution of Carthage, the facts
known are too few, and too indistinct, to enable us to comprehend
its real working. The magistrates most conspicuous in rank and
precedence were, the two kings or suffetes, who presided over the
Senate.[875] They seem to have been renewed annually, though how
far the same persons were reëligible, or actually rechosen, we do
not know, but they were always selected out of some few principal
families or Gentes. There is reason for believing that the genuine
Carthaginian citizens were distributed into three tribes, thirty
curiæ, and three hundred gentes—something in the manner of the Roman
patricians. From these gentes emanated a Senate of three hundred,
out of which again was formed a smaller council or committee of
thirty _principes_ representing the curiæ;[876] sometimes a still
smaller, of only ten _principes_. These little councils are both
frequently mentioned in the political proceedings of Carthage; and
perhaps the Thirty may coincide with what Polybius calls the Gerusia,
or Council of Ancients,—the Three Hundred, with that which he calls
the Senate.[877] Aristotle assimilates the two kings (suffetes) of
Carthage to the two kings of Sparta—and the Gerusia of Carthage also
to that of Sparta;[878] which latter consisted of thirty members,
including the kings who sat in it. But Aristotle does not allude to
any assembly at Carthage analogous to what Polybius calls the Senate.
He mentions two Councils, one of one hundred members, the other of
one hundred and four; and certain Boards of Five,—the pentarchies. He
compares the Council of one hundred and four to the Spartan ephors;
yet again he talks of the pentarchies as invested with extensive
functions, and terms the Council of one hundred the greatest
authority in the state. Perhaps this last Council was identical with
the assembly of one hundred Judges (said to have been chosen from the
Senate as a check upon the generals employed), or Ordo Judicum; of
which Livy speaks after the second Punic war, as existing with its
members perpetual and so powerful that it overruled all the other
assemblies and magistracies of the state. Through the influence
of Hannibal, a law was passed to lessen the overweening power of
this Order of Judges; causing them to be elected only for one year,
instead of being perpetual.[879]
[875] There were in like manner two suffetes in Gades and each
of the other Phœnician colonies (Livy, xxviii, 37). Cornelius
Nepos (Hannibal, c. 7) talks of Hannibal as having been made
_king_ (rex) when he was invested with his great foreign military
command, at twenty-two years of age. So Diodorus (xiv, 54) talks
about Imilkon, and Herodotus (vii, 166) about Hamilkar.
[876] See Movers, Die Phönizier, ii, 1, p. 483-499.
[877] Polybius, x, 18; Livy, xxx, 16.
Yet again Polybius in another place speaks of the Gerontion at
Carthage as representing the aristocratical force, and as opposed
to the πλῆθος or people (vi, 51). It would seem that by Γερόντιον
he must mean the same as the assembly called in another passage
(x, 18) Σύγκλητος.
[878] Aristotel. Politic. ii, 8, 2.
[879] Livy, xxxiii, 46. Justin (xix, 2) mentions the one hundred
select Senators set apart as judges.
These statements, though coming from valuable authors, convey so
little information and are withal so difficult to reconcile, that
both the structure and working of the political machine at Carthage
may be said to be unknown.[880] But it seems clear that the general
spirit of the government was highly oligarchical; that a few rich,
old, and powerful families, divided among themselves the great
offices and influence of the state; that they maintained themselves
in pointed and even insolent distinction from the multitude;[881]
that they stood opposed to each other in bitter feuds, often stained
by gross perfidy and bloodshed; and that the treatment with which,
through these violent party-antipathies, unsuccessful generals were
visited, was cruel in the extreme.[882] It appears that wealth was
one indispensable qualification, and that magistrates and generals
procured their appointments in a great measure by corrupt means. Of
such corruption, one variety was, the habit of constantly regaling
the citizens in collective banquets of the _curiæ_ or the political
associations; a habit so continual, and embracing so wide a circle of
citizens, that Aristotle compares these banquets to the _phiditia_
or public mess of Sparta.[883] There was a demos or people at
Carthage, who were consulted on particular occasions, and before whom
propositions were publicly debated, in cases where the suffetes and
the small Council were not all of one mind.[884] How numerous this
demos was, or what proportion of the whole population it comprised,
we have no means of knowing. But it is plain, that whether more or
less considerable, its multitude was kept under dependence to the
rich families by stratagems such as the banquets, the lucrative
appointments with lots of land in foreign dependencies, etc. The
purposes of government were determined, its powers wielded and the
great offices held—suffetes, senators, generals, or judges,—by
the members of a small number of wealthy families; and the chief
opposition which they encountered, was from their feuds against
each other. In the main, the government was conducted with skill
and steadiness, as well for internal tranquillity as for systematic
foreign and commercial aggrandizement. Within the knowledge of
Aristotle, Carthage had never suffered either the successful
usurpation of a despot, or any violent intestine commotion.[885]
[880] Heeren (Ideen über den Verkehr der Alten Welt, part ii, p.
138, 3rd edit.) and Kluge (in his Dissertation, Aristoteles de
Politiâ Carthaginiensium, Wratisl. 1824) have discussed all these
passages with ability. But their materials do not enable them to
reach any certainty.
[881] Valerius Max. ix, 5, 4. “Insolentiæ inter Carthaginiensem
et Campanum senatum quasi æmulatio fuit. Ille enim separato à
plebe balneo lavabatur, hic diverso foro utebatur.”
[882] Diodor. xx, 10; xxiii, 9; Valer. Max. ii, 7, 1.
[883] Aristotel Politic. iii, 5, 6.
These banquets must have been settled, daily proceedings,—as
well as multitudinous, in order to furnish even apparent warrant
for the comparison which Aristotle makes with the Spartan public
mess. But even granting the analogy on these external points,—the
intrinsic difference of character and purpose between the two
must have been so great, that the comparison seems not happy.
Livy (xxxiv, 61) talks of the _circuli et convivia_ at Carthage;
but this is probably a general expression, without particular
reference to the public banquets mentioned by Aristotle.
[884] Aristotel. Polit. ii, 8, 3.
[885] Aristot. Polit. ii, 8, 1. He briefly alludes to the
abortive conspiracy of Hanno (v, 6, 2), which is also mentioned
in Justin (xxi, 4). Hanno is said to have formed the plan of
putting to death the Senate, and making himself despot. But he
was detected, and executed under the severest tortures; all his
family being put to death along with him.
Not only is it very difficult to make out Aristotle’s statements
about the Carthaginian government,—but some of them are even
contradictory. One of these (v, 10, 3) has been pointed out by M.
Barthélemy St. Hilaire, who proposes to read ἐν Χαλκηδόνι instead
of ἐν Καρχηδόνι. In another place (v, 10, 4) Aristotle calls
Carthage (ἐν Καρχηδόνι δημοκρατουμένῃ) a state democratically
governed; which cannot be reconciled with what he says in ii, 8,
respecting its government.
Aristotle compares the Council of One Hundred and Four at
Carthage to the Spartan ephors. But it is not easy to see how so
numerous a body could have transacted the infinite diversity of
administrative and other business performed by the five ephors.
The first eminent Carthaginian leader brought to our notice, is
Mago (seemingly about 530-500 B.C.), who is said to have mainly
contributed to organize the forces, and extend the dominion,
of Carthage. Of his two sons, one, Hasdrubal, perished after a
victorious career in Sardinia;[886] the other, Hamilkar, commanding
at the battle of Himera in Sicily, was there defeated and slain by
Gelon, as has been already recounted. After the death of Hamilkar,
his son Giskon was condemned to perpetual exile, and passed his
life in Sicily at the Greek city of Selinus.[887] But the sons of
Hasdrubal still remained at Carthage, the most powerful citizens
in the state; carrying on hostilities against the Moors and other
indigenous Africans, whom they compelled to relinquish the tribute
which Carthage had paid, down to that time, for the ground whereon
the city was situated. This family are said indeed to have been so
powerful, that a check upon their ascendency was supposed to be
necessary; and for that purpose the select One Hundred Senators
sitting as judges were now nominated for the first time.[888] Such
wars in Africa doubtless tended to prevent the Carthaginians from
farther interference in Sicily, during the interval between 480-410
B.C. There were probably other causes also, not known to us,—and
down to the year 413 B.C., the formidable naval power of Athens
(as has been already remarked) kept them on the watch even for
themselves. But now, after the great Athenian catastrophe before
Syracuse, apprehensions from that quarter were dissipated; so that
Carthage again found leisure, as well as inclination, to seek in
Sicily both aggrandizement and revenge.
[886] Justin. xix, 1.
[887] Diodor. xiii.
[888] Justin, xix, 2.
It is remarkable that the same persons, acting in the same quarrel,
who furnished the pretext or the motive for the recent invasion by
Athens, now served in the like capacity as prompters to Carthage.
The inhabitants of Egesta, engaged in an unequal war with rival
neighbors at Selinus, were in both cases the soliciting parties.
They had applied to Carthage first, without success,[889] before
they thought of sending to invoke aid from Athens. This war indeed
had been for the time merged and forgotten in the larger Athenian
enterprise against Syracuse; but it revived after that catastrophe,
wherein Athens and her armament were shipwrecked. The Egestæans had
not only lost their protectors, but had incurred aggravated hostility
from their neighbors, for having brought upon Sicily so formidable an
ultramarine enemy. Their original quarrel with Selinus had related
to a disputed portion of border territory. This point they no longer
felt competent to maintain, under their present disadvantageous
circumstances. But the Selinuntines, confident as well as angry,
were now not satisfied with success in their original claim. They
proceeded to strip the Egestæans of other lands indisputably
belonging to them, and seriously menaced the integrity as well as the
independence of the city. To no other quarter could the Egestæans
turn, with any chance of finding both will and power to protect them,
except to Carthage.[890]
[889] Diodor. xii, 82.
It seems probable that the war which Diodorus mentions to have
taken place in 452 B.C., between the Egestæans and Lilybæans—was
really a war between Egesta and Selinus (see Diodor, xi, 86—with
Wesseling’s note). Lilybæum as a town attained no importance
until after the capture of Motyê by the older Dionysius in 393
B.C.
[890] Diodor. xiii, 43.
The town of Egesta (non-Hellenic or at least only semi-Hellenic) was
situated on or near the northern line of Sicilian coast, not far from
the western cape of the island, and in the immediate neighborhood
of the Carthaginian settlements,—Motyê, Panormus (now Palermo), and
Soloeis or Soluntum. Selinus also was near the western cape, but on
the southern coast of Sicily, with its territory conterminous to
the southern portion of Egesta. When therefore the Egestæan envoys
presented their urgent supplications at Carthage for aid, proclaiming
that unless assisted they must be subjugated and become a dependency
of Selinus,—the Carthaginians would not unreasonably conceive,
that their own Sicilian settlements would be endangered, if their
closest Hellenic neighbor were allowed thus to aggrandize herself.
Accordingly they agreed to grant the aid solicited; yet not without
much debate and hesitation. They were uneasy at the idea of resuming
military operations in Sicily,—which had been laid aside for seventy
years, and had moreover left such disastrous recollections[891]—at a
moment when Syracusan courage stood in high renown, from the recent
destruction of the Athenian armament. But the recollections of the
Gelonian victory at Himera, while they suggested apprehension,
also kindled the appetite of revenge; especially in the bosom of
Hannibal, the grandson of that general Hamilkar who had there met his
death. Hannibal was at this moment king, or rather first of the two
suffetes, chief executive magistrates of Carthage, as his grandfather
had been seventy years before. So violent had been the impression
made upon the Carthaginians by the defeat of Himera, that they had
banished Giskon, son of the slain general Hamilkar and father of
Hannibal, and had condemned him to pass his whole life in exile. He
had chosen the Greek city of Selinus; where probably Hannibal also
had spent his youth, though restored since to his country and to
his family consequence,—and from whence he brought back an intense
antipathy to the Greek name, as well as an impatience to wipe off by
a signal revenge the dishonor both of his country and of his family.
Accordingly, espousing with warmth the request of the Egestæans, he
obtained from the Senate authority to take effective measures for
their protection.[892]
[891] Diodor. xiii, 43.
[892] Diodor. xiii, 43. Κατέστησαν στρατηγὸν τὸν Ἀννίβαν, κατὰ
νόμους τότε βασιλεύοντα. Οὗτος δὲ ἦν υἱωνὸς μὲν τοῦ πρὸς Γέλωνα
πολεμήσαντος Ἁμίλκου, καὶ πρὸς Ἱμέρᾳ τελευτήσαντος, υἱὸς δὲ
Γέσκωνος, ὃς διὰ τὴν τοῦ πατρὸς ἧτταν ἐφυγαδεύθη, καὶ κατεβίωσεν
ἐν τῇ Σελινοῦντι. Ὁ δ’ οὖν Ἀννίβας, ὢν μὲν καὶ ~φύσει μισέλλην~,
ὅμως δὲ τὰς τῶν προγόνων ἀτιμίας διορθώσασθαι βουλόμενος, etc.
The banishment of Giskon, and that too for the whole of his
life, deserves notice, as a point of comparison between the
Greek republics and Carthage. A defeated general in Greece, if
he survived his defeat, was not unfrequently banished, even
where there seems neither proof nor probability that he had
been guilty of misconduct, or misjudgment, or omission. But I
do not recollect any case in which, when a Grecian general thus
apparently innocent was not merely defeated but slain in the
battle, his son was banished for life, as Giskon was banished
by the Carthaginians. In appreciating the manner in which the
Grecian states, both democratical and oligarchical, dealt with
their officers, the contemporary republic of Carthage is one
important standard of comparison. Those who censure the Greeks,
will have to find stronger terms of condemnation when they review
the proceedings of the Carthaginians.
His first proceeding was to send envoys to Egesta and Selinus, to
remonstrate against the encroachments of the Selinuntines; with
farther instructions, in case remonstrance proved ineffectual, to
proceed with the Egestæans to Syracuse, and there submit the whole
dispute to the arbitration of the Syracusans. He foresaw that the
Selinuntines, having superiority of force on their side, would refuse
to acknowledge any arbitration; and that the Syracusans, respectfully
invoked by one party but rejected by the other, would stand aside
from the quarrel altogether. It turned out as he had expected.
The Selinuntines sent envoys to Syracuse, to protest against the
representations from Egesta and Carthage; but declined to refer
their case to arbitration. Accordingly, the Syracusans passed a vote
that they would maintain their alliance with Selinus, yet without
impeachment of their pacific relations with Carthage: thus leaving
the latter free to act without obstruction. Hannibal immediately sent
over a body of troops to the aid of Egesta: five thousand Libyans
or Africans; and eight hundred Campanian mercenaries, who had been
formerly in the pay and service of the Athenians before Syracuse, but
had quitted that camp before the final catastrophe occurred.[893]
[893] Diodor. xiii, 43, 44.
In spite of the reinforcement and the imposing countenance of
Carthage, the Selinuntines, at this time in full power and
prosperity, still believed themselves strong enough to subdue Egesta.
Under such persuasion, they invaded the territory with their full
force. They began to ravage the country, yet at first with order
and precaution; but presently, finding no enemy in the field to
oppose them, they became careless, and spread themselves about for
disorderly plunder. This was the moment for which the Egestæans
and Carthaginians were watching. They attacked the Selinuntines
by surprise, defeated them with the loss of a thousand men, and
recaptured the whole booty.[894]
[894] Diodor. xiii, 44.
The war, as hitherto carried on, was one offensive on the part of
the Selinuntines, for the purpose of punishing or despoiling their
ancient enemy Egesta. Only so far as was necessary for the defence of
the latter, had the Carthaginians yet interfered. But against such an
interference the Selinuntines, if they had taken a prudent measure of
their own force, would have seen that they were not likely to achieve
any conquest. Moreover, they might perhaps have obtained peace now,
had they sought it; as a considerable minority among them, headed
by a citizen named Empedion,[895] urgently recommended: for Selinus
appears always to have been on more friendly terms with Carthage
than any other Grecian city in Sicily. Even at the great battle of
Himera, the Selinuntine troops had not only not assisted Gelon, but
had actually fought in the Carthaginian army under Hamilkar;[896]
a plea, which, had it been pressed, might probably have had weight
with Hannibal. But this claim upon the goodwill of Carthage appears
only to have rendered them more confident and passionate in braving
her force and in prosecuting the war. They sent to Syracuse to ask
for aid, which the Syracusans, under present circumstances, promised
to send them. But the promise was given with little cordiality,
as appears by the manner in which they fulfilled it, as well as
from the neutrality which they had professed so recently before;
for the contest seemed to be aggressive on the part of Selinus, so
that Syracuse had little interest in helping her to conquer Egesta.
Neither Syracusans nor Selinuntines were prepared for the immense
preparations, and energetic rapidity of movement by which Hannibal at
once altered the character, and enlarged the purposes, of the war. He
employed all the ensuing autumn and winter in collecting a numerous
host of mercenary troops from Africa, Spain, and Campania, with
various Greeks who were willing to take service.[897]
[895] Diodor. xiii, 59.
[896] Diodor. xiii, 55; xi, 21.
[897] Diodor. xiii, 54-58. οἱ τοῖς Καρχηδονίοις Ἕλληνες
ξυμμαχοῦντες, etc.
It cannot therefore be exact,—that which Plutarch affirms,
Timoleon, c. 30,—that the Carthaginians had never employed Greeks
in their service, at the time of the battle of the Krimêsus,—B.C.
340.
In the spring of the memorable year 409 B.C., through the exuberant
wealth of Carthage, he was in a condition to leave Africa with a
great fleet of sixty triremes, and fifteen hundred transports or
vessels of burthen;[898] conveying an army, which, according to
the comparatively low estimate of Timæus, amounted to more than
one hundred thousand men; while Ephorus extended the number to two
hundred thousand infantry, and four thousand cavalry, together
with muniments of war and battering machines for siege. With these
he steered directly for the western Cape of Sicily, Lilybæum;
taking care, however, to land his troops and to keep his fleet on
the northern side of that cape, in the bay near Motyê,—and not to
approach the southern shore, lest he should alarm the Syracusans with
the idea that he was about to prosecute his voyage farther eastward
along the southern coast towards their city. By this precaution, he
took the best means for prolonging the period of Syracusan inaction.
The Selinuntines, panic-struck at the advent of an enemy so much more
overwhelming than they had expected, sent pressing messengers to
Syracuse to accelerate the promised help. They had made no provision
for standing on the defensive against a really formidable aggressor.
Their walls, though strong enough to hold out against Sicilian
neighbors, had been neglected during the long-continued absence of
any foreign besieger, and were now in many places out of repair.
Hannibal left them no time to make good past deficiencies. Instead
of wasting his powerful armament (as the unfortunate Nikias had done
five years before) by months of empty flourish and real inaction,
he waited only until he was joined by the troops from Egesta and
the neighboring Carthaginian dependencies, and then marched his
whole force straight from Lilybæum to Selinus. Crossing the river
Mazara in his way, and storming the fort which lay near its mouth,
he soon found himself under the Selinuntine walls. He distributed
his army into two parts, each provided with battering machines and
movable wooden towers; and then assailed the walls on many points at
once, choosing the points where they were most accessible or most
dilapidated. Archers and slingers in great numbers were posted near
the walls, to keep up a discharge of missiles and chase away the
defenders from the battlements. Under cover of such discharge, six
wooden towers were rolled up to the foot of the wall, to which they
were equal or nearly equal in height, so that the armed men in their
interior were prepared to contend with the defenders almost on a
level. Against other portions of the wall, battering-rams with iron
heads were driven by the combined strength of multitudes, shaking or
breaking through its substance, especially where it showed symptoms
of neglect or decay. Such were the methods of attack which Hannibal
now brought to bear upon the unprepared Selinuntines. He was eager to
forestal the arrival of auxiliaries, by the impetuous movements of
his innumerable barbaric host, the largest seen in Sicily since his
grandfather Hamilkar had been defeated before Himera. Collected from
all the shores of the western Mediterranean, it presented soldiers
heterogeneous in race, in arms, in language,—in everything, except
bravery and common appetite for blood as well as plunder.[899]
[898] Thucyd. vi, 34. δυνατοὶ δέ εἰσι (the Carthaginians) μάλιστα
τῶν νῦν, βουληθέντες· χρυσὸν γὰρ καὶ ἄργυρον πλεῖστον κέκτηνται,
ὅθεν ὅ τε πόλεμος καὶ τἄλλα εὐπορεῖ.
[899] Diodor. xiii, 54, 55.
The dismay of the Selinuntines, when they suddenly found themselves
under the sweep of this destroying hurricane, is not to be described.
It was no part of the scheme of Hannibal to impose conditions or
grant capitulation; for he had promised the plunder of their town
to his soldiers. The only chance of the besieged was, to hold out
with the courage of desperation, until they could receive aid from
their Hellenic brethren on the southern coast,—Agrigentum, Gela,
and especially Syracuse,—all of whom they had sent to warn and to
supplicate. Their armed population crowded to man the walls, with a
resolution worthy of Greeks and citizens; while the old men and the
females, though oppressed with agony from the fate which seemed to
menace them, lent all the aid and encouragement in their power. Under
the sound of trumpets, and every variety of war-cry, the assailants
approached the walls, encountering everywhere a valiant resistance.
They were repulsed again and again, with the severest loss. But fresh
troops came up to relieve those who were slain or fatigued; and at
length, after a murderous struggle, a body of Campanians forced their
way over the walls into the town. Yet in spite of such temporary
advantage, the heroic efforts of the besieged drove them out again
or slew them, so that night arrived without the capture being
accomplished. For nine successive days was the assault thus renewed
with undiminished fury; for nine successive days did this heroic
population maintain a successful resistance, though their enemies
were numerous enough to relieve each other perpetually,—though their
own strength was every day failing,—and though not a single friend
arrived to their aid. At length, on the tenth day, and after terrible
loss to the besiegers, a sufficient breach was made in the weak part
of the wall, for the Iberians to force their way into the city.
Still however the Selinuntines, even after their walls were carried,
continued with unabated resolution to barricade and defend their
narrow streets, in which their women also assisted, by throwing down
stones and tiles upon the assailants from the house-tops. All these
barriers were successively overthrown, by the unexhausted numbers,
and increasing passion, of the barbaric host; so that the defenders
were driven back from all sides into the agora, where most of them
closed their gallant defence by an honorable death. A small minority,
among whom was Empedion, escaped to Agrigentum, where they received
the warmest sympathy and the most hospitable treatment.[900]
[900] Diodor. xiii, 56, 57.
Resistance being thus at an end, the assailants spread themselves
through the town in all the fury of insatiate appetites,—murderous,
lustful, and rapacious. They slaughtered indiscriminately elders
and children, preserving only the grown women as captives. The sad
details of a town taken by storm are to a great degree the same
in every age and nation; but the destroying barbarians at Selinus
manifested one peculiarity, which marks them as lying without the
pale of Hellenic sympathy and sentiment. They mutilated the bodies
of the slain; some were seen with amputated hands strung together
in a row and fastened round their girdles; while others brandished
heads on the points of their spears and javelins.[901] The Greeks
(seemingly not numerous) who served under Hannibal, far from sharing
in these ferocious manifestations, contributed somewhat to mitigate
the deplorable fate of the sufferers. Sixteen thousand Selinuntines
are said to have been slain, five thousand to have been taken
captive; while two thousand six hundred escaped to Agrigentum.[902]
These figures are probably under, rather than above, the truth. Yet
they do not seem entitled to any confidence; nor do they give us any
account of the entire population in its different categories,—old and
young,—men and women,—freemen and slaves,—citizens and metics. We
can only pretend to appreciate this mournful event in the gross. All
exact knowledge of its details is denied to us.
[901] Diodor. xiii, 57.
[902] Diodor. xiii, 57, 58.
It does little honor either to the generosity or to the prudence
of the Hellenic neighbors of Selinus, that this unfortunate city
should have been left to its fate unassisted. In vain was messenger
after messenger despatched, as the defence became more and more
critical, to Agrigentum, Gela, and Syracuse. The military force
of the two former was indeed made ready, but postponed its march
until joined by that of the last; so formidable was the account
given of the invading host. Meanwhile the Syracusans were not
ready. They thought it requisite, first, to close the war which
they were prosecuting against Katana and Naxos,—next, to muster a
large and carefully-appointed force. Before these preliminaries
were finished, the nine days of siege were past, and the death-hour
of Selinus had sounded. Probably the Syracusans were misled by the
Sicilian operations of Nikias, who, beginning with a long interval
of inaction, had then approached their town by slow blockade, such
as the circumstances of his case required. Expecting in the case
of Selinus that Hannibal would enter upon the like elaborate
siege,—and not reflecting that he was at the head of a vast host
of miscellaneous foreigners hired for the occasion, of whose lives
he could afford to be prodigal, while Nikias commanded citizens of
Athens and other Grecian states, whom he could not expose to the
murderous but thorough-going process of ever-renewed assault against
strong walls recently erected,—they were thunderstruck on being
informed that nine days of carnage had sufficed for the capture. The
Syracusan soldiers, a select body of three thousand, who at length
joined the Geloans and Agrigentines at Agrigentum, only arrived in
time to partake in the general dismay everywhere diffused. A joint
embassy was sent by three cities to Hannibal, entreating him to
permit the ransom of the captives, and to spare the temples of the
gods; while Empedion went at the same time to sue for compassion on
behalf of his own fugitive fellow-citizens. To the former demand
the victorious Carthaginian returned an answer at once haughty and
characteristic,—“The Selinuntines have not been able to preserve
their freedom, and must now submit to a trial of slavery. The gods
have become offended with them, and have taken their departure
from the town.”[903] To Empedion, an ancient friend and pronounced
partisan of the Carthaginians, his reply was more indulgent. All
the relatives of Empedion, found alive among the captives, were
at once given up; moreover permission was granted to the fugitive
Selinuntines to return, if they pleased, and reoccupy the town with
its lands, as tributary subjects of Carthage. At the same time
that he granted such permission, however, Hannibal at once caused
the walls to be razed, and even the town with its temples to be
destroyed.[904] What was done about the proposed ransom, we do not
hear.
[903] Diodor. xiii, 59. Ὁ δὲ Ἀννίβας ἀπεκρίθη, τοὺς μὲν
Σελινουντίους μὴ δυναμένους τηρεῖν τὴν ἐλευθερίαν, πεῖραν τῆς
δουλείας λήψεσθαι· τοὺς δὲ θεοὺς ἐκτὸς Σελινοῦντος οἴχεσθαι,
προσκόψαντας τοῖς ἐνοικοῦσιν.
[904] Diodor. xiii, 59. The ruins, yet remaining, of the ancient
temples of Selinus, are vast and imposing; characteristic as
specimens of Doric art, during the fifth and sixth centuries
B.C. From the great magnitude of the fallen columns, it has been
supposed that they were overthrown by an earthquake. But the
ruins afford distinct evidence, that these columns have been
first undermined, and then overthrown by crow-bars.
This impressive fact, demonstrating the agency of the
Carthaginian destroyers, is stated by Niebuhr, Vorträge über alte
Geschichte, vol. iii. p. 207.
Having satiated his troops with this rich plunder Hannibal now
quitted the scene of bloodshed and desolation, and marched across
the island to Himera on its northern coast. Though Selinus, as the
enemy of Egesta, had received the first shock of his arms, yet it was
against Himera that the grand purpose of his soul was directed. Here
it was that Hamilkar had lost both his army and his life, entailing
inexpiable disgrace upon the whole life of his son Giskon: here it
was that his grandson intended to exact full vengeance and requital
from the grandchildren of those who then occupied the fated spot.
Not only was the Carthaginian army elate with the past success,
but a number of fresh Sikels and Sikans, eager to share in plunder
as well as to gratify the antipathies of their races against the
Grecian intruders, flocked to join it; thus making up the losses
sustained in the recent assault. Having reached Himera, and disposed
his army in appropriate positions around, Hannibal proceeded to
instant attack, as at Selinus; pushing up his battering machines and
towers against the vulnerable portions of the walls, and trying at
the same time to undermine them. The Himeræans defended themselves
with desperate bravery; and on this occasion the defence was not
unassisted; for four thousand allies, chiefly Syracusans, and headed
by the Syracusan Dioklês, had come to the city as a reinforcement.
For a whole day they repelled with slaughter repeated assaults.
No impression being made upon the city, the besieged became so
confident in their own valor, that they resolved not to copy the
Selinuntines in confining themselves to defence, but to sally out
at daybreak the next morning and attack the besiegers in the field.
Ten thousand gallant men,—Himeræans, Syracusans, and other Grecian
allies,—accordingly marched out with the dawn; while the battlements
were lined with old men and women as anxious spectators of their
exploits. The Carthaginians near the walls, who, preparing to renew
the assault, looked for nothing less than for a sally, were taken
by surprise. In spite of their great superiority of number, and in
spite of great personal bravery, they fell into confusion, and were
incapable of long resisting the gallant and orderly charge of the
Greeks. At length they gave way and fled towards the neighboring
hill, where Hannibal himself with his body of reserve was posted to
cover the operations of assault. The Greeks pursued them fiercely
and slaughtered great numbers (six thousand according to Timæus,
but not less than twenty thousand, if we are to accept the broad
statement of Ephorus), exhorting each other not to think of making
prisoners. But in the haste and exultation of pursuit, they became
out of breath, and their ranks fell into disorder. In this untoward
condition, they found themselves face to face with the fresh body of
reserve brought up by Hannibal, who marched down the hill to receive
and succor his own defeated fugitives. The fortune of the battle
was now so completely turned, that the Himeræans, after bravely
contending for some time against these new enemies, found themselves
overpowered and driven back to their own gates. Three thousand of
their bravest warriors, however, despairing of their city and mindful
of the fate of Selinus, disdained to turn their backs, and perished
to a man in obstinate conflict with the overwhelming numbers of the
Carthaginians.[905]
[905] Diodor. xiii, 60.
Violent was the sorrow and dismay in Himera, when the flower of her
troops were thus driven in as beaten men, with the loss of half
their numbers. At this moment there chanced to arrive at the port
a fleet of twenty-five triremes, belonging to Syracuse and other
Grecian cities in Sicily; which triremes had been sent to aid the
Peloponnesians in the Ægean, but had since come back, and were now
got together for the special purpose of relieving the besieged city.
So important a reinforcement ought to have revived the spirit of
the Himeræans. It announced that the Syracusans were in full march
across the island, with the main force of the city, to the relief
of Himera. But this good news was more than countervailed by the
statement, that Hannibal was ordering out the Carthaginian fleet in
the bay of Motyê, in order that it might sail round cape Lilybæum and
along the southern coast into the harbor of Syracuse, now defenceless
through the absence of its main force. Apparently the Syracusan
fleet, in sailing from Syracuse to Himera, had passed by the bay of
Motyê, observed maritime movement among the Carthaginians there, and
picked up these tidings in explanation. Here was intelligence more
than sufficient to excite alarm for home, in the bosom of Dioklês
and the Syracusans at Himera; especially under the despondency
now reigning. Dioklês not only enjoined the captains of the fleet
to sail back immediately to Syracuse, in order to guard against
the apprehended surprise, but also insisted upon marching back
thither himself by land with the Syracusan forces, and abandoning
the farther defence of Himera. He would in his march home meet his
fellow-citizens on their march outward, and conduct them back along
with him. To the Himeræans, this was a sentence of death, or worse
than death. It plunged them into an agony of fright and despair. But
there was no safer counsel to suggest, nor could they prevail upon
Dioklês to grant anything more than means of transport for carrying
off the Himeræan population, when the city was relinquished to the
besiegers. It was agreed that the fleet, instead of sailing straight
to Syracuse, should employ itself in carrying off as much of the
population as could be put on board, and in depositing them safely
at Messênê; after which it would return to fetch the remainder, who
would in the mean time defend the city with their utmost force.
Such was the frail chance of refuge now alone open to these unhappy
Greeks, against the devouring enemy without. Immediately the feebler
part of the population,—elders, women, and children,—crowding on
board until the triremes could hold no more, sailed away along the
northern coast to Messênê. On the same night, Dioklês also marched
out of the city with his Syracusan soldiers; in such haste to get
home, that he could not even tarry to bury the numerous Syracusan
soldiers who had been just slain in the recent disastrous sally.
Many of the Himeræans, with their wives and children, took their
departure along with Dioklês, as their only chance of escape; since
it was but too plain that the triremes could not carry away all.
The bravest and most devoted portion of the Himeræan warriors still
remained, to defend their city until the triremes came back. After
keeping armed watch on the walls all night, they were again assailed
on the next morning by the Carthaginians, elate with their triumph
of the preceding day and with the flight of so many defenders. Yet
notwithstanding all the pressure of numbers, ferocity, and battering
machines, the resistance was still successfully maintained; so
that night found Himera still a Grecian city. On the next day, the
triremes came back, having probably deposited their unfortunate cargo
in some place of safety not so far off as Messênê. If the defenders
could have maintained their walls until another sunset, many of them
might yet have escaped. But the good fortune, and probably the
physical force, of these brave men, was now at an end. The gods were
quitting Himera, as they had before quitted Selinus. At the moment
when the triremes were seen coming near to the port, the Iberian
assailants broke down a wide space of the fortification with their
battering-rams, poured in through the breach, and overcame all
opposition. Encouraged by their shouts, the barbaric host now on all
sides forced the walls, and spread themselves over the city, which
became one scene of wholesale slaughter and plunder. It was no part
of the scheme of Hannibal to interrupt the plunder, which he made
over as a recompense to his soldiers. But he speedily checked the
slaughter, being anxious to take as many prisoners as possible, and
increasing the number by dragging away all who had taken sanctuary in
the temples. A few among this wretched population may have contrived
to reach the approaching triremes; all the rest either perished or
fell into the hands of the victor.[906]
[906] Diodor. xiii, 61, 62.
It was a proud day for the Carthaginian general when he stood as
master on the ground of Himera; enabled to fulfil the duty, and
satisfy the exigencies, of revenge for his slain grandfather.
Tragical indeed was the consummation of this long-cherished purpose.
Not merely the walls and temples (as at Selinus), but all the houses
in Himera, were razed to the ground. Its temples, having been first
stripped of their ornaments and valuables, were burnt. The women
and children taken captive were distributed as prizes among the
soldiers. But all the male captives, three thousand in number, were
conveyed to the precise spot where Hamilkar had been slain, and there
put to death with indignity,[907] as an expiatory satisfaction to
his lost honor. Lastly, in order that even the hated name of Himera
might pass into oblivion, a new town called Therma (so designated
because of some warm springs) was shortly afterwards founded by the
Carthaginians in the neighborhood.[908]
[907] Diodor. xiii, 62. Τῶν δ’ αἰχμαλώτων γυναικάς τε καὶ παῖδας
διαδοὺς εἰς τὸ στρατόπεδον παρεφύλαττε· τῶν δ’ ἀνδρῶν τοὺς
ἁλόντας, εἰς τρισχιλίους ὄντας, παρήγαγεν ἐπὶ τὸν τόπον, ἐν ᾧ
πρότερον Ἀμίλκας ὁ πάππος αὐτοῦ ὑπὸ Γέλωνος ἀνῃρέθη, καὶ πάντας
αἰκισάμενος κατέσφαξε.
The Carthaginians, after their victory over Agathokles in 307
B.C., sacrificed their finest prisoners as offerings of thanks to
the gods (Diodor. xx, 65.)
[908] Diodor. xiii, 79.
No man can now read the account of this wholesale massacre without
horror and repugnance. Yet we cannot doubt, that among all the acts
of Hannibal’s life, this was the one in which he most gloried; that
it realized, in the most complete and emphatic manner, his concurrent
inspirations of filial sentiment, religious obligation, and honor
as a patriot; that to show mercy would have been regarded as a mean
dereliction of these esteemed impulses; and that if the prisoners had
been even more numerous, all of them would have been equally slain,
rendering the expiatory fulfilment only so much the more honorable
and efficacious. In the Carthaginian religion, human sacrifices were
not merely admitted, but passed for the strongest manifestation
of devotional fervor, and were especially resorted to in times of
distress, when the necessity for propitiating the gods was accounted
most pressing. Doubtless the feelings of Hannibal were cordially
shared, and the plenitude of his revenge envied, by the army around
him. So different, sometimes so totally contrary, is the tone and
direction of the moral sentiments, among different ages and nations.