century on they maintained settlements at Panormos, Motya, and Soloeis in cooperation with their Elymian neighbors. The first violent conflict attested by the sources dates to 510, during the futile attempt of the Spartan Dorieus to settle the western coast of Sicily. Not long afterward, in the first quarter of the fifth century, Carthage became more interested in political influence and territorial holdings on the island. When Terillus, the former tyrant of Himera who had been defeated and exiled by Theron of Acragas, asked Carthage for help, Carthage tried to restore Terillus as tyrant by forming an alliance with Anaxilas of Rhegium and Greeks from Selinus. Hamilcar sailed to Sicily in 480, with many citizen soldiers and with mercenaries from all parts of the Mediterranean. Diodorus (11.20–21) provides a detailed description of the Carthaginian forces. The first attack on Himera caused Theron, who led the resistance in the city, to call for reinforcements from Syracuse. Gelon willingly accepted the mission and came with a considerable number of soldiers to Himera. After capturing a messenger carrying a letter from Hamilcar, Gelon was able to attack Hamilcar by surprise, kill him, and wreck his naval base. A peace agreement was then negotiated on comparatively favorable terms for the Carthaginians. The victory at Himera was nevertheless of vital importance for the stability of Greek Sicily, for the Carthaginians confined themselves to the Western Sicilian towns of Panormus, Motya, and Soloeis for the next 70 years.
Partly because Himera occurred around the same time as the Battle of Salamis, it became an important topos in the self-representation of the Deinomenids and a prominent event in the Greek collective memory.11 Like the Persians, the Carrthaginians played the role of a defeated foreign threat.
A longer and more complex series of confrontations began in 410, when Egesta called again for aid against the threats of neighboring Selinus (Diod. Sic. 13.43.4–5). With a considerable army of citizen soldiers, mercenaries, and allies, Hannibal Mago, Hamilcar’s grandson, besieged Selinus. After several days of fierce fighting, the city fell. The reinforcements sent by Syracuse and Acragas did not arrive in time (Diod. Sic. 13.55–56). While the delayed allies collected the surviving inhabitants, Hannibal raided Himera, where the Himerans were supported by 4,000 soldiers from Syracuse under the command of Diocles (Diod. Sic. 13.59.9). After a battle outside the city walls, Diocles evacuated Himera. He had heard rumors that Hannibal was deploying ships from Motya in an attack on Syracuse. In the course of the evacuation of Himera, the Carthaginians attacked and razed the city to the ground, and tortured and killed many of the fleeing inhabitants (Diod. Sic. 13.62). Archaeological evidence confirms the destruction of Himera and its subsequent abandonment in the late fifth century. Hannibal sailed back to Africa without further operations on Sicily.
Only some years later, in 406, did the Carthaginians vote for a new military expedition to Sicily (Diod. Sic. 13.80.1). Hannibal and Himilco, another member of the Magonid family, recruited an army of allies and mercenaries from across the Mediterranean. The Sicilian Greeks, having prepared for this attack, defeated a Carthaginian contingent of warships near the Elymian city of Eryx. The Carthaginians sent reinforcements and continued their expedition with an eight-month siege of Acragas, where Hannibal perished from illness (Diod. Sic. 13.85). A Geloan army, mercenaries, and a Syracusan force supported the Acragantines. After several battles, mostly favorable for the Greeks, Himilco sent warships from Motya and cut off the food supply of Acragas by sea. Facing starvation, the Greek generals evacuated the inhabitants of Acragas to Gela and left the city to be looted by Himilco and his troops (Diod. Sic. 13.88.6–89). Afterward, the Carthaginians established their winter camp within the city walls. These events distressed the Syracusans, who elected new generals including Dionysius the Elder, who became strategos autokrator, or sole commander, in the following turmoil.
In the summer of 405, Himilco departed Acragas to wage war against the neighboring city of Gela and her territory (Diod. Sic. 13.108.2–3). Despite a highly motivated Geloan army and generous reinforcements from Syracuse, the counterattack on the Carthaginians failed and Dionysius abandoned both Gela and Camarina. Thwarted by the outbreak of an epidemic, Himilco proposed a peace treaty that Dionysius willingly accepted, despite the harsh terms it imposed on the Sicilian Greeks. The Carthaginians gained dominion over all of western Sicily, and collected tribute from Selinus, Acragas, Gela, Camarina, and Thermae, where the survivors of the battle at Himera in 409 had relocated. Leontini, Messene, and the Sicels remained autonomous, with Syracuse being left to Dionysius.
Several years later, having established his rule and prepared Syracuse and eastern Sicily for war, Dionysius challenged the Carthaginians by attacking Motya, their most important trading base. Many Greek cities, including Selinus and Thermae, joined forces with his large army of Syracusan citizens, allies, and mercenaries. They quickly took Eryx, and besieged Motya using new weapons such as catapaults and quinqueremes financed by Dionysius (Diod. Sic. 14.47.4–48, 14.42.1–2, 14.41.3–6). Both proved very effective after Himilco arrived with his warships and counterattacked (Diod. Sic. 14.50). After a fierce battle, the Greek attackers forced their way into Motya, looted it, and took the inhabitants captive. Despite this success, Dionysius could not secure the western part of Sicily, and Himilco managed to regain Motya and Eryx during the winter (Diod. Sic. 14.55.4). For lack of reinforcements from inland communities, Dionysius had to retreat, and the Carthaginians advanced once more into eastern Sicily, taking Messana and establishing alliances with the neighboring Sicels. Dionysius meanwhile fortified inland settlements and enlarged his army with freed slaves and mercenaries (Diod. Sic. 14.57).
The ensuing battle, at sea near Catane, saw the Carthaginians overcome the Syracusan fleet despite the technical superiority of the Greek ships (Diod. Sic. 14.60). Dionysius retreated inside the walls of Syracuse, while Himilco invested the city by land and sea. During the siege, the Carthaginians again suffered from diseases that weakened their forces. Dionysius took this opportunity to attack their camps and burn their ships in the harbor (Diod. Sic. 14.72–74). Himilco fled with his citizen soldiers to Africa, while the Sicels returned to their home towns; the remainder of the Carthaginian allies were sold into slavery (Diod. Sic. 14.75). Not warmly welcomed at home, Himilco and his soldiers later faced a major uprising against the hegemony of Carthage in Africa.
Only in 393 did Carthage attempt once more to strengthen its position in Sicily, when Mago fought a series of battles with Syracuse (Diod. Sic. 14.90). In 392, a new peace treaty confirmed the conditions of 405, with the difference that the Sicels were now subject to Dionysius (Diod. Sic. 14.96).
According to Diodorus (15.15), hostilities between Carthaginians and Greeks resumed in the 370s, when Dionysius convinced some cities paying tribute to Carthage to defect. Mago then entered a pact with Greeks from Southern Italy and challenged Syracuse from both sides of the strait. A battle at an unknown site called Cabala resulted in a striking victory for Dionysius, who rejected a peace request and demanded the Carthaginians evacuate Sicily. Carthage replied by defeating the Syracusan army at another unknown site called Cronium (Diod. Sic. 15.16–17). After a peace treaty reestablished Carthaginian hegemony over western Sicily, the death of Dionysius in 367 temporarily ended hostilities between the two major powers on the island.
In 345, the Carthaginians involved themselves in Syracusan politics by supporting Hicetas, the tyrant of Leontini, in his efforts to gain control of Syracuse. During his campaign, Hicetas invited the Carthaginians to take over Syracuse, although Plutarch (Tim. 17) notes that they preferred to avoid battle with Timoleon, who had been sent from Corinth to help the demos end the ongoing political infighting. Timoleon, however, needing money to pay his mercenaries, invaded Carthaginian territory and convinced many Greek and native communities in western Sicily to change sides (Diod. Sic. 16.73). The Carthaginians then recruited a large army and crossed over to Sicily (Diod. Sic. 16.77.4). They confronted Timoleon and his troops in the territory of Acragas, near the river Crimisus. Despite the numerical superiority of the Carthaginians, Timoleon gained another victory after severe weather hampered his opponents (Diod. Sic. 16.80). Afraid of further military operations, the Carthaginians requested a new peace treaty that established the river Halycus as the border between the Syracusan and the Carthaginian spheres of influence (Diod. Sic. 16.82.3). This agreement led to nearly three decades without major conflicts between the two parties.
Hostilities
