Sicily

The interference of Athens in Sicilian affairs in 415 was partly in answer to the cry of the exiles of Leontini, partly to a quite distinct appeal from the Elymian Segesta. That city, an ally of Athens, asked for Athenian help against its Greek neighbour Selinus.

The details of the great Athenian expedition (415-413) belong partly to the political history of Athens (q.v.), partly to that of Syracuse (q.v.). But its results make it a marked epoch in Sicil ian history, and the Athenian plans, if successful, would have changed the whole face of the West. The whole war was remark able for the large entrance of the barbarian element into the Athenian reckonings; it was undertaken on behalf of Segesta; the Sicels gave Athens valuable help; the greater barbarian powers out of Sicily also came into play. Some help actually came from Etruria. But Carthage was more far-sighted. If Syracuse was an object of jealousy, Athens, succeeding to her dominion, creating a power too nearly alike to her own, would have provoked far greater jealousy. So Athens found no active support save at Naxos and Catana, though Acragas, if she would not help the invaders, at least gave no help to her own rival. But after the Spartan Gylippus came, almost all the other Greek cities of Sicily were on the side of Syracuse. The main result of the expedition, as regards Sicily, was to bring the island more thoroughly into the thick of Greek affairs. Syracuse, threat ened with destruction by Athens, was saved by the zeal of her metropolis Corinth in stirring up the Peloponnesian rivals of Athens to help her, and by the advice of Alcibiades of ter his with drawal to Sparta. All chance of Athenian dominion in Sicily or elsewhere in the west came to an end. Syracuse repaid the debt by good service to the Peloponnesian cause, and from that time the mutual influence of Sicily and old Greece is far stronger than in earlier times.

Carthaginian Wars.

But before the war in old Greece was over, 7o years after the great victory of Gelon (410), the Greeks of Sicily had to undergo barbarian invasion on a vaster scale than ever. The disputes between Segesta and Selinus called in these enemies also. Carthage, of ter a long period of abstention from intervention in Sicilian affairs, and the observance of a wise neutrality during the war between Athens and Syracuse, stepped in as the ally of Segesta, the enemy of her old ally Selinus. Her leader was Hannibal, grandson and avenger of the Hamilcar who had died at Himera. In 409, at the head of a vast mercenary host, he sailed to Sicily, attacked Selinus (q.v.), and stormed the town after a murderous assault of nine days. Thence he went to Himera, with the object of avenging his grandfather. By this time the other Greek cities were stirred to help, while Sicels and Sicans joined Hannibal. At last Himera was stormed, and 3,000 of its citizens were solemnly slaughtered on the spot where Hamil car had died. Hannibal then returned to Carthage after an ab sence of three months only. The Phoenician possessions in Sicily

now stretched across the island from Himera to Selinus. The next victim was Acragas, against which another expedition sailed in 406 under Hannibal and Himilcon; the town was sacked and the walls destroyed, and the population took refuge at Gela.

Meanwhile the revolutions of Syracuse affected the history of Sicily and of the whole Greek world. Dionysius (q.v.) the tyrant began his reign of 38 years in the first months of 405. Almost at the same moment, the new Carthaginian commander, Himilcon, at tacked Gela and Camarina. Dionysius, coming to the help of Gela, was defeated, and evacuated both it and Camarina, leaving them for the Carthaginians to plunder. He was charged (no doubt with good ground) with treachery. But now a peace, no doubt arranged at Gela, was formally concluded. Carthage was confirmed in her possession of Selinus, Himera and Acragas, with some Sican dis tricts which had opposed her. The people of Gela and Camarina were allowed to occupy their unwalled towns as tributaries of Carthage. Leontini, latterly a Syracusan fort, as well as Messana and all the Sicels, were declared independent, while Dionysius was acknowledged as master of Syracuse. Under him Sicily be came for the first time the seat of a great European power, while Syracuse, as its head, became the greatest of European cities. The reign of Dionysius (405-367) is divided into marked periods by four wars with Carthage, in 398-397,392-391,383-378 and 368-367. In the first Dionysius took and destroyed the Phoeni cian stronghold of Motya ; but Himilcon founded Lilybaeum as a substitute on the mainland in the following year (396), destroyed Messana, founded the hill-town of Tauromenium above Naxos for Sicels who had joined him, defeated the fleet of Dionysius off Catana and besieged Syracuse. But the Carthaginians suffered from pestilence in the marshes of Lysimeleia ; and after a masterly combined attack by land and sea by Dionysius Himilcon went away utterly defeated, taking with him his Carthaginian troops and forsaking his allies. Gela, Camarina, Himera, Selinus, Acragas itself, became subject allies of Dionysius. The Cartha ginian dominion was cut down to what it had been before Hanni bal's invasion. Dionysius then planted mercenaries at Leontini, conquered some Sicel towns, Henna among them, and made alliances with others. He restored Messana, peopling it with motley settlers, among whom were some of the old Messenians from Peloponnesus. But yielding to Spartan opposition Dionysius moved them to the north coast, where they founded Tyndaris. He took the Sicel Cephaloedium (Cefalii), and even the old Phoenician border-fortress of Solous was betrayed to him. He beat back a Rhegine expedition; but his advance was checked by a failure to take the new Sicel settlement of Tauromenium. His enemies of all races now declared themselves. Many of the Sicels forsook him ; Acragas declared herself independent; Carthage again took the field.