Destroy Carthage (13 page)
Motya's fall marked the high tide of success for Dionysius
against Carthage. Winter, and the disbandment of much of his
army, was followed by the belated landing of Himilco at
Panormus. The flood of war receded east again. Pausing to
restore the old Phoenician territories, Himilco matched the
tyrant's lunge at Motya with an equally brilliant blow at
Messana on the far extremity of Sicily.
When the Messanians marched out to oppose him, the Carthaginian general dispatched an amphibious assault-force by the
straits to outflank them and capture their seaport. The city,
bereft of troops, fell with scarcely a struggle. Its occupation
was a masterstroke. Apart from gaining an admirable harbour,
Himilco had blocked the path for Italian reinforcements to
Dionysius, opened the possibility of recruiting them for himself,
and brought the approach to Syracuse from Greece within
range of his sea patrols. After the brief orgy of anti-Punic sentiment, the Siceliot
states which had defected from Carthage renewed allegiance
with alacrity. Some Greeks, including the Segestans, had stayed
loyal in defiance of Dionysius. Most, on sober reflection, can
have had little doubt that the tyrant's ambitions were at least
as acquisitive as those of the southern traders.
Himilco now marched south on Syracuse. His intention, in
accord with ancient method, was to move his fleet down the
coast with his army abreast of it on the shore, but an eruption
of Mount Etna forced the latter to divert through the interior.
Quick to take advantage, Dionysius thrust his own army and
navy north to challenge the unaccompanied Carthaginian
armada. Unfortunately for the despot, his admiral and brother,
Leptines, advanced his best ships too quickly and was mauled
by the Punic fleet.
While Himilco reunited his forces south of Etna, Dionysius
withdrew to Syracuse. He was cornered. True, the walls of the
city, immense in length and resilience, were virtually impregnable, but support for his regime within was diminishing, as its
allies outside. Moreover, Himilco commanded sea and harbour.
Then, in the summer of 396, pestilence once more struck the
Carthaginians. Wrote Diodorus:
The disease first affected the Libyan troops. For a while,
they were tended and buried. But soon the infectiousness of
the sick, and the number of corpses, prevented anyone approaching . . . some went mad and lost their memory,
rampaging deliriously through the camp attacking everyone . . . Death occurred on the fifth or sixth day of the
disease, amid such pain that those who had been killed in
battle were thought fortunate.
With the prospect of contamination spreading to the Carthaginian contingent - thus, as before, to Carthage herself -
Himilco took the damaging step of leaving his mercenaries to
their own ends, raising the siege of Syracuse and departing
with his compatriots. Much of the abandoned army extricated
itself by dispersal, or by joining Dionysius. Carthage was
spared infection. But repercussions were unfavourable.
Disaffection shook the African dominions. Particularly
shocked by the fate of the Libyan mercenaries, a horde of rebels advanced as far as the walls of Carthage before the insurrection lost impetus and fizzled out. The Carthaginians
themselves were appalled by the setback. Himilco, accepting
blame as a token of divine wrath, killed himself by fasting.
For more than a decade, Carthage was reduced to her old
lines in western Sicily. Dionysius, however, was not content.
Constantly belligerent, finally he provoked a new war about
381. This time the Carthaginian expedition was led by
Himilco's former admiral, Mago. The campaigns, located partly
in Italy, are obscure, but it seems that Carthage now had allies
among the Italiots, who found Dionysius increasingly objectionable.
Two battles are recorded in Sicily, at Cabala in the west, and
at Cronium near Himera. The first resulted in defeat for Mago,
who was among the killed. The second was a greater defeat for
Dionysius, with the reputed loss of 14,000 Siceliots and his
brother Leptines. Still, the dictator yearned to rule all Sicily.
In 367, he went to war for the last time. The conflict ended
with his own death.
The demise of Dionysius (he is said to have expired after
over-indulging at a banquet) left Carthage once more to her
old sphere in Sicily: the thin western end of the island. It was
a prosaic conclusion to almost forty years of wrestling with
the tyrant, but not without cause for satisfaction.
In Dionysius, Carthage had fought one of the most formidable and warlike rulers of the century; she had fought entirely
overseas, with all the disadvantages that entailed; and she had
coped with epidemic at the same time. Toward the end of the
period, notably at Cronium, Punic forces had shown themselves equal to powerful hoplite formations in the open field -
an achievement the vaunted Persian armies could not claim.
For all its complications, Carthage's military system had
functioned in general effectively, especially if the saving in
Carthaginian lives was accounted. Above all, by her own
calculation, there had been business as usual.
Exit Greek Warriors
With
increasing coherence in the years which followed
Dionysius, world events conspired to raise Carthage to the
heights which at last became her catafalque. Little more than
a life-span after the tyrant's death, the Greeks would have
failed in their last bid for western power; the fall of Tyre
would have left Carthage sole champion of the Phoenician
heritage; Punic supremacy in Mediterranean waters would be
recognized.
For the first time, the greatest city of Africa would have
clashed with the state that was destined to extinguish her.
It is frustrating that Carthage, historically mute, emerges
from this era mainly through Greek notices, leaving the limelight to Hellenic actors while the Punic cast is diminished to a
list of names: the Magos, the Hannos, the Himilcos. Of the
public figures and political careers of Carthage at the period
almost nothing can be ascertained.
Two exceptions in the second half of the 4th century were
political misfits; aspiring autocrats in a mercantile oligarchy.
Their singularity attracted comment. The first, Hanno, known
enigmatically as 'the Great,' was outstandingly rich. But the
largesse he lavished in his bid for power brought him no
success. He was executed with most of his family.
The second, Bomilcar, may be noted later. His revolt fared
as poorly as Hanno's, emphasizing the strength of the 'establishment.' Relative stability of government had much to do
with Carthage's ability to hold her own against the western
Greeks, whose internal affairs were seldom steadfast. Post-
Dionysian Sicily illustrated the advantage in its clearest form.
At Syracuse, a bitter struggle to succeed the late regime led
to anarchy. Similarly torn by inner conflict, her dependent
cities fell to an assortment of adventurers whose petty tyrannies shattered all sense of Siceliot unity. The eagerness of
these self-seeking despots for outside support in their constant
feuds disposed the island to increasing manipulation from
Africa. Peaceful exploitation of a splintered Sicily was work
tailored for the Carthaginian temperament.
It was without enthusiasm, therefore, that Carthage viewed
the arrival of a new and potentially cohesive Greek force.
About 345, a group of Siceliot aristocrats implored Corinth, the
mother city of Syracuse, to assist in ridding them of the despots. Corinth, past the meridian of her powers, could not spare
an army, but sent a small command of picked troops under a
fanatical tyrant-hater named Timoleon.
Timoleon possessed a rare blend of attributes: the astute
and ruthless aggression needed to match that of his chosen
enemies, and a material disinterest entirely at odds with their
own greed. Within three years of reaching Sicily, he had
cleared Syracuse of its tyrannical factions, replaced the
dungeons of Dionysius with courts of justice, and moved
against the surrounding despots.
The struggle was desperate. Limited in men and provisions,
Timoleon fought as unscrupulously as his opponents. In 342,
his resort to plundering Carthaginian dependencies to supply
his troops finally convinced Carthage that the threat to her
interests justified armed intervention. A year later, her army
landed at Lilybaeum, near Motya, a strong contingent of the
Sacred Band with the vanguard.
Timoleon, imperilled by sheer numbers, was blessed with
luck. At the head of some 10,000 men, he encountered the
larger Punic force in the process of crossing a swollen river,
the Crimisos. The battle which ensued resounds in Greek
legend with miracle and portent, strikingly analagous to the
biblical Megiddo and the waters of Kishon.
The Sacred Band had crossed the Crimisos ahead of its
mercenaries, the latter delayed on the far bank by a rising
stream. The odds were now reversed, Timoleon's troops far
outnumbering the Carthaginian vanguard. Encumbered on
soggy ground by sumptuous armour and panoply, the Sacred
Band fought bravely until overwhelmed.
Meanwhile, the mercenaries, attempting to ford the torrent
to their relief, were either swept off their feet or arrived too
exhausted to be much help. Drenched by the river and lashing
rain, the Carthaginian army forsook the field, retreating in
poor shape to Lilybaeum. According to Plutarch, the losses of
the Sacred Band at Crimisos, 3,000 by his estimate, were the
greatest ever sustained in battle by citizens from Carthage - an
interesting indication of the generally low cost of her wars in
terms of Carthaginian blood, especially since the figure is
probably an inflated one.
Timoleon's expulsion of the tyrants, completed with brilliant
verve, proved less to the detriment of Carthage than she expected. Unsympathetic to democracy, the Corinthian favoured
a political system not unlike that existing at the African city:
that is, aristocratic, or rather plutocratic, the basic qualification
not birthright but affluence. To the extent that wealth meant
commerce rather than speculative aggression, Carthage anticipated eased relations with the Siceliot states.