CHAPTER XIX. AGATHOCLES

I.

THE RISE OF AGATHOCLES

WHILE, as we have seen, the Romans were steadily extending their power throughout central Italy, the western Greeks were, in the main, intent upon the affairs of their own microcosm which extended from Tarentum to Carthage. Towards the end of the fourth century BC their history almost merges into that of Sicily, and the history of Sicily into that of its most remarkable tyrant, Agathocles. The story of this ruler is one long series of paradoxes, and the greatest paradox of all is that a career like his should have been possible within living memory of Timoleon. At the death of this great peacemaker Sicilian politics appeared at last to have been stabilized. The ravages of previous warfare had been repaired by the influx of 60,000 settlers from Greece—the last swarm of colonists which the Greek homeland sent forth to the West; and a further increase of man-power accrued to the Siceliotes from the hellenization of the native Sicels, which was now almost complete. The Greeks thus still had ample resources to repel foreign attacks; and their Carthaginian neighbours and rivals, warned by their own failure at the Crimisus, and by Alexander of Macedon’s resounding victories in the East, showed no disposition to renew their assaults. Under these conditions the era of tranquillity which Timoleon had introduced should have been of long duration. But not even Timoleon could rid the Siceliotes of their besetting sins, the jealousy which their cities bore against each other, and the reckless violence of their party strife. Not that he had neglected to take precautions against the resurgence of these evils. He had drawn together the Greek cities in a general alliance, and he had set a happy precedent when he gave to the Sicel town of Agyrium the franchise of Syracuse— a method of annexation which Rome was at that time pursuing with conspicuous success in Italy. He had expelled sundry petty despots who could never have provided their subjects with a stable government, and in Syracuse he had carried out extensive reforms. Of the constitution which he imposed upon the Syracusans there is little to be said: presumably he did not revive the radical democracy which had proved but a fostering-ground for tyrants, but since he did not deprive the Syracusan Assembly of its fundamental powers of electing officials and of holding political trials, it is clear that he did not play into the hands of any narrow oligarchy. Nevertheless in this part of his work Timoleon was least successful, and his failure at this point was the prime cause of the misfortunes which befel the Siceliotes between his death and the Roman conquest.

The first attack upon the new order at Syracuse came from a section of the citizens known as ‘the Six Hundred.’ These were not an officially constituted body, as their round number might suggest, but a self-appointed coterie of intriguers who were recruited from the wealthier classes and perhaps represented the older inhabitants as against the newcomers introduced by Timoleon. Their primary purpose no doubt was nothing more than to monopolize office and seats on the city council by the usual methods of the electoral caucus; but their leaders, Heracleides and Sosistratus, were bent on setting up a close oligarchy, and where intrigue failed they were not averse from using force. Under the continued leadership of such men Syracuse would no doubt have relapsed into the state of disorder in which Timoleon first found it, and would have involved the other Siceliote towns in a similar confusion. But in the race for power Heracleides and Sosistratus were beaten by a rival who once more, like Dionysius I, riveted his power in ‘chains of steel.’ This competitor, whose name was Agathocles, was for some thirty years the most outstanding figure in the western Mediterranean, and it is round his personality, which dominated the history of Magna Graecia, that the rest of this chapter will be written.

Like other tyrants of Syracuse, Agathocles was not a native of that city. He was born in 361. at Thermae, a Greek town in the Carthaginian province of Sicily, where his father Carcinus, an exile from Rhegium, had taken up residence. Agathocles’ adventures began almost at the hour of his birth, for his father cast him out to die, but his mother smuggled him into the house of her brother, where he spent his early childhood. Tradition declared that the reason for his exposure was a dream which warned his parent that he would grow up to be a scourge of all Sicily, but this legend is plainly no more than a replica of the story of Cypselus, the first tyrant of Corinth: the real cause was more probably the commonplace one of poverty. At the age of seven Agathocles was received back by his father and learnt the potter’s craft: in later life his adversaries cast this menial pursuit in his teeth, but he ever professed himself proud of the skill of his thumb. In 343 he followed his father and his elder brother Antander to Syracuse, where Timoleon at that time was making a call for settlers, and, being now eighteen years of age, was enrolled as a citizen. Antander evidently found favour with the junta of the Six Hundred, for he was presently elected General. Agathocles was befriended by a wealthy citizen named Damas, whose widow he subsequently married. But in spite of his patron’s exertions, and of the distinction which he gained in two minor campaigns against Aetna and Acragas, he did not rise beyond the rank of Chiliarch (Captain of a Thousand).

About 325 he served on a larger expedition which was sent to assist Croton against the Bruttians, and again displayed great gallantry; but Heracleides and Sosistratus, who no doubt had visions of Agathocles growing above their heads, used their influence to rob him of his just reward. Impatient of remaining a mere Chiliarch, Agathocles now took to political intrigue. Just as Marius at Rome turned upon the nobles who stood in the way of his promotion, so the Syracusan upstart impeached Sosistratus in the Assembly on the ground of aiming at tyranny. But far from carrying his point, Agathocles had the tables turned upon him, for the self-same charge was used by Sosistratus against him and his adherents to drive them into exile. After this encounter Sosistratus proceeded in effect to prove the truth of his opponent’s accusations. In the wake of the fugitives he sent a military force to cut them up, and for the future he maintained a mercenary troop of the usual miscellaneous character to enforce his ascendancy. This was the beginning of the most sanguinary civil war in Sicilian history.

Agathocles escaped with the remnants of his followers to southern Italy and for a time led an aimless life of adventure. He broke into Croton, only to be driven out; he took service with the Tarentines, but incurred their ever active suspicions and was dismissed; he turned pirate and preyed upon Syracusan shipping. His chance came presently (c. 322 BC), when Rhegium was attacked by his old enemies Heracleides and Sosistratus. With a scratch force of broken men he went to the rescue and at one blow secured the liberty of Rhegium and his own reinstatement in Syracuse. In this city the news of the fiasco at Rhegium brought about a revolution: Heracleides and Sosistratus now took their turn of banishment, while Agathocles was recalled. But the oligarchic refugees were not content to wait upon Providence. In preparation for a forcible return into Syracuse they proceeded to stir up all the old feuds between cities and nations which under Timoleon had been laid to rest. Among the independent Greek cities they made allies of Gela, and probably also of Acragas; more ominous still, they enlisted a Carthaginian force. Thus the warfare of factions broadened out into a bellum omnium contra omnes, once more Sicily was thrown into the melting pot.

In the ensuing warfare (c. 321-319 b) Agathocles served the Syracusans well. At Gela he displayed his characteristic resourcefulness by drawing off a column which had been trapped in the streets of the town after an abortive attack. In 319 he was appointed ‘general plenipotentiary in command of the fortified positions in Sicily,’ and thus appeared to have won at last a free field for his talents. But under the threat of a new Punic war the Syracusans took the further precaution of calling in a new champion from Corinth. This second Timoleon, whose name was Acestorides, was more bent on diplomacy than upon war, and thus came into conflict with Agathocles, against whom he renewed the charge of plotting a tyranny. For a second time Agathocles was expelled from Syracuse: according to a story which should be received with caution he only escaped assassination by finding a slave to impersonate him. But his departure was soon followed by that of Acestorides, who made peace with Carthage and left the party of Sosistratus and Heracleides once more in possession of Syracuse (318). Thus it was a case of ‘as you were,’ except that since 322 the conflict was no longer confined to Syracusans or to Greeks.

During his second exile Agathocles went no further than Morgantia, an inland Sicel town which like many of its kind stood under Syracusan suzerainty and had been exploited under the regime of the Six Hundred. From the discontented cities he gathered an army strong enough to blockade Syracuse, and thus overawed the oligarchs into receiving him back. On his return he swore a solemn oath of loyalty to the constitution and received appointment as ‘strategus and guardian of the peace’ (317). It appears as if Agathocles’ opponents this time acted in good faith and agreed to share their power with him, rather than risk a further revolution. But Agathocles was determined not to set out on his travels again, and to secure himself he now definitely aimed at acquiring the tyranny which he had long but perhaps unjustly been suspected of coveting. Having procured a commission for some petty war in the interior he collected a composite force from his former Sicel allies and from the Syracusan rabble, and with these fought a one-day war against the rival faction. His first attack fell upon some forty leading men of the Six Hundred, whom he decoyed into the presence of his troops and promptly executed. This swift stroke was followed by a prolonged battue in the streets, during which all those of the opposite party who did not jump the walls were cut down. Agathocles justified this slaughter to his troops by pretending that he was but anticipating a plot of his adversaries; but the absence of organized resistance on their part makes it more probable that they were the victims of an unprovoked aggression. On the other hand there is no reason to believe that Agathocles ordered a wanton and indiscriminate massacre from a mere love of cruelty. Having thus cleared the field of his antagonists, he took the usual last steps in the despot’s progress. He challenged popular allegiance by pretending to abdicate his generalship, and when the Assembly dutifully begged him to remain in office he stipulated that he should not be hampered with colleagues. Thus he rose to the position of ‘General plenipotentiary,’ the same as Dionysius I had occupied during his long rule, and under this title he governed Syracuse for the next twelve years (316-304).

II.

THE SICILIAN WARS 316-310 BC

In Syracuse Agathocles consolidated his power by courting popular favour. He promised and no doubt carried out a redistribution of confiscated estates; he put on a disarming air of bonhomie and cultivated a reputation for good-natured drollery. We do not know how far he preserved the constitution, but at any rate he continued to strike coins of a republican type. It is alleged that he dispensed with a body-guard, and this may be so far true that he relied on citizens, not on foreign mercenaries, for his protection.

Elsewhere in Sicily Agathocles’ usurpation was the signal for fresh coalitions against Syracuse. The refugees from that city rallied to the number of five or six thousand, under the leadership of Sosistratus: of Heracleides nothing further is heard. The émigrés won the sympathies of the other Greek towns, which no doubt remembered that tyrants of Syracuse had a way of becoming lords of Sicily. But this gave Agathocles a pretext and indeed partial justification for proceeding to conquer his neighbours: like Dionysius I he could pretend that Syracuse was not safe so long as the surrounding cities remained potential enemies. Accordingly in 315 he opened his campaign with two assaults upon Messana, both of which miscarried. In 314 the three most important of the free cities, Acragas, Gela and Messana, replied by a joint invitation to a roving Spartan prince named Acrotatus to organize a coalition army against Syracuse. Acrotatus presently arrived at Acragas, bringing with him a small fleet from Tarentum. His force both on land and on sea must have been a fair match for that of Agathocles, but it was never put to a test. The Spartan generalissimo, whose standard of discipline may have been unsuited to Sicilian troops, created nothing but discontent, and when he endeavoured to stifle the ill-feeling by murdering Sosistratus, the leading refugee from Syracuse, he had to decamp to escape stoning. The allies, now left without any sort of x leader, patched up a peace with Agathocles, in which they recognized Syracusan suzerainty and reserved no more than autonomy for themselves. In the following year the tyrant respected the peace-treaty so far as to confine his operations to the lesser towns, of which he carried an unknown number. In 312 he renewed his attack on Messana, which was now left unsupported and gave in. Like every town which fell into Agathocles’ hands, Messana had to surrender the Syracusan refugees and their supporters for execution. Thus the safeguarding operations of the Syracusan despot left him master of half Sicily: of the more notable towns outside the Carthaginian province only Acragas and Gela remained to be eaten up.

But at this stage Agathocles became involved with a new enemy who drew out all his powers. As we have already seen, the renewal of warfare of factions and cities in Sicily had been a signal of action for the Carthaginians.

True enough, Hamilcar, the Punic governor of Sicily, was not bent on an active war policy. Though he came to the assistance of the Syracusan oligarchs in 321-319 and again in 317, he preferred the role of a mediator to that of a combatant, and it was through his good offices that Agathocles returned to Syracuse after his second exile. It can scarcely be true that he subsequently lent Agathocles some African troops to abet his act of usurpation, for the usurper had no need of these; but at the negotiations of 314 he resumed the part of honest broker, and he apparently left Agathocles a free hand to conquer the independent Greek cities. But the conduct of affairs was eventually taken out of his hands and committed to a more vigorous successor. The Carthaginian home government could afford to condone Hamilcar’s half-measures so long as the Greeks counteracted each other in their war of factions; but they could hardly fail to take alarm when Agathocles had concentrated power in his hands and was reuniting the Siceliotes under his dominion, for these proceedings, as in the case of Dionysius I, might well be the prelude to a consolidated attack upon the Punic possessions in Sicily. During Agathocles’ second campaign against Messana in 315. the Punic Senate sent an envoy to remonstrate with Agathocles for upsetting the general settlement of Timoleon; after the third and successful attack of the tyrant upon the same city in 312 they definitely broke with him. Suspecting Hamilcar of something worse than incompetence, they passed a secret vote upon him, which however was never carried into effect, for at this juncture Hamilcar died or took his own life; and they transferred his command to another Hamilcar, the son of Gisgo, whose actions better befitted a bearer of that name.

After the capture of Messana Agathocles advanced upon Acragas, but found a Punic squadron of sixty sail at hand to assist in the defence. Whether from lack of crews or of funds, the Syracusan despot at this time and for long after had no fleet that could cope with the Carthaginians, and for the moment he drew back. After a desultory campaign in the interior he reappeared on the south coast and endeavoured to force a battle with a Carthaginian army which had meanwhile taken a position on Mt Ecnomus (Mte S. Angelo or Cufino, near Licata), a point equally convenient for watching Acragas and Gela. The enemy, who were awaiting reinforcements, refused to be drawn, and the main action was postponed to the next year.

In 311 the Carthaginians sent a large expeditionary force to Sicily. A considerable part of this army and no less than sixty warships suffered destruction in a storm. Nevertheless by the time that the contingent from Acragas and the Syracusan refugees had joined hands with him, the Carthaginian commander, Hamilcar son of Gisgo, disposed of some 45,000 men and thus had the advantage of numbers. While Hamilcar re-established his camp on Mount Ecnomus, Agathocles prepared a base for himself at Gela, which appears at this time to have been observing a benevolent neutrality. He entered the town by surprise, and when resistance was offered he cleared the way by a general massacre. He next advanced to the line of the river Himeras under Mount Ecnomus and was encouraged by his success in a casual skirmish to make a sudden onslaught on the enemy’s main position. The Syracusan forces tried again and again to break into the Punic camp, but before they could establish their footing they were caught in the flank and rear by a Carthaginian corps which suddenly, moved up from the sea coast. It is uncertain whether these were freshly landed reinforcements from Carthage, or, as seems more likely, a division of Hamilcar’s army which had been saved up for some such surprise. In any case, their entry into action threw Agathocles’ men into a rout. The Syracusan horse, instead of covering the retreat, rode for safety, and the infantry were left to be cut up by the pursuing Carthaginian cavalry. According to a credible estimate Agathocles lost 7000 men to the enemy’s 500 (June 311). Beaten from the field, the Syracusan ruler had now to prepare his city for a siege. He succeeded in gathering in the harvest before Hamilcar closed upon him, but in the meantime the Carthaginian general made overtures to Agathocles’ dependent allies in Sicily and won them over in quick succession, despite the tyrant’s drastic precautions against their defection. Agathocles attempted to make one further stand, presumably in the Anapus plain near the Olympieum, but was driven back into Syracuse, which was now blockaded by land and sea (311—310).

III.

THE AFRICAN CAMPAIGN 310-309 BC.

In the summer of 310 the situation in Syracuse became critical. Supplies were giving out, and there was no prospect of the Carthaginian siege being broken, as in the days of Dionysius I, by reinforcements from overseas or by pestilence within the Punic camp. Agathocles’ only chance was to create a diversion, and it is his chief distinction as a general that he realized this and had the nerve to act upon it. Just as Hannibal in 211 broke away towards Rome in order to relax the pressure upon Capua, so the Syracusan tyrant made a sudden pounce on Carthage. Though such a raid could not give him a permanent foothold in Africa, he had reason to hope that it might alter the whole course of the war. At best the Carthaginians, who had never experienced invasion and were quite unprepared for it, might fall into a panic and buy off Agathocles on his own terms; at worst they would have to withdraw forces from Sicily, for with their unaided home levies they would be no match for the seasoned Greek troops.

It was essential to Agathocles’ plan that his movements should be swift and unforeseen. Rather than lose time in reorganizing his navy, he decided to take the risk of sailing under inadequate escort. Of men and money he did not require a large supply: mobility counted with him for more than numbers, and once landed in Africa he could rely on making the war pay for itself. His chief difficulty lay in the reluctance which the siege-stricken Syracusans felt against exactions however modest, whose object Agathocles would not and could not divulge. The tyrant, however, coerced recalcitrant taxpayers with wholesale executions and confiscations, and he heartened his bewildered troops by reading a favourable omen into a solar eclipse which befel on the day after his departure (on August 15th, 310), too late to deter him and early enough to betoken trouble for Carthage.

The stars certainly fought in their courses for the Syracusans. Just as their fleet had left harbour, by a happy chance the attention of the Carthaginian blockade squadron was distracted between the outgoing armada and an incoming convoy of corn-vessels, with the result that the city was replenished and Agathocles stood out safely to sea1. On approaching Africa he was at last caught up by the pursuing Carthaginians, but not in time to prevent his landing, which was safely effected near the Hermaean promontory (Cape Bon), some 70 miles from Carthage. Sacrificing everything to speed, Agathocles burnt his fleet, abandoned his base, and started on the first and last Greek Anabasis into Africa. The invaders’ route lay through plain where the high state of cultivation excited their wonder, as in later days it astonished the troops of Belisarius. The intervening towns lay open and unprotected, and no resistance was offered to Agathocles until a levy en masse of the Carthaginian city population was sent out to meet him.

On the first news of Agathocles’ landing the rumour spread in Carthage that he must have destroyed Hamilcar’s forces in Sicily and sunk his fleet before he could venture to sail for Africa. But Hamilcar’s ships presently arrived from the Hermaean cape with a more reassuring version of events, and the Carthaginian Senate now prepared to crush Agathocles. A citizen army, 40,000 strong, was at once enrolled and marched out to offer battle to the invader. Against this force Agathocles could only muster 3500 Syracusans and 10,000 mercenaries. The troops did not believe that they could win, but Agathocles reckoned up the odds differently and accepted the challenge. His confidence was justified, for the scratch Carthaginian levy fought like amateurs. The most serviceable division, led by a general named Hanno, made a hasty charge on its own account, but was fought to a standstill and broke into flight after losing its leader. The other Punic wing never became fully engaged, for its commander Bomilcar drew it back when Hanno got into difficulties. It is not certain whether Bomilcar, who was a personal rival of Hanno, deliberately played false in this action, or whether he prudently but vainly attempted to disengage his corps before the rout became general. In any case, the entire Punic force was swept off its feet, and but for the fact that its line of retreat to Carthage was a short one it would no doubt have suffered very heavily from Agathocles’ pursuit.

The war now entered a critical stage, for the lost battle threw Carthage into a panic. The fires of Moloch, which of late had not been kept burning brightly, were now fed with a holocaust of two hundred children of the noblest families. Such demoralization might seem a prelude to surrender, but with characteristic tenacity the Carthaginians pulled themselves together and prepared to carry on the war. Agathocles thus lost his chance of rattling the enemy into a speedy peace; but he achieved his primary purpose of drawing the Punic siege force away from Syracuse, and for the time being he gained a free hand for himself in Africa. His next move was to put pressure upon Carthage by cutting off its food supplies. To this end he established a fortified post near Tunis, some fourteen miles from Carthage, so as to keep the city under observation, and he set out to occupy the fertile lowland along the east coast of Tunisia. In the course of these operations he captured some two hundred towns and villages, including the ports of Hadrumetum and Thapsus, and repelled a Carthaginian sortie against Tunis. Not the least hopeful feature of the campaign was the readiness of the native Libyans to greet him as a deliverer from their Punic taskmasters. At the end of 310 Agathocles had apparently obtained a firm foothold in Africa.

It was probably in the ensuing winter that Agathocles took two new steps which indicate that he was thinking of expanding his campaign into something more than a raid. He established and fortified a naval base at Aspis, some twenty miles south of the Hermaean cape, thus securing a permanent line of communications with Sicily. Furthermore, he offered an alliance to a former officer of Alexander named Ophelias, whom Ptolemy I of Egypt had appointed as a semi-independent viceroy of Cyrene.

Disclaiming the intention of keeping any part of Africa for himself, Agathocles offered to leave Ophelias in possession of any Libyan territory which they might jointly conquer. In view of the eventual breakdown of this project it is difficult to decide whether the Syracusan ruler had definitely resolved to substitute a Greek for a Punic dominion in Tunisia: indeed it is not certain whether in the long run Ophelias might not have proved a less source of anxiety to him than the Carthaginians. But after the campaign of 310, when the prospect of a final victory over Carthage opened to Agathocles, it is not surprising that he should have taken the necessary steps to secure this victory without thinking out its after-effects. To Ophelias at any rate the bargain seemed a good one, for he proceeded to send out recruiting officers to Greece and to prepare an expeditionary corps equal in size to Agathocles’ force.

In the spring and summer of 309, previous to the arrival of Ophelias at the scene of war, the balance of power began to swing back against Agathocles. Reinforced from Sicily, the Carthaginians had now the nucleus of an efficient field force. But the most significant change lay in the incipient rally of the Libyans to the Punic side, as they discovered that the requisitions of their new deliverer were as burdensome as the imposts of their former oppressors. One Libyan ‘king’ who had joined Agathocles came to open blows with him; other native tribes sent contingents to Carthage when required. Agathocles henceforth had difficulties in raising fresh contributions, and the pay of his troops fell into arrears. In the middle of the campaign a mutiny broke out which the general was only able to quell by a threat of suicide, and although the bluff succeeded for this once, his hold on the army remained precarious. Under these conditions the Carthaginians temporarily recovered the initiative. In the early part of 309 they laid siege to the Greek camp at Tunis and made several up-country expeditions for the reconquest of disloyal natives. In set battle they were still no match for the invaders, for they lost several encounters and were driven off from Tunis; but on balance they regained lost ground.

The war entered upon a new phase in the autumn of 309, when Ophelias completed a tedious march across the desert of Tripoli and joined hands with Agathocles. On closer acquaintance the two Greek captains quickly repented of their bargain. Before Ophelias’ troops had finished resting Agathocles fell out with his ally, murdered him, and incorporated his army. In seeking to explain this strange turn of events we may dismiss theidea of premeditated treason on either side. Agathocles, it is true, pretended to Ophelias’ men that he had merely anticipated a treacherous attack by their leader, and on this assurance he gained their allegiance. But for either captain to bank on the success of such an excuse for a deliberate piece of perfidy would have been the height of folly: either of them might have provoked the followers of the murdered man to open hostility or to a separate agreement with Carthage. The most probable explanation is that Ophelias, who had claimed Agathocles’ son Heracleides as a hostage, would not meet the Syracusan on terms of equality, and that the latter on the spur of the moment planned a very risky coup which by sheer good luck ended well for him.

The quarrel with Ophelias prevented Agathocles from profiting by a simultaneous crisis in Carthage. The Punic general Bomilcar, whose suspicious conduct in the great battle of 310 we have already noticed, attempted in autumn 309 BC a revolution similar to that which had made Agathocles master of Syracuse. In a dispute between a Carthaginian general and his government it is always difficult to say which side first showed disloyalty to the other, and in the present instance we do not know whether Bomilcar had any grievances or was led on by sheer ambition. But whatever the merits of his case, he found no popular support, and when he let loose his chosen troops on the streets of Carthage he met with a desperate and successful resistance. Overwhelmed by numbers, Bomilcar capitulated and was put to death. Henceforth the Carthaginians kept their ranks closed, and Agathocles lost what chances he ever possessed of breaking down the Carthaginian ‘home front.’

IV.

THE AFRICAN CAMPAIGN 308-307 BC

After 309 the war in Africa entered upon a new phase. It was no longer being fought in defence of Sicily, for in the meantime the Punic offensive in that island had been definitely abandoned. The question arises, did Agathocles still entertain the project of permanent Greek conquests in Tunisia, such as he had suggested to Ophelias, or did he fight on with some other object in view, for example, in order to obtain cessions of Carthaginian territory in Sicily? As we have seen, the Syracusan ruler declared to Ophelias that he had no permanent interests in Africa, and it is likely enough that he was more bent on consolidating and extending his power in Sicily than on making acquisitions overseas. On the other hand, he was now again in a position to bring pressure to bear upon Carthage, for by the incorporation of Ophelias’ army he had nearly doubled his effectives, and after Bomilcar’s revolution the Carthaginians, though freed from internal dissension, were unable for a time to risk any actions in the open field.

Accordingly in 308 Agathocles resumed the operations by which he had planned to blockade Carthage. Without let or hindrance from the Carthaginians he attacked the Phoenician ports on the northern seaboard of Tunisia. Utica, the largest of them, offered a stout resistance, but was eventually carried and subjected to a fearful carnage; Hippou Akra (Bizerta) surrendered after a defeat at the hands of an improvised Syracusan war-fleet. After seizing these positions Agathocles was well placed for intercepting the supplies which still came to Carthage from Sardinia and the western part of Sicily. In addition, he made fresh conquests in the interior, but the extent of these cannot be defined. Thus the cordon round Carthage was being tightened, and it is likely that the Syracusan tyrant could soon have dictated his terms of peace had he continued to conduct his campaign in person. But adverse news from Sicily induced him to leave Africa for the time being. In summer or autumn 308 he sailed away with a small portion of his army, leaving his son Archagathus in command.

Agathocles’ departure at first made little difference to the campaign. Under an officer named Eumachus the Greeks made a bold and successful foray into southern Tunisia, and in the ensuing winter the shortage of supplies in Carthage became serious. In 307, however, the tide turned with amazing suddenness and swept the Greeks right out of Africa. The blame for this falls chiefly on Archagathus, who sent out Eumachus once more to the inland regions, no doubt under the impression that the Carthaginians would again not venture out. Under the stimulus of a failing food supply, however, the enemy decided to risk a new campaign in the open and sent out a force of thirty thousand men in three divisions, each of which set itself to recover one zone of the lost territory. Archagathus’ plain duty now was to hold his troops together and to join hands with Eumachus before engaging in any serious action. Instead of this, he left Eumachus to fend for himself and sent the remainder of his field force in three flying columns to bring the Carthaginians to battle. Like their commander-in-chief, the divisional generals played into the enemy’s hands. One of the three columns, led by a certain Aeschrion, lost 4000 men in an ambush; Eumachus on his homeward march was similarly trapped and sustained double that number of casualties. The remnant of the Greek forces were now barely able to hold their base near Tunis.

In summer 307 Agathocles returned to Africa. With the help of a flotilla from Etruria which had unexpectedly come to his aid he had defeated the attenuated Carthaginian squadron off Syracuse and for the moment was master of the seas. With the reinforcements which he brought he could still number 12,000-15,000 Greek or Italian troops and 10,000 Africans, and with these he at once attacked the Carthaginian fortifications above Tunis. Such instant action was no doubt the only means of pulling the match out of the fire, but it was a desperate venture, and luck was against him. His Libyans held off from the assault, and the Greeks not only were driven off but were tumbled downhill with heavy loss. The victory of the Carthaginians was marred by a fire which burnt out their camp in the ensuing night, and by a disastrous encounter with some of Agathocles’ Libyans, who were stealing across to the Punic side but in the dark were taken for enemies, and after a confused scuffle drove the Carthaginians back to their city in a wild rout. But the Greeks also sustained heavy losses in a night action with an errant Libyan division—probably not the same as fell in with the Carthaginians—and in any case they were too demoralized to offer further resistance. Agathocles, realizing that all was lost, and probably fearing that his disgruntled troops would hand him over to the Carthaginians, secretly escaped and left them to make such terms as they could with their enemies. The soldiers first avenged their betrayal by murdering Agathocles’ sons, including Archagathus, who had started out with his father but lost touch with him; thereupon they capitulated on easy terms. A few desperate men fought on in fortified posts which were soon carried by the Carthaginians; of those who had surrendered many took service with their former foes.

The Anabasis of Agathocles thus ended in a ludicrous fiasco, and its absconding chief cuts a sorry figure beside Regulus, the first Roman invader of Africa, who stayed with his defeated troops and served Rome best in captivity. Yet the Greek general’s venture achieved its first and most important purpose of safeguarding his position in Sicily. In 306 the Carthaginians tamely agreed to a peace in which they bound themselves to stay behind their old frontier line in Sicily, the river Halycus, and to pay a small indemnity in corn and money. Moreover, Agathocles had once for all discovered the weakest point in the Punic armour. Realizing this, he prepared towards the end of his life for a resumption of the war. With a view to cutting off the supplies of Carthage from overseas he expended his time and money on a new fleet of two hundred warships, thus proving that he now aimed at attempting a regular siege of Carthage. He did not live to carry out this scheme, and after his death the Carthaginians took advantage of fresh feuds among the Greeks to extend their foothold in Sicily; yet his efforts had not been wholly wasted. Agathocles’ Anabasis, like that of Xenophon, prepared the way for other and more decisive attacks.

V.

SICILIAN AFFAIRS 310-304 BC

The first news which the besieged Syracusans received of Agathocles after his departure to Africa came from Hamilcar, the commander of the investing army. They were informed that Agathocles’ force had been destroyed, and as proof they were shown the salvaged bronze bow-pieces of his burnt galleys. This announcement was coupled with an offer of peace which assured the personal safety of Agathocles’ partisans. In view of the seemingly conclusive evidence of the tyrant’s fate his elder brother Antander, who had been left in charge of the city, was disposed to capitulate. But an Aetolian officer named Erymnon, whom Agathocles had prudently appointed to advise Antander, induced him to hold out pending confirmation of Hamilcar’s message. The Punic ruse was exposed soon after by a dispatch-boat which had been built by Agathocles and brought the news of his first great victory through the enemy’s blockade. To atone for his diplomatic failure, Hamilcar made a surprise attack on the landward fortifications of Syracuse while its population was crowding to the harbour to meet Agathocles’ messenger; but the garrison had remained at its post and drove him off. Soon after this double reverse Hamilcar was required to send 5000 men to Carthage, and on the land side at least the siege was relaxed. Agathocles’ hold on the city was further strengthened by the expulsion of a large number of faint-hearted or disloyal citizens who had clamoured for surrender on hearing of Hamilcar’s offer.

In 309 Hamilcar returned to Syracuse with a larger army than before. His numbers were swelled by a corps of Greek refugees collected by Deinocrates, a prominent opponent of Agathocles whom the despot by a special favour had dismissed unscathed at the time of his usurpation. The Carthaginian general evidently intended to sit out the blockade this time, for he brought an unwieldy supply column with him. While his force was stumbling through the defiles of the river Anapus near the south-western edge of the Epipolae plateau, a Syracusan force which had been thrown forward to Fort Euryalus at the apex of the plateau swooped down upon it and put it to utter rout. Hamilcar was captured and executed by the Syracusans.

From this blow the Punic forces in Sicily never recovered until after Agathocles’ death; the rest of the fighting which is described in this chapter was conducted between the rival armies of the Siceliote Greeks. With the Carthaginians out of action, and Deinocrates’ corps cut adrift, the Syracusans had a chance of recovering their lost dependencies such as Agathocles himself would scarcely have missed. But Antander let the occasion slip, and the initiative in Sicilian affairs passed for a season to the city of Acragas, which now undertook to unite the lesser Siceliote towns in a league of liberty directed alike against Carthaginians and Syracusans. Under their general Xenodicus the Acragantines made an excellent start: they expelled a Punic garrison from Gela, secured Camarina and Leontini against Syracusan attempts at reconquest, and won over other towns in the interior (309—308).

It was probably due to Xenodicus’ sweeping successes that Agathocles paid a flying visit to Sicily (summer or autumn 308). His absence from Africa proved fatal; his presence in Sicily did little good. Before his arrival the Syracusans had at last marched out in force against Xenodicus and under a general named Leptines had defeated him so heavily that the Acragantines withdrew their troops and left their allies to fend for themselves. But these found a new and more able champion in the Syracusan emigre Deinocrates, who had been left without a base or a policy since the death of Hamilcar, but now rallied the minor Greek cities and raised a considerable field force from them, for which his former Punic allies perhaps supplied the funds. Agathocles, who had meanwhile landed in Sicily and eventually joined hands with Leptines, achieved no more than the recapture of some minor towns, and when Deinocrates’ new levies took the field he tamely fell back on Syracuse (308—307).

Before he could prepare for a fresh campaign Agathocles received signals of distress from Africa. He first made Syracuse safe by wholesale executions among a fresh mass of suspects, and then sailed away with heavy drafts for his African army. After his departure Leptines promptly won a fresh success which finally put Xenodicus out of action and left the field free for the Syracusan forces and the corps of Deinocrates. Leptines’ campaign however was but a brief interlude before Agathocles’ final return from Africa (summer or autumn 307). His arrival in Sicily was marked by two further atrocities for which the usual excuse of political necessity could not be offered. In Syracuse he avenged the death of his sons by murdering all the relatives of his African soldiers. In the allied city of Segesta he imposed a heavy war contribution, and when this was not promptly forthcoming he applied the most revolting tortures to the rich and sold the poor into slavery. These wanton barbarities suggest that Agathocles was losing his judgment as well as his prestige. At this stage his own partisans began to desert to Deinocrates, who now appeared more than ever to have the whip-hand in Sicily. But with characteristic buoyancy the Syracusan ruler recovered his nerve and utterly defeated Deinocrates in a diplomatic duel. By concluding peace with the Carthaginians he deprived Deinocrates of such support as he had received from that quarter, and acquired from them a stock of provisions and money sufficient to reconstitute his field force. At the same time he kept Deinocrates in play by offering to surrender Syracuse and all his other possessions in Sicily, except the two small towns of Thermae (his native place) and Cephaloedium. While Deinocrates was pressing his apparent advantage and haggling over the surrender of these last two positions, Agathocles rallied his forces and sowed mistrust among Deinocrates’ supporters, who began to accuse him of protracting the war for his personal advantage.

In 305 Agathocles once more took the field and in spite of his inferior numbers engaged Deinocrates in battle. During the action part of Deinocrates’ forces deserted; the rest were thrown into disorder and capitulated on an offer of easy terms. Despite his promise Agathocles killed off one whole division of his adversaries—presumably his inveterate foes the Syracusan oligarchs ; but he spared the life of Deinocrates for a second time and indeed had his assistance in the remaining stages of the war. All that now remained for the victor to accomplish was the reduction of some outstanding towns. Of these capitulations nothing is known, except that at Leontini he perpetrated yet another massacre. In the western end of the island the Carthaginians according to the recent convention retained the towns of Selinus and perhaps also of Heraclea; all the remaining Greek cities, with the possible exception of Acragas, definitely acknowledged the authority of Agathocles, whose dominions now became as extensive as those of Dionysius I had been. But Agathocles was not content with the title ‘ruler of Sicily’ by which Dionysius had become known to the Greeks. Following the example of the Diadochi, he assumed the title of king and struck coins in his own name, though without his portrait (c. 304). The fifteen years of his reign were as quiet and uneventful a period for the Siceliotes as those of his tyranny had been stormy.

VI.

AGATHOCLES AND SOUTH ITALY

While Agathocles was waging his brilliant but indecisive war against the Carthaginians, the Romans were slowly but surely defeating the Samnites. In this twenty years’ conflict the Italiote Greeks might well have played an important and even a decisive part, if they had intervened with their united strength; and it is almost certain that they would have seized their opportunity, if they had still been under the vigorous leadership of Alexander of Epirus. But after that monarch’s death their history is purely a passive one, for they only figure as a prey of the native Italic tribes and of Greek ‘protectors’ from other regions.

In 303 the Tarentines called in Cleonymus the Spartan, who achieved little; next came Agathocles. The king of Sicily appears in general to have followed the Italian policy of Dionysius I. He was at some pains to secure the approaches to the Straits of Messina and made occasional forays further afield, but he did not attempt any extensive conquests and achieved no permanent results. His most startling success took place c. 300, when he disputed possession of Corcyra with Cassander and carried it after a decisive naval victory. His object in this adventure was perhaps little more than to test the fleet which he was preparing for eventual use against the Carthaginians, for a few years later he gave the island away as a dowry to his daughter Lanassa on the occasion of her wedding to king Pyrrhus of Epirus. But a story which is told against him, that he acted in collusion with native Italic pirates from Calabria, suggests that he may have taken a passing interest in Corcyra as a station for levying toll upon the trade to the Adriatic and South Italy. Within a few years Corcyra passed from Cleonymus to Demetrius Poliorcetes and from him to Cassander, Agathocles, Pyrrhus, and back again to Demetrius, an experience surely unparalleled in that island’s eventful history.

Agathocles maintained a more permanent interest in the Bruttian peninsula. Unlike their Lucanian neighbours, the Bruttians were not drawn into the Second Samnite War, and c. 325. the Greek city of Croton had to ask Syracuse for aid against them. Agathocles, as we have seen, took part in the Syracusan relief expedition. Shortly afterwards he reappeared before Croton as an exile and made a vain attempt to capture it on behalf of a democratic party which the Syracusan leaders Heracleides and Sosistratus may have helped to turn out on the previous campaign. The democrats eventually reconquered the town and came to terms with the Bruttians (c. 317) but were afterwards betrayed by their own leader Menedemus, who made himself tyrant. Soon after 300 Agathocles presumed on his friendship with Menedemus to make a treacherous attack upon Croton, but only carried it after a formal siege which ended in the usual carnage. This ill-deserved success however was balanced by two unsuccessful wars against the Bruttians. Called in against them by Tarentum, he landed in Italy (c. 298), but lost some 4000 men in a night surprise. In a later campaign (c. 295) which he conducted with a force of more than 30,000 men, he began by losing his fleet in a storm; he thereupon conquered the Greek town of Hipponium and overawed the Bruttians into a capitulation; but he lost his labour soon afterwards, when the Bruttians fell upon his garrison, recovered their hostages, and perhaps took Hipponium for themselves.

Of Agathocles’ relations with Rhegium, which he had befriended in his early days, nothing is known, but it is probable that he allowed it to remain an independent ally.

It is not unlikely that Agathocles entertained relations with Rome, but the nature of these is uncertain. In any case we can hardly suppose that he took upon himself to protect the Italiote Greeks against the Romans, for his assistance was hardly yet required and probably not desired. From Etruria, as we have seen, he derived some timely naval aid; but we do not know with which of the Etruscan cities he was in league. Like Dionysius I, Agathocles made much use of Campanian mercenaries. One of these Campanian bands made itself notorious after his death by seizing the town of Messana and helping to set the Romans and Carthaginians by the ears.

In the last years of his reign Agathocles had no longer anything to fear from his Siceliote subjects, but he ceased to be master in his own household. Of the sons of his first wife, the widow of his patron Damas, Archagathus and Heracleides, and probably also Agatharchus, had been killed by his troops in Africa. The children of his third consort, a step-daughter of Ptolemy named Theoxena, were mere infants at the time of his death. By his second wife, Alcia, he had a son and a daughter. The daughter, Lanassa, was successively wedded to Pyrrhus and Demetrius Poliorcetes, with both of whom in turn ‘Agathocles had friendly but distant relations. The son, Agathocles II, was destined to succeed to the kingdom, and Demetrius undertook to guarantee the succession. But Archagathus II, a son of the king’s eldest child, took offence at being thus passed over and killed the heir apparent. Agathocles did not long survive his son, and the rumour spread that Archagathus had poisoned his grandfather; but according to a modern diagnosis the old king’s death was due to cancer of the jaw (289). By his final disposition Syracuse received back its liberty, but after twenty-seven years of autocracy it proved quite unable to reinstate a free government at such short notice, to retain control over the other Siceliotes, or to hold Carthage at arm’s length. Within a few months of his death Agathocles’ life-work was mostly undone.

VII.

CONCLUSION

The history of the Siceliote and Italiote Greeks from 330 to 289 may be summed up as a movement in a circle, at a time when a neighbouring nation was making rapid progress. Their position in 289 was much the same as in 330, except that in the intervening wars they had uselessly depleted their man-power, and this is as much as saying that in the race for supremacy in the western Mediterranean they had been definitely left behind. The blame for this, so far as it can be cast upon one man, rests mainly on Agathocles. In the history of this tyrant the most outstanding feature is the almost endless series of massacres which marked the earlier part of his rule. Although no doubt ancient writers exaggerated the number of his victims and did him injustice when they described him as a Satanic wretch who piped and danced unto his victims before leading them to death, yet it is clear that his executions were vastly in excess of what might have been condoned on the score of political necessity. Moreover the loss of life thus entailed was not made good, as after previous periods of revolution in Sicily, by fresh immigration from the Greek homeland. From a political standpoint the worst charge against him is that he was a mere opportunist who lived by improvisation and had no fixed policy. His usurpation, his descent upon Africa, his campaigns in Italy all appear to have been the products of a hasty resolve; and his kingship, though marred by no atrocities, was not distinguished by any constructive statesmanship such as the Leges Hieronicae of that later and greater king, Hiero II. But as a soldier Agathocles achieved a work of more lasting importance than the story of this chapter, taken by itself, is likely to suggest. Though his actions were mostly on a small scale and often unsuccessful, he was clearly far more than a guerrilla chieftain. His expedition to Africa marks him out as a leader of true strategic insight, and if it did not bring a Greek victory, yet it was in effect a fatal Punic defeat, for it showed the way to the ultimate conquerors of Carthage. The first and chief of these, Scipio Africanus the Elder, virtually acknowledged his indebtedness to Agathocles, when he declared that this ruler and his predecessor Dionysius had been the world’s greatest men of action and had known best how to mingle boldness and discretion. This praise of Agathocles may appear extravagant to us, yet in one respect it does less than justice to him, for however inferior he may have been to Dionysius as a war minister, he clearly surpassed the elder tyrant in the higher attributes of generalship, imagination and quick resolve. Lastly, if we blame Agathocles, we must equally censure the Siceliote Greeks for their failure to uphold the settlement of Timoleon, to stabilize their municipal constitutions and to federate their city-states. Their incompetence in this respect rendered possible the despot’s rule and indeed almost justified it, for it is doubtful whether his sway was any more wasteful of lives or injurious to Greek interests than the chaos of contending cities and factions which it superseded.

CHAPTER XX . PYRRHUS