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While the Greek world expanded in the east, to the west fresher faced powers and cultures were on the rise. In the Italian peninsula, the city state of Rome had, under its bizarre constitution and powerful army, conquered much of the peninsula, driving the King of Epirus back across the Adriatic and it was, in the late 3rd century BC, looking across the Mediterranean to its Semitic rival.
Carthage was, by the 3rd century BC, hundreds of years old yet newly powerful. Having colonised the North African coast and settled parts of Spain. She had, however, expended huge amounts of treasure and soldiers on the conquest of Sicily. The Greeks, led by Syracuse and its tyrant, had put up a stiff resistance and by 244 only the south eastern extremity of the island remained in Greek hands. The western end had been colonised extensively by Carthaginians and North Africans, many of whom were descended from the ancient Libyan tribes that had once raided the Tyrian colonies during the Greek dark age.
In 256 Hiero, general of Syracuse, defeated a large mercenary force of Greeks and Italians who had occupied Messina. Defeating them brought the northern coast of Sicily under Syracusean influence. In jubilation the people of Syracuse declared Hiero their king and he issued coins stamped with his own face and the word Basileus inscribed upon them. His leadership, however, took more the form of a tyranny in the classical sense as he had the backing of the hoplites who were largely drawn from the rural middle class, freeholding farmers who could afford to be away from home for months at a time. His campaigns brought slaves to tend these mens’ farms while they were absent and his fiscal policy caused taxes to be light for those who owned farms and heavy for those running businesses and those who owned large estates. He also passed a slave tax, whereby anyone who owned over ten slaves would have to pay tax on them. This encouraged smallholders to buy slaves, as they did not have to pay tax on them, yet stopped any of them from accruing enough capital that they may challenge him (he was, of course, immune from such taxes and held over 200 slaves).
In Carthage, Hiero’s ascendancy was met with alarm. The suffets, the magistrates who held almost dictatorial powers outside military matters for six month periods were greatly concerned and so the Carthaginian Senate met to discuss what should happen. Many called for war, yet it was feared that a war with Syracuse could provoke a general conflagration with Rome. It was the Barcid family and their supporters, led by Hamilcar Barca, who called for. An esteemed general, he had fought in Spain for many years and had more than doubled Carthaginian holdings there. He had thus enriched his own family enormously, and they owned a series of mines and refineries in Spain and Africa that made them one of the richest families in the city. The Senate was deadlocked, no side had a majority, and it was Hamilcar who finally took the issue to the people. Drummed up by an esteemed general, the naturally jingoistic and belligerent Carthaginian mob demanded war with Syracuse and so the Senate faced no choice. In 243 BC Hamilcar was given the power to levy troops in Sicily, Africa and Spain for three years and the right to requisition gods in Sicily for two years. He was also voted a war chest of 10,000 shekels.
The news of the Carthaginian decision reached Hiero on a foul wind and he immediately sent to Rome and Egypt for aid. He warned Rome that if Carthage were to take Sicily then it was ‘a dagger aimed at the heart of Rome’ and that the barbarian Carthaginians would unleash a horde of mercenaries on Italy and ravage her mercilessly. The Roman Consuls immediately put the matter to the Senate and it was decided that Rome would not intervene in the coming war, yet she took the opportunity to occupy Messina and to move two legions down into Sicily.
Hamilcar had assembled an army of 40,000 men by Spring of 242 from all across the Carthaginian empire, and his forces were stationed in Agrigento on the southern coast of Sicily. He hoped to besiege Syracuse and force a surrender before the Romans could intervene, which he feared they would.
Hiero marched out to meet him with 10,000 hoplites and 500 horsemen and met him thirty miles west of Syracuse in a wide valley. He drew up his phalanx and put his horse behind it. He then waited for Hamilcar to move. Hamilcar moved the bulk of his force forwards yet sent his Libyan spearmen around the other side of the valley to the south and, three days later, they arrived in the Greeks’ rear. In the meanwhile the Greeks had had the better of the battle, with fairly light casualties. By the fourth day, however, it because apparent that they were trapped and Hiero ordered a withdrawal. Hamilcar, however, used light troops to engage the heavily armed Greeks, and his Numidian cavalry scattered the Greek horse. Hiero was therefore forced to withdraw all the way to Syracuse and watch the countryside burn.
Hamilcar ordered the razing of every farm and every village they came upon. Furthermore, he purposefully left Hiero’s estates alone, so that when the men looked out across their burning farms they would see Hiero’s crops, Hiero’s vines, Hiero’s orchards untouched. After only a week resentment had reached fever pitch: Hiero had made a deal with the Carthaginians. He had made a plot to destroy all the crops so that he could buy the land cheap and rule Syracuse as his own personal fiefdom. Hiero for his part was hardly blameless, he had consorted with the Carthaginians repeatedly and this now came back to haunt him. After eleven days of siege Hiero was murdered and a democracy declared. The new General Assembly numbered only 5,000 as many were killed either in battle or had been unable to reach the city before the gates were locked. Resupply could be managed by sea, yet a Carthaginian fleet arrived after the second week with supplies and reinforcements for Hamilcar. It also blockaded the harbour and the citizens were forced to watch from the city walls as their would-be saviours were stopped, searched and ransacked by Carthaginian captains.
After a month of suffering, plague swept through the city killing some 8,000 men, women and children. The democracy fell as the demagogue Cliesthanes dominated it, calling for a rally and for the city to burn itself down rather than surrender. His calls were finally answered when, in March 241 the Greeks sallied with 2,000 men, all that was left. They were weak and many were ill yet they attacked the Carthaginians. Hamilcar had made his camp to the north, away from the swamps which had submerged the Athenians previously. He drew up his soldiers in full battle order and then bid his Numidians harass the Greeks. The charging hoplites, faint and with low morale, broke under the hail of missiles and were cut to pieces. From the walls their elders, and Cliesthanes himself, watched them flounder and die. Cliesthanes was lynched only hours later and the gates opened to the Carthaginians. Hamilcar showed Syracuse no mercy. The women and children were enslaved, the men slaughtered. All the treasure, all the goods and materials were carried off, the walls were pulled down and the houses burnt. All that was left standing were the temples, eerily grandiose if ransacked of their ornamentation, great sanctuaries among hills of rubble and potsherds. Hamilcar flooded the markets with his slaves, so much so that it is said that Carthage’s slave population had doubled by 240.
The fall of Syracuse affected Rome deeply as it became apparent that Carthage was the unquestioned master of Sicily. The three legions were withdrawn yet the Senate discussed what could be done. Rome was robbed of any choice in the matter when, in May of 238 BC, a Carthaginian envoy arrived demanding the request of Messina. Carthage had been robbed of Messina by Hiero and Rome had since occupied it. Carthage claimed that the city was theirs and that they were willing to go to war for it. finally the choice was clear, and Rome, as it often did, decided on war. The First Punic War began not with a roar of defiance or a sneer of Roman patrician arrogance but with a self conscious glance over the Roman shoulder as Rome crossed the line; she had become a great power at last, yet had to fight for it.
Hamilcar led the Carthaginian army once again, and this time he was more proactive than in his Syracusean campaign. He led his force of 40,000 men north and immediately besieged Messina. He hoped that if the city could be taken he could effectively lock Rome out of Sicily. He besieged the city yet Roman reinforcements still managed to cross the Straits and by early 237 nearly two legions were defending the city under the command of Consul Gaius Lutatius Catulus who oversaw the renovation of the city’s defences. Hamilcar found himself unable to breach the defences, and he needed to withdraw from the field to resupply and recoup. However, he could not allow the Roman toehold on Sicily to expand. He therefore wintered his soldiers around the city and surrounded it with pickets and trenches. Thus he kept Lutatius contained.
However, he could not contain the rest of Rome, and in 236 more soldiers arrived to bolster the defences and Lutatius, who had been voted Consular powers for another years, was ordered to counter attack. The Battle of Messina saw the Roman maniples breakthrough the Carthaginian lines and Hamilcar was forced to retreat. The Romans thus broke free and with five legions on Sicily they outnumbered the Carthaginians by a significant factor. They moved south and occupied Syracuse, thus taking half the entire island.
Hamilcar retreated to the centre of the island where he requested reinforcements. The Senate sent 30,000 men and a fleet of 100 ships which then went on to burn Roman shipping and blockade Ostia. It also landed Carthaginian contingents in Magna Graecia and incited rebellions among the Greek cities there. Facing revolts in Italy, Rome was forced to withdraw a legion to put them down and then Hamilcar went on the offensive. He engaged the Romans on the slopes of Mount Etna and on that alien plain he blooded their hooked noses and killed 2,000 Romans. He forced them to return to Messina and he reoccupied Syracuse, or at least the small village that had once been Syracuse.
The Carthaginian suffets, growing tired of the war and its expense, then sent an offer of peace. Carthage would recognise Rome’s holdings in Italy and would allow them free reign in Corsica if they would recognise Sicily as Carthage’s as well as Sicily (which had been subject to several Roman raids). The Roman Consuls rejected the proposal, and the war continued for three more years. Few significant battles were fought, yet the Carthaginian raids continued until finally Rome agreed to peace. In 234 BC a treaty was finally made and Rome relinquished her Sicilian dreams.
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