Destroy Carthage Page 7

  Even less is known of Punic exploration in the dangerous waters of Biscay than of the southern expeditions. The lengths to which the pioneers would go to preserve their secrets are mentioned by Strabo, who cites the deliberate wrecking of vessels by captains who found themselves followed. Neverthe­less, a brief description of northern conditions survives in the name of one Himilco, said by Pliny to have adventured 'at the same time' as Hanno.

  It occurs in the writing of a much later Roman scholar and poet, Avienus, who referred to the Oestrymnians as inveterate traders, brave and energetic, with skin-covered ships in which they sailed 'the stormy channel.'

  From their country to the sacred island, as it was known of old, takes two days sailing. The island covers a vast area and is inhabited by the Hibernian people. Nearby lies the island of Albion. Carthaginians, together with people living round the Pillars of Hercules and Tartessians, all visited these regions.

  The Carthaginian Himilco, who describes how he tried this voyage, says that it takes at least four months. There is no wind to hasten the ship, and the lazy waters of the ocean seem asleep. From them rise shoals of seaweed which often restrain the ship like a thicket. Nevertheless, he says, the sea is not very deep. Aquatic creatures swim here and there, and sea-monsters pass between the becalmed ships.

  Sluggish waters and lack of wind is not the impression ex­pected from a sea voyage to the north of Spain, yet the chance of encountering a dead calm beyond the 45th parallel was not remote, and Himilco was generalizing from a single trip. As for sea-monsters and seaweed, whales were common at one time in the Bay of Biscay; ancient mariners spoke of algae far from the Sargasso (the large quantities washed up on the Channel Islands and the Breton coast were once used on the fields as fertilizer). If the sea appeared shallow to Himilco it was because the galleys hugged the gently-shelving bays and offshore sand-banks.

  The extent of Carthaginian exploration in the north is prob­lematical. There is no evidence that Himilco visited England or Ireland, but it would not be improbable. On the other hand, lack of Phoenician relics in the British isles, and of Punic settle­ment on the shores of Portugal and Galicia, suggests that the feasibility of importing tin directly from the north by sea was soon discounted. Despite intermediaries, the land routes were quicker and safer.

  Regardless of trade results, Hanno and Himilco stand among the great explorers, the dilators of the known world. Other Carthaginians, now anonymous, doubtless deserved equal fame. Familiar with tides that bemused the Romans centuries after­wards, Punic seamen braved an ocean few of their contem­poraries contemplated - none without shuddering.

  11:War Lessons

  For most of the 5th century, Carthage, preoccupied in Africa, remained aloof from the incessant feuds and revolutions which upset life in Sicily. Against Syracuse, the dominant tyranny in the east, a well-fortified Motya guarded Carthaginian interests in the west. Through the rest of the island, states of varying complexion struggled stubbornly, aristocracies and democ­racies, Ionians and Dorians, Siceliots and Sicels (the native Sicilians).

  Mindful of the costly fiasco at Himera, Carthaginian society, intrinsically unwarlike, was content with a passive role so long as its buffer on the near end of Sicily was undisturbed. Few of the mercantile families which governed Carthage prized a mil­itary tradition. Accumulation of wealth was their business, not its dissipation on expensive wars.

  Punic intervention when Sicilian affairs took a turn for the worse, placing Motya and the west in jeopardy, was reluctant, protracted diplomacy delaying armed initiative. The corollary, a marked impatience to recall and disband armies once they had been deployed successfully, precluded the strategic ex­ploitation of victories.

  Despite such militarily inhibiting tendencies, it had to be admitted that the affluence created by the system was itself a substantial asset when the sword was drawn. It bought the foreign troops whose services enabled Carthaginian life and business to proceed largely undisturbed at time of war. It bought valuable alliances. It bought disaffection in the forces of the enemy. Indeed, so far as Carthage was unlucky to em­erge at last with less than outright dominance, her renewed struggle in Sicily was to provide succinct testimony to the power of finance in war. As it happened, the Sicilian campaigns commencing at the end of the 5th century and proceeding throughout the 4th, may be said to have covered a great deal of territory without much changing Carthage's position in the island. The History of Diodorus, himself a Sicilian, recounts battles, depredations, plunder and atrocities with depressing monotony. From one extremity of the land to the other, campaigns rage. Tyrants rise, cities fall, martial heroes and miscreants come and go.

  And, after all, Syracuse holds the east; Carthage still holds her western ground.

  What indeed changed as war trundled back and forth was the Punic outlook. Inevitably, Carthage acquired an overlay of Greek tastes. A hundred years and more of conflicts, truces shifting alliances, could hardly fail to impress the ways of the island on the countless soldiers and diplomats who commuted from Africa. Carthage also acquired military technique. Re­peated fighting produced skilled officers, refined war proce­dures.

  That a community of traders from the balmy gulf of Tunis would ultimately alarm the hardened militarists of Rome into seeking its destruction had much to do with lessons learned in the Sicilian wars of the 4th century. From her Phoenician background Carthage could draw two military assets : the skill of her seamen, and an expert knowledge of building and attack­ing fortifications. Siege warfare, dating back to the earliest city foundations of Mesopotamia, evinced cogently by the Assyr­ians, was very much an Asian skill.

  In open warfare, as the Persians had learned to their cost against Greek infantry, eastern modes were less dependable. The so-called Sacred Band at the core of Carthage's motley armies achieved fame at first for its ornament. Clad in re­splendent costume and armour, feasting on gold and silver plate, battles commemorated by precious rings on their fingers, the affluent merchants' sons who filled its ranks aroused the wonder of Greek writers.

  But their fighting technique - at least in the early days - seems to have been obsolete. Accounts of numerous chariots transported from Carthage to Sicily suggest a concept of war­fare outdated by Greek tactics. If initial successes were dra­matic, they owed more to the expendability of innumerable hired troops than to any sophistication of Punic arms.

  * * *

  Briefly, the events which precipitated Carthaginian interven­tion in Sicily after so many years concerned the violent rivalry of two Siceliot states, Segesta and Selinus. Situated in the west of the island, close to Phoenician territory, both communities had been friendly with Carthage until military conflict between them jolted Selinus into alignment with the eastern power of Syracuse.

  Fear that Syracuse might establish a hold in the far west, endangering the one feature of northern strategy Carthage deemed sacrosanct, gave weight to Segesta's urgent calls for Punic aid - the more so since the Segestans were willing to make their city a dependency of Carthage. All the same, there was no hasty action. Only when diplomatic approaches to Selinus and Syracuse proved unsuccessful were the Carthagin­ians persuaded to intervene with armed force.

  The expedition was entrusted to the first Carthaginian of note to bear the name of Hannibal (Grace of Baal), the son of a Magonid called Gisco. Grandson of the Hamilcar who had died at Himera, Hannibal had a personal motive for revenge by war. Diodorus dubbed him 'a Greek-hater.'

  Hannibal landed in western Sicily in 410. Accompanied by a modest advance force, mainly of Libyans, he put a stop to Selinuntine aggression but was unable to attack Selinus itself until his full army of nearly 50,000 troops had gathered. The delay in fielding his Spaniards and Africans - a year had passed before all were assembled - demonstrated a major problem of reliance on mercenaries. Selinus was now besieged with grim efficiency.

  Raising wooden assault towers and wielding battering-rams equipped with metal heads, Hannibal's troops breached the walls a
nd poured into the city, robbing, raping and slaying indiscriminately. If this were a tragic concomitant of em­ploying 'barbaric' troops (the Greeks attributed the worst to the Iberians), their commander showed no remorse. Begged to ransom the citizens who had escaped death, Hannibal re­torted that those who could not defend their freedom must try their hands at slavery. As for the temples, shamelessly looted, the fall of the city was evidence, claimed the general, that these had been deserted by the gods.

  Joined by hordes of Sicels eager to witness Greek discom­fiture, the victorious army next marched to avenge the humili­ation of Himera. A small force of Syracusans had reinforced the city, but the magnitude of the assault was overwhelming. About half the population contrived to escape by sea; of the rest, the women and children were seized as prizes by the foreign troops. About 3,000 male prisoners were led to the spot where Hamilcar had met his death and butchered, on Hannibal's orders, as a sacrifice to his dead relative.

  Having perpetrated this odious deed and razed Himera, the Punic general abstemiously refrained from the further con­quests his success might have warranted, returning promptly to Carthage and loud applause. Laboriously recruited, his host dispersed in quick time. When circumstances soon demanded a new campaign, recruiting officers had to set out for foreign parts once again.

  Within a short time of its sack, Selinus had been occupied by a Syracusan leader named Hermocrates as a base for raids on Phoenician land. Amid mounting tension, both Carthage and Syracuse sought Sicilian and Italian allies, and appealed to Greece. Athens backed Carthage; Sparta, Syracuse. But the great states of Hellas were too fiercely engaged in their own fight to send material help west. Hannibal was commissioned to lead a second expedition, this time with the overthrow of Syracuse as its aim.

  Disembarking in southwest Sicily, the Punic army secured the region of Selinus then marched east toward Syracuse. The first place of size on the route was Acragas, a prosperous trad­ing city celebrated for its public buildings, the richness of its arts, its general opulence. Shutting their gates on the advanc­ing host, the Acragantines declined either to join Hannibal or pledge their neutrality. Independence was a local trait. A natural stronghold perched upon rocky slopes, Acragas in­spired its residents with confidence.

  The investment of the city is interesting for a number of phenomena featuring persistently in the wars:

  Pestilence. A danger commonly associated with the con­ditions of ancient and medieval field camps, epidemic was perhaps the most crucial of Carthage's enemies in Sicily. Diodorus described the symptoms as dysentry, delirium, swelling of the throat and body pustules - conceivably typhoid. Though not as disastrous at Acragas as elsewhere, the disease killed Hannibal early in the siege leaving his lieutenant, Himilco, in command.

  Corruption. While chronic inter-state and internecine rivalries among the Siceliots advises caution in accepting charges of treason and bribery too readily, the frequency with which they are imputed against politicians and generals suggests the adept use of Carthaginian wealth in subverting the opposing cause.

  In a bid by Syracuse to relieve Acragas, a powerful force from the eastern city defeated a Carthaginian contingent a short distance from the beleaguered walls. For a moment, the town garrison had a chance to sally effectively against a shaken enemy. The failure of the Acragantine captains to do so raised accusations of bribery against them, and four were stoned to death by impassioned compatriots.

  Religious attitudes. Hannibal's claim at Selinus that his victory indicated the abandonment of the city by its gods was unexceptional logic in antiquity, certainly among ancient generals. Divine commitment to martial causes was vital to participants, who watched for signs of holy displeasure with fearful eyes. At Acragas, a cemetery outside the city was used to provide material for the siege until one of the tombs was struck by lightning. Immediately, Himilco stopped the desecra­tion and offered a sacrifice to the gods.

  When disease among the troops intensified, it was actually deemed provident to build a temple in Carthage to honour Demeter and Persephone, Greek deities much favoured in Sicily and thought likely to have had a hand in the pestilence.

  The fall of Acragas, finally abandoned by its citizens in December 406, brought a more tangible aspect of Greek cre­ativity to Carthage. Before the vast amount of booty was shared within Himilco's army, the most valuable works, of art were set aside for Africa, to be greatly admired by the Carthag­inians. The new year promised even better prizes. To the east of Acragas lay Gela, poorly fortified, then Himilco's real ob­jective, Syracuse.

  12: Dionysius

  The fall of Acragas, producing furore at Syracuse, tossed power to a remarkable demagogue named Dionysius. He had begun his career as a clerk in a public office; he was to rule Syracuse for thirty-eight years, becoming not only the most powerful of Siceliots but a force in Greek Italy, indeed throughout the Greek world.

  A former adherent of Hermocrates, Dionysius had distin­guished himself in subordinate rank during the attempt to save Acragas, a campaign which brought recrimination on the Syracusan generals and enabled him to make his move. It was a classic bid for tyrannical authority, based on popular anxieties, exploitation of class resentment and the ruthless sacrifice of colleagues.

  Simultaneously boasting humble roots and seeking rich sup­port, Dionysius assured his election to the board of generals by fervent speeches against the discredited commanders. Then, encouraging fear of Carthaginian invasion, he accused his fel­lows on the new board of negligence, calling for an overall commander. Invested with supreme powers as a crisis measure, Dionysius never looked back.

  At first, his position was precarious. Himilco had advanced on Gela at the end of the winter; only prompt reinforcement could save the town. Dionysius marched with a hastily as­sembled army of some 30,000 troops, including Italiots (Italian Greeks) and non-Syracusan Siceliots, accompanied along the coast by a protective fleet.

  Ambitiously, he planned to attack Himilco's position west of Gela in a multiple operation, part amphibious, part by land. The synchronization of assaults proved too difficult for unsophisticated units which, approaching the foe in succession, were defeated in detail. Dionysius, in Gela when he learned that his tactics had misfired, withdrew toward Syracuse amid a stream of Gelan refugees.

  Only the loyalty of his professional guards now spared him the fate that had served the generals after Acragas. Aristocratic units of his cavalry, reaching Syracuse before him, took con­trol and denounced his dictatorship. But they underestimated his determination. Fighting his way into the city, Dionysius overpowered the dissidents. By conceding terms favourable to Carthage, he obtained Himilco's recognition of his govern­ment.

  The Carthaginian returned to Africa in triumph. Apart from the original dominion in western Sicily, Carthage had gained Segesta, Selinus, Acragas, Gela, the remains of Himera and other places, as dependencies, securing the separation from Syracuse of every other state on the island. Never had her Sicilian empire been greater, her treasury richer in booty. Never had a western power imposed itself with such authority on Greek affairs.

  But the price was not negligible. For a long time the virus from Acragas, carried back on the troopships, plagued Carthage with wholesale death. For Dionysius, her grim preoccupation meant a perfect chance to renege on the peace terms. Building a massive stronghold to house his hired guards at Syracuse, he was soon oppressing his Siceliot neighbours, subjugating their cities and territories.

  Beset by epidemic, the mercantile families which governed Carthage faltered at spending wealth and effort to protect the non-aligned Greeks. Procrastination proved more costly. In­exorably, Dionysius consolidated his eastern power, filling cities with his hirelings, importing Italian troops, forcibly shift­ing populations he did not trust. In Syracuse, a puppet govern­ment gave formal approval to the tyrant's schemes. By 402, he was preparing openly for major war. The bastions of Syracuse were strengthened, its navy enlarged by 200 ships. Craftsmen were imported to make armour a
nd weapons. Four years later, his plans complete, Dionysius pro­claimed Carthage the enemy of all Greeks and called for the liberation of Punic Sicily. It was a popular message. Deluded by the prospect of Dionysian 'freedom,' the Siceliots hailed the end of dependence on Carthage.

  At the head of the largest army remembered in Sicily, Dionysius marched straight across the island to Motya. Every­where in his path, Greek populations, recalling Hannibal's atrocities, turned on the Carthaginians in their midst, slaughter­ing, torturing. At Motya, an alarmed garrison destroyed its causeway, resolved on desperate resistance. Months would pass before Carthage, now recruiting, could bring relief.

  Dionysius, versed in Punic siege techniques, did not intend to wait. Building a mole to replace the demolished causeway, the tyrant hoisted missile troops on wooden towers to drive the defenders from their parapets while his miners and bat­terers worked below. Diodorus described the furious street- fighting which ensued within the breached citadel as the Phoenicians, 'their hope of living abandoned,' sold their lives expensively. The community was massacred.

  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.