Destroy Carthage Page 8

  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.

  13: 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 v
anguard. 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.

  Timoleon died in 337. For twenty years and more there was relative peace in Sicily. Distantly, Alexander blazed east toward the Indus; in the west, an inferior but ambitious captain strove for power at Syracuse. Agathocles, appearing first as a soldier pledged to democracy, took the classic path via popular revol­ution to dictatorship. Soon, emulating Dionysius, the new tyrant led his forces west.

  But Agathocles lacked support beyond Syracuse. Provoked by his blatant aggression in 311, a Carthaginian expedition was quickly joined in Sicily by a swarm of native and Siceliot allies, routing the tyrant's army on the river Himeras. The Punic commander, Hamilcar, son of Gisco, was a popular am­bassador. One by one, the Greek cities of the island took his side against Agathocles.

  At this point, rather than await the onslaught of Hamilcar and most of Sicily, the tyrant conceived an astounding stroke: a counter-invasion of Africa to divert the Carthaginian army before it could overwhelm Syracuse. It meant weakening his forces in the city, but Carthage and her Tunisian provinces were weaker in garrisons. Coastal attack was outside their experience. That the beleaguered Agathocles should venture so far seemed to Carthage unthinkable. He lacked even a strong fleet.

  Indeed, when he actually landed it was widely believed that the entire Carthaginian expedition must have perished in some appalling catastrophe.

  Agathocles, having packed all the troops he could spare in a few dozen vessels, and dodged the Punic navy, reached Africa at Cap Bon. Here, compounding the audacity, he promptly burnt his ships. Probably, he had too few men to leave a guard on them. At all events, his army was left no alternative, what­ever its fears, but to advance with him. The going was en­couraging.

  'Barns were crammed with everything conducive to good living,' wrote Diodorus. 'Sheep and cattle grazed the plains, and there were pastures full of horses.'

  Horses were important, for Agathocles had brought none with him. Now, with cavalry to support his hoplites, he set about the countryside around Carthage. If Carthaginian un- preparedness was his chief fortune, he lacked neither boldness nor energy. In the time before his enterprise at last collapsed, Agathocles enlisted several native tribes to his banner, captured by Greek account 200 'cities' (mostly villages, in fact, though he took Hadrumetum, Thapsus and Utica) and fought a number of successful engagements.

  Carthage, with most of her troops away in Sicily, was left with untrained warriors. Apart from her early confusion, a crisis of military leadership helped the invader. The two gen­erals designated to repulse Agathocles, Hanno and Bomilcar, were bitter enemies, or they might have scored an early victory. As it was, the first battle was handed somewhat tamely to the presumptuous Greek. Unable to agree on tactics, Hanno led the right wing of the Carthaginian force in a fierce attack; Bomilcar held back, anxious to preserve his troops.

  The resulting death of Hanno and strategic withdrawal of Bomilcar left the latter with supreme command at Carthage and an ambition more pressing than the destruction of Agath- ocles. Projecting crisis on crisis, Bomilcar staged an armed coup. Diodorus recalled the scene:

  Having reviewed the soldiers in the New City (the sub­urbs ?), a short distance from Old Carthage, Bomilcar dismissed the majority, keeping back those in the plot . . . then he proclaimed himself the government. His men were deployed through the streets in five units, killing and suppressing re­sistance. In the confusion, the Carthaginians first assumed the city had been betrayed (to the invaders) but, perceiving the truth, the young men banded together against Bomil­car . . . Many Carthaginians occupied the tall buildings which surrounded the main square, showering missiles on the rebels below. At last, with many losses, the rebels formed close ranks and forced their way under fire through the narrow streets back to the New City, where they took position on a hill. But Carthage was now in arms against them . . .

  Thus the coup failed. With the rebels pinned down, the citizens offered them amnesty 'in view of the external dangers to the city.' But Bomilcar himself was put to death. The re­sponse of the people to a grave and dangerous situation, fraught with complexity, was notably resolute. Time would show that it was not an untypical reaction.

  Agathocles, having failed to capitalize the episode, main­tained his campaign until his troops grew weary and mutinous, when he fled Africa for the unbreached bulwarks of Syracuse. It is doubtful if Carthage, with sea command and her massive walls, had been directly imperilled by the Greek assault. Nevertheless, her economic losses had been considerable. Characteristically, she chose peace to the expense of pursuing the destruction of Syracuse.

  One Greek antagonist of stature remained in Punic history. Pyrrus, king of Epirus in northern Greece, was a relative by marriage of Alexander, and a warrior of scarcely lower repute,

  Hannibal Barca later rated them together among the world's greatest generals. The monarch's intention, to succeed in the west as Alexander had succeeded in the east, was not im­plausible. He possessed, at the outset, an army of 25,000, and expected to swell it with Italiots and Siceliots.

  The scheme, as Plutarch told it, was to conquer Italy, pro­ceed to seize Sicily -'then who would not go on to Africa and Carthage?'

  But Pyrrus was born too late for such an enterprise. By now, Etruscan power had been superseded by that of the Romans, a force already of huge confidence, its dominions spreading far to the Italian south. Pyrrus won battles against them (280 and 279), but so rugged were the Romans, so costly the victories, that he abandoned the struggle and, in 278, sailed to Sicily.

  He found the island once more infested with petty Siceliot despots; yearning for a second Timoleon. Hailed as a saviour by the Greeks, he carried all before him until Carthage dug her toes in at Lilybaeum. Built since the fall of Motya, the stronghold incorporated everything the Carthaginians knew about defensive works. Here, after a triumphant passage through the island, Pyrrus ran headlong into unyielding walls; here, prestige dented, he languished until the Siceliots grew tired of his demands for men, money and sacrifice. When the saviour resorted to extortion, they began to drift to the Carthage camp.

  In 276, a chastened Pyrrus withdrew his force from Sicily. As a farewell gesture, the Punic fleet fell in with his transports and scattered them. So vanished the vision of Greek empire in the west.

  14: Bodies Politic

  By the 3rd century b.c., Carthage was accepted by ancient authors as a member of the exclusive club they distinguished as civilized: a mainly Hellenic body in a world of 'barbarians.' Too opulent for some tastes, too exotic for others, the white city on the shore of the dark continent possessed the ultimate sesame in her constitution. Contemporary thought was much con­cerned with systems of government. Whatever her rivals held against Carthage, there was wide agreement that her system was excellent.

  Eratosthenes had no doubt that it entitled her people to Greek esteem. Aristotle quoted a general opinion that 'in many re­spects it is superior to all other
s'- a judgement with which, on the whole, he was in accord. 'A State is well-ordered when the commons are steadily loyal to the constitution, when no civil conflict worth mentioning has occurred, and when no one has succeeded in forming a tyranny.' Less pleasing to the philos­opher was the importance in Carthaginian government of great wealth.

  Details are scanty, but Greek observers defined the constitu­tion of Carthage as a mixture of three elements familiar in their own regimes: the aristocratic, represented in what can be termed the senate, or deliberative body; the democratic, re­presented in popular assemblies; and, at least during much of the city's development, some form of monarchical element.

  Aristotle, writing in the 4th century, spoke of kings at Carthage. Hamilcar who died at Himera, Hanno the colonizer and explorer, and Himilco. Son of Gisco, among others, were described in Greek accounts by the word basileus, or king. But they were not monarchs in a full sense. Indeed, they were compared expressly with the kings of Sparta, survivors of an older age whose powers had withered. As at Sparta, Carthagin­ian kings acted as generals in many wars. Unlike their Spartan counterparts, they were elected.