the two major powers on the island.
In 345, the Carthaginians involved themselves in Syracusan politics by supporting Hicetas, the tyrant of Leontini, in his efforts to gain control of Syracuse. During his campaign, Hicetas invited the Carthaginians to take over Syracuse, although Plutarch (Tim. 17) notes that they preferred to avoid battle with Timoleon, who had been sent from Corinth to help the demos end the ongoing political infighting. Timoleon, however, needing money to pay his mercenaries, invaded Carthaginian territory and convinced many Greek and native communities in western Sicily to change sides (Diod. Sic. 16.73). The Carthaginians then recruited a large army and crossed over to Sicily (Diod. Sic. 16.77.4). They confronted Timoleon and his troops in the territory of Acragas, near the river Crimisus. Despite the numerical superiority of the Carthaginians, Timoleon gained another victory after severe weather hampered his opponents (Diod. Sic. 16.80). Afraid of further military operations, the Carthaginians requested a new peace treaty that established the river Halycus as the border between the Syracusan and the Carthaginian spheres of influence (Diod. Sic. 16.82.3). This agreement led to nearly three decades without major conflicts between the two parties.
Hostilities resumed only under the rule of the Syracusan tyrant Agathocles. He attempted to gain control of eastern Sicily by subduing both autonomous settlements and Greek cities granted freedom in the treaty of 338, and upset the balance of power on the island. Diplomacy having failed, Carthage made war on behalf of the Syracusan exiles who had fled to Acragas during Agathocles’ military coup in 316 (Diod. Sic. 19.103.1). Agathocles had renewed the peace with Carthage two years after that, in 314, but responded by besieging Acragas, a startling act of war. The Carthaginian fleet thereupon sailed into the harbor of Syracuse and set up camp on Mount Ecnomus, on the western banks of the river Himera (Diod. Sic. 19.108.1). In a counter-maneuver, Agathocles occupied Gela and pitched camp in a stronghold on the opposite side of the river. He attacked the Carthaginian camp and inflicted severe losses, but was forced to retreat to Gela after Carthaginian reinforcements arrived from Africa (Diod. Sic. 19.109). Hamilcar menaced Syracuse and convinced many cities, including Camarina, Leontini, and Messana, to come over to his side. In desperation, Agathocles sailed to Africa and attacked Carthage, a first for the Greeks, while Hamilcar and his troops were besieging Syracuse (Diod. Sic. 20.13.4).
With the element of surprise on his side, Agathocles raided the African countryside and camped near Carthage. Internal conflict and the absence of Hamilcar, enfeebled the city’s defenses. Agathocles thus conquered numerous cities within the Carthaginian sphere of influence, or convinced them to change sides. Hamilcar, still besieging Syracuse, died in an ambush in 309.
In the second year of his campaign, Agathocles returned to Sicily to fight his political enemies (see the subsection on Tyrannies and imperialist aspirations) and left his son Archagathus in charge of the African campaign (Diod. Sic. 20.55.5). The Carthaginians exploited this shift and launched an attack on the inexperienced general, who suffered a disastrous defeat. Agathocles returned to Africa in 307, but failed to retrieve the situation and fled, abandoning most of his troops and even his sons (Diod. Sic. 20.69). Upon his return to Sicily, he concluded a peace mostly reinstating the terms of the 314 treaty. When he was planning to violate this treaty in 288 with a new attack on Carthage, he fell ill and died at the age of 72.
Fighting between Syracuse and Carthage continued, as the Carthaginians haunted the Sicilian coast and even raided Syracusan territory a decade later. The Sicilian Greeks appealed to the Epirot King Pyrrhus, who at that time was waging war against the Romans in southern Italy.12 During his short intervention in Sicily, he won a victory at Messana and nearly succeeded in driving the Carthaginians out of Sicily. His refusal to negotiate peace, however, and his injurious behavior toward the Sicilian Greeks, quickly alienated them (Plut. Pyrrh. 23.5). Pyrrhus gladly left the island in 275, and the status quo ante supervened. The Carthaginians continued to roam the island and even collaborated with King Hiero II of Syracuse when Rome came to the aid of the Mamertines (Polyb. 1.11). The resulting First Punic War between Rome and Carthage was fought nearly exclusively on Sicily. In the treaty of 241, Carthage agreed to evacuate Sicily and to refrain from further action against Syracuse and its allies.13 Like Athens before it, Carthage had dropped out of Sicilian politics.
Rome
Rome came to Sicily in 264 when the Mamertines asked for help in fending off the attacks of Syracuse and Carthage against Messana, which they controlled. After liberating Messana, the commander Appius Claudius Caudex planned to besiege Syracuse, but King Hiero II agreed to pay a fine and to supply the Roman army during their following confrontation with Carthage. Although no literary source speaks of Sicilian participation during this, the First Punic War, allied locals certainly provided Rome manpower, logistics, and technical support. In western Sicily, many Greek foundations under Carthaginian hegemony were sacked and destroyed by the Romans, including Acragas, Selinus, and Heraclea Minoa. The treaty ending the First Punic War made them Roman subjects and left Syracuse autonomous (Polyb. 1.62.8). In 227, Roman praetor Gaius Flaminius was entrusted with the administration of Sicily.
A pro-Carthaginian faction in Syracuse, however, convinced the new king, Hieronymus, to ally himself with Carthage, at war with Rome since 218 (Polyb. 7.3.9). Although King Hieronymus and his allies fell victim to a palace intrigue (Diod. Sic. 26.15), the Romans prepared to conquer this last independent piece of Sicily. In 214, they attacked by sea and land. The powerful fortifications of Syracuse withstood this onslaught and the new battle equipment developed by Archimedes bolstered the defenders. The siege lasted two years before the Romans gained the upper hand (Polyb. 8.3–7). After they received news concerning a Syracusan festival to Artemis, they climbed the outer walls during the celebrations and thus improved their position.14 Seizing the rest of the city took several months more, and ended in the partial destruction of its buildings, the murder or enslavement of its citizens, and the transfer of its treasures to Rome (Polyb. 9.10). Under praetor Lucius Cincius Alimentus, Syracuse was incorporated into the Roman province of Sicilia.15
Internecine Conflicts
Our sources attest to much domestic upheaval and civil unrest in Sicily from the Archaic period onward. Syracuse alone suffered at least 27 episodes of social strife between the mid-seventh and the mid-third century. Several sources mention the expulsion of citizen groups, without giving the reasons that led to their removal. Thucydides, for example, says the Syracusan clan of the Myletidae took part in the foundation of Himera, without noting the context of their departure (6.5.1). Tyranny began on Sicily with the coup of the general Panaetius against the aristocrats of Leontini in 608 (Polyaen. 5.47). The rise to power of the infamous Phalaris of Acragas three decades later involved the killing of many citizens and the abduction of women and children (Polyaen. 5.1). These and other struggles for or against one-man rule were a leitmotif of the pre-Roman, Greek period in Sicily. Sieges and mass-killings were frequent. Agathocles, with his private army of allies and mercenaries and his massacre of leading aristocrats, was the last of this breed (Polyaen. 5.3).
Factions and civil groups conducted violent actions, too. The demos expelled the landowning elite, or Gamoroi, from Syracuse around 490 (Hdt. 7.155). They achieved this goal only by mobilizing the landowners’ slaves in revolt against their masters (FGrH 566 F8a), so the struggle for a democratic regime became linked to economic and social emancipation. Economic motives often caused discontent and upheaval, especially rivalries over land. The dispute between the demos and aristocracy of Leontini concerning land distribution after the peace of Gela in 424 can serve as an example (Thuc. 5.4).
Civil unrest also resulted from diverging loyalties, as evidenced by Acragas, where pro-Syracusan factions were expelled both in 413, during the Athenian expedition (Thuc. 7.50), and in 394, after a defeat of Dionysius at Tauromenium (Diod. Sic. 14.88.5). Policies of displacement also led to conflicts, as evident after the fall of the Deinomenids in the mid-fifth century, when old and new citizens of Syracuse argued over the right to hold public office (Diod. Sic. 11.72).
Foreign mercenaries, especially those who helped tyrants win and retain power, played a major role in these conflicts. In Syracuse, mercenaries to whom Gelon had granted