Chapter LXXXII (2)

These conquests of Dionysius, achieved mainly by corrupting the generals of Naxos and Katana, were of serious moment, and spread so much alarm among the Sikels of the interior, that Archonides, the Sikel prince of Erbita, thought it prudent to renounce his town and soil; withdrawing to a new site beyond the Nebrode mountains, on the northern coast of the island, more out of the reach of Syracusan attack. Here, with his mercenary soldiers and with a large portion of his people who voluntarily accompanied him, he founded the town of Alæsa.[1000]

[1000] Diodor. xiv, 16. This Archonides may probably have been
son of the Sikel prince Archonides, who, having taken active part
as an ally of Nikias and the Athenian invaders against Syracuse,
died just before Gylippus reached Sicily (Thucyd. vii, 1).

Strengthened at home by these successes abroad, the sanguine despot of Syracuse was stimulated to still greater enterprises. He resolved to commence aggressive war with the Carthaginians. But against such formidable enemies, large preparations were indispensable, defensive as well as offensive, before his design could be proclaimed. First, he took measures to ensure the defensibility of Syracuse against all contingencies. Five Grecian cities on the south of the island, one of them the second in Sicily, had already undergone the deplorable fate of being sacked by a Carthaginian host; a calamity, which might possibly be in reserve for Syracuse also, especially if she herself provoked a war, unless the most elaborate precautions were taken to render a successful blockade impossible.

Now the Athenian blockade under Nikias had impressed valuable lessons on the mind of every Syracusan. The city had then been well-nigh blocked up by a wall of circumvallation carried from sea to sea; which was actually more than half completed, and would have been entirely completed, had the original commander been Demosthenes instead of Nikias. The prodigious importance of the slope of Epipolæ to the safety of the city had been demonstrated by the most unequivocal evidence. In my seventh volume, I have already described the site of Syracuse and the relation of this slope to the outer city called Achradina. Epipolæ was a gentle ascent west of Achradina. It was bordered, along both the north side and the south side, by lines of descending cliff, cut down precipitously, about twenty feet deep in their lowest part. These lines of cliff nearly converged at the summit of the slope, called Euryalus; leaving a narrow pass or road between elevated banks, which communicated with the country both north and west of Syracuse. Epipolæ thus formed a triangle upon an inclined plane, sloping upward from its base, the outer wall of Achradina, to its apex at Euryalus; and having its two sides formed, the one by the northern, the other by the southern, line of cliffs. This apex formed a post of the highest importance, commanding the narrow road which approached Epipolæ from its western extremity or summit, and through which alone it was easy for an army to get on the declivity of Epipolæ, since the cliffs on each side were steep, though less steep on the northern side than on the southern.[1001] Unless an enemy acquired possession of this slope, Syracuse could never be blocked up from the northern sea at Trogilus to the Great Harbor; an enterprise, which Nikias and the Athenians were near accomplishing, because they first surprised from the northward the position of Euryalus, and from thence poured down upon the slope of Epipolæ. I have already described, in my seventh volume, how the arrival of Gylippus deprived them of superiority in the field, at a time when their line of circumvallation was already half finished,—having been carried from the centre of Epipolæ southward down to Great Harbor, and being partially completed from the same point across the northern half of Epipolæ to the sea at Trogilus; how he next intercepted their farther progress, by carrying out, from the outer wall of Achradina, a cross wall traversing their intended line of circumvallation and ending at the northern cliff; how he finally erected a fort or guard-post on the summit of Euryalus, which he connected with the cross-wall just mentioned by a single wall of junction carried down the slope of Epipolæ.[1002]

[1001] See the Dissertation of Saverio Cavallari,—Zur Topographie
von Syrakus (Göttingen, 1845), p. 22.

[1002] See, for a farther exposition of these points, my account
of the siege of Syracuse by the Athenians, Vol. VII, ch. lix, lx.

Both the danger which Syracuse had then incurred, and the means whereby it had been obviated, were fresh in the recollection of Dionysius. Since the Athenian siege, the Syracusans may perhaps have preserved the fort erected by Gylippus near Euryalus; but they had pulled down the wall of junction, the cross-wall, and the outer wall of protection constructed between the arrival of Nikias in Sicily and his commencement of the siege, enclosing the sacred precinct of Apollo Temenites. The outer city of Syracuse was thus left with nothing but the wall of Achradina, with its two suburbs or excrescences, Tychê and Neapolis. Dionysius now resolved to provide for Syracuse a protection substantially similar to that contrived by Gylippus, yet more comprehensive, elaborate, and permanent. He carried out an outer line of defence, starting from the sea near the port called Trogilus, enclosing the suburb called Tychê (which adjoined Achradina to the north-west), and then ascending westward, along the brink of the northern cliff of Epipolæ, to the summit of that slope at Euryalus. The two extremities thus became connected together,—not as in the time of Gylippus,[1003] by a single cross-wall carried out from the city-wall to the northern cliff, and then joined at an angle by another single wall descending the slope of Epipolæ from Euryalus, but,—by one continuous new line bordering the northern cliff down to the sea. And the new line, instead of being a mere single wall, was now built under the advice of the best engineers, with lofty and frequent towers interspersed throughout its length, to serve both as means of defence and as permanent quarters for soldiers. Its length was thirty stadia (about three and a half English miles); it was constructed of large stones carefully hewn, some of them four feet in length.[1004] The quarries at hand supplied abundant materials, and for the labor necessary, Dionysius brought together all the population of the city and its neighborhood, out of whom he selected sixty thousand of the most effective hands, to work on the wall. Others were ordered to cut the stones in the quarry, while six thousand teams of oxen were put in harness to draw them to the spot. The work was set out by furlongs and by smaller spaces of one hundred feet each, to regiments of suitable number, each under the direction of an overseer.[1005]

[1003] Thucyd. vi, 75.

[1004] Diodor. xiv, 18. λίθων τετραπόδων. The stones may have
been cubes of four feet; but this does not certainly appear.

[1005] Diodor. xiv, 18.

As yet, we have heard little about Dionysius except acts of fraud, violence, and spoliation, for the purpose of establishing his own dominion over Syracuse, and aggrandizing himself by new conquests on the borders. But this new fortification was a work of different import. Instead of being, like his forts and walls in Ortygia, a guardhouse both of defence and aggression merely for himself against the people of Syracuse,—it was a valuable protection to the people, and to himself along with them, against foreign besiegers. It tended much to guarantee Syracuse from those disasters which had so recently befallen Agrigentum and the other cities. Accordingly, it was exceeding popular among the Syracusans, and produced between them and Dionysius a sentiment of friendship and harmony such as had not before been seen. Every man labored at the work not merely with good will, but with enthusiasm; while the despot himself displayed unwearied zeal, passing whole days on the spot, and taking part in all the hardship and difficulty. He showed himself everywhere amidst the mass, as an unguarded citizen, without suspicion or reserve, in marked contrast with the harshness of his previous demeanor,[1006] proclaiming rewards for the best and most rapid workmen; he also provided attendance or relief for those whose strength gave way. Such was the emulation thus inspired, that the numbers assembled, often toiling by night as well as by day, completed the whole wall in the space of twenty days. The fort at Euryalus, which formed the termination of this newly-constructed line of wall, is probably not to be understood as comprised within so short a period of execution; at least in its complete consummation. For the defences provided at this fort (either now or at a later period) were prodigious in extent as well as elaborate in workmanship; and the remains of them exhibit, even to modern observers, the most complete specimen preserved to us of ancient fortification.[1007] To bring them into such a condition must have occupied a longer time than twenty days. Even as to the wall, perhaps, twenty days is rather to be understood as indicating the time required for the essential continuity of its line, leaving towers, gates, etc., to be added afterwards.

[1006] Diodor. xiv, 18. Καθόλου δὲ ἀποθέμενος τὸ τῆς ἀρχῆς βάρος,
ἰδιώτην αὑτὸν ἀπεδείκνυε, etc.

Compare cap. 45 and cap. 47—μισοῦντες τὸ βάρος τῆς τῶν Φοινίκων
ἐπικρατείας, etc.

[1007] According to the testimony of Saverio Cavallari, the
architect under whose directions the excavations were made in
1839, whereby these remains were first fully disclosed (Zur
Topographie von Syrakus, p. 21).

To provide defence for Syracuse against a besieging army, however, was only a small part of the extensive schemes of Dionysius. What he meditated was aggressive war against the Carthaginians; for which purpose, he not only began to accumulate preparations of every kind on the most extensive scale, but also modified his policy both towards the Syracusans and towards the other Sicilian Greeks.

Towards the Syracusans his conduct underwent a material change. The cruelty and oppression which had hitherto marked his dominion was discontinued; he no longer put men to death, or sent them into banishment, with the same merciless hand as before. In place of such tyranny, he now substituted comparative mildness, forbearance, and conciliation.[1008] Where the system had before been so fraught with positive maltreatment to many and alarm to all, the mitigation of it must have been sensibly as well as immediately felt. And when we make present to our minds the relative position of Dionysius and the Syracusans, we shall see that the evil inflicted by his express order by no means represented the whole amount of evil which they suffered. He occupied the impregnable fortress of Ortygia, with the entire harbor, docks, and maritime means of the city. The numerous garrison in his pay, and devoted to him, consisted in great part of barbaric or non-Hellenic soldiers and of liberated slaves, probably also non-Hellenic. The Syracusans resident in the outer city and around were not only destitute of the means of defensive concert and organization, but were also disarmed. For these mercenaries either pay was to be provided from the contributions of the citizens, or lands from their properties; for them, and for other partisans also, Dionysius had enforced spoliations and transfers of land and house-property by wholesale.[1009] Now, while the despot himself was inflicting tyrannical sentences for his own purposes, we may be sure that these men, the indispensable instruments of his tyranny, would neither of themselves be disposed to respect the tranquillity of the other citizens, nor be easily constrained to do so. It was not, therefore, merely from the systematic misrule of the chief that the Syracusans had to suffer, but also from the insolence and unruly appetites of the subordinates. And accordingly they would be doubly gainers, when Dionysius, from anxiety to attack the Carthaginians, thought it prudent to soften the rigor of his own proceedings; since his example, and in case of need his interference, would restrict the license of his own partisans. The desire for foreign conquest made it now his interest to conciliate some measure of goodwill from the Syracusans; or at least to silence antipathies which might become embarrassing if they broke out in the midst of a war. And he had in this case the advantage of resting on another antipathy, powerful and genuine in their minds. Hating as well as fearing Carthage, the Syracusans cordially sympathized in the aggressive schemes of Dionysius against her; which held out a prospect of relief from the tyranny under which they groaned, and some chance of procuring a restoration of the arms snatched from them.[1010]

[1008] Diodor. xiv, 45. Ἀπετίθετο γὰρ ἤδη τὸ πικρὸν τῆς
τυραννίδος, καὶ μεταβαλλόμενος εἰς ἐπιείκειαν, φιλανθρωπότερον
ἦρχε τῶν ὑποτεταγμένων, οὔτε φονεύων, οὔτε φυγάδας ποιῶν,
~καθάπερ εἰώθει~.

[1009] Diodor. xiv, 7.

[1010] Diodor. xiv, 45.

Towards the Sicilian Greeks, also, the conduct of Dionysius was mainly influenced by his anti-Carthaginian projects, which made him eager to put aside, or at least to defer, all possibilities of war in other quarters. The inhabitants of Rhegium, on the Italian side of the Strait of Messina, had recently manifested a disposition to attack him. They were of common Chalkidic origin with Naxos and Katana, the two cities which Dionysius had recently conquered and enslaved. Sixteen years before, when the powerful Athenian armament visited Sicily with the ostensible view of protecting the Chalkidic cities against Syracuse, the Rhegines in spite of their fellowship of race, had refused the invitation of Nikias[1011] to lend assistance, being then afraid of Athens. But subsequent painful experience had taught them, that to residents in or near Sicily, Syracuse was the more formidable enemy of the two. The ruin of Naxus and Katana, with the great extension of Syracusan dominion northward, had filled them with apprehension from Dionysius, similar to the fears of Carthage, inspired to the Syracusans themselves by the disasters of Agrigentum and Gela. Anxious to revenge their enslaved kinsmen, the Rhegines projected an attack upon Dionysius before his power should become yet more formidable; a resolution, in which they were greatly confirmed by the instigations of the Syracusan exiles (now driven from Ætna and the other neighboring cities to Rhegium), confident in their assurances that insurrection would break out against Dionysius at Syracuse, so soon as any foreign succor should be announced as approaching. Envoys were sent across the strait to Messênê, soliciting coöperation against Dionysius, upon the urgent plea that the ruin of Naxus and Katana could not be passed over, either in generosity or in prudence, by neighbors on either side of the strait. These representations made so much impression on the generals of Messênê, that without consulting the public assembly, they forthwith summoned the military force of the city, and marched along with the Rhegines towards the Syracusan frontier,—six thousand Rhegine and four thousand Messenian hoplites,—six hundred Rhegine and four hundred Messenian horsemen,—with fifty Rhegine triremes. But when they reached the frontiers of the Messenian territory, a large portion of the soldiers refused to follow their generals farther. A citizen named Laomedon headed the opposition, contending that the generals had no authority to declare war without a public vote of the city, and that it was imprudent to attack Dionysius unprovoked. Such was the effect of these remonstrances, that the Messenian soldiers returned back to their city; while the Rhegines, believing themselves to be inadequate to the enterprise single handed, went home also.[1012]

[1011] Thucyd. vi, 46.

[1012] Diodor. xiv, 40.

Apprised of the attack meditated, Dionysius had already led his troops to defend the Syracusan frontier. But he now reconducted them back to Syracuse, and listened favorably to propositions for peace which speedily reached him, from Rhegium and Messênê.[1013] He was anxious to conciliate them for the present, at all price, in order that the Carthaginians, when he came to execute his plans, might find no Grecian allies to coöperate with them in Sicily. He acquired an influence in Messênê, by making to the city large concessions of conterminous territory; on which side of the border, or how acquired, we do not know. He farther endeavored to open an intimate connection with Rhegium by marrying a Rhegine wife; with which view he sent a formal message to the citizens, asking permission to contract such an alliance, accompanied with a promise to confer upon them important benefits, both in territorial aggrandizement and in other ways. After a public debate, the Rhegines declined his proposition. The feeling in their city was decidedly hostile to Dionysius, as the recent destroyer of Naxus and Katana; and it appears that some of the speakers expressed themselves with contemptuous asperity, remarking that the daughter of the public executioner was the only fit wife for him.[1014] Taken by itself, the refusal would be sufficiently galling to Dionysius. But when coupled with such insulting remarks (probably made in public debate in the presence of his own envoys, for it seems not credible that the words should have been embodied in the formal reply or resolution of the assembly[1015]), it left the bitterest animosity; a feeling, which we shall hereafter find in full operation.

[1013] Diodor. xiv, 40.

[1014] Diodor. xiv, 44, 106, 107.

[1015] Diodorus, when he first mentions the answer, does not give
this remark as comprised in it; though he afterwards alludes to
it as having been _said_ to be (φασὶ) so comprised (xix, 44-107).

Refused at Rhegium, Dionysius sent to prefer a similar request, with similar offers, at the neighboring city of Lokri; where it was favorably entertained. It is remarkable that Aristotle comments upon this acquiescence of the Lokrians as an act of grave imprudence, and as dictated only by the anxiety of the principal citizens, in an oligarchical government, to seek for aggrandizement to themselves out of such an alliance. The request would not have been granted (Aristotle observes) either in a democracy or in a well-regulated aristocracy. The marital connection now contracted by Dionysius with a Lokrian female, Doris, the daughter of a citizen of distinction named Xenetus, produced as an ultimate consequence the overthrow of the oligarchy of Lokri.[1016] And even among the Lokrians, the request was not granted without opposition. A citizen named Aristeides (one of the companions of Plato), whose daughter Dionysius had solicited in marriage, returned for answer that he would rather see her dead than united to a despot. In revenge for this bitter reply, Dionysius caused the sons of Aristeides to be put to death.[1017]

[1016] Aristot. Politic. v, 6, 7. Ἔτι διὰ τὸ πάσας τὰς
ἀριστοκρατικὰς πολιτείας ὀλιγαρχικὰς εἶναι, μᾶλλον πλεονεκτοῦσιν
οἱ γνώριμοι· οἷον καὶ ἐν Λακεδαίμονι εἰς ὀλίγους αἱ οὐσίαι
ἔρχονται, καὶ ἔξεστι ποιεῖν ὅτι ἂν θέλωσι τοῖς γνωρίμοις μᾶλλον,
καὶ κηδεύειν ὅτῳ θέλουσι. Διὸ καὶ ἡ Λοκρῶν πολιτεία ἀπώλετο ἐκ
τῆς πρὸς Διονύσιον κηδείας· ὃ ἐν δημοκρατίᾳ οὐκ ἂν ἐγένετο, οὐδ’
ἂν ἐν ἀριστοκρατίᾳ εὖ μεμιγμένῃ.

[1017] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 6.

But the amicable relations which Dionysius was at so much pains to establish with the Greek cities near the Strait of Messênê, were destined chiefly to leave him free for preparations against Carthage; which preparations he now commenced on a gigantic scale. Efforts so great and varied, combined not merely with forecast but with all the scientific appliances then available, have not hitherto come before us throughout this history. The terrible effect with which Hannibal had recently employed his battering-machines against Selinus and Himera, stimulated Dionysius to provide himself with the like implements in greater abundance than any Greek general had ever before possessed. He collected at Syracuse, partly by constraint, partly by allurement, all the best engineers, mechanists, armorers, artisans, etc., whom Sicily or Italy could furnish. He set them upon the construction of machines and other muniments of war, and upon the manufacture of arms offensive as well as defensive, with the greatest possible assiduity. The arms provided were of great variety; not merely such as were suitable for Grecian soldiers, heavy or light, but also such as were in use among the different barbaric tribes around the Mediterranean, Gauls, Iberians, Tyrrhenians, etc., from whom Dionysius intended to hire mercenaries; so that every different soldier would be furnished, on arriving, with the sort of weapon which had become habitual to him. All Syracuse became a bustling military workshop,—not only the market-places, porticos, palæstræ, and large private houses, but also the fore-chambers and back-chambers of the various temples. Dionysius distributed the busy multitude into convenient divisions, each with some eminent citizen as superintendent. Visiting them in person frequently, and reviewing their progress, he recompensed largely, and invited to his table, those who produced the greatest amount of finished work. As he farther offered premiums for inventive skill, the competition of ingenious mechanists originated several valuable warlike novelties; especially the great projectile engine for stones and darts, called Catapulta, which was now for the first time devised. We are told that the shields fabricated during this season of assiduous preparation were not less than one hundred and forty thousand in number, and the breast-plates fourteen thousand, many of them unrivalled in workmanship, destined for the body-guard and the officers. Helmets, spears, daggers, etc., with other arms and weapons in indefinite variety, were multiplied in corresponding proportion.[1018] The magazines of arms, missiles, machines, and muniments of war in every variety, accumulated in Ortygia, continued stupendous in amount through the whole life of Dionysius, and even down to the downfall of his son.[1019]

[1018] Diodor. xiv, 42, 43.

The historian Philistus had described with much minuteness these
warlike preparations of Dionysius. Diodorus has probably abridged
from him (Philisti Fragment. xxxiv, ed. Marx and ed. Didot.)

[1019] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 13.

If the preparations for land-warfare were thus stupendous, those for sea-warfare were fully equal, if not superior. The docks of Syracuse were filled with the best ship-builders, carpenters, and artisans; numerous wood-cutters were sent to cut ship-timber on the well-clothed slopes of Ætna and the Calabrian Apennines; teams of oxen were then provided to drag it to the coast, from whence it was towed in rafts to Syracuse. The existing naval establishment of Syracuse comprised one hundred and ten triremes; the existing docks contained one hundred and fifty ship-houses, or covered slips for the purpose either of building or housing a trireme. But this was very inadequate to the conceptions of Dionysius, who forthwith undertook the construction of one hundred and sixty new ship-houses, each competent to hold two vessels,—and then commenced the building of new ships of war to the number of two hundred; while he at the same time put all the existing vessels and docks into the best state of repair. Here too, as in the case of the catapulta, the ingenuity of his architects enabled him to stand forth as a maritime inventor. As yet, the largest ship of war which had ever moved on the Grecian or Mediterranean waters, was the trireme, which was rowed by three banks or tiers of oars. It was now three centuries since the first trireme had been constructed at Corinth and Samos by the inventive skill of the Corinthian Ameinokles:[1020] it was not until the period succeeding the Persian invasion that even triremes had become extensively employed; nor had any larger vessels ever been thought of. The Athenians, who during the interval between the Persian invasion and their great disaster at Syracuse had stood preëminent and set the fashion in all nautical matters, were under no inducement to build above the size of the trireme. As their style of manœuvring consisted of rapid evolutions and changes in the ship’s direction, for the purpose of striking the weak parts of an enemy’s ship with the beak of their own,—so, if the size of their ship had been increased, her capacity for such nimble turns and movements would have been diminished. But the Syracusans had made no attempt to copy the rapid evolutions of the Athenian navy. On the contrary, when fighting against the latter in the confined harbor of Syracuse,[1021] they had found every advantage in their massive build of ships, and straightforward impact of bow driven against bow. For them, the larger ships were the more suitable and efficient; so that Dionysius or his naval architects, full of ambitious aspirations, now struck out the plan of building ships of war with four or five banks of oars instead of three; that is, quadriremes, or quinqueremes, instead of triremes.[1022] Not only did the Syracusan despot thus equip a naval force equal in number of ships to Athens in her best days; but he also exhibited ships larger than Athens had ever possessed, or than Greece had ever conceived.

[1020] Thucyd. i, 13.

[1021] Thucyd. vii, 36-62.

[1022] Diodor. xiv, 42.

In all these offensive preparations against Carthage, as in the previous defences on Epipolæ, the spontaneous impulse of the Syracusans generally went hand in hand with Dionysius.[1023] Their sympathy and concurrence greatly promoted the success of his efforts, for this immense equipment against the common enemy. Even with all this sympathy, indeed, we are at a loss to understand, nor are we at all informed, how he found money to meet so prodigious an outlay.

[1023] Diodor. xiv, 41. Συμπροθυμουμένων δὲ τῶν Συρακουσίων
τῇ τοῦ Διονυσίου προαιρέσει, πολλὴν συνέβαινε γενέσθαι τὴν
φιλοτιμίαν περὶ τὴν τῶν ὅπλων κατασκευήν.

After the material means for war had thus been completed,—an operation which can hardly have occupied less than two or three years,—it remained to levy men. On this point, the ideas of Dionysius were not less aspiring. Besides his own numerous standing force, he enlisted all the most effective among the Syracusan citizens, as well as from the cities in his dependency. He sent friendly addresses, and tried to acquire popularity, among the general body of Greeks throughout the island. Of his large fleet, one-half was manned with Syracusan rowers, marines, and officers; the other half with seamen enlisted from abroad. He farther sent envoys both to Italy and to Peloponnesus to obtain auxiliaries, with offers of the most liberal pay. From Sparta, now at the height of her power, and courting his alliance as a means of perpetuity to her own empire, he received such warm encouragement, that he was enabled to enlist no inconsiderable numbers in Peloponnesus; while many barbaric or non-Hellenic soldiers from the western regions near the Mediterranean were hired also.[1024] He at length succeeded, to his satisfaction, in collecting an aggregate army, formidable not less from numbers and bravery, than from elaborate and diversified equipment. His large and well-stocked armory (already noticed) enabled him to furnish each newly-arrived soldier, from all the different nations, with native and appropriate weapons.[1025]

[1024] Diodor. xiv, 43, 44, 45.

[1025] Diodor. xiv, 41.

When all his preparations were thus complete, his last step was to celebrate his nuptials, a few days previous to the active commencement of the war. He married, at one and the same time, two wives,—the Lokrian Doris (already mentioned), and a Syracusan woman named Aristomachê, daughter of his partisan Hipparinus (and sister of Dion, respecting whom much will occur hereafter). The first use made of one among his newly-invented quinquereme vessels, was to sail to Lokri, decked out in the richest ornaments of gold and silver, for the purpose of conveying Doris in state to Ortygia. Aristomachê was also brought to his house in a splendid chariot with four white horses.[1026] He celebrated his nuptials with both of them in his house on the same day; no one knew which bedchamber he visited first; and both of them continued constantly to live with him at the same table, with equal dignity, for many years. He had three children by Doris, the eldest of whom was Dionysius the Younger; and four by Aristomachê; but the latter was for a considerable time childless; which greatly chagrined Dionysius. Ascribing her barrenness to magical incantations, he put to death the mother of his other wife Doris, as the alleged worker of these mischievous influences.[1027] It was the rumor at Syracuse that Aristomachê was the most beloved of the two. But Dionysius treated both of them well, and both of them equally; moreover his son by Doris succeeded him, though he had two sons by the other. His nuptials were celebrated with banquets and festive recreations, wherein all the Syracusan citizens as well as the soldiers partook. The scene was probably the more grateful to Dionysius, as he seems at this moment, when every man’s mind was full of vindictive impulse and expected victory against Carthage, to have enjoyed a real short-lived popularity, and to have been able to move freely among the people; without that fear of assassination which habitually tormented his life even in his inmost privacy and bedchamber—and that extremity of suspicion which did not except either his wives or his daughters.[1028]

[1026] Diodor. xiv, 44; xvi, 6.

[1027] Plutarch, Dion. c. 3.

[1028] Cicero, Tusc. Disp. v, 20, 57-63; Valer. Maxim. ix, 13;
Diodor. xiv, 2.

After a few days devoted to such fellowship and festivity, Dionysius convoked a public assembly, for the purpose of formally announcing the intended war. He reminded the Syracusans that the Carthaginians were common enemies to Greeks in general, but most of all to the Sicilian Greeks—as recent events but too plainly testified. He appealed to their generous sympathies on behalf of the five Hellenic cities, in the southern part of the island, which had lately undergone the miseries of capture by the generals of Carthage, and were still groaning under her yoke. Nothing prevented Carthage (he added) from attempting to extend her dominion over the rest of the island, except the pestilence under which she had herself been suffering in Africa. To the Syracusans this ought to be an imperative stimulus for attacking her at once, and rescuing their Hellenic brethren, before she had time to recover.[1029]

[1029] Diodor. xiv, 45.

These motives were really popular and impressive. There was besides another inducement, which weighed with Dionysius to hasten the war, though he probably did not dwell upon it in his public address to the Syracusans. He perceived that various Sicilian Greeks were migrating voluntarily with their properties into the territory of Carthage; whose dominion, though hateful and oppressive, was, at least while untried, regarded by many with less terror than his dominion when actually suffered. By commencing hostilities at once, he expected not only to arrest such emigration, but to induce such Greeks as were actually subjects of Carthage to throw off her yoke and join him.[1030]

[1030] Diodor. xiv, 41.

Loud acclamations from the Syracusan assembly hailed the proposition for war with Carthage; a proposition, which only converted into reality what had been long the familiar expectation of every man. And the war was rendered still more popular by the permission, which Dionysius granted forthwith, to plunder all the Carthaginian residents and mercantile property either in Syracuse or in any of his dependent cities. We are told that there were not only several domiciliated Carthaginians at Syracuse, but also many loaded vessels belonging to Carthage in the harbor, so that the plunder was lucrative.[1031] But though such may have been the case in ordinary times, it seems hardly credible, that under the actual circumstances, any Carthaginian (person or property) can have been at Syracuse except by accident; for war with Carthage had been long announced, not merely in current talk, but in the more unequivocal language of overwhelming preparation. Nor is it easy to understand how the prudent Carthaginian Senate (who probably were not less provided with spies at Syracuse than Dionysius was at Carthage)[1032] can have been so uninformed as to be taken by surprise at the last moment, when Dionysius sent thither a herald formally declaring war; which herald was not sent until after the license for private plunder had been previously granted. He peremptorily required the Carthaginians to relinquish their dominion over the Greek cities in Sicily,[1033] as the only means of avoiding war. To such a proposition no answer was returned, nor probably expected. But the Carthaginians were now so much prostrated (like Athens in the second or third years of the Peloponnesian war) by depopulation, suffering, terrors, and despondency, arising out of the pestilence which beset them in Africa, that they felt incompetent to any serious effort, and heard with alarm the letter read from Dionysius. There was, however, no alternative, so that they forthwith despatched some of their ablest citizens to levy troops for the defence of their Sicilian possessions.[1034]

[1031] Diodor. xiv, 46.

There were also Greeks, and seemingly Greeks of some
consideration, who resided at Carthage, and seemed to have
continued resident there throughout the war between the
Carthaginians and Dionysius (Diodor. xiv, 77). We should infer,
from their continuing to reside there, that the Carthaginians did
not retaliate upon them the plunder now authorized by Dionysius
against their countrymen resident at Syracuse; and farther, it
affords additional probability that the number of Carthaginians
actually plundered at Syracuse was not considerable.

For instances of intermarriage, and inter-residence, between
Carthage and Syracuse, see Herodot. vii, 166; Livy, xxiv, 6.

Phœnician coins have been found in Ortygia, bearing a Phœnician
inscription signifying _The Island_,—which was the usual
denomination of Ortygia (Movers, Die Phönizier, ii, 2, p. 327).

[1032] Diodor. xiv, 55. Τοῦτο δ’ ἐμηχανήσατο (Ἰμίλκων) πρὸς τὸ
μηδένα τῶν κατασκόπων ἀπαγγεῖλαι τὸν κατάπλουν τῷ Διονυσίῳ, etc.

[1033] Diodor. xiv, 46, 47.

[1034] Diodor. xiv, 47.

The first news that reached them was indeed appalling. Dionysius had marched forth with his full power, Syracusan as well as foreign, accumulated by so long a preparation. It was a power, the like of which had never been beheld in Greece; greater even than that wielded by his predecessor Gelon eighty years before. If the contemporaries of Gelon had been struck with awe[1035] at the superiority of his force to anything that Hellas could show elsewhere, as much or more would the same sentiment be felt by those who surrounded Dionysius. More intimately still was a similar comparison, with the mighty victor of Himera, present to Dionysius himself. He exulted in setting out with an army yet more imposing, against the same enemy, and for the same purpose of liberating the maritime cities of Sicily subject to Carthage;[1036] cities, whose number and importance had since fearfully augmented.

[1035] Herodot. vii, 145. Τὰ δὲ Γέλωνος πρήγματα μεγάλα ἐλέγετο
εἶναι, οὐδαμῶν Ἑλληνικῶν τῶν οὐ πολλὸν μέζω. Compare c. 160-162.

[1036] Herodot. vii, 158. Gelon’s speech to the Lacedæmonians who
come to solicit his aid against Xerxes.

Αὐτοὶ δὲ, ἐμεῦ πρότερον δεηθέντος βαρβαρικοῦ στρατοῦ
συνεπάψασθαι, ὅτε μοι πρὸς Καρχηδονίους νεῖκος συνῆπτο ...
~ὑποτείνοντός τε τὰ ἐμπόρια συνελευθεροῦν~, etc.

These subject-cities, from Kamarina on one side of the island to Selinus and Himera on the other, though there were a certain number of Carthaginian residents established there, had no effective standing force to occupy or defend them on the part of Carthage; whose habit it was to levy large mercenary hosts for the special occasion and then to disband them afterwards. Accordingly, as soon as Dionysius with his powerful army passed the Syracusan border, and entered upon his march westward along the southern coast of the island, proclaiming himself as liberator—the most intense anti-Carthaginian manifestations burst forth at once, at Kamarina, Gela, Agrigentum, Selinus, and Himera. These Greeks did not merely copy the Syracusans in plundering the property of all Carthaginians found among them, but also seized their persons, and put them to death with every species of indignity and torture. A frightful retaliation now took place for the cruelties recently committed by the Carthaginian armies, in the sacking of Selinus, Agrigentum, and the other conquered cities.[1037] The Hellenic war-practice, in itself sufficiently rigorous, was aggravated into a merciless and studied barbarity, analogous to that which had disfigured the late proceedings of Carthage and her western mercenaries. These “Sicilian vespers,” which burst out throughout all the south of Sicily against the Carthaginian residents, surpassed even the memorable massacre known under that name in the thirteenth century, wherein the Angevine knights and soldiers were indeed assassinated, but not tortured. Diodorus tells us that the Carthaginians learnt from the retaliation thus suffered, a lesson of forbearance. It will not appear however, from their future conduct, that the lesson was much laid to heart; while it is unhappily certain, that such interchange of cruelties with less humanized neighbors, contributed to lower in the Sicilian Greeks that measure of comparative forbearance which characterized the Hellenic race in its own home.

[1037] Diodor. xiv, 46. Οὐ μόνον γὰρ αὐτῶν τὰς οὐσίας διήρπασαν,
ἀλλὰ καὶ αὐτοὺς συλλαμβάνοντες, πᾶσαν αἰκίαν καὶ ὕβριν εἰς
τὰ σώματα αὐτῶν ἀπετίθεντο, μνημονεύοντες ὧν αὐτοὶ κατὰ τὴν
αἰχμαλωσίαν ἔπαθον. Ἐπὶ τοσοῦτον δὲ τῆς κατὰ τῶν Φοινίκων
τιμωρίας προέβησαν, καὶ τότε καὶ κατὰ τὸν ὕστερον χρόνον,
ὥστε τοὺς Καρχηδονίους διδαχθῆναι μηκέτι παρανομεῖν εἰς τοὺς
ὑποπεσόντας.

Elate with this fury of revenge, the citizens of Kamarina, Gela, Agrigentum, and Selinus joined Dionysius on his march along the coast. He was enabled, from his abundant stock of recently fabricated arms, to furnish them with panoplies and weapons; for it is probable that as subjects of Carthage they had been disarmed. Strengthened by all these reinforcements, he mustered a force of eighty thousand men, besides more than three thousand cavalry; while the ships of war which accompanied him along the coast were nearly two hundred, and the transports, with stores and battering machines, not less than five hundred. With this prodigious army, the most powerful hitherto assembled under Grecian command, he appeared before the Carthaginian settlement of Motyê, a fortified seaport in a little bay immediately north of Cape Lilybæum.[1038]

[1038] Diodor. xiv, 47.

Of the three principal establishments of Carthage in Sicily,—Motyê, Panormus (Palermo), and Soloeis,—Motyê was at once the nearest to the mother-city,[1039] the most important, and the most devoted. It was situated (like the original Syracuse in Ortygia) upon a little islet, separated from Sicily by a narrow strait about two-thirds of a mile in breadth, which its citizens had bridged over by means of a mole, so as to form a regular, though narrow, footpath. It was populous, wealthy, flourishing, and distinguished for the excellence both of its private houses and its fortifications. Perceiving the approach of Dionysius, and not intimidated by the surrender of their neighbors and allies, the Elymi at Eryx, who did not dare to resist so powerful a force,—the Motyênes put themselves in the best condition of defence. They broke up their mole, and again insulated themselves from Sicily, in the hope of holding out until relief should be sent from Carthage. Resolved to avenge upon Motyê the sufferings of Agrigentum and Selinus, Dionysius took a survey of the place in conjunction with his principal engineers. It deserves notice, that this is among the earliest sieges recorded in Grecian history wherein we read of a professed engineer as being directly and deliberately called on to advise the best mode of proceeding.[1040]

[1039] Thucyd. vi, 2; Pausan. v, 25, 3.

[1040] Diodor. xiv, 48. Διονύσιος δὲ μετὰ τῶν ἀρχιτεκτόνων
κατασκεψάμενος τοὺς τόπους, etc.

Artemon the engineer was consulted by Perikles at the siege of
Samos (Plutarch, Perikles, c. 27).

Having formed his plans, he left his admiral Leptines with a portion of the army to begin the necessary works, while he himself with the remainder laid waste the neighboring territory dependent on or allied with Carthage. The Sikani and others submitted to him; but Ankyræ, Soloeis, Panormus, Egesta, and Entella, all held out, though the citizens were confined to their walls, and obliged to witness, without being able to prevent, the destruction of their lands.[1041] Returning from this march, Dionysius pressed the siege of Motyê with the utmost ardor, and with all the appliances which his engineers could devise. Having moored his transports along the beach, and hauled his ships of war ashore in the harbor, he undertook the laborious task of filling up the strait (probably of no great depth) which divided Motyê from the main island;[1042]—or at least as much of the length of the strait as was sufficient to march across both with soldiers and with battering engines, and to bring them up close against the walls of the city. The numbers under his command enabled him to achieve this enterprise, though not without a long period of effort, during which the Carthaginians tried more than once to interrupt his proceedings. Not having a fleet capable of contending in pitched battle against the besiegers, the Carthaginian general Imilkon tried two successive manœuvres. He first sent a squadron of ten ships of war to sail suddenly into the harbor of Syracuse, in hopes that the diversion thus operated would constrain Dionysius to detach a portion of his fleet from Motyê. Though the attack, however, was so far successful as to destroy many merchantmen in the harbor, yet the assailants were beaten off without making any more serious impression, or creating the diversion intended.[1043] Imilkon next made an attempt to surprise the armed ships of Dionysius, as they lay hauled ashore in the harbor near Motyê. Crossing over from Carthage by night, with one hundred ships of war, to the Selinuntine coast, he sailed round Cape Lilybæum, and appeared at daybreak off Motyê. His appearance took every man by surprise. He destroyed or put to flight the ships on guard, and sailed into the harbor prepared for attack while as yet only a few of the Syracusan ships had been got afloat. As the harbor was too confined to enable Dionysius to profit by his great superiority in number and size of ships, a great portion of his fleet would have been now destroyed, had it not been saved by his numerous land force and artillery on the beach. Showers of missiles, from this assembled crowd as well as from the decks of the Syracusan ships, prevented Imilkon from advancing far enough to attack with effect. The newly-invented engine called the catapulta, of which the Carthaginians had as yet had no experience, was especially effective; projecting large masses to a great distance, it filled them with astonishment and dismay. While their progress was thus arrested, Dionysius employed a new expedient to rescue his fleet from the dilemma in which it had been caught. His numerous soldiers were directed to haul the ships, not down to the harbor, but landward, across a level tongue of land, more than two miles in breadth, which separated the harbor of Motyê from the outer sea. Wooden planks were laid so as to form a pathway for the ships; and in spite of the great size of the newly-constructed quadriremes and quinqueremes, the strength and ardor of the army sufficed for this toilsome effort of transporting eighty ships across in one day. The entire fleet, double in number to that of the Carthaginians, being at length got afloat, Imilkon did not venture on a pitched battle, but returned at once back to Africa.[1044]

[1041] Diodor. xiv, 48, 49.

[1042] Diodor. xiv, 49. ἐχώννυε τὸν μεταξὺ πόρον, καὶ τὰς μηχανὰς
ἐκ τοῦ κατὰ λόγον ἅμα τῇ τοῦ χώματος αὐξήσει προσήγαγε τοῖς
τείχεσι.

[1043] Diodor. xiv, 50.

[1044] Diodor. xiv, 50; Polyænus, v, 2, 6.

Though the citizens of Motyê saw from the walls the mournful spectacle of their friends retiring, their courage was nowise abated. They knew well that they had no mercy to expect; that the general ferocity of the Carthaginians in their hour of victory, and especially the cruel treatment of Greek captives even in Motyê itself, would now be retaliated; and that their only chance lay in a brave despair. The road across the strait having been at length completed, Dionysius brought up his engines and began his assault. While the catapulta with its missiles prevented defenders from showing themselves on the battlements, battering-rams were driven up to shake or overthrow the walls. At the same time large towers on wheels were rolled up, with six different stories in them one above the other, and in height equal to the houses. Against these means of attack the besieged on their side elevated lofty masts above the walls, with yards projecting outwards. Upon these yards stood men protected from the missiles by a sort of breastwork, and holding burning torches, pitch, and other combustibles, which they cast down upon the machines of the assailants. Many machines took fire in the woodwork, and it was not without difficulty that the conflagration was extinguished. After a long and obstinate resistance, however, the walls were at length overthrown or carried by assault, and the besiegers rushed in, imagining the town to be in their power. But the indefatigable energy of the besieged had already put the houses behind into a state of defence, and barricaded the streets, so that a fresh assault, more difficult than the first, remained to be undertaken. The towers on wheels were rolled near, but probably could not be pushed into immediate contact with the houses in consequence of the ruins of the overthrown wall which impeded their approach. Accordingly the assailants were compelled to throw out wooden platforms or bridges from the towers to the houses, and to march along these to the attack. But here they were at great disadvantage, and suffered severe loss. The Motyenes, resisting desperately, prevented them from setting firm foot on the houses, slew many of them in hand-combat, and precipitated whole companies to the ground, by severing or oversetting the platform. For several days this desperate combat was renewed. Not a step was gained by the besiegers, yet the unfortunate Motyenes became each day more exhausted, while portions of the foremost houses were also overthrown. Every evening Dionysius recalled his troops to their night’s repose, renewing the assault next morning. Having thus brought the enemy into an expectation that the night would be undisturbed, he on one fatal night took them by surprise, sending the Thurian Archylus with a chosen body of troops to attack the foremost defences. This detachment, planting ladders and climbing up by means of the half-demolished houses, established themselves firmly in a position within the town before resistance could be organized. In vain did the Motyenes, discovering the stratagem too late, endeavor to dislodge them. The main force of Dionysius was speedily brought up across the artificial earth-way to confirm their success, and the town was thus carried, in spite of the most gallant resistance, which continued even after it had become hopeless.[1045]

[1045] Diodor. xiv, 51, 52, 53.

The victorious host who now poured into Motyê, incensed not merely by the length and obstinacy of the defence, but also by antecedent Carthaginian atrocities at Agrigentum and elsewhere, gave full loose to the sanguinary impulses of retaliation. They butchered indiscriminately men and women, the aged and the children, without mercy to any one. The streets were thus strewed with the slain, in spite of all efforts on the part of Dionysius, who desired to preserve the captives that they might be sold as slaves, and thus bring in a profitable return. But his orders to abstain from slaughter were not obeyed, nor could he do anything more than invite the sufferers by proclamation to take refuge in the temples; a step, which most of them would probably resort to uninvited. Restrained from farther slaughter by the sanctuary of the temples, the victors now turned to pillage. Abundance of gold, silver, precious vestments, and other marks of opulence, the accumulations of a long period of active prosperity, fell into their hands; and Dionysius allowed to them the full plunder of the town, as a recompense for the toils of the siege. He farther distributed special recompenses to those who had distinguished themselves; one hundred minæ being given to Archylus, the leader of the successful night-surprise. All the surviving Motyenes he sold into slavery; but he reserved for a more cruel fate Daimenês and various other Greeks who had been taken among them. These Greeks he caused to be crucified;[1046] a specimen of the Phœnician penalties transferred by example to their Hellenic neighbors and enemies.

[1046] Diodor. xiv, 53.

The siege of Motyê having occupied nearly all the summer, Dionysius now reconducted his army homeward. He left at the place a Sikel garrison under the command of the Syracusan Biton, as well as a large portion of his fleet, one hundred and twenty ships, under the command of his brother Leptines; who was instructed to watch for the arrival of any force from Carthage, and to employ himself in besieging the neighboring towns of Egesta and Entella. The operations against these two towns however had little success. The inhabitants defended themselves bravely, and the Egestæans were even successful, through a well-planned nocturnal sally, in burning the enemy’s camp, with many horses, and stores of all kinds in the tents. Neither of the two towns was yet reduced, when, in the ensuing spring, Dionysius himself returned with his main force from Syracuse. He reduced the inhabitants of Halikyæ to submission, but effected no other permanent conquest, nor anything more than devastation of the neighboring territory dependent upon Carthage.[1047]

[1047] Diodor. xiv, 54.

Leptines was brother of Dionysius (xiv, 102; xv, 7), though he
afterwards married the daughter of Dionysius,—a marriage not
condemned by Grecian sentiment.

Presently the face of the war was changed by the arrival of Imilkon from Carthage. Having been elevated to the chief magistracy of the city, he now brought with him an overwhelming force, collected as well from the subjects in Africa as from Iberia and the Western Mediterranean. It amounted, even in the low estimate of Timæus, to one hundred thousand men, reinforced afterwards in Sicily by thirty thousand more,—and in the more ample computations of Ephorus, to three hundred thousand foot, four thousand horse, four hundred chariots of war, four hundred ships of war, and six hundred transports carrying stores and engines. Dionysius had his spies at Carthage,[1048] even among men of rank and politicians, to apprise him of all movements or public orders. But Imilkon, to obviate knowledge of the precise point in Sicily where he intended to land, gave to the pilots sealed instructions, to be opened only when they were out at sea, indicating Panormus (Palermo) as the place of rendezvous.[1049] The transports made directly for that port, without nearing the land elsewhere; while Imilkon with the ships of war approached the harbor of Motyê and sailed from thence along the coast to Panormus. He probably entertained the hope of intercepting some portion of the Syracusan fleet. But nothing of the kind was found practicable; while Leptines on his side was even fortunate enough to be able to attack, with thirty triremes, the foremost vessels of the large transport-fleet on their voyage to Panormus. He destroyed no less than fifty of them, with five thousand men, and two hundred chariots of war; but the remaining fleet reached the port in safety, and were there joined by Imilkon with the ships of war. The land force being disembarked, the Carthaginian general led them to Motyê, ordering his ships of war to accompany him along the coast. In his way he regained Eryx, which was at heart Carthaginian, having only been intimidated into submission to Dionysius during the preceding year. He then attacked Motyê, which he retook, seemingly after very little resistance. It had held out obstinately against the Syracusans a few months before, while in the hands of its own Carthaginian inhabitants, with their families and properties around them; but the Sikel garrison had far less motive for stout defence.[1050]

[1048] Justin, xx, 5. One of these Carthaginians of rank, who,
from political enmity to Hanno, wrote letters in Greek to
communicate information to Dionysius, was detected and punished
as a traitor. On this occasion, the Carthaginian senate is
said to have enacted a law, forbidding all citizens to learn
Greek,—either to write it or to speak it.

[1049] Diodor. xiv, 54; Polyænus, v, 10, 1.

[1050] Diodor. xiv, 55.

Thus was Dionysius deprived of the conquest which had cost him so much blood and toil during the preceding summer. We are surprised to learn that he made no effort to prevent its recapture, though he was then not far off, besieging Egesta,—and though his soldiers, elate with the successes of the preceding year were eager for a general battle. But Dionysius, deeming this measure too adventurous, resolved to retreat to Syracuse. His provisions were failing, and he was at a great distance from allies, so that defeat would have been ruinous. He therefore returned to Syracuse, carrying with him some of the Sikanians, whom he persuaded to evacuate their abode in the Carthaginian neighborhood, promising to provide them with better homes elsewhere. Most of them, however, declined his offers; some (among them, the Halikyæans) preferring to resume their alliance with Carthage. Of the recent acquisitions nothing now remained to Dionysius beyond the Selinuntine boundary; but Gela, Kamarina, Agrigentum, and Selinus had been emancipated from Carthage, and were still in a state of dependent alliance with him; a result of moment,—yet seemingly very inadequate to the immense warlike preparations whereby it had been attained. Whether he exercised a wise discretion in declining to fight the Carthaginians, we have not sufficient information to determine. But his army appear to have been dissatisfied with it, and it was among the causes of the outbreak against him shortly afterwards at Syracuse.[1051]

[1051] Diodor. xiv, 55.