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.

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

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.

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

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]

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]

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]

Thus left master of the country, Imilkon, instead of trying to reconquer Selinus and Himera, which had probably been impoverished by recent misfortunes,—resolved to turn his arms against Messênê in the north-east of the island; a city as yet fresh and untouched,—so little prepared for attack that its walls were not in good repair,—and moreover at the present moment yet farther enfeebled by the absence of its horsemen in the army of Dionysius.[1052] Accordingly, he marched along the northern coast of Sicily, with his fleet coasting in the same direction to coöperate with him. He made terms with Kephalœdium and Therma, captured the island of Lipara, and at length reached Cape Pelôrus, a few miles from Messênê. His rapid march and unexpected arrival struck the Messenians with dismay. Many of them, conceiving defence to be impossible against so numerous a host, sent away their families and their valuable property to Rhegium or elsewhere. On the whole, however, a spirit of greater confidence prevailed, arising in part from an ancient prophecy preserved among the traditions of the town, purporting that the Carthaginians should one day carry water in Messênê. The interpreters affirmed that “to carry water” meant, of course, “to be a slave,”—and the Messenians, persuading themselves that this portended defeat to Imilkon, sent out their chosen military force to meet him at Pelôrus, and oppose his disembarkation. The Carthaginian commander, seeing these troops on their march, ordered his fleet to sail forward into the harbor of the city, and attack it from seaward during the absence of the defenders. A north wind so favored the advance of the ships, that they entered the harbor full sail, and found the city on that side almost unguarded. The troops who had marched out towards Pelôrus hastened back, but were too late;[1053] while Imilkon himself also, pushing forward by land, forced his way into the town over the neglected parts of the wall. Messênê was taken; and its unhappy population fled in all directions for their lives. Some found refuge in the neighboring cities; others ran to the hill-forts of the Messenian territory, planted as a protection against the indigenous Sikels; while about two hundred of them near the harbor, cast themselves into the sea, and undertook the arduous task of swimming across to the Italian coast, in which fifty of them succeeded.[1054]

Though Imilkon tried in vain to carry by assault some of the Messenian hill-forts, which were both strongly placed and gallantly defended,—yet his capture of Messênê itself was an event both imposing and profitable. It deprived Dionysius of an important ally, and lessened his facilities for obtaining succor from Italy. But most of all, it gratified the anti-Hellenic sentiment of the Punic general and his army, counterbalancing the capture of Motyê in the preceding year. Having taken scarce any captives, Imilkon had nothing but unconscious stone and wood upon which to vent his antipathy. He ordered the town, the walls, and all the buildings, to be utterly burnt and demolished; a task which his numerous host are said to have executed so effectually, that there remained hardly anything but ruins, without a trace of human residence.[1055] He received adhesion and reinforcements from most of the Sikels[1056] of the interior, who had been forced to submit to Dionysius a year or two before, but detested his dominion. To some of these Sikels, the Syracusan despot had assigned the territory of the conquered Naxians, with their city probably unwalled. But anxious as they were to escape from him, many had migrated to a point somewhat north of Naxus,—to the hill of Taurus, immediately over the sea, unfavorably celebrated among the Sikel population as being the spot where the first Greek colonists had touched on arriving in the island. Their migration was encouraged, multiplied, and organized, under the auspices of Imilkon, who prevailed upon them to construct, upon the strong eminence of Taurus, a fortified post, which formed the beginning of the city afterwards known as Tauromenium.[1057] Magon was sent with the Carthaginian fleet to assist in the enterprise.

Meanwhile Dionysius, greatly disquieted at the capture of Messênê, exerted himself to put Syracuse in an effective position of defence on her northern frontier. Naxus and Katana being both unfortified, he was forced to abandon them, and he induced the Campanians whom he had planted in Katana to change their quarters to the strong town called Ætna, on the skirt of the mountain so named. He made Leontini his chief position; strengthening as much as possible the fortifications of the city as well as those of the neighboring country forts, wherein he accumulated magazines of provisions from the fertile plains around. He had still a force of thirty thousand foot and more than three thousand horse; he had also a fleet of one hundred and eighty ships of war,—triremes and others. During the year preceding, he had brought out both a land force and a naval force much superior to this, even for purposes of aggression; how it happened that he could now command no more, even for defence and at home,—or what had become of the difference,—we are not told. Of the one hundred and eighty ships of war, sixty only were manned by the extraordinary proceeding of liberating slaves. Such sudden and serious changes in the amount of military force from year to year, are perceptible among Carthaginians as well as Greeks,—indeed throughout most part of Grecian history;—the armies being got together chiefly for special occasions, and then dismissed. Dionysius farther despatched envoys to Sparta, soliciting a reinforcement of a thousand mercenary auxiliaries. Having thus provided the best defence that he could through the territory, he advanced forward with his main land-force to Katana, having his fleet also moving in coöperation, immediately off shore.

Towards this same point of Katana the Carthaginians were now moving, in their march against Syracuse. Magon was directed to coast along with the fleet from Taurus (Tauromenium) to Katana, while Imilkon intended himself to march with the land force on shore, keeping constantly near the fleet for the purpose of mutual support. But his scheme was defeated by a remarkable accident. A sudden eruption took place from Ætna; so that the stream of lava from the mountain to the sea forbade all possibility of marching along the shore to Katana, and constrained him to make a considerable circuit with his army on the land-side of the mountain. Though he accelerated his march as much as possible, yet for two days or more he was unavoidably cut off from the fleet; which under the command of Magon was sailing southward towards Katana. Dionysius availed himself of this circumstance to advance beyond Katana along the beach stretching northward, to meet Magon in his approach, and attack him separately. The Carthaginian fleet was much superior in number, consisting of five hundred sail in all; a portion of which, however, were not strictly ships of war, but armed merchantmen,—that is, furnished with brazen bows for impact against an enemy, and rowed with oars. But on the other hand, Dionysius had a land-force close at hand to coöperate with his fleet; an advantage which in ancient naval warfare counted for much, serving in case of defeat as a refuge to the ships, and in case of victory as intercepting or abridging the enemy’s means of escape. Magon, alarmed when he came in sight of the Grecian land-force mustered on the beach, and the Grecian fleet rowing up to attack him,—was nevertheless constrained unwillingly to accept the battle. Leptines, the Syracusan admiral,—though ordered by Dionysius to concentrate his ships as much as possible, in consequence of his inferior numbers,—attacked with boldness, and even with temerity; advancing himself with thirty ships greatly before the rest, and being apparently farther out to sea than the enemy. His bravery at first appeared successful, destroying or damaging the headmost ships of the enemy. But their superior numbers presently closed around him, and after a desperate combat, fought in the closest manner, ship to ship and hand to hand, he was forced to sheer off, and to seek escape seaward. His main fleet, coming up in disorder, and witnessing his defeat, were beaten also, after a strenuous contest. All of them fled, either landward or seaward as they could, under vigorous pursuit by the Carthaginian vessels; and in the end, no less than a hundred of the Syracusan ships, with twenty thousand men, were numbered as taken, or destroyed. Many of the crews, swimming or floating in the water on spars, strove to get to land to the protection of their comrades. But the Carthaginian small craft, sailing very near to the shore, slew or drowned these unfortunate men, even under the eyes of friends ashore who could render no assistance. The neighboring water became strewed, both with dead bodies and with fragments of broken ships. As victors, the Carthaginians were enabled to save many of their own seamen, either on board of damaged ships, or swimming for their lives. Yet their own loss too was severe; and their victory, complete as it proved, was dearly purchased.

Though the land-force of Dionysius had not been at all engaged, yet the awful defeat of his fleet induced him to give immediate orders for retreating, first to Katana and afterwards yet farther to Syracuse. As soon as the Syracusan army had evacuated the adjoining shore, Magon towed all his prizes to land, and there hauled them up on the beach; partly for repair, wherever practicable,—partly as visible proofs of the magnitude of the triumph, for encouragement to his own armament. Stormy weather just then supervening, he was forced to haul his own ships ashore also for safety, and remained there for several days refreshing the crews. To keep the sea under such weather would have been scarcely practicable; so that if Dionysius, instead of retreating, had continued to occupy the shore with his unimpaired land-force, it appears that the Carthaginian ships would have been in the greatest danger; constrained either to face the storm, to run back a considerable distance northward, or to make good their landing against a formidable enemy, without being able to wait for the arrival of Imilkon.[1058] The latter, after no very long interval, came up, so that the land-force and the navy of the Carthaginians were now again in coöperation. While allowing his troops some days of repose and enjoyment of the victory, he sent envoys to the town of Ætna, inviting the Campanian mercenary soldiers to break with Dionysius and join him. Reminding them that their countrymen at Entella were living in satisfaction as a dependency of Carthage (which they had recently testified by resisting the Syracusan invasion), he promised to them an accession of territory, and a share in the spoils of the war, to be wrested from Greeks who were enemies of Campanians not less than of Carthaginians.[1059] The Campanians of Ætna would gladly have complied with his invitation, and were only restrained from joining him by the circumstance that they had given hostages to the despot of Syracuse, in whose army also their best soldiers were now serving.

Meanwhile Dionysius, in marching back to Syracuse, found his army grievously discontented. Withdrawn from the scene of action without even using their arms, they looked forward to nothing better than a blockade at Syracuse, full of hardship and privation. Accordingly many of them protested against retreat, conjuring him to lead them again to the scene of action, that they might either assail the Carthaginian fleet in the confusion of landing, or join battle with the advancing land-force under Imilkon. At first, Dionysius consented to such change of scheme. But he was presently reminded that unless he hastened back to Syracuse, Magon with the victorious fleet might sail thither, enter the harbor, and possess himself of the city; in the same manner as Imilkon had recently succeeded at Messênê. Under these apprehensions he renewed his original order for retreat, in spite of the vehement protest of his Sicilian allies; who were indeed so incensed that most of them quitted him at once. Which of the two was the wiser plan, we have no sufficient means to determine. But the circumstances seem not to have been the same as those preceding the capture of Messênê; for Magon was not in a condition to move forward at once with the fleet, partly from his loss in the recent action, partly from the stormy weather; and might perhaps have been intercepted in the very act of landing, if Dionysius had moved rapidly back to the shore. As far as we can judge, it would appear that the complaints of the army against the hasty retreat of Dionysius rested on highly plausible grounds. He nevertheless persisted, and reached Syracuse with his army not only much discouraged, but greatly diminished by the desertion of allies. He lost no time in sending forth envoys to the Italian Greeks and to Peloponnesus, with ample funds for engaging soldiers, and urgent supplications to Sparta as well as to Corinth.[1060] Polyxenus, his brother-in-law, employed on this mission, discharged his duty with such diligence, that he came back in a comparatively short space of time, with thirty-two ships of war under the command of the Lacedæmonian Pharakidas.[1061]

Meanwhile Imilkon, having sufficiently refreshed his troops after the naval victory off Katana, moved forward towards Syracuse both with the fleet and the land-force. The entry of his fleet into the Great Harbor was ostentatious and imposing; far above even that of the second Athenian armament, when Demosthenes first exhibited its brilliant but short-lived force.[1062] Two hundred and eight ships of war first rowed in, marshalled in the best order, and adorned with the spoils of the captured Syracusan ships. These were followed by transports, five hundred of them carrying soldiers, and one thousand others either empty or bringing stores and machines. The total number of vessels, we are told, reached almost two thousand, covering a large portion of the Great Harbor.[1063] The numerous land-force marched up about the same time; Imilkon establishing his head quarters in the temple of Zeus Olympius, nearly one English mile and a half from the city. He presently drew up his forces in order of battle, and advanced nearly to the city walls; while his ships of war also, being divided into two fleets of one hundred ships each, showed themselves in face of the two interior harbors or docks (on each side of the connecting strait between Ortygia and the main land) wherein the Syracusan ships were safely lodged. He thus challenged the Syracusans to combat on both elements; but neither challenge was accepted.

Having by such defiance farther raised the confidence of his own troops, he first spread them over the Syracusan territory, and allowed them for thirty days to enrich themselves by unlimited plunder. Next, he proceeded to establish fortified posts, as essential to the prosecution of a blockade which he foresaw would be tedious. Besides fortifying the temple of the Olympian Zeus, he constructed two other forts; one at Cape Plemmyrium (on the southern entrance of the harbor, immediately opposite to Ortygia, where Nikias had erected a post also), the other on the Great Harbor, midway between Plemmyrium and the temple of the Olympian Zeus, at the little bay called Daskon. He farther encircled his whole camp, near the last-mentioned temple, with a wall; the materials of which were derived in part from the demolition of the numerous tombs around; especially one tomb, spacious and magnificent, commemorating Gelon and his wife Damaretê. In these various fortified posts he was able to store up the bread, wine, and other provisions which his transports were employed in procuring from Africa and Sardinia, for the continuous subsistence of so mighty an host.

It would appear as if Imilkon had first hoped to take the city by assault; for he pushed up his army as far as the very walls of Achradina (the outer city). He even occupied the open suburb of that city, afterwards separately fortified under the name of Neapolis, wherein were situated the temples of Demeter and Persephonê, which he stripped of their rich treasures.[1064] But if such was his plan, he soon abandoned it, and confined himself to the slower process of reducing the city by famine. His progress in this enterprise, however, was by no means encouraging. We must recollect that he was not, like Nikias, master of the centre of Epipolæ; able from thence to stretch his right arm southward to the Great Harbor, and his left arm northward to the sea at Trogilus. As far as we are able to make out, he never ascended the southern cliff, nor got upon the slope of Epipolæ; though it seems that at this time there was no line of wall along the southern cliff, as Dionysius had recently built along the northern. The position of Imilkon was confined to the Great Harbor and to the low lands adjoining, southward of the cliff of Epipolæ; so that the communications of Syracuse with the country around remained partially open on two sides,—westward, through the Euryalus at the upper extremity of Epipolæ,—and northward towards Thapsus and Megara, through the Hexapylon, or the principal gate in the new fortification constructed by Dionysius along the northern cliff of Epipolæ. The full value was now felt of that recent fortification, which, protecting Syracuse both to the north and west, and guarding the precious position of Euryalus, materially impeded the operations of Imilkon. The city was thus open, partially at least, on two sides, to receive supplies by land. And even by sea means were found to introduce provisions. Though Imilkon had a fleet so much stronger that the Syracusans did not dare to offer pitched battle, yet he found it difficult to keep such constant watch as to exclude their store-ships, and ensure the arrival of his own. Dionysius and Leptines went forth themselves from the harbor with armed squadrons to accelerate and protect the approach of their supplies; while several desultory encounters took place, both of land-force and of shipping, which proved advantageous to the Syracusans, and greatly raised their spirits.

One naval conflict especially, which occurred while Dionysius was absent on his cruise, was of serious moment. A corn-ship belonging to Imilkon’s fleet being seen entering the Great Harbor, the Syracusans suddenly manned five ships of war, mastered it, and hauled it into their own dock. To prevent such capture, the Carthaginians from their station sent out forty ships of war; upon which the Syracusans equipped their whole naval force, bore down upon the forty with numbers decidedly superior, and completely defeated them. They captured the admiral’s ship, damaged twenty-four others, and pursued the rest to the naval station; in front of which they paraded, challenging the enemy to battle. As the challenge was not accepted, they returned to their own dock, towing in their prizes in triumph.

This naval victory indicated, and contributed much to occasion, that turn in the fortune of the siege which each future day still farther accelerated. Its immediate effect was to fill the Syracusan public with unbounded exultation. “Without Dionysius we conquer our enemies; under his command we are beaten; why submit to slavery under him any longer?” Such was the burst of indignant sentiment which largely pervaded the groups and circles in the city; strengthened by the consciousness that they were now all armed and competent to extort freedom,—since Dionysius, when the besieging enemy actually appeared before the city, had been obliged, as the less of two hazards, to produce and redistribute the arms which he had previously taken from them. In the midst of this discontent, Dionysius himself returned from his cruise. To soothe the prevalent temper, he was forced to convene a public assembly; wherein he warmly extolled the recent exploit of the Syracusans, and exhorted them to strenuous confidence, promising that he would speedily bring the war to a close.

It is possible that Dionysius, throughout his despotism, may have occasionally permitted what were called public assemblies; but we may be very sure, that, if ever convened, they were mere matters of form, and that no free discussion or opposition to his will was ever tolerated. On the present occasion, he anticipated the like passive acquiescence; and after having delivered a speech, doubtless much applauded by his own partisans, he was about to dismiss the assembly, when a citizen named Theodôrus unexpectedly rose. He was a Horseman or Knight,—a person of wealth and station in the city, of high character and established reputation for courage. Gathering boldness from the time and circumstances, he now stood forward to proclaim publicly that hatred of Dionysius, and anxiety for freedom, which so many of his fellow-citizens around had been heard to utter privately and were well known to feel.[1065]

Diodorus in his history gives us a long harangue (whether composed by himself, or copied from others, we cannot tell) as pronounced by Theodôrus. The main topics of it are such as we should naturally expect, and are probably, on the whole, genuine. It is a full review, and an emphatic denunciation, of the past conduct of Dionysius, concluding with an appeal to the Syracusans to emancipate themselves from his dominion. “Dionysius (the speaker contends, in substance) is a worse enemy than the Carthaginians: who, if victorious, would be satisfied with a regular tribute, leaving us to enjoy our properties and our paternal polity. Dionysius has robbed us of both. He has pillaged our temples of their sacred deposits. He has slain or banished our wealthy citizens, and then seized their properties by wholesale, to be transferred to his own satellites. He has given the wives of these exiles in marriage to his barbarian soldiers. He has liberated our slaves, and taken them into his pay, in order to keep their masters in slavery. He has garrisoned our own citadel against us, by means of these slaves, together with a host of other mercenaries. He has put to death every citizen who ventured to raise his voice in defence of the laws and constitution. He has abused our confidence,—once, unfortunately, carried so far as to nominate him general,—by employing his powers to subvert our freedom, and rule us according to his own selfish rapacity in place of justice. He has farther stripped us of our arms; these, recent necessity has compelled him to restore,—and these, if we are men, we shall now employ for the recovery of our own freedom.”[1066]

“If the conduct of Dionysius towards Syracuse has been thus infamous, it has been no better towards the Sicilian Greeks generally. He betrayed Gela and Kamarina, for his own purposes, to the Carthaginians. He suffered Messênê to fall into their hands without the least help. He reduced to slavery, by gross treachery, our Grecian brethren and neighbors of Naxus and Katana; transferring the latter to the non-Hellenic Campanians, and destroying the former. He might have attacked the Carthaginians immediately after their landing from Africa at Panormus, before they had recovered from the fatigue of the voyage. He might have fought the recent naval combat near the port of Katana, instead of near the beach north of that town; so as to ensure to our fleet, if worsted, an easy and sure retreat. Had he chosen to keep his land-force on the spot, he might have prevented the victorious Carthaginian fleet from approaching land, when the storm came on shortly after the battle; or he might have attacked them, if they tried to land, at the greatest advantage. He has conducted the war, altogether, with disgraceful incompetence; not wishing sincerely, indeed, to get rid of them as enemies, but preserving the terrors of Carthage, as an indirect engine to keep Syracuse in subjection to himself. As long as we fought with him, we have been constantly unsuccessful; now that we have come to fight without him, recent experience tells us that we can beat the Carthaginians, even with inferior numbers.

“Let us look out for another leader (concluded Theodôrus), in place of a sacrilegious temple-robber whom the gods have now abandoned. If Dionysius will consent to relinquish his dominion, let him retire from the city with his property unmolested; if he will not, we are here all assembled, we are possessed of our arms, and we have both Italian and Peloponnesian allies by our side. The assembly will determine whether it will choose leaders from our own citizens,—or from our metropolis Corinth,—or from the Spartans, the presidents of all Greece.”

Such are the main points of the long harangue ascribed to Theodôrus; the first occasion, for many years, on which the voice of free speech had been heard publicly in Syracuse. Among the charges advanced against Dionysius, which go to impeach his manner of carrying on the war against the Carthaginians, there are several which we can neither admit nor reject, from our insufficient knowledge of the facts. But the enormities ascribed to him in his dealing with the Syracusans,—the fraud, violence, spoliation, and bloodshed, whereby he had first acquired, and afterwards upheld, his dominion over them,—these are assertions of matters of fact, which coincide in the main with the previous narrative of Diodorus, and which we have no ground for contesting.

Hailed by the assembly with great sympathy and acclamation, this harangue seriously alarmed Dionysius. In his concluding words, Theodôrus had invoked the protection of Corinth as well as of Sparta, against the despot, whom with such signal courage he had thus ventured publicly to arraign. Corinthians as well as Spartans were now lending aid in the defence, under the command of Pharakidas. That Spartan officer came forward to speak next after Theodôrus. Among various other sentiments of traditional respect towards Sparta, there still prevailed a remnant of the belief that she was adverse to despots; as she really had once been, at an earlier period of her history.[1067] Hence the Syracusans hoped, and even expected, that Pharakidas would second the protest of Theodôrus, and stand forward as champion of freedom to the first Grecian city in Sicily.[1068] Bitterly indeed were they disappointed. Dionysius had established with Pharakidas relations as friendly as those of the Thirty tyrants at Athens with Kallibius the Lacedæmonian harmost in the acropolis.[1069] Accordingly Pharakidas in his speech not only discountenanced the proposition just made, but declared himself emphatically in favor of the despot; intimating that he had been sent to aid the Syracusans and Dionysius against the Carthaginians,—not to put down the dominion of Dionysius. To the Syracusans this declaration was a denial of all hope. They saw plainly that in any attempt to emancipate themselves, they would have against them not merely the mercenaries of Dionysius, but also the whole force of Sparta, then imperial and omnipotent; represented on the present occasion by Pharakidas, as it had been in a previous year by Aristus. They were condemned to bear their chains in silence, not without unavailing curses against Sparta. Meanwhile Dionysius, thus powerfully sustained, was enabled to ride over the perilous and critical juncture. His mercenaries crowded in haste around his person,—having probably been sent for, as soon as the voice of a free spokesman was heard.[1070] And he was thus enabled to dismiss an assembly, which had seemed for one short instant to threaten the perpetuity of his dominion, and to promise emancipation for Syracuse.

During this interesting and momentous scene, the fate of Syracuse had hung upon the decision of Pharakidas: for Theodôrus, well aware that with a besieging enemy before the gates, the city could not be left without a supreme authority, had conjured the Spartan commander, with his Lacedæmonian and Corinthian allies, to take into his own hands the control and organization of the popular force. There can be little doubt that Pharakidas could have done this, if he had been so disposed, so as at once to make head against the Carthaginians without, and to restrain, if not to put down, the despotism within. Instead of undertaking the tutelary intervention solicited by the people, he threw himself into the opposite scale, and strengthened Dionysius more than ever, at the moment of his greatest peril. The proceeding of Pharakidas was doubtless conformable to his instructions from home, as well as to the oppressive and crushing policy which Sparta, in these days of her unresisted empire (between the victory of Ægospotami and the defeat of Knidus), pursued throughout the Grecian world.

Dionysius was fully sensible of the danger which he had thus been assisted to escape. Under the first impressions of alarm, he strove to gain something like popularity; by a conciliatory language and demeanor, by presents adroitly distributed, and by invitations to his table. Whatever may have been the success of such artifices, the lucky turn, which the siege was now taking, was the most powerful of all aids for building up his full power anew.

It was not the arms of the Syracusans, but the wrath of Demeter and Persephonê, whose temple (in the suburb of Achradina) Imilkon had pillaged, that ruined the besieging army before Syracuse. So the piety of the citizens interpreted that terrific pestilence which now began to rage among the multitude of their enemies without. The divine wrath was indeed seconded (as the historian informs us[1071]) by physical causes of no ordinary severity. The vast numbers of the host were closely packed together; it was now the beginning of autumn, the most unhealthy period of the year; moreover this summer had been preternaturally hot, and the low marshy ground near the Great Harbor, under the chill of morning contrasted with the burning sun of noon, was the constant source of fever and pestilence. These unseen and irresistible enemies fell with appalling force upon the troops of Imilkon; especially upon the Libyans, or native Africans, who were found the most susceptible. The intense and varied bodily sufferings of this distemper,—the rapidity with which it spread from man to man,—and the countless victims which it speedily accumulated,—appear to have equalled, if not surpassed, the worst days of the pestilence of Athens in 429 B.C. Care and attendance upon the sick, or even interment of the dead, became impracticable; so that the whole camp presented a scene of deplorable agony, aggravated by the horrors and stench of one hundred and fifty thousand unburied bodies.[1072] The military strength of the Carthaginians was completely prostrated by such a visitation. Far from being able to make progress in the siege, they were not even able to defend themselves against moderate energy on the part of the Syracusans; who (like the Peloponnesians during the great plague of Athens) were themselves untouched by the distemper.[1073]

Such was the wretched spectacle of the Carthaginian army, clearly visible from the walls of Syracuse. To overthrow it by a vigorous attack, was an enterprise not difficult; indeed, so sure, in the opinion of Dionysius, that in organizing his plan of operation, he made it the means of deliberately getting rid of some troops in the city who had become inconvenient to him. Concerting measures for a simultaneous assault upon the Carthaginian station both by sea and land, he entrusted eighty ships of war to Pharakidas and Leptines, with orders to move at daybreak; while he himself conducted a body of troops out of the city, during the darkness of night; issuing forth by Epipolæ and Euryalus (as Gylippus had formerly done when he surprised Plemmyrium[1074]), and making a circuit until he came, on the other side of the Anapus, to the temple of Kyanê; thus getting on the land-side or south-west of the Carthaginian position. He first despatched his horsemen, together with a regiment of one thousand mercenary foot-soldiers, to commence the attack. These latter troops had become peculiarly obnoxious to him, having several times engaged in revolt and disturbance. Accordingly, while he now ordered them up to the assault in conjunction with the horse, he at the same time gave secret directions to the horse, to desert their comrades and take flight. Both his orders were obeyed. The onset having been made jointly, in the heat of combat the horsemen fled, leaving their comrades all to be cut to pieces by the Carthaginians.[1075] We have as yet heard nothing about difficulties arising to Dionysius from his mercenary troops, on whose arms his dominion rested; and what we are here told is enough merely to raise curiosity without satisfying it. These men are said to have been mutinous and disaffected; a fact, which explains, if it does not extenuate, the gross perfidy of deliberately inveigling them to destruction, while he still professed to keep them under his command.

In the actual state of the Carthaginian army, Dionysius could afford to make them a present of this obnoxious division. His own attack, first upon the fort of Polichnê, next upon that near the naval station at Daskon, was conducted with spirit and success. While the defenders, thinned and enfeebled by the pestilence, were striving to repel him on the land-side, the Syracusan fleet came forth from its docks in excellent spirits and order to attack the ships at the station. These Carthaginian ships, though afloat and moored, were very imperfectly manned. Before the crews could get aboard to put them on their defence, the Syracusan triremes and quinqueremes, ably rowed and with their brazen beaks well directed, drove against them on the quarter or midships, and broke through the line of their timbers. The crash of such impact was heard afar off, and the best ships were thus speedily disabled.[1076] Following up their success, the Syracusans jumped aboard, overpowered the crews, or forced them to seek safety as they could in flight. The distracted Carthaginians being thus pressed at the same time by sea and by land, the soldiers of Dionysius from the land-side forced their way through the entrenchment to the shore, where forty pentekonters were hauled up, while immediately near them were moored both merchantmen and triremes. The assailants set fire to the pentekonters; upon which the flames, rapidly spreading under a strong wind, communicated presently to all the merchantmen and triremes adjacent. Unable to arrest this terrific conflagration, the crews were obliged to leap overboard; while the vessels, severed from their moorings by the burning of the cables, drifted against each other under the wind, until the naval station at Daskon became one scene of ruin.

Such a volume of flame, though destroying the naval resources of the Carthaginians, must at the same time have driven off the assailing Syracusan ships of war, and probably also the assailants by land. But to those who contemplated it from the city of Syracuse, across the breadth of the Great Harbor, it presented a spectacle grand and stimulating in the highest degree; especially when the fire was seen towering aloft amidst the masts, yards, and sails of the merchantmen. The walls of the city were crowded with spectators, women, children, and aged men, testifying their exultation by loud shouts, and stretching their hands to heaven,—as on the memorable day, near twenty years before, when they gained their final victory in the same harbor, over the Athenian fleet. Many lads and elders, too much excited to remain stationary, rushed into such small craft as they could find, and rowed across the harbor to the scene of action, where they rendered much service by preserving part of the cargoes, and towing away some of the enemy’s vessels deserted but not yet on fire. The evening of this memorable day left Dionysius and the Syracusans victorious by land as well as by sea; encamped near the temple of Olympian Zeus which had so recently been occupied by Imilkon. Though they had succeeded in forcing the defences of the latter both at Polichnê and at Daskon, and in inflicting upon him a destructive defeat, yet they would not aim at occupying his camp, in its infected and deplorable condition.

On two former occasions during the last few years, we have seen the Carthaginian armies decimated by pestilence,—near Agrigentum and near Gela,—previous to this last and worst calamity. Imilkon, copying the weakness of Nikias rather than the resolute prudence of Demosthenes, had clung to his insalubrious camp near the Great Harbor, long after all hope of reducing Syracuse had ceased, and while suffering and death to the most awful extent were daily accumulating around him. But the recent defeat satisfied even him that his position was no longer tenable. Retreat was indispensable; yet nowise impracticable,—with the brave men, Iberians and others, in his army, and with the Sikels of the interior on his side,—had he possessed the good qualities as well as the defects of Nikias, or been capable of anything like that unconquerable energy which ennobled the closing days of the latter. Instead of taking the best measures available for a retiring march, Imilkon despatched a secret envoy to Dionysius, unknown to the Syracusans generally; tendering to him the sum of three hundred talents which yet remained in the camp, on condition of the fleet and army being allowed to sail to Africa unmolested. Dionysius would not consent, nor would the Syracusans have confirmed any such consent, to let them all escape; but he engaged to permit the departure of Imilkon himself with the native Carthaginians. The sum of three hundred talents was accordingly sent across by night to Ortygia; and the fourth night ensuing was fixed for the departure of Imilkon and his Carthaginians, without opposition from Dionysius. During that night forty of their ships, filled with Carthaginians, put to sea and sailed in silence out of the harbor. Their stealthy flight, however, did not altogether escape the notice of the Corinthian seamen in Syracuse; who not only apprised Dionysius, but also manned some of their own ships and started in pursuit. They overtook and destroyed one or two of the slowest sailers; but all the rest with Imilkon himself, accomplished their flight to Carthage.

Dionysius,—while he affected to obey the warning of the Corinthians, with movements intentionally tardy and unavailing,—applied himself with earnest activity to act against the forsaken army remaining. During the same night he led out his troops from the city to the vicinity of their camp. The flight of Imilkon speedily promulgated, had filled the whole army with astonishment and consternation. No command,—no common cause,—no bond of union,—now remained among this miscellaneous host, already prostrated by previous misfortune. The Sikels in the army, being near to their own territory and knowing the roads, retired at once, before daybreak, and reached their homes. Scarcely had they passed, when the Syracusan soldiers occupied the roads, and barred the like escape to others. Amidst the general dispersion of the abandoned soldiers, some perished in vain attempts to force the passes, others threw down their arms and solicited mercy. The Iberians alone, maintaining their arms and order with unshaken resolution, sent to Dionysius propositions to transfer to him their service; which he thought proper to accept, enrolling them among his mercenaries. All the remaining host, principally Libyans, being stripped and plundered by his soldiers, became his captives, and were probably sold as slaves.[1077]

The heroic efforts of Nikias, to open for his army a retreat in the face of desperate obstacles, had ended in a speedy death as prisoner at Syracuse,—yet without anything worse than the usual fate of prisoners of war. But the base treason of Imilkon, though he insured a safe retreat home by betraying the larger portion of his army, earned for him only a short prolongation of life amidst the extreme of ignominy and remorse. When he landed at Carthage with the fraction of his army preserved, the city was in the deepest distress. Countless family losses, inflicted by the pestilence, added a keener sting to the unexampled public loss and humiliation now fully made known. Universal mourning prevailed; all public and private business was suspended, all the temples were shut, while the authorities and the citizens met Imilkon in sad procession on the shore. The defeated commander strove to disarm their wrath, by every demonstration of a broken and prostrate spirit. Clothed in the sordid garment of a slave, he acknowledged himself as the cause of all the ruin, by his impiety towards the gods; for it was they, and not the Syracusans, who had been his real enemies and conquerors. He visited all the temples, with words of atonement and supplication,—replied to all the inquiries about relatives who had perished under the distemper,—and then retiring, blocked up the doors of his house, where he starved himself to death.

But the season of misfortune to Carthage was not closed by his decease. Her dominion over her Libyan subjects was always harsh and unpopular, rendering them disposed to rise against her at any moment of calamity. Her recent disaster in Sicily would have been in itself perhaps sufficient to stimulate them into insurrection; but its effect was aggravated by their resentment for the deliberate betrayal of their troops serving under Imilkon, not one of whom lived to come back. All the various Libyan subject towns had on this matter one common feeling of indignation; all came together in congress, agreed to unite their forces, and formed an army which is said to have reached one hundred and twenty thousand men. They established their head-quarters at Tunês (Tunis), a town within a short distance of Carthage itself, and were for a certain time so much stronger in the field, that the Carthaginians were obliged to remain within their walls. For a moment it seemed as if the star of this great commercial city was about to set for ever. The Carthaginians themselves were in the depth of despondency, believing themselves to be under the wrath of the goddesses Demeter and her daughter Persephonê; who, not content with the terrible revenge already taken in Sicily, for the sacrilege committed by Imilkon, were still pursuing them into Africa. Under the extreme religious terror which beset the city, every means were tried to appease the offended goddesses. Had it been supposed that the Carthaginian gods had been insulted, expiation would have been offered by the sacrifice of human victims,—and those too the most precious, such as beautiful captives, or children of conspicuous citizens. But on this occasion, the insult had been offered to Grecian gods, and atonement was to be made according to the milder ceremonies of Greece. The Carthaginians had never yet instituted in their city any worship of Demeter or Persephonê; they now established temples in honor of these goddesses, appointed several of their most eminent citizens to be priests, and consulted the Greeks resident among them, as to the form of worship most suitable to be offered. After having done this, and cleared their own consciences, they devoted themselves to the preparation of ships and men for the purpose of carrying on the war. It was soon found that Demeter and Persephonê were not implacable, and that the fortune of Carthage was returning. The insurgents, though at first irresistible, presently fell into discord among themselves about the command. Having no fleet, they became straitened for want of provisions, while Carthage was well supplied by sea from Sardinia. From these and similar causes, their numerous host gradually melted away, and rescued the Carthaginians from alarm at the point where they were always weakest. The relations of command and submission, between Carthage and her Libyan subjects, were established as they had previously stood, leaving her to recover slowly from her disastrous reverses.[1078]