AGATHOCLES

CHAPTER III.

4.

After the Fight.

811-310.

Agathocles had no longer any means of keeping the field, but at once set fire to his camp and threw himself into Gela. There he was cheered by a trifling success. Three hundred Carthaginian horse on a false report that Agathocles had gone to Syracuse, rode up to Gela, hoping to be welcomed as friends. There however they were all shot down.

The road to Syracuse was still open, but Agathocles waited in Gela, hoping to keep Hamilcar busy in the neighborhood until the Syracusan harvest, already delayed by the campaign, should be safely stored in the city. Perhaps too he feared to march out until his troops had somewhat mended after their defeat.

Hamilcar indeed could have spared enough men to harry the Syracusan harvesters and yet have been able to hold Agathocles. But he had no wish to attack Syracuse. Finding Gela too strong to take, he began to bring the other Greek states to his side, hoping no doubt that the revolt of Agathocles' subjects would soon save Carthage from the need of any more fighting.

After personally visiting and bringing over some smaller places, and proclaiming freedom and good-will to the Greeks, Hamilcar was met by envoys from Camarina, Leontini, Catana, and Tauromenium with offers of alliance. Then from further-off Messena and Abacaenum the same message came. In fact "the cities vied with one another in going over to Hamilcar; such was the outburst of feeling on the part of the commons after the defeat, owing to their hatred of Agathocles"

It has hitherto been found that the party opposed to Agathocles was in every case oligarchic. Here however the explicit words of Diodorus show that even the democrats were now ready to forsake the prince. Nor is this hard to understand. As long as tyranny meant ease and plunder it was welcome, but when the loans and levies of a long war were impending, the allegiance of the people was bound to waver. It is also likely that the cruel treatment of Gela by Agathocles had opened men's eyes to the real nature of his rule. Now the call to freedom was eagerly taken up, and the mildness of Hamilcar carried on the work that his generalship had so gloriously begun.

These doings gave Agathocles a chance of drawing his forces together and slipping home to Syracuse.

Of the anxious months following his withdrawal little account has reached us, but there seems to have been fighting by land and sea. Justin speaks of a second defeat of Agathocles by Hamilcar after an engagement more serious than the first. This is certainly incorrect, but it is not impossible that some further battle took place; for Agathocles would hardly have given up his whole domain without a last struggle.

The more distant allies were hopelessly lost, but Agathocles seems to have taken measures to secure or at least to make harmless those nearer home. We hear later of an outpost at Echetla, which may have been held as early as this. Against Tauromenium some action seems to have been taken, if the following confused tale of Polyaenus be worth anything: "Agathocles called upon the Syracusans for two thousand soldiers in array, as if he were about to cross over to 'Phoenice', for, he said, some traitors there had eagerly invited him. The Syracusans believed him and granted the men. But when Agathocles got the soldiers, he paid no heed to the Phoenicians, but marched against the allies, and pulled down the strong-holds round the land of Tauromenium."

It has already been seen that the order of the anecdotes in Polyaenus is the opposite of that of the events themselves. Now this story, the sixth, would come before the fifth, in which Agathocles' last acts at Syracuse and his start for Africa are related, and after the seventh, in which he first gains supreme power. Again it must belong to a time when Agathocles feared a revolt of Tauromenium; but as the city had been reduced in 312, and before that was hardly an "ally", the present date, when the secession was in full swing, seems the most likely. That Agathocles made a sudden raid on the land of Tauromenium, and pulled down the strongholds lest Carthage should use them as bases against Syracuse, and that for this small undertaking he raised 2000 men, may fairly be believed. That he professed to be starting to invade some Phoenician land, in western Sicily or in Africa, is possible. But he can hardly have spoken of Carthage, for Diodorus says that none of his men knew that he meant to attack her, even when he actually started. On the other hand it is absurd to suppose that Agathocles, as general, could not raise 2000 men without a vote of the assembly; if Polyaenus thought of the matter at all, he must have meant that Agathocles called for the men to enroll themselves, and they came forward. Still more improbable is the view that Phoenice in Polyaenus means the Epirot town, and that Agathocles might have attacked it, while he was at Corcyra about 296. Apart from the difficulty of upsetting the order of Polyaenus, it is hard to see why Agathocles sent specially to Syracuse for so trifling a reinforcement, and still stranger that he should have used it in attacking a subject city with which he had been many years at peace.

Of the sea-fighting about this time no record has come down but a single tale in Polyaenus. Hamilcar had a Greek pilot who used to betray his master's plans to Agathocles. At last Hamilcar found this out and there-upon told the man that he would surprise the Olympieum. This was passed on to Agathocles, who set out to defend it. Hamilcar meanwhile laid an ambush, and when the Greeks came, he fell on them and slew seven thousand.

This story can only belong to the time of which we are now speaking; for formerly the Punic fleet had only made surprise descents on Syracuse without Hamilcar, while the behavior of the pilot shows that constant sea-fights were now going on; and later Agathocles did not come back to Syracuse until long after the death of Hamilcar. The number of victims is no doubt over-stated, but the rest of the account can be accepted, and it proves that the Carthaginian fleet blockaded Syracuse after the battle of the Himeras, and that many small sea-fights took place, in which both generals joined. Of course we are not bound to believe all the details given by Polyaenus. Hamilcar may never have tried to deceive Agathocles. Enough that the latter, on a false report of a Carthaginian attack, set out with his forces, and was so surprised and defeated. There is also here a clue to the order of events. Hamilcar would not have taken command by sea until the land force had done all it could for the time being. The sea-fighting may therefore be placed later than the last land-battle, and after the secession of the Greek cities had taken full effect.

5.

AGATHOCLES STARTS FOR AFRICA.

310.