Carthage Must Be Destroyed (22 page)

The city was given over to dreadful scenes of barbarity and slaughter. Diodorus reports that when Dionysius saw that not even the women or children were being spared, he decided to act–not out of any pity, but because he desperately needed the funds that could be raised by selling them into slavery. When his orders to stand down had no effect on his rampaging troops, he instructed heralds to announce throughout the city that the stricken Motyans were to make their way to the temples of deities which were revered by the Greeks, and take refuge there. Those who successfully made it to those sanctuaries were subsequently sold into servitude. The Greeks who had fought on the Motyan side were crucified.
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Such was the devastation visited upon it that Motya was never rebuilt.
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The next year, Diodorus/Timaeus relates, Dionysius moved to ravage other areas of Carthaginian-held Sicily.
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However, the Carthaginians, who had initially been caught out by the ferocity of the assault, raised sufficient troops to counter Dionysius’ advance. After a series of victories which included the capture and complete destruction of the city of Messana, the Carthaginian general, Himilco, forced Dionysius’ troops out of western Sicily, and even managed to advance as far as Syracuse itself.
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Dionysius was saved by the onset of what was very probably typhus in the Carthaginian camp–an occurrence that the hostile Greek historical tradition explained as divine punishment, due to the sacrilegious acts that the Carthaginians had committed, particularly the sacking of the temples of the goddesses Demeter and Core.
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Diodorus has left us with a graphic account of its symptoms:

At the onset of the epidemic the Carthaginians buried their dead, but as increasing numbers succumbed to the sickness their bodies were left unburied to rot where they fell.
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Dionysius quickly took advantage of the calamity that had befallen the Carthaginians by sending both his naval squadrons and his land forces to attack the Carthaginian ships and army. Himilco, now in desperate straits, was forced to negotiate a truce. In a secret deal, which was struck without the knowledge of the citizenry of Syracuse or of much of the Carthaginian army, Dionysius agreed to let Himilco and the Carthaginian troops under his command escape in exchange for money.
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In fact only a few ships made it back to Carthage, for they were attacked as they fled the harbour by Syracusan forces unaware of their leader’s underhand negotiations. Of the Carthaginian allies who were left behind, the native Sicels managed to escape back to their homes in the interior, and one group of Spanish troops massed together in sufficient numbers to be able to negotiate their recruitment into Dionysius’ army. The vast majority, however, were captured and enslaved.
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Diodorus/Timaeus portrayed the political fallout in Carthage as considerable. Supposedly, on hearing the news of the disaster, the city went into mourning, with private houses closed to visitors, business dealings suspended, and temples shut. The whole population converged on the harbour in order to get news of their relatives as the boats carrying the survivors limped into the port. On learning of the full scale of the catastrophe, the wails and shrieks of the bereaved could be heard all along the shoreline. For the Magonids, the threat to their political dominance in Carthage was very real. Once more their name would be linked with failure overseas.

Himilco, disgraced and defeated, spent the rest of his days dressed in cheap robes going around the temples of Carthage accusing himself of impiety and offering himself for divine retribution. He then starved himself to death.
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This public act of repentance was still not enough to preserve Magonid power in the long term, and within a few decades another elite clan, led by Hanno ‘the Great’, had taken over as the dominant political force in Carthage.
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However, the old political status quo was not maintained for long after this takeover, as the elite classes within Carthage were clearly hungry for more change. During the early years of the fifth century a new constitutional body had been established: the Tribunal of One Hundred and Four. Made up of members of the aristocratic elite, it oversaw the conduct of officials and military commanders as well as acting as a kind of higher constitutional court. At the same time the Council of Elders remained in existence, and may even have had its powers enhanced, with treasury and foreign affairs coming under its control.
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At the head of the Carthaginian state were now two annually elected senior executive officers, the suffetes, and a range of more junior officials and special commissioners oversaw different aspects of governmental business such as public works, tax-collecting and the administration of the state treasury.
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Panels of special commissioners, called pentarchies, were appointed from the Tribunal of One Hundred and Four; they appear to have dealt with a variety of affairs of state.
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The war with the Syracusans continued without either side really gaining the advantage.
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The Carthaginians attempted a number of new tactics, including opening up a second front against Dionysius in southern Italy.
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Both sides won crushing victories, the Syracusans at Cabala and the Carthaginians at Cronium, but neither managed to sustain a consistent military advantage.
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Eventually, in 373, exhausted by their losses, a new treaty was signed that recognized the previous status quo of Carthaginian and Syracusan territorial influence.
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But by merely reacting to threats as they appeared, and doing only enough to defend their interests, Hanno’s faction proved, like the Magonids before them, that they could never provide any lasting security in the region. After each setback Dionysius was given sufficient time and opportunity to rebuild his support and military forces, before launching another attack.

The seemingly never-ending war grew ever more unpopular with the citizens of Carthage. Their discontent was further fuelled by another outbreak of plague in the city, as well as unrest in Sardinia and among the Libyans. Increasingly the political leadership of Hanno was called into question.
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Even the death of Carthage’s long-term nemesis, Dionysius, in 365 (after a marathon drinking session), and success in having Suniatus, Hanno’s chief political rival in Carthage, condemned for treason, did not silence the criticism.
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Unused to his supremacy being questioned, Hanno resorted to the desperate measure of trying to overthrow the constitution. At a banquet to celebrate his daughter’s marriage, he unsuccessfully attempted to murder his fellow councillors by poison.

Perhaps reading the Council’s failure to act decisively in this matter –its only response had been to pass a decree that limited expenditure on weddings–as a sign of weakness, Hanno now plotted an uprising of 20,000 slaves and conspired with the local Libyan and Numidian tribes to try to overthrow the Carthaginian state. Such treachery could not be overlooked, and Hanno, when captured after his rebellion failed, was subjected to merciless punishment. After suffering scourging and terrible torture, he was finally nailed to a cross.
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All the male members of his clan, whether innocent or guilty, were rounded up and executed.
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Although some aspects of this story, reported by hostile Greek sources, appear far-fetched, it is clear that for the time being Carthage had at last grown tired of being dominated by a single clan.

The end of the Magonids’ political domination in Carthage did not conclude the Sicilian strategy of which they had been the main architects, for Carthage was now simply too embroiled in Sicilian affairs to withdraw. During the first half of the fourth century, Carthage’s relationship with western Sicily had profoundly changed–a transformation noted by the Greek historians who had begun to talk of Carthage’s zone of influence in western Sicily in terms of an eparchate, basically an imperial province.
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Although there is no evidence of the older Punic cities on the island being directly governed from Carthage, newer establishments show extremely close links with the North African metropolis.
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The Carthaginians were without doubt the driving force behind new settlements in Sicily such as Halaisa and Thermae Himerae.
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Carthage’s most significant foundation on Sicily was the port of Lilybaeum.
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Situated on the western Sicilian mainland, not far from the island where Motya had once stood, Lilybaeum had been constructed as a new home for Motya’s surviving citizens. However, analysis of the city’s material culture suggests that immigrants from Carthage significantly supplemented its population.
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Unlike the older Punic cities in Sicily, Lilybaeum had strong commercial links with Carthage. Strategically placed on Cape Boeo, the westernmost point of Sicily, the city soon became the major hub for commercial traffic between North Africa, Sicily, Italy and Greece.
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Perhaps the most striking aspect of Lilybaeum, apart from its strategic significance, was its defences, for it was built as a maximum-security port. Its solid walls were 5.8 metres high, and made from tufa reinforced by stone and mud brick. In front of these walls was a cavernous ditch over 28 metres wide. In addition, rectangular towers, fortified gates and posterns punctuated the walls, so that the defenders could rain missiles down on any attacker who made it over the ditch. There were also underground passages, galleries and communication trenches that went beneath the defences so that surprise sorties could be launched to attack enemy lines from the rear.
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In one particular tunnel, the walls were filled with the doodling of bored military personnel: a warrior, ships, weapons, a mountain with Punic symbols and letters and, of course, erotic scenes.
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The coinage which is thought to have been minted in Lilybaeum reflected the port’s position as a Carthaginian military base rather than a Sicilian Punic city. The tetradrachms bear the superscriptions of the Carthaginian military authorities:
qrthds
,
mmhnt
and
s’mmhnt
(‘the people of the camp’). Indeed, Lilybaeum appears to have been administered by a military governor rather than by suffetes or a city council.
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It was built to act as a heavily fortified commercial enclave, even if all the territory around it was in enemy hands.

One also finds the establishment of new Punic settlements in the Sicilian hinterland during this period, particularly on the sites of former Greek cities. At Selinus in the fourth century BC the old Greek acropolis was given a new urban system by Punic settlers who often used the old Greek city for building materials. The main street was widened, and the new structures were built on a different orientation from the former Greek ones. Diodorus mentions that Hannibal, the general who had taken the city, had let the survivors of the original city return there; however, it is noticeable that many of these new houses display the typical Carthaginian construction techniques and architectural plans which were also a feature of the houses at Lilybaeum.
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A marked transformation can also be detected in the religious life of the city. Many of the sacred shrines of the old Greek city, such as the sanctuary of the goddess Demeter Malaphorus, were once again in use, but it is clear that very different religious rites were being practised there. The most striking example of this was the sacred enclosure of Zeus Meilichios, an amalgam of the Greek king of the gods and a pre-Greek subterranean spirit of death and regeneration, an important fixture in the religious life of the old city.
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All around the site, archaeologists have found strange double-headed steles portraying the Punic deities Baal Hammon and Tanit, whom the new settlers considered to be the parents of Zeus Meilichios.
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In the Greek temples and sanctuaries, typical aspects of Punic worship such as betyls (sacred stones) and open-air altars were introduced. In another temple, originally dedicated to the Greek underworld goddess Hecate, a new altar was built on which large numbers of small animals were sacrificed and incinerated according to Punic religious rite.
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Furthermore, Punic religious emblems such as the sign of Tanit and the sacred caduceus plant now adorned the streets of the city.
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