Carthage Must Be Destroyed (23 page)

At Monte Adranone, a fortified town founded by the Selinuntines in the sixth century BC, there are also clear signs of Punic resettlement. It had been destroyed at the same time as Selinus, in 409 BC, but during the fourth century BC its walls were reconstructed and two new temples were built, as well as an industrial complex. The more impressive of these temples was located on the original acropolis. It was built to a classic Punic tripartite plan, with a central sacrificial area open to the sky. Typically for the period, it showed an eclectic mixture of Punic and Greek architectural styles, including elegant Doric columns that held up the entrance portico, and a triangular frontage replete with Egyptian cornicing.
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In this period, much smaller settlements in the region also show Punic influence for the first time. At Monte Polizzo, which had previously been deserted, there are clear signs of a Punic reoccupation of the site, with a stele, altar and offerings all discovered in a reused temple.
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However, despite this evidence of Punic urban development in Sicily, many of these new settlements were mere shadows of the towns and cities that they replaced. Notwithstanding the exaggerations of Greek historians, who describe fourth-century-BC Sicily as replete with cities inhabited only by wild animals and vegetation, there can be little doubt that decades of violent upheaval had left their mark not only on the physical fabric of the cities, but also on their inhabitants.
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The archaeological data that have been gathered in Sicily suggest that some of the literary descriptions of deserted cities with dilapidated walls and desecrated temples may be more than mere dramatic fiction.
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The primary function of many of these sites appears to have been military defence rather than urban regeneration. The new settlement of Monte Adranone appears to have been little more than a large Carthaginian military garrison, with an extremely small civilian population.
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At Monte Polizzo the archaeological evidence also strongly suggests that the later Punic occupation took the form simply of a watchtower or a military observation post.
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More fortresses appear to have been established in the area between the Belice and Platani rivers.
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Even Punic Selinus, with its shops and houses, still covered only a fraction of the old Greek city, although clearly more than just a military fort. Indeed, most of the city remained in ruins during this period. In fact the striking feature of many of these high-ground sites in central and western Sicily is the paucity of Punic artefacts aside from bronze coinage and imported torpedo-style amphorae–both signs that suggest a military rather than a civilian occupation.
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We know that, as in Sardinia, much of what we might view as Carthaginian ‘imperialist’ action in Sicily was connected with the acquiring of the resources that a great city like Carthage relied upon.
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However, quite what these resources were, and where they came from, is perhaps not as clear as one might assume. The direct benefit that Carthage appears to have derived from the agricultural hinterland of western Sicily was not extensive. A series of recent studies on amphorae imported to Carthage from the fifth and fourth centuries BC has shown that the quantity of imports from Punic Sicily was minute when compared with those from Sardinia.
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Similarly, Carthaginian exports to western Sicily were equally modest during the period.
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Of course, for the Carthaginians the economic value of western Sicily was its ports, through which a huge amount of Tyrrhenian and Aegean commercial traffic passed.
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The large quantity of fine pottery from Athens dating from the end of the fifth and the first half of the fourth centuries BC found in Carthage probably means that cargoes were being shipped directly between the two cities during this period.
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Later in the fourth century these luxury imports were gradually replaced by fineware from Greek Sicily and southern Italy, which relied on the continued occupation of the Sicilian ports.
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It is clear that by the fourth century BC these regions were the largest overseas exporters of wine (and perhaps other foodstuffs) into Carthage.
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Indeed, without Panormus and Lilybaeum, Carthage would have faced the risk of economic disaster. These ports were therefore worth protecting at almost any cost. Carthaginian interest in much of the hinterland of western Sicily was based not on the local agriculture, as it was on Sardinia, but on fortified settlements which created a defensive buffer for the main object of Carthaginian economic interest on the island: the ports of the west.

The other major factor in Carthage’s economic and political organization of western Sicily was its very large standing army that remained on the island for considerable periods of time. Owing to the lack of economic input from the territory that it was meant to be protecting, the Carthaginian army on Sicily had to be largely supplied with foodstuffs from Sardinia.
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One must assume that the profits made from the Tyrrhenian and Ionian trade could be offset against these expenses, and that the Punic cities in western Sicily may have been paying some form of taxation in coinage.
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It was Carthage’s determination to hold on to the western Sicilian ports that made it resist any potential external threats with such dogged determination and disregard for the heavy cost in manpower and other resources that it entailed. In the 340s the threat was from the Greek city of Corinth, which was becoming increasingly involved in the internal affairs of its daughter city Syracuse.
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The Carthaginians attempted to warn off Timoleon, the Corinthian representative sent to Sicily, but without success.
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Subsequent efforts militarily to intimidate him also failed, with Timoleon successfully establishing a new democratic government in Syracuse as well as creating a broad anti-Carthaginian alliance among a number of the Sicilian Greek city states.
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Further disaster struck when in 340 a large Carthaginian army–unusually, made up of a large contingent of citizen troops–was successfully ambushed by Timoleon.
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Marching deep into enemy territory, the Syracusans waited for the Carthaginians at the river Crimisus. According to Diodorus, on that summer morning the river valley was covered in a thick mist. The only sign that the Carthaginian army was on the move was a deep rumble which rose up to the Syracusans through the swirling mist. Later in the morning, as the gloom lifted, the Crimisus below came into view–and with it the aweinspiring sight of the Carthaginian regiments crossing the river.

First came four-horse chariots fitted out for battle, and then the elite citizen regiment, the Sacred Band, distinguishable by their white shields, heavy bronze and iron armour, and the ordered discipline of their march. Anxious to catch these crack battalions before they had a chance to clear the river, Timoleon sent his cavalry in among them. During the battle a terrible hailstorm came to the aid of the Greeks, who had their backs to it. The Carthaginian line was broken, and many were trampled underfoot and drowned in the river. The Sacred Band, perhaps mindful of their citizen status, or knowing that their heavy armour ruled out any chance of flight, valiantly stood their ground until they were cut down to a man. Crimisus, in terms of citizen lives lost, stood as the worst military disaster that the Carthaginians suffered in Sicily. Over 10,000 Carthaginian soldiers were reported to have been killed, with a further 15,000 captured. The loss of the Sacred Band, the flower of Carthage’s citizen elite, ensured that citizen regiments would now be mobilized only in the gravest crises.
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The Carthaginians, however, did manage to recover from this terrible setback by continuing the war against the Syracusans by proxy. Fresh mercenaries were sent to Sicily to help various autocrats, the natural enemies of democratic Syracuse. This tied up the Syracusan forces so that the Carthaginians could quietly reconsolidate their hold on the western half of the island, and the tactics were vindicated when in 338 BC a new treaty was signed with Syracuse. Much of western Sicily was recognized as a zone of Carthaginian influence, and in return the Carthaginians jettisoned their new allies.
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By the 330s BC it may have looked as though the strategic ‘long game’ first initiated by the Magonids in Sicily had paid off. After all, there were few who did not now recognize the western half of the island as a zone of Carthaginian influence. Yet, despite all its impressive developments, questions must still remain concerning the true extent of Carthage’s hold on western Sicily. Particularly troublesome were the bands of mercenaries and buccaneers who had flocked to Sicily to fight for either side. After they had been paid and discharged from service, these mercenaries often became a real problem. Many had few prospects in their home states, and preferred to stay on the island and make new lives for themselves, often at the expense of its lawful inhabitants.
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There can also be little doubt that the military investment needed to protect the Carthaginian zone of influence was very considerable. The Carthaginian military authorities in Sicily found themselves having to mint vast amounts of high-value coinage in gold, silver and electrum (gold–silver alloy) to pay the wages of their mercenary armies.
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Also, issues of overvalued bronze coinage produced by both Syracuse and Carthage in the fourth century BC strongly indicate that continual warfare was an enormous drain on their financial resources.
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The importance to Carthage’s long-term economic interests of controlling the western ports; the shorter-term needs of the Carthaginian army; and the acquisitiveness and insecurity that provided the Sicilian Greek autocrats with the necessary motives and conditions to maintain their rule: all these ensured that the relentless cycle of Sicilian violence continued unabated. Through the enslaving of the defeated, the capturing of cities, and war reparations, conflict provided the funds to preserve the bloody status quo between Carthage and Syracuse on the island. The real victims were the Punic, indigenous and Sicilian Greek cities in whose name this bloody process was perpetuated. Such was the brutal economy of war.

During a twelve-year period in the 330s and 320s BC, a young Macedonian king, Alexander (‘the Great’), had by the tender age of 31 succeeded in becoming master of an empire that stretched from Greece to Pakistan. Many of Alexander’s contemporaries and those who came after him understandably struggled to make sense of his extraordinary success. After all, what Alexander had achieved had never been done before and, it was thought, could never be matched again. Stories swirled around the towns and cities of the ancient Mediterranean and Near East that Alexander was not just descended from celestial lineage, but was actually a god himself.

His meteoric career would be marked out not just by an astounding sequence of military victories, but also by an ability to write his own headlines. Alexander’s ‘heroic’ image was carefully worked on by the coterie of advisers, diarists and historians who accompanied him on campaign. Portrayed as the new Heracles, he had stormed across Asia capturing all in his path. After he stopped his great march eastward in what is now Pakistan, the question for all the peoples of the West was whether they would be the next targets in his seemingly endless thirst for glory and conquest. The terrifying speed with which Alexander had built up his huge Asian empire meant that the idea of his turning his attention westward was a distinct and unsettling possibility. Alexander made the world seem like a small place.

Envoys from all over the lands of the western Mediterranean therefore made the long and arduous journey to the royal court at Babylon to strike up friendly relations with Alexander and to find out what his future intentions were. From Italy there came Bruttians, Lucanians and Etruscans. From the northern climes there were Celts and Scythians. Iberians came from the far West, and Nubians from the depths of Africa. Among this gaggle of supplicants was a Carthaginian, Hamilcar ‘Rodanus’, who had probably learned his Greek while living on the island of Rhodes. Unlike the others, however, Rodanus had not been sent to find out if Alexander wished Carthage well: events at the finale of the siege of Carthage’s mother city of Tyre had emphatically answered that question.

Alexander and his armies had approached Tyre in 332 BC. After being refused entry to the sacred sanctuary of Melqart, Alexander had besieged and then sacked the city, massacring its defenders and enslaving its remaining population.
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Melqart, the god whose annual cycle of death and rebirth took place in the heat of the sacred fire, would be smothered in the smoking ashes of the city which had for centuries nurtured him. Generations of Tyrian tradition and religious observance would be buried under the martial pomp of self-consciously Greek/ Macedonian ceremonial: military parades, gymnastic competitions, and a torchlight procession of Alexander’s army. The solemn burning of the effigy of Melqart would be set aside for yet another set of anodyne athletic competitions in honour of the Hellenic Heracles. Alexander also seized the sacred boat in which the Carthaginians had first brought their offerings to Melqart many centuries ago, and inscribed it with a Greek dedication.
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Diodorus, clearly following Timaeus, digressed from the history of his Sicily to tell how a group of thirty Carthaginian emissaries, who had brought the annual tithe from their city to be offered to Melqart, had found themselves stranded in the besieged Tyre. When the city fell, Alexander had spared the Carthaginians’ lives, sending them home with the ominous warning that Carthage’s turn would come once the conquest of Asia was complete.
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So Rodanus’ mission at the court in Babylon was to discover quite
when
rather than
if
Alexander would launch an attack on Carthage.