The rivalry between Rome and Carthage for control of the western Mediterranean culminated in the three Punic Wars, fought between the two powers from 264 B.C. to 146 B.C., ending in Roman victory. However, this wasn’t the first time the Carthaginians had resorted to arms to contest maritime dominance; they had been doing so since 600 B.C., but against a different enemy: the city-states of Magna Graecia. For this reason, those conflicts—interestingly also three in number—are known as the Sicilian Wars.

In reality, despite what might seem apparent a priori, Carthage wasn’t engaging in gratuitous expansionism but was instead driven by its geographic reality: to the south it was limited by the Sahara Desert and to the west by the Atlantic Ocean, so the natural zone for economic development could only be toward the Mediterranean. This was so clear to its leaders that they created the most powerful navy of that time, thanks to the seafaring tradition inherited from their Phoenician ancestors.

Given the location of their land, the area of interest for their activities didn’t pose a threat to eastern powers like Persia, Egypt, or Athens, as they focused on territories far from that sphere of influence, such as Hispania or southern Gaul, where there had already been Punic colonies since the 7th century B.C. In fact, this was also, in a sense, the origin of Carthage itself, which had taken the baton from Tyre in the second half of the 6th century B.C.

Sicilian Wars
Phoenician trade routes. Credit: Rodriguín / Wikimedia Commons

Aside from the North African coast, Sardinia was the first place the Carthaginians colonized, using the island as a base to profit, along with Corsica. The next step was also insular in nature: Malta, which fell into their hands around 480 B.C. after the Assyrians and Babylonians had overrun Phoenicia. This replacement of the Phoenicians in their network of trading posts also led them to dominate the southern and part of the eastern Iberian Peninsula, including Eivissa (Ibiza).

The great object of Carthaginian desire then became Sicily. The problem was that it had been largely occupied by Greek colonists since the 8th century B.C. In fact, in Antiquity, that island was known as Magna Graecia, a designation that also extended to the southern part of the Italian peninsula (specifically the coastal regions of Calabria, Campania, Basilicata, and Apulia), where the Ionians had founded their first settlement in 750 B.C., Cumae. Naturally, the Greeks were not willing to leave.

Neapolis, Sybaris, Syracuse, Akragas (Agrigento), Selinunte, Taras (Taranto), Locri, Rhegium, Croton, Thurii, Elea, Messana (Messina), Tauromenium, and Himera formed a small commercial empire in the Tyrrhenian Sea, extending along the Gallic coast with Massalia (Marseille), Antipolis, and Nicaea (Nice), and then on the Iberian coast with Emporion (Empúries) and Mainake (Málaga), among others. This led to sporadic clashes with the Punics, especially by the Phocaeans of Marseille and Corsica.

Sicilian Wars
The Greek colonies of Magna Graecia (Ionian purple, Doric yellow, Achaean gray, Northwest brown). Credit: Rowanwindwhistler / Wikimedia Commons

In 540 B.C., the naval battle of Alalia took place, where the Phocaeans faced a Punic-Etruscan coalition. The former won, but just barely, leading to a status quo that favored the Carthaginians, strengthening the primacy of Gadir in the Iberian Peninsula at the expense of the Greek colonies and, in the long term, securing their dominance over Corsica and Sardinia, as mentioned earlier. In this context, there was another rising power, Rome, which Carthage kept in check by agreeing to treaties that delineated their respective spheres of influence.

But it was obvious that sooner or later hostilities would break out again, this time on a more serious scale. And so they did. The First Sicilian War began in 480 B.C., when Gelon, the tyrant of Syracuse, launched a campaign against Himera, a city on the opposite side of Sicily whose ruler, Terillus, had signed a pact with Carthage. Gelon sought to unify the island under his rule, something the Carthaginians could not strategically allow, so they enacted their treaty with Terillus and mobilized their forces.

It is not known whether it was a coincidence or an alliance deliberately formed, but those events coincided with the attack that the Achaemenid Empire launched on mainland Greece. The fact is that the Carthaginian fleet, under the command of General Hamilcar Mago (who was also one of the two suffetes or judges), suffered significant losses due to bad weather, and when the troops finally disembarked at Panormus (Palermo) and faced Gelo at Himera, they were severely defeated (tradition says it was on the same day as the Battle of Salamis).

Sicilian Wars
Greek and Punic colonies in Sicily in the mid-5th century B.C. Credit: Public domain / Wikimedia Commons

Mago died (whether in battle or by suicide is unknown), and the disaster led to a shift in Carthage, where the oligarchic government gave way to a peculiar republic with a virtually powerless king and governance in the hands of a type of senate of elders, or gerousia, called the Council of the Hundred. Magna Graecia remained Hellenic, and as mentioned earlier, in the metropolis, the Persians also suffered a blow when their fleet was destroyed by the Athenian fleet under Themistocles.

Things remained like this for nearly a century, during which Carthage rebuilt and focused on expanding in North Africa (in what is now Tunisia and Libya). During that period, there were also maritime expeditions by Hanno, who circumnavigated Africa via the Atlantic, and Himilco, who ventured north to Europe. However, an unexpected problem arose: the Punic colonies on the Iberian Peninsula rebelled, and Carthaginian trade faced a crisis as the flow of minerals and other goods was cut off.

Solutions were needed, and attention turned once again to Magna Graecia. Why? Because it was very divided, having recently gone through a war that pitted the cities of Rhegium and Messina against Syracuse, ruled by the famous Dionysius. Thus, in 410 BC, a new military campaign was organized, led by Hannibal Mago, grandson of Hamilcar. He arrived in Sicily the following year, conquered Selinus (Selinunte) and Himera, avenging his grandfather and gathering a rich booty with which he returned to Carthage.

Sicilian Wars
Carthage and its Tunisian surroundings during the expedition of Agathocles. Credit: Sandrine Crouzet / Wikimedia Commons

However, the most prosperous and coveted Greek colony was Syracuse, which, being the strongest, remained calm and seemingly untouchable. Four years later, Mago led another expedition, this time aiming to take the entire island. He could not succeed due to unforeseeable events. A plague epidemic thwarted the siege of Agrigentum, and he himself perished. Although his successor, Himilco, pressed on, taking Gela and defeating Syracuse’s troops again and again, the disease eventually incapacitated him, forcing him to agree to peace and withdraw.

The calm did not last long. In 398 BC, Dionysius failed when he tried to seize one of the island fortresses the Carthaginians had left, Motya. Himilco’s subsequent counterattack led him to take Messina and besiege Syracuse, but the plague intervened once again, turning the Second Sicilian War into a series of minor, drawn-out skirmishes that did not resolve anything but gradually weakened Carthage’s power in Sicily, leaving them with only the southwestern part of the island.

Everything remained in a tense calm that could only lead to a third and final war. It came in 311 BC, when one of Dionysius’s successors, Agathocles, who had conquered Messina four years earlier, seized the last remaining Carthaginian stronghold in Sicily, laying siege to Acragas (Agrigento). Carthage decided to address the matter decisively, sending a powerful army under the command of Hamilcar Gisco, which within a year not only removed the threat but also took control of nearly the entire island.

Sicilian Wars
The campaigns of Pyrrhus in Italy. Credit: Piom / Wikimedia Commons

Syracuse was besieged once again, and Agathocles made a desperate move: he embarked his men to bring the fight directly to Carthage. The gamble was risky, but it paid off; Hamilcar had to abandon his conquests and hastily return to counter the threat, joining forces with Hanno. However, both were defeated by Agathocles, who then laid siege to the city. Its defenses held, and that unprecedented expedition had to retreat, roaming around Tunisia almost freely.

But in the long run, they could not hold out. In 307 BC, when their Libyan allies deserted, the Carthaginians took advantage of the situation, attacking Agathocles’s troops and forcing him to re-embark for Magna Graecia. Once again, all parties sat down to negotiate, and the result was that the Greeks had to cede Messina in exchange for retaining Syracuse and accepting Carthaginian control of the island.

That situation did not last long either; exactly twenty-seven years, until 280 BC, when the King of Epirus, Pyrrhus, launched an expedition there with the aim of curbing the growing Macedonian influence in the western Mediterranean.

Sicilian Wars
The western Mediterranean on the eve of the First Punic War. Credit: Ursus / Wikimedia Commons

In reality, there were two campaigns: one against Rome in southern Italy and the other against Carthage in Sicily. The latter was successful and cornered the Carthaginians, who came to fear for their metropolis when Pyrrhus was preparing to attack it; however, in the end, the Epirote king’s excesses with the island’s population earned their hostility, and he had to withdraw, first to the peninsula, where the Romans confronted him, and then back to Greece in 275 BC.

Meanwhile, the Mamertines, Italic mercenaries in the service of Syracuse, had been left unemployed after Agathocles’s death in 289 BC. Wandering through Sicily, they were welcomed in Messina and took advantage of that goodwill to seize the city, exterminating most of the population. They held it for two decades, using it as a base for piracy, enriching themselves through plunder and ransoms until Hiero II, the new tyrant of Syracuse, decided to confront them.

After being defeated in the initial battles and having their leaders captured, the Mamertines sought help from Carthage. The presence of a Punic fleet was enough to deter Hiero, who withdrew. But then the Mamertines, fearing that the Carthaginians might seize the opportunity to take over, sought an alliance with Rome. Initially hesitant, Rome eventually accepted due to the danger of Carthage regaining power in Magna Graecia. Everything was set for the First Punic War, but that is another story. In the end, the Sicilian Wars had lasted 335 years, making it the longest conflict of antiquity.

This article was first published on our Spanish Edition on October 29, 2018: Guerras Sicilianas, el conflicto más duradero de la Antigüedad que enfrentó a Cartago con la Magna Grecia

SOURCES

Alfred John Church, Arthur Gilman, The Story of Carthage

Luca Cerchiai, Lorena Jannelli, Fausto Longo, The Greek Cities of Magna Graecia and Sicily

Glenn E. Markoe, Phoenicians

William Smith, Magna Graecia

Theodore Mommsen, Historia de Roma

Andrea Salimbeti, Raffaele D’Amato, Giuseppe Rava, The Carthaginians 6th–2nd Century BC

Wikipedia, Guerras Sicilianas

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