The Sicilian Agathocles, a man not only of obscure but lowly and abject origins, became king of Syracuse. The son of a potter, he led a reprehensible life in every stage of his existence; however, he always accompanied his wickedness with such spirit and physical vigor that, upon entering the military, he rose through the ranks, step by step, until he became praetor of Syracuse. Once he had attained this rank, he sought to become prince and obtain by force, without owing it to anyone, what would have been willingly granted to him.

This passage corresponds to the eighth chapter of the work The Prince, titled Of Those Who Have Attained Sovereignty Through Wickedness, in which Machiavelli presents as an example a figure from Antiquity who defies classification: the Hymerian Agathocles, a man of modest origins who became the tyrant of Syracuse, defeated the Carthaginians on their own soil, proclaimed himself king of almost all of Magna Graecia, and died naming as his heir… the people of Syracuse!

Agathocles, born in Terme (modern-day Termini Imerese), a polis near Hymera (the westernmost of the Greek cities in northern Sicily), was born around 361 BC. He was the son of a potter named Carcinus, who had been exiled from Rhegion (the ancient name of the Italian region of Reggio di Calabria) and who, after marrying a local woman, had two sons: the aforementioned Agathocles and Antander, the elder brother, who always assisted him in military matters. Terme belonged to the epikrateia, that is, the western part of Sicily, which was under Carthaginian rule; in fact, it was inhabited by former Hymerians (whose city had been razed by the Punics in 409 BC) and Libyan settlers.

From the moment of his birth, he was surrounded by omens, although these were likely later additions, as such tales were common among rulers. Diodorus Siculus calls him the son of destiny because Carcinus had sent some Carthaginian theoroi (sacred envoys) to consult the Oracle of Delphi, which foretold that when Agathocles grew up, he would become a scourge to Carthage and Sicily, and therefore, he should be eliminated. Frightened, his father handed him over, but his mother managed to take the child away and put him in the care of his uncle Heraclides, her brother. Later, Carcinus accepted this decision, which forced him to flee from Terme.

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Syracuse today. Credit: Agostino Artnoir Sella / Wikimedia Commons

His destiny was Syracuse, where the Corinthian general Timoleon was encouraging settlers from Magna Graecia to repopulate the city. Since the dates are uncertain, somewhere between 343 BC and 338 BC, Diodorus states that the family arrived when Agathocles was seven years old, while Polybius, on the other hand, claims he was already eighteen. In any case, he was still young, underage, which did not prevent his mother from having a vision of a statue of her son, erected by her own hand and surrounded by bees as a metaphor for power and fame. How did he manage to achieve such a position? That depends on the source one consults.

The Sicilian historian Timaeus, hostile to Agathocles, asserts that he prostituted himself (…he was available to the most intemperate men, shameless in his words, lascivious, willing to offer himself in an immodest manner to all who desired him). Polybius and Diodorus do not share this negative view, although the latter admits that Agathocles had a male lover, a Syracusan general named Damas, who acted as his erastes, something that was not frowned upon as long as the relationship ended upon reaching adulthood. In this sense, it is possible that they continued their relationship, which explains Timaeus’ disdain.

Justin introduces an element that complicates matters: at a certain point, Agathocles began to take more interest in Damas’ wife than in him, and when Damas died of an illness, Agathocles legalized the affair by marrying the widow as his second wife. Her name has not been preserved, but she bore him three children. In any case, this marriage opened the doors of high society to Agathocles. He had inherited his father’s trade and, although he was likely a well-off artisan and owner of a workshop, this social ascent represented a radical change, as it consolidated his entry into politics.

In fact, Damas had integrated him as an officer into his chiliarchy (one of the divisions of the phalanx, smaller than a taxis), and thanks to this, he made his military debut in a war between Syracuse and its eternal rival, Akragas. The exact date is unknown, but based on secondary details from Justin’s work, it can be estimated around 339 BC. At that time, Timoleon was still ruling; he died four years later, leaving Syracuse in turmoil due to the conflict between democrats and oligarchs. The latter, known as the Six Hundred, held power, threatening the liberty that Timoleon had sought to guarantee through legal reform.

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Decadrachm of Syracuse. On the obverse, the effigy of Apollo; on the reverse, a charioteer and below, a winged triskele, which was Agathocles’ symbol and evidence that he was the issuer. Credit: Stella / Wikimedia Commons

This led to the rise of a markedly popular opposition movement. Agathocles remained neutral, although at first, he seemed inclined toward the democratic faction, despite the fact that his brother, elected strategos of the army, maintained good relations with the oligarchic leaders Sosistratus and Heraclides. These two sent an expedition to aid Croton, which had been attacked by the Bruttians (an indigenous people of Calabria), led by the two brothers—Agathocles as chiliarch and Antander as strategos. They returned victorious, but the oligarchs refused to grant them the recognition they deserved, and Agathocles accused them of tyranny.

Consequently, he was exiled and began a life as a mercenary, offering his services to the city-states of Magna Graecia while his denunciation materialized: Sosistratus and Heraclides assumed despotic rule, leading to internal unrest. Opponents demanded the return of Agathocles, and upon his return with his troops, the situation escalated into a civil war. However, things did not go as he had hoped. A military setback while attempting to seize Croton for the democrats forced him to flee to Tarentum, and the oligarchy prevailed in several cities.

In a second attempt, he defeated the troops sent to support the oligarchs of Rhegion, leading to the downfall of Sosistratus and Heraclides. The democrats took control of the Syracusan government while the deposed rulers fled to Carthage, and Agathocles once again entered the city he had been forced to leave. It was the year 332 BCE, and the outlook was complicated: the Carthaginians were coming to aid the oligarchs, and the Syracusans did not fully trust Agathocles, appointing the Corinthian Acestorides as strategos in his place.

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Ethnic-linguistic origin of the Greeks of Magna Graecia: Dorians (yellow), Ionians (lilac), Achaeans (gray) and northwestern (brown). Credit: Future Perfect at Sunrise / Rowanwindwhistler / Wikimedia Commons

Acestorides brokered peace with the Carthaginians, and Agathocles was once again forced into exile alongside the democrats to avoid an assassination attempt ordered by the Corinthian. He sought refuge among the Sicels, who resented Syracuse for subjugating them, and gradually assembled a private army as all the peoples oppressed by the Syracusans began to join him, despite the now more moderate government. The Syracusan rulers once again sought help from Carthage, but Agathocles displayed remarkable strategic skill by negotiating with Hamilcar II, the Carthaginian sufet of Sicily, to support each other in their ambitions for control over the island.

Without Carthaginian support, Syracuse had to concede and allow Agathocles’ return. He was placed in command of the army by the local version of the Greek boulé, after swearing in the temple of Demeter (the favored goddess of Syracusan tyrants, who claimed to be her hierophants) that he would never establish a tyranny. The greatest fear, in that regard, was that his charisma would lead him to become another Dionysius I. Indeed, he did not keep his oath, and between 317 and 316 BCE, under the pretext of addressing an external threat, he gathered his troops and staged a coup, claiming that several dozen oligarchs were plotting a conspiracy against him.

He ordered their execution and then unleashed his men to massacre the rest, spreading chaos and panic for two days. It is estimated that about four thousand perished, all affluent citizens, while another six thousand fled to Agrigentum. Agathocles justified his actions as necessary to save democracy, but that alone would not have been enough to convince the people. He succeeded thanks to a ruse still used today: announcing his resignation to provoke public acclaim. Indeed, he remained in power and was granted absolute authority, accumulating titles as strategos autokrator.

How did he manage to stay in power? By winning popular favor through debt cancellation and a land redistribution. The situation was different in other cities—Agrigentum, Gela, Messana, and Tauromenium; Rhegion, being under democratic rule, was aligned with him—which refused to be subordinated to Syracuse again. These cities harbored the exiled oligarchs, triggering a casus belli. As expected, Agathocles launched a campaign… which he had to halt shortly thereafter when Hamilcar Gisgo reminded him of their agreement to maintain balance.

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Agatocles in an 18th century engraving. Credit: Stella / Wikimedia Commons

However, in 314 BCE, Agrigentum, under oligarchic control, organized a league joined by Sparta. The Spartan ephors did not approve of this, but Acrotatus, son of King Cleomenes II, arrived with a private force. The exact course of events is unclear, but Agathocles managed to defeat Agrigentum, overthrow the oligarchs, and dissolve the Agrigentine League in exchange for promising autonomy. Carthage endorsed the agreement, giving the Syracusan ruler free rein to expand his army with thousands of mercenaries, making him strong enough to no longer fear the Carthaginians.

The oligarchs, now regrouped in Messana, refused to abandon the fight under the leadership of his childhood friend, Dinocrates of Syracuse, whose life he had previously spared during his uprising. As a result, he besieged and captured the city. However, before that, Dinocrates managed to call upon Carthage once again, which sent a fleet against Syracuse. Hamilcar II had just died, leaving Agathocles without a mediator. Justin and Diodorus disagree on who initiated hostilities—whether the Carthaginians with their fleet or Agathocles by occupying their Sicilian territory, aware that his strength lay in his infantry.

Indeed, he defeated Dinocrates and his oligarchic forces on land, reclaiming the city-states of Galaria and Centuripe. Meanwhile, however, the Carthaginian ships attacked the Syracusan harbor, cutting off the hands of all the sailors they captured. Agathocles and the Carthaginians finally clashed on Mount Ecnomus, where the latter, led by Hamilcar Gisgo, prevailed thanks to the continuous reinforcements they received by sea, inflicting seven thousand casualties on Agathocles. He retreated to Gela, attempting to stall the enemy long enough for the Syracusans to complete their harvest and thus be prepared to withstand a siege.

When Giscón realized it, it was already too late, and Agathocles had returned to a well-supplied Syracuse, so he laid siege to Syracuse after taking control of the entire chora (the territory dominated by a polis). However, the Syracusan ruler was aware that the defeat at Ecnomus compromised his prestige and, therefore, his political position. That is why he adopted a new strategy, as bold as it was unprecedented until then: taking the war to Carthage itself, overthrowing its government, and installing another one in its place that was non-interventionist, like the one represented by the late Hamilcar II.

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Ruins of the Syracusan sanctuary of Demeter, where Agathocles took his oath. Credit: Rabax63 / Wikimedia Commons

Raising money wherever he could, he outfitted sixty ships, boarded his soldiers (including recruits and mercenaries but also many slaves whom he freed to compensate for the losses suffered at Ecnomus), entrusted the command of Syracuse to his brother, set sail without the besiegers noticing, crossed the Sicilian Channel, and landed at Cape Bon. It was the year 310 BC. Agathocles ordered the ships to be burned so that there was no turning back and began his campaign, conquering several cities—Neapolis, Hadrumetum, Thapsus, Utica—forming an alliance with Ophellas of Cyrene to share the spoils, and laying siege to Carthage.

There were problems, of course. For unknown reasons, he ordered Ophellas to be assassinated and also had to quell the unrest among his officers after one of his captains, Lysiscus, accused his son Archagathus of seducing his wife. But 307 BC was such a victorious year that, according to Diodorus, Agathocles could not resist proclaiming himself king in imitation of the Diadochi (the successors of Alexander the Great), though other sources delay that decision to 304 BC, upon his return to Sicily. In any case, Carthage’s dire situation plunged it into the chaos of a civil war, from which, however, a strong government emerged that prevented tyranny.

Fortunately for the Carthaginians, Agathocles had to interrupt the campaign and, leaving Archagathus in command, return to Sicily upon hearing that Dinocrates had rekindled the oligarchic rebellion. In a swift operation, he restored order and set out again for Africa, where he found disaster: his son had been defeated by a surprise Carthaginian sortie, losing eight thousand men, and the rest were deeply discontented because their wages were overdue. In a desperate gamble, Agathocles decided not to wait to starve Carthage into submission and ordered an assault. It failed; the city’s strong defenses held.

Three hundred dead, three thousand prisoners—sacrificed by the enemy—and ten thousand Libyan allies who chose to switch sides were excessive losses to continue the campaign. Agathocles wanted to leave his army there, with his son, but the soldiers refused, so he left alone, abandoning them. In revenge, they killed his two sons, Archagathus and Heraclides, which provoked such fierce resentment that, upon reaching Sicily, he sent a message to Antander ordering the massacre of all the families of the Syracusan soldiers. But that did not improve his situation, which remained precarious.

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Carthage and its African territories. In blue, the cities conquered by Agathocles and his generals. Credit: Sandrine Crouzet / Rowanwindwhistler / Wikimedia Commons

The troops he left in Africa had been crucified by the Carthaginians or incorporated into their ranks, while in Sicily, his brother had managed to resist the Carthaginians but was now besieged by Dinocrates’ army. To make matters worse, Pasiphilus, his trusted general, betrayed him and handed over the island’s eastern cities to the oligarchs, except for Syracuse. In a display of realpolitik, Agathocles negotiated with Dinocrates to transfer power to the oligarchs in exchange for being granted a couple of strongholds, Thermae and Cephaloedium, the only ones still loyal to him. Distrusting Agathocles’ notorious resilience, Dinocrates refused, demanding unconditional surrender—a grave mistake.

Agathocles, in another bold move, turned to the Carthaginians to propose peace, warning them about the growing power Dinocrates was accumulating. The Carthaginians were aware that, at that moment, the greatest military force was in oligarchic hands, which could be the beginning of another war—something they wanted to avoid. So, they preferred to make a deal with a known adversary rather than wait and see how an unknown one would turn out. The agreement allowed Carthage to recover its Sicilian cities in exchange for paying Agathocles three hundred talents of silver and twenty thousand medimnoi of wheat (a medimnos was approximately thirty-one kilos).

With these financial resources, Agathocles organized another army of five thousand infantry and eight hundred cavalry with which he confronted Dinocrates. The latter’s forces were vastly superior—twenty-five thousand infantry and three thousand cavalry—but the Syracusan was accustomed to fighting in disadvantageous conditions and ultimately imposed his tactical prowess: able to sustain battle for a long time, his enemies exhausted themselves and, breaking ranks, fled to the hills, only descending when the victor promised them clemency. He lied, and once they laid down their arms, he ordered them to be slaughtered.

Among the estimated five to seven thousand dead was not Dinocrates, who was not only pardoned once again by his old friend/enemy but also joined his army, taking charge of capturing and executing Pasiphilus. The war still lasted two more years, concluding in 304 BC—according to one version, that was when Agathocles proclaimed himself king—although there were still expeditions to the Lipari (Aeolian) Islands. The goal was to seize loot and relieve economic pressure, for which he plundered the precious metal offerings from the island’s prytaneion (government seat).

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Reconstruction of Carthage. Credit: Damian Entwistle / Wikimedia Commons / Flickr

During the return voyage, a fierce storm sank the ships, depriving the Syracusan ruler of the money; since these offerings were dedicated to Aeolus and Hephaestus, it was said that it was an act of vengeance by the former, the god of the wind, while the latter would also obtain satisfaction later: a legend states that years later, when Agathocles was dying, he was burned alive on embers by Hephaestus’ decision; we will see this later. The fact is that barely had one conflict ended when another arose, and in 301 BCE, it was time to fight in Magna Graecia (the southern part of the Italian peninsula).

Agathocles sent an expedition along with his nephew Archagathus to help the local population against a barbarian aggression. It is unclear whether the invaders were Bruttians, Lucanians, or Messapians, but the Syracusan intervention coincided with another one from the Macedonian diadoch Cassander, and they clashed on the Adriatic coast, which Syracuse practically considered its own. Archagathus prevailed, forcing Cassander’s infantry to retreat and burning his fleet, which allowed him to take control of the Ionian Islands. He then defeated the barbarians, took Corcyra, sacked Croton, and forged alliances with the Apulian pirates.

Not everything was slaughter. During a second stay in Italy, he also took the opportunity to take his daughter Lanassa to Epirus and marry her to King Pyrrhus, which secured his loyalty over Illyria. Lanassa was the daughter of Alcia, his second wife (the first, let us recall, was the widow of his benefactor, Damas), with whom he also had a son named after him. He would later have a third wife, Theoxena, the second daughter of the Egyptian rulers Berenice I and her first husband, Philip; with her, Agathocles had two more children, Archagathus and Theoxena the Younger, who fled with their mother to Egypt after their father’s death.

He set foot in Magna Graecia once more with a powerful army of thirty thousand infantry and three thousand cavalry to conquer the Bruttian city of Hipponium (modern Vibo Valentia) and extend his dominion over the peninsula. Affected by illness, he had to return to Sicily, and the Bruttians did not miss the opportunity to rebel. There were also disruptions in the strategic arranged marriages, as Lanassa divorced when her father signed an alliance with the Macedonian monarch Demetrius Poliorcetes, who was an enemy of Pyrrhus, although her firstborn would reign in Epirus as Alexander II.

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The western Mediterranean in the time of Agathocles. Credit: Stella / Wikimedia Commons

Agathocles was preparing a great expedition to Libya in order to pressure Egypt when his illness forced him to cancel the plan. He was unwell enough to proclaim his son Agathocles II, the son of Alcia (and thus Lanassa’s brother), as his heir, having already sent him to Macedonia some time before so that Demetrius Poliorcetes could endorse him as the successor to the throne of Syracuse. This designation displeased his nephew Archagathus, who decided to poison both the sovereign and his heir through one of the former’s favorites, named Menon. Once the crime against Agathocles II was carried out, the assassin threw the body into the sea, from where it was later recovered amid great expressions of sorrow.

The king disinherited Archagathus and convened a popular assembly in which he proclaimed the people of Syracuse as his successor. He then passed away, and his body was cremated. Diodorus states that Oxysitemis, a minister of Demetrius Poliorcetes, was the one who placed the body on the funeral pyre and set it alight despite realizing that Agathocles was still breathing, perhaps because the poison had made him appear dead without actually killing him; if so, as we mentioned earlier, Hephaestus’ vengeance would have been fulfilled. Modern historians believe the cause of death may have been oral cancer, which had likely been affecting his health for some time.

Theoxena followed her late husband’s recommendation and escaped to Alexandria with her children, so the dynasty did not continue in Syracuse; power fell into the hands of the general Hicetas, who managed to be proclaimed strategos autokrator, and his rule turned into tyranny. Thus, Agathocles’ figure remained unique. As Machiavelli says:

If one examines Agathocles’ conduct, very little or nothing will be found that can be attributed to fortune (…) Nor can it be said that he was virtuous, a man who slaughtered his fellow citizens, disposed of his friends, kept no faith, and had neither piety nor religion—means that might lead to sovereignty but never to glory. Yet, if one considers Agathocles’ boldness in facing dangers and his skill in overcoming them, the firmness and resilience of his spirit in enduring or triumphing over adversity, there is no reason to exclude him from the ranks of the most celebrated captains.

This article was first published on our Spanish Edition on March 21, 2025: Agatocles, el tirano que defendió Siracusa llevando la guerra a África, invadiendo y sitiando Cartago

SOURCES

Justino, Epítome de las «historias filípicas» de Pompeyo Trogo

Diodoro de Sicilia, Biblioteca histórica

Polibio, Historias

Christopher de Lisle, Agathokles of Syracuse. Sicilian Tyrant and Hellenistic King

Melanie Jonasch, The fight for Greek Sicily. Society, politics and lanscape

Gabriele Marasco, Agatocle e la politica siracusana agli inici del III secolo a.C.

Wikipedia, Agatocles

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