Agrigentum inscription

[1] The surviving text reads:[2][3] The monument can be dated to 406 BCE, on the basis of an action by two Carthaginian generals, ’Adnoiba‘al (Idnibal)[7] and Ḥimilco, who are mentioned in lines 9-10.

The Greek historian Diodorus Siculus tells that both generals were active in a Carthaginian military campaign in Sicily in 406 BCE, in particular the siege and taking of the city of Akragas (Bibliotheca historica, 13.43.5[8] and 13.80.1-2[9]).

From Diodorus Siculus we may assume that the refugees from Akragas tried to flee to the city of Gela, 60 kilometers east of Agrigento.

[11] A bonus of the inscription is that it gives the names of the eponymous heads of state of Carthage, the so-called suffetes (šofetim), for this year: Ešmûn-‘amos and Ḥanno (lines 8–9).

It was probably a probouleuma (draft resolution for the Athenian government), to send envoys to the Carthaginian generals asking them for help in the final phase of the Peloponnesian War.