History of Greek Sicily

[2] Thucydides writes that the first Greek colonies were founded by aristoi (exclusive aristocracies) after the internal struggles following the return from the Trojan War.

However, the first sites chosen indicated a commercial strategy; Messina, Naxos, Reggio, Catania and Syracuse were all ports on one of the most important trade routes of the era and became points from which to control them.

The numbers of Siculi and Sicani were rising and so he fought a series of battles aimed at combating this perceived threat, turning Syracuse into a powerful city with an army and navy, repopulating it by moving people from Gela and adding some of the conquered Megareans.

The resulting peace treaty also imposed a heavy indemnity on the enemy and (according to Herodotus[citation needed]) forced them to renounce human sacrifice, especially of first-born sons at Tofet.

Their cruelty seems to have provoked revolts which ended the first period of tyranny among the Greek colonies on Sicily, though Aristotle argues that their fall was mainly caused by internal struggles between powerful families.

Trasideus was the first to fall, in his case to a coalition of Syracusan insurgents, Siculan troops and soldiers from Akragas, Gela, Selinunte and Himera.

Only Deinomenes remained in power in Aitna until a Siculan-Syracusan coalition forced its population to flee to the surrounding hills of Centuripe and Inessa (now Etna).

Setting off from his birthplace of Mineo and destroying Inessa-Etna and Morgantina, he founded colonies of his own at strategic points to control the territory, including Palikè near the former sanctuary of the Palici.

The conflict also drew in western Sicily; in 416 BC Selinunte (with Syracusan support) declared war on Segesta (who had turned to Athens after Carthage refused to help).

Its government was led by one of its generals, Diocles of Syracuse, who put in place a series of reforms on the Athenian model and a code of laws.

A small force of Carthaginian mercenaries came to help Segesta and the following year Hannibal Mago landed with another army, obliterating Selinunte and massacring its inhabitants.

Hermocrates had in the meantime been dismissed from the Aegean fleet and returned with five ships and a small army of refugees and mercenaries, with which he settled in what remained of Selinunte and attacked Carthage's vassal cities.

Gela and then Kamarina fell, at which point Dionysius was able to sign a peace treaty delimiting Syracuse's and Carthage's spheres of influence on the island, leaving the Punic, Sicanian and Elymian cities in the latter.

It also imposed a tribute to Carthage on Selinunte, Akragas, Himera, Gela and Camarina and forbade them to build city walls, but Leontini, Messina and the Siculi were freed and Dionysius was left in control of Syracuse.

Around 387 BC Dionysius began to establish colonies on the Adriatic coast to obtain wheat from the Po valley without it having to cross Etruscan territory.

This marked the foundation of Adrìa (now Adria), Ankón (now Ancona), Issa (now Vis), Dimos (now Hvar), Pharos (now Stari Grad) and Tragyrion (now Traù).

He then marched on Syracuse, which quickly opened its gates and welcomed him, leading to a decade of struggles which drew in Leontini and the other cities and ended with Syracusan control of Sicily weakened.

Meanwhile Troina may have taken Leptines's power in Apollonia and Eugione, Mamercus was based in Catania, Nicodemus in Centuripe, Apolloniadas in Agirio, Hippon in Zancle and Andromacus in Taormina.

Syracuse and Sicily thus began a new period of prosperity and redevelopment, with Akragas, Gela, the hinterlands, Kamarina, Megara Hyblea, Segesta and Morgantina all flourishing again.

Timoleon's retirement from politics soon led to another period of instability, mainly marked by internal class conflict between the oligarchs and the people of Syracuse.

According to Polybius, the cruel actions attributed to him were limited to his early days and were solely directed at the oligarchic class and never towards the general population.

Besieged in Syracuse, in mid-August 310 BC Agathocles entrusted the city's defence to his brother Antandros and escaped with 14,000 men and 60 ships to invade North Africa.

However, Agathocles did not have enough troops to launch an attack on Carthage and so allied himself with Alexander the Great's old officer Ofella, governor of Cyrenaica, who had 10,000 elephants and cavalry at his disposal.

The settlement left Carthage with Eraclea Minoa, Termini, Solunto, Selinunte and Segesta, but forced it to give up its expansionist aims on Sicily.

He turned his ambitions east towards Italy and the outlying Greek islands, conquering Lefkada and Corcyra, the latter given as a dowry when he married off his daughter to Pyrrhus of Epirus.

In 282 BC, Phintias tyrant of Akragas took advantage of this and finally destroyed Gela and deported its population to Licata, which he rebuilt in pure Greek style with a city wall, temples and agora.

At this point Pyrrhus of Epirus (fresh from his eponymous 'Pyrrhic victory' against the Romans at Taranto) replied to Sicilian Greek cities' appeal for assistance, landing at Taormina in 278 BC, welcomed by the tyrant Tyndarion.