For some unknown reason, Athens had a slightly insidious interest in Sicily since the 550s BC, when Athens unexpectedly signed a treaty of friendship with Segesta. This shift in foreign policy can probably be compared to today's Treaty between China and Paraguay. A series of similar treaties followed, and when Rentini asked for help defending against Syracuse's attack in 427 BC, Athens immediately sent twenty ships. This would have seemed generous at all times, and in the fourth year of the Peloponnesian War, when Athens was fighting for its own survival, it was simply earth-shattering. Thucydides less convincingly claimed that the Athenians' intention was to prevent Sicilian grain from being fed to athenian enemies.
The Peloponnesian War was basically a struggle between Athens and Sparta, which had little effect on Sicily until 415 BC. The year before, however, clashes began between the two city-states of western Sicily, Segesta and Selinunte. This is not the first time. As the weaker of the two cities, Segesta first appealed to Accragas, Syracuse, and Carthage, but the sea sank and eventually sent a mission to Athens in despair. Athens was theoretically at war, but the war gave way to an unstable truce, and Athens now had a large number of bored young soldiers who needed to work. Athens also had a dazzling young councilor named Assibid, the adopted son of the great Pericles. Assibid strongly supported a large expedition to Sicily. He had a bad impression of the Sicilians; and in a lengthy speech to the Council he explained why:
Although Sicily's cities have a large population, their inhabitants are mixed, and they are happy to abandon the old form of government and embrace new things. No one really feels like they belong to a city... They are a ragtag bunch of people who never disagree when it comes to discussing important matters and are completely unable to take any unified action. [1]
The Athenians took his word for it and launched their expedition.
Segesta's plight was almost momentarily forgotten. The Athenians had a more important goal. Their aim was probably to force the entire Sicily to submit, but it was clear that their first target had to be Syracuse, the most important city on the island. So they sailed toward Syracuse; but as soon as the army landed, the commanders began to quarrel. Assibid, the best of them, almost immediately faced accusations of blasphemy, was recalled to Athens and did not continue to play any role in the Sicilian War; if he had participated in the rest of the war, the outcome of the expedition might have been very different. None of his fellow generals seemed to have an overall plan for the attack; they hesitated for weeks, giving Syracuse plenty of time to prepare a solid defense and call for help. Sparta, with a well-trained army, and Corinth, with a powerful navy, quickly responded. The Athenians soon discovered that the conquest of Sicily, or even just Syracuse, was not at all as easy as they had expected.
Moreover, unlike Athens, Syracuse had an outstanding commander. His name was Hermokratis. According to Thucydides, Hermokratis was resourceful, possessed extensive experience in warfare and valor of Vanvmodam. According to Xenophon, Hermokratis was attentive, diligent, and, as a general, surprisingly approachable with his soldiers. In 415 BC he was one of the first to warn his countrymen of the threat to Athens, and he was determined to unite the whole of Sicily (plus Carthage) against Athens while there was still time. He failed at this point. Some ignored him and thought he was unfounded; others hated him and thought he was a soldier. These doubts do not seem to have been diluted too much, because the Syracuses were not at all willing to give him supreme command, but only elected him as one of three generals who shared command. This stupid arrangement meant that, to a large extent, he was constrained.
The war lasted two full years, and the Athenians captured almost the entire city at least twice. In 414 BC, Syracuse nearly had a massive slave revolt. Later in the same year, Hermokratis had to negotiate peace. The situation was only salvaged when the Spartan general Gulips arrived in time with massive reinforcements. At first Gulips was not popular in Syracuse, but he soon proved himself to be a true professional soldier. Hermokratis had to put aside his self-esteem and accept Gulips as his superior. It was the cooperation of these two men that led to the defeat of Athens, and it was a fiasco that took Athens a long time to recover from it.
But there are other reasons. Over time, Athenian soldiers became increasingly homesick, demoralized, and more susceptible to epidemics, especially malaria. The disease was unheard of in Athens, but it was rampant in Sicily. Eventually, the Athenian commander admitted defeat and issued an order to retreat. But it was too late. The Syracuses and their allies launched a surprise final attack; the Athenian fleet was trapped in the harbor and vanished. What followed was a massacre. After that, two major Athenian generals, Nikias (despite being very ill at the time) and Demosthenes, were executed. About 7,000 of their soldiers were captured and forced to work in the harsh conditions of the limestone mining ground outside the city. Their pickaxes are still visible today. In the months that followed, many of them would die in the cold. Countless other prisoners of war were branded with horses on their foreheads and sold into slavery. (Plutarch claims that some lucky people were released for reciting several passages of Euripides's plays, but this is not credible.) Thucydides summed it up this way: "The battle was an extreme honor for the victors and the worst for the losers." ”
Sicily was victorious and would not be subject to foreign aggression for the time being; but the Peloponnesian War was far from over, and the now idle Hermokratis gained command of a fleet of twenty three-row oared warships,[2] fighting for Sparta in the Aegean Sea. For two years, he proceeded well; but in 410 BC, fate betrayed him. Perhaps he was not as talented as an admiral of the Army; in any case, his fleet was completely annihilated by the Athenian fleet during a brutal naval battle off the coast of Cuzycus off the Marmara Sea. He returned to Sicily, only to find the gates of Syracuse closed to him. This is probably because, despite his glorious resume, the citizens distrusted his ambitions and feared that he would establish himself as a tyrant. Their concerns may be justified, but we can never be sure. In 407 BC, during an attempt to firmly force his way into the city, he was surrounded and then killed.
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On that fateful day, among those who accompanied Hermokratis was a tall, red-haired young man of twenty-four years of age named Dionysius. A recent chronicler believed that he came from an "unassuming well-to-do family"; it is said that one day, a swarm of bees attached to the mane of his horse, he thus recognized his destiny.
In fact, we know very little about his family or origin, except that he was determined to attain all the glory, and more, that his old superior, Hermokratis, had sought. If Dionysius had looked back on previous events, he would have made it clear that the failure of the Athenian expedition and his hometown had the same reason: the incompetence of the leaders, or the fact that the leaders were tied to the task of exercising their talents. The Athenian generals had their own ideas about how to act; at the same time, the most senior of them, Nikias, had been too ill to command the army. Syracuse, on the other hand, possessed such a brilliant military man as Hermokratis, but he shrank his head and did not dare to let him take full responsibility. How did all this happen? The young Dionysius believed that the root of the problem lay in democracy. Democracy means disunity; only with absolute power can a great leader make the most of his abilities and achieve his highest goals.
How nice it would be to record that the humiliating departure of the Athenians brought Sicily back to peace. Sadly, this is not the case. The old war between Selinonte and Segesta rekindled, and in 410 BC, the desperate Segesta once again sought help, this time to Carthage. The Carthaginians responded. Their disastrous intervention seventy years ago must have been forgotten. In the first year, they could only send a small army that had been hastily assembled; but in 409 BC they sent a sizable army led by their general Hannibal[4] who burned Selinonte to scorched earth just over a week. None of the inhabitants of Selinonte were massacred. Hannibal then advanced to Himera, where his soldiers slaughtered the city again and then returned to North Africa for the winter.
By this time the blood of the Carthaginians had boiled; their business in Sicily was not yet finished. In the spring of 406 BC, they returned with an even larger army and a new target, Accragas. The city's long-term prosperity was blessed with the fact that it had been careful to remain neutral in previous wars. The Syracuses stepped forward to defend Akragas. But the Syracuses found in disgust that the people of Accragas refused to move a single finger, and angry condemnations were useless. They have been wandering for too long; perhaps they have become too fond of their world-famous extravagance, of the extremely comfortable beds and cushions they export to every corner of the Greek world. In Accragas, a military rule of the time prohibited soldiers from carrying more than three blankets or more than two pillows while standing guard. In this case, the Akragas are unlikely to have any resistance. As a result, the city of Accragas was abandoned and subsequently looted by the victorious Carthaginians. Accragas residents moved to Lentini. Among the countless works of art that the Carthaginians brought back home was the bronze cow that the tyrant Fararis had put his enemies roasted alive.
The events of Accragas were bound to have had an impact on Syracuse, where the already precarious political situation had become increasingly chaotic; at this moment Dionysius saw his chance. It didn't take much effort for him (because he was already a rising star in politics) to allow himself to be elected to the city's Council of Generals, and it was only a step away from there to the highest power. He seized this power without any hesitation, which hardly needs to be specifically stated. Carthage was still marching, and in a few months Gera would suffer a similar fate to Acragas. And Syracuse was probably the next target of the Carthaginians. Sure enough. But the Carthaginians suddenly changed their minds and returned home. Why they did it, we don't know. The ancient chronicler Theodorus mentions the plague outbreak in a dark tone; but it is quite possible that Dionysius had a lot to do with it. He seems to have become a very dignified man. He was unlikely to be able to intimidate the Carthaginians, much less influence them; but his diplomatic skills might have been able to convince the Carthaginians that attacking his city was too much to lose.
Regardless of the facts, the peace treaty was signed; and this peace treaty marked Syracuse's first recognition of Carthage's province in Sicily. Carthage's settlements at the western tip of Sicily would all be carthage's absolute territory. The conquered peoples were allowed to return to their respective homelands on the condition that they could not fortify the cities and pay tribute annually. In contrast, Carthage had no power in Syracuse; Dionysius had taken control of the entire city. The Second Age of the Sicilian Tyrants has arrived.
He did not dare to entrust his head to the barber, so he taught his daughter to shave his hair. The king's daughters were relegated to the service of female hairdressers, who trimmed their father's hair and beard. He went even further: when they were older, he took the knife and decreed that they could only burn his beard and hair with heated walnut shells. He married two wives, Alistomake (from his own city) and Doris of Lockry. And at night, when he went to look for them, he had to examine everything thoroughly. He dug a wide trench around his bed, which could only be passed by a small wooden bridge; when he closed the door to his bedroom, he removed the bridge by himself.
This passage is excerpted from Cicero's Tusculum Debate. It should be noted that this article was written almost four centuries after the object it describes died. We may not think of it as a historical anecdote, but only as an example of how exaggerated stories can arise around extraordinary characters, especially when they have been in power long enough to be half legendary. Dionysius I of Syracuse ruled for at least thirty-eight years, and his tyrant rule during this time was described by Theodoros as "the strongest and most enduring tyrant rule ever made". How did he do that? Admittedly, he had all the necessary qualities as a leader: courage, self-confidence, ingenuity, determination, and eloquence. This last point has always been pivotal in the Greek world. But apparently something else was revealed later in a few (very few) people, like Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and Napoleon. We might call it personal charm, or stardom, or whatever. In fact it is undefinable; the only thing that is certain is that when we see it, we can recognize it, and Dionysius I of Syracuse undoubtedly possessed this temperament.
[1] Thucydides, VI.17.
[2] The three-row paddle-seated warship was a type of paddle schooner used by the ancient Maritime civilizations of the Mediterranean (Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, etc.). The ship has three rows of oars on each side, and one person controls one oar. Such warships played an important role in the Persian Wars and the rise and fall of the Athenian Empire.
[3] Bees and honey have always had a special meaning in Sicily, ever since the unfortunate Icarus' father, Daedalus, presented Artemis with a golden hive. (Author's Note)
[4] Not to be confused with the Carthaginian commander of the Second Punic War, the great Hannibal Baka.