Battle of Himera (409 BC)

Infobox Military Conflict
conflict=Second Battle of Himera (409 BC)
partof=The Sicilian Wars
campaign=The Second Sicilian War


caption=Second Battle of Himera 409 BC. Political boundaries and path of troop movement are inexact because of lack of primary source data. Source file for this image is created by [http://www.livius.org/a/1/maps/sicily_map.gifMarco Prins-Jona Lendering] and used as per permission given
date=409 BC
place=Himera|SicilyResult=Carthaginian victory, Sack of Himera
casus= Invasion of Hamilcar Mago
territory= Ionian Greek city Himera destroyed
combatant1= Himera
Syracuse | combatant2=Carthage
commander1=Unknown
commander2=Hannibal Mago
strength1= Less than the Carthaginian forces
strength2=60,000 (Ancient sources)
casualties1=3,000 + 3,000 executed
casualties2=6,000+

The Second Battle of Himera was fought near the city of Himera in Sicily in 409 BC between the Carthaginian forces under Hannibal Mago (A king of Carthage of the Magonid family, not the famous Hannibal of the Barcid family) and the Ionian Greeks of Himera aided by an army and a fleet from Syracuse. Hannibal, acting under the instructions of Carthaginian senate, had previously sacked and destroyed the city of Selinus after the Battle of Selinus in 409 BC. Hannibal then attacked the city of Himera, site of the great Carthaginian defeat of 480 BC and utterly destroyed that place. Himera was never rebuilt, a new city of Thermae was built to the west of the ruined city, which contained a mixed population of Greeks and Phoenicians.

Background

Phoenicians of Western Sicily had aided the Elymians against the Dorian Greeks of Selinus in 580 BC, when a Greek colonization attempt of Lilybaeum was defeated. [Freeman, Edward A., Sicily, p55] The invasion of Spartan Douieus was again defeated by Carthage near Eryx in 510 BC, and a war followed where Carthage destroyed the city of Hereclea Minoa. [Freeman, Edwrad A., Sicily, p67] Carthage had signed treaties with the cities of Selinus, Himera and Zankle by 490 BC. The pretext for launching the great Punic Sicilian expedition of 480 BC was the restoration of the deposed tyrant of Himera. The Sicilian Greeks under the tyrants Gelo of Syracuse and Theron of Akragas had crushed the Punic expedition in the 1st battle of Himera in 480 BC.

Carthage had stayed away from Sicilian Greek affairs following the defeat for 70 years, during which time Greek culture started to penetrate the Elymian, Sikanian and Sicel cities. The political landscape in Sicily also changed as Greek tyrants were replaced by democracy and oligarchy, the domain of Syracuse shrunk and infighting between Greek cities flared up in Sicily. Athens had sent fleets to Sicily in 427, 425 and 424 BC to intervene, which caused Hermocrates of Syracuse requesting all Sicilian Greek cities to remain at peace at the congress of Gela in 424 BC.

The Elymian city of Segesta had clashed with Selinus over territorial rights and marriage issues, and had been worsted in the conflict. After an appeal to Carthage was turned down in 415 BC, Athens heeded the plea for help and sent over an expedition that was ultimately defeated at Syracuse in 413 BC. Faced with renewed hostility from Selinus, Segesta again appealed to Carthage in 410 BC. The Carthaginian Senate, after some debate, agreed to intervene. This appeal came at a time when the mainland Greek cities were locked in the Peloponnesian War, and Syracuse, an alley of Sparta, was not focused on Sicily. The Syracusan fleet was operating in the Aegean Sea.

Prelude

Hannibal Mago sent two expeditions to Sicily, the first one in 410 BC which drove the Selinute army from Segestan territory, and the second one obliterated Selinus after besieging the city in 409 BC. [Kern, Paul B., Ancient Siege Warefare, p163-66] The mission given to Hannibal by the Carthaginian Senate was fulfilled with the fall of Selinus. However, Hannibal chose to march on Himera with his army, which had been reinforced by 20,000 Sicel and Elmyian soldiers on the way. [Chirch, Alfred J., Carthage, p31] This would augment his army to over 50,000 soldiers at this point. [Caven, Brian, Dionysius I, p30-31,38 Yale University Press 1990]

Battle

Hannibal marched to Himera and set up his main camp on the west of the city, while about a third of the army encamped to the south of Himera. [Kern, Paul B., Ancient Siege Warfare, p166] Instead of building a circumventing wall and fully investing the city, The Carthaginians assaulted the walls with the help of siege towers and battering rams after setting up their camps. However, the city walls withstood the attack and no breaches could be made for the Puinc infantry to exploit. Hannibal then sent sappers, who dug tunnels under the walls and collapsed sections of it by setting fire to the wooden support beams. [Diodorus Siculus, 13.59.8] Carthaginian infantry then attacked through the gap, but The Himerans repulsed the Punic assault on the city, and then threw up make shift walls to close the breaches. [Diod. 13.59.4-6]

Sometime after this event, Syracusan general Diocles arrived with 3,000 Syracusan hoplites, 1,000 soldiers from Akragas and another 1,000 mercenaries and entered the city. Joining the Himeran force of about 10,000 troops [Church, Alfred J. Carthage, p31-32] (majority hoplites with some cavalry and peltasts), the Greeks launched a surprise attack on the Punic lines, probably on the forces posted on the south of the city. The Greeks achieved total surprise and in the confusion, Carthaginian troops fought each other as well as Greeks. As the Carthaginians ultimately broke and fled after losing about 6,000 soldiers, Greek soldiers went after the scattered remnants of their enemy. At this point, Hannibal launched a counter attack with the force he had held in reserve at the other camp (to the wast of Himera), routed the Greeks and chased them back into the city, with 3,000 Greeks losing their lives in the debacle. [Diod. 13.60]

The main Syracusan fleet was away from Sicily, but 25 triremes had arrived at Himera after the battle from Syracuse. As the Carthaginian fleet was at Motya, their arrival gave the Greeks command of the sea around Himera. [Kern, Paul B., Ancient Siege Warfare, p167] Hannibal spread a false report that the Punic army was going to attack Syracuse after sailing there from Motya, as the main army of Syracuse was approaching Himera, thus leaving their city unguarded. This convinced the Syracusans to leave Himera for their mother city. The city of Himera had little chance of withstanding the Carthaginians on their own, so they decided to evacuate the city. [Diod. 13.61] Diocles marched out of the city with half the men and all his troops at night, the Syracusan ships evacuated as many of the women and children as possible. The Carthaginians resumed their assaults the next day. The city managed to hold out for 1 day. Just as the Syracusan fleet was returning and was within sight of the city the following day, the Carthaginians broke through. Iberian troops of the Punic army had managed to secure a gap on the wall, and also the sections of the wall flanking the gap. The held off the Greeks until the Carthaginian army stormed the city through the gap, and the reduced garrison of Himera was overcome by weigh of numbers. [Diod. 13.62.1-4]

Acts of Vengeance

Hannibal sacrificed 3,000 Greek prisoners at the place where Hamilcar, his grandfather and leader of the 480 BC expedition, had fallen. The city of Himera was utterly destroyed, even all the temples were flattened to the ground, and the women and children were enslaved. Hannibal did not, however, divert a river over the city site (like the Greeks did at Sybaris in 511 BC) or salt the land (like the Romans did –allegedly at Carthage in 146 BC) to complete his revenge. The spoils of were was divided among his troops, the prisoners were sold in slavery. The Itlaian merceneries, who often led the assault, compained that they had been abused by their commander and their payment was not sufficient. [Diod. 13.62.5] and were discharged. Ironically, they took service with the Greeks.

Aftermath

Hannibal did not go after Akragas or Syracuse, the Sicilian cities mainly responsible for the humiliation at Himera at 480 BC after sacking Himera. He disbanded his army (the remaining Italian mercenaries chose to take service with Syracuse), garrisoned the Punic territory with sufficient troops and returned to Carthage with the fleet, where he was received with honors. Himera as a city would never be rebuilt again. The survivors of Himera built a city called Thermae nearby, which housed a mixed population of Greeks and Phoenicians.

The Greek response to the sack of Himera was mild. Syracuse chose to expand her fleet and Akragas began to expand her army, but no official action was taken against Carthage or the Punic territory in Western Sicily. Hermocrates, a Syracusan general, chose to use the sack of Himera to set up a base at Selinus around 407 BC and raid the territories of Motya and Panormus, which provoked a strong Carthaginian response and almost the whole of Sicily fell under Carthaginian domination by 405 BC.

Bibliography

*cite book | title = Hannibal | year = 1999 | author = Baker, G. P. | publisher = Cooper Square Press | id = ISBN 0-8154-1005-0
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References

External links

* [http://books.google.com/books?id=agd-eLVNRMMC&printsec=titlepage Diodorus Siculus translated by G. Booth (1814)] Complete book (scanned by Google)
*SmithDGRBM