Destroy Carthage by Alan Lloyd

at time of war. It bought valuable alliances. It bought disaffection in the forces of the enemy. Indeed, so far as Carthage was unlucky to em­erge at last with less than outright dominance, her renewed struggle in Sicily was to provide succinct testimony to the power of finance in war. As it happened, the Sicilian campaigns commencing at the end of the 5th century and proceeding throughout the 4th, may be said to have covered a great deal of territory without much changing Carthage's position in the island. The History of Diodorus, himself a Sicilian, recounts battles, depredations, plunder and atrocities with depressing monotony. From one extremity of the land to the other, campaigns rage. Tyrants rise, cities fall, martial heroes and miscreants come and go.
    And, after all, Syracuse holds the east; Carthage still holds her western ground.
    What indeed changed as war trundled back and forth was the Punic outlook. Inevitably, Carthage acquired an overlay of Greek tastes. A hundred years and more of conflicts, truces shifting alliances, could hardly fail to impress the ways of the island on the countless soldiers and diplomats who commuted from Africa. Carthage also acquired military technique. Re­peated fighting produced skilled officers, refined war proce­dures.
    That a community of traders from the balmy gulf of Tunis would ultimately alarm the hardened militarists of Rome into seeking its destruction had much to do with lessons learned in the Sicilian wars of the 4th century. From her Phoenician background Carthage could draw two military assets : the skill of her seamen, and an expert knowledge of building and attack­ing fortifications. Siege warfare, dating back to the earliest city foundations of Mesopotamia, evinced cogently by the Assyr­ians, was very much an Asian skill.
    In open warfare, as the Persians had learned to their cost against Greek infantry, eastern modes were less dependable. The so-called Sacred Band at the core of Carthage's motley armies achieved fame at first for its ornament. Clad in re­splendent costume and armour, feasting on gold and silver plate, battles commemorated by precious rings on their fingers, the affluent merchants' sons who filled its ranks aroused the wonder of Greek writers.
    But their fighting technique - at least in the early days - seems to have been obsolete. Accounts of numerous chariots transported from Carthage to Sicily suggest a concept of war­fare outdated by Greek tactics. If initial successes were dra­matic, they owed more to the expendability of innumerable hired troops than to any sophistication of Punic arms.
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    Briefly, the events which precipitated Carthaginian interven­tion in Sicily after so many years concerned the violent rivalry of two Siceliot states, Segesta and Selinus. Situated in the west of the island, close to Phoenician territory, both communities had been friendly with Carthage until military conflict between them jolted Selinus into alignment with the eastern power of Syracuse.
    Fear that Syracuse might establish a hold in the far west, endangering the one feature of northern strategy Carthage deemed sacrosanct, gave weight to Segesta's urgent calls for Punic aid - the more so since the Segestans were willing to make their city a dependency of Carthage. All the same, there was no hasty action. Only when diplomatic approaches to Selinus and Syracuse proved unsuccessful were the Carthagin­ians persuaded to intervene with armed force.
    The expedition was entrusted to the first Carthaginian of note to bear the name of Hannibal (Grace of Baal), the son of a Magonid called Gisco. Grandson of the Hamilcar who had died at Himera, Hannibal had a personal motive for revenge by war. Diodorus dubbed him 'a Greek-hater.'
    Hannibal landed in western Sicily in 410. Accompanied by a modest advance force, mainly of Libyans, he put a stop to Selinuntine aggression but was unable to attack Selinus itself until his full army of nearly 50,000 troops had