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AGATHOKLES OF SYRACUSE
OXFORD CLASSICAL MONOGRAPHS

Published under the supervision of a Committee
of the Faculty of Classics in the University of Oxford
The aim of the Oxford Classical Monographs series (which

replaces the Oxford Classical and Philosophical Monographs)
is to publish books based on the best theses on Greek and Latin
literature, ancient history, and ancient philosophy examined by
the Faculty Board of Classics.
Agathokles of
Syracuse
Sicilian Tyrant and Hellenistic King
C H R I S T O P H E R D E LI S L E
1
3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,
United Kingdom
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of
Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries
© Christopher de Lisle 2021
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
First Edition published in 2021
Impression: 1
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a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the
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You must not circulate this work in any other form
and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2020939744
ISBN 978–0–19–886172–0
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198861720.001.0001
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Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and
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contained in any third party website referenced in this work.
To Martins de Lisle and Morris

Acknowledgements
I am fortunate to have a great many people to thank. I would never

have undertaken higher studies in Classics had it not been for the
support of family, friends, and teachers in New Zealand; I would
never have completed this project had it not been for the many new
friends that I found at Oxford, especially in the New College MCR
and the Oxford Classics Faculty. Most of the research and writing was
carried out in the Sackler Library or the late, great Combibos
Coffee House.
Financially, this work was made possible by the generous support
of the Clarendon Fund and the British Academy. Additional support
for travel and research was provided by the Thomas Wiedemann
Memorial Fund, the New College Graduate Travel Fund, and the
Craven Committee of the Faculty of Classics. The award of a British
Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship and a supernumerary fellowship at
University College, Oxford enabled me to undertake the conversion
from thesis to book.
Academically, I have benefited from the vibrant intellectual envir-
onment that is the Oxford Classics Faculty. I am especially grateful
for the advice, comments, and criticisms of Volker Heuchert, Robert
Parker, Nicholas Purcell, Jo Quinn, Keith Rutter, Peter Thonemann,
Andy Meadows, and Jonathan Prag.
Contents
List of Figures and Maps xi

List of Tables xiii
List of Abbreviations xv
Timeline xxi
Introduction 1
1. Agathokles’ Life and Times 9
PART I R EPRESENTATIONS OF A GATHOKLES

2. Historiography 41
3. Telling Tales about the King 69
4. Coinage 95
P A R T I I T H E RU L E RS H I P O F A G A TH O K L E S
5. Tyrannosiculus Rex 139
P A R T I I I T HE WO R L D OF A G A T HO K L E S
6. Sicily 181
7. Carthage 201
8. Italy 229
9. Mainland Greece and the Diadochoi 257
Conclusion: Sicilian Tyrant and Hellenistic King 287
Appendix 1 The Lokrian Tablets 291
Appendix 2 Coin Catalogues 295
Bibliography 311
Index 347
List of Figures and Maps
FIGURES
4.1. Silver stater, Syracuse. © Classical Numismatic Group, LLC

(http://www.cngcoins.com): Auction 384, Lot 28. 119
4.2. Silver stater (S2), Agathokles. © Classical Numismatic Group,
LLC (http://www.cngcoins.com): Auction 386, Lot 56. 120
4.3. Silver decadrachm, Dionysios I. © Stack’s Bowers Galleries 121
(https://www.stacksbowers.com/): Sale 185, Lot 234.
4.4. Silver tetradrachm (S1), Agathokles. © Ira & Larry Goldberg 121
(https://www.goldbergcoins.com): Auction 14, Lot 4287.
4.5. Gold stater, Philip II. © Pecunem Gitbud & Naumann 124
(http://www.numismatik-naumann.at): Auction 19, Lot 101.
4.6. Gold 1/2 stater (G1), Agathokles. © Gorny & Mosch,
Giessener Münzhandlung GmbH 124
(https://www.gmcoinart.de/): Auction 219, Lot 67.
4.7. Gold 1/8 stater, Alexander. © British Museum 1853,0716.101. 126
4.8. Gold 2/3 stater (G4), Agathokles. © Classical Numismatic
Group, LLC 126
(http://www.cngcoins.com): Auction 96, Lot 14.
4.9. Gold stater, Alexander the Molossian. © British Museum
BNK, G.1037. 126
4.10. Bronze drachma, Timoleon. © Gorny & Mosch, Giessener
Münzhandlung GmbH 126
(https://www.gmcoinart.de/): Auction 236, Lot 77.
4.11. Silver tetradrachm (S4), Agathokles. © Heritage Auctions
(HA.com), New York Signature Sale 3044, Lot: 31007. 127
4.12. Silver tetradrachm, Ptolemy I. © Classical Numismatic
Group, LLC 128
(http://www.cngcoins.com): Auction 96, Lot 588.
4.13. Gold stater (G3), Agathokles. © Numismatica Ars Classica,
NAC AG 128
(http://www.arsclassicacoins.com): Auction 64, Lot 738.
8.1. South Italian coins with the triskeles. 245
xii List of Figures and Maps

App. 2.1 Gold coins 296
App. 2.2 Silver coins 298
App. 2.3 Bronze coins 302
App. 2.4 Electrum coins 303
MAPS
Map 1. Sicily in the time of Agathokles (made using Tableau

Public). Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors. xvii
Map 2. Africa in the time of Agathokles. Map data
© OpenStreetMap contributors. xviii
Map 3. Southern Italy in the time of Agathokles. Map data
© OpenStreetMap contributors. xix
Map 4. The central and eastern Mediterranean. Map data
© OpenStreetMap contributors. xx
App. 2 Map 1. Agathokles’ gold 307
App. 2 Map 2. Agathokles’ electrum 307
App. 2 Map 3a. Agathokles’ full-weight pegasoi. 307
App. 2 Map 3b. Agathokles’ reduced-weight pegasoi. 308
App. 2 Map 3c. Pegasoi from mainland Greek mints. 308
App. 2 Map 3d. Pegasoi from Italian and Sicilian mints. 308
App. 2 Map 4. Agathokles’ tetradrachms. 309
App. 2 Map 5. Macedonian coins in the West. 309
App. 2 Map 6. Agathokles’ bronze coinage. 310
List of Tables
2.1. Fragments of Kallias 44

2.2. Fragments of Douris 46
2.3. Fragments of Timaios 49
4.1. Quantification of Agathokles’ silver coins. 109
4.2. Quantification of Agathokles’ gold and electrum coins. 110
4.3. Quantification of Syracusan silver and gold coinage,
413–c.370 BC. 111
4.4. Quantification of selected coinages of the Diadochoi. 113
8.1. Summary of Italian chronology, 303/2–289/8 BC. 238
List of Abbreviations
Ael. Her. Pros. Aelius Herodianus, De Prosodia Catholica.

Arr. HSA. Arrian, Historia Successorum Alexandri = Phot. Bibl. 92.
Arr. Ind Arrian, Historia Indica.
BMC Poole, R. S., B. V. Head, and P. Gardner. 1876. British
Museum Catalogue of Greek Coins: Sicily. London.
BNJ Worthington, I. Brill’s New Jacoby. Leiden.
CH Coin Hoards.
CNS Calciati, Romolo. 1987. Corpus Nummorum Siculorum.
Milan.
Didym. Didymos, In Demosthenem, in P. Berol. 9780.
HN3 Rutter, Keith, and Andrew Burnett. 2001. Historia
Nummorum: Italy. London.
IGCH Thompson, M., O. Mørkholm, and C. M. Kraay. 1973.
An Inventory of Greek Coin Hoards. New York, NY.
INC International Numismatic Congress.
Leu Bank Leu AG, Numismatik. Auction Catalogues.
Mach. Princ. Machiavelli, Niccolò. The Prince. Second edition,
translated by Robert M. Adams. Norton Critical
Edition. New York, NY: W. W. Norton &
Company, 1992.
McClean I Grose, S. W. Catalogue of the McClean Collection of
Greek Coins, Volume 1: Western Europe, Magna
Graecia, Sicily. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1923.
MS Buttrey, T. V. 1989. Morgantina Studies II: The Coins.
OGIS Dittenberger, W. 1903–5. Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones
Selectae.
SNG I.I 1931. Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum, Great Britain,
Volume I, Part 2: The Collection of Spencer-
Churchill; The Salting Collection in the Victoria and
Albert Museum. London.
SNG II 1933–7. Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum, Great Britain,
Volume II: The Lloyd Collection I–VIII. London.
SNG III 1938–49. Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum, Great
Britain, Volume III: The Lockett Collection, I–V.
London.
xvi List of Abbreviations

SNG V 1951–2008. Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum, Great
Britain, Volume V: The Ashmolean Museum,
Oxford, I–IV, IX, XI. London.
SNG ANS 5 1988. Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum, USA: The
Collection of the American Numismatic Society.
Part 5: Sicily 3 (Syracuse–Siceliotes). New York, NY.
SNG Cop 1942–79. Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum, Denmark:
The Royal Collection of Coins and Medals, Danish
National Museum. Copenhagen.
SNG Munich Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum, Deutschland: München
Staatlische Münzsammlung. Part 6: Sikelia. Punier
in Sizilien, Lipara, Sardinia, Punier in Sardinien,
Nachträge. Berlin, 1980.
Synes. Ep. Synesius, Epistolae, in Hercher, R. Epistolographi
Graeci. Paris: Didot, 1873.
Trog. Prol. Pompeius Trogus, Prologi.
Map 1. Sicily in the time of Agathokles (made using Tableau Public). Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Map 2. Africa in the time of Agathokles. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Map 3. Southern Italy in the time of Agathokles. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Map 4. The central and eastern Mediterranean in the time of Agathokles. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Timeline
All dates are BC, unless otherwise stated. Most dates in Sicilian history derive
from Diodoros. Ostensibly he assigned events to Athenian archon years
(running from midsummer to midsummer). In practice these are often
campaign seasons (running from spring to winter). Often it is not possible
to determine which system he is using, so (e.g.) ‘317/16’ may mean any time
between spring 317 and midsummer 316.
c.485–467 The Deinominids (Gelon I and Hieron I) rule Syracuse

c.480 First war with Carthage. Carthaginians defeated by Gelon
at Battle of Himera.
466/5 Deinomenid tyranny overthrown, empire dismantled.
427–424 First Athenian expedition to Sicily.
415–413 The Athenian expedition to Sicily.
410/9–404/3 Second war with Carthage. Destruction of Selinous,
Himera, Akragas, Gela, and Kamarina.
406/5–367/6 Dionysios I rules Syracuse
398/7–392/1 Third war with Carthage. Destruction of Motya.
Dionysios transfers many Siceliots to Syracuse, settles
Campanians in east Sicily.
383/2–373/2 Fourth war with Carthage.
367/6 Fifth war with Carthage.
367/6–357/6 Dionysios II rules Syracuse
361/0 Agathokles born.
357/6 Dion (Dionysios II’s uncle) invades Sicily and Dionysios II
flees to Lokroi.
357/6–344/3 Three-way civil war in Syracuse between Dionysios II,
Dion, and Dion’s successors, and Herakleides and
Kallippos.
346/5 Dionysios II returns to Syracuse, opposed by Hiketas, who
seeks aid from Carthage and Corinth, leading to the
dispatch of Timoleon.
344/3–337/6 Timoleon the Corinthian in charge of Syracuse
342/1–340/39 Sixth war with Carthage.
340/39–339/8 Timoleon deposes tyrants in all cities of eastern Sicily.
320s Conflict in Syracuse between ‘the Six Hundred’ and
Agathokles.
xxii Timeline
317/6 Agathokles takes control of Syracuse

315/4 Agathokles attacks Messana, Carthaginians mediate.
314/3 Syracusan exiles, Akragas, Gela, and Messana go to war
with Agathokles, Carthaginians mediate.
312/1 Agathokles conquers Messana, attacks Akragas, and
invades Carthaginian territory.
312/1–306/5 Agathokles’ war with Carthage
311 Carthaginian victory at Eknomos, most of east Sicily
defects to Carthage.
310 Agathokles invades Africa and puts Carthage under siege.
309/8 Carthaginian siege of Syracuse, destroyed by a night
attack.
309/8–307/6 Xenodikos and the Akragantines attempt to ‘liberate’
Sicily.
308/7 Battle in the land of the Zouphones. Agathokles
reinforced by Ophellas, Ptolemy’s governor of Cyrene,
whom he kills.
307/6 Agathokles destroys Segesta.
306/5 Agathokles makes peace with Carthage.
305/4 Battle of Torgion. Syracusan exiles defeated.
c.304 Agathokles declares himself king (βασιλεύς).
304/3 Agathokles raids Lipari.
303/2 Kleonymos of Sparta’s Italian expedition.
303/2 Conquest of Gela, last centre of resistance to Agathokles
in Sicily.
303–301 Agathokles invades southern Italy.
301–298 Agathokles defeats Kassandros of Macedon at Korkyra;
Agathokles’ forces in Italy mutiny and rebuffed at Ethai.
295 Agathokles sacks Kroton and allies with Iapygians and
Peuketians; Agathokles’ daughter Lanassa marries
Pyrrhos of Epirus, with Korkyra as dowry.
294–c.292 Agathokles attacks Hipponion.
289/8 Lanassa and Korkyra transferred to Demetrios
Poliorketes; Agathokles dies.
Stemma of Agathokles
Agathokles
Karkinos Herakleides
of
Rhegion
361 –289
1 2
72
Antandros Damas Alkia
or
Agathokles
Damaskon
D. 307 D. 307 340 – 268 389 – 282 305 – 289

72 87 18
Archagathos Herakleides Berenike Ptolemy I Agathokles
Soter II
D. 289 D. 250 D. 295 319 – 272 310 338 – 283

3
47 55
Archagathos Theoxena Magas Antigone Pyrrhos Lanassa Demetrios

of of Poliorketes
Cyrene Epirus
294 – 242
52
Archagathos Theoxena Alexander

Epistates of
of Libya Epirus
Descendants Descendants
in in
Egypt Epirus
Introduction
Agathokles of Syracuse ruled Sicily and southern Italy from 317/16 to

289/8 , at the dawn of the Hellenistic age. He campaigned every-
where between Africa and Albania and was remembered by subse-
quent generations for his daring and cruelty. But he rarely appears in
modern works on the Hellenistic age or on ancient Sicily. For scholars
of the Hellenistic world he is too western to be relevant; for scholars of
Sicily he is too late. In this book, I argue that Agathokles was an
important player in the Mediterranean world at a key moment in its
history. His career has important implications for our definition of
the Hellenistic world and its relationship to both the western Medi-
terranean and earlier Greek history. I demonstrate this by placing
Agathokles in his Sicilian context as part of a long line of Syracusan
autocrats and in his early Hellenistic Mediterranean context as one of
many warlords fighting for territory and prestige. Previous studies
have chosen to emphasize one or the other of these two contexts,
presenting Agathokles as either a Sicilian tyrant or a Hellenistic king.
I seek to show that he was both at once, placing Agathokles in the
context of his past and his present, of Sicily and the wider Mediter-
ranean. Thus, this is a study of the coexistence of local with global and
of continuity with change.
This approach challenges two problematic trends in scholarship on
the ancient world. The first of these is the tendency to study the
western and eastern halves of the Mediterranean entirely separately,
especially in terms of political history down to the Roman empire.
This entirely unsatisfactory division obscures the intense and long-
standing links that crossed the ancient Mediterranean. Thus, the
Roman ‘entry into the Greek East’ appears an entirely unprecedented
novelty, requiring special explanation, rather than a development of
Agathokles of Syracuse: Sicilian Tyrant and Hellenistic King. Christopher de Lisle, Oxford University Press (2021).
© Christopher de Lisle.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198861720.003.0001
2 Introduction
earlier patterns of interaction.1 I use the case of Agathokles to demol-
ish this division in the early Hellenistic period, stressing his extensive
and interrelated connections with all parts of the Mediterranean as
developments of centuries of previous interactions. Not only does this
approach explain Agathokles’ behaviour, it also illuminates the way
the early Hellenistic Mediterranean looked to contemporaries, espe-
cially the Carthaginians.
The second trend challenged here is the emphasis on the death of
Alexander the Great in 323 as a moment of rupture between the
Classical and Hellenistic ages, the former stereotypically character-
ized by democracy and poleis, the latter by basileis and autocracy.
It has long been emphasized that the Greek polis did not die at
Chaironeia.2 It is much less remarked, though equally true, that
Greek autocracy was not born at Chaironeia. The continuity between
the kings who followed Alexander the Great in the eastern Mediter-
ranean and earlier Greek autocracy is difficult to study—the tradition
about Alexander shines so brightly that it is difficult to see beyond
him. Agathokles’ predecessors, the Deinomenids and the Dionysioi,
are by contrast well-known. I emphasize how Agathokles followed the
precedents laid down by these predecessors and the parallels between
his rulership and that of his contemporaries in the eastern Mediter-
ranean. Agathokles was able to combine Sicilian traditions of tyranny
with features of emergent Hellenistic kingship because both were
manifestations of a Greek tradition of autocracy.
Thus, Agathokles demonstrates the importance of pre-Hellenistic
history and of the West for the development of two of the defining
features of the Hellenistic period: the unification of the Mediterra-
nean and the development of Hellenistic kingship. Neither was
entirely new and neither belonged entirely to the Diadochoi.
The majority of this book takes the form of thematic analysis
focused on how Agathokles’ self-representation, representation by
others, and actions related to long-term dynamics and new develop-
ments in Sicily and the wider Mediterranean. As background to that,
the first chapter provides a narrative account of Agathokles’ life, as far
as it can be reconstructed, from his birth in 361/0 through to his death
1
Critiques: Prag and Quinn (2013); Purcell (2013) 367–77; earlier Habicht (1959).
2
Famously by L. Robert (1969) 42; recently, Ma (1999, 2000, 2003); Billows (2003);
Carlsson (2010); Strootman (2013); Wiemer (2013); Raynor (2014).
Introduction 3
in 289/8. Throughout, I signal forward to issues that will be taken up
in more detail later in the book.
The rest of the book is divided into three parts. The first part
contains three chapters dealing with representations of Agathokles
in literary and numismatic source material; the second part is a single
chapter discussing Agathokles’ rulership in relation to Sicilian tyr-
anny and Hellenistic monarchy; the final part, chapters 6 to 9, deal
with Agathokles’ interactions with the regions around him, serving to
demonstrate the connections between them.
The second chapter deals with the literary sources for Agathokles,
principally Diodoros, Justin, Polyainos, and Polybios, and the impli-
cations of these authors’ projects for the interpretation of their
accounts. One of the central focuses of research on Agathokles has
long been the effort to discern the lost sources behind the narratives
preserved for us by Diodoros, Justin, and others. This Quellen-
forschung (‘source criticism’) was first carried out on a large scale by
Rudolf Schubert in his Geschichte des Agathokles of 1887, the earliest
scholarly work devoted entirely to Agathokles, which confidently
assigned passages of Diodoros and Justin to the lost historians
Timaios, Kallias, and Douris.3 I discuss what is known of the lost
sources themselves, treating them as the raw material from which our
surviving authors built their own characterizations. While it is
important to be aware of the material available to our own sources
and how that may have shaped their own works, it is rarely possible to
attribute a particular passage to a particular lost source. Moreover, the
attempt to see through the texts in front of us to the lost sources
behind them blinds scholars to the surviving texts. I show that each of
the surviving sources has their own coherent characterization of
Agathokles, shaped by their authors’ larger agendas. The wide range
of viewpoints represented by the lost sources encouraged the surviv-
ing authors to think carefully about how they characterized Agatho-
kles, while the large amount of data that the lost sources presented
enabled them to pick and choose in accordance with their own
agendas. The findings of this chapter are critical for my interpretation
of literary evidence in the rest of the book and have important
implications for other studies using evidence from these authors.
3
Schubert (1887).
4 Introduction
The third chapter moves away from the individual sources in order
to investigate the shape of the discourse on Agathokles as a whole and
its relationship to the discourse on tyrants and Hellenistic monarchs.
Many of the anecdotes about him are tropes, which could be used
(with appropriate modifications) either to praise or to blame. Similar
tropes were deployed by ancient Greek authors to discuss both
Classical tyrants and Hellenistic kings, showing that both were part
of a single discourse on autocrats, into which Agathokles was incorp-
orated. Several motifs associated with Agathokles have parallels in
stories about his predecessors and successors, reflecting a Sicilian
tradition within this general discourse on autocracy. The fact that
Agathokles’ contemporaries and successors saw him this way sup-
ports the overall argument of the book that Agathokles was part of a
long tradition of Sicilian monarchs within a continuous tradition of
Greek autocracy.
The fourth chapter deals with Agathokles’ coinage. Quantification
of his coinage shows that he was operating with a financial base that
was similar or slightly smaller than that of his predecessors, but
absolutely dwarfed by the resources of the Diadochoi. Agathokles
had to stretch these resources to breaking point in order to achieve his
goals, especially since the activities of the Diadochoi in mainland
Greece cut off Sicily’s main source of silver. The circulation evidence
in many ways continues or resumes earlier trends of economic
interaction with Italy and the Adriatic that had been disrupted in
the mid-fourth century. It also shows that the complex range of
denominations issued by Agathokles in various weight standards
and metals differed in destination. Additionally, I argue that the
iconography of his coinage does not represent a switch from Sicilian
motifs to Hellenistic Macedonian ones, as has been claimed for the
last century. Rather, Macedonian motifs are clear from his earliest
issues and throughout they were chosen on account of their Sicilian
resonances—reflecting an effort to adapt new developments in auto-
cratic self-representation to the Sicilian context. The coinage, then,
places Agathokles simultaneously in a Sicilian, a Hellenistic, and a
Mediterranean context and shows how these contexts overlapped
with one another.
The heart of the book is its second part, which deals directly with
Agathokles’ rulership and its relationship to the regimes of his Sicilian
predecessors and Hellenistic contemporaries. This topic has attracted
substantial interest in modern scholarship since Machiavelli, for
Introduction 5
whom Agathokles was the archetype of the prince who seizes and
holds power through the effective deployment of evil means.4 The
discussion has been shaped in unfortunate ways by early contribu-
tions, particularly by the imposition of two unhelpful paradigms. The
first of these is the paradigm of transition, introduced by
E. A. Freeman, author of the foundational work The History of Sicily
from Earliest Times. Freeman was an outspoken political activist,
deeply opposed to Napoleon III, whom he hated for his coup d’état
of 1851 and always referred to as ‘the tyrant’.5 These views informed
Freeman’s characterization of Agathokles. A key aspect of this parallel
was the idea that Agathokles’ career, like that of Napoleon III, was a
gradual transition from republican and constitutional beginnings to
an absolute autocracy: the ‘despot’s progress’. A similar transition in
the legends of Agathokles’ coins had played a central role in Barclay
Head’s determination of their chronology.6 Freeman’s son-in-law and
literary executor, the numismatist Arthur Evans, firmly soldered the
numismatic evidence to the idea of the ‘despot’s progress’.7 The
paradigm of transition has stuck, even as the exact ideas about what
he was transitioning from and towards have changed. I argue that this
is not a useful approach to Agathokles. The literary source material
for his career, which is mostly retrospective and is much richer for the
earlier part of his reign than for the later, means that the paradigm is
easy to deploy but hard to substantiate, excessively teleological, and
encourages overly stark dichotomies. The second problematic para-
digm is the dichotomy between Sicilian tyranny and Hellenistic
monarchy. Scholarly opinions have varied over time. Freeman him-
self, as well as Moses Finley, were inspired by parallels drawn between
Agathokles and Dionysios I by ancient sources, and placed Agatho-
kles firmly in the context of Sicilian tyranny—as its culmination or its
last gasp.8 Other scholars have used the paradigm of transition to
understand Agathokles’ relationship to Sicilian tyranny and Hellen-
istic monarchy. Thus, Helmut Berve and especially Sebastiana Nerina
Consolo Langher, whose publications on Agathokles are legion, pre-
sented him as abandoning Classical tyranny in favour of a new,
Hellenistic style of rule, which allowed Agathokles to transcend the
4 5
Mach. Princ. ch. 8. Freeman (1891–4); Hunt (1901) 249.
6 7
Head (1874). Evans in Freeman (1891–4) 4.489–91; Evans (1894).
8
E.g. Freeman (1894) 4.489–91; Mossé (1969) 167–78; Finley (1979) 101–8.
6 Introduction
Syracusan polis and convert his realm into a territorial state.9 As will
already be clear, my view is that this distinction between Sicilian
tyranny and Hellenistic kingship has been presented far too starkly.
Parallels for most aspects of Agathokles’ rule can be found with both
his predecessors and his contemporaries, demonstrating the degree of
continuity between Classical and Hellenistic autocracy.
The four chapters of the third part of the book treat Agathokles’
relationships with Sicily, Carthage, Italy and the Adriatic, and the
eastern Mediterranean. Agathokles’ absence from general works on
the Hellenistic period reflects a problematic absence of Sicily from
the mainstream of modern scholarship on Hellenistic history and
Greek history more generally.10 My discussion demonstrates the
intensity of Agathokles’ interactions with the wider world—a power-
ful argument against this exclusion. Past scholarship on Agathokles
has represented these interactions as a progressive engagement with
the Hellenistic world over the course of his reign.11 My discussion
demonstrates that Agathokles’ relations with the world around him
reacted to and developed long-standing dynamics of interaction. I do
this by stressing the parallels between Agathokles’ actions and those
of his predecessors. This approach helps explain his actions. It also
clarifies the behaviour of the states and kings he interacted with, and
the ways in which the Mediterranean state system operated at the
beginning of the Hellenistic period.
In chapter 6 I discuss Agathokles’ interactions within Greek Sicily,
where an exile dynamic had been operating for his entire life, which
tended to transform local civic conflicts into pan-Sicilian conflicts.
This dynamic pushed Agathokles to take an expansionist policy in
order to secure his rule in Syracuse against attacks from his exiled
opponents. It also enabled that expansionist policy by allowing him to
9
E.g. Zambon (2006); La Torre (2009) 191; Lanteri (2011); Raccuia (2011)
234–43; Santagati (2011), esp. 57; also Berve (1967) 453. Contra Finley (1979)
101–8; Meister (1984) 411; Lewis (2006) 52–7.
10
Sicily is absent from Rostovtzeff (1941); Will (1966); Walbank (1981);
Mørkholm (1991). Exceptions demonstrate uncertainty about how Sicily fits into
the Hellenistic main narrative: Meister’s chapter on Agathokles in CAH 7.1 (1984)
is not placed with the other narrative chapters, but wedged between a chapter on town
planning and one on the Syrian wars; Shipley (2000) 51–2 discusses Sicily along with
Bithynia and Pontos; Erskine (2003) excludes Sicily from its narrative chapters, but
brings it in as an example of Hellenistic cultural interaction: Dench (2003). Prag and
Quinn (2013b); Erskine (2013).
11
See ch. 5, n. 1.
Introduction 7
treat conflict within other Sicilian communities as part of his war with
the Syracusan exiles.
In chapter 7 I deal with the Carthaginians, where the exceptional
Greek bias of our evidence makes it difficult to understand their
motivations and the modern scholarly debate is stuck in a stale
dichotomy in which the Carthaginians are either extremely aggressive
or total pacifists. By considering Carthage’s experience of earlier
Syracusan tyrants and their overall commitment throughout the
Mediterranean, I move beyond this dichotomy and argue that the
Carthaginians were not interested in eastern Sicily for its own sake,
but conscious that it could threaten holdings in western Sicily which
were vital to the coherence of their entire empire. Agathokles was able
to manipulate their response to this situation in the process of his rise
to power; during his invasion of Africa he successfully targeted every
systematic weakness of their empire, but was unable to overcome
their advantage at sea.
In chapter 8 I move on to Italy and the Adriatic, where the
fragmentary state of Diodoros’ twenty-first book means that we are
sadly under-informed about the nature and extent of Agathokles’
involvement in the region. The nature of this involvement is crucial
for understanding the extent of his imperial ambitions. By looking at
Syracusan interventions in Italy over the preceding two centuries,
I show how the contested nature of the Straits of Messana, the desire
to prevent catastrophic invasions from the East, and other factors
motivated Syracusan tyrants generally and Agathokles in particular to
intervene in Italy. I also argue that Agathokles’ imperial ambitions
should be seen more in terms of control of movement than control of
territory.
Chapter 9, the last of the section, deals with the poleis (city-states)
and basileis (kings) of the eastern Mediterranean. Where previous
scholarship has presented interaction with this part of the world as
solely a phenomenon of Agathokles’ late reign, I show how the Sicilian
interests of Corinth and Sparta loomed large in his calculations from
the beginning, and how the conflict among Alexander’s successors
gave Agathokles the freedom to engage in conflicts in Sicily and Africa.
In his interactions with the Diadochoi, Agathokles sought both to keep
them at arm’s length and to assert himself as their equal.
This book, then, sets out to show that Agathokles was heir to a long
tradition and actively engaged in his contemporary world. There is no
contradiction or paradox in this fact, no sharp rupture with the one
8 Introduction
for the sake of the other. In ancient discourse about Agathokles, in the
coins he issued, in his interactions with the world around him, and in
the way he ruled, this principle holds true. The failure to place
Agathokles in both of these contexts has contributed to the develop-
ment of an excessively deep separation between the western and
eastern Mediterranean and between the Classical and Hellenistic
periods. Sicily, the very centre of the Mediterranean, has been allowed
to fall through the cracks and our picture of the Hellenistic world is
the poorer for it.
Agathokles’ Life and Times
The Sicily into which Agathokles was born in 361/0 consisted of

around a dozen large communities and countless smaller ones, each
with its own political structures, territory, and urban hub. Politically,
most of these communities belonged to two realms. Eastern Sicily,
along with southern Italy, was ruled by Dionysios II from the fortress
island of Ortygia in Syracuse, while the western portion of the island
was the domain (epikrateia or eparchia) of the Carthaginians.1
This dichotomy obscures a more complex reality. The island was
home to a range of cultures: Greeks, Phoenicians, Elymians, Sicans,
Sicels, Etruscans, and Campanians. The enumeration of cultures in
this way is itself misleading. Some of these terms may be creations of
Greek ethnography, especially the distinction between Sican and
Sicel. Other cultures could be subdivided further: there was a salient
distinction between Chalkidian and Dorian Greeks, and such subdi-
visions may have existed in other groups as well. Moreover, by
the fourth century, these groups had long been mixing. There were
Greeks in Phoenician centres and Phoenician communities in Greek
centres.2 A number of cultural traits appear across the island, includ-
ing political organization into city-states (poleis); the use of coinage,
including early and widespread adoption of bronze; the metrological
system of litrai and onkia; the worship of rivers and springs; and
the prominence of female deities associated with both agriculture
and death.
1
Dionysioi: Lewis (1994); Caven (1990); Muccioli (1999); Bonacasa, Braccesi, and
De Miro (2002); Carthaginians: Hans (1983); Anello (2002); Cataldi (2003); and
ch. 7 below.
2
Thuc. 6.17, see ch. 7, n. 39.
Agathokles of Syracuse: Sicilian Tyrant and Hellenistic King. Christopher de Lisle, Oxford University Press (2021).
© Christopher de Lisle.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198861720.003.0002
10 Agathokles’ Life and Times

Sicily was not a world unto itself. Neither of the two empires that
dominated Sicily were limited to the island: the Carthaginian sphere
took in much of the western Mediterranean, while the realm of the
Dionysioi extended into southern Italy and up the Adriatic. Many of
the cultures of Sicily, particularly the Greeks and Phoenicians,
claimed homelands elsewhere in the Mediterranean, to which they
were linked by legends and rituals. Movement across the sea to North
Africa, Italy, and mainland Greece was easy and common, often
easier than moving around the rugged island by land.3 As a result,
cultural, economic, and political links beyond the island were intense
and long-standing, but different communities looked to different
parts of the wider world.
Agathokles’ birthplace, Thermai Himeraiai (modern Termini
Imeresi), encapsulates these interlocked themes of local particularism,
cultural mixing within Sicily, and integration into the wider world.
Like most Sicilian centres, the city took its name from local water
features: the river Himera and the hot springs (thermai), whose
importance is also shown by their presence on the community’s
coinage. These springs were said to have been created by local
nymphs when Herakles passed by with the cattle of Geryon; thus,
the community’s relationship to the mythic past was encoded in its
local landscape.4 The original settlement in the area, the town of
Himera to the east, was remembered as a Greek foundation, estab-
lished in 648 by settlers from Zankle (Messana) who ultimately came
from Chalkis in Euboia, and by exiles from Syracuse who ultimately
came from Corinth.5 The town had been the site of a celebrated Greek
victory over a Carthaginian army in 480—the Battle of Himera—
and thus played a central role in Sicilian Greek identity.6 But it was
also a Carthaginian settlement, since Carthaginian citizens had
3
For the Dionysioi outside Sicily, see ch. 8.5; for the Carthaginian sphere, see
ch. 7.3; for links beyond the island: e.g. Shepherd (2000); Quinn (2013); for movement
by sea: Horden and Purcell (2000) 122–43, Arnaud (2005).
4
Diod. 4.23.1, 5.3.4. Rutter (2000a).
5
Thuc. 6.5.1, Strabo 6.2.6. Foundation stories probably simplify a messier reality,
but the degree to which they were invention is disputed: cf. Osborne (1998); Malkin
(2016). The area had also been inhabited before the Greek settlement of Sicily:
Vassallo (2003).
6
Pind. O. 12.1–5; Hdt. 7.165–7.
Agathokles’ Life and Times 11

refounded the city on its current site in 407/6. It remained part of the
Carthaginian epikrateia at the time of Agathokles’ birth.7
One product of Thermai’s integration into the wider Mediterra-
nean world was Agathokles himself. His mother is said to have been a
local woman, while his father is said to have come there as a refugee
from the south Italian city of Rhegion, which had been destroyed by
Dionysios I in 387/6. The account of Agathokles’ youth in Diodoros is
highly fictionalized, but nevertheless illustrative of the complex cul-
tural situation. In that story, when Agathokles’ father was troubled by
dreams before Agathokles’ birth, it was natural for him to look to the
oracle at Delphi in Greece for answers, and equally natural for there
to be Carthaginians travelling there as sacred envoys available to
consult it on his behalf.8
1.1. THE FALL OF SYRACUSE AND THE RISE

OF MACEDON
At the time of Agathokles’ birth, the Syracusan empire was said to be

the greatest power in Europe,9 but in 357/6 it was quite suddenly torn
apart by dynastic conflict between Dionysios II and his in-law Dion.
Local dynasts established themselves in the cities of Sicily and the city
of Syracuse was physically divided between warring factions. The
warfare came to a sudden end in 344/3 with the arrival of a small
force from Corinth, led by Timoleon, who presented himself as a
tyrannicide, killing the faction leaders, the local dynasts, and the
Carthaginians. Afterwards, he effectively refounded Syracuse and
the other Sicilian poleis, redistributed their land, reformed their
constitutions, and introduced thousands of settlers, both new immi-
grants and descendants of old exiles.10 In the literary sources, this is
presented as a revival from a period of widespread depopulation
throughout eastern Sicily. It used to be thought that this picture was
corroborated by archaeology and numismatics, but that is now much
7
Diod. 13.79.8; contra Cic. Verr. 2.2.86; Fariselli (1999) 63.
8 9
Diod. 19.2–5. The story is discussed in detail in ch. 3.1. Diod. 16.9.2.
10
Sordi (1983); Westlake (1983, 1994); Muccioli (1999) 269–446. Timoleon:
Talbert (1974); Westlake (1994); Smarczyk (2003).

less clear.11 At any rate, he was treated as an epochal figure and
received heroic honours after his death, including a sanctuary, the
Timoleontion, which was used for civic functions and made his
memory an integral part of civic life.12
It was during this period that Agathokles’ father brought him to
Syracuse, either at the end of Dion’s short reign or at the start of
Timoleon’s revival.13 Agathokles was among the thousands who
received Syracusan citizenship from Timoleon in 339/8, when he
was twenty-two.14 These events provide the background to Agatho-
kles’ rise to power in Syracuse and conquest of Sicily, as I discuss in
detail in chapter 6.
Events outside Sicily in these years are also crucial background to
Agathokles’ career. The rise of Macedon began with the accession of
Philip II in 360/59, a year after Agathokles’ birth. Macedonian
hegemony over mainland Greece was fully established after the Battle
of Chaironeia in 338. Over the next decade, Alexander the Great led
Macedonian armies to destroy the Persian empire. Shortly before
Agathokles began his rise to dominance in Syracuse, Alexander died
and civil war broke out between the generals who would eventually
establish themselves as his successors. These events had enormous
consequences for the course of Greek history, such as the develop-
ment of Hellenistic kingship, changes in Greek settlement patterns,
and a dramatic increase in the amount of gold and silver coinage in
circulation. How Agathokles and early Hellenistic Sicily participated
in these developments is a central focus of this book.
1.2. AGATHOKLES’ RISE TO POWER
No ancient source provides a narrative account of the period after

Timoleon’s death in 337/6. By 317/16, violent conflict between fac-
tions in Syracuse had led to warfare throughout eastern Sicily and
11
The archaeological evidence for revival was presented in Kokalos 4 (1958) and
Talbert (1974) 146–79. Challenges: Holloway (1991) 140; De Angelis (2016) 129–32.
12
Muccioli (2014).
13
354/3: Diod. 19.2.6–7. 343/2: Polyb. 12.15.6 = Tim. FGrH 566 F 124b. Adele
Cavallaro (1977) 42–7 prefers the latter.
14
Citizenship: Diod. 19.2.8, Just. 22.1.6.

Agathokles was in a position to take over the polis. How this
happened is very obscure.15
To start with, where did Agathokles rise from exactly? Along with a
number of clearly fantastical stories about Agathokles’ youth, Dio-
doros claims that Agathokles was the son of a potter. This has been
taken seriously by some modern scholars, but low birth is a stock
slander in Greek political discourse and the story derives from the
historian Timaios, whose account of Agathokles is known to have
been extremely hostile, as we will see in chapter 2. It should be treated
with extreme scepticism. The young Agathokles’ close associations
with members of the Syracusan elite in the 320s and his brother’s
service as strategos in the same period make it very unlikely to be
true.16 The omnipresence of such tales in the accounts of Agathokles
necessitates the analysis of the source tradition and the way in which
discourse on Agathokles evolved over time, which I undertake in
chapters 2 and 3.
It seems clear that Agathokles was active in polis life and moved in
elite circles from his receipt of citizenship in 339/8. He probably
participated in Timoleon’s final campaign, against the Campanians
at Aitne, in the same year that he became a Syracusan citizen.17 In the
320s he served as chiliarch (military officer) on a Syracusan campaign
against Akragas led by the Syracusan general Damas (or Damaskon).
Diodoros and Justin claim Agathokles was in an erotic relationship
with Damas and simultaneously seduced Damas’ wife, whom he later
married in order to inherit Damas’ fortune. This salacious account
should probably not be accepted, but the marriage must be factual.18
Agathokles’ military service and his links with a member of the
Syracusan elite imply he was already an influential man.
15
Attempts to understand this period: Holloway (1969–70); Vattuone (2005);
Tokarczuk (2012).
16
Tim. FGrH 566 F 124b; Polyb. 15.35; Caecilius FGrH 183 F2 = Ath. 11.15; Diod.
19.1.7, 2.7, 20.63.4–5, Just. 22.1; Plut. Mor. 176E, 458E, 544B; Michael Apostolius,
Paroemiae 16.70. Tillyard (1908) 26–31; Berve (1953) 22; Meister (1984) 385; Consolo
Langher (2000) 13–20. Finley (1979) 102 suggests that the story might reflect owner-
ship of a pottery workshop, comparing Kleon’s reputation as a tanner. For analysis of
this story as stereotype, see ch. 3.1.2.
17
Just. 22.1.11; Diod. 16.82.4; Plut. Tim. 37.9. Berve (1953) 23; Meister (1984) 385;
Consolo Langher (2000) 22–5.
18
Diod. 19.3.1–2; Just. 22.1.3–5, 10–12. Tillyard (1908) 38–41; Meister (1984) 385;
Consolo Langher (2000) 25. Damas’ widow was presumably the mother of Agathokles’
sons Archagathos and Herakleides.

This presumption makes it easier to understand the position that
we find Agathokles in when the detailed narrative of Sicilian history
resumes in the late 320s. At this point, Agathokles was already the
leader of a factional group, opposed by another faction led by Sos-
tratos (or Sosistratos) and Herakleides. What can be reconstructed of
these factions’ ideological and demographic profiles is discussed in
chapter 6.1. Some time after 323, the Syracusans led a military
expedition to support the city of Kroton in southern Italy against
the Bruttii, an Italic confederacy in Calabria—the latest in a long line
of Syracusan interventions in Italy explained in chapter 8.5. Agatho-
kles was once again a chiliarch; his brother Antandros served as a
strategos (general).19
In Italy, Agathokles quarrelled with Sostratos and Herakleides,
who were the expedition’s leaders, accusing them of planning to
establish a tyranny. He stayed in Italy with a number of followers,
while they returned to Syracuse and seized control, calling their
regime the ‘Six Hundred Noblest Men’ (ἑξακόσιοι ἐπιφανέστατοι).
For some time Agathokles remained in Italy. He first attempted to
seize control of Kroton, perhaps in conjunction with the democrats
under Menedemos (later tyrant of Kroton and an ally of Agathokles).20
When this failed, Agathokles fled to Taras, where he was enrolled in
the ‘corps of the mercenaries’, but he was expelled on suspicion of
fomenting revolution.21 In or before 318/17 he gathered an army
formed from ‘the exiles in Italy’. With this force he supported Rhe-
gion (his father’s birthplace according to Diodoros) against an inva-
sion by the Syracusans under Sostratos and Herakleides. Presumably
the defence was successful, since in the aftermath the oligarchs led by
Sostratos and Herakleides were overthrown and exiled; Agathokles
returned to Syracuse.22
19
Diod. 19.3.3–4. Tillyard (1908) 41; Meister (1984) 385–7; Consolo Langher
(2000) 27–30. Chronology: at 19.3.3 and 19.10.3, Diodoros claims that he dealt with
the expedition in book 18. Material on the Greek West is missing from that book, but
since book 18 begins with the death of Alexander, the intervention should have taken
place after 323. Meister prefers c.330.
20
Diod. 19.10.3–4, 21.4; Polyain. 5.3.7. Tillyard (1908) 41–3; Berve (1953) 24–5;
Meister (1984) 387; Consolo Langher (2000) 29–30. Meister dates this to around 325.
21
For the suggestion that he served as one of the Tarantine xenikoi strategoi at this
time, see pp. 241–242.
22
Diod. 19.4.2–3. Tillyard (1908) 44–5; Berve (1953) 25; Meister (1984) 387;
Consolo Langher (2000) 30–3. Chronology: Diod. 19.10.3 reports that the Krotonian
democracy exiled the group responsible for the alliance with Sostratos and

In order to regain power, the Six Hundred brought other Sicilian
poleis and the Carthaginians into a war against Syracuse. At the
request of the Syracusans, the Corinthians sent Akestorides as stra-
tegos autokrator to lead their defence. We have no details of the
fighting, except that Agathokles participated in it and was seriously
wounded during a failed attack on Gela. Eventually, Akestorides
accused Agathokles of seeking to establish tyranny and ordered him
to leave Syracuse. Agathokles fled into the Mesogaia (the Sicilian
interior). Soon after, a settlement restored peace: the Six Hundred
returned to Syracuse as private citizens; Akestorides presumably
returned home, since he is not mentioned again.23
Agathokles, however, remained an exile. At Morgantina, he gath-
ered an army. Then he struck, capturing Leontinoi and placing
Syracuse under siege. At this point there was a mediation, after
which Agathokles returned to the city and swore the Great Oath,
promising not to oppose the democracy. Sometime after his return,
Agathokles held a muster in the Timoleontion for an expedition
against ‘rebels’ at Herbita. When the leaders of the Six Hundred
arrived, his troops massacred them. Wider violence followed, at the
end of which an assembly appointed Agathokles strategos autokrator
without colleagues. This process was over by 316/15 at the latest.24
Although Justin and Diodoros give the same general outline of
events, there are significant differences between their accounts. Justin
gives Hamilcar, the Carthaginian leader in Sicily, a central role in
both the mediation and the seizure of power. By contrast, Diodoros’
much more detailed account presents the coup as driven entirely
by factors internal to Syracuse—principally Agathokles and the
Herakleides in 318/17 , presumably following their fall from power in Syracuse,
which I would therefore date around 318. Meister puts it in 322.
23
Diod. 19.4.3–19.5. Tillyard (1908) 46–50, 94; Berve (1953) 26–7; Meister (1984)
387; Consolo Langher (2000) 33–40.
24
Diod. 19.5–9; Just. 22.2; Polyaen. 5.3.7–8. Tillyard (1908) 50–7, 95–6; Berve
(1953) 27–45; Meister (1984) 387–90; Huß (1985) 178–9; Consolo Langher (2000)
40–64. Chronology: Diodoros records everything up to this point under 317/16, but
Marm. Par. 113, 115 report Agathokles becoming ‘strategos autokrator for the
defences of Sicily’ in 319/18 and tyrant in 316/15. The first date in the Marm. Par.
is difficult to explain: Tillyard suggests it refers to the appointment of Akestorides (my
preference), Berve to an appointment during the war with the Six Hundred, Meister to
the date of the Great Oath. The second date must correspond to the final coup and is
affirmed by Just. 22.5.1, which says the African expedition began in his seventh year of
rulership (the expedition’s date is guaranteed by the eclipse in August 310, see n. 40).

Syracusan mob—and Hamilcar is not even mentioned. This conflict
has serious implications for our understanding of Agathokles’ rela-
tionship with Carthage and is discussed further in chapter 7.25
1.3. THE ESTABLISHMENT OF HEGEMONY

(317/16–310)
Those opponents of Agathokles who survived the bloodbath, includ-

ing Sostratos and Herakleides, fled to Gela, Messana, and Akragas.
Immediately they made plans to return once more. Over the next
five years this conflict between Syracusan factions transformed into a
war that engulfed the whole of Sicily and Carthage. I illustrate in
chapters 6 and 7 how this escalation was a consequence of long-term
processes: the exile dynamic of the Sicilian poleis and Carthaginian
attempts to contain Syracusan aggression.
The first stage of this escalation came in 315/14, when Agathokles
led two attacks on Messana. The first was a limited success. The
second, undertaken at the time of the harvest, was interrupted when
an embassy from Carthage forced him to break off the siege.26 Then
the exiles managed to persuade Gela, Messana, and Akragas to join a
war against Agathokles. A Spartan prince, Akrotatos son of the Agiad
king Agesipolis II, was summoned to take command and he secured
Tarantine support. But the war effort collapsed in on itself after
Akrotatos murdered Sostratos at dinner. Hamilcar stepped in to
mediate a peace agreement, as he may have previously done in 317/
16. Under this agreement, the Carthaginians retained their cities in
Sicily and the other Greek cities were to be were autonomous, but
with Syracuse as their hegemon.27 Agathokles took advantage of this
peace to consolidate his hold on eastern Sicily and to augment his
army of Syracusan citizens and allies with a mercenary force of 10,000
25
See ch. 7.1.
26
Diod. 19.65. Tillyard (1908) 60–1; Berve (1953) 45–6; Huß (1985) 180; Meister
(1984) 390; Consolo Langher (2000) 65–78.
27
Diod. 19.70–1. Tillyard (1908) 61–4, 99; Huß (1985) 180–1; Meister (1984) 391;
Consolo Langher (2000) 79–85. Chronology: Akrotatos set out in 315/14 or earlier,
since en route he passed Apollonia in Illyria: Diod. 19.70.7, before its capture by
Kassandros: Diod. 19.67.6. For this agreement, see ch. 7.2.

infantry and 3,500 cavalry equipped at his own expense.28 In
chapter 4.1 I will argue that this war marked the beginning of
Agathokles’ first series of tetradrachms.
In 312/11 Agathokles sent his general Pasiphilos to attack Messana,
where Megakles, a local leader who was openly hostile to Agathokles,
had been gathering the remaining Syracusan exiles. Megakles himself
negotiated a peace, under which the Messanians expelled the exiles
and joined Agathokles’ alliance. Agathokles then had 600 of his
leading opponents in Messana and Tauromenion decapitated.29
After this, Agathokles led his army to Akragas, where a Carthaginian
fleet of sixty ships appeared to oppose him. Agathokles responded by
invading the Carthaginian part of Sicily. It is not clear what he
accomplished there or how he returned to Syracuse.30
While Agathokles was in the west, the Syracusan exiles regrouped
under a man named Deinokrates, who called on the Carthaginians for
help. Agathokles was now at war with three distinct groups: the
Syracusan exiles, the Carthaginians, and the Greek poleis that
remained outside his control (principally Akragas). Fifty Carthagin-
ian ships sailed into the Syracusan Great Harbour and attacked the
grain ships, lopping the hands off the crew of a captured Athenian
ship. Diodoros presents this raid as cruel but ineffectual. Yet seeing
the Carthaginians in their own harbour must have had a significant
psychological impact on the Syracusans and the harsh punishment of
the crew must have discouraged other traders from coming to Syra-
cuse. The raid marks the beginning of a naval blockade which lasted
until 307/6 and caused great hardship by seriously disrupting the
Syracusan grain trade.31
Agathokles launched a number of counter-attacks. Off Calabria his
generals caught a couple of stragglers from the Carthaginian fleet on
28
Diod. 19.72.
29
Diod. 19.102.1–7; Polyain. 5.15. Tillyard (1908) 65–7; Berve (1953) 48–9; Huß
(1985) 182; Meister (1984) 391–2; Consolo Langher (2000) 88–92. This is the latest
and most likely date for the historian Timaios of Tauromenion’s departure from
Sicily, see ch. 2, n. 28.
30
Diod. 19.102.8. Tillyard (1908) 67; Huß (1985) 182; Consolo Langher (2000)
92–6. It is difficult to reconcile Diodoros’ account with the compressed notes of Just.
22.3.1, 22.3.8.
31
Diod. 19.103. Tillyard (1908) 67–8; Meister (1984) 392; Huß (1985) 182–3;
Consolo Langher (2000) 97–9. Cf. Plut. Demetr. 33.3. For the grain trade, see ch. 4,
n. 68.

their way back to base and lopped their hands off in revenge.32
Another pair of generals, Pasiphilos and Demophilos, were sent
against the stronghold of the exiles, the polis of Galeria in the Sicilian
interior (perhaps modern Monte Altesina), where they routed
them.33 Agathokles himself marched out to meet a Carthaginian
land invasion force, which had marched along the south coast of
Sicily, through Akragantine territory, presumably with their support,
and encamped to the west of the Himera river on the Eknomos ridge
(modern Monte Cufino in Licata, on the river Salso). Agathokles
camped on the east side of the river, but neither side attempted a
crossing; the campaign season ended without a battle.34
Up to this point, it seems that the Carthaginian war effort had been
undertaken solely using the forces already in Sicily, but over the
winter of 312/11 the Carthaginians were convinced to send substan-
tial forces from North Africa, with a new commander: Hamilcar
Gisgonis (not to be confused with his predecessor of the same
name). The new force of 130 triremes, 14,200 troops, and several
hundred grain ships set out for Sicily in spring 311, but nearly half of
the ships were sunk by a storm.35 By summer Hamilcar Gisgonis had
managed to gather a force of 40,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry and
march it to Eknomos. In the meantime Agathokles consolidated his
position. He abandoned many of his garrisons and violently seized
control of Gela, which controlled the territory east of the Himera,
32
Diod. 19.103.5. Tillyard (1908) 68.
33
Diod. 19.104.1–2. Tillyard (1908) 68–9; Meister (1984) 392; Consolo Langher
(2000) 99–100. Location of Galeria: Fantasia (2003).
34
Diod. 19.104.3–4. Tillyard (1908) 69–70; Meister (1984) 392; Huß (1985) 183;
Consolo Langher (2000) 100.
35
Diod. 19.106. Meister (1984) 393; Huß (1985) 184–5; Consolo Langher (2000)
100–1. It is not clear who had been commanding the Carthaginian forces in the
previous year, since Diodoros does not name any commander. Justin reports a secret
prosecution of the first Hamilcar by the Carthaginian Senate, after the dispatch of
Hamilcar Gisgonis (Just. 22.3.1–7, 22.7.10), but before the war with Agathokles.
Perhaps Diodoros has made a mistake and Hamilcar Gisgonis had already been
commander in 312/11. But, probably, the former Hamilcar remained in charge until
the appointment of Hamilcar Gisgonis and Justin has over-compressed his account,
turning a gradual change of opinion at Carthage, beginning with discomfort about the
treaty in 314/13 (cf. Diod. 19.72.2) and ending with the prosecution of the former
Hamilcar in 311/10, into a sudden change of course.

although the Geloans were already allied to him. Diodoros reports
that more than 4,000 Geloans were executed.36
Agathokles then led his army to the Himera, where he encamped
on a hill called Phalarion (modern Monte Gallodoro) to the east of
the river, about 6 km from the Carthaginian encampment at Ekno-
mos to the west of the river. For a long time the forces faced each
other without engaging in battle, while small contingents on each side
undertook minor raids against their opponents. Early one morning
around the end of July 311, a Greek raiding party made off with some
of the Carthaginians’ donkeys and a Carthaginian force set out in
pursuit. As they crossed the Himera, Agathokles ambushed them and
chased them all the way back to Eknomos with his entire force. There
he breached the palisade while the Carthaginians were still reeling.
But slingers from the Balearic islands rained half kilogramme rocks
down on Agathokles’ forces and around noon they began to flee. In
the Sicilian summer heat, with a 6-km run in front of them and the
Carthaginian cavalry at their backs, some 7,000 did not make it back
to camp. Agathokles fled to Gela with the survivors.37 There he hoped
to delay Hamilcar until the Syracusans could finish the harvest. As
news of the defeat spread, the Sicilian poleis defected from Agatho-
kles, first Kamarina, Leontinoi, Katane, and Tauromenion and then
Messana and Abakainon in the north-east. Since Hamilcar could now
bypass Gela and march on Syracuse directly, Agathokles withdrew to
Syracuse to bring in the harvest and carry out emergency fortification
works personally.38
1.4. THE WAR IN AFRICA (310–307)
Agathokles’ next step secured his reputation for the rest of antiquity.
Putting his brother Antandros in charge of Syracuse, Agathokles
eliminated potential dissidents and collected money, troops, and
36
Diod. 19.107. Tillyard (1908) 70–2; Meister (1984) 393; Huß (1985) 184;
Consolo Langher (2000) 102–5. A mass grave in the necropolis has been linked to
this event: Orlandini (1956) 170–1.
37
Diod. 19.108–10, 20.3.1, 20.4.2; Just. 22.3.10. Tillyard (1908) 73–83, 96–7;
Meister (1984) 393; Huß (1985) 184–5; Consolo Langher (2000) 109–16.
38
Diod. 20.4. Perhaps Polyaen. 5.3.6. Tillyard (1908) 83–8; Meister (1984) 393;
Consolo Langher (2000) 116–17.

ships for an expeditionary force. The sources present a number of
stories about how he did this: placing all the Syracusan orphans’
property in the polis treasury, despoiling temples, confiscating the
Syracusan women’s jewellery, and granting the rich an opportunity to
leave the city, then massacring them on the road and confiscating
their property. As we will see in chapter 3.3, these stories draw on
stereotypes of tyrannical extortion. But there probably were heavy
exactions of money. In chapter 4.3 we will see that the numismatic
evidence makes clear that the state of Syracusan finances grew
increasingly desperate in these years; the cost of assembling his
expeditionary force must have been high. In around a year, Agatho-
kles gathered together sixty ships and a campaign chest of 50 talents.
Diodoros reports that his army consisted of 3,500 Syracusan citizens,
3,000 Greek mercenaries, and 3,000 Italic mercenaries (Samnites,
Etruscans, and Celts), as well as 3,500 hoplites and 500 archers and
slingers whose origins are not specified: a total of 13,500 men. Among
the troops were Agathokles’ two sons by the widow of Damas, Arch-
agathos and Herakleides.39
On 14 August 310 the Carthaginian fleet blockading Syracuse
attempted to prevent some grain ships from entering the city and
Agathokles took advantage of the resulting confusion to break
through the blockade in the other direction and set out on the open
sea. Only then did he reveal to the troops that their destination was
Africa. On the morning of the second day of the voyage, there was a
solar eclipse which provides a chronological fixed point. At dawn on
the seventh day of sailing, they encountered a Carthaginian fleet and
sighted land almost simultaneously. With the Carthaginians in hot
pursuit, Agathokles’ fleet pulled into shore at a place called Latomiai
(‘the Quarries’, probably modern El-Haouaria on the tip of Cap Bon).
The area is dotted with small promontories—after fortifying one of
them, Agathokles set his ships alight, ostensibly as a thank-offering to
the goddesses Demeter and Kore for their survival.40
39
Extortion: Diod. 20.3–4; Just. 22.4. Ship numbers: Diod. 20.5.1, Polyain. 5.3.5.
Troop numbers: Diod. 20.11.1 (the 3,500 unprovenanced hoplites fight under Agatho-
kles and Archagathos’ personal command, which might indicate that they were
Syracusans. Possibly Diodoros has accidentally duplicated them and the total should
be 10,000). Campaign chest: Just. 22.4.4.
40
Polyb. 15.35.5; Diod. 20.5–7; Just. 22.4.5–6.4; Plut. Pyrr. 14.10; Polyain. 5.3.5;
Euseb. Prae.Ev. 14.6.13. Tillyard (1908) 103–7; Meister (1984) 394; Huß (1985) 185–6;
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Fig. 265.—Agathis (Dammara) australis. Cone-scale with the seed. A
Longitudinal section; A’ from within; fv, fv’ vascular bundles; v wing.
Fig. 266.—Cunninghamia sinensis. Cone-scale with three ovules,
interior view: d cover-scale; f ovuliferous scale.
Fig. 267.—A-G Pseudotsuga douglasii: A cone, B cone-scale, with the inner
side turned forward; the points of the cover-scale are seen behind it; C-G
transitions from the acicular leaf to the cover scale, from the base of a ♀ cone. H
Pinus montana. Young ovuliferous scale, with the inner side turned forward; the
ovules are now in the stage for pollination. J-M Abies alba: J male cone; b bud-
scale; a anthers; K L M individual anthers.—Pinus montana: N pollen-grain; the
two lateral expansions are the air-bladders; in the upper part of the interior of the
grain a vegetative cell may be seen, and in the centre the large cell-nucleus.
Dammara-resin, which is used for varnish, is obtained from Agathis (Dammara)
species (New Zealand, Philippine Islands).
Order 2. Abietaceæ (Pine and Fir Trees). The leaves are spirally
arranged and needle-like. The flowers are monœcious. The male
flowers are long, and catkin-like, with numerous stamens, each
bearing two oblong pollen-sacs. The pollen-grains are most
frequently tri-lobed, having two bladder-like appendages, formed as
outgrowths of the exospore, to assist in their distribution by the wind
(Fig. 267 N). The bracts are arranged spirally. The union between
the bract and the ovuliferous scale, which is found in the preceding
order, is not in this instance so complete; these scales make their
appearance as two free parts, and are attached only at their bases
(Fig. 268); the lower portion, that is the cover-scale, in most
instances remains quite small (Fir, Red Pine, and others), it is only in
the “Noble Pine” (Abies) and Pseudotsuga douglasii, that it attains a
greater length than the ovuliferous scale (Fig. 267, B-G). On the
other hand the upper part, the ovuliferous scale (the vascular
bundles of which have the bast turned upwards), grows strongly and
elongates, especially after fertilisation, becoming woody or leathery;
it is commonly termed the “cone-scale,” but is in reality only
homologous with a part of the “cone-scale” in the other order of
Pinoideæ. On the side of the ovuliferous scale, turned towards the
axis, are situated two ovules with micropyles directed inwards. The
seeds are most frequently provided with a false wing (a tissue-like
part of the surface of the ovuliferous scale). Cotyledons, more than
2, verticillate. Fertilisation does not take place until some time after
pollination. In Pinus, for instance, the pollen-tube only penetrates the
nucellus for a short distance during the year of pollination, and then
ceases its further growth, fertilisation not taking place until after the
middle of the next year; whilst the seeds ripen about a year and a
half after pollination. In the Larch and others, the seeds are mature
in the autumn succeeding pollination.
Fig. 268.—A Abies: c the cover-scale; s ovuliferous scale, or “cone-scale”; sk
ovules in a young condition. B Pinus: ovuliferous scale with two ovules (s); m the
two-lobed micropyle; c “mucro”; b the cover-scale behind. C Abies: ripe “cone-
scale” with two seeds (sa); f wing of seed.
Abies (Fir). The leaves are often (e.g. Ab. pectinata) displaced
into 2 rows, flat and indented at the apex, with 2 white (wax-covered)
lines on the under surface, in which the stomata are situated. The
leaf-scars are nearly circular and do not project. The cones are
erect. The cover-scales and the ovuliferous scales separate from the
axis, to which they remain attached in other genera.—Tsuga has leaves
like Abies, but by the slightly projecting leaf-scars, and cones with persistent
scales, it forms the transition to Picea.—Pseudotsuga has leaves similar to those
of Abies and persistent carpels as in Picea, but the cover-scales grow as in Abies
and project beyond the ovuliferous scales (P. douglasii, Fig. 267). These two
genera are considered as sub-genera of Abies.—Picea. The leaves project
on all sides, square and pointed; the leaf-scars are rhombic, on
projecting leaf-cushions. The cones are pendulous. The cover-scales
are much shorter than the leathery, persisting ovuliferous scales.—
The genus Larix (Larch) differs from all the others in having
deciduous leaves (the three preceding have leaves which persist for
eleven to twelve years). It has long-branches with linear foliage-
leaves and short, thick, perennial dwarf-branches, which each year
form a new rosette of foliage-leaves, similar to those on the long-
branches. The male flowers and the erect cones resemble those of
Picea, and are borne on dwarf-branches.—Cedrus (Cedar)
resembles Larix to some extent, but has persistent leaves (C. libani,
C. deodara).—Pinus (Pine) has long-branches and dwarf-branches.
The leaves of the long-branches are scale-like and not green; the
dwarf-branches have very limited growth, and persist for three years;
they arise in the axils of the scales borne on the long-branches of the
self-same year, and each bears 2–5 foliage-leaves, they are also
surrounded at the base by a number of membranous bud-scales.
The cone-scales have a thick, rhomboid extremity (the “shield”).
The buds which develope into long-branches arise at the apex of other long-
branches, and being very close together, form false whorls. The female cones
occupy the position of long-branches, and take about two years for their
development. The male flowers arise close together, and form a spike-like
inflorescence at the base of a long-branch of the same year. The male flowers
occupy the position of dwarf-branches, so that a female cone may be considered
to be a modified long-branch, and a male cone a modified dwarf-branch. The main
axis of the seedling has needle-like leaves, similar to those found on the older
parts, and on dwarf-branches; it is not until some time later that the dwarf-
branches are developed and the permanent arrangement attained.
Uses. Several species are commonly cultivated in this country, partly on heaths
and moors, and partly in plantations and as ornamental trees, such as Mountain
Pine (Pinus montana, Cen. Eur.); Austrian Pine (P. laricio, Eur.); Scotch Fir (P.
silvestris, Eur.); Weymouth Pine (P. strobus, N. Am.); common Red Pine (Picea
excelsa, Cen. and N. Eur.); White Pine (P. alba, N. Am.); Abies pectinata (Common
Fir, S. and Cen. Eur); A. nordmanniana (Crimea, Caucasus); A. balsamea (N.
Am.); Tsuga canadensis (N. Am.); Pseudotsuga douglasii (N.W. Am.); Larch (Larix
europæa, Alps, Carpathians); L. sibirica (N.E. Russia, Siberia).—The wood of
many species, especially Pine, on account of its lightness and because it is so
easily worked, is very well adapted for many useful purposes. The wood of the
Yew-tree is very hard and is used for ornamental turning. Resin and Turpentine
(i.e. Resin with essential oils, the name being derived from the Terebinth-tree, from
which formerly a similar material was obtained) are extracted from Pinus laricio
and P. pinaster. Oil of Turpentine is obtained by distillation of turpentine with water;
Tar by dry distillation of Pine-wood. Canada-balsam is from North American Abies-
species (A. balsamea and Fraseri). The officinal Turpentine is mainly obtained
from Pinus pinaster (South of France), P. tæda, australis, strobus (Weymouth
Pine) and other North American species; more recently also from P. silvestris
(Scotch Fir), maritima, laricio, Picea excelsa, and others; Venetian Turpentine,
from Larch (S. Eur.) Amber is resin from a Tertiary plant (Pityoxylon succiniferum),
closely related to the Pine, which grew especially in the countries round the South-
East coast of the Baltic. Pinus pinea (the Pine, S. Eur.) has edible seeds and also
P. cembra (in Cen. Eur. and Siberia).
Order 3. Taxodiaceæ. The vegetative leaves and cone-scales are
arranged spirally. The ovules (2–9) are situated either at the base of
the ovuliferous scales, in which case they are erect; or at their
centre, when they are generally more or less inverted. The
ovuliferous scale is more or less united with the cover-scale, and
projects beyond the surface of the cone-scale, like a comb (Fig.
269). The vascular bundles, which extend into the cover-scale, have
the usual leaf-arrangement, viz. the wood placed above the bast;
while those bundles which enter the ovuliferous scale have this
arrangement of the bundles reversed.
Fig. 269.—Cryptomeria japonica. Portion
of longitudinal section through female flower.
d cover-scale; f ovuliferous scale; ov ovules;
fv and fv’ vascular bundles; the xylem is
indicated by a wavy line, and the phlœm by
a straight line.
Taxodium distichum (the North American “Swamp Cypress”) has annual dwarf-
branches, with distichous leaves, and cone-like “pneumathodia.” In the Tertiary
period it was very common in the Polar regions. Sequoia (Wellingtonia) gigantea is
the famous Californian Giant-Fir, or Mammoth-Tree, which attains a height of 300
feet, a diameter of 36 feet, and is said to live for 1,500 years. Cryptomeria japonica
(Japan, China) has the least adnate ovuliferous scales; Glyptostrobus (China);
Arthrotaxis (Tasmania); Sciadopitys verticillata (the only species in Japan) has, like
Pinus, scale-like leaves on the long-branches, of which those which are situated at
the apex of the annual shoots support “double needles,” i.e. dwarf-branches
similar to the two-leaved dwarf-branches in Pinus, but without bud-scales, and with
the two leaves fused together at the edges into one needle, which turns its upper
surface away from the long-branch.
Order 4. Cupressaceæ (Cypresses). The leaves are opposite or
verticillate, sometimes acicular, but most frequently scale-like (Fig.
270). In the species with scale-like leaves, the seedlings often
commence with acicular leaves (Fig. 272), and branches are
sometimes found on the older plants which revert to this form,
seeming to indicate that the acicular leaf was the original form
(atavism). The so-called “Retinospora” species are seedling-forms of
Biota, Thuja, Chamæcyparis, which have been propagated by
cuttings, and retain the seedling-form. The flowers are monœcious
or diœcious. The male flowers are short, and have shield-like
stamens, bearing most frequently several pollen-sacs. The cover-
scales and ovuliferous scales are entirely fused together and form
undivided cone-scales, opposite or whorled; the ovuliferous scales
have slight projections near the base on which 1–2–several erect
ovules are developed (Fig. 274). Most frequently 2 cotyledons.—
Evergreen trees and shrubs.
Fig. 270.—Cupressus goveniana.

Fig. 271.—Portion of a
branch of Thuja orientalis
(magnified). The leaf at the
base on the right has a
branch in its axil.
Fig. 272.—Seedling of
Thuja occidentalis. The
branch (g) is borne in the axil
of the leaf s.
Juniperus (Juniper). Diœcious. The cone-scales become fleshy
and fuse together to form most frequently a 1–3 seeded “berry-
cone.” J. communis (Common Juniper) has acicular leaves, borne in whorls of
three, and the “berry-cone” is formed by a trimerous whorl of cone-scales (Fig.
273). J. sabina and J. virginiana have “berry-cones” formed from several dimerous
whorls of cone-scales; the leaves are connate and opposite, needle-and scale-like
leaves are found on the same plant.
Cupressus (Cypress). Monœcious. The cones are spherical; the
cone-scales shield-like, generally five-cornered and woody (Fig.
270), each having many seeds. The leaves are scale-like.—Thuja.
Monœcious. Cones oblong. The cone-scales are dry, as in the
Cypress, but leathery and imbricate, and not shield-like; each cone-
scale bears 2–3 seeds. The leaves are most frequently dimorphic;
those leaves which are situated on the edges of the flat branches are
compressed, and only these bear buds, which are developed with
great regularity, generally alternately, on both sides of the branch;
those which are situated on the flattened surfaces are pressed flat
and broad, and never bear branches (Fig. 271). Along the central
line of each leaf there is a resin-canal (Fig. 271).—Chamæcyparis,
Callitris, Libocedrus, Thujopsis (1 species: T. dolabrata; in Japan).
Fig. 273.—Branch of Juniper

with “berry-cones.”
Fig. 274.—Cupressus
lawsoniana. Longitudinal section
through female cone. Two ovules
(ov) are bisected; f ovuliferous
scales.
Officinal. Juniperus sabina from Central and South of Europe (the young
branches yield an essential oil). The wood of J. communis is used in the
production of an essential oil, and J. oxycedrus in the production of empyreumatic
oil. The “berry-cone” of J. communis is officinal, and is also used for gin.—The
wood of J. virginiana (N. Am.) is known as red cedar, and is used for lead-pencils.
Sandarack resin is obtained from Callitris quadrivalvis (N.W. Africa).
The following are cultivated in gardens:—Thuja occidentalis (Arbor vitæ)
(N. Am.), and orientalis (China, Japan); Juniperus sabina and virginiana; Thujopsis
dolabrata (Japan); Cupressus lawsoniana (California), C. sempervirens (S. Eur.,
W. Asia), and other species, are grown especially in conservatories, and in
Southern Europe particularly in cemeteries.—The Retinospora species which are
so often planted, do not belong to an independent genus, but are obtained from
cuttings, taken from seedling-plants with acicular leaves (see page 267).
Class III. Gneteæ.
This class, independent of extinct forms, comprises the most
highly developed of the Gymnosperms, partly from the circumstance
that a perianth of 2–4 members encloses the terminally placed ovule,
which is provided with one, or (in Gnetum) two, integuments, and
partly owing to the fact that the wood has true vessels. There is only
one order.
Fig. 275.—Welwitschia mirabilis (considerably reduced). The horizontal lines

indicate the surface of the soil.
Order. Gnetaceæ. The three known genera differ very much in appearance.
Welwitschia mirabilis (from the deserts of South Western Africa) is the oldest (?)
genus now living. It resembles a giant radish, in that the hypocotyl is the only part
of the main axis of the stem which becomes developed. It attains a circumference
of upwards of four metres with a length of 1/2½-⅔ of a metre. It bears only two
oblong, leathery leaves (Fig. 275) which are torn into segments at the apex and lie
on the surface of the soil; these are the two first foliage-leaves which succeed the
cotyledons, and they are remarkable for their enormous length (upwards of two
metres) as well as for their long duration, living as long as the plant itself. In their
axils are situated the 4-rowed, spike-like male and scarlet-coloured female cones,
upon dichotomous branches. The perianth consists in the ♂ of 2 alternating pairs
of leaves, the inner ones of which are slightly united. The andrœcium likewise
consists of 2 whorls: the external (transverse) with 2, the internal with 4 stamens;
the lower halves of the 6 filaments uniting to form a cup. Each of the terminal
anthers corresponds to a sorus of 3 sporangia, the sporangia being fused together,
and opening at the top by one three-rayed cleft. In the centre of the ♂-flower there
is a sterile ovule. In the ♀ -flower a perianth of two connate leaves is present.—
Ephedra (desert plants, especially in the Mediterranean and W. Asia) at first sight
resembles an Equisetum; the stems are thin, long-jointed, and the leaves opposite,
small, and united into a bidentate sheath; ♂ -perianth of two connate leaves
(median leaves); 2–8 stamens united into a column. Each anther is formed of 2
sporangia (is bilocular). ♀ mainly, as in Welwitschia. The seeds are surrounded by
the perianth which finally becomes red and fleshy. There are 30 species.—Gnetum
has opposite, lanceolate, pinnately-veined, leathery leaves. They are mostly
climbers (Lianas) from Tropical Asia and America. The ♂ -flowers have a tubular
perianth, (formed from two median leaves) which surrounds a centrally-placed
filament, bearing 2 anthers. In the ♀-flower there is a similar perianth, surrounding
an ovule provided with 2 integuments. The perianth becomes fleshy and envelops
the hard seed. 20 species.
From the circumstance of Welwitschia having ♂ flowers which, besides
stamens, possess also a rudiment of an ovule, Celakovsky draws the inference
that the earliest Gymnosperms had hermaphrodite flowers which from this
structure became differentiated entirely into ♂-and ♀-flowers, with the exception of
Welwitschia only, in which this differentiation was only carried out in the ♀-flower.
This theory has so far been scarcely proved.
Fossil Gymnosperms.
The earliest continental plants which are known belong to the Cordaitaceæ, a
group of plants which existed as early as the Silurian period; they were
Gymnosperms, but it has not yet been determined whether they were Cycads or
Conifers. The Cycads, even in the Coal period, were scarce; they attained their
fullest development in Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, during which they were
rich in species and genera, and extended as far as the Polar regions. In addition to
these, Taxaceæ, Abietaceæ, and Taxodiaceæ appeared in the Carboniferous
period. The Taxaceæ appear to have attained their culmination in the Jurassic and
Cretaceous periods; Ginkgo appears in the Rhætic; Torreya, in the Cretaceous;
Taxus and Podocarpus in the Tertiary periods. The Abietaceæ also appear in the
Carboniferous; Pinus was first known with certainty in the English Weald and in the
Cretaceous; almost all other contemporary genera are represented in this latter
period. The Araucariaceæ first appear, with certainty, in the Jurassic. The
Taxodiaceæ may be traced back as far as the Carboniferous (?); Sequoia is first
found in the lowest Cretaceous, at that period it spread throughout the entire Arctic
zone, and being represented by a large number of species, formed an essential
part of the forest vegetation. Sequoia played a similar part in the Tertiary period.
The Cupressaceæ are first known with certainty in the Jurassic, but they
appeared more frequently and numerously in the Tertiary period, in which most of
the present living genera were to be found. The Gnetaceæ, according to a theory
advanced by Renault were represented in the Coal period by the genus
Stephanospermum, which had four ovules enclosed by an envelope.
DIVISION V.
ANGIOSPERMÆ.
See pages 3 and 224. To this Division belong the majority of the
Flowering-plants. They are divided into two parallel classes, the
Monocotyledons and the Dicotyledons, which differ from each other
not only in the number of cotyledons, which, with a few exceptions, is
one in the former, two in the latter, but also in the internal structure of
the stem, the venation of the leaves, the number of the parts of the
flower, etc. Assuming that these two classes have sprang from a common origin,
it is amongst the Helobieæ in the first, and amongst the Polycarpicæ in the second
class that we might expect to find closely allied forms, which might reasonably be
supposed to have varied less from this original type. As for the rest, they seem to
stand quite parallel, without exhibiting any close relationship. It is scarcely proved
that the Monocotyledons are the older class.
[Our knowledge of the forms included under the Angiosperms has
recently been considerably increased by Treub (Ann. d. Jar. Bot. d.
Buitenzorg, 1891), who has shown that the Casuarinas differ in
many important points from the typical Angiosperms. Among other
characters the pollen-tube is found to enter the ovule near the
chalaza and therefore at the opposite end to the micropyle, and
Treub therefore suggests that these plants should be placed in a
subdivision termed Chalazogams.
According to this view the principal divisions of the Angiosperms
would be represented thus:—
Angiospermæ.
Sub-division. Sub-division.
Chalazogames. Porogames.
Class. Classes.
Chalazogames. Monocotyledones, Dicotyledones.
More recently Nawaschin (Bull. Acad. Imp. Sci. St. Petersb., ser.
iii., xxxv.) has shown that Betula, and Miss Benson (Trans. Linn.
Soc., 1894) that Alnus, Corylus, and Carpinus also belong to the
Chalazogams.
Our knowledge, however, is still so incomplete that one would
hesitate to accord the full systematic value which Dr. Treub attaches
to his discovery until the limits of the Chalazogamic group are better
defined; and it would hardly be justifiable to include the Casuarinas
and the above-noted genera in one family.]
Class 1. Monocotyledones.
The embryo has only one cotyledon; the leaves are as a rule
scattered, with parallel venation; the vascular bundles of the stem
are closed, there is no increase of thickness. The flower is typically
constructed of five 3-merous whorls, placed alternately.
The embryo is generally small in proportion to the abundant
endosperm (exceptions, see Helobieæ), and its single cotyledon is
often sheath-like, and very large. On the germination of the seed
either the entire cotyledon, or its apex only, most generally remains
in the seed and absorbs the nutritive-tissue, while the lower portion
elongates and pushes out the plumule and radicle, which then
proceed with their further growth. The primary root in most cases
soon ceases to grow, but at the same time, however, numerous
lateral roots break out from the stem, and become as vigorous as the
primary root, or even more so. Increase in thickness does not take
place in these roots; they branch very little or not at all, and generally
die after a longer or shorter time.
The stem is frequently a corm, bulb, or other variety of
underground stem, as the majority of the Monocotyledons are
perennial, herbaceous plants; it has scattered, closed vascular
bundles (Fig. 276), and no cambium by which a continuous
thickening may take place. The stem of the Palms, however, attains
a very considerable thickness, which is due to the meristem of its
growing-point continually increasing in diameter for a lengthened
period (often for many years), until it has reached a certain size. In
this condition the growing-point has the form of an inverted cone,
and it is only when this cone has attained its requisite size that the
formation of a vertical cylindrical stem commences. Certain tree-like
Liliaceæ, as Dracæna, Aloe, etc., have a continuous increase in
thickness; this is due to a meristematic layer, which arises in the
cortex, outside the original vascular bundles, which were formed at
the growing-point of the stem. This meristem continues to form thick-
walled parenchyma and new, scattered vascular bundles. The
primary vascular bundles, in the Palms and others, run in a curved
line from their entrance into the stem at the base of the leaf, towards
the centre of the stem, and then bend outwards and proceed
downwards in a direction more parallel to the sides of the stem (Fig.
277). The bundles formed later, in those stems which increase in
thickness, are not continued into the leaves.
The branching as a rule is very slight, the axillary buds of the
majority of the leaves never attaining development, e.g. in the
Palms, bulbous plants and others. As the cotyledon arises singly, the
succeeding leaves also must be scattered, but they are frequently
arranged in two rows (Grasses, Iris, etc). The first leaf borne on a
branch (the “Fore-leaf,”[24]—the bracteole, if on a floral shoot) has
generally, in the Monocotyledons, a characteristic form and position,
being situated on the posterior side of its own shoot, and hence
turned towards the main axis; it is sometimes provided with two
laterally-placed keels (Figs. 279 f, 290 øi), but the midrib is often
absent. It arises in some cases from two primordia, which at the
beginning are quite distinct, and thus has been regarded as formed
by two leaves. It is, however, only one leaf, a fact which is evident
from several circumstances, one being that it never supports more
than one shoot, and this stands in the median plane (Fig. 279).
Fig. 276.—Transverse section of the stem of a
Palm: v v is the wood portion, b b the bast portion of
the vascular bundled.

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Agathokles of Syracuse: Sicilian Tyrant

and Hellenistic King Christopher De

Hellenistic Philosophy John Sellars

The Hellenistic Reception of Classical Athenian

Myth, Locality, and Identity in Pindar's Sicilian Odes

Tyrant (The Villetti Chronicles Book 1) Sarah Bailey

King of Battle and Blood Scarlett St. Clair

King of Battle and Blood Scarlett St. Clair

King of Battle and Blood Scarlett St. Clair

Vow of the Shadow King (Bride of the Shadow King Book

OXFORD CLASSICAL MONOGRAPHS

The aim of the Oxford Classical Monographs series (which

To Martins de Lisle and Morris

I am fortunate to have a great many people to thank. I would never

List of Figures and Maps xi

PART I R EPRESENTATIONS OF A GATHOKLES

List of Figures and Maps

4.1. Silver stater, Syracuse. © Classical Numismatic Group, LLC

xii List of Figures and Maps

Map 1. Sicily in the time of Agathokles (made using Tableau

2.1. Fragments of Kallias 44

Ael. Her. Pros. Aelius Herodianus, De Prosodia Catholica.

xvi List of Abbreviations

Map 2. Africa in the time of Agathokles. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.

c.485–467 The Deinominids (Gelon I and Hieron I) rule Syracuse

317/6 Agathokles takes control of Syracuse

D. 307 D. 307 340 – 268 389 – 282 305 – 289

D. 289 D. 250 D. 295 319 – 272 310 338 – 283

Archagathos Theoxena Magas Antigone Pyrrhos Lanassa Demetrios

Archagathos Theoxena Alexander

Agathokles of Syracuse ruled Sicily and southern Italy from 317/16 to

Agathokles’ Life and Times

The Sicily into which Agathokles was born in 361/0 consisted of

10 Agathokles’ Life and Times

Agathokles’ Life and Times 11

1.1. THE FALL OF SYRACUSE AND THE RISE

At the time of Agathokles’ birth, the Syracusan empire was said to be

12 Agathokles’ Life and Times

1.2. AGATHOKLES’ RISE TO POWER

No ancient source provides a narrative account of the period after

Agathokles’ Life and Times 13

14 Agathokles’ Life and Times

Agathokles’ Life and Times 15

16 Agathokles’ Life and Times

1.3. THE ESTABLISHMENT OF HEGEMONY

Those opponents of Agathokles who survived the bloodbath, includ-

Agathokles’ Life and Times 17

18 Agathokles’ Life and Times

Agathokles’ Life and Times 19

1.4. THE WAR IN AFRICA (310–307)

20 Agathokles’ Life and Times

Fig. 270.—Cupressus goveniana.

Fig. 273.—Branch of Juniper

Fig. 275.—Welwitschia mirabilis (considerably reduced). The horizontal lines

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