The decisive victory of Syracuse Greeks over the Carthaginians in the Battle of Himera in 480 BC secured Ancient Greek rule in the 5th century Mediterranean.
Syracuse in Sicily was a city founded by Ancient Greek Corinthians and Teneans that became a very powerful Greek city-state in the Mediterranean, the beacon of Magna Graecia.
On the other side of the Mediterranean, in North Africa, Carthage was fighting for control in the sea. The Carthaginians, descendants of the Phoenicians, vied for territory. They controlled the western part of Sicily, while the colonial Greeks of Syracuse controlled the eastern part of the island.
Stuck in the middle were the native Sicilians who were not happy with either tyrants.
Gelon, the ruler of Gela, became the tyrant of Syracuse in 485 BC and started expanding his territory. He married the daughter of Theron of Acragas and formed an alliance with him. Theron attacked and captured Himera, sending its tyrant, Terillus, to exile.
Terillus went to the Carthaginian government, which controlled the western part of Sicily, and asked them to intervene and restore Himera to his rule.
Herodotus says that commander Hamilcar built up a large army of 300,000 (a number disputed by historians) and navy comprised of Phoenicians, Libyans, Iberians, Ligyes, Elisyci, Sardinians, and Cyrnians in the west of Sicily and started to besiege Himera. Theron, however, held out, and in Syracuse, Gelon mobilized his army.
The army was comprised of men from all over the Greek world to match the Carthaginian threat. The two commercial powers used their wealth to defeat each other.
The Battle of Himera
The two armies clashed at Himera and there are two accounts of the battle, one by Herodotus (the most contemporary of the battle) and the other by Diodorus Siculus.
Herodotus claims his retelling of the battle was based on the stories of the Carthaginians themselves. The two armies fought for hours, but neither seemed to be stronger. The Greek historian calls the Carthaginians the “barbarians” who held the field against the Greeks.
The 5th century historian also calls Hamilcar the king of Carthage and claims he performed a sacrificial ritual in order to gain favorable omens for the battle. The ritual was in vain because eventually the Greek army led by Gelon thrashed the Carthaginians. Unable to stand the sight of his defeated army, Hamilcar threw himself onto the huge sacrificial pyre.
Herodotus focused more on the two commanders, Gelon and Hamilcar, describing them both as noble men. As for Hamilcar’s self-immolation for losing in the battle, the Carthaginians hailed his act and instructed honorific ruler cults to be established in his name.
Diodorus Siculus’ account four centuries later gives more details of the actual battle, saying that Gelon’s army was 50,000-strong. The Greek general rushed to Himera and quickly fortified the town. Carthaginians who had strayed too far from their camp were taken prisoners. From them, Gelon learned that the enemy were expecting reinforcements from the town of Selinus.
Gelon sent his cavalry to the Carthaginians camp and ordered them to pose as the reinforcements from Selinus. Once inside the camp, the Greeks set fire to the enemy’s ships.
As soon as they saw the blaze from the ships, Gelon’s army charged against the Carthaginian camp. The Carthaginians panicked when they saw the flames and the oncoming Greek force, and scrambled to the walls. According to Diodorus’ account, it was during the chaos that Hamilcar was conducting his ritual to Poseidon and was killed by the Greeks.
Nevertheless, the Carthaginians fought hard, but when they saw the flames of their fleet rising higher and higher and heard that their commander was dead, they broke ranks. Gelon ordered his army to take no prisoners and all Carthaginians were slaughtered. Diodorus’ account says that not a single man that landed on Sicily returned to Carthage.
Importance of the Himera victory for the Mediterranean
After the victory of the Greeks, Syracusan superiority in Sicily and the Mediterranean was established for the next seven decades. The Greeks built a temple at Himera to commemorate the crucial achievement. The temple foundations can still be seen today and the decoration is now in the Museo Archeologico Regionale “Antonio Salinas” in Palermo.
Gelon commemorated the event by dedicating a monument at Delphi, spreading the news of Greek rule in the Mediterranean to the wider Greek world.
Other monuments erected to commemorate the Greek victory were the Temple of Athena in Syracuse, which is still in use as a cathedral, the temple of Hera in Acragas, and a temple in Selinus.
Herodotus writes that the victory at Himera took place on the very day of the Greek victory at Salamis (480 BC). Chronologically that may not be true, but in the historian’s mind the two victories were equally monumental as a statement for the victory of Hellenism.
Similarly, Diodorus reports that the Battle of Himera took place on the same day as the Battle of Thermopylae. This shows that ancient historians wanted to emphasize the importance of the battle and connect it to another Greek triumph.
Diodorus did not even see them as separate. He asserted that the Persians had conspired with Carthage and coordinated their own invasion with the Carthaginians in an attempt to destroy the Greek world once and for all.
While mainland Greece was drunk from the victory at Salamis and gave less importance to the other Greek triumph in the Mediterranean, in the ancient world it was seen as a significant event establishing Greece’s dominance at sea.