It does little honor either to the generosity or to the prudence of the Hellenic neighbors of Selinus, that this unfortunate city should have been left to its fate unassisted. In vain was messenger after messenger despatched, as the defence became more and more critical, to Agrigentum, Gela, and Syracuse. The military force of the two former was indeed made ready, but postponed its march until joined by that of the last; so formidable was the account given of the invading host. Meanwhile the Syracusans were not ready. They thought it requisite, first, to close the war which they were prosecuting against Katana and Naxos,—next, to muster a large and carefully-appointed force. Before these preliminaries were finished, the nine days of siege were past, and the death-hour of Selinus had sounded. Probably the Syracusans were misled by the Sicilian operations of Nikias, who, beginning with a long interval of inaction, had then approached their town by slow blockade, such as the circumstances of his case required. Expecting in the case of Selinus that Hannibal would enter upon the like elaborate siege,—and not reflecting that he was at the head of a vast host of miscellaneous foreigners hired for the occasion, of whose lives he could afford to be prodigal, while Nikias commanded citizens of Athens and other Grecian states, whom he could not expose to the murderous but thorough-going process of ever-renewed assault against strong walls recently erected,—they were thunderstruck on being informed that nine days of carnage had sufficed for the capture. The Syracusan soldiers, a select body of three thousand, who at length joined the Geloans and Agrigentines at Agrigentum, only arrived in time to partake in the general dismay everywhere diffused. A joint embassy was sent by three cities to Hannibal, entreating him to permit the ransom of the captives, and to spare the temples of the gods; while Empedion went at the same time to sue for compassion on behalf of his own fugitive fellow-citizens. To the former demand the victorious Carthaginian returned an answer at once haughty and characteristic,—“The Selinuntines have not been able to preserve their freedom, and must now submit to a trial of slavery. The gods have become offended with them, and have taken their departure from the town.”[903] To Empedion, an ancient friend and pronounced partisan of the Carthaginians, his reply was more indulgent. All the relatives of Empedion, found alive among the captives, were at once given up; moreover permission was granted to the fugitive Selinuntines to return, if they pleased, and reoccupy the town with its lands, as tributary subjects of Carthage. At the same time that he granted such permission, however, Hannibal at once caused the walls to be razed, and even the town with its temples to be destroyed.[904] What was done about the proposed ransom, we do not hear.
Having satiated his troops with this rich plunder Hannibal now quitted the scene of bloodshed and desolation, and marched across the island to Himera on its northern coast. Though Selinus, as the enemy of Egesta, had received the first shock of his arms, yet it was against Himera that the grand purpose of his soul was directed. Here it was that Hamilkar had lost both his army and his life, entailing inexpiable disgrace upon the whole life of his son Giskon: here it was that his grandson intended to exact full vengeance and requital from the grandchildren of those who then occupied the fated spot. Not only was the Carthaginian army elate with the past success, but a number of fresh Sikels and Sikans, eager to share in plunder as well as to gratify the antipathies of their races against the Grecian intruders, flocked to join it; thus making up the losses sustained in the recent assault. Having reached Himera, and disposed his army in appropriate positions around, Hannibal proceeded to instant attack, as at Selinus; pushing up his battering machines and towers against the vulnerable portions of the walls, and trying at the same time to undermine them. The Himeræans defended themselves with desperate bravery; and on this occasion the defence was not unassisted; for four thousand allies, chiefly Syracusans, and headed by the Syracusan Dioklês, had come to the city as a reinforcement. For a whole day they repelled with slaughter repeated assaults. No impression being made upon the city, the besieged became so confident in their own valor, that they resolved not to copy the Selinuntines in confining themselves to defence, but to sally out at daybreak the next morning and attack the besiegers in the field. Ten thousand gallant men,—Himeræans, Syracusans, and other Grecian allies,—accordingly marched out with the dawn; while the battlements were lined with old men and women as anxious spectators of their exploits. The Carthaginians near the walls, who, preparing to renew the assault, looked for nothing less than for a sally, were taken by surprise. In spite of their great superiority of number, and in spite of great personal bravery, they fell into confusion, and were incapable of long resisting the gallant and orderly charge of the Greeks. At length they gave way and fled towards the neighboring hill, where Hannibal himself with his body of reserve was posted to cover the operations of assault. The Greeks pursued them fiercely and slaughtered great numbers (six thousand according to Timæus, but not less than twenty thousand, if we are to accept the broad statement of Ephorus), exhorting each other not to think of making prisoners. But in the haste and exultation of pursuit, they became out of breath, and their ranks fell into disorder. In this untoward condition, they found themselves face to face with the fresh body of reserve brought up by Hannibal, who marched down the hill to receive and succor his own defeated fugitives. The fortune of the battle was now so completely turned, that the Himeræans, after bravely contending for some time against these new enemies, found themselves overpowered and driven back to their own gates. Three thousand of their bravest warriors, however, despairing of their city and mindful of the fate of Selinus, disdained to turn their backs, and perished to a man in obstinate conflict with the overwhelming numbers of the Carthaginians.[905]
Violent was the sorrow and dismay in Himera, when the flower of her troops were thus driven in as beaten men, with the loss of half their numbers. At this moment there chanced to arrive at the port a fleet of twenty-five triremes, belonging to Syracuse and other Grecian cities in Sicily; which triremes had been sent to aid the Peloponnesians in the Ægean, but had since come back, and were now got together for the special purpose of relieving the besieged city. So important a reinforcement ought to have revived the spirit of the Himeræans. It announced that the Syracusans were in full march across the island, with the main force of the city, to the relief of Himera. But this good news was more than countervailed by the statement, that Hannibal was ordering out the Carthaginian fleet in the bay of Motyê, in order that it might sail round cape Lilybæum and along the southern coast into the harbor of Syracuse, now defenceless through the absence of its main force. Apparently the Syracusan fleet, in sailing from Syracuse to Himera, had passed by the bay of Motyê, observed maritime movement among the Carthaginians there, and picked up these tidings in explanation. Here was intelligence more than sufficient to excite alarm for home, in the bosom of Dioklês and the Syracusans at Himera; especially under the despondency now reigning. Dioklês not only enjoined the captains of the fleet to sail back immediately to Syracuse, in order to guard against the apprehended surprise, but also insisted upon marching back thither himself by land with the Syracusan forces, and abandoning the farther defence of Himera. He would in his march home meet his fellow-citizens on their march outward, and conduct them back along with him. To the Himeræans, this was a sentence of death, or worse than death. It plunged them into an agony of fright and despair. But there was no safer counsel to suggest, nor could they prevail upon Dioklês to grant anything more than means of transport for carrying off the Himeræan population, when the city was relinquished to the besiegers. It was agreed that the fleet, instead of sailing straight to Syracuse, should employ itself in carrying off as much of the population as could be put on board, and in depositing them safely at Messênê; after which it would return to fetch the remainder, who would in the mean time defend the city with their utmost force.
Such was the frail chance of refuge now alone open to these unhappy Greeks, against the devouring enemy without. Immediately the feebler part of the population,—elders, women, and children,—crowding on board until the triremes could hold no more, sailed away along the northern coast to Messênê. On the same night, Dioklês also marched out of the city with his Syracusan soldiers; in such haste to get home, that he could not even tarry to bury the numerous Syracusan soldiers who had been just slain in the recent disastrous sally. Many of the Himeræans, with their wives and children, took their departure along with Dioklês, as their only chance of escape; since it was but too plain that the triremes could not carry away all. The bravest and most devoted portion of the Himeræan warriors still remained, to defend their city until the triremes came back. After keeping armed watch on the walls all night, they were again assailed on the next morning by the Carthaginians, elate with their triumph of the preceding day and with the flight of so many defenders. Yet notwithstanding all the pressure of numbers, ferocity, and battering machines, the resistance was still successfully maintained; so that night found Himera still a Grecian city. On the next day, the triremes came back, having probably deposited their unfortunate cargo in some place of safety not so far off as Messênê. If the defenders could have maintained their walls until another sunset, many of them might yet have escaped. But the good fortune, and probably the physical force, of these brave men, was now at an end. The gods were quitting Himera, as they had before quitted Selinus. At the moment when the triremes were seen coming near to the port, the Iberian assailants broke down a wide space of the fortification with their battering-rams, poured in through the breach, and overcame all opposition. Encouraged by their shouts, the barbaric host now on all sides forced the walls, and spread themselves over the city, which became one scene of wholesale slaughter and plunder. It was no part of the scheme of Hannibal to interrupt the plunder, which he made over as a recompense to his soldiers. But he speedily checked the slaughter, being anxious to take as many prisoners as possible, and increasing the number by dragging away all who had taken sanctuary in the temples. A few among this wretched population may have contrived to reach the approaching triremes; all the rest either perished or fell into the hands of the victor.[906]
It was a proud day for the Carthaginian general when he stood as master on the ground of Himera; enabled to fulfil the duty, and satisfy the exigencies, of revenge for his slain grandfather. Tragical indeed was the consummation of this long-cherished purpose. Not merely the walls and temples (as at Selinus), but all the houses in Himera, were razed to the ground. Its temples, having been first stripped of their ornaments and valuables, were burnt. The women and children taken captive were distributed as prizes among the soldiers. But all the male captives, three thousand in number, were conveyed to the precise spot where Hamilkar had been slain, and there put to death with indignity,[907] as an expiatory satisfaction to his lost honor. Lastly, in order that even the hated name of Himera might pass into oblivion, a new town called Therma (so designated because of some warm springs) was shortly afterwards founded by the Carthaginians in the neighborhood.[908]
No man can now read the account of this wholesale massacre without horror and repugnance. Yet we cannot doubt, that among all the acts of Hannibal’s life, this was the one in which he most gloried; that it realized, in the most complete and emphatic manner, his concurrent inspirations of filial sentiment, religious obligation, and honor as a patriot; that to show mercy would have been regarded as a mean dereliction of these esteemed impulses; and that if the prisoners had been even more numerous, all of them would have been equally slain, rendering the expiatory fulfilment only so much the more honorable and efficacious. In the Carthaginian religion, human sacrifices were not merely admitted, but passed for the strongest manifestation of devotional fervor, and were especially resorted to in times of distress, when the necessity for propitiating the gods was accounted most pressing. Doubtless the feelings of Hannibal were cordially shared, and the plenitude of his revenge envied, by the army around him. So different, sometimes so totally contrary, is the tone and direction of the moral sentiments, among different ages and nations.
In the numerous wars of Greeks against Greeks, which we have been unfortunately called upon to study, we have found few or no examples of any considerable town taken by storm. So much the more terrible was the shock throughout the Grecian world, of the events just recounted; Selinus and Himera, two Grecian cities of ancient standing and uninterrupted prosperity,—had both of them been stormed, ruined, and depopulated, by a barbaric host, within the space of three months.[909] No event at all parallel had occurred since the sack of Miletus by the Persians after the Ionic revolt (495 B.C.),[910] which raised such powerful sympathy and mourning in Athens. The war now raging in the Ægean, between Athens and Sparta with their respective allies, doubtless contributed to deaden, throughout Central Greece, the impression of calamities sustained by Greeks at the western extremity of Sicily. But within that island, the sympathy with the sufferers was most acute, and aggravated by terror for the future. The Carthaginian general had displayed a degree of energy equal to any Grecian officer throughout the war, with a command of besieging and battering machinery surpassing even the best equipped Grecian cities. The mercenaries whom he had got together were alike terrible from their bravery and ferocity; encouraging Carthaginian ambition to follow up its late rapid successes by attacks against the other cities of the island. No such prospects indeed were at once realized. Hannibal, having completed his revenge at Himera, and extended the Carthaginian dominion all across the north-west corner of Sicily (from Selinus on the southern sea to the site of Himera or Therma on the northern), dismissed his mercenary troops and returned home. Most of them were satiated with plunder as well as pay, though the Campanians, who had been foremost at the capture of Selinus, thought themselves unfairly stinted, and retired in disgust.[911] Hannibal carried back a rich spoil, with glorious trophies, to Carthage, where he was greeted with enthusiastic welcome and admiration.[912]
Never was there a time when the Greek cities in Sicily,—and Syracuse especially, upon whom the others would greatly rest in the event of a second Carthaginian invasion,—had stronger motives for keeping themselves in a condition of efficacious defence. Unfortunately, it was just at this moment that a new cause of intestine discord burst upon Syracuse; fatally impairing her strength, and proving in its consequences destructive to her liberty. The banished Syracusan general Hermokrates had recently arrived at Messênê in Sicily; where he appears to have been, at the time when the fugitives came from Himera. It has already been mentioned that he, with two colleagues, had commanded the Syracusan contingent serving with the Peloponnesians under Mindarus in Asia. After the disastrous defeat of Kyzikus, in which Mindarus was slain and every ship in the fleet taken or destroyed, sentence of banishment was passed at Syracuse against the three admirals. Hermokrates was exceedingly popular among the trierarchs and the officers; he had stood conspicuous for incorruptibility, and had conducted himself (so far as we have means of judging) with energy and ability in his command. The sentence, unmerited by his behavior, was dictated by acute vexation for the loss of the fleet, and for the disappointment of those expectations which Hermokrates had held out; combined with the fact that Diokles and the opposite party were now in the ascendant at Syracuse. When the banished general, in making it known to the armament, complained of its injustice and illegality, he obtained warm sympathy, and even exhortations still to retain the command, in spite of orders from home. He forbade them earnestly to think of raising sedition against their common city and country;[913] upon which the trierarchs, when they took their last and affectionate leave of him, bound themselves by oath, as soon as they should return to Syracuse, to leave no means untried for procuring his restoration.
The admonitory words addressed by Hermokrates to the forwardness of the trierarchs, would have been honorable to his patriotism, had not his own conduct at the same time been worthy of the worst enemies of his country. For immediately on being superseded by the new admirals, he went to the satrap Pharnabazus, in whose favor he stood high; and obtained from him a considerable present of money, which he employed in collecting mercenary troops and building ships, to levy war against his opponents in Syracuse and procure his own restoration.[914] Thus strengthened, he returned from Asia to Sicily, and reached the Sicilian Messênê rather before the capture of Himera by the Carthaginians. At Messênê he caused five fresh triremes to be built, besides taking into his pay one thousand of the expelled Himeræans. At the head of these troops, he attempted to force his way into Syracuse, under concert with his friends in the city, who engaged to assist his admission by arms. Possibly some of the trierarchs of his armament, who had before sworn to lend him their aid, had now returned and were among this body of interior partisans.
The moment was well chosen for such an enterprise. As the disaster at Kyzikus had exasperated the Syracusans against Hermokrates, so we cannot doubt that there must have been a strong reaction against Diokles and his partisans, in consequence of the fall of Selinus unaided, and the subsequent abandonment of Himera. What degree of blame may fairly attach to Diokles for these misfortunes, we are not in a condition to judge. But such reverses in themselves were sure to discredit him more or less, and to lend increased strength and stimulus to the partisans of the banished Hermokrates. Nevertheless that leader, though he came to the gates of Syracuse, failed in his attempt to obtain admission, and was compelled to retire; upon which he marched his little army across the interior of the island, and took possession of the dismantled Selinus. Here he established himself as the chief of a new settlement, got together as many as he could of the expelled inhabitants (among whom probably some had already come back along with Empedion), and invited many fresh colonists from other quarters. Reëstablishing a portion of the demolished fortifications, he found himself gradually strengthened by so many new-comers, as to place at his command a body of six thousand chosen hoplites,—probably independent of other soldiers of inferior merit. With these troops he began to invade the Carthaginian settlements in the neighborhood, Motyê and Panormus.[915] Having defeated the forces of both in the field, he carried his ravages successfully over their territories, with large acquisitions of plunder. The Carthaginians had now no army remaining in Sicily; for their immense host of the preceding year had consisted only of mercenaries levied for the occasion, and then disbanded.