[966] Strabo, xvii. p. 834. Solinus (c. 30) talks of Aspis as founded by the Siculi. Aspis (called by the Romans Clypea), being on the eastern side of Cape Bon, was more convenient for communication with Sicily than either Carthage, or Tunis, or any part of the Gulf of Carthage, which was on the western side of Cape Bon. To get round that headland is, even at the present day, a difficult and uncertain enterprise for navigators: see the remarks of Dr. Barth, founded partly on his own personal experience (Wanderungen auf den Küstenländern des Mittelmeeres, i. p. 196). A ship coming from Sicily to Aspis was not under the necessity of getting round the headland.
In the case of Agathokles, there was a further reason for establishing his maritime position at Aspis. The Carthaginian fleet was superior to him at sea; accordingly they could easily interrupt his maritime communication from Sicily with Tunis, or with any point in the Gulf of Carthage. But it was not so easy for them to watch the coast at Aspis; for in order to do this, they must get from the Gulf round to Cape Bon.
[967] Diodor. xx. 17. The Roman consul Regulus, when he invaded Africa during the first Punic war, is said to have acquired, either by capture or voluntary adhesion, two hundred dependent cities of Carthage (Appian, Punica, c. 3). Respecting the prodigious number of towns in Northern Africa, see the very learned and instructive work of Mövers, Die Phönikier, vol. ii. p. 454 seqq. Even at the commencement of the third Punic war, when Carthage was so much reduced in power, she had still three hundred cities in Libya (Strabo, xvii. p. 833). It must be confessed that the name cities or towns (πόλεις) was used by some authors very vaguely. Thus Posidonius ridiculed the affirmation of Polybius (Strabo, iii. p. 162), that Tiberius Gracchus had destroyed three hundred πόλεις of the Celtiberians; Strabo censures others who spoke of one thousand πόλεις of the Iberians. Such a number could only be made good by including large κῶμαι.
[968] Diodor. xx. 17, 18.
[969] Diodor. xx. 15, 16.
[970] See Vol. VII. Ch. lx. p. 304 of this History.
[971] For a description of the fortifications added to Syracuse by the elder Dionysius, see Vol. X. Ch. lxxxii. p. 499 of this History.
[972] Diodor. xx. 29, 30. Cicero (Divinat. i. 24) notices this prophecy and its manner of fulfilment; but he gives a somewhat different version of the events preceding the capture of Hamilkar.
[973] Diodor. xx. 30. τὸν δ᾽ οὖν Ἁμίλκαν οἱ τῶν ἀπολωλότων συγγενεῖς δεδεμένον ἀγαγόντες διὰ τῆς πόλεως, καὶ δειναῖς αἰκίαις κατ᾽ αὐτοῦ χρησάμενοι, μετὰ τῆς ἐσχάτης ὕβρεως ἀνεῖλον.
[974] Diodor. xx. 31. διαβοηθείσης δὲ τῆς τῶν Ἀκραγαντίνων ἐπιβολῆς κατὰ πᾶσαν τὴν νῆσον, ἐνέπεσεν ὁρμὴ ταῖς πόλεσι πρὸς τὴν ἐλευθερίαν.