CHAPTER XCVII.
SICILIAN AND ITALIAN GREEKS. — AGATHOKLES.
It has been convenient, throughout all this work, to keep the history of the Italian and Sicilian Greeks distinct from that of the Central and Asiatic. We parted last from the Sicilian Greeks,[917] at the death of their champion the Corinthian Timoleon (337 B. C.), by whose energetic exploits, and generous political policy, they had been almost regenerated—rescued from foreign enemies, protected against intestine discord, and invigorated by a large reinforcement of new colonists. For the twenty years next succeeding the death of Timoleon, the history of Syracuse and Sicily is an absolute blank; which is deeply to be regretted, since the position of these cities included so much novelty—so many subjects for debate, for peremptory settlement, or for amicable compromise—that the annals of their proceedings must have been peculiarly interesting. Twenty years after the death of Timoleon, we find the government of Syracuse described as an oligarchy; implying that the constitution established by Timoleon must have been changed either by violence or by consent. The oligarchy is stated as consisting of 600 chief men, among whom Sosistratus and Herakleides appear as leaders.[918] We hear generally that the Syracusans had been engaged in wars, and that Sosistratus either first originated, or first firmly established, his oligarchy, after an expedition undertaken to the coast of Italy, to assist the citizens of Kroton against their interior neighbors and assailants the Bruttians.
Not merely Kroton, but other Grecian cities also on the coast of Italy, appear to have been exposed to causes of danger and decline, similar to those which were operating upon so many other portions of the Hellenic world. Their non-Hellenic neighbors in the interior were growing too powerful and too aggressive to leave them in peace or security. The Messapians, the Lucanians, the Bruttians, and other native Italian tribes, were acquiring that increased strength which became ultimately all concentrated under the mighty republic of Rome. I have in my preceding volume recounted the acts of the two Syracusan despots, the elder and younger Dionysius, on this Italian coast.[919] Though the elder gained some advantage over the Lucanians, yet the interference of both contributed only to enfeeble and humiliate the Italiot Greeks. Not long before the battle of Chæroneia (340-338 B. C.), the Tarentines found themselves so hard pressed by the Messapians, that they sent to Sparta, their mother-city, to entreat assistance. The Spartan king Archidamus son of Agesilaus, perhaps ashamed of the nullity of his country since the close of the Sacred War, complied with their prayer, and sailed at the head of a mercenary force to Italy. How long his operations there lasted, we do not know; but they ended by his being defeated and killed, near the time of the battle of Chæroneia[920] (338 B. C.).
About six years after this event, the Tarentines, being still pressed by the same formidable neighbors, invoked the aid of the Epirotic Alexander, king of the Molossians, and brother of Olympias. These Epirots now, during the general decline of Grecian force, rise into an importance which they had never before enjoyed[921]. Philip of Macedon, having married Olympias, not only secured his brother-in-law on the Molossian throne, but strengthened his authority over subjects not habitually obedient. It was through Macedonian interference that the Molossian Alexander first obtained (though subject to Macedonian ascendency) the important city of Ambrakia; which thus passed out of a free Hellenic community into the capital and seaport of the Epirotic kings. Alexander farther cemented his union with Macedonia by marrying his own niece Kleopatra, daughter of Philip and Olympias. In fact, during the lives of Philip and Alexander the Great, the Epirotic kingdom appears a sort of adjunct to the Macedonian; governed by Olympias either jointly with her brother the Molossian Alexander—or as regent after his death.[922]
It was about the year after the battle of Issus that the Molossian Alexander undertook his expedition into Italy;[923] doubtless instigated in part by emulation of the Asiatic glories of his nephew and namesake. Though he found enemies more formidable than the Persians at Issus, yet his success was at first considerable. He gained victories over the Messapians, the Lucanians, and the Samnites; he conquered the Lucanian town of Consentia, and the Bruttian town of Tereina; he established an alliance with the Pœdiculi, and exchanged friendly messages with the Romans. As far as we can make out from scanty data, he seems to have calculated on establishing a comprehensive dominion in the south of Italy, over all its population—over Greek cities, Lucanians, and Bruttians. He demanded and obtained three hundred of the chief Lucanian and Messapian families, whom he sent over as hostages to Epirus. Several exiles of these nations joined him as partisans. He farther endeavored to transfer the congress of the Greco-Italian cities, which had been usually held at the Tarentine colony of Herakleia, to Thurii; intending probably to procure for himself a compliant synod like that serving the purpose of his Macedonian nephew at Corinth. But the tide of his fortune at length turned. The Tarentines became disgusted and alarmed; his Lucanian partisans proved faithless; the stormy weather in the Calabrian Apennines broke up the communication between his different detachments, and exposed them to be cut off in detail. He himself perished, by the hands of a Lucanian exile, in crossing the river Acheron, and near the town of Pandosia. This was held to be a memorable attestation of the prophetic veracity of the oracle; since he had received advice from Dodona to beware of Pandosia and Acheron; two names which he well knew, and therefore avoided, in Epirus—but which he had not before known to exist in Italy.[924]
The Greco-Italian cities had thus dwindled down into a prize to be contended for between the Epirotic kings and the native Italian powers—as they again became, still more conspicuously, fifty years afterwards, during the war between Pyrrhus and the Romans. They were now left to seek foreign aid, where they could obtain it, and to become the prey of adventurers. It is in this capacity that we hear of them as receiving assistance from Syracuse, and that the formidable name of Agathokles first comes before us—seemingly about 320 B. C.[925] The Syracusan force, sent to Italy to assist the Krotoniates against their enemies the Bruttians, was commanded by a general named Antander, whose brother Agathokles served with him in a subordinate command.
To pass over the birth and childhood of Agathokles—respecting which, romantic anecdotes are told, as about most eminent men,—it appears that his father, a Rhegine exile named Karkinus, came from Therma (in the Carthaginian portion of Sicily) to settle at Syracuse, at the time when Timoleon invited and received new Grecian settlers to the citizenship of the latter city. Karkinus was in comparative poverty, following the trade of a potter; which his son Agathokles learnt also, being about eighteen years of age when domiciliated with his father at Syracuse.[926] Though starting from this humble beginning, and even notorious for the profligacy and rapacity of his youthful habits, Agathokles soon attained a conspicuous position, partly from his own superior personal qualities, partly from the favor of a wealthy Syracusan named Damas. The young potter was handsome, tall, and of gigantic strength; he performed with distinction the military service required from him as a citizen, wearing a panoply so heavy, that no other soldier could fight with it; he was moreover ready, audacious, and emphatic in public harangue. Damas became much attached to him, and not only supplied him profusely with money, but also, when placed in command of a Syracusan army against the Agrigentines, nominated him one of the subordinate officers. In this capacity Agathokles acquired great reputation, for courage in battle, ability in command, and fluency of speech. Presently Damas died of sickness, leaving a widow without children. Agathokles married the widow, and thus raised himself to a high fortune and position in Syracuse.[927]
Of the oligarchy which now prevailed at Syracuse, we have no particulars, nor do we know how it had come to be substituted for the more popular forms established by Timoleon. We hear only generally that the oligarchical leaders, Sosistratus and Herakleides, were unprincipled and sanguinary men.[928] By this government an expedition was despatched from Syracuse to the Italian coast, to assist the inhabitants of Kroton against their aggressive neighbors the Bruttians. Antander, brother of Agathokles, was one of the generals commanding this armament, and Agathokles himself served in it as a subordinate officer. We neither know the date, the duration, nor the issue, of this expedition.
But it afforded a fresh opportunity to Agathokles to display his adventurous bravery and military genius, which procured for him high encomium. He was supposed by some, on his return to Syracuse, to be entitled to the first prize for valor; but Sosistratus and the other oligarchical leaders withheld it from him and preferred another. So deeply was Agathokles incensed by this refusal, that he publicly inveighed against them among the people, as men aspiring to despotism. His opposition being unsuccessful, and drawing upon him the enmity of the government, he retired to the coast of Italy.