Here he levied a military band of Grecian exiles and Campanian mercenaries, which he maintained by various enterprises for or against the Grecian cities. He attacked Kroton, but was repulsed with loss; he took service with the Tarentines, fought for some time against their enemies, but at length became suspected and dismissed; he then joined himself with the inhabitants of Rhegium, assisting in the defence of the town against a Syracusan aggression. He even made two attempts to obtain admission by force into Syracuse, and to seize the government.[929] Though repulsed in both of them, he nevertheless contrived to maintain a footing in Sicily, was appointed general at the town of Morgantium, and captured Leontini, within a short distance north of Syracuse. Some time afterwards, a revolution took place at Syracuse, whereby Sosistratus and the oligarchy were dispossessed and exiled with many of their partisans.
Under the new government, Agathokles obtained his recall, and soon gained increased ascendency. The dispossessed exiles contrived to raise forces, and to carry on a formidable war against Syracuse from without; they even obtained assistance from the Carthaginians, so as to establish themselves at Gela, on the southern confines of the Syracusan territory. In the military operations thus rendered necessary, Agathokles took a forward part, distinguishing himself among the ablest and most enterprising officers. He tried, with 1000 soldiers, to surprise Gela by night; but finding the enemy on their guard, he was repulsed with loss and severely wounded; yet by an able manœuvre he brought off all his remaining detachment. Though thus energetic against the public enemy, however, he at the same time inspired both hatred and alarm for his dangerous designs, to the Syracusans within. The Corinthian Akestorides, who had been named general of the city—probably from recollection of the distinguished services formerly rendered by the Corinthian Timoleon—becoming persuaded that the presence of Agathokles was full of peril to the city, ordered him to depart, and provided men to assassinate him on the road during the night. But Agathokles, suspecting their design, disguised himself in the garb of a beggar, appointing another man to travel in the manner which would be naturally expected from himself. This substitute was slain in the dark by the assassins, while Agathokles escaped by favor of his disguise. He and his partisans appear to have found shelter with the Carthaginians in Sicily.[930]
Not long afterwards, another change took place in the government of Syracuse, whereby the oligarchical exiles were recalled, and peace made with the Carthaginians. It appears that a senate of 600 was again installed as the chief political body; probably not the same men as before, and with some democratical modifications. At the same time, negotiations were opened, through the mediation of the Carthaginian commander Hamilkar, between the Syracusans and Agathokles. The mischiefs of intestine conflict, amidst the numerous discordant parties in the city, pressed hard upon every one, and hopes were entertained that all might be brought to agree in terminating them. Agathokles affected to enter cordially into these projects of amnesty and reconciliation. The Carthaginian general Hamilkar, who had so recently aided Sosistratus and the Syracusan oligarchy, now did his best to promote the recall of Agathokles, and even made himself responsible for the good and pacific behavior of that exile. Agathokles, and the other exiles along with him were accordingly restored. A public assembly was convened in the temple of Demeter, in the presence of Hamilkar; where Agathokles swore by the most awful oaths, with his hands touching the altar and statue of the goddess, that he would behave as a good citizen of Syracuse, uphold faithfully the existing government, and carry out the engagements of the Carthaginian mediators—abstaining from encroachments on the rights and possessions of Carthage in Sicily. His oaths and promises were delivered with so much apparent sincerity, accompanied by emphatic harangues, that the people were persuaded to name him general and guardian of the peace, for the purpose of realizing the general aspirations towards harmony. Such appointment was recommended (it seems) by Hamilkar.[931]
All this train of artifice had been concerted by Agathokles with Hamilkar, for the purpose of enabling the former to seize the supreme power. As general of the city, Agathokles had the direction of the military force. Under the pretence of marching against some refractory exiles at Erbita in the interior, he got together 3000 soldiers strenuously devoted to him—mercenaries and citizens of desperate character—to which Hamilkar added a reinforcement of Africans. As if about to march forth, he mustered his troops at daybreak in the Timoleonteon (chapel or precinct consecrated to Timoleon), while Peisarchus and Dekles, two chiefs of the senate already assembled, were invited with forty others to transact with him some closing business. Having these men in his power, Agathokles suddenly turned upon them, and denounced them to the soldiers as guilty of conspiring his death. Then, receiving from the soldiers a response full of ardor, he ordered them immediately to proceed to a general massacre of the senate and their leading partisans, with full permission of licentious plunder in the houses of these victims, the richest men in Syracuse. The soldiers rushed into the street with ferocious joy to execute this order. They slew not only the senators, but many others also, unarmed and unprepared; each man selecting victims personally obnoxious to him. They broke open the doors of the rich, or climbed over the roofs, massacred the proprietors within, and ravished the females. They chased the unsuspecting fugitives through the streets, not sparing even those who took refuge in the temples. Many of these unfortunate sufferers rushed for safety to the gates, but found them closed and guarded by special order of Agathokles; so that they were obliged to let themselves down from the walls, in which many perished miserably. For two days Syracuse was thus a prey to the sanguinary, rapacious, and lustful impulses of the soldiery; four thousand citizens had been already slain, and many more were seized as prisoners. The political purposes of Agathokles, as well as the passions of the soldiers, being then sated, he arrested the massacre. He concluded this bloody feat by killing such of his prisoners as were most obnoxious to him, and banishing the rest. The total number of expelled or fugitive Syracusans is stated at 6000; who found a hospitable shelter and home at Agrigentum. One act of lenity is mentioned, and ought not to be omitted amidst this scene of horror. Deinokrates, one among the prisoners, was liberated by Agathokles from motives of former friendship: he too, probably, went into voluntary exile.[932]
After a massacre thus perpetrated in the midst of profound peace, and in the full confidence of a solemn act of mutual reconciliation immediately preceding—surpassing the worst deeds of the elder Dionysius, and indeed (we might almost say) of all other Grecian despots—Agathokles convened what he called an assembly of the people. Such of the citizens as were either oligarchical, or wealthy, or in any way unfriendly to him, had been already either slain or expelled; so that the assembly probably included few besides his own soldiers: Agathokles, addressing them in terms of congratulation on the recent glorious exploit, whereby they had purged the city of its oligarchical tyrants—proclaimed that the Syracusan people had now reconquered their full liberty. He affected to be weary of the toils of command, and anxious only for a life of quiet equality as one among the many; in token of which he threw off his general’s cloak and put on a common civil garment. But those whom he addressed, fresh from the recent massacre and plunder, felt that their whole security depended upon the maintenance of his supremacy, and loudly protested that they would not accept his resignation. Agathokles, with pretended reluctance, told them, that if they insisted, he would comply, but upon the peremptory condition of enjoying a single-handed authority, without any colleagues or counsellors for whose misdeeds he was to be responsible. The assembly replied by conferring upon him, with unanimous acclamations, the post of general with unlimited power, or despot.[933]
Thus was constituted a new despot of Syracuse about fifty years after the decease of the elder Dionysius, and twenty-two years after Timoleon had rooted out the Dionysian dynasty, establishing on its ruins a free polity. On accepting the post, Agathokles took pains to proclaim that he would tolerate no farther massacre or plunder, and that his government would for the future be mild and beneficent. He particularly studied to conciliate the poorer citizens, to whom he promised abolition of debts and a new distribution of lands. How far he carried out this project systematically, we do not know; but he conferred positive donations on many of the poor—which he had abundant means of doing, out of the properties of the numerous exiles recently expelled. He was full of promises to every one, displaying courteous and popular manners, and abstaining from all ostentation of guards, or ceremonial attendants, or a diadem. He at the same time applied himself vigorously to strengthen his military and naval force, his magazines of arms and stores, and his revenues. He speedily extended his authority over all the territorial domain of Syracuse, with her subject towns, and carried his arms successfully over many other parts of Sicily.[934]
The Carthaginian general Hamilkar, whose complicity or connivance had helped Agathokles to this blood-stained elevation, appears to have permitted him without opposition to extend his dominion over a large portion of Sicily, and even to plunder the towns in alliance with Carthage itself. Complaints having been made to Carthage, this officer was superseded, and another general (also named Hamilkar) was sent in his place. We are unable to trace in detail the proceedings of Agathokles during the first years of his despotism; but he went on enlarging his sway over the neighboring cities, while the Syracusan exiles, whom he had expelled, found a home partly at Agrigentum (under Deinokrates), partly at Messênê. About the year 314 B. C., we hear that he made an attempt on Messênê, which he was on the point of seizing, had he not been stopped by the interference of the Carthaginians (perhaps the newly-appointed Hamilkar), who now at length protested against his violation of the convention; meaning (as we must presume, for we know of no other convention) the oath which had been sworn by Agathokles at Syracuse under the guarantee of the Carthaginians.[935] Though thus disappointed at Messênê, Agathokles seized Abakænum—where he slew the leading citizens opposed to him,—and carried on his aggressions elsewhere so effectively, that the leaders at Agrigentum, instigated by the Syracusan exiles there harbored, became convinced of the danger of leaving such encroachments unresisted.[936] The people of Agrigentum came to the resolution of taking up arms on behalf of the liberties of Sicily, and allied themselves with Gela and Messênê for the purpose.
But the fearful example of Agathokles himself rendered them so apprehensive of the dangers from any military leader, at once native and energetic, that they resolved to invite a foreigner. Some Syracusan exiles were sent to Sparta, to choose and invoke some Spartan of eminence and ability, as Archidamus had recently been called to Tarentum—and even more, as Timoleon had been brought from Corinth, with results so signally beneficent. The old Spartan king Kleomenes (of the Eurysthenid race) had a son Akrotatus, then unpopular at home,[937] and well disposed towards foreign warfare. This prince, without even consulting the Ephors, listened at once to the envoys, and left Peloponnesus with a small squadron, intending to cross by Korkyra and the coast of Italy to Agrigentum. Unfavorable winds drove him as far north as Apollonia, and delayed his arrival at Tarentum; in which city, originally a Spartan colony, he met with a cordial reception, and obtained a vote of twenty vessels to assist his enterprise of liberating Syracuse from Agathokles. He reached Agrigentum with favorable hopes, was received with all the honors due to a Spartan prince, and undertook the command. Bitterly did he disappoint his party. He was incompetent as a general; he dissipated in presents or luxuries the money intended for the campaign, emulating Asiatic despots; his conduct was arrogant, tyrannical, and even sanguinary. The disgust which he inspired was brought to a height, when he caused Sosistratus, the leader of the Syracusan exiles, to be assassinated at a banquet. Immediately the exiles rose in a body to avenge this murder; while Akrotatus, deposed by the Agrigentines, only found safety in flight.[938]
To this young Spartan prince, had he possessed a noble heart and energetic qualities, there was here presented a career of equal grandeur with that of Timoleon—against an enemy able indeed and formidable, yet not so superior in force as to render success impossible. It is melancholy to see Akrotatus, from simple worthlessness of character, throwing away such an opportunity; at a time when Sicily was the only soil on which a glorious Hellenic career was still open—when no similar exploits were practicable by any Hellenic leader in Central Greece, from the overwhelming superiority of force possessed by the surrounding kings.
The misconduct of Akrotatus broke up all hopes of active operations against Agathokles. Peace was presently concluded with the latter by the Agrigentines and their allies, under the mediation of the Carthaginian general Hamilkar. By the terms of this convention, all the Greek cities in Sicily were declared autonomous, yet under the hegemony of Agathokles; excepting only Himera, Selinus, and Herakleia, which were actually, and were declared still to continue, under Carthage. Messênê was the only Grecian city standing aloof from this convention; as such, therefore still remaining open to the Syracusan exiles. The terms were so favorable to Agathokles, that they were much disapproved at Carthage.[939] Agathokles, recognized as chief and having no enemy in the field, employed himself actively in strengthening his hold on the other cities, and in enlarging his military means at home. He sent a force against Messênê, to require the expulsion of the Syracusan exiles from that city, and to procure at the same time the recall of the Messenian exiles, partisans of his own, and companions of his army. His generals extorted these two points from the Messenians. Agathokles, having thus broken the force of Messênê, secured to himself the town still more completely, by sending for those Messenian citizens who had chiefly opposed him, and putting them all to death, as well as his leading opponents at Tauromenium. The number thus massacred was not less than six hundred.[940]