A History of the Pyrrhic War

Home > Other > A History of the Pyrrhic War > Page 5
A History of the Pyrrhic War Page 5

by Patrick Alan Kent


  Agathocles ruled Syracuse through a combination of generosity to his supporters and brutality towards his enemies. It was through popular support of the lower classes and mercenaries that Agathocles was able to maintain his power early in his reign and maintain it for decades. In particular he played upon the long-standing conflicts between lower- and upper-class Syracusans. Agathocles’ most committed opponents were oligarchic exiles driven from the city who urged other Greek cities and the Carthaginians to fight him. Agathocles responded with repeated purges of his oligarchic enemies and seizure of property, supposedly killing some 4,000 when he first seized power.2 Dissatisfaction with Agathocles’ rule cropped up from time to time due to his harshness, sometimes resulting in severity against his base of supporters as well as his traditional enemies. Agathocles may have died of natural causes, but that does not mean that he was beloved. His domestic policies ensured he remained in power for a long time, but it did little to create a positive image. Upon his death, the Syracusans, led by factions hostile to him, cleansed the city of his statues and damned his memory.

  Agathocles faced a difficult situation in how to actually rule over his Sicilian domains given their politically divided nature. When his power was at its height, extending over most of the island, his authority was based on replacing hostile local leadership with those more friendly ones (usually democrats) and military strength. As in Syracuse, brutality was a tool he was ready to wield. When the people of Segesta were unwilling to meet his financial exactions, Agathocles proceeded to execute the male population while selling the women and children into slavery.3 It was only after the effective collapse of his authority beyond Syracuse in 305, after the war with Carthage had ended, that he named himself king. He did so without any qualifiers or distinctions. Ideologically he placed himself on a similar level to the Diadochi and without inherent limitations on the extent of his authority, but it was a claim of bravado as his actual power was more or less limited to Syracuse itself.4 But his authority in the city was supreme, as evidenced by his coinage which bears the inscriptions ‘of Agathocles’ and later ‘of King Agathocles’. He was not really king of Sicily regardless of his own ambitions. Agathocles adapted his means of control abroad as the political reality shifted, but at the heart of his authority was the support of the Syracusan populace.

  The Carthaginians maintained control of the western portions of Sicily through a combination of military and diplomatic efforts, although precise details are poorly preserved.5 It was Syracuse who posed the most enduring antagonist for Carthage on the island, and Agathocles’ expansionistic actions were a direct threat. Carthaginian efforts during most of Agathocles’ reign were led by Hamilcar son of Gisco, who proved adept at navigating the political complexities of the island and exploiting Greek infighting. He followed the precedents set by his predecessor, also named Hamilcar, who had involved himself in the internal affairs of Syracuse. Hamilcar son of Gisco created a friendly relationship with political exiles from Syracuse, which gave him an avenue by which to influence the internal politics of the city, captured several towns in central Sicily, and moved to besiege Syracuse. He spread word in the city that Agathocles had been defeated and offered terms of surrender, setting off a panic.6 In the end Hamilcar son of Gisco was unsuccessful in subduing Syracuse, but he followed a pattern of active participation in the internal politics of the city by previous commanders.7 The Carthaginians followed up this effort by supporting a coalition of Greek cities centered on Acragas in opposition of Agathocles and Syracuse.

  Hamilcar son of Gisco’s efforts were successful in greatly weakening the position of Syracuse by taking advantage of Greek disunity. Hostilities in Sicily (and Italy) were not limited to the battlefield. These communities were interwoven in a complex political, social, and economic network that created avenues of contact that could be exploited to further strategic goals. The Carthaginians proved time and again to be very familiar with Greek political and social divisions, which they eagerly exploited through the diplomatic, mercantile, and personal relationships of individuals. While Carthage would be unable to fully subdue Syracuse, her generals managed to blunt the efforts of men like Agathocles while waiting for opportunities to turn the tide in their own favor. Carthaginian leadership often proved patient in waiting for the breakdown of occasional Greek cooperation. Against Agathocles, their strategies proved effective. Exhausted, both the Carthaginians and Agathocles were more than happy to renegotiate peace in 306 that reestablished the pre-war status quo. Peace allowed Agathocles to focus on his Greek rivals, but the damage had been done. The Sicilian Greek cities were sapped of their strength and would remain at odds, unable to effectively interfere in the Carthaginian epikrateia for the time being.

  Nevertheless, Agathocles continued to dream of a renewed war against Carthage, reaching out to the Greeks of the east while extending his hegemony into Italy.8 The Sicilian Greeks were weakened by the prolonged warfare of the last decade, but the Greeks of Italy were not. Sicily and Italy were closely linked together, and the success of Dionysius I in extending Syracusan influence on the peninsula was a model for Agathocles’ goals.9 Agathocles had knowledge of the situation in Italy, having spent his first banishment from Syracuse. At that time, he had attempted to overthrow the government of Croton and briefly served the Tarentines as a mercenary. In 300, he campaigned against the Bruttians and brought some of the Italiote Greeks under his control, stepping in as a defender of Hellenism in the face of barbarian attack. In 295 he treacherously seized the city of Croton, and established alliances with the Italian Iapygians and Peucetians. Coinage from Italiote Greek cities suggests that his influence, at least indirectly, encompassed Lucania as far as Velia and Metapontum, as well as perhaps Locri. The Tarentines apparently managed to remain independent, but their dreams of greater hegemony were limited in the face of Syracusan power. Syracuse’s presence would end with the death of Agathocles in 289.

  Other peoples likewise traversed both Italy and Sicily. Agathocles’ interests in Italy also invited Carthaginian interventions on the peninsula. The Carthaginians were involved in several economic and diplomatic affairs in Magna Graecia down to the time of Pyrrhus in response to Syracuse.10 Italian mercenaries, mostly Oscan but also Etruscan, served in the armies of both Carthage and Syracuse.11 Roman merchants were ensured their rights to trade in Sicily through treaties with Carthage. While Italy was seen as a distinct geographic, ethnic, and political region under the Roman empire, that was not true before the Punic Wars. Peoples and goods flowed between Sicily and Italy, while those with ambitions of power stretched out their hands to unite the Greeks on either side of the Strait of Messana.

  Affairs in Italy

  As in Sicily, there were enduring conflicts in Italy that contributed to the eventual arrival of Pyrrhus. The Romans and Samnites had been fighting for much of the previous 60 years, and around 283 they began to fight again. The reasons for war are to be found ultimately in the hostility among some Italian peoples towards growing Roman influence and power. Since 343, the Romans had expanded their influence from Latium to all of central Italy with numerous incursions beyond that. The key to their success was the creation of a dynamic alliance network that put the military resources of other communities under Roman control. Superior manpower reserves allowed Roman armies to absorb significant losses in the brutal style of Italian warfare and continue to field new forces. Expansion also brought greater economic prosperity to Rome, including the first issue of coinage in the late fourth into the early third centuries.12 This monetary development is an indication of the economic ties between Rome and Campania alongside the growing scale of the outlays of the Roman government for soldiers and public works. The Republic may not have been as sophisticated as the Hellenistic kingdoms, but it boasted a strong organizational system both internally and externally that allowed it to aggressively pursue its interests at home and abroad.

  Military alliances were not unique to the Romans. Attempts by the Samnites, Etruscans,
and other Italian peoples to pool their resources against the Roman advance would see their climax in the Third Samnite War (298–290) at the battle of Sentinum.13 The peoples of central Italy were arrayed on either side of the battlefield. In the end, the Romans and their allies came out victorious. While Roman armies marched across much of the peninsula by the end of the fourth century, real control was still limited in the northern and southern regions despite the anachronistic claims of later Roman historians. By the mid-280s when fighting picked up again, there is no indication of cooperation between those Italians fighting the Romans in the north and the south.14 The Romans had divided their enemies, forcing them to fight independently against Rome’s superior collective resources. Resistance by the Samnites and others was increasingly difficult to maintain in the bloody, drawn-out wars of Italy.

  Fighting also broke out in northern Italy, although the exact course of events is unclear. In 284, the Senones and/or Boii, tribes of Gauls, entered Etruria and besieged the city of Arretium in alliance with other Etruscans. In the past, various tribes of Gauls had fought against the Etruscans as well as allied with them against the Romans.15 The Roman army sent to relieve Arretium suffered a devastating defeat.16 Fragments from Appian’s history describe a more convoluted tale.17 He asserts that the Romans dispatched a diplomatic mission to complain about mercenaries, as he called them, being sent by the Gallic Senones to help certain Etruscans. The leader of the Senones, Britomaris, had the ambassadors butchered, claiming that the Romans had done the same to his own father. This cruelty led to a Roman army cutting a swath of destruction through the land of the Senones. Here Appian presents a fantastic tale that fails to inspire any confidence in its accuracy, but nevertheless reflects an interesting dichotomy in who is to blame. Of course the immediate cause of the war is the impious actions of killing the Roman envoys by the Senones, which justifies Roman actions as a bellum iustum. (Other sources also mention this murder, as well as linking the Senones to the sack of Rome a century prior.) But Appian also offers a justification for the killing by having Britomaris (and not Appian himself) assert that the Romans had done something similar in the past war. The Romans are still fully right in their response, but they are not completely innocent.

  Here we see through a window, however hazy, into the convoluted nature of Italian warfare of the time. Romans, Etruscans, and Gauls had been fighting against and alongside one another for a very long time. Renewed fighting is hardly surprising. At the same time, the importance of military alliances is clear, as Arretium faced a coalition of other Etruscans and Gauls. Few communities stood much of a chance of survival without help, and in this case the Etruscans of Arretium relied on the Romans. Alliances could be dangerous too, as the Gauls, whether they killed Roman ambassadors or not, were attacked due to their Etruscan alliances.

  The Romans fought the allied Etruscans and Gauls over the next several years. In 283 the Romans won a victory over a combined army of Etruscans and Gauls at Lake Vadimon before moving against the Gauls along the Adriatic coast.18 The Romans seized the land for themselves, calling it the ager Gallicus. Polybius says the Gallic Boii continued the war into 281, but soon after made peace. Meanwhile, triumphs are recorded over the Etruscans in the fasti triumphales in 282 and 281.19 Throughout the wars in the north the Romans normally sent only a single consul (except in 283) as they were also campaigning in the south at the same time.

  The Romans faced a diverse group of opponents in southern Italy. Roman aggression was opposed by their traditional enemies, the Samnites, as well the Lucanians, and Bruttians. Although significant political developments were creating systems of organization and cooperation among the peoples of the southern Apennines, they were not unified polities despite their portrayal as such by Greek and Roman writers. Fighting began around the Greek city of Thurii, with which the Romans had concluded an alliance in 286/285 after driving off a Lucanian attack.20 As with other western Greeks, the Thurians found it expedient to acquire outside assistance in the face of local problems, in this case raids by Lucanians from the surrounding mountains. Fighting broke out again in 282 when a force of Samnites, Lucanians, and Bruttians laid siege to Thurii. This attack indicates a recovery to some degree by the Samnites since their last war with the Romans ended some ten years prior. By pooling their resources, these Italian peoples could hope to accomplish what none could manage individually. In this case, eliminating a Roman ally to their south, which threatened encirclement of their homelands, and looting a relatively wealthy city.

  Southern Italy was tied together in a complex web of political, military, social, and economic relationships.21 In Samnium, Lucania, Apulia, and Messapia settlement patterns began to change from small, isolated communities into more substantial settlements. In the plains, this took the form of urban settlements of substantial size with distinct oligarchic classes and a sense of community binding them together.22 Many Italian communities of the south began minting their own coins in the late fourth century, indicating the growing importance of trade.23 These communities were, for the most part, oriented towards Magna Graecia and were heavily influenced by Greek culture in the Hellenistic period. Warfare was still common between communities, but strong cultural and economic bonds existed simultaneously. Unfortunately, literary sources add little to archaeological evidence for these interactions, which tend to mention the peoples of Italy only when they interacted with the Romans.

  In 282, the consul C. Fabricius Luscinus led his army south and earned a triumph over the Samnites, Lucanians, and Bruttians.24 He had come in response to help the Roman ally Thurii. Given Roman penetration of the southern Apennines in previous wars, it is safe to surmise that as part of his campaign Fabricius marched deep into the mountains Samnium and Lucania and caused significant damage that resulted in his recognition. Much active campaigning in Bruttium seems unlikely due to the distances involved and time constraints. A lack of effective resistance from the Italic peoples of the south allowed one of the consuls in 281 to be reassigned to fight the Tarentines when war with them broke out that same year. By this point in time the Samnites were simply unable to stand on their own against the armies of Rome, even in defense of their homeland. Roman expansion into central Italy, which was physically manifesting through colonization, had cut off Rome’s northern and southern enemies from each other. The Samnites could look to their southern Italian neighbors for help, but Lucanian and Bruttian assistance was clearly insufficient as Fabricius had demonstrated. If the Samnites wished to enhance their military forces with outside support, they would have to look elsewhere for more effective allies.

  Rome and Taras

  The Italian peoples were not the only ones to oppose Roman expansion. Despite the focus of later writers to emphasize the Tarentine attack on a Roman fleet and subsequent insults to their ambassadors, the conflict between the Romans and Tarentines went far deeper than mere drunken impulse. At times the Greeks of Taras had taken steps to disrupt Roman efforts, although not through direct military confrontation. The Tarentines had encouraged active resistance among other peoples against the Romans in Lucania and southern Campania.25 Roman armies were marching further and further south with each successive war, encroaching on areas the Tarentines considered within their own sphere of influence. The alliance with Thurii and the fighting around the city had brought the Romans into Magna Graecia. For the Tarentines, who saw themselves as the rightful leaders of the Italian Greeks, Roman intrusion was a serious threat.

  The relative power between the Italiote Greeks and the peoples of Italy had shifted away from the Greeks. Italian peoples had increased their raids into Greek territory, including the Lucanian attacks on Thurii. Agathocles’ recent death had removed a potential source of outside support for Thurii, leaving it vulnerable. Unable to defend themselves without assistance, the Thurians had resolved to call for outside aid. Appian mentions a pro-Roman faction in the city, which would have been opposed by a similar pro-Tarentine one.26 The political machinations at Neapo
lis in 326 and subsequently in Taras suggest that the population would have been split between approaching the Romans or their fellow Greeks (the Tarentines) for help.27 Many western Greek cities had sought outside assistance for external and internal problems they were unable to solve. The Thurians resolved to reach out to Rome for help.28 The Romans responded positively, driving off the Lucanians in 285 and 282. For Thurii, a Roman alliance was a logical choice. The Romans had already proven capable of campaigning effectively in southern Italy against the Samnites and Lucanians in the Third Samnite War. At the same time, relations between Thurii and Taras were mired by war and Tarentine interference in local politics.29 In addition, the Tarentines did not offer the same military capability as the Romans. The Romans could provide support and protection from both the Lucanians as well as the Tarentines. As such, Thurii admitted a Roman garrison to aid in their defense, giving the Romans an ally and base of operations on the southern Italian coast for the first time.

  For the Romans, an alliance with Thurii offered significant benefits. First and foremost was the simple expansion of the alliance system, which augmented their strength indirectly with the wealth of the Greek city, while keeping those resources out of Lucanian hands. In immediate terms though, Thurii’s position on the far side of Samnium and Lucania further encircled those regions. A string of colonies in central Italy had already secured a land route to Apulia, from which Samnium and Lucania could be invaded from the east. A friendly position at Thurii created the possibility of actions from the south. The Romans may also have aimed at weakening Taras’ position in Magna Graecia after the power vacuum left by Agathocles’ death. Such a tactic would have seemed particularly tempting given the hostility the Tarentines had shown over the last several decades to Roman expansion.

 

‹ Prev