The Preponderance of Egypt

While in the East the Empire of Alexander was falling to pieces, the decline of Western Hellenism gained speed. ¹ In Sicily, it had had to maintain an age-long struggle against Carthage, and Agathocles had for long been its champion. He was the son of an exile of Rhegion, and had come to Syracuse in Timoleon’s time (about 343). Having distinguished himself by his bravery in the wars with the Bruttians, and having afterwards been exiled with the democratic party, raised to the tyranny with the title of Strategos (319), and finally made King (306), he, too, belonged to the race of ambitious adventurers who were so abundant in that age and by their energy contributed so much to the making of the new world. But he was not one of those military leaders—Macedonian nobles or Hellenic condottieri—attached to no country, who sought to cut out a kingdom for themselves in the regions left vacant by the collapse of the Empire. He fought for his city as well as for his own glory. He was animated by Syracusan patriotism, and, as always in Hellenic lands, he had to wage war not only on the enemies of his race, but also on rival Greek cities and on the opponents of his party. These last even compelled him to treat with Carthage, although he had shaken her foundations in Africa itself. He was preparing to take up the interrupted struggle, when he died, in 289, bequeathing his city to liberty—that is, as was very soon seen, to anarchy. Bloodstained quarrels between citizens and mercenaries rent the weakened Syracusan state, and no Greek city, in spite of the transient brilliance of Acragas under the tyrant Phintias, was capable of maintaining resistance against the Semites or of asserting its hegemony. Carthage now had the upper hand in Sicily, the Eastern part of which was the prey of factions, armed bands, and fratricidal rivalries. A number of Italian mercenaries, during the troubles which followed the death of Agathocles, even established themselves as brigands at Messana, and became a power in the island. It was they who were to give the Romans occasion to cross the straits, thus commencing the great conflict known as the Punic Wars.