History of Greek Sicily
The history of Greek Sicily began with the foundation of the first Greek colonies around the mid 8th century BC. The Greeks of Sicily were known as Siceliotes.
Over the following centuries many conflicts between the city-states occurred until around 276 BC Pyrrhus of Epirus managed to conquer the whole island except Carthaginian Lilybaeum. After the First Punic War in 241 BC the island was conquered by the Romans.
Territory
Cities
The first Greek colonies were founded in eastern Sicily in the 8th century BC when the Chalcidian Greeks founded Zancle, Naxos, Leontinoi and Katane; in the south-east corner the Corinthians founded Syracuse and the Megareans Megara Hyblaea, while on the western coast the Cretans and Rhodians founded Gela in 689 BC, with which the first Greek colonisation of Sicily ended.The Greek cities of Sicily were apoikìai.
Populations
Relations with other islanders
The native inhabitants of the island were the Sicani, the Siculi and the Elimi. There were also small Phoenician trading posts in the west of the island. The growing Greek colonies eventually came into conflict with the Phoenicians, which led to a series of wars between them. As Greece was absorbed by Rome in a series of conquests and alliances, the Romans carried on the Greco-Punic wars as the Roman-Punic wars.As the Greeks sought to colonize the island, and the Phoenicians merely desired sporadic outposts for their trading network with little intent on direct control, conflict between the Greeks and the Siculi took on the nature of a colonizer/colonized relationship, while the Phoenicians frequently played the role of a third party in playing entities off against each other in however a way best fit their commercial interests. The Phoenicians would consequently align with weaker Greek actors against more dominant Greek actors, or align with the Siculi against Greek settlements.
In the end, ethnic Greek settlement was substantive on Sicily, while Carthaginian settlement was fleeting.
History
Origins
Homeric Thrinacia, the island of Helios' cattle, was later identified with Sicily, and re-interpreted as Trinakria.Thucydides writes that the first Greek colonies were founded by aristoi after the internal struggles following the return from the Trojan War. However, the first sites chosen indicated a commercial strategy; Messina, Naxos, Reggio, Catania and Syracuse were all ports on one of the most important trade routes of the era and became points from which to control them.
The earliest Greek colonies in Sicily are all on its east coast, showing the importance of the trade route through the Straits of Messina. The metropoleis from which the Greek colonists came were usually also the source of the new cities' names. Once consolidated, the colonies also produced sub-colonies for military or commercial purposes; Akrai and Casmene, for example, probably originated as military outposts of Syracuse.
The first tyrants
The 6th century BC proved a period of prosperity and population growth in Sicily, but also saw conflict both within the colonies and between them and the local populations. Some individuals profited from this and took power through despotic and brutal means and expansionist policies. In 570 BC Phalaris became tyrant of Akragas, followed by Cleander in Gela in 505 BC, succeeded by his brother Hippocrates. To secure his power, he conquered the rest of eastern Sicily, subduing Zancle, Naxos and Leontini, setting up tyrants there loyal to him but ultimately proving unable to conquer Syracuse. Hippocrates then concentrated his troops to march on Ibla, but died there and was succeeded by Gelon in 491 BC or 490 BC. After six years, Gelon conquered Syracuse without resistance and made it his capital, becoming its tyrant and leaving his brother Hiero to command Gela.Gelon's rise to power reinforced the Greek-speaking presence on Sicily. The numbers of Siculi and Sicani were rising and so he fought a series of battles aimed at combating this perceived threat, turning Syracuse into a powerful city with an army and navy, repopulating it by moving people from Gela and adding some of the conquered Megareans. In only ten years Gelon became the richest and most powerful man in the Greek world and through an alliance with Theron of Acragas took control of most of Greek-speaking Sicily other than Selinunte and Messina.
Terillus of Himera and Anaxilas sought help from Carthage, but Gelon and Teron gathered all the Siceliot forces on Sicily for a decisive engagement at Himera in 480 BC, where they defeated and killed Hamilcar, burned his ships and sold the captured Carthaginian troops into slavery. The resulting peace treaty also imposed a heavy indemnity on the enemy and forced them to renounce human sacrifice, especially of first-born sons at Tofet. On Gelon's death in 476 BC he was succeeded by his brother Hiero, who in the same year conquered Catania and Naxos, deported their inhabitants to Leontini and refounded Catania as 'Aitna', entrusting it to his son Deinomenes and repopulating it with settlers from the Peloponnesus. In 474 BC his fleet defeated an Etruscan one-off Cumae, possibly to counter Etruscan expansion or possibly in response to a request from Cumae for assistance.
Democratic period (466-405 BC)
According to Diodorus Siculus, Trasibulus and Thrasydaeus of Akragas were "violent murderers". Their cruelty seems to have provoked revolts which ended the first period of tyranny among the Greek colonies on Sicily, though Aristotle argues that their fall was mainly caused by internal struggles between powerful families. Trasideus was the first to fall, in his case to a coalition of Syracusan insurgents, Siculan troops and soldiers from Akragas, Gela, Selinunte and Himera.Only Deinomenes remained in power in Aitna until a Siculan-Syracusan coalition forced its population to flee to the surrounding hills of Centuripe and Inessa. Catania therefore re-assumed its former name and was repopulated again, this time with those exiled under Hiero and with Syracusan and Siculi colonists. Messina was freed from the tyranny of Anaxilas' sons around the same time.
In 452 BC a Hellenised Siculan called Ducetius, who had fought in the siege of Etna beside the Syracusans, led a vast Siculan league in revolt. Setting off from his birthplace of Mineo and destroying Inessa-Etna and Morgantina, he founded colonies of his own at strategic points to control the territory, including Palikè near the former sanctuary of the Palici. Around 450 BC he was heavily defeated by the Syracusans and forced into exile in Corinth, though he soon landed a small group of Peloponnesian Greeks back on Sicily and founded Kale Akte, where he remained until his death in 440 BC. In the following years Syracuse reconquered almost all the lands he had removed from the Greek sphere of influence.
The Peloponnesian War had broken out in mainland Greece in 431 BC, heavily involving the colonies on Sicily. In 427 BC groups of Siculi became involved again, this time in the war between Leontini and Syracuse. This also drew in Catania, Naxos and Camarina on Leontini's side and Himera and Gela on Syracuse's side. After three years, in 424 BC a peace treaty was signed under the patronage of the Syracusan Hermocrates, who wished to focus on the Athenian troops who had landed on the island and who left as a result of treaty. In 422 BC, a civil war in Leontini provided a fresh pretext for intervention in Syracuse. The city was razed to the ground and the victorious oligarchs moved to Syracuse.
The conflict also drew in western Sicily; in 416 BC Selinunte declared war on Segesta. In 415 BC Athens sent Alcibiades with a fleet of 250 ships and 25,000 men to assist them, but this Sicilian expedition ended in disaster. Later assistance in 414 BC and 413 BC under Demosthenes was still unable to defeat the coalition which had gathered at Syracuse in the meantime. At the end of 413 BC the Athenians were routed, with 7,000 of their men captured and sent to the stone quarries, where most of them died. The rest were sold into slavery and Demosthenes and Nicias were tried. Syracuse celebrated victory, but this could not guarantee internal peace. Its government was led by one of its generals, Diocles of Syracuse, who put in place a series of reforms on the Athenian model and a code of laws. Such a policy was helped by Hermocrates' absence commanding a fleet sent to help Sparta.
In 410 BC Selinunte attacked Segesta. A small force of Carthaginian mercenaries came to help Segesta and the following year Hannibal Mago landed with another army, obliterating Selinunte and massacring its inhabitants. He then marched on Himera, where he met the Syracusan army under Diocles. After heavy losses the Syracusans retreated. The Imeresi also fled, but half of them were killed. Hannibal quickly returned to Carthage and demobbed his army. Hermocrates had in the meantime been dismissed from the Aegean fleet and returned with five ships and a small army of refugees and mercenaries, with which he settled in what remained of Selinunte and attacked Carthage's vassal cities. Syracuse fell into chaos, Diocles was exiled and Hermocrates was killed trying to resettle.
In spring 406 BC the Carthaginians returned with a large force, razing Akragas and looting its artworks. A young man named Dionysius was appointed supreme commander of Syracuse, which held out for seven months. Gela and then Kamarina fell, at which point Dionysius was able to sign a peace treaty delimiting Syracuse's and Carthage's spheres of influence on the island, leaving the Punic, Sicanian and Elymian cities in the latter. It also imposed a tribute to Carthage on Selinunte, Akragas, Himera, Gela and Camarina and forbade them to build city walls, but Leontini, Messina and the Siculi were freed and Dionysius was left in control of Syracuse. Thus ended the brief period of democracy. The period from 405 BC right up to the conquest by Rome would be marked by the rulers of Syracuse.