Battle of Himera (480 BC): Sicilian Greeks Defeat Carthage

The Battle of Himera was fought in 480 BC near the Greek city of Himera on the north coast of Sicily. The armies of Gelon of Syracuse and Theron of Akragas destroyed a large Carthaginian expedition led by Hamilcar, who was killed. The victory made Syracuse the leading power in Sicily and kept Carthage out of the Greek part of the island for about seventy years.

Background: Greeks and Carthaginians in Sicily

From the 8th century BC Greek colonists founded cities along the coasts of Sicily, among them Syracuse and later Akragas (modern Agrigento). The western tip of the island was held by Phoenician settlements such as Motya and Panormus (Palermo), which looked to Carthage in North Africa for protection.

By the early 5th century BC two powerful tyrants dominated Greek Sicily. Gelon, ruler of Gela, took control of Syracuse in about 485 BC and made it his capital. Theron ruled Akragas, and the two were allied by marriage, as Gelon married Theron’s daughter Damarete.

Causes

In about 483 BC Theron expelled Terillus, the tyrant of Himera, and took the city. Terillus appealed to Carthage, with support from his son-in-law Anaxilas, tyrant of Rhegium on the Italian mainland.

Carthage had trading interests to protect and saw the growing power of Gelon and Theron as a threat. It prepared a major expedition under Hamilcar, a member of the Magonid family that led Carthage at the time.

What happened

Ancient sources give Hamilcar’s army as 300,000 men, a figure modern historians regard as far too high. Diodorus adds that a storm sank the transports carrying his horses and chariots during the crossing. Hamilcar landed at Panormus and marched east to Himera, where Theron was holding the city.

Gelon came to Theron’s aid with a large army; Diodorus gives 50,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry, numbers that are also probably exaggerated. Hamilcar built two camps, one for his beached fleet and one for his army.

According to Diodorus, Gelon’s men captured a messenger carrying a letter from the city of Selinus, an ally of Carthage, promising to send cavalry on a certain day. Gelon sent his own horsemen at the appointed time, disguised as the Selinuntine reinforcements. Admitted to the naval camp, they killed Hamilcar while he was sacrificing and set fire to the ships.

At the same moment Gelon attacked the main Carthaginian army. After hard fighting, news of the burning fleet and of Hamilcar’s death spread panic, and the Carthaginians broke. Many were killed and many more were captured.

Herodotus preserves a different version told by the Carthaginians themselves. In it Hamilcar spent the whole day offering sacrifices for victory and, seeing his army defeated, threw himself into the sacrificial fire.

Aftermath

Carthage sued for peace. Diodorus says it paid an indemnity of 2,000 talents of silver and built two temples where the treaty was displayed. Gelon is said to have treated Carthage moderately, possibly because he did not want to fight a long war.

The prisoners were shared among the Greek cities and put to work. Diodorus writes that Akragas used its captives to build public works, including temples and an extensive drainage system.

Gelon dedicated golden tripods at Delphi and offerings at Olympia. At Himera a Doric temple, known today as the Temple of Victory, was built in the following years and is usually connected with the battle. A fine silver coin of Syracuse, the Damareteion, was traditionally linked by ancient writers to Damarete and the peace settlement, though numismatists debate its date.

Legacy and the “same day” tradition

Greek writers liked to link Himera with the Persian Wars. Herodotus says the Sicilians claimed it was fought on the same day as Salamis, while Diodorus places it on the day of Thermopylae. Later Greeks presented the two struggles as a single defence of Greek freedom against barbarian powers in east and west.

Modern historians are sceptical. There is no reliable evidence that Persia and Carthage coordinated their attacks, and the synchronism is generally seen as patriotic myth.

The real consequences were local but lasting. Syracuse dominated Sicily under Gelon and his brother Hieron, and Carthage did not mount another major invasion of the Greek cities until 409 BC. In that year Hamilcar’s grandson, Hannibal Mago, captured and destroyed Himera, and the old city was abandoned.

Timeline

• c. 485 BC: Gelon takes control of Syracuse.
• c. 483 BC: Theron of Akragas expels Terillus from Himera.
• 480 BC: Hamilcar’s expedition lands at Panormus and besieges Himera.
• 480 BC: Gelon and Theron defeat the Carthaginians; Hamilcar is killed.
• 478 BC: Gelon dies and is succeeded by his brother Hieron.
• 409 BC: Carthaginians under Hannibal Mago destroy Himera.

Why it matters

Himera decided the balance of power in Sicily for two generations, confirming Syracuse as the leading Greek city of the west. Its later pairing with Salamis shows how the Greeks came to see themselves as a single people defending their freedom on more than one front.