Thermopylae (21 page)
it was essential that the fleet and the army should both have trust in one another’s capability. What better than to show the fleet - whose morale, he must have judged, was somewhat low after their recent mauling - that they had an invincible army behind them?
Themistocles, that master of political mechanics, was also awake to the value of propaganda. As his advance squadron made its way down the channel he put in at all the places where there was fresh water, knowing that the Persians must necessarily do likewise, and left behind messages scratched or cut on the rocks. These were of course designed to be read by the many Ionian Greeks serving in the Persian fleet, and called upon them to remember that they too were Greeks and that they should not be making war upon their fellows.
The best thing for you to do is to join us, but if this is impossible you should at least remain neutral. On the other hand, if you are under such constraint that you can do neither of these things, at least, when it comes to battle, remember we are of the same blood - that our quarrel with the Persians originally began on your account - and make sure you fight badly.
There is no evidence that this early example of ‘pamphlet propaganda’ had any effect, but it may possibly have caused some of the Ionians not to give of their best. One day later, after the battlefield inspection was over, the bulk of the Persian army began its march southward into central Greece.
In that summer of 480, while Xerxes moved south into Greece, the carefully co-ordinated attack upon Sicily had begun. The importance of this western flank in the double-horned advance upon Greece and Mediterranean Europe has sometimes been a little neglected, all attention being concentrated upon events in Greece itself. But Xerxes and his staff had not been years in the planning of his great invasion without ensuring that the threat from Carthage to the Greek-dominated areas of Sicily should develop at the same time.
Western and north-western Sicily were largely controlled by Carthaginian colonies while the Greeks were mainly on the eastern and south-eastern coasts. Hamilcar, the leading Carthaginian general, had laid his plans accordingly and a vast flotilla of transports escorted by 200 warships had been assembled to carry a force of some 200,000 men, together with horses - for the Carthaginians relied largely on cavalry in warfare as well as the outmoded chariot. This was natural enough, for in the great expanses of north Africa the cavalry arm was supreme and even in Sicily the mounted men had an advantage over the hoplite, and the Sicilian Greeks also made much use of cavalry. Special horse-transports were constructed, no doubt somewhat similar to the gaulos (literally ‘tub’), the half-walnut-shaped merchant-ship of the time which was principally dependent upon sail rather than oars. Once again the elements were to prove the Greeks’ best friends. While the oared warships could advance well enough from the Gulf of Tunis across the midsummer Mediterranean the transports inevitably lagged behind, dependent largely upon a favourable southerly wind to waft them on their course towards the coast of Sicily. Unfortunately for the Carthaginian hopes the maistro, the ‘master wind’ (modern mistral), elected to blow hard from the north - something which to this day has upset the plans of many a sailor, and which nearly ruined the Allied invasion of Sicily in the summer of 1943. The wallowing transports were scattered and many of them sunk, thus leaving Hamilcar in a worse position than Xerxes who, at least, had all his army and baggage-train safely on dry land.
The main body of the fighting fleet successfully rounded the north-western cape of Sicily, leaving behind them the great shoulders of Mount Eryx with its temple to Astarte crowning the peak, and headed east towards the Bay of Panormus (Palermo) where they could regroup and make ready for the campaign. The first objective was the city of Himera to the east of Panormus, on whose account the campaign had been largely initiated. Its capture by Theron of Acragas had provoked its former Greek ruler Terillus, who was a personal friend of Hamilcar, to ask for aid. Nothing had suited Hamilcar and the Carthaginians, and indeed the Punic-Persian alliance, better than this providential casus belli - although there can be no doubt that the invasion would have taken place in any case. To eliminate a powerful Greek threat to Carthaginian colonies, and then in due course to move east and one by one take over the Greek cities, was the long-term strategy. Beyond that, but still well within the planning capacity of the time, was the ultimate move up into southern Italy where prosperous colonies beckoned, from Rhegium on the toe of the continent to Crotone and Tarentum on the sole, and northwards as far as the pearls of Cumae and Neapolis. Beyond that again lay the rich territory and the metals of Etruria. It is significant that both Corsicans and Sardinians, who had long cast envious eyes on Etruscan richness and envied their technology, were among the vast army who accompanied Hamilcar on his expedition.
Xerxes’ invasion of the West, as has been seen, was no small thing: no reprisal raid on Athens and Sparta for their refusal to offer the tokens of submission (or for Sparta’s treatment of the Persian ambassadors); no simple vengeance on the mainland Greeks who had assisted the Ionians in their revolt; nor was it merely the desire to lay low these proud, warlike people and add them and their rocky land to his empire. However the Greeks at the time saw it, the ambitions of Xerxes far exceeded the ones that inevitably preoccupied his immediate enemies. His aim, with the aid of the Carthaginians, was the conquest of all the Mediterranean lands. Yet again, it is significant that among the forces which Hamilcar led against Sicily were Spaniards and Ligurians, and tribesmen from the Riviera. The Greeks in their subsequent history, poetry and drama somewhat naturally saw everything in terms of an attack directed against themselves and their proud little city-states. Xerxes’ aims and ambitions, on the other hand, were as wide and far-reaching as those of Alexander the Great in a later century - and had, on the surface at least, a better chance of success.
Having disembarked and beached their ships in the grand Bay of Panormus, the invasion force rested for three days. The loss of so many transports, of food, provender and general stores (and especially of horses), had left the great army somewhat depleted but - as Hamilcar was swift to assure them - the sea had been their greatest danger. Now that they were landed, the war was as good as over. It is somewhat difficult for the modern visitor to Sicily to comprehend the importance of this large island to the ancients. To the Greeks and Phoenicians who first competed as colonisers of the island it was indeed a place of almost miraculous richness.
Sicily [as I have written elsewhere] had everything to commend it: Good vine-growing country, land for pasturage and for agriculture, water, harbours, quarryable stone, trees for fuel and for boat-building, and craggy uplands where goats could pasture. Wherever the land could not support cereals or the vine, the hardy olive flourished. Before it was ravaged by thousands of years of occupation by man, Sicily was a garden of Eden, floating on the water south of Italy and bridging the worlds of Europe and Africa.
This current Carthaginian invasion led by the Suffete Hamilcar was triggered by the desire for land and its grain, mineral wealth and power. It had no religious or ethnic cause: Hamilcar himself was half Greek, having a Syracusan mother.
Unlike the invasion of Xerxes, where the route of the army could be fairly easily foreseen, the invasion of Sicily could have started at several points, the most likely perhaps being the city of Selinus in the south which was allied to Carthage. Gelon, therefore, whose main fleet-base was Syracuse and whose sphere of naval operations extended little farther than Theron’s Acragas, had no means of knowing where the blow would fall, nor of attacking the enemy at sea. Furthermore, even when it became known that Hamilcar’s army had landed in Panormus Bay the Greek fleet could not head north and make its way through the Messina Strait, for Zancle (Messina) and Rhegium (Reggio) were both pro-Carthaginian, Anaxilas of Rhegium being the son-in-law of Terillus the deposed ruler of Himera, while his own son Leophron was ruler of Zancle. It can be seen that, with this combination of alliances, the Carthaginians had a good chance of boxing in the Greeks on the east coast of the island and eliminating them at their leisure. As it was, the news of Hamilcar’s descent on Panormus only just gave Theron sufficient time to cross the island with a strong force and reinforce Himera before the Carthaginians were ready to attack.
Himera (Termini Imerese) stands on rising ground above the narrow coastal plain with the Himeras torrent directly protecting its eastern flank. Hamilcar, having beached the fleet immediately facing Himera, leaving only twenty triremes to patrol the coast, fortified his camp and extended its defences inland so that they reached the hills to the west of the city, thus leaving Himera cut off except for its southern and eastern approaches. Hamilcar made the first move and sent a powerful detachment of troops to test the walls and defences of the city, in the course of which the defenders were rash enough to sally out, only to be beaten back with the loss of many men. Theron, realising that it was upon the western walls that an attack must fall, promptly had the city gates on that side blocked up. He also sent off a message calling for help from his son-in-law, Gelon of Syracuse, richest of all the Sicilian tyrants and the man who had promised the Athenians such massive naval and military support if he were made commander-in-chief of all the Greeks. The latter had already mobilised all the forces at his command, which most probably included the 20,000 hoplites that he had promised for the defence of Greece, as well as several thousand archers, slingers, light infantry, and 2000 cavalrymen. (The wealth of Sicily always astounded mainland Greeks, and the fact that one city could produce so many men rich enough to own the armour to form such a vast body of hoplites was beyond the resources of Sparta and Athens combined.) Taking the swift overland route via Enna, having been reinforced by Hieron of Gela on the way, the number of troops that finally reached Himera from the south-east amounted to about 50,000 men. The joy of the besieged was reinforced by the immediate proof of the abilities of this considerable army. The Greek cavalry, now some 5000 strong, bypassed the western flank of Hamilcar’s defences and captured or cut down hundreds of his troops who were out foraging in the countryside.
Hamilcar still had a numerical advantage over his Greek opponents but he was sadly hampered by the fact that he had lost so many horses in the wrecked and sunken transports - thus reducing many of his formidable cavalrymen to the unfamiliar role of foot-soldiers. He had accordingly despatched an urgent message to his allies in Selinus asking them to send all their available cavalry. Unfortunately for the Carthaginian Suffete the returning messenger from Selinus was intercepted by the Greeks, who were roaming the countryside round about almost unchallenged. This was an almost miraculous stroke of fortune, for the message even revealed on what day the cavalry from Selinus were due to appear - obviously so that the Carthaginian lookouts would sight them as they came over the hills to the south and have the gates of their fortified camp open and ready for them. Now Selinus, although an ally of Carthage, was a Greek city, and its soldiers and cavalrymen, therefore, bore the same uniforms, armour, and horse-trappings as any of the other Sicilian Greeks. Here lay the seed of Gelon’s brilliant idea, and here lay the ultimate downfall of Hamilcar. Prior to this all-important secret falling into his hands Gelon had already established himself in a formidable position, setting up his camp on the east bank of the River Himeras opposite the city, on whose landward side he had dug a long ditch and erected a stockade. There was thus no chance of his being outflanked by any Carthaginian move from the west, and in any case the current superiority of his cavalry throughout the country round about meant that the Carthaginians were almost as much besieged as the Greeks in Himera. Although their transports could come and go unthreatened by any Greek warships, bringing provisions from the fertile lands around Panormus, they were largely denied access to the country immediately surrounding Himera.
Prior to the message from Selinus falling into his hands Gelon had been contemplating making a raid on the enemy’s ships, during the confusion of which he would loose his major frontal attack on their encampment. But now he hazarded his fortune oh a far better idea. On the appointed day, when the Carthaginians would be expecting the cavalry from Selinus, he would anticipate them, sending out his finest squadron from Syracuse to make a detour into the hills while it was dark and then show themselves at daylight and make their way down to Hamilcar’s camp, posing as the expected reinforcements. As soon as they had been admitted through the palisade they would declare their true nature, wreak as much destruction as possible, and above all, if they could find him, kill Hamilcar. Gelon had scouts posted on the hills overlooking the town to give the signal the moment that they had seen their cavalry admitted. Gelon with all his troops would unleash an assault on the Carthaginian position while Theron’s troops inside Himera would also burst out in a head-on attack on the enemy. To execute this brilliant stratagem everything depended on timing and perfect discipline. The fact that it succeeded suggests, as commentators have pointed out, that the autocratic rulers of the Greek city-states in Sicily possessed a marked advantage over the divided counsels that were part and parcel of alliances in Greece itself.
