Battle of Himera (480 BC)

Battle of Himera
Part of the Sicilian Wars
Romanticised representation of the Battle of Himera
Date 480 BC Location Himera, Sicily Result Decisive Syracusan victory Carthaginian influence in Sicily severely weakened
Belligerents
Syracuse Agrigentum	Carthage
Commanders and leaders
Gelo Theron	Hamilcar †
Strength
21,000	50,000
Casualties and losses
2,300	9,000+

The Battle of Himera (480 BC), supposedly fought on the same day as the more famous Battle of Salamis, or at the same time as the Battle of Thermopylae, saw the Greek forces of Gelon, King of Syracuse, and Theron, tyrant of Agrigentum, defeat the Carthaginian force of Hamilcar the Magonid, ending a Carthaginian bid to restore the deposed tyrant of Himera. The alleged coincidence of this battle with the naval battle of Salamis and the resultant derailing of a Punic-Persian conspiracy aimed at destroying the Greek civilization is rejected by modern scholars. Scholars also agree that the battle led to the crippling of Carthage's power in Sicily for many decades. It was one of the most important battles of the Sicilian Wars.

The Phoenicians had planted trading posts all over the coast of Sicily after 900 BC, but had never penetrated far inland. They had traded with the Elymian, Sicani and Siculi communities and ultimately withdrew without resistance to Motya, Panormus and Solus when the Greek colonists arrived after 750 BC. These cities remained independent until becoming part of the Carthaginian hegemony after 540 BC, probably when Malchus of Carthage "conquered all Sicily" and sent the captured booty to Tyre .

Carthage created her hegemony in part to resist Greek encroachments in the Phoenician sphere of influence. Phoenicians initially (750 -650 BC) did not resist the Greeks, but after the Greeks had reached Iberia sometime after 650 BC, Carthage emerged as the leader of Phoenician resistance. During the 6th century BC, mostly under the leadership of the Magonid dynasty, Carthage established a commercially dominant position in the Western Mediterranean. The Phoenicians in Sicily and the Elymians had teamed up to defeat the Greeks of Selinus and Rhodes near Lilybaeum in 580 BC, the first recorded clash between Phoenicians and Greeks incident in Sicily. The next known Greek incursion in Sicily took place 70 years later.

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