Magonid

The Magonids were a political dynasty of Ancient Carthage from 550 BCE to 340 BCE. The dynasty was first established under Mago I, under whom Carthage became preeminent among the Phoenician colonies in the western Mediterranean. Under the Magonids, the Carthaginian Empire expanded to include Sardinia, Libya, and for almost a decade much of Sicily.

Leading experts on Carthage have been skeptical as to whether it is even possible to reconstruct the internal history of Carthage and this needs to be borne in mind in relation to the Magonids. Mago and his successors probably ruled less as kings but rather more like tyrants or political strongmen.Diodorus, however, describes them as kings according to laws which implies a legal procedure not a naked seizure of power and Herodotus tells us that Hamilcar I was "king by valor" implying selection not hereditary succession.

In 480 BCE, following Hamilcar I's death, the King lost most of his power to an aristocratic Council of Elders. In 308 BCE, Hannonian Bomilcar attempted a coup d'état to restore the monarch to full power, but failed, which led to Carthage becoming in name as well as in fact a republic.

With the arrival of Mago, Carthaginian foreign policy appears to have changed dramatically. If previously Carthage had tentatively colonized the island of Ibiza on its own, it now took the lead, establishing itself firmly as the dominant Phoenician military power in the western Mediterranean. Although it still remained an economic dependent of Tyre, it now acted increasingly independently.

Mago was succeeded by his son Hasdrubal I. The next successor was Hamilcar I, the son of Hasdrubal's brother Hanno. Carthage, always trying to rid itself of its opponent, the Greeks, might even have entered into an alliance with the Persian Xerxes (the accounts are unsure) in order to defeat the joint foe. Herodotus tells that it was believed that the decisive battle of Himera between Carthaginian and Greek forces on Sicily took place on the very same day that the Greeks met with the Persians in the famous battle of Salamis in 480 BCE in Greece itself. But the Greeks were victorious in both battles and Hamilcar met his death at Himera.

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