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1

When the year had come to an end, in Athens Phormion assumed the archonship and in Rome six military tribunes took the place of the consuls, Gnaeus Genucius, Lucius Atilius, Marcus Pomponius, Gaius Duilius, Marcus Veturius, and Valerius Publilius; and the Ninety-sixth Olympiad was celebrated, that in which Eupolis of Elis was the victor.2 [2] In the year when these magistrates entered office Dionysius, the tyrant of the Syracusans, set out from Syracuse with his entire army and invaded the domain of the Carthaginians. While he was laying waste the countryside, the Halicyaeans in dismay sent an embassy to him and concluded an alliance. But the Aegestaeans, falling unexpectedly by night on their besiegers and setting fire to the tents where they were camped, threw the men in the encampment into great confusion; [3] for since the flames spread over a large area and the fire could not be brought under control, a few of the soldiers who came to the rescue lost their lives and most of the horses were burned, together with the tents. [4] Now Dionysius ravaged the Carthaginian territory without meeting any opposition, and Leptines his admiral from his quarters in Motye kept watch against any approach of the enemy by sea.

The Carthaginians, when they learned of the magnitude of the armament of Dionysius, resolved far to surpass him in their preparations. [5] Consequently, lawfully according Himilcon sovereign power,3 they gathered armaments from all Libya as well as from Iberia, summoning some from their allies and in other cases hiring mercenaries. In the end they collected more than three hundred thousand infantry, four thousand cavalry in addition to chariots, which numbered four hundred, four hundred ships of war, and over six hundred other vessels to convey food and engines of war and other supplies. These are the numbers stated by Ephorus. [6] Timaeus, on the other hand, says that the troops transported from Libya did not exceed one hundred thousand and declares that an additional thirty thousand were enlisted in Sicily.

1 396 B.C.

2 In the "stadion".

3 Strictly speaking, Himilcon was chosen one of the two annually elected suffetes, who corresponded in general to the Roman consuls, and put in command of the war.

Diodorus Siculus. Diodorus of Sicily in Twelve Volumes with an English Translation by C. H. Oldfather. Vol. 4-8. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989.

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