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My shitty summary of the Punic Wars is that round 1 started as a 3 way disagreement between Rome, Syracuse and Carthage, somehow involving Sicily. I was pretty focused on the Rome/Carthage thing, so I didn’t give a lot of thought to Syracuse. Round 2 was grandson comes around with elephants (answering the question of how elephants got to Europe is what started this whole project for me; the answer appears to be boats, but that just raises more questions than it answers) to avenge grandpa, makes trouble for a decade and a half, goes home and loses. The peace specified Carthage could only go to war with permission. Numidia (I have so much trouble remembering the spelling here, so just think “Nomad” and swap some vowels around as needed; that at least stabilizeds the consonants) attacked Carthage and Carthage defended itself without permission to do so. Rome came over and pushed all the inhabitants off the buildings and gave all the books to the Numidians (and conceivably other groups in the area, but I think the Numidians) so we have no record of what Carthage thought about any of this.
Questions!
First, Syracuse? Apparently a Greek thing, settled post-Troy (oh, do I have so many questions about Troy, but let’s not go down that path right right now).
But if it’s a Greek thing, was there a fight between Syracuse / the Greeks and Carthage before Rome got involved? I mean, Rome at the beginning of these wars was pretty freshly separated from the Etruscans.
Why, YES! Yes there was a Greek / Carthage thing, aka the Sicillian Wars or the Greco-Punic wars.
I had to ask, didn’t I.
But before I get completely involved in trying to make sense of the Sicillian Wars, I just want to say this. Troy, or Ilium or Ilios or Wilios was apparently Wilusa, and a vassal of the Hittite Empire, and let me just say, this is all gonna circle back around, I can tell already.
I will now endeavor to read enough to understand what the fight was about before the Romans got involved in it.
(ETA: Looks like at least one of the pre-Greek groups on Sicily may have gotten there after leaving Troy, so this is probably an anti-Greek crowd from the beginning. I mean the Elymians. Then Greek settlers arrive. Perhaps the Phoenician / Carthaginian thing was mostly trade-based at first, but as the Greeks were more aggressive, there was an imperialist response in kind. Internal to the Greek disputes — Ionians vs Dorians — are not ringing much of a bell, but I will get to that later. Carthage helps the Elymians fight off a guy who was second to inherit out of Sparta and too impatient to wait and came to Sicily after Libyan adventures were unsuccessful. The story of Dorieus and his origin and younger brother are clearly important but I’m not chasing that down now. And a couple paragraphs into this pre-first Sicilian War entry, I have entirely lost the plot. There is so much going on here. What.
All right, I think I’ve got it? First war is another three-way: two sides are Greek (it’s that Ionian vs Dorian thing apparently I am going to have to learn about that) and the other side is Carthage plus the Elymians. One of the Ionian Greeks is besties with Hamilcar, so Carthage comes to help Terrilus out when he loses to the Dorian Greeks. Carthage’s contingent encounters bad weather and loses a lot of boats on the way to Sicily. They arrive and then lose to the Dorians, _supposedly on the same day_ that Themistocles was handing the Persians their asses in the Battles of Salamis. Wild.
No territory gained or lost. Carthage paid a bunch of reparations. Everyone went home and nursed their grudges and rearranged their political infrastructures and thought about their life choices. Thanks to the cash, Sicily got a bunch of physical infrastructure as well. Eventually, peopled died, alliances ended, everyone got to feuding and we’re teed up for the second round, but I am taking a break for a bit.
OMG. There are 7 of these, 8 if you count the Pyrrhic War. And this is the pre-quel series for the Punic Wars. And there’s the spinoff series, overlapping in time, The Persian Wars. And I am still ignoring the Ionian/Dorian feud AND I’m leaving the Trojan thing entirely as background references.)
I walked with M. I did some travel planning. Actually, I did a lot of travel planning, and very successfully and I’m real happy about it.
Questions!
First, Syracuse? Apparently a Greek thing, settled post-Troy (oh, do I have so many questions about Troy, but let’s not go down that path right right now).
But if it’s a Greek thing, was there a fight between Syracuse / the Greeks and Carthage before Rome got involved? I mean, Rome at the beginning of these wars was pretty freshly separated from the Etruscans.
Why, YES! Yes there was a Greek / Carthage thing, aka the Sicillian Wars or the Greco-Punic wars.
I had to ask, didn’t I.
But before I get completely involved in trying to make sense of the Sicillian Wars, I just want to say this. Troy, or Ilium or Ilios or Wilios was apparently Wilusa, and a vassal of the Hittite Empire, and let me just say, this is all gonna circle back around, I can tell already.
I will now endeavor to read enough to understand what the fight was about before the Romans got involved in it.
(ETA: Looks like at least one of the pre-Greek groups on Sicily may have gotten there after leaving Troy, so this is probably an anti-Greek crowd from the beginning. I mean the Elymians. Then Greek settlers arrive. Perhaps the Phoenician / Carthaginian thing was mostly trade-based at first, but as the Greeks were more aggressive, there was an imperialist response in kind. Internal to the Greek disputes — Ionians vs Dorians — are not ringing much of a bell, but I will get to that later. Carthage helps the Elymians fight off a guy who was second to inherit out of Sparta and too impatient to wait and came to Sicily after Libyan adventures were unsuccessful. The story of Dorieus and his origin and younger brother are clearly important but I’m not chasing that down now. And a couple paragraphs into this pre-first Sicilian War entry, I have entirely lost the plot. There is so much going on here. What.
All right, I think I’ve got it? First war is another three-way: two sides are Greek (it’s that Ionian vs Dorian thing apparently I am going to have to learn about that) and the other side is Carthage plus the Elymians. One of the Ionian Greeks is besties with Hamilcar, so Carthage comes to help Terrilus out when he loses to the Dorian Greeks. Carthage’s contingent encounters bad weather and loses a lot of boats on the way to Sicily. They arrive and then lose to the Dorians, _supposedly on the same day_ that Themistocles was handing the Persians their asses in the Battles of Salamis. Wild.
No territory gained or lost. Carthage paid a bunch of reparations. Everyone went home and nursed their grudges and rearranged their political infrastructures and thought about their life choices. Thanks to the cash, Sicily got a bunch of physical infrastructure as well. Eventually, peopled died, alliances ended, everyone got to feuding and we’re teed up for the second round, but I am taking a break for a bit.
OMG. There are 7 of these, 8 if you count the Pyrrhic War. And this is the pre-quel series for the Punic Wars. And there’s the spinoff series, overlapping in time, The Persian Wars. And I am still ignoring the Ionian/Dorian feud AND I’m leaving the Trojan thing entirely as background references.)
I walked with M. I did some travel planning. Actually, I did a lot of travel planning, and very successfully and I’m real happy about it.