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1

When Phanostratus was archon in Athens, the Romans elected instead of consuls four military tribunes, Lucius Lucretius, Sentius Sulpicius, Lucius Aemilius, and Lucius Furius. This year Dionysius, the tyrant of the Syracusans, after preparations for war upon the Carthaginians, looked about to find a reasonable excuse for the conflict. Seeing, then, that the cities subject to the Carthaginians were favourable to a revolt, he received such as wished to do so, formed an alliance with them, and treated them with fairness. [2] The Carthaginians at first dispatched ambassadors to the ruler and asked for the return of their cities, and when he paid no attention to them, this came to be the beginning of the war.

Now the Carthaginians formed an alliance with the Italian Greeks and together with them went to war against the tyrant; and since they wisely recognized in advance that it would be a great war, they enrolled as soldiers the capable youth from their own citizens, and then, raising a great sum of money, hired large forces of mercenary troops. As general they chose their king2 Magon and moved many tens of thousands of soldiers across to Sicily and Italy, planning to wage war on both fronts. [3] Dionysius for his part also divided his forces, on the one front fighting the Italian Greeks and on the other the Phoenicians. Now there were many battles here and there between groups of soldiers and minor and continuous engagements, in which nothing of consequence was achieved. But there were two important and famous pitched battles. In the first, near Cabala,3 as it is called, Dionysius, who put up an admirable fight, was victorious, slaying more than ten thousand of the barbarians and capturing not less than five thousand. He also forced the rest of the army to take refuge on a hill which was fortified but altogether without water. There fell also Magon their king after a splendid combat. [4] The Phoenicians, dismayed at the magnitude of the disaster, at once sent an embassy to discuss terms of peace. But Dionysius declared that his only terms were conditional upon their retiring from the cities of Sicily and paying the cost of the war.

1 383 B.C.

2 Magon was obviously one of the two annually elected suffetes, who corresponded roughly to the Roman consuls. Diodorus must have known that the Carthaginians had no "kings"; but probably avoided for his readers the use of the unfamiliar term.

3 The location is unknown.

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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