When the news of Diónia's conquest of Bruti reached Syracuse, Dionysius was accompanied by Masias to inspect the construction of the defensive fortress of Syracuse.
Seeing that the project was nearing completion, he was in a good mood when he suddenly heard the news. His face immediately became gloomy, and he blurted out, "Damn Carthage, they ruined my plan! … "
… …
In the early spring of 397 BC, Carthage Sophie Hilmirco led an army of 100,000 from Carthage. After a small-scale battle with the navy of Syracuse at sea, they successfully landed in Sicily. They quickly bought over the traitors and easily captured the city of Elux in the west of Sicily. Then they attacked Motia and succeeded.
Syracuse's army was forced to withdraw from the siege of Segesta. Hilmirco did not take advantage of the victory to pursue. Instead, he destroyed the city of Motia and built a new city near its seaside. He named it Lilibo.
When Carthage's army stopped advancing, the cautious Dionysius stationed his troops in the city of Syracuse.
Not long after Hilmirco laid the foundation of the new city of Lilibo, when February came, he led his army to continue to attack eastward. This time, he did not follow the attack route of Syracuse last year. Instead, he took a boat around to the northeast corner of Sicily and easily took down the defenseless Messina.
The fall of Messina was a big stimulus to Ligim on the other side of the strait. This Greek city-state, which relied on its favorable geographical location and prosperous port trade, had been secretly communicating with Carthage for many years to prevent Syracuse from coveting the Strait of Messina. Suddenly, the friendly foreign city-state bared its poisonous fangs and captured Ligim's sister city-state, Messina. Why was it a sister city-state? Because Messina was first established by the joint colonization of Cumae and Calchis. It was originally called Zankele, and later changed its name to Messina because of the arrival of Mercenian settlers. The Jonas had long realized that the safety of the other side of the strait could only be guaranteed if it was in their own hands, so they encouraged the mother-city of Kumai and the Mercenians to establish a friendly city of Lijim.
Lijim panicked. They quickly made a decision and sent messengers to the headquarters of the Southern Alliance in Sirius, requesting to join the alliance. At this point, other than Rockley and its affiliated city-states, all the other Greek city-states in Great Hellas had formed an alliance with Diónia.
After Hirmico completely destroyed Messina, in order to curry favor with the natives of eastern Sicily, the Sikere people, and attack Syracuse together with Carthage, he prepared to build a new city on the southern coast of Messina, Tauromenian, and gift it to the Sikere people.
By March, Dionysius felt that he could no longer allow Carthage's people to continue attacking its subordinate city-states. If he did not do something, the alliance states would likely fall to Carthage's side. So he mobilized both land and sea armies and advanced north to the Catania Plains.
In the waters near Catania, a naval battle broke out between Syracuse and Carthage. Originally, the Greek warships outnumbered Carthage's people and had an advantage in terms of equipment. However, Dionysius's favoritism and his brother Leptinus's mistake as the commander of the navy caused the navy of Syracuse to suffer heavy losses.
The Greek army on land watched the naval battle from the shore, but when they saw the miserable state of the navy, their morale began to waver.
Fortunately, the land army led by Hirmico did not arrive on the battlefield in time, because Mount Etna, to the southwest of Tauromenian, suddenly erupted. High-temperature lava spewed down, destroying the road to the south. Black volcanic ash covered the sky, forcing Carthage's army to take a detour.
The Syracuse army sang the praises of Hephaestus along the way in awe, and hurriedly returned to the city of Syracuse. Catania and Leontini fell into Carthage's hands one after another.
Hirmico finally led his army to Syracuse with the aftermath of the naval battle. The navy of Carthage also sailed into the port of Syracuse, and then they set up camp on the banks of the Arapus River, attempting to besiege Syracuse from land and sea.
At this time, Dionysius hurriedly sent messengers to Campania in Italy, Corinth in Greece, and the hegemon of Sparta in order to seek emergency assistance. Although Greece was the closest place to Syracuse, Dionysius intentionally or unintentionally ignored this region, and did not ask for help from the hegemon of southern Italy, Diónia.
It was also impossible for Diónia to send troops without an invitation. That would make the Sicilians suspect that they had ulterior motives. Moreover, Diónia also needed time to rest, consolidate, and reorganize after going through frequent wars and rapid expansion. Therefore, when the Greek city-states in Sicily were facing the danger of falling, the people of Diónia and the Greeks of southern Italy watched from the sidelines with complicated feelings.
Greek reinforcements from all over the country arrived, especially the young general of Sparta, Phoebidas, led 30 warships and 500 Sparta warriors.
At this time, the citizens of Syracuse started a riot under the instigation of someone with ulterior motives. They wanted to oust Dionysius from his position. Phoebidas led the Greek Coalition Army from all over the country to stop the riot, but they complained to Phoebidas that it was because of Dionysius's poor command that Syracuse was in trouble, and the citizens lost their loved ones. At the same time, they recounted Dionysius's brutal rule in the country, and begged their ally, Sparta, to help them get rid of the shackles of this tyrant.
Phoebidas remembered Agesilaus's warning, and told them with a straight face: Sparta's mission in Syracuse was to help Dionysius fight against Carthage, and not to help Syracuse overthrow Dionysius! He hoped that the rioting citizens could calm down and work together to drive away Carthage's soldiers who had already surrounded the city.
At the same time, he also made Dionysius promise that from now on, he would not retaliate against the citizens who participated in the riot, and that his rule would be more lenient in the future.
With the full support of Sparta, Dionysius temporarily got through a difficult situation.
After Carthage's people outside the city settled down, they began to destroy all the facilities outside Syracuse. Not only did they destroy farmland, villages, and villages, but they also blasphemed the gods. Not only did they destroy the temple of Zeus on the Popike Highlands, but they also robbed the temples of the goddesses Demeter and Persephone.
This blasphemous behavior angered the people of Syracuse, and both sides had many small-scale land and sea battles outside the city and in the big port, with both sides winning and losing.
The war continued until the arrival of summer, and as the temperature rose, the situation began to favor the people of Syracuse, because the number of mosquitoes in the swamp near the Aspra River increased, and the Carthage soldiers who were bitten were tortured by the plague, and the number of deaths increased.
At this time, under the pressure of internal and external troubles, Dionysius also stimulated his wisdom and came up with a clever attack plan: march in the dark, use the tactic of diversion to move the enemy, and attack the weak side of the enemy's fortress at the same time with the navy and the army.
Because of the plague, Carthage's morale was low, and they could not fight back in the face of the attack of Syracuse.
At the cost of the lives of thousands of mercenaries, Dionysius successively captured the two fortresses built by Carthage by the Arapus River, Policna Fortress, and Dascon Fortress, built by the coast. At the same time, he defeated the Carthage navy, and Carthage suffered heavy casualties. Himilco's camp was surrounded in the middle, and the camp was in chaos. It was in danger of being wiped out.
At this time, Dionysius ordered the attack to stop.
That night, Carthage's camp and Dionysius's secret messengers frequently came and went.
For the next three days, the two sides remained calm, and no battles broke out.
On the fourth night, Himilco only led the remaining 30 three-oared warships out of the big port in a panic, abandoning most of the Carthage soldiers, allies, and mercenaries. In the end, they were all wiped out by Syracuse and its allies.
After the great victory, Dionysius did not pursue Carthage's people relentlessly. He completely recovered Sicily and chased Carthage's people out of the island. Because the previous incident of Syracuse's people forcing him to abdicate made him deeply aware that only if Carthage's forces continued to exist in Sicily, his position as the overlord would be guaranteed. Therefore, not only did he release Himilco's remaining troops, but he also did not continue to sweep through Carthage's colonial towns in Sicily. Instead, he began to focus on the Sikeyes' forces in the inland areas of Sicily. This was because the Sikeyes had become Carthage's accomplices in this war, and caused a lot of trouble for Syracuse. This made him feel that it was not enough to unify the Greek city-states on the island. He had to expand Syracuse's influence in the Sikeyes' residential areas, and completely turn eastern Sicily into an iron plate.
Syracuse's army began to conquer the Sikeyes' towns, such as Mogantina, Kafaloidion, Hena, and many others. It also forced more Sikeyes' forces to sign subordinate agreements with it.
They also surrounded the only coastal city that Himilco had built for the Sikeyes, Tauromerion. However, they could not take it down immediately.
In the second year (396 BC), Syracuse's power had already expanded to the northeast of Sicily.
On the ruins of Carthage's destruction, Dionysius rebuilt Messina. The new Messina was made up of the colonists from Syracuse's allies, Lochli and Medma. This was mainly to win over his allies in Great Greece. At the same time, there were also a few hundred Mersenians who had just been driven out of their native areas by Sparta. These new residents were no longer related to the Lijim.
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