Page:History of Greece Vol XII.djvu/438

 406 HISTORY OF GREECE, only Himcra, Selinus, and Herakleia, which were actually, and were declared still to continue, under Carthage. Messen§ was the only Grecian city standing aloof from this convention ; as such, therefore still remaining open to the Syracusan exiles. The terms were so favorable to Agathokles, that they were much disapproved at Carthage.^ Agathokles, recognized as chief and having no enemy in the field, employed himself actively in strengthening his hold on the other cities, and in enlarging his military means at home. He sent a force against Messene, to require the expulsion of the Syracusan exiles from that city, and to procure at the same time the recall of the Messenian exiles, partisans of his own, and companions of his army. His generals extorted these two points from the Messenians. Agathokles, having thus broken the force of Messene, secured to himself the town still more completely, by sending for those Messenian citi- zens who had chiefly opposed him, and putting them all to death, as well as his leading opponents at Tauromenium. The number thus massacred was not less than six hundred.'^ It only remained for Agathokles to seize Agrigentum. Thither he accordingly marched. But Deinokrates and the Syracusan exiles, expelled from Messene, had made themselves heard at Carthage, insisting on the perils to that city from the encroach- ments of Agathokles. The Carthaginians alarmed sent a fleet of sixty sail, whereby alone Agrigentum, already under siege by Agathokles, Avas preserved. The recent convention was now broken on all sides, and Agathokles kept no farther measures with the Carthaginians. He ravaged all their Sicilian territory, and destroyed some of their forts ; while the Carthaginians on their side made a sudden descent with their fleet on the harbor of Syracuse. They could achieve nothing more, however, than the capture of one Athenian merchant-vessel, out of two there riding. They disgraced their acquisition by the cruel act (not uncommon in Carthaginian warfare) of cutting oflT the hands of 1 Diodor. xix. 71, 72,102. When the convention specifies Herakleia, Selinus, and Himera, as being under the Carthaginians, this is to be under- stood as in addition to the primitive Carthaginian settlements of Sola* Panormus, Lilybociim, etc, about which no question could arise.
 * Diodor. xix. 72: compare a different narrative — Polyaenus, v. 15.