Page:History of Greece Vol XII.djvu/468

 436 HISTOKl OF GREECE. some elder citizens. They laid down their arms on promise of pardon. The promise was faithfully kept by the victors, ex- cept in regai'd to Bomilkar himself; who was hanged in the market-place, having first undergone severe tortures.* Though the Carthaginians had thus escaped from an extreme peril, yet the effects of so formidable a conspiracy weakened them for some time against their enemy without ; while Agatho- kles on the other hand, reinforced by the army from Kyrene, was stronger than ever. So elate did he feel, that he assumed the title of King -^ following herein the example of the great Mace- donian officers, Antigonus, Ptolemy, Seleukus, Lysimachus, and Kassander ; the memory of Alexander being now discarded, as his heirs had been already put to death. Agathokles, already piaster of nearly all the dependent towns east and south-east of Carthage, proceeded to carry his arms to the north-west of the city. He attacked Utica, — the second city next to Carthage in importance, and older indeed than Carthage itself — situated on the western or opposite shore of the Carthaginian Gulf, and visible from Carthage, though distant from it twenty-seven miles around the Gulf on land.^ The Uticans had hitherto remained faithful to Carthage, in spite of her '-^verses, and of defection elsewhere.* Agathokles marched into their territory with such ^ Diodor. XX. 44; Justin, xxii. 7. Compare the description given by Appian (Punic. 128), of the desperate defence made by the Carthaginians in the last siege of the city, against the assault of the Romans, from the house-tops and in the streets. '^ There are yet remaining coins — ' A.yn-&oKAeo^ BaoL'/.eur — the earliest Sicilian coins that bear the name of a prince (Humphreys, Ancient Coins and Medals, p. 50). ^ Strabo, xvii. p. 832 ; Polyb. i. 73. Hippu-Akra (a little farther to the west than Utica), remained failliful to Carthage throughout the hostilities carried on by Agathokles. Tiiis pnables us to correct the passage wherein Diodorus describes the attack of Agathokles upon Utica (xx. .54) — inl (Tev ']rvKaiovg iarpurevaev cl ^ £ <7 r jy- K 6 T a ^, u(pvo) Se avTuv t)j TroAet Trpoareauv, etc. The word u <p e a t 7] k 6- Tac here is perplexing. It must mean that the Uticans had revolteil from Agathokles; yet Diodorus has not before said a word about tlic Uticans, nor reported that they had either joined Agathokles, or been con- quered by him. Everything that Diodorus lias reported hitherto aboul
 * Polybius (i. 82) expressly states that the inhabitants of Utica and of