SEGESTA AND SELINUS ON THE MIDDLE GROUND

Thucydides records little about Segesta’s war with Selinus: merely that the war was over ‘issues regarding marriage and disputed territory’ (6.6.2), and that Selinus, with its ally Syracuse, was pressing Segesta hard by land and sea. A fuller understanding of Segesta’s role in launching Athens’ expedition, therefore, requires looking beyond Thucydides. The argument will begin by placing Segesta and the war of 415 (as it will be called here) in their full cultural and historical context, before turning to the war itself and Segesta’s appeal to Athens. This analysis will show that both Segesta and Selinus were acting opportunistically and that by appealing to Athens, Segesta hoped to achieve small-scale and short-term advantages—a far cry from the war of conquest Athens actually launched. This in turn enables scholars to read Thucydides in a more sophisticated way, highlighting his literary and historical choices by observing what he left out.

Segesta’s attitudes, goals and motivations in 415 were rooted in its prior relationship with Selinus, which has often been misunderstood. Because these two cities had fought each other in the past, historians have often inferred that they were implacably hostile to each other, and that their rivalry had persisted continuously for as much as 150 years.Footnote ⁸ Bolstering this assumption was the fact that while the Selinuntines were Greeks, the Segestans were Elymians—one of the indigenous peoples of Sicily—and therefore non-Greek. Scholars therefore constructed models of interaction between the various peoples of western Sicily that assumed an expansionist Greek presence colliding with resistance from native Elymians.Footnote ⁹ These models were based above all on analogies with modern colonization, particularly in America and Australia, and have been sharply criticized in recent years.Footnote ¹⁰ Instead, the war of 415 grew out of a far more complex interrelationship between Greeks, Elymians and also Phoenicians that encompassed a mixture of accommodation and conflict.

Recent scholarship has applied a number of theoretical models to the complex ethnic and cultural landscape of western Sicily, particularly hybridity, code switching and the Middle Ground.Footnote ¹¹ While all of these models have some validity, the Middle Ground—a theory originally developed to describe the Great Lakes region of North America in the colonial period—is particularly useful for western Sicily.Footnote ¹² A Middle Ground is a situation where disparate cultural groups interact with each other, but where no one player can establish themselves in a position of dominance and remake the region in their own image. This well describes the relations between Greeks, Elymians and Phoenicians in western Sicily prior to the Carthaginian conquests at the end of the fifth century, since no individual city-state was able to dominate others consistently. In a Middle Ground, various players are often in conflict with each other, but they also engage in strategies of integration and accommodation that help them understand each other and reduce (but not eliminate) tensions, on both the cultural and political levels. In western Sicily, these strategies developed particularly through cultural practices such as intermarriage, origin stories and religion, which will be discussed first. The political history of western Sicily, which will be traced next, was shaped in part by these cultural practices, leading to a pattern of shifting and temporary alliances, rather than stable ones. Both Segesta’s war with Selinus and its appeal to Athens thus emerged from the combination of conflict and cooperation that was characteristic of the region.

The role of cross-cultural accommodations in shaping political outcomes emerges clearly from the ‘issues regarding marriage’ (γαμικῶν τινῶν), which are listed by Thucydides as one of the causes of the war of 415 (6.6.2). This phrase is usually, and surely rightly, interpreted as referring to epigamia, the right of citizens of one city to choose spouses from another city without affecting their children’s citizenship rights.Footnote ¹³ This is the only known example of epigamia between Greek and non-Greek communities anywhere, and implies a far closer and more enduring relationship between the two cities than is usually contemplated. Such marriages must have been considered desirable by significant numbers in both communities. That in turn implies close contacts of many kinds between citizens of the two communities, and the desire to cement those bonds by marriage alliances. Within a short time, citizens of each city would have relatives (with all the obligations that entails) in the other. Presumably, since there was controversy, many others considered such marriages improper, and it is not clear what precisely the dispute that led to war involved. Nevertheless, the idea of a strict separation and implacable hostility between Segestans and Selinuntines becomes difficult to sustain. Instead, the practice of epigamia should be understood as a strategy of accommodation between the two communities, which co-existed with (and helped them manage) tensions and occasional conflict.

Similarly, a myth of origin recorded by Thucydides (6.2.3) makes the Elymians a mixture of Trojan refugees and immigrants from Phocis, in Greece.Footnote ¹⁴ Regardless of whether this story was developed by Elymians or Greeks, it was useful to both sides. Like many origin stories, it articulated a new understanding of the Elymians’ place in the world. The story actually makes them partly Greeks by descent, while the other half of their ancestry integrates them into the most prestigious of Greek myths, the Trojan War. However, it further clarifies that the Segestans were not actually themselves Greeks; much as for the Romans later, claims of Trojan ancestry brought them closer to Greeks while still allowing them to maintain a separate identity. In this way, Greeks and Elymians created a shared framework for understanding who they were and how they related to each other.

The religious landscapes of both Segesta and Selinus also contributed to this shared framework. Segesta built two Doric temples, in fully Greek style. One of these, the famous Unfinished Temple, was built in the late fifth century, while the other, located at Contrada Mango and preserved only in foundations and fragments, dates to the mid-fifth century.Footnote ¹⁵ These were massive prestige projects, which reshaped the city’s urban fabric and made a strong declaration of what kind of city Segesta wanted to be. The two temples overlook the two main approaches to the urban centre on Monte Barbaro, making a strong visual impact on any traveller and suggesting a wealthy and prosperous community that has chosen to learn from Greeks. In fact, the Segestans learned from Greeks—and from Selinus in particular—in other ways as well. Dozens of inscribed potsherds have found there, written in Elymian but using a Greek alphabet derived specifically from the one used at Selinus. Moreover, their coin types were based on Selinuntine models; these in turn inspired types elsewhere, including at Motya and Eryx.Footnote ¹⁶

Moreover, Herodotus mentions a hero cult at Segesta for Philippus of Croton, an Olympic victor and ‘the most beautiful Greek of his day’.Footnote ¹⁷ He was a follower of Dorieus, the prince of Sparta who tried to found a colony at Eryx at the end of the sixth century (see further below). When Philippus was killed in battle against Segesta, the Segestans buried him and instituted a hero cult at his tomb. Although Herodotus clearly identifies these rituals as a hero cult, it is unclear whether Elymians understood this peculiarly Greek institution in the same way Greeks did.Footnote ¹⁸ In fact, it is likely that this cult acted as a kind of ‘creative misunderstanding’, one of the major features of a Middle Ground. Greeks and Elymians could each interpret the cult of Philippus in their own way, while at the same time recognizing what they shared.Footnote ¹⁹

Meanwhile, at Selinus, the sanctuary complex on the Gaggera hill, just west of the city, displayed close links with Phoenicians. Among the various deities worshipped there was Zeus Meilichios, an enigmatic deity whose epithet is likely derived from the Phoenician Molech. Nearby, the Triolo Nord complex, which in its earliest phase dates to the early sixth century, presents a small temple containing a set of triple stelae, which closely resembles Graeco-Phoenician shrines elsewhere.Footnote ²⁰ Much is still debated about the interpretation of Selinus’ western sanctuaries, but what is clear is that living in a colonial contact zone had substantial effects on the cultures of Selinus as well as Segesta.

Finally, the figure of Heracles played an important role in mediating between all three peoples of western Sicily. Malkin has argued that he was originally brought to Sicily by Phoenicians as Melqart, a Tyrian deity often interpreted by Greeks as Heracles.Footnote ²¹ That Phoenician myth, adopted and transformed by Greeks, enabled Dorieus, a descendant of Heracles, to claim the land of Eryx as an inheritance (Hdt. 5.43). Meanwhile, an inscribed dedication to Heracles, found near Poggioreale, in the Belice valley about halfway between Selinus and Segesta, has sparked intense debate.Footnote ²² The inscription is a dedication by a private individual, who from the dialect and alphabet was certainly a Selinuntine, and it likely testifies to a sanctuary of some kind nearby. A number of scholars have argued that the sanctuary and dedication testify to aggressive intent and desire to assert control over this liminal area. Others, by contrast, observe that Heracles was a widely shared figure who could mediate between Greeks and others, precisely because he was such a multi-valent figure.Footnote ²³ In fact, it is entirely possible that both aspects were relevant at different times and in different situations—emblematic of the mixture of conflict and accommodation between all three peoples of western Sicily.

Little of this cultural material is likely to have caught Thucydides’ interest, and he would have considered it irrelevant to his political and military history.Footnote ²⁴ Nevertheless, a broader view of what is historically significant can help move the discussion beyond Thucydides’ self-imposed limitations. The political actions of Segesta and Selinus were embedded in the cultural matrix just described, and cultural factors played an important role in shaping their decisions. The strategies of accommodation discussed above did not prevent conflict, of course, and were not intended to, but they show that conflict was not inevitable and was not the only way in which these communities related to each other. All sides, in fact, were culturally integrating and finding ways to accommodate each other, even as tensions remained. This, in turn, should affect interpretations of Segesta’s appeal to Athens, as an attempt to gain advantage within a relatively small-scale conflict.

Although the political history of western Sicily is known only sketchily, a clear picture emerges of shifting short-term alliances among the major players, rather than permanent enmity—the natural result of the mixture of tension and accommodation described above, and exactly what is predicted by the Middle Ground model. First, around 580, a man from Knidos called Pentathlos attempted to establish a colony near Cape Pachynum, west of Selinus.Footnote ²⁵ According to Diodorus’ report, Pentathlos’ colonists found their new Selinuntine neighbours at war with Segesta; they sided with Selinus but were defeated, lost many men, including their leader, and decided to leave Sicily. In Pausanias’ version, drawn from Antiochus of Syracuse, the colonists were instead driven out by a coalition of Phoenicians and Elymians; neither Selinus nor Segesta specifically are mentioned. These two versions are usually combined to suggest an alliance between Elymians, including Segesta, and Phoenicians, aimed at containing Selinus’ territorial ambitions. But this is the only securely attested war between Segesta and Selinus prior to the late fifth century.

The next available glimpse presents a different picture. Around 510, Dorieus, a prince of Sparta, came to found a new colony, Heraclea, at Eryx in northwest Sicily.Footnote ²⁶ He, too, was attacked and killed by Segesta and the Phoenicians, but from here the story diverges from that of Pentathlos. Eryx is not particularly close to Selinus (see Fig. 1), and indeed Selinus did not take part in this war. Instead, after Dorieus’ death, his sole surviving follower, Euryleon, attacked Selinus under the guise of removing its tyrant, Pythagoras, and ruled the city himself until he was killed by the Selinuntines (Hdt. 5.46). Thus in 510 Selinus did not take a strong anti-Segesta stance, but remained neutral, finally siding against the Greek colonists (and therefore loosely aligned with Segesta) when attacked.

Fig. 1.

Map of Sicily.

Next, in 480, Segesta did not take part in the battle of Himera, fought between Carthaginian forces under Hamilcar and Greek forces led by Gelon of Syracuse, but Selinus sided with Carthage.Footnote ²⁷ Segesta’s neutrality and Selinus’ alignment with Carthage both differ sharply from their prior arrangements, and speak strongly against a model of stable alliances.

A confusing passage in Diodorus reports that war broke out between Segesta and Lilybaeum in 454/3 over land on the Mazarus river (11.86.2). A reference to the city Lilybaeum prior to its foundation in 397 is surprising and has led some scholars to emend the text to refer to Selinus. However, there is no palaeographical basis for that emendation, but merely an assumption by scholars that Selinus is the most likely enemy for Segesta. Moreover, it is not surprising to see such an anachronism in a writer of the first century b.c.e.: it is likely Diodorus’ way of referring to the Phoenicians of western Sicily (he also uses that name for the land settled by Pentathlos), and perhaps more specifically to Motya. It is better, therefore, to accept the transmitted text and try to account for it historically.Footnote ²⁸ What appears then is conflict between Elymians and Phoenicians, who had previously been allied, and no mention of Selinus.

Other evidence is harder to place chronologically, but supports the same picture.Footnote ²⁹ A mid-sixth-century tombstone found at Selinus describes the deceased, Aristogeitos, as a cavalryman who fell before the walls of Motya; this must refer to an otherwise unattested war between Selinus and Motya.Footnote ³⁰ Further Phoenician–Selinuntine conflict might be attested by Polyaenus’ account of how a tyrant seized power in the aftermath of a battle with Carthage (or Phoenicians), although the story has been doubted.Footnote ³¹ At the end of the sixth century, Selinus fought Akragas as well, leading to the loss of the port of Heraclea Minoa, which lay between them (Lind. Chron. 30). Meanwhile, no wars between Segesta and other Elymians are attested, but it is easy to imagine that some have gone unreported. The Segestans did exercise some sort of imperial control over the neighbouring community and religious centre of Eryx, and in the summer of 415 they were eager for Athens to take the neighbouring indigenous town of Hyccara, whose land they appropriated.Footnote ³²

The history of western Sicily in the sixth and fifth centuries thus disproves the idea that Segesta and Selinus maintained a constant enmity over that whole period. Instead, Greeks, Elymians and Phoenicians engaged in short-term, shifting alliances—virtually every conceivable permutation is attested—and the relatively rare open conflicts punctuated long periods of peace. Neither community had a unique and long-standing grudge against the other, and conflict co-existed with cooperation. To be sure, this is partly an argument from silence, which is weakened further by the scanty sources. But what is positively attested is that Selinus fought against every one of its neighbours, but also worked together with most of them at other times. Segesta, too, changed sides repeatedly. Although the full reasoning behind each actor’s choices in each episode of conflict is not always visible, it is clear that such decisions were made situationally, according to whatever would give advantage in the moment, and not on the basis of permanent alliances or long-term hostility.Footnote ³³ This short-term (or at most medium-term) thinking contrasts sharply with the long-term planning used, as will be argued below, by Leontini, because the cities of western Sicily never faced the kind of ongoing existential threat that Leontini did. This dynamic can be traced for more than 125 years, from Pentathlos to Diodorus’ war of 454/3, and there is no reason to think that it did not continue into the late fifth century.

Turning now to the war between Segesta and Selinus in 415, this conflict should also be understood in the same immediate and situational way, especially since neither Thucydides nor Diodorus gives any indication that it was the culmination of lengthy hostilities. According to Thucydides (6.6.2):

Diodorus (12.82.3–7) offers a much more elaborate story in which the Selinuntines seized a sizeable tract of land across a river that divided their territory from Segesta’s, and Segesta expelled them by force. Next, Selinus defeated Segestan forces in a pitched battle, and Segesta unsuccessfully sought help from Akragas, Syracuse and Carthage before sending envoys to Athens. Diodorus’ story is entirely compatible with Thucydides’ briefer account and should be accepted; it likely derives from one of the Sicilian historians, either the contemporary Philistus or the third-century Timaeus. Meanwhile, Thucydides’ focus on Athens’ decision-making processes led him to pass over the Segesta-Selinus war as briefly as possible.

Both Thucydides and Diodorus focus on a territorial dispute as a key issue in the war. Territory was a familiar casus belli across the ancient world, and in fact had been the cause of prior wars in western Sicily already. But this need not imply long-standing tensions between the two cities. After all, Selinuntines and Segestans had been living next to each other for two centuries by this point, and had only fought each other on one known previous occasion. Instead, Selinus’ actions look opportunistic—seizing land across a river—rather than the culmination of a long-held strategy. From there, the scope of the war expanded drastically through step-wise escalation by both sides, which again looks like responses in the moment. Moreover, the sequel in 410, as narrated by Diodorus (13.43–4), further shows both Segesta and Selinus acting opportunistically, with similar goals as in the previous round. After Athens’ defeat, Selinus tried again to secure the disputed land, and Segesta—terrified of retribution from other Sicilians—conceded it. Soon Selinus occupied another piece of land, clearly taking advantage of Segesta’s temporary weakness to make further limited gains. Only then, after what amounts to a new provocation under new circumstances (rather than a continuation of the previous dispute), did Segesta seek assistance from Carthage. Segesta’s appeal to Athens should be placed in the context of this opportunistic manoeuvring.

Why Athens? This question is tightly connected with the question of when and under what circumstances Segesta sought first an alliance and then military intervention. Until the 1990s, the inscription recording Athens’ alliance with Segesta (IG I³ 11 = ML 37 = OR 166) was usually dated to 458/7, but new readings and scientific examination of the stone have firmly assigned it to 418/17.Footnote ³⁴ This new dating in turn creates difficulties in Thucydides’ account: he seems to suggest that the Segestans’ initial request, various negotiations and speeches, and the Athenians’ decision to send help all took place in the winter of 416/15. If this is the case, how could the whole process, which included multiple round trips to and from Sicily, fit into one winter? And why does Thucydides never explicitly mention the alliance, which was recent? A pre-existing alliance between Athens and Segesta would be a powerful argument for the Segestan envoys, and it can hardly be supposed that they did not use it, if it was available to them. Cawkwell therefore argued that omission of the alliance would vitiate Thucydides’ entire account.Footnote ³⁵

A closer look at Thucydides’ text (6.6) shows, in fact, that he has telescoped the events of a longer period into a brief account, in a manner familiar from Diodorus but less so in Thucydides. He begins with the Athenian vote to send sixty ships to Sicily, and then explains what happened earlier:

The pluperfect tenses (ὥρμηντο, καθέστασαν) show that Thucydides has begun in the spring of 415, jumped backwards by an unknown amount of time, and then described a lengthy process of persuasion.Footnote ³⁶ A better reconstruction runs as follows: war broke out between Segesta and Selinus in, probably, 418. The Segestans did not yet have an alliance with Athens, but they sent envoys seeking one, and the envoys presented their requests repeatedly (πολλάκις λϵγόντων). The Segestan arguments are summarized as part of a flashback; they do not mention their alliance with Athens, because they do not have one yet. Finally Athens agreed to a formal alliance, which was concluded roughly in the spring of 417; Thucydides does not mention this stage, in order to focus attention on the far more important decision, two years later, to send troops. Further negotiations, including a fact-finding mission (6.6, 46), ensued between spring 417 and spring 415, when a further set of envoys (by now including Leontinians: 6.19.1) made a more specific request for Athens to put the alliance into effect by dispatching troops. Segesta’s requests for an alliance and for military assistance were thus not two separate events but two stages in a longer process.

This is by no means the only possible reconstruction; in particular, Matthaiou’s theory—that the alliance was first formed in 427 and renewed in 418/17—should not be ruled out.Footnote ³⁷ However, this scenario requires that, for literary reasons, Thucydides suppressed the Segestans’ argument from an existing alliance—exactly what Cawkwell resisted, as noted above. By contrast, the reconstruction proposed here does not require that Thucydides suppressed anything: the Segestans could not have made this argument, because they did not have an alliance at the time. Instead, he deployed his standard repertoire of techniques for focussing attention in a vivid narrative, especially compression, omission and emphasis. All of this is in the service of focussing attention on Athenian decision-making (and especially portraying it as rash and spontaneous), and taking it away from the Segestans themselves.

What were Segesta’s goals in its relations with Athens? An important clue comes from Diodorus, who reports that Segesta sought help from Akragas, Syracuse and Carthage before turning to Athens (12.82.7). Although the veracity of this report (and especially its reference to Syracuse, whom Thucydides has fighting against Segesta) has sometimes been doubted, in fact it is logical that Segesta would seek help from these three cities before looking to Athens. Each was a substantial power, capable of making a difference in the ongoing conflict, and all three were located close to home—Akragas and Syracuse in Sicily itself, and Carthage only a short voyage away—so sending assistance would not be too onerous. These were local options, ones which the Segestans knew well and with which they had worked before. Although in the end none of these cities supported Segesta, the way in which alliances tended to shift in Sicily suggests that Segesta’s hopes were reasonable. That said, Segesta’s need to approach four cities in turn before finally achieving their goal further indicates their lack of a long-standing, well-considered strategy.

According to Diodorus, it was only after these nearby cities turned them down that Segesta began thinking about an ‘overseas alliance’ with Athens. At this point, Athens was one of the only remaining powers anywhere in the Mediterranean with the ability to project force to Sicily. Since Selinus and Syracuse were aligned with Sparta, seeking out Sparta’s enemy would be logical. Most importantly, Athens had sent troops to Sicily before, in the so-called First Sicilian Expedition of 427–424, suggesting that they might be persuaded to do so again. Athens’ other Sicilian allies, especially Leontini, may also have encouraged them to appeal to Athens, and Segesta and Leontini were working together at least by the spring of 415.

Ultimately, Segesta’s goals should be understood as situational: they hoped to gain a temporary advantage in a local conflict, and the alliance should be understood as a response to the immediate crisis with Selinus. Segesta probably hoped that making an alliance with Athens would induce Selinus to back off; once Athenian troops became involved, Segesta wanted them to force a return to the status quo—and then leave. The conquest of Selinus was not on Segesta’s agenda, nor did the Segestans have any interest in subjecting themselves to Athens. Segesta had no particular affinity for Athens; in fact, their first choice was to seek help locally. The Athenians had other ideas, and Segesta’s reluctance fully to support the massive Athenian force that arrived in the summer of 415 suggests a significant gap between Athenian and Segestan goals.

These considerations demonstrate the importance of the Sicilian cultural context and historical background for understanding Segesta’s goals and actions leading up to 415. By contrast, Thucydides’ narrow focus and historiographical choices led him to ignore these factors. Supplementing his narrative with outside evidence and placing it in a broader context prove to be useful approaches to writing the history of a polis that is mentioned only briefly in Thucydides, but is richly attested outside of his work. This approach provides a complementary viewpoint on Segestan-Athenian relations and a new understanding of Segesta’s role in the dispatch of Athens’ expedition.

LEONTINI IN THE CROSSHAIRS OF SYRACUSE

Athens’ other main Sicilian ally, Leontini, faced a different situation, but one that should also be interpreted with careful attention to local dynamics and attitudes. Throughout the fifth century, Leontini repeatedly fell under the acquisitive gaze of its much larger neighbour Syracuse, which had once ruled most of eastern Sicily and desired to do so again. This danger from Syracuse was Leontini’s primary reason for seeking an alliance with Athens, which it did (together with Rhegium in southern Italy) prior to the Peloponnesian War. During the war, Leontini twice sought successfully to turn this alliance into concrete military assistance, first in 427 and again in 415. Precisely because the dynamics of a stronger power taking advantage of a weaker one seem so familiar, the Leontinians’ responses to this situation have often been overlooked. They faced a situation that Segesta never did: an ongoing threat to their very existence. Their responses naturally differed from Segesta’s: they engaged in careful strategic thinking, planning how best to keep themselves safe in the long term. They also demonstrated great resilience in the face of existential threats, maintaining a strong sense of internal cohesion and civic identity over a period of decades, until the community finally splintered under Syracusan pressure.

Focussing on Leontini’s goals and perspectives shows the value of reading Thucydides against the grain. Unlike in the case of Segesta, where the historian largely ignores important material, Thucydides, particularly Books 3–5, is the main source for much of Leontini’s history. His discussion, though, is often framed through Athenian goals, desires and perspectives, not those of Leontini. Meanwhile, Leontini barely appears in the opening of Book 6, where (as noted above) Thucydides’ agenda is to downplay Athens’ prior western entanglements, in order to present its invasion of Sicily as a new and surprising departure. Reading Thucydides’ account of Leontini carefully and in combination with other evidence highlights his literary and interpretative choices and allows the recovery of a different history of the Peloponnesian War.

The roots of Leontini’s fear of Syracuse went back more than half a century, to the reign of the Deinomenid tyrants in Syracuse.Footnote ³⁸ In the 490s, Leontini came under the control of Hippocrates, tyrant of Gela. After Hippocrates’ death, his power passed to Gelon, the first Deinomenid ruler, who soon seized Syracuse and made it his capital. Leontini thus became part of a Syracusan empire that quickly expanded to encompass most of eastern Sicily (Hdt. 7.154–6). In 476, Gelon’s brother Hieron, who had succeeded him, interfered further in Leontini’s affairs by forcing the people of Catana and Naxos to leave their cities and live at Leontini (Diod. Sic. 11.49). This must have been a disruptive event for the Leontinians: the population drastically increased overnight by the fiat of a foreign tyrant, the community’s resources (such as housing and food supply) would have been strained, and incorporating the refugees from Catana and Naxos into the Leontinian community would have been a challenge. Syracuse’s main concern, however, was the large and fertile Plain of Catania, an enormous stretch of arable land that had previously been divided between Leontini, Catana and various Sikel communities. Through its control of Leontini, Syracuse now controlled the resources of this region.

In the 460s, the Deinomenid regime collapsed and its empire vanished; the various cities controlled by Syracuse, including Leontini, all re-established their independence under democratic regimes. At Leontini, the new regime quickly moved to erase traces of Syracusan dominance and reassert their identity as a separate community. Leontini’s coinage under the Deinomenids, for instance, had taken on markedly Syracusan characteristics, displaying a Syracusan quadriga and the name Leontini written in the Syracusan alphabet. Going forward, however, Leontini used a lion’s head, punning on the name of the city, and proudly wrote its own name in the Chalcidian alphabet.Footnote ³⁹ Though under the thumb of foreign tyrants for three decades, the Leontinians remembered who they were and worked hard to maintain their separate polis identity.

Still, Syracuse remained large, powerful and eager to reclaim its lost territories. Leontini was Syracuse’s closest neighbour and a major obstacle to accessing the Plain of Catania. For several decades, Syracuse did not attack Leontini directly, but a number of attested Syracusan campaigns would have concerned the smaller city. Syracuse attacked the Deinomenid colonists at Aetna in 461, fought the Sikel leader Ducetius twice in 451 and 450, defeated Akragas in 446, and destroyed the Sikel city of Trinacia in 440.Footnote ⁴⁰ Most of these campaigns took place in the interior of Sicily, north and west of Leontini, and on several occasions Syracusan armies must have marched through Leontini’s territory. More broadly, these campaigns demonstrated beyond doubt Syracuse’s ambitions to recreate the former Deinomenid empire, and Leontini stood squarely in its way. At sea, moreover, Syracusan fleets had been active in the Tyrrhenian Sea over the past half-century (Diod. Sic. 11.51, 88), passing right by Rhegium, on the Italian side of the Straits of Messina. This location gave Rhegium a strategic position that any imperial power would be eager to control. Rhegium also shared a land border with its long-standing enemy, Locri, which was an ally of Syracuse.Footnote ⁴¹ Thus, Rhegium, much like Leontini, had reason to fear Syracusan imperialism. Finally, Diodorus reports that in 439 Syracuse ordered the building of 100 ships, doubled its cavalry forces, and increased the tribute it levied on the Sikels it controlled, all as part of a plan to ‘subdue Sicily little by little’ (12.30.1). This report has been doubted, however, especially because less than fifteen years later, during the first Athenian invasion, Syracuse does not appear to have had a large fleet; perhaps the whole passage should be rejected.Footnote ⁴² Even discounting Diodorus’ report, however, it is clear that Syracuse wanted to expand its power, and both Leontini and Rhegium would justly have looked at their neighbour with suspicion.

Against this backdrop, both Leontini and Rhegium signed alliances with Athens, which are preserved as IG I³ 53–4 (= ML 63–4 = OR 149a–b). These two alliances are normally (and correctly) read together, especially because the inscriptions show they were passed in the Athenian assembly on the same day, with the same Athenian proposer. This strongly suggests that the two cities coordinated their embassies to Athens and were collaborating in response to the same set of problems.

The exact date of these alliance, however, has been a matter of considerable debate. The inscriptions as preserved specify the date as 433/2. However, at some stage the prescripts of both inscriptions (containing the archon-date) were erased and new ones inscribed in different hands; it is the new version that includes the date of 433/2. Some scholars, therefore, have understood this as recording a renewal in that year of an alliance that was originally made earlier, most likely in the 440s,Footnote ⁴³ while others see the alliance as originally made in 433/2, with the inscription modified later.Footnote ⁴⁴ Further support for an earlier date has come from Thucydides, who has Leontinian envoys in 427 refer to their ‘old alliance’ (παλαιὰν ξυμμαχίαν, 3.86.3) with Athens. Surely, it is argued, an alliance that was only six years old could not be described as ‘old’. To be sure, the Leontinians were trying to persuade the Athenian assembly to take their alliance seriously and send military assistance; claiming that their alliance had existed for a long time (a flexible description) would help them make their case. The word παλαιάν should be taken as a rhetorical claim, not a fact.Footnote ⁴⁵ Absent new evidence, this debate is unlikely ever to be settled definitively. Fortunately, however, the historical sketch above shows that the exact date within the 440s or 430s does not matter for the argument here. Fear of Syracusan encroachment would have been prominent at Leontini throughout that period, and Leontini might well have sought alliances at any point. Moreover, the year 433/2 was clearly significant even if what occurred then was a renewal, because the decision to renew an alliance implies that both sides are choosing to reaffirm the importance of the alliance.

As with Segesta, most scholarship on the Leontini alliance has focussed on Athenian motivations for allying with a small and distant Sicilian city.Footnote ⁴⁶ However, it is equally important to ask why Leontini was seeking an overseas alliance, and why it saw Athens in particular as its best option. More than fifty years of Syracusan imperialism lay behind Leontini’s alliance with Athens, and the larger city had been flexing its muscles recently. Leontini’s primary goal throughout the later fifth century was to deter Syracusan aggression, and if necessary to defend itself to maintain its independence.Footnote ⁴⁷ By 433/2, with the Peloponnesian War clearly on the horizon, this goal was becoming particularly urgent. Although Syracuse had so far refrained from attacking Leontini directly, with the outbreak of war across the Greek world that could easily change—as in fact it did. In the chaos that would ensue in such a massive war, would anyone notice if one minor city was gobbled up by its neighbour? Leontini needed to make sure that someone would.

Why Athens? Leontini had some natural allies in the west, but they were not especially powerful; for additional security, they needed to look farther afield. Finding a powerful but remote ally was useful, since a distant power was less likely to try to control Leontini directly; the Leontinians had no more interest in becoming subjects of Athens than of Syracuse. Moreover, Syracuse’s long-standing ties with its mother-city, Corinth, made it clear that they would side with the Peloponnesians when war came (as indeed they did: Thuc. 2.7.2, 3.86.2); Leontini therefore naturally looked to Sparta’s enemy. Moreover, much discussion at the time focussed on an argument from kinship. Leontini was Chalcidian (a Sicilian term for Ionian), which gave it an ethnic connection to Athens. The Athenians, meanwhile, had made heavy use of ethnic ideology to create legitimacy for their empire. For instance, they emphasized a story that the Ionian cities of Asia Minor had been founded from Athens (implying that they owed loyalty to Athens as their mother-city), and they both purified the island of Delos and founded a new festival there (displaying their piety towards a particularly Ionian sanctuary).Footnote ⁴⁸ Although not all of Athens’ allies were Ionians, enough were to make this attempt at legitimacy plausible. Leontini did not actually join the Delian League, but nevertheless it would have found Athens’ pro-Ionian ideology familiar and welcoming, especially given its conflict with Dorian Syracuse. The ethnic ties between Athens and Leontini were repeatedly cited as a reason for action over the next two decades.Footnote ⁴⁹ This kind of kinship diplomacy was common in the fifth century, and seems to have played a real role, alongside other factors, in leading cities to decide on their alliances.Footnote ⁵⁰ Leontini’s decision to seek an alliance with Athens was thus the result of careful long-term planning and strategic thinking about what alliances would best maintain their security.

In 427, Leontini sought to put its alliance with Athens into practical effect, resulting in the so-called ‘First Sicilian Expedition’.Footnote ⁵¹ According to Thucydides (3.86), Syracuse and Leontini had gone to war against each other. Although he gives few other details of this initial clash, Syracuse’s goal was surely to regain control of Leontini and its rich agricultural territory. It is notable, however, that while Thucydides discusses Athens’ motivations in accepting this appeal, he does not explicitly say why Leontini asked for their help. Leontini’s goals and strategies are worth investigating. By this point, Leontini had put together a coalition consisting of the small Sicilian cities of Naxos, Catana and Camarina, plus Rhegium and (it emerges from the later narrative) various non-Greek Sikel communities. Such coalitions do not spring into existence overnight: more likely, this was the result of painstaking diplomatic efforts, perhaps over several years, by all of those cities. Leontini had prepared in advance to defend itself. Nevertheless, this coalition was relatively small in comparison with the roster of major cities backing Syracuse, including Akragas, Selinus, Gela and Locri, and Syracuse’s much larger resources made Leontini’s situation grave (Thuc. 3.86.2; Diod. Sic. 12.53.1). The Leontinians’ goal was simply to remain independent, and since they had an alliance with Athens, bringing in this outside power to level the playing field was not only a logical step but also likely a step they had foreseen when they made that alliance originally.

The anti-Syracusan coalition was active in its own defence. In 425, for instance, when Messina took advantage of the Athenian fleet’s temporary absence by attacking Naxos, the Naxians together with Sikel allies fought back and routed the Messinians. They anticipated help from Leontini and other Greek allies, which soon arrived, and the coalition attacked Messina in turn. The whole coalition was ready to fight, even at the cost of heavy losses (Thuc. 4.25.7–12). In the winter of 426, ‘the allies in Sicily’, dissatisfied with Athens’ commitment of only twenty ships to their defence, sent envoys to ask for further help; Athens responded by sending forty more ships (3.115). The whole coalition, not just Leontini, thus came together to take steps for their common defence. Moreover, the stated reason behind the request—that Syracuse controlled their land and was building a fleet to contest control of the seas—shows, if perhaps with some rhetorical exaggeration, the stakes of this war. Finally, at some point, probably in 427, allies including Rhegium, Catana, Naxos and the Sikels made enormous financial contributions, totalling more than 250 talents, to the war effort.Footnote ⁵²

The course of the war, which lasted at least three years (427–424), affected Leontini and Rhegium in different ways. Rhegium’s experience was harsher: it served as Athens’ main naval base, and much of the fighting was centred directly on the Straits. The Rhegians also suffered from Locrian incursions on land, and Athenian attempts to attack Locri were ineffective.Footnote ⁵³ All this likely made the Rhegians more hesitant about inviting Athenian intervention, and in 415 they refused to support the much larger Athenian expedition (Thuc. 6.44). By contrast, Athens ultimately did little to help Leontini directly, and instead mainly pursued its own goals, such as trying to gain control of the Straits of Messina. Eventually, in 424, frustrated with a war that was largely stalemated, all the Sicilian cities made peace with each other and the Athenians sailed home.

The Leontinians signed on to this peace, but it came with great complications. On the one hand, their major ally was forced to leave Sicily, while Syracuse remained powerful and right next door. For this reason, the Athenian alliance remained important to the Leontinians, even if it had been ineffective. On the other hand, the Syracusans had agreed to the peace treaty as well, suggesting that they would leave Leontini alone, at least temporarily. That would give the city some breathing room to rebuild its strength and make new plans to meet future challenges.

It is exactly at this time, when the threat from Syracuse seemed to be at a low ebb, that the communal solidarity Leontini had enjoyed for so long broke down and the community fell into stasis.Footnote ⁵⁴ First, Leontini decided to enrol new citizens, who were most likely a mixture of Greeks from various other cities, mainly in Sicily. As Dreher points out, this step appears designed to increase the city’s population and therefore its military effectiveness.Footnote ⁵⁵ In other words, they were developing a new strategic plan for defending themselves. Next, however, a democratic faction wanted to redistribute land to the new citizens; this involved confiscation of land from wealthy landowners. For this group, the dynatoi, economic concerns overrode both communal solidarity and fear of Syracuse, and they responded by handing the city over to Syracuse. The lower classes were scattered, but the dynatoi went to live at Syracuse as citizens. Despite the peace agreement, Syracuse saw an opportunity and achieved a long-standing goal by diplomatic means. For Leontini, by contrast, their worst fears were realized.

Some of the dynatoi, however, soon fell out with the Syracusans and returned to Leontini, occupying part of the site and a nearby fortress; much of the lower classes joined them, and they all resisted Syracusan control from there. The reasons why the dynatoi changed their policy are obscure, but the outcome clearly shows a renewed sense of shared identity as Leontinians. Their city was far weaker than previously, but they nevertheless demonstrated resilience and determination to assert their independence. Other Leontinians remained in exile, however, and the conflict remained essentially frozen for several years, until a new opportunity to seek Athenian help arose.

The Athenians’ official reasons for sending an expedition to Sicily in 415 mention Leontini prominently. Thucydides lists ‘restoring Leontini’ as one of the three official goals voted by the assembly (the other two are helping Segesta against Selinus and ordering affairs in Sicily as would be best for Athens: 6.8.2), and he has the Athenians proclaim the same goal to the Syracusans in what amounts to a declaration of war (6.50.4). Yet in his account of the debate at Athens prior to the dispatch of the expedition, it is Segesta which is prominent, not Leontini. Segestan envoys make an appeal on Leontini’s behalf as well as their own, in a passage that has caused much confusion (6.6), but Thucydides only briefly mentions a few Leontinian exiles who happened to be present (6.19.1). Diodorus, by contrast, has Leontinian exiles send envoys along with the Segestan ones (12.83.1–3), and there is no reason to doubt this, given Leontini’s strong sense of identity and history of resilience. Thucydides downplays their role to portray the Athenians’ decision as surprising and irrational; including Leontini more prominently would instead remind the reader that Athens had long-standing connections in Sicily.

An alternate perspective would instead foreground the Leontinians’ sense of community. In 415, their situation was dire. Many of their most prominent citizens had gone to Syracuse, while others continued to resist Syracuse’s conquest. The latter were deeply unhappy with this situation. They had been forced off their land, and the wealthy among them had realized that they did not want to be Syracusans. Their identity as Leontinians was strong, and that led them to try to alter their situation for the better, by appealing to Athens once again. All of the reasons that led them to think of Athens as a good option two decades earlier were still valid; more recently, Athens had shown that it was willing to expend resources to help Leontini. Both in 427 and in 415, Leontini desperately needed help, and Athens looked likely to provide it—ideally in moderation. In the event, however, Athens ultimately provided little real assistance: they got bogged down in the siege of Syracuse and were defeated without ever ‘restoring Leontini’.

Leontini’s long history with Syracuse, combined with its fierce desire to remain independent of its larger neighbour, was the other half of the spark that led Athens to invade Sicily. Athens’ goal of resettling the Leontinians in their city has often been dismissed as a pretext to cover up their imperialistic goals. From a Sicilian vantage point, however, the desire first to safeguard and then to restore their city’s independence was the driving force behind Leontini’s actions before and during the Peloponnesian War, and ignoring this perspective gives an incomplete picture of this period. The way Thucydides has shaped his narrative means that it must be read against the grain to understand Leontini’s goals and motivations—another useful technique for the historian of a polis whose concerns are downplayed in his narrative.