Third Sicilian War (Carthage and Agathocles)

The five-year conflict between Carthage and Agathocles of Syracuse, fought across Sicily and (uniquely) into Carthaginian Africa itself. Carthage opened the war strongly: Hamilcar son of Gisco defeated Agathocles at the Battle of the Himera River in 311 BCE, recovered most of Greek Sicily, and besieged Syracuse in 311–310 BCE. With Agathocles trapped in his own capital and his territory shrinking, the war seemed effectively decided. It was at this point, in August 310 BCE, that Agathocles took the unprecedented step of shifting the theater. He slipped a small army through the Carthaginian naval blockade, landed in Africa, and forced Carthage onto the strategic defensive on its own home ground. Hamilcar son of Gisco was eventually recalled from Sicily and killed in 309 BCE in a Greek counterattack. Agathocles's African campaign collapsed in 307 BCE. The peace of 306 BCE restored the pre-war division of Sicily, Carthage retained the western half, Syracuse and the Greek cities the east, and was, by both ancient and modern reckoning, a status-quo settlement that resolved nothing strategic but exhausted both sides for a generation. The war is essential context for the African Invasion of 310–307 BCE, which is treated in its own dedicated event entry.