Primary source · literary

Epitome of the Philippic Histories of Pompeius Trogus

Marcus Junianus Justinus

Composition

c. 250 CE

Language: latin

Reliability

literary tradition access

~1000 years from events

An epitome of Pompeius Trogus's Historiae Philippicae, organized around the rise and succession of empires. Book 18 is the principal preserved account of the Tyrian foundation legend of Carthage, Elissa/Dido fleeing Tyre, the Byrsa stratagem, the city's foundation. Books 19–22 cover the Sicilian Wars and Agathocles. Justin/Trogus preserves traditions independent of the Roman annalistic mainstream, including elements of the foundation story that the Romans (especially Virgil) reshaped. For the foundation period, Justin is irreplaceable.

Bias and reliability notes

A late epitome (selective abridgement) of a now-lost universal history written by Pompeius Trogus in the Augustan period. Justin's date is itself uncertain, anywhere from the 2nd to 4th century CE. The text is therefore a digest of a source we cannot check, written centuries after the events and shaped by the epitomator's interests as well as Trogus's. Useful but to be handled carefully: where Justin agrees with better-attested sources he confirms; where he disagrees, the disagreement may be due to Trogus, to Justin's selection, or to genuine alternative tradition.

Public-domain translation

John Selby Watson (1853) — read at Perseus →

Claims citing this source

During the Agathocles crisis, the Carthaginian commander Bomilcar attempted a coup against the Carthaginian government, marched his troops into the city, and was defeated when the citizenry rallied against him; he was captured, tortured, and crucified in the agora.

Cited at 22.7
After landing in Africa in August 310 BCE, Agathocles burned his own ships on the beach to prevent his troops from retreating to Sicily.

Cited at 22.5-6
In the autumn of 307 BCE the African campaign collapsed. Agathocles, facing army disaffection and Carthaginian recovery, fled secretly back to Sicily, abandoning his army and his sons; the troops, on discovering the desertion, killed both sons and surrendered to Carthage on terms.

Cited at 22.8
The African crisis forced the Carthaginian recall of Hamilcar son of Gisco from his Sicilian command; he died in 309 BCE in a Greek counterattack near Syracuse, with his head reportedly sent as a trophy to Agathocles in Africa.

Cited at 22.7
Agathocles invited the Cyrenian governor Ophellas, who had marched ~10,000 troops and a similar number of colonists across two months of desert to join the African campaign as Agathocles's ally, to a banquet a few days after their rendezvous, killed him there, and absorbed the surviving Cyrenian army into his own forces.

Cited at 22.7
At White Tunis (Leukon Tyneta), shortly after his landing, Agathocles defeated the Carthaginian field army under Hanno and Bomilcar in a major engagement that established him in the Carthaginian hinterland and put Greek troops within striking distance of Carthage itself.

Cited at 22.6