Hamilcar raids Locri and Brindisi in 247…

Hellenism has blended with local cultures to form a syncretic civilization in Iran under the Seleucids, who have established many Greek settlements in the east.

The empire of the Seleucids, like that of the Achaemenids before them, is shaken by revolts of the satraps.

The difficult situations in the west and the grave reverses suffered by the royal house have accelerated the weakening of the Macedonian kingdom.

The loss of its eastern possessions in the third century BCE will prove fatal to the Seleucid cause.

Parthia is the first province to detach itself from the Seleucid Empire, just as it had been the first to rise up on the accession of Darius the Great.

Andragoras, the Seleucid satrap (governor) of Parthia during the mid-third century, apparently defies Seleucid imperial authority, which is weakly established in his area, and, although he does not declare himself king, issues coins on which his image bears the royal diadem.

At this time, Parthia is one of the poorer of the high satrapies, caught between the mountains and the great central desert and without large agricultural resources.

This satrapal independence might seem surprising if it were not for the fact that the main route for the silk trade crosses right through Parthia over a distance of more than one hundred miles.

The tolls the caravans pay must produce a sizable income.

The string of Roman naval victories, such as Mylae and Ecnomus, have given the Romans the confidence to make a direct attack on the Carthaginian stronghold of Lilybaeum, governed by Himilco.

The city is blockaded by a fleet commanded by the year's consuls, Publius Claudius Pulcher and Lucius Junius Paullus.

However, despite the acquired Roman naval experience, the Carthaginians are still superior in open sea maneuvering.

A small squadron led by a commander named Hannibal, son of Hamilcar, manages to break the siege in broad daylight and deliver supplies to the garrison of Lilybaeum.

In the night, Hannibal leaves he city carrying the useless cavalry horses and sails to the harbor of Drepana, before the Romans knew what was happening.

The success of the enterprise is so stunning that the Carthaginians repeat it several times, annulling the whole effect of the siege, since the garrison is being fed and kept in contact with Carthage.

Shortly after, a brave sailor, identified as Hannibal the Rhodian, openly defies the Roman fleet by sailing around the fleet in order to spy on the town and relay the news of the goings on inside of Lilybaeum to the Carthaginian Senate and the Carthaginian commander at the battle, Ad Herbal.

Pulcher, the senior consul, now decides to launch a surprise attack on the harbor of Drepana, where the defiant ships are garrisoned.

The fleet sails north from Lilybaeum in a moonless night.

Carthaginian scouts do not spot the Roman ships but low visibility conditions compromise the battle formation.

When they reach Drepana at sunrise, the fleet is scattered in a long, disorganized line with Pulcher's ship in the rear.

Punic scouts see the clumsy approach and the advantage of surprise is lost.

Ad Herbal orders the evacuation of Drepana before the blockade is unavoidable.

Carthage's ships thus sail out of Drepana, passing south of the city and around two small islands in the coast to the open sea.

Seeing the plan of a surprise attack fail, Pulcher orders his fleet to regroup into battle formation, but by this time the coast of Sicily is at his back and the Punic fleet ready for battle at his front.

Herbal sees a chance for victory and attacks, ordering his right flank to attack the rearmost Roman ships.

The result is an utter Roman defeat, with almost all ships commanded by Pulcher sunk.

Pulcher manages to escape and returned to Rome in shame, where he faces charges of treason.

Unlike the Carthaginians, Romans do not execute generals for incompetence.

He is convicted and sentenced to exile, with his political career finished.

In the same year, Hamilcar Barca leads a successful campaign in Sicily and a storm destroys the other half of the Roman fleet, commanded by consul Junius Paullus.

The situation is so desperate that Aulus Atilius Calatinus is appointed dictator and sent to the island to control the land warfare.

The Drepana defeat so demoralizes the Romans that they will wait seven years before building another fleet.

The Carthaginians have gained command of the sea after their victory in the Battle of Drepanum, but they only hold two cities in Sicily: Drepanum and …

…Lilybaeum.

Carthage at this time is feeling the strain of the prolonged conflict (in addition to maintaining a fleet and soldiers in Sicily they are also fighting the Libyans and Numidians in North Africa), and as a result, Hamilcar is given a fairly small army and the Carthaginian fleet begin gradually to be withdrawn.

Little is known about the Barcid family prior to Hamilcar Barca.

The names of his parents are unknown, and it is hypothesized that the family may have come from Cyrene and was part of the landed aristocracy of Carthage.

He is relatively young (thirty-three years old) when he receives the Sicilian command.

By this time he has sired three daughters, and his son Hannibal is born in the year that Hamilcar invades Sicily in 247.

Hamilcar is in command of a mercenary army composed of multiple nationalities and his ability to successfully lead this force demonstrates his talent as field commander.

He employs combined arms tactics, like Alexander or Pyhrrus, and his strategy is similar to the ones that will be employed by Quintus Fabius Maximus in the Second Punic War, ironically against Hamilcar’s eldest son.

The difference is that Fabius is to command a numerically superior army than his opponent and will have no supply problems, and have room to maneuver, while Hamilcar is static and has a far smaller army than his opponent.

Upon taking command, Hamilcar punishes the rebellious mercenaries (unruly because of overdue payment) by murdering some of them at night and drowning the rest at sea, and dismissing many to Africa.

With a reduced army and fleet, Hamilcar commences his operations.

Antiochus II leaves his unhappy marriage with Ptolemid princess Berenice, and their infant son, somehow persuaded by his cast-off first wife, Laodice, to return to live with her and their son in Ephesus, where he dies in 246, perhaps by poison, perhaps a victim of her intrigues.

Laodice proclaims her son King Seleucos II, then orders her partisans at Antioch to …

…murder Berenice and her son, who have taken refuge at Daphne, near Antioch, in Syria.

The Seleucid province of Bactria, a vast country of a “thousand cities,” is located at the junction of the routes to China and India, and it is rich in cultivable land.

Diodotus, a Greek who finds himself at the head of the Bactrian satrapy, leads a revolt that brings independence in about 250 BCE; he takes the title of king.

The motivating force behind the rebellion in Bactria is an association—or perhaps even a collaboration—between the local nobility (large landholders who dominate the whole indigenous population) and the local Greek community.

Both groups are opposed to the Macedonian domination represented by the Seleucid dynasty.

The preserved ancient sources are contradictory and the exact date of Bactrian independence has not been settled.

There is a high chronology (circa 255 BCE) and a low chronology (circa 246 BCE) for Diodotos’ secession.

The high chronology has the advantage of explaining why the Seleucid king Antiochus II issued very few coins in Bactria, as Diodotos would have become independent there early in Antiochus' reign.

On the other hand, the low chronology, from the mid-240s BCE, has the advantage of connecting the secession of Diodotus I with the Third Syrian War, a catastrophic conflict for the Seleucid Empire.

During this time of chaos in the Seleucid Empire, the new Seleucid king, in order to secure the friendship of King Diodotus of breakaway Bactria, (according to some scholars) marries one of his sisters to him in 246.

Almost nothing is known of the youth of Ptolemy III Euergetes before 245, when, following a long engagement, he marries Berenice II, the daughter of Magas of Cyrene, thereby reuniting Egypt and Cyrenaica, which since 258 had been divided.

Shortly after his marriage and subsequent accession to the Egyptian throne, Ptolemy, avenging the murder of his sister Berenice, at once invades the Seleucid realm and annexes the eastern provinces, while his fleets sweep the coasts of Asia Minor.

A secondary purpose in his launching of the Third Syrian War, or Laodicean War, around 245, against Laodice and her son, Seleucus II, is to enforce earlier diplomatic arrangements disadvantageous to Seleucus.

Ptolemy's navy, perhaps aided by rebels in the cities, advances against the Seleucid forces as far as Thrace and across the Hellespont, also capturing some islands off the Asia Minor coast, but Antigonus II Gonatus of Macedon in about 244 is able to maintain his hegemony in the Aegean by defeating the Egyptian fleet at Andros.

The Aetolian League confirms its influence in central Greece by …

…defeating the Boeotians at Chaeronea in 245 BCE.