In 409 BC, Hannibal Mago erased the city of Himera to avenge his grandfather.
When the Carthaginian general Hannibal Mago destroyed Himera, he was not just winning a war; he was settling a seventy-year-old family debt. After obliterating the city, he sacrificed 3,000 Greek prisoners at the exact spot where his grandfather had fallen in a previous, failed invasion of Sicily.
The Second Battle of Himera in 409 BC was the culmination of a long-standing rivalry between Carthage and the Sicilian Greeks. Hannibal Mago, acting under instructions from the Carthaginian Senate, had already sacked Selinus when he turned his attention to Himera. This move was personal: his grandfather, Hamilcar, had been defeated and killed at the first Battle of Himera in 480 BC. By 409 BC, Carthage had mobilized a massive force, estimated at 50,000 soldiers, including diverse units of Libyans, Iberians, and various mercenaries.
The siege of Himera was a brutal affair. Hannibal initially failed to breach the city walls with siege towers and battering rams, forcing his sappers to tunnel underneath and collapse sections of the fortifications. Although the Himerans and their Syracusan allies, led by the general Diocles, initially repelled the attackers, the tide turned when Hannibal used deception. He spread rumors of an imminent attack on Syracuse, causing the Syracusan fleet and many defenders to abandon the city. When the Carthaginians finally breached the walls, the remaining garrison was overwhelmed.
The aftermath was absolute. Hannibal flattened the city, including all its temples, and enslaved the women and children. He did not, however, divert a river over the site, a tactic used by Greeks elsewhere. The destruction was so thorough that Himera was never rebuilt, though survivors later established a nearby settlement called Thermae. The Greek response was surprisingly muted; Syracuse and Akragas focused on military expansion rather than immediate retaliation, a hesitation that eventually allowed Carthage to dominate most of Sicily by 405 BC.
Source: Battle of Himera (409 BC)
