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Episode 39, Agathocles of Syracuse, Tyrant and king.

After almost 40 episodes of the Hellenistic Age podcast,

it's quite surprising that I have yet to discuss the island of Sicily and the tyrants who dominated the Greek city of Syracuse. While I did make reference

to the adventures of Pyrus of Epirus in his attempts to conquer Sicily in between his campaigns

against the Roman Republic, for the most part we have stuck largely to the events of the Eastern

Mediterranean. Though Hellenistic kings and queens have been the focus of our narrative, in Sicily there was the tradition of the tyrants, and during the early period of Hellenistic history, no tyrant was more ambitious than Agathocles, known also as Agathocles of Syracuse, who acted as tyrant and king of Sicily for almost 30 years, as he would bow to the likes of Carthage in an attempt

to make himself the Alexander of the West. In the first of many episodes, focusing on the affairs

of the Central and Western Mediterranean during the Hellenistic period, I wish to give more

background detail on the island of Sicily and the Greeks of Syracuse, which would play an

incredibly important role in the histories of theracuse, which would play an incredibly important role

in the histories of the Roman Republic and Carthage alike. In order to better understand

Agathocles' career, we need to better understand the geopolitical situation that was Sicily in

the 4th century BC. Since the 8th century, the largest island in the Mediterranean at the very southernmost point of the boot of Italy

had been subject to considerable Greek colonization efforts, attracted to the prodigious natural fertility of the land itself

that would make it one of the few breadbaskets of the Mediterranean world, along with Egypt in the Black Sea.

Its position made it a natural stopping point for trade

routes from both Africa and Europe, oftentimes acting as a stepping zone between the two continents.

The foremost Greek city was known as Syracuse, originally a Corinthian colony, that soon became

the center of all maritime and economic activity thanks

to its suitable location for defense and trading.

And it was easily among the wealthiest cities in the Greek-speaking world, second only

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