Sicilian Wars participant Ancient Carthage
Carthage joins the fight
The Carthaginian Malchus is said to have "conquered all Sicily" and sent captured booty to Tyre some time after 540 BC, which probably meant that Motya, Panormus and Solus had fallen under Carthaginian control. The growth of Selinus and Himera during this period indicates the Carthaginians and Greeks did not confront one another at this time. Thirty years later Prince Dorieus, having lost the Spartan throne, showed up to colonize Eryx – after being expelled from Libya by Carthage in 511 BC following a three-year struggle.
Carthage aided Segesta to defeat the expedition of Dorieus in 510 BC. The surviving members of Dorieus' expedition then founded Heraclea Minoa. Sicilian Greeks (probably the cities of Akragas, Gela and Selinus) fought an undated war of revenge against Carthage, which led to the destruction of Minoa and a treaty which brought economic benefits for the Greeks. An appeal for aid to avenge the death of Dorieus was ignored by mainland Greece, even by the brother of Dorieus Leonidas of Sparta, famous for his role at Thermopylae in 480 BC. This episode possibly demonstrated the futility of opposing Carthage by single Greek cities or the unreliability of aid from mainland Greece, a situation that would change with the rise of the Greek tyrants in Sicily. Two Greeks from Gela, Cleander and Gelo, had been involved in this war and they would become the catalysts of the events that followed.