Battle of Alalia
The sea battle of Alalia took place around 535 BC. On the east coast of Corsica and is mainly known from an account in the work of the Greek historian Herodotus . A fleet of 120 ships of the Punians and Etruscans could not defeat the approximately 60 ships of the Greek Phoceans from the city of Alalia , but they could force them to give up their settlement. After the departure of the Greeks, Alalia became the property of the Etruscans, and Sardinia came under Carthaginian influence.
backgrounds
The Phocaeans began at the end of the 7th century BC. With the establishment of daughter cities as part of the Greek colonization . In addition to individual foundations in the Greek area, they soon spread to the western Mediterranean. The colonies they founded there were independent city-states, which were mostly laid out under economic aspects and in competition with the Punic and Etruscans. However, their sometimes aggressive settlement policy and their cultural influence on the surrounding areas of their newly founded cities also led to conflicts with the local population. Piracy on the trade routes between the cities and occasional raids by the local Etruscans also threatened the economic development of the branches.
Herodotus describes the early history of Alias in his "Histories". A part of the population of Phocaia said in about 540 BC. BC left his hometown in order not to fall under the rule of the expanding Persian Empire . The emigrants moved to the Corsican city of Alalia by sailing ships, which had been founded 20 years earlier as the daughter city of Phokaias. Five years after their settlement, however, according to Herodotus, the "Tyrsenians" (Etruscans) and "Karchedonians" (Carthaginians) formed an alliance to drive the Greeks from the island in order to prevent sea raids on neighboring cities from Alalia. In addition to these robbery trips, the increasing competition between the Greek settlements in the western Mediterranean and the Carthaginian cities there is likely to have escalated the conflict. The Etruscans also had an interest in curbing Greek expansion in order to advance their own conquest of Italy.
Course of the battle
Herodotus reports that the Etruscans and the Carthaginians each sent 60 ships to Alalia to attack the city. As a result, the Phocaeans had their ships repaired, and they could have mobilized a total of 60 Pentecounter . It is not certain whether the figures are correct: The fact that an identical combat strength is given for all three warring parties suggests that this information is a later, deliberately symmetrical invention. Although the numbers do not have any particular historical credibility, 60 ships actually correspond to the approximate size of a typical Carthaginian contingent for sea battles. As leader of the settlers from Phocaea is by at Strabo quoted passage from the work of Antiochus of Syracuse , a certain Kreontiades occupied.
Finally, according to Herodotus, the townspeople sailed towards the enemy, whereupon a battle broke out on the "Sardonic Sea" (which roughly corresponds to the northern part of the Tyrrhenian Sea ). This ended victorious for the Greeks, but two thirds of their ships were lost in the battle and the rest were badly damaged. Herodotus therefore writes of a Kadmean victory . A large part of the crew of the sunken ships is said to have survived, but were captured by the Carthaginians and the Etruscans and eventually stoned . In the histories of Herodotus it is described that the corpses of the stoned people had caused a curse on the inhabitants of Agylla ( Caere ), which they could only have removed through regular sacrifices and ritual competitions. This suggests Hans Wilhelm Haussig as an indication that the battle near the Italian coast near Rome took place. Because of their high casualties and to avoid further attacks by the enemy, the surviving Phocaeans drove back to Alalia, evacuated all residents of the city and left the region. They then fled to Rhegium and then founded the city of Elea (Roman: Velia).
While Herodotus lets the inhabitants of Alalia fight the Etruscans and Phoenicians alone, later ancient sources report that the inhabitants of Massalia (today's Marseille ), another daughter city of Phocaia, were also involved in the battle of Alalia.
consequences
In older research, the battle of Alalia was interpreted as a decisive setback for the colonization of the western Mediterranean area by the Greeks. In the meantime, however, it is assumed that it was a battle of only regional importance, which only presented a problem for the Greek settlement of Corsica and did not shift the general power structure any further. It is also no longer assumed that the Etruscans occupied all of Corsica after the battle, even if they certainly gained a bit of influence there. In fact, the Greeks were able to maintain their fundamental position in the Mediterranean: The Carthaginians subsequently lost two sea battles against Massalia, and various attempts by the Etruscans to conquer Greek cities in southern Italy failed. This is represented by the Etruscan defeat in the Battle of Kyme in 474 BC. However, by blocking the Strait of Gibraltar , the Carthaginians managed to limit the further Greek colonization of the Iberian Peninsula. The clashes between Carthaginian and Greek cities in Sicily eventually led to the Greco-Punic Wars .
source
- Herodotus , Historien 1,165–167 ( English translation ).
literature
- David Asheri, Alan Lloyd, Aldo Corcella: A commentary on Herodotus Books I – IV. Edited by Oswyn Murray and Alfonso Moreno. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2007, ISBN 978-0-19-814956-9 , pp. 185-187.
- Michel Gras: Marseille, la bataille d'Alalia et Delphes. In: Dialogues d'histoire ancienne. Volume 13, 1987, pp. 161-181 ( digitized version ).
- Theresa Miller: The Greek colonization as reflected in literary evidence (= Classica Monacensia. Volume 14). Narr, Tübingen 1997, ISBN 3-8233-4873-6 , pp. 118-122.
- Jean-Paul Morel: Phocaean Colonization. In: Gocha R. Tsetskhladze (Ed.): Greek Colonization. An Account of Greek Colonies and Other Settlements Overseas (= Mnemosyne . Supplement volume 193). Brill, Leiden 2006, ISBN 978-90-04-12204-8 , pp. 359-428, here p. 364 and p. 367-370.
- Yuri B. Tsirkin: The battle of Alalia. In: Oikumene. Volume 4, 1983, pp. 209-221 (not evaluated).
Individual evidence
- ^ Jean-Paul Morel: Phocaean Colonization. In: Gocha R. Tsetskhladze (Ed.): Greek Colonization. An Account of Greek Colonies and Other Settlements Overseas. Brill, Leiden 2006, ISBN 978-90-04-12204-8 , pp. 359-428, here pp. 360-364.
- ↑ Herodotus, Histories 1,164 f. For dating see David Asheri, Alan Lloyd, Aldo Corcella: A commentary on Herodotus Books I – IV. Edited by Oswyn Murray and Alfonso Moreno. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2007, ISBN 978-0-19-814956-9 , p. 185.
- ↑ a b c Herodotus, Histories 1,166.
- ^ Theresa Miller: The Greek colonization as reflected in literary evidence. Narr, Tübingen 1997, ISBN 3-8233-4873-6 , p. 119.
- ^ A b c David Asheri, Alan Lloyd, Aldo Corcella: A commentary on Herodotus Books I – IV. Edited by Oswyn Murray and Alfonso Moreno. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2007, ISBN 978-0-19-814956-9 , p. 186.
- ↑ Strabo, Geographika 6,1,1.
- ↑ Herodotus, Histories 1,167. On this point see Theresa Miller: The Greek colonization in the mirror of literary evidence. Narr, Tübingen 1997, ISBN 3-8233-4873-6 , p. 119 f.
- ↑ Herodotus: Histories. German complete edition. Translated by August Horneffer , edited and explained by Hans Wilhelm Haussig, introduced by Walter F. Otto . Alfred Kröner, Stuttgart 1955, p. 645.
- ↑ Herodotus, Histories 1.166 f.
- ^ Theresa Miller: The Greek colonization as reflected in literary evidence. Narr, Tübingen 1997, ISBN 3-8233-4873-6 , p. 122.