AGATHOKLES (ca. 361-289 BC), KING OF SICILY
Agathokles was a man of humble origins, the son of a potter, who rose to become Tyrant of Syracuse in 317 BC and then, from ca. 304, the only King of Sicily in antiquity. Presented here are all the ancient references to his involvement in Greek love, in which he partook as both a boy and a man.
The first and much the most detailed account of Agathokles ever written was by the once influential historian Timaios of Tauromenion in Sicily in his lost Histories, written in Athens after he had been driven out of Sicily by Agathokles in 316/5 BC. No less than the last five of the thirty-eight books of his work were devoted to the time of Agathokles, and they are almost certainly the source for most of what was written about him by later historians.
The Latinisation of Greek names in all the translations that follow have been undone in favour of transliterated forms.
Justin, Epitome of the Philippic Histories of Pompeius Trogus, XXII 1 i-v
Gnaius Pompeius Trogus wrote, late in the 1st century BC, a universal history in forty-four books, which he called Historiae Philippicae et Totius Mundi Origines et Terrae Situs (Philippic Histories and the Origin of the Whole World and the Places of the Earth). It is lost, but it was paraphrased in the 2nd century AD by an otherwise unknown M. Junianius Justinus as the Epitoma Historiarum Philippicarum Pompei Trogi (Epitome of the Philippic Histories of Pompeius Trogus).
The translation is by the Revd. John Selby Watson in his Justin, Cornelius Nepos, and Eutropius, published by Henry G. Bohn in London in 1853.
| Agathokles, tyrant of Sicily, who attained greatness equal to that of the elder Dionysios, rose to royal dignity from the lowest and meanest origin. He was born in Sicily, his father being a potter, and spent a youth not more honourable than his birth; for, being remarkable for beauty and gracefulness of person, he supported himself a considerable time by submitting to the infamous lust of others. When he had passed the years of puberty, he transferred his services from men to women. Having thus become infamous with both sexes, he next changed his way of life for that of a robber. | [i] Agathocles, Siciliae tyrannus, qui magnitudini prioris Dionysii successit, ad regni maiestatem ex humili et sordido genere pervenit. [ii] Quippe in Sicilia patre figulo natus non honestiorem pueritiam quam principia originis habuit, [iii] siquidem forma et corporis pulchritudine egregius diu vitam stupri patientia exhibuit. [iv] Annos deinde pubertatis egressus libidinem a viris ad feminas transtulit. [v] Post haec apud utrumque sexum famosus vitam latrociniis mutavit. |
Polybios, The Histories, XII 15 i-ii
In the following passage, written between 146 and 118 BC, the Greek historian Polybios mentions Timaios’s “astonishingly” one-sided portrait of Agathokles as one of many examples of his failings.
The translation is W. R. Paton for the Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1922.
| Nor can I approve the terms in which he speaks of Agathokles, even if that prince were the most impious of men. I allude to the passage at the end of his history in which he says that Agathokles in his early youth was a common prostitute,[1] ready to yield himself to the most debauched, a jackdaw, a buzzard,[2] who would right about face to anyone who wished it. | [i] Καὶ γὰρ οὐδὲ ταῖς κατ᾿ Ἀγαθοκλέους ἔγωγε λοιδορίαις, εἰ καὶ πάντων γέγονεν ἀσεβέστατος, εὐδοκῶ. [ii] λέγω δ᾿ ἐν τούτοις, ἐν οἷς ἐπὶ καταστροφῇ τῆς ὅλης ἱστορίας φησὶ γεγονέναι τὸν Ἀγαθοκλέα κατὰ τὴν πρώτην ἡλικίαν κοινὸν πόρνον, ἕτοιμον τοῖς ἀκρατεστάτοις, κολοιόν, τριόρχην, πάντων τῶν βουλομένων τοῖς ὄπισθεν ἔμπροσθεν γεγονότα. |
Polyainos was a Greek historian who published his Stratagemata (Stratagems) in around AD 163. The English is from Polyaenus’s Stratagems of War translated from the original Greek by Dr. Shepherd, F. R. S., 2nd edition, published by George Nicol in London in 1796.
In 308 BC, Agathokles was in Africa, attacking his most powerful foe, Carthage. One of Carthage’s neighbours was Cyrene, then ruled by a Macedonian governor, Ophelas.
| When Ophelas, the Cyrenian with a numerous army was advancing against Agathokles: hearing the Cyrenian was notoriously addicted to the love of boys, he sent an embassy to him, and his son Herakleides as a hostage, a boy of extraordinary beauty: ordering him to hold out for a few days against his solicitations. The Cyrenian, charmed with the beauty of the boy, conceived a violent passion for him, and strongly solicited him to comply with his desires. Thus engaged, Agathokles suddenly attacked, and slew him; and entirely defeated his army.[3] His son also he received safe, and without any injury having been offered to him. | Ἀγαθοκλῆς Ὀφέλαν Κυρηναῖον σὺν πολλῇ δυνάμει στρατεύσαντα πυθόμενος εἶναι φιλόπαιδα ὅμηρον αὐτῷ τὸν ἴδιον υἱὸν ἔπεμψεν Ἡρακλείδην ὡραῖον ὄντα ἐντολὴν δοὺς τῷ παιδὶ ἀντισχεῖν τῇ πείρᾳ μέχρις ὀλίγων ἡμερῶν. ἧκεν ὁ παῖς· ὁ Κυρηναῖος τῆς ὥρας ἡττώμενος περιεῖπεν αὐτὸν καὶ περὶ τὴν θεραπείαν αὐτοῦ μόνον ἠσχολεῖτο. Ἀγαθοκλῆς ἄφνω τοὺς Συρακουσίους ἐπαγαγὼν τόν τε Ὀφέλαν ἀπέκτεινε καὶ τῆς δυνάμεως αὐτοῦ πάσης ἐκράτησε καὶ τὸν υἱὸν ἀπέλαβεν οὐχ ὑβρισθέντα. |
Diodoros of Sicily, Library of History
Diodoros of Agyrion in Sicily wrote his history of the world known to him between 60 and 30 BC. As will be apparent, he is following Polybios in what he writes here.
XIX 3 i-ii
The following passage relates what happened in the years after Agathokles’s father took him, aged seven and “much fairer in face and stronger in body than was to be expected at his age” to live in Syracuse and soon afterwards died.
The translation is by Russel M. Geer for the Loeb Classical Library 377, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1947.
| A certain Damas[4], who was counted among the notable men of Syracuse, fell in love with Agathokles and since in the beginning he supplied him lavishly with everything, was the cause of his accumulating a suitable property; and thereafter, when Damas had been elected general against Akragas and one of his chiliarchs died, he appointed Agathokles in his place.[5] […] When Damas died of illness and left his property to his wife, Agathocles married her and was counted among the richest men. | [i] Δάμας γάρ τις τῶν ἐνδόξων ἀριθμούμενος ἐν Συρακούσσαις ἐρωτικῶς διετέθη πρὸς τὸν Ἀγαθοκλέα καὶ τὸ μὲν πρῶτον δαψιλῶς ἅπαντα χορηγῶν αἴτιος ἐγένετο σύμμετρον αὐτὸν οὐσίαν συλλέξασθαι, μετὰ ταῦτα αἱρεθεὶς ἐπ᾿ Ἀκράγαντα στρατηγός, ἐπειδὴ τῶν χιλιάρχων τις ἀπέθανεν, τοῦτον εἰς τὸν ἐκείνου τόπον κατέστησεν. [… ii] τοῦ δὲ Δάμαντος νόσῳ τελευτήσαντος καὶ τὴν οὐσίαν καταλιπόντος τῇ γυναικὶ ταύτην ἔγημε καὶ τῶν πλουσιωτάτων εἷς ἠριθμεῖτο. |
XXI 16 ii-vi and 18 i
The next passage describes events in 289 BC. The translation is by Francis R. Walton for the Loeb Classical Library 409, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1957.
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There was a certain Menon, a Segestan by birth, who was taken captive on the seizure of his native city,[6] and became the king’s slave because of the beauty of his person. For a while he pretended to be content, being reckoned among the king’s loved-boys[7] and friends; but the disaster to his city and the outrage to his person produced a rankling enmity to the king, and he seized an opportunity to take his revenge. [Such an opportunity arose when the King’s grandson Archagathos heard that his aged grandfather was arranging for his only surviving son, Archagathos’s uncle, also called Agathokles, to inherit the throne, and decided “to lay a plot for both men”….] He sent word to Menon the Segestan, and persuaded him to poison the king. He himself offered sacrifice on a certain island, and when the younger Agathocles put in there, invited him to the feast, plied him with drink, and murdered him during the night. The body was thrown into the sea, and was washed ashore by the waves, where certain men recognized it and carried it to Syracuse. Now it was the king’s habit after dinner always to clean his teeth with a quill. Having finished his wine, therefore, he asked Menon for the quill, and Menon gave him one that he had smeared with a putrefactive drug. The king, unaware of this, applied it rather vigorously and so brought it into contact with the gums all about his teeth. The first effect was a continuous pain, which grew daily more excruciating, and this was followed by an incurable gangrene everywhere near the teeth. As he lay dying, he summoned the populace, denounced Archagathos for his impiety, aroused the masses to avenge him, and declared that he restored to the people their self-government. Then, when the king was already at the point of death, Oxythemis, the envoy of King Demetrios[8], placed him on the pyre and burned him, still alive, but because of the characteristic ravages of his affliction unable to utter a sound.[9] Agathokles had committed numerous and most varied acts of slaughter during his reign, and since to his cruelty towards his own people he added impiety towards the gods, the manner of his death was appropriate to his lawless life. He lived for seventy-two years and ruled for twenty-eight, according to Timaios of Syracuse, Kallias, another Syracusan, the author of twenty-two books, and Antandros, the brother of Agathokles, who was himself a historian. The Syracusans, upon the recovery of their popular government, confiscated the property of Agathokles and pulled down the statues that he had set up. Menon, who had plotted against the king, stayed with Archagathos, having fled from Syracuse. He was puffed up, however, by the credit that he enjoyed as over-thrower of the kingdom; he assassinated Archagathos, gained control of the camp, and, having won over the masses by expressions of goodwill, determined to wage war on Syracuse and to claim for himself the chief power. [This account is followed by a passage in which Diodoros, just like Polybios, criticises Timaios for personal bias against Agathokles on account of having been banished from Sicily by him.] The people of Syracuse dispatched Hiketas as general with an army to conduct the war against Menon. For a while he carried on the war, so long as the enemy avoided action and refused to face them in battle. But when the Carthaginians, with their vastly superior forces, began to aid Menon, the Syracusans were compelled to give four hundred hostages to the Phoenicians[10], to make an end of hostilities, and to restore the exiles. |
[ii] Μένων ἦν Αἰγεσταῖος τὸ γένος· ἐν δὲ τῇ καταλήψει τῆς πατρίδος ἡλωκὼς δοῦλος ἐγένετο διὰ τὴν εὐπρέπειαν τοῦ σώματος τῷ βασιλεῖ. καὶ μέχρι μέν τινος εὐδοκεῖν προσεποιεῖτο, τῶν ἐρωμένων καὶ φίλων εἷς ἀριθμούμενος· διὰ δὲ τὴν τῆς πατρίδος συμφορὰν καὶ τὴν περὶ αὑτὸν ὕβριν ὑπούλως ἔχων πρὸς τὸν δυνάστην, καιρὸν ἔλαβε τῆς κατ᾿ αὐτοῦ τιμωρίας. [iii …] πρὸς Μένωνα τὸν Αἰγεσταῖον διαπεμψάμενος ἔπεισεν ἀνελεῖν τὸν βασιλέα διὰ φαρμάκου, αὐτὸς δὲ ἔν τινι νήσῳ θυσίαν ἐπιτελέσας, καὶ καταπλεύσαντα τὸν νεώτερον Ἀγαθοκλέα παραλαβὼν πρὸς τὴν εὐωχίαν, νυκτὸς καταμεθύσας ἀπέσφαξε. τοῦ δὲ σώματος ῥιφθέντος εἰς τὴν θάλασσαν καὶ πρὸς τὴν γῆν ὑπὸ τοῦ κλύδωνος ἐκβρασθέντος, ἐπιγνόντες τινὲς ἀπεκόμισαν εἰς Συρακόσας. [iv] Ὁ δὲ βασιλεὺς εἰωθὼς μετὰ τὸ δεῖπνον ἀεὶ πτερῷ διακαθαίρεσθαι τοὺς ὀδόντας, ἀπολυθεὶς τοῦ πότου τὸν Μένωνα τὸ πτερὸν ᾔτησεν. εἶτα ὁ μὲν φαρμάκῳ σηπτικῷ χρίσας ἀπέδωκεν, ὁ δὲ χρησάμενος αὐτῷ φιλοτιμότερον διὰ τὴν ἄγνοιαν ἥψατο πανταχόθεν τῆς περὶ τοὺς ὀδόντας σαρκός. καὶ πρῶτον μὲν πόνοι συνεχεῖς ἐγένοντο καὶ καθ᾿ ἡμέραν ἐπιτάσεις ἀλγηδόνων, ἔπειτα σηπεδόνες ἀνίατοι πάντῃ τοὺς ὀδόντας περιεῖχον. ἐπὶ δὲ τῆς τελευτῆς γενόμενος ἐκκλησιάσας τὸν λαὸν κατηγόρησε τῆς ἀσεβείας Ἀρχαγάθου, καὶ τὰ μὲν πλήθη παρώξυνε πρὸς τὴν αὑτοῦ τιμωρίαν, τῷ δὲ δήμῳ τὴν δημοκρατίαν ἔφησεν ἀποδιδόναι. [v] μετὰ δὲ ταῦτα τὸν βασιλέα διακείμενον ἐσχάτως ἤδη κατέθηκεν ἐπὶ τῆς πυρᾶς Ὀξύθεμις ὁ πεμφθεὶς ὑπὸ Δημητρίου τοῦ βασιλέως, καὶ κατέκαυσεν ὄντα μὲν ἔμπνουν ἔτι, διὰ δὲ τὴν ἰδιότητα τῆς περὶ τὴν σηπεδόνα συμφορᾶς οὐ δυνάμενον φωνὴν προΐεσθαι. Ἀγαθοκλῆς μὲν πλείστους καὶ ποικιλωτάτους φόνους ἐπιτελεσάμενος κατὰ τὴν δυναστείαν, καὶ τῇ κατὰ τῶν ὁμοφύλων ὠμότητι προσθεὶς καὶ τὴν εἰς θεοὺς ἀσέβειαν, πρέπουσαν παρέσχε τῇ παρανομίᾳ τὴν τοῦ βίου καταστροφήν, δυναστεύσας μὲν ἔτη δύο τῶν τριάκοντα λείποντα, βιώσας δὲ δύο πρὸς τοῖς ἑβδομήκοντα ἔτη, καθὼς Τίμαιος ὁ Συρακόσιος συγγράφει, καὶ Καλλίας καὶ αὐτὸς Συρακούσιος, εἴκοσι δύο βίβλους συγγράψας, [vi] καὶ Ἄντανδρος ὁ ἀδελφὸς Ἀγαθοκλέους καὶ αὐτὸς συγγραφεύς. οἱ δὲ Συρακόσιοι τῆς δημοκρατίας τυχόντες τὴν Ἀγαθοκλέους οὐσίαν ἐδήμευσαν, τὰς δὲ εἰκόνας τὰς ἀνατεθείσας2 ὑπ᾿ αὐτοῦ κατέσπασαν. Μένων δὲ ὁ ἐπιβουλεύσας τῷ βασιλεῖ διέτριβεν ἐν τοῖς περὶ Ἀρχάγαθον, πεφευγὼς ἐκ τῶν Συρακουσῶν· πεφρονηματισμένος δὲ ἐπὶ τῷ3 δοκεῖν καταλελυκέναι τὴν βασιλείαν, τὸν μὲν Ἀρχάγαθον ἐδολοφόνησε, τοῦ δὲ στρατοπέδου κυριεύσας καὶ τὰ πλήθη λόγοις φιλανθρώποις ἰδιοποιησάμενος, διέγνω πολεμεῖν τοῖς Συρακοσίοις καὶ δυναστείας ἀντέχεσθαι. […] [18 i] Ὅτι Ἱκέταν στρατηγὸν ἀπέλυσαν Συρακόσιοι μετὰ δυνάμεως πρὸς Μένωνα πολεμῆσαι. καὶ μέχρι μέν τινος διεπολέμει, φυγομαχούντων τῶν ἐναντίων καὶ εἰς παράταξιν οὐδαμῶς καταβαινόντων. τῶν δὲ Καρχηδονίων συνεπιλαβομένων τοῖς περὶ Μένωνα, πολὺ ταῖς δυνάμεσιν ὑπερεχοντων, ἠναγκάσθησαν οἱ Συρακόσιοι δόντες ὁμήρους τοῖς Φοίνιξι τετρακοσίους διαλύσασθαι τὸν πόλεμον καὶ καταγαγεῖν τοὺς φυγάδας. |
Nothing is recorded of the subsequent fate of Menon. Syracuse became briefly a democracy.
[1] Polybios does not actually refute this or any of Timaios’s statements, merely criticising him for not pointing out Agathokles’s good points. The statements that, as a boy, Agathokles profited from taking lovers is supported by the most detailed surviving accounts of his life. Justin, Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus XXII says, he “spent a youth not more honourable than his birth; for, being remarkable for beauty and gracefulness of person, he supported himself a considerable time by submitting to the infamous lust of others. When he had passed the years of puberty, he transferred his services from men to women. Having thus become infamous with both sexes, he next changed his way of life for that of a robber.” Diodoros of Sicily, Library of History XIX 3 I recounts how Agathokles owed his earliest success to a lover called Damas, though this is said without criticism and does not imply prostitution. [Website footnote].
[2] τριόρχην =”very lecherous” [Translator note].
Literally, however, it means “with three testicles.” [Website footnote].
[3] Justin, Epitome of the Philippic Histories of Pompeius Trogus XXII 1 vii gives a different account, though not one that precludes Agathokles having used the beauty of his son to trick the boy-loving Ophelas. According to Justin, Ophelas was coming towards Carthage in acceptance of an invitation from Agathokles to ally with him, and when Ophelas arrived, Agathokles, after pretending to welcome him, treacherously killed him and took control of his army. [Website footnote].
[4] Justin, Epitome of the Philippic Histories of Pompeius Trogus XXII 1 xii calls this general Damaskon. He does not say he was Agathokles’s lover, but instead that Agathokles cuckolded him.
[5] Here a “chiliarch” is a commander of a thousand [Translator’s note].
[6] Diodoros gave, XX 71 a lively description of Agathokles’s seizure of Segesta and horrific treatment of its people in 307 BC. For a fictional account of the same, explaining how the boy Menon became Agathokles’s slave-catamite determined on revenge against him, read The Segestan Boy by Edmund Marlowe. [Website footnote].
[7] Walton’s euphemism of “favourites” as a translation of ἐρωμένων (the usual term for boys in pederastic love affairs) has been replaced by “loved-boys”. [Website footnote].
[8] Demetrios “Poliorketes” was the King of Macedon and one of the Diadochoi (Successors) still contending for rule of Alexander’s empire. He and Agathokles had been negotiating “a treaty of friendship and alliance.” [Website footnote].
[9] This is the punishment, ascribed to the wrath of Hephaestus, that is alluded to in Book 20. 101. [Translator’s note].
[10] The Phoenicians here means the Carthaginians, who were descended from them. [Website footnote].