Athenian soldier Xenophon, a follower of Socrates in his youth, had left Athens in 401 to join the mercenary army raised by Cyrus the Younger in his attempt to overthrow Artaxerxes.

Following Cyrus’ defeat and death at Cunaxa, the ten-thousand strong Greek contingent, led by Clearchus, had made a desperate retreat from Babylon through hostile territory to the Black Sea. (Xenophon survives to produce a lively firsthand account of the campaign in the Anabasis.)

Plato, whose parents were both from distinguished Athenian families-his stepfather, an associate of Pericles, had been an active participant in the political and cultural life of Periclean Athens-had apparently been destined for an aristocratic political career.

The excesses of Athenian political life seem to have led him to abandon these ambitions, however.

Socrates, who had been a close friend of Plato's family, had a profound influence on the young man (as his writings will later attest).

Following Socrates' ingestion of a lethal dose of hemlock, his twenty-nine-year-old pupil retires from active Athenian life to begin traveling around the Mediterranean.

Dionysius is a brutal military despot who, over the past eight years, has used loyal mercenaries to ruthlessly consolidate and expand his power in Sicily.

War, which includes large-scale munitions manufacture, is essential to his economy.

He has built a wall around Syracuse and fortified Epipolae.

The Greek citizens of Naxos, Catana, and Leontini have been removed from their cities; many of them have been enslaved and their homes given to Sicilian and Italian mercenaries.

He is now ready to lead his vast army against Carthage in an effort to roll back the Carthaginian power in Sicily and keep his Syracusan citizenry in line.

Dionysius sends an embassy to Carthage in 398 BCE to declare war unless they agree to give up all the Greek cities under their control.

Before the embassy returns from Carthage, Dionysius lets loose his mercenaries on Carthaginians living in Syracusan lands, putting them to the sword and plundering their property.

Then he sets out for Motya with his army, accompanied by two hundred warships and five hundred transports carrying supplies and war machines.

Himilco takes the time to negotiate with the Campanians at Aetna, offering them to switch sides.

They had given Dionysius hostages and their best troops are still serving with the Greek army, so they choose to stay loyal to the Greek tyrant.

The victory at Catana, which enables the Carthaginians to proceed and lay siege to Syracuse in 397 BCE, has not only reduced the naval power of Syracuse, but it has also decreased the strength of the Greeks army by causing other Sicilian Greeks to desert Dionysius.

Himilco now besieges Syracuse.

Dionysius, once his engineers have completed the mole, brings forward his siege towers, which are taller than the walls of Motya and equal the height of the tallest buildings in the city.

A storm of arrows and missiles from archers and catapults clears the wall of defenders, then battering rams are employed against the gates.

The Phoenicians counter by putting men on ship masts, and protecting them with breastworks built on the walls.

These "Crows’ nests" are then put beyond the walls, and from these, flax, covered in burning pitch, is dropped on the siege engines, burning them.

However, the Greeks learn to douse the flames with fire fighting teams, and the engines finally reaches the walls despite Carthaginian efforts.

As the Greek troops advance, the Phoenicians launch a storm of arrows and stones from the rooftops and houses, thinning the ranks of on the attackers.

The Greeks push the siege towers next to the houses closest to the walls, and sends troops on the roofs using gangways, who force their way into the houses.

A fierce hand-to-hand struggle ensues, the desperate resistance of the Phoenicians (who expect no mercy from the Greeks) taking a heavy toll on the attackers.

After several days of dawn-to-dusk fighting, Dionysius sends a picked group of mercenaries under a Thruian named Archylus at night with ladders to secure vantage points.

The commandos manage to secure the positions before the Phoenicians discover their tactic, and the Greeks overcome all resistance.

Dionysius had intended to secure as many prisoners as possible for the slave market, but the Greeks vent their frustrations by indiscriminate killing of the population.

Dionysius can only save those who seek refuge in the temples.

In the aftermath of battle, he crucifies all the Greeks who had fought on the side of Carthage; it is not known if these were mercenaries employed by Carthage or citizens of Motya.

He sacks the city, divides the vast spoils among his troops, and garrisons the ruins with an army made mostly of Sicels under an officer named Biton, then marches off to continue the siege of Segesta and Entella.

It is not known what he did there, but the cities continued to resist.

The majority of the fleet sailed back to Syracuse.

Himilco responds decisively, leading an expedition which not only reclaims Motya, but also captures Messina.

Motya as a city will never be rebuilt, however.

Himilco chooses to resettle the survivors at Lilybaeum, which will become the main base of Carthage in future and will never fall to siege or assault by Greeks or Romans while in Carthaginian possession.

Himilco, who had been elected "king" in 397 BCE, chooses to sail to with a mercenary army and fleet to Panormus, whence the attack on Syracuse and her allies is to take place.

The Greek fleet under Leptines, the brother of Dionysius I of Syracuse, engages the Carthaginian fleet under Mago near the city of Catana in Sicily.

While the Greek army under Dionysius is present near the city of Catana during the battle, the Carthaginian army under Himilco is away in the interior of Sicily, making a detour around the erupting Mt.

Etna.

The Carthaginian fleet crushes the Greek fleet in the battle: over twenty thousand soldiers/rowers and one hundred ships are lost before the surviving Greek ships can make a run to safety.

Ephesus serves in 396 BCE as the headquarters of Agesilaus, who directs from Anatolia Sparta's campaign against the Persians, who in 397 BCE had begun to build a new fleet to deal with the menace of a Spartan army in Asia. (It may be a further irritant that Sparta is helping another anti-Persian rebel in Egypt; this threatens a serious economic loss to the Persian landowners who have been exploiting it at a distance.)

Agesilaus makes a three months' truce with the Persians; during this interim, he manages to shake off Lysander's control over him.

Agesilaus then raids Phrygia and …

…Lydia.