Drepana & Eryx 10.

Drepana & Eryx part 10.

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The aftermath.

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When the negotiations with Rome had been completed, Hamilcar Barca transferred his troops from Eryx to Lilybaeum and handed them over to the garrison commander Gisgo and put down his command.

Polybios III, 9:

"He (Hamilcar) was in the war for Sicily remained unbeaten, because he believed he maintained to have in his troops in Eryx the same militancy maintained as he himself had to have."

The temple of Venus, her Latin equivalent, kept a special position there in Roman times. There maybe truth in the tradition which said that the town of Sicca on the border of Numidia was founded by people from Eryx.

Slowly the importance of Drepana and Eryx are diminishing in Roman times. Only Plinius (32.21) makes at last a significant remark: “The most prized coral found in the Gallic gulf at the Stoechaden, in the Sicilian sea with the Aeolian Islands and Drepana.”

Memories.

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The events of the first Roman war around Drepana and Eryx remain long hanging in the minds of the people by the end of the 3rd century BC. Livy writes there a few down. The question is whether they would have said it really that way. Anyway Livy thinks they did:

- Speech Hanno in 219 v.C in Carthage. He warns of the coming war.

XXI, 10: "... Do you still think back to the Aegatic islands and Mount Eryx, and all you have endured for 24 years on land and sea - and not directed by this guy, but by his father Hamilcar , a second Mars, as they claim it. "

- Speech consul Publius Scipio in 218 BC, just before the first confrontation with Hannibal at Ticino.

XXI, 68-69: "... I would like to take the acid test, or the earth in the last twenty years has produced suddenly other Carthaginians, or that this is the same who fought in the Aegatic islands and which you allowed to leave of Mount Eryx after paying a fee of 18 denarii each man .....

----- We had the chance to kill them when they were trapped at Mount Eryx, with the heaviest punishment for humans: hunger. We had a chance with our victorious fleet to Africa to stabbing over and within a few days to destroy Carthage without a fight - but we have them beg forgiveness bestowed on them, we let them leave out of the siege .... "

- Quintus Fabius Maximus talks in Rome in 205 BC to Publius Cornelius Scipio, where he draws a comparison between Hamilcar and Hannibal.

XXVIII, 41: ".... You're not implying that Hamilcar as a captain should be valued more than Hannibal ......

..... Would you prefer to get the name of the man who pulled Hamilcar from Drepana and Eryx or the man that have driven out the Punics and Hannibal of Italy? "

What is still visible?

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- Phoenician wall from the 6^th century BC with Phoenician letters inscribed.

- Terracotta figures from the Hellenistic period.

- Demon head of a male with curly hair and smooth beard.

- several inscriptions, under which stones from Trapani with the names of Himilk, Baalhanno, MTR, Baalazor (4x), Maharbaal, Yatonbaal and Abešmoen and consecrations to Tanit and Baal Hammon (see: Tre stele Cartaginese con iscrizioni del museo nazionale pepoli di Trapani, M.J.Fuentes-Estanol, RSF V 1977).

- Excavations with a circular ditch, wall, wells, columns.

- Excavations of the cemetery outside the walls near the Porte Trapani from the 3rd century BC

- Punic and Cypriot figurines.

- Indigenous bronze statuettes.

- Egyptian statues of Isis and Horus.

- Amphorae with Punic letters and symbols.

- Coins (tetradrachms).

This was my story of: Drepana and ….

’ r k (punic name), Erux (greek name), Eryx (latin name), Erice (now).