There he saved the city of Segesta, which had been under siege from the Carthaginian infantry commander Hamilcar.
In 480 BC (concurrent with Persia's invasion of Greece), Mago's grandson Hamilcar landed a large army in Sicily in order to confront Syracuse (a colony of Corinth) on the island's eastern coast; yet the Greeks decisivelly prevailed at the Battle of Himera.
The history of the temple is unclear, but it was probably founded to commemorate the Battle of Himera (480 BC), in which the Greek cities of Akragas (Agrigento) and Syracuse defeated the Carthaginians under Hamilcar.
Hamilcar | Hamilcar Barca | General Aircraft Hamilcar | Hamilcar (Drepanum) |
But the Carthaginians were not going to let this threat pass unchallenged and launched an equally large fleet to intercept the Romans, commanded by Hanno the Great and Hamilcar the later victor of Drepanum (not to be confused with Hamilcar Barca).
Cornelius Nepos (to whose biographical sketch we owe the only connected narrative of his life) calls him the bravest and most able of all non-Greek and non-Roman generals, except Hamilcar and Hannibal; but there is much confusion in the accounts transmitted to us, and it is difficult to assign the anecdotes of him recorded by Polyaenus to their proper place in his history.
Hamilcar, grandson of Hanno the Navigator, successfully led the Carthaginian counterattack.
Seven years after Hamilcar's death, Hasdrubal the Fair was assassinated in 221 BC, by a slave of the Celtic king Tago, who thus avenged the previous death of his own lord.
A World War II U-boat is found in Hamilcar's Refuge, used by a Nazi expedition to find the piece.