AGATIIOKLES CONQUERS THE EASTERN COAST. 421 By this same stratagem — if the narrative can be trusted — Agathokles both relieved Tunes, and acquired possession of Adrumetum. Pushing his conquests yet farther south, he be- sieged and took Thapsus, with several other towns on the coast to a considerable distance southward.^ He also occupied and fortified the important position called Aspis, on the south-east of the headland Cape Bon, and not far distant from it ; a point con- venient for maritime communication with Sicily .- By a series of such acquisitions, comprising in all not less than 200 dependencies of Carthage, Agathokles became master along the eastern coast.^ He next endeavored to subdue the tOAvns in the narrative of Diodorus. Both the others are too distant. Hainamat is about forty-eight English miles from Tunis (see Barth, p. 184, with his note). This is as great a distance (if not too great) as can possibly be admitted; both Herkla and Susa are very much more distant, and there- fore out of the question. Nevertheless, the other evidence known to us tends apparently to place Adrumetum at Susa, and not at Hamamat (see Barth, p. 142-1.'")4; Forbi- ger, Handb. Geog. p. 845). It is therefore probable that the narrative of Diodorus is not true, or must apply to some otlier place on the coast (pos- sibly Neapolis, the modern Nabel) taken by Agathokles, and not to Adru- metum. ' Diodor. xx. 17.
- Strabo, xvii. p. 834. Solinus (c. 30) talks of Aspis as founded by the
Siculi. Aspis (called by the Romans Clypea), being on the eastern side of Cape Bon, was more convenient for communication with Sicily than either Carthage, or Tunis, or any part of the Gulf of Carthage, which was on the western side of Cape Bon. To get round that headland is, even ftt the present day, a difficult and uncertain enterprise for navigators : see the remarks of Dr. Barth, founded partly on his own personal experience (Wanderungen auf den KQstenlandern des Mittelmeeres, i. p. 196). A ship coming from Sicily to Aspis was not under the necessity of getting round the headland. In the case of Agathokles, there was a farther reason for establishing his maritime position at Aspis. The Carthaginian fleet was superior to him at sea ; accordingly they could easily interrupt his maritime communication from Sicily with Tunis, or with any point in the Gulf of Carthage. But it was not so easy for them to watch the coast at Aspis ; for in order to do this, they must get from the Gulf round to Cape Bon. ' Diodor. xx. 17. The Boman consul Regulus, when he invaded Africa during the first Punic war, is said to have acquired, either by capture ot voluntary adhesion, two hundred dependent cities of Carthage (Appian, Punica, c. 3)* Respecting the prodigious number of towns in Northern Africa, see the very learned and instructive work of Movers, Die Phonikicr VOT,. XTT. 36
