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Alexander the Great, the greatest conqueror of the ancient world, conquered an Empire that spread from his native Macedonia to the river Indus. His conquests caused such fear in Carthage that the Carthaginians decided to send a spy to inform them about his projects.
Context: Alexander the Great’s campaigns
After inheriting from his father a kingdom that already dominated most of Greece, young King Alexander III of Macedon’s main ambition was defeating the mortal enemy of the Greeks: the immense Persian Empire. He crossed the Hellespont in 334, and first conquered Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey).
In 332, he besieged Tyre, the capital of the confederation of Phoenician city-States. During this siege, the women and children of the city were evacuated to Carthage. After some time, Alexander the Great understood that he needed a fleet to conquer the city. At this moment, 80 Persian ships from the cities he had already conquered joined him, followed by 120 ships from Cyprus who had heard of his exploits. With this fleet, he took control of the city. The Phoenician civilisation, which had once dominated a vast part of the Mediterranean basin, was now surviving only in its diaspora, centered on Carthage.
The following year, Alexander the Great conquered Egypt, where he founded the new capital of his Empire, to which he gave his name: Alexandria. The Greeks of Cyrenaica, happy to see a Greek king who aspired to unite all Greeks, submitted to him. He then marched East.
In October 331, he fought the army of the Persian Emperor Darius III at Gaugamela (probably Tel Gomel, close to Erbil, modern-day Iraqi Kurdistan). He won a total victory. The Persian Empire, the historical enemy of the Greeks, was defeated. In the following years, he extended his conquests further and further East. When he died in 323, he was at the head of the largest Empire in ancient history.
Carthaginian reaction
At the beginning of the campaigns of Alexander the Great, the Carthaginians mostly met him with indifference: his army was far away from their borders, and he was mostly interested in the Eastern regions. This changed after his conquest of Tyre, the mother city of Carthage, with which the former colony had maintained close links: the Carthaginians now feared that once he reached his goals in the East, Alexander the Great would turn West, towards their Empire. This fear grew even greater after the founding of Alexandria, on the Southern Mediterranean coast, as its port was threatening to become a powerful rival for Carthage.
This is when the Carthaginian authorities decided to send a spy into Alexander the Great’s army. The spy was called Hamilcar the Rhodian (not to be confused with Hannibal the Rhodian, a Carthaginian officer during the First Punic War). His mission was to keep them informed about Alexander the Great’s projects, especially if he was planning to attack Carthage.
This Carthaginian spy is mentioned only by three ancient authors: Frontinus, a 1st-Century Roman military officer, Justin, a 2nd-Century Latin historian, and Orosius, a 5th-Century Christian author who wrote a history of the world in a Christian perspective. All those authors wrote several centuries after the events, which led certain modern historians to doubt their testimony. It is however possible that their writing is based on older sources that are now lost. Most historians now accept that the story of the Carthaginian spy is historical.
Were the Carthaginian fears valid? Was Alexander the Great really intending to return and attack Carthage after conquering the East? Modern historians disagree on this question: some sources say that after his conquest of Tyre, he sent Carthaginians living in the city back to Carthage with the message that their turn would come, but even if this is true, it might be more war rhetoric that a real plan for future conquests. Anyway, the Carthaginian fears were real.
Whether or not Alexander the Great had the intention of conquering Carthage, he didn’t have time: he died in 323, in Babylone, at only 32 years of age.
