| Battle of Selinus | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of The Sicilian Wars | |||||||||
 Punic campaign against Selinus 409 BC. Political boundaries and path of troop movement are inexact because of lack of primary source data. Source map created by Marco Prins-Jona Lendering | |||||||||
| |||||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||||
|
Syracuse Selinus | Carthage | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
| Unknown | Hannibal Mago | ||||||||
| Strength | |||||||||
| 25,000 men | 40,000 men | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
|
16,000 killed 6,000 captured | Unknown | ||||||||
The Battle of Selinus, which took place early in 409 BC, is the opening battle of the so-called Second Sicilian War. The ten-day-long siege and battle was fought in Sicily between the Carthaginian forces under Hannibal Mago (a king of Carthage of the Magonid family, not the famous Hannibal of the Barcid family) and the Dorian Greeks of Selinus. The city of Selinus had defeated the Elymian city of Segesta in 415, an event that led to the Athenian invasion of Sicily in 415 and ended in the defeat of Athenian forces in 413. When Selinus again worsted Segesta in 411, Carthage, responding to the appeal of Segesta, had besieged and sacked Selinus after the Carthaginian offer of negotiations had been refused by the Greeks. This was the first step towards Hannibal's campaign to avenge the Carthaginian defeat at the first battle of Himera in 480. The city of Selinus was later rebuilt, but never regained her former status.