Geography of the Odyssey from historical inquiries that Hesiod had made. The 2nd century BC poet-historian Apollodorus of Athens sympathises with Eratosthenes, believing that Homer imagined the wanderings as having taken place in a kind of fairyland in the Atlantic; he actively criticises the standard identifications in and around Sicily, and refuses to offer any identifications of his own. The 2nd century BC historian Polybius discusses the wanderings in book 34 of his history. He refutes Apollodorus' idea that the wanderings were in the Atlantic on the basis of "Odyssey" 9.82, where Odysseus says that he sailed for nine days from Cape Malea in
Siege of Syracuse (397 BC) Siege of Syracuse (397 BC) The Siege of Syracuse in 397 BC was the first of four unsuccessful sieges Carthaginian forces would undertake against Syracuse from 397 to 278 BC. In retaliation to the Siege of Motya by Dionysius of Syracuse, Himilco of the Magonid family of Carthage led a substantial force to Sicily. After retaking Motya and founding Lilybaeum, Himilco sacked Messana, then laid siege of Syracuse in the autumn of 397 BC after the Greek navy was crushed at Catana. The Carthaginians followed a strategy which the Athenians had used in 415 BC, and were successful in isolating