Phantasia (poet) Phantasia (poet) Phantasia is the name of an ancient Egyptian woman who was said to have been the author of the immediate sources of the two ancient Greek epics, "Iliad" and "Odyssey", attributed to Homer. According to a fiction retold by the Byzantine scholar Eustathius of Thessalonica and attributed by him to "a certain Naucrates", Phantasia, daughter of Nicarchus of Memphis, an inspired poet, wrote poems about the war in the plains of Troy and the wanderings of Odysseus, and deposited these books in the temple of Hephaestus at Memphis. Homer afterwards visited the shrine, persuaded the priests to make
Siege of Segesta (397 BC) 405 BC and the establishment of Carthaginian control over most of Sicily and the confirmation of Dionysius as tyrant of Syracuse in 405 BC as a condition of peace. The Elmians became dependent allies of Carthage, paying for any Punic garrisons in their territory, and giving up their independent foreign policy but retaining control of internal affairs. Between 405 BC and 397 BC, Dionysius took steps to increase the power of Syracuse, dealt with attempts to overthrow him and made Syracuse the best defended city in the whole Greek world. To counter Carthaginian expertise in siege warfare, Dionysius built a