Himera

I can't say I've paid attention to the contest in pre-Mamertine Sicily. Apparently a large grave or three have been found at border town Himera. Eurogenes has found the Reich lab's genetics.

The paper, focused on genetics as it is, goes light on Himera's history. I had to go Wikipedia to get the gist. Best I can tell, Sicily got COLONISED but not by the same colonists in every place. By about 500 BC the Greeks there had split into an "Ionian" north and a "Dorian" east and south - I'll explain my scarequotes, soon. Doric Syracuse held particular ties with Doric Corinth. Himera was middle northern coast so dangerously close to Phoenician outposts to the west. Hard to say exactly what dialect any Sicilian Greek city preferred or if they all shared a "pamphylian" patois, maybe with some Ionian or Dorian affectations here and there.

Or with Etruscan. The city Acrágas is a case in point. The paper calls it "Agrigento", its Italian name. The Romans knew Greek well, especially such "Romans" who might have been actual Greeks who'd taken Roman citizenship. I can easily see *Acrcns being its Etruscan name; which Romans then took as an easy basic neuter thence voicing the consonants.

We're talking about Acrágas because as of 480 BC, Acrágas' tyrant Theron was running Himera too. Some Himerans called in help from oligarchic Carthage - yes, that Carthage - to "free" it that is, to restore their own earlier oligarchs. Theron in response called upon Syracuse. The two tyrants won; they won so hard, in fact, that Carthage figured that they'd be better off securing Africa than meddling in Sicily for a bit.

The paper notes an event which isn't marked in the graves, best I can tell: Theron's expulsion of the "Ionians". This is dated 476 BC. I don't find this date in the wiki but there is a Doric constitution sometimes dated around then, after a local oppression. It might be that those killed in the oppression weren't buried with the (Theron-)honoured heroes of Himera; it might also be that most of them were expelled to die elsewhere.

The paper admits that although it can tell what an Archaic Greek looks like - a descendant of the Late Bronze Age Helladic peninsula - it can't tell an Ionian from a Dorian. To show my cards: I suspect the terms are holdover political categories from the prior century, whether you were leaning toward oligarchy or toward tyranny, if you preferred trade with the wider world (read: Carthage) or with Corinth and the Pelopponese.

Eurogenes' interest is in the 480 BC event because that's the international conflict, pulling in mercenaries. Carthage was big on mercenaries, as we all know. Given the [proto]Slav here, this man is assumed transBalkan so a Theron hire. Skipping over "476 BC" the next mass burial is 409 BC when Carthage went back for seconds. This time Himera was on its own - excepting maybe Syracuse, who didn't help. This despite the well-noted aid which Himera had given to Syracuse during the great Athenaean invasion. The five soldiers which the lab sequenced were locals. Presumed non-mercs.

Anyway Himera was burned down. Those who survived reconstituted their polity at Thermae-Himerenses, that is the Himeran Hot Springs. As subjects of Carthage.