of the settlement dates from around 800 BC, about a century after the foundation of Carthage in Tunisia. Like Carthage, it was originally a Phoenician colony, who were fond of choosing similar sites, and probably was originally merely a commercial station or emporium, but gradually rose to be a flourishing and important town. The Phoenicians transformed the inhospitable island into one of the most affluent cities of its time, naturally defended by the lagoon. By 650 BC the settlement had grown into a busy port-city with maritime trade extending to the central and western Mediterranean. This prosperity caused rivalry with powerful Carthage nearby on the North African coast, despite their ancient common ancestry. This led to Carthage defeating and demolishing Motya in the mid-sixth century BC. Motya recovered and the population quickly rebuilt the city on a monumental scale and, after two centuries without them, built the first defensive walls, some of the earliest in the central Mediterranean. Motya is first mentioned by Hecataeus of Miletus, and Thucydides notes it among the chief colonies of the Phoenicians in Sicily at the time of the Athenian expedition in 415 BC. A few years later (409 BC) when the Carthaginian army under general Hannibal Mago landed at the promontory of Lilybaeum, he laid up his fleet for security in the gulf around Motya, while he advanced with his land forces along the coast to attack Selinus. After the fall of the latter city, we are told that Hermocrates, the Syracusan exile, who had established himself on its ruins, laid waste the territories of Motya and Panormus. During the second expedition of the Carthaginians under Hamilcar (407 BC), these two harbours became the permanent stations of the Carthaginian fleet. Carthaginian Period In common with the other Phoenician settlements in Sicily, it passed under the government or dependency of Carthage, since Diodorus calls it a Carthaginian colony, but this may not be strictly correct. As the Greek colonies in Sicily increased in numbers and importance, the Carthaginians gradually abandoned their settlements in the east and concentrated themselves in the three principal colonies of Soluntum, Panormus (modern Palermo), and Motya. Motya became one of the chief Carthaginian strongholds, as well as one of their most important commercial cities in Sicily due to its proximity to Carthage and its opportune situation for communication with North Africa, as well as the natural strength of its position. Siege