Dionisio I, i Celti e il sacco di Roma. Alcune riflessioni sulla cronologia e sulla strategia delle operazioni militari siracusane tra l’Elleporo e Pyrgi

Abstract

The exact chronology of Dionysius I’s campaigns in the ’80s of the IVth century B.C. is still in question. The sources relate Dionysius’ capture of Rhegion (Diodorus, Polybius, Dionysius of Halicarnassus) and the treaty with the Gauls (Justin) to the sack of Rome by the Senones: to make all these accounts converge, we should date the fall of the Urbs in late July 387 B.C. The coincidence of the Gallic invasion and the siege of Rhegion suggests us that there may have been a remote planning of the Syracusan approach with the Celts; according to the deeds of Dionysius I’s in the Adriatic and Tyrrhenian seas and the chronology of Philistus’ mythological narrative, Syracuse’s interest with the Gauls may have been developed in the ’90s. Such a scenario would allow us to suppose that the Syracusan court played a role in the Celtic migratory phaenomenon before the sack of Rome with an anti-Etrurian and anti-Roman aim. By the end of the ’80s, the absence of Philistus from the court