The Agrigentum inscription is a Punic inscription (KAI 302, CIS i 5510) found in 1934 during the excavations led by at "Salambo", the infant and children's cemetery (tophet) of Carthage, and published in 1942. It probably refers to military events in Sicily in 406 BCE.
The inscription has been broken into three parts; it is not clear how much text is missing before "line 1". The surviving text reads:
The monument can be dated to 406 BCE, on the basis of an action by two Carthaginian generals, âÂÂAdnoibaâÂÂal (Idnibal) and Ḥimilco, who are mentioned in lines 9-10. The Greek historian Diodorus Siculus tells that both generals were active in a Carthaginian military campaign in Sicily in 406 BCE, in particular the siege and taking of the city of Akragas (Bibliotheca historica, 13.43.5 and 13.80.1-2). Now Charles R. Krahmalkov recognized this city's name in the word âÂÂGRGNT (Agragant) in line 10. The taking of this city and the "pacification" of its inhabitants are mentioned in line 11 of the inscription. From Diodorus Siculus we may assume that the refugees from Akragas tried to flee to the city of Gela, 60 kilometers east of Agrigento.
A bonus of the inscription is that it gives the names of the eponymous heads of state of Carthage, the so-called suffetes (à ¡ofetim), for this year: Eà ¡mûn-âÂÂamos and Ḥanno (lines 8âÂÂ9).
The importance of this inscription was described by Schmitz:
The reference here to "Greek epigraphy" regards a Greek inscription from Athens and also from 406 BCE, mentioning Sicily and the names of the two Carthaginian generals. It was probably a probouleuma (draft resolution for the Athenian government), to send envoys to the Carthaginian generals asking them for help in the final phase of the Peloponnesian War.