When news of Dionia's conquest of Bruti reached Syracuse, Dionysius was inspecting the construction of the fortified fortress of Syracuse, accompanied by Macias.

Seeing that the project was nearing completion, he was in a happy mood when he suddenly heard the news, his face immediately became gloomy, and he blurted out: "Damn Carthaginians, hindering my plans!" ……”

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In the early spring of 397 BC, Carthaginian Sufite Shimirko led an army of 100,000 men from Carthage, and after a skirmish with the Syracuse navy at sea, successfully landed in Sicily, and soon betrayed traitors, easily captured the city of Erukes in the west of Sicily, and then stormed Motia and succeeded.

Syracuse's army was forced to withdraw from the siege of Segsta, and instead of pursuing it, Hilmiko destroyed the city of Mothia and built a new city near the seaside near it, which he named Lilibi.

While the Carthaginian army stopped advancing, the cautious Dionysius stood still in the city of Syracuse.

Shortly after laying the foundation stone for the new city of Liliba, Hilmiko led his army on the offensive to the east, just as February arrived. This time he did not follow the line of attack of Syracuse last year, but went around the northeastern corner of Sicily by boat and easily took the unsuspecting Messina.

The fall of Messina was a great irritation for Ligim across the Channel. The great Greek city-state, which was rich on its advantageous location and thriving port transshipment trade, had been quietly dealing with Carthage for years in case Syracuse coveted the Strait of Messina. Suddenly, a friendly alien city-state bared its fangs and captured Messina, the sister city-state of Ligem. Why Sister City-States? Because Messina was first established by the joint colonization of the Cumays and the Calchis, it was originally called Zancre, and later changed its name to Messina due to the arrival of Messenian immigrants. The Messinas realized early on that the other side of the Strait must be in their own hands in order to be safe, so they encouraged their mother state of Kumai and the Messenians to establish the friendly city of Ligem.

Feeling panicked, Lijim quickly decided to send an emissary to the headquarters of the South Italian Alliance in Silitine to ask to join the League. At this point, with the exception of Lockley and its affiliated city-states, the other Greek city-states of Greater Greece had an alliance with Dionia.

After Hilmico's complete destruction of the city of Messina, in order to curry favor with the Sichael, the natives of eastern Sicily, he attacked Syracuse with Carthage, so he prepared to build a new city on the southern coast of Messina, Tauromenan, and gave it to the Siquel.

By March, Dionysius felt that he could no longer allow the Carthaginians to continue attacking his dependent city-states, and that if nothing could be done, the allies would likely turn to Carthage. So he mobilized a large army by land and sea and advanced north to the Catanian plain.

In the waters off Qartanay, a naval battle broke out between Syracuse and Carthage. Originally, the Greek warships were more numerous than the Carthaginians, and they also had an advantage in equipment. However, Dionysius's cronyism, and his brother Reptines's command mistakes as naval commander-in-chief, led to the defeat of the Syracuse navy and heavy losses.

The Greek troops on land were watching the naval battle from the shore, and as a result, seeing the tragic state of the navy, they began to waver.

Fortunately, the land army led by Hilmico did not reach the battlefield in time, because in those days the Etna volcano southwest of Tauromegnan suddenly erupted, and the hot volcanic magma gushed down, destroying the road to the south, and the black ash obscured the sky, so that the Carthaginian army had to choose a detour.

The Syracuse army sang the ode to Hephaestus, the god of fire, in awe, and hurriedly retreated to the city of Syracuse, where Catane and Leotinius fell into the hands of Carthage one after another.

After the aftermath of the naval victory, Himirko led his army to Syracuse, and the Carthaginian navy sailed into the great port of Syracuse, where they set up camp on the banks of the Alaps River in an attempt to besiege Syracuse by land and sea.

At this time, Dionysius was anxious to send envoys by fast ship to Campania in Italy, Corinth, the mother state of Greece, Sparta and other city-states, seeking emergency assistance from them. Although Greater Greece was the closest place to Syracuse, Dionysius consciously or unconsciously ignored this area and did not ask for help from the Ionian League, the overlord of Italy in the south.

Nor could Dionya send troops without being invited, as that would have led the Sicilians to suspect ulterior motives. Moreover, Dionysia, after frequent wars and rapid expansion, also needed time to rest, consolidate and integrate, so at the critical moment when the Greek city-states of Sicily were facing the fall of all of them, the Dionians, as well as the Greeks of southern Italy, had mixed feelings from the sidelines.

Greek reinforcements arrived from all over the country, especially Sparta, who sent the young general Phoebeidas, with 30 ships and 500 hundred Spartan warriors.

At this time, the people of Syracuse, instigated by those who wanted to resonate, launched a riot to oust Dionysius. Phoebidas led a coalition of Greek troops from all over the world to stop their rebellion, but they complained to Phoebidas that it was because of Dionysius's poor command that Syracuse was in trouble and the people lost their loved ones. At the same time, he recounted the tyranny of Dionysius at home, and begged his allies Sparta to help them free themselves from the yoke of this tyrant.

Phoebidas remembered the previous advice of Agosilaus, and told them with a straight face: The Spartans came to Syracuse to help Dionysius fight Carthage, not to help the Syracuse overthrow Dionysius! He hoped that the rebellious populace would calm their anger and work together to drive out the Carthaginians who had already arrived in the city.

At the same time, he also gave Dionysius a promise that from now on there would be no reprisals against the people who participated in the riots, and that his rule would be more tolerant in the future.

With the full support of the Spartans, Dionysius temporarily survived a difficult time.

After settling down outside the city, the Carthaginians began to destroy everything outside Syracuse. Not only did they destroy farmland, villages and towns, but they also blasphemed the gods. Not only did he destroy the temple of Zeus on the heights of Popekle, but he also robbed the temples of the goddesses Demeter and Persephone.

This blasphemous behavior angered the people of Syracuse, and the two sides repeatedly engaged in skirmishes on land and naval ground outside the city and inside the Grand Harbour, winning and losing evenly.

The war lasted until the summer, and as the temperature rose, the situation began to favor the Syracuse, as mosquitoes increased in the marshes near the Aspra River, and the bitten Carthaginian soldiers were tormented by the plague, and the number of deaths grew.

At this time, Dionysius, who was under the pressure of internal and external troubles, also inspired his wisdom and devised an ingenious attack plan: after marching in the dark and mobilizing the enemy with the tactics of attacking the enemy, the navy and army simultaneously stormed the weak flank of the enemy's fortress.

The Carthaginians, on the other hand, were demoralized by the plague and were unable to fight back against the Syracusens.

At the cost of the lives of thousands of mercenaries, Dionysius successively captured the two fortresses of Polykna built by the Carthaginians on the banks of the Alapus River and Dascoon on the coast, and at the same time defeated the Carthaginian navy, the Carthaginians suffered heavy casualties, and the Chinese camp of Shimirko was surrounded in the middle, and the camp was in chaos, and it was in danger of being completely destroyed.

At this moment, Dionysius ordered the attack to be stopped.

That night, the Carthaginian camp had frequent exchanges with the secret envoys of Dionysius.

For the next three days, the two sides remained calm and there was no fighting.

By the evening of the fourth day, Shimirko had fled the Great Harbor with only the remaining 30 three-sculled ships, abandoning most of the Carthaginian soldiers, allies, and mercenaries, who were eventually annihilated by Syracuse and his allies.

After the great victory, Dionysius did not pursue the Carthaginians relentlessly, completely recovering Sicily and driving the Carthaginians out of the island. Because the previous palace forcing incident of the people of Syracuse had made him deeply aware that only the power of the Carthaginians continued to exist in Sicily, and his tyrant status could be guaranteed, so he not only let go of the remnants of Shimilko's army, nor did he continue to sweep Carthage's colonial towns in Sicily, but began to focus on the power of the Sicilian indigenous Sikerians in the eastern inland area, because in this war, the Sikerians became Carthage's accomplices and created great trouble for Syracuse. He felt that it was not enough to unify the Greek city-states on the island, and that it was necessary to expand the sphere of influence of Syracuse in the Sikerian populated area, and completely turn eastern Sicily into a monolith.

Syracuse's army began to conquer Sikerian towns such as Mogantina, Kefaroition, Hena, etc., and forced more Sichael forces to sign vassal agreements with him.

He also laid siege to Tauromerión, the only seaside city that Himirko had built for the Sikers, but was unable to capture it for a while.

By the following year (396 BC), Syracuse's power had expanded northward to the northeastern corner of Sicily.

On the burned ruins of Carthage, Dionysius rebuilt Messina, and the city of New Messina was populated by colonists from Syracuse's allies Lockri and Medma, who were mainly his allies in Greater Greece, as well as a few hundred Messenians who had just been driven out of their original place by the Spartans, and who were no longer related to the Ligems.

Soon, however, the Spartans sent emissaries expressing their displeasure with Dionysius for placing Sparta's enemies in such an important city.