Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/1002

 982 SIOILIA the island in the autumn of li. c. 278. Phintias was at this time dead, and Hicetas had not long before been expelled from Syracuse. Pjrrhus there- fore had no Greek adversaries to contend with, and fUs able to turn all his eft'orts against the Car- thaginians. His successes were at first rapid and decisive : he wrested one town after another from the dominion of Carthage, took Panormus, which had long been the metropolis of their Sicilian possessions, and had never before fallen into the hands of a Greek invader, and carried by assault the strong fortresses of Ercte and Eryx: but he was ibiled in an attack on Lilybaeum ; jealousies and dissensions now arose between him and his Sicilian allies, and after little more than two years he was fain to return to Italy (b. c. 276), abandoning all liis projects upon Sicily (Diod. £xc. Eoescli. xxii. 10, pp. 497—499). The departure of Pyrrhus left the Sicilian Greeks without a leader, but Hieron, who was chosen general by the Syracusans, proved himself worthy of the occasion. ]Ieanwhile a new and formidable enemy liad arisen in the Mamertines, a band of Campaniau mercenaries, who had possessed themselves by treachery of the important city of Messana, and from thence carried their arms over a considerable part of Sicily, and conquered or plundered many of its principal towns. Hieron waged war with them for a considerable period, and at length obtained so decisive a victory over them, in the immediate jieighbourhood of Messana, that the city itself must have fallen, had it not been saved by the intervention of the Carthaginian general Hannibal. Hieron was now raised to the supreme power at Syracuse, and even assumed the title of king, b. c. 270. A few years after this we find him joining his arms with the Carthagiuians, to efiect the expulsion of the JMamertiiies, an object which they would doubtless liave accomplished had not that people appealed to the protection of Rome. The Romans, who had recently completed the conquest of Italy, gladly seized the pretext for interfering in the affairs of Sicily, and espoused the cause of the ]Iamertiues. Thus began the First Punic War, b. c. 264. It is impossible here to relate in detail the events of that long-protracted struggle, during which Sicily became for twenty-three years the field of battle be- tween the Romans and Carthaginians. Hieron, who had found himself at the beginning engaged in ac- tive hostilities with Rome, after sustaining several defeats, and losing many of his subject towns, wisely withdrew from the contest, and concluded in b. c. 263 a separate peace with Rome, by which he re- tained possession in full sovereignty of Syracuse and its territory, including the dependent towns of Acrae, Helorus, Netum, Jlegara, and Leontini, together with Tauromenium (Diod. xxiii. F.xc. H. p. .502). From this time to the day of his death Hieron re- mained the faithful ally of the Romans, and retained the sovereign power at Syracuse undisturbed. In the rest of Sicily all trace of independent action on the part of the several Greek cities disappears: Agrigentum was indeed the only one of these cities in the island which appears to have retained any considerable importance: it was not taken by the Roman consuls till after a long and obstinate siege, B. c. 262, and was severely punished for its pro- tracted resistance, the inhabitants being sold as slaves. Agrigentum indeed at a later period fell again into the hands of the Carthaginians, b. c. 255, but on the other hand the Romans made thcm.selve3 mas- SICILIA. ters of Panormus, for a long time the capital of the Carthaginian dominion in the island, which was thenceforth occupied by a strong Roman garrison, and never again fell into the hands of its former masters. For several years before the conclusion of the war, the possessions of the Carthaginians in Sicily were confined to the mountain of Eryx, oc- cupied by Hamilcar Barca, and to the two strongly fortified seaports of Lilybaeum and Drepanum, the former of which defied all the attacks of the Ro- mans, as it had previously done those of Pyrrhus. The siege, or rather blockade, of Lilybaeum was continued for nearly ten years, until the destruction of the Carthaginian fleet off the islands of the Aegates, b. c. 241, compelled that people to pur- chase peace by the surrender of all their remaining possessions in Sicily. The whole i.^and was now reduced into the con- dition of a Roman province, with the exception of the territory still governed by Hieron as an allied, but independent sovereign. The province thus con- stituted was the first (hat had ever borne that name (Cic. Vtrr. ii. 1): it was placed under the govern- ment of a praetor, who was sent annually from Rome (Appian, Sic. 2). On the first outbreak of the Second Punic War (b. c. 218), the consul Sem- pronius was at first sent to Sicily as his province, to guard against any threatened invasion from Africa; but he was soon recalled to oppose Hannibal in Italy, and for some years Sicily bore but an un- important part in the war. A great change, how- ever, occurred in the fourth year of the war (b. c. 215), in consequence of the defection of Hieronymus, the grandson and successor of Hieron at Syracuse, who abandoned the alliance of Rome to which Hieron had continued constant throughout his long reign, and espoused the Carthaginian cause. Hieronymus indeed was soon after assassinated, but the Carthaginian party at Syracuse, headed by Hippocrates and Epicydes, still maintained the ascendency, and Marcellus, who had been sent in haste to Sicily to put down the threatened revolt, was compelled to form the siege of Syracuse, b. c. 214. But so vigorous was the resistance offered to him that he soon found himself obliged to convert the siege into a blockade, nor was it till the autumn of B. c. 212 that the city finally fell into his hands. Jleanwhile the war had extended itself to all parts of Sicily : many cities of the Roman province had followed the example of Syracuse, and joined the alliance of Carthage, while that power spared no exertions for their support. Even after the fall of Syracuse, the war was still continued : the Cartha- ginian general Mutines, who had made himself master of Agrigentum, carried on a desultory war- fare from thence, and extended his ravages over the whole island. It was not till Mutines had been in- duced to desert the Carthaginian cause, and betray Agrigentum into the hands of the Romans, that the consul Laevinus was able to reduce the revolted cities to submission, and thus accomplished the final conquest of Sicily, b. c. 210 (Liv. xxvi. 40; xxvii. 5). From this time the whole of Sicily became united as a Roman province, and its administration was in most respects similar to that of the other provinces. But its lot was anything but a fortunate one. Its great natural fertility, and especially its productive- ness in corn, caused it, indeed, to be a possession of the utmost importance to Rome ; but these very cir- cumstances seem to have made it a favourite field for