Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/1003

 SICILIA. sperulators, wlio bought up large tracts nf land, which they cultivated solely by means of slaves, so that the free population of the island became mate- rially diminished. The more mountainous portions of the island were given up to shepherds and herds- men, all likewise slaves, and accustomed to habits of rapine and plunder, in which they were encouraged by their masters. At the same time the number of wealthy proprietors, and the extensive export trade of some of the towns, maintained a delusive appear- ance of prosperity. It was not till the outbreak of the Servile War in B. c. 135 that the full extent of these evils became apparent, but the frightful slate of things then revealed sufficiently shows that the causes which had produced it must have been long at work. That great outbreak, which commenced with a local insurrection of the slaves of a great proprietor at Enna, named Damophilus, and was headud by a Syrian slave of the name of Eunus, quickly spread throughout the whole island, so that the slaves are said to have mustered 200,000 armed men. With this formidable force they defeated in succession the armies of several Roman praetors, so that in b. c. 134, it was thought necessary to send against them the consul Fulvius Flaccus, and it was not till the year b. c. 132 that their strongholds of Tauromenium and Enna were taken by the consul P. Rupilius. (Diod. xxxiv. Exc. Phot., Exc. Vales.) The insurrection was now finally quelled, but the state of Sicily had undergone a severe shock, and the settlement of its affairs was confided to P. Eu- pilius, together with ten commissioners, who laid down a code of laws and rules for its internal govern- ment which continued to be observed in the days of Cicero (Cic. VeiT. ii. 16). But the outbreak of the second Servile War, under Salvias and Athenion, less than thirty years after the termination of the former one (b. c. 103), and the fact that the slaves were again able to maintain the contest against three successive consuls till they were finally vanquished by 31. Aquilius, in b. c. 100, .sufficiently proves that the evils in the state of so- ciety had been but imperfectly remedied by Eupi- lius; nor can we believe that the condition of the island was in reality altogether so flourishing as it is represented by Cicero during the interval which elapsed between this Sen'ile War and the praetorship of Verres, b. c. 73. But the great natural re- sources of Sicily and its important position as the granary of Rome undoubtedly enabled it to recover with rapidity from all its disasters. The elder Cato bad called it the store-room (cella penaria) of the Roman state, and Cicero observes that in the great Social War (b. c. 90 — 88) it supplied the Roman armies not only with food, but with clothing and arms also (Cic. Verr. ii. 2). But the praetorship of Verres (b. c. 73 — 70) inflicted a calamity upon Sicily scarcely inferior to the Servile wars that had so recently devastated it. The rhetorical expressions of Cicero must not indeed be always understood literally; but with every allowance for exaggeration, there can no doubt that the evils resulting from such a government as that of Verres wei'e enormous ; and Sicily was just in such a state as to suffer from them most severely. The orations of Cicero against Verres convey to us much curious and valuable information as to the condition of Sicily under the Roman republic as well as to the administration and .system of government of the Roman provinces generally. Sicily at that time formed but one province, under the government SICILIA. 98.3 of a praetor or pro-praetor, but it had always two quaestors, one of whom resided at Syracuse, the other at Lilybaeum. This anomaly (for such it ap- pears to have been) probably arose from the different parts of the island having been reduced into the form of a province at different periods. The inland contained in all above sixty towns which enjoyed municipal rights: of these, three only, Messana, Tauromenium, and Netum, were allied cities (civi- tates foederatae), and thus enjoyed a position of no- minal independence; five were exempt from all fiscal biu-dens and from the ordinary jurisdiction of the Roman magistrates (civitates immunes et liberae): the rest were in the ordinary position of provincial towns, but retained their own magistrates and munici- pal rights, as well as the possession of their respective territories, subject to the payment of a tenth of their produce to the Roman state. These tenths, which were paid in kind, were habitually formed out, ac- cording to principles and regulations laid down in the first instance by Hieron, king of Syracuse, and which therefore continued to be known as the Lex Hieronica. For judicial purposes, the island appears to have been divided into districts or conventus, but the number of them is not stated ; those of Syracuse, Agrigentum, Lilybaeum, and Panormusare the only ones mentioned. Sicily took little part in the Civil War between Caesar and Pompey. It was at first held by M. Cato on behalf of the latter, but abandoned by him when Pompey himself had quitted Italy, and was then occupied by Curio, as pro-praetor, with four legions (Caes. B. C. i. 30, 31). Caesar himself visited it previous to his African war, and it was from Lilybaeum that he crossed over with his army into Africa (Hirt. B. Afr. 1.) After the death of Caesar, it fell into the hands of Sextus Pompeius, whose powerful fleet enabled him to defy all the efforts of Octavian to recover it, and was at length secured to him by the peace of IMisenum, B.C. 39, together with Sardinia and Corsica, But Octavian soon renewed his attempts to dispossess him, and though he sustained repeated defeats at sea, and lost a great part of his fleet by a storm, the energy and ability of Agrippa enabled him to triumph over all obstacles; and the final defeat of his fleet at Naulo- chus compelled Pompeius to abandon Sicily, and take refuge in the east (Appian, B. C. v. 77 — 122; Dion Cass. xlix. 1 — 17). There seems no doubt that the island suffered severely from this contest, and from the rapacity or exactions of Sextus Pom- peius: Strabo distinctly ascribes its dec:xyed condi- tion in his time principally to this cause (Strab. vi. pp. 270, 272). Augustus made some attempts to relieve it by sending colonies to a few cities, among which were Tauromenium, Catana, Syracuse, Ther- mae, and Tyndaris (Strab. vi. p. 272 ; Plin. iii. 8. s. 14); but tile effect thus produced was compara- tively small, and Strabo describes the whole island as in his time, with few exceptions, in a state of decay,many of its ancient cities having altogether dis- appeared, while others were in a declining condition, and the interior was for the most part given up to pasturage, and inhabited only by herdsmen (Strab. I. c.) Augustus appears to have greatly remodelled the internal administration of Sicily: so that the con- dition of most of the towns had undergone a change between the time of Cicero and that of Pliny. Caesar had indeed projioscd t'l give Latin rights to all the Sicilians, and il. Aulouius even brought 3 K 4