Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 22.djvu/35

 HISTORY.] SICILY 21 between Rome and Carthago, the war which is best marked by its other name of the War for Sicily. It mattered much, now that Sicily was to have a barbarian master, whether that master should be the kindred barbarian of Europe or the barbarian of Asia transplanted to the shore of Africa. That question was decided for Europe, that is for Rome, now beginning her long career as European champion. That strife too gave a large part of Sicily a last day of prosperity under a native ruler who was a king and not a tyrant. Hieron Sicily in truth never had a more hopeful champion than ir - the second Hieron of Syracuse. The established rule of Carthage in western Sicily was now something that could well be endured alongside of the robber commonwealth at Messana. The dominion of the freebooters was spreading. Besides the whole north-eastern corner of the island, it reached inland to Agyrion and Kentoripa. The Mamer- tines leagued with other Campanian freebooters who had forsaken the service of Rome to establish themselves at Khegion. But a new Syracusan power was growing up to meet them. Hieron, claiming descent from Gelon, pressed the Mamertines hard. He all but drove them to the surrender of Messana ; he even helped Rome to chastise her own rebels at Rhegion. The wrestling -ground was thus opened for the two barbarian commonwealths. Car- thaginian troops held the Messanian citadel against Hieron, while another party in Messana craved the help of the head of Italy. Rome, chastiser of the freebooters of Rhegion, saw Italian brethren in the freebooters of Messana. The War for Sicily began (264). The exploits of Hieron had already won him the kingly title (270) at Syracuse, and he was the representative of Hellenic life and independence throughout the island. Partly in this character, partly as direct sovereign, he was virtual ruler of a large part of eastern Sicily. But he could not aspire to the dominion of earlier Syracusan rulers. The advance of Rome after the retreat of Pyrrhos kept the new king from all hope of their Italian position. And presently the new kingdom exchanged independence for safety. When Rome entered Sicily as the ally of the Ma- mertines, Hieron became the ally of Carthage. But in the second year of the war (263) he found it needful to change sides. His alliance with Rome marks a great epoch in the history of the Greek nation. The kingdom of Hieron was the firstfruits out of Italy of the system by which alliance with Rome grew into subjection to Rome. He was the first of Rome's kingly vassals. His only burthen was to give help to the Roman side in war ; within his kingdom lie was free, and his dominions flourished as no part of Sicily had flourished since the days of Timoleon. First During the twenty-three years of the First Punic War Punic (264-241) the rest of the island suffered greatly. The r> War for Sicily was fought in and round Sicily, and the Sicilian cities were taken and retaken by the contending powers. Akragas, held by Carthage, stood a Roman siege (262) ; the Punic garrison escaped ; the inhabitants were sold into slavery. Seven years later the repeopled city was taken and burned and its walls destroyed by a Car- thaginian army. Selinous was utterly destroyed, when, towards the end of the war, Carthage gathered her whole strength again in a few points in the west. Greek Selinous and Elymian Eryx alike gave way to the new fortress of Drepanon, which, along with Lilybaion, held out till the end of the war. Segesta, subject to Carthage, still remem- bered its old traditions, and the sons of JEneas were wel- comed as deliverers by the Trojan city. Kamarina and inland Henna passed to and fro between the two powers. But the great exploit of Rome was the second winning of Panormos for Europe, and its brilliant defence against the Semitic enemy. The highest calling of the Greek had now, in the Western lands, passed to the Roman. By the 276-210 BJ treaty which ended the war Carthage ceded to Rome all her possessions in Sicily. As that part of the island which kept a national Greek government became the first king- dom dependent on Rome, so the share of Carthage became the first Roman province. One point alone did not come under either of those heads. Messana, Mamertina civitas, remained an Italian ally of Rome on Sicilian soil. We have no picture of Sicily in the first period of Roman rule. One hundred and seventy years later, several towns within the original province enjoyed various degrees of freedom, which they had doubtless kept from the begin- ning. Besides the old ally Messana, Panormos, Segesta, with Kentoripa, Halesa, and Halikye, once Sikel but now Hellenized, kept the position of free cities (liberss et im- munes, Cic., Verr., iii. 6). The rest paid tithe to the Roman people as landlord. The province was ruled by a praetor sent yearly from Rome. Within the Roman pro- vince the new state of thmgs called forth much discontent; but Hieron remained the faithful ally of Rome through a long life. On his death (215) and the accession of his grandson Hieronymos, his dynasty was swept away by the last revolution of Greek Syracuse. The result was revolt against Rome, the great siege by Marcellus, the taking of the city, the addition of Hieron's kingdom to the Roman province. Two towns only, which had taken the Roman side, Tauromenion and Netos, were admitted to the full privileges of Roman alliance (cf. Diod. Fr., Hoeschl., lib. xxiii. p. 18 Cic., Verr., iii. 6, v. 22). Tauromenion indeed was more highly favoured than the children of Mamers. Rome had a right to demand ships of Messana, but not of Tauromenion. Some towns were destroyed ; the people of Henna were massacred. Akragas, again held for Carthage, was for four years (214-210) the centre of an active campaign. The story of Akragas ended in plunder, slaughter, and slavery ; three years later, the story of Agrigentum began. The reign of Hieron was the last time of independent Greek culture in Sicily. His great works belong to the special history of Syracuse ; but his time marks the growth of a new form of local Sicilian genius. The spread of Hellenic culture among the Sikels had in return made a Greek home for many Sikel beliefs, traditions, and customs. Bucolic poetry is the native growth of Sicily ; in the hands of Theokritos it grew out of the germs supplied by Epi- charmos and Sophron into a distinct and finished form of the art. The poet, himself of Syracuse, went to and fro between the courts of Hieron and Ptolemy Philadelphos ; but his poetry is essentially Sicilian. So is that of his suc- cessors, both the Syracusan Moschos and Bion of Smyrna, who came to Sicily as to his natural school. The most renowned Sicilian name of this time, that of Archimedes, is hardly distinctively Sicilian. A great name in the history of science, a great name in the local history of Syracuse, he had not, like the earlier philosophers and the bucolic poets, any direct bearing on the general political or intellectual development of the island. With the incorporation of the kingdom of Hieron into the Sicily Roman province independent Sicilian history comes to an Roman, end for many ages. Of the state of Sicily under the Roman commonwealth our chief source of knowledge is the plead- ing of Cicero against the worst Roman oppressor of Sicily, Gaius Verres. Next in importance to this come those frag- ments of Diodoros which describe the two insurrections of the slaves. Between those insurrections came the legisla- tion of Rupilius which settled the Roman system of admini- stration in Sicily. Cicero's description comes later than all these ; but the general relations between Rome and Sicily seem to have been much the same from the first occupation till the beginning of the empire. In one part of the island