Page:Greece from the Coming of the Hellenes to AD. 14.djvu/292

262 from Sicily and thus anticipating the result of the First Punic War. But one Carthaginian stronghold held out—Lilybaeum; and this he failed after a lengthy siege to take. This failure ruined his position in Sicily. In Syracuse plots were made against him; in the other cities murmurs arose that he aimed at making himself tyrant, that he was granting lands to his friends, and putting men in places of trust who tampered with justice. In the latter part of B.C. 276, therefore, he left Sicily and went back to meet disaster in Italy.

The old state of disorder immediately revived. The Carthaginians recovered their territory west of the Halycus, reoccupied Agrigentum, and again began intriguing to assert their authority throughout the island. Syracuse, with its subordinate towns, naturally fell once more under the power of a military despot, this time happily an able and moderate man, Hiero II. (B.C. 270–216). By his prudence the kingdom of Syracuse remained independent, when the rest of Sicily became Roman in B.C. 242. The effect of the first Punic war was that the Roman government took over the supremacy exercised by Carthage, and the cities paid their tenths of corn and other produce to the Roman exchequer. Each city was to enjoy its own laws and courts, but an appeal would lie from them to that of the praetor sent annually from Rome. Some few towns were excused the tenths, as having served the Roman cause, but even they were bound to supply ships and sailors or soldiers to serve in the Roman army and navy. Rome protected them and maintained peace, but