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At Tarentum he learned to his great surprise and satisfaction that the Athenian wall of circumvallation at Syracuse had not yet been completed on the northern side. He now sailed through the straits of Messana, which were left completely unguarded, and arrived safely at Himera on the north coast of Sicily.
Hiero allied himself with the Carthaginians, and the combined armies proceeded to lay siege to Messana; but they were attacked and defeated by Ap'pius Clau'dius, the Roman consul, and Hiero, panic-stricken, fled to Syracuse. Seeing his territory laid waste by the Romans, he prudently made a treaty with them, in 263.
As he had begun this chapter with the Mamertines of Messana, so he ends it with an address to them. "It is well that you should come, you alone out of all the provinces, and praise Verres here in Rome. But what can you say for him? Was it not your duty to have built a ship for the Republic? You have built none such, but have constructed a huge private transport-vessel for Verres.
Hiero, the new ruler of Syracuse, accordingly supported the Romans before Rhegium by sending supplies and a contingent, and in combination with the Roman expedition against the garrison of Rhegium he made an attack upon their fellow-countrymen and fellow-criminals, the Mamertines of Messana. The siege of the latter town was long protracted.
Manius Valerius caused the victory which he obtained over the Carthaginians and Hiero in 491 off Messana to be depicted on the side wall of the senate- house the first historical frescoes in Rome, which were followed by many of similar character, and which were in the domain of the arts of design what the national epos and the national drama became not much later in the domain of poetry.
In the remaining and by far the larger portion of Sicily, at Panormus, Lilybaeum, Agrigentum, Messana, the Romans effected a permanent settlement. Sardinia Roman The Libyan Insurrection Corsica They only regretted that the possession of that beautiful island was not enough to convert the western waters into a Roman inland sea, so long as Sardinia still remained Carthaginian.
In league with the Romans who just about this time were sending their legions against the Campanians in Rhegium, the allies, kinsmen, and confederates in crime of the Mamertines, Hiero turned his arms against Messana.
It is evident that a surrender on stipulated conditions was impossible, and that the axe of the executioner, which had fallen upon the Campanians of Rhegium at Rome, as certainly awaited those of Messana at Syracuse.
Caesar took up such of the vanquished as were cast on shore and went into the sea itself to set on fire all the vessels that ran aground in shoal water; thus there was no safety for such as continued to sail, for they would be disabled by Agrippa, nor for such as tried to land anywhere, for they were destroyed by Caesar, except for a few that made good their escape to Messana.
Some of the more remarkable of these acts of spoliation it may be worth while to relate. A certain Heius, who was at once the wealthiest and most popular citizen of Messana, had a private chapel of great antiquity in his house, and in it four statues of the very greatest value.
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