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Updated: June 13, 2025
An opportunity soon occurred, which seemed to promise to each the accomplishment of their respective objects: the Mamertines, being hard pursued by Hiero king of Syracuse, and shut up in Messina, the only city which remained to them, were divided in opinion; some were for accepting the protection offered them by Hannibal, who at that time commanded the Carthaginian army in Sicily; others were for calling in the aid of the Romans.
What measures did the Mamertines adopt? Did the Romans afford them the assistance they requested? Where was Carthage situated, and when was it built? Was it a powerful state? Had the Romans or the Carthaginians the means most likely to insure success? Were Rome and Carthage on an equal footing in other respects? Did the Romans attempt to overcome this obstacle? What assisted their endeavours?
But in their case too the mints were doubtless, as a rule, restricted to the coinage of copper, or at most silver, small money; even the most favourably treated communities of Roman Sicily, such as the Mamertines, the Centuripans, the Halaesines, the Segestans, and also in the main the Pacormitaus coined only copper.
Pompey received the distressed cities into favor, and treated all with great humanity, except the Mamertines in Messena; for when they protested against his court and jurisdiction, alleging their privilege and exemption founded upon an ancient charter or grant of the Romans, he replied sharply, "What! will you never cease prating of laws to us that have swords by our sides?"
Diocleides has not had his dinner, and the man is all vinegar, don't venture near him when he is kept waiting for dinner. Farewell, beloved Adonis, may you find us glad at your next coming! In 265 B.C. Sicily was devastated by the Carthaginians, and by the companies of disciplined free-lances who called themselves Mamertines, or Mars's men.
He captured and destroyed many of the strongholds of the Mamertines, drove them entirely out of the open country, and shut them up in Messana. Thus the island was almost wholly restored to the possession of the Sicilians, while yet the foreign intruders, though checked and restrained, were not, after all, really expelled. The Carthaginians sent messengers to him proposing terms of peace.
With the Carthaginians, who in concert with the Greeks had driven king Pyrrhus from the island, there was at that time peace. The immediate foes of the Syracusans were the Mamertines.
The citizens were slain or expelled, their wives and children and houses were distributed among the soldiers, and the new masters of the city, the Mamertines or "men of Mars," as they called themselves, soon became the third power in the island, the north-eastern portion of which they reduced to subjection in the times of confusion that succeeded the death of Agathocles.
The Senate had great scruples about accepting the offer, and supporting a set of mere robbers; but the two consuls and all the people could not withstand the temptation, and it was resolved to assist the Mamertines. Thus began what was called the First Punic War. The difficulty was, however, want of ships.
There were thus three objects to be accomplished by Pyrrhus in Sicily before his dominion over the island could be complete namely, the Sicilians themselves, in the southern and central parts of the island, were to be conciliated and combined, and induced to give up their intestine quarrels, and to acknowledge the young Alexander as the king of the island; and then the Mamertines on the northeast part, and the Carthaginians in the northwest, were to be conquered and expelled.
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