Hiero II of Syracuse

“ Having made a treaty by which the king bound himself to give up his prisoners to the Romans without ransom, and in addition to this to pay them a hundred talents, the Romans henceforth treated the Syracusans as allies and friends. King Hiero having placed himself under the protection of the Romans, continued to furnish them with the resources of which they stood in urgent need, and ruled over Syracuse henceforth in security, treating the Greeks in such a way as to win from their crowns and other honours. ”

“ Sicily in truth never had a more hopeful champion than Hiero II. 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 Agyrium and Centoripa. The Mamertines leagued with other Campanian freebooters who had forsaken the service of Rome to establish themselves at Rhegium. But a new Syracusan power was growing up to meet them. ”

“ The struggle between the tyrants and the Roman general in which Syracuse was the prize of victory had resulted in the utter destruction of a most famous and beautiful city, the granary and treasury of the Roman people. The commonwealth had frequently experienced its generosity, especially in the present Punic war, and the City had been embellished by its munificent gifts. If Hiero, that loyal supporter of the power of Rome, could rise from the dead, with what face would any one dare to show him either Rome or Syracuse? ”

“ He had been the counsellor of King Hiero during the whole of that monarch’s reign of fifty years’ duration, and, owing to his own abilities and the munificence of his royal master, Archimedes had, during that long period, been able to bring the defences of the city of Syracuse to a state of perfection little dreamt of by its enemies. Such was the old man whose abilities the Roman leaders had not taken into account before they so lightly entered upon the siege of the fairest city in the whole of Sicily. ”

“ Valerius Maximus and Otacilius Crassus consequently crossed over and in their progress [Pg 165] through the island together and separately they won over many towns by capitulation. When they had made the majority of places their own, they set out for Syracuse. Hiero in terror sent a herald to them with offers: he expressed a readiness to restore the cities of which they had been deprived, promised money, and liberated the prisoners. ”

“ Hiero, so long the faithful ally of Rome, died shortly after the battle of Cannæ (B.C. 216) , and was succeeded by his grandson Hieronymus, a vain youth, who abandoned the alliance of Rome for that of Carthage. But he was assassinated after a reign of fifteen months, and a republican form of government was established in Syracuse. A contest ensued between the Roman and Carthaginian parties in Syracuse, but the former ultimately prevailed, and Epicydes and Hippocrates, two brothers whom Hannibal had sent to Syracuse to espouse his interests, had to quit the city, and took refuge at Leontini. ”

“ From this time till his death, a period of nearly fifty years, Hiero remained the firm and steadfast ally of the Romans.
The Romans, now freed from the hostility of Syracuse, laid siege to Agrigentum, the second of the Greek cities in Sicily, which had espoused the cause of the Carthaginians at the commencement of the war. The siege lasted seven months, and numbers perished on both sides. But at length the Romans gained a decisive victory over the Carthaginian army which had been sent to raise the siege, and obtained possession of the town (B.C. 262) . ”

“ The towns still independent, comparing the discipline of the legions with the excesses of all kinds which had marked the progress of{159} the mercenaries of Agathocles, Pyrrhus, and the Carthaginian generals, received the consuls as liberators. Hiero, master of Syracuse, the principal town in Sicily, had no sooner experienced the power of the Roman armies than he foresaw the result of the struggle, and declared for the strongest. His alliance, maintained faithfully during fifty years, was of great utility to the Republic. ”

“ Such terror seized everybody that some of his guardians anticipated a death of torture by suicide or flight. Three of them, the only ones who had familiar access to the palace, Andranodorus and Zoippus, Hiero's sons-in-law, and a certain Thraso, did not rouse much interest in him when talking of other matters, but as two of them took the side of the Carthaginians and Thraso that of the Romans, their heated arguments and quarrels attracted the young king's attention. ”

“ It is only rarely in the world’s history that such a lot of stars gather around a court. It is a good deal that Syracuse was again visited by the muses in the time of Hiero II., when Theocritus took up his abode there.
The afternoon before we left Syracuse we got a reminder that its greatness did not all pass away with the Roman occupation. The enormous catacombs from Christian times speak of new and better days. But what stirs one more is one particular spot in the crypt of St. Marcian, a church partly made out of a temple of Bacchus. ”

“ You see him, at this period of time, looming in the distance over every other object, and standing in Sicily like a great visiting giant. He is accounted, we believe, on military authority, the greatest captain that ever lived. So different is success in art from prosperity in fortune.
Hiero the Second, of Syracuse. A prudent and popular ally of the Romans. He showed no great favour to Theocritus. He built a huge toy-ship, in which were gardens, a wrestling-ground, rooms full of pictures and statues, floors with subjects from Homer painted in mosaic, and eight fortified towers! ”

“ Hieronymus, king of Syracuse, whose grandfather Hiero had been a faithful ally of Rome, revolts to the Carthaginians, and for his tyranny is put to death by his subjects. Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, the proconsul, defeats the Carthaginians under Hanno at Beneventum chiefly by the services of the slaves in his army, whom he subsequently liberated. Claudius Marcellus, the consul, besieges Syracuse. War is declared against Philip, king of Macedon, he is routed by night at Apollonia and retreats into Macedonia. ”

“ HERA′CLIUS, the son of Hiero, was a noble and opulent citizen of Syracuse. Heraclius, before the praetorship of C. Verres, in B. c. 73 — 71, one of the wealthiest, became, through his exactions and oppression, one of the poorest men in Sicily. ”

“ This was the famous temple of Olympian Zeus, built probably in the days of Hiero I., soon after the Persian war, but on the site of a temple still more venerable. One seeks a reason for the location of this holy place at such a distance from the city. Holm, the German historian of Sicily, argues with some plausibility that this was no mere suburb of Syracuse, but the original Syracuse itself. In the first place, the list of the citizens of Syracuse was kept here down at least to the time of the Athenian invasion. ”

“ HEROD'OTUS, the historian. Life and writings of; compared with Thucydides.—Extracts from: Xerxes at Abydos. Introduction to history.
Heroic Age, the. Some events of; arts and civilization in.
Heros'tratus.
Hertha, goddess of the earth.
HE'SI-OD. Life and works of.—Extracts from: Battle of the Giants. Origin of Evil, etc. The justice of the gods. Winter.
Hi'ero I. Despot of Gela; becomes despot of Syracuse.
Hiero II. Despot of Syracuse.
Him'era, in Sicily.
Hippar'chus.
Hip'pias, son and successor of Pisistratus. Is driven from Athens; leads the Persians against Greece. ”

“ After much debate, the senate resolves to succour the Mammertines against the Carthaginians, and against Hiero, king of Syracuse. Roman cavalry, then, for the first time, cross the sea, and engage successfully, in battle with Hiero; who solicits and obtains peace. ”

“ The towns which, under Roman rule, declined, were possessed of considerable importance at the time of which we are speaking. The first among them, Syracuse, the capital of Hiero’s kingdom, contained 600,000 souls; it was composed of six quarters, comprised in a circumference of 180 stadia (36 kilometres) ; it furnished, when it was conquered, a booty equal to that of Carthage. [481] Other cities rivalled Syracuse in extent and power. Agrigentum, in the time of the first Punic war, contained 50,000 soldiers; [482] it was one of the principal garrisons in Sicily. ”

“ After the death of Agathocles, a former tyrant, tyranny again sprung up at Syracuse in the person of this Hiero, who came to power in the second year of the hundred and twenty-sixth Olympiad, at which festival Idaeus of Cyrene won the foot-race.
6.12.3 This Hiero made an alliance with Pyrrhus the son of Aeacides, sealing it by the marriage of Gelo his son and Nereis the daughter of Pyrrhus. When the Romans went to war with Carthage for the possession of Sicily, the Carthaginians held more than half the island, and Hiero sided with them at the beginning of the war. ”

“ Empedocles, the Pythagorean philosopher. He is accused of leaping into Ætna, in the hope of being supernaturally missed, and so taken for a god—a project betrayed by the ejection of one of his brazen sandals. But a philosopher may perish by a volcano, as Pliny did, without giving envy a right to make him a laughing-stock.
Hiero the First, of Syracuse; a bad prince, but a possessor of good horses and charioteers; for whose victories in the Olympic games his name has become celebrated by means of Pindar. Hiero is the great name in the Racing Calendar of antiquity.
Simonides, the elegiac poet. ”

“ Of these various Grecian cities, all independent, Syracuse was the first in power, Agrigentum the second. The causes above noticed, disturbing the first commencement of popular governments in all of them, were most powerfully operative at Syracuse. We do not know the particulars of the democratical constitution which was there established, but its stability was threatened by more than one ambitious pretender, eager to seize the sceptre of Gelo and Hiero. ”

“ Now it is worthy of notice that this occurs in an ode written for Hiero of Syracuse, and that in Pindar's time (if he died, as seems likely, about 441 B.C.) neither Greece Proper nor the Hellenic East yet presented any phase of democracy which could be intelligibly indicated as the rule of "the raging crowd." Clearly, I think, he is referring—in phrase which Siceliots could well appreciate—to those violent democratic revolutions which more than once convulsed Sicilian cities, and overthrew tyrannies, in the earlier part of the fifth century. ”

“ Hiero I., king of Syracuse, defeats Etruscans, 132, and Carthaginians, 259 ; entertains poets and philosophers, 264
Hiero II., 262
Hippias, Sophist, 352
Hippias and Hipparchus, sons of Pisistratus, 71-2, 91, 101
Hippocrates, 24
Hipponax, 372
Histiaeus of Miletus, 90, 92,94, 96
Homeric poems, 11, 12 ; doctrines in, 17 ”

“ BOOK II GREECE AND CARTHAGE
I. THE LORD OF SYRACUSE In the early part of the year 480, when the danger from Persia was imminent, the Greeks sent an embassy to their countrymen in Sicily, asking for help. The Greek power in the island was largely in the hands of one man, Gelo, tyrant of Syracuse. To him, therefore, the application was made. Herodotus gives an account of the interview, professing to report the speeches which were made at it. These may be epitomised thus:—
Ambassadors: "The Persian King is bringing against us the strength of Asia. He professes to be seeking vengeance on Athens ”

“ The empire of Athens both was, and appeared to be, in exuberant strength when that expedition was sent forth; strength more than sufficient to bear up against all moderate faults or moderate misfortunes, such as no government ever long escapes. But the catastrophe of Syracuse was something overpassing in terrific calamity all Grecian experience and all power of foresight. It was like the Russian campaign of 1812 to the Emperor Napoleon, though by no means imputable, in an equal degree, to vice in the original project. No Grecian power could bear up against such a death wound ”

“ His reign as tyrant or despot was long and prosperous. After conquering the Carthaginians, who more than once invaded Sicily, he extended his dominion over a great part of the island, and over a considerable portion of Magna Graecia. He raised Syracuse to be one of the chief Grecian states, second in influence, if indeed second, to Sparta alone. Under his sway Syracuse was strengthened and embellished with new fortifications, docks, arsenals, and other public buildings, and became superior even to Athens in extent and population. ”

“ Wherein he reproveth the nigardise of Princes and Great Men towards the Learned, and namely [especially] Poets: in whose power it is to make men famous to all posterity. Towards the end, he praiseth Hiero; and prayeth that Sicily may be delivered by his prowess from the invasions of the Carthaginians. This Idillion is named Hiero in respect of the person to whom it was written; or Charites, that is, "Graces," in respect of the matter whereof it treateth.
CHARITES, or HIERO.
POets have still this care, and still the Muses have this care ”

“ These Greek cities round the Mediterranean were not politically united to the Motherland. Each was an independent state; but they were always conscious of their union with all other Greeks in race, language, and religion. All looked upon themselves as one people. The Greek states in Sicily and Lower Italy took their part in the quarrels of the Greeks at home in Hellas. The famous story of the siege of Syracuse marks the end of the power of Athens. Syracuse had taken the Spartan side in the Peloponnesian war. ”