Tradition and Innovation

Sicily between Hellenism and Rome

Efrem Zambon

• Publisher: Franz Steiner Verlag GmbH
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9783515095457
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

At the beginning of the Hellenistic Age, Sicily became the landing-place for political innovations produced by Hellenistic culture in the West – and very soon it turned out to be the theatre for the comparison of different ethnicities: Sicilian natives, Greeks, Italics, Carthaginians and Romans.
This book investigates the decades between 289 and 241 B.C. and the social as well as political development of Sicily by re-examining crucial events that made the island the first Roman provincia after the first Punic War: the failure of the first Hellenistic kingship in the West; the Sicilian expedition of Pyrrhus; the new Hellenistic kingship of Hiero of Syracuse; the first Punic War and the victory of Rome. Also, this study highlights how successfully the political modernization and the social innovations of the Hellenistic Age took place in Sicilian cities – and the way some novelties were rejected and some traditional institutions still existed, even after the complete Roman conquest.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Preface
• CHAPTER ONE Political Evolution and Historical Events in the Greek City-States of Sicily from Agathocles’ Death to Pyrrhus’ Arrival(289–278 BC)
• 1.1. “The king is dead”: civil struggles and institutional changes in Syracuse, between a new democracy and further autocratic desires (289–287 BC)
• 1.2. Mercenaries, marauders and settlers: the foundation of the Mamertine State in Messina (287 BC)
• 1.3. Minor tyrants of eastern Sicily between Carthage and Syracuse: aims of power or instincts of self-preservation?
• 1.4. Phintias and the revival of Agrigentum: history of a tyrant who looked like an Hellenistic monarch (289/288 – 280? BC)
• 1.5. Hicetas’ autocratic rule in Syracuse: from victory to decline (285–279 BC)
• 1.6. “Another king will save us”: last civil strife in Syracuse and the appeals to Pyrrhus (279–278 BC)
• 1.7. The arrival of the Syracusan ambassadors and the first steps of Pyrrhus’ Sicilian expedition (summer-autumn 279 BC)
• 1.8. The Carthaginians on the international scene. The Punic diplomacy between Rome and Pyrrhus, and the renewal of the Romano-Punic alliance (autumn 279 – spring 278 BC)
• 1.9. Some notes about the Romano-Carthaginian treaty: matters of understanding
• 1.10. A passage of Diodorus and the carrying out of the treaty; quick cooperation in Rhegium (spring 278 BC)
• CHAPTER TWO Pyrrhus and the Greeks of Sicily: military events, political meanings and ideological implications
• 2.1. Preliminary notes. The situation in Sicily and Pyrrhus’ last arrangements for the expedition
• 2.2 The situation in Magna Graecia. Some more enlightenments about the events in Rhegium
• 2.3. The first stage of the Sicilian adventure: from Taras to Syracuse (summer/autumn 278 BC)
• 2.4. The political title of Pyrrhus in Sicily: an example of Hellenistic kingship?
• 2.5. Pyrrhus’ coinage in Sicily: Greek propaganda, ideological inferences and economic innovations
• 2.6. The war-campaign of 277 BC. First steps of glory in Southern Sicily: traces of Pyrrhus at Heraclea Minoa and Azones, between historical and archaeological evidence
• 2.7. The war-campaign of 277 BC. From Selinous to Eryx; Pyrrhus’ march through the Elymian territories
• 2.8. The conquest of Panormus and the Punic fortresses of the Conca d’Oro
• 2.9. First step to defeat: the siege of Lilybaeum (autumn 277 BC)
• 2.10. “The king has turned to be a tyrant!”. The last months of Pyrrhus in Sicily and the rebellion of the Greeks (spring 276 BC)
• CHAPTER THREE The First Punic War: Greeks and Natives of Sicily among Hellenistic Kingship, old Masters and new Conquerors
• 3.1. The first steps of Hiero II (276/275–271 BC): civil struggles and autocracy in the fate of Syracuse
• 3.2. “Getting rid from those barbarians”. Hiero’s warfare against the Mamertines (270–269 BC) and the alliances with the Greek city-states of eastern Sicily
• 3.3. Messina squeezed: the outbreak of the first Punic war, between diplomacy and fighting armies
• 3.4. Between resistance and deditiones: that is, how the Greek communities of eastern Sicily approached the Romans
• 3.5. “Friend of Rome, lord of Syracuse, king of Sicily”: the peace-treaty between Hiero and the Romans, and the new role of Syracuse within Sicily and the Mediterranean basin
• 3.6. The Greeks and the natives during the first Punic war; from the siege of Agrigentum to the first Roman mission to Africa (262–256 BC)
• 3.7. From Sicily to Africa, and the way back; tempests, Roman shipwrecks and first Punic crushes in the ejpikravteia (256–250 BC)
• 3.8. Lilybaeum, Eryx, Drepana: the Roman triumph and the new fate for the Greeks of Sicily (250–241 BC)
• 3.9. Romanisation or acculturation? Roman ways of approach towards the Sicilian city-states
• 3.10. Some signs of “realpolitik”.Rome and the city-states of Sicily between local identity and new politicalperspectives. The case-study of the Elymian cities
• Conclusions
• Bibliography
• General Index
• Index of classical references