J 96
SICILY.
Historical Notice.
(Fiiunc Ficiioot and restricted their territory to the W. Halycus. But even
his brilliant example availed little to arrest the increasing degeneracy of
the people. In 317—289 Agathocles usurped the sovereignty of Syracuse
and in 310 the Carthaginians besieged the city, although unsuccessfully.
Pyrrhus too, who had wrested the entire island as far as Lilybaeum from
the Carthaginians, soon quitted it again for Italy (278—276), dissatisfied with
the prevailing anarchy and disunion. In 274 Hiero II. usurped the tyranny
of Syracuse. His siege of Blessana, of which Campanian mercenaries,
3Iamertines, bad treacherously taken possession, compelled the latter to sue
for Roman aid. Thus it was that the Romans obtained a footing in the
island, and the struggle between them and the Carthaginians, who had
supported Hiero, now began. The chequered contest for the sovereignty of
Sicily lasted from 264 to 241. Hiero who in 263 had become an ally of
Rome, was now invested with the partial sovereignty of the island which
was divided between Rome and Syracuse after the final expulsion of the
Carthaginians. After the death of Hiero II. his successor Hieronyntus
espoused the cause of Hannibal, in consequence of which Syracuse was
besieged by Blarcellus in 214—212, taken and sacked. In 210, after the
conquest of Agrigentum, the entire island became the first Roman province
and was divided into two districts or queestuife, Lilybetana (with the capital
Lilybai-um, now Blarsala) and Syracusana.
2nd Period. At first the Romans endeavoured to improve the agricul¬
ture of the island which had suffered seriously during the protracted wars,
with a view to render Sicily a more profitable province. The system of
cultivation borrowed from the Carthaginians was indeed successfully em¬
ployed in rendering Sicily the granary of Italy, but at the same time it
proved the occasion of the Servile Wars (135—132 and 103—100), which
devastated the island to a greater extent than the Punic wars. Under the
Roman governors the ancient prosperity of Sicily steadily declined. The
notorious Verres despoiled the island of its most costly treasures of art in
73—70. The civil war belwcen Sextus Pompeius and Oclavius, especially
that of 42—36, also accelerated the ruin of Sicily, so that Augustus was
obliged in a great measure to repeople the island and re-erect the towns.
But its strength was irrevocably gone. With regard to the dissemination of
Christianity in Sicily numerous traditions are current and are preserved in
the different niartyndogics. It is recorded (Acts XXVIII, 12) that St. Paul
landed at Syracuse on his journey to Rome and spent three days there, but
the ultimate establishment of Christianity in the island appears to have
emanated from Rome and to have been the subsequent occasion of several
martyrdoms. Numerous Christian martyrs suffered at Lentini, notwith¬
standing which, the new religion spread rapidly over the island about the
middle of the 3rd cent., so that the Neoplatonic Porphyrius, who spent a
considerable time in Sicily, and his pupil Probus of Lilybseuin wrote their
refutations in vain. Constantine, however, was the first who formally sanc¬
tioned Christianity in the island. As late as the 6th cent, heathens still
existed here, and the Paulicians found adherents at a later date. It is
now, however, the boast of the Sicilians that their island has never produ¬
ced a prominent heretic, and as late as 1860 the minister of ecclesiastical
affairs expressed himself in praise of the unity of the Sicilians in matters
of religion. The Spanish inquisition found but few victims here. The Si¬
cilian of the present day is, however, far from being intolerant, and the
majority of the educated classes exhibit considerable indifference with
regard to these questions.
After another servile war had devastated the country (A. D. 259), Sy¬
racuse began, in 278, to suffer from the incursions of the wandering bar¬
barian hordes, when it was plundered by a mere handful of wandering
Franks. B. C. 27 Sicily had become the first of the 10 senatorial provinces,
according to Augustus' distribution of the empire , then a province of the
diocese of Italy according to the arrangement of Diocletian, but in 395 it
was separated from the W. and attached lo the E. empire, whereby it es-
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