The fall of Rhegium had deprived the Mamertines of Messana of the only allies whom these robbers could have had. Uniting with them for the prize of the booty, they supported their expeditions in Sicily, in which they no more respected the protection of the Carthaginians than they spared the Greek towns: and the vengeance of the two states which ruled over the island, now rose against them.

It was Hiero of Syracuse, who longed to punish the outrages they had committed for many years. He had now come to the possession of the kingly dignity by a series of prudent actions, which are celebrated by the Greeks, and most of which were praiseworthy: by a regular, though unavoidable election of the people: an election, which the Syracusans never regretted during his reign of fifty years. For he was never charged with any despotic act, and under his unassuming simplicity, which surrounded itself with no splendour of royal etiquette, the Syracusans enjoyed all the advantages of liberty, which they had allowed to escape from them quickly under a republican constitution. His memory long remained sacred: under him Syracuse recovered from the misfortunes, which had prest it down for more than a century, and his government was the last period of prosperity, which a part of Sicily at least has enjoyed.