Of the three elements of the Punic constitution, there is no doubt that oligarchy had the upper hand. The Carthaginians’ main occupation was making money, and few objected to the wealthy being in charge of government. The mass of people failed to develop the solidarity and capacity for collective action that marked the Roman populus. In our terms today, Carthage was more of an international corporation than a nation-state.
Whatever reservations we may have about Punic politics and society, it is worth recalling Cicero’s remark: “Carthage would not have maintained an empire for six hundred years had it not been ruled with statesmanship and professionalism.”
THE GREEKS HAD largely been driven out of the western seas, but they had no intention of letting go of Sicily. With intermittent hostilities between them and Carthage for three hundred years, the island was still the flash point between the two halves of the Mediterranean world. And now a newcomer had arrived on the scene, Rome. A spark presented itself.
If ever evidence were required of the danger posed by mercenaries, the story of what happened to the city of Messana, guardian of the straits between Sicily and Italy, stood as a terrible example. A band of daredevils from Campania was hired by the ruler of Syracuse. On his death in 289, they found themselves unexpectedly out of work. They liked Sicily and the soldier’s life away from home, but what were they to do? Reluctantly en route back to Italy, they came upon wealthy, beautiful, pacific but gullible Messana. This was the mercenaries’ last chance to stay on the island, and they had a smart idea. They insinuated themselves into the city as friends and, betraying their unsuspecting hosts, one night took possession of it. According to Polybius:
They followed up this action by expelling some of the citizens, massacring others and taking prisoner the wives and families of their dispossessed victims, each man keeping those whom he happened to have found at the moment of the outrage. Lastly they divided among themselves the ownership of the land and all the remaining property.
This hijacking of a city went unpunished. The mercenaries, who named themselves Mamertines—after Mamers, the Sabellian version of the war god Mars—transformed Messana from a quiet trading emporium into a raiding base. They applied the only skills they were able to command: they made a living from plundering nearby towns, capturing unwary merchant ships, holding people they abducted for ransom, and generally disseminating mayhem. They impartially damaged Carthaginian and Greek interests.
Eventually, the greatest power in western Sicily, Syracuse, decided that enough was enough. In about 270, its young despot, Hiero, defeated the Mamertines in a pitched battle and arrested their leaders. This halted their depredations, although they still held Messana. A few years later, Hiero felt it was time to put an end to the Mamertines altogether and besieged Messana.
These superannuated and ageing hirelings made a fateful decision, or, rather, two decisions. Some of them appealed for help to a passing Carthaginian fleet, which accepted the commission and garrisoned the citadel. When he saw Punic ships in the harbor, Hiero did not want more trouble than he could handle and tactfully retired to Syracuse. Then another faction called on the Romans for support.
The Senate was at a loss. The Mamertines were the most disreputable of victims. Across the narrow water from Messana some other Campanians, this time serving in the Roman army, had been sent to Rhegium as a garrison during the war against Pyrrhus. Inspired by the Mamertines, they had committed a copycat massacre of its citizens and taken over the town. Rome refused to tolerate such a scandalous breach of faith and sent an army to take the city. This it did, killing most of the renegades. Three hundred survivors were sent to Rome, where they were marched into the Forum, flogged, and beheaded.
How could the Senate conceivably go to the rescue of men who had committed exactly the same crime? But this was what happened, and the explanation was reason of state. The undeceived Hiero observed that the Romans were using “pity for those at risk as a cloak for their own advantage.” The Carthaginians already dominated much of Sicily, and might very well cast a predatory eye northward across the narrow straits if they won Messana.
From the Senate’s point of view, as Polybius noted, “they would prove the most vexatious and dangerous of neighbors, since they would hem Italy in on all sides and threaten every part of the country. This was a prospect that Rome dreaded. It was obvious that they would soon be masters in Sicily, if the Mamertines were not helped.” The anxiety was not misplaced, for Sardinia and Corsica were already Punic possessions and the Etruscan port of Caere was so full of Carthaginian traders that it had been nicknamed Punicum. What was more, the cities of Greater Greece would expect their new master to consult their interests; the loss of Sicily to the “barbarian” African power would be a terrible symbolic blow to the Hellenic cause.
Opinion in the Senate was finely balanced and, most unusually, the matter was referred to a popular Assembly without a recommendation. Despite the fact that the Republic was worn down by years of nonstop fighting, a resolution in favor of sending help was carried. A consul was sent to Messana at the head of an army. He managed to slip through a sea blockade. The Carthaginian commander, lacking instructions, was finessed into withdrawing his troops from the city. The authorities in Carthage promptly had him crucified “for want of judgment and courage.”
Both the Carthaginians and the Syracusans were shocked by the turn of events and, despite their long enmity, entered into an improbable mariage de convenance with the common aim of expelling the Romans. However, the consul picked off each of their armies in separate engagements before they could join forces. The astute Hiero had second thoughts; judging that it was in Syracuse’s long-term interest to switch sides, he agreed to an alliance with Rome, from which he never strayed during the rest of a long life. In the coming years he remained an invaluable friend, offering the legions a base and local supplies.
The parties had slipped into war without altogether intending to do so or being fully conscious of the consequences. But once full-scale hostilities had opened, the true reasons for the conflict emerged like a mountain out of mist. Dio explains that Messana was no more than a pretext:
The truth is otherwise. As a matter of fact, the Carthaginians, who had long been a great power, and the Romans, who were now growing rapidly stronger, looked on each other with jealousy. They were drawn into war partly by the desire of continually acquiring more possessions—in accordance with the principle that people are most active when they are most successful—and partly by fear. Both sides alike thought that the one sure salvation for their own possessions lay in also obtaining those of the others.
Messana and the Mamertines faded into the background. (In fact, we never learn what was the Mamertines’ final fate; they simply vanish and one can only hope they came to a bad end.)
The Senate cannot have had firm war aims. To secure Messana as a Rome-friendly outpost may have been enough at the outset. But once Hiero’s friendship had been won and Syracuse became, in effect, a client kingdom, it was possible to be a little more ambitious and attempt to push the Carthaginians back eastward into their traditional zone of influence. Rome could then gather the Greek settlements in central Sicily under its security umbrella. It soon became clear, though, that Carthage would not tolerate a Roman presence in Sicily, and it followed that conquest of the entire island was the only rational response.