NGC Choice XF 275-215 BC Ancients SICILY Syracuse Hieron II AE litra (19mm, 3h)

SICILY. Syracuse. Hieron II (ca. 275-215 BC). AE litra (19mm, 3h). NGC Choice XF. Head of Poseidon left, wearing taenia / ΙΕΡΩ-ΝΟΣ, trident head, dolphin swimming downward on either side. HGC 2, 1550.

Hieron II (tyrant and king of Syracuse), Hieron also spelled Hiero, (died 216/215 bce), tyrant and then king of Syracuse, Sicily, from about 270 to 216/215 bce, who struggled against the Mamertini and eventually allied his city with Rome.

On the departure of Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, from Sicily in 276, the Syracusans appointed Hieron commander of the troops, and he strengthened his position by marrying the daughter of Leptines, the city’s leading citizen. Meanwhile, the Mamertini, a body of Campanian mercenaries who had been employed by Agathocles, the former tyrant of Syracuse, had captured the stronghold of Messana (Messina, in northeastern Sicily), from which they harassed the Syracusans. Hieron defeated them in a pitched battle near Mylae (Milazzo), but Carthaginian forces intervened to prevent him from capturing Messana. His grateful countrymen then chose Hieron as king. When in 264 he again attacked Messana, the Mamertini called on Rome for aid. Hieron at once joined the Carthaginian leader Hanno, who had recently landed in Sicily, but they were defeated by the Roman consul Appius Claudius Caudex, and Hieron withdrew to Syracuse.