Mamertines: Map & History
The Mamertines were Greek mercenaries of Italic origin who had been hired from their home in Campania by Agathocles, Tyrant of Syracuse and self-proclaimed King of Sicily.
Wikipedia Encyclopedic Compendium
Historiographical synthesis & structured realm registry
The Mamertines were Greek mercenaries of Italic origin who had been hired from their home in Campania by Agathocles, Tyrant of Syracuse and self-proclaimed King of Sicily. After Syracuse lost the Seventh Sicilian War, the Greek city of Messina was ceded to Carthage in 307 BC. When Agathocles died in 289 BC it left many of his mercenaries idle and unemployed in Sicily. Most of them returned home but some, liking the climate and the prospect of adventure on a foreign island, remained. They played a major role in the lead-up to the First Punic War.
Mamertines in Depth
Decline
The Mamertine presence did not go unchallenged forever. In around 270 BC, the Mamertine exploits came to the attention of Syracuse, by word of the refugees from the settlements. Hiero II, tyrant of Syracuse, began to gather an army of citizens with which to rid the land of the destroyers of the peace and rescue his Greek kinsmen. Hiero met with the Mamertines when they were nearing Syracuse. Marching out his troops, he first sent his unruly mercenaries forward and allowed them to be butchered by the Mamertines. The faithless part of his army disposed of, Hiero marched his citizen soldiers back to the city where he drilled them until they were in better fighting condition.
Legacy
Once the scale of the conflict had escalated beyond them, the Mamertines were lost to the historical record and their fate is lost, swallowed up in the larger events of the Punic wars. After the First Punic War, however, their name was not quite forgotten in the ancient world since "Mamertine wine" from the vineyards of north-eastern tip of Sicily was still known and enjoyed in the 1st century. It was the favourite of Gaius Julius Caesar and it was he who made it popular after serving it at a feast to celebrate his third consulship.
Even centuries after the Mamertine occupation, the inhabitants of Messina were still called Mamertines.
Sections adapted from Wikipedia: Mamertines (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Mamertines Timeline
Key historical inflections from foundation to peak territorial expansion
Expansion to peak recorded area of 934 km² in 260 BCE.
Mamertines: Frequently Asked Questions
When did Mamertines exist?
Mamertines is dated to 271 BCE – 257 BCE, in the Classical Antiquity era.
How large was Mamertines at its peak?
At its peak in 260 BC Mamertines covered about 934 km².