Hieron II, king of
Syracuse from
270 to
215 BC, was the illegitimate son of a Syracusan noble,
Hierocles, who claimed descent from
Gelon. He was a former general of
Pyrrhus of Epirus and an important figure of the
First Punic War.
On the departure of Pyrrhus from
Sicily (
275 BC) the Syracusan army and citizens appointed him commander of the troops. He strengthened his position by marrying the daughter of Leptines, the leading citizen. In the meantime, the
Mamertines, a body of
Campanian mercenaries who had been employed by
Agathocles, had seized the stronghold of
Messana, and proceeded in harassing the Syracusans. They were finally defeated in a pitched battle near
Mylae by Hieron, who was only prevented from capturing Messana by
Carthaginian interference. His grateful countrymen then made him
king (270).
In
264 BC he again returned to the attack, and the Mamertines called in the aid of
Rome. Hieron at once joined the Punic leader
Hanno, who had recently landed in Sicily; but being defeated by the
consul Appius Claudius Caudex, he withdrew to Syracuse. Pressed by the Roman forces, in
263 he was compelled to conclude a treaty with Rome, by which he was to rule over the south-east of Sicily and the eastern coast as far as
Tauromenium (
Polybius i. 8-16;
Zonaras Viii. 9).
From this time till his death in
215 BC he remained loyal to the Romans, and frequently assisted them with men and provisions during the Punic wars (
Livy xxi. 49-51, xxii. 37, xxiii. 21). He kept up a powerful fleet for defensive purposes, and employed his famous kinsman
Archimedes in the construction of those engines that, at a later date, played so important a part during the siege of Syracuse by the Romans.
According to a story told by
Vitruvius (
De architectura IX.9–12), Hiero was given a golden crown by a goldsmith and asked Archimedes to find out if it really was pure gold. Archimedes, on discovering the principle of
displacement needed to measure the
density of the crown is said to have shouted "
eureka, eureka!" while running naked through Syracuse. Vitruvius concludes this story by stating that Archimedes' method successfully detected the goldsmith's fraud.
A picture of the prosperity of Syracuse during his rule is given in the sixteenth idyll of
Theocritus, his favourite poet. See
Diod. Sic. xxii. 24-xxvi. 24; Polybius i. 8-vu. 7;
Justin xxiii. 4.
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