Sicilia (province)

Sicilia Province

Sicilia was the first province of the Roman Empire . The islands of Sicily and Malta belonged to the territory of the province .

After the end of the First Punic War in 241 BC. The Carthaginian possessions on Sicily fell to Rome and were from 227 BC. Administered by a praetor ; the first was Gaius Flaminius . However, the territory of Hieron II of Syracuse in the east of the island initially remained untouched. Only after Hieron's death in 215 BC BC and a victory over the Greek cities of Syracuse and Akragas , the whole of Sicily became Roman dominion. The official seat of the praetor was Syracuse (Latin Syracusae ); he was assisted by two Quaestors in Syracuse and Lilybaeum.

27 BC The province was reorganized by Augustus as a "senatorial" province with a proconsul from the rank of former praetors . After that there were seven coloniae in Sicily:

• Catina ( Catania )
• Lilybaeum ( Marsala )
• Panormus ( Palermo )
• Siracusae (main town, Syracuse )
• Tauromenium ( Taormina )
• Thermae Himeraeae ( Termini Imerese )
• Tyndaris ( Tindari )

There were also eight cities with the rank of municipium :

• Messana ( Messina )
• Centuripae ( Centuripe )
• Netum ( Noto )
• Agrigentum ( Agrigentum )
• Segesta
• Halaesa
• Haluntium ( San Marco d'Alunzio )
• Lipara ( Lipari )

In late antiquity, Sicilia belonged to the dioecesis Italiae . In 439 Sicilia fell to the Vandals and from 493 to the Ostrogoths , from 535 it came under Byzantine rule and remained under it until the Arab conquest in 827.

See also

• History of Sicily # Roman Province

literature

• Tilmann Bechert : The provinces of the Roman Empire. Introduction and overview. von Zabern, Mainz 1999, ISBN 3-8053-2399-9 , p. 59f.

Remarks

1. ^ So Solinus 5; see. Titus Livy 33:42; Karl-Ludwig Elvers : Flaminius [1]. In: The New Pauly (DNP). Volume 4, Metzler, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-476-01474-6 , Sp.?. Elsewhere, Marcus Valerius Laevinus , named by Solinus as the first praetor in Sardinia , who later became governor of Sicily during the Second Punic War , is called the first praetor in Sicily: Tassilo Schmitt : Valerius [I 27]. In: The New Pauly (DNP). Volume 12/1, Metzler, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-476-01482-7 , Sp.?.