NOTES ON THE HISTORY OF VALLEDOLMO, PART III THE ROMANS

Maybe it portends nothing, maybe it does: The last city to fall to the Romans was Siracusae, and in that fall died the great mathematician and physicist, Archimedes. Roman rule had begun.

Roman rule of Sicily began in 241 BC with the end of the First Punic War. The conquest was complete with the end of the Second Punic War and the addition of Siracusae. The island’s wheat harvest was of great importance to the empire; Sicily was Rome’s breadbasket. Roman rule was harsh and fomented two slave revolts. The First Servile war began in 135 BC, and ended in 132 with the capture of its leader, Eunus, and the crucifixion of thousands of slaves. The Second Servile War lasted from 103 to 100 BC. During the abysmally corrupt rule of the governor Gaius Verres, Sicilians successfully appealed to Rome in 70 BC to put him on trial on charges of extortion. They wisely chose the great orator Cicero to prosecute their case. His great victory propelled him to great fame and rid Sicily of a rapacious ruler. Sicily early hosted a vigorous Christian community, and can claim two of the earliest martyrs: Santa Agata of Catania and Santa Lucia of Syracuse. During six hundred years of rule, Sicily was only a Roman breadbasket. The most striking edifices constructed during these centuries were private palaces like the Villa Romana del Casale. The Romans had so little impact on Sicilian culture that the people of the island continued to be Greek speakers throughout their rule. Almost certainly the most important and long-lasting impact of the Romans was the aggregation of small landholdings into large estates called latifundia, traces of which could be found in Sicily until the great land reforms of 1950-1962. Christianity arrived in Sicily during Roman rule, but hardly because of it.

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