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King of Syracuse during the siege in the First Punic War. The defence of the city was planned by Archimedes. See also Eureka!
The following is from the excellent site on Archimedes: http://www.mcs.drexel.edu/~crorres/Archimedes/Family/Hiero.html
{short
description of image}HIERO (or Hieron) was born around 306 BC of
unknown lineage. He served as an officer under Pyrrhos, a Greek
adventurer who briefly controlled Syracuse c. 278-276 BC. Hiero's
ascent to power began when he was elected co-commander of Syracusan
armed forces driven from Syracuse by civil authorities. He executed a
military coup of Syracuse about 275 BC after "he used some of his
family connections to gain entry to the city," as Polybius writes. He
consolidated his power by marrying Philistis, the daughter of a popular
and influential Syracusan named Leptines. When veteran mercenaries who
helped him seize power became unruly and disruptive, he led them into a
battle in which they were cut to pieces by the enemy after he held back
his reserves of Syracusan citizens.
From
278 to 275 BC he fought under Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, against the
Roman invaders of Sicily, and after the departure of Pyrrhus in 275 BC
he was chosen commander of the Syracusan army. Hiero's military
successes against the Mamertines, a gang of Italic mercenaries who ran
a pirate empire from the Sicilian city of Messana which they had
captured. in 270 BC resulted in his election as tyrant by the grateful
citizens of Syracuse.
In
265 BC Hiero won a further decisive victory over the Mamertines As a
result, Hiero was proclaimed King of Syracuse by his grateful subjects.
Hiero's
defeat of the Mamertines upset the delicate balance of power among the
Greeks, Romans, and Carthaginians, all of whom sought the control of
Sicily. Rome's support of the defeated Mamertines precipitated the
First Punic War in 264 BC, in which Carthage and Syracuse were
initially allied against Rome. The Romans gained early victories over
the Greco-Punic forces and prepared to lay siege to Syracuse. Hiero
reconsidered his position and decided that it would be wiser to be an
ally of Rome than of Carthage. He negotiated a treaty with Rome in 263
BC under whose terms he agreed to pay tribute and provide supplies and
grain to the Romans. Hiero honored this treaty the rest of his life and
became a loyal ally of Rome. The treaty guaranteed him a peaceful and
prosperous reign as long as the Romans and Carthaginians were occupied
in fighting each other.
Hiero
was an extremely able leader who captured the hearts and minds of his
subjects. He rebuilt much of Syracuse during his reign of sixty years.
Among his public works still remaining are an enormous sacrificial
altar dedicated to Zeus and an enlarged Greek Theater. He also
strengthened the defenses of Syracuse, especially Fort Euryalos, under
the military guidance of Archimedes.
Plutarch
describes Archimedes as a near relation of Hiero. He constantly sought
Archimedes' advice on military and other matters. His long reign gave
Archimedes the opportunity to peacefully pursue his studies.
Hiero
and Philistis had one son, Gelo, and two daughters, Damarata and
Heraclia. Gelo co-ruled with Hiero for many years and married Nereis, a
daughter of Hiero's old mentor Pyrrhos. Gelo died about a year before
Hiero while in his fifties. Hiero died in 215 BC at about the age of
ninety and was succeeded by Gelo's fifteen-year-old son Hieronymos.
After
Hiero came the deluge. Within three years of his death his grandson
Hieronymos was assassinated, his two daughters and other members of his
family were put to death by an angry mob, Syracuse was captured and
looted by the Romans, and Archimedes was killed by a Roman soldier.
Syracuse was reduced to a minor Roman provincial town, ending its
illustrious 500-year history as an independent Greek city-state. It
never regained its former glory.
SOURCES (with links to translation references)
POLYBIUS (Universal History, Book I.8-9)
On Hiero's ascent to power:
Not long before, the Syracusan armed forces had fallen out with the
civil authority. The troops were at that time stationed near Mergane,
and they elected two commanders from their own ranks: one of these was
Artemidorus and the other Hiero, who later became the ruler of Syracuse
[c. 275 BC]. Hiero was still quite a young man, but he was well suited
by natural character for some kind of royal position and political
authority. Having taken over the command, he used some of his family
connections to gain entry to the city. Once inside, he quickly got the
upper hand over his opponents, but proceeded to administer affairs with
such tolerance and generosity that the Syracusans unanimously acclaimed
him as their general, even though they were by no means well-disposed
towards leaders chosen by the army. However from the very first
measures that he introduced, it immediately became clear to all
intelligent observers that his ambitions extended beyond the position
of general.
Hiero had observed that the dispatch of a Syracusan army on an
expedition under the command of the supreme magistrates invariably
resulted in quarrels among the leaders and the outbreaks of
revolutionary activity of some kind. He also knew that of all his
fellow Syracusans it was a certain Leptines who commanded most
supporters and the highest prestige and was particularly popular with
the masses. He therefore made a family alliance with Leptines by
marrying his daughter [Philistis], so that whenever he had to go away
on active service he could count on leaving Leptines behind as the
guardian of his interests at home. Meanwhile he had come to the
conclusion that the veteran mercenaries were an unreliable and
potentially mutinous element in the army. He therefore led them out
against the city of Messana, ostensibly to attack the Campanians who
had seized it. He pitched camp against the enemy near Centuripa and
drew up his troops near the river Cyamosorus. His battle order was so
arranged that the infantry and cavalry which consisted of Syracusan
citizens were grouped under his personal command and held in reserve,
as if he intended them to attack from another quarter. The mercenaries
on the other hand were ordered to make an advance, in which he allowed
them to be cut to pieces by the Campanians. While they were being
routed, he retired, and withdrew safely with the Syracusans to the
capital. Then, when he had effectively achieved his purpose and rid the
army of its unruly and seditious elements, he proceeded to enroll a
considerable body of mercenaries whom he picked himself, and thereafter
continued in secure control of affairs. Before long he noticed that the
Mamertines [the "sons of Mars"--the name the Campanian mercenaries gave
themselves], as a result of their success, were acting in a reckless
and overbearing manner, so he proceeded to arm his citizen levies and
put them through a hard period of training. Then he led out his troops,
engaged the enemy near the river Longanus in the plain of Mylae,
defeated their army decisively and captured their leaders. This action
put an end to the Mamertines' aggressive conduct, and when Hiero
returned to Syracuse he was saluted by all the allies as king [c. 265
BC].
PAUSANIAS (Description of Greece, [6.12.2-4])
On Hiero's rule (Pausanias is describing statues and monuments that he observed at Olympia in the second century AD.):
By the chariot of Hiero [Hiero I, who ruled Syracuse 478-466 BC] is a
man of the same name as the son of Deinomenes. He too was tyrant of
Syracuse, and was called Hiero the son of Hierocles. After the death of
Agathocles, a former tyrant [who ruled Syracuse 317-289 BC], tyranny
again sprung up at Syracuse in the person of this Hiero, who came to
power in the second year of the hundred and twenty-sixth Olympiad
[i.e., 275-274 BC], at which Festival Idaeus of Cyrene won the
foot-race.
This Hiero made an alliance with Pyrrhus the son of Aeacides, sealing
it by the marriage of Gelo his son and Nereis the daughter of Pyrrhus.
When the Romans went to war with Carthage for the possession of Sicily
[the First Punic War], the Carthaginians held more than half the
island, and Hiero sided with them at the beginning of the war. Shortly
after, however, he changed over to the Romans, thinking that they were
stronger, and firmer and more reliable friends.
. . . The statues of Hiero at Olympia, one on horseback and the other
on foot, were dedicated by the sons of Hiero, the artist being Micon, a
Syracusan, the son of Niceratus.
POLYBIUS (Universal History, Book VII.8)
On Hiero's character:
Hiero is in the first place a more interesting subject [than his
grandson Hieronymos] because he established himself as the ruler of
Syracuse and her allies entirely through his own abilities, for he owed
neither wealth, nor reputation nor anything else to Fortune. Most
remarkable of all, he achieved his position by his own efforts, without
killing, banishing or injuring a single citizen, and not only acquired
but also maintained his power in the same fashion. During a reign of
fifty-four years he kept his country at peace and his authority
undisturbed by conspiracies, and he even contrived to escape envy,
which all too often pursues a man of superior abilities; indeed on more
than one occasion when he tried to lay down his power, he was prevented
from doing so by the united action of the citizens. He not only
conferred great benefits on the Greeks, but took trouble to win their
good opinion, and at the end he left behind him a great personal
reputation and a legacy of universal goodwill towards the Syracusans.
And although he lived throughout his reign in the midst of affluence,
luxury and lavish expenditure, yet he survived for more than ninety
years and retained all his faculties, as well as keeping every part of
his body unimpaired -- the strongest testimony, as it seems to me, of
the balance and sobriety of his life.
Gelo, his son, who lived to the age of over fifty, made it his highest
object in life to obey his father and not to consider wealth or royal
power or anything else as more valuable than affection and loyalty to
his parents.
POLYBIUS (Universal History, Book VIII.7)
On Hiero's defenses of Syracuse designed by Archimedes:
This artillery was extraordinarily effective both in the volume of its
fire, as was to be expected when Hiero had provided the supplies, and
Archimedes designed the various engines.
PLUTARCH (Parallel Lives: Marcellus)
On Hiero's defenses of Syracuse designed by Archimedes:
These machines he [Archimedes] had designed and contrived, not as
matters of any importance, but as mere amusements in geometry; in
compliance with King Hiero's desire and request, some little time
before, that he should reduce to practice some part of his admirable
speculation in science, and by accommodating the theoretic truth to
sensation and ordinary use, bring it more within the appreciation of
the people in general.
PLUTARCH (Parallel Lives: Marcellus)
On Hiero's defenses of Syracuse designed by Archimedes:
Archimedes, however, in writing to King Hiero, whose friend and near
relation he was, had stated that given the force, any given weight
might be moved, and even boasted, we are told, relying on the strength
of demonstration, that if there were another earth, by going into it he
could remove this. Hiero being struck with amazement at this, and
entreating him to make good this problem by actual experiment, and show
some great weight moved by a small engine, he fixed accordingly upon a
ship of burden out of the king's arsenal, which could not be drawn out
of the dock without great labour and many men; and, loading her with
many passengers and a full freight, sitting himself the while far off,
with no great endeavour, but only holding the head of the pulley in his
hand and drawing the cords by degrees, he drew the ship in a straight
line, as smoothly and evenly as if she had been in the sea. The king,
astonished at this, and convinced of the power of the art, prevailed
upon Archimedes to make him engines accommodated to all the purposes,
offensive and defensive, of a siege. These the king himself never made
use of, because he spent almost all his life in a profound quiet and
the highest affluence. But the apparatus was, in most opportune time,
ready at hand for the Syracusans, and with it also the engineer himself.
LIVY (History of Rome from its Foundation, Book XXIV.34)
On Hiero's defenses of Syracuse designed by Archimedes:
By these devices the attack from the sea was frustrated, and all
available strength was diverted to an assault by land. Even there,
however, every section of the defences had been equipped with various
missile-throwing machines, all at the expense and by the forethought of
Hiero over many years, aided by the unique engineering skill of
Archimedes.
PROCLUS (A Commentary on the First Book of Euclid's Elements, Book II, Chapter III)
On a demonstration of Archimedes' machines to Hiero:
Recall what Hieron of Syracuse is said to have remarked about
Archimedes, who had built a three-masted vessel which Hieron had
ordered made for sending to King Ptolemy of Egypt. When all the
Syracusans together were unable to launch it and Archimedes made it
possible for Hieron alone to move it down the shore, he exclaimed, in
his amazement: "From this day forth we must believe everything that
Archimedes says."
VITRUVIUS (De Architectura, Book IX, Introduction)
On Hiero's golden crown:
Hiero, after gaining the royal power in Syracuse, resolved, as a
consequence of his successful exploits, to place in a certain temple a
golden crown which he had vowed to the immortal gods. He contracted for
its making at a fixed price, and weighed out a precise amount of gold
to the contractor. At the appointed time the latter delivered to the
king's satisfaction an exquisitely finished piece of handiwork, and it
appeared that in weight the crown corresponded precisely to what the
gold had weighed.
But afterwards a charge was made that gold had been abstracted and an
equivalent weight of silver had been added in the manufacture of the
crown. Hiero, thinking it an outrage that he had been tricked, and yet
not knowing how to detect the theft, requested Archimedes to consider
the matter. |
