Carthaginians again raised to supreme power in B.C. 317, seems not to have impaired this prosperity. On the contrary, he secured a period of peace to Sicily by carrying the war into Carthaginian territory in Africa and stirring up the African cities to rebel- lion against Carthage. But after his death (B.C. 298) some Italian mercenaries—called Mamertini,"Sons of Mamers," or "Mars"—whom he had employed, seized on Messene, expelled or put to death the male inhabitants, and took possession of the city, lands, women, and children. They made their stolen home the vantage-ground for plundering expeditions upon other cities, and thus one Greek city not only ceased to be Hellenic, but became a danger to other Hellenic cities, who now had two enemies instead of one to combat. Syracuse itself was torn by internal factions, and was held—in spite of its nominal free government—by one military adventurer after another and could do nothing against either the Carthaginians or the Mamertines.
Ten years of great misery were the consequence; and it was to heal these disorders that Pyrrhus, who had married a daughter of Agathocles, was invited to leave his campaign in Italy and come to Sicily (B.C. 278). But though Pyrrhus—another knight-errant—had for a time as great a success as Timoleon, he did not, like him, retain the confidence of the Sicilians. He restored some sort of order at Syracuse, cut off marauding parties of the Mamertines, drove the Carthaginian garrison from Agrigentum and Eryx, Hercte and Panormus, and seemed on the point of expelling them altogether
