Hiero I of Syracuse

During his reign he greatly increased the power of Syracuse. He removed the inhabitants of Naxos and Catana[?] to Leontini, peopled Catana (which he renamed Aetna) with Dorians, concluded an alliance with Acragas (Agrigentum). and espoused the cause of the Locrians against Anaxilaus[?], tyrant of Rhegium[?].

His most important achievement was the defeat of the Etruscans at Cumae (474), by which he saved the Greeks of Campania. A bronze helmet (now in the British Museum), with an inscription commemorating the event, was dedicated at Olympia. Though despotic in his rule Hiero was a liberal patron of literature. He died at Catana in 467.

See Diod. Sic. xi. 38-67; Xenophon, Hiero, 6. 2; E. Lübbert, Syrakus zur Zeit des Gelon und Hieron (1875);

This entry was originally from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.