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Hiero I




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 the Battle Of Cumae ( 474 BC ), by which he saved the Greeks of Campania from Etruscan domination. 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 .''