Manius Valerius Maximus Messalla was

Roman consul A consul held the highest elected political office of the Roman Republic ( to 27 BC), and ancient Romans considered the consulship the second-highest level of the '' cursus honorum'' (an ascending sequence of public offices to which polit ...

in 263 BC.

Biography

Manius Valerius Maximus was the son of Marcus Valerius Maximus Corvinus, consul in 289 BC, and grandson of

Marcus Valerius Corvus Marcus Valerius Corvus (c. 370–270 BC) was a military commander and politician from the early-to-middle period of the Roman Republic. During his career he was elected consul six times, first at the age of twenty-three. He was appointed dictator ...

. With his colleague,

Manius Otacilius Crassus Manius Otacilius Crassus was a Roman consul of Samnite origins and served during the Punic Wars. His consular colleague in 263 BC was Manius Valerius Maximus Corvinus Messalla,Polybius, 1.16 and in 246 BC his colleague was Marcus Fabius Licinus. ...

, he gained a brilliant victory over the

Carthaginians The Punic people, or western Phoenicians, were a Semitic people in the Western Mediterranean who migrated from Tyre, Phoenicia to North Africa during the Early Iron Age. In modern scholarship, the term ''Punic'' – the Latin equivalent of the ...

and Syracusans: more than sixty of the Sicilian towns acknowledged the supremacy of Rome, and the consuls concluded a peace treaty with Hiero, which lasted the remainder of his long life.Polybius
1:17.6
/ref> This acknowledgment proved equally advantageous to both Syracuse and Rome. He alone was awarded the triumph ''De Paeneis et Rege Siculorum Hierone''. His relief of

Messana Messina (, also , ) is a harbour city and the capital of the Italian Metropolitan City of Messina. It is the third largest city on the island of Sicily, and the 13th largest city in Italy, with a population of more than 219,000 inhabitants in t ...

obtained him the

cognomen A ''cognomen'' (; plural ''cognomina''; from ''con-'' "together with" and ''(g)nomen'' "name") was the third name of a citizen of ancient Rome, under Roman naming conventions. Initially, it was a nickname, but lost that purpose when it became her ...

Messalla, which remained in the family for nearly 800 years. To commemorate his Sicilian victory, he arranged for it to be pictorially represented on the wall of the ''

Curia Hostilia The Curia Hostilia was one of the original senate houses or " curiae" of the Roman Republic. It was believed to have begun as a temple where the warring tribes laid down their arms during the reign of Romulus (r. c. 771–717 BC). During the earl ...

'', the first example of an historical fresco at

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus ( legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

. He is also said to have brought the first

sundial A sundial is a horological device that tells the time of day (referred to as civil time in modern usage) when direct sunlight shines by the apparent position of the Sun in the sky. In the narrowest sense of the word, it consists of a fl ...

from

Catana Catania (, , Sicilian and ) is the second largest municipality in Sicily, after Palermo. Despite its reputation as the second city of the island, Catania is the largest Sicilian conurbation, among the largest in Italy, as evidenced also by ...

to Rome, where it was set up on a column in the

forum Forum or The Forum (plural forums or fora) may refer to: Common uses *Forum (legal), designated space for public expression in the United States *Forum (Roman), open public space within a Roman city **Roman Forum, most famous example *Internet ...

. Messalla was censor in 252 BC, when he degraded 400

equites The ''equites'' (; literally "horse-" or "cavalrymen", though sometimes referred to as "knights" in English) constituted the second of the property-based classes of ancient Rome, ranking below the senatorial class. A member of the equestrian ...

to aerarians for neglect of duty in Sicily.

References

Sources

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Valerius Maximus Messalla, Manius 3rd-century BC Roman consuls Catania Roman censors Ancient Roman generals Roman patricians Roman triumphators Manius