Sicilia (Roman province) in the context of "Hiero II of Syracuse"

The Second Triumvirate was an extraordinary commission and magistracy created at the end of the Roman republic for Mark Antony, Lepidus, and Octavian to give them practically absolute power. It was formally constituted by law on 27 November 43 BC with a term of five years; it was renewed in 37 BC for another five years before expiring in 32 BC. Constituted by the lex Titia, the triumvirs were given broad powers to make or repeal legislation, issue judicial punishments without due process or right of appeal, and appoint all other magistrates. The triumvirs also split the Roman world into three sets of provinces.

The triumvirate, formed in the aftermath of a conflict between Antony and the senate, emerged as a force to reassert Caesarian control over the western provinces and wage war on the liberatores led by the men who assassinated Julius Caesar. After proscriptions, purging the senatorial and equestrian orders, and a brutal civil war, the liberatores were defeated at the Battle of Philippi. After Philippi, Antony and Octavian took the east and west, respectively, with Lepidus confined to Africa. The last remaining opposition to the Triumvirs came from Sextus Pompey, a son of Pompey the Great, who controlled Sicily, Corsica and Sardinia.

The Punic Wars were a series of wars fought between the Roman Republic and the Carthaginian Empire during the period 264 to 146 BC. Three such wars took place, involving a total of forty-three years of warfare on both land and sea across the western Mediterranean region, and a four-year-long revolt against Carthage.

The First Punic War broke out on the Mediterranean island of Sicily in 264 BC as a result of Rome's expansionary attitude combined with Carthage's proprietary approach to the island. At the start of the war Carthage was the dominant power of the western Mediterranean, with an extensive maritime empire (a thalassocracy), while Rome was a rapidly expanding power in Italy, with a strong army but no navy. The fighting took place primarily on Sicily and its surrounding waters, as well as in North Africa, Corsica and Sardinia. It lasted twenty-three years, until 241 BC, when the Carthaginians were defeated. By the terms of the peace treaty Carthage paid large reparations and Sicily was annexed as the first Roman province. The end of the war sparked a major but eventually unsuccessful revolt within Carthaginian territory known as the Mercenary War.

A latifundium (Latin: latus, "spacious", and fundus, "farm", "estate") was originally the term used by ancient Romans for great landed estates specialising in agriculture destined for sale: grain, olive oil, or wine. They were characteristic of Magna Graecia and Sicily, Egypt, Northwest Africa and Hispania Baetica. The latifundia were the closest approximation to industrialised agriculture in antiquity, and their economics depended upon slavery.

In the modern colonial period, the word was borrowed in Portuguese latifúndios and Spanish latifundios or simply fundos for similar extensive land grants, known as fazendas (in Portuguese) or haciendas (in Spanish), in their empires.

The Bellum Siculum (Latin for "Sicilian War") was an Ancient Roman civil war waged between 42 BC and 36 BC by the forces of the Second Triumvirate and Sextus Pompey, the last surviving son of Pompey the Great and the last leader of the Optimate faction. The war consisted of mostly a number of naval engagements throughout the Mediterranean Sea and a land campaign primarily in Sicily that eventually ended in a victory for the Triumvirate and Sextus Pompey's death. The conflict is notable as the last stand of any organised opposition to the Triumvirate.

The result of the war settled the question whether the political ascendancy of the autocratic Triumvirs could be reversed, ending all hopes for the restoration of the constitutional government of the Roman Republic. The war however also led to the breakdown of the Triumvirate itself since Octavian was able to take advantage of discontent in Lepidus' camp to sideline his partner, leaving Octavian and Mark Antony as only rulers of the Roman world and setting the stage for the War of Actium.

Agatha of Sicily (c. 231 – c. 251 AD) is a Christian saint. Her feast is on 5 February. Agatha was born in Catania, part of the Roman Province of Sicily, and was martyred c. 251. She is one of several virgin martyrs who are commemorated by name in the Canon of the Mass.

Agatha is the patroness saint of Catania, Molise, Malta, San Marino, Gallipoli in Apulia, and Zamarramala, a municipality of the Province of Segovia in Spain. She is also the patroness saint of breast cancer patients, rape victims,martyrs, wet nurses, bell-founders, and bakers, and is invoked against fire, earthquakes, and eruptions of Mount Etna.

The First Servile War of 135–132 BC (also known as the First Sicilian Slave War) was a slave rebellion against the Roman Republic, which took place in Sicily. The revolt started in 135 when Eunus, a slave from Syria who claimed to be a prophet, captured the city of Enna in the middle of the island with 400 fellow slaves. Soon after, Cleon, a Cilician slave, stormed the city of Agrigentum on the southern coast, slaughtered the population, and then joined Eunus' army and became his military commander. Eunus even proclaimed himself king, under the name of Antiochus, after the Seleucid emperors of his native Syria.

The former slaves then moved to the eastern coast and took control of Catana and Tauromenium. Their exploit triggered several minor revolts in Italy and as far as Delos in the Aegean Sea. Eunus and Cleon were able to repel several Roman attempts to quell the rebellion until an army commanded by consul Publius Rupilius arrived in Sicily in 134 and besieged the cities controlled by the slaves. The revolt ended in 132 with the fall of Enna and Tauromenium.

The 365 Crete earthquake occurred at about sunrise on 21 July 365 in the Eastern Mediterranean, with an assumed epicentre near Crete. Geologists today estimate the undersea earthquake to have been a moment magnitude 8.5 or higher. It caused widespread destruction in the central and southern Diocese of Macedonia (modern Greece), Africa Proconsularis (northern Libya), Egypt, Cyprus, Sicily, and Hispania (Spain). On Crete, nearly all towns were destroyed.

The earthquake was followed by a tsunami which devastated the southern and eastern coasts of the Mediterranean, particularly Libya, Alexandria, and the Nile Delta, killing thousands and hurling ships 3 km (1.9 mi) inland. The quake left a deep impression on the late antique mind, and numerous writers of the time referred to the event in their works.

The lex Appuleia agraria was a Roman agrarian law introduced by the plebeian tribune Lucius Appuleius Saturninus during his second tribunate in 100 BC. The law concerned the distribution of land to poor Romans and to Gaius Marius' veterans. According to Appian, this was to be provided from land that had been seized by the Cimbri in Transalpine Gaul. A separate but related law also established colonies Sicily, Achaea, Macedonia, and possibly Africa.

The law also required the swearing of an oath to follow it. Some senators, including Quintus Caecilius Metellus Numidicus, refused to take the oath and therefore departed into exile. Although Saturninus was an ally of Marius, his activities during the elections of 100 BC – including a murder of a hostile candidate – triggered a senatus consultum ultimum which saw him apprehended and his death to a mob in the senate house. Despite Saturninus' death, his land reforms were not overturned.

The gens Aquillia or Aquilia was a plebeian family of great antiquity at ancient Rome. Two of the Aquillii are mentioned among the Roman nobles who conspired to bring back the Tarquins, and a member of the house, Gaius Aquillius Tuscus, was consul in 487 BC.