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 politic ...

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 dictat ...

. 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 The Roman triumph (Latin triumphus) was a celebration for a victorious military commander in ancient Rome. For later imitations, in life or in art, see Trionfo. Numerous later uses of the term, up to the present, are derived directly or indirectl ...

''De Paeneis et Rege Siculorum Hierone''. His relief of Messana 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 here ...

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 early ...

'', the first example of an historical

fresco Fresco (plural ''frescos'' or ''frescoes'') is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly laid ("wet") lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the dry-powder pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plast ...

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 f ...

from Catana to Rome, where it was set up on a column in the forum. 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