place
Messana
also: Messina
City on the strait between Sicily and Italy; Verres's collaborators' city, and the site of the cross facing Italy on which Cicero's Roman citizen Publius Gavius was hung.
Reading notes
- Against Verres, Second Hearing, Book II §13 Mamertine
Messana, originally Greek Zankle, occupied in 288 BC by the Mamertines (Campanian mercenaries who took the city by treachery). In Verres's time the Mamertines were a federate city; their alliance with Verres rested on his use of their port for export of plunder.
- Against Verres, Second Hearing, Book IV §3 Mamertine
Messana, the federate city, was the only Sicilian community that publicly praised Verres at his trial; it was his receiver-port and the builder of the cargo-ship that carried his plunder home. Cicero treats the praise as a confession by accomplice.