Such was the state with which Rome was now brought face to face by the conquest of South Italy and which was the first power she was to challenge in a war for dominion beyond the peninsula. As we have seen, Rome had long ere this come into contact with this great maritime people.(4) Two treaties, one perhaps dating from the close of the sixth century, and the other from 348 B. C., regulated commercial intercourse between the two states and their respective subjects and allies. A third, concluded in 279, had provided for military coöperation against Pyrrhus, but this alliance had ceased after the defeat of the latter, and with the removal of this common enemy a feeling of coolness or mutual suspicion seems to have arisen between the erstwhile allies. II. THE FIRST PUNIC WAR: 264–241 B. C. *The origins of the war.* The first war between Rome and Carthage arose out of the political situation in the island of Sicily. There the town of Messana was occupied by the Mamertini, a band of Campanian mercenaries, who had been in the service of Syracuse but who had deserted and seized this town about 284 B. C. Because of their perpetual acts of brigandage they were a menace to their neighbors, the Syracusans. The latter, now under an energetic ruler, Hiero, who had assumed the title of king, in 265 succeeded in blockading Messana and its ultimate capture seemed certain. In despair the Mamertini sought help from the Carthaginians who sent a garrison to Messana, for they looked with jealousy upon any extension of Syracusan territory. However, the majority of the Mamertini sought to be taken under the protection of Rome and appealed to the Roman Senate for aid. The senators on the one hand saw that to espouse the cause of the Mamertini would be to provoke a war with Carthage, an eventuality before which they shrank, but on the other hand they recognized that the Carthaginian occupation of Messana would give them the control of the Straits of Messana and constitute a perpetual threat against southern Italy. The strength of these conflicting considerations made them unwilling to assume responsibility for a decision and they referred the matter to the Assembly of the Centuries. Here the people, elated, apparently, by their recent victorious wars in Italy, and led on by hopes of pecuniary advantage to be derived from the war, decided to admit the Mamertini to the Roman alliance. One consul, Appius Claudius, was sent with a small force to relieve the town (264). The Mamertini induced the Carthaginian garrison to withdraw, and then admitted the Roman force which crossed the straits with the aid of vessels furnished by their Greek allies in Italy. Thereupon the Carthaginians made an alliance with the Syracusans, but the Romans defeated each of them.