Sicilian Expedition against Syracuse in 415-413 BC during the Peloponnesian War, which ended up severely affecting a defeated Athens, both politically and economically, in the following years to come. Another battle which Syracuse took part in, this time under the Tyrant Hiero I of Syracuse, was the Battle of Cumae, where the combined navies of Syracuse and Cumae defeated an Etruscan force, resulting in significant territorial loses for the Etruscans. The constant warfare between Ancient Carthage and the Greek city-states eventually opened the door to an emerging third power. In the 3rd century BC, the Messanan Crisis, caused by Mamertine mercenaries from Campania, when the city-states of Messina (Carthaginian-owned) and Syracuse (Dorian-owned) were being constantly raided and pillaged by Mamertines, during the period (282-240 BC) when Central, Western and Northeast Sicily were put under Carthaginian rule, motivated the intervention of the Roman Republic into Sicilian affairs, and led to the First Punic War between Rome and Carthage. By the end of the war in 242 BC, and with the death of Hiero II, all of Sicily except Syracuse was in Roman hands, becoming Rome's first province outside of the Italian peninsula. For the next 600 years, Sicily would be a province of the Roman Republic and later Empire. Prior to Roman rule, there were three native Elymian towns by the names of Segesta, Eryx and Entella, as well as several Siculian towns called Agyrion, Kale Akte (founded by the Sicel leader Ducetius), Enna and Pantalica, and one Sicanian town known as Thapsos. (Greek: Θάψος) Sometime after Carthage conquered most of Sicily except for the Southeast which was still controlled by Syracuse, Pyrrhus of Epirus, the Molossian king of Epirus, was installed as King/Tyrant of Sicily from 278 to 275 BC, even capturing the native Elymian mountain-city of Eryx, which was previously under Carthaginian fortification & protection before he captured it. Pyrrhus even attempted to capture Lilybaeum (Siege of Lilybaeum) from the Punics, which didn't succeed. A couple years later (275 BC), Envoys from Southern Italy had notified him that of all the Greek cities in Italy, only Tarentum hadn't fallen to the Romans. Upon hearing this, coinciding with the fact that the Sicilian city-states had started becoming hostile towards him, due to him trying to force Sicily into becoming a martial state, Pyrrhus made his decision to depart from the island and dethrone himself, leaving Syracuse and Carthage in charge