[citation needed] With his colleague, Manius Otacilius Crassus, he gained a brilliant victory over the Carthaginians and Syracusans:[2] more than sixty of the Sicilian towns acknowledged the supremacy of Rome, and the consuls concluded a peace treaty with Hieron of Syracuse, which lasted the remainder of his [Hieron] long life.
He was awarded the triumph De Paeneis et Rege Siculorum Hierone.
[5] His relief of Messana obtained him the cognomen Messalla, which remained in the family for nearly 800 years.
To commemorate his Sicilian victory, he arranged for it to be pictorially represented (painted) on the wall of the Curia Hostilia, the first example of an historical fresco at Rome(it still hung there two centuries later).
[2] Messalla was censor in 252 BC, when he degraded 400 equites to aerarians for neglect of duty in.