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Tauromenion — modern Taormina on Sicily's eastern coast — occupied an unusual political position throughout this period, shifting alliances between Syracuse, Carthage, and Rome as the First and Second Punic Wars reshaped the island. The city maintained its own bronze coinage even as larger powers absorbed neighboring mints, a reflection of the civic autonomy it negotiated through careful diplomacy rather than military strength. It fell definitively to Roman siege in 212 BC, the same year as Syracuse.