Based on literary sources, modern scholarship argues that the conquest of Syracuse by Romans was the beginning of a general decline of Sicily. Epigraphic evidence dating after 212 BCE shows, however, that the metropolis of Syracuse, along with many other Sicilian cities, was still active and flourishing. In fact, as the honorary practice demonstrates, during the 2nd and the 1st centuries BC there was a new phase of monumentalization in many Sicilian poleis such as Halaesa, Segesta, Solous, Thermae Himerenses. Benefactors, who belonged to the local élites and fulfilled important political and civic duties, contributed with their wealth to the forming of a new image of Sicily. This favored local communities, and, at the same time, enhanced the benefactors’ own prestige.