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KAMARINA (Ancient city) SICILY
(Kamarina or Kamarina: Eth. Kamarinaios, Camarinensis: Camarana).
A celebrated Greek city of Sicily, situated on the S. coast of the island, at
the mouth of the little river Hipparis. It was about 20 miles E. of Gela, and
40 from Cape Pachynum. Thucydides tells us that it was a colony of Syracuse, founded
135 years after the establishnment of the parent city, i. e. 599 B.C., and this
date is confirmed by the Scholiast on Pindar, which places its foundation in the
45th Olympiad. (Thuc. vi. 5; Schol. ad Pind. Oil v. 16; Euseb. Chron. ad Ol. XLV.)
It must have risen rapidly to prosperity, as only 46 years after its first foundation
it attempted to throw off the yoke of the parent city, but the effort proved unsuccessful;
and, as a punishment for its revolt, the Syracusans destroyed the refractory city
from its foundations, B.C. 552. (Thuc. l. c.; Scymn. Ch.294-296; Schol. ad Pind.
l. c.) It appears to have remained desolate until about B.C. 495, when Hippocrates,
tyrant of Gela, by a treaty with Syracuse, obtained possession of the territory
of Camarina, and recolonised the city, himself assuming the title of its founder
or oekist. (Thuc. l. c.; Herod. vii. 154; Philist. ap. Schol. ad Pind. Ol. v.
19.) This second colony did not last long, having been put an end to by Gelon,
the successor of Hippocrates, who, after he had made himself master of Syracuse,
in B.C. 485, removed thither all the inhabitants of Camarina, and a second time
destroyed their city. (Herod. vii. 156; Thuc. l. c.; Philist. l. c.) But after
the expulsion of Thrasybulus from Syracuse, and the return of the exiles to their
respective cities, the people of Gela, for the third time, established a colony
at Camarina, and portioned out its territory among the new settlers. (Diod. xi.
76; Thuc. l. c., where there is no doubt that we should read Geloion for Gelonos;
Schol. ad Pind. Ol. v. 19.) It is to this third foundation, which must have taken
place about B.C. 461, that Pindar refers in celebrating the Olympic victory of
Psaumis of Camarina, when he calls that city his newly-founded abode (tan neoikon
hedran, Ol. v. 19). In the same ode the poet celebrates the rapidity with which
the buildings of the new city were rising, and the people passing from a state
of insignificance to one of wealth and power (ap' amachanias es phaos, Ib. 31).
The new colony was indeed more fortunate than its predecessors, and the next 50
years were the most flourishing period in the history of Camarina, which retained
its independence, and assumed a prominent rank among the Greek cities of Sicily.
In their political relations the Camarinaeans appear to have been mainly guided
by jealousy of their powerful neighbour Syracuse: hence they were led to separate
themselves in great measure from the other Dorian cities of Sicily, and during
the war between Syracuse and Leontini, in B.C. 427, they were the only people
of Dorian origin who took part with the latter. At the same time there was always
a party in the city favourable to the Syracusans, and disposed to join the Dorian
alliance, and it was probably the influence of this party that a few years after
induced them to conclude a truce with their neighbours at Gela, which eventually
led to a general pacification. (Thuc. iii. 86, iv. 25, 65.) By the treaty finally
concluded, Thucydides tells us, it was stipulated that the Camarinaeans should
retain possession of the territory of Morgantia (Morgantine), an arrangement which
it is not easy to understand, as the city of that name was situated far away in
the interior of Sicily. [Morgantia]
A few years later the Camarinaeans were still ready to assist the
Athenians in supporting the Leontines by arms (Thuc. v. 4); but when the great
Athenian expedition appeared in Sicily, they were reasonably alarmed at the ulterior
views of that power, and refused to take part with either side, promising to maintain
a strict neutrality. It was not till fortune had declared decidedly in favour
of the Syracusans that the Camarinaeans sent a small force to their support. (Thuc.
vi. 75, 88; Diod. xiii. 4, 12.) A few years later the great Carthaginian invasion
of Sicily gave a fatal blow to the prosperity of Camarina. Its territory was ravaged
by Himilco in the spring of B.C. 405, but the city itself was not [p. 487] attacked;
nevertheless, when Dionysius had failed in averting the fall of Gela, and the
inhabitants of that city were compelled to abandon it to its fate, the Camarinaeans
were induced or constrained to follow their example; and the whole population,
men, women, and children, quitted their homes, and effected their retreat to Syracuse,
from whence they afterwards withdrew to Leontini. (Diod. xiii. 108, 111, 113;
Xen. Hell. ii. 3. 5) By the treaty concluded soon after between Dionysius and
the Carthaginians, the citizens of Camarina, as well as those of Gela and Agrigentum,
were allowed to return to their homes, and continue to inhabit their native cities,
but as tributaries to Carthage, and prohibited from restoring their fortifications.
(Diod. xiii. 114.) Of this permission it is probable that many availed themselves;
and a few years later we find Camarina eagerly furnishing her contingent to support
Dionysius in his war with the Carthaginians. (Id. xiv. 47.) With this exception,
we hear nothing of her during the reign of that despot; but there is little doubt
that the Camarinaeans were subject to his rule. After the death of the elder Dionysius,
however, they readily joined in the enterprise of Dion, and supported him with
an auxiliary force in his march upon Syracuse. (Id. xvi. 9.) After Timoleon had
restored the whole of the eastern half of Sicily to its liberty, Camarina was
recruited with a fresh body of settlers, and appears to have recovered a certain
degree of prosperity. (Id. xvi. 82, 83.) But it suffered again severely during
the wars between Agathocles and the Carthaginians, and was subsequently taken
and plundered by the Mamertines. (Id. xix. 110, xx. 32, xxiii. 1.)
During the First Punic War, Camarina early espoused the Roman cause;
and though in B.C. 258 it was betrayed into the hands of the Carthaginian general
Hamilcar, it was quickly recovered by the Roman consuls A. Atilius and C. Sulpicius,
who, to punish the citizens for their defection, sold a large part of them as
slaves. (Diod. xxiii. 9; Polyb. i. 24.) A few years later, B.C. 255, the coast
near Camarina was the scene of one of the greatest disasters which betel the Romans
during the war, in the shipwreck of their whole fleet by a violent tempest; so
complete was its destruction, that out of 364 ships only 80 escaped, and the whole
coast from Camarina to Cape Pachynum was strewed with fragments of the wrecks.
(Polyb. i. 37; Diod. xxiii. 18.) This is the last notice of Camarina to be found
in history. Under the Roman dominion it seems to have sunk into a very insignificant
place, and its name is not once found in the Verrine orations of Cicero. Strabo
also speaks of it as one of the cities of Sicily of which in his time little more
than the vestiges remained (vi. p. 272); but we learn from Pliny and Ptolemy that
it still continued to exist as late as the 2nd century of the Christian era. (Plin.
iii. 8. s. 14; Ptol. iii. 4. § 15.) From this period all trace of it disappears:
it was never rebuilt in the middle ages, and the site is now perfectly desolate,
though a watch-tower on the coast still retains the name of Torre di Camarana.
From the remains still extant, it is evident that the city occupied
a slight eminence between the two small streams now called the Flume di Camarana
and the F. Frascolari. The former, which is much the most considerable of the
two, is evidently the Hipparis (Hipparis) of Pindar (Ol. v. 27), which he describes
as flowing past the town, and supplying the inhabitants with water by means of
artificial canals or aqueducts. It is a copious stream of clear water, having
its principal source in a large fountain at a place called Comiso, supposed by
some writers to be the Fons Dianae of Solinus, which he places near Camarina.
(Solin. 5. § 16.) There is, however, another remarkable fountain at a place called
Favara, near the town of Santa Croce, which has, perhaps, equal claim to this
distinction. (Fazell. v. 1. p. 225; Cluver. Sicil. p. 191; Hoare, Class. Tour,
vol. ii. pp. 261-263.) The Frascolari is probably the Oanis, known to us only
from the same passage of Pindar. More celebrated than either of these streams
was the Lake of Camarina (called by Pindar, l. c., enchorian limnen; Palus Camarina,
Claudian), which immediately adjoined the walls of the city on the N. It was a
mere marshy pool, formed by the stagnation of the Hipparis near its mouth, and
had the effect of rendering the city very unhealthy, on which account we are told
that the inhabitants were desirous to drain it, but, having consulted the oracle
at Delphi, were recommended to let it alone. They nevertheless executed their
project; but by so doing laid open their walls to attack on that side, so that
their enemies soon after availed themselves of its weakness, and captured the
city. The period to which this transaction is to be referred is unknown, and the
whole story very apocryphal; but the answer of the oracle, Me kinei Kamarinan:
akinetos gap ameinon, passed into a proverbial saying among the Greeks. (Virg.
Aen. iii. 700; Serv. ad loc., Suid. s. v. Me kinei K.; Steph. B. s. v. Kamarina;
Sil. Ital. xiv. 198.)
The remains still extant of Camarina are very inconsiderable: they
consist of scattered portions of the ancient walls, and the vestiges of a temple,
now converted into a church; but the site of the ancient city is distinctly marked,
and the remains of its port and other fragments of buildings on the shore were
still visible in the 17th century, though now for the most part buried in sand.
(Hoare, l. c. p. 260; Fazell. v. 2; Cluver. Sicil. p. 192; Amico, Lex. Topogr.
Sicil. vol. i. p. 147.) The coins of Camarina are numerous: they belong for the
most part to the flourishing period of its existence, B.C. 460-405. Some of them
have the head of the river-god Hipparis, represented, as usual, with horns on
his forehead. Others (as the one annexed) have the head of Hercules, and a quadriga
on the reverse, probably in commemoration of some victory in the chariot race
at the Olympic games.
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited June 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
A town on the southern coast of Sicily, at the mouth of the
Hipparis, founded by Syracuse, B.C. 599. It was several times destroyed by Syracuse;
and in the First Punic War was taken by the Romans, and most of the inhabitants
sold as slaves. Near the walls on the north was the Palus Camarina, which was
a marshy pool formed by the stagnation of the Hipparis near its mouth. Its miasmatic
vapours made the city unhealthy, for which reason the inhabitants were anxious
to drain it, but were counselled by the Delphic Oracle not to do it (Me kinei
Kamarinan: akinetos gar ameinon). In spite of this advice, the marsh was drained,
and in consequence the city was laid open to attack on that side, and was captured.
The story is doubtless apocryphal, but the words of the oracle passed into a proverb
among the Greeks.
On a promontory ca. 20 km SW of Ragusa, a colony founded by Syracuse
in 598 B.C. (Thuc. 6.5). It was at the limit of the Syracusan territorial expansion,
near the territory of Gela and under its influence. The history of the city is
associated with that of Syracuse and of Gela, but in its affairs one finds numerous
attempts at independence from both cities. During its early years the city established
with the Sikels a peaceful rapport which, according to Philistus, amounted to
a true alliance. The Sikel settlements were on the Dirillo plain and in the Iblei
mountains. The city, destroyed in 553 by the Syracusans, was rebuilt by Hippokrates
of Gela in 492. It was destroyed a second time by parties from Gela in 484 and
again rebuilt by Gela in 461 B.C. With its power consolidated, the city's influence
grew over a radius so great that even the city of Morgantina was allotted to it
in the agreements with Gela in 424 B.C.
Allied with the Chalkidian city of Leontinoi and therefore with Athens,
Kamarina was abandoned by Syracuse in 405 B.C. to the Carthaginians, who must
have destroyed its fortifications. In 396 B.C. its citizens returned to it, but
only under Timoleon in 339 B.C. was the city completely reconstructed. A period
of splendor ended with the sack by the Mamertines in 275 B.C. and destruction
by the Romans in 258 B.C. The survival of several sectors in the 2d and 1st c.
B.C. has been verified by the discovery of the House of the Altar, documented
by several inscriptions. Probably during the period of Augustus the site was abandoned.
The only building still standing in the area is a small church with a cemetery
built into the Temple of Athena at the center of the ancient city, on the summit
of the hill.
Exploration of the necropoleis was begun at the end of the last century,
but the habitation area has been the object of systematic excavation only for
the last ten years. The city walls, 7 km in length, enclosed an area of ca. 200
ha. The urban plan is of the grid type advocated by Hippodamos, with streets that
intersect at right angles and delimit blocks 35 m square. It is probable that
three principal arteries about 10.7 m wide crossed the city longitudinally from
E to W, cut orthogonally by numerous parallel streets 5 m wide running N-S. This
grid of streets ignores the uneven terrain, which varies in level by as much as
50 m, although in the time of Timoleon almost the entire urban area was occupied
by buildings.
Walls belonging to buildings from the archaic age have been identified
in the W area of the city and show the same orientation as the buildings from
the age of Timoleon. Groups of city blocks have been discovered from this phase
in the SE zone. These include the House of the Merchant and the House of the Inscription.
In the latter has been found the contract for the purchase of a house, inscribed
in Greek on lead. It gives information about the organization of the citizens,
who appear to have been subdivided into classes or tribes, and it alludes to a
Sanctuary of Persephone in the neighborhood.
A stretch of cella wall of the Temple of Athena, exposed from ancient
times to the present, is recognizable in the drawings of 18th c. travelers. A
cella in antis, without peristasis, it dates to the 5th c. B.C. and is situated
on the highest point on the promontory (ca. 55 m). Recent excavations have uncovered
a conspicuous stretch of the walls on the S side near the Oanis river (Rifriscolaro).
It is faced with crude bricks of the type used in the walls at Gela. The use of
crude bricks at Kamarina appears to be confirmed by the sources (scholia to Pind.
Ol. V).
Extensive necropoleis surround the city on three sides. To the N the
necropoleis of Scoglitti date to archaic and Classical times; to the E the necropoleis
of Rifriscolaro, Dieci Saline, and Piombo date from the archaic, Classical, and
Hellenistic periods; to the S is the necropolis of Passo Marinaro, in which kraters
from the 5th c. B.C. have been found, and the necropoleis of Cozzo Campisi and
Randello from the Classical and Hellenistic times. Of the more than 2500 tombs
systematically excavated to date 500 are at Passo Marinaro and 480 at Rifriscolaro.
The tombs in the latter necropolis largely date from the first 30 years of the
6th c. B.C. and contain much mid Corinthian material. They may be attributed to
the first generation of Syracusan colonists.
A deposit of fictile figurines and molds has been found outside the
city near the Hipparis river near several kilns that constitute a quarter of vase-makers
and modelers active in the 5th and 4th c. B.C. The figurine types reveal contact
with the production at Gela. Representations of Demeter with the piglet are common
(there was certainly a sanctuary to Demeter near the Ganis), Artemis on the stag,
and Athena Ergane. The last has been found previously in Sicily only at Scornavacche,
an anonymous habitation site nearby.
The earliest in the series of coins from Kamarina dates from ca. 461
B.C. Among the master die cutters was Exekastidas.
The material from the site is displayed in the museums at Syracuse,
Ragusa, and in the Antiquarium near the Temple of Athena at Kamarina.
P. Pelagatti, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Nov 2002 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
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