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DREPANON (Ancient city) SICILY
Drepanum or Drepana (To Drepanon,, Ptol., Diod. xxiii. 9, but ta Repana,
Pol.; Steph. B.; Dionys.; Diod. xxiv, &c., and this seems the best authenticated
form: Eth. Drepanitanus: Trapani), a city of Sicily, with a promontory and port
of the same name, at the NW. extremity of the island, immediately opposite to
the Aegates. The city did not exist until a comparatively late period, but the
port and promontory are mentioned in very early times: the latter evidently derived
its name from the resemblance of its form to that of a sickle (drepane), whence
late mythographers described it as the spot where the sickle of Cronus or Saturn
was buried. (Serv. ad Aen. iii. 707; Tzetz. ad Lycophr. 869.) The port was only
a few miles from the foot of Mt. Eryx, and hence it is mentioned in connection
with the Trojan legends that were attached to this part of Sicily. Virgil makes
it the scene of the death of Anchises, and of the funeral games celebrated by
Aeneas in his honour. (Virg. Aen. iii. 707, v. 24, &c.; Dionys. i. 52; Serv. ad
Aen. ll. cc.) But with this exception we find no mention of the name previous
to the First Punic War: it probably served as a port to the neighbouring city
of Eryx, and was a was one dependency of that place; but in the earlier part of
the war just named (about B.C. 260) the Carthaginian general Hamilcar proceeded
to fortify the promontory of Drepanum, and founded a town there, to which he transferred
a great part of the inhabitants of Eryx. (Diod. xxiii. 9, Exc. H. p. 503; Zonar.
viii. 11.) Hence the statement of Florus (ii. 2) and Aurelius Victor (de Viris
Illustr. 39), both of whom mention Drepanum among the cities of Sicily taken by
the dictator Atilius Calatinus at an earlier period of the war, must be erroneous.
The result proved the wisdom of the choice; from the goodness of its harbour,
and its proximity to Africa, Drepana became a place of great importance, and continued
throughout the remainder of the war to be one of the chief strongholds of the
Carthaginians. In B.C. 250, indeed, Drepana and Lilybaeum were the only two points
in the island of which that people retained possession; and hence the utmost importance
was attached by them to their maintenance. (Pol. i. 41; Zonar. viii. 16.) During
the long protracted siege of Lilybaeum by the Romans, it was at Drepana that Adherbal
established himself with the Carthaginian fleet, to watch the operations of the
besiegers, and it was off this port that he totally defeated the Roman consul
P. Claudius, and destroyed almost his whole fleet, B.C. 249. (Pol. i. 46, 49-51;
Diod. xxiv. 1, Exc. H. p. 507). Not long after this, when Hamilcar Barca made
himself master of the city of Eryx, he removed all the remaining inhabitants from
thence to Drepana, which he fortified as strongly as possible, and of which he
retained possession till the end of the war. It was, however, in B.C. 242 besieged
by the Roman consul Lutatius Catulus; and it was the attempt of the Carthaginians
under Hanno to effect its relief, as well as that of the army under Hamilcar,
that brought on their fatal defeat off the islands of the Aegates, B.C. 241. (Pol.
i. 59, 60; Diod. xxiv. 8, 11, Exc. H. p. 509; Zonar. viii. 17; Liv. xxviii. 41.)
From this time the name of Drepana appears no more in history, but
it seems to have continued to be a flourishing commercial town, though apparently
eclipsed by the superior prosperity of the neighbouring Lilybaeum, which throughout
the Roman period was the most considerable city in this part of Sicily. Cicero
and Pliny both mention it as a municipal town; and the Itineraries and Tabula
prove that it still retained its name and consideration in the fourth century
of the Christian era. (Cic. Verr. iv. 1. 7; Plin. iii. 8. s. 14; Ptol. iii. 4.
§ 4; Itin. Ant. pp. 91, 97; Tab. Peut.) The modern city of Trapani has succeeded
to the ancient importance of Lilybaeum, and is now the most populous and flourishing
city in the west of Sicily, as well as a strong fortress. Great part of its wealth
is derived from the manufacture and export of coral, of which there are extensive
fisheries on the coast: these are alluded to by Pliny as already existing in his
time (xxxii. 2. s. 11). Some vestiges of the ancient mole are the only remains
of antiquity which it presents; but the site is undoubtedly the same with that
of the ancient city, upon a low sandy peninsula, which has been artificially converted
into an island by the ditch of the modern fortifications. (Smyth's Sicily, pp.
237-241; Parthey, Wanderungen durch Sicilien, p. 75, &c.) Immediately off the
harbour of Trapani is a small island called Colombara, which appears to have been
known in ancient times also as Columbaria Insula. It is mentioned by Zonaras (viii.
161) under the name of Peleias nesos.
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited September 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
(Drepanon, a sickle). Also Drepana (ta Drepana), more rarely Drepane (Trapani), a seaport town in the northwest corner of Sicily, founded by the Carthaginians. It was here that Anchises died, according to Vergil.
The main city of the province that bears the same name is at the NW
tip of Sicily; its name (sickle), both in Greek and Latin, derives from the shape
of the narrow tongue of land on which it rises.
Remains of various prehistoric settlements, as early as the paleolithic
period, have been found around Trapani but for the Classical period there is no
archaeological evidence since the city did not mint coinage and no public inscription
has ever been found. For this reason some would deny that Drepana became civitas
during the Roman period.
The ancient sources mention it as the harbor of the Erycinians from
the time of the Dionysian wars (Diod. 15.73); later it became known also as the
trading center of the Erycinians (Diod. 24.11). During the first year of the Punic
war, i.e. ca. 260 B.C., Hamilcar moved part of Eryx's population to "the
sickles" and turned the site into a fortress (Diod. 23.9).
During the summer of 249 B.C. the Romans were defeated by Aderbal
in a naval battle near Drepana but recovered their losses in the naval battle
which Lutatius Catulus won in 241 B.C. near the Egadi islands. Drepana passed
under Roman control, probably as censorian city, but lived meagerly, as shown
by the lack of archaeological finds and by the fact that the site always remained
a complementary base of the stronger Lilybaion.
The city's National Museum Pepoli has a considerable archaeological
collection, including various objects of the Classical period mostly from Eryx,
Selinos, and Motya.
V.Tusa, 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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