Listed 6 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for destination: "EGESTA Ancient city SICILY".
In the NW part of the island on Monte Barbaro near modern Calatafimi,
the principal city of the Elymi. Still almost totally unknown, this ethnic group,
together with the Phoenicians, were in possession of W Sicily until the island
was unified under Roman control around the middle of the 3d c. B.C. Thucydides
(6.2) says that the Elymi were Trojans who escaped their city's destruction, fled
to Sicily, and there fused with the Sikans whom they found in the area; they were
later joined by some Phokaians. Thucydides' largely legendary narrative reflects
a cultural truth in that, as recent studies seem to confirm, it appears increasingly
probable that the Elymi came from the W Mediterranean. That Monte Barbaro was
previously inhabited is attested by some prehistoric remains; these have been
found in the area of the theater, specifically in the cavea, under which, at the
time of construction, a cave, perhaps with religious connotations, was carefully
preserved with its prehistoric material.
Segesta occupies a prominent place in the history of ancient Sicily
since some of its political maneuvers gave rise to two episodes with important
consequences: the Athenian expedition to Sicily, and the war between Greeks and
Carthaginians in 409 B.C. Throughout its entire existence Segesta may have been
in constant conflict with Selinus, which probably sought an outlet on the Tyrrhenian
Sea. The first encounters between Segesta and Selinus can probably be dated to
580-576 B.C. (Diod. 5.9); the same source (Diod. 11.86) relates another episode
of this struggle in 454. Within the framework of this conflict, falls the episode
of 415 B.C. when Segesta asked for Athenian help and succeeded in promoting the
disastrous expedition to Sicily (Thuc. 6.6; Diod. 12.82). Shortly afterwards Segesta
asked for Carthaginian help (Diod. 13.43), provoking the war that brought about
the destruction of Selinus, Akragas, Gela, and Himera in 409 B.C.
At the time of Dionysios' first campaign into W Sicily (397 B.C.),
Segesta was allied with the Carthaginians (Diod. 14.48); it was later allied with
Agathokles, who in 307 B.C. destroyed it and changed its name to Dikaiopolis,
as if to stress the justice he believed himself to be bringing. Not long afterwards
Segesta resumed its former name and alliance with the Carthaginians, but shifted
to the Roman side at the beginning of the first Punic war (Diod. 13.5). It was
heavily besieged by the Carthaginians, but since the war ended in Roman victory,
Segesta was rewarded: it became a city libera et immunis (Cic. Verr. 3.6.13) and
obtained vast territories, including possibly those of Eryx.
Probably during the Roman period the city was moved N, near modern
Castellammare, in the vicinity of sulphur springs where Roman remains have been
found. This new Segesta is reputed to have been destroyed by the Vandals. At the
site of the ancient city on Monte Barbaro, no excavation has been conducted. The
exact location of the necropolis is unknown, with the exception of a few Hellenistic
graves (3d c. B.C.) found at the foot of Monte Barbaro, on the SW side. In recent
years many sherds have been found on the NE slopes, presumably thrown down from
the ancient city above. They include local incised and painted ware as well as
Greek imports. Some of the Greek sherds carry graffiti in Greek script but in
a language which may derive from an Anatolian source; it must be the Elymian language,
which hitherto has been known only through faint traces of inscriptions on coins.
On this same side of the mountain some rock-cut niches have been found; they are
obviously connected with a cult. In front of them ran a rock-cut road which led
from the city on the summit to an area now called Mango at the foot of the mountain,
where a large sanctuary has recently been identified. The sanctuary consists of
a temenos (83.4 x 47.8 m) which has not yet been entirely excavated but which
contains several structures, including an archaic Doric temple (6th c. B.C.),
rebuilt during the following century. These two centuries represent the life-span
of the sanctuary itself.
Certain clues suggest that, after the city's destruction by Dionysios,
it was probably rebuilt, like Soloeis, according to the Hippodamian system. Unlike
Soloeis, however, Segesta would have been rebuilt on the same site as the earlier
town, as is attested by the two roads previously mentioned which connect the sanctuary
with the plateau on Monte Barbaro. The city was surrounded by a double circuit
of walls, which are still visible in a few stretches including a gate and some
towers. The walls were presumably erected at various times.
The two best-known monuments are the theater and the so-called temple.
The former is within the city, at the extreme NE tip of the plateau from which
one enjoys a vast view expanding as far as the gulf of Castellammare. The theater
is usually dated to the middle of the 3d c. B.C., but it may be earlier, that
is, contemporary with the reconstruction of the city, which must have occurred
during the previous century. It is surrounded by a high circular wall which has
both a delimiting and a retaining function and includes two high analemmata parallel
to the stage building; the lower koilon comprises 20 rows of steps divided into
seven cunei; the upper koilon above the diazoma is no longer preserved. The stage
building is flanked by paraskenia, according to the stage type prevalent in Sicilian
Hellenistic theaters; worthy of note are the two poorly preserved statues of Pan,
which functioned as telamones in the paraskenia.
The so-called temple, outside the city walls to the W, is a peristyle
of the Doric order, with 6 columns on the facade and 14 on the sides, all unfluted;
it is generally dated to the last third of the 5th c. B.C. This building has always
been considered an unfinished temple, but it has recently been suggested on rather
good grounds that the building was conceived solely as a Greek Doric peristyle
meant to delimit a space within which the non-Greek population of Segesta would
have practiced an open-air cult on a temporary altar according to the Oriental
custom. This peristyle rises outside the city walls, to the W.
Segesta had a mint that was among the most notable of ancient Sicily.
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 85 image(s), bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
Now Alcamo; the later Roman form of the town called by the Greeks Egesta (Egesta) or Aegesta (Aigesta), in Vergil Acesta; situated in the northwest of Sicily, near the coast between Panormus and Drepanum. It is said to have been founded by the Trojans on two small rivers, to which they gave the names of Simois and Scamander; hence the Romans called it a colony of Aeneas. Its ruins are still very beautiful, and include the remains of a Doric temple of the sixth century B.C. .
This text is cited Oct 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
City of western Sicily, also called Segesta. According to Thucydides, Egesta was founded by Trojans fleeing their city after its capture by the Achaeans. The people of this part of Sicily called themselves the Elymes and maintained closed ties with the Carthaginians. Yet, toward the middle of the Vth century B. C., Egesta had signed a treaty of assistance with Athens. It is this treatise that provided Alcibiades in 415 with one of his main pretexts to undertake the Sicilian expedition that proved fateful to Athens.
Bernard Suzanne (page last updated 1998), ed.
This extract is cited July 2003 from the Plato and his dialogues URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks.
Segesta (Segesta: Eth. Segestanos, Segestanus: Ru. near Calatafimi),
a city of Sicily in the NW. part of the island, about 6 miles distant from the
sea, and 34 W. of Panormus. Its name is always written by the Attic and other
contemporary Greek writers Egesta (Egesta: Eth. Egestaios, Thuc. &c.), and it
has hence been frequently asserted that it was first changed to Segesta by the
Romans, for the purpose of avoiding the ill omen of the name of Egesta in Latin.
(Fest. s.v. Segesta, p. 340.) This story is, however, disproved by its coins,
which prove that considerably before the time of Thucydides it was called by the
inhabitants themselves Segesta, though this form seems to have been softened by
the Greeks into Egesta. The origin and foundation of Segesta is extremely obscure.
The tradition current among the Greeks and adopted by Thucydides (Thuc. vi. 2;
Dionys. i. 52; Strab. xiii. p. 608), ascribed its foundation to a band of Trojan
settlers, fugitives from the destruction of their city; and this tradition was
readily welcomed by the Romans, who in consequence claimed a kindred origin with
the Segestans. Thucydides seems to have considered the Elymi, a barbarian tribe
in the neighbourhood of Eryx and Segesta, as descended from the Trojans in question;
but another account represents the Elymi as a distinct people, already existing
in this part of Sicily when the Trojans arrived there and founded the two cities.
A different story seems also to have been current, according to which Segesta
owed its origin to a band of Phocians, who had been among the followers of Philoctetes;
and, as usual, later writers sought to reconcile the two accounts. (Strab. vi.
p. 272; Thuc. l. c.) Another version of the Trojan story, which would seem to
have been that adopted by the inhabitants themselves, ascribed the foundation
of the city to Egestus or Aegestus (the Acestes of Virgil), who was said to be
the offspring of a Trojan damsel named Segesta by the river god Crimisus. (Serv.
ad Aen. i. 550, v. 30.) We are told also that the names of Simois and Scamander
were given by the Trojan colonists to two small streams which flowed beneath the
town (Strab. xiii. p. 608); and the latter name is mentioned by Diodorus as one
still in use at a much later period. (Diod. xx. 71.)
It is certain that we cannot receive the statement of the Trojan origin
of Segesta as historical; but whatever be the origin of the tradition, there seems
no doubt on the one hand that the city was occupied by a people distinct from
the Sicanians, the native race of this part of Sicily, and on the other that it
was not a Greek colony. Thucydides, in enumerating the allies of the Athenians
at the time of the Peloponnesian War, distinctly calls the Segestans barbarians;
and the history of the Greek colonies in Sicily was evidently recorded with sufficient
care and accuracy for us to rely upon his authority when he pronounces any people
to be non-Hellenic. (Thuc. vii. 57.) At the same time they appear to have been,
from a very early period, in close connection with the Greek cities of Sicily,
and entering into relations both of hostility and alliance with the Hellenic states,
wholly different from the other barbarians in the island. The early influence
of Greek civilisation is shown also by their coins, which are inscribed with Greek
characters, and bear the unquestionable impress of Greek art.
The first historical notice of the Segestans transmitted to us represents
them as already engaged (as early as B.C. 580) in hostilities with the Selinuntines,
which would appear to prove that both cities had already extended their territories
so far as to come into contact with each other. By the timely assistance of a
body of Cnidian and Rhodian emigrants under Pentathlus, the Segestans at this
time obtained the advantage over their adversaries. (Diod. v. 9.) A more obscure
statement of Diodorus relates that again in B.C. 454, the Segestans were engaged
in hostilities with the Lilybaeans for the possession of the territory on the
river Mazarus. (Id. xi. 86.) The name of the Lilybaeans is here certainly erroneous,
as no town of that name existed till long afterwards; but we know not what people
is really meant, though the presumption is that it is the Selinuntines, with whom
the Segestans seem to have been engaged in almost perpetual disputes. It was doubtless
with a view to strengthen themselves against these neighbours that the Segestans
took advantage of the first Athenian expedition to Sicily under Laches (B.C. 426),
and concluded a treaty of alliance with Athens. (Thuc. vi. 6.) This, however,
seems to have led to no result, and shortly after, hostilities having again broken
out, the Selinuntines called in the aid of the Syracusans, with whose assistance
they obtained great advantages, and were able to press Segesta closely both by
land and sea. In this extremity the Segestans, having in vain applied for assistance
to Agrigentum, and even to Carthage, again had recourse to the Athenians, who
were, without much difficulty, persuaded to espouse their cause, and send a fleet
to Sicily, B.C. 416. (Thuc. vi. 6; Diod. xii. 82.) It is said that this result
was in part attained by fraud, the Segestans having deceived the Athenian envoys
by a fallacious display of wealth, and led them to conceive a greatly exaggerated
notion of their resources. They, however, actually furnished 60 talents in ready
money, and 30 more after the arrival of the Athenian armament. (Thuc. vi. 8, 46;
Diod. xii. 83, xiii. 6.)
But though the relief of Segesta was thus the original object of the
great Athenian expedition to Sicily, that city bears little part in the subsequent
operations of the war. Nicias, indeed, on arriving in the island, proposed to
proceed at once to Selinus, and compel that people to submission by the display
of their formidable armament. But this advice was overruled: the Athenians turned
their arms against Syracuse, and the contest between Segesta and Selinus was almost
forgotten in the more important struggle between those two great powers. In the
summer of B.C. 415 an Athenian fleet, proceeding along the coast, took the small
town of Hyccara, on the coast, near Segesta, and made it over to the Segestans.
(Thuc. vi. 62; Diod. xiii. 6.) The latter people are again mentioned on more than
one occasion as sending auxiliary troops to assist their Athenian allies (Thuc.
vii. 57; Diod. xiii. 7); but no other notice occurs of them. The final defeat
of the Athenians left the Segestans again exposed to the attacks of their neighbours
the Selinuntines; and feeling themselves unable to cope with them, they again
had recourse to the Carthaginians, who determined to espouse their cause, and
sent them, in the first instance, an auxiliary force of 5000 Africans and 800
Campanian mercenaries, which sufficed to ensure them the victory over their rivals,
B.C. 410. (Diod. xiii. 43, 44.) But this was followed the next year by a vast
armament under Hannibal, who landed at Lilybaeum, and, proceeding direct to Selinus,
took and destroyed the city. (Ib. 54-58.) This was followed by the destruction
of Himera; and the Carthaginian power now became firmly established in the western
portion of Sicily. Segesta, surrounded on all sides by this formidable neighbour,
naturally fell gradually into the position of a dependent ally of Carthage. It
was one of the few cities that remained faithful to this alliance even in B.C.
397, when the great expedition of Dionysius to the W. of Sicily and the siege
of Motya seemed altogether to shake the power of Carthage. Dionysius in consequence
laid siege to Segesta, and pressed it with the utmost vigour, especially after
the fall of Motya; but the city was able to defy his efforts, until the landing
of Himilco with a formidable Carthaginian force changed the aspect of affairs,
and compelled Dionysius to raise the siege. (Id. xiv. 48, 53-55.) From this time
we hear little more of Segesta till the time of Agathocles, under whom it suffered
a great calamity. The despot having landed in the W. of Sicily on his return from
Africa (B.C. 307), and being received into the city as a friend and ally, suddenly
turned upon the inhabitants on a pretence of disaffection, and put the whole of
the citizens (said to amount to 10,000 in number) to the sword, plundered their
wealth, and sold the women and children into slavery. He then changed the name
of the city to Dicaeopolis, and assigned it as a residence to the fugitives and
deserters that had gathered around him. (Diod. xx. 71.)
It is probable that Segesta never altogether recovered this blow;
but it soon resumed its original name, and again appears in history as an independent
city. Thus it is mentioned in B.C. 276, as one of the cities which joined Pyrrhus
during his expedition into the W. of Sicily. (Diod. xxii. 10. Exc. H. p. 498.)
It, however, soon after fell again under the power of the Carthaginians; and it
was probably on this occasion that the city was taken and plundered by them, as
alluded to by Cicero (Verr. it. 33); a circumstance of which we have no other
account. It continued subject to, or at least dependent on that people, till the
First Punic War. In the first year of that war (B.C. 264) it was attacked by the
consul Appius Claudius, but without success (Diod. xxiii. 3. p. 501); but shortly
after the inhabitants put the Carthaginian garrison to the sword, and declared
for the alliance of Rome. (Ib. 5. p. 502; Zonar. viii. 9.) They were in consequence
besieged by a Carthaginian force, and were at one time reduced to great straits,
but were relieved by the arrival of Duilius, after his naval victory, B.C. 260.
(Pol. i. 24.) Segesta seems to have been one of the first of the Sicilian cities
to set the example of defection from Carthage; on which account, as well as of
their pretended Trojan descent, the inhabitants were treated with great distinction
by the Romans. They were exempted from all public burdens, and even as late as
the time of Cicero continued to be sine foedere immunes ac liberi. (Cic. Verr.
iii. 6, iv. 33.) After the destruction of Carthage, Scipio Africanus restored
to the Segestans a statue of Diana which had been carried off by the Carthaginians,
probably when they obtained possession of the city after the departure of Pyrrhus.
(Cic. Verr. iv. 3. 3) During the Servile War also, in B.C. 102, the territory
of Segesta is again mentioned as one of those where the insurrection broke out
with the greatest fury. (Diod. xxxvi. 5, Exc. Phot. p. 534.) But with the exception
of these incidental notices we hear little of it under the Roman government. It
seems to have been still a considerable town in the time of Cicero, and had a
port or emporium of its own on the bay about 6 miles distant (to ton Aigesteon
emporion, Strab. vi. pp. 266, 272; Segestanon emporion, Ptol. iii. 4. § 4). This
emporium seems to have grown up in the days of Strabo to be a more important place
than Segesta itself: but the continued existence of the ancient city is attested
both by Pliny and Ptolemy; and we learn from the former that the inhabitants,
though they no longer retained their position of nominal independence, enjoyed
the privileges of the Latin citizenship. (Strab. l. c.; Plin. iii. 8. s. 14; Ptol.
iii. 4. § 15.) It seems, however, to have been a decaying place, and no trace
of it is subsequently found in history. The site is said to have been finally
abandoned, in consequence of the ravages of the Saracens, in A.D. 900 (Amico,
ad Fazell. Sic. vii. 4. not. 9), and is now wholly desolate; but the town of Castella
Mare, about 6 miles distant, occupies nearly, if not precisely, the same site
as the ancient emporium or port of Segesta.
The site of the ancient city is still marked by the ruins of a temple
and theatre, the former of which is one of the most perfect and striking ruins
in Sicily. It stands on a hill, about 3 miles NW. of Calatafimi, in a very barren
and open situation. It is of the Doric order, with six columns in front and fourteen
on each side (all, except one, quite perfect, and that only damaged), forming
a parallelogram of 162 feet by 66. From the columns not being fluted, they have
rather a heavy aspect; but if due allowance be made for this circumstance, the
architecture is on the whole a light order of Doric; and it is probable, therefore,
that the temple is not of very early date. From the absence of fluting, as well
as other details of the architecture, there can be no doubt that it never was
finished,--the work probably being interrupted by some political catastrophe.
This temple appears to have stood, as was often the case, outside the walls of
the city, at a short distance to the W. of it. The latter occupied the summit
of a hill of small extent, at the foot of which flows, in a deep valley or ravine,
the torrent now called the Fiume Gaggera, a confluent of the Fiume di S. Bartolomeo,
which flows about 5 miles E. of Segesta. The latter is probably the ancient Crimisus,
celebrated for the great victory of Timoleon over the Carthaginians, while the
Gaggera must probably be the stream called by Diodorus (xx 71) the Scamander.
Two other streams are mentioned by Aelian (V. H. ii. 33) in connection with Segesta,
the Telmessus and the Porpax; but we are wholly at a loss to determine them. Some
vestiges of the ancient walls may still be traced; but almost the only ruins which
remain within the circuit of the ancient city are those of the theatre. These
have been lately cleared out, and exhibit the praecinctio and sixteen rows of
seats, great part in good preservation. The general form and arrangement are purely
Greek; and the building rests at the back on the steep rocky slope of the hill,
out of which a considerable part of it has been excavated. It is turned towards
the N. and commands a fine view of the broad bay of Castella Mare. (For a more,
detailed account of the antiquities of Segesta. see Swinburne's Travels, vol.
ii. pp. 231-235; Smyth's Sicily, pp. 67, 68; and especially Serra di Falco, Antichita
della Sicilia, vol. i. pt. ii.) Ancient writers mention the existence in the territory
of Segesta of thermal springs or waters, which seem to have enjoyed considerable
reputation (ta therma hudata Aigestaia, Strab. vi. p. 275; therma loutra ta Egestaia,
Diod. iv. 23). These are apparently the sulphureous springs at a spot called Calametti,
about a mile to the N. of the site of the ancient city. (Fazell. Sic. vii. 4.)
They are mentioned in the Itinerary as Aquae Segestanae sive Pincianae (Itin.
Ant. p. 91); but the origin of the latter name is wholly unknown.
The coins of Segesta have the figure of a dog on the reverse, which
evidently alludes to the fable of the river-god Crimisus, the mythical parent
of Aegestus, having assumed that form. (Serv. ad Aen. i. 550, v. 30; Eckhel, vol.
i. 234.) The older coins (as already observed) uniformly write the name SEGESTA,
as on the one annexed: those of later date, which are of opper only, bear the
legend EGESTAION (Eckhel, l. c. p. 236).
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited August 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
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