Listed 7 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for destination: "SELINOUS Ancient city SICILY".
An ancient city on the S coast of Sicily, ca. 12 km S of Castelvetrano
and approximately 40 km W of Sciacca. The river Modione (Selino) forms its W border,
the river Cottone (Calici) its E border. The city had for the S part of Sicily
the same function that Himera had for the N: it was an outpost of Greek civilization
against W Sicily which was inhabited by Phoenicians and Elymi. It was founded
by the Megarians who had arrived a century earlier from Megara Nysaia in Greece,
and had founded Megara Hyblaia in the vicinity of modern Augusta. The location
was selected for its strategic position: a hill jutting into the sea between two
rivers, both of which were ideal for debarkation and provided excellent penetration
routes toward the interior.
The colonists from Megara Hyblain were led by the oikistes Pammylos,
who came expressly for this assignment from the mother city in Greece (Thuc. 1.24.2;
Diod. 13.59.4). Disagreement in the sources on the foundation date (Thuc. 628-627
B.C.; Diod. 651 B.C.) has been settled by recent studies and excavations which
specify that Selinus was founded 651-650 B.C. The colonists almost certainly found
the territory occupied by small settlements of indigenous populations, perhaps
of Sikan origin; recent finds indicate the presence of such settlements at least
as early as the beginning of the Bronze Age.
On the strength of its position, Selinus rapidly became a large and
powerful city and the major protagonist in the history of W Sicily, from the 6th
c. until its destruction in 409 B.C. It soon promoted a movement of expansion
to the N, which caused inevitable conflict with the Elymi of Segesta and the Phoenicians
of Motya. This expansion, perhaps during a later phase, pointed also toward the
E, where the colony of Herakleia Minoa was founded (Her. 5.46). Despite its frequent
struggles with the Elymi and the Phoenicians in Sicily, Selinus almost always
managed to stay on good terms with Carthage. This permitted long periods of peace
and the attainment of extraordinary prosperity, such as it must have enjoyed after
Pentathlos' expedition (580 B.C.) and until the first battle of Himera (480 B.C.).
Building activity in this period outstripped that in every other Greek city in
Sicily, and at Olympia the city erected a treasury containing a chryselephantine
statue of Dionysos (Paus. 6.19.6).
Selinus maintained good relationships with Carthage even after the
first battle of Himera when the Carthaginians were defeated by Syracuse and Akragas.
It even housed Giskon, whose father Hamilcar had died at Himera (Diod. 13.43.5).
However, this friendship with Carthage did not prevent Selinus from espousing
the Greek cause on occasion (Diod. 11.68.1) for although the aristocratic party
promoted the alliance with Carthage, the democratic party favored alliance with
the Greeks. These two parties, alternating in political power presumably account
for the city's shifts in international policy.
In 409 B.C. Selinus was destroyed by Carthage (Diod. 13.54-59) in
a battle that marked the end of the city's power. The Syracusan general Hermokrates
tried to recapture it soon afterwards, and for this purpose hastily rebuilt the
city walls (Diod. 13.63.3), but he failed. From then on Selinus lived poorly under
Carthaginian political control until, during the first Punic war, in the middle
of the 3d c. B.C., it was again destroyed and definitely abandoned. Small groups
of people settled there both in Christian-Byzantine times and in the Arab period;
afterwards the name itself was lost, and the site came to be known as Casale degli
Idoli or Terra di Pulci. The site was identified by Fazello (De Rebus Siculis
[Palermo 1558] 146ff).
The archaeological investigation of Selinus began during the early
1800's when the three famous metopes were found in the area of Temple C. Since
that time investigation has continued but no excavation has been carried out in
the area of the ancient city. The city as a whole comprises the following zones:
A) the acropolis; B) the ancient city; C) Temples on the E hill; D) Malophoros
Sanctuary; E) the necropoleis.
A) The acropolis. The Megarian colonists leveled the hill before building
the first structures and surrounding them with a circuit wall of which traces
have been found. Later on (perhaps late 6th-early 5th c. B.C.), building on the
acropolis was augmented and surrounded by the fortifications that are still visible
today, including the sloping stretch near the modern entrance to the ruins. After
the defeat in 409 B.C., the surviving inhabitants retreated within the acropolis.
To this last phase (4th-3d c. B.C.) belong the houses visible today as well as
the urban system, which probably utilized some of the earlier streets or repeated
the alignment of some earlier buildings, but the city plan at present evident
on the acropolis should, as a whole, be attributed to the Carthaginian phase of
the city. The structures belonging to this period present all the characteristics
of Punic settlements at that time: ladder masonry, sacred areas of the Punic type
in every block, symbols of Tanit on the house floors, coins and movable objects
found on the dirt-paved streets and in the houses; an earlier building was perhaps
dismantled and its material re-employed in the new constructions.
Since the acropolis is still largely unexcavated, it is difficult
to distinguish clearly between what predated and what followed the Carthaginian
occupation. Starting from the S, the first identifiable structure is Temple O,
of which only the foundations remain. It is quite similar, even in dimensions,
to Temple A a short distance to the N; it is hexastyle with pronaos and opisthodomos
in antis. Temple A is peripteral, with 6 by 14 columns; its stylobate measures
40.23 by 16.23 m. It can be dated, together with Temple O, between 490 and 480
B.C. On the E side the altar connected with the temple has recently been uncovered;
both temples were utilized as a fortress during the mediaeval period; to this
purpose they were joined, and could provide a well-fortified tower projecting
on the S side.
On the axis of Temple A, 34 m to the E, lies a T-shaped structure
fronted by a porch (13.1 x 5.6 m); it is a propylon leading into the sacred area
of Temples A and O and dates after 480 B.C.
Crossing the road that runs E-W, one enters an area containing the
ruins of perhaps the earliest sacred buildings on the acropolis, with the exception
of the small Temple B, perhaps dedicated to Empedokles, the Akragan philosopher
and scientist who, according to Diogenes Laertius (8.70), had drained the Selinuntine
marshes. It is a small building (8.4 x 4.6 m) of the Hellenistic period (perhaps
as early as the 4th c.), a tetrastyle prostyle aedicula with pronaos and cella
located on a natural rise of the terrain and accessible on the E by means of nine
steps. Its entablature carried traces of color.
Temple C, built on the highest point of the acropolis during the first
half of the 6th c. B.C., 15 hexastyle peripteral with 17 columns on the sides;
14 columns of the N side were re-erected in 1925-26 together with portions of
the entablature. The early date of this building is attested not only by its very
elongated plan, but also by the fact that monolithic columns were at first employed
on the S and E sides; moreover the columns taper from bottom to top. The stylobate
measures 63.7 x 24 m; the cella building comprised an adyton, a long and narrow
cella, and a pronaos. The triglyph frieze carried carved metopes and was surmounted
by a cornice revetted with polychrome terracotta slabs; two gorgoneia, also of
painted terracotta, decorated both pediments of the temple, one of which has been
reconstructed at full scale in the Palermo Museum. On the temple roof, the ridge
pole was covered by the kalypteres also of polychrome terracotta. Of the two large
altars the earlier lies to the SE; the later is in front of the temple to the
E. The area in front of Temple C must have been the Hellenistic agora. Just to
the N is Temple D, built around the middle of the 6th c. B.C. It is hexastyle
peripteral, with 13 columns on the sides and a stylobate of 56 by 24 m. Its plan
includes a prostyle porch, pronaos, cella, and adyton. Near the SE corner are
the remains of a sacrificial altar, diagonal to the temple axis. Not far from
the NE corner of Temple D are the foundations of a rectangular structure whose
early archaic date can be inferred from its very elongated plan.
The whole acropolis is surrounded by walls that represent the largest
fortification complex in the whole of Greek Sicily, second only to the Euryalos
castle in Syracuse. Since the walls of Selinus have never been studied in their
entirety, the following description is based on superficial observation. Various
repairs can easily be recognized, and the most important are the work of Hermokrates;
to his rebuilding also should be attributed the two round towers on the N and
W, which reused materials from earlier temples. Blocks from the same buildings
were, however, reused in several other places and in greatest number within the
small N chambers. This demonstrates that at least some temples had collapsed after
the battle in 409, a fact hinted at by Diodoros' description of the battle itself
(13.54-59). Only two gates survive, the one to the W and the more important one
on the N side, which connected the acropolis with the city. There are many postern
gates, both on the E and W sides, several of them blocked. Several square towers
dot the circuit of the walls on all sides; one of them has recently yielded two
archaic metopes probably reused by Hermokrates.
B) Ancient city. To the N of the acropolis, on the hill called Manuzza,
stood the city proper, also surrounded by walls of which only traces remain; its
street pattern has recently been identified through aerial photography. There
have been no excavations.
C) Temples on the E Hill. At a certain moment in the city's history,
for reasons as yet unknown, the Selinuntines built three temples on the hill to
the W of the city and acropolis, beyond the river Cottone. These must have been
built about the middle of the 6th c. B.C. since this is the date given to the
earliest of the three temples, Temple F. This building, the smallest of the three,
has a stylobate measuring 61.83 by 24.43 m and lies between the other two. It
was hexastyle with 14 columns on the sides; its plan includes a pronaos, cella,
and adyton, but no opisthodomos. Its metopes, like all the others, are now in
the Palermo Museum.
To the S lies Temple E; it belongs to the best phase of Doric construction,
the phase that is usually called developed Doric and is generally dated 480-460
B.C. It is hexastyle peripteral with 15 columns to the side and was probably set
within a temenos, as suggested by a recently discovered wall. Its plan comprises
pronaos, cella, adyton, and opisthodomos in antis, its stylobate measures 67.82
by 25.33 m; in the adyton stands the base for the cult statue of the patron deity,
probably Hera. The pronaos frieze carried sculpted metopes, four of which are
in the Palermo Museum. The building has been recently restored.
Temple G is one of the largest temples of antiquity: its stylobate
measures 110.36 by 50.10 m and its columns are 16.27 m high with a diameter of
3.41 m. The building was never completed, probably because it was still unfinished
at the time of the city's destruction in 409 B.C.; it must have been started at
the beginning of that century. Either because the length of the period it was
under construction allowed for various changes and modernizations or because its
proportions favored the expression of the architects' imagination, this temple
presents peculiarities not found in other Doric temples. It was hypaethral since
the central nave was left unroofed; the vast cella had three doors corresponding
to the three inner naves formed by two rows of ten monolithic columns in two tiers.
The stone to build this temple came from the quarries of Cusa, which are ca. 9
km NW of Selinus as the crow flies. These quarries are still in the condition
in which they were when the work was suspended and one finds there some partly
cut column drums that correspond in dimensions to the columns of Temple G; the
stone, moreover, is the same.
D) Sanctuary of the Malophoros. Scarcely more than a km separates
the acropolis and the city from this structure, which lies to the W beyond the
river Modione (Selinos). The dedication of the sanctuary is indicated by various
inscriptions and by several thousand terracotta statuettes depicting a goddess
with a pomegranate. The sanctuary is quadrangular (50 x 60 m) with a precinct
wall encompassing several interior structures. The main building is shaped like
a megaron and is dedicated to the major divinity, the Malophoros, perhaps to be
equated with Demeter; in front of it lies a large rectangular altar. Within the
peribolos is a smaller shrine dedicated to Zeus Meilichios where the famous twin
stelai depicting a god and a goddess were uncovered; they belong to the Punic
phase. There is also a Hekataion. This is obviously a sanctuary dedicated to the
chthonian deities. The temenos was entered through the propylaia, which seem to
have been remodeled during the Punic period; at that time the sanctuary was still
in use, and even later, during the Byzantine phase, when the main megaron was
adapted to a new function. The earliest evidence from this site goes back to the
middle of the 7th c. B.C., and is thus contemporary with the earliest finds from
the acropolis at Selinus, but here the aspect both of the buildings and of the
divinities worshiped suggest that this sanctuary served not only for Greek Selinus
but also for other neighboring centers inhabited by peoples of different origins.
Near the sanctuary a spring, which is still flowing, may have been
the reason for the erection of the temenos in this area.
E) Necropoleis. The cemeteries attributed to Selinus lie E and W of
the river Modione. Those to the E are the necropoleis of Galera-Bagliazzo and
Buffa; those to the W, Manicalunga-Timpone Nero, Bresciana, and Pipio. There are
several tens of thousands of graves, both cremation and inhumation: built graves,
tile graves (a cappuccina), earth cists. The cemeteries E of the Modione may be
dated as early as the mid 7th c. B.C.; those to the W, no earlier than the 6th.
The latter extend as far as 5 km from the city, with the added obstacle of the
river crossing and therefore may belong to another settlement not yet found.
This was the only Greek city of Sicily to have decorated its temples
with sculptures (Palermo Museum). They belong to at least four periods, extending
from the end of the 7th to the middle of the 5th c. B.C. Although they are all
Classical Greek sculptures, certain aspects are obviously local and prevent exact
classification within any of the known categories. A clear example of what might
be called Sicilian, is the bronze statue of the so-called Ephebe, which dates
to the beginning of the 5th c. B.C.
It has been hazarded that the temples were dedicated to the following
divinities: Shrine of the small metopes to Apollo, Leto, and Artemis. For the
three temples replacing this small temple--Temple C to Apollo, Temple A to Leto,
and Temple O to Artemis; Temple G is attributed to Zeus; Temple F to Athena; Temple
E to Hera, and Temple D to Aphrodite.
Selinus had its own mint and some coins carry the device of the wild
celery, which gave the city its name.
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 403 image(s), bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
Now Castel Vetrano, one of the most important towns in Sicily, situated upon a hill on the southwestern coast and upon a river of the same name. It was founded by the Dorians from Megara Hyblaea, on the eastern coast of Sicily, B.C. 628. It soon attained great prosperity; but it was taken by the [p. 1438] Carthaginians in 409, when most of its inhabitants were slain or sold as slaves and the greater part of the city destroyed. The ruins of the ancient city are of great extent and magnificence, the temple of Zeus being one of the largest of which remains still exist.
This text is cited Oct 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Selinus (Selinous: Eth. Seloountios, Selinuntius: Ru. at Torre dei
Pulci), one of the most important of the Greek colonies in Sicily, situated on
the SW. coast of that island, at the mouth of the small river of the same name,
and 4 miles W. of that of the Hypsas (Belici). It was founded, as we learn from
Thucydides, by a colony from the Sicilian city of Megara, or Megara Hyblaea, under
the conduct of a leader named Pammilus, about 100 years after the settlement of
that city, with the addition of a fresh body of colonists from the parent city
of Megara in Greece. (Thuc. vi. 4, vii. 57; Scymn. Ch. 292; Strab. vi. p. 272.)
The date of its foundation cannot be precisely fixed, as Thucydides indicates
it only by reference to that of the Sicilian Megara, which is itself not accurately
known, but it may be placed about B.C. 628. Diodorus indeed would place it 22
years earlier, or B.C. 650, and Hieronymus still further back, B.C. 654; but the
date given by Thucydides, which is probably entitled to the most confidence, is
incompatible with this earlier epoch. (Thuc. vi. 4; Died. xiii. 59; Hieron. Chron.
ad ann. 1362; Clinton, Fast. Hell. vol. i. p. 208.) The name is supposed to have
been derived from the quantities of wild parsley (selinos) which grew on the spot;
and for the same reason a leaf of this parsley was adopted as the symbol of their
coins.
Selinus was the most westerly of the Greek colonies in Sicily, and
for this reason was early brought into contact and collision with the Carthaginians
and the barbarians in the W. and NW. of the island. The former people, however,
do not at first seem to have offered any obstacle to their progress; but as early
as B.C. 580 we find the Selinuntines engaged in hostilities with the people of
Segesta (a non-Hellenic city), whose territory bordered on their own. (Diod. v.
9). The arrival of a body of emigrants from Rhodes and Cnidus who subsequently
founded Lipara, and who lent their assistance to the Segestans, for a time secured
the victory to that people; but disputes and hostilities seem to have been of
frequent occurrence between the two cities, aud it is probable that in B.C. 454,
when Diodorus speaks of the Segestans as being at war with the Lilybaeans (xi.
86), that the Selinuntines are the people really meant. The river Mazarus, which
at that time appears to have formed the boundary between the two states, was only
about 15 miles W. of Selinus; and it is certain that at a somewhat later period
the territory of Selinus extended to its banks, and that that city had a fort
and emporium at its mouth. (Diod. xiii. 54.) On the other side its territory certainly
extended as far as the Halycus or Salso, at the mouth of which it had founded
the colony of Minoa, or Heracleia, as it was afterwards termed. (Herod. v. 46.)
It is evident, therefore, that Selinus had early attained to great power and prosperity;
but we have very little information as to its history, We learn, however, that,
like most of the Sicilian cities, it had passed from an oligarchy to a despotism,
and about B.C. 510 was subject to a despot named Peithagoras, from whom the citizens
were freed by the assistance of the Spartan Euryleon, one of the companions of
Dorieus: and thereupon Euryleon himself, for a short time, seized on the vacant
sovereignty, but was speedily overthrown and put to death by the Selinuntines.
(Herod. v. 46.) We are ignorant of the causes which led the Selinuntines to abandon
the cause of the other Greeks, and take part with the Carthaginians during the
great expedition of Hamilcar, B.C. 480; but we learn that they had even promised
to send a contingent to the Carthaginian army, which, however did not arrive till
after its defeat. (Diod. xi. 21, xiii. 55.) The Selinuntines are next mentioned
in B.C. 466, as co-operating with the other free cities of Sicily in assisting
the Syracusans to expel Thrasybulus (Id. xi. 68); and there is every reason to
suppose that they fully shared in the prosperity of the half century that followed,
a period of tranquillity and opulence for most of the Greek cities in Sicily.
Thucydides speaks of Selinus just before the Athenian expedition as a powerful
and wealthy city, possessing great resources for war both by land and sea, and
having large stores of wealth accumulated in its temples. (Thuc. vi. 20.) Diodorus
also represents it at the time of the Carthaginian invasion, as having enjoyed
a long period of tranquillity, and possessing a numerous population. (Diod. xiii.
55.)
In B.C. 416, a renewal of the old disputes between Selinus and Segesta
became the occasion of the great Athenian expedition to Sicily. The Selinuntines
were the first to call in the powerful aid of Syracuse, and thus for a time obtained
the complete advantage over their enemies, whom they were able to blockade both
by sea and land; but in this extremity the Segestans had recourse to the assistance
of Athens. (Thuc. vi. 6; Diod. xii. 82.) Though the Athenians do not appear to
have taken any measures for the immediate relief of Segesta, it is probable that
the Selinuntines and Syracusans withdrew their forces at once, as we hear no more
of their operations against Segesta. Nor does Selinus bear any important part
in the war of which it was the immediate occasion. Nicias indeed proposed, when
the expedition first arrived in Sicily (B.C. 415); that they should proceed at
once to Selinus and compel that city to submit on moderate terms (Thuc. vi. 47);
but this advice being overruled, the efforts of the armament were directed against
Syracuse, and the Selinuntines in consequence bore but a secondary part in the
subsequent operations. They are, however, mentioned on several occasions as furnishing
auxiliaries to the Syracusans; and it was at Selinus that the large Peloponnesian
force sent to the support of Gylippus landed in the spring of 413, having been
driven over to the coast of Africa by a tempest. (Thuc. vii. 50, 58; Died. xiii.
12.)
The defeat of the Athenian armament left the Segestans apparently
at the mercy of their rivals; they in vain attempted to disarm the hostility of
the Selinuntines by ceding without further contest the frontier district which
had been the original subject of dispute. But the Selinuntines were not satisfied
with this concession, and continued to press them with fresh aggressions, for
protection against which they sought assistance from Carthage. This was, after
some hesitation, accorded them, and a small force sent over at once, with the
assistance of which the Segestans were able to defeat the Selinuntines in a battle.
(Diod. xiii. 43, 44.) But not content with this, the Carthaginians in the following
spring (B.C. 409) sent over a vast army amounting, according to the lowest estimate,
to 100,000 men, with which Hannibal (the grandson of Hamilcar that was killed
at Himera) landed at Lilybaeum, and from thence marched direct to Selinus. The
Selinuntines were wholly unprepared to resist such a force; so little indeed had
they expected it that the fortifications of their city were in many places out
of repair, and the auxiliary force which had been promised by Syracuse as well
as by Agrigentum and Gela, was not yet ready, and did not arrive in time. The
Selinuntines, indeed, defended themselves with the courage of despair, and even
after the walls were carried, continued the contest from house to house; but the
overwhelming numbers of the enemy rendered all resistance hopeless; and after
a siege of only ten days the city was taken, and the greater part of the defenders
put to the sword. Of the citizens of Selinus we are told that 16,000 were slain,
5000 made prisoners, and 2600 under the command of Empedion escaped to Agrigentum.
(Diod. xiii. 54-59.) Shortly after Hannibal destroyed the walls of the city, but
gave permission to the surviving inhabitants to return and occupy it, as tributaries
of Carthage, an arrangement which was confirmed by the treaty subsequently concluded
between Dionysius and the Carthaginians, in B.C. 405. (Id. xiii. 59, 114.) In
the interval a considerable number of the survivors and fugitives had been brought
together by Hermocrates, and established within its walls. (Ib. 63.)
There can be no doubt that a considerable part of the citizens of
Selinus availed themselves of this permission, and that the city continued to
subsist under the Carthaginian dominion; but a fatal blow had been given to its
prosperity, which it undoubtedly never recovered. The Selinuntines are again mentioned
in B.C. 397 as declaring in favour of Dionysius during his war with Carthage (Diod.
xiv. 47); but both the city and territory were again given up to the Carthaginians
by the peace of 383 (Id. xv. 17); and though Dionysius recovered possession of
it by arms shortly before his death (Id. xv. 73), it is probable that it soon
again lapsed under the dominion of Carthage. The Halycus, which was established
as the eastern boundary of the Carthaginian dominion in Sicily by the treaty of
383, seems to have generally continued to be so recognised, notwithstanding temporary
interruptions; and was again fixed as their limit by the treaty with Agathocles
in B.C. 314. (Id. xix. 71.) This last treaty expressly stipulated that Selinus,
as well as Heracleia and Himera, should continue subject to Carthage, as before.
In B.C. 276, however, during the expedition of Pyrrhus to Sicily, the Selinuntines
voluntarily submitted to that monarch, after the capture of Heracleia. (Id. xxii.
10. Exc. H. p. 498.) During the First Punic War we again find Selinus subject
to Carthage, and its territory was repeatedly the theatre of military operations
between the contending powers. (Id. xxiii. 1, 21; Pol. i. 39.) But before the
close of the war (about B.C. 250), when the Carthaginians were beginning to contract
their operations, and confine themselves to the defence of as few points as possible,
they removed all the inhabitants of Selinus to Lilybaeum and destroyed the city.
(Diod. xxiv. 1. Exc. H. p. 506.)
It seems certain that it was never rebuilt. Pliny indeed, mentions
its name ( Selinus oppidum, iii. 8. s. 14), as if it was still existing as a town
in his time, but Strabo distinctly classes it with the cities which were wholly
extinct; and Ptolemy, though he mentions the river Selinus, has no notice of a
town of the name. (Strab. vi. p. 272; Ptol. iii. 4. § 5.) The Thermae Selinuntiae,
which derived their name from the ancient city, and seem to have been much frequented
in the time of the Romans, were situated at a considerable distance from Selinus,
being undoubtedly the same as those now existing at Sciacca: they are sulphureous
springs, still much valued for their medical properties, and dedicated, like most
thermal waters in Sicily, - to St. Calogero. At a later period they were called
the Aquae Labodes or Larodes, under which name they appear in the Itineraries.
(Itin. Ant. p. 89; Tab. Peut.) They are there placed 40 miles W. of Agrigentum,
and 46 from Lilybaeum; distances which agree well with the position of Sciacca.
This is distant about 20 miles to the E. of the ruins of Selinus.
The site of the ancient city is now wholly desolate, with the exception
of a solitary guardhouse, and the ground is for the most part thickly overgrown
with shrubs and low brushwood; but the remains of the walls can be distinctly
traced throughout a great part of their circuit. They occupied the summit of a
low hill, directly abutting on the sea, and bounded on the W. by the marshy valley
through which flows the river Madiuni, the ancient Selinus; on the E. by a smaller
valley or depression, also traversed by a small marshy stream, which separates
it from a hill of similar character, where the remains of the principal temples
are still visible. The space enclosed by the existing walls is of small extent,
so that it is probable the city in the days of its greatness must have covered
a considerable area without them: and it has been supposed by some writers that
the present line of walls is that erected by Hermocrates when he restored the
city after its destruction by the Carthaginians. (Diod. xiii. 63.) No trace is,
however, found of a more extensive circuit, though the remains of two lines of
wall, evidently connected with the port, are found in the small valley E. of the
city. Within the area surrounded by the walls are the remains of three temples,
all of the Doric order, and of an ancient style; none of them are standing, but
the foundations of them all remain, together with numerous portions of columns
and other architectural fragments, sufficient to enable us to restore the plan
and design of all three without difficulty. The largest of them (marked C. on
the plan) is 230 feet long by 85 feet broad, and has 6 columns in front and 18
in length, a very unusual proportion. All these are hexastyle and peripteral.
Besides these three temples there is a small temple or Aedicula (marked B.), of
a different plan, but also of the Doric order. No other remains of buildings,
beyond mere fragments and foundations, can be traced within the [p. 958] walls;
but the outlines of two large edifices, built of squared stones and in a massive
style, are distinctly traceable outside the walls, near the NE, and NW. angles
of the city, though we have no clue to their nature or purpose.
But much the most remarkable of the ruins at Selinus are those of
three temples on the hill to the E., which do not appear to have been included
in the city, but, as was often the case, were built on this neighbouring eminence,
so as to front the city itself. All these temples are considerably larger than
any of the three above described; and the most northerly of them is one of the
largest of which we have any remains. It had 8 columns in front and 17 in the
sides, and was of the kind called pseudo-dipteral. Its length was 359 feet, and
its breadth 162, so that it was actually longer than the great temple of Jupiter
Olympius at Agrigentum, though not equal to it in breadth. From the columns being
only partially fluted, as well as from other signs, it is clear that it never
was completed; but all the more important parts of the structure were finished,
and it must have certainly been one of the most imposing fabrics in antiquity.
Only three of the columns are now standing, and these imperfect; but the whole
area is filled up with a heap of fallen masses, portions of columns, capitals,
&c., and other huge architectural fragments, all of the most massive character,
and forming, as observed by Swinburne, one of the most gigantic and sublime ruins
imaginable. The two other temples are also prostrate, but the ruins have fallen
with such regularity that the portions of almost every column lie on the ground
as they have fallen; and it is not only easy to restore the plan and design of
the two edifices, but it appears as if they could be rebuilt with little difficulty.
These temples, though greatly inferior to their gigantic neighbour, were still
larger than that at Segesta, and even exceed the great temple of Neptune at Paestum;
so that the three, when standing, must have presented a spectacle unrivalled in
antiquity. All these buildings may be safely referred to a period anterior to
the Carthaginian conquest (B.C. 409), though the three temples last described
appear to have been all of them of later date than those within the walls of the
city. This is proved, among other circumstances, by the sculptured metopes, several
of which have been discovered and extricated from among the fallen fragments.
Of these sculptures, those which belonged to the temples within the walls, present
a very peculiar and archaic style of art, and are universally recognised as among
the earliest extant specimens of Greek sculpture. (They are figured by Muller,
Denkmaler, pl. 4, 5, as well as in many other works, and casts of them are in
the British Museum.) Those, on the contrary, which have been found among the ruins
of the temple marked E. on the opposite hill, are of a later and more advanced
style, though still retaining considerable remains of the stiffness of the earliest
art. Besides the interest attached to these Selinuntine metopes from their important
bearing on the history of Greek sculpture, the remains of these temples are of
value as affording the most unequivocal testimony to the use of painting, both
for the architectural decoration of the temples, and as applied to the sculptures
with which they were adorned. A very full and detailed account of the ruins at
Selinus is given in the Duke of Serra di Falco's Antichita Siciliane, vol. ii.,
from which the preceding plan is derived. A more general description of them will
be found in Swinburne's Travels, vol. ii. pp. 242-245; Smyth's Sicily, pp. 219-221;
and other works on Sicily in general.
The coins of Selinus are numerous and various. The earliest, as already
mentioned, bear merely the figure of a parsley-leaf on the obverse. Those of somewhat
later date (including the one figured below) represent a figure sacrificing on
an altar, which is consecrated to Aesculapius, as indicated by the cock which
stands below it. The subject of this type evidently refers to a story related
by Diogenes Laertius (viii. 2. § 11) that the Selinuntines were afflicted with
a pestilence from the marshy character of the lands adjoining the neighbouring
river, but that this was cured by works of drainage, suggested by Empedocles.
The figure standing on the coin is the river-god Selinus, which was thus made
conducive to the salubrity of the city.
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
Receive our daily Newsletter with all the latest updates on the Greek Travel industry.
Subscribe now!
