Article

Since most ancient times, rarely a land had as many different populations and cultures as Sicily. The eastern part of the Island was inhabited by Sicels, who had moved native people, the Sicanians, westwards, where Elymians already settled in the cities of Erice, Segesta, Iato and Entella. Sicilian coasts were frequented by Phoenician merchants who, during Greek establishment in the East, firmly settled in three cities quoted by Thucydides: Motya, Panormus and Solunto. The Greeks conquered the eastern coasts and then the northern and southern ones as well starting their hegemony on almost all Sicily. This expansion pushed Carthage to strongly settle in the Island and slowly, though unavoidable, to build a kingdom, called Eparchy, which led to the foundation of Lilybaeum, a new defense city close to Motya. The urban landscape of the Eparchy cities was characterized by a strong penetration with the territory, for the choice of the sites placed on flat peaks of isolated mountains or integrated with the sea. Phoenician cities were placed on islands, such as Motya, or on promontories, such as Panormus, and Solunto. Elymian cities, on the contrary, were placed on suggestive mountains, such as Iaitas, Segesta, Entella and Erice. The capital of the Carthaginian Eparchy, Lilybaeum was characterized by the most complex defensive works in the ancient times. The last actions of the possession of Punic Eparchy were the foundation dated 260 B.C. of Drepanon and the deportation of Erice inhabitants and the people exodus from Selinunte to Lilybaeum, where a new residential area was created. The Carthaginian domination in Sicily, was terminated by Romans’ arrival, who conquered the Island after the Egades battle in 241 B.C.