City of Catana in Sicily

The city of Catana lies on the coast in the centre of eastern Sicily, its harbor facing the Ionian sea – an excellent site for a port.

The Ionian colony at Catana was founded c.729 BC by Chalcidians from the mother colony of Sicilian Naxos, itself founded by a group of Chalcidians from Euboca. And until the 5th century BC it was mainly considered as a Greek trading town.

Catana possessed one of the Greek world’s first law codes, drawn up by certain Charondas, probably in the early 500s BC.

Catana was autonomous in the Archaic period, with a very active political and economic life. Greek goods gradually made into the interior along the river valleys.

By the early 5th century BC the city has lost its autonomy and was under Syracusan control. In 486 BC Syracusan tyrant Hieron I emptied Catana, exiling its inhabitants to Leontini, and repopulated the site with his Greek mercenary troops. But after Hieron’s death, the former Catanans recovered their city by force and gained independence in 461 BC.

Lava flow then destructed the site, and the rebuilt town was conquered by Dionysious I as he enslaved the whole population and moved in the Campanian soldiers.

Just as it became the commercial and maritime centre during the Norman ruling, a tragic earthquake in 1169 hit the town and destroyed a major part of the civilians. The devastation was huge, and only in 1434 did the town come back to its strength, as one of the world’s oldest universities was established.

The second half of 1600 was an extremely tragic period in Catana’s history: in 1669 there was a violent eruption of Etna and it covered everything with lava while the most disastrous of the earthquakes in 1693, wiped out the entire city, erasing almost all the vestiges of Middle Ages and Renaissance
City of Catana in Sicily

City of Syracuse, Sicily

Syracuse was one of the grandest and most violent cities of Greek history.

Syracuse played a major role in the downfall of Athens during the Peloponnesian War, when Syracusans totally destroyed an Athenian invasion force in 413 BC. At that time Syracuse was a democracy, and democracy made Syracuse stronger.

Located in the south part of Sicily’s east coast, Syracuse was founded in about 733 BC by ship-borne, Corinthian settlers who subdued the local natives Sicels. According to Plutarch (Greek historian), the archaic Greek colony of Syracuse was founded by the Bacchiad noble, Archias of Corinth.

Soon after the foundation, a city plan was set-up, which continues on to the mainland and connected the early settlement with the contemporary cemetery at Fusco.

It became the basis for the regular urban development of the city over the next century.

The descendants of the first settlers became a ruling class known as the Gamoroi, ‘landholders’, who lived in the city and whose farms occupied the best land of the plain.

The first tyrant was Gelon; the ruler of the nearby Greek city of Gela, who seized Syracuse under pretext of aiding the beleaguered Gamoroi.  The regime of the Gamoroi ended in 491 BC. They were expelled from the city by the demos and the Kyllirioi, the Gamoroi’s serf. A democratic regime was established in Syracuse in the course of these events.

Gelon was succeeded by his brother Hiero I, who protected the arts and sciences and died in 467 BC.

The Syracuse became the largest city and most wealthy city in Sicily, and according to Thucydides, possessed a greater population than Athens or any other Grecian city.

The city was besieged, BC 414 by the Athenians; and again, BC 215 by the Romans, under Marcellus and Appius.

Syracuse was the birth place of the great Archimedes (287 BC – c. 212 BC), and the poet Theocritus (3rd century BC).
City of Syracuse, Sicily