The history of Sicily has seen Sicily usually controlled by greater powers—Roman, Vandal, Byzantine, Islamic, Norman, Hohenstaufen, Catalan, Spaniard—but also experiencing short periods of independence, as under the Greeks and later as the Emirate then Kingdom of Sicily. Although today part of the Republic of Italy, it has its own distinct culture.
Sicily is both the largest region of the modern state of Italy and the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Its central location and natural resources ensured that it has been considered a crucial strategic location due in large part to its importance for Mediterranean trade routes.[1] For example, the area was highly regarded as part of Magna Graecia, with Cicero describing Syracuse as the greatest and most beautiful city of all Ancient Greece.[2]
The economic history of rural Sicily has focused on its "latifundium economy" caused by the centrality of large, originally feudal, estates used for cereal cultivation and animal husbandry that developed in the 14th century and persisted until World War II.
At times, the island has been at the heart of great civilizations, at other times it has been nothing more than a colonial backwater. Its fortunes have often waxed and waned depending on events out of its control, in earlier times a magnet for immigrants, in later times a land of emigrants.
Sicily (/ˈsɪsɪli/; Italian, Sicilian: Sicilia [siˈtʃiːlja]) is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea; along with surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, and it is officially referred to as Regione Siciliana (Sicilian Region).
Sicily is located in the central Mediterranean. It extends from the tip of the Apennine peninsula, from which it is separated only by the narrow Strait of Messina, towards the North African coast. Its most prominent landmark is Mount Etna, which, at 3,350 m (10,990 ft), is the tallest active volcano in Europe and one of the most active in the world. The island has a typical Mediterranean climate.
The earliest archeological evidence of human dwelling on the island dates from as early as 12000 BC.[4][5] At around 750 BC, Sicily was host to a number of Phoenician and Greek colonies, and for the next 600 years, it was the site of the Greek–Punic and Roman–Punic wars, which ended with the Roman destruction of Carthage. After the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century AD, Sicily frequently changed hands, and during the early Middle Ages, it was ruled in turn by the Vandals, Ostrogoths, Byzantines, Arabs and Normans. Later on, the Kingdom of Sicily lasted between 1130 and 1816, first subordinated to the crowns of Aragon, Spain, and the Holy Roman Empire, and then finally unified under theBourbons with Naples, as the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Following the Expedition of the Thousand, a Giuseppe Garibaldi-led revolt during the Italian Unification process and a plebiscite, it became part of Italy in 1860. After the birth of the Italian Republic in 1946, Sicily was given special status as an autonomous region.
Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature, cuisine and architecture. It also holds importance for archeological and ancient sites such as the Necropolis of Pantalica, the Valley of the Temples and Selinunte.
Prehistory[edit]
The indigenous peoples of Sicily, long absorbed into the population, were tribes known to ancient Greek writers as the Elymians, the Sicani and the Siculi or Sicels (from which the island derives its name). Of these, the last was clearly the latest to arrive and was related to other Italic peoples of southern Italy, such as the Italoi of Calabria, the Oenotrians, Chones, andLeuterni (or Leutarni), the Opicans, and the Ausones. It is possible, however, that the Sicani were originally an Iberian tribe. The Elymi, too, may have distant origins from outside Italy, in the Aegean Sea area. The recent discoveries of dolmens dating to the second half of the third millennium BC, seem to open up new horizons on the composite cultural panorama of primitive Sicily.
It is a well-known fact that this region went through quite an intricate prehistory, so much so that it is difficult to move about amongst the muddle of peoples that have followed each other. The impact of two influences, however, remains clear: the Europeans coming from the North-West (bearers of the dolmens culture, recently discovered in this island and dating back to the early bronze age), and the Mediterranean influence with a clear oriental matrix.[3] Complex urban settlements become increasingly evident from around 1300 BC.
From the 11th century BC, Phoenicians begin to settle in western Sicily, having already started colonies on the nearby parts of North Africa. Within a century, we find major Phoenician settlements at Soloeis (Solunto), present day Palermo and Motya (an island near present day Marsala). As Phoenician Carthage grew in power, these settlements came under its direct control.
----
The Sicels (Latin Siculi; Greek Σικελοί Sikeloi) were an Italic tribe who inhabited eastern Sicily during the Iron Age. Their neighbours to the west were the Sicani. The Sicels gave Sicily the name it has held since antiquity, but they rapidly fused into the culture of Magna Graecia.
Contents
[hide]History[edit]
Archaeological excavation has shown some Mycenean influence on Bronze Age Sicily. The earliest literary mention of Sicels is in the Odyssey. Homer also mentions Sicania, but makes no distinctions: "they were a faraway place and a faraway people and apparently they were one and the same" for Homer, Robin Lane Fox notes.[1] There are four incidental mentions of Sicels or Sicania, as a source for a devoted household slave or a likely place to sell a slave.[citation needed]
It is possible that the Sicels and the Sicani of the Iron Age had consisted of an Illyrian population who (as with the Messapians) had imposed themselves on a native, Pre-Indo-European ("Mediterranean") population.[2]Thucydides[3] and other classical writers were aware of the traditions according to which the Sicels had once lived in Central Italy, east and even north of Rome.[4] Thence they were dislodged by Umbrian and Sabine tribes, and finally crossed into Sicily. Their social organization appears to have been tribal, their economy, agricultural. According to Diodorus Siculus,[5] after a series of conflicts with the Sicani, the river Salso was declared the boundary between their respective territories.
The common assumption is that the Sicels were the more recent arrivals; that they had introduced the use of iron into Bronze Age Sicily and brought the domesticated horse. This would date their arrival on the island to the early first millennium BCE. But there is some evidence that the ethnonym may predate the Iron Age, based on the name Shekelesh given to one of the Sea Peoples in the Great Karnak Inscription (late 13th century BCE).
The Sicel necropolis of Pantalica, near Syracuse, is the best known, and the second largest one is the Necropolis of Cassibile, near Noto; their elite tombs "a forno" or "oven-shaped" take the form of beehives.
The chief Sicel towns were: Agyrium (Agira); Centuripa or Centuripae (Centorbi, but now once again called Centuripe); Henna (later Castrogiovanni, which is a corruption of Castrum Hennae through the Arabic Qasr-janni, but since the 1920s once again called Enna); and three sites named Hybla: Hybla Major, called Geleatis or Gereatis, on the river Symaethus; Hybla Minor, on the east coast north of Syracuse (possibly pre-dating the Dorian colony of Hyblaean Megara); and Hybla Heraea in the south of Sicily.
With the coming of Greek colonists— both Chalcidians, who maintained good relations with the Sicels, and Dorians, who did not—[6] and the growing influence of Greek civilization, the Sicels were forced out of most of the advantageous port sites and withdrew by degrees into the hinterland. Sixty kilometres (forty miles) from the coast of the Ionian Sea, Sicels and Greeks exceptionally lived side by side in Morgantina to the extent that historians argue whether it was a Greek polis or a Sicel city. Greek goods, especially pottery, moved along natural routes, and eventually Hellenistic influences can be observed in regularised Sicel town planning. However, in the middle of the fifth century BCE a Sicel leader, Ducetius, was able to create an organised Sicel state as a unitary domain in opposition to Greek Syracusa, including several cities in the central and south of the island. After a few years of independence, his army was defeated by the Greeks in 450 BCE, and he died ten years later. Without his charisma, the movement collapsed and the increasingly Hellenized culture of the Sicels lost its distinctive character. But in the winter of 426/5 Thucydides noted the presence among the allies of Athens in the siege of Syracuse of Sicels who had "previously been allies of Syracuse, but had been harshly governed by the Syracusans and had now revolted" (Thucydides 3.103.1) Aside from Thucydides, the Greek literary sources on Sicels and other pre-Hellenic peoples of Sicily are to be found in fragmentary scattered quotes from the lost material of Hellanicus of Lesbosand Antiochus of Syracuse.
Language[edit]
| Sicel | |
|---|---|
| Region | Sicily |
| Era | attested 6th–3rd century BCE[7] |
Indo-European
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | scx |
Linguist list
| scx |
| Glottolog | None |
Tribes of Hellenic Sicily
| |
Linguistic studies have suggested that the Sicels may have spoken an Indo-European language[8] and occupied eastern Sicily as well as southern Italy[9] whereas the Sicani(Greek: Sikanoi) and Elymi (Greek Elymoi) inhabited central and western Sicily. It is likely that the two latter peoples still spoke non-Indo-European languages, although this is far from certain, particularly with regard to the Elymian language, which some would consider related to Ligurian or to Anatolian.
Of the Sicel language the little that is known is derived from glosses of ancient writers and from a very few inscriptions, not all of which are demonstrably Siculan.[10] It is thought that the Sicels did not employ writing until they were influenced by the Greek colonists. Several siculian inscriptions have been found to date: Mendolito (Adrano), Centuripe, Poira, Paternò‑Civita, Paliké (Rocchicella di Mineo), Montagna di Ramacca, Licodia Eubea, Ragusa Ibla, Sciri Sottano, Monte Casasia, Castiglione di Ragusa, Terravecchia di Grammichele, Morgantina, Montagna di Marzo (Piazza Armerina), and Terravecchia di Cuti.[11][12] The first inscription discovered, of ninety-nine Greek letters, was found on a spouted jug found in 1824 at Centuripe;[13] it uses a Greek alphabet of the 6th or 5th century BCE. It reads:
- nunustentimimarustainamiemitomestiduromnanepos
- duromiemtomestiveliomnedemponitantomeredesuino
- brtome[...
There have been various attempts at interpreting it (e.g. V. Pisani 1963, G. Radke 1996) with no sure results. Another long Siculian inscription was found in Montagna di Marzo:[14]
- tamuraabesakedqoiaveseurumakesagepipokedlutimbe
- levopomanatesemaidarnakeibureitamomiaetiurela
The best evidence for Sicel having been of Indo-European derivation is the verb form pibe "drink", a second-person singular present imperative active exactly cognate with Latin bibe (and Sanskrit piba, etc.), but it may just have been a loan word; pibe itself is not enough evidence to assign Sicel as an Indo-European language.[15] Membership in the Italic branch, perhaps even close to Latino-Faliscan cannot be ruled out: Varro states that Sicel language was strictly allied to Latin as many words sounded almost identical and had the same meaning, such as oncia, lytra, moeton (Lat. mutuum).[16]
Mythology[edit]
Their characteristic cult of the Palici is influenced by Greek myth in the version that has survived, in which the local nymph Talia bore to Adranus, the volcanic god whom the Greeks identified with Hephaestus, twin sons, who were "twice-born (palin "again"; ikein "to come"), born first of their nymph mother, and then of the earth, because of the "jealousy" of Hera, who urged Mother Earth, Gaia, to swallow up the nymph. Then the soil parted, giving birth to the twins, who were venerated in Sicily as patrons of navigation and of agriculture. In the most archaic level of Greek mythology, a titan, Tityos, grew so large that he split his mother's womb and had to be carried to term by Gaia herself. He came to the attention of later Greek mythographers only when he attempted to waylay Leto near Delphi. If such a mytheme is set into action as ritual, it is usual to see a pair of sacrificial children laid in the earth to encourage the green growth.[citation needed]
In the temple to Adranus, father of the Palici, the Sicels kept an eternal fire. A god Hybla (or goddess Hyblaea), after whom three towns were named, had a sanctuary at Hybla Gereatis. The connection of Demeter and Kore withHenna (the rape of Proserpine) and of the nymph Arethusa with Syracuse is due to Greek influence.
------
The Illyrians (Ancient Greek: Ἰλλυριοί, Illyrioi; Latin: Illyrii or Illyri) were a group of Indo-European tribes in antiquity, who inhabited part of the western Balkans and the south-eastern coasts of the Italian peninsula (Messapia). [1]The territory the Illyrians inhabited came to be known as Illyria to Greek and Roman authors, who identified a territory that corresponds to the former Yugoslavia and parts Albania, between the Adriatic Sea in the west, the Dravariver in the north, the Morava river in the east and the mouth of the Aoos river in the south.[2] The first account of Illyrian peoples comes from the Periplus of Pseudo-Scylax, an ancient Greek text of the middle of the 4th century BC that describes coastal passages in the Mediterranean.[3]
These tribes, or at least a number of tribes considered "Illyrians proper" of which only small fragments are attested enough to classify it as a branch of Indo-European;[4] it was probably extinct by the 2nd century AD.[5]
The name "Illyrians", as applied by the ancient Greeks to their northern neighbors, may have referred to a broad, ill-defined group of peoples, and it is today unclear to what extent they were linguistically and culturally homogeneous. In fact, an Illyric origin was and still is attributed also to a few ancient peoples in Italy, in particular the Iapyges, Dauni and Messapi, as it is thought that, most likely, they had followed Adriatic shorelines to the peninsula, coming from the geographic "Illyria". The Illyrian tribes never collectively regarded themselves as 'Illyrians', and it is unlikely that they used any collective nomenclature for themselves.[6] In fact, the name Illyriansseems to be the name applied to a specific Illyrian tribe, which was the first to come in contact with the ancient Greeks during the Bronze Age,[7] causing the name Illyrians to be applied to all people of similar language and customs.[2]
The term "Illyrians" last appears in the historical record in the 7th century, referring to a Byzantine garrison operating within the former Roman province of Illyricum.[8] All the remaining tribes except perhaps the RomanizedVlachs[9] were Slavicised in the course of the early Middle Ages. The modern Albanian language might have descended from a southern Illyrian dialect.
-------