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 —— 
 
 
 

 
CITIES OF SICILY 
 

 

 
 
 

 
 TAORMINA 
 
CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD HUTTON 
 
 WITH I2 ILLUSTRATIONS IN 
 COLOUR BY 
 
 HARRY MORLEY 
 
 I4 OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS AND A MAP 
 
 BOSTON 
 LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 
 1926 
 

 

 
 
 
 
 | 50 | UY WIFE 
 CHARLOTTE HUTTON, 
 
 TO WHOM I OWE THE CHIEF HAPPINESS 
 ego OF MY LIFE , 
 
 IN TOTO CORDE MEO Tee 
 
 
 

 
VII 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 MESSINA . : é : = 
 TAORMINA . : “ 
 THE SKIRTS OF Rawk: AG ie AND CATANIA 
 ETNA : ‘ 
 ON THE WAY TO SYRACUSE 
 SYRACUSE 
 I Syracuse 
 II The Story of Syrardsa 
 III Ortygia . ; 
 IV Achradina 
 V_ Neapolis 
 VI Epipolz 
 ROUND ABOUT SYRACUSE 
 I The Fountain of Cyane 
 II The Aqueduct 
 III The Promontory of Troailis: 
 IV To Acre : A : 
 V_ Pantalica ; 
 VI Cava di Spampanato : : 
 ON THE WAY TO GIRGENTI: CALTAGIRONE AND 
 GELA ; 2 F : 
 GIRGENTI 
 SELINUNTE - : . é 
 MAzzARA, MaArRSALA, MorTya, ited Mount 
 Eryx 
 SEGESTA 
 PALERMO : : : 
 BAGHERIA, Siok AND THE Nias COAST 
 
 INDEX . 
 
 ix 
 

 
LIST OF PLATES 
 
 IN COLOUR 
 TAORMINA . : ; : ; : Frontispiece 
 FACING PAGE 
 ETNA FROM TAORMINA . : : ; : See 
 LEMONS . . ; : , : . ; A a. + - 
 CATHEDRAL, SYRACUSE. : - ‘ : Pilar’. 
 GREEK THEATRE, SYRACUSE : : : ; : 86 
 SIMIAN STREET  .  . : : . : f-3%2 
 TEMPLE OF ‘‘CASTOR AND POLLUX,’’ GIRGENTI . Wes 
 SCIARE . ; ; P ; : : é 138 
 SICILIAN CART. ; : 154 
 PALERMO SEA FRONT ; : : : : 176 
 CATHEDRAL, PALERMO ; ’ : : : 186 
 IN THE MADONIE . : : : ‘ : Ree te, 
 IN MONOTONE 
 A Map oF SIcILy . : : . Front Endpaper 
 (From a drawing by Harry Morley and A. E. Taylor) 
 
 *ALMOND BLossoM AT TAORMINA, ETNAIN THE DISTANCE 14 
 *THE LATOMIA DEI CAPPUCCINI ‘ : ; ‘ 78 
 *TEMPLE OF ‘‘ CONCORD,’’ GIRGENTI . , ; 880 
 THE THEATRE AT ACRE, i 3 “ ‘ Fes oe 
 JTHE THEATRE, SEGESTA . ‘ j : : or 100 
 {GREEK STREET AT SELINUNTE : ; ‘ . » 566 
 {PULPIT, CAPPELLA PALATINA, PALERMO . : TOG 
 tS. GIOVANNI DEGLI EREMITI, PALERMO . ; . 190 
 {THE CLOISTER AT MONREALE . ; ‘ “ 1 Ge 
 {BronzE Doors By BoNANNO, MONREALE , ee (9 
 
 {Mosaic OF THE DEATH OF THE VIRGIN, LA MARTORANA, 
 PALERMO. : ‘ ‘ ; : : «200 
 {CHIESA DEI VESPRI, PALERMO. : : : 2. 206 
 TEMPLE C, AT SELINUNTE : ; ; . ; 226 
 {CEFALU . - : x - , ‘ - - 226 
 
 * Photographs by Crupi. { Photographs by Alinarit. 
 xi 
 

 
CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 MESSINA 
 
 HERE might seem to be little or nothing to see at 
 Messina, since the earthquake of 28th December, 
 1908, which in the early morning, long before light, 
 in some thirty seconds destroyed the whole city, and more 
 than 84,000 of its 120,000 inhabitants. Such a disaster, 
 so far beyond the utmost ferocity of man, in its quite 
 final achievement at any rate, in its suddenness if not 
 in its imbecility, appals one, and, I suppose, attracts one 
 to the spot, in spite of the fact, which, from any human 
 point of view only makes the catastrophe more tragic, that 
 Messina had no more to do with it than has the sailor 
 with the tempest that destroys his ship. He too must 
 suffer the acts of nature with a modicum of the same 
 stolidity as Messina has shown, and like her, not once nor 
 twice, begin anew. 
 
 In Naples they regard things differently. For they 
 declare that Messina suffered because she had not loved 
 her Madonna enough.? So the companions of Odysseus 
 hereabout were drowned for paying too little attention to 
 
 1 It would be very strange that the people of Messina should not 
 love their Madonna, for it was to them she is said to have written 
 the only letter we hear of from her hand. This letter was pre- 
 served in the Cathedral where, under the baldachin, was the ancient 
 picture of the ‘‘ Madonna of the Letter” attributed to S. Luke, 
 The letter was written in Hebrew on the occasion of the conver- 
 sion of the Messenians’by S. Paul, who is said to have translated 
 it into Greek. 
 
 1 
 
2 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 Helios Hyperion, then the God of these shores. Would 
 they were right! So might we avoid such chaos as this, 
 taking heaven by prayer or violence. But the forces of 
 nature, as unaware of man as they are certainly indifferent 
 to him, involve him in their unknowable business to his 
 wholesale undoing. Nor is this, their latest and worst, 
 their only effort, here in Messina. 
 
 In the year 1783 on the 5th February Messina had been 
 destroyed with its inhabitants by earthquake: an awful 
 business, but a mere rehearsal of what was to happen in 
 1908. These Polyphemic and grotesque forces have not 
 yet met their Odysseus : it might appear unlikely they will 
 ever do so. Yet, in the womb of time, perhaps he lies, 
 and of our race, who shall enslave them, and they shall 
 serve him and do his bidding. When that time comes 
 we shall have avenged—alas, poor souls !—our comrades 
 slain. 
 
 Yes, something like that, some dumb resentment— 
 against what, against whom ?—stirs in the heart as you 
 wander to-day amid what is still the débris, though tidied 
 up. That monstrous cathedral gapes and proclaims 
 that the gods were not accountable—sinned against, not 
 sinning: Oedy déxntt dvdxtwyv. In ignorance men built 
 within a curved line of earth fracture, following an arc 
 drawn from a centre in Stromboli, within which, we are 
 told, the earth is gradually sinking and is in an unstable 
 condition. The earthquakes of 1693, 1783, might seem 
 like broad hints—not broad enough. Those gallant fools 
 rebuilt Messina and inhabited it, and their descendants, 
 what is left of them, after a more terrible experience, are 
 doing the same. 
 
 How admirable that is !—as much in its patience as in 
 its courage. It should even reconcile one to what is being 
 built, so sturdily, if without the old effect of beauty, along 
 that haughty sea-front. It was, after all, a ramshackle 
 city that sprang up after 1783, top-heavy and without 
 foundations. To-day they thrust downward, till like an 
 oak Messina shall have as much beneath as above ground, 
 I wonder if with any better success. That curved line 
 of earth fracture. ... Far off be that day! 
 
MESSINA 8 
 
 But a morning was enough, for me at any rate. The 
 new buildings, a whole street of them, even more than 
 that ghastly cathedral, those gaping walls, the whole 
 rickety ruin, inhuman and unbearable, destroyed all my 
 pleasure in that incomparable site, the infinite beauty and 
 variety of that noble shore upon the most famous strait 
 in the world. 
 
 So, sometimes, I took to the sea and went sailing up the 
 strait into the Tyrrhene along the Italian shore; or, 
 sometimes, in the afternoon, I made my way, always by 
 the shore, out beyond Messina, through village after village, 
 past the sea lakes of Pantano where the shell-fish are so 
 good fresh from the sea, to the Faro and Cape Peloro. 
 Nothing else about Messina is half so fine as this road 
 which begins by giving you the whole marvellous curve 
 of the harbour, the famous sickle, which first named the 
 place Zankle; and on the way offers you the majestic view 
 of the strait, here less than three miles across from shining 
 shore to shining shore. As you go forward you see them 
 all, the towns and villages upon the Calabrian side, Reggio, 
 Gallico and Villa San Giovanni, till Scilla comes in sight 
 at the northern entrance of the strait, and, beyond Scilla, 
 Bagnara and beyond again Palmi and Gioja till Capo 
 Vaticano far stretched into the sunset closes the view. And 
 behind these golden and embowered places rise the noble 
 outlines and towered peaks of the barren Aspromonte.? 
 
 There at the Faro I would lie down on the pale sand 
 strewn with the pumice-stone, fragments—for me—of the 
 Clashing Rocks, with the A¢olian Isles before me, mountains 
 floating on that violet sea. 
 
 1 Half-way between Messina and the Faro, on the Via Pompeia, 
 is the village of Pace where was the church of ‘‘ the Grotta.’’ The 
 interest of the place lies in this, that it is said to be the site of the 
 
 “hollow cave’’ where Odysseus dragged up his ship when the 
 wind obliged him to leave Messina: 
 
 ; We moored our well-built ship in the hollow harbour 
 near a spring of sweet water (Messina) ... But when it was the 
 third watch of the night and the stars had turned their course, 
 Zeus, the cloud-gatherer, roused against us a fierce wind with a 
 wondrous tempest . . . and as soon as early Dawn appeared . 
 we dragged our ship and made her fast in a hollow cave where 
 were the fair dancing-floors and seats of the nymphs.” 
 
4 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 It is a lonely shore for all its beauty. Not many, it 
 seems, care for Scylla and Charybdis, or seek this place of 
 the Fig Tree for the sake of Odysseus, or, here where the 
 Tyrrhene and the Ionian meet, know this sea for what it 
 is—the Cup of Homer. 
 
 ‘ How often have [I lain there and at all hours, yet have 
 always been alone! My frequent visits to this spot, 
 together with my voyages with Alessandro and Pietro in 
 that eyed boat of theirs, which was as nameless as Odysseus’ 
 ship, at all seasons and states of wind and tide, but most 
 often in the early morning and at evening, have been 
 made in the fond hope of seeing, of finding Charybdis. 
 Just that wonder, so dear to Antiquity, I have never seen, 
 but, in such a place, what others have I not surprised ? 
 
 The Cup of Homer. ... Yes, you may walk there for 
 hours undisturbed on that pale sand, which divides the 
 unharvested sea from a sea of wild flowers; or scarcely 
 drifting in the current or the tide, or flying before the 
 same wind out of the south that wrecked Odysseus, in the 
 ever-changing light, or under Bodtes or under Orion, that 
 sea before you, understand perhaps for the first time the 
 whole great story. 
 
 Here at least was the turning point, the crisis of those 
 wanderings. Here, after many sorrows, many adventures, 
 after losing all his other ships and finally all his comrades, 
 he is at last left alone. Here in this strait divine Charybdis 
 sucks down his broken ship, while he, like a bat, clings to 
 the tall Fig Tree; and when she spews it forth again, 
 mast and keel, he drops down on to the spars and alone 
 rides out into the large. 
 
 That befell, the whole world has ever agreed, here in 
 this strait. But I would ask myself or Alessandro or Pietro, 
 who knew nothing about it, does not he say himself that 
 all his adventures befell while he was exploring “‘ the straits 
 of the sea’’—éao" éudyynoa ndgovs dAdc é&eoecivwy ?4 
 
 1 Odyssey xii, 259. I know that many English translators have 
 rendered mdpous adds: the paths of the sea. I have always won- 
 dered what they meant. The word mépos means literally a means 
 of passing, e.g. a ford or ferry, and thus a strait, a way, a track, 
 and secondarily a way or means of achieving. To translate mopous 
 
MESSINA 5 
 
 I used to think about that among the wild flowers at 
 the Faro. There was always plenty of time before the 
 tide turned and Charybdis, invisible at the moment, might 
 be hoped for. Meanwhile the little goatherd on the shady 
 side of the sand dunes piped sweetly. 
 
 Follow it for a moment. Odysseus when he missed 
 Malea was making the difficult passage of the Strait of 
 Cythera, the entrance from the well-known A®gean into 
 the Ionian. That passage is to-day called the Elaphonisi 
 Channel. So he began. Suppose that the Lotus Eaters 
 dwelt in what we know as Tunisia: then the strait was 
 either that of Tunis itself, or, more likely, of Jerba. The 
 adventure of the Cyclops marked the passage between 
 Ischia and Italy, if as I should maintain that adventure 
 befell in the Phlegrzean Fields; the encounter with Aé£olus, 
 the passage between Sicily and the AKolian Isles. The 
 horrible adventure with the Laestrygones, in which Odysseus 
 lost all his ships save only his own, marked perhaps the 
 passage between Corsica and Sardinia, while that with 
 Circe befell in the shallow miasmic waters between the 
 mainland of Italy and the Pontine Islands, of which 
 steep Monte Circeo once formed a part. The Sirens would 
 thus mark the passage between Capri and the headland 
 of Sorrento, a place full in the face of the scirocco; and 
 finally the tremendous double adventure of Scylla and 
 Charybdis is the passage of the greatest and most impor- 
 tant strait of all—the Strait of Messina. 
 
 This strait was the way from the Ionian into the Tyrrhene 
 Sea. 
 
 When Odysseus passed or attempted to pass the Strait 
 of Cythera he was, so far at any rate as he was concerned, 
 in known waters, though it may be that for the A®¥gean 
 civilization of which he is the representative adventurer, 
 the Ionian was still something of a mystery. To pass 
 from the Ionian into the Tyrrhene was to enter the un- 
 known. It was no doubt a tremendous achievement for 
 a Greek, and it is there that every adventure of Odysseus 
 
 adds as “‘ paths of the sea’ is surely only accurate if it refers to 
 the straits or perhaps the trade routes. It is, in any looser sense, 
 merely rhetorical, since the sea has no paths. 
 
 2 
 
6 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 takes place. In the Strait between the two seas the crisis 
 of the story is reached. 
 
 Thence Odysseus is blown into faéryland, if you will, 
 only not into fairyland. If, as has been maintained, 
 Calypso’s Isle lies in the Strait of Gibraltar between 
 the Pillars of Herakles, we see Odysseus standing on the 
 threshold of the ocean. 
 
 The poem thus becomes an account of the gateways, 
 that is the Straits, of the Western Mediterranean : a gather- 
 ing up of all that was known or might be overheard of that 
 mysterious sea. 
 
 Overheard . . . Just there, maybe, we have the truth. 
 I confess, after many wet miles of tramping in and out 
 of the Messina Strait, after many hours with the Odyssey 
 beside Charybdis and in sight of Scylla, I cannot any 
 longer believe that Homer himself ever really saw this 
 place. He heard the stories of the sailors, of sailors rather 
 Phoenician than Greek, for the Greeks were always poor 
 seamen, though not so poor as the Romans: he heard 
 the stories of the sea as Shakespeare heard later the stories 
 of Italy and Italian sunshine—even of Messina—about 
 the Court or in the taverns of London, and both made 
 immortal use of what they heard. 
 
 But what is it exactly that Homer tells us of these 
 shores ? 
 
 Alessandro and Pietro who sail me up and down, in 
 and out, of these Straits whenever I so desire—and that 
 is as often as may be—know nothing of Odysseus, not 
 even under his Latin pseudonym of Ulysses. The Madonna 
 and the Reali di Francia are more in their line. Quite 
 right. Happily they can neither read nor write. They 
 are admirable sailors and have known all these waters from 
 childhood, and vicariously, if you will consider it, through 
 their ancestors for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years. 
 They may be Sicani and Iberian, or Sikeli from Italy, or 
 Pheenician or Greek or Saracen or Norman or all these 
 combined, by origin; but I like to think they derive from 
 that band of pirates from Cyme in Opicia itself a colony of 
 Chalcis of whom Thucydides speaks as having first founded 
 the city of Zankle or Messina, They believe in marvels 
 
MESSINA 7 
 
 but not my marvels. Still we have much in common. 
 We have together visited every corner of these coasts, we 
 have sailed as far as the A®olian Isles, as far as Naxos 
 ruined in a lemon grove on a black tongue of lava thrust 
 into the violet sea, for my part, in search of sea monsters 
 and clashing rocks, but the only marvel they looked for 
 was the Fata Morgana. AsIsaid we had much in common. 
 
 They had seen that amazement and longed to show 
 it to me. It seems that one morning they were lying 
 off Reggio just after dawn. It was a dead calm and 
 already hot, the tide or current on the turn up the strait 
 but not yet really on the move. While they were fishing, 
 suddenly Alessandro happened to look up and there in 
 the sky he beheld a city far more glorious and splendid 
 than the Messina he knew. Was it the Messina of long 
 ago, that great Greek city he had heard of, established there 
 for ever in the heavens and visible to him on that morning 
 by a special grace of the Madonna? He crossed himself. 
 To be thus blest! And shouting for joy, called upon 
 Pietro to share the vision. And the brothers embraced 
 and gazed upon that city not made with hands till it 
 passed from their sight. 
 
 So, long ago, Father Angelucci saw the same glorious 
 spectacle and left us the following account of it: 
 
 “On the fifteenth of August 1643 as I stood at my win- 
 dow I was surprised with a most wonderful, delectable 
 vision. The sea that washes the Sicilian shore swelled up 
 and became for ten miles in length like a chain of dark 
 mountains ; while the waters near our Calabrian coast 
 grew quite smooth, and in an instant appeared as one clear 
 polished mirror reclining against the aforesaid ridge. On 
 this glass was depicted in chiaroscuro a string of several 
 thousand pilasters, all equal in altitude, distance, and 
 degree of light and shade. In a moment they lost half 
 their height and bent into arcades like Roman Aqueducts. 
 A long cornice was next formed on the top, and above 
 it rose castles innumerable, all perfectly alike. These 
 soon split into towers, which were shortly after lost in 
 colonnades, then windows, and at last ended in pines, 
 cypresses and other trees even and similar. This is the 
 
8 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 Fata Morgana which for twenty-six years I had thought a 
 mere fable.’ 
 
 This was what Alessandro and Pietro longed to show 
 me, this is what they believed I sought as with the big 
 chart on my knees and the Odyssey open beside me we sailed 
 those seas. 
 
 Perhaps they were right, for assuredly what I sought 
 remained a vision without tangible reality. The only 
 Clashing Rocks I found, though indeed we sailed through 
 and through the isles of A‘olus, were strewn upon those 
 unfrequented beaches—fragments of pumice-stone, that 
 yet, in fact, when Odysseus sailed from Troy, may have 
 been mighty rocks hurled forth by Stromboli or Vulcano 
 to float wandering upon these waters, and, grinding and 
 clashing together, may well have endangered a ship— 
 even the ‘‘ Argo ’’ which, according to Apollonius Rhodius, 
 the virgin daughters of Nereus like a school of dolphins, 
 guided by Thetis, lifting the edge of their garments over 
 their snow-white knees, bore up out of the sea and sent 
 through the air over the waves and the clashing wander- 
 ing rocks ; and round them the water spouted and foamed. 
 So, a whole long day of springtime, they toiled, bearing the 
 ship between the loud echoing rocks. | 
 
 Nothing of this saw we for all our trouble: only the 
 pumice-strewn beaches of silver, only the white feather of 
 smoke over Vulcano, and the sea-birds, wheeling about us 
 over the wine-faced sea, under the soft sky, with so 
 infinite a grace that, for what I know, they may well 
 have been those milk-white Nereids, who bore up the 
 “‘Argo’’ into safety, while Hera threw her arms about 
 Athena in fear as she gazed, for Jason was dear to her, 
 so long ago. 
 
 Nor was I more fortunate with Scylla than with the 
 Planctae and Charybdis. 
 
 Homer in the Twelfth Book of the Odyssey describes 
 Scylla and Charybdis. He says the rock of Scylla reached 
 with its sharp peak to the broad heaven and a dark cloud 
 surrounded it. This never melted away, nor did clear 
 sky ever surround that peak in summer or in harvest time, 
 No mortal man could scale it or set foot upon the top, 
 
MESSINA 9 
 
 not though he had twenty hands and feet ; for the rock was 
 smooth, as if it were polished. And in the midst of the 
 cliff was a dim cave, turned to the west, towards Erebus. 
 Not even a man of might could shoot an arrow from the 
 hollow ship so as to reach into that vaulted cave. Therein 
 dwelt Scylla, yelping terribly. ... But the other cliff 
 was lower—they were close to each other ; Odysseus might 
 even shoot an arrow across—and on it was a great fig tree 
 with rich foliage, and beneath it divine Charybdis sucked 
 down the black water. 
 
 Nothing really like this is to be seen to-day. To begin 
 with, the strait at its narrowest is nowhere less than near 
 two miles wide!; but according to Homer’s description, 
 it was so narrow that not only could Odysseus shoot an 
 arrow across it, but the spray of Charybdis ‘‘ would fall 
 on the tops of both cliffs.’’ 2 
 
 Again, the distance between Scylla and the Punta del 
 Faro is three sea miles, that is, 6,080 yards, and between 
 Scylla and the whirlpool of Charybdis rather more. In 
 approaching Scylla, whether from Sicily or from Capo 
 Vaticano, what you see is a bold headland thrust out, but 
 not far, into the sea, its level top crowned by the great 
 flat-roofed castle. The height of this promontory is not 
 more than eighty metres. There is to-day no cave upon 
 its western face half-way to the top—say 120 feet from the 
 sea. If there were, even Paris, nay even Eros could easily 
 shoot an arrow into it, while it would be beyond the power 
 of glorious Odysseus himself to reach Scylla from Charybdis, 
 even with his famous bow that no one but he could bend. 
 
 I have beaten about Scylla of the rock at all seasons 
 and in all weathers. On one fortunate day I landed there 
 upon the western base of the headland. When the north- 
 west wind was blowing pretty lively, indeed in any wind, 
 I have heard enormous roarings and voices, and sometimes 
 strange howlings about the headland, but they were the 
 
 1 10,600 feet, or about one and three-quarters sea miles. 
 
 2 Odyssey, xii, 239. How this could be, even though Scylla 
 and Charybdis had been close together, I do not understand, since 
 the cliff of Scylla was so high that it was always lost in the clouds 
 even in full summer (Od. xii, 73-5). 
 
10 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 innumerable voices of the sea and not the yelping of 
 Scylla. 
 
 And yet ... Alessandro and Pietro never liked the 
 place ; they pointed to the teeth of the monster too often 
 bared, through which the sea foamed, the long stretched 
 reefs like reaching arms, and were glad to put out again 
 into the large. 
 
 And yet . . . Fra Leo Alberti, writing in the sixteenth 
 century, says: ‘‘Scylla hath a rock shaped like a man, 
 surrounded by caves emitting howls of wolves and screams 
 of beasts.’”” And the Abbé Lazzaro Spallanzani, Fellow 
 of the Royal Society and Professor of Natural History 
 in the University of Pavia, writing at the end of the eight- 
 eenth century, declares he heardthesame. ‘“‘ I proceeded,’’ 
 he says, “‘in a small boat to Scylla. This is a lofty rock 
 distant twelve miles from Messina, which rises almost 
 perpendicularly from the sea, on the shore of Calabria, and 
 beyond which is the small city of the same name. Though 
 there was scarcely any wind, I began to hear, two miles 
 before I came to the rock, a murmur and noise like a con- 
 fused barking of dogs, and on a nearer approach readily 
 discovered the cause. This rock in its lower part contains 
 a number of caverns ; one of the largest of which is called 
 by the people Drvagara. The waves when in the least 
 agitated rushing into these caverns break, dash, throw up 
 frothy bubbles and thus occasion these various and multi- 
 plied sounds.”’ 4 3 
 
 It may be so. But even though Spallanzani were right 
 as to the origin of the noises he heard, it scarcely affects 
 the description of Homer. If Homer is to be believed, 
 enormous changes must have befallen this strait, and in 
 fact we know this to beso. What precisely may have been 
 the effect of the numberless earthquakes since Homer’s 
 day we have no means of knowing; but we have records 
 of what befell Scylla in the earthquake of 1783, and these 
 are enough to explain our disillusion. That earthquake in 
 fact changed the face of Scylla, which was wholly overthrown 
 on the night of 5th February. Vast portions of the rock 
 
 1 Abbé Lazzaro Spallanzani : Travels in the Two Sicilies (London, 
 1798). Vol. iv, 169 et seq. 
 
 a ve ae 
 
MESSINA 11 
 
 and of the mountains above Scylla were thrown into the 
 strait. One huge wave resulting from the convulsion 
 swept over the strand of the bay and engulfed in one 
 moment 2,475 human beings who had there taken refuge 
 from the falling city. 
 
 “The walls and towers of the Castle were split asunder 
 and overturned upon the town,” we read ; “‘ the buildings 
 below were crushed to atoms and one hundred and fifty 
 persons perished in this fall. At night a considerable 
 part of the inhabitants, chiefly of the class of sailors, fol- 
 lowed the example of the Prince of Scilla and repaired to 
 the beach; they there pitched tents, or lay down in their 
 barks, hoping to pass the night in perfect security, at a 
 distance from all buildings. The sky was bright and 
 serene, the sea lulled in a profound calm, and all these 
 poor people were indulging in sweet sleep, a short respite 
 from their woes. In this treacherous state of things, a 
 little after midnight, the whole promontory of Campala 
 fell at once into the sea without any previous earthquake. 
 The sea fled back before this mass towards the Golilla 
 del Faro, where it carried off twenty-eight persons with 
 their boats and houses; then returning with redoubled 
 fury across its natural channel, flowed on the shore of 
 Scylla thirty palms above its usual level and three miles 
 along the coast. As it fell back again it swept away into 
 the abyss 2,475 persons who were lying on the sands or in 
 BOCAS cys. * 
 
 Thinking of these things, how often at sunset have we 
 come down the strait, back to Messina, Alessandro, Pietro 
 and J. And as it so happened it was in coming thus 
 back from Scylla on a clear summer evening that I was 
 finally convinced that Homer himself never saw this strait, 
 never sailed these seas or landed upon these divine shores : 
 that all he wrote of them was from hearsay—those Phceni- 
 cians !—the gossip of the harbour or the coast, put to 
 marvellous and immortal use. For there stood Etna with 
 its crown of snow and great plume of smoke across the 
 crimson sky. No one who had even seen Sicily, especially 
 
 1 From a letter by an eye-witness quoted by H. Swinburne, 
 Travels in the Two Sicilies (London, 1799), iv, 293. 
 
12 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 one in search of marvels, could have missed—still less have 
 forgotten—Etna. 
 
 But Homer was blind: and Etna, like Vesuvius, may 
 not have been active then. 
 
 ‘Of what is the Signore thinking ? The Signore is sad. 
 He is thinking of the ee Morgana that we have seen but 
 not he.”’ 
 
 Yes, Alessandro, yes, Pietro, I am thinking of the Fata 
 Morgana, but not that which you have seen, but that which 
 I have seen, but not you. 
 
 It may well be that he never sailed these seas or saw 
 these shores : that some Phoenician talking in the market- 
 place of the gateways of the great sea told him all he knew. 
 What matter? Those blind eyes saw a vision, that divine 
 spirit conceived an image which has outlasted the mere 
 material and visible world, the sport of the earthquake, 
 continually changed and pitilessly shattered as the brute 
 earth shrinks upon that arc of fracture whose centre is 
 Stromboli. All the poets, all the historians, all the geo- 
 graphers follow him. Those Pheenicians, they invented 
 more than the Alphabet, but it was the Greek who turned 
 everything they made and knew to divine use and beauty. 
 
 Yes, Alessandro, yes, Pietro, there was one who saw 
 Fata Morgana and the greatest of all cities that have been 
 or shall be, burning in the sky, and the loveliest woman 
 ravished away, and the noblest of kings an old man hum- 
 bled, and the greatest feats of arms. He knew the ways 
 of the sea and the gateways thereof and sang of them 
 and of the wanderings of the most experienced and the 
 subtlest of men. And all these things are more enduring 
 than these rocks and have outlasted many civilizations. 
 Yet all these things exist because of him. And if he had 
 not sung of these things he would have found others and 
 they would have been as beautiful. And which is more 
 real: your Messina which the earthquake destroys, or 
 your Fata Morgana which fadés with the sun ? 
 
 And Alessandro and Pietro answered nothing, but 
 pulled on into Messina. 
 
 a hs eee 
 
Fi i 
 
 er 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 TAORMINA 
 
 T whatever time of year I may come to Taormina, 
 with the snow of the almond blossom, the flame 
 of the oleander, the purple of the grape, it has the 
 
 same incredible beauty, incredible in any land but this ; 
 a beauty picturesque, rhetorical, exterior if you will, but 
 overwhelming in its direct appeal and essentially dramatic, 
 in its effect, as in its essence. 
 
 With this amazing beauty Taormina itself has little 
 to do. It is wholly an affair of situation. The little 
 town which has scarcely a monument, except the famous 
 Greco-Roman Theatre, is lodged almost like some hap- 
 hazard, rudely-built nest upon the mountain ledge, lying 
 a little back from the sea and some 600 feet above it. 
 Behind it tower two isolated heights, the one bearing 
 somewhat precariously on its summit a cluster of houses 
 —the village of Mola, the other crowned by the Castle. 
 The background of all this is a tumbled mass of mountain 
 range, the last of the Peloritani from which one lovely 
 peak, Monte Venere, stands out against the sky. 
 
 But that is only the background of a panorama really 
 incomparable and certainly the loveliest in Sicily. Before 
 Taormina lies the violet sea and a coast broken by many 
 a sleeping far-stretched headland: there to the north 
 Capo S. Alessio, with its fort and village above it, goes 
 steeply and brokenly into the sea; immediately beneath 
 Taormina the lovely triple promontory of S. Andrea, with 
 the small island, Isola Bella, in its arms, breaks the shore ; 
 to the south the black promontory of Capo Schisdé crawls 
 leanly into the Ionian. It is an incomparable riviera, and 
 over all and at just the right distance, rises and reigns, 
 
 13 
 
14 CITIES OF SICILY | 
 
 supreme in majesty and awe, snow-crowned Etna stream- 
 ing its vast plume of smoke, immovable, ever changing, 
 multi-coloured, that lies across half the sky like a cloud, 
 and, like the great volcano itself, takes on every mood 
 of the day. 
 
 It is this incomparable panorama, so clear, so luminous, 
 so ‘‘classical’’ in its beauty, and yet to the seeing eye 
 far more filled with mystery, with poetry, than any vague 
 landscape of the North, which has given Taormina its name 
 for beauty. And indeed in Taormina there is nothing else 
 to do all day long but to enjoy it, and if there were you 
 could do nothing but return to it, at every hour of the day, 
 at every turning of the road, from the hill of the Theatre, 
 from the path to Mola, from the Castle, from Monte Venere, 
 in the morning when you wake, in the evening when you 
 lie down ; at all times your eyes are filled with it and yet 
 can never have enough. No doubt Taormina was built 
 where it is because of it. 
 
 For the Greeks beyond all other men were sensitive 
 to such beauty ; they never established a city or built a 
 temple or a theatre without considering it ; the landscape 
 in which it stood, which it would, as it were, reveal, express 
 and consecrate. There is no city of the Greeks in Sicily, 
 as I know well, of which this is not true : Taormina and the 
 Theatre of Taormina are only more obvious examples of 
 their general custom. And here perhaps more than else- 
 where their will in this has prevailed and their intention 
 imposed itself upon us, certainly unused to such refine- 
 ments. Time and destruction have left nothing certainly 
 Greek, and almost nothing of any artistic importance in 
 Taormina to distract us from the very first thoughts of its 
 founders about it. There is nothing but the Theatre to 
 take one’s attention from the view, and the Theatre, as 
 we might have divined, only gives us that incomparable 
 panorama in its most dramatic perfection. 
 
 It is all dolce far niente in this town, really little more 
 than a village, with its charming, haphazard streets, its 
 exquisite, amateurish Gothic buildings as often as not in 
 picturesque ruin, which can never have been serious works 
 of art, one might think, but make a part of the charm of 
 

 
 
 
 ALMOND BLOSSOM AT TAORMINA 
 Etna in the distance 
 
TAORMINA 15 
 
 the place. You wander down the street, to climb up to 
 the Theatre, to spend a lazy morning there lying in the 
 sun and looking at the landscape. In the afternoon you 
 climb up to Mola—it is the only or almost the only walk ; 
 and all the delightful but toilsome way through the podert 
 filled perhaps with the snow of the almond, as the steep 
 path turns, or hesitates, or offers a rest, it is to the landscape 
 you turn, that marvellous vieW-of mountain and sea and 
 sea-shore over which the majesty of Etna is upreared awfully 
 into theinfinitesky. And gradually as one’s spirit becomes 
 attuned to this genius loct, one begins to perceive its mean- 
 ing, to understand or at least to feel what it is to live in 
 harmony with nature—nature, mistress of all masters, 
 which certainly the Greeks understood with a clear sin- 
 cerity to which we are complete strangers. 
 
 The secret of Taormina is that she is, as it were, the key 
 to the landscape. Nor when I say that the Greeks who 
 thus established her did so with that intention, do I forget 
 that the first city, Naxos, of which Tauromenium was the 
 daughter, was founded on the sea-shore. Indeed you 
 may still see some foundations in the lemon grove on 
 Capo Schisd, that low black tongue of lava thrust like 
 a reef into the sea beyond the marina of Taormina, 
 Giardini. 
 
 You may reach Naxos as I did in about an hour on foot 
 from the Catania Gate or you may drive to it out of Porta 
 Messina. It lay along the S. Venera torrent not far from 
 the Acesines, and the mouth of that considerable stream 
 may have been its harbour, or the north bay which still 
 affords goodanchorage. Thereis little to see: a few founda- 
 tions in a lemon grove and portions of the wall, while not 
 far away is a necropolis. In spite of this, Naxos, the site 
 of Naxos, should certainly be visited, for it was the first 
 Greek settlement in Sicily and for all Sicilian Greeks holy 
 ground. And then in a place like Taormina where there is 
 almost nothing to do and nowhere to go, one eagerly seizes 
 an excuse for a walk. 
 
 The whole of this country has been largely changed 
 since Naxos was founded by a body of colonists from 
 Chalcis in Eubcea in 735 B.c. That long reef of lava 
 
16 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 might seem to hint at it. The city once lay along the River 
 Acesines, the modern Alcantara, from which what is now 
 left of it is separated by the low delta between the torrent 
 of S. Venera and the river. Thucydides, our chief if not 
 our only authority in regard to the establishment of the 
 Greek colonies in Sicily, represents Naxos as a purely 
 Chalcidic settlement, but the very name would seem to 
 attest the presence of a body of colonists from the island 
 of that name, and Ephorus of Cumae calls Theocles the 
 leader,an Athenian. The memory of Naxos as the earliest 
 of all Greek settlements in Sicily was preserved by the 
 dedication of an altar outside the city to Apollo Archegetes — 
 —Apollo the Leader—the patron deity under whose 
 authority the expedition had sailed. And it was a custom 
 still retained long after the destruction of Naxos itself, 
 that all envoys proceeding on sacred missions to Greece 
 or returning from Greece to Sicily, should offer sacrifice on 
 this altar.1 
 
 Within a few years Naxos was so flourishing that she 
 was able herself to send out colonists who established first 
 Leontinoi, of which Theocles himself was the founder, and 
 then Catana, both to the south. It is probable, though 
 Thucydides says nothing of it, that Zankle (Messina) was 
 also a colony of Naxos. So it certainly flourished for near 
 250 years, when about 491 B.c. Hippocrates, the tyrant 
 of Gela, a Dorian city on the south coast, took it, and 
 seems to have reduced it to permanent subjection.” Later 
 it passed into the power of the tyrants Gelon and his 
 brother Hieron of Syracuse (476 B.c.). The latter, in fact, 
 drove out the inhabitants both of Naxos and Catana and 
 settled them at Leontini, putting fresh colonists from other 
 parts into the two dispeopled cities. In 461 B.c., however, 
 the exiles returned to Catana, and there is no reason to 
 believe that the exiles of Naxos were less fortunate. Naxos 
 was thus still a Chalcidic city when the Athenian Expedition 
 was launched against Syracuse. We find her joining the 
 Athenians against the great Dorian city. It was at Naxos 
 that the Athenian fleet first touched after crossing the 
 straits. Naxos and Catana were indeed the only Greek 
 
 1 Thucydides, vi, 3. ? Herodotus, vii, 154. 
 
TAORMINA yee | 
 
 cities in Sicily which sided with the Athenians. That 
 enormous disaster was to bring the retribution we might 
 suppose. With the utter destruction of the Athenians, 
 Syracuse turned upon their allies. She was prevented in 
 her revenge for a time by the Carthaginian terror which 
 engulfed Acragas, Gela and Camarina; but that passed. 
 Dionysius of Syracuse, secure at last, threw himself on the 
 Chalcidic cities, and, making himself master of Naxos by 
 the treachery of her general, Procles, sold all the inhabi- 
 tants into slavery, razed the city to the ground, and gave 
 the site and territory to the neighbouring Sikelian bar- 
 barians (403 B.c.). Naxos never rose again, and it would 
 seem that it was in fact the Sikeli who finally formed 
 the settlement on the hill of Taurus which we know as 
 Taormina. This befell about 396 B.c. About forty years 
 later (358 B.c.), Andromachus, the father of the historian 
 Timeus, gathered together the Naxian exiles scattered in 
 various parts of Sicily and established them in the Sikelian 
 town on Mount Taurus, which thus rose to be a Greek city, 
 the true successor of Naxos. The city was called Tauro- 
 menium, and Andromachus was its tyrant. His rule was 
 mild and he alone was not expelled by Timoleon, whom 
 indeed he was the first to welcome, when he made his 
 expedition to free Syracuse and Sicily from these tyran- 
 nies (345 B.C.). 
 
 The site of Naxos was never again inhabited, but the 
 altar and shrine of Apollo Archegetes remained and marked 
 the spot certainly till 36 B.c. 
 
 As for the history of Tauromenium, it is singularly 
 uninteresting. It passed, after the death of Androma- 
 chus, into the power of Agathocles, King of Syracuse, who 
 expelled Timzus, the historian. It then fell into the power 
 of Tyndarion, a domestic despot, who helped to invite 
 Pyrrhus into Sicily and marched with him upon Syracuse. 
 A few years later it came into the power of Hieron of 
 Syracuse and it remained a mere fortress and outpost of 
 that city till the whole of Sicily was reduced to a Roman 
 province, when its chief asset seems to have been the 
 natural strength of its position, It is with the Empire it 
 
 1 Thucydides, vii, 57, 
 
18 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 begins to appear as what it is to-day, a pleasure resort, 
 and, as such, a place of some consideration. It was 
 celebrated for its wine, and Juvenal speaks of its mullet. 
 
 It is natural to ruminate among the stones of Naxos, — 
 beside the River Acesines, in seeking the shrine of Apollo, 
 upon the history of Naxos; but up in Taormina, that 
 rickety, delightful Bella Vista of a town, anything so 
 formidable seems quite out of place. There the past counts 
 for very little, memory is a blank, the day and night 
 are enough and the eye is not satisfied with seeing. 
 
 And yet I don’t know. Was I forgetting that famous 
 Theatre? No. The Theatre is well enough, interesting 
 enough, but one comes to use it after all chiefly as the fore- 
 ground, or the frame of that incomparable panorama. 
 And who shall say it was not just for that it was intended ? 
 I certainly will maintain it was. 
 
 One climbs up to it with the rest of the visitors to Taormina 
 inevitably in the morning, at first with the intention of 
 seeing it. For many it is the first theatre of the kind 
 they have seen, and it is justly one of the most celebrated 
 ruins in Sicily. It is built for the most part of brick and 
 is therefore probably of Roman date, but the plan and the 
 arrangement are Greek rather than Roman, and no doubt 
 what we see is the ruin of a Roman building upon Greek 
 foundations. In size it is only smaller than the theatre 
 at Syracuse, and though here far the greater part of the 
 seats have disappeared and only a grassy amphitheatre is 
 left, the wall surrounding the theatrum remains and the 
 proscenium with the back wall of the scena, though some- 
 what amended, is here alone in Sicily preserved almost 
 complete. It was, so the decorative fragments which 
 remain seem to establish, of the Corinthian order and of 
 a late time. 
 
 But one soon ceases to care about such archeological 
 facts, caught in the perfection of that incredible panorama. 
 In that ecstasy of light and marvel of landscape, the hours 
 pass and one lives in a world not realized or realizable. 
 
 This was the genius of the Greeks—to make perfect 
 imperfection : this was their art, to reach not the universal 
 but the absolute. Consider then the ritual for instance of 
 
TAORMINA 19 
 
 the Gdipus Tyrannus of Sophocles upon such a stage as 
 this. The tragedy unfolds itself there in the full golden 
 light before that open colonnade which is the scena, through 
 which was seen that violet sea, that incomparable sea- 
 shore, the awful mass, the majesty, the height and the 
 snows of smoking Etna. As the light fails the tragedy 
 deepens, and, as it draws to its tremendous close, the sunset, 
 little by little, stains ever a deeper and a deeper crimson 
 the pure snows of the volcano till the self-slaughtered 
 Queen, the self-blinded King pass into the darkness which 
 only the stars and the far breathing mountain illumine or 
 mitigate. 
 
 Yes, they and they alone knew how to seize the thousand 
 opportunities of the Creator, to make of difficulty a weapon 
 of victory, to reconcile man and his arts with God and 
 with nature. You think it wonderful that Rome piled 
 stone on stone and made an arena where agony and death 
 should be a spectacle for the multitude ? You think it 
 wonderful that the Middle Age thrust its buttresses up into 
 the clouds and under the high embowed roof made a dark- 
 ness in which the soul might creep forth and pray ? You 
 think it wonderful that the Renaissance built with space and 
 light and made a reasonable house of praise ? But the 
 Greeks, when they built, brought the whole landscape 
 into their sanctuary, and in building a temple consecrated 
 the hills about it: they contrived by their genius that the 
 most wonderful mountains of God should make a back- 
 ground for their tragedies in which man in the grip of 
 fate struggled to be free. They brought the sound of the 
 sea into their verse and the sun into their chorus; of the 
 gesture of the hills they took tribute and the wind was but 
 one of their voices ; they wreathed their cities with flowers 
 and their great reward was a crown of wild olive. 
 
 Yes, it is good to lie in the Theatre of Taormina. Just 
 there one comes to perceive, and in a larger way than before 
 the Parthenon, the genius of the Greeks for harmony : it is 
 a secret they have not passed on. 
 
 ' Little or nothing else of their time remains in Taormina : 
 the vestiges of what is said to have been a Greek temple 
 in the modernized church of S. Pancrazio outside Porta 
 
20 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 Messina do not amount to much, and the ‘‘ Naumachia ”’ 
 in the garden below the Hotel Naumachia is Roman and 
 not very interesting—two large Roman cisterns, possibly 
 parts of a Bath and a long niched wall. Far better worth 
 seeing is the Little Theatre, probably Roman, by the 
 church of S. Caterina near the Palazzo Corvaja just above 
 the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele, which was the ancient 
 Forum. A good deal remains of this building, including 
 four rows of tiled seats, parts of the stage and covered- 
 in passages and entrances. 
 
 All these together will scarcely fill an afternoon, and 
 indeed it is not for such things one comes to Taormina ; 
 but they are part of the distractions and curiosities of a 
 place which is full of the vestiges of many periods, none of 
 which with the exception of the Theatre is of any real 
 importance. 
 
 Taormina in truth is not a place for sightseeing but for 
 dolce far niente, for basking in the sun between a stroll 
 and a stroll, always with that marvellous panorama before 
 one, of which who could tire, changing as it does with every 
 mood of the sky, with every hour of the day. At first, 
 maybe, you are impatient because there is so little to 
 see, so little, that is, in the way of antiquities, works of 
 art, buildings, churches, museums. But as day follows 
 day, little by little you fall into the mood of the place 
 and are content to do nothing but to enjoy the sun if it be 
 winter, to wander into a church here, a garden there, and 
 to learn by heart the moods that Etna takes on and seems 
 to impose on the whole landscape. That is the secret of 
 Taormina, of its perennial attraction: Etna rises up before 
 it and is by far its most overwhelming and dominating 
 presence. That landscape, the glorious panorama, what 
 would it be without Etna: something not very different 
 after all from what many another coast in the Mediter- 
 ranean affords. It is Etna that lends it its mystery, its 
 extraordinary fascination, not without a certain awe in its 
 beauty. 
 
 I remember very well the first time I came to Taormina. 
 It was a grey day at the beginning of February. In the 
 late afternoon light there was nothing to be seen and I went 
 
TAORMINA 21 
 
 to bed almost determined to go on to Syracuse on the 
 morrow. By some undeserved good fortune I woke, I 
 know not why, about six next morning, and, my bed 
 facing the window of the room, on first opening my eyes I 
 beheld very high up in the sky a rosy cloud which I watched 
 with ever increasing wonder. I was watching the sun rise 
 upon the snows of Etna. 
 
 Though the sunrise upon Etna is certainly the most 
 magical of the delights of Taormina, it always seems to 
 me to be of a piece with the rest. They certainly have 
 something of its surprise and should be enjoyed almost 
 as restfully. The almonds in February, for instance, 
 without a leaf, like trees spellbound suddenly drenched 
 with beauty, snow-white for the most part with here 
 and there a deep pink—but who may know all their 
 colours, so various they be, if you will but look at 
 them. 
 
 And then the palaces—so small and so entrancing, they 
 seem as magical in their charm as the almond blossom. 
 You would not go out to see them, but they are there 
 for your walk, the Palazzo Corvaja at one end of the 
 Corso, the Palazzo Ciampoli with its flight of steps at the 
 other, the Palazzo S. Stefano by the Catania Gate, and many 
 others, among which, though it is not a palace, I will 
 include the Torre Medioevale outside Porta Catania. They 
 have little or no importance in themselves, but are part of 
 the charm of the place. 
 
 Not nearly so much can be said for the churches, which 
 are without distinction, but the convents, or rather the 
 ex-convents, are certainly not to be missed: the Badia 
 Vecchia above the Ciampoli Palace, with its lovely ruined 
 Gothic windows, its clustering columns—Badia Vecchia 
 gratia plena; the Convent of S$. Caterina, now a private 
 villa ; and the Convent of S. Domenico, now an hotel, with 
 their cloisters full of the spring and their gardens: no, 
 Taormina cannot spare them. 
 
 And it is the same with Mola. I suppose no one has 
 ever been three days in Taormina without climbing up to 
 Mola, It is the one walk of the place and a very lovely 
 one. You pass out beside the Carmine or S. Francesco da 
 
 3 : 
 
22 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 Paola near Porta Catania and presently find yourself on an 
 ever steepening rough-hewn path between hedges of Indian 
 fig and open terraced foderi planted with olives, with the 
 vine, with corn, and everywhere, and not least between the 
 stones, a riot of wild growth, of wild flowers. On the way 
 you are almost sure to meet a herd of the goats of Taormina, 
 rather large in size, and the boy herdsman seated on a stone 
 by the path, maybe trying his pipe—a truly Theocritan 
 scene. It matters not at all whether you ever reach Mola 
 for it has nothing to offer you but the same panorama— | 
 a little wider perhaps—which, in fact, is Taormina: 
 it is the way that enchants you, and the play of sun and 
 cloud on the snowfields of Etna and the earliest spring— 
 spring caught in a leafless brake, that, if it be early Febru- 
 ary, you are sure to find there. In its own kind it is quite 
 exquisite, this climbing path, and out of Syracuse I know 
 of no better pleasure in Sicily than a morning there with 
 Theocritus. 
 
 If you take the trouble to reach Mola you can return 
 by another path and climb, on the way, up to the Castello 
 and so on by S. Maria della Rocca back to Taormina. 
 That would be a little strenuous for Taormina, for the spirit 
 of Taormina, and of course to climb Monte Venere is far 
 more fatiguing—an affair of donkeys, I suppose.t No, 
 the genius of Taormina has nothing boisterous or energetic 
 about it. It is a desecration that tennis courts should - 
 have been built in a place mercifully preserved from all 
 the more banal delights of the Riviera. Taormina ought 
 perhaps to be reserved for people who, like Theocritus, 
 are a little weary and bored by a dying and often brutal 
 civilization, and are able, if not to create as he did, at least 
 to enjoy, a far more delightful world of the imagination— 
 
 1 Far better to motor to Savoca beyond Capo S. Andrea—the 
 road is a magnificent corniche all the way—aud to visit there the 
 abandoned “‘ Norman” convent of SS. Pietro and Paolo, a mag- 
 nificent building of red brick, quite without equal on this Eastern 
 coast: a work of the Saracens in Norman service. It dates from 
 the twelfth century (1171-2) as a Greek inscription over the entrance 
 records and was the work of Gerardo il Franco. Within there are 
 three naves with semicircular apses, the curious cupolaed roof is 
 very interesting. 
 
TAORMINA 28 
 
 the only world that will endure or where one can be 
 completely happy. For such people Taormina may be 
 a paradise, for they are content with little, if that 
 little include quietness and this harmonious garden 
 in the sun. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE SKIRTS OF ETNA: ACI REALE AND 
 CATANIA 
 
 “T iese joyous descent from Taormina to Giardini— 
 joyous in its so various beauty, and surprising in 
 its lovely opportunities of farewell—does not 
 prepare you at all for the strange and sinister kingdom 
 you enter when you have crossed the Alcantara—the king- 
 dom of Etna. 
 
 Something of what you are to find, the merest hint of it, 
 you receive every now and again, even in Taormina, when- 
 ever that lean black reef of lava by which the ruins of 
 Naxos lie, happens to catch your eye; but I, certainly, 
 had not realized what the country was like that Etna had 
 made its own—a landscape everywhere marred and broken 
 by black torrents and fields and ridges of lava, everywhere 
 blackened by fire and torn by earthquake, everywhere 
 under the domination, the dread and the shadow, of the 
 volcano. Etna, in all its majesty and beauty as seen 
 from Taormina, gives you no inkling of the truth. 
 
 You come upon it first, if you take that ride in an 
 automobile to which you will certainly be persuaded in 
 Taormina, to see the lavas of the last eruption of a few 
 years ago. You come down first to Naxos and then turn 
 up the Alcantara valley which divides the last of the 
 Peloritani mountains from Etna itself. Your way lies 
 through orange and lemon groves, through the sunshine 
 that glorifies the almond blossom, and up the ever-mounting, — 
 ever-winding road through Francavilla to the little city 
 of Castiglione, clustered on a towering rock, that numbers 
 12,000 inhabitants though it looks like an eyrie for eagles, 
 2,000 feet or more in the air. Through the woods you go, 
 
 24 
 
THE SKIRTS OF ETNA 25 
 
 Over many a moraine, till suddenly at a turn of the way 
 you enter the kingdom of Etna. The whole world is 
 changed, and before you lies a darkling landscape, as of 
 the moon, utterly desolate and inhuman, without a tree 
 or a flower or a weed, where only the wind is at home ; 
 even the sun seems to have gone out, in a cloudless sky. 
 Through this black, dismal landscape you pass on to Lingua- 
 glossa and through it you return to the Alcantara valley, 
 and the world we know. 
 
 It is, though less brutally, into this same Etnean King- 
 dom you come when, crossing the Alcantara, you pass on 
 your way to Aci Reale and Catania. Immediately you 
 enter it something sinister stains the sunlight ; the Indian 
 figs, which everywhere abound, look evilas well as grotesque; 
 and though the vines and the blossoming almonds make 
 a sunshine, a shadow seems to have fallen over everything, 
 a spirit of darkness at any rate, that you find it hard to 
 account for. 
 
 This territory, which strikes you at once by its melancholy 
 and forbidding aspect, where the light is often palpably 
 obscured by the cloud and fog in the upper air, is well 
 defined. You enter it when you cross the Alcantara ; 
 you leave it and quite as suddenly when you pass out of 
 the ragged environs of Catania, and the great plain of 
 Leontinoi, or as it is called to-day, the Piana di Catania, 
 opens before you, a green mirror full of light in winter 
 and spring, a shield of gold all through the rest of the year. 
 
 The influence of Etna seems to lie lightest on those 
 little towns upon the now lofty coast, Aci Reale, Aci 
 Castello, and many another “ Aci’ which alone now mark 
 the course of that lost stream, the Acis. They are on the 
 edge of the sea—and what a sea! And yet I don’t know. 
 Does not the very legend of Acis and Galatea bear witness 
 to the sinister and dark spirit which broods over this 
 landscape in spite of the sea, in spite of all that radiant 
 sun and sky ? 
 
 Acis, the son of Faunus and Symaethis, was loved by 
 the nymph Galatea; and so Polyphemus the Cyclops, 
 jealous of him, crushed him under a huge rock, and his 
 blood, gushing forth from under, was changed by the nymph 
 
26 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 into the stream that bore his name. What was Faunus 
 but some faun of the woods, the sylvan genius of the upper 
 valleys ? What was Symaethis but the nymph of the 
 Symaethos, the river that still bears her name and that 
 enters the sea just south of Catania? What was Poly- 
 phemus but one of the innumerable craters of Etna— 
 Polyphemus the one-eyed giant, hurling forth rocks and 
 stones, awkward and unaccountable in his brutal rough- 
 ness ? And what was Galatea but a sea-nymph, one of 
 Nereus’ daughters—the delicate milk-white foam of the 
 sea, the clear and graceful wave breaking in lace-like foam 
 upon the beach or dancing among the black lava rocks ? 
 No wonder Polyphemus loved her and was always running 
 after her and seeking her embraces. But she spurned 
 him and took Acis into her arms, into her bosom. Yet 
 the Cyclops loved her with endless wooing, and she could 
 not tell which was stronger in her, her hate of the Cyclops 
 or her love for Acis. So it befell. 
 
 But where are to-day ‘‘ the sacred waters of Acis,”’ as 
 Theocritus calls them in his very first idyll, the one that 
 begins with a music like the whispering pine it describes: 
 
 ‘Add ti t6 piOtoucua xal d altuc, aladde, thva.. . 
 
 Solinus speaks of the extreme coldness of its waters, 
 which might seem to suggest the Fiumefreddo not far 
 from the Alcantara. But if Acium, now Aci Reale, got 
 its name from the stream, it was certainly further south 
 and there is little doubt that it should be identified with 
 the Fiume di Jaci which in fact rises under a rock of lava 
 and runs its short course to the sea by Aci Reale. You may 
 climb down to its mouth by a steep path called Ja Scalazza. 
 
 Aci Reale is a fairly pleasant place to stay in, with many 
 delightful excursions about it—to Aci S. Antonio, with its 
 wonderful vegetation, and the other Acis and even to the 
 Trecastagni. But owing to the eruption and earthquake 
 of 1693, which entirely destroyed the town, there is noth- 
 ing of antiquity to be found there except the Pozzo di 
 S. Venera and the remains of a Roman bath about two 
 miles away. The church of S. Sebastiano has, however, a 
 fine baroque fagade dating from 1705. Far better worth 
 
VNINYOVL WOT VNIGA 
 
 
 

 
I 
 
 THE SKIRTS OF ETNA 27 
 
 seeing is the view from the Belvedere, the public garden 
 which is magnificent both toward Etna and along the coast. 
 
 The fishermen of Aci Reale are a particularly fine race, 
 and I got a couple of them to sail and row me in barca 
 along the coast all the way from Aci Reale past the Rocks 
 of the Cyclops and the supposed Port of Ulysses (Ognina) 
 to Catania. It was a most wonderful voyage, and as we 
 started early and the morning was fair I was able to visit 
 the now half-ruined Grotta delle Palumbe—a large stalac- 
 tite cave to the north of Aci Reale before setting out 
 southward. 
 
 The coast is high here, a vast sloping tableland, high 
 above the sea. The view of Etna all the way was most 
 wonderful. Its real interest, however, began when the 
 Rocks of the Cyclops came in sight, and, beyond, the 
 picturesque medizval town of Aci Castello. 
 
 The Rocks of the Cyclops—but is this indeed the fabled 
 site of the encounter between Polyphemus and Odysseus ? 
 Tradition seems to say so: Euripides in his delightful 
 satire, The Cyclops, Virgil in the third book of the ned, 
 Ovid in the Metamorphoses, all maintain it. But if this 
 is the place, then we may be even more sure than before 
 that Homer never saw Sicily, for he cannot, he above all, 
 have stood right under Etna and have never spoken of 
 it. But there is more in it than that. 
 
 To begin with, Odysseus’ adventure with the Cyclops 
 takes place immediately after his meeting with the Lotus 
 Eaters, and immediately before his visit to the A‘olian Isle. 
 
 In the Odyssey, Book ix, 103, he leaves the land of the 
 Lotus Eaters: ‘‘So they (his comrades) went on board 
 straightway and sat down upon the benches and, sitting 
 well in order, smote the grey sea with their oars, Thence 
 we sailed on, grieved at heart, and we came to the Land of 
 the Cyclopes.’’ The adventure with Polyphemus follows, 
 and the Book ends with the refrain: ‘‘ Thence we sailed 
 on, grieved at heart, glad to have escaped death though 
 we had lost our dear comrades.’’ Book x opens with 
 these words: ‘‘ Then to the olian Isle we came where 
 dwelt AZolus, son of PAEPOS, dear to the immortal gods, 
 on a floating island. 
 
28 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 Now it is generally admitted that the Lotus Eaters dwelt 
 in Tunisia, and that the AZolian Isle is one of the Zolian 
 islands. It remains then to discover how, if the Cyclopes 
 dwelt beneath Etna, Odysseus reached the Afolian Isle 
 without passing through the Strait of Messina, without, 
 that is, passing Scylla and Charybdis. Unless indeed he 
 sailed right round Sicily, as, in fact, Eneas wonderfully 
 did, and all before a north wind ! 
 
 Of course the usual answer to this is, that, as the voyage 
 of Odysseus took place in and out of fairyland, its geography 
 is insoluble. But I for one believe in the geography of 
 the Odyssey ; I like to think of it as a genuine description of 
 the Western Mediterranean, completely logical in its pro- 
 gress, and as having nothing to do with fairyland at all. 
 If those who think as I do are right, then the site of the 
 encounter with Polyphemus cannot have been under Etna. 
 Where else might it have taken place? Well, if the 
 Cyclopes are the personification of volcanoes or craters, 
 then there is at least one place as likely as Etna upon the 
 Mediterranean coasts which might have served Homer’s 
 purpose. That spot is to be found, as Victor Bérard 4 
 has shown, in the Gulf of Pozzuoli in the Phlegrzan Fields, 
 to the west of Naples. 
 
 I cannot here enter into Victor Bérard’s minute and logical 
 argument concerning the reality of the voyage as described 
 by Homer. I must content myself with referring the 
 reader to one of the most fascinating Homeric studies that 
 has ever been undertaken. Here it will be enough to point 
 out, to those who are ready to disown the fairyland hypo- 
 thesis, the initial difficulty of the site of Etna for the adven- 
 ture with Polyphemus. Of course those who accept the 
 fairyland notion have no interest in the matter, since every- 
 thing that happens to Odysseus is then without reality 
 or meaning—‘‘ tutto é una frasca.”’ 
 
 But those who would see in the foundations of the 
 
 1 Les Phéniciens et L’Odysée, par Victor Bérard (Armand Colin, 
 1903), 2 tomes. The book has long been out of print, but a new 
 edition is promised as part of M. Bérard’s larger opus dealing with 
 the Odyssey. On the other hand, there is Samuel Butler, who 
 
 maintained that the Odyssey was nothing but a givo round Sicily 
 (The Authoress of the Odyssey). 
 
THE SKIRTS OF ETNA 29 
 ee, 
 
 Odyssey the quite true experience of Phcenician sailors, 
 misinterpreted certainly and perhaps symbolized, but 
 essentially true, the question of the site of the adventure 
 with the Cyclops should have some interest. It should 
 please them to find that the Neapolitan site offers a much 
 clearer parallel to that described by Homer than this 
 under Etna. 
 
 In the first place, there is no island here under Etna 
 which might serve for that where Odysseus harboured ; 
 a wooded isle, wild, and the abode of many goats, neither 
 close to nor far from the coast, and able to harbour twelve 
 ships—unless, indeed, it be the Isola d’Aci, the largest of 
 the rocks here which is about 2,300 feet in circumference 
 and about 230 feet high. But this is supposed to be one 
 of the rocks hurled at Odysseus and not the island of goats 
 where he left his ships. 
 
 In the Gulf of Pozzuoli, on the other hand, we have, not 
 far from shore, the Island of Nisida which opens towards 
 the south-west to form a circular harbour. There, too, 
 are isolated rocks rising out of the sea which well represent 
 those hurled by the giant. 
 
 However this may really be, universal antiquity accepted 
 Etna as the home of Polyphemus. Not only Euripides, 
 Virgil and Ovid, but Theocritus also, describe him there, 
 or ever Odysseus came, and not alone in the exquisite 
 eleventh idyll, but in the sixth and seventh also, sighing 
 for Galatea: 
 
 "Q devud Taddteva, tl tov pidgove? dnoBdddne. . 
 
 So long a tradition, quite apart from the obvious interest 
 of the spot, draws one to these Rocks of the Cyclops. The 
 largest of these is the Isola d’Aci, immediately opposite 
 Aci Trezza, which belongs to-day to the University of 
 Catania, to which it was given by the Marchese Gravina 
 for the study of marine biology. Permission to visit the 
 island must be obtained from the University. It is a 
 basaltic formation in which are many caverns worn by 
 the sea such as the Grotta del Monaco, and on the south 
 side some prehistoric tombs may be seen. To the south 
 of this island, where I suppose Odysseus left his ships, lie 
 
30 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 the Rocks of the Cyclops properly so called, of all sizes 
 and shapes, The largest is a great horned pinnacle rising 
 up from a broad circular base and seemingly built of 
 roughly-hewn columns. They have little more than a 
 geological interest, apart from their picturesqueness 
 grouped thus off the coast with the beautiful headland and 
 ruined castle of Aci Castello beyond, and smoking Etna 
 towering over all. 
 
 At Aci Castello the lava-formed coast becomes quite low, 
 and there, beyond many a bay, lies Catania, really to the 
 south of Etna and by no means, as it is generally described, 
 between Etna and the sea. Giarre and Riposto really 
 hold that position, while Catania as the crow flies is no 
 nearer to the summit of Etna than is Taormina, 
 
 One of these bays, that of Ognina, has been identified 
 with the Portus Ulixis of Virgil. 
 
 ‘“‘ Meanwhile,’ says AZneas recounting his voyage to 
 Dido, after the flight from burning Troy, ‘‘ Meanwhile 
 at sundown the wind failed our weary company, and in 
 ignorance of the way we drift up to the Cyclopes’ coast. 
 There lies a harbour safe from the winds’ approach and 
 spacious in itself, but near at hand Etna thunders with 
 terrifying crashes, and now hurls forth to the sky a black 
 cloud smoking with ashes, now...’ There in the woods 
 the Trojan fugitives find Achzemenides, the luckless com- 
 rade of much-enduring Ulysses, who has passed by not 
 long before. He, it seems, though Homer knows nothing 
 of it, was left in the Cyclops’ cave, and escaping—we 
 are not told how—but still in horrible fear of the 
 Cyclopes, he has hidden in the woods till he is rescued 
 by ARneas. 
 
 This then, according to Virgil, was the place where 
 Ulysses, having left all the ships save his own moored at 
 the island, himself landed and made his way to the cave 
 of Polyphemus. Well, I don’t believe it. Virgil, who is 
 as capable as Racine of calling the sea la plaine liquide, — 
 says this harbour is safe from the winds’ approach, He 
 never saw it at all or at any rate not in a scirocco. He 
 knew nothing of the sea—like the Roman he was, or the | 
 Mantuan for that matter. 
 
THE SKIRTS OF ETNA 31 
 
 And now, we drew near to Catania, her domes and towers 
 glistened in the sun. 
 
 “ Certatim socii feriunt mare et aequora verrunt,’’? and 
 soon I was on the quay, and, after a bottle of wine, 
 said good-bye to the sailors of Aci Reale and saw them 
 presently depart. Then I made my way into the richest 
 and, save Palermo, the largest, but quite the least attractive 
 city in Sicily. 
 
 Except that it is the most usual base for the ascent of 
 Etna, I see no reason at all for a visit to Catania, with its 
 noise, its dirt, its trams, its baroque churches and its 
 complete absence of interest or delight. 
 
 Povera Catania! So often destroyed and always threat- 
 ened by Etna, of whose lava she is built, it is no wonder 
 that she has nothing to offer the traveller in search of 
 Theocritus. 
 
 For Catania is altogether a city of to-day, prosperous, 
 vulgar and, so far as the traveller is concerned, better 
 left alone. The trouble is that it is not easy to give her 
 the go-by. She is by far the best base for an ascent or 
 an exploration of Etna, and she holds the key of the railway 
 between Palermo or Girgenti on the one hand, and Syracuse 
 or Taormina on the other. For this reason it is a pity 
 there is not a really first-rate hotel which might attract 
 visitors in place of antiquities or works of art. 
 
 Here I think Catania has perhaps failed to make the 
 most of an opportunity.} 
 
 If so—and after all the strangers’ season is very short 
 —it is the only thing in which she has failed. For I 
 think what strikes you most in the town is its character 
 —its opportunism and persistence. With the most un- 
 fortunate and insecure situation in the whole island, 
 Catania has made itself by far the richest city in Sicily. 
 
 1 The opportunity I have in mind is this: most visitors to Sicily 
 go from Syracuse to Girgenti, or from Girgenti to Syracuse direct 
 by train. The journey by auto costs something like twenty pounds. 
 At present the journey by train takes eleven hours. Nearly every 
 one puts up with this very tiring and uncomfortable piece of travel 
 because he is sure of a good hotel at Syracuse and at Girgenti. If 
 Catania could offer us a really attractive, clean hotel, we should all 
 break these journeys there. 
 
82 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 Always threatened and continually half-destroyed by arms, 
 by earthquake, by eruption, it has never succumbed. It 
 was so in antiquity, it has been so ever since. Dionysius 
 of Syracuse almost destroyed it and sold its inhabitants 
 as Slaves because, over-persuaded by Alcibiades, it admitted 
 and aided the Athenians in the Sicilian Expedition. Catania 
 rose again only to fall into the hands of the Carthaginians 
 after the Syracusan naval defeat immediately outside the 
 port. There followed an eruption of Etna. In spite of 
 three such disasters within a single decade, Catania con- 
 tinued to exist. 
 
 It is with the same pertinacity she has always faced 
 Etna. At least since 396 B.c., she has been continually 
 threatened, her territory overwhelmed, and often herself 
 half destroyed by earthquake and eruption; but she has 
 persisted, she is there, and not only there but alive as no 
 other city in Sicily is. Notably in 121 B.c. in 1169, and 
 in 1669, Etna half overwhelmed her with molten lava that 
 remained red-hot for years. Nevertheless she lived, and 
 continues with an energy not only surprising in itself 
 but most of all in Sicily. 
 
 With a geographical situation and a natural harbour 
 finer than anything Catania can boast and with a tradition 
 second to that of no other city in the Mediterranean, 
 Syracuse is to-day little more than that original encamp- 
 ment on the Island of Ortygia. Her magnificent port, 
 though it commands two seas, is largely deserted. It is 
 Catania which, after two thousand years of enmity, has 
 humbled her at last. 
 
 Is it the opposition, the ever-present threat of Etna, 
 that has thus excited in Catania so lively a reaction? Or 
 does she draw, like her orchards and her gardens, a new 
 life from that volcanic soil? Does she breathe at the feet 
 of Polyphemus some life-enhancing air that fills her with 
 so mastering a spirit ? 
 
 Certainly the life of Catania is amazing. The people 
 shout and whistle and sing in the streets as though to 
 express or relieve themselves from some formidable energy 
 which seems to possess them. Amid palms, cacti, 
 agaves and hedges and plantations of prickly pear which 
 

 
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 Army Mos. 
 
 2 
 
 LEMONS 
 

 
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 a} yet te 
 
 im 
 
 
 
THE SKIRTS OF ETNA 33 
 
 alone grows actually in the lava, amid lemon groves and 
 orange groves in the little valleys between the lava ridges, 
 she stands actually on the lava itself which has been levelled 
 by her labour and of which for the most she herself and 
 all that is hers is built. 
 
 Unlike any other Sicilian city she lies open to the sun, 
 divided into two parts by the broad, straight Via Etnea 
 some two miles long, through which all her life flows back- 
 wards and forwards and passes into the scarcely lesser 
 streets which cross it at right angles to end in the sea or 
 in the mighty staircase of Etna. All these streets seem 
 always to be crowded with people, with trams, with drays 
 Jaden with sulphur, with gaily painted carts full of oranges 
 or lemons or lemon skins or earthenware jars; with 
 bars that are themselves full of smartest Catanian youth, 
 vulgarly dressed in what are fondly supposed to be London 
 fashions, shining with patent leather boots, with rings, 
 with watch-chains and jewellery, and eating ices of in- 
 numerable sorts and colours and shapes and sizes, or 
 drinking the black coffee that is brewed in huge white 
 metal machines and drawn off through a little tap. 
 
 The Piazza del Duomo in which the Via Etnea begins 
 has a little more dignity perhaps. In the midst, an 
 Egyptian obelisk of granite which once stood in the Roman 
 amphitheatre of Catania has been upreared characteristi- 
 cally upon the back of an antique elephant of lava, the 
 symbol of the city, by Vaccarini, the native architect of 
 the eighteenth century, and goes to form the Fontana dell’ 
 Elefante. 
 
 The Duomo itself has little of interest left toit. Origin- 
 ally a building of Roger I in 1092, it has been ruined by 
 successive earthquakes between I169 and 1693, and is 
 now a reconstruction by Vaccarini in 1736. The only 
 ancient parts of the building are the three apses and a 
 part of the crossing. The facade is baroque with antique 
 columns of granite from the ancient theatre. 
 
 Within, the most interesting things are the Aragon 
 tombs of the fourteenth century in the sanctuary, and the 
 choir stalls there, inlaid with the legend of S. Agatha. 
 Against the second pilaster, on the right on entering, is 
 
34 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 the tomb of Vincenzo Bellini, the musician. A line from 
 his famous opera, Somnambula : 
 
 “Ah, non credea mirarti st presto estinto, o fiore 1” 
 
 brings that divine aria to one’s mind with, to mine at 
 least, the clear and simple voice of Galli Curci. 
 
 In the Chapel on the right of the sanctuary is the tomb 
 of S. Agatha, who has taken the place of Galatea as the 
 protectress of the city. . Her festival is celebrated on the 
 5th February, when her treasury is opened. Here is the 
 silver reliquary, designed by Giovanni di Bartolo of Siena 
 and made at Limoges, a bust of the saint, containing her 
 head, and the golden crown set with precious stones that 
 is said to have been presented to the saint by our Richard 
 Coeur de Lion, a fine example, one is told, of the art of 
 the twelfth century, together with many other such gifts. 
 
 The other buildings in Catania really worth seeing are 
 the convent and church of S. Niccola, an enormous baroque 
 building in the highest part of the city ; the Biscari Palace 
 in the same style, which contains a museum, especially 
 notable for its collection of ancient Greek coins and which 
 has been famous for over two hundred years; and the 
 church of Santo Carcere, the holy prison of S. Agatha, 
 whose doorway, taken from the Cathedral after the earth- 
 quake of 1169, is a very fine piece of Norman work. This 
 church stands over the place where S. Agatha was martyred, 
 and within you may see her cell and the print of her foot 
 in a piece of lava. 
 
 S. Agatha is the powerful and famous protectress of 
 the city of Catania. Many times the Catanians assert 
 she has saved the city from Etna, and her festival of 5th 
 February is still one of the most picturesque ceremonies 
 remaining in the island. She was a noble Sicilian lady 
 of great beauty, martyred under the Emperor Decius in 
 251, a victim—so it is said—to the cruelty and the lust 
 of Quintianus, governor of Sicily, who, when she refused 
 him, first cut off her breasts and then rolled her naked 
 
 over live coals mixed with broken potsherds. At this — 
 
 awful cost to her body she is said to have preserved 
 her body’s virginity. It might seem impossible to believe 
 
 es A 8 te a | 
 
 ~ a on 
 
THE SKIRTS OF ETNA 35 
 
 that such things could befall in the height of the Roman 
 administration: but S. Agatha’s name appears upon 
 the diptych of the Canon of the Mass, and I suppose would 
 not be there unless her acts were for the most part authentic. 
 Moreover one is obliged to remember that the Romans 
 were the one European people who publicly enjoyed the 
 spectacle of pain. 
 
 Thus you may see Catania; and wandering through 
 these busy streets and recalling S. Agatha, really never 
 realize or remember that Catania was a Greek city founded 
 in the eighth century B.c. There is certainly no sign of 
 it above ground. 
 
 But Catana as she was then called, was, in fact, of Chal- 
 cidic origin, founded from the neighbouring city of Naxos 
 immediately after the establishment of Leontinoi. Her 
 history largely follows that of her founder city. It was, 
 however, Alcibiades who lured her to her ruin when he 
 made that famous speech of which no record remains and 
 persuaded her to side with Athens in that most fatal 
 expedition against Syracuse (415 B.C.) 
 
 Among her guests of Greek days was the poet Stesichorus, 
 the contemporary of Sappho and Alcaeus, who died here 
 at the age of eighty in 556 B.c. He was one of the nine 
 chiefs of lyric poetry recognized by antiquity. It was 
 said that just after his birth, a creature of the air, a night- 
 ingale from somewhere, settled secretly on his lips and 
 began its clear song, while Antipater of Sidon, writing 
 his epitaph, says, ‘‘ Stesichorus the vast, immeasurable 
 voice of the Muse, was buried in Catana’s fiery land, he 
 in whose breast, as telleth the philosopher Pythagoras, 
 Homer’s soul lodged again.’’ Isocrates tells us that, 
 ““ Helen of Troy displayed her power to the poet Stesichorus. 
 Having found some fault with her at the beginning of 
 his poem, the Helen, he went away [from the performance] 
 blind, and then, when realizing the cause of his misfortune, 
 he composed what is called the Palinode or Recantation, 
 she restored him his sight.” 
 
 As a worker of miracles, Helen makes a charming 
 sister to S. Agatha. 
 
 There were other famous men in Greek Catana besides 
 
36 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 Stesichorus. Andron of Catana was the first to introduce 
 dancing to accompany the flute, we are told by Athenaeus ; 
 but far more famous than he were the “ Pii Fratres,”’ 
 Amphinomus and Anapias, who, during a great eruption 
 of Etna, left all their property to be destroyed while they 
 carried off their aged parents on their shoulders. So great 
 did their virtue seem to the Gods that the lava stream 
 itself is said to have parted and flowed aside so as not to 
 harm them. Statues were erected in their honour, and 
 the place of their burial was known as the ‘‘ Campus 
 Piorum’’; their figures appear on the coins of Catana. 
 But what are we to think of the Cantanesi if this action 
 was considered so exceptional ? 
 
 Thus the modern city of S. Agatha becomes one with 
 the old Greek foundation. Not a vestige of that Greek 
 city which Stesichorus and Andron and the Pii Fratres 
 knew remains, so far as is known, above or below ground. 
 Earthquake and eruption seem to have disposed of it. 
 But you may find fragments of its Roman successor which 
 have been excavated in the manner of Herculaneum. 
 
 The most important of these are the remains of the 
 theatre and amphitheatre in Piazza Stesichoro, which 
 seem to belong to the age of Augustus. The former was 
 still perfect in the eleventh century when it was destroyed 
 by the Norman Count Roger in order to adorn his new 
 Cathedral. Close by you may still see beneath the lava 
 the Odeium. Fragments also remain of the Baths and an 
 Aqueduct destroyed in the eruption of 1669. 
 
 But Catania thinks as little of these, if that be possible, 
 as we think of Roman London. However, she still has 
 faith in S, Agatha who, no doubt, as the learned will assure 
 us, is the successor of, and has much in common with, 
 Catania’s pagan protectress Galatea : Have they not both 
 three ‘‘a’’s in their names ? | 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 ETNA 
 
 S you look on Etna from Taormina, transfigured 
 A in the early morning, or fading in the evening 
 
 light, subject all day long to every mood of the 
 sky, and at night a lovely ghost amid the constellations ; 
 as you gaze up at it from Catania at sunset like a golden 
 altar lighted with fire from heaven; or, as you think in 
 farewell, you turn at Lentinoi and see it rising in one exquisite 
 unbroken line from the sea; or, again, unexpectedly, when 
 you catch sight of it at Syracuse, from the stones of Epipole, 
 an ethereal pyramid of snow; you might think it a vision, 
 a mountain in a dream, its beauty too perfect and too 
 complete for anything wholly of this world. 
 
 It must have been so the ancients saw it, understanding. 
 it even less than I do, but, even as I, unable to forget 
 it, its beauty filling their minds with awe as they sought in 
 their hearts for its meaning and the reason of its being. 
 
 So they cover it with stories, some beautiful, some 
 terrible, but all as it were interpretations of its beauty 
 or its power: Galatea laughs about its feet at Polyphemus, 
 that one-eyed giant, awkward, unkempt and brutal, who 
 will one day rise up and crush with his rocks her lover, 
 Acis. That exquisite idyll, told with so consummate a 
 grace by Theocritus, and translated, as it were, by Ovid, 
 might seem, rightly understood, to bea far better explanation 
 of such a phenomenon as Etna presents than can be found 
 in all the pages of the geologists. For all our knowledge 
 has not enabled us to write an idyll like that, nor, as a 
 matter of fact, are we any nearer, if as near, a right explana- 
 tion of Etna. | 
 
 What does it profit me to know that Etna is the loftiest 
 4 37 
 
38 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 mountain in Sicily, being 10,758 feet high and by far the 
 greatest volcano in Europe; that it is 18 miles north 
 by west of Catania, covers a territory of 460 square miles 
 and is about 100 miles round the base; that it is older 
 than Vesuvius and that its activity is older than the glacial 
 period in Central Europe ; that it forms an isolated mass, 
 bounded on the north by the Alcantara River, on the east 
 by the sea, and on the west and south by the Giarretta, 
 the ancient Symaethos? Such facts no doubt have their 
 use, but when you have added to them all that modern 
 science can tell you, you are not a hair’s breadth nearer 
 explaining why at various and irregular intervals Etna 
 pours forth destruction upon its territory, and many times 
 has half destroyed the city of Catania. You do not know 
 why it should do it, any more than youcan foretell when it 
 is going to befall. 
 
 All that is known of Etna to-day does not seem to me 
 to amount to as much as what is implied in those idylls 
 of Theocritus and the fables of the ancients. There we 
 are told that Typhoeus, the son of Tartarus and Gaea, a 
 fire-breathing giant with a hundred heads, desired to 
 acquire the sovereignty of gods and men, but was subdued 
 after a fearful struggle by Zeus with a thunderbolt, and 
 “now the steep shores above Cumae, and Sicily too, lie 
 heavy on his shaggy breast, and the column that soareth 
 to heaven crusheth him, even snow-clad Etna, who nurseth 
 her keen frost for the livelong year—Etna, from whose 
 inmost caves burst forth the purest founts of unapproach- 
 able fire, and, in the day time, her rivers roll a lurid stream 
 of smoke, while amid the gloom of night, the ruddy flame, 
 as it sweepeth along, with crashing din whirleth rocks 
 to the deep sea far below. And that monster flingeth 
 aloft the most fearful founts of fire, a monstrous marvel 
 to behold, a wonder even to hear, when men are hard by ; 
 such a being is he that lieth bound between those dark- 
 leaved heights and the ground below, while all his out- 
 stretched back is goaded by his craggy couch !”’ 
 
 That seems to be all we know, and since Pindar wrote 
 his first Pythian Ode,! what, even till to-day, has natural 
 
 1 Pindar Pyth. i, 30 ef seq. Cf. Aischylus, Prometheus, 353 et seq. 
 
ETNA 39 
 
 science told us else or more—though with how much less 
 art of expression? And if you want something more 
 philosophical, take down Lucretius and turn to the sixth 
 book, and you will receive a more profound impression of 
 the greatness and mystery of the Universe and the wonder 
 of Etna than in all the geological text-books. 
 
 The silence of Homer, if indeed he is silent and Poly- 
 phemus himself is not Etna, might seem inexplicable ; 
 for even though he were never in Sicily, the sailors’ gossip 
 which informed him of such comparatively tame wonders 
 as Scylla and Charybdis, could scarcely have been silent 
 concerning Etna, had the volcano been as active then as 
 it was later, or even as it is to-day. 
 
 Hesiod, however, in the eighth century B.c. certainly 
 knew the name of Etna,! and from the time of the Greek 
 settlements in Sicily the mountain has been, of course, 
 well known, and has been continually recorded. 
 
 _ Pindar, as we have seen, gives us an account of the 
 volcano, and probably describes therein the eruption of 
 479 B.C. which took place on the same day as the Battle 
 of Platza.2 This is generally said to have been the second 
 eruption after the advent of the Greeks, the first is not 
 recorded save by Thucydides who, speaking of the third, 
 which took place in 425 B.c., says that it happened fifty 
 years after the last preceding one, and that “‘ three eruptions 
 all told are reported to have occurred since Sicily has been 
 inhabited by the Hellenes.’’® The fourth eruption, that 
 of 396 B.c., is recorded by Diodorus. After the destruction 
 of the Athenian Expedition in 413 B.c. the Carthaginians 
 fell upon Sicily and were met by Dionysius of Syracuse, 
 who had built his fortress of Epipole to oppose them. The 
 Carthaginian generals were Himilcar, in command of the 
 Army, and Mago, in command of the Fleet. They fell 
 upon Messina and destroyed it, and proceeded to advance 
 by Taormina, then in the hands of the Sikelians, upon 
 Catania. ‘“‘ Himilcar set out,’’ says Diodorus, “‘ and quickly 
 
 1See Strabo, Lib. i, Cap. ii, par. 14. 
 
 2 Pindar: Pyth. i, 4o-50. A#schylus: Pvometheus, 370, refers 
 to the same eruption, it is thought. 
 
 * Thucydides iii, 116. 
 
40 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 reached Naxos at the same time as Mago, who sailed 
 along the coast; but a recent eruption of Etna, which 
 reached as far as the sea, prevented the troops proceeding 
 by land step by step with the fleet, for the coast was all 
 ravaged by the lava of the volcano, so that the army was 
 obliged to make the circuit of Etna.’’1 In other words, 
 the army was obliged to pass up the valley of Alcantara 
 and so to reach Catania by the way north and west round 
 the mountain. 
 
 Etna then seems to have been quiescent, as indeed 
 Theocritus leads us to believe it was in his day, till 140 
 B.c., when we hear of four very violent eruptions in about 
 twenty years (140, 135, 126 and r2r B.c.). The last was 
 the most terrible, especially for Catania, which it half 
 destroyed. As bad or worse were to come in 49, 44, and 
 38 B.c. These seven eruptions in about I00 years devas- 
 tated the whole Etnean region of the eastern coast, which 
 became uninhabitable and impassable for lack of water. 
 Virgil 2 describes the eruption of 49 B.c., which he suggests 
 presaged Czsar’s murder, both in the Georgics and the 
 4ineid; and Livy asserts that the hot sand and ashes 
 were carried as far as Reggio. While Pliny tells us that 
 the noise of the eruption of 38 B.c. was heard in all parts 
 of Sicily and that the ashes were carried to a distance of 
 150 miles. 
 
 These tremendous outbursts seem to have exhausted 
 the activity of the volcano for many ages, and Orosius, 
 writing in the fifth century of our era, speaks of Etna as 
 having become quite harmless, 
 
 It awoke again with a vengeance after a thousand years. 
 In 1169, 1329 and 1381 appalling eruptions occurred, the 
 
 lava reaching the sea; in 1669 part of Catania was — 
 
 overwhelmed when the worst eruption of modern times 
 
 occurred, Lesser disasters befell allthrough the nineteenth 
 century, and the latest date from March, 1910 and May, 
 
 IQII. 
 
 1 Diodorus, xiv, 59. 
 
 2 Virgil: Georg. i, 47; Enetd iil, 570 e¢ seq. 
 3 Livy: ap. Serv. ad Georg. i, 47. 
 
 ‘Pliny: Nat, Hist. ii, 103-6; iil, 8-14. 
 
 
 
 oe Gee ae es ae ae 
 
 ; 
 : 
 
 
 
ETNA 41 
 
 It is Strabo, who, among the ancients, gives us the 
 best description of the mountain. 
 
 “Near to Centoripa,’”’ he says, ‘‘is the town of A‘tna, 
 which serves as a place for travellers, about to ascend 
 Mount #Ztna, to halt and refresh themselves for the expedi- 
 tion. For here begins the region in which is situated the 
 summit of the mountain. The districts above are barren 
 and covered with ashes, which are hidden by the snows 
 in winter: all below, however, is filled with woods and 
 plantations of all kinds. It seems that the summits of 
 the mountain are often changed by the ravages of the fire, 
 which sometimes is brought together into one crater and 
 at another is divided; at one time again it heaves forth 
 streams of lava, and at another flames and thick smoke: 
 at other times again ejecting red-hot masses of fire-stone. 
 In such violent commotions as these the subterraneous 
 passages must necessarily undergo a corresponding change, 
 and at times the orifices on the surface around are consider- 
 ably increased. Some who have very recently ascended 
 the mountain reported to us that they found at the top 
 an even plain of about twenty stadia in circumference, 
 enclosed by an overhanging ridge of ashes about the height 
 of a wall, so that those who are desirous of proceeding 
 further are obliged to leap down into the plain. They 
 noticed in the midst of it a mound; it was ash-coloured, 
 as was likewise the plain in appearance. Above the mound 
 a column of cloud reared itself in a perpendicular line to 
 the height of 200 stadia, and remained motionless, there 
 being no air stirring at the time; it resembled smoke. 
 Two of the party resolutely attempted to proceed further 
 across this plain, but, finding the sand very hot, and sink- 
 ing very deep in it, they turned back, without however 
 being able to make any more particular observations, as 
 to what we have described, than those who beheld from 
 a greater distance. They were, however, of opinion from 
 the observations they were able to make that much 
 exaggeration pervades the accounts we have of the volcano 
 and especially the tale about Empedocles, that he leaped 
 into the crater, and left as a vestige of his folly one of 
 the brazen sandals which he wore, it being found outside 
 
42 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 at a short distance from the lip of the crater, with the 
 appearance of having been cast up by the violence of the 
 flame; for neither is the place approachable nor even 
 visible, nor yet was it likely that anything could be cast 
 in thither, on account of the contrary current of the vapours 
 and other matters cast up from the lower parts of the 
 mountain, and also on account of the overpowering excess 
 of heat, which would most likely melt anyone long before 
 approaching the mouth of the crater; and if eventually 
 anything should be cast down, it would be totally decom- 
 posed before it was cast up again, what manner of form 
 soever it might have had at first. And again, although it 
 is not unreasonable to suppose that the force of the vapour 
 and fire is occasionally slackened for want of a continual 
 supply of fuel, still we are not to conclude that it is ever 
 possible for a man to approach it in the presence of so 
 great an opposing power. ... By night a glowing light 
 appears on its summit, but in the daytime it is enveloped 
 with smoke and thick darkness.”’ 4 
 
 Such was Etna in the last years of the Republic. The 
 whole country was then in a devastated and deserted 
 condition, as another passage of Strabo’s tells us, and given 
 
 over to horse-breeders, herdsmen and shepherds, who ~ 
 
 preyed upon the decayed cities. And Strabo relates how 
 one of these brigands, Selerus, called the son of A®tna, 
 was captured and ‘“‘torn to pieces by wild beasts in the 
 Forum after a contest of gladiators ; he had been set upon 
 a platform fashioned to represent Mount A#tna, which being 
 suddenly unfastened and falling, he was precipitated 
 amongst certain cages of wild beasts which had also been 
 slightly constructed under the platform for the occasion.’ # 
 Strabo says he saw this. 
 
 It is obvious, however, that in spite of the violent activity 
 of the mountain at this time and the deserted condition 
 of the country, Etna was ascended, and it seems from the 
 town of Ztna which probably stood on the site of S. Maria 
 
 di Licodia above Paternd. That Etna was frequently q 
 
 ascended in Roman times is certain; for we not only 
 have the tradition that the Emperor Hadrian climbed the 
 
 1 Strabo, B. vi, Cap. ii, par. 8. 2 Ibid., par. 6. 
 
 ea See ee ee eS, ees. ee 
 
 
 
ETNA 43 
 
 volcano, but there remains in the so-called Torre del 
 Filosofo a building dating from that time which may well 
 have been set up for the expedition of Hadrian. 
 
 Etna of course changes with each eruption, but the 
 description of Strabo is accurate enough as far as it goes. 
 The volcano is a truncated cone, interrupted on the east 
 by the Valle del Bove, an appalling and sterile abyss, 
 three miles wide and between 2,000 and 4,000 feet deep. 
 Here was perhaps the original crater. The mountain is 
 divided into three zones: the Regione Coltivata reaches 
 to about 3,000 feet and extends beyond Nicolosi; the 
 Regione Nemerosa, the region of forest which extends to 
 about 6,800 feet, say to the Casa del Bosco ; and the Regione 
 Deserta from about 6,800 feet to the summit. Each of 
 these zones, however, may be sub-divided. The first, the 
 cultivated region, divides itself into a lower part, where 
 the olive will flourish, and the upper part, where the 
 vine and the almond are at home. The forest region 
 too divides itself into a lower region where the oak, the 
 chestnut, the beech and the evergreen pine flourish, and 
 an upper where little else but the birch is seen. In the 
 highest zone, up to 8,000 feet, a very stunted vegetation 
 still exists, but above that height there is nothing but 
 black desert, and there the snow lies for the greater part 
 of the year. But these limitations must not be taken too 
 exactly. There is an enormous difference between the 
 north and south sides of the mountain, for instance, and 
 chestnuts will be found at all heights up to between 5,000 
 and 6,000 feet, the vine will be found at over 3,500 feet, 
 and the orange and lemon cease at about 1,000 feet only 
 for lack of water. 
 
 An expedition to the great crater of Etna can only 
 properly be made in the full or late summer when the snow 
 is gone from the mountain-side, and good and, above all, 
 calm weather is assured. It is a very fatiguing business 
 and, what is more, very monotonous, and though if you 
 have the luck to get a clear sunrise from the summit, 
 the reward is great, this has not been my good fortune, 
 and altogether I rather doubt whether the ascent is worth 
 the time and energy expended. 
 
44, CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 It is some 30 miles from Catania to the summit and may 
 be reckoned as follows: to Nicolosi 12, to S. Niccold 
 d’Arena 2, to the Casa del Bosco 8, thence to the crater 8. 
 
 Nicolosi, where you find your guides and mules, and 
 where the ascent really begins, is a village of about 3,500 
 inhabitants. It is well to sleep there and to visit the 
 Monti Rossi, the twin peaks, an excursion of an hour and 
 a half. From the left peak you get a great view and not 
 least of the lava of 1886. 
 
 The ascent of Mount Etna will not occupy less than seven 
 hours on mule back. During the first four hours you 
 pass through the forest region past the Casa del Bosco, 
 a long, low building at the base of Monte Rinazzo, sur- 
 rounded by many small craters, to the Casa Cantoniera 
 under La Montagnola, about 6,150 feet above the sea, 
 and an hour above the Casa del Bosco. It is possible to 
 sleep at the Cantoniera, but not, I think, without permission 
 
 from the Club Alpino Italiano ; at any rate one can always © f 
 
 find water there. 
 
 The dark and lofty peak to the right behind the Canton- 
 iera is the Montagnola (8,700 feet), the head of the Serra 
 del Solfizio, which closes with its tremendous cliffs the 
 Valle del Bove in the south. You climb up and round 
 the north end of this awful abyss by the Piano del Lago, 
 under Monte Frumento, to the left, past the Rifugio 
 Gemmellaro, a refuge built by the Observatory in case of 
 the necessity of a swift retreat. You are now well into 
 the desert zone, the landscape is quite lunar in its utter 
 emptiness, and you are delighted to reach the Observatory 
 at last, an hour after leaving the Rifugio Gemmellaro. 
 
 Here you can sleep or at least lie down if you have come 
 to see the sunrise, until the guide calls you. The Observa- 
 tory is about 1,000 feet from the summit, which must now 
 be reached on foot, in about an hour, climbing with ever- 
 increasing difficulty, slipping in the dark volcanic dust 
 and rocks, in which are many smoking rifts, on which one 
 looks with increasing aversion and misgiving. One is 
 conscious of the height, of the smoke above one, and in 
 my own experience of ever-growing misery and fear of the 
 wind, the wind, the wind! The crater itself J have never 
 
 
 
\ 
 
 \ 
 X 
 \ 
 
 ETNA 45 
 
 been lucky enough to see with any real clearness, exactitude 
 or composure. The wind and the cold numb the in- 
 telligence. Oneis conscious of a vast cone rolling up 
 and over into an unthinkable abyss which I was told was 
 now divided into two parts, one of which I could see was 
 streaming a vast cloud of smoke. I was not allowed, 
 even had I had the wish, to approach its dreadful verge. 
 
 It was not possible to remain in such a place for long, 
 nor in fact was it worth the discomfort and the uneasiness 
 it caused one after the weariness of the way. The view 
 is often said to embrace the whole island and even to include 
 Malta—I saw nothing of this. The wind stretched the 
 vast cloud of smoke like a flag across the whole flank of 
 the mountain and screened the shore. I saw the coasts 
 of Sicily and Italy from beyond Messina to the Lipari 
 Islands, and the shore southward to Catania, Augusta, 
 Syracuse, and Capo Passaro. I sawthe winding Symaethos 
 and the Lentinian fields and lake. Looking inland I 
 descried Castrogiovanni, the Madonie and, perhaps, Mount 
 Eryx. 
 
 But not for a view of the Delectable Mountains or the 
 
 Promised Land would I have remained in such a place, 
 crouched as I was on the hot grit to avoid being blown 
 off the mountain or into the dreadful abyss, and now in 
 real fear of the height, of the cold, of the wind—above all 
 of that accursed wind. No, for me Etna, the beast Etna, 
 has little to offer but immense fatigue, discomfort, continual 
 uneasiness, and now and then an overwhelming fear, which 
 - engenders an active dislike. 
 There remains that vision, the exquisite ghost I have 
 - seen from Taormina, from Lentini, from Syracuse, a moun- 
 tain in a dream, perfect, immaculate, in unearthly beauty, 
 and, as that journey taught me, for ever out of reach. 
 Have I lost that vision for ever by my rash and barbarous 
 attempt ? Who knows? There is nothing to be gained 
 by climbing Etna: there is much to lose. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 ON THE WAY TO SYRACUSE 
 
 Ses journey from Catania southward to Syracuse 
 is surely one of the most interesting in Sicily, 
 and, for me, certainly one of the most beautiful. 
 The vast plain upon which one enters immediately after 
 leaving the city, which indeed seems to beat against its 
 walls, is the greatest and the richest in the island, the very 
 home of Demeter, a wide sea of living green in spring, 
 of golden wheat and stubble in summer. To-day those 
 infinite cornfields are scattered with the wild flowers of 
 Persephone. For Spring is come between sunrise and 
 sunset. Yesterday in Catania it was still winter—for 
 winter comes even to Sicily—while to-day Spring is 
 suddenly here, not timidly as in the North, her tremulous 
 footsteps brushing the last snow from the yellow crocus, 
 but amid an infinite riot of wild flowers that the south 
 wind has strewn before her feet. A light of a divine trans- 
 parence, subtilely and puissantly warming, caresses the 
 laughing shore and envelopes/and bathes the plain with 
 its radiance. The vast green plain seems to stretch away 
 for ever between the far hills and the purple sea into the 
 slowly closing arms of the mountains. There is no building 
 in sight, nor even a human being ; only the white approach 
 of the wind over the tender green of the cornfields, and 
 everywhere before it have run the flowers, campions, speed- 
 wells, valerians, poppies, marguerite daisies, yellow or 
 white, anemones purple and white and rose, and that 
 Adonis flower of which Bion sings. The only, trees seem 
 to be that line of Eucalyptus along the railway, a sinister 
 hint that explains perhaps the total absence of all habita- 
 tion. But who on such a day would spoil his pleasure 
 46 
 
 
 
ON THE WAY TO SYRACUSE AZ 
 
 by a thought of malaria, at least till nightfall, and when 
 twilight comes I shall be safe in Siracusa. 
 
 It is easy to-day and in this place—joyful with wild 
 flowers now, to be golden with harvest later—it is easy to 
 believe the ancient tradition that Sicily was the original 
 home of Demeter and Persephone; that it was here the 
 Goddesses first revealed themselves and were first wor- 
 shipped, ages before Eleusis was founded, and gave the 
 gift of corn to mankind. Here indeed it was that Demeter 
 first produced that wheat which, according to Diodorus, 
 such was the fertility of this soil, in Sicily alone grew wild, 
 as the olive grew, without tillage. 
 
 But it is not only or even chiefly with the flowers and 
 the sea, even on such a morning as this, that one’s eyes 
 are full. Ever more lovely, ever more lofty, as you make 
 your way across the great plain, Etna rises behind you, 
 rises quite out of the sea in one perfect and unbroken 
 line from base to summit, from the incredible blue of 
 the Ionian to the pure snow upon the crater, from which 
 the great white plume of smoke lies across the infinite sky. 
 
 This view of Etna, which first on one side and then on 
 the other, fills half a morning or afternoon, is one of the 
 noblest and most beautiful anywhere to be had. One can 
 scarcely lift one’s eyes from it to look again on that radiant 
 plain or for a moment to watch that herd of goats wander- 
 ing along the sunlit shore while the little goatherd plays 
 with the waves that lace all that silver beach. Indeed 
 so much does Etna fill your eyes that you scarce notice 
 as you pass a considerable stream, the Symaethos of the 
 poets, that of old marked the frontier between the terri- 
 tories of those two Chalcidic cities Catana and Leontinoi, 
 nor, a little later, that sheet of shallow water abounding 
 in fish, which now lies beneath the broken hill of two 
 summits with a hollow between, upon which Leontinoi 
 stood. A little stream, the Lissus, now called the Lentini, 
 flows about the hill to the north and loses itself in the 
 malarious marsh by the sea. 
 
 Leontinoi is no more. Not a stone of the Greeks seems 
 to remain. It stood on these hills of which the two 
 summits formed natural citadels and made an important 
 
48 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 fortress. It was founded from Naxos, the first of her 
 colonies, in 730 B.c. We know little of its early history, 
 but the strength of its position and the fertility of the great 
 plain at its feet, renowned in all ages, gave it prosperity, 
 and these excited continually the cupidity of Dorian 
 Syracuse. Against the envy of that great metropolis, 
 the greatest city perhaps in the Mediterranean, how could 
 Leontinoi stand? Her history indeed resolves itself into 
 the story of her repeated fall and repeated rescue. And 
 
 as in other similar cases the things which are not brought 
 to naught the things which are. For it was the appeal ca 
 
 of Leontinoi by the rhetoric of her citizen Gorgias which 
 first brought the Athenians into Sicily against Syracuse 
 to such fatal purpose, to such tragic and irremediable 
 disaster at last. And when this was accomplished Leon- 
 tinoi became just a fortress such as Acre was, in the hands 
 of Syracuse upon her northern border: a citadel and a 
 look-out over the wealth of the great plain and the highway 
 of the sea. 
 
 It is of these things that I thought as I wandered about 
 the old ruined medieval castle, 4/ Castellaccio, which stands 
 it is said upon the chief acropolis of Greek Leontinoi : 
 
 how the novel rhetoric of Gorgias persuaded the Athenians — F. 
 to interfere in Sicilian affairs to such utter disaster for us _ 
 
 all. For if the Athenian Expedition had never set out; 
 or, setting out, had succeeded, it may be Rome might ~ 
 never have conquered the world and our civilization would 
 be Greek instead of Latin. 
 
 But even before arriving at Leontinoi, indeed upon ~ 
 crossing the Symaethos, one has reached the hills, the Syra- 
 cusan limestone, the foothills of the Hyblean Mountains, 
 One is here really within the natural territory of Syracuse, _ 
 a country stony enough to give it a definite Greek character, 
 and with surprises beyond counting of beauty and riches 
 and joy. a 
 
 Once round the Xiphonian Promontory, that to-daythey 
 call Capo S. Croce, the whole famous Gulf of Megara lies _ 
 before you, with Thapsus i in its arms, closed on the south ~ 
 by the Promontory of Trogilus, Capo di S. Paling and. 
 though hidden, Syracuse itself. =a 
 
 
 
ON THE WAY TO SYRACUSE 49 
 
 There is nothing certainly in Sicily, and perhaps in the 
 world, more moving than the first sight of this great gulf 
 with its storied promontories and peninsulas, its stoniness, 
 the amazing and arid strength of its landscape, where once, 
 and perhaps twice, was decided the destiny of the world. 
 The first sight of this shore, where every feature bears a 
 household name, dearer far and lovelier than anything 
 Roman can ever be, catches the breath and fills the eyes 
 more surely than even its own loveliness and strength 
 could do. And for those for whom this is the first Greek 
 landscape they have seen with their mortal eyes the effect 
 isoverwhelming. For Sicilian though it be, the landscape 
 is Greek; it has the Greek stoniness, the Greek leanness 
 of form and nobility of outline, the grey of the Greek 
 olives, the asphodel, the anemone and the sea. Beyond 
 the bare cliffs of that far tableland the Hyblean Mountains 
 shine. 
 
 As you come into this wide bay, you are struck at once, 
 as though some great epic story known from boyhood had 
 come true for you at last, with its almost remembered and 
 strangely characteristic features—the great harbour of 
 Megara there under the northern promontory, the site of 
 Megara beyond it, whose walls you may still trace and 
 whose spoil you may find in the Museum of Syracuse ; 
 the white town of Augusta, a foundation of Frederick II 
 in 1232 that has replaced the Megara of the hills; the 
 strange low peninsula ending in the Promontory of Thapsus 
 behind which lay the Athenian fleet when Nikias stormed 
 Epipole; the little bay of Trogilus where the Roman 
 ships lay at anchor when Marcellus conquered Syracuse 
 for Rome; and then the now desolate heights of the great 
 city itself, Epipole, Tyche, Achradina; and at last the 
 Island of Ortygia, Syracuse itself, with the Little Harbour 
 to the north and beyond the Great Harbour within Plem- 
 myrion, 
 
 That bare and stony landscape with its ancient olives, 
 those heights and promontories, that desolate upland, that 
 island which still bears the city—I say they are sacred, 
 and to see them with these mortal eyes, having seen them 
 since boyhood with the eyes of the mind, is overwhelming ; 
 
50 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 and for this too, because they are a part of the soul. In) 
 some way not easy to explain they are more than the well ~ 
 known and beloved places of home, because in them the — 
 imagination has most been used to dwell, and all our ideas ~ 
 of honour, of courage, of nobility and sacrifice, our sense — 
 of what is tragic in human life and in history, i in inte oe 
 part there abide. i 
 \And as our fathers marching with the great armies — 
 when they first saw Jerusalem were wont to kneel down — 
 and hold out their arms in longing, satisfied at last,sowe, 
 beholding for the first time these hills, this shore, this city, E 
 sacred too, may bow the head lest men see the tears in _ 
 our eyes. a 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 SYRACUSE 
 
 I 
 SYRACUSE 
 
 S you come to Syracuse to-day, in the midst of a 
 van stony desolation only half hidden by the fragile 
 
 beauty of the passing blossom, the loveliness of 
 innumerable wild flowers, you find that great city which 
 men called Pentapolis shrunk to scarcely more than a 
 confused huddle of houses upon the little island that was 
 her first foundation. 
 
 That great Dorian city, the scene of the most successful 
 and the most disastrous defence in history, hallowed by the 
 footsteps of AEschylus, the beauty of Philistis, the voice of 
 Plato, the verse of Pindar, of Simonides, of Theocritus— 
 what has become of it ? It might seem incredible that a 
 city of 500,000 inhabitants, whose walls measured some 
 twenty miles round about, can have been utterly swept 
 away. Whither is it gone ? 
 
 There remains upon the island of Ortygia the greater part 
 of one Temple and the foundations of another : in Neapolis 
 in the plain upon the mainland, the ruin of the Theatre, 
 a vast Ara, an Amphitheatre of the Roman time and the 
 so-called Palestra, together with a street—the Street of 
 Tombs. But upon the plateau—on Achradina nothing, on 
 Tyche nothing, a road, the foundation of a building, on 
 Epipole the ruined walls of Dionysius and the enormous 
 foundations, galleries and broken towers of his fortress of 
 Euryalus. 
 
 It is there I think upon that stony plateau that once was 
 Syracuse, where all that is left is a meagre pasture for goats 
 
 5i 
 
 a 
 
52 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 and sheep, where the asphodel and the olive alone are at 
 home, that one wonders most. What has become of it all ? 
 Where is it gone? They cannot have carted away the 
 very stones of the streets, the very foundations of the walls 
 and the houses. Has the sun broken even these into dust ? 
 Has the wind blown the dust into the sea? 
 
 No ; the greatest of Greek cities, the most beautiful of all 
 cities, is not even a ruin: it has utterly passed away under 
 the energy and the neglect of man, the endless days of 
 scirocco, the centuries of summers, the countless winters’ 
 rains. And Time, eater of all things, has consumed even 
 the dust of what was once so great. 
 
 Ah, but it remains . . . it remains in the mind, in the 
 beloved pages of Herodotus, the truthful pages of Thucy- 
 dides ; and, yes, in the heart . . . for ever in the heart, 
 in the idylls of Theocritus. 
 
 And so lying there on Epipole many an afternoon, 
 lazily turning over their pages, while the shepherd passes 
 below me with his sheep or the goatherd wanders with his 
 goats under the olives, and I have only to lift my eyes to 
 see Ortygia and the Great Harbour or Thapsus, standing 
 up out of the sea, little by little it rises before me the 
 Syracuse of old. 
 
 For in such a place, the whole site of the great city be- 
 neath me, it is easy to understand how strange and beautiful 
 was its situation and, as I am come to discern, of a unique 
 advantage. 
 
 There, some three miles away, like a boat at the launch, 
 lies the island, Ortygia, where Syracuse was founded, 
 between the Great Harbour to the south and the Lesser 
 Harbour to the north. Behind me again some three miles 
 away towers up the high and precipitous tableland of 
 
 the Hyblzan Mountains—Monti Climiti. Between those j 
 
 mountains and the island lies this lofty triangular plateau 
 
 surrounded on two sides by the sea, and on the south © 
 falling away more gently to the wide valley and meander- 
 ing course of the Anapus amid meadows and groves famous ~ 
 
 for their beauty. 
 
 ’ 
 
 Standing thus as she did upon this lofty and often — 
 precipitous plateau, defended by the sea and the marshes ~ 
 
 
 
 a 
 ss 
 
SYRACUSE 58 
 
 of Anapus, and easily protected towards the mountains 
 where the plateau narrows like the prow of a ship and the 
 Fort of Euryalus stands up before the loftier Belvedere, 
 Syracuse must always have been impregnable, and was 
 in fact never taken save by treachery. 
 
 She possessed two harbours: the Lesser Harbour which 
 lies to the north of the Island, small and shallow, but con- 
 venient for all the shipping of her time, and the Great 
 Harbour to the south, a vast sheet of water nearly six 
 miles in circumference and almost, but not quite, enclosed 
 by Ortygia and the peninsula of Plemmyrion ; the entrance 
 indeed is but 1,200 yards across, and everywhere within 
 the water is at all times deep enough to admit the 
 largest modern vessels. It is perhaps the finest harbour 
 in Sicily. 
 
 But there is much more than this. 
 
 Lying as she did so far southward upon the eastern 
 coast of Sicily, Syracuse commanded two seas, the Ionian 
 and the African, and that not at one, but at two, crucial 
 points : the entry into the Strait of Messina, and the Malta 
 Channel, the narrows of the Mediterranean itself, between 
 Sicily and Africa. Thus the strategic advantage of her 
 position was pre-eminent and it remains such that it might 
 seem certain Syracuse will re-arise, and we may perhaps 
 expect to see the whole territory between the peninsula 
 of Plemmyrion and the Xiphonian Chersonese turned into 
 a great naval and aerial fortress commanding not only the 
 Strait of Messina but the Mediterranean at its narrowest 
 passage. 
 
 Far be that day! For who then could dream of Greece 
 amid the ruins of Epipolz, while the bees flitted through the 
 ivy? Or who then in the orchards of Anapus would watch 
 the almond blossom give place to the tender green of the 
 leaf, as lovely if not lovelier ? Or who, if such befell, 
 under the stars on the stony slopes by the sea, while the 
 goats stray among the ruins of Dionysius, would listen to 
 the goatherd piping his ditty of low tone ? 
 
54 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 II 
 THE STORY OF SYRACUSE 
 
 Syracuse was a Corinthian colony established from the 
 city of Corinth by Archias, son of Euagetes, of the great 
 family of Bacchiade. As Praxinoa says, in the fifteenth 
 idyll of Theocritus, ‘‘ If you must know we’re Corinthians 
 by extraction—we Syracusans—like Bellerophon himself. 
 What we talk is Peloponnesian. I suppose Dorians may 
 speak Doric, mayn’t they ?’’ Certainly the Syracusans of 
 all ages always regarded themselves as of pure Corinthian 
 origin, and what is more, they maintained the closest 
 relations with the mother city. 
 
 
 
 , ap 
 oe 
 Vs : eo Se at Ce 
 ee eee Ye ee ae ee 
 
 The colony was founded in 734 B.c., the year after the — 
 
 establishment of Naxos, and upon the Island of Ortygia. 
 And just as Naxos was dedicated to Apollo, so Syracuse 
 was dedicated to Artemis, the name of the island being 
 hers ; but the city seems almost at once to have taken the 
 name it was ever afterwards to bear, as it would seem from 
 the adjoining marsh, Syraco. 
 
 Of the early history of the city we know nothing; but 
 
 it certainly flourished, for we find it establishing forts and 
 colonies within a hundred years of its foundation: Acre 
 (Palazzolo) in 664 B.c., Casmene in 644 B.c.,and Camarina 
 on the south coast in 599 B.C. 
 
 The government of Syracuse at this time was in the © 
 hands of an unstable oligarchy called the Geomori, the — 
 descendants of the original colonists. About 486 B.c., — 
 however, the democracy.succeeded in expelling it, but the © 
 despot of Gela (Terranova), Gelon by name, espoused the ~ 
 cause of the exiles and in the following year, 485 B.c.,made — 
 
 himself master of Syracuse. 
 
 Gela at this time was certainly a more powerful state © 
 than Syracuse. Hippocrates, its late despot, had made ~ 
 
 himself master of many of the cities of eastern Sicily, 
 
 among them of Camarina, which he had repeopled from — 
 Gela. Gelon however seems at once to have understood ~ 
 the superior geographical advantages of Syracuse, for no — 
 sooner was he master than he removed the new citizens — 
 
 
 
SYRACUSE 55 
 
 of Camarina in a body there and a little later more than 
 half those of Gela itself; and seizing also Sicilian Megara 
 and Euboea he brought all their more wealthy citizens into 
 his new capital. In every way he strengthened and 
 adorned Syracuse so that in his hands it became with- 
 out question the first of the Greek cities of Sicily. 
 
 He was only just in time. The conspiracy of Xerxes 
 with the Carthaginians for an attack upon Europe was com- 
 pleted. Herodotus tells us how the Athenians and Spar- 
 tans in fear for Greece sent an embassy to Gelon to ask 
 for his assistance—a sufficient compliment to his power. 
 He refused, for he seems to have been aware, though they 
 apparently were not, that the Carthaginians had under- 
 taken to attack the Greeks in Sicily at the same time as 
 Xerxes attacked Greece proper. So it befell: and we may 
 hope that the tradition is true which records that the 
 victory of Salamis and the victory of Himera were won 
 on the same day in the autumn of 480 B.c. 
 
 The attack of the Carthaginians upon Sicily was made 
 in this wise. In 481 B.c., Terillus of Himera,in the north 
 of Sicily, had been expelled by Theron, who had lately 
 established himself as despot of Acragas (Girgenti). Teril- . 
 lus thereupon conspired with the Carthaginians who sent a 
 vast fleet and army under Hamilcar, and sailing to Panor- 
 mos (Palermo), laid siege to Himera, then in the hands of 
 Theron, who was able to defend it until Gelon arrived with 
 an army of 50,000 foot and 5,000 horse. This force, 
 though far less than the Carthaginian, was enough. All 
 day as the battle raged Hamilcar threw burnt offerings 
 upon the fire, till at evening news reached him that his 
 army was defeated, whereupon he threw himself on to 
 the fire—whether as the most costly gift of allor in despair 
 history does not record. 
 
 This great victory of Gelon’s was not less famous among 
 the Sicilian Greeks than those of Salamis and Platea 
 among the Athenians and Spartans. The vast number 
 of prisoners taken at Himera and distributed among 
 the cities of Sicily added to their wealth and resources, and 
 their labour no doubt explains the great works presently 
 undertaken in Syracuse, in Gela and in Acragas. 
 
56 ‘CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 Nor was Gelon merely a great soldier and administrator, — 
 By his patronage of Letters and the Arts he rendered — 
 Syracuse famous and the resort of poets and artists. 
 Among the guests of his court and that of his successor were 
 Eschylus, Pindar and Bacchylides ; while Syracuse itself 
 gave birth to Sophron, whose Mimes—and he was the 
 inventor of Mimes—were the glory of Dorian Comedy, and 
 to Epicharmus, the chief comic poet among the Dorians, 
 who first gave to comedy a regular plot. Though his 
 childhood was spent in Megara he passed his best years 
 at the courts of Gelon and Hieron. It is mainly to that 
 successor Hieron that we owe the marvellous medallions 
 and coins, never equalled for beauty, which distinguish 
 
 Syracuse above every other city even of Greek Sicily. The — 
 silver Demareteion, struck in commemoration of the ~ 
 
 Carthaginian defeat by Gelon and coined out of the treasure 
 given to Gelon’s wife Demarete by the Carthaginians, is 
 perhaps the most beautiful medallion in existence.1 It — 
 was the first of a whole series scarcely less lovely of which 
 
 those by Kimon and Evaenetus struck in commemoration _ 
 
 of the Athenian defeat sixty-seven years later are especially 
 beautiful. It was too no doubt at this period that the 
 famous Temples and Theatre of the city were built, and _ 
 the city itself established upon the mainland, not only in 
 Achradina and Tyche but in Neapolis. 
 
 But fragile are the thrones of princes, especially, one 
 may think, Greek princes. Hieron was succeeded by his 
 brother Thrasybulus, who proved himself a tyrant,and the _ 
 Syracusans expelled him in 466 B.c. After many dissen- — 
 
 sions a democracy was established and there followed about _ 
 
 sixty years of free government during which Syracuse — 
 developed with great rapidity both in wealth and power. 
 “‘ All Sicily,’’ says Diodorus, “‘ grew in prosperity, and, — 
 enjoying profound peace, cultivated its fertile soil, saw its — 
 wealth increase, filled itself with slaves, with flocks and ~ 
 
 1 Obverse : Victory crowning the horses of a chariot; below the a 
 lion of Carthage in flight. Reverse: Head of Victory surrounded 
 by dolphins and within the word ZYPAXOZSION. There is no 
 
 example in the Museum at Syracuse, It may be seen at the British — 
 Museum, 
 
 
 
SYRACUSE 57 
 
 herds and every kind of well-being; the revenues grew 
 because they had no war to sustain.’”’ } 
 
 There followed the most miserable, the most unfortunate 
 and the most tragic event in the history of Syracuse, even 
 in the history of the Greeks, and perhaps in the history of 
 Europe: the Athenian Expedition. 
 
 Thucydides relates that adventure precisely like a Greek 
 tragedy. It has its cause and its effect : things done have 
 an end; for the crime committed upon the Melians, an 
 act of insensate and evil folly worthy he seems to suggest 
 of those who conceived the attack upon Sicily, there is the 
 Nemesis of Syracuse. To read those calm and truthful 
 pages is to be present at a great ceremony, to be a spec- 
 tator, as in the theatre, of a greater tragedy than any 
 imagined by Aéschylus, by Sophocles, by Euripides; to 
 share a vision of something which seems to be fatal in the 
 world, in the acts of men, in the very nature of things; 
 and to witness the mind of the gods in action and the justice 
 that is theirs. 
 
 But that is not the only way of looking at this most 
 wonderful event. If we regard the expedition from a 
 political point of view we shall not be so hard upon Athens. 
 
 In the first place it was a definite action in the Pelo- 
 ponnesian War: it was quite natural and right that Athens 
 should wish to make her sea power predominant in the 
 west : the whole political situation demanded it. 
 
 And then the most serious and dangerous hostility which 
 Athens had to face was the commercial rivalry of Corinth, 
 the mother of Syracuse, the head of the Dorian cities of 
 Sicily. A counter to Corinthian influence in Sicily and 
 Italy was a necessity. Politically the Athenian Expedition 
 was justified. 
 
 Nor was it rash from the military point of view. All the 
 chances were in its favour. The failure and the fault lay 
 not in the conception of the expedition but in its execution. 
 Nikias was the ruin of the Athenian Expedition. Had the 
 advice of Lamachus been taken and Syracuse attacked at 
 once Syracuse would have fallen. Had Alcibiades not been 
 recalled the attack would have been pushed on and Gylippus 
 
 1 Diodorus xi, 72. 
 
58 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 would never have been dispatched from Sparta. Had 
 Nikias, even when Lamachus was dead and Alcibiades in 
 Sparta, completed the north wall upon Epipole, Gylippus 
 would never have reached the besieged and Syracuse would 
 have fallen at last. The fault was Nikias’, who was supine 
 and irresolute when he should have been active and bold, 
 who shirked responsibility when he should have staked 
 his life: the failure was due to nothing in the character 
 of the expedition but to everything in the character of the 
 leader. And since he was the choice, confirmed again and 
 again by the Athenian democracy, theirs was the fault 
 and the folly in which their whole polity was, alas, to 
 perish. 
 
 I must not here relate the famous story over again. Every 
 schoolboy has been present upon the heights of Epipole, 
 watched the great naval fight from the Theatre of Syracuse, 
 and wept with the captive Athenian youths in the depths 
 of the Latomiz. 
 
 It must be enough tosay here that the Athenians, urged 
 to it by the unstable genius of Alcibiades, in the middle 
 of the Peloponnesian War,in a moment of truce, grasped 
 at the domination of their world and determined to fit 
 out a vast expedition, both naval and military, to besiege 
 and take Syracuse, the greatest city in the Mediterranean, 
 in the hope of thus seizing all Sicily, then Carthage, and 
 finally the Peloponnesus—in fact the Mediterranean. 
 
 The immediate pretexts for the expedition were a quarrel 
 between Selinus and Segesta, in which the Athenians. es- 
 poused the cause of Segesta against Syracuse, which sup- 
 ported Selinus ; and an appeal from Leontinoi for justice 
 against Syracuse. 
 
 The first armament that Athens launched in this affair 
 —it was doubled later—was the costliest and most splendid 
 that any city up to that time had ever sent forth. It 
 sailed at midsummer in 413 B.c., and the whole of Athens 
 went down to the Peirzus at dawn to see the spectacle. 
 There were 134 triremes and an immense number of smaller 
 vessels ; there were 5,100 hoplites, and a total number 
 of more than 30,000 combatants, but no cavalry. 
 
 One can see with the mind’s eye that great and beautiful 
 
 
 
 
 
SYRACUSE 59 
 
 armament racing to A’gina, sailing round the dreaming head- 
 lands of Greece, crossing the Ionian sea from Corcyra and 
 coasting along the far stretched gulf of Magna Grecia. 
 But from the very beginning misfortune dogged the 
 Athenians. 
 
 Even before they sailed they had been delayed by that 
 sacrilegious outrage upon the Herme, of which Alcibiades 
 had been accused, which alarmed the superstition and per- 
 haps the piety of Athens. And now they could find no 
 city in all Magna Grecia to receive them and give them a 
 market till they came to Rhegium, and even there they 
 were not admitted within the walls. And here it was they 
 discovered that the wealth of Segesta, which was to finance 
 their enterprise, did not exist. 
 
 So there at Rhegium the three commanders, Alcibiades 
 the soul of the expedition, Nikias its weakness, who had 
 advised against it, and Lamachus, the least of the three 
 but a soldier, took counsel. 
 
 In that counsel Nikias proposed to shew the armament 
 of Athens to the Syracusans and by its mere prestige to get 
 justice if possible both for Segesta and for Leontinoi, and 
 then toreturn to Athens. Alcibiades proposed to negotiate 
 an alliance with the Sikelian natives and to persuade the 
 Greek cities in Sicily to come to their side and then to 
 attack Syracuse. Lamachus was a soldier. He proposed 
 to seize Megara as a base and to attack the Syracusans 
 forthwith. There can be no doubt that he was right, and 
 had his plan been adopted it would have been successful, 
 Syracuse would have fallen, and the whole history of 
 Europe might have been different. But he was the least 
 of the three, and when he saw that his colleagues would 
 not adopt his advice he gave his vote for the plan of 
 Alcibiades. 
 
 So Alcibiades had his way. Naxos and Catana were 
 persuaded to their ruin, and a demonstration was made in 
 the Great Harbour of Syracuse. 
 
 Then befell the third misfortune. Alcibiades was re- 
 called to Athens to answer the charges of mutilating the 
 Herme and profaning the Eleusinian mysteries. Instead 
 of returning, he escaped his escort at Thurii, made his way 
 
60 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 to Sparta, where he appeared as the avowed enemy of — 
 his country, and began his terrible revenge. ie 
 
 Nikias, now the unquestioned leader of the expedition, — 
 wasted the rest of the year in futile enterprises. When 
 winter came he roused himself for a moment and by some 
 stratagem lured the Syracusan army to attack hiscampat 
 Cat ana while in the meantime he had embarked his host 
 and sailed for the Great Harbour. There he landed and 
 won a victory over the Syracusans who had hastilyreturned, 
 but this done he re-embarked and returned to his base at 
 Catana. 
 
 
 
 Meantime in Sparta Alcibiades had revealed the plans 
 of the Athenians and urged the dispatch of that most — 
 energetic and most fortunate soldier Gylippus to the assis- _ 
 tance of Syracuse. 
 
 At last with the Spring Nikias made a move. The 
 fleet left Catana, entered the bay of Thapsus and landed ~ 
 the army at the foot of Epipole onthe north. Thesoldiers 
 rushed up the steep slope, none opposing, and were masters 
 of the open plateau. There, where upon that north slope 
 the escarpment first turns due east, they built their fort 
 Labdalon; but Alcibiades would have fortified Euryalus, 
 The siege of Syracuse had begun. “4 
 
 The Athenians’ plan was to shut the city off from all 
 assistance by land, as their fleet was doing by sea. Tothis — 
 end they began to build a wall from the northern escarp- 
 ment of Epipolz to the Great Harbour. They began by ~ 
 erecting a circular fort in the middle of the plateau, and 
 from this they purposed to build a wall north and a wall 
 south. ‘ 
 
 The Syracusans, untrained and undisciplined, attempted 
 to stop thém, but failing in this they in their turn began 
 to build a counter wall to intercept the southern wall ofthe 
 Athenians: but this the Athenians soon swept away. It — 
 was successful in this however that it drew the attention — 
 of the Athenians off their north wall, and, as we shall see, 
 it was the north wall that was crucial. Through that gap 
 Gylippus was to enter. e 
 
 The Athenians now began to fortify the southern escarp- 
 ment of Epipole near the Temple of Herakles, as part of — 
 
SYRACUSE 61 
 
 the work on their south wall. The Syracusans then began 
 a fortification much further down ; they dug a huge trench 
 defended by a palisade right across the marsh of Lysimeleia 
 behind the Great Harbour, from the gate by the Agora to 
 the Anapus. The Athenians attacked and destroyed it, 
 but in that encounter Lamachus was slain—Lamachus 
 who was a soldier ; and Nikias, already ill, was left in sole 
 command. Yet hewas happy, for he thought the city won. 
 The southern wall was advanced in a double line and 
 the fleet left Thapsus and entered the Great Harbour. 
 
 In that hour news came to despairing Syracuse, by the 
 mouth of a Corinthian captain: Corinthian ships were 
 on the sea and a Spartan General even then at hand. 
 
 It was at Locri that Gylippus learned that Syracuse might 
 yet be saved, that the north wall of the Athenians was 
 not completed, and he and his force, supplied by half the 
 Greek cities of Sicily, might enter. By the very path of 
 
 ‘the Athenians he scaled Epipole by night, and without 
 
 opposition, by way of Tyche, entered the city. 
 
 Immediately he took command. His first act was to 
 seize the fort Labdalon, his next to begin a new counter wall 
 extending from the walls of the city at Tyche along the 
 whole length of the plateau to Euryalus which he fortified. 
 The new wall met the Athenian north wall at right angles, 
 and there was a race in wall-building in which the Syracusans 
 were the winners. This was really the decisive act in the ~ 
 siege. Nikias certainly thought so and wrote to Athens 
 for large reinforcements. They were prepared and sent. 
 Meantime Nikias occupied and fortified the headland of 
 Plemmyrion, but the Syracusans, who still held the Olym- 
 pieum, attacked his fort and took the position. This was 
 decisive in another way, for it meant that Syracuse now 
 held both the headlands that enclosed the Great Harbour 
 in which lay the Athenian fleet. In fact ina naval encounter 
 there the Syracusans were completely victorious, and were 
 about to push their advantage when the Athenian re- 
 inforcement arrived under Demosthenes. 
 
 Demosthenes turned his attention to Epipole, but Gylip- 
 pus had there strengthened his wall with forts and Demos- 
 thenes’ attempt failed. This, Demosthenes considered as 
 
62. CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 decisive and he advised the abandonment of the whole 
 enterprise. Nikias however even now could not bring 
 himself to make a decision. 
 
 The Syracusans had now become the aggressors. They 
 attacked the Athenian fleet in the Great Harbour and cut 
 off and destroyed the right wing. Then it was they 
 conceived the idea of the annihilation of the whole. They 
 began to block up the mouth of the Great Harbour by 
 mooring ships across it from Ortygia to Plemmyrion. 
 
 The Athenians saw their doom. They abandoned 
 everything on the heights and assembled in the naval camp 
 near the Olympieum. There it was that they watched 
 the fleet make the final effort to break through the barrier 
 of the Syracusan ships and reach the open sea. 
 
 Thucydides describes that tragic scene: ‘‘ While the 
 naval engagement hung in the balance the two armies on — 
 shore underwent a mighty conflict and tension of mind. 
 The fortune of the battle varied and it was not possible 
 that the spectators on shore should all receive the same 
 impression of it. For since the spectacle they were wit- 
 nessing was close at hand, and having different points of 
 view, while some would see their own ships victorious and 
 their courage would revive and they would call on the 
 gods not to take from them their hopes of deliverance, 
 others would see their ships worsted and would cry and 
 shriek aloud more utterly unnerved than the men who 
 were actually fighting. Others again whose gaze was 
 fixed on some part where the battle was even, moved 
 by the long-drawn uncertainty and the awful suspense, 
 would move their bodies in their excitement and fear in 
 accord with their opinion, for they were always within a 
 hair’s breadth of escaping or perishing. And so you 
 might hear in the Athenian army at once lamentation, 
 shouting, cries of victory or defeat, and all the various 
 sounds which are wrung from a great host in the extremity 
 of danger. Not less agonizing were the feelings of those on 
 board, till at length the Syracusans and their allies, after 
 a protracted struggle, put the Athenians to flight .. .” 
 
 The Athenian fleet was utterly annihilated. Nothing 
 now remained to Nikias but retreat by land to neutral 
 
 
 
> 
 SYRACUSE 63 
 
 territory. Even this was delayed, so that when he set 
 out by the pass beyond Floridia he found it blocked at the 
 Acrean Rock and had to return and take the Helorine 
 Road. Upon that road he and Demosthenes were over- 
 taken upon the banks of the Asinarus near Noto and were 
 compelled to lay down their arms. The whole army was 
 then destroyed and seven thousand state prisoners were 
 brought back to Syracuse and imprisoned in the Latomie, 
 where most of them perished of want, pestilence and 
 exposure. Nikias and Demosthenes the Syracusans put to 
 death. 
 
 “Thus ended the greatest of all Hellenic actions—the 
 most glorious to the victors, the most ruinous to the van- 
 quished ; for they were utterly and at all points defeated 
 and their sufferings were prodigious. Fleet and army 
 perished from the face of the earth ; nothing was saved, and 
 of the many who went forth few returned home.”’ 
 
 Thus ended the Athenian Expedition. 
 
 That amazing victory placed Syracuse at the head of all 
 the Greek cities in Sicily. She took her vengeance upon 
 Leontinoi, Catana and Naxos, which had admitted the 
 Athenians, and then turned to meet a new foe—the Car- 
 thaginians—whom the Segestans had now invited to sup- 
 port them against Selinus. 
 
 In 4ro B.c. the Carthaginians began their new attempt to 
 destroy the Greek cities of Sicily. They overthrew both 
 Himera and Selinus and in 406 B.c. fell upon Acragas and 
 destroyedit. It wasnowthat Dionysius, still a young man, 
 made himself tyrant of Syracuse, turned Ortygia into a 
 fortress for himself, constructed docks in the Lesser Har- 
 bour, built the great fort of Euryalus and walled Epipole. 
 This was achieved in time. In 397 B.c. he declared war on 
 Carthage, marched from one end of Sicily to the other, laid 
 siege to their great stronghold Motya and took it, and 
 though he lost it in the following year and was forced 
 _ by Himilco to retreat upon Syracuse, he shut himself up 
 in that fortress and held out till by a lucky stroke he was 
 able to defeat the Carthaginians by sea and land and 
 consented to their departure from Sicily. And though 
 Mago in 393 B.c. renewed the attack it was with no better 
 
64 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 success, Dionysius remained master of the city, and © 
 with leisure to make himself master of Greek Sicily. 
 
 It was now Syracuse reached the zenith of her power and — 
 prosperity. Though his government was oppressive and — 
 especially in his latter years, when he became extremely 
 suspicious, Dionysius contributed much to the greatness — 
 of the city and displayed his magnificence at the Olympic 
 games and sent rich presents to Olympia and to Delphi. 
 He was not only the patron of artists and men of letters 
 but himself repeatedly contended for the prize of tragedy 
 at Athens, where he several times obtained the second and 
 third prizes and finally bore away the first prize with a play 
 called The Ransom of Hector at the Lenaea. 
 
 As a patron he is famous for having entertained Plato, 
 at Syracuse, as his son did after him, and though the 
 story of his having sold him as a slave is probably untrue, 
 he presently sent him home in disgrace, while he confined 
 Philoxenus the poet in the Latomiz for having criticized 
 his bad verses. None of these remain to us, but his walls and 
 fortress upon Epipole are his enduring monument, 
 
 He was succeeded by his son Dionysius the Younger in — E, 
 
 367 B.c. This man had neither the energy nor the ability 
 of his father, and the government of Syracuse soon fell 
 into chaos. In 356 B.c. Dionysius being in Italy, his son 
 Apollocrates was compelled to surrender the fortress of 
 Ortygia to Dion, the friend of Plato, the representative of 
 the people of Syracuse. But when it was seen that he did 
 not restore the liberties of the people he was presently 
 assassinated, and we find Dionysius still in possession of 
 the fortress of Ortygia when in 344 B.c. Timoleon landed in 
 Sicily. 3 
 Aer the death of Dion the most terrible disorders pre- ig 
 vailed, not only in Syracuse but throughout Sicily. Car- 
 thage was preparing to take advantage of this state of 
 affairs, when the Syracusans sent an embassy to Corinth, 
 their mother city, to ask for assistance. The Corinthians 
 consented and Timoleon was chosen to take command of 
 the expedition. 
 
 Timoleon belonged to one of the noblest families of 
 Corinth. A passion for the freedom of the state had 
 
 
 
SYRACUSE 65 
 
 involved him in the most tragic misfortune, namely the 
 murder of his elder brother, who would have made himself 
 master of Corinth. Timoleon killed him with his own 
 hand, and was consequently by no means reluctant to 
 leave his native city. In fact the Corinthian senate 
 appointed him to the command of the Sicilian expedition 
 with the provision that if he conducted himself justly in 
 the command they would regard him as a tyrannicide and 
 honour him accordingly, but if otherwise they would 
 punish him asa murderer. As it proved Timoleon behaved 
 in the most exemplary manner. Arriving in Sicily with 
 but ten triremes and seven hundred mercenaries he suc- 
 ceeded after much hard fighting and the crushing of many 
 plots, especially the machinations of Hicetas, tyrant of 
 Leontinoi, in decisively defeating the Carthaginians on the 
 Crimissus in 339 B.c. and in restoring liberty to every 
 Greek city in Sicily. Though he was in reality the ruler of 
 Sicily, for every state consulted him in every matter of 
 importance, he refused to make himself despot anywhere, 
 and lived as a private citizen, refusing any office—even 
 in Syracuse, where he was regarded almost with worship 
 and which he held in the hollow of his hand. He re- 
 peopled the cities of Acragas and Gela which the Carthagin- 
 ians had destroyed. Once when his public conduct was 
 attacked in the assembly he replied by thanking the gods 
 for answering his prayer that the Syracusans might enjoy 
 freedom of speech. A short time before his death he 
 became blind, but the Syracusans continued to honour 
 him as before and took his advice upon every occasion. 
 He died in 337 B.c. in the eighth year after his arrival in 
 Sicily. He was buried in the Agora, where his monument 
 was afterwards surrounded with porticoes and a gymnasium 
 and was called after him the Timoleonteum. He was cer- 
 tainly one of the greatest among the Greeks of his time. 
 The period following the restoration of Timoleon was one 
 of great prosperity for Syracuse but within a single gener- 
 ation the city had fallen under the tyranny of Agathocles, 
 which lasted from 317 B.c. to 289 B.c. Agathocles too 
 adorned the city with splendid buildings, but after his 
 death anarchy returned, till in 275 B.c. Hieron II made 
 
66 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 himself master. He reigned till 216 B.c. wisely and moder- 
 ately, and, after a first encounter, in alliance with Rome 
 now at grips with Carthage. Rome in 267 B.c. recognized 
 Hieron II as king of Syracuse with the dependent towns 
 of Acre, Helorus, Netum, Megara, Leontinoi and Tauro- 
 menium. His reign was one of the most fortunate periods 
 in the life of Syracuse. Theocritus, first among many 
 poets, adorned his court, and the city attained its highest 
 degree of splendour and magnificence. 
 
 His grandson Hieronymous succeeded him and made the 
 fatal error of exchanging the alliance of Rome for that of 
 Carthage, and during the Second Punic War, in spite of the 
 assassination of Hieronymous, Carthage maintained her 
 ascendency. The two Syracusan captains, Hippocrates and 
 Epicydes, shut the gates against the Roman general Mar- 
 cellus and compelled him to begin the famous siege in 
 214 B.c. which lasted for more than two years. 
 
 That siege is chiefly memorable for the achievements of 
 Archimedes of Syracuse, who by his superior science and 
 skill destroyed or sunk the Roman ships with his engines. 
 Marcellus had established a fortified camp at Leon on the 
 shore of the bay of Thapsus, and it was from the little 
 cove of Trogilus and perhaps by the Scala Greca, the hewn 
 flight of steps on the north of Tyche, that he scaled the 
 height, seized the gate at Hexapylum and stood at last on 
 Epipole. One by one the forts and the quarters of the 
 city fell into his hands from Euryalus to Neapolis, till only 
 Ortygia remained. This held out till it was betrayed to 
 him by a Spaniard named Mericus who had been entrusted 
 
 among others with the defence. Marcellus behaved cruelly — 
 
 and gave up the whole city to pillage, and in the confusion 
 Archimedes was accidentally slain. The plunder was 
 enormous, and it is said that the works of art, the pictures 
 and statues which Marcellus carried to Rome to adorn his 
 triumph, gave the Romans their first sight of the beauty of 
 Greek art. 
 
 From this time Syracuse became a mere provincial town 
 in the Roman system. But the barbarity of Marcellus in 
 
 stripping the city might seem to have been exaggerated, 
 for Verres, as Preetor of Sicily in 73-71 B.c., found plenty to 
 
 3 
 4 
 { 
 
 
 
SYRACUSE 67 
 
 loot there, and Cicero, whoimpeached him in 70 B.c. in his 
 famous oration In Verrem, calls Syracuse “‘ the greatest of 
 Greek cities and the most beautiful of all cities.’’ Cer- 
 tainly all the great buildings, the works of more than a 
 thousand years, still remained, and the great quarters of 
 the town, Ortygia, Achradina, Tyche, Neapolis, were still 
 crowded with houses and inhabitants. 
 
 It was not Marcellus but Sextus Pompeius the son of the 
 Triumvir who in 42 B.c. destroyed and dispeopled Syracuse, 
 inflicting upon it injuries from which it never recovered. 
 Little by little the mainland quarters were abandoned, 
 and such was the decayed condition of the place that we 
 find Augustus trying to repeople it and confining his efforts 
 to the island and the part of the city immediately adjoining 
 it in Achradina and Neapolis, where we still see the con- 
 siderable remains of Roman buildings, such as the amphi- 
 theatre, and of Roman restorations of Greek works, such 
 as the Theatre.. 
 
 So Syracuse continued a city of provincial importance 
 and a strong place in the administration of the Empire 
 and of Byzantium till in the year A.D. 878 it fell into the 
 hands of the Saracens, the last city of Sicily to do so, and 
 its citizens were one and all put to the sword, its fortifica- 
 tions destroyed, and the whole city burnt to the ground. 
 From this calamity it never recovered ; it merely continued 
 _ to exist in the thousand years twixt then and now in the 
 desolation we see to-day, the Island alone really inhabited, 
 Achradina, Tyche, Neapolis and Epipole, its glory and 
 its strength, dispeopled and uncultivated, a spare pasture- 
 land of sheep and goats, from which for the most part even 
 the ruins have crumbled away. 
 
 III 
 ORTYGIA 
 
 However you come to Syracuse to-day, whether from the 
 railway station, or from Villa Politi down the slope of 
 Achradina, or by road from Catania or Girgenti, you find 
 
68 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 yourself, on entering, in the great waste place, covered 
 with stray stones, rubbish and dust, and crossed by various 
 and uncertain tracks, which was of old the Agora and the 
 Forum of ancient Syracuse. Before you lies the Island— 
 Ortygia, with the Lesser Harbour and the Great Harbour 
 on either side, behind you lies Neapolis, to the left rises 
 the plateau of Achradina with Tyche and Epipole above it, 
 while behind the Great Harbour lie the marsh of Lysimeleia 
 and the mouth of the Anapus, and beyond, Polichne and the 
 Olympieion, and closing it on the far side the headland of 
 Plemmyrion. This desolate and neglected open space, that 
 was the Agora of the ancient city, is still as it were the key 
 to all that is left of it. 
 
 Vast as it is, it was of old vaster still, and surrounded by 
 the most beautiful porticoes, which the elder Dionysius 
 had built and of which Cicero speaks. Some fragments of 
 broken columns surrounded by a sort of cage are, it might 
 seem, all that remains of them. But the Agora certainly 
 included the Timoleonteum, the monument and tomb of 
 Timoleon, the beautiful remains of which are still to be 
 seen in the so-called Ginnasio Romano behind the railway 
 station. The Agora was closed towards the Island by a 
 great fortified gate called the Pentapyla. This has dis- 
 appeared. To-day you pass on to the island through a 
 wide unobstructed modern street, Corso Umberto I, and 
 crossing the bridge over the dock enter the Piazza Pancali. 
 
 The Island of Ortygia, always the heart and soul of 
 Syracuse, belonged to Artemis; it was always consecrated 
 to her and it bore her name, for she was said to have been 
 born in the grove of Ortygia near Ephesus. Diodorus 
 tells us that when Persephone was a child in Enna, or ever 
 Hades carried her away, she had for playmates the young 
 Goddesses Artemis (Diana) and Athena (Minerva) and all 
 three maids were vowed to virginity. They played together 
 in the fields of Enna, gathering flowers, themselves the 
 fairest flowers,and made arobe for their father Zeus. And 
 living there they looked upon Sicily as their home and 
 each by lot chose a spot to be peculiarly her own. To 
 Athena Himera fell, to Persephone Enna itself, to Artemis 
 the Island of Ortygia. 
 
 
 
SYRACUSE 69 
 
 So the original seat of the colony which throughout its 
 history remained the citadel and Acropolis of Syracuse was 
 sacred to Artemis. 
 
 _ Unlike most citadels it lay not above but below the rest 
 of the city, its strength residing in the fact that it was an 
 island: about a mile in length and less than half a mile in 
 breadth, composed of rock, and later joined to the main- 
 land by an artificial causeway and defended there by that 
 fivefold gateway the Pentapyla, behind which, facing the 
 outer city, the elder Dionysius constructed his great castle 
 or fortress adjoining the docks in the Lesser Harbour. 
 The fortifications of Charles V, which still remain, occupy 
 it might seem much the same position. 
 
 And since the Island was sacred to Artemis, ‘‘ The 
 couch of Artemis ”’ as Pindar calls it, its chief temple was 
 hers. Some remains of it may be seen, perhaps, not far 
 from the Piazza Pancali, in the Via Diana, laid bare in 
 1862. It was the most ancient Doric Temple in the Island 
 and perhaps in Sicily, peripteros-hexastyle but with at least 
 nineteen columns upon each flank. There still remain two 
 complete columns upon the south, and fragments of others 
 and of the architrave. 
 
 Much more considerable remains may be found of the 
 other temple which Cicero particularly notes as adorning 
 the city in his day. This is the Temple of Athena, and its 
 fortunate preservation to us is due to the fact that it has 
 become, with scarcely more than the necessary additions, 
 the Cathedral Church of the city, S. Maria delle Colonne. 
 This transformation seems to have been first accomplished 
 in the seventh century of our era by the Bishop Zosimus, 
 who filled up the interspaces of the columns with walls, 
 and consecrated the building for Christian use. 
 
 The Cathedral stands on the highest ground in the island 
 in a large piazza, Piazza del Duomo, at the other end of the 
 Via Cavour from the Temple of Artemis. Save upon the 
 north side you would not suspect from without that this 
 was an ancient building at all, but there the great Doric 
 columns and capitals are visible, and within the baroque 
 building of the eighteenth century you may see much 
 of the cella and may count certainly twenty-four of the 
 
 6 
 
70 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 thirty-six columns which upheld the Temple. For this 
 too was a peripteros-hexastyle temple raised upon a plat- 
 form of three steps, 185 feet long by 75 feet broad, with 
 fourteen columns upon each flank, dating from the sixth 
 century B.c., and according to Diodorus, built under the 
 government of the Geomori before Gelon came to Syracuse. 
 
 It was too one of the most magnificent temples in Sicily. 
 Its doors were covered with plates of gold and ivory and 
 their beauty was famous throughout the Greek world. 
 Within were many paintings, among them, according to 
 Cicero, a series representing a battle of cavalry in the wars 
 of Agathocles against Carthage and a series of portraits of 
 the Despots and Kings of Sicily. On the summit of the 
 Temple without was a shield, the shield of Athena; and 
 this was the last thing the Syracusan sailor saw when he 
 left home; for the southern sun shone full upon it and he 
 was wont, it is said, in some ritual of his, to hold in his 
 hands a vessel filled with fire from the altar of Hera so 
 long as the shield of Athena was visible to him, 
 
 Marcellus, when he gave Syracuse up to be plundered, 
 spared this temple, but Verres took away all he could, the 
 plates of gold and ivory from the doors, the pictures, the 
 sculpture : Cicero especially mentions a lovely head of the 
 Gorgon with snakes for hair. 
 
 As one stands there to-day when the church has been 
 stripped with some intention of restoration, it is with the 
 secure knowledge that one or other of the gods has been 
 worshipped in this building for not less than two thousand 
 five hundred years without break or intermission. When 
 the Parthenon at Athens was built by Pericles this temple 
 was already more than a hundred years old. The nave of 
 the present church was the cella of Athena, its font the 
 sacred cratera in the Temple of Dionysos, over its threshold 
 be sure Gelon and Dionysius and Timoleon have passed, 
 and in the shadow of its columns A¢schylus, Plato and 
 Theocritus have stood. It was already old when the 
 Athenian fleet was destroyed in the Great Harbour close 
 by, and its antique beauty saved it when Marcellus won 
 the Island for Rome, and seeing how venerable it was and 
 how dear to the gods, prevented its destruction. Nothing 
 

 
 CATHEDRAL, SYRACUSE 
 
SYRACUSE 71 
 
 else that remains in Syracuse can properly be compared 
 with it. 
 
 And indeed so far as the island is concerned, at any 
 rate there is nothing else at all belonging to antiquity— 
 unless it be the Fountain of Arethusa: but that has been 
 so restored, built about and “‘ beautified ”’ that it is scarcely 
 worth a visit. 
 
 O Fountain Arethuse... 
 
 It is not Milton alone who invokes what ages before his 
 day had come conventionally to be the pastoral fountain 
 of all fountains. Was it even Theocritus who began it, 
 Theocritus who in his first idyl makes Daphnis address part 
 of his farewell, Xaio’ ’Aoéowa. . . . 
 
 For assuredly Theocritus as well as Homer was beloved of 
 the fountains, andif the blind man ever drank of the Pega- 
 sean Fount Theocritus had drained a draught of Arethuse. 
 And then there is Virgil—if he indeed deserves in such 
 company to be so much as mentioned at all—Virgil with his 
 
 Extremum hune, Arethusa, mihi concede laborem, 
 
 But what did he know about it ? The too smooth rhythm 
 of the line belongs to ‘‘ smooth sliding Mincius ’’: his true 
 fount: for his eclogues are no more than 
 
 Mechanic echoes of Sicilian song. 
 
 “Return Alpheus... .” 
 
 “ Divine Alpheus who by secret sluse 
 Stole under Seas to meet his Avethuse,” 
 
 Yes, we can here dispense with Virgil. There is no room 
 for him. Greek and English poetry have celebrated 
 Arethusa, and the lovely song of Thcccriies is not lovelier 
 than the English: 
 
 “Return Alpheus, the dread voice is past, 
 That shrunk thy streams; return Szcilian Muse, 
 And call the Vales, and bid them hither cast 
 Their Bels and Flourets of a thousand hues. 
 Ye valleys low where the milde whispers use, 
 Of shades, and wanton winds, and gushing brooks, 
 On whose fresh lap the swart Star sparely looks, 
 
72 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 Throw hither all your quaint enameld eyes, 
 That on the green terf suck the honied showres, 
 And purple all the ground with vernal flowres. 
 Bring the rathe Primrose that forsaken dies, 
 The tufted Crow-toe and pale Gessamine, 
 
 The white Pink, and the Pansie freakt with jeat, 
 The glowing Violet, 
 
 The Musk-rose and the well-attir’d Woodbine, 
 With Cowslips wan that hang the pensive hed, 
 And every flower that sad embroidery wears ; 
 Bid Amaranthus all his beauty shed, 
 
 And Daffadillies fill their cups with tears, 
 
 To strew the Laureat Herse where Lycid lies.” 
 
 The Greek language itself could not bear Theocritus 
 above Milton there. 
 
 Who does not know the story of the river god Alpheus, a 
 river of Elis, and the nymph Arethusa ? Howshe, pursued 
 by Alpheus, was brought by Artemis here to Ortygia and 
 metamorphosed into a fountain: and how he pursued her 
 under the sea and there mixed his waters with hers; so 
 that when sacrifices were offered at Olympia, when the 
 river there was stained with blood, then too the Fountain 
 Arethusa was stained also. And a silver cup thrown into 
 the river in Elis would be found later in this fountain in 
 Ortygia. 
 
 That delightful story and the immense fame of the 
 Fountain should surely have saved it a little from the 
 neglect of the past and the attention of to-day. It is now 
 carefully walled and grated about, planted with papyrus 
 —why papyrus p—and filled with fat grey mullet. 
 
 Nothing could be less Theocritan. Give me the quays 
 and the sharp acrid smell of the fish stalls of Syracuse, the 
 dark cavernous hovels of Achradina, the olives of Epipolz 
 where the goatherd will share with me a cheese of Sicily, 
 and I may play with his golden cicala in a little cage of 
 rushes. Or give me the fat pastures of Anapus where there 
 is a wood of sweet almonds not far from the sea, where 
 Thyrsis pipes even yet. In all these places I shall find 
 Theocritus ; but at the Fountain of Arethusa ...? No, 
 what Virgil did to the Idylls, the Syracusans themselves 
 have done to their Fountain... . 
 
 The Fountain of Arethusa overlooks the Great Harbour, 
 
SYRACUSE 73 
 
 indeed stands close to the extreme point of the island upon 
 this side, opposite the great headland of Plemmyrion. 
 From here the Syracusans closed the harbour mouth with 
 their chained ships, from one point to the other, imprison- 
 ing the Athenian fleet which they then destroyed. 
 
 Close by and actually upon the seaward extremity of the 
 island is the Castle built by the Byzantine Captain, George 
 Maniaces, in 1038 and added to from time to time so that 
 you have a fine Gothic doorway and window of the four- 
 teenth century, a ruined Gothic hall and much work of the 
 time of Charles V. This Castle was built upon\the site of a 
 temple of Hera. Here was the altar from which the 
 departing sailor took the fire which he only flung into the 
 sea when he lost sight of the shield of Pallas on the top 
 of the Temple of Athena. Not a stone of this Temple 
 remains, nor of the Hexecontaclinus of which Diodorus 
 speaks, a building of Agathocles, the massive granaries of 
 which Livy tells us, the palace of Hieron where the Roman 
 Preetors, among them Verres, lived. Nor is there any trace 
 of the Greek walls. The remains of a tower however may 
 be seen on the north side in the Lesser Harbour. 
 
 There is left modern Syracuse. This is far more inter- 
 esting and charming than at first appears. The narrow 
 medizval-looking streets of the place are full of picturesque 
 bits, a courtyard here, a balcony there, a window, a door- 
 
 way, and one or two buildings are beautiful and charming. 
 _ The Palazzo Montalto for instance, just out of the Piazza 
 _Archimede, with its Gothic windows of the end of the 
 fourteenth century ; the Palazzo Bellomo at the end of the 
 Via Roma, the main street of modern Syracuse, a fine 
 building of the fifteenth century where the medieval col- 
 lections belonging to the Museum are now collected; the 
 Palazzo Lanza with its lovely windows of the same period, 
 in the Piazza Archimede ; the Palazzo Interlandi and the 
 Casa Mezzi in Via Gelone: these are but some of the 
 more striking buildings left in modern Syracuse from a 
 better time for building than our own. But altogether 
 they do not amount to very much. The chief interest of 
 the place remains Greek, and one finds it difficult to realize 
 that it ever had any other life. 
 
74 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 This impression is certainly confirmed by a visit to the 
 Museum in the Piazza del Duomo. 
 
 The Museum of Syracuse, Museo Nazionale, is in many 
 ways the most important in Sicily, though it has little that 
 will greatly interest the ordinary traveller. It is indeed 
 rather an archeological museum than a museum of fine 
 art, but it possesses a number of objects, chiefly Greek 
 sculpture in marble and terra-cotta which from the esthetic 
 point of view give it a considerable importance and cannot 
 but delight even the most casual visitor. 
 
 The Museum owes its origin toa cultured Syracusan, the 
 late Cavaliere Saverio Landolina Nava who, in the beginning 
 
 of the nineteenth century, made a collection of objects 
 
 which he himself had excavated. These formed a nucleus 
 and in 1811 a small archeological museum was inaugurated. 
 The people of Syracuse assisted with gifts from time to time 
 and a learned ecclesiastic, the Canon Lentinello, having 
 formed a fine collection of Greek coins, this was acquired 
 by the Commune upon his death and has been much 
 augmented since by Professor Paolo Orsi, the present 
 Director. To Professor Orsi indeed the Museum owes 
 much of its present importance and usefulness. It is to 
 him and to his predecessor Cavallari that by far the greater 
 part of its prehistoric objects—its pre-Hellenic collections— 
 are due and the splendid arrangement of everything and 
 its display. Here at least it is easy to see and even examine 
 everything that is shown. 
 
 On the ground floor are arranged the larger objects, and 
 the inscriptions, the architectural fragments, the sarcophagi, 
 among them a famous one from the catacombs of $.Giovanni. 
 Here too is collected what has been found of Greek sculp- 
 ture and statues—astonishingly little you might think till 
 you remember the infinite loot of Rome and the wars of 
 the Byzantine and the Arab. Even so one receives a very 
 poor impression of the artistic wealth of this Greek penta- 
 polis, for even among those few things the best have been 
 brought here from outside. That torso of a youth. for 
 instance (23624 in Sala VI) of the early fifth century B.c. 
 comes from Leontinoi; those two funereal reliefs from 
 Acre; those fine sarcophagi of terra-cotta with their 
 
SYRACUSE 75 
 
 internal decorations from Gela; and we are left with the 
 magnificent colossal bust of Poseidon, the colossal bust of 
 Persephone from the shrine at the Fount of Cyane, and a 
 broken fragment of a priestess wearing the peplum which 
 we presume to come from Syracuse itself. 
 
 But the most famous statue in the Museum is undoubtedly 
 Syracusan : though it is not Greek but Roman, a late copy 
 or derivation of the work of Praxiteles—Aphrodite Anadyo- 
 mene. 
 
 Guy de Maupassant has written many pages in enthu- 
 siastic praise of this work, and that is exactly what one 
 might haveexpected. It is, he explains, woman exactly as 
 she really is, as one likes her, as one desires her, as one 
 wishes to take her in one’s arms. 
 
 ““ Elle est grasse, avec la poitrine forte, la hanche puis- 
 sante et la jambe un peu lourde, c’est une Vénus charnelle, 
 qu’on réve couchée en la voyant debout. Son bras tombé 
 cachait ses seins ; de la main qui lui reste elle souléve une 
 draperie dont elle couvre, avec un geste adorable, les charmes 
 les plus mystérieux. . . . Ce geste simple et naturel, plein © 
 de pudeur et d’impudicité, qui cache et montre, voile et 
 révéle, attire et dérobe, semble définir toute ]’attitude de la 
 femme sur la terre. Et le marbre est vivant. On le 
 voudrait palper, avec la certitude qu’il cédera sous la main, 
 comme de la chair. Les reins, surtout, sont inexprimable- 
 ment animés et beaux. Ellese déroule avec tout son charme, 
 cette ligne onduleuse et grasse des dos féminins qui montre 
 dans la rondeur décroissante des cuisses et dans la légére 
 -courbe du mollet aminci jusqu’ aux chevilles, toutes les 
 modulations de la grace humaine . . . Ce torse admirable, 
 en marbre de Paros,-est, dit-on, la Vénus Callipyge décrite 
 par Athénée et Lampride, qui fut donnée par Héliogabale 
 aux Syracusains. Elle n’a pas de téte! Qu’ importe! 
 Le symbole en est devenu plus complet. C’est un corps 
 de femme qui exprime toute la poésie réelle delacaresse . . . 
 Elle est divine, non pas parce qu’elle exprime une pensée, 
 mais seulement parce qu’elle est belle.” 
 
 All this seems quite true and quite obvious and rather 
 boring, like the statue, which may explain much in late 
 manners that is difficult to understand : it certainly explains 
 
——_ 
 
 76 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 one’s preference for the older, the archaic Greek art and why 
 one ceases to be much interested after Pheidias. Yes, all 
 this is quite true. And what does it mean? Does it 
 not mean that this statue is so realistic that it has almost 
 ceased to be a work of art ? 
 
 On the upper floor are arranged the true riches of the 
 Museum: the loot from the necropoli, from Pantalica, 
 Castelluccio, Melilli, Augusta, Noto, Modica, Ragusa, 
 Terranova, Pachino, Plemmerio, Thapsus, Caltagirone anda 
 host of other places. Much, indeed most, of these infinitely 
 various objects, vases, cups, lamps, tear-bottles, tomb 
 furniture, votive offerings, bracelets, necklaces, rings, 
 needles, jewellery, flint knives, bronze weapons and so 
 forth are prehistoric and will have nothing to say to the 
 ordinary traveller. 
 
 Far more charming is the Ceramica di Siracusa and Megara 
 in Sala XII, the Ceramica di Gela and Camarina in Sala 
 XIII and above all the lovely terra-cottas from Syracuse, 
 Megara Hyblea, Centuripe, Grammichele, Gela and 
 Acragas in Sala XIV, XVand XVI. Many of these figurine 
 among them the exquisite Danzatrice in Sala XV, the lovely 
 veiled figure in Sala XIV (Arm. V. 1557), the dear little 
 
 figure of one loosing her sandal in Sala XV (9527) are of © 
 
 the very finest art of Greek Sicily, if indeed they do not 
 come from Greece proper: while the exquisite heads, of 
 Demeter for the most part, possibly votive, are unequalled 
 in the whole island. These wonderfully modelled heads 
 are generally archaic, of the most exquisite and delicate 
 workmanship, and are quite as lovely as the pre-Periclean 
 statues in the Acropolis Museum at Athens, though those 
 are in marble and these in terra-cotta. It is admirable 
 to see with what great works of art the Greeks in Sicily were 
 
 continually surrounded even in the ordinary ways of life: — 
 it is humiliating to realize that there is no one alive to-day ~ 
 
 who could make such things, or even conceive such beauty : 
 no not though the reward were to be a king’s ransom. 
 Nor for that matter are there many to feel the need of 
 them. 
 
 > 
 
 eee ee Oe eee eee ee ee Te eh me 
 
SYRACUSE 77 
 
 IV 
 ACHRADINA 
 
 The original foundation of Syracuse had been upon the 
 Island of Ortygia. Its first extension upon the mainland, 
 its first quarter, of those four, of which it at length came 
 to consist there, was Achradina. 
 
 Achradina stretched from the Agora and the Marsh of 
 Lysimeleia on the shore of the Great Harbour, over the 
 eastern portion of the northern plateau where it meets the 
 sea in lofty and precipitous cliffs of limestone. It included 
 the whole of the eastern part of that plateau as far as the 
 harbour of S. Panagia and within it were some of the most 
 ancient and the finest buildings of the city, for it was the 
 most important and the most extensive quarter of old 
 Syracuse. It divides itself naturally into two parts, that 
 which lies in the plain and that which lies upon the table- 
 land. The whole was thickly populated and early defended 
 by a wall, parts of which still remain upon the edge of the 
 cliffs between the two small islands, scarcely more than 
 rocks, of the Due Fratelli and the bay of S. Panagia, 
 
 That part of Achradina which lay in the plain imme- 
 diately opposite Ortygia included the Agora, the Lesser 
 Harbour and the Great Harbour, with the dockyards and 
 arsenals, It had at least one outer gate—the gate leading 
 to Gela which Cicero calls the Porte Agragine, a title that 
 seems to have puzzled modern historians, though it might 
 seem clear enough as named from Acragas, Girgenti that 
 is, long before Cicero’s day a far more important place 
 than Gela, and standing, though more distant, upon the 
 same road. Its situation however cannot be determined, 
 and this is doubly unfortunate, for just outside it, Cicero 
 tells us he found the neglected tomb of Archimedes. 
 . Of the buildings of Achradina mentioned by Cicero, it is 
 
 not only this gate and the tomb outside it which we miss ; 
 scarcely one of them remains. Of the Agora proper, with 
 its cloisters—porticoes—pulcherrime porticus, as he calls 
 them, nothing whatever remains save the fragments of 
 columns gathered together in that cage on the waste 
 
78 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 ground, and the Timoleonteum, which is fortunately in 
 great part left tous. But where was the Temple of Olympian 
 Zeus which stood here near the Agora, built by Hieron II, 
 which must not be confused with the older temple to the 
 same divinity at Polichne beyond the Anapus? Where 
 was the Prytaneum, the common house of the state, where 
 a perpetual fire was kept burning upon the altar and where 
 important state guests were housed and entertained ? 
 Not a vestige of it would seem toremain. Yet it was of the 
 greatest beauty and possessed a famous statue of Sappho 
 which Verres stole away. It was a work of Silanion and 
 one of the finest things anywhere to be found. And where 
 was the Senate House which also stood here in Achradina ? 
 
 Nothing of all this is to be found to-day except the 
 Timoleonteum, just behind the railway station on the road 
 to Noto. It was the great sepulchral monument erected 
 by Syracuse to the memory of Timoleon, the most noble 
 of her rulers and restorers. It consists of a palestra, 
 and close by is the base of a great construction, the mauso- 
 leum of Timoleon, with many fragments of exquisite 
 workmanship, pieces of cornices and capitals and carving, 
 
 One leaves it with reluctance, and crossing once more 
 the dusty Agora, makes one’s way uphill to Villa Politi 
 which stands over the only other monument of the Greek 
 time left in Achradina: I mean the great Latomia dei 
 Cappucini, certainly the finest of these vast excavations 
 which are so characteristic of Syracuse. 
 
 The Latomie of which there are the Latomia di S. Venera 
 the Latomia Casale, the Latomia del Paradiso, and this 
 called after the convent of Capuchins close by, were the 
 quarries of Syracuse, from the stone of which the whole 
 city was built. The word is as old as Thucydides, who 
 tells us that the many thousands of prisoners taken by 
 the Syracusans after the defeat of the Athenians and the 
 destruction of their fleet and armies in 413 B.C. were 
 imprisoned é» taig Aotouiasc—in the stone quarries, 
 At first he says they were treated harshly by the Syracusans. 
 Crowded as they were in large numbers in a deep and 
 narrow place, by day the sun and the suffocating heat 
 caused them distress, there being no roof; while the nights 
 

 
 THE LATOMIA DEI CAPPUCCINI 
 

 
SYRACUSE 79 
 
 were on the contrary autumnal and cold so that the sudden 
 change engendered illness. Besides they were so cramped 
 for space that they had to do everything in the same 
 place ; moreover the dead were heaped together one upon 
 another, some having died of wounds, others from the 
 changes in the temperature or like causes, so that there 
 was a stench that was intolerable. At the same time they 
 were oppressed by hunger and thirst—the Syracusans 
 having for eight months given them only a half pint of 
 water and a pint of food a day; and of all the other 
 ills which men thrown into such a place would be likely 
 to suffer there was none that did not befall them. 
 
 Some of those thus confined would recite a chorus or a 
 speech from the poets to the jeering multitude who locked 
 down upon them, and a few of these, partly by reason of 
 their skill, partly by reason of the beauty of the verses, 
 were released, and others taken into the service of some 
 wealthy Syracusan or even allowed to return to Hellas. 
 It was, we are told, the verses of Euripides which most 
 moved the Syracusans to mercy, and some of those who 
 owed their lives to the genius of the poet returned to 
 Athens and thanked him. 
 
 Those vast quarries, more than a hundred feet deep and 
 open to the sky, have for long now been planted with every 
 sort of tree and flowering shrub and turned into the most 
 lovely of sub-tropical gardens where the wind can never 
 spoil the blossom and many a tall cypress counts the 
 hours. It was the Cappucini who began this marvellous 
 transformation, taught no doubt by nature and by chance : 
 they used this place so vast, so great, so secluded, as a 
 place of hermitage almost, where one might lose oneself 
 and the world. Others have bettered what they began, 
 till to-day the Latomia is a paradise where all the winter 
 long without fear of the wind one may lie in the sun, in 
 a wonderful garden of flowers, amid cascades of bougain- 
 villea where avenues of cypress make a shade and the 
 olive and the agave and the cactus grow among the fan- 
 tastic precipices. But for all its beauty and silence one is 
 never happy there for long. It seems to be haunted by the 
 
 1 This was half the amount given to slaves. 
 
80 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 ghosts of those Athenian lads who starved there in scorn 
 so long ago, and its silence is broken by their sorrowful 
 voices. It is strange that of all the deeds of Syracuse, so 
 many of them beautiful, heroic and patient, it should. be 
 this cruelty that is remembered, that cannot be put out of 
 mind ; so that the very name of the city heard to-day in a 
 far country brings back at once those Athenian youths 
 reciting Euripides to a jeering multitude. 
 
 Other Latomie there are in Achradina which are worth a 
 visit, though none I think so beautiful and certainly none 
 of so poignant a memory as the Latomia dei Cappucini. 
 The road past the Villa Politi and the second road out of it 
 to the right lead to one of them, the Latomia Casale, with 
 its beautiful cypresses. Thence following the same road 
 past S. Giovanni, the first road to the left brings one 
 to the Villa Landolina in another small Latomia. 
 
 That church of S. Giovanni is as it happens by far the 
 most interesting church in Syracuse, as it is the most 
 picturesque. A ruin you might think as you note its 
 broken gable, porch and beautiful rose window, and in fact 
 what you see there is all that remains of the church of 1182. 
 But once within, a flight of steps descends to something 
 far older than the restored church above ground. Here 
 is not only the church or crypt of S. Marciano, but vast 
 catacombs larger than those of Rome, and, more inter- 
 esting still, the stylobate of a Greek temple, the Temple of 
 Dionysos, with some of the bases of the columns. 
 
 The church or crypt of S. Marciano, where you may still 
 see the tomb of that saint who here suffered martyrdom, 
 and certain remains of rude frescoes, is said to have been 
 that in which S, Paul preached when on his way from 
 Jerusalem to Rome after his appeal to Cesar. He came 
 in the Castor and Pollux from Malta where he had wintered 
 three months, ‘“‘and landing at Syracuse we tarried there 
 three days.’’1 It would be more interesting to stand 
 
 1 Acts xxviii. 12. Three days! The usual sojourn of the tourist 
 
 in Syracuse. One wonders what S. Paul did in Syracuse. He ~ 
 
 might have seen the city still in its glory of Temple and Portico. 
 But I suppose, like Gallio on another occasion, he cared for none 
 of these things. That is what annoys one so much in reading this 
 Apostle who had such fine opportunities of seeing some of the 
 
 ~ 
 
 —— a 
 
 ee ee. ee ee) oe 
 
 se ies ee BR 
 
 , ree? | 
 
SYRACUSE 81 
 
 in this place if, as we see it, it did not date rather from 
 the fourth century than the first. However, for those who 
 are interested in such things—and who is not ?—the 
 catacombs hard by will reward any amount of trouble to 
 see. Not that they really differ from those in Rome, save 
 that they are larger and less cramped—the main pas- 
 sage being ten feet wide—and have several large circular 
 halls which you do not find elsewhere. 
 
 These catacombs date I suppose from the fourth cen- 
 _ tury; but earlier may be found a few yards away at 
 S. Maria di Gest, which date from the middle of the third 
 century, and these are the oldest in Syracuse. No one 
 knows the extent of, these curious burial places; they are 
 said torun for many milesinalldirections. Theyinevitably 
 recall the prehistoric tombs with which the whole island is 
 honeycombed : so visibly in Sicily do the dead outnumber 
 the living. 
 
 As well worth seeing as the church of S. Marciano or 
 the catacombs of S. Giovanniis the church of S. Lucia which 
 can be reached in a few minutes from S. Maria di Gesu. 
 The church, dating from the eleventh century, of which 
 however only the western entrance remains, is that of the 
 patron saint of Syracuse, S. Lucia, the child who suffered 
 here in the end of the third century. Like S. Agatha of 
 Catania she is also always invoked at Mass, for her name 
 too appears upon the diptych in the Canon. The church 
 itself is devoid of interest, but you pass from it by a sub- 
 terranean passage out of the south transept to the octagonal 
 chapel, Cappella del Sepolcro, indeed the old Baptistery, 
 which is now half underground. Here is a recumbent 
 figure of the saint by some pupil of Bernini; but more 
 interesting by far, on the stairway leading into the chapel 
 are two magnificent twelfth-century crucifixes which I 
 am glad not to have missed. They are by far the most 
 precious works of art in the city, apart from those of the 
 Greek time. 
 
 loveliest things in the world. Even in Athens he behaved like a 
 barbarian and does not seem to have liked what he took the 
 trouble to see. And this was the man who was in possession in 
 some sort of the religion of the future! 
 
82 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 Vv 
 NEAPOLIS 
 
 It was from Villa Politi, again past Villa Landolina, that 
 I made my way into Neapolis, which lies on the southern 
 slope of Achradina towards the plain. 
 
 As its name implies, Neapolis is the New City, the latest 
 quarter of Greek Syracuse, of which however it soon grew 
 to be perhaps the most splendid part, as little by little the 
 Island became more and more of a fortress. It originated 
 in the suburb of Temenites, which was as old I supposeas 
 Achradina and certainly older than the Athenian Expedi- 
 tion. Temenites grew up round the sanctuary of Apollo 
 Temenites, the god, that is, ‘‘ of the sacred precincts ”’ and 
 so I suppose of the wall. This temple or shrine seems 
 to have stood on a height, possibly the height above the 
 Theatre, and contained a precious statue of the gad which 
 Verres was unable to remove by reason of its size but which 
 Tiberius is said to have carried off to Rome. Near by 
 stood the Temples—possibly the double Temple—of 
 Demeter and Persephone, but these, like the sanctuary of 
 Apollo, have altogether disappeared. 
 
 Entering Neapolis as I did from the plateau of Achradina, 
 the first thing I came upon lying back from the road on 
 the left was the Roman Amphitheatre. This is a vast 
 building in the form of an eccentric ellipse cut out of the 
 hillside with an arena larger than that of Verona and very 
 considerable remains. It lies charmingly amid gardens 
 from which the whole building is very well seen. Probably 
 
 a work of the time of Augustus, measuring 140 metres by 
 
 119, it was entered by a portal at each extremity and is 
 
 surrounded by a lofty parapet above which the seats are q 
 
 cut tier above tier from the rock. In the midst is a large 
 basin served from cisterns under the house of the custode 
 on the other side of the road, possibly for naumachie, 
 and vaulted corridors surround the arena under the para- 
 pet. Of all such buildings I have seen, among them those 
 
 at Verona and Pompeii, this is by far the best built and the © . 
 
 most charming : perhaps because it is in all probability the 
 work of Greek builders. 
 
 
 
SYRACUSE 88 
 
 After leaving the amphitheatre a walk of a hundred yards 
 or so brought me to the entrance of the Latomia del 
 Paradiso on the right of the road. It seems altogether to 
 lack the charm of that of the Capuchins and indeed of 
 S. Vénera and Casale, but if it has not the delicious beauty 
 of those marvellous gardens it possesses in the ‘‘ Ear of 
 Dionysius’ and the Grotto of the Rope Makers two 
 interesting curiosities they cannot match. 
 
 The Latomia is a vast excavation in the rock of the 
 plateau which here rises to a sheer height of about 130 
 feet, overhung by a most luxuriant growth and vegetation 
 of all kinds. It was of course, like the other Latomie, one 
 of the quarries of Syracuse. These vast excavations, use- 
 less for all other purposes, must have seemed especially 
 adapted for prisons, and just as the Syracusans used the 
 Latomia dei Cappucini as a prison for their Athenian 
 captives, so were they all, and, it seems, from an early 
 period, employed as prisons, and, later, as prisons for 
 criminals from all over Sicily. Cicero speaks of them in 
 thissense. ‘‘ You have allheard,’’ he says, ‘‘ of the Syracu- 
 san stone quarries. Many of you are acquainted with 
 them. They are indeed vast and splendid; the work of 
 the old kings and tyrants. They are cut out of the rock, 
 excavated to a marvellous depth by the labour of great 
 multitudes of men. Nothing can be made or imagined 
 so close against all escape, so hedged in on all sides, so 
 safe for keeping prisoners in. Into these quarries men are 
 commanded to be brought even from other cities in Sicily 
 if they have to be kept in custody.”’ 4 
 
 He goes on later in his Oration against Verres to speak 
 more particularly of this Latomia, which we call, it might 
 seem in irony, “‘ del Paradiso.’’ At least I suppose it is 
 to this Latomia he refers, as “‘ that prison which was built 
 at Syracuse by that most cruel tyrant Dionysius.’’ Tra- 
 dition at any rate is on the side of Cicero, and in fact the 
 whole story of the ‘‘ Ear of Dionysius ”’ rests on no other 
 foundation than tradition, which however is not traceable 
 beyond the sixteenth century. 
 
 The story goes that Dionysius the Elder caused a cavern 
 
 1 Cicero: In Verrem v, 27. 
 
84 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 in the shape of an ear to be excavated in the loftiest wall of 
 the Latomia, in such a manner that the softest whisper in 
 the cave could be overheard by himself or his officer in an 
 apartment above. There he intended to confine all his 
 personal enemies or those whom he suspected of being so. 
 And when all was well finished in order that his secret 
 might be kept he put all the workmen employed upon it to 
 death. 
 
 There is of course no foundation for this very pleasing 
 story, nor in truth are the qualities of this cavern such as 
 tradition ascribes to them. Like every one who has visited 
 the place I was struck at once as I approached that vast 
 excavation by the curious likeness the opening bears to a 
 human ear and still more impressed by the enormous 
 multiple echo within. A bugle blown there re-echoes 
 again and again till you seem to hear a complete military 
 band. A canon sung there resounds exquisitely like a 
 phrase from a motet by Palestrina or Vittoria. A piece of 
 - paper lightly torn there sounds like the report of a rifle ; 
 and the voice though it be no more than a whisper is like the 
 voice of a multitude. Nothing more curious is to be found 
 in Sicily: the effect being much greater though far less 
 beautiful than the magical echo in the Baptistery at Pisa. 
 
 I was not able to ascend to the chamber where Dionysius 
 is said to have sat to hear what was really thought of him, 
 for I was told that it was inaccessible: but the custode 
 assured me, and I can very well believe it, that the multi- 
 plication of sound is so elaborate and confusing that noth- 
 ing said in the cavern can be distinguished above by reason 
 of the confusion of sounds. 
 
 Quite apart from its supposed purpose, the Ear of 
 Dionysius has much of interest, and can, should the 
 traveller have the inclination, as I had, be put to an 
 exquisite use by employing three or four singers to sing 
 there, plain chant and falstbordoni. Theeffectis beautiful. — 
 
 This cavern is 18 feet wide and 58 feet high and runs ~ 
 into the hill in the shape of a capital S. a 
 
 A little farther on in the Latomia is the Grotta dei — 
 Cordari, a long pillared cavern often flooded, used by the ’ 
 ropemakers. % 
 
 
 
SYRACUSE 85 
 
 On coming out of the Latomia del Paradiso I found on the 
 opposite side of the road the remains of the vast Ara of 
 Hieron II. It is said to be 640 feet long and 75 feet wide, 
 and is supposed to have served at the annual festival to 
 celebrate the fall of the tyrant Thrasybulus in 466 B.c., 
 when 450 bulls were offered to Zeus in sacrifice. But if 
 that be so, I do not understand how it can have been built 
 by Hieron II who reigned two hundred years after this 
 event. Thrasybulus was the younger brother of Gelon 
 and Hieron, the earlier tyrants of Syracuse. Perhaps 
 Hieron II restored the altar; but why should he? Dio- 
 dorus however distinctly suggests if he does not actually 
 assert that the Ara was the work of Hieron. Possibly the 
 true explanation may be that it was built to celebrate the 
 deliverance of Syracuse and Sicily from tyrants by Timoleon. 
 Diodorus 1 speaks of it generally as one of the great works 
 which had been constructed in Syracuse as the result of the 
 prosperity with which the pacification of Timoleon endowed 
 Sicily: the whole passage is very general and therefore 
 obscure. 
 
 And now on that wonderful spring day I came to what 
 when all be said is by far the greatest and most moving 
 Greek monument left in Syracuse—the Theatre. When 
 I first saw those grey semi-circular tiers—tier above tier 
 hewn from the hillside—I confess my heart came into 
 my mouth. I think it must be so with every one and 
 especially if, as was my case, this is the first Greek theatre 
 he has seen. Before examining it closely I climbed up 
 to the Nympheum above it, past the Torre del Teatro to 
 see the view it embraced. There before me as before 
 the ancient spectators lay the city itself, the island Ortygia 
 visible in its whole extent and of course far less beautiful 
 to-day than of old when its white painted temples rose up 
 above the houses and the great gateway the Pentapylon 
 closed the city. I saw the entrance to the Lesser Har- 
 bour, towered once, the Great Harbour in its whole extent 
 as far as the farther headland of Plemmyrion, together with 
 that low, curved shore, the whole vale of the Anapus and 
 beyond the Temple of Olympian Zeus. 
 
 1 Diodorus xvi, 83. 
 7 
 
86 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 When I had seen all this—the noble background—but 
 oh how changed—of every play, before which was per- 
 formed alike the Agamemnon or the Persians or the Gidipus 
 or the Lysistrata : when I had seen all this in the sunshine 
 and thought a little upon it, I came down to the orchestra, 
 and upon the site of the stage I began to examine this 
 building certainly for us, at least as sacred as a temple. 
 
 This, like almost every other Greek theatre in the world 
 is cut out of the hillside, here out of the face of the plateau, 
 where it slopes steeply but not precipitously to the plain 
 about a thousand yards from the shore of the Great Har- 
 bour. 
 
 Nearly semicircular in form the ¢heatrum proper is hewn 
 out of the rock in a series of sixty concentric semicircles of 
 which forty-five remain, decreasing in size from the top 
 to the bottom where the lower seats were covered with 
 slabs of white marble. It is divided in its whole breadth 
 by two passages or precinctiones one broad and one narrow 
 running round the theatrum parallel with the seats or 
 benches. In these passages when the theatre was full 
 many would stand, for the inner side of each passage 
 formed a wall below the upper rows of seats and here in 
 some theaires niches were hewn to contain bronze vessels 
 to increase the sound of the voices coming from orchestra 
 and stage. Through the rows of seats from top to bottom 
 are built flights of steps by which the audience ascended 
 from the lower to the higher seats. But these steps 
 run in a Straight line continuously only from one precintio 
 to another. Those in the next series of seats are placed 
 just between the two flights of the series below. Thus 
 these stairways divide the Theatre proper into a number 
 of compartments or cunet so called because they resemble 
 
 cones with the tops cut off. Some of these cunei are still 
 
 inscribed in capital letters with the names of Hieron and the 
 two queens Philistis and Nereis, with that of Zeus and 
 Heracles and it is said with the epithet Higedé» which may 
 have referred to the festive nature of the occasion: the 
 feast of Dionysos. 
 
 Unfortunately the ¢heatrum is incomplete here as every- 
 where else. The highest rows of seats are missing, and 
 

 
 GREEK THEATRE, SYRACUSE 
 

 
SYRACUSE 87 
 
 of course the covered portico which rose above them and 
 which probably helped to improve the acoustic qualities 
 of the building. No roof covered the theatrum or the 
 orchestra, but it is probable that, as in a bull ring to-day, 
 awnings were stretched to shield the better seats, at any 
 rate, from the sun. 
 
 The entrances to the theatrum were partly underground. 
 Some of them are quite visible to-day and the upper 
 rows were no doubt accessible from above. 
 
 The Theatre of Syracuse is not less than 440 feet in dia- 
 meter and is said to have held 24,000 persons. It was thus 
 not only the largest in Sicily as Cicero tells us, but larger 
 than the theatre of Dionysos at Athens. It was however 
 much smaller than the theatres at Epidaurus, Megalopolis, 
 Argos and Ephesus. 
 
 The inscriptions I noticed on the cunet are evidently of 
 the time of Hieron II who may well have restored the 
 theatre, but it is far older than that. It seems to have 
 been erected by Gelon or Hieron IJ in the fifth century B.c. 
 _ If this be so, it is {one of the oldest as well as one of 
 _ the least imperfect in the world, though of course it has 
 - suffered restoration at the hands of the Romans. 
 
 Unhappily, though the orchestra remains, nothing at all 
 is left of the stage. In the centre of the supposed circle of 
 the orchestra stood the altar of Dionysos, the thymele, 
 which was generally built of boards and was of course 
 much nearer the stage than it was to the theatrum. It was 
 ascended on all sides by steps and thus stood on a raised 
 platform which was often occupied by the leader of the 
 Chorus, the flute-player and the rhabdophori. The promp- 
 ter or monitor was placed before this structure so that he 
 faced the stage and was not seen by the audience. The 
 Chorus was arranged round the ¢hymele or rather between 
 it and the stage. 
 
 Standing there in the silence of evening, in the midst of 
 these ruins, these broken fragments, this spoiled but still 
 sacred place, what voices one asks oneself have these 
 stones heard, and to what words and to what verses have 
 these walls re-echoed? A®schylus certainly has looked 
 upon that theatrum, has stood in that orchestra; these 
 
88 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 rocks have heard his voice. For the tyrant of Syracuse, 
 Hieron I, we know, he wrote his lost play The Women 
 of Aetna, we know that here in Syracuse The Persians was 
 played, not indeed for the first time, but it was played to- 
 gether with the rest of the trilogy with which he had been 
 victorious at Athens in 472 B.c. He also composed here 
 other plays, but of which they were we are ignorant. 
 No doubt this hill has heard the voice of the watchman, 
 the cry of Agamemnon, and the lamentable voice of the 
 daughter of Priam, whose throat the perfidious Clytem- 
 nestra cut beside him. The words of Antigone too, the 
 voice of Electra: no doubt these walls have heard them. 
 Nor have they forgotten the laughter of Lysistrata, surely 
 an irresistible thing—after the failure of the Expedition 
 to which it refers; and the Peace and the Birds. ... 
 Slowly the sun sets over the wine-faced sea ; purple is it 
 or mixed gold and crimson? Night is coming. In the 
 tawny Street of Tombs it is already dark ; the glow of the 
 gaunt honeycombed rock but makes darker the emptiness 
 of the empty tombs. In the Nymphzum I can hear the 
 water slowly running as it has run for thousands of years. 
 Somewhere, darkling among the olives, the heavy laurels 
 or the vines, somewhere a bird sings, ah, the nightingale .. . 
 Do you remember, do you remember, the words of 
 Antigone in the Colonus? yégos 6’ 68’ ieods. . . . 
 
 But where we stand is surely holy ground 
 A wilderness of laurel, olive, vine; 
 
 Within a choir of songster nightingales 
 Are warbling. On this native seat of rock 
 Rest; thou hast travelled far... 
 
 VI 
 EPIPOL 
 
 There are two, in fact three, ways of approaching Epipole, 
 the loftiest and most western part of the plateau, crowned 
 at its farthest point by the greatest Greek fortress in the 
 world, the Castle of Euryalus. For you may go by the 
 
 Tee 7 a ae ees | ay! a a 
 
 
 
 "oF ene nee ee ee Aa 
 
SYRACUSE 89 
 
 lower road, the “‘ Old Road,’’ under the southern escarp- 
 ment of the tableland, the road to Floridia, and presently 
 take a by-way up to Euryalus; or you may follow the 
 road to Catania out of Syracuse and leave it for the ‘‘ New 
 Road ’”’ that follows the aqueduct, just before the Casa 
 dei Gesuiti, and so proceed over the plateau itself within 
 the southern wall of Dionysius, to Euryalus ; or you may 
 follow the Catania road right across the plateau and descend 
 the northern slope by the bay of Trogilus ; then just before 
 you come to the Scala Greca you leave it for a by-way and 
 proceed all the way under the northern wall of Dionysius 
 between the plateau and the sea, to Euryalus at last. 
 
 Each of these ways has its own beauties and advantages. 
 The “old road’ gives you the valley of the Anapus and 
 the farther hills ; the ‘‘ new road ”’ by the Casa dei Gesuiti 
 gives you something of the plateau and the valley too; 
 the northern road by the Scala Greca gives you the sea 
 and the sea shore, Thapsus and the olives that are older 
 than Christianity, and infinite fields of flowers, the 
 asphodel, the anemone. You go by one and return by 
 another. 
 
 It was the wind that generally decided the matter for 
 me, for if it was from the south I went under the northern 
 escarpment but if from the north then I chose the “‘ old 
 road’ to the south. The shadier and least dusty way is 
 that to the north. 
 
 I shall not easily forget the first morning I drove out 
 by Villa Politi and following the by-ways across Achradina 
 - came into the straight Catania road over Tyche and followed 
 it. Presently just where the road began to turn we came 
 to the northern edge of the tableland where it slopes steeply 
 towards the sea. No one who has seen it can ever forget 
 that view: it is not only beautiful in itself, but there is 
 added to it something from the mind, some memory of 
 what till then has only dwelt in the imagination, living 
 there since boyhood from the pages of Thucydides. For 
 that turn of the road suddenly gives you the whole of 
 that storied shore; to your right the promontory of Tro- 
 gilus, Capo S. Panagia, below you the little bay where 
 the Athenians landed, the strange peninsula of Thapsus 
 
90 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 under shelter of which lay the Athenian fleet, the blue 
 Ionian as far as Augusta, the mountains of Hybla, and, 
 over all, smoking Etna, a pyramid of snow floating in the 
 sky. How often have I lain a whole morning through, 
 in the shade of the trees there, in a world of flowers, Thucy- 
 dides beside me and thought myself blessed. 
 
 But on that first morning I was for Euryalus. Slowly 
 in sight of that sea we wound down the hill and presently 
 leaving the Catania road followed the by-way on the left 
 across a waste of fields scattered with the blue anemone, 
 till, at a lovely turn of the way beneath the steep escarp- 
 ment we halted under the olives, and we made our way 
 through the tall asphodel up a slope of broken rock which 
 presently became a vast flight of steps hewn in the lime- 
 stone and leading to the summit—the Scala Greca. 
 
 There could be no doubt for a moment that this stair- 
 way was the work of man, the work of Syracuse, nor that 
 it led to the northern or sea gate of Tyche, Hexapylon. 
 And surely it was by these steps both the Athenians and 
 the Romans climbed the height, the Romans from their 
 fortified camp of Leon when after a siege and blockade 
 of more than two years Marcellus at last succeeded in 
 entering Tyche. 
 
 And now returning to the road we followed it ever more 
 eagerly as winding among most ancient olives, closer and 
 closer under the ruined walls of the escarpment, it climbed 
 to the summit of the plateau, and there, in chaos now, 
 but still in majesty, upreared Euryalus its broken towers 
 threatening the soft sky. 
 
 It was from those towers and the great walls which still 
 stand about them that I turned to the expected landscape. 
 
 To the west upon its narrow ridge stood up the look-out 
 of the Belvedere, its village at its feet against the vast 
 flat tableland thrust out like a promontory, of the Monti 
 Climiti—the Thymbris of Theocritus. To the north, the 
 sea stretched away to Augusta past Thapsus and the hills 
 of honied Hybla. To the south lay the wide vale of the 
 Anapus dusky with orchards, ramparted with mountains, 
 among which here and there shone out a town, Floridia, 
 Solarino, Sortino perhaps. And last to the east my eyes 
 
 
 
SYRACUSE 91 
 
 sought Syracuse, the island of Ortygia and the Great 
 Harbour between it and Plemmyrion. And all between 
 lay the plateau Epipole—a vast emptiness guarded still 
 by the ruined walls of Dionysius, and the dark ruin piled 
 on ruin, the gigantic fortress of Euryalus. 
 ’ But those walls—they seemed to stretch for miles, hewn 
 stone tumbled upon hewn stone in enormous overthrow ; 
 squared block piled upon squared block, strewn down the 
 steep slopes to north and south or standing, still indestruc- 
 tible, upon the escarpment. The transitory wind that 
 blew shrewdly about them, the frail flowers whispering 
 and blowing among them, the asphodel, the anemone, 
 seemed to emphasize their permanence, their continuance ; 
 to establish their triumph. 
 
 Musing there upon the fortress it is easy to see what 
 Epipole was. Epipole, literally I suppose the place ‘“‘ at 
 the top’”’ was at first all this great triangular plateau 
 which gradually slopes down from its apex at Euryalus 
 to its base upon the western wall of Achradina. But when 
 the lower part of the plateau came to be inhabited and the 
 quarters of Tyche and Neapolis established and drawn 
 within the city, the name was confined to that part of it 
 which lay outside them, the highest part of this table- 
 land. And in fact Epipole altogether differed from every 
 other part of the city, if only in this, that it never seems 
 to have been populated. It was, so it might seem, nothing 
 but a military quarter, walled on the north and south by 
 the elder Dionysius and wholly dependent upon the great 
 _ fortress at its peak. It was the outer defence of Syracuse, 
 and, if not always as empty as it is to-day, never certainly 
 covered with buildings, with houses, whose foundations 
 you will seek in vain. There is nothing upon Epipole, 
 nothing but its broken walls, its fortress, the shepherd 
 and his sheep, the flowers and the wind. 
 
 Those walls however and that fortress are enough. They 
 are together one of the most astounding Greek works in 
 existence, and the fortress, Euryalus, is probably the best 
 example? left us of an ancient fortress or castle designed both 
 
 11It may be compared with Eleuthere above the road from 
 Eleusis to Thebes in Greece proper. 
 
92 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 as a citadel and as the apex of a defensive position ; built 
 here to secure the approach to Epipolz from this quarter. 
 
 It was the wisdom of the elder Dionysius that established 
 it. In truth the Athenian expedition had shown the vital 
 necessity of a fortress at this spot and Dionysius, im- 
 mediately upon his establishment as tyrant, began its 
 erection. Not a moment too soon: for the Carthaginian 
 onslaught which followed the Athenian defeat was flung 
 back before it when it had laid low every other Greek city 
 in Sicily. That defence proved its value as the head 
 of the defences of Syracuse; its value as a citadel was 
 demonstrated in the attack of Marcellus when Euryalus 
 was held by a separate garrison after the capture of the 
 walls of Epipole, threatening the army of Marcellus 
 then attacking Achradina, in the rear. 
 
 Of most such places the fame exceeds the impression 
 you receive when youseethem. It is not so with Euryalus. 
 As you pass up and down those vast subterranean corridors 
 hewn out of the living rock or built of wrought stone, 
 from court to court, from hall to hall, from chamber to 
 chamber, from outwork to outwork, those five great broken 
 towers rise up and seem to threaten the very sky; and 
 as you gaze at it again from afar it seems to block the mind. 
 
 It is little that our modern artillery and high explosive 
 would make nothing of its strength; it is everything 
 that the weapons of its day, the sword, the spear, the bow, 
 the catapult and the battering ram were obviously power- 
 less to move it, and proved in fact less formidable than 
 the wind and the rain. It has been too much even for 
 the earthquake, and still stands there square upon earth, 
 
 and to the seeing eye perhaps one of the most formidable — | 
 
 things upon it. 
 
 It is good to clamber about those broken walls, to sit 
 among those vast lines of ruin looking over Thapsus towards 
 Megara, or over the Anapus to the Great Harbour and 
 
 Ortygia, while through the long afternoon the shepherd leads © 
 
 his sheep among the stones from pasture to pasture. 
 Wandering thus aimlessly from side to side I came by 
 chance upon the one oasis of this beautiful desert that is 
 Epipole. I mean the Latomia del Filosofo where it is 
 
 we se a ae 
 
 
 
SYRACUSE 93 
 
 said that Dionysius imprisoned the poet Philoxenus for 
 laughing at his verses. Dionysius did well, for looking 
 upon these stones I cannot think him less than a poet. 
 And then he could build with words too. His tragedies 
 were not unsuccessful even at Athens, and did he not win 
 the first prize at the Lenaea with a play called The Ransom 
 of Hector? It had been a play of A%schylus too. Both 
 are for ever lost. And all the verses of Dionysius like 
 the verses of Philoxenus have perished: only these stones 
 remain. 
 
 And so thinking of that ill chosen subject for a tragedy 
 The Ransom of Hector, for indeed Homer has written it once 
 and for all, and I wonder what even Eschylus could have 
 made of it after those incomparable pages in the twenty- 
 fourth book of the Iliad, I continued on my way afoot 
 along the length of Epipole; the pasture land of sheep 
 and goats. Infinite flocks there seemed to be moving 
 across the tableland, and scarcely discernible among the 
 stones, till you came almost upon them and the sheep dogs 
 came barking and baying and circling around you showing 
 their teeth. Fear quickened my memory and it came to 
 me that I had learned how to deal with these brutes in 
 the pages of Theocritus. So I stooped and picked up a 
 stone and off they made yelping—baying as Theocritus 
 says for the bayings sake. 
 
 And so I came at length to the Scala Greca and evening 
 began to fall. And the shepherd and the goatherd came 
 by and folded their flocks in the great caverns at the end 
 of the day. But I waited there for the sunset to stain 
 the snows of Etna and die upon the sea; till like an 
 exquisite ghost, like a vision in a world beyond our sight 
 Etna faded away and the sea itself might rather be heard 
 than seen. 
 
 Then I made my way by the broken, walled roads, 
 hither and thither, across Achradina, back to the city. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 ROUND ABOUT SYRACUSE 
 
 I 
 THE FOUNTAIN OF CYANE 
 
 F all Sicilian cities I have loved Syracuse best, 
 () not only for its own sake, its so individual beauty, 
 
 the nobility of its situation, its manifold treasures, 
 its unrivalled past ; but also for the interest and delight 
 of its landscape, the charm of its walks, the beauty of 
 the surrounding country. And so I shall set down here 
 for remembrance, very briefly, a few of the walks and 
 excursions I like best. 
 
 Every one I suppose who comes on a visit to Syracuse, 
 however brief be his stay goes to the Fountain of Cyane: 
 that delicious source beyond the Olympieum in the wide 
 vale of the Anapus. 
 
 It used to be the rule to visit this abode of the Nymph 
 all the way by boat from the Great Harbour, but the 
 canalization of the Anapus and its embankment has made 
 this way of approach much less enjoyable than of old. 
 It is usual now to drive all the way from Syracuse as far 
 as the second bridge over the Anapus and there to take 
 a boat for the all too brief journey up the Cyane stream. 
 
 You leave the city by the Noto road, past the Timoleon- 
 teum and after traversing the famous marsh of Lysimeleia 
 cross the Anapus and the Cyane by the Ponte Grande. 
 Once across the bridge you turn immediately to the right 
 up the high embanked stream, and in about a mile, after 
 passing the railway, you come to the second bridge. It 
 is just here you find the boat upon the Cyane. 
 
 The stream which is of some depth, especially for © 
 
 94 
 
 
 
ROUND ABOUT SYRACUSE 95 
 
 Sicily, is a considerable body of water abounding in 
 mullet ; it runs swiftly. The bottom is clearly seen all 
 the way and is covered with a thick growth of flags and 
 weeds. The stream is not only swift and deep, but narrow, 
 and the rower has often a hard, and always a difficult, 
 task to manceuvre the heavy boat against it, between the 
 ever thickening foliage on the banks. 
 
 Presently the first papyrus comes in sight and you soon 
 find yourself passing between tall groves of this strange 
 Egyptian plant, introduced here asit is said by the Saracens,1 
 and here alone still growing freely, in all Europe. 
 
 The curious tufted green reed, which in ancient times 
 was widely cultivated in the Nile Delta, but which is now 
 extinct in Lower Egypt, grows here to a height of about 
 twelve feet. It is of course famous because the Egyptians 
 made a kind of paper or rather writing material from it. 
 The curious and characteristic long-tufted head of the 
 plant which is not very happily I think likened by Pliny 
 to a thyrsus is useless except for making garlands for the 
 shrines of the gods; it was the stem which was valuable. 
 The Egyptians put this to all sorts of uses. They made 
 boats from it and sails and cords and of course above all 
 writing material. Herodotus says that the lower part 
 was eaten and gives instructions for cooking it. I have 
 tried it, but it proved tough and tasteless. He also says 
 that it was used for making the sandals of priests. Hero- 
 dotus is generally supposed to have been the first to record 
 the papyrus or as he calls it the Bdfsoc. But I am not 
 at all sure that Homer does not allude to it? when he says 
 that Odysseus fastened the doors, when he slew the suitors, 
 with ézdov BépAivov. And when we read that Moses 
 as a baby was hidden in “‘ an ark of bulrushes ’’ we must 
 I suppose understand an ark of papyrus. 
 
 As for the Greeks just as they got the alphabet from 
 
 1 As to the cultivation of the Papyrus in Europe, Strabo asserts 
 that it grew on Lake Trasimeno. It certainly was cultivated in 
 Sicily, where it was introduced by the Saracens, and throve at 
 Palermo. But in the thirteenth century it began to disappear. 
 As for these groves on the Cyane we do not hear of them before 
 
 the end of the seventeenth century. 
 2 Odyssey XXI, 390. 
 
96 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 the Phcenicians, so they got their first paper, the papyrus 
 from the Egyptians; and Herodotus tells us they called 
 the papyrus sheets skins, because formerly, for lack of 
 papyrus, they used the skins of sheep and goats. The 
 preparation seems to have been very simple. The stems 
 were first pared and the pith cut lengthwise into thin 
 slices which were laid side by side on a flat board. Other 
 slices were laid across them at right angles, their surfaces 
 being cemented together with a sort of glue. They were 
 then subjected to great pressure and thoroughly dried, 
 when the manufacture was complete. 
 
 It is through the ever thickening groves of this famous 
 and picturesque plant that you come at last to the source 
 or fountain of Cyane. This is a large pool of marvellously 
 clear water thirty feet deep—the spring of the Cyane 
 stream. It is a spot of rare beauty and peace, but sur- 
 rounded on all sides by an impassable and malarious marsh. 
 The sanctuary or shrine of the Nymph to whom it was 
 sacred must have stood on the height to the west, where 
 in fact some ruins remain. 
 
 But who was this Nymph, who had so lovely a dwelling, 
 where the yellow iris grows amid green water-meadows bright 
 with wild flowers, and Etna far away reigns over all ? 
 
 According to Ovid she was the most famous of the native 
 Sicilian nymphs, a playmate of Persephone. When Hades 
 carried off that maid of Enna it was here, where the Nymph 
 had her abode, that he plunged down to his dark kingdom. 
 But Cyane stood forth in the midst of her pool as far as 
 her waist and cried, ‘“‘ No farther shalt thou go! Thou 
 canst not be the son-in-law of Demeter against her will. 
 The maid should have been wooed not ravished. Indeed 
 if it be proper for me to compare small things with great, 
 I also have been wooed by Anapus, and I wedded him 
 yielding to prayer not to fear.’’ So she spoke and stretch- 
 ing her arms on either side barred the way. But no longer 
 could the son of Saturn hold his wrath. Urging on his 
 terrible steeds he whirled his royal sceptre and smote the 
 pool to the bottom. The smitten earth opened up a road 
 to Tartarus and received the plunging chariot in her 
 cavernous depths. 
 
 
 
 \ 
 i 
 3 
 4 
 
 
 
ROUND ABOUT SYRACUSE 97 
 
 But Cyane grieving for the rape of the goddess and for 
 her fountain’s rights, thus set at naught, nursed an in- 
 curable wound in her silent heart, and dissolved away in 
 tears. And into those very waters was she melted whose 
 great divinity she had been but now. You might see 
 her limbs softening, her bones becoming flexible, her nails 
 losing their hardness. Till finally in place of living blood 
 clear water flowed through her weakened veins and nothing 
 was left that you could touch: all had vanished into the 
 cool water of a stream. 
 
 It was the hero Herakles who, passing this way, in- 
 stituted an annual festival upon the spot in honour of 
 Cyane at which a bull was sunk into the fountain as a 
 sacrifice. 
 
 The story of Persephone being carried off by Hades 
 is not mentioned by Homer, it is first spoken of by Hesiod. 
 Zeus it is said advised Hades, who was in love with the 
 beautiful child, to carry her off, as her mother Demeter 
 was not likely to allow her daughter to go down to Dis. 
 So the god carried her off while she was gathering flowers 
 in the field of Enna, in a soft meadow there, roses and 
 crocuses and beautiful violets, irises also and the many 
 headed narcissus which Earth made to grow to be a 
 snare for the blooming girl: where to-day I am told no 
 flowers grow any more. 
 
 Ovid says that she was playing in a wood, gathering 
 violets and white lilies, and while with girlish eagerness 
 she was filling her basket and her bosom, almost in one 
 _ act did Hades see and love and carry her away. And such 
 was the innocence of her girlish years that even while 
 she was being carried off it was the loss of her flowers which 
 fell from her loosened tunic that even at such a time 
 aroused her grief. 
 
 Long is the story of Ovid and lovely his verse, but how 
 much lovelier Milton’s : 
 
 Not that faire field 
 Of Enna, where Proserpin gathring flours 
 Her self a fairer Floure by gloomie Dis 
 Was gatherd, which cost Ceres all that pain 
 To seek her through the world,.,.. 
 
98 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 In like manner Zeus stole away Europa with a yellow 
 crocus, | 
 
 Ah, reprehensible Gods! Cyane did well to reproach 
 you. In our well policed civilization you would certainly 
 meet with your deserts. Let me see. I suppose the 
 Giornale dt Silicia would report it something in this fashion 
 
 Movimentato arresto di un bruto a Siracusa 
 
 BAMBINA VIOLENTATA DA UN 
 BRUTO 
 
 NOSTRO SERVIZIO TELEGRAFICO 
 
 STRACUSA, 5 notte. — Un vecchio satiro 
 certo Pluto fu Saturno, di Dite, banchiere, 
 nonostante i suoi molti anni ha ancora idee 
 bellicose in fatto di... donne. 
 
 Il male si’6 che il vecchio superando ogni 
 scrupulo morale tenta adoperare i resti della 
 sua vigoria compiendo atti osceni ed insen- 
 sati in danno di innocenti creature. 
 
 Oggi infatti il malvagio satiro adocchiava 
 la bambina Proserpina di Giove di anni 12 
 abitante in Enna in via del Tempio la quale 
 tornava da scuola insieme ad una compagna. 
 
 Il Pluto in automobile fermava precisa- 
 mente sotto il ponticello ferroviario tentava 
 di afferrare la fanciulla a scopo evidente di 
 sfogare su di essa le sue brutale voglie. Al 
 grido di Proserpina, accorreva la bambina 
 Cyane la sua compagna che assisteva alla 
 trista scena.... 
 
 It is good to linger here in the long afternoon before 
 returning, floating down upon the stream; a far more 
 delightful thing than rowing up. 
 
 Then on the way home one may visit the Olympieum 
 —that Temple of Olympian Zeus which stood on the height, 
 on the banks of the Anapus where still two columns remain. 
 This sanctuary was very famous and a small town soon 
 grew up about it very much I suppose as the village of 
 
ROUND ABOUT SYRACUSE 99 
 
 S. Maria degli Angeli has grown up round the Porziuncula, 
 which is about as far outside Assisi as this Temple was 
 from Syracuse. This small town was called Polichne or 
 the Little City. Asit commanded a bridge over the Anapus 
 it was always of military importance and has played its 
 part in every siege of Syracuse. To-day it is only worth 
 a visit for the sake of remembrance : there is really nothing 
 to see. 
 
 IT 
 THE AQUEDUCT 
 
 One of the great miseries of modern life everywhere is 
 the ever-increasing difficulty of finding roads to walk in, 
 where you will not be at the mercy of the motor-car. 
 It used to be my greatest pleasure to go afoot all along 
 the roads of Italy, but for many years now that has been 
 impossible. The roads of every country to-day seem to 
 belong to the wayfarer no longer: they have become the 
 absolute property of the motorist. There is no longer 
 any pleasure in them for the pedestrian: on the contrary 
 there is acute discomfort from dust and mud, and a con- 
 tinual uneasiness, which does not accord at all with the 
 sentiment of him who goes afoot, and this amounts at 
 times to genuine danger. To walk in the ditch or the 
 gutter does not accord with the dignity of any man. 
 There are of course many motor-cars upon the Syracusan 
 _ roads, and the state of those roads, which are always inches 
 deep in dust or else morasses of mud, full of huge potholes 
 and often as stony as the bed of a torrent, makes any idea 
 -of walking, as far as they are concerned, impossible. 
 
 Happily there are many by-ways hereabout and there 
 is always the wide plateau of Epipolz where only the pedes- 
 trian and the mule can hope to go at all. But for the most 
 part the going upon Epipole is very rough, littered as it 
 is with stones, and the by-ways, as I say, are often little 
 better than torrent beds. 
 
 But in such a country, so full of beauty and delight , one 
 refuses to be for ever hurled about in a motor-car, or jolted 
 
100 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 to death im vettura. Walks there must be and of course 
 walks there are. 
 
 My favourite—that which became my favourite—leads 
 along the Aqueduct past the Belvedere to the foot of the 
 Monti Climiti and beyond, if I liked, to Corvo near Sortino. 
 
 Of course you can follow the Aqueduct if you like all 
 the way from the Greek Theatre to Euryalus: but that 
 was not my favourite walk. For the most part it means 
 simply tramping along the New Road all the way to the 
 Fortress: a very dull business when you have done it 
 more than once. 
 
 My walk was quite other than this. First of all I would 
 drive out to Euryalus, leaving the vettura where the new 
 road joins the old, on the last turn under the fortress. 
 I would then as often as not send on the vettura with the 
 lunch to the foot of the Monti Climiti where the by-road 
 meets the road from Sortino. Then I afoot followed the 
 Aqueduct all the way through the gardens and orchards 
 and flowers till in an orange grove under that mountain 
 headland I found the cab and the lunch and there lounged 
 away the afternoon with Theocritus. A glance at the map 
 will show the way I went. 
 
 The great advantage of this walk did not lie alone in 
 its entrancing beauty, but in this also, that there was a 
 smooth path free from stones the whole way and the sound 
 of running water accompanied you. 
 
 The Aqueduct, now called Acquedotto Galerio, but con- 
 structed certainly in antiquity and probably by Dionysius, 
 can be followed all the way from the Greek Theatre where 
 its waters turn a mill underground as far as the Monti 
 Climiti and thence to Bottiglieria near Pantalica, some 
 twenty-two chilometri from Syracuse. Its square-cut shafts 
 which the few peasants find useful for dipping up their 
 water, mark its course clearly, and beyond Euryalus 
 where they are closer together, mark out your path for 
 you, though in fact the way is clear enough. 
 
 This then was my favourite walk—to follow the Aqueduct 
 beyond Euryalus as far as the whim of the moment tempted 
 me. All the way is an incredible paradise of every kind 
 of wildflower, of the almond in blossom or in the scarcely 
 
ROUND ABOUT SYRACUSE 101 
 
 less lovely tender green of its leaf, of apricot and plum tree 
 in full flower, of dark carobs, orange groves golden with 
 fruit, amid which the white blossoms shine like snowflakes 
 and olives as-old as history. There is only one village 
 upon the way—the village of the Belvedere with its Posto 
 Semaforico on the lofty isolated hill behind it. Beyond 
 there is nothing but flowers and almond groves and olive 
 gardens and orchards of oranges and lemons. 
 
 The path follows the Aqueduct meandering gently along 
 the slope under the rocky plateau which stands up to the 
 north and hides the sea. Often you are tempted to 
 scramble over those pallid boulders and to win the crest. 
 If you do, as likely as not you will come upon a large beehive 
 built into the mouth of a cave with dozens of partitions 
 for the honeycombs: for these are the Hyblean hills 
 and the Hyblean honey was only less sweet than the Attic 
 honey of Hymettus. And if you do reach the broad back 
 of the ridge you will see once more all that storied coast, 
 the violet sea, Mellili on its hill top, the site of Megara, 
 the Xiphonian Promontory and snow-capped Etna over 
 all. 
 
 ' So you arrive; and in the shade of that orange grove 
 or beneath the olives beside the Aqueduct, under the Monti 
 Climiti, eat what you have brought and drink the Syracusan 
 wine mixed with a little water, and in the shade turn again 
 to Theocritus who sings of this place also where 
 
 “the beautiful waters pour down Thymbris vale ” 
 
 and Thymbris vale is at your feet. 
 
 III 7 
 THE PROMONTORY OF TROGILUS 
 
 A very different walk may be taken round the great 
 headland upon which Achradina lies, where steep limestone 
 cliffs thrust back the sea between the Lesser Harbour and 
 the Tonnara of S. Panagia. This headland of old was 
 known as the Promontory of Trogilus, to-day its most 
 
102 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 seaward cape is known as Capo di S. Panagia: that is to 
 say of the all hallowed, the Blessed Virgin. 
 
 To begin this walk I used to climb over the wall just 
 outside the upper or Capuchin gate of Villa Politi and follow 
 the track. It soon loses itself among the wilderness of 
 stones upon the headland, but you have only to follow 
 the coast or if that seems too long the railway line. 
 
 The beauty of this walk is all a sea beauty. There is 
 nothing else to recommend it. But that sea has borne 
 the triremes of the Athenians, the fleets of Carthage and 
 of Rome. Over it Alcibiades sailed for Thurii intent 
 upon treason to Athens. From it A%schylus first saw 
 Etna, and Plato the quays of Syracuse. Theocritus must 
 have idled away many an hour in such a place as this where 
 
 On the sward at the cliff top 
 Lie strewn the white flocks, 
 
 and far below shines and murmurs the Sicilian sea. 
 
 When you are tired of such pleasures of the imagination 
 there remains the Tonnava of S. Panagia—the tunny 
 fishery which is interesting to visit: for such fisheries 
 have been carried on from the time of the Phoenicians who 
 preserved the flesh in salt, to the present day, when oil 
 is preferred. This huge fish which runs to many hundred 
 pounds in weight is usually caught by being driven into 
 net enclosures and then harpooned: not a pleasant 
 spectacle. 
 
 Beyond the ¢onnava you can find the road inland back 
 to Syracuse or continue along the coast for another mile 
 and then scramble up the side of the plateau among the 
 bracken and wild flowers to the look-out on the Catania 
 road where it climbs Tyche. 
 
 IV 
 TO ACRA (PALAZZOLO) 
 
 A much more tiring excursion than either of those 
 pleasant walks may be made in a short day by motor- 
 
 a 
 
ROUND ABOUT SYRACUSE 103 
 
 car to Acre, or Palazzolo as it is called to-day, the great 
 inland outpost and fortress of Syracuse towards the moun- 
 tains, established from the first and still full of Greek 
 ruins and antiquities. It lies about twenty-seven miles 
 to the west of Syracuse in a pass of the Hyblean Mountains 
 at a height of 2,280 feet. 
 
 It can be reached either by way of Floridia and Solarino 
 or by way of Canicattini: the latter is perhaps the lovelier 
 and the better road, though the views from Solarino and 
 beyond are perhaps more splendid. 
 
 Acre itself, as a glance at the map will show us, is the 
 key to the Hybleans. It is impossible to pass from the 
 coast of south-eastern Sicily into the interior without pass- 
 ing Acre. That is why it was so early established by 
 Syracuse, some seventy years after the foundation of that 
 city, in 664 B.c. according to Thucydides, and no doubt 
 it played its part in keeping the pass against the Sikeli 
 for many years; but its supreme justification came at 
 the end of the Athenian Expedition when it prevented the 
 retreat of Nikias upon his Sikelian allies, turned him back, 
 and was the cause of the complete disaster to the Athenian 
 forces which followed. It is, then, a notable place that 
 has played its part in one of the most famous affairs in 
 the history of Europe, and is well worth visiting, not 
 only on that account, but for the sake of the buildings 
 and other antiquities it still preserves. 
 
 As you climb up into it to-day really on the top of the 
 pass which it absolutely dominates you begin to under- 
 _ stand its strength. That it was originally walled who can 
 doubt since it was established if not within, then on the 
 edge of, hostile territory, but no traces of walls remain. 
 
 You climb up to the acropolis above the modern town, 
 on foot, to find the only approach, this from the east, 
 everywhere protected by Latomie. Here upon the top- 
 most height is the exquisite little Greek Theatre which 
 might have held six or seven thousand persons. It is 
 wonderfully preserved, and has indeed still traces of its 
 altar and is altogether one of the most charming relics 
 of Greek Sicily. There are twelve semicircles of seats 
 divided into seven cunei by eight flights of steps. 
 
104 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 Close by is the tiny Odeon or what is said to be the 
 Odeon. It was used it is thought for music, and if so it 
 must have been covered. Others have thought it to have 
 been a bath; but Professor Orsi of Syracuse seems to 
 favour the first conjecture, and there are certainly many 
 difficulties to be faced if the latter be adopted. 
 
 Upon the other side of the Theatre are the Latomie, 
 the quarries out of which Acrz was built and which then 
 became her defence. One of the walls is covered with 
 carvings in the nature of ex votis. These Latomie have 
 been used by the Christians of the fourth to the sixth 
 century as a place of entombment. There are here too 
 a series of catacombs which are similar to those in Syracuse. 
 On the hill of the Theatre called by the people to-day 
 Acremonte, are some very singular monuments consisting 
 of figures as large as life hewn in relief in shallow niches 
 in the surface of the rock. The principal figures seem to 
 be those of Demeter and Persephone. 
 
 Nor is this all. Upon what is thought to be the Via 
 Sacra are the so called Templi Ferali; two large recesses 
 covered with carvings and inscriptions. 
 
 There are also in the neighbourhood both a Sikelean ) 
 and a Greek necropolis, and remains of aqueducts and 
 cisterns. Nor is this all, for in Palazzolo a very interest- 
 ing Museum is to be seen, the Museo Judica especially 
 rich in Corinthian vases of the seventh, sixth and fifth 
 centuries B.C. 
 
 V 
 PANTALICA 
 
 Syracuse is to-day the best starting point from which 
 to reach what is perhaps the most astonishing spectacle 
 in all Sicily: I mean the enormous cafion in the valley 
 of the Anapus which is a vast Sikelian necropolis, a City 
 of the Dead containing more than five thousand tombs, ~ 
 more impressive even than the similar necropolis in the 
 Val d’Ispica. 
 
 
 
ROUND ABOUT SYRACUSE 105 
 
 Perhaps the easiest and certainly the cheapest way to 
 reach Pantalica is by train not from the main station of 
 Syracuse but from the small station called Siracusa Nuova 
 -in Borgo S. Antonio. You go to the halt of Necropoli 
 Pantalica and inform the guard at Syracuse you wish to 
 alight there. But as there are only two trains in the day, 
 this means getting up in time to leave Siracusa Nuova 
 at 5.55 a.m. You can return from Pantalica, most con- 
 veniently however, at 4.30 p.m. 
 
 The other way is to go to Sortino Fusco or Sortino itself 
 by motor-car, a distance of, say, twenty miles. It is a 
 somewhat tiring walk from Sortino of an hour and a half 
 to Pantalica and is much more conveniently done on 
 mules. 
 
 Whichever way you approach Pantalica, whether over 
 the hills from Sortino or from the valley of the Anapus, 
 it is a most impressive sight. If you come as I did from 
 the valley, you enter this vast necropolis by a narrow gorge 
 with sheer precipitous sides many hundreds of feet high. 
 As you push on and on, up this gloomy cafion, as the gorge 
 winds it opens, but remains of the same great height. And 
 there cut in the sheer sides of the limestone cliffs are 
 thousand upon thousand of dark windows—Sikelian tombs, 
 a whole vast city of the dead. It is hard to see how the 
 dead could have been conveyed by the living to such a 
 place, how the bodies were ever lowered, and, not without 
 ceremony, thrust into these holes for martins in the sheer 
 face of the cliff. It is truly an appalling spectacle this 
 - vast necropolis of the dead who lived before history begins. 
 It is as though for a moment Sicily, which is all a grave- 
 yard, had bared her bosom and revealed the infinite popula- 
 tions of the dead, that are what we soon shall be. And if, 
 as I did, you come upon this place by chance, without 
 knowing what you shall see, and at evening, at the begin- 
 ning of twilight, when those innumerable dark windows 
 seem each to have its occupant, its watcher, you will 
 find it, as I did, one of the most eerie places in the 
 world. ; 
 
106 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 VI 
 THE CAVA DI SPAMPANATO 
 
 It had always been my wish, ever since I first read 
 Thucydides’ marvellous account of the Athenian Expedition 
 at school, to follow Nikias in his disastrous retreat to see 
 the Akraion Lepas, the Acrean Rock, which halted him 
 and his desperate army, as he saw it, and to understand 
 in that very place the whole appalling catastrophe. So 
 when I read in Bedeker that ‘‘ near Floridia is the Cava 
 di Spampanato (or Culatrello) a highly romantic gorge 
 through which the Athenians forced their way on their 
 retreat to the Acrean Rock in 413 B.c.,’’ I made up my 
 mind to march up or down the whole of this gorge and 
 to see what they had seen. 
 
 It was no easy undertaking, for no one in Syracuse that 
 I could find had ever heard of the place at least by name. 
 There was nothing for it but to go to Floridia. 
 
 So I set out very early one morning by motor-car for 
 Floridia. Arrived there I sought a priest and told him 
 my difficulty. I could not have done better. The priests 
 in my experience—the priests and the friars and monks 
 —are the salt of the Mediterranean. Don Sardo knew 
 at once what I wanted and directed me how to find it. 
 At the same time he warned me that what I proposed to 
 do I should find a very tiring business. In this too he 
 was right, and I should like here to thank him. At the 
 same time I think it was worth all the weariness I suffered 
 and the roughness of the way. Isawthe Acrean Rock. I 
 understood as even Thucydides could not show me, what 
 the Athenian army must have suffered and I had the honour 
 to suffer with them perhaps a thousandth part of what 
 they underwent. 
 
 But what is it Thucydides says ? 
 
 He tells us that after their utter defeat in the Great 
 Harbour the Athenians were so affected by the magnitude 
 of their present ills that they did not even give a thought 
 to wrecks or dead, or ask leave to take them up, but were 
 planning an immediate retreat during the night. The 
 
 
 
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ROUND ABOUT SYRACUSE 107 
 
 Syracusans foreseeing this and realizing that it would 
 be a serious matter if so large an army retreating overland 
 should settle somewhere in Sicily and be disposed to renew 
 the war upon Syracuse, sent out forces to build barricades 
 across the roads and frustrate the enemy by guarding the 
 narrow passes. No doubt they reinforced the fortress 
 of Acrz which was almost as old as Syracuse itself. Then 
 they subtly assured the Athenians that this had been 
 done so as to delay their departure till daylight by which 
 time all would be made secure. 
 
 So the Athenians, seeing no trickery, tarried, not for 
 one day but till the third day, when with the utmost 
 reluctance and in agony of spirit they abandoned their 
 dead as well as their sick and their wounded, who begged 
 to be taken along with them, clinging to their tent-mates 
 and following as long as they were able, failing, falling 
 behind with faint appeals to the gods and lamentations. 
 
 Indeed, the Athenians looked like nothing less than a 
 city in secret flight after a siege, and that no small city, 
 for in the entire throng no fewer than four myriads were 
 on the march together. And as they went Nikias passed 
 along the ranks and endeavoured to encourage them, shout- 
 ing as he came to each contingent in order to make his 
 voice heard as far as possible. 
 
 The retreat was begun in hollow square, the division 
 of Nikias leading the way and that of Demosthenes 
 following. They set out on the Floridia road crossing 
 the Anapus some miles above the Temple of Zeus. The 
 _ crossing of the river was accomplished though disputed, 
 and on that first day they went forward forty stadia, 
 that is about five miles, and bivouacked at a hill, close 
 I suppose to Jericuno. On the next day they began the 
 march early and after proceeding about twenty stadia, 
 that is two and a half miles, they came down into a level 
 place and encamped; for they wished to get something 
 to eat from the houses which stood there, for the place 
 was inhabited, and no water lay ahead of them. Thus 
 I suppose they encamped in the wide vale below Floridia, 
 then a village. 
 
 On the next day, the third of the retreat, they went 
 
108 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 forward—they entered the lower part of the Cava that is 
 
 —and the Syracusans and their allies attacked them 
 and at length forced them to return to their encampment 
 below: Floridia. They were now without provisions, for 
 it was impossible to leave the main body to forage. 
 Early next morning they set out again and forced their 
 way through to the hill called the Acrzan rock where a 
 wall had been built across the pass in a narrow place, 
 and there the Syracusans were drawn up behind the wall 
 
 in force. In vain they tried to storm the wall and as 
 
 the Syracusans attempted to build another wall behind 
 them they retreated to the more open part of the cava 
 and bivouacked. 
 
 On the next day, the fifth of the retreat, they advanced 
 again, always with difficulty and under attack, and rested 
 in the bottom; and during the night it was determined 
 to abandon the attempt to force a way through the Pass. 
 
 Then Nikias and Demosthenes caused as many camp 
 fires as possible to be kindled, and when this was done 
 they withdrew the army by night and in great confusion 
 and fear. At dawn they reached the sea, but no longer 
 as one body, for the army of Nikias was far in advance of 
 the more confused body under Demosthenes. Then began 
 that flight along the Helorine road which ended: in the 
 surrender and destruction of both armies upon the streams 
 we call Cassibile and Asinaro. 
 
 Now to see what is said to be the very place where this 
 dreadful business was enacted it is necessary to set out 
 from Floridia on foot and after crossing the vale to the 
 south to make one’s way up the dry torrent bed westward, 
 a wilderness of stones and boulders which is the Cava di 
 Spampanato. It is well to send the car on to meet you 
 at Mellili on the Palazzolo road for the way up the Cava 
 is infinitely tiring. Tuiring is not the proper word for such 
 a scramble. The whole valley is soon filled by the torrent 
 bed which is a mass of dry round stones with vast boulders 
 lying here and there. These round white limestones glisten 
 and shine in the sun with a really blinding effect and the 
 heat is suffocating. To stumble mile after mile up this 
 ever narrowing valley dry as a bone for eleven months of 
 
 
 
 4 ; ie ante 
 a i eS ae oF 
 
 Se Pee hg ee A Pee ee ee 
 
 i. ae 
 
 yy ee Se oe 
 
ROUND ABOUT SYRACUSE 109 
 
 the year, is to suffer real misery and fatigue. But one 
 does it in a small company of two or three. The imagina- 
 tion boggles at what it must have been to an army of 
 many thousands of men. Enclosed on every side by 
 great cliffs that army was everywhere at the mercy of 
 its assailants above. No order of march can have been 
 properly kept, for one perforce stumbles along, one’s boots 
 in ribbons, as best one can. How Nikias ever persisted 
 in such a place for three days is beyond one’s compre- 
 hension. 
 
 In fact it must seem to every one who has ever attempted 
 the Cava that it is most unlikely he did so. No army 
 could possibly have pushed its way up the Spampanato 
 without going to pieces and being trapped and utterly 
 destroyed there. Some road possibly on the site of the 
 present highway to Palazzolo, perhaps upon the southern 
 hills, must have existed and been used by the Athenians. 
 Or if indeed they used this passage then Nikias was fore- 
 doomed—foredoomed by an inherent dullness and stupidity, 
 which, if it were so, makes clearer his whole conduct of 
 the campaign, and above all his superstitious terror, so 
 amazing in an Athenian, of the eclipse and the thunder- 
 storm. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 ON THE WAY TO GIRGENTI: 
 CALTAGIRONE AND GELA 
 
 HE thought of the journey by train from Syracuse 
 to Girgenti frightened me. Ten hours in a Sicilian 
 
 train was more than I cared to put up with, if it 
 could be avoided, and therefore I welcomed the opportunity 
 which suddenly offered of going all the way by road'len 
 automobile. It proved to be one of the most enjoyable rides 
 I have ever had, through marvellously beautiful and most 
 varied scenes, and I strongly advise any fellow-traveller 
 who may happen upon this book to do as I did. But the 
 road is exceedingly mountainous and the car should be a 
 good one. 
 
 I had wished to go by Noto, Ragusa and Vittoria but 
 that was impossible. The road beyond Vittoria, we were 
 told, had for long been impassable. It was necessary 
 therefore to take the way through Palazzolo and Caltagirone 
 coming down to the African Sea at Terranova, the ancient 
 Gela, where A’schylus died so strangely, and so on by the 
 coast through Licata to Girgenti. 
 
 And since this road would show us something of the 
 interior of Sicily we were the more reconciled to it. I 
 had therefore to give up all hope of seeing what remained 
 of Helorus to the south of Noto, of Motica and of Camarina 
 
 to the south of Vittoria. I especially wished, however, 
 
 to traverse the Helorine road as far as Noto in the wake 
 
 of the Athenian retreat, and so it was along that road we 
 
 set out before nine o’clock one spring morning, intend- 
 
 ing to leave it at Noto and make our way northward to 
 
 Palazzolo. As it happened we got no farther than Cassi- 
 
 bile, where we stuck in the mud. The car was a heavy 
 110 
 
 ae RE te one 
 
ON THE WAY TO GIRGENTI 111 
 
 Fiat saloon equal to anything and we got free of the morass 
 at last; but fearing worse misfortunes on a road only 
 too full of them, we gave it up and made off at once for 
 the hills and came to Palazzolo at last through Canicattini. 
 Palazzolo, the Greek Acre, is as I have said the key to 
 the Hyblzan Mountains, it holds the high pass across them 
 on this side, as Caltagirone does on the other. These 
 mountains which rise to a height of well over 3,000 feet 
 are the watershed between the Ionian and the African sea. 
 We began to climb into their high, and, for the most 
 part, bare solitudes after leaving Palazzolo. At Buscemi, 
 which is 2,200 feet above the sea, we looked down upon 
 the high valley of the Anapus on one side, while on the 
 other we could follow its long and winding course past 
 Erbesso and Pantalica to Sortino where it turned east- 
 ward to Syracuse and the sea. The height just outside 
 Buscemi, as you come up into it, is Monte S. Niccolo, 
 where some curiously carved and decorated artificial caves 
 may be seen dating from the Roman time with Byzantine 
 inscriptions. And in the Cava di S. Pietro, a wild gorge 
 to the north of the village, there is a curious Byzantine 
 sanctuary excavated in the rock also with inscriptions. 
 Still climbing all the time we swept on across the Piana 
 di Buccheri without a tree or even a bush to break the 
 bare sides of these solitary heights. Suddenly we came 
 round a peak and there lay the brown weathered roofs 
 of Buccheri below us, and towering up, far far away, 
 filling the whole horizon, snow-crowned Etna shining in 
 the sun; a sight to catch the breath with its beauty. 
 Buccheri is a considerable mountain village of more than 
 4,000 inhabitants some 2,500 feet above the sea, possibly 
 the highest village in these mountains. Save the marvel- 
 lous view of which I have spoken, it had nothing to offer 
 us. We continued along the steep and narrow back of 
 the Hybleans, descending now to their centre at Vizzini, 
 view after view of the greatest beauty and strength opening 
 before us, 
 Vizzini, which is seven hundred feet lower than Buccheri 
 and a much larger place with over 18,000 inhabitants, is 
 quite without interest for travellers. We continued, still 
 
112 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 gradually descending, winding round a vast ravine, and 
 now among prickly pears and vines and fruit trees, and then 
 across a high and fertile plain, to Grammichele, some 1,600 
 feet above the sea, a curiously built town radiating from 
 a central piazza, about the same size as Vizzini. Calta- 
 girone was now in sight and we soon swept up to this city 
 that stands so magnificently at the gateway of the moun- 
 tains. 
 
 Caltagirone stands up on its triune hill really astride 
 the pass, its waters flowing on one side into the Piana di 
 Catania and the Ionian, on the other into the Campi 
 Geloi and the African Sea. It stands some 1,800 feet up 
 and has some 30,000 inhabitants. It is in fact a consider- 
 able and a civilized place with a quite passable inn where 
 one may be sure of food and good Sicilian cooking. 
 
 I do not wish to be misunderstood. You will not find a 
 Tuscan inn at Caltagirone, but they have food and do 
 not insist on your supplying your own and they can cook 
 an omelette. So we ordered a simple meal and waited. 
 
 The food is everywhere—in Palermo and in Syracuse 
 quite as much as in Caltagirone—one of the weaknesses © 
 of Sicily. At the hotels it is monotonous and unappetizing, 
 at the vistoranti and traitorie poor in quality and meagre 
 in choice. The maccheroni are of course excellent, but 
 most foreigners cannot live on maccheroni alone. The 
 meats whatever they are called, and they are generally 
 called agnellino, are invariably some sort of goat, and 
 you are lucky if that goat is kid. Sicilians have told me 
 that kid is delicious. It may be so: then what I have 
 always had must have been goat, and goat is frankly 
 beastly. It would be a good thing to exterminate all 
 the goats in Sicily, in the Mediterranean, and, if you like, 
 in the world. 
 
 As for green vegetables, every hotel-keeper in Sicily 
 tells you—ah, but signore, they have to come all the way 
 from Venice or may be he says from Lombardy. Why? 
 Here is the most fruitful corner of the earth, the home of 
 Ceres, the garden of the Mediterranean and it cannot 
 produce even a decent cabbage to say nothing of beans 
 and peas and other delights! And it is the same with 
 

 
 jibes in ARLE Deen 
 
 op 
 
 STREE 
 
 [ 
 
 A 
 
 SICILI 
 
ie 445 
 
 Poy 
 en vk 
 
 
 
ON THE WAY TO GIRGENTI 113 
 
 the butter. The native article does not seem to exist. 
 What you get is that disgusting commodity made from 
 the milk of the goat. If you happen to insist upon and 
 obtain real butter it is almost invariably rancid because 
 it has come “‘all the way from Lombardy.”’ 
 
 The best food Sicily produces is her cheeses. These have 
 always been famous, and just as Attica was celebrated for 
 its honey of Hymettus so was Sicily for her incomparable 
 cheese. Fresh cheese toopadic was “‘the glory of fair 
 Sicily.”” So that Aristophanes in the Peace uses it as 
 emblematic of the island. And Philemon, Athenczeus tells us, 
 in his play The Sicilian, says: 
 
 I once did think that Sicily could make 
 
 This one especial thing, good-flavoured cheese ; 
 But now I’ve heard this good of it besides, 
 That not only is the cheese of Sicily good, 
 But all its pigeons too.... 
 
 Euripides too in The Cyclops speaks of a cheese he calls 
 éntag tugds. This seems to have been a harsh-tasting 
 cheese curdled by the juice (éxdc) of the fig-tree. This, 
 with what I am sure was agnellino, was all the Cyclops 
 could offer Odysseus. Much the same to-day. But the 
 cheeses of Sicily are still almost invariably excellent and 
 there are many varieties; each district, if not each village, 
 having its own. 
 
 As for the wines, in spite of the ancient fame of the 
 Mamertine and the Syracusan,? Sicilian wines to-day—I do 
 not now speak of Marsala—are inferior in every way to 
 those of the Continent. There is nothing in the whole 
 island to equal the wines of Chianti, of the Roman Castelli, 
 of Montepulciano and of Orvieto or those of Vesuvius, to 
 name only the better known varieties. 
 
 The Sicilian wines may be roughly classified into three 
 kinds. The bottled species (Corvo, Casteldoccia, etc., made 
 presumably for export and high-class hotel consumption 
 by big landed proprietors) which are sometimes better 
 than one thinks—judging by the preposterous labels— 
 
 1 But what were the Iotaline and the Pollian wines? They 
 
 were Sicilian. The Pollian was a sweet wine apparently the same 
 as the Biblian which was a Thracian wine, or perhaps Phcenician. 
 
114 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 they are going to be. Then all the Marsala breed called 
 ‘bianco ’’ which infests Sicily and which whether strong 
 or weak in quality, whether cheap or dear, is the filthiest 
 drink imaginable and not to be touched. And then the 
 common ‘“‘rosso”’ which is obtainable everywhere if 
 one insists upon getting it, in a thousand varieties, some 
 of which are excellent. Each place and each proprietor 
 seem to have their own. It is only served from the barrel, 
 and the peculiarity of Sicily is that you do not order it by 
 the litre or any fixed measure, but by the size of the glass 
 which you want filled with it—a number of empty glasses 
 of different capacities being always ready for the customers 
 of those haunts where coachman and gentleman go to 
 find the only drinkable wine which can be found in Sicily. 
 That is my experience at least. Not worth much! 
 
 Now as to Marsala. The only good thing you can say 
 of Marsala is that it goes well with gorgonzola. At best it 
 is a poor substitute for Sherry or Madeira, without any 
 real character of itsown. Ifit be dryit is fearfully acid, if 
 it be sweet it is too luscious for the northern palate. It 
 is a fortified wine, and was I think invented to supply 
 the English demand for sherry when Nelson and the British 
 Fleet were in these waters. 
 
 Perhaps I may say here that there seems to be no truth 
 whatever in the supposition that the finest Greek wines and 
 especially the products of Greek Sicily and the Islands were 
 of the sweet and luscious sort. The very opposite is the 
 truth, as is proven by the epithets most often applied to 
 them, such as advotyodc, oxAnodc, Aentos, that is rough, dry, 
 thin, fine, delicate; while yAuxtdc and yduxdlor are Tarely 
 used. Besides olvos 760s generally translated “‘ sweet 
 wine ”’ means actually the reverse, an absence of acidity, 
 as we should say a sound wine. 
 
 No doubt the first mention of wine in the Odyssey, the 
 most famous wine in the world which Odysseus was given 
 by Maron the priest of Apollo upon the skirts of Thracian 
 Ismarus, was a sweet wine. It was a red wine too— © 
 éovdedv—and was wpediujdéa—honey sweet; it was so 
 precious that it was unknown save to the priest himself, 
 his wife and one house-dame; so strong that a single 
 
ON THE WAY TO GIRGENTI 115 
 
 cup was mixed with twenty of water; so fragrant that 
 even when thus diluted it diffused a marvellous sweet 
 perfume. 
 
 But what am I saying! This was not the most famous 
 of wines. The most famous wine in the world of course 
 was that which Telemachus drank after supper in Sparta, 
 into which Helen, daughter of Zeus, cast a drug to quiet 
 -all pain and strife and bring forgetfulness of every ill. 
 Whoso should drink this down when it was mingled in the 
 bowl, would not in the course of that day let a tear fall, 
 no not though his mother and father should lie there dead 
 nor though before his face men should slay with the sword 
 his brother, or dear son, and his own eyes behold it. 
 
 The Greeks were wiser than ourselves in this also. They 
 recognized four colours in wines: black (édac), red 
 (éov0pdc), amber (xéédc), and white or palest gold 
 (Aevxds). And they knew that old wine is not only more 
 pleasant but also better for the health than new, for it 
 aids digestion more and as Athenzus points out is thinner 
 and itself more digestible. The ancients, like the modern 
 French and Italians, seldom drank unmixed wine, wine 
 that is unmixed with water. Indeed Herodotus in his 
 sixth book says that Cleomenes, King of Sparta, having 
 lived among the barbarous Scythians got the habit of 
 drinking unmixed wine and thereby became perfectly 
 ae 
 
 Homer also speaks of a wine he calls aidoy, which 
 means sparkling; but whether sparkling in colour or in 
 the sense of effervescence I do not know: the former I 
 imagine—from its resemblance to the colour of fire which 
 Sicilian vosso has, a kind of glowing colour. 
 
 But I was getting devilish hungry! Our host of the 
 Albergo Trinacria seemed to be a singularly long time 
 preparing our eggs and trimming that Sicilian goat which 
 was to be the piéce de résistance. Oh for a place at one of 
 those old Syracusan feasts against which Plato warns his 
 correspondent! Ah, those Syracusan tables, that old 
 Sicilian variety of dishes! . 
 
 Caltagirone is the Faenza of Sicily they say. At any 
 rate it is famous for its majolica. There seems to have 
 
116 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 been a Sikelian town here in antiquity and even in pre- 
 historic times, so at least the excavations at Montagna, a ~ 
 mile or two to the north-west of the town, suggest, and 
 perhaps a Greek outpost or at any rate what seems more ~ 
 likely, Greek influence as long ago as the sixth century B.c. 
 And yet why more likely ? Caltagirone stands in relation 
 to the Greek city of Gela on the south coast exactly as 
 Acre stands to Syracuse. There may well have been a 
 Greek fortress here at this end of the pass as there was at 
 Acre at the other. Only its name escapes us, for Cal- 
 tagirone is Saracen Kalaigerun, they say, the fortress 
 cave, but nothing seems to be known of the Saracen or 
 Byzantine town. But as excavation has proved both in ~ 
 antiquity and in Saracen times also, Caltagirone was a seat 
 of the pottery craft and thus endured right through the 
 ages and continues to-day. The modern industry owes 
 everything to Gesualdo di Bartolo, and in Casa Bartolo 
 in Via Stovigliai there is a fine collection of Caltagirone 
 ware. 3 
 
 Not much is to be seen in the town which was largely 
 destroyed in the earthquake of 1693. The great flight of 
 steps up out of the Piazza leads to the old ruined Castle. 
 The town has a few houses of the seventeenth century, 
 
 worth seeing perhaps, such as the Casino dei Nobili and j 
 
 the church of S. Giacomo, a rebuilding of an older church 
 after the earthquake of 1693, in which in the transept on ~ 
 the gospel side is a fine doorway by one of the Gagini, the © 
 Sicilian sculptors, dated 1585. The museum in the Via 
 degli Studi is worth a visit for its prehistoric pottery and 
 local majolica. 
 
 But we could not spend long in Caltagirone, if we were 
 to reach Girgenti that night, for we were not yet half-way 
 there, and it was already afternoon. 
 
 So we set out, and almost at once began to descend 
 rapidly southward towards the coast, down the valley of 
 the Maraglio, the ancient Gela ; and as the valley opened 
 wide we came into those Campi Geloi of which both Dio- 
 dorus and Virgil speak, and which are still as in antiquity 
 among the most fertile corn-growing districts in Sicily. 
 Indeed they gave Gela her epithet of avugépyogos, the wheat- 
 
 \ 
 
 
 
ON THE WAY TO GIRGENTI 117 
 
 bearing. Soon Gela itself rose up before us on its long hill 
 that hid the sea. 
 
 Terranova, Gela that was, is a large town of 23,000 
 inhabitants. It was founded in 690 B.c., forty-four years 
 after Syracuse, by a joint colony of Cretans and Rhodians, 
 and was one of the most important Greek cities in Sicily. 
 Thucydides says the place got its name from the river 
 Gela, but the place where the acropolis then was, which 
 was the first to be fortified, was called Lindi, evidently 
 after Lindus in Rhodes. The institutions given to it were 
 Dorian and just one hundred and eight years after its 
 foundation the Geloans founded Acragas (Girgenti) nam- 
 ing it too after the river upon which it stood. The new 
 colony is a proof in itself of the flourishing condition of 
 Gela. In the beginning of the fifth century B.c. Hippo- 
 crates was Tyrant of Gela and raised it to the pinnacle of 
 its power, reducing Leontinoi, Callipolis and far Naxos 
 to servitude and even taking Zankle (Messina). Gelon 
 succeeded him and made himself master of Syracuse in 
 485 B.c. This was the beginning of the decline of Gela, 
 for Gelon, preferring Syracuse, not only established him- 
 self there, but compelled half the inhabitants of Gela to 
 migrate there also. After some years of oppression the 
 city recovered, and after 466 B.c. was able to found a new 
 colony at Camarina, which Gelon had desolated. The city 
 now seems to have prospered until it was laid waste by the 
 Carthaginians in 405 B.C. 
 
 That period of prosperity after 466 B.c. is particularly 
 remarkable in Gela for the fact that it was then she received 
 the greatest of her guests, the poet A‘schylus, who in 
 457 B.C. was exiled from Athens. The great Athenian, it 
 seems, had in his last play the Ewmenides shown himself 
 to be a supporter of the old order against the democratic 
 policy of Pericles. He was an old man and opposed to the 
 younger generation among whom he was a stranger. In 
 disgust perhaps, certainly in fear, he left Athens and came 
 once more to Sicily. The Athenian rabble irresponsible 
 and vicious even went so far we are told as to accuse the 
 great tragedian of impiety, and would have condemned 
 him, as they were later, when the fruits of democracy 
 
 g 
 
118 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 proved bitter, to condemn Socrates. The old man left 
 Athens and sought the hospitality of Gela, where a year 
 later in 456 B.c. he died, most mysteriously as it happened. 
 For it is said that an eagle mistaking the poet’s bald head 
 for a stone let fall upon it a tortoise to break the shell, 
 and so fulfilled an oracle according to which Aéschylus was 
 fated to die by a blow from heaven. Whether this really 
 happened—there are other instances of similar things—or 
 whether it is an allegory we shall never know. 
 
 At any rate his last days were spent in peace and in 
 honour. The people of Gela showed their regard for his 
 genius and his character by public solemnities in his honour 
 and by erecting a noble monument to him and inscribing 
 it with an epitaph which he himself had written. In 
 it Gela is mentioned as the place of his burial, and the 
 field of Marathon as the place of his most glorious achieve- 
 ments: no mention at all is made therein of his poetry. 
 
 The grove of Marathon and the long-haired Medes 
 Who felt his valour well may speak of tt « 
 
 It is needless to say that nothing of this monument re- 
 mains in Gela to-day. But there are ruins of ancient Gela. 
 On a hill to the east of the modern town are parts of the 
 stylobate, and a prostrate column, of a Doric Temple of the 
 fifth century B.c. Close by in 1906 was excavated the 
 stylobate of an older temple very finely decorated in painted 
 terra-cotta, and on the western side of the present town 
 at the end of the Corso upon Capo Soprano were the great 
 necropolt of the Greek city the spoil of which is now in the 
 Museum of Syracuse. 
 
 We left Gela with regret. Had there been a passable 
 hostelry there we should have stayed for the night. The 
 coast is fine and the country delicious. As it was we were 
 compelled to push on in the golden sunset over the sea 
 through Licata and Palma to Girgenti. 
 
 It was already moonlight when the majestic line of 
 Temples came in sight and we turned up the hill behind 
 them to the city. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 GIRGENTI 
 
 world than the spectacle which lies before one from 
 
 the hills of Girgenti, and especially from the 
 terraces and gardens of the Hotel des Temples. Behind 
 you rise two lofty and precipitous heights, whence the 
 land subsides, sloping gradually seaward in a series of 
 waves. From one of these, the first and the highest, you 
 look down over a sea of almond blossom to the long line 
 of Temples which stand along the last, behind them the 
 sea. 
 
 For its suggestion, as it were, of resurrection, the vision 
 it seems to offer you of the remote and beautiful past, of a 
 life wholly different, and, in your first material glimpse of it, 
 thus magically spread before you, certainly lovelier than 
 anything we have known, that view is unique, not only in 
 Sicily but inthe world. You seem suddenly to have found, 
 still tangible and living upon earth, that old and beloved 
 Greek world which till now has been but a dream rising from 
 the pages of a book, the words of a poet, the description 
 of an historian, the thoughts of a philosopher. There it 
 stands, the golden sun upon it, waves of blossoming almond 
 beating against it, and, shining through its colonnades, the 
 violet sea. Here suddenly between two heart beats you 
 realize you have come home. 
 
 Yes, on that first morning in the southern sunshine, that 
 line of Temples, so perfect, that to the seeing eye, they still 
 seem complete, really unbroken and unspoiled, one realizes 
 what an unredeemed mistake everything has been since 
 they were built: the barbarism of what destroyed them, 
 the futility of the dreams which were not satisfied with them, 
 
 119 
 
 TT ore can be few more wonderful sights left in the 
 
120 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 the baseness and the folly of the desertion; Carthage, 
 Rome, the Middle Age, the modern world, what are they 
 all but disaster piled on disaster beside the world which 
 these expressed. There dwelt reason, temperance, equani- 
 mity ; for a moment, if only for a moment, visibly present 
 with one again, on first beholding, rebeholding rather— 
 the now well remembered, unforgettable city of our youth 
 —our childhood and our home. 
 
 There was a world, then, in which perfection existed ; 
 it was that world. 7 
 
 It is gone. We shall not see it again. Save on some 
 fortunate day, in some privileged hour, upon a rare and 
 halcyon morning, or, as here, beside these half abandoned 
 ruins, we shall not even divine perhaps that it ever was 
 ours. Like our childhood it lies behind us, it has vanished 
 away; only, like that childhood, it has left behind it, at 
 least to the acceptable soul, something that is half a memory, 
 half an intuition, of its genius, its harmony, its spirit here 
 made manifest, which shall not wholly die, shall not alto- 
 gether vanish. And yet.... 
 
 Those Temples which in their so reasonable beauty, their 
 harmony, enchantment and completeness fill the mind of 
 the traveller who sees them for the first time with an 
 almost overwhelming sense of nostalgia, stand as I have 
 said on a long hill precipitous over the sea as it seems, 
 though in fact some two or three miles from it. Above 
 them landward and almost as far off tower up the isolated 
 and almost unapproachable heights of the acropolis and 
 of the Rupe Atenea, upon the first of which the modern 
 city is built, a climbing mass of houses crowned by the 
 Cathedral, medieval still, like the city itself, in spite of 
 modern restoration. | 
 
 From the foot of these two towering heights the land 
 slopes away in a restless series of low clay hills, cut by the 
 deep winding gorges of the two small rivers of the place the 
 Acragas and the Hypsas, and now a sea of almond blossom, 
 to the long hill upon which the Temples stand, its steep 
 escarpment falling precipitously to the wide sea plain 
 between Punta Bianca and Porto Empedocle, the modern 
 harbour of Girgenti. 
 
 ee ep ee eS ee ee ee a ee ee eo eee 
 
 a eee ee 
 
GIRGENTI 121 
 
 The great natural strength of the place—for both the 
 heights of the Acropolis and the Rupe Atenea were pre- 
 cipitous and only approachable the one upon the east 
 and other upon the west, while the hill of the temples 
 formed a natural fortification to the south—no doubt 
 recommended it and, as maystill be seen, was improved by 
 surrounding walls some six miles about, large parts of 
 which still remain, especially upon the southern front. 
 If Pindar called it ‘‘ the fairest of mortal cities,’’ and it 
 may well have been so, it was certainly one of the strongest, 
 while the magnificence of its public and private buildings 
 is attested by what we see and by the remark of Empe- 
 docles, who said of the Agrigentines that they lived so 
 luxuriously you might think they expected to die to- 
 morrow, but they built as though they would live for 
 ever. 
 
 II 
 
 We learn from Thucydides that Acragas was founded by 
 a colony from Gela about one hundred and eight years 
 after the establishment of that city, that is to say about 
 581 B.c. Andthey named the city after the River Acragas, 
 making Aristonous and Pystilus founders, and giving it 
 the institutions of the Geloans which were Dorian. It 
 seems almost immediately to have fallen into the hands 
 of a tyrant, the mysterious Phalaris, who made it one of the 
 most powerful cities in Sicily and extended his rule over 
 a considerable part of the island. The cruelty of his 
 administration, however, became proverbial. A certain 
 Perillus constructed for him a brazen bull, in which he is 
 said to have burnt his victims alive, Perillus himself being 
 the subject of his first experiment. This fact or fable 
 seems to point to a strong Phcenician influence and to a 
 cult of Moloch of which we have perhaps other traces in 
 Girgenti in the Temple of the Giants, the Temple of Jupiter 
 Atabyrius, of Tabor that is, and perhaps in the Temple of 
 Jupiter Polieus, of Melkarth, upon the Acropolis. As the 
 whole wealth of Girgenti must have been due to her trade 
 
122 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 with Carthage, to whom she sold her agricultural produce, 
 this is not surprising. The two cities faced one another 
 across the African sea and were not much more than 150 
 miles apart. Phalaris perished in a general insurrection 
 in 564 B.C. 
 
 We know nothing further of Acragas till Theron became 
 tyrant, probably in 488 B.c. Theron belonged to one of 
 the most illustrious families in the city. His ancestors 
 had come to Gela with the founders of that city from 
 Rhodes, and his great grandfather had led the revolution 
 which overthrew Phalaris. He expelled from Himera 
 Terillus, tyrant of the city, who immediately appealed for 
 help to the Carthaginians, This was probably in 482 B.c. 
 Theron thus ruled over two among the more powerful 
 cities in Sicily and at the same time was in close alliance 
 with Gelon of Syracuse and Gela, who had married his 
 daughter Demarete. Together these two allies faced the 
 Carthaginians when under Hamilcar they landed at Himera 
 to restore Terillus. Theron occupied Himera but was 
 besieged there and sent to Gelon for aid. Gelon marched 
 to his relief and the famous Battle of Himera was fought, 
 it is said upon the same day in 480 B.c. as the Battle of 
 Salamis, the Carthaginians being utterly defeated. So 
 large a number of prisoners was taken and employed as 
 slaves, that both Syracuse and Acragas, but especially 
 the latter, were rebuilt by their labour. The territory of 
 Acragas was increasingly brought under cultivation and its 
 wealth in consequence very largely multiplied. Certainly 
 the city enjoyed great prosperity under the rule of Theron. 
 The most splendid buildings, among them those we see, 
 were then erected, public works, reservoirs and aqueducts 
 were established on a stupendous scale and the city was 
 victoriously represented at the Olympic games, Among 
 the poets who frequented Theron’s court, the splendour of 
 which rivalled that of Gelon at Syracuse, was Pindar, 
 who wrote his second and third Olympian Odes in his 
 honour. 
 
 Theron died in 472 B.c. A magnificent monument was 
 erected in his name, at which heroic honours were paid 
 to his memory. He was succeeded in the tyranny by his 
 
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GIRGENTI 123 
 
 son Thrasydzus, who by his violence and misrule quickly 
 alienated his subjects and was expelled within a year of his 
 father’s death. 
 
 Acragas now established a democratic government, which 
 endured for more than sixty years, indeed till the Car- 
 thaginian invasion of 406 B.c. This was the most pros- 
 perous period the city was ever to enjoy. The revolution 
 which overthrew Thrasydeus had been enthusiastically 
 supported by a citizen who was to come to the greatest 
 eminence—Empedocles, son of Meton. His zeal in inspir- 
 ing the establishment of political equality, his magnanimous 
 sympathy with the poor, his severity towards the over- 
 bearing among the rich, his brilliant oratory, his quite 
 amazing knowledge of the laws of nature, his genius and the 
 reputation of his marvellous powers, which he had acquired 
 by curing diseases and by his successful attempts to drain 
 marshy districts to avert epidemics and to divert obnoxious 
 winds, gave such lustre to his name that he was not only 
 offered the sovereignty, which he refused, but was by 
 many regarded as a supernatural being. Diogenes Lertius 
 repeats all sorts of stories about his half miraculous powers, 
 which caused him to be regarded as a diviner. Empedocles 
 himself thus addresses the people of Acragas : ‘‘ My friends 
 who dwellin the great city sloping down to yellow Acragas, 
 hard by the acropolis, busied with goodly works—AII hail ! 
 I go about among you an immortal god, no more a mortal, 
 so honoured of all, as is meet, crowned with fillets and 
 with garlands of flowers. As soon as I enter with my 
 followers into the towns I am reverenced, and tens of 
 thousands follow me to learn where is the path that leads 
 to welfare; some desirous of oracles, others suffering 
 from all kinds of diseases desirous of hearing a message of 
 healing.” 
 
 Philosopher, savant, engineer, musician, physician, pro- 
 phet, miracle worker, Empedocles yet found time to be a 
 democratic leader, to give a constitution to the republic, to 
 establish civil equality and to abolish the aristocratic privi- 
 leges of his time. We know so little of him that it is only 
 dimly we may really grasp what was his real achievement 
 in learning and in science. But the authentic fragments 
 
124 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 of his writings which have come down to us show him often 
 to be approaching the solutions of the problems of nature 
 
 which, two thousand years later, Newton, Darwin and — 4 
 
 Hegel have perhaps unravelled. He made some experi- 
 ments with the water clock, recognized the weight of the 
 air, and certainly seems to have had some idea of the 
 chemical atom, knew something of latent heat and of the 
 idea of attraction. He seems even to have guessed the 
 natural selection of animal species and the position of the 
 sun in relation to the earth and the other planets. In 
 botany he was not less clairvoyant, for he seems to have 
 had some notions about the sex of plants. 
 
 But the savant in him was doubled with the statesman, 
 and it might almost seem with the wonder worker, the 
 charlatan. He appeared in the streets grave and melan- 
 choly in a purple robe with sandals of bronze, a crown of 
 gold or of flowers on his head in the midst of a crowd of 
 young disciples who acclaimed him. He seems only feebly 
 to have denied that he worked miracles, even that he had 
 raised the dead, and he scarcely repulsed those who wor- 
 shipped him as a god. Was it in disgust of all this of 
 the folly of his friends, the misery of the multitude, the 
 stupidity of men, in disgust at last of himself, who must, 
 minister to them, that he disappeared, vanished away 
 so that no man saw him depart or knew whither he had 
 gone ? Some—not his friends—declared that fearing 
 death to be at hand, when it would be evident he was but 
 as any other man, he had left the feast before daybreak 
 and ascended the cone of Etna, and leapt into the crater 
 as into a secure hiding place. And they asserted that 
 they had found one of his bronze sandals cast forth by the 
 volcano. Such was the story. It may beso. But others 
 say he slipped into the sea and was drowned, others assert 
 that he went to Peloponnesus where he died, and others 
 again that he died and was buried at Megara where his tomb 
 might be seen. 
 
 However this may be there can be no doubt of the benefits 
 
 he conferred upon his native city and indeed upon Sicily. 7 
 
 He drained the marshes of Selinus and saved the people 
 there from extinction by malaria, He is said to have cleft 
 
 
 
GIRGENTI 125 
 
 the hill of the acropolis at Acragas so as to let in the north 
 wind for refreshment. Certainly from his abundant means 
 he bestowed dowries upon many maidens of the city who 
 had no dowry. 
 
 Diodorus tells us that at this time the number of citizens 
 in Acragas was not less than 20,000 and he estimates the 
 whole population, including the slaves, at not less than 
 200,000. The luxury, wealth and beauty of the city were 
 famous. Following the example of Gellias, the richest 
 among the citizens, open hospitality was offered to all who 
 
 came to Acragas; and Antisthenes, when he married his 
 daughter, feasted whole populations not only of Acragas 
 but of the neighbouring cities, in the streets. And Acragas 
 was able to remain entirely neutral in the quarrel of 
 Syracuse and Athens. She refused aid of any sort to both 
 combatants. 
 
 But this happy and excellent state of affairs was not to 
 endure. A most formidable danger was at hand. The 
 Carthaginians whom the Segestans had called to their aid 
 against Selinus, in the first expedition, in 409 B.C., were 
 content with the sack of Selinus and Himera. But in 
 406 B.c. they returned, and it was Acragas that was des- 
 tined to be their victim. The beautiful city was unpre- 
 pared for such an onslaught. It armed itself in haste, 
 employed a Spartan general, and chiefly owing to the 
 natural strength of the city and the aid of a Syracusan 
 army was able to hold out for eight months before famine 
 reduced it to such distress that, to avoid surrendering, the 
 whole population abandoned the city and migrated by 
 night to Gela. At dawn the Carthaginians entered, mas- 
 sacred the sick and helpless who could not escape, and not 
 only plundered, but destroyed, the city itself. The Tem- 
 ples were overthrown and their columns hewn down by 
 the barbarian. That their work of destruction was never 
 completed was due to Dionysius, who having made him- 
 self tyrant of Syracuse in 405 B.c. presently secured peace, 
 and the Carthaginians quitted Acragas in the spring of 
 that year. 
 
 Acragas never recovered from this fatal blow. Under 
 the terms of the treaty which Dionysius made her citizens 
 
126. CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 were permitted to return to the ruined city but were — 
 subjected to Carthaginian rule. They returned, and a 
 
 few years later, after the victories of Dionysius, were 
 able to shake off the yoke of Carthage, when the River — 
 
 Halycus which flowed by the ancient Heralcea Minoa and 
 
 to-day passes under Cattolica Eraclea, was established as a 
 
 the Carthaginian boundary, nothing east of it being within 4 
 their administration. Nevertheless, Acragas remained 
 
 broken till Timoleon, in the general settlement of Sicilian 
 affairs, after his great victory over the Carthaginians upon 
 the Crimissus in 340 B.c., re-established the city with — 
 
 colonists from Velia on the continent, when it again pros- a 
 pered: but it was not the old Acragas, and a generation 
 
 later it came within the hegemony of Syracuse. Its 4 
 
 independent career was over and it never again played 
 any considerable part in the affairs of Sicily save indeed 
 on one occasion when during the First Punic War it forgot 
 all its traditions and sided with Carthage against Rome. 
 Rome besieged it and took it after a seven months’ siege. 
 During the Second Punic War it remained faithful to Rome, 
 but was taken by storm by the Carthaginians, whomadeit 
 their headquarters in Sicily. But it was betrayed by the 
 Numidian soldiers of Hanno to the Roman general, and 
 at the end of the war became with the rest of the Sicilian 
 cities permanently subject to the new mistress of the 
 world. 
 
 III 
 
 I suppose every one, as I did, begins his exploration of © 
 
 Girgenti, of the old Greek city of Acragas, by a visit to those — 4 
 
 five Temples along the southern height, which stood only 
 just within the ancient walls towards the sea. Yet these, 
 old as they are, are by no means the oldest Temples of 
 Acragas, Those were the Temples of Zeus Atabyrius, of 
 Athena and of Zeus Polieus, which stood upon the acro- 
 polis of the ancient city. This acropolis would seem to 
 have been the rock known as the Rupe Atenea, upon the 
 top of which it is thought the double sanctuary of Zeus 
 
 
 
GIRGENTI 127 
 
 Atabyrius and Athena stood. The Temple of Zeus Polieus 
 is generally supposed to have occupied the summit of the 
 other height where the Cathedral stands to-day above 
 the modern city. And the Temple discovered beneath 
 S. Maria dei Greci, also within the modern city, is said to 
 be that of Aphrodite. Far more celebrated than any of 
 these was the Temple of Olympian Zeus and that stood 
 upon the southern hill just within the walls towards the 
 sea. 
 
 To reach these ruins I wandered down through the 
 delicious garden of the Hotel des Temples and on through 
 the groves of almonds and carobs beyond, coming out 
 just above S. Nicola on the dusty highway which I fol- 
 lowed to the iron gate of the Temple. A small boy, sent 
 by the custode, who was busy elsewhere, let me in, and I 
 presently stood by the prostrate giant and looked upon 
 the hugest ruins I had ever seen. 
 
 Those great Doric capitals hurled down by the Car- 
 
 thaginian or the earthquake, those vast drums of the 
 broken columns—how were they ever upraised? They 
 seemed too huge for mortal strength. Why, in the fluting, 
 the scanalatura of one of the columns I could stand, but 
 easily, with space to spare. I know nothing save the 
 ' similar Temple, the similar mass of ruins at Selinunte, 
 which so surprises one; besides these columns those of 
 5. Peter’s seem insignificant. Is it only because these 
 are overthrown ? 
 _ The child climbed over the vast débris encouraging me 
 to follow him; but I sat down there among the flowers, 
 for the flowers have run among these precious stones, 
 caressing them with their beauty ; and sometimes looking 
 over the almond blossom up to Girgenti, sometimes look- 
 ing over the sea-plain to the sea, I began toread Diodorus, 
 who has much to say of this Temple. For, in Girgenti 
 there is time for everything even for so antique an historian 
 as Sicilian Diodorus. 
 
 He begins by describing the riches of this countryside 
 which I had only to lift my eyes from his page to see: 
 the wide, deep vineyards richer and more beautiful here, 
 he says, ‘than anywhere else ; the whole territory planted 
 
128 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 with olives, the fruits of which were exported and sold 4 
 to Carthage, for Libya was not yet cultivated. So like — 
 the Carthaginians that! Those inveterate traders and © 
 
 merchants thought little of agriculture; and so the city “a 
 of Acragas sold them its fruits, and received money in 
 exchange for the produce of its earth and its labour, thus _ 
 
 amassing immense riches, which were nobly spent, as we 
 
 see. Their monuments, says Diodorus, are a proof of this 
 
 their wealth. 
 
 Those sacred buildings and above all the Temple of Zeus 
 bear witness to the opulent splendour which the people 
 of Acragas enjoyed. But all the other Temples have been 
 burned and destroyed by their enemies, who have more ~ 
 than once seized the city. War in fact prevented this 
 Temple of Olympian Zeus from being finished, for it was 
 never roofed, and since the town was sacked the citizens 
 had no longer the means to complete it, but it escaped 
 destruction. The Temple was a vast pseudo-peripteros 
 with thirty-eight huge engaged columns. It was 372 
 
 feet long by 182 feet broad; its cella measured 302 feet _ 
 by 68; its columns were 55 feet high and not less than 
 14 feet 9 inches in diameter. Diodorus asserts that it was 
 
 the largest temple in Sicily. It was as a matter of fact 
 not only the largest in Sicily, larger in every way than the 
 huge Temple G at Selinunte, but one of the largest in the 
 world.! It was, Diodorus says, not built in the usual style 
 of a Greek temple with a cella of massive walls and a peri- 
 style, but was designed in a mixed style with half columns 
 as pilasters rounded without, but within showing a flat 
 surface. The porticoes were vast and ofa prodigious height. 
 Above the eastern face of the Temple was represented the 
 Combat of the Giants, a work of sculpture remarkable for _ 
 its beauty and its dimensions. Upon the western face was — 
 
 1 The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus was larger. It was 425 feet 
 long, 220 feet broad. The columns, which numbered 128, were 
 60 feet high. This was the largest of Greek Temples. The area 
 of the Parthenon is about one-third that of this Temple: the Par- 
 thenon being 228 by 100 feet. The Olympieum at Athens is 353% 
 feet long by 134% feet broad. The columns were 56% feet high but 
 only 5-54 feet in diameter. Really only the Temple of Artemis at 
 Ephesus was larger than this Temple of Zeus at Acragas. . 
 
 
 
GIRGENTI 129 
 
 shown the Fall of Troy, in which one saw each of the heroes 
 who there played a part. 
 
 Of all this what remains ? Nothing but a huge heap of 
 ruins and a single colossal figure lying upon its back about 
 which the flowers blow, among them Theocritus’ creeping 
 éliyovoos. Presumably this colossal Telamon with 37 of 
 its fellows supported the entablature, or possibly two such 
 figures stood on either side the great entrance.} 
 
 Climbing about, up and down over these enormous frag- 
 ments, after. I had wondered enough at the mere size of the 
 capitals and columns and details, ail carved in that golden 
 stone, I began to be oppressed by the imperfection of 
 everything, the roughness and the crudeness of the details, 
 of the carved work everywhere. This to some extent 
 was no doubt due to the weathering of the stone after 
 more than two thousand years. But in some measure it 
 was inherent. For these Temples of Sicily were not 
 built of marble, but of stone. They were never meant 
 to be seen naked as they now lie. When they stood 
 beautiful above the sea, in Syracuse, in Acragas, in Selinus, 
 their golden stone was covered by the finest stucco, the 
 colour of pentelic marble and painted in places with bright 
 colours gay and lovely in the sun. This stucco, almost as 
 hard and smooth as marble, remains in many of the flutings 
 of the columns here. 
 
 Before the eastern front of the Temple are some remains 
 of a vast altar of sacrifices. 
 
 _ My little guide now led me across the fodere to a group 
 of columns standing upright which he called the Temple of 
 Castor and Pollux. In fact these columns are a fanciful 
 re-erection, the absurd but most effective corner of a 
 temple, set up from the remains of two different temples 
 by Cavallari. However, the four Doric columns are of 
 great beauty and the whole is very picturesque. 
 
 Close by the Temple of Olympian Zeus on the other side 
 of the Porta Aurea stands what remains or has been re- 
 erected of the Temple of Herakles, a line of golden columns 
 against the sea. This was a temple also of the Doric order 
 
 1 The two giants upon the coins of Acragas suggest or seem to 
 suggest this. 
 
130 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 but peripteral-hexastyle, surrounded that is by a portico 
 consisting of six columns in front and fifteen on each 
 side. It was the largest of the temples which remain to us 
 in Acragas after the Temple of Olympian Zeus. It con- 
 tained a famous painting by Zeuxis of Alcmene and a 
 statue of Herakles which Verres tried to steal by night. 
 Until a few years ago only one column of this temple 
 was still standing, but in recent years, largely owing to the 
 initiative and at the expense of an Englishman, Colonel 
 Hardcastle, eight columns have been erected, four of them 
 crowned with their.great Doric capitals. I could have 
 wished them undisturbed. 
 
 I now made my way, always accompanied by my little 
 guide, to the so-called Temple of Concord on the ridge 
 to the east. This is the best preserved of all the Temples 
 at Girgenti, and even of Sicily, for the Temple at Segesta 
 is but half finished. In its golden beauty it stands up in 
 the sun, really, from many points of view, complete and 
 unspoiled. It dates from the fifth century and its title of 
 ‘Concordia ”’ is, if it has any authenticity at all, merely 
 of Roman date. Its preservation is said to be due to the 
 fact that in the Middle Age it became a Christian church 
 under the invocation of S. Gregorio delle Rape. But 
 how can that be? It suggests that all this destruction and 
 overthrow was the work not of the Carthaginians nor of 
 the earthquake, but of the Christians. It is true that the 
 Temple of Olympian Zeus, was, till the beginning of the 
 fifteenth century, still largely complete, though over-— 
 thrown, and that it was then in part removed for building 
 purposes and more lately for the construction of Porto 
 Empedocle. ; 
 
 No; it may be that the enormous labour ne destruction 
 begun by the Carthaginians upon these temples in Acragas 
 tired them out; it may be they were interrupted by 
 Dionysius before they were able to demolish more than the 
 three or four temples in the west. But what the Chris- 
 tians had to do with it all remains obscure, and considering 
 their record and our own in such matters, remembering as 
 one cannot but do the rape of the Parthenon, one is loathe 
 to credit them or ourselves with any tenderness for such 
 

 
 c I 
 
 TEMPLE OF “ CONCORD,’ GIRGENTI 
 
 
 
 THE THEATRE AT ACR& 
 

 
GIRGENTI 131 
 
 buildings as these, in the service of paganism, and, as far 
 as we are concerned, offering such wonderful opportunity 
 for loot. 
 
 The beautiful Temple ‘‘ of Concord,’’ is what is called 
 peripteros-hexastylos, that is to say with columns at each 
 end and along each side, having six columns in the porti- 
 coesat eitherend. Allthese columns, thirty-four in number, 
 are still standing, as are the pediments and architraves. 
 The cella, which was reached by steps, had a pronaos, that 
 is to say a chamber before it, enclosed by the eastern 
 portico and an opisthodomus in antis, that is to say another 
 chamber behind the cella enclosed by the western portico. 
 The roof has fallen. For its admirable preservation and 
 its completeness, as well as for its touching majesty and 
 grace this Temple remains one of the most beautiful 
 Greek monuments in the world. To-day it stands there, 
 an exquisite casket of golden stone, but you may still 
 trace upon it the remains of the painted stucco which once 
 covered it, so that it stood up over the sea in far off days 
 like a work in pentelic marble decorated in colour and in 
 gold. 7 
 
 I wandered away at last to examine the last of this line of 
 Temples, that of ‘‘ Hera Lacinia,” little more than a line of 
 Doric columns upon the highest part of the ridge. The 
 dedication of this temple seems again to be merely the 
 guess of ignorance, which has confused it with that most 
 famous sanctuary which stood in honour of Hera upon 
 the Lacinian Promontory on the coast of Calabria, where 
 still a single Doric column stands over the Ionian sea, We 
 shall never know in whose honour any of these temples 
 were built, save that of Olympian Zeus. 
 
 This Temple called of Hera stood in the north-east 
 angle of the city by the wall above the River Acragas. 
 It was of the same style as, but a little smaller than, the 
 Temple of “Concord,” and the cella was in antis. It 
 seems to date from the beginning of the fifth century B.c. 
 and to be somewhat earlier than the Temple of ‘* Concord.”’ 
 It would appear to have been overthrown by earthquake 
 and not by the Carthaginians. Twenty-five of its columns 
 remain, all those of the north side being erect with their 
 
| 
 , 
 i 
 iy 
 a 
 
 architrave still in place. Nine other columns are partly © 
 erect, but the cella, the porticoes, and the roof are wholly — 
 overthrown. 
 
 It was now near midday and my little guide led me back 
 towards San Nicola where in the delicious convent garden ~ 
 under the stone pine and the cypress I might eat in the — 
 shade the Sicilian cheese and the figs I had brought along — 
 with me. From that shade, from that silence where the 
 only sound was the hum of the bees among the flowers, I — 
 looked back across the almond blossom over the tender ~ 
 green of the young wheat to that line of golden Temples ~ 
 dark against the sky, through whose columns shone the © 
 sea; not set in exact line along that ridge carefully of the — 
 same height as we might have purposed to do, but in ~ 
 harmonious irregularity, a disorder so perfect that in itself — 
 it sang like an air in the Dorian mode, liké a line of a motet 
 by Palestrina, as subtle in its beauty, as complete in its — 
 perfection, as moving, to me at any rate, in its pathos. — 
 That men could have been found, that men could have ~ 
 had the heart, to destroy things so fair. Yes, one might 
 well ask of oneself such a question until one remembered ~ 
 what men daily do to things as fair as these. ... 
 
 That garden of San Nicola is a paradise; one might — 
 lounge there many an afternoon reading upon the platform — 
 of the piscina or wandering through the alleyways out — 
 into the podeve and the vineyards and back again. Indeed 
 it is hard to tell where garden ends and podere begins. 
 
 And there is much to be had beside the pleasure of 
 the place itself: the view of the Temples thence, the view — 
 of the city, piled up house over house upon the hill under ~ 
 the Duomo, the view over the vineyards and the almond ~ 
 blossom to the hill they call the Hippodrome. And close 
 by is the so-called Oratory of Phalaris—a strange name— 
 connoting I know not what—attached to a Roman building © 
 of the second century B.c. 
 
 And last, but infinitely well worth seeing for all that, — 
 is the ancient church, now under the invocation of S. Nicola. — 
 Gothic the guide-books call it: but it is surely the cella of © 
 a Greek temple. The solemn facade, as golden as the ~ 
 temples, with its deep portal and heavy cornice, may 
 
 
 
 182 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
GIRGENTI 133 
 
 technically be “‘ Gothic,’’ but it has nothing of the Gothie 
 soul: it remains Greek and belongs to those Ionian and 
 #éigean isles where you might expect a little provincialism 
 to inform your art, to be as it were a country roughness 
 ina tongue that wasitselfa dialect. Within, the impression 
 is even more direct: this is the cella of a Greek temple; 
 to-day it is the sanctuary of a Christian church. Some- 
 thing similar may be seen in the church of S. Biagio under 
 the Rupe Atenea. 
 
 Close by San Nicola on the other side of the road they 
 have found the remains of an ancient house with mosaics, 
 which is called the Casa Greca. It may beso: but it seems 
 to me indisputably Roman. 
 
 In the cool of the afternoon I went down once more to the 
 Temples, and passing out of the Porta Aurea, still clearly 
 indicated on either side the road, I came into the sea-plain 
 and turning, saw the long stretched débris of the ancient 
 walls over the precipitous escarpment and the Christian 
 tombs cut therein, tombs probably of the second century, 
 to which time the catacombs called the Grotta de’ Franga- 
 pani hereabout belong. 
 
 My little guide had not deserted me and presently led me 
 off this road, which leads at last to the ancient Greek 
 harbour at the mouth of the Acragas, and crossing a 
 field brought me to the building known as the Tomb of 
 Theron. Alas, this too is a Roman work and in no wise 
 like the Tomb of Theron as Diodorus describes it—a 
 monument of an immense grandeur, which during the 
 Carthaginian attack was struck by lightning and thus 
 preserved from the fury of the barbarian. 
 
 From this miserable make-believe I was led to the site, 
 with its few ruins, of the Temple of Asklepios wherein the 
 statue of Apollo by Myron once stood. These remains lie 
 just within the confluence of the Hypsas with the Acragas, 
 where it is said the Romans were encamped before they 
 took the city. 
 
 But it was not these few ruins which enchanted me but 
 once more those temples along the steep. Andif they con- 
 tinually drew my eyes in their touching ruin what must they 
 have seemed to the homing triremes of Acragas, when in 
 
 ta 
 
184 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 
 
 all their beauty and fairness, bright with colour and with — 
 gold, they stood along the landfall from the sea? And ~ 
 what in their beauty, their glory and their pride must they — 
 have meant to those barbarous but acute Phoenicians, whose — 
 cities were but encampments, whose thought was only gain, 
 and whose business was the sea ? 
 
 Not half so much, indeed almost nothing Greek, awaits — 
 you in the city itself, the modern town of Girgenti. Those 
 climbing streets, medieval still, in spirit at least, and all 
 leading somehow or other, through devious narrow ways, 
 up long winding staircases, or under the tunnelled houses, 
 to the Cathedral, are picturesque enough but unhappily © 
 contain scarcely a monument worth in itself the trouble 
 of a visit. As you wander about, up and down through 
 the sunlight and shadow of that precipitous town, you 
 happen upon this building or that which catches you 
 for a moment, but not one has any real distinction or 
 beauty except the Cathedral, and not one anything worth a 
 pause except S. Maria dei Miracoli. 
 
 The Cathedral, which stands nearly a thousand feet above 
 the sea, was begun they sayin the fourteenth century, and 
 may well have stood upon the site of some temple; but it 
 has been so largely modernized and restored that it is now 
 only worth a visit for the sake of its fine old pillars, the 
 admirable wooden roof which covers the nave, and the 
 great treasure of the Sacristry at the end of the north aisle, 
 the famous sarcophagus with its reliefs of the story of 
 Phedra and Hippolytus, which is however only a Roman 
 copy of a Greek original of the fourth century B.c. And 
 yet Roman though it is, something finer than anything 
 Roman, something Greek, seems still to hang about it 
 like a spirit or a perfume, as though it had been so long 
 in this old Greek city that something of its quality had 
 entered into it—the ghost perhaps, restless amid so much 
 misfortune, of Dorian Acragas having found there repose 
 within the thick polished marble carved with the tragic 
 story of Phedra and Hippolytus; that fatal passion so 
 touchingly rendered after all by some reverent young Roman 
 artist, carefully line by line, blow by blow, following his — 
 betters. So grave, SO iovely, so reserved, how those figurem 
 
me 
 bs or 
 
 GIRGENTI — 135 
 
 must have charmed him as he translated them for some 
 snobbish patron who really preferred something much more 
 realistic, without just that annoying spiritual or esthetic 
 quality, but which here in Acragas, in Agrigentum rather, 
 he found it the fashion to possess. So to-day some bar- 
 barian millionaire carries off from the Lungarno in Florence 
 a copy of the Venus de’ Medici, but with how much less 
 
 ’ good fortune, both in his choice of the original and the 
 
 execution of the copy ! 
 
 One picks one’s way carefully down those steep and 
 storeyed streets from the Cathedral to the little church of 
 S. Maria dei Greci where, beneath the church, the remains, 
 the stylobate and the column bases of a temple may be 
 seen, in a dark tunnel by the light of a candle. 
 
 Nor is there much to be found in the Museum: an 
 archaic Apollo, a sarcophagus, some vases and fragmentary 
 marbles. 
 
 But at least once before leaving Girgenti one must climb 
 that steep way up the Rupe Atenea, the Rock of Athena, the 
 ancient acropolis of the city, they say, where of old stood 
 her temple for which they have searched in vain. 
 
 On that narrow summit it is good to lie at evening, and, 
 in the level light, take in that far stretched view which is 
 said on a fortunate day even to include Etna so many 
 many miles behind us. Yet it is arid enough what you 
 see, the country not of the Lestrygones but of the sulphur 
 miners, a yellow world which seems to reach to the very 
 foot of these enormous escarpments, falling northward so 
 giddily, so precipitously. 
 
 Yes, that world of misery and sulphur swirls round 
 the high acropolis of Girgenti and trickles down to the 
 sea at Porto Empedocle. It does not spoil the southern 
 landscape, still enchanted by its temples and its memories, 
 but it certainly sours the Agrigentines and marks them 
 with the stigmata of industrialism. You will as soon 
 get agentle answer as a rough one, let us say, in Girgenti 
 itself ; but not as soon in Porto Empedocle. 
 
 That hill of the acropolis, which Empedocles split 
 asunder, has let in the north wind with a vengeance; it 
 but passes over that enchanted world at your feet, spell- 
 
186 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 bound pers as the gods knew how to a os » gtrilce ‘ 
 
 Empedocle full in the face. One begins to unde 
 why the Greek spirit perished from the world, a 
 came to die. 3 
 
 
 
CHAPTER X 
 SELINUNTE 
 
 RAVELLING to-day, in Sicily at any rate, is not 
 what it used to be. In the last quarter of the 
 eighteenth century, when Henry Swinburne rode 
 into Sciacca on the evening of December 29 he was received 
 in a manner that I regret to confess it has never been my 
 good fortune to meet with. ‘‘ The duke of Tagliavia, 
 having been previously informed by my campiere that I 
 had letters of recommendation to him, met me out of the 
 town in his coach and lodged me in his own house. The 
 principal persons of the town were invited to meet me and 
 a most splendid entertainment was served up. I found the 
 Sicilian cookery entirely different from that of France or 
 England; sugar and spices were predominant in almost 
 every dish.” : 
 
 Alas, my experience of Sciacca recalls nothing half so 
 pleasant in the way of a welcome as that. To begin with, 
 the way from Porto Empedocle by train is incredibly 
 tedious. Nothing above a misto uses this newly opened 
 line, that is to say, the train is made up of goods-wagons, 
 and a few coaches are attached to it for passengers. The 
 rate of progress is unbelievably slow. To cover the 
 seventy-four kilometri—say forty-five miles—over three and 
 a half hours, from 10.30a.m. toI.3 p.m. arerequired. One 
 begins to realize one ison the shore of the African sea. . . 
 
 Nor is it only the rate and the discomfort of the journey 
 that remind you of Africa. With every mile you traverse 
 the landscape becomes more and more African, until at 
 Sciacca itself you seem to have climbed up into one of 
 those cities above the littoral of Tunisia or Algeria, and 
 not so much to have left Europe behind, as to be upon 
 
 137 
 
188 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 its last frontiers, the frontiers of the southern desert. The 
 African sun pours down upon you, the African sea lies 
 before you like a shield or a mirror dazzling your eyes, and 
 tediously you crawl across a country that grows ever more 
 oriental as you proceed, till when you have climbed up to 
 Sciacca you are convinced that you are on the verge of the 
 desert. 
 
 There are, of course, oases in this harsh emptiness, and 
 Cattolica and Ribera amid their vineyards are among them. 
 There are also one or two places of considerable interest. 
 Of these the crossing of the Platani in its wide valley 
 touches one most, for this brackish stream was the ancient 
 Halycus, the river which Dionysius of Syracuse established 
 by the treaty of 383 B.c. as the eastern boundary of the 
 Carthaginian dominions in Sicily. To the east of this 
 stream the Greek cities were to be in safety, Greek civiliza- 
 tion was to establish itself unmolested: all west of it was 
 left toCarthage. Did I not say well that we were approach- 
 ing Africa ? 
 
 That treaty of Dionysius was confirmed by Timoleon 
 in his treaty with the Carthaginians after his great victory 
 on the Crimissus. But it would seem that by both these 
 treaties three Greek cities were sacrificed—Himera, Selinus 
 and that Heracleia which stood at the mouth of the stream, 
 but unfortunately upon the left bank. 
 
 I had meant to leave the train at Montallegro or Cattolica 
 to visit the site of Heracleia, but found that I should have 
 no time to get there and back to the station to catch the 
 last train for Sciacca that night. I ought to have left 
 Porto Empedocle at six in the morning. I had wished to 
 see the place because recent excavations have brought to 
 
 light some ruins of the theatre and a necropolis, The city 
 was known of old as Heracleia Minoa. It got its first © 
 
 name from Herakles, who won all western Sicily from 
 Eryx in a wrestling match. This legend, too, points to 
 the essential difference between western Sicily and the 
 eastern and greater part of the island, and suggests that 
 here was the frontier. Its second name it got from Minos, 
 King of Crete, who landed here in Sicily in pursuit of 
 Dedalus, and here founded a city to which he gave his 
 
 
 
auUvVIOS 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 i. 
 
 
 
SELINUNTE 1389 
 
 name. Herodotus, however, seems to regard Minoa as a 
 colony of Selinus, and no doubt he is right in that it was 
 re-colonized from that city, whose frontier it held. The 
 city rose rapidly to prosperity, but was always at the mercy 
 of the Carthaginians. When it was finally sacrificed by 
 Dionysius it seems that he only confirmed the reality of 
 the situation. 
 
 The other place of considerable interest before one 
 reaches Sciacca upon this route, is the town of Caltabellotta, 
 which stands in a marvellous situation on the top of a 
 precipitous mountain 2,200 feet above the sea, which, 
 according to Swinburne, whom it greatly impressed by its 
 lofty and inaccessible situation, is the ancient Triocala. 
 The ruins of Triocala, however, are about a mile below, 
 at a place called S. Anna. Here it was that Tryphon and 
 Athenion, two runaways, established the headquarters of 
 the republic of slaves whom they had rescued from bondage, 
 in 103 8B.c. From here the Servile War in Sicily was directed, 
 and here in 100 B.c. Tryphon still held out, though he was 
 reduced at last, we know not how. 
 
 All this country has even yet a bad reputation for 
 brigandage and lawlessness. Caltabellotta, by its mere 
 appearance, alarms the most sturdy traveller, and I do not 
 know that Sciacca does not confirm him in his fears. 
 Nothing, however, worse than fleas, lack of decent food, 
 and general dirt and discomfort befell me. 
 
 Little is to be gained by staying at Sciacca, which 
 has nothing whatever to attract you beyond a very fine 
 statue of the Blessed Virgin in the Cathedral, by Francesco 
 Laurana, which is worth some trouble to see. The aspect 
 of the place, however, on its abrupt rock and overshadowed 
 by the ruins of the castles of the Luna and Perolla families, 
 who assassinated one another during the whole of the 
 fifteenth century, a feud famous even in Sicilian annals as 
 the Caso di Sciacca, is very picturesque. Nothing whatever 
 remains of the Therme Selinuntine of which we hear 
 something in antiquity. 
 
 From Sciacca one traverses an ever more African land- 
 scape to Castelvetrano. Leaving Sciacca by the morning 
 train at eight, I arrived at Selinunte before ten, and was 
 

 
 140 CITIES OF SICILY a 
 
 able to spend the whole day among the most magnificent 
 ruins in Sicily before going on to Castelvetrano about four, 
 Those six hours give you a superficial view of that amazing _ 
 place, but two or three days are not enough to exhaust its — 
 fascination and interest. Nor is there really any reason 
 why two or three days as I found should not be devoted 
 to them. ; 
 
 The inn at Castelvetrano is a just possible hostelry, 
 though it lacks every hygienic appliance, is unheated and 
 not very clean. Still, as things go in the more out of the — 
 way parts of Sicily—and in Sicily there are only five towns 
 where you can obtain really good accommodation even if 
 we include Messina: Messina, Taormina, Syracuse, Gir- 
 genti and Palermo—Castelvetrano can be endured, for the _ 
 host is anxious to do his best, and Selinunte is worth almost 
 any trouble to see. 
 
 The town of Castelvetrano numbers 22,000 inhabitants, 
 and is deliciously situated in a smiling country of corn and 
 wine and oil, overwhelmed with flowers of every colour of 
 the rainbow. The town itself is worth seeing for a few 
 fine buildings and churches and convents, and it possesses 
 a museum in which, among many objects of minor interest, 
 is a fine archaic bronze statuette of Apollo ; but, of course, 
 the main reason for coming to the place is that it is the 
 key to Selinunte, which in many ways is the most remark- _ 
 able antiquity in Sicily, and certainly as well worth seeing _ 
 as anything else in the island. E 
 
 Selinunte lies some eight miles from Castelvetrano upon 
 the low and sandy coast. It is approached through a 
 delicious valley where every imaginable flower and tree and 
 fruitful thing seems to flourish, a real valley of paradise with — 
 orange and lemon groves, with almonds and olives, which _ 
 opens at last upon the wide and sandy plateau, cut by 
 ravines, upon which Selinunte stands. 3 
 
 Nothing anywhere, nothing in Sicily certainly, is more — 
 impressive, more tragic in its beauty than the first sight~ 
 of Selinus lying there over the sea, ruin heaped on ruin, 
 vast column upon column, enormous capital upon capital, 
 temples, palaces, houses, streets, all piled up in gigantic ~ 
 overthrow, in unbelievable disarray. The cityseems enor- 
 
SELINUNTE 141 
 
 mous, seems to stretch for miles over the great sandy 
 steppe, where the palmetto and the wild parsley grow 
 together, and the lentiscus, the agave and the cactus are 
 at home. And at first you think it a real city, till, as you 
 approach it and come within the radius of its influence, 
 its silence, its desolation, you find yourself gazing over the 
 most extraordinary pile of ruins in Europe—stupendous 
 heaps of broken stone, of columns, many of them partly 
 erect, of fallen architraves, of broken capitals, of paved 
 streets blocked by their overthrow, but in which the ruts 
 of the chariot wheels are full of last night’s rain. 
 
 You come first to the eastern hill, upon which lie heaped 
 up the ruins of three temples, one of them among the largest 
 temples in the world. But the body of the city, with the 
 acropolis, stood upon the western hill, on that ridge thrust 
 out over the sea beyond which lies the River Selinus, at 
 the mouth of which the ancient port was built. The 
 Hypsas lies to the east ; and all before you stretches the 
 sea, breaking here upon a lean, desolate shore between Capo 
 S. Marco to the east and the low Punta di Granitola to the 
 west. 
 
 Selinus was a colony of Hyblzan Megara, founded about 
 650 B.c. Its name is said to have been derived from the 
 wild parsley (c¢Awov) which still grows so plentifully here, 
 and a leaf of this plant was in fact adopted as the symbol of 
 the city and used upon its coins. It was the most western 
 and therefore, of course, the most in danger of all the 
 Greek cities of Sicily, but it was not, as it happened, the 
 Carthaginian power which finally caused itsoverthrow. It 
 was Segesta. Segesta was, in fact, the curse of Sicily. 
 A non-Hellenic, a non-Carthaginian city, she was ready to 
 call in either power to suit her own small purposes, and to 
 her more than to any other may be attributed the failure 
 
 of Greek civilization in the island. 
 
 _ Unhappily, the territories of Selinus and Segesta had a 
 common frontier upon the Mazarus, and as early as 580 B.c. 
 we find the two peoples at war. 
 
 Selinus, however, was guilty of siding with the Cartha- 
 ginians in 480 B.c., though possibly it was to save her life, 
 for she stood upon their confines. But her difficult posi- 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 142 CITIES OF SICILY a 
 
 to 
 
 tion upon the frontiers of two non-Hellenic peoples, the — 
 Carthaginians and the Segestans, was too hard for her. 
 Her quarrel with Segesta in 416 B.c. developed into one of — 
 the causes of the Athenian Expedition, for she was sup- — 
 ported by Syracuse and, in consequence, deceived Athens — 
 took up the Segestan cause. The defeat of the Athenians — 
 left the Segestans for the moment at the mercy of Selinus, — 
 with the consequence that Segesta appealed to Carthage. ‘a 
 Carthage sent a small force at once, and the Selinuntines ~ 
 were defeated, but in 409 B.c. a vast army of at least 100,000 — 
 men appeared from Africa, landed at Lilybeum and ~ 
 marched upon Selinus itself. The Selinuntines defended — 
 their city with courage, but neither Syracuse nor Acragas © 
 was in a position to help them. After a siege of ten days — 
 the city was taken, the fighting went on from house to ~ 
 house, and most of the citizens were ruthlessly slain. — 
 Indeed, we are told that 16,000 were slain, 5,000 made ~ 
 prisoners, and only 2,600 escaped to Acragas. The walls — 
 of Selinus were destroyed, and it was only as subject to — 
 Carthage and as its tributary that the remnant of citizens — 
 in Acragas was allowed to return. This arrangement was — 
 confirmed in the treaty of Dionysius with the Carte a 
 in 405 B.C. a 
 That is really the end of Selinus as a Greek city, Its | 
 material existence comes to an end 150 years later, when — 
 in the First Punic War Carthage removed all the inhabitants a 
 to Lilybeum and destroyed the city, 4 
 We should, however, probably be wrong if we concluded _ 
 that the destruction and desolation we now see were — 
 wholly the work of the Carthaginians. They may be. — 
 But they seem to be too complete for that, The earth- — 
 quake is probably responsible for much of so final an ove 4 
 throw, and to the anopheles mosquito, which found a — 
 congenial breeding ground in the marshes, are probably 
 due the silence and desolation all around, 3 
 It was across this desolation, beautiful with under- 
 growth and flowers for all its melancholy, I made my way — 
 to the acropolis upon the western hill where it is thrust — 
 out in a steep headland towards the sea. This hill falls 
 steeply in the west to the marsh through which the Selinus — 
 
SELINUNTE 148 
 
 flows, while another marsh bounds it upon the east. Upon 
 the plateau, in shape like a clenched fist, stood the city and 
 acropolis of Selinus, guarded northward at the wrist by a 
 fortress, parts of which are still in position. The whole 
 was enclosed by a wall, much of which remains, as do more 
 than one of the paved streets and gateways, the way 
 through the city from east to west to the sea gate down to 
 the ancient port at the mouth of the Selinus, for instance, 
 and the better defined and splendid street running through 
 the city just to the west of the Temples from south to 
 north. Such remains, such visible reminders of the 
 everyday life of Selinus, are more touching if less splendid 
 than those of the three majestic temples here piled so 
 high, column upon column, in heap upon heap of carved 
 stone. 
 
 These temples, all of the Doric order and of the most 
 ancient style, are allperipteral and hexastyle. Even their 
 names are lost to us and they are known to archeologists 
 by letters of the alphabet. Thus the southernmost temple 
 is Temple A, the great temple north of it Temple C, and that 
 northagain Temple D. Temple B is a small prostyle-tetra- 
 style building which had Ionic columns and Doric entabla- 
 ture at the south-east corner of Temple C. : 
 
 The largest, the oldest and the most imposing of these 
 temples is Temple C. It measured 230 feet in length by 
 88 feet in width, the diameter of its columns was 6 feet at 
 the base and the length of its cella was 131 feet, the breadth 
 294 feet. Some authorities say it was dedicated to 
 Herakles, some to Apollo. We shall probably never know 
 even that now. It was, however, in this temple that two 
 Englishmen in 1822, Messrs. Harris and Angell (the latter 
 at the cost of his life for he died here of malaria), found 
 the three Metopes and part of the entablature now in the 
 Museum at Palermo. These Metopes represent a Quad- 
 riga, with charioteer, and two Victories holding garlands, 
 Perseus beheading Medusa, and Herakles with the Cer- 
 copes. 
 
 One wanders about these temples, climbing here and 
 there, a little aimlessly, marvelling at the immensity of 
 the columns, the vastness of those Doric capitals—for 
 
+ pape 
 ae oe 
 
 144 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 what can one do, what can one say before so much beauty — 
 irrevocably slain ?—till one turns away at last, to pass, © 
 always I think with a vague apprehension, for it all seems 
 as though it was but empty since yesterday, and at laston 
 tiptoe, up and down those streets, in and out of the houses, _ 
 the foundations of houses, finding here a pile of broken 
 crockery, there a little statue of terra-cotta, here a vase, 
 there a skeleton, a pot of dust, a patch of violets. The — 
 only human being you will see in that hushed loneliness 
 which makes you feel like an intruder is, by chance, a 
 little shepherd boy who has left his sheep to see you, — 
 so strange a stranger, and who will shyly offer to show ~ 
 you some new or secret thing, a newly-opened sepulchre, 
 a little vase like the calyx of a flower in the bed of the 
 torrent, a tiny broken head of Demeter, the lovely green 
 corroded blade of a dagger or a worn coin of silver, the 
 thin gold of a ring. % 
 Wandering thus through the streets of this dead city, 
 always in silence, where in truth only the flowers are at 
 home, you come out on the north wall, through the gate 
 there, to the fortress restored by Hermocrates in 407 B.C., 
 with its bastions and semicircular tower, its deep trench ~ 
 and well of water. There in the sun you may read what 
 Diodorus has to tell of the end of this great city. How ~ 
 Hannibal the Carthaginian came marching from Lily- — 
 beum with 100,000 men and the Segestans, and arrived 
 on the banks of the Mazarus, and there established his base. — 
 Marching thence, he divided his army in twain, laid siege 
 to the tall city and began to attack it with his machines. — 
 He had, it seems, constructed six towers of a prodigious — 
 height, and he battered the walls with battering rams ~ 
 ‘having iron heads, while his archers rained arrows upon — 
 the defenders. 3 
 The Selinuntines, who had long since lost all experience — 
 of sieges, were taken by surprise. The sight of the enor- — 
 mous engines and the multitude of the enemy filled them — 
 with terror. However, they prepared to defend themselves, — 
 hoping for aid from Syracuse. The young all took arms, — 
 the aged prepared the defence, visited the ramparts and ~ 
 exhorted the warriors not to let the city fall into the hands _ 
 
 
 
 
 
SELINUNTE 145 
 
 of the enemy. The womenand children brought food and 
 arrows to those fighting for their country, for the terror 
 was so great that one had even implored the aid of the 
 women. 
 
 At last the battering rams made a breach in the walls, 
 which had not even been kept in repair. The Cartha- 
 ginians entered, but were repulsed—the breach was half 
 restored when night fell. 
 
 In that night the Selinuntines sent their chief men to 
 hasten aid from Acragas and Gela and Syracuse. But 
 those cities were too far, their help too distant. At break 
 of day Hannibal had renewed the attack, and enlarged the 
 breach with his engines. Backwards and forwards swung 
 the battle; for nine days and nine nights in expecta- 
 tion of succour the Selinuntines thrust back the cruel 
 Pheenician faces, the blue painted savages from Iberia, 
 the Segestans grinning with hate. Till at last from the 
 women watching the battle from the roofs there went up 
 a great cry. The Selinuntines were abandoning the walls, 
 fighting in the streets now, in the narrow ways, in the 
 temples, in the houses. The Carthaginians forced barri- 
 cade after barricade under a storm of stones hurled from 
 the roofs. The fight lasted till evening, and then at last 
 there were no more stones. The mighty armies poured 
 on and on, till they filled the whole city, and the night was 
 loud with the lamentations of the Greeks, the howling joy 
 of the barbarians. Then the carnage began—the whole 
 population was cut to pieces without distinction of age or 
 sex, the children in their mothers’ arms, the women, the 
 old men. According to their custom the Carthaginians 
 mutilated the dead : one worea girdle of Greek hands, another 
 a necklace of fingers, and all upon their pikes or their jave- 
 lins bore the Greek head of a man, a woman, or a child, 
 Only the women who had sought refuge in the temples 
 they spared. They gave them their lives, not out of pity, 
 but because they feared that these women, reduced to 
 despair, would fire the temples and thus rob them of their 
 spoil. By midnight the city was looted, was on fire, 
 a single flame ; and all the place covered with blood. ... 
 
 In the afternoon the little shepherd led me by a path 
 
146 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 he knew across the Selinus to the necropolis that lies there, — 
 and behind it to what appeared to be a suburb, with what — 
 I took to be a Temple or Propylea, two great altars and the ~ 
 ruins of other buildings. But I could not stay long away ~ 
 from the great city on the hill. I returned there and © 
 wandered out on to the acropolis behind the house of the ~ 
 custode where the headland falls abruptly to the sea, — 
 and then down the long street westward and out of the © 
 sea-gate on to that lonely shore. ; 
 
 Thence at last I made my way back to the eastern — 
 plateau covered with enormous ruins which I had passed : 
 in the morning on my way to the acropolis. “a 
 
 Here stood three vast temples also nameless ; the south- — 
 ernmost known as Temple E, the next Temple F, the last — 
 Temple G. Again I stood amid a confusion of ruin that — 
 was bewildering and overwhelming. + 
 
 From Temple E, possibly the Temple of Hera, for a — 
 
 dedicatory inscription to that goddess was found here in — 
 
 1865, were taken the five Metopes now at Palermo, repre- — 
 senting Athena and the Giant, another so damaged as to ~ 
 be undecipherable, the third Herakles slaying Hippolyte, — 
 the fourth Zeus and Hera on Mount Ida, the fifth Artemis: 5 
 and Actzon. / 
 
 From Temple F came two parts of Metopes also now at — 
 Palermo, representing a combat of Giants. These were © 
 discovered by Harris and Angell in 1822. a 
 
 The last, Temple G, was, like the Temple of Olympian — 
 Zeus at Girgenti, never completed. Like that Temple, — 
 too, it was one of the largest in the world, only slightly — 
 smaller than the giant of Acragas. It measured 371 feet ~ 
 in length, 177 feet in breadth ; the columns were 534 feet — 
 high, 11} feet in diameter at the base; the length of the a 
 cella was 228 feet and it was 59 feet broad, It i is said to 4 
 have been dedicated to Apollo. 7 
 
 It is impossible to express one’s wonder or one’s admira- — 
 tion at these mighty buildings now for so many ages laid — 
 low, In their presence they seem toimpose a silence upon — 
 one and that silence endures, They are beyond our com- 
 prehension to-day, we have lost the sense of their reasonable — 
 and perfect beauty, which we do not in the least feel or — 
 
 
 
SELINUNTE 147 
 
 understand. Too much romantic darkness lies behind us ; 
 we are more than half barbarian still. Unlike our medieval 
 churches—for we have long ceased to build at all in that 
 sense—these temples were not built to accommodate a 
 crowd, or for the assembly of a vast congregation. They 
 were the sanctuaries of the gods, but the gods were implicit 
 in the whole landscape which they consecrated. Our 
 cathedrals, our abbey churches were far otherwise: they 
 were embattled against the world; the saints in their 
 heavenly windows looked inward into the darkness, where 
 in an isolated starry radiance Christ lay upon the altar, 
 and a multitude convinced of sin and of death crouched 
 on the pavement in fear and in self-reproach, or in an 
 ecstasy of adoration. Reason can find no place in such 
 buildings as these: it did not create them; they are not 
 informed or inspired by its spirit. They are of the crowd 
 and have always satisfied it. 
 
 But these ... I cannot say how they were built or 
 quite in what lay their intention, for I am a stranger, a 
 barbarian from the farthest isles on the verge of the ocean. 
 But they satisfy in me what those of my home can never 
 satisfy, are not indeed aware of; a demand, a need for 
 something reasonable, serene, absolute, and perfect ; 
 something which is and is satisfied, which cannot change, 
 in which no progress, no development is possible, because 
 it is itself complete in itself, and is thus—if you can see— 
 that beauty which is truth, which “‘is all ye know on earth 
 and all ye need to know.” 
 
 That evening I met the Director of the Museum of 
 Castelvetrano, the kindest of men. I took the opportunity 
 of asking him about my countryman Angell, who lost his 
 life here among the ruins of Selinus, dying here of malaria 
 in the ’twenties of last century. 
 
 He could, however, tell me nothing of him, and the 
 Dictionary of National Biography can tell me no more. 
 
 I asked the Director whether Angell had been buried 
 here, as I should wish to visit his grave. But he could not 
 tell me this either. 
 
 Then I said: ‘‘ To-morrow I shall go to the Campo 
 
148 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 _ Santo and see ; for how can they have taken himaway . 
 in those days . .. from this distant place . . _ over § ) 
 many mountains . . . without roads or means of tran = 
 port ... so far from home?” % 
 And he answered me: “ Signore, did England then 
 ever lack a ship for her own?” The good Director! 
 I regret that I was unable to learn anything of Angell 
 in Castelvetrano. I should like to have stood beside his 
 grave for a moment, and it grieved me to depart without 
 learning anything of him. I should be grateful to ren 
 whether he lies at home or in Sicily. I think somethi 
 might be done in Castelvetrano in memory of him wil 
 met his death among her ruins and marshes. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 a 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 MAZZARA, MARSALA, MOTYA, TRAPANI, 
 MOUNT ERYX 
 
 ELINUNTE is the last city of Greek Sicily: it is 
 S into Africa one comes immediately on leaving the 
 oasis in which Castelvetrano stands at the head of 
 her smiling vale: a country of long rolling dunes, arid 
 and treeless for the most part, with here and there, some- 
 thing that till now has been absent from the landscape, 
 groups of tall palms on the verge of the sandy waste that 
 loses itself at last almost imperceptibly in the sea. 
 And though one cannot but regret the landscape of 
 Greek Sicily, its variety, its mountains and valleys, its 
 rocky headlancs and stony plateaux, where on the cliff 
 top the shepherd feeds his sheep, in the stony torrent bed 
 the neatherd leads his goats from spare pasture to pasture, 
 in the deep vale the herdsman pipes while the kine browse 
 in the shade, still this arid world which one enters so sud- 
 denly at Mazzara has its charm, wholly subject as it is to 
 the sun, to the infinite sky ; a desert of pale gold, without 
 the variety of a European landscape, in which abide the 
 many deities of the hills, the valleys, the streams ; having 
 something of the formidable and monotonous uniformity 
 of the desert, which cries all day long: There is but one 
 God: Allah... 
 
 Mazzara, Mazzara del Vallo, in some sort seems to sum 
 up this strangecountry. At least, wretched as it is to-day, 
 it was there in the ninth century the Saracens began to 
 make themselves masters of Sicily, establishing their seat 
 of government at Panormus, for all the western division of 
 the island, which was known in our language as Val di 
 Mazzara. For in the ninth and tenth century Sicily fills 
 
 li 149 
 

 
 ¥ 
 
 her old r6éle once more in the old tragedy which has been — 
 played over and over again. She becomes again the prize — 
 in dispute between Europe and Asia, not now between 
 Greece and Carthage, between the smiling and human gods 
 of Paganism and the bestial Semitic Moloch, but between 
 Christendom and Islam, between Christ and Mahomet. | 
 Already in 655 parts of Sicily had been plundered by ~ 
 the Saracens and the victims sent to Damascus. Another 
 raid had been made from Alexandria. Then as before 
 came treason. Syracuse which had with perfect constancy — 
 always faced and outfaced the Carthaginian, calls on his 
 successor the Saracen to aid her in her revolt against the — 
 Byzantine. Syracuse in 826 offers Sicily, the island of 
 Sicily, to Ziyadet Allah, prince of Kairawan. In 827 
 Saracen armies landed at the Punta di Granitola, between — 
 Selinunte and Mazzara, and during 138 years the conquest 
 of Sicily, there begun, continues, till the Saracens are — 
 able to administer the island, which for this purpose they ~ 
 divide into three valleys, known in our tongue as Val di 
 Mazzara in the north-west, Val di Noto in the south-east, © 
 and Val Demone in the north-east. j 
 The first Saracen settlement was in the Val di Mazzara, 
 and it roughly corresponds to the old Carthaginian occupa” 
 tion, confirmed to Carthage by Dionysius in 391 B.C., 
 comprising the whole of western Sicily beyond the Halycus. 
 The capital was, like the later Carthaginian capital, at 
 Palermo, and it was thence the conquest and the adminis- — 
 tration of the other parts of Sicily, the Val di Noto and the ~ 
 Val di Demone, were directed : to be established until first ; 
 Byzantium in the person of that great Captain George 
 Maniaces in 1038, and then in 1060 the Normans Robert — 
 Guiscard and Roger appeared as the champions of Christi- A 
 anity, the deliverers of Sicily from infidel bondage. : 
 The Saracen conquest occupied as I say 138 years from ; 
 827 till the last strongholds fell, Taormina in 963, an 
 Rametta in 965. The Saracen administration continued 4 
 undisputed for another 73 years, till George Maniaces- 
 begins his four years of Christian victory to be followed 
 by the reconquest, the thirty years’ work of Robert Guiscard 
 and Roger, begun in 1060. During all that time, for 
 
 150 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 
 
MAZZARA, MARSALA, MOTYA 151 
 
 about two centuries and a half, Europeans were subject 
 to Saracen rulers, Christians to Moslems. Of course the 
 condition of the Christians varied ; in one place they were 
 just personal slaves, in another free communities subject 
 totribute. That is merely to say that the Saracen conquest 
 was not achieved all at once. But when in 965 the con- 
 quest is complete, those free communities have disappeared, 
 many have become Mohammedan, and those which remain 
 Christian are utterly enslaved, subject, like the Christian 
 
 communities to-day within the Turkish dominion, to 
 
 massacre and contempt. There remained in spite of every- 
 thing, these three things in Sicily: Saints, Scholars and the 
 Greek language. Side by side with these was established 
 the religion, the learning and the art of the Saracen. 
 Mazzara saw the beginning of all this, and its successful 
 establishment. You would not think it, for nothing of it 
 
 at all remains there to-day—nothing that is of the Saracen 
 
 dominion. But the old castle in the south-east corner of 
 the wall which Count Roger erected in 1073 and the 
 Cathedral which he founded, may be called fortresses against 
 the Saracen dominion and the Saracen faith. _ 
 
 That Cathedral, however, bears scarcely a mark of its 
 origin to-day. Within, it has been quite recently restored 
 and is wholly without character, its few treasures being 
 works by the Gagini and their ‘school ; a group of the 
 Transfiguration by Antonello Gagini in the choir, a statue 
 of S. Vincent in the chapel in the left transept, and a statue 
 of the Virgin and Child in the chapel in the right transept, 
 where is also the fine sarcophagus of the Bishop Monta- 
 _ perto, also by one of the Gagini. The ancient sarcophagi 
 in the sacristy are Roman, not Greek, works. 
 
 Nothing here indeed bears witness to the Saracen or 
 even to the Byzantine. Some memory at least of both 
 remains however in S. Nicold near the Porta di Mare, 
 
 where you find a square church under a central cupola, 
 
 rather like the church of the Admiral in Palermo, a work 
 in which the Normans have employed the consummate 
 craftsmanship of the Orient to build in its own way, 
 
 though in their service. 
 
 Upon leaving Mazzara one enters a country that might 
 
152 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 
 
 
 seem to be all a vineyard, and in so far to deny its Africa 
 character, and the Carthaginian and Saracen who were — 
 masters here for so long. But these vineyards are com- — 
 paratively modern and bear witness not even to Sicilian — 
 but to foreign enterprise. Here is grown the Marsala 
 wine which Messrs. Ingham-Whitaker, Florio and Wood- 
 house manufacture. i 
 
 Marsala itself, with its 27,000 inhabitants, its busy pros- 2 
 perity, its warehouses along the quay, its commercial ain 
 might seem quite a modern place, and indeed it is an end — 
 rather than a beginning. To find that beginning you ‘ 
 must take a boat in the harbour and row five or six ni : 
 up the low islanded coast till you come to the island of 
 S. Pantaleo, which is the Carthaginian Motya. Here was ‘ 
 the beginning of Lilybzeum, of Marsala that is. 
 
 Motya lies three-quarters of a mile from that low and s 
 sandy shore, to-day lined with salt factories, to which it 
 was joined of old by an artificial causeway, something of 
 which remains. It lies in an extraordinary position within 
 the long low Isola Grande which was perhaps of old an 
 isthmus joined on the north to the mainland ; and it was — 
 just what it seems likely to have been, the site of the first 
 Phoenician colony in Sicily, a commercial station that isja 
 a depot of those great traders who were fond of choosing g 
 such sites, as we are to-day. What Hong-Kong is to 
 England in regard to China, Motya was to Carthage in © 
 regard to Sicily. : 
 
 It is the custom of all modern historians to deprecialia 
 the Phcenicians and their successors here, the Carthaginians ; 
 but they were the greatest seafaring people of whom we 
 have any knowledge. Their ships were the best in the 
 Mediterranean, and their sailors, unlike the Greeks and 
 Romans who were terrified of the sea, had sailed the ocean, | 
 perhaps circumnavigated Africa, and certainly cruised 
 north as far as the British Isles and perhaps even to 
 Iceland. If a work of maritime engineering had to be 
 carried out it was the Phoenicians who proved to have the 
 greatest skill, as for instance in the matter of the Athos 
 Canal, when they alone were successful, and as Herodotus 
 says, ‘“‘ they showed therein the same skill as in all else 
 
 om 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
MAZZARA, MARSALA, MOTYA 158 
 
 that they do,” adding this, that ‘‘ there is a meadow hard 
 by, where they made a place for buying and marketing.” 
 To them also we owe the alphabet. But they were cursed 
 with a cruel and hideous religion; and though in this 
 they are no worse than other barbarians, for their Moloch 
 is not a whit more cruel than his cousin the Jewish Javeh, 
 _they have been held to be damned for it, and their gradual 
 disappearance and final dispersion or absorption by Rome 
 hailed as a merciful deliverance. Their genius, however, 
 was extraordinary and complementary to that of the 
 Greeks and Romans. Had they endured, one may think 
 that neither natural science nor discovery and commerce 
 would have languished for so many ages as they did. 
 Here on Motya they established themselves and their 
 market, and like all their other depots in Sicily this too 
 passed in time to their Carthaginian kinsmen. Thucydides 
 tells us that the Phoenicians had settlements all round 
 Sicily on promontories along the sea coast which they 
 walled off, and on the adjacent islets, for the sake of trade 
 with the Sikels. But when the Hellenes also began to 
 come in by sea in large numbers the Pheenicians left most 
 of these places and settling together lived in Motya, 
 Soloeis (Solunto) and Panormus (Palermo) partly because 
 _ they trusted in their alliance with the Elymi (of Mount 
 Eryx and Segesta) and partly because from there the voyage 
 from Sicily to Carthage is shortest. In fact the voyage 
 _from Motya to Carthage is not roo miles. 
 _ So Motya remained perhaps the greatest Carthaginian 
 stronghold in Sicily till in the year 409 B.c. Hannibal, who 
 had been called on by Segesta after the defeat of the 
 Athenian Expedition, moored his great fleet behind the 
 island after he had landed at the headland of Lilybeum, 
 and begun his march upon Selinus, the first of the Greek 
 cities to be overthrown. So it was finally upon Motya 
 that Dionysius wreaked his revenge when he broke the 
 Carthaginians in 397 B.c. He besieged the place with 
 45,000 men and 200 ships of war and 500 ships of transport. 
 The Carthaginians cut the causeway and though few in 
 number, relying upon help from Carthage, prepared to 
 resist him. Dionysius then built a mole of earth from 
 
154 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 
 
 the mainland to the island. Upon this mole he constructed — 
 a new and formidable engine, the catapult, then used for 
 the first time. A great fight took place upon the mole, — 
 but little by little the Greeks battered the walls to pieces — 
 and the long resistance having exasperated them, when — 
 they entered they put all to the sword, men, women and ~ 
 children, without sparing age or sex. This was exactly 
 what the Carthaginians had done at Selinus. There is — 
 nothing to choose between Greek and Carthaginian in ~ 
 matters of this kind. ‘ 
 
 Dionysius garrisoned Motya, but the next spring another — 
 Carthaginian general Himilcon landed at Panormus with a 
 huge army and took it. | 
 
 Motya, however, never re-arose. Himilcon decided that — 
 another spot upon that coast was better fitted for defence. — 
 That spot was the headland of Lilybeum, the most western — 
 point of Trinacria, of Sicily. Thither he transferred what — 
 was left of the inhabitants of Motya which then disappeaaaa 
 from history. 
 
 Lilybzeum possessed a fine harbour upon the north and 
 it was there Hannibal had landed his great army in 409 B.C. 
 There was water there too, for a spring gushed forth from ~ 
 a cave on the promontory, as it does still. Naturally of — 
 great strength, for it is surrounded on three sides by the 
 sea and defended eastward by marshes, it was rendered — 
 stronger by art, and was able to hold out when all else 4 
 that was Carthaginian i in Sicily was overthrown. In 276B.¢c. 
 it alone withstood Pyrrhus who abandoned the siege after : 
 two months ; and from 250 B.c, in the First Punic War it a 
 withstood the Romans for ten years and was only abandoned — 
 at last when the Roman victory of the Aigates in 241 B. Ce 
 compelled the Carthaginians to conclude peace. 
 
 As a Roman town it was the headquarters of the fleet | 
 in the Second Punic War and it was from Lilybeeum that 
 Scipio sailed to conquer Africa. Indeed it plays its part % 
 all through Roman history; and when the Saracens 
 occupied the island they attached so much importance to — 
 it-that they re-named it Marsa-Allah, the Port of God, — 
 whence its present name is come. It was the Emperor — 
 Charles V who destroyed it, for he blocked up the harbour ~ 
 
 
 
ee ee 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
MAZZARA, MARSALA, MOTYA 155 
 
 to protect it from the Barbary pirates, and ever since 
 Trapani has taken its place as the chief port of western 
 Sicily. 
 
 Really nothing remains of Carthaginian Marsala or of 
 the Roman city either. The white and oriental city of 
 to-day is altogether given up to two modern industries:: 
 the manufacture of salt and the manufacture of wine. 
 This last was introduced here by the Englishman John 
 “Woodhouse about 1770; and the immense caves of the 
 English firms still in business here—Ingham-Whitaker and 
 Woodhouse and the Italian Florio are well worth a visit. 
 
 Nor should an Englishman at any rate omit to visit 
 the Duomo, which strangely enough is dedicated in honour 
 of S. Thomas of Canterbury. How this came about I 
 have never been able to discover. 
 
 The Cathedral is in form a latin cross divided into three 
 naves by sixteen marble columns which are said, I know 
 not with how much truth, to have been intended as a 
 present to Canterbury Cathedral. Here are various works 
 by Sicilian artists. In the third chapel on the right is a 
 marble statue of S. Thomas the Apostle with a relief of 
 the Incredulity of the saint by Antonello Gagini. In the 
 right transept is a picture of the Presentation in the Temple 
 by Mariano Riggio da Messina (1593). In the chapel 
 right of the choir is the early sixteenth-century tomb of 
 Antonio Liotta. Other works by the Gagini and their 
 pupils are to be seen in the chapel to the left of the choir. 
 The church also possesses eight magnificent Flemish tapes- 
 tries of the sixteenth century. 
 
 The little Museum in Via Caserma XI Maggio, by the 
 Library, is worth a visit. It contains numerous antiquities, 
 though nothing of much importance ; a marble torso of a 
 man, a mosaic pavement, an early Christian sarcophagus 
 ip a fifteenth-century triptych of the Adoration of the 
 
 agi. 
 
 In the Carmine church is a Madonna and Child attributed 
 to Laurana as well as works by the Gagini; and in the 
 strange little church of S. Giovanni Battista between the 
 city and the sea is a statue of the saint by Antonello Gagini. 
 Here one may descend by steps to the so-called Grotta 
 
156 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 della Sibilla Cumana. Here is the spring of fresh water 
 of which Diodorus speaks, though what it has to do with — 
 the Cumzan Sibyl I was for long puzzled to determine. 
 The Cumzan was the most celebrated of the Sibyls—those — 
 prophetic women of various countries and times. She it 
 was who was consulted by Atneas before he descended into — 
 Hades. Livy tells us she came to Italy from the East, 
 and it was she who according to tradition appeared before 
 king Tarquin offering him the Sibylline books for sale. The — 
 guardian of the church seemed to think that the Cumzan 
 Sibyl had been buried here: a fact which might have 
 interested Samuel Butler, but which I confess I could not — 
 make head or tail of, though it is amusing to note that — 
 Victor Bérard connects the Pheacians with Cume: and — 
 Butler maintains that Pheacia was Trapani and the 
 
 “authoress of the Odyssey ’”’ was Nausicaa herself. Per- 
 haps in the tomb of the Cumzan Sibyl these delightful but — 
 mutually destructive theories may be reconciled. a 
 
 I say nothing of Garibaldi and his Thousand who landed — 
 here in 1860 to conquer Sicily. The landing which was 
 not undisputed was possibly assisted or encouraged by the 
 mere presence of English men-o’-war. ‘-s 
 
 From Marsala I went on through a country which in ~ 
 spite of the sun, the palm trees and its southern air had, ~ 
 perhaps by reason of its windmills, something of Holland — 
 about it, in its flatness and subjection to the sea, but that 
 sea was the African and as blue as a sapphire stone. I - 
 came at length to Trapani, the town which has for all 
 purposes of the sea supplanted Marsala, and found clean 
 if not very comfortable quarters at the Grand Hotel, | 
 opposite the landing stage. \ q 
 
 Here at Trapani it is all a matter of coming and going, - 
 for many steamers going and returning to the Eastern 
 Mediterranean call here and it is the nearest port for Tunis, — 
 for Africa. 
 
 Trapani is an empty little town wholly or almost wholly © 
 of the sea, burnt white in summer by an implacable sun, 
 windswept in winter and as old, nay older, than history. 
 It contains nothing whatever in the way of a work of art 
 unless it be the lovely rose-window in the Templar’s church 
 
\ TRAPANI 157 
 
 of S. Agostino, for the Crucifixion by Van Dyck in the 
 Cathedral has been repainted and the Andrea della Robbia 
 in the church of S. Maria di Gest is a school piece. 
 Nevertheless, a day or two may be very pleasantly spent 
 in Trapani, along the shore there under Monte S. Giuliano 
 in view of the A®gadian isles rising up so steeply and 
 - exquisitely in the west, and then there is Eryx... 
 Trapani, the ancient Drepanum or Drepana, was in the 
 first instance certainly not a Carthaginian foundation. 
 For ages before the Carthaginians visited these shores it 
 had probably served as a port and dependence of the 
 neighbouring city of Eryx upon that great isolated hill to 
 the north of it, which we call Monte S. Giuliano, but which 
 was famous throughout the ancient world as Eryx, the 
 site of a most primitive and renowned Temple of Venus. 
 Drepanum thus appears first in connexion with certain 
 Trojan legends which it shares with Eryx and Segesta the 
 sanctuary and the cities of a people certainly non-Hellenic 
 and as they liked to think of Trojan origin. These people, 
 whatever may have been their real descent, because of 
 their tradition and belief played a great and even a deter- 
 mining part in the history of the island. Because they 
 were non-Hellenic their quarrel with Hellas in the person 
 of Selinus was impossible of solution. Because their 
 quarrel was insoluble they called in first Athens, then 
 Carthage, and finally Rome, to try and decide it in their 
 favour. The last succeeded and from that moment these 
 people cease to be of any account and disappear from 
 history. Rome in fact was exceedingly flattered to find a 
 link with a people who had so long claimed a Trojan descent. 
 She flattered and supported them because their very 
 existence flattered and reassured her. The greatest of her 
 poets makes the most of this, draws it out of its vagueness, 
 gives it life and definitely alots Trapani a place in the 
 voyage of Aineas, makes it the scene of the death of Anchises 
 and of the funeral games celebrated in his honour by A‘neas. 
 The thing was done. Legend becomes in a moment more 
 actual than history, becomes real and immortal in the 
 hands of genius. 
 Drepanum comes into history proper with the First 
 
158 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 Punic War. About 260 B.c. the Carthaginian gerieral 
 Hamilcar fortified the promontory and founded a town © 
 
 ef 
 
 hk 
 ae. 
 = 
 
 
 
 
 there to which he transferred most of the inhabitants of 4 
 
 Eryx. Like a true Carthaginian he had noted the excel- 
 lence of the harbour, far better than that of Lilybeeum 
 
 and quite as convenient to Carthage. Drepapum remained — 
 
 one of the chief Carthaginian strongholds throughout the 
 war and in 250 B.c. it and Lilybeum were the only two 
 places in the island that remained in Carthaginian hands, 
 
 Then during the ten years’ siege of Lilybeeum it became the — 
 headquarters of the Carthaginian fleet which in 249 B.C. 
 
 sailed out to defeat and indeed annihilate the Romans 
 
 under the consul P. Claudius, a defeat amply avenged seven ~ 
 
 years later off the A’gadian isles. 
 
 Those acts of the Carthaginians whereby they removed 
 
 the inhabitants of Eryx—and more than once—to Drepa- 
 num point to Eryx as the real originator of Drepanum. 
 Now Eryx lies about six miles north of Drepanum two 
 
 miles inland from the sea-coast. It is in the first place — 
 
 the mountain Mons Eryx now Monte S. Giuliano, an isolated 
 
 peak that looks far higher than it is, for in fact it rises 3 
 
 only 2,465 feet above the sea. Virgil, like many others, has 
 been deceived by its isolation and its abrupt rise from the 
 sea plain and has spoken of it as a mountain really on an 
 equality with Etna 10,000 feet high. ‘‘ Vast as Athos, 
 vast as Eryx,” sings Virgil in the seventh AZneid. 
 
 The fame of Eryx was due above all not to its height 
 or to its situation, but to the sanctuary which stood upon 
 
 its summit, the Temple of Venus, founded it was said by 
 
 her son Eneas, the Temple of Venus Erycina. 
 
 Diodorus tells another story. He ascribes the foundation 
 both of the temple and of the city, to a hero named Eryx 
 who during Herakles’ journey through Sicily wrestled with 
 him and was thrown. This Eryx a son of Venus and Butes 
 
 the king of this country is by Virgil called the brother of 
 
 /Eneas. 
 
 But all these legends of Drepanum, of Eryx and of 
 Segesta, point to the same fact recorded by Thucydides 
 that these three cities belonged to a non-Hellenic people. 
 
 Thucydides thus explains it. ‘On the capture of Iium 
 
 ge is > 
 ee Oe ee el ee 
 
 ae e 
 
 So aah MS Ate A ae le il 
 
MOUNT ERYX, MONTE 8S. GIULIANO 159 
 
 some of the Trojans who had escaped the Achzans came 
 in boats to Sicily, and settling on the borders of the Sica- 
 nians were called as a people Elymi, while their cities were 
 named Eryx and Egesta.” That is all Thucydides says, 
 but Diodorus goes further and relates in detail the tradition 
 of their arrival and settlement here. It is here comes in 
 the hero Elymus the Trojan. Strabo says he sailed from 
 Troy with Aineas and took possession of Eryx and Lily- 
 beum and called the rivers about Egesta, Scamander and 
 Simois, and in this as in other legends Egesta is the city 
 of Acestes. 
 
 It is obvious then that in these places we come upon a 
 people not native to Sicily as the Sicanians were, nor even 
 immigrants like the Sikels, yet a people which had been 
 established in Sicily in this corner of Sicily for many ages 
 before the first advent of the Greeks. The notion of their 
 Trojanorigin may be true or it may point only toa“ Pelasgic”’ 
 extraction. At any rate the part they play in history is 
 consistently anti-Greek in a fashion really definite beyond 
 anything which the natives were capable of. We see them 
 constantly leagued with the unappeasable enemies of the 
 Greeks, their cities, their philosophy and their culture, the 
 Phoenicians of Motya and Panormus, the Carthaginians of 
 Carthage. Yet in their building at least, and indeed in 
 their religion they are much nearer the Greeks than the 
 natives who appear as mere savages, and than the Phceni- 
 cians and Carthaginians whose oriental rites were obnoxious 
 to the Greek mind. They are said to have become Hel- 
 lenized, but what is the evidence of this; the Temple and 
 Theatre at Segesta, the works of art there which Cicero 
 describes? They are a mystery that in all probability 
 will never be made plain. 
 
 It takes about an hour and a half in the public automobile 
 to go from Trapani to the town of Monte S. Giuliano on the 
 summit of Eryx. The journey is very well worth while if 
 only for the ever widening view which opens before you 
 as you ascend, of the A®gadian Isles, Hiera, (Maretimo) 
 with Monte Falcone, the most distant, Aegusa (Favignana) 
 and Phorbantia (Levanzia), then the plain to the south 
 with Marsala: these to the west. To the east rise up the 
 
160 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 mountains of San Vito; to the north the headland | of & 
 Céfano ; and to the south they say the Island of Pantelleria _ 
 and Cape Bon, in Africa. q 
 _ This view must in fact repay the traveller for in Monte 
 San Giuliano itself there is almost nothing to see: tw 
 works by Gagini, one in the Cathedral and the other & 
 the Biblioteca, and a Madonna by Francesco Laurana also 
 in the Cathedral, the old restored towers and the Castle 
 now a prison. Practically nothing is left of the famous 
 Temple of Venus—a few foundations in the castle, the Arco 
 del Diavolo and the reservoir in the castle garden. But = 
 you may see still something of the ancient walls of the 
 place if you go out of the Porta Trapani and pass round ~ 
 to the Porta Spada. These vast blocks are said to bear 
 Phoenician characters. = 
 
 The Temple of Venus Erycina was according to Strabo 
 ‘well filled with women sacred to the goddess, whom the 
 inhabitants of Sicily and also many others offered in 
 accomplishment of their vows ’’; but he goes on to say 
 that in his day the temple was not near so well supplied 
 with priestesses and women as aforetime. Diodorus his 
 contemporary, however, tells a different story. He says — 
 the goddess had a particular predilection for this temple _ 
 and that unlike others, which after an increasing fame 
 lose their splendour and are neglected, this alone although _ 
 very ancient has never ceased to be famous and to be © 
 sought after and to increase in estimation. He tells us 
 that through long generations the Sicilians venerated this — 
 goddess and offered her magnificent sacrifices as later did 
 the Carthaginians. In fact the Carthaginians seem to have ~ 
 recognized in her their own Astarte or Ashtaroth and of — 
 course the ritual and mysteries here were obscene, and not ~ 
 likely to perish as less fundamental rites might do. The — 
 temple was enormously wealthy in silver and plate and it — 
 was this wealth which the Segestans displayed to the — 
 Athenian ambassadors as that of the private citizens of — 
 Segesta and thus helped to tempt Athens to launch the ~ 
 expedition against Syracuse in 415 B.c. Pausanias declares — 
 that this Temple of Venus Erycina was not less wealthy — 
 than that at Paphos. 
 
MOUNT ERYX 161 
 
 A beautiful and curious rite seems to have been practised 
 here and certainly marks this cult as in part at least Phoeni- 
 cian. For the goddess yearly left her Temple on Eryx 
 for a journey to Africa, and took her doves with her and 
 Athenzeus records that ‘‘ At Eryx there is a certain season 
 which the Sicilians call ‘The Departure,’ at which time 
 they say the goddess is departing into Africa. At this 
 time all the doves of the temple disappear as if they had 
 accompanied the goddess on her journey. And after nine 
 days when the festival called xataywyta that is to say ‘ The 
 Return’ is celebrated first a single rose-coloured dove 
 returns flying across the sea, no other than Aphrodite 
 herself, and when it has flown into the Temple the rest 
 follow speedily. And on this, all the inhabitants around, 
 who are well to do, feast, and the rest clap their hands 
 for joy. And at the time the whole place smells of butter 
 which they use as a sort of token of the return of the 
 Goddess.” 
 
 So these doves of Sicily ‘“‘ the fairest shaped of all their 
 _ kind” to the eye of the mind at any rate, bore Aphrodite 
 to and fro over her own sea between the two heights, 
 visible the one to the other, of Mount Eryx and the Pro- 
 montory of Hermes. But Venus waxeth old, as Lyly has 
 it; once she was a pretty wench, when Juno was a young 
 wife ; now crow’s foot is on her eye and the black ox hath 
 trod on her foot, and no mortal any more goes up to Mount 
 Eryx because of her. 
 

 
 CHAPTER XII 
 SEGESTA 
 
 O one morning that promised well, but did not keep 
 its promise, I set out for Calatafimi and Segesta. 
 All went well as long as I was in the lowland country, 
 but as the day grew older and I began to enter the hills 
 the wind got up and with the wind came the rain. I 
 hurried on ; there was nothing else to do, it was too late 
 to return, and in all the twenty miles between Trapani and 
 Calatafimi there is no town, no village even, where it would 
 be possible to sleep. The way grew steeper as I advanced 
 into those dark mountains, which at every turn seemed to 
 grow more savage, more hostile, more threatening ; and 
 when at last buffeted and weary, wet to the skin and very 
 much afraid, I came into the Gaggera valley and presently 
 turned up the steep by-way to Calatafimi, I was so weary 
 and undone that even the horror of the miserable ostena 
 there did not appal me, was in fact most welcome in spite 
 of its dirt and misery. 
 
 After a restless and unhappy night I arose to find the 
 rain gone but the wind still buffeting about the miserable 
 streets. It was still very early, but I wondered even more 
 than I had done all night, why Samuel Butler had chosen 
 this wretched village to live in? Why here of all places 
 in Sicily ? There was Syracuse—but the unique and indi- 
 vidual character of Syracuse may have baulked him, or 
 perhaps he remembered the young German savant who 
 declared that Syracuse was a place to be born in or to 
 die in but not to live in... There was Girgenti, there 
 was even Castelvetrano. . : 
 
 And then suddenly at a turn of the way a little below 
 
 the town I seemed to understand. The clouds had blown 
 162 
 
 ed ere Mis ien Gn Bar ieee rig eae ee 
 
 RS ee eg aT 
 
 iw 
 
 
 
 ion 
 
SEGESTA 163 
 
 away, the sun shone forth, the blue sky appeared, the hills 
 stood clear; and there aloft among the summits, and 
 literally in the sky, stood a Temple—it seemed not made 
 with hands—serene and perfect established for ever in the 
 heavens. It was of the Doric order, still and solemn, and 
 yet so ideal and full of grace it was impossible to believe 
 the human heart had conceived such perfection or human 
 hands contrived such beauty. It stood there on high 
 amid those savage hills like a thought in the heart of God, 
 like a benediction. Its light confounded their darkness, 
 its calm their wild disorder, its perfection their tragic 
 chaos. A man who had once been blessed with this 
 revelation must ever desire to return to it, could not but 
 return to it, in spite of every danger and every difficulty, 
 for here alone was harmony and peace. One would say 
 like the Apostles on the Mount of Transfiguration : it is 
 good for us to be here. 
 
 There is nothing whatever to be seen in Calatafimi, even 
 the osteria which once bore the name of Samuel Butler is 
 now known as the Garibaldi, for Garibaldi in this neigh- 
 bourhood won his first victory over the Bourbon troops after 
 landing at Marsala. A street, however, is still named after 
 Samuel Butler. 
 
 __ And so presently I made my way down that twisting 
 
 path to the highway, to the valley, and trudged on through 
 an ever wilder landscape on the road to the ford over the 
 Gaggera whence that Temple, so wonderful a vision from 
 Calatafimi, might be reached. 
 
 The country was wild and bare, the terrible mountains 
 everywhere towered up about the narrow valley, but the 
 valley itself was as lovely as they were harsh and jagged, 
 and one half forgot the tragic mountain landscape in 
 that delightful vale. So I went on through the boisterous 
 spring morning till the valley opened northward and I 
 came to the place where the ford was, where the ford was 
 said to be. 
 
 But no ford was there. The great rains of the previous 
 night had swollen the torrent, till, without wading, it would 
 have been impossible to cross, and even so, those yellow 
 waters looked highly disagreeable, not to say dangerous. 
 
164 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 
 
 So I sat down in that bare place and began to consid " 
 these things. Nothing was in sight, the Temple had been _ 
 hidden all the way from Calatafimi, and there was not a : 
 house or shed in all that terrible landscape, nothing but — 
 the mountains, wild and bare, harsh rocks, the great lines 
 of the jagged hills, the savage ravines and the chaos of 2 
 the wind. | 
 
 And as I, disheartened, considered my case, it came to - 
 me that this torrent which barred my way was of old — 
 called the Scamander ; and remembering this I drew out ~ 
 of my sack the little Oxford I/iad that goes with me, and — 
 read in the XXIst Book: how Achilles in his sorrow and _ 
 his madness fought with the Trojan river, of which this is — 
 a namesake and a memory, for as Strabo says and Diodorus © 
 also, the fugitive Trojans who founded Segesta named the ~ 
 streams here Simois and Scamander in memory of their 
 home. ‘ 
 
 And the verses of Homer, as often before, so here, acted 
 like a charm. For no sooner had I come to those linesin 
 which the tragic and despairing soul of Achilles calls upon 
 Zeus, and Poseidon and Pallas Athene stand beside him, — 
 who was like to be drowned in the raging flood, than there a 
 stood before me two men with mules as though awaiting 
 my pleasure. a 
 
 Very far were they, as at once became evident, from 
 the immortals: unless indeed they were the servants of 
 that thief Hermes. For they at once began to demand of 
 me incredible sums of money, taking advantage of Sca- 
 mander’s wrath. And presently, after many, too many, 
 words, we came to agreement, and I saw that it was not ~ 
 my doom to be vanquished by the river, nor, beyond what 
 was fitting, by them neither. So I mounted the white 4 
 flea-bitten mule, and they took the other gaunt beast, — 
 and one after the other we entered furious Scamander and is 
 came safe across to the other side. a 
 
 But why should the traveller who has to face so many — 
 hardships in Sicily that it will take a hundred years to do ae 
 away with, why should the unfortunate traveller have this 
 also to bear ? Surely there should be a bridge across the 
 Gaggera? All through the year, but especially in vine 3 
 
 nhs 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
SEGESTA 165 
 
 travellers and tourists in great numbers visit Segesta. All 
 are at the mercy of the peasants, who reap a rich harvest, 
 because at this place there is no bridge over the Gaggera. 
 I do not grudge the peasants their gain; but I object to 
 being forced to mount their wretched mules amid a pile 
 of ragged and verminous clouts that do duty for saddles. 
 This is objectionable even for me, and is a thousand times 
 worse for a woman, who has certainly not come from Pal- 
 ermo prepared to ride straddle on a foul beast that is 
 nothing but a flea bag, supported by a peasant who is a 
 great deal worse. Let the ambition of Signor Mussolini 
 embrace this also, to be Pontifex Maximus. It was among 
 the imperial titles and might be adopted without prejudice 
 to any Papal right, if it carried with it the most obvious 
 duty it implies. 
 
 So we crossed the stream, not without difficulty, and 
 began to climb the long hill over the bare downs up to 
 Segesta. That road, if road it can be called, is after rain 
 little better than a morass. Open to every wind that blows 
 it receives like a steep torrent all the rain of the hills, and 
 on that morning the mules were over the fetlocks in a 
 peculiarly slippery mud which made the going exceedingly 
 irksome. Little by little, sometimes going forward, some- 
 times floundering back, we pushed on, till after some 
 three-quarters of an hour we came to the house of the 
 custode immediately under the hill of the Theatre, the 
 main hill on which stands the Temple, now in full view, 
 still to be overcome. It was done at last and I alighted 
 amid the barking of sheep dogs very stiff and weary on 
 the very steps of the Temple in a great meadow of asphodel. 
 
 In spite of the dogs of the pastovi, which soon slunk 
 away, or at least ceased their cerberus baying, what struck 
 me first was the immense loneliness of this sanctuary 
 literally among the mountain peaks. It stands there, half 
 inaccessible as it is, among those terrible mountain heights, 
 where only the sun and the wind and the rain are at home, 
 on a great lofty platform, about which a wild ravine winds, 
 in a harsh meadow of the most inhuman of all flowers, 
 that ghost of a flower, the asphodel. Fittingly do those 
 flowers, which belong to the dead, surround it, for it lives 
 
 12 
 
166 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 if at all that half life of the departed, and might well have 
 been found by Odysseus in that dim world where even 
 Hector and Achilles would meet ineffectively, their spears 
 falling from their nerveless hands, their shields from their 
 sides. Even for those voices to be heard, to vibrate ever 
 so feebly upon the stagnant air, that rite of blood was 
 necessary, which filled the trench with the black life of the 
 sacrificial rams and sheep. Those asphodels, so faintly 
 purple, the mere ghosts of flowers, might well flourish in 
 that world of mist and cloud, where the powerless dead 
 abide in the house of Hades. 
 
 The shrill wind moaned and whistled through those 
 pale columns as through a forest of stone. Strange birds, 
 vultures or eagles,—harpies maybe—circled above the 
 incomparable skeleton, screaming and beating their wings 
 against the dark and jagged cliffs of the ravine, and between 
 the bursts of pallid sunshine a bitter rain beat upon the 
 stones from which a faint and golden light seemed to shine. 
 It is enchanted, this hollow temple of the dead ; in silence 
 it awaits the voices it has never heard, the chant of the 
 priests of sacrifice, the voices of the hierophants, the lowing 
 of the victims. 
 
 I lifted my eyes and looked around. The landscape in 
 its incredible, its terrible and majestic beauty, intercepted 
 thought, insisting on its tragic loveliness. I cannot des- 
 cribe its far stretched symmetry, which the sun would 
 suddenly glorify, line after line of mountain, peak beyond ~ 
 peak, over valley and forest, to a far away glimpse of the ~ 
 sea, of deepest and loveliest blue, between the awtul beauty — 
 of those savage, those infernal hills. 
 
 Amid this sublime world, summing it up, as it were, — 
 and expressing it, the Temple stood, a symbol of that © 
 Hellenic effort, which, though unachieved, has redeemed — 
 mankind: its reason resolving that sublime unreason, its — 
 calm summing up that infinite chaos, its security and estab- * 
 lishment denying that terror, its beauty explaining that — 
 wild and savage energy, that harsh and unappeasable life, — 
 
 Presently, when the wind seemed to abate a little, I 
 set out to climb the other hill, half an hour away, on which . 
 the Theatre stands, really, save the débris, the only other — 
 

 
 THE THEATRE, SEGESTA 
 
 
 
 GREEK STREET AT SELINUNTE 
 

 
 
 
- SEGESTA 167 
 
 monument of this solitude, of this fateful city, which, here 
 in the presence of that Temple, seemed to bear witness to 
 _ something older than any Hellenic foundation, in which 
 all that came to such perfection later was tragically im- 
 plicit, bearing witness to that crime of burning Troy. 
 
 Is that too fanciful? Come then to these savage hills 
 on which that white Temple stands like a flower; or, 
 lying there on a calm and fortunate day of spring, amid 
 the warm stones hidden in the tall asphodel, read as I did 
 the last book of the Iliad, read again the most sublime 
 verses that it has been given to mortals to repeat, read 
 _ again the Ransom of Hector. Those columns, that 
 _architrave, these hills and this beauty shall explain what 
 I mean; something, maybe, rather to be felt than under- 
 stood. 
 
 Far loftier than the hill, the isolated hill, upon which 
 that Temple stands, the hill of the Theatre is upreared 
 almost precipitously over the valley, and gives you a far 
 wider, and, indeed, a more noble prospect, in which the 
 lines of that far stretched landscape become serene, 
 become harmonious and musical. The hills rejoice on 
 every side, are joyful together, and as the Hebrew prophet 
 foresaw, seem about to break forth into singing. Before 
 you think of the Theatre it is they which you see: yet it 
 is the Theatre which, as it were, marshals them in such 
 array, as though in some majestic dance to the music of 
 the spheres. 
 
 The Theatre opens and looks almost due north to that 
 wonderful jewel of sea lying there beyond Castellamare, 
 The hills rise up from the south-west, and first amid those 
 incomparable and musical lines stands up Monte Sparagio ; 
 then as your eyes travel north far loftier Mont’ Inice and 
 so beyond the folds, fold upon fold, is disclosed to you the 
 sea, the headland of Capo di Rama, and the far hills of 
 the Monti Palermitani above Alcamo, that Arabian place, 
 Then, in ever nearer and harder lines, the hills rise one 
 above the other in the north-east, to Monte Bonifato and 
 so to the savage hills I had crossed. 
 
 It is hard to drag one’s eyes away from such a prospect 
 and turn to the Theatre which has given it life. 
 
168 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 One comes up to the Theatre from behind, across the ~ 
 site of the city itself, Segesta of old, through some few 
 unrecognizable ruins and fragments of walls scattered amid — 
 the asphodels. It catches your breath. Here on this hill — 
 top, among mountains over 3,000 feet high, you suddenly 
 find yourself looking across a building almost as complete 
 as the Theatre of Syracuse, though on a smaller scale. 
 It still possesses the usual semicircular precintio and sixteen 
 tiers of seats in excellent preservation. The building is 
 formed in a fold of the hillside on the steep rocky slope, 
 its general form and arrangement are purely Greek. The 
 theatrum proper, which is 205 feet in diameter, is divided 
 into seven cunet with vomitort. The orchestra in part — 
 remains, but nothing, or almost nothing, is left of the stage. _ 
 And for me at least that stage is not haunted by the ghosts 
 of the tragedies of Aischylus or Sophocles, for I cannot — 
 believe that it was not always filled, as the whole Theatre 
 is to-day, by that marvellous landscape of mountain and 
 valley and sea, the little towns shining on the dark hill- 
 sides, Alcamo, Partinico, Borgetto, Balestrate, Monte- 
 lepre ; ; and beyond, between the mountains, the beauty 
 of the sea, blue as the eyes of Cassandra which were like 
 the violets, and, like her, too, to-day, with the aspect of 
 a wild beast newly caught. 
 
 Yes, even in the most fortunate hour, that landscape has 
 something savage and untamed about it, like the beauty 
 of Cassandra in the car of Agamemnon, awaiting in the 
 sun and the red dust the commands of Clytaimnestra, and — 
 crying out upon Apollo. 
 
 So I thought, as I made my way carefully over the stones — 
 down to the Temple precincts upon the lower hill. Segesta 
 has something of the tragedy of Troy about it, of Troy, — 
 which, according to Thucydides, here no doubt adopting a — 
 tradition current among the Greeks, was the author of — 
 its being. For some of the Trojans, he says, who had ~ 
 escaped the Achzans, came in boats to Sicily and settling — 
 on the borders of the Sicanians, were called as a copia 
 Elymi, while their cities were named Eryx and Egesta. — 
 This tradition was readily accepted by the Romans, ie ‘ 
 because of it, eagerly claimed a kindred origin with thas 
 
 ee 
 
SEGESTA 169 
 
 Segestans. Segesta herself came to believe that she had 
 been founded by A®gestus, the Acestes of Virgil, and as 
 all the ancients were fond of doing, ascribed to this per- 
 sonage a semi-divine origin, saying that he was born of a 
 Trojan damsel Segesta by the river god Crimisus. Now 
 the Crimisus has always puzzled the geographers in spite 
 of the fact that Timoleon won his great victory over the 
 Carthaginians upon its banks. It would, however, appear 
 to be the Fiume Freddo which flows into the Gulf of Castel- 
 lamare after passing Segesta about five miles away to the 
 east, on the other side of Calatafimi. The rivers of Segesta 
 were, as we know, the Scamander and the Simois, Trojan 
 streams, to-day represented by the Gaggera and the Pispini 
 I suppose. 
 
 However all this may be, it is certain that the Greeks 
 always regarded the Segestans as barbarians and yet distinct - 
 from the Sicanian and Sikelian natives. They themselves 
 believed themselves to be Trojans, and either in consequence 
 of this tradition, or for other and less fundamental reasons, 
 of which we can discern little, they were consistently the 
 enemies of the Greeks, while as Trojans they were petted 
 and flattered by Rome, when she herself began to look for 
 an ancient descent. 
 
 If then we take the Segestans at this old valuation, we 
 can at least understand such works as this Temple and the 
 Theatre ; for what we know of Troy leads us to consider 
 her as at least the equal of the Greeks in civilization and 
 culture. And if the Segestans were isolated, at least they 
 had thus a tradition as lofty as the Greeks, and were 
 able to find among the Greeks a common civilization if 
 not a common policy. There can indeed be no doubt 
 that this was so: for it is not only their monuments which 
 attest it, but, much more significantly, their coins also: 
 these bear Greek inscriptions and the unquestionable 
 character of Greek art. 
 
 But if this be so, it must be remembered, too, that we 
 never hear of Segesta i in all its history except as the enemy 
 of the Greek cities of Sicily. She is first mentioned in 
 580 B.c.—as early as that—as in dispute with Selinus. It 
 was another dispute with Selinus which was the origin 
 
170 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 of the Athenian Expedition, and following that disaster, we 
 find her constantly in league with the Carthaginians, the 4 
 relentless enemies of everything Greek. ; 
 In 397 B.C., when Dionysius of Syracuse launched hiss 
 great effort against the Carthaginians in Sicily, he laid 
 siege to Segesta and the city was only saved by the landing ~ 
 of Himilco. But though she escaped, she could never be 
 at peace with the Greek, and when in 307 B.c. Agathocles — 
 
 on his return from Africa was received into Segesta as an 
 
 ally, they were unable to stomach it, and their disaffection 4 
 
 caused him to turn upon them and put the whole city to — 
 slaughter, over 10,000 being put to the sword, their women 
 
 and children sold into slavery, and the very name of the . 
 city changed to Dicaeopolis. . 
 
 Segesta in some sort recovered from this blow and resumed | 4 
 its name, but its real character seems to have been lost, — 
 for we find it joining Pyrrhus on his expedition into Car- 4 
 thaginian Sicily, and it presently fell altogether into the © 
 hands of Carthage. At the opening of the First Punic — 
 War it seems to have recognized its affinity with Rome, — 
 for it joined that cause, as soon as it was able, and put the © 
 Carthaginian garrison to the sword. Rome in consequence ~ 
 favoured Segesta and exempted it from all taxation. 5 
 
 Of its position under the Roman administration we get — 
 some idea from Cicero. : 
 
 ““Segesta,” he says, “is a very ancient town in Sicily — 
 which its inhabitants assert was founded by A2neas when ~ 
 he was flying from Troy and coming to this country. — 
 Accordingly the Segestans think that they are connected ~ 
 with the Roman people, not only by perpetual alliance — 
 and friendship but even by some relationship. Now — 
 when Segesta was at war with the Carthaginians it was © 
 sacked, and everything which could be an ornament to — 
 the city was transported from thence to Carthage. There — 
 was among the Segestans a statue of Diana, of bronze, not 
 only most sacred, but wrought with the most exquisite 
 skill and beauty. On account of its beauty it seemed ~ 
 even to their enemies worthy of being worshipped. Some 
 ages afterwards, Publius Scipio took Carthage in the Third — 
 Punic War ; after the victory the same Diana was restored — 
 
 
 
SEGESTA 171 
 
 with the greatest care to the Segestans. It is taken back 
 to Segesta; it is replaced in its ancient situation, to the 
 greatest joy and delight of all the citizens. 
 
 “It was placed at Segesta on a lofty pedestal on which 
 were cut in great letters the name of Publius Africanus ; 
 and a statement was also engraved that ‘ he had restored 
 it after taking Carthage.’ It was worshipped by the 
 citizens; it was visited by all strangers; when I was 
 questor it was the very first thing they showed me. It 
 was very large and tall with a flowing robe, and in spite 
 of its size it gave the idea of the age and dress of a virgin ; 
 her arrows hung from her shoulder, in her left hand she 
 carried her bow, and her right hand held a burning torch. 
 
 “Now when Verres, the enemy of all sacred things, the 
 violator of all religious scruples, saw it, he began to burn 
 with covetousness and insanity. He commands the magis- 
 trates to take down the statue and give it to him, and 
 declares to them that nothing could be more agreeable 
 to him. 
 
 “ But they said that it was impossible for them to doso ; 
 that they were prevented not only by their religion but 
 by their respect for the laws and the courts of justice. 
 Then he began to entreat, to threaten, to excite their 
 hopes and arouse their fears. 
 
 “They opposed to his desires the name of Africanus. 
 They said it was the gift of the Roman people. Itisrefused. 
 
 ** Afterwards, whatever burdens he could impose in respect 
 of exacting rowers, or in levying corn, he laid upon Segesta 
 beyond all other cities, and a good deal more than it could 
 bear. He harried the Segestans individually up and down 
 the land, and threatened each one to ruin him, and to 
 them all in a body he announced the ruin of their city. 
 
 “Therefore the Segestans, subdued by ill-treatment and 
 by fear, resolved to obey his command. With great grief 
 and lamentation on the part of the whole city, with many 
 tears and wailings on the part of all men and women, a 
 contract is advertised for taking down the statue of Diana. 
 
 “‘See now and know, O judges, that among all the Sege- 
 stans none was found, whether free-man or slave, whether 
 citizen or foreigner, to dare to touch the statue. 
 
172 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ‘« Some Barbarian workmen were brought from Lilybeum, 
 They at length, ignorant of the whole business and of the — 
 religious character of the image, agreed to take it down for — 
 a sum of money, and took it down. ie: 
 
 ‘“ Then, as it was being taken down, how great was the 
 concourse of women, how great was the weeping of the — 
 old men, some of whom even recollected that day when _ 
 that same Diana was brought back to Segesta from Car- 
 thage, and had announced to them by its return the victory _ 
 of the Roman People. How different from that time did — 
 this day seem! . = 
 
 “ What is more notorious throughout all Sicily than that 
 all the matrons and virgins of Segesta came together 
 when Diana was being taken out of their city; that they — 
 anointed her with precious unguents, that they crowned & 
 her with chaplets and flowers; that they attended beta 4 
 
 burning perfumes... ve 
 ‘‘ And when this crime had been executed, as the vedestail Bi 
 
 was empty but the name of Publius Africanus stood upon — 
 
 it, in fear of scandal he took away the pedestal also. : 
 “Now, O Publius Scipio, I appeal to you... .” 
 
 That glorious rhetoric which first bewildered, and thea a 
 stirred as with a trumpet, the days of my boyhood, seems 
 here in this very place and to-day to make these hills ‘ 
 echo with that glorious name. a 
 
 But where stood that statue, in what sanctuary or forum, i 
 upon the hill of the Theatre or the hill of the Temple? > 
 Its very situation is lost to us, and even the rumour of 
 its beauty has died away among the echoes of these savage — 
 cliffs. By what road did it enter with rejoicing, by what — 
 gate did it pass with its unguents and flowers when it was” 
 borne away and only the empty pedestal bearing that 
 Cageetubisis name, resounding over Africa, remained. | ; 
 
 - Only the Temple stands, empty, roofless, grass-grown, a 
 portico of columns, a harp for the wind. : 
 
 It is a Doric peripteros-hexastylos of thirty-six colmmil ‘ 
 dating from the fifth century B.c., but seems never to have 
 been finished. The columns are unfluted, the basement 
 
SEGESTA 1738 
 
 incomplete, the cella never begun. It is 200 feet long by 
 85 feet wide and its columns are 29 feet high with the 
 capitals, and 6 feet in diameter at the base. In colour it 
 is a golden cream full of light. 
 
 It is a beautiful mystery. Why it was never completed 
 we do not know, but it remains even in this inhospitable 
 place the best preserved temple in Sicily, and its simple 
 and majestic presence among these bare mountains is 
 overwhelming. Artemis herself were not more austere. 
 
 I could scarce drag myself away from this spot so full 
 of the tragedy and the beauty of the past. But the 
 afternoon was drawing to a close, already the sun was 
 sinking upon the mountains, the shadows of those wild 
 peaks were growing longer and longer, the air was full of 
 gold; upon all that far stretched landscape the beauty and 
 benediction of evening were beginning to fall. 
 
 The peasants were eager to depart, they feared to be 
 overtaken, it seemed, in such a place, by the twilight at 
 the end of the day. The valley was malarious and it was 
 as much as my life was worth, so they explained, to remain 
 at nightfall among these hills. 
 
 So I dragged myself away, though over the Temple the 
 new moon was setting, and out of the great ravines the 
 vast shadows of darkness were already stretching forth 
 their hands upon Temple and peak and rude mountain 
 side. The flowers had closed their blossoms, the sheep 
 were already folded in some cave for the night, the lamp 
 was already lit in the house of the custode.. 
 
 I turned away, and slowly upon Beppina, the white 
 mule, I rode down the rough descent. 
 
 Had I but known it, it was to Greek Sicily I had said 
 farewell in the twilight there among the hills. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 PALERMO 
 
 SUPPOSE Palermo, the great Bay of Palermo with its 
 lofty promontories thrust out into the sea, so noble in 
 outline and in mass, Monte Pellegrino on the west, 
 
 and Monte Alfano on the east, the city set as it were in 
 
 a natural amphitheatre between them on the shore of the 
 blue jewel-like sea, its palaces and turrets and minarets 
 
 
 
 seen against the dark background of far flung mountain, — 
 
 and surrounded by the richest of all vales, the Conca d’Oro, 
 
 running up in an ever narrowing valley into the great bare 4 
 
 hills, with its olive gardens, its orange and lemon groves, 
 
 its fig trees and almonds, its palms and agaves and its id 
 
 infinite flowers: I suppose Palermo is one of the loveliest 
 
 places in the world. | 
 And yet, look at it as you lie outside the great bay, 
 
 tossing in a barca, maybe, through a whole afternoon; or % 
 
 better, as you come in from the large on a great ship at = 
 
 dawn ; and lovely though it is you will have to admit that 
 
 it cannot compare with the Bay of Naples, with its far 
 stretched headlands, its lovely citadel height of S. Elmo, 
 
 its sentinel island of Capri and, above all, the exquisite % 
 
 outline and colour of its volcano Vesuvius. 
 
 Palermo, the Bay of Palermo, has not the character or 
 the variety of the Bay of Naples, has nothing of its large 
 serene and classic beauty. Its loveliness is at once more 
 harsh, as in those mountains, more Oriental, as in those © 
 minarets and domes among the palms. Those two beauti- — 
 
 ful but fantastic headlands are not the portal, you feel, to 
 
 any quiet European city: it is as though between them 
 you were drawn into the enchanted world of some Arabian ~ 
 
 174 
 
 
 
PALERMO 175 
 
 romance, fair and languorous and cruel, where all the 
 women are veiled and all the swords are curved, where the 
 voices are harsh but the footsteps softer than silk, where 
 in the deep shade of the gardens under the moon all 
 night long to the splash of the fountains the nightingale 
 sings. 
 
 Much the same impression awaits you in the city itself : 
 that fantastic architecture at once cold and hysterical which 
 meets you everywhere in those curiously untidy streets 
 may have been built, but was certainly not conceived, by 
 a really European people. Those famous churches with 
 their minarets and domes, their ceilings of honeycomb, 
 their coloured tiles, their golden walls, their marvellous 
 multicoloured mosaics—these are no Christian sanctuaries, 
 they were never built for One who was Crucified; they . 
 presuppose Mohammed’s paradise, and their cloisters are 
 gardens of love hung with sweet smelling flowers and golden 
 rosesandred. Those palaces of brick or yellow stone whose 
 curved walls are covered with fantastic lacework, whose 
 windows all look within, whose patios and inner courts 
 are filled with the noise of fountains and the scent of flowers, 
 they must have been ours by capture for they presuppose 
 the eunuch and the gyneceum; and those gardens half 
 lost in the deep shade, with their palms, their bamboos 
 and bananas, their sweet spices, their cinnamon, nutmeg, 
 and ginger, their papyrus and coffee trees, their tangle of 
 brilliant flowers, they are the oases of the desert-and have 
 nothing to say to us that we can understand. 
 
 This impression, so insistent as in the summer heat one 
 wanders aimlessly about this curiously confused city, at 
 once so noisy and so silent, is borne out in the streets, 
 where each vast piazza is a desert of dust wholly subject to 
 the intolerant sun, and each street an alleyway in a 
 bazaar, fantastic with stuffs and gaudy wares, with bright 
 curtains and awnings and blinds, beyond which the sun 
 has smitten everything into a uniform silence and stillness. 
 How full those streets are, how slowly, how languorously 
 the city moves, and yet always it might seem with the 
 expectation of violence ! 
 
 Linger at night on the seething Marina where there is 
 
176 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 music, watch the amazing spectacle in all its extraordinary 
 noise and confusion, its half suppressed animalism under 
 the great summer stars beside that placid sea. Watch 
 them all, men, women, children, with their air of exhausted 
 delight, eyeing one another, appraising one another, chat- 
 tering and gesticulating, eating gelati of all shapes and 
 colours before the innumerable booths, drinking violent 
 coloured syrups or sipping sherbet, while under the full 
 moon across the shallow harbour pass the little ships of the 
 Orient, their tall lateen sails like the wings of great birds 
 floating in the silvery darkness. 
 
 Or pass into that strange Cathedral that has suffered 
 every sort of violation and seek the tombs of the masters, 
 of the kings, here in their capital. Those vast sarcophagi 
 of porphyry under their canopies borne on columns of por- 
 phyry can never have been hewn by any Christian hands 
 for any Christian burial. They are as defiant of time and 
 eternity as the Pyramids: the dead, whose indestructible 
 home they are, look for no resurrection, their bodies anointed 
 with unguents and swathed in infinite tissues of purple 
 and gold and loaded with all the ornaments of the East, 
 will never return to dust, hidden and locked as they are 
 in their fortressed chambers of porphyry, against which 
 even the Trumpet of the Resurrection will echo in vain. 
 
 For the conquerors were conquered: the victor became 
 the victim. How could the winds and orchards of Nor- 
 mandy but falter and wither in this air full of perfumes 
 and spices under the pitiless sun ? 
 
 Yes; for all that Byzantium might attempt, for all that 
 Normandy could do, Palermo remains Oriental still, 
 Phoenician, Saracen, a city of Asia which has consumed 
 conqueror after conqueror, absorbed them all one after 
 another into her dark soul and pulled the flower of their 
 spirit to pieces with her cunning delicate fingers, petal by 
 petal. Byzantine, Norman, German, French and Spaniard 
 are as chaff before the subtle wind of her spirit : she absorbs 
 them all one after another, converts their souls to her soul, 
 and returns to her origins. 
 
 And just that is in fact her history. Sicily, the very 
 
 nodal point of the Mediterranean world, was always in — 
 
 
 

 
 PALERMO SEA FRONT 
 
PALERMO 177 
 
 dispute between Greek and Semite, between Europe and 
 Asia—Asia which had spread over North Africa. Well, 
 here in Palermo Asia has won. She went down before 
 each European conqueror as he came, but in her defeat she 
 conquered, she enraptured, she enchanted his soul. Ina 
 few years after his victory he scarcely remained European, 
 was scarcely any longer a Christian, her subtle and profound 
 learning enthralled him, her exquisite art bewitched him, 
 her fatal philosophy absorbed him, the secret of her spirit, 
 her odalisques, her children, her gardens enclosed, her 
 infinite languor enslaved him: he washers. Here you may 
 see what he built, read what he wrote, know what he 
 thought, see how he lived, learn how he died. He was 
 hers. Here even the persistent and tragic soul of Spain 
 loses itself, its identity, becomes insane. 
 
 The Saracen conquest, preluded as it was by many a 
 raid from Syria, began in earnest, and from Africa in 827 
 at Mazzara, upon the old frontier between Greek and 
 Phoenician. It continued for 138 years. It began very 
 slowly, but in 830 new forces arrived from Spain, and 
 Panormus, Palermo that is, fell into the hands of the 
 Mohammedans and remained there till the advent of Roger 
 the Norman two hundred and thirty years later. The 
 great struggle thus begun goes on, with Syracuse as the 
 champion of Europe. Palermo was now established as the 
 Mohammedan capital, the seat of the Emir, and slowly 
 Sicily becomes an Aghlabite principality, owing a formal 
 allegiance to Kairawan. The island is divided into “ val- 
 lies ’’—the most -firmly held of which is Val di Mazzara 
 in the west, which corresponds largely with Carthaginian 
 Sicily, Val di Noto in the south-east, and, the most precar- 
 ious, Val Demone in the north-east. It takes ten years to 
 secure Val di Noto, and in the meantime Messina falls. 
 In 859 the central fortress Enna (Castrogiovanni) is taken, 
 and this proves to be the key to Val di Noto. Syracuse 
 still holds out however. Then in 875 Ibrahim ibn Ahmad 
 ascends the throne in Africa; the Emir Ja’far ibn Ahmad 
 in Palermo is ordered to press on. The siege of Syracuse 
 is begun in 877 and in the following year the Greek city 
 passes for the first time into non-European hands. In 
 
178 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 895 Sicily is really wholly lost to the Greeks by a treaty — 
 signed by the Saracens and the remaining Christian towns. 
 There remained Val Demone without Messina; but with 
 
 the fall of Taormina and Rametta in 908 the conquest is 
 
 largely complete, though insecure, for these fortresses are — 
 
 retaken and only finally pass to the Mohammedans in 965. 
 The whole island was then in Saracen hands, a province 
 of Mohammed. 
 
 
 
 Yet even so I often think, we fared better at the hands 
 
 of these Saracens than they would have done then at ours, 
 For the Christians enjoyed some toleration. To a certain 
 extent liberty was accorded them. Only those found in 
 
 arms were reduced to slavery. And it would be impossible — 
 to deny that from the point of view of material prosperity — 
 
 the Saracen domination was beneficial to Sicily: much 
 more beneficial possibly than the Roman had been. In 
 agriculture for instance great advances were made in won- 
 derful new systems of irrigation, and new plants such as 
 the sugar-cane, the cotton-tree, the mulberry and the 
 
 quince were introduced. And the Saracens built too: 
 
 Palermo is said to have possessed 300 mosques; and 
 
 literature flourished exceedingly. In the middle of the A 
 tenth century a census was taken and there proved to be ~ 
 
 in the island a population of 2,807,000 of whom 1,590,000 
 
 were Mussulmans. An admirable system of adminis- 
 
 tration and taxation was established which was inherited 
 
 by the Norman conquerors. 
 
 Nevertheless the hope of the reconquest of Sicily was 4 
 never given up by Byzantium. In 1027 a great army had 
 been assembled for this purpose, but Basil II died before ~ 
 
 it sailed. Then in 1038 George Maniaces, the great soldier 
 of his time, was sent by Byzantium and delivered many ~ 
 
 towns including Messina and Syracuse, and indeed is said — 
 
 to have reconquered the whole island excepting Palermo, — 
 
 But after the recall of Maniaces all, except Messina, was — 
 
 soon lost. 
 
 Now in those Byzantine armies were men of many 
 nations, and among them three young men, the elder sons ~ 
 of an old knight named Tancred de Hauteville living at — 
 Coutances in Normandy. He had followed Robert, Duke — 
 
 
 
PALERMO 179 
 
 of Normandy, the father of William the Conqueror. This 
 old knight lived in his castle of Hauteville surrounded by 
 his family of twelve sons. Too poor to leave each a patri- 
 mony worthy of his birth he had encouraged three of them 
 to seek their fortunes in the south. They and their 
 Normans had borne the brunt of the Sicilian campaign, 
 the eldest, William of the Iron Arm, killing the Saracen: 
 chief with his own hand, but when they claimed their 
 share of the spoil they were refused. They therefore crossed 
 the Strait of Messina and fell on Apulia, then a Byzantine 
 province. To their standard flocked every discontented 
 interest in the south, Ardoin and the Lombards and their 
 own countrymen of Aversa, those in the service of Salerno 
 and of Monte Cassino. They were successful. 
 
 From time to time the other sons of old Tancred joined 
 their brothers in southern Italy, Robert Guiscard in 1047 
 and the youngest Roger ten years later. 
 
 Roger, the “‘ flower of the flock,” was then twenty-six 
 yearsold. ‘‘ He wasa youth,’ the old Chronicler Malaterra 
 tells us, ‘‘ of the greatest beauty, of lofty stature, of graceful 
 shape, most eloquent in speech and cool in counsel. He 
 was far-seeing in arranging all his actions, pleasant and 
 metry with all men, strong and brave and furious in battle.” 
 He shared with Robert Guiscard the conquest of Calabria 
 and proved his genius. In 1060 the two brothers decided 
 to conquer Sicily. In the May of that year they crossed 
 from Reggio and took Messina, which became thus their 
 point d’appui and capital. Everywhere they were expected 
 and welcomed by the Christians. After ten years of 
 fighting and intrigue Roger laid siege to Palermo which, 
 with his brothers’ help, he took in 1071. 
 
 The conquest went on. Taormina was taken in 1078, 
 Syracuse in 1085, Girgenti and Castrogiovanni, the latter 
 by reason of the conversion of its chief, in 1086, Noto in 
 togo. The whole island was thus reconquered in thirty 
 patient years of fighting—a whole generation. In 1098 the 
 Papacy granted to Roger (now Count), and his heirs the 
 office of Apostolic Legate in Sicily. 
 
 Thus was established the most strange, the most success- 
 
 - ful and the most brilliant administration that Sicily had 
 
180 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 
 
 seen since the decline of the Greek cities. The Normansin — 
 fact had acquired a state in being, wealthy, ably adminis- — 
 tered, and possessed of a far higher culture, not only than « 
 their own, but than that of any other country in Europe. — 
 They were unwilling to destroy all this, they sought rather 
 to win and to enjoy it. They thus became its heirs. The 
 Mohammedan religion was everywhere tolerated, but—and - 
 in this too they only imitated the Moslem rule—conversions © 
 from Christianity to Islam were prohibited. Nor in fact ~ 
 were conversions from Islam to Christ enthusiastically 
 encouraged, perhaps because Roger largely depended upon, 4 
 and certainly used, Mohammedan troops, and these were 3 
 obviously more uniform and manageable, and probably ~ 
 more trustworthy, unconverted. ; 
 So the two creeds flourished side by side. The Saracens ; 
 in the towns had their own quarters, mosques and schools, : 
 and at Palermo they were secured in the complete enjoy- — 
 ment of their own lands administered by their own officials. — 
 In Girgenti they seem to have really possessed the whole — 
 city, but Messina and the whole Val di Noto was mainly — 
 Christian. In the western part of the island and in the — 
 capital things were much the same as under the Saracen | 
 
 
 
 government: indeed we read that French and Italian 
 women who had come in with the conquest adopted the 
 Oriental fashion of dress—a capital fact; and certainly 
 the administration was conducted on Oriental principles. — 
 It could not be otherwise since Roger practically took a 
 the whole machine, both court and administrative. 
 regard to taxation, for instance, he found a machinery ia 7 
 excellent working order to his hand, officials well acquainted — 
 with resources, accounts, books, schedules, most complete, ~ 
 accurate and in order. He adopted this bureaucracy and — 
 it made him the richest monarch in Europe. His edicts — 
 ran in Arabic as well as in Greek and Latin: his coins 
 and money were stamped with Cuphic characters, his very 
 jewels bore Semitic inscriptions. | 
 In regard to his Court too, Roger adopted all the custom > 
 and ritual of an Eastern potentate. In outward appear- 
 ance it might have been the Court of the King of Persia. 
 All was hung and all were clad in the silks woven on Arabian 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
PALERMO 181 
 
 looms here, by Theban and Corinthian slaves. Viziers, 
 chamberlains, ushers, pages, masters of the wardrobe, and 
 all the innumerable paraphernalia of an Eastern Court 
 were continued, and with this result, that at Palermo 
 Europe beheld for the first time a Court of lofty culture and 
 artificial manners ; full, of course, of intrigue, but a society 
 carefully maintained, in which men of letters, scholars, 
 poets, philosophers, astronomers and the mysterious 
 students of natural science were not only welcome but in 
 some sort set the key and maintained the tone of this 
 society. Here in Palermo Ptolemy’s Optics were trans- 
 lated from Arabic into Latin: the Prophecies of the Eryth- 
 rean Sibyl were also made accessible, and in one of the 
 mosques Roger found the relics of Aristotle suspended like 
 the precious relics of a saint might be in a Christian church. 
 Roger himself pen in hand assisted in the compilation of a 
 work on Universal Geography and in the construction of a 
 map of the world, assisted by twelve geographers, Christian 
 and Mussulman, and had it engraved upon a silver disk ; 
 and Jewish physicians served and Arabian poets immortal- 
 ized him. 3 
 The Court, all that was most living and most brilliant 
 in Palermo and in Sicily, whiled away its leisure among 
 languorous odalisques, monstrous eunuchs and graceful 
 Persian boys in the wonderful gardens and villas which 
 Saracen art and Saracen craft built for the pleasure of the 
 new masters: villas of an ineffable delight, through whose 
 fretted courts many fountains flowed, whose gardens were 
 paradises of love amid the deep shade of orange-groves, 
 of whispering palms and cool myrtles, where birds tuned 
 their tender notes among a tangle of scarlet passion flowers, 
 of pools in which bright fishes swam under perfumed lilies, 
 and the branches of blossoming trees leaned down to smile 
 at them. 
 Great churches arose, but rather mosques than churches, 
 - under clustering minarets and turrets and encrusted with 
 marvellous Byzantine mosaics of all colours, glistening in 
 a semi-darkness, a cool shadow and sheen and glimmer of 
 gold, beneath roofs of exquisite carved honeycomb with 
 long pendentives dripping from the golden multi-coloured 
 13 
 
182 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 roof, the walls carved with Cuphic legends, and inset $ 
 
 actually founded by Roger. The Pope, Urban II, visited — 
 
 with gems or enamelled tiles still more brilliant, and 
 lovelier. 
 
 Three civilizations, three religions, here met and i 
 to have dissolved one into another without disaster. 
 Palermo a Greek Bishop was first restored, but he wal 
 succeeded by Latins who were also established in every see 
 
 Sicily and seeing the state of affairs and hoping for a Latin 
 
 victory, granted to Count Roger special ecclesiastical — 
 powers, appointed him and his successors hereditary — 
 legates of the Holy See. Greek ritual however continued — 
 
 and still lingered in Messina till the fifteenth century. 
 
 Three languages were current—the Greek, the Latin and — 
 
 in Europe where men of different faiths and different — 
 tongues might live together in peace side by side, trusted ~ 
 and favoured according to their individual deserts. So & 
 
 the Arabic: the Court language was French. In the event 
 Latin in the form of the Italian dialect was to win, but till 
 the end of the twelfth century Sicily was the one country ~ 
 
 happy a state of affairs, as we should certainly regard it 
 
 from our point of view to-day, could not endure: while it © 
 lasted it was most brilliant, but it was short lived. It © 
 was in fact the happy negation of the barbarism we call — 
 nationalism. There was not—there never has been—a — 
 Silician nation. Till yesterday this was also true of Italy © 
 
 and made of her the mother of us all. 
 
 Roger the great Count died in 1101; he was succeeded ~ 
 for a moment by his son Simon, but in 1105 Roger the 
 First ascended the throne as King of Sicily. This man — 
 came also into the Norman dominion in southern Italy, © 
 and thus founded the kingdom our fathers knew as the 
 Two Sicilies, comprising about one-third of Italy and by © 
 far the most stable dominion within it. This kingdom — 
 
 was established as a fief of the Holy See. 
 
 Roger I died in 1154 and was succeeded by his son William F 
 the Bad, who reigned till 1166, when he was succeeded by 
 
 his son William the Good (1166-89.) 
 
 With William the Good the best of that too brilliant day — 
 was over. He had no children and tried to obtain the 
 
 
 
PALERMO 183 
 
 - succession of his aunt Constance, wife of Henry VI of 
 Germany, son of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. But 
 he failed, and on his death the crown passed to Tancred the 
 illegitimate grandson of King Roger I. Tancred died in 
 I194 and was succeeded by his youthful son William IIT. 
 Then came the Emperor Henry VI and conquered Sicily 
 and Norman Italy with a bestial cruelty that, as his son 
 and Constance’s, Frederick II, was to prove, seems to have 
 been inherent in that blood. 
 
 Frederick—Stupor Mundi—was crowned in Palermo in 
 r198. He was then four years old and under the protection 
 of Pope Innocent III. During his minority Sicily suffered 
 from every sort of anarchy and his frequent absences in 
 his manhood led to a major change in the character of the 
 island, for the Saracen revolt of 1243 led to a removal of 
 many of the Saracen population to Lucera. The Greek 
 element too was in decline and under Frederick—one might 
 almost say in spite of Frederick, for Sicily was his best 
 beloved country, he spoke all its three tongues and was 
 certainly not unsympathetic to Islam, was indeed known 
 as the Sultan of Lucera—the Italian culture, language, 
 influence and population increased and dominated the whole 
 island. Italian became the speech of the court of Sicily 
 and largely through Frederick’s own genius it became the 
 language of a new literature, born in Sicily, in Palermo, 
 which was to develop into the Italian of Dante and Boc- 
 caccio. 
 
 On Frederick’s death in 1250 his son Conrad, his grandson 
 Conradin ascend the throne ; but behind them both lurks 
 the beautiful tragic figure of Manfred, Frederick’s illegi- 
 timate heir. In 1258 Manfred, on the rumour, false as it 
 proved, of the death of Conradin is crowned king in Palermo. 
 There followed a universal chaos, in which the Pope, the 
 cities themselves, the various royal interests, all struggle 
 for mastery and out of which Manfred emerges momen- 
 tarily victorious. 
 
 Finally the enmity and the envy of the Pope were too 
 much for him. The Papacy as overlord sold the Silician 
 crown to the highest bidders and finally Urban IV granted 
 it to Charles of Anjou, who could be trusted, he thought, 
 
184 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 
 
 
 to do what the Holy See decreed and hold Sicily unquestion- | 4 
 ably from the Papacy. 4 
 
 Charles was crowned by the Pope in 1266, broke Manfred — *» 
 at Benevento, established himself at Naples and held Sicily _ 
 as a province of his new kingdom. The whole island 
 revolted and was degraded, oppressed and enslaved. For — 
 sixteen years Charles was able with the help of the Papacy 
 to maintain this cruel folly ; revolt was followed by per- — 
 secution and appalling suppression ; the island ran with ~ 
 blood ; till out of the chaos rose up the daggers of the — 
 Sicilian Vespers, following on an insult offered to a Sicilian 
 woman in Palermo, and it is said not a single Frenchman ~ 
 was left alive in the island. cf 
 
 Sicily appealed to the Pope, who supported the Angevin 
 and blessed the cruel fool who had lost his kingdom. § 
 
 Manfred had a daughter, Constance, now Queen of Peter, — 
 King of Aragon. He watched and waited, till, when ~ 
 Charles was besieging Messina, a parliament at Palermo ~ 
 was persuaded to choose him for king, and a struggle of — 
 twenty years began between Anjou and Aragon in which ~ 
 finally and after many curious adventures Aragon was — 
 triumphant in 1295. 3 
 
 Thus upon the amazing palimpsest of Sicanian, Sike- — 
 lian, Phoenician, Greek, Carthaginian, Roman, Byzantine, — 
 Saracen and Norman, the cold indifferent arrogance of © 
 Spain is imposed at last—to endure—to endure in a sort — 
 of death until Garibaldi in our fathers’ time awakened the ~ 
 island from its frozen silence with the shouts of his Thousand _ 
 —Viva Italia. 4 
 
 For all that, Sicily remains to-day something outside — 
 Italy—outside the Italian tradition. Who thinks of Italy — 
 in Syracuse or Girgenti? Who could think of anything © 
 there but of Greece. In Palermo certainly the Greeks are © 
 as absent as the Normans, but it is not of Italy you think, — 
 but every hour of the day in monastery, church or Cathedral, — 
 in the Palace Palatine, as in the half vanished loveliness of — 
 La Favara, La Cuba, La Zisa, in the moonlight on the — 
 Marina as in those burning streets, it is the orient you — 
 discern ; and you hear—or overhear is it ?—that Arabian 
 tale, that rhythmic air, which whether in Syria or in Africa, — 
 
PALERMO 185 
 
 in Spain or here in Sicily tells the same story over and over 
 again, under the minarets of San Cataldo, in the cloister of 
 San Giovanni, in the Cathedral of Cordova, on the hill of 
 the Alhambra, in the mosques of Damascus or the streets 
 of Kairawan. 
 
 II 
 
 So the history of Palermo, that so strange story, is 
 perhaps more clearly written in its buildings than is that 
 of any other city in Europe. There we see how that 
 amazing Norman dynasty by sheer political genius became 
 the real national House of Sicily; and at what a cost. 
 We may discern there how it was able during more than a 
 century to contrive the most refined, the most charming 
 and the most original civilization which had existed in 
 Europe since the failure of the Western Empire; and we 
 find there too in those strange Arab buildings so lavishly 
 decorated by the art of Byzantium, in which, so often, 
 scarcely anything Norman appears at all, the price and 
 the cost of it all, the almost complete suppression or at 
 least the transformation of the soul and the art of the 
 conqueror, that soul and that art which elsewhere proved 
 so dominant, in England for instance where in spite of the 
 notoriously stubborn national character and long tradition, 
 within two generations of the Conquest, the whole country 
 was covered with vast and essentially Norman buildings, in 
 which not a trace of the art of the conquered can be dis- 
 cerned. 
 
 No doubt in the midst of a civilization so much superior 
 to their own, their genius was to use and conserve it; 
 but there is this too: it was probably as much by taste 
 as by policy that the conquerors lost themselves in the 
 civilization, the learning and the art, that they found in 
 Sicily. Roger I certainly and the two Williams lived like 
 veritable Eastern princes. Surrounded by Greek and Arab 
 dignitaries of the palace, their whole administration and 
 bureaucracy using indifferently Arabic, Greek or Latin, 
 their money imitated from the coins of Byzantium and 
 
186 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 
 
 bearing Arabic inscriptions, their army consisting of 10,000 
 Mussulmans, their fleet full of Syrians and commanded by — 
 Greeks, little by little they were overwhelmed by it all. 
 
 And then in this conquest of the conquerors no doubt ~ 
 the exquisite climate had its part. Those Norman kings — 
 dressed like orientals, their guards were negroes or Arabs, — 
 their chamberlains, their pages, their cooks, Saracens, 
 eunuchs guarded their harems where Greek and Arab 
 women wove the lovely silks through the interminable 
 hours: the very names of their villas, their castles of 
 
 kd dial 
 
 indolence or of pleasure, amid eastern gardens of delight, 
 bore oriental names—Sweet Waters or Paradise of Earth ef 
 or The Glory. Palermo came soon to equal the splendour 
 of Cordoba or Granada. - 
 
 What had that stark and immovable Norman architec- __ 
 ture, what we see still at Jumiéges for instance or at 
 Durham, to do with all this? Here and there indeed a 
 church was built such as they knew at home, at Monreale 
 and even more definitely characteristic at Cefalu, but 
 
 they were only built to be overwhelmed by Saracen carvings — 
 and Byzantine mosaics, to be in fact completely orientalisted, _ 
 till, save for their indestructible outline, they are unrecog- 
 nizable, caught as they are in that oriental enchantment, 
 and transformed out of all recognition. They might ~ 
 indeed be symbols of their Norman builders who sat 
 enthroned arrayed in oriental vestments adorned with 
 rude jewels bearing Cuphic inscriptions, no longer mere 
 kings but priests, like the sacerdotal monarchs of the East, _ 
 and at last scarcely European. | 
 Isuppose the only strictly Saracen building left in Palermo 
 is the base of the great tower of the Cathedral which forms _ 
 part of the Archbishop’s Palace; this is said to date from 
 Arabic times. But the Cathedral itself built by Walter — 
 ‘“‘of the Mill,” the English Archbishop, for William the 
 Good in 1170, is, in spite of its continuous restorations — 
 belonging to every century since its foundation, an excel- 
 lent example of the overwhelming influence of Saracen — 
 civilization and art after the Norman conquest. 
 The lovely building in golden stone with its four towers __ 
 as graceful as the Giralda of Seville, has to-day half lost 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 PALERMO 
 
 ) 
 
 ATHEDRAL 
 
 
 
sd ale 
 ’ 
 
 ee om 
 
 
 
 
 
PALERMO 187 
 
 its unique character, by reason of the dome which Fuga built 
 over it in the eighteenth century, when he ruined the 
 interior with plaster in a vain attempt to make of it a 
 Spanish church. But note that lovely south porch; 
 it is purely Arab in feeling, note the fretwork and carving 
 everywhere, the beautiful arcading: this is no Norman 
 building, no Spanish church, but the creation of the same 
 mind which built the mosque of Cordova, the same hands 
 which contrived the beauty of the Alhambra and the strange 
 ambiguous churches of Toledo. To find the Norman you 
 must go into the crypt where among others the English 
 Archbishop under whom the church was built, Gualterio 
 “ Offamilla ” they call him, lies.1 You will not find it in 
 the chapel of the Kings in the south aisle of the great church, 
 where in sumptuous porphyry such as neither the Dukes 
 of Normandy nor the Kings of England ever knew, lie 
 under their canopies, King Roger I, his daughter Constance, 
 
 1 Gualterio Offamilla—Walter “‘of the Mill,” Archbishop of 
 Palermo, primate and chancellor of Sicily, was sent to Sicily as 
 tutor for William the Good when a boy by Henry II of England. 
 Henry expected to marry his daughter Johanna to William. Walter 
 became Archbishop and was succeeded as tutor by Peter of Blois. 
 But Walter was first Archdeacon of Cefali and Dean of Girgenti. 
 His appointment to the See of Palermo was violently opposed by 
 the French, headed by the Queen Mother and Matthew the Vice- 
 Chancellor, but was most favourably received by the Pope, Alex- 
 ander III. Matthew’s party finally succeeded in carving the Arch- 
 bishopric of Monreale out of the diocese of Palermo in 1188. Walter 
 held the See of Palermo for twenty-five years (1168-93). He is 
 buried in the crypt, his sarcophagus bearing the following in- 
 scription : 
 
 CONDIDIT ACTORIS DOMVS HEC SVB MARMORE CORPVS 
 NE SIT GVALTERIO FVNDITVS ORBA SVO. 
 
 HIC JACET ANTISTES GVALTERIVS AVCTOR OVILIS 
 XRISTE, TVI FACTVS QUOD FVIT ANTE LINIS. 
 VIRGINIS EXEMPLO MAIOREM TVMBVLA TEMPLO 
 CLAVDIT, GVALTERII DVM FOVET OSSA PII 
 SVNT DVO LVSTRA MINVS ANNIS DE MILLE DVCENTIS 
 CVM CLAVDIT TANTVM TAM BREVIS ARCA VIRVM, 
 
 The name Walter “of the Mill ’’—Offamilla—is said to be a 
 barbarous transformation of Gualterius ad gdamiridpis—proto famili- 
 avis that is; the a signifying his position as the first among the 
 familiares of the Norman King. 
 
188 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Henry VI her husband and the Emperor Frederic II— 
 Stupor Mundi. When in the eighteenth century those o 
 sarcophagi were opened they found the body of Frederick 
 whole and entire, arrayed in gorgeous robes covered with - 
 inscriptions in Arabic, and beside him lay the crown, thelll 
 orb, and that disastrous sword. He ‘ 
 
 What else is to be seen in the church is of little interest : 
 in the chapel to the left of that of the Kings a picture of 
 S. Barbara with an angel by some North Italian master ; . 
 in the second chapel of the north aisle an Assumption by 
 Antonio Gagini, other parts of which are scattered about 
 the church ; in the seventh chapel a statue of the Madonna 
 by Francesco Laurana ; in the eighth chapel reliefs of the — 
 Passion by Gagini. The choir stalls are of fine carved — 
 work and here are statues of the apostles by Gagini. To ~ 
 the right of the choir is the chapel of S. Rosalia, the patron 
 saint of Palermo. Her relics lie here in a sarcophagus Ge ds a 
 silver. In the sacristy you may see the Cap of Constance ~ 
 of Aragon, wife of Frederick IT and a piece of the mantle x 
 of Henry VI, taken from the great tomb in the Chapel of . 
 the Kings. 
 
 It is in the Cappella Palatina, the chapel of the Palace 4 
 of the Norman kings, that one is first of all, and most over- 
 whelmingly, confronted with the truth about Palermo, the ~ 
 victory of its own civilization over its northern conquerors. — 
 The Palace stands on a hill which has no doubt always ~ 
 been the site of the castle, much of that we see to-day — 
 dating from Saracen times. But it has been so added to © 
 and restored not only by the Normans, whose only relic — 
 there might seem to be the central tower, Torre Pisana or © 
 S. Ninfa, that it is no longer of much interest. It isin the — 
 Chapel built in 1132 by Roger and dedicated in honour - 
 S. Peter that our interest lies. as 
 
 The Cappella Palatina consists of a vestibule, a nave | 
 with aisles, sanctuary and apse: but that vestibule now ~ 
 spoiled was once part of a portico which surrounded the — 
 whole chapel. We may still find seven of those many — 
 columns and to the left an inscription, in Greek, in Arabic — 
 and in Latin, regarding the erection, it is said, of a clock 
 in I142. f 
 
 5 
 
 ir 
 ‘<a 
 ; 4 
 
PALERMO 189 
 
 The nave, which is but roo feet in length and 42 feet 
 - wide, is upheld by wonderful Saracen pointed arches borne 
 by ten columns of cipollino and granite 16 feet high; it 
 is covered by a beautiful stalactite Saracen vault of wood 
 wonderfully carved and adorned with Cuphic inscriptions. 
 The loftier sanctuary is reached by five steps beneath a 
 dome having eight narrow windows and inscriptions in 
 Greek and Latin. ‘fo the right is a tall ambone of marble, 
 and a marble Paschal candelabrum. Andevery inch of the 
 walls and the floor are covered with mosaics. Those which 
 encrust the walls of nave and aisles and sanctuary and the 
 cupola itself consist of glass cubes: the ground is all of 
 gold and upon this as it were in an amazing radiance and 
 _ oriental splendour in innumerable colours one sees pictures, 
 subjects from the Old and New Testaments. The oldest 
 are those of the choir, but all have been damaged by many 
 successive repairs and those of the vestibule and the apse 
 are modern. The whole effect is incomparably rich and 
 gorgeous: the dimness of the light so sparingly admitted 
 through the tiny windows aiding wonderfully, so that the 
 whole chapel glows like a jewelled casket or a Limoges 
 enamel. While these mosaics are, now certainly, inferior 
 to those at Cefalt, the whole chapel is one of the loveliest 
 and most fascinating works of art left in the world. And 
 one visits it again and again, not indeed to study its details, 
 but to enjoy its general effect, to lose oneself in that Arabian 
 sanctuary, that coffer of carved marble encrusted with 
 gold and precious stones. 
 
 In the Sacristy which is reached through a bronze door 
 of this time, are documents in Greek and Arabic and Latin ; 
 and in a room to the left, which has a fine door of wrought 
 iron, is the Treasury where one finds among other things an 
 ivory casket of Saracen work. 
 
 Before leaving the Palace, the Stanza di Ruggero, its 
 walls also encrusted with mosaics, is worth some trouble 
 to see, and the view from the flat roof of the tower, S. Ninfa, 
 embraces the whole city and environs. 
 
 From that magical Arabian sanctuary in the construction 
 of which the Greek and the Saracen combined in the service 
 of the Norman, whose character and art are altogether absent 
 
190 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 from it, one passes down to find a building not less astonish- 
 ing, not less exotic, in the church—church or mosque is it ? 
 —of S. Giovanni degli Eremiti. Here indeed one is in 
 Arabia itself. Though built for the Norman kings as a 
 church in 1132, it is in fact a mosque, a rectangular building 
 in the shape of a tau-cross with three apses under five 
 domes with its minaret and pointed arab windows. No- 
 thing in Africa is more characteristic of the architecture of 
 the Mussulman. Look at it from the delicious garden of 
 the cloister. Those rose-coloured domes rising directly 
 from the walls or from square substructures, that minaret 
 crowned by its dome too, give one an ineffaceable impression 
 of the orient and of Islam. No doubt Mass has-been said 
 here for centuries, but even that great Rite was not able 
 to change the atmosphere of this building which belonged 
 to Islam as it were by birth, in spite of the intention of those 
 who created it. That small mosque which ence stood upon 
 this site and the remains of which you may still see, seems 
 in it to live again. Here in this Islamic sanctuary were 
 laid they say the nobles of the Norman court. Beside 
 it opens the cloister, a garden of love overwhelmed with 
 flowers, a fountain in the midst; still one of the loveliest 
 things in Palermo. 
 
 Close by is the Porto Mazzara, said to be the oldest gate 
 now remaining in Palermo. Its narrow and lofty Saracen 
 arch opens in the medieval wall. I am glad not to have 
 missed it. 
 
 Half bemused by these wonders, so strangely beautiful, 
 one passes through the streets so silent and anon so thronged, 
 to San Cataldo and La Martorana. 
 
 In S. Cataldo one finds again what looks like a pure 
 Saracen building, a rectangular mosque with apse and 
 pointed Arabian windows under three domes, the central 
 one supported by four ancient columns. They show you 
 the altar there, but it cannot convince you that this was 
 ever a Christian building. Yet in it certainly the Byzantine 
 had his part for it was once covered with mosaics of which 
 those of the pavement alone remain. It is said to date from 
 r16z. It looks earlier. 
 
 On the same platform as S, Cataldo stands the church 
 

 
 PULPIT, CAPPELLA PALATINA, PALERMO 
 
 
 
 S. GIOVANNI DEGLI EREMITI, PALERMO 
 

 
 
 
PALERMO 191 
 
 of La Martorana, its many columned tower with its pointed 
 windows the most Arabian thing about it, grouping well 
 with the domes of S. Cataldo. Its original title was S. 
 Maria dell’ Ammiraglio, for it was founded by that Byzan- 
 tine admiral, Georgios Antiochenos, grand-admiral of King 
 Roger in 1143. 
 
 Here we seem to have come out of Arabia but still to 
 remain in the orient. It is a Byzantine building without a 
 thought of the Norman. It was originally square with 
 three apses under a dome, but the nuns of the convent close 
 by were given the church in the fifteenth century and they 
 prolonged it westward. Again, in the seventeenth century, 
 the central apse was pulled down and a square chapel took its 
 place and in the eighteenth century the dome was removed. 
 
 The whole interior was once covered with mosaics and 
 those which remain, in spite of repairs and restorations, 
 are to my mind far the finest in Palermo and fully equal to 
 those at Cefali. The mosaics of the Birth of Christ, of 
 the Birth of the Virgin and of her Death are quite without 
 rivals in the Cappella Palatina or of course at Monreale. 
 Here too is a valuable mosaic of the Coronation by Christ 
 Himself of King Roger I. When all was perfect this 
 Church must have been in its total effect as wonderful as 
 the Palatine Chapel. In the vestibule are two columns 
 bearing Arabic inscriptions together with two mosaics of 
 King Roger and the admiral founder which come it is said 
 from the original facade. 
 
 These are the greatest and most interesting churches in 
 Palermo, and to them should be added the Cathedral of 
 Monreale. 
 
 This great church, the seat of an archbishop, stands on 
 the hills behind Palermo about three miles from the city. 
 Nothing is left of the great Benedictine Monastery founded 
 in 1174 by William the Good, except the famous cloisters, 
 but the great church remains and around it has grown a 
 town of 23,000 inhabitants. 
 
 Of all the greater churches built in Palermo and its im- 
 mediate neighbourhood for the Normans, this alone has much 
 of their character. It is built in the form of a Latin cross 
 with three apses 334 feet long and 131 feet wide. One might 
 
192 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 
 
 
 
 almost from without take it for a Norman building. The 
 beautiful eastern apses with their dark arcading are as 
 striking here as they are at Cefali, and the whole vast 
 church with its two square towers at the western end stands 
 up grey and dominating like a northern cathedral, but over a 
 a landscape charged with marvels and in its gorgeous 
 colouring unlike anything to be found in the north. The 
 noble bronze doors too in their magnificent Norman portal © 
 though not Norman are definitely Latin and European. — 
 They are the work of Bonanno of Pisa who made the 
 splendid bronze doors in the transept of the Duomo in his _ 
 native city. They were erected in 1186. The bronze ~ 
 doors at the side are less fine but date from about the same 
 time. They are the work of Barisano of Trani. 
 Within all is different. Here we are in a vast Latin © 
 church it is true, but every yard of its 70,000 square feet is 
 covered with Byzantine mosaics completed in 1182. In 
 the nave, subjects from the Old Testament: in the aisles ~ 
 and transepts scenes from the Life of Christ. On the ~ 
 arches of the transept are scenes from the lives of SS. Peter 
 and Paul, while in the Tribune we see the vast bust of Christ _ 
 with an inscription in Greek and below the Madonna and ~ 
 Child enthroned with angels and saints and below again ~ 
 the Apostles. The spaces over the arch dividing the sanc- 
 tuary from the minor tribune are adorned with figures of 
 twelve prophets. An arch leading from the minor tribune ~ 
 into the transept is decorated with a half figure of Christ and 
 eight medallions of prophets. On the other face of the — 
 arch is the Annunciation. In the archivaults in the centre 
 of the church we see medallions of the progenitors of Christ. 
 And over the arch dividing this vault from the nave is S. 
 Sofia the Divine Wisdom of God, adored by the archangels _ 
 S. Michael and S. Gabriel. Over the Royal Throne we see 
 a curious and valuable scene: King William the founder 
 receiving his crown directly from Christ without human 
 intervention ; above the archiepiscopal Throne opposite, 
 King William again presenting this church to the Blessed 
 Virgin. In the right transept are the tombs of William 
 the Bad and William the Good, the former a sarcophagus _ 
 of porphyry like those in the Cathedral of Palermo.  _— 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
PALERMO 193 
 
 These mosaics, almost overwhelming in their extent, are 
 the poorest in Sicily, far below those at the Martorana 
 and Cefalii and even less fine than those in the Cappella 
 ‘Palatina. They were intended to illustrate those portions 
 of the Old Testament which prefigure the coming of the 
 Messiah ; therefore they cease with the wrestling of Jacob. 
 And further they represent the Life of Christ, the glory of 
 the Redeemer and the triumph of the Church. The vast 
 bust of the Saviour is inferior in type and form to that at 
 Cefalu, far coarser in character and more wooden, nor are 
 the harmonies of colour near so fine. These mosaics mark 
 the decline of the art in Sicily. Note for instance the 
 Crucifixion here in the Transept and compare it with the 
 work of the older mosaicists. 
 
 Wandering out of the church one comes into the marvel- 
 lously lovely Cloister built by William for the monks he 
 brought hither from La Cava to serve this church. These 
 Cloisters are all that is left of the original building and they 
 are the largest and I suppose the finest of their kind in 
 existence, incredibly romantic too in the ruined beauty of 
 their pointed arches and half destroyed mosaics, their 
 Arabian fountain, their wonderfully ornamented shafts 
 and capitals. They date from about 1200. A ruined wall 
 of the monastery overshadows them upon the south. 
 
 Beyond lies the delightful garden commanding a famous 
 view over the Conca d’Oro and the city of Palermo and the 
 sea. Here, as I at least never can do in the church itself, 
 one may rest awhile and try to imagine what effect such 
 a landscape as this must have had upon Count Roger after 
 all his fighting and all his wars, what effect such a climate 
 as this must have had upon the young Norman from 
 Coutances, the harsh Norman fields, that Norman home. 
 It must have seemed like fairyland: something too good 
 to be true, a vision at noontide, a dream in the night, some- 
 thing to which one could only surrender, only submit with 
 secret delight. 
 
 Is it there the explanation lies of all this strange business : 
 so that in all this city of the Norman kings you look in 
 vain for anything that is really their own? 
 
 And so I found myself caught by the glamour of this 
 
194 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 Arabian fairyland. I too altogether succumbed to its 
 fascination, its curiously exotic charm. And I spent day 
 after day peering about Palermo to find even a fragment of 
 it hidden in a church, which, now of the fourteenth or the 
 seventeenth century, kept just one thing of that strange © 
 time—part of a cloister here, a doorway there, a window or 
 an inscription. 
 
 It was little enough I found. 
 
 In the Piazza Marina I came to the Palazzo Chiaramonte 
 which was rebuilt, preserving much of an earlier building, 
 in the early years of the fourteenth century, by the Chiara- 
 monte family. It is said to stand upon the site of a palace 
 of the Saracen Emirs and I suppose those wonderful Arabian 
 windows must date from that time or at any rate from the 
 Norman dynasty: they are worth any trouble to see. 
 The roof too of the great wall should be noted ; it is a fine 
 thing painted by Simone da Corleone and Cecco di Nano 
 at the end of the fourteenth century, but still with much of 
 Saracenic inspiration about it. 
 
 Then the little church close by, of S. Antonio Abbate, 
 though ruinous is certainly of the Norman time, when 
 nearly all that was built seems to have been the work of 
 the Saracen builders. 
 
 Not far away towards the station is the desolate Piazza 
 Magione on which stands the church of La Magione built in 
 1161 for the Cistercians and given in 1193 by Henry VI 
 to the knights of the Teutonic Order. It has been hope- — 
 lessly restored it is true, but the charming little Arabic 
 cloister remains, that I was glad not to have overlooked. 
 
 In the Piazza della Vittoria between the Palazzo Reale 
 and the Duomo, is the ruined Norman church of La Mad- 
 dalena, and in the Via dell’ Incoronata behind the Cathedral 
 is the ruined church of the Incoronata where King Roger 
 was crowned. 
 
 Nor must I forget the Casa Normanna in the Salita S. 
 Antonio, close to the Quattro Canti behind S. Matteo in 
 the Corso, for it has the most lovely Arabic windows, as 
 fine as anything of the kind in the city. 
 
 And it is remarkable: even when the Saracens were all — 
 gone and the Norman kings dead or exiled something of 
 

 
 CLOISTER AT MONREALE 
 
 THE 
 
 
 
 BRONZE DOORS BY BONANNO, MONREALE 
 

 
PALERMO 195 
 
 this strange spirit lingers still in the work of their successors. 
 Look at the fourteenth-century churches of S. Agostino in 
 Via S. Agostino and of S. Francesco near the Giardino 
 Garibaldi. They are of the fourteenth century and their 
 rose windows and portals are I presume of that time, yet 
 how much they still suggest the Saracen, almost like a 
 melody which the mind cannot quite forget or quite recall. 
 
 But once or twice in Palermo the Norman stands forth 
 free of the spell of his Arabian dream ; and not only in the 
 crypt of the Cathedral. It might seem as though Walter 
 “of the Mill,” Archbishop of Palermo and Chancellor of 
 the kingdom, was not subject to the Saracen enchantment, 
 that in all this dazzling sunlight he remembered the grey 
 towers of Normandy and England and could not forget 
 them or forego them even here, amid the minarets and 
 domes, the curiously wrought roofs, the art and cunning 
 of the east. 
 
 He was Archbishop from 1168 to 1193. How much he 
 had to do with the crypt of his Cathedral, where he lies, I 
 know not, but he certainly built, and in the real Norman 
 English way, the church of Santo Spirito, famous as the 
 church of J Vesprvi the Sicilian Vespers, when at vespers on 
 Easter Monday 1282 all the French were massacred. 
 
 The Archbishop founded here a Cistercian monastery 
 in 1173 and as you enter the church to-day it is as though 
 suddenly you had returned home: in its stark strength 
 and gaunt nobility, its massive round stone pillars naked 
 of ornament, its pointed arches (there alone perhaps we 
 may find the Saracen influence) it is one of the most moving 
 sanctuaries in Palermo and bears witness to the character 
 of the great man who determined to build it. 
 
 It was Walter “of the Mill”’ again who built about the 
 same time (1174) the pure Norman church of S. Cristina la 
 Vetera close to the Incoronata behind the Cathedral. 
 Certainly, whatever may have befallen the Norman kings, 
 this man was immovably true to the North, and, like so 
 many of us his countrymen, preferred above all foreign 
 things even in a foreign place the things of home. 
 
 The other churches of Palermo have a different and for 
 me certainly a lesser interest. 
 
 - 
 
196 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 
 
 There is S. Domenico, for instance, a great church capa- — 
 ble of holding many thousands of people. It was builtin 
 the seventeenth century and many famous Sicilians are — 
 buried there: itis I suppose to Palermo what S. Croce is — 
 to Florence. The most interesting thing in the church, — 
 however, is a relief of the Madonna and Child by Antonio 
 Gagini. 
 
 In the Via Bambinai behind this church is the Oratorio 
 del SS. Rosario. Here is an altar-piece by Van Dyck— 
 the Madonna del Rosario and some wonderful baroque 
 decorations in stucco by Serpotta who was famous for this 
 work. 
 
 You find his work again in the Oratorio di S. Zita close 
 by in the Via Valverde where the seats are inlaid with — 
 mother-of pearl. In the church of S. Zita dating from the 
 fourteenth century you find the best work of Antonio 
 Gagini, a triple relief, of the Birth, Death and Assumption 
 of the Blessed Virgin. : 
 
 But much more delightful than any of these dull and © 
 overloaded buildings, is the church of S. Maria della Catena 
 at the very end of the Corso towards the sea by the Porta — G 
 Felice. This is a charming late Renaissance building with — : 
 a lovely portico from which you may get a glimpse both of ‘ 
 the Cala and of the sea. Its name comes to it from the 5 
 chain with which the old harbour was closed. S. Maria — 
 Nuova behind the old harbour has a similar vestibule. _ 
 
 I say nothing of the Convento de’ Cappuccini and its” 
 gruesome corridors lined with the mummified bodies of the 
 wealthy inhabitants of seventeenth and eighteenth-century © 
 Palermo in their best clothes, for I have never seen it. © 
 Those who have, have told me it is a melancholy but — 
 not uninteresting spectacle. It is certainly a spectacle — 
 which all strangers who come to Palermo seem to wish © 
 to see. a 
 
 It somehow did not attract me. I preferred to lounge P 
 about those labyrinthine streets in the heart of the city — 
 looking for a bit of Sicilian Gothic, as in the portal of the — 
 SS. Annunziata which charmed me as did its early Renais- 
 sance interior. I liked better to come by chance upon a ~ 
 beautiful thing like the lovely Renaissance church of S. — 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
PALERMO 197 
 
 Agata behind the Cathedral in the Via dell’ Incoronata, or 
 the graceful facade, also of the Renaissance, of S. Chiara 
 by the Piazza Bologni or to wander into S. Giorgio of the 
 Genoese, lovelier than S. Agata; or to admire at the gorgeous 
 baroque of S. Caterina by the Municipio. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Modern Palermo, however, has its amusing sides. 
 
 “So you do not believe in the Evil Eye?” said my 
 friend. 
 
 I did not answer, if for no other reason but that I was out 
 of breath. Two minutes before we had been sitting at a 
 little table in the Piazza drinking vermouth and seltzer, 
 like a couple of hundred other people one warm evening, 
 and then suddenly every table was empty, every one 
 sauntered away, and my friend, seizing my arm, insisted 
 on my going too, just as I was about to pay for our refresh- 
 ment. In an alley-way, well out of sight of the Piazza, he 
 explained the very reasonable cause of every one’s action. 
 
 It seems that a moment before every one moved away, 
 leaving their drinks unfinished and their ices uneaten, a 
 certain signore—notoriously in possession of the Evil Eye— 
 had sauntered up to a table and sat down. That was why 
 the Piazza and caffe and all the little tables had emptied 
 themselves. 
 
 “And even so he may have looked at us!” 
 
 I laughed. 
 
 “So,” said my friend, ‘‘ you do not believe in the Evil 
 Eye.” 
 
 No. I didn’t think I did. I was quite sure I didn’t. 
 We hadn’t got it in England. In Scotland maybe. But 
 within the realm of the Church of England ... no, it 
 was unheard of. Certainly I didnot believe init. Besides, 
 I hadn’t finished my vermouth. 
 
 My friend was somewhat scornful. 
 
 “The Church of England, caro amico! Why, Pope 
 Pius IX himself had it ?” 
 
 14 
 
198 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 “Had what? ” 
 
 “‘ Malocchio.”’ 
 
 “Nonsense! What are you telling me? ” a 
 
 “I tell you, whenever Pio Nono held a Consistory, all — 
 the Cardinals made the horns under their robes.” 
 
 “The horns ? ” 
 
 “Caro amico, there are three ways of warding off the 
 Evil Eye. One is to close the middle and third fingers of 
 the hand with the thumb, and to point the first and little 
 fingers at the Person. Better is the second way, when, 
 instead of pointing at the Person, you touch iron with 
 the two outstretched fingers—for instance, your keys in 
 your pocket. The third way, and the most efficacious .. . 
 I will tell you another time.”’ 
 
 “Giovanni, it is a game for children.” 
 
 “For children? Am [I a child? Caro amico, am I 
 not a great artist—am I not one of the great pianists of 
 our time?” (Heis.) ‘“‘ Well, I tell you it is no game for 
 children. It is not a game at all. Listen to me.” He 
 seized my coat lapels and thrust his face into mine. Gio- 
 vanni is very eager and what we used to call in England, 
 “intense.” | 
 
 ‘Listen to me. You remember when, last year, you 
 saw me off to Italy—at Victoria, was it not? Well, at 
 Bologna I saw that Person. I got out of the train there on 
 the way to Florence to get a sandwich, and by ill-luck 
 there he was. I did all I could to avoid him, but he man- — 
 aged to speak to me. I knew then something would 
 happen.” 
 
 “What folly!” 
 
 “Caro, I knew. And I was right. No sooner had — 
 the train got into those accursed tunnels on the Apennine 
 than the engine broke down, and we were there for four 
 hours! FOUR HOURS!! Stifling with smoke, gasping 
 for air, our handkerchiefs before our mouths, our noses, 
 our eyes. In that heat! Dio mio, half dead!” { 
 
 “Well, that might happen any day. It had not Ps 
 to do with . * 
 
 “ Don’t say his name. Not to do with him? Caro = 
 amico, on the next day I gave my great concert in Florence. 
 
 
 
 foe We eae maa ee te 
 Se PO ot Mek AO pO ee eee 
 
 
 
 
 
 
PALERMO 199 
 
 The huge hall was packed ; it was areal triumph. Just as 
 I sat down at the piano I looked over the great hall full of 
 people, a sea of faces, and there, coming in at the door, 
 I saw that Person.” 
 
 “Well? ” 
 
 “T began to play. I had not played six notes when... 
 Crash! Crash! Down came the great chandelier in the 
 middle of the hall. My concert was over, and the Miser- 
 icordia busy.”’ 
 
 “Well, well; what a misfortune ! ” 
 
 “Yes. We had to return all the money, except the 
 subscriptions.”’ 
 
 “Ah! Well, let me go and pay for our vermouth.” 
 
 “No, don’t go. If you must pay, send a small boy. 
 Ecco! Ragazzo, ragazzo.”’ 
 
 ““What a shame! Well, as I don’t believe in the Evil 
 Eye, I don’t mind sending him. Wait a minute...” 
 
 I felt in all my pockets, but the purse was gone. I 
 must have left it on the little table in the Piazza when we 
 left so hurriedly. Yes, I remembered, just as I was going 
 to pay. 
 
 “What is it? ” 
 
 “Why, you will have to pay after all. I’ve lost my 
 purse.”’ 
 
 “What’s that?” 
 
 “T have lost my purse.” 
 
 “You have lost your purse? ”’ 
 
 coves.” 7 
 
 mou, wave... lost... your... purse?” 
 
 “T tell you so.” 
 
 Thank God.” 
 
 “What do you mean? ” 
 
 “It was you he looked at, then, not me.” 
 
 “Who ? ” 
 
 “That Person.” 
 
 “What nonsense! ... ” 
 
 “Ha! I forget; of course, you don’t believe in the Evil 
 re 
 
200 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 IV 
 
 One of the most Sicilian things in Palermo is the Museum 
 established in the convent of the Chiesa dell’ Olivella. 
 There you will find in a marvellous confusion, due to the 
 unsuitable building, an extraordinary collection of beauti- 
 ful and banal objects, of important and trifling things, the 
 whole story of Sicily in this débris from temple and tomb, 
 from church and mosque, from the Greek, Roman, Saracen, 
 Norman and Spanish civilizations which have, with how 
 many others, succeeded one another on this island of the 
 three seas. 
 
 I found myself continually returning to those littered 
 cloisters, those curiously sober rooms at the end of dark 
 corridors, at the top of winding staircases, perhaps because 
 this was the quietest place in the city, perhaps because 
 one never knew what one would come upon in so confused 
 a place. 
 
 Happily the more important Greek objects are for the 
 most part exceedingly well shown in two rooms called 
 the Sala di Imera and the Sala di Selinunte; the less 
 important things being distributed in the cloisters where 
 it is pleasant to spend the hot afternoons searching them 
 out. 
 
 In the Sala di Imera are displayed not only those objects 
 which have come from Himera or Therme, but it seems 
 the later finds which are as yet not officially described. 
 
 The major objects in this room, however, are three great 
 Lion masks or heads of limestone from a Doric Temple at 
 
 Himera. They are of the fifth century B.c. and exceed- 
 
 ingly fine, splendid in design and most vigorous in execu- 
 tion. They came no doubt from the cornice where they 
 fulfilled the purpose of the gargoyles of a Gothic church. 
 
 I passed by the great herma of Dionysos, though its 
 grave majestic aspect gives it some nobility, for it seems 
 to me a Hellenistic work, a copy of some original of the 
 school of Praxitiles: nor did the Roman works displayed 
 here interest me. But how can I tell my delight in that 
 archaic relief of a man and a woman dancing, and in 
 
 another similar relief there, whose subject I could not 4 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
PALERMO 201 
 
 divine, or in that lovely full length figure of a nude—Aphro- 
 dite perhaps,—that is numbered 716, but which I could not 
 find in the Catalogue, nor even obtain a photograph of it. 
 From this room one passes directly into the Sala di 
 Selinunte. The walls here are all lined with the Metopes 
 from the Temples C, E and F of Selinus. The oldest 
 of these Temples was Temple C on the acropolis, of which 
 the vast ruins remain, though overthrown, to so large an 
 ‘extent intact. It dates from the early part of the sixth 
 century B.c. It was our countrymen Harris and Angell 
 who in 1822 discovered three of the metopes of this 
 temple now admirably arranged in this room between 
 what I suppose are the original triglyphs under a modern 
 copy of a portion of the massive entablature. The first 
 represents a Quadriga with a charioteer and what appears 
 to be two Victories with garlands. It has been suggested 
 that this may represent Oenomaus.! The second repre- 
 sents Perseus beheading the Gorgon Medusa; and behind 
 the hero Athena stands. The third represents Herakles 
 with the Cercopes, those thievish and horrible gnomes 
 —monkeys maybe—who robbed him while he slept. 
 These metopes are very primitive and are apparently 
 adapted from bronze reliefs. It is curious that the first 
 should be technically so different from the other two; 
 for while they are carved in low relief, the first has much 
 greater depth, the foreparts of the horses being completely 
 in the round, and the effect of the foreshortening is almost 
 successful. This metope seems also to be more skilfully 
 
 1 Oenomaus was King of Pisa in Elis. It had been declared to 
 him by an oracle that he should die when his daughter Hippo- 
 dameia should marry. In consequence he made it a condition that 
 those who would be her suitors should contend with himself in the 
 chariot race: he who conquered him should receive her, but those 
 that he should conquer should suffer death. The race-course was 
 from Pisa to the altar of Poseidon on the Isthmus of Corinth— 
 right across the Peloponnesus. All went as he wished till Pelops, 
 son of Tantalus, came to Pisa. He, driving the horses he had re- 
 ceived from Poseidon, reached the goal before Oenomaus, for, as 
 some say, he had bribed the charioteer Myrtillus to remove the 
 pegs from the wheels of the king’s chariot. Oenomaus killed him- 
 self after cursing Pelops and all his race. One of the pediments 
 of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia is devoted to him. 
 
202 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 carved than the other two; but it must be remembered 
 that all was once covered with brilliant colours, remains 
 of which may still be seen on the Perseus. 
 
 Another set of three metopes also of the sixth century 
 is preserved here. These were discovered by Professor 
 Salinas in 1892. They seem to be the work of a different 
 school from the foregoing, and the subjects are certainly 
 derived from Crete. Here we see Europa riding on the 
 Bull across the sea; Herakles and the Cretan Bull; anda 
 Sphinx. The Europa is exquisite in delicacy and charm. 
 It might seem certain that we have here the achievement 
 of a much more learned and an older tradition of art 
 than in the metopes from Temples C and F; but these 
 also were once covered with stucco and painted with 
 colours. 
 
 Close by are the lower parts of two metopes from Temple 
 F—one of the temples on the eastern hill of Selinus. These 
 are somewhat later than the foregoing but still belong to 
 the sixth century. They represent a contest between Gods 
 and giants. 
 
 Upon the wall at the end of the room four metopes have 
 been arranged of a later time. They come from Temple 
 E on the eastern hill at Selinus, and date from the middle 
 of the fifth century B.c. They represent the marriage of 
 Zeus and Hera, the Punishment of Acteon by Artemis, 
 Herakles slaying Hippolyte and Athena slaying the giant 
 Enceladus. Their exquisite refinement verges on weak- 
 ness, they have nothing of the vigour or even of the great 
 decorative quality of the earlier metopes, and a disagree- 
 able peculiarity is that the faces, the hands and feet 
 of the female figures are inserted in white marble. Of 
 course these works too were coloured, so that the contrast 
 
 
 
 between the cold white marble and the coarse warm stone, . 
 
 which is so distressing to-day, was not found when they 
 were in their original state. 
 Other Greek works the museum possesses, among them 
 a collection of vases from Gela and Selinus, but nothing 
 comparable with these sculptures from Selinus and Himera. 
 That magnificent series of Greek works of the. sixth and 
 fifth centuries B.c. is by far the most important possession 
 
 
 
PALERMO 203 
 
 of the Museum. In comparison with these the rest of 
 the objects is only a collection of curiosities. 
 
 Among these curiosities, and not the least lovely, are 
 the fragments of Saracenic art preserved in the Sala Araba 
 on the first floor. Here are many wood-carvings, frag- 
 ments of ceilings in the honeycomb style, a white and gold 
 terra-cotta vase from Mazzara, an astrolabe of 955 and many 
 Cuphic inscriptions. 
 
 The second floor is devoted to the extensive picture 
 
 gallery in which not a single work of the Sicilian school of 
 the first importance is to be found. Its great treasure is 
 the small triptych of the early Flemish school, probably by 
 Mabuse in the Gabinetto Malvagna. 
 _ Among the Italian pictures it is interesting to note two 
 works by Pisan masters of the fourteenth century, one a 
 charming panel of the Madonna and Child on a gold ground 
 by Giovanni di Niccold, the other a signed work, a large 
 altar-piece of the Madonna and Child enthroned between 
 saints and angels by Turino Vanni the second. Here too 
 is the only signed work by Bartolommeo da Camogli, a 
 Madonna of Humility with a curious predella from the 
 church of S. Francesco. 
 
 Of the Sicilian school we find a fine fourteenth-century 
 altar-piece of the Coronation of the Virgin with saints and 
 beneath a predella, attributed to the Pisan school (No. 75) 
 and another triptych (No. 82) perhaps by the same hand 
 also representing the Coronation of the Virgin. 
 
 The best pictures in Palermo are not, however, to be 
 found here, but must be sought in the Chiaramonte col- 
 lection where there is a fine picture of the Madonna and 
 Child of the school of Giotto, two fine panels of S. Peter 
 and S. Paul by Lippo Memmi, a polyptych by Pietro 
 Lorenzetti and a panel of S. Lucy by Taddeo di Bartolo. 
 
 \ 
 
 Vv 
 
 . . . After all, the museum did not really interest me. 
 I found myself continually wandering back into that 
 
204 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 wonderful Arabian tale and seeking to forget the city of 
 yesterday and to-day in La Martorana and S. Cataldo or 
 S. Giovanni and its garden of love, or through a whole 
 afternoon in watching the light change and fade upon the 
 precious gold and mosaics of the Cappella Palatina. 
 
 And then there were those Villas or Palaces rather, 
 pavilions of delight and beauty which the same Arabian 
 and Byzantine genius built and contrived for the same 
 Norman lords: La Zisa, La Cuba, La Cubola, La Favara 
 and Menani. 
 
 All these are quite outside the city and were once sur- 
 rounded, as some of them are still, by the loveliest gardens 
 and parks in the world. 
 
 That nearest to the city is La Zisa, beyond the Porta 
 Nuova. It was originally built for William I who gave it 
 an Arabian name, as we should say “ The Glory,” El Aziz, 
 which has been transformed by the Sicilians into La Zisa. 
 It is sadly changed and desolate amid its neglected sur- 
 roundings, and only a single exquisite stone pine remains 
 of the garden which was the pride of Sicily, as the inscrip- 
 tion there proclaims: As Europe is the glory of the world, 
 Italy of Europe, Sicily of Italy, so this garden is the pride of 
 Sicily. And yet in spite of everything the ghost of all that 
 beauty still haunts this square keep of hewn stone with its 
 curious rectangular tower, though that blind arcading in 
 the two upper storeys about the palace has been broken 
 by windows : windows which of old did not look thus with- 
 
 out, but were only built to look within upon the inner 
 court. And I wonder how old those battlements may 
 
 be ? 
 
 Within, on the entrance floor, is a small open hall in the 
 central recess of which a fountain runs forth in a channelled 
 way across the pavement. There are three recesses and 
 each is covered with a marvellous honeycomb design, 
 similar to what you find in the Alhambra. And the walls 
 are encrusted with Byzantine mosaics of huntsmen and 
 peacocks with a lovely border of flowers. 
 
 That is all: only a hint really, only a gaunt ruin left 
 to remind us of all that Leandro Alberti found here so short 
 
 a time ago as the sixteenth century: little more than a — 
 
 ties 
 ath eee Se 
 
PALERMO 205 
 
 ruin at any rate. And those gardens? Why the road 
 passes over their dead beauty that is now dust. Only that 
 single stone pine remains to remind us of what once they 
 were. , 
 
 It is again out of Porta Nuova you go to find another 
 of these Arabian Palaces: La Cuba, which alas is certainly 
 in no better case than La Zisa, for this pavilion where 
 Gianni di Procida in the Decameron found his lost lady is 
 now a barrack. It was built for William II in rr82. An 
 oblong rectangular building like La Zisa surrounded by a 
 blind arcading of pointed panels, embattled above with a 
 parapet bearing a Cuphic inscription, its small court 
 within has a single recess covered with the lovely Arabian 
 honeycomb decoration. Yet here something, though not 
 much of the gardens remains, but the park and fishponds 
 are gone and the road passes right across the pleasance 
 where Boccaccio’s lovers were caught asleep naked in each 
 others arms. 
 
 And indeed you must cross the road now to find the 
 loveliest of all these Arabian buildings, La Cubola, a pavilion 
 which of old stood in the gardens of La Cuba, but now 
 is separated from them. Imagine four pointed arches 
 Opening in a great square low tower of stone which sup- 
 ports a small cupola: each of those arches gives you a 
 vista of dusky orange grove or palm alley or green lemon 
 walk, and La Cubola itself is still complete and perfect : 
 the most charming of all the Arab buildings in Sicily. 
 Yet something you feel is lacking: the fountain which 
 used to play, but no longer, beneath the cupola, its music 
 echoing in the deep shade through the silent garden 
 groves. 
 
 Outside Porta Garibaldi you soon come upon the great 
 bridge of so many arches built by the Admiral Georgios 
 Antiochenos, who was later to build La Martorana in 
 honour of the Blessed Virgin. -This is still an Arabo- 
 Byzantine creation and is worth some trouble to see; 
 while only a little farther on the highway stands another 
 Arabo-Byzantine building, the church of S. Giovanni dei 
 Lebbrosi, built in 1071 for Robert Guiscard. The church 
 
 1 Decameron, v, 6, 
 
206 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 stands it is said on the site where the Normans camped 
 when Palermo was taken at last. It has been much 
 restored but the original walls and the cupola remain at any 
 rate from the Norman times. 
 
 Turning here to the right and taking the road for Bran- 
 caccio, in little more than a mile one comes beyond that 
 village to another of those Arabian pleasances, that 
 named Sweet Waters, La Favara, the Castello di Mar Dolce. 
 It seems to have been built about 1153 and was perhaps 
 the most splendid of all those pavilions in which the 
 Norman kings delighted, being indeed a hunting pavilion 
 built round a large open court. It was a favourite of 
 Frederick II too and is praised and sung by many through- 
 out the Middle Age. It stands on the first of the hills, 
 the last spur seaward of Monte Grifone here thrust out, a 
 great headland into the Conca d’Oro. It was it seems 
 chiefly famous for its baths and fountains, fragments of 
 which remain, together with its small chapel covered by a 
 cupola. But its wonderful gardens and park have wholly 
 disappeared and we have to go to the Arabian Abdurahman 
 to learn of their beauty. 
 
 “O how beautiful,’ he writes, “‘how beautiful is the lakelet 
 of the twin palm trees and the island where the spacious 
 palace stands! The clear waters of the double springs are 
 like liquid pearls and their basin is a sea; you might say 
 that the boughs of the trees leaned down to look at the fishes 
 in the pool and smile at them. The great fishes swim in those 
 transparent waters and the birds sing their songs among the 
 gardens. The ripe oranges of the island are like fire burning 
 upon boughs of emerald ; the pale lemon recalls a lover who 
 has wept all night for the absent beloved. The two palms 
 ave like friends who have gained a retreat inaccessible to their 
 enemies, or stand erect proudly to confound the murmurs 
 and calumnies of those who envy them. O palms of the two 
 
 lakelets of Palermo, may unceasing, undisturbed and plenteous 
 
 dews ever refresh you!” 
 Nothing of all this might seem to remain except the — 
 lemon groves. \ 
 A mile farther, or not so much, past the fossil cave, the y 
 Grotta dei Giganti, on the lovely mountain side stands — 
 
 
 

 
 MOSAIC OF THE DEATH OF THE VIRGIN, 
 LA MARTORANA, PALERMO 
 
 
 
 CHIPSA DEI VESPRI, PALERMO 
 

 
4 
 
 PALERMO _ 207 
 
 the church of S. Maria di Gest from which you may have 
 perhaps the finest of the many fine views of Palermo, the 
 Conca d’Oro and the sea. This charming old monastic 
 church of the fourteenth century retains a few Sicilian door- 
 ways, a charming fountain and some good Renaissance 
 tombs. The old cemetery was the burial-place of many 
 of the nobles of Palermo. 
 
 And the last of those Arabian pavilions lies high up 
 beyond Monreale, beyond San Martino on the Palermitan 
 mountains, at the village of Altarello. It is called Mim- 
 nerno and is the Arab Menani. Though altogether ruinous 
 as I was told, I could not forbear to visit it, for it was said 
 to have been built for King Roger and there are none 
 too many of these marvellous Saracen buildings to be 
 found in the world. SoIset out. At Altarello I found a 
 small boy to show me the way, which he did with much 
 courtesy, refusing all payment. I found the place ruinous 
 indeed, but the chapel remains and part of the interior 
 court and the views over Palermo alone make it worth a 
 visit. 
 
 Moreover, it is easy to combine with it a visit to the 
 Badia di S. Martino. This Monastery, now of course 
 suppressed, was a Benedictine house founded by S. Gregory 
 in the sixth century. The buildings we see, however, are 
 all of the eighteenth century and are without much 
 interest. 
 
 And so I came back to Palermo which, apart from such 
 things as these, has, I find, little or nothing to say to me. 
 mod yet... 
 
 Among the most beautiful things in Palermo are the 
 delicious gardens in which I think she is richer than any 
 other city within the Italian kingdom. For the most part 
 they are like all southern gardens, full of shade and regu- 
 
 _ larly planned, really architectural in effect and for the 
 
 most part just the outside courts and rooms of the villa, 
 the chief luxury being not so much the often exquisite 
 flowers and trees but the water-course, the pool or the 
 fountain. There are many examples of this, among the 
 most delightful being the garden of the Villa Tasca, which 
 is like an exquisite forecourt to the house, and where 
 
208 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 
 
 water is most admirably used not merely for its refresh- 
 ment and its music, the pleasure it can give in itself, in 
 this land of sunshine and summer heat, but as a mirrorasit — 
 were for the garden, the beauty of that group of trees which 
 is so delightfully reflected there, those cypresses about a ~ 
 little Temple which continually contemplate their own — 
 beauty in the lake. 
 
 The Villa Giulia, La Flora as they call it, the public 
 garden, laid out in 1777 by Niccolé Palma, still has an air 
 of the eighteenth century. It owes its name to Donna 
 Giulia Guevara, the wife of the viceroy of that time, whose 
 charming thought it seems to have been to make her city 
 lovelier with this pleasance of blossoming trees, where to- 
 day the people gather still to listen to music, as I suppose 
 they did also when this garden was first designed with 
 its alley-ways of laurels and its fountain of Trinacria. a 
 
 Close by is the Botanical Garden, also of the eighteenth 
 century, with its great tropical trees, its palms, its yuccas, 
 its bamboos, its huge baobabs with their great branches — 
 and arms sending vast roots into the ground, for all the 
 world like fantastic temples from China or Japan. | 
 
 And then among the loveliest of these gardens of Palermo — 
 with their shade and refreshment, are certainly two which I 
 should have been unfortunate to miss, the garden of the 
 Villa Trabia and the garden of the Villa Sperlinga. The 
 latter has I think the oldest and the most beautiful olives _ 
 in all western Sicily, half as old as history I suppose; and 
 then there is that garden within a garden, a garden enclosed _ 
 which for its marvellous colour I have never seen equalled 
 anywhere in the world. The walls are encrusted with the — 
 bright glowing many-coloured tiles of Caltagirone and even 
 of Persia, old oil jars, such as Greece knew, old vases of — 
 majolica such as the Phcenicians spread on the beaches ~ 
 of the Mediterranean to attract such a princess as the — 
 little white Io daughter of Inachus, are filled with all — 
 manner of geraniums and calceolarias, and everywhere ~ 
 in a blaze of colour are set all the brightest flowers imagin- 
 able. It is like some marvellous dream of the Renaissance — 
 come true, a miracle that could perhaps only have been ~ 
 conceived here, only have come to such brilliant perfection 
 
 a 
 Fei 
 =m 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
PALERMO 209 
 
 in this privileged place and in a land so learned yet so light ; 
 light enough for enchantment. 
 
 Nor are these few by any means all the gardens that are 
 the delight of this city which without them would be lacking 
 in something which it could ill spare—a certain beautiful 
 quietness and refinement, a sense of privacy which more 
 than all other cities it seems to need. There are the 
 gardens of Villa Belmonte above Villa Igeia, that hotel 
 for the rich which never seems to belong to Palermo, 
 but is like a yacht come to anchor in the harbour. There 
 is La Favorita, that royal chateau built by Ferdinand IV 
 in the Chinese style, with its gardens of cypresses and pines, 
 its dusky thickets and shady walks; there is Villa Scalea 
 with its roses, there is Villa Sofia with its far lovelier garden 
 and delightful Arabian garden-house. 
 
 All three lie under towering Monte Pellegrino, the great 
 isolated headland of limestone which closes the bay of 
 Palermo upon the west. This mountain, for it is nothing 
 less, is nearly 2,000 feet high and so exceedingly steep 
 that the path up is called La Scala. A road zigzags up 
 the treeless eastern face, which you find is covered with 
 broom and herbage though from below it appears to be quite 
 bare. Under an overhanging rock close to the summit 
 is the Grotto of S. Rosalia about which a church has been 
 built, the Santuario, in 1625. 
 
 S. Rosalia is the omnipotent patron saint of Palermo, as 
 S. Lucia is of Syracuse and S. Agatha of Catania, though she 
 cannot claim the very great antiquity of these, nor a place 
 in the Canon of the Mass. In fact doubts have been cast 
 upon her existence at all! It was with some difficulty 
 that I was able to learn anything of a definite and non- 
 fabulous sort about her, though her name is on every lip, 
 and she is famous throughout the island. 
 
 I find, however, that she was the niece of King William 
 the Good, and having at an early age given symptoms of a 
 distinct vocation for the religious life, at fifteen she retired 
 from the world to a lonely hermitage on the Palermitan 
 mountains at a place called Quesquina. In the year 1159 
 she disappeared and nothing more was heard of her for 
 nearly five hundred years—nothing whatever. However, 
 

 
 210 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 during the plague of 1624, a “‘ holy man ”’ was vouchsafed 
 
 a vision in which he was told that the “ saint’s’’ bones 3 
 
 were lying in a cave near the top of Monte Pellegrino, 
 and that if they were taken up with proper reverence and 
 carried in procession thrice round the walls of the city the 
 plague would immediately cease. At first it seems no 
 one took any notice of the “‘ holy man,’”’ but when he “ grew 
 noisy ’’ he began to get adherents and presently the Arch- 
 bishop Doria “‘ was obliged ”’ to send to Monte Pellegrino 
 to satisfy the people. There they found the bones as he 
 had told them, the city was freed from the plague and 
 S. Rosalia became the patron of Palermo. It is further 
 related that now an inscription from the hand of S. Rosalia 
 herself was found in the cave. This told that she had 
 been disturbed in her retreat and in order to be in solitude 
 had wandered to Monte Pellegrino. Her festival is cele- 
 brated at the end of June and on September 4th. 
 
 More interesting than little S. Rosalia’s cavern is the 
 marvellous view from the summit of the rock, one of the 
 finest in Sicily, giving you on a clear day even the AZolian ~ 
 Isles. There, one can well say farewell to Palermo, above — 
 the shrine of its saint, for there the whole city, the beautiful — 
 
 bay and the Conca d’Oro with its enclosing mountains lie — 
 
 beneath your eyes, and since not a building is more than 2 
 two miles away they can all be noted one after another, — 
 the Royal Palace and Chapel, the Cathedral where lie the ~ 
 
 Norman kings, the Cupolas of S. Giovanni, of the Martorana, ~ 
 
 of San Cataldo, the great harbours crowded with shipping, — 
 the shores and gardens of the city. Indeed the whole — 
 world seen thence seems to be all a garden filled with groves ~ 
 of every kind, watered by fountains and rivulets winding ~ 
 through that golden shell, which as you see fulfils its name ~ 
 not only on account of its wealth, but of its shape and its — 
 situation lying there upon the seashore. And I under- — 
 stood from that height, the whole beneath my eyes, why ~ 
 the place was known of old as Panormus: for indeed it ~ 
 is still all harbour, and when, as then, the sea ran right ~ 
 up into the midst of the city, this must have been an even ~ 
 truer name than it is to-day. _ 
 
 It might seem indeed a place contrived by nature for — 
 
 
 
PALERMO 211 
 
 those old Phoenician traders who first established here 
 some sort of settlement and were followed later by their 
 Carthaginian brothers. Palermo was never Greek, from 
 first to last there was nothing Greek about her. Here on 
 Monte Pellegrino you may stand on the Carthaginian fort 
 and look over the great bay to its eastern headland Monte 
 Catalfano upon which lie the stones of Carthaginian Sol- 
 unto, while in between rise the domes of the Saracen, the 
 minarets of the Arab, the swarming life of a people that 
 even to-day have more of the orient about them than any 
 other in western Europe. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 
 
 BAGHERIA, CEFALU AND THE NORTH COAST i 
 
 whether by train, or motor, or from town to town 
 
 afoot, getting a lift now and again from some 
 passing vehicle, you will be struck by the noble magnifi- 
 cence of those far stretched headlands, that steep and rocky 
 shore with which in fact no other coast of the island can 
 compare. 
 
 From Trapani, indeed all the way to Capo Peloro, the 
 great rocky capes and headlands thrust out steeply and 
 brokenly into the purple sea, forming an innumerable 
 series of bays among the loveliest and most various in 
 the world and often of the wildest beauty. Sometimes 
 these bays open into great gulfs as at Castellamare, at 
 Palermo, at Tindari, and at Milazzo; more often of course 
 you find smaller half secret inlets, but always and every- 
 where the grandeur of the coast, for half the way and 
 more in sight of the floating islands of olus, overwhelms 
 you and is certainly unmatched in the south and east of 
 the island. The north coast of Sicily, historically the 
 least interesting and important shore of the island, is 
 by far the finest in natural grandeur and beauty. 
 
 L] OWEVER you go along the north coast of Sicily, 
 
 On leaving Palermo for Messina one comes first, on that 4 
 
 long, difficult and lovely road, to Bagheria, less than ten 
 miles from the capital, and related to it much as Versailles 
 
 is to Paris or Richmond to London. That is to say that — 
 
 here the nobility of the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- 
 turies had their most splendid villas, some of which have — 
 
 been famous all over the world, as La Valguarnera and La a ‘ 
 
 Palagonia and La Butera. 
 
 Bagheria lies on the landward side of the great and beau- 
 
 212, 
 
 
 
VILLA PALAGONIA 213 
 
 _ tiful headland of Monte Catalfano which closes the gulf 
 of Palermo on the east. It is sad to see these glorious 
 villas, which when Brydone was in Sicily in the last quarter 
 of the eighteenth century were so full of life and splendour, 
 to-day half deserted and closed. 
 
 Villa Valguarnera is built on the highest part command- 
 ing wonderful views towards Himera, Cefali and the 
 fEolian isles on the one side, and the Conca d’Oro, Palermo 
 and. Monte Pellegrino on the other. It certainly stands 
 in one of the finest situations in Europe, amid its great 
 gardens. | 
 
 Villa Palagonia was, however, more famous, not only 
 because Goethe devoted so many pages to it, but for its 
 own absurd and outrageous sake. Alas, it has fallen 
 into decay and many of its more monstrous decorations 
 have been removed to make room for others less amazing 
 but quite as much out of place. Indeed no traveller 
 _ but must feel sorry that the villa was ever tampered with. 
 It was one of the most astonishing affairs in Europe and 
 perhaps not so absurd as it is said to have been by a gener- 
 ation of travellers who seem to have missed its irony. 
 Brydone saw it at its best but within a few years after 
 it had already been partly dismantled. He describes the 
 villa as like no other on earth, and says, it was built by 
 the Prince of Palagonia, a man of immense fortune, who 
 had devoted his whole life to the study of monsters and 
 chimeras greater and more ridiculous than ever entered into 
 the imagination of the wildest writers of romance or 
 knight-errantry. 
 
 He omits to mention the beautiful cypress avenue that is 
 one of the great delights of the place, but describes the 
 amazing crowd of statues that surrounded the house and 
 appeared, at a distance, like a little army drawn up for its 
 defence. 
 
 _“ When you get amongst them, you imagine you have got 
 into the regions of delusion and enchantment ; for of all of 
 that immense group there is not one made to represent any 
 one object in nature ; nor is the absurdity of the wretched 
 imagination that created them less astonishing than its 
 wonderful fertility. It would require a volume to describe 
 
 15 
 
214 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 the whole . . . He has put the heads of men to the bodies 
 of every sort of animal and the heads of every other animal 
 to the bodies of men. Sometimes he makes a compound 
 of five or six animals that have no sort of resemblance in 
 nature. He puts the head of a lion on the neck of a goose, 
 the body of a lizard, the legs of a goat, the tail of a fox. 
 On the back of this monster he puts another if possible 
 still more hideous, with five or six heads and a crest of 
 horns, that beats the beast in the Revelation all to nothing. 
 There is no kind of horn in the world that he has not 
 collected, and his pleasure is to see them all flourishing 
 on the same head. The scandalous chronicle says that his 
 wife has assisted him in making this collection and that 
 there are some of her placing as well as of his. His sincere 
 wish is that she may bring forth a monster. It is truly 
 unaccountable that he has not been shut up many years 
 ago; but he is perfectly innocent and troubles nobody 
 by the indulgence of his frenzy ; on the contrary he gives 
 bread to a vast number of statuaries and other workpeople 
 whom he rewards in proportion as they bring their imagin- 
 
 ations to coincide with his own . . . The statues which 
 adorn the great avenue and surround the court of the 
 palace amount already to 600... The inside of this 
 
 enchanted castle corresponds exactly with the out; it is 
 in every respect as whimsical and fantastical, and you 
 cannot turn yourself to any side, where you are not stared 
 in the face by some hideous figure or other. The vast 
 arched roofs are composed entirely of large mirrors, nicely 
 joined together, so that when three or four people are 
 
 walking below there is always the appearance of three or — 
 four hundred walking above. All the chimney-pieces, — 
 
 windows and sideboards are crowded with pyramids and 
 pillars of tea-pots, caudle-cups, bowls, cups, saucers and 
 
 so forth, strongly cemented together; some of these ~ 
 columns are not without beauty: one of them has a large ~ 
 
 china chamber-pot for its base and a circle of pretty little 
 flower-pots for its capital: I dare say there is not less than 
 
 forty pillars and pyramids formed in this strange fantastic 3 
 
 manner. ... 
 
 It was of course generally believed that the Prince was — 
 
 
 
SOLUNTUM 215 
 
 mad and Brydone certainly thinks so. He does not seem 
 to have perceived the fierce irony of it all: that a man 
 living in such a polity as that of this kingdom might well 
 perceive that he was surrounded by monsters and so 
 represent the world as consisting of such beasts. Even 
 to-day—perhaps more than ever to-day—and not only in 
 Sicily. .-.. 
 
 Another fantastic villa is the Villa Butera, called the 
 Certosa, because it is filled with curious historical figures in 
 wax represented as monks: most hideous and cunning in 
 aspect. Irony again. These people were rather furious 
 than mad. 
 
 Upon the further side of Monte Catalfano on the rocks of 
 Capo Zaffarano lie the extensive ruins of Soluntum in a 
 magnificent situation over the sea looking across the vast 
 and shallow Bay of Himera to the far stretched headland 
 of Cefaliu. This impregnable place upon the bold and 
 _ lofty promontory was never a Greek settlement. It was, 
 and most characteristically, Phoenician. As Thucydides 
 says in his sixth book, the Phoenicians had settlements all 
 round Sicily on the promontories along the sea-coast for 
 the sake of trade with the Sikels: these they walled off. 
 But when the Greeks also began to come in by sea in large 
 numbers the Phcenicians left most of these places and 
 settling together lived in Motya, Soluntum and Panormus, 
 near the Elymi, partly because they trusted in their 
 alliance with the Elymi and partly because from the 
 north-west corner of Sicily the voyage to Carthage was 
 shortest. 
 
 Soluntum soon came into the possession of the Car- 
 thaginians and was able to withstand Dionysius of Syra- 
 cuse in 397 B.C., when he made his greatest and most 
 successful attack upon the Carthaginian cities of Sicily. 
 He ravaged its territory but could not take the city, which 
 however was betrayed into his hands in the following year, 
 according to Diodorus, who simply notes the fact but does 
 not explain how this coup was brought about. It soon 
 came again into the hands of Carthage, probably under the 
 treaty of 383 B.C., when the Halycus was established as 
 the permanent frontier between Greek and Carthaginian. 
 
216 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 Later the place was given up for a moment to the mer- 
 cenaries of Agathocles, and in the First Punic War, after the 
 fall of Panormus, it opened its gates to the Romans and 
 thereafter existed as a small municipal town in the dominion 
 of Rome. 
 
 Unhappily little or nothing remains to-day of the 
 Phoenician or Carthaginian settlement. The considerable 
 
 remains we see are all of the Roman time: fragments of © 
 
 walls, parts of two temples, a paved causeway and traces 
 of another road over the hill up to the town, capitals, columns 
 and friezes, together with several cisterns for water. 
 These, with some fragments of sculpture of considerable 
 interest and beauty now in the Museum at Palermo, have 
 earned for these desolate ruins the name of the “ Pompeii 
 of Sicily.” 
 
 The road now becoming more and more picturesque, after 
 Solunto enters the Bay of Himera, passing, after crossing 
 the S. Michele torrent, the ruins of a great Norman church 
 
 on a hill to the right called Chiesazza, founded in 1077 by ~ 
 Robert Guiscard ; and presently one climbs up into the — 
 
 picturesque town of Termini Imerese. 
 
 This quite pleasant town, with a fairly good inn, is of 4 
 
 course famous to-day as in antiquity for its warm saline 
 
 springs, those “hot baths of the Nymphs” of which ~ 
 Pindar speaks. It was the successor of the more ancient — 
 city of Himera which lay on the other side of the Torto ~ 
 valley on the hills towards the sea between it and the Fiume 
 
 Grande. 
 
 It is not perhaps worth any but the most eager traveller’s 
 while to seek out the site of ancient Himera, important 
 though it was and the birthplace of the poet Stesichorus, 
 for almost nothing remains on that steep and overgrown 
 
 hillside nor on the plateau above it; only the remains of a 
 
 Doric temple in the marsh towards the sea. Neverthe- 
 less, I walked out there, for I could not pass without going 
 
 to see the spot where Gelon of Syracuse broke the Car-— 
 
 thaginian armies on the same day in the same year as 
 Salamis. 
 
 That great Greek city, the only Greek city according to 
 Thucydides upon all the north coast of Sicily, stood above 
 
SHINOGVW HHL NI 
 
 Sore rea em 
 
 
 

 
 
 
HIMERA 217 
 
 the River Himera, now Fiume Grande, whence it received 
 its name. It was a colony of Zankle (Messina), Chalcidic 
 therefore, but it received also a number of Syracusan exiles 
 and with them a Doric touch, and was founded according 
 to Diodorus’ calculation in 648 B.c., and here about 635 B.c. 
 was born the poet Stesichorus whose lovely verses offended 
 Helen of Troy, so that she blinded him till he wrote what 
 is called the Palinode, a Recantation, when she restored him 
 his sight. His poems were in the Doric dialect and accord- 
 ing to Cicero there was a statue of him here, which was 
 carried later to Termini, as an old man bending over a 
 book. This, Cicero says, was a masterpiece of art and 
 represented a man who dwelt indeed at Himera, but en- 
 joyed through his genius a great and still living reputation 
 in every part of Greece. 
 
 Almost nothing remains to us of his twenty-six books of 
 verse, but among the fragments we find this, which is what, 
 maybe, offended the divine Helen, for he tells ‘‘ How 
 -Tyndareus one day in making sacrifice to all the Gods 
 forgot the joy-giving Cypris; and in anger she caused 
 the daughters of Tyndareus to be twice wed and thrice, 
 and forsakers of husbands.”’ 
 
 That was a very mild offence in comparison with some 
 of the things that have been said of Helen by other poets. 
 Lycophron, for instance, not only alludes to her three 
 husbands but calls her the AXgyan bitch who bore only 
 female children. But then this blasphemer calls Aphrodite 
 the “‘old hag,’ so Helen need not mind. 
 
 I suppose every man has his own notion of Helen and 
 very few will agree with our Chalcidian friend, if indeed it 
 was he who wrote the Alexandra. She has always been 
 and will always be the theme of poets: but no one has yet 
 explained why Menelaus—seeing he was Menelaus—did 
 not kill her when Troy was taken at last, amid all that 
 blackguard butchery; but was reconciled with her and 
 brought her home. 
 
 Was it her overwhelming beauty that saved her, or her 
 essential innocence, the will of Aphrodite in her as the 
 
 Greeks might have said? Or, after all, had she very little 
 to do with the whole tragic business ? 
 
218 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 For instance : let me put what I mean in the form of a 
 Mime by Sophron of Syracuse who invented Mimes, or by 
 Herondas of Cos,—at least it will help to pass this rainy 
 day at Therme. 
 
 THE FREEDOM OF THE STRAITS 
 
 “Now all the adventures of Odysseus stout of heart, I 
 could not tell or number so many they were ; but what 
 a deed was that which he dared and did in his hardiness 
 in the land of the Trojans, where ye Achzans suffered 
 affliction. He subdued his body with unseemly stripes, 
 and cast rags upon his shoulders, and in the guise of a 
 beggar went into the ways of Troy, and the Trojans knew 
 him not ; only Helen knew him in that guise.’’—Odyssey, 
 Book IV. 
 
 SCENE: The lofty Acropolis of Troy, the Agora, from which, 
 through a wooden port in the great wall, one may look over 
 the plain to the Greek camp and the Hellespont. In the 
 midst of the Agora is a fountain, upon the steps of which 
 ODYSSEUS lies disguised as a beggar. It is dawn, and 
 
 the townsfolk are coming to the fountain to draw water. 
 
 They take no notice of the beggar ; they are discussing the 
 war. 
 
 First Trojan. Ain’t she worth it? | 
 SECOND TROJAN. All this misery? I’ve lost two 
 SONS.o6 acs 
 
 First TROJAN. Ain't she worthit? I reckon she’s the — 
 
 best woman in the world. 
 
 (Enter HELEN with ANDROMACHE: they pass through the 
 Agora on their way to the gate to bid farewell to PARIS — 
 and Hector. HELEN looks at the beggar, but gives — 
 
 no sign of recognition. The crowd cheers and doffs its 
 cap.) : 7 
 
 First TRojAN. Ain’t she worth it? 
 SECOND TROJAN. Well, perhaps so. 
 
 
 
 poe ge ee ee ee a ee eee 
 
 
 
A MIME 219 
 
 First Trojan. Ain’t she the most beautiful woman 
 intheworld? Ain’tshe the bestwoman in the world? . 
 
 (Enter Paris and HECTOR.) 
 
 Paris. JI don’t know what she wants. 
 Hector. It is certainly very awkward. 
 Paris. She’s deceiving me. There’s that Deiphobus. 
 
 There’s . . . I’m damned if I know what she means. 
 Hector. You surely can’t mean you suspect her 
 of . . . inconstancy ? | 
 
 Paris. Can’t I? Ill get rid of her. Ill send her 
 back to Menelaus. 
 
 Hector. But think of the scandal! ... This awful 
 WATS ea. 
 
 Paris. Well, what of it? 
 
 Hector. But that’s what we’re fighting about. 
 
 Paris. What? 
 
 Hector. Why, Helen ! 
 
 Paris. My dear chap!... 
 
 Hector. Well, isn’t it? I don’t want to hurt your 
 feelings, but... 
 
 Paris. So you still think the war is about Helen? 
 
 Hector. Well, what is it about? I know this is a 
 scandal, but I don’t see any chance of getting people to 
 believe that the war is mot about Helen. You carried her 
 _ off, and... and there you are. Without being a pro- 
 Greek you must admit... 
 
 Paris. Rot. What chance is there for our future if the 
 Greeks win? That’s the point. 
 
 (They go out talking. The Agora is now deserted save for the 
 beggar, who still lies on the steps by the fountain. Enter 
 HELEN.) 
 
 HELEN. Odysseus ! 
 
 ODYSSEUS (gazing at her, trembling with terror, realizing 
 that his life is in her hands). Helen ! 
 
 HELEN. Odysseus! ! 
 
 OpyssEus (still gazing and trembling). But... but 
 they told me you had become a plain woman ! 
 
220 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 HELEN. Odysseus!!! How dare you say that tome! 
 (He continues to gaze at hey.) But...Isuppose...I 
 must excuse you. After all, you were one of my suitors, 
 
 OpyssEus. Yes, and ever shall be. (Then, with happy 
 thought.) That is why I couldn’t keep away. 
 
 HELEN. Oh, Odysseus (coming close to him and looking 
 about), how bored I am! Bored! Bored!! Bored!!! 
 
 OpyssEus. Bored? 
 
 _ HELEN. Bored, bored, bored. Bored by the Trojans, 
 by Paris, by Hector, by Andromache, by all Troy. Bar- 
 barians, barbarians, barbarians! (Throwing herself into 
 his arms.) Release me, deliver me, save me! Take me 
 back to my husband ! | 
 
 OpyssEus. But the war? and...er... Paris? 
 
 HELEN. Why did I ever leave Menelaus? Why was 
 I carried off? He was far better than this. It was some- 
 times amusing at Lacedzemon. 
 
 OpyssEus. But surely you won’t maintain that Mene- 
 laus isn’t a bore? Why the whole camp is bored stiff 
 with him. I never met anyone who didn’t find him an 
 intolerable bore. 
 
 HELEN (suddenly and eagerly). Oh, he is, he is, he is. 
 Isn’t he? But these barbarians! Hector, oh my Odys- 
 seus, Hector! !—and Andromache! Ah, you don’t know — 
 Andromache. The complete mother and housewife, I 
 assure you. By the way, talking of that, how is Penelope, 
 dear little Penelope ; little, little Penelope, like a dear, dear 
 little dwarf? Take me away, Odysseus (throwing her 
 arms about his neck). Listen, my suitor, my sad, romantic — 
 suitor. .. . If you will take me away, if you will release 
 me, you shall have... listen... (whispers) a kiss — 
 from the honey of my throat. Oh, Odysseus, you have 
 always loved me. Give me back my respectability. 
 (Very seriously.) Nothing is any good without that; — 
 there’s no ¢aste in anything without that. Listen (she 
 sits on his knees, throws her arms about his neck and kisses 
 his ear), a kiss from the honey of my throat. (Jumpingup.) — 
 
 
 
 a ee oe eek ee ee 
 
 FAR eg et We eee RY, ae ee 
 
 
 
 How dare Paris suspect me! 
 OpyssEus. Suspect you? s 
 HELEN. Yes, he suspects me. Isn’t it appalling, after — 
 
A MIME 221 
 
 all this misery, this awful war, all for me, and for which I 
 shall never forgive myself ? 
 
 OpyssEus. Well, as to that, you know, you are not 
 wholly to blame. It had to come. The gods are respon- 
 sible. It was their quarrel. The gods are about their 
 immortal business. Providence . 
 
 HELEN (offended). It is very nice of you, Odysseus, to 
 try to excuse me, but . . . I don’t think you should blame 
 Providence. After all, I am the source, I fear, of all this 
 terrible affair, in which so many brave men... (She 
 turns away her head.) } 
 
 OpyssEus. Oh, come now, I can’t see you crying. As 
 a matter of fact, you know, gods or no gods, Helen or no 
 Helen, the war had to come. 
 
 HELEN (giving him her hand). Ah, don’t try to comfort 
 me with lies. I know I am the whole dispute. 
 
 OpyssEus. As a matter of fact, not at all. It was 
 really all about a trade-route. 
 
 HELEN (furious). A what? 
 
 OpyssEus. A trade-route. You see, old Priam, here 
 _in Troy, taxed our ships as they passed through the Straits 
 to and fro the Euxine. Sometimes he’d hold them up, the 
 old pirate. 
 
 HELEN. I know you are lying to comfort me, but I 
 don’t think it quite nice of you to suggest that the cause 
 of all this fighting and the death of all these splendid men 
 is a stupid thing like that. 
 
 OpyssEus. Stupid ? 
 
 HELEN. Men like Hector and Achilles don’t fight for 
 trade-routes. 
 
 OpyssEus. No, but you know yourself how stupid they 
 are—what barbarians. They will fight for anything, even 
 honour. 
 
 HELEN (im ecstasy). My honour. 
 
 OpyssEus. Oh, for anything or nothing. Why Achilles 
 is sulking in his tent now. What about, do you think ? 
 About a woman. 
 
 HELEN. I don’t think it quite nice of you, Odysseus, 
 to say that. Of course they are impossible, and who is 
 - this woman ?—some slave, I suppose. But, after all, you 
 
222 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 have been one of my suitors. You must have felt—you 
 must feel—that I was worth fighting for. Why else are 
 you here ? 
 
 OpyssEus. I tell you the war is about a trade-route. 
 You are only a pretext. 
 
 HELEN (furious ; throwing open the port, and pointing 
 out over the plain, where the battle is joined). A pretext! 
 A trade-route! Do you tell me you are killing one another 
 for such a thing? What? You, who have loved me? 
 O shame! O horror! O men, men, what are you? I 
 shall never understand you. (Looking across the plain.) 
 How beautiful and how glorious! And, after all, for a 
 woman, . . . one understands it. (Slamming to the port.) 
 A trade-route! What will you get by your trade-route ? 
 
 OpyssEus. Very little, perhaps. A little gold.... 
 
 HELEN. Bah—a little gold. Will you kill your son for 
 a little gold? 
 
 OpyssEus. But it is the freedom of the Straits we . . . 
 
 HELEN. Will you risk your son for a little gold? Tell 
 me, then, of your little son. Is he as pretty as ever ? 
 
 OpyssEus. Telemachus was a pretty boy, was he not ? 
 
 HELEN. Not half as pretty as he would have been had 
 he been . ... mine. 
 
 OpyssEus. Ours! Helen... . 
 
 HELEN. Tst. Some one is coming. Lie down again 
 till I can find a pretext to bring you into the palace. 
 
 CURTAIN. 
 
 It cannot have been long after Stesichorus’ death that 
 
 Himera fell into the hands of a tyrant Terillus, who for 
 
 some reason of which we are ignorant quarrelled with 
 Theron of Acragas, who expelled him from Himera. Teril- 
 lus then made common cause with the Carthaginians, and 
 this was the pretext for the great attack upon Greek Sicily 
 which coincided with the Persian advance upon Greece 
 proper. Both Hamilcar the Carthaginian here and Xerxes 
 the Persian at Salamis were defeated it is said upon the 
 same day in 480 B.C. | 
 
 
 
 
 
 Pe Ce ae ee Beas gee: 
 
HIMERA 228 
 
 Theron then remained master and contrived after 
 various revolutionary outbreaks to turn Himera, by the 
 introduction of new colonists, into a Doric city ; this about 
 476 B.c. As such it supported Syracuse, with whom its 
 relations had become close, in the Athenian Expedition of 
 415 B.c., refusing to receive Nikias, and welcoming Gylip- 
 pus, the Spartan general, who landed here in his successful 
 attempt to succour the besieged city. Indeed the greater 
 part of the force with which he entered Syracuse was 
 composed of Himerzan citizens. Its entry into this 
 quarrel, however, was indirectly the cause of its final des- 
 truction. For when after the Athenian defeat the Segestans 
 appealed to Carthage, Himera was the first city to be 
 attacked and, as it happened, completely destroyed, by the 
 Carthaginian expedition which answered that appeal in 
 408 B.c. Himera was taken by storm, a large part of the 
 inhabitants were put to the sword and not less than 3,000 
 who had been taken prisoners were massacred in cold 
 blood by Hannibal as a sacrifice to the memory of his 
 grandfather Hamilcar who, when defeated here in 480 B.c., 
 - had, it will be remembered, cast himself into the fire before 
 the altar of Moloch. 
 
 The total destruction of Himera followed, even the 
 temples were not spared, and all trace of the city whose 
 name was the name of the great Carthaginian defeat, was 
 obliterated. In fact Himera was treated by Carthage 
 exactly as Carthage was later to be treated by Rome. 
 Thus time brings about its shameful revenges. 
 
 Himera was never rebuilt: but a new settlement was 
 eventually established on the hill beyond the left bank of 
 the river where there were certain hot springs which 
 named the new town Thermze—the modern Termini. So 
 Himera continued: Thermz in fact has never ceased to be 
 inhabited. 
 
 The remains of the ancient city of Therme are con- 
 siderable but all of the Roman period. Among them the 
 most interesting are those of the ancient therm@e which are 
 still used for their original purpose but are now known as 
 the Bagni di S. Calégero. There are, too, portions of the. 
 Roman aqueduct and the Theatre which was described by 
 
224 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 Fazello in the eighteenth century, but not a trace of which 
 I could find to-day. 
 
 In the Museo Civico are conserved a few fragments both 
 of Himera and of Therme, but the best sculptures found 
 on these sites are in the Museum at Palermo. The Museo, 
 however, is worth seeing not only for its classical, but also 
 for its Arab and medieval antiquities, while in S. Maria 
 della Misericordia in Via del Monte there is a fine fifteenth- 
 century triptych, over the first altar on the left, of the 
 Madonna and Child enthroned, with S. John Baptist and 
 S. Michael Archangel on either side and a predella, perhaps 
 by Gaspare da Pesaro, and dated 1453. 
 
 The rain was gone. I left Termini on a bright morning 
 and made my way eastward across the marsh on the great 
 road to Cefali. The Madonie Mountains rose up in massy 
 far-away peaks and long crests to the south; on the north 
 shone the sea, and ever before me was thrust out the great 
 headland of Cefalu upon which, as I now began to see, stood 
 a mighty church with twin towers, like some fantastic forma- 
 tion of the headland itself visible even from so far. It was 
 already evening when at last I came into that city and found 
 aroom for the night in a rather sinister ostevia in the Corso. 
 
 Early on the following morning I made my way along the 
 narrow street to the great sloping Piazza closed at the top by 
 the gigantic building which I had seen from so far. I might 
 have been in Normandy: Cefali might have been Caen 
 and this great church S. Etienne of the Conqueror. 
 
 Here at any rate the Norman has built—and in Sicily— 
 according to his own magnificence and simplicity. Here one 
 might think Walter ‘‘of the Mill” has come into his own. 
 
 The church was founded by King Roger in 113r in 
 fulfilment of a vow, when, like Odysseus, off this coast on 
 his way from Calabria he was in danger of shipwreck. His 
 vow was that he would build a church wherever he got 
 safely ashore. He landed here, and here in the very next 
 year he began this vast Cathedral towering up under the 
 sheer cliff, and, as it might seem really a part of it, its great 
 
 towers but isolated pinnacles of its stone, its gaunt fagade 
 
 EES SE a ONE Fe oe ye ne, ey eee me 
 
CEFALU 225 
 
 but a part of its sheer face, its harsh weather-beaten height 
 only isolated from the parent rock. 
 
 So it seems when first you stand and gaze up atit. But 
 look more closely and everywhere you will discern in its 
 great Norman framework details which suggest the Saracen 
 and the Greek, who it might seem were, in the Sicily of that 
 time, alone capable of building at all, or at any rate, such a 
 work as this. 
 
 The church is a Latin cross, 230 feet long. The western 
 front rises from vast blocks of hewn stone, a curiously 
 simple, almost harsh, cliff of stone, with a great pillared 
 portico receding between two huge square projecting four 
 storied towers, as Norman as anything can be in Normandy 
 or England. And yet how curiously mannered, how 
 elaborate is that great western portal, how strange those 
 lovely embattled turrets, windowed too, and one of them 
 with a delightful pointed arcarding too elaborate and too 
 delicate you might think for the North. The walls of the 
 portico too they say were once covered with mosaic. Walk 
 round the church: the huge central apse towering up 
 between the two small apses north and south, the lofty 
 transepts with their square ends, everywhere covered with 
 a light arcading borne on slender round coupled shafts 
 right up to the cornice, and again and again and again the 
 pointed window : it is as though the gaunt Norman frame- 
 work had been carefully overlayed and penetrated by a 
 genius far other, lighter and more supple, delighting in 
 beauty more than strength, in subtilty more than simplicity. 
 
 And within the secret isno longer asecret. The Norman 
 is here scarcely discernible. The great nave is upborne by 
 fifteen antique columns of granite and one of cipollino with 
 Corinthian capitals, and everything is devoted to an effect 
 of lightness and height, the church soars up almost like a 
 Gothic building, and yet no Gothic church of the North 
 ever had this effect of space, of light, of colour. 
 
 Of colour . . . The whole apse is marvellously encrusted 
 with lovely mosaics, shining with gold, beautiful with all 
 the colours of the rainbow. In the semidome is a gigantic 
 bust of Our Lord in benediction—far lovelier than the similar 
 figure at Monreale. Beneath is a figure of the Madonna, 
 
226 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 and all about angels, saints and prophets, kings and war- 
 riors, bishops and judges. 
 
 These mosaics were executed, as the inscription declares, 
 in the year 1148. They are thus the earliest in Sicily. 
 Contemporary with them but certainly to-day, perhaps 
 on account of restoration, inferior to them, are the mosaics 
 of the Palatine Chapel. Better than these and perhaps 
 equal to the mosaics of Cefalu are those of La Martorana, 
 executed at about the same time ; while those at Monreale 
 are altogether inferior. 
 
 No doubt here at Cefalti as in La Martorana the whole 
 church was once covered with mosaics ; but only those in the 
 semidome, the apse and the sanctuary now remain. The 
 semidome, as I have said, is filled on a grey background 
 with a colossal bust of the Saviour in benediction between 
 four angels and medallions of Melchizedek and Hosea on 
 the side walls. Beneath are the twelve apostles and 
 beneath again the Blessed Virgin in the midst, with pro- 
 phets, elders and saints. Nothing more glorious remains 
 in all Sicily than these magnificent Byzantine works. Here 
 Greek art, the Greek genius, manifests itself for the last 
 time in a sunset of colour, of gold and precious stones, 
 harmonious and lovely, and with its wonted genius for 
 decoration. No other people has created great master- 
 pieces across two thousand years: yet something like that 
 separates the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus from the 
 Cathedral of Cefali: more than 1,500 years stand between 
 the frieze of the Parthenon and these last Greek works in 
 Sicily. The religion in whose service these works were 
 made was more than a thousand years old when they 
 appear to enlighten and adorn it: and they are, or should 
 be, as enduring and indestructible as the work the Greek 
 genius did in the service of the older religion. After all, 
 nearly everything we know and feel in regard to both ~ 
 religions is their work in so far as it has any antiquity. 
 Into what byways have we not wandered, in what squalor 
 have we not dwelt, without them; and always with 
 nostalgia, and a continual attempt at return. 
 
 Little else in the church much concerned me. I noted 
 the two thrones of marble encrusted with mosaics at the 
 
 ~ 
 

 
 AT SELINUNTE 
 
 LEMPLE “Ci. 
 
 
 
 nN 
 
 CEFALU 
 

 
CEFALU 227 
 
 entrance of the sanctuary, the one inscribed ‘‘ Sedes Regia ”’ 
 the other “‘Sedes Episcopalis,”’’ and the beautiful twelfth- 
 _ century font. Then I wandered out, and presently came 
 into the beautiful but half ruined cloisters, only less lovely 
 than those at Monreale. 
 
 Then I returned to the inn, which did not seem much less 
 forbidding now at midday than it had done on the previous 
 evening. After a wretched lunch I set out by the Vicolo 
 dei Saraceni to climb to the summit of the great precipitous 
 rock in the shadow of which the Cathedral stands. 
 
 There on the top of old was founded the Greek Cephalce- 
 dium, probably a fortress of Himera, certainly never a Greek 
 settlement, which got its name from the headland (xepady) 
 upon which it stood. Diodorus speaks of it as just that, 
 at the time of the Carthaginian expedition under Himilco 
 in 396 B.c., and it appears in the Roman itineraries. In- 
 deed it seems to have continued to exist, probably on 
 account of its harbour, till Roger I built his Cathedral on 
 the rocks below and transferred the inhabitants from 
 their inaccessible height to the shelter of his great church. 
 
 Some remains of the ancient city reward one for a 
 laborious climb, as well as a wonderful view of sea and sea- 
 coast, island and mountain. And there are remnants of a 
 Saracen cistern and a castle, as well as what was said to be 
 the débris of a Temple of Artemis. But the most curious 
 monument still remaining in that lofty place is a house or 
 palace of more than one storey with various apartments 
 built of large blocks of limestone in a style usually called 
 Cyclopean. Rude mouldings rather Doric in character are 
 hewn in these vast blocks and the whole makes a building 
 of an absolutely unique kind. Is it Homeric? Is it 
 Minoan, Mycenzan or Sicanian or Sikelian? Prehistoric 
 it certainly is, perhaps the only house left in the Mediter- 
 ranean from before the beginning of history. It certainly 
 brings to the mind, one scarcely knows exactly why, the 
 very atmosphere and life of the Odyssey. Over such a 
 threshold Odysseus passed to sit unrecognized with the 
 noisy suitors ; in such a palace Penelope waited and wove ; 
 one almost expects to see the dog Argos peer round the 
 great hewn door-posts looking for his master : under such a 
 
228 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 tremendous lintel perhaps Athena herself has bowed her 
 head. It intrigues one more than the Cathedral below and 
 in so stony a place covers everything with those memories 
 which are none the less for being only the memories of a tale 
 that is told. 
 
 From that height, as I sat beside the threshold I looked 
 out along the shore whither I was bound. Perhaps I was 
 weary of the many miles I had come and saw those before me 
 without the usual pleasure and expectation ; but it was 
 the inn of Cefali which really intimidated me. For I 
 argued, if nothing but this wretched osteria is to be found in 
 a place so famous as Cefalu, so frequented, so constantly 
 visited from Palermo and with so much to offer the travel- 
 ler, what is before me? What must I expect to find in 
 
 the little unknown places I had hoped to visit? The 
 
 thought had been with me all day. It was now necessary 
 to face it. 
 
 I had set out determined to visit every site of every 
 Greek city upon this northern shore which the Greeks 
 called and rightly xadddxrn, ‘the beautiful shore,” the 
 beautiful place where the waves break. I had numbered 
 them all and had their names by heart ; from west to east 
 they ran like a song: 
 
 Therme, Himera, Cephalcedium, 
 
 Apollonia, Alaesa, Amestratus, 
 
 Calacte, Agathyrna, Aluntium 
 Tyndaris, Myle. 
 
 It was. a little lame it is true, but it served. Such were ; 
 
 the cities of the north coast and all were to be seen, that is 
 
 to say their sites were known, and modern towns still — 
 bore their names or at least represented them: as Pol- — 
 lina, Apollonia; Mistretta, Amestratus; Sant’ Agata, — 
 
 Agathyrna; San Marco d’Alunzio, Aluntium. ~ 
 
 How was all this to be managed? Well, it couldn’t be 
 
 managed. I was no longer a candidate as of old for native 
 experiments in cookery ; I was no longer as once so enthralled 
 by the dream in my mind, that I was rather unaware of, 
 
 than indifferent to, the dirt, the vermin, the hostile curiosity — 
 of the inhabitants, which seem inseparable from every — 
 
 Payee Sue te 
 
 
 
HARDNESS OF THE WAY 229 
 
 archeological pilgrimage. I revolted, or rather I funked 
 it, the daily effort to eat the uneatable, to sleep, to rest — 
 where both were impossible, to face the suspicious curiosity 
 of unkindly ignorance. So I shall never see Apollonia, 
 Alaesa, Amestratus, Calacte; the beautiful shore I shall 
 never tread ; Aluntium, into which Verres refused to climb 
 it was sosteep, I shallnever reach. Alas, why are there not 
 what Baedeker used to call “‘ tolerable ”’ inns near all these 
 places? ‘‘ Tolerable ’’ used to mean in Tuscany “ delight- 
 ful,’ a house undegraded by the tourist, unspoiled by 
 parties of sightseers, an inn to keep in a secret corner of the 
 mind, where your host gave you the local news in the even- 
 ing, your hostess cooked a meal fit for Lucullus, and her 
 daughters saw to your comfort. Clean? Cleaner I will 
 swear than anything has been in England since the Spoli- 
 ation, and cheaper than anything has been in England 
 since the Conquest. 
 
 But here . . . I cannot face battalions of twinkling fleas, 
 I cannot face vermin that move in mass formation. I am 
 weary of goat: I am all for Arabian artichokes and Greek 
 lettuces. I would not willingly pass the English turnip- 
 top, no nor even the mere “ greens’”’ of my home. Why 
 does Sicily know none of them—Sicily the home of Demeter, 
 once the garden of the Mediterranean, the granary of Rome? 
 But goat in all guises and disguises, and mostly plain plain 
 goat—my gorge rises, I refuse . . . And so I took the 
 train from Cefali for Milazzo, the only town along this long 
 and exquisite coast between Termini and Messina where 
 Baedeker notes 
 
 ALBERGO E TRATTORIA .. . well spoken of... 
 
 Even from the train that coast I could see bore out its 
 name: not a mile of it that did not call for admiration, 
 sometimes as at Calcate itself, at Capo d’Orlando, at Brolo, 
 at Capo di Calava, at Tindaro and finally at Milazzo it 
 seemed to beggar description in the late afternoon light, 
 the sea changing colour every minute from sapphire 
 through the tenderest blue to wine colour, to violet, to a 
 cold grey when the sun was gone. 
 
 As for Milazzo it lies at the base of a low peninsula and 
 
 16 
 
 - 
 
230 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 is alla garden. Nothing seems to remain of the old Greek 
 city, but you may walk through olives and orchards and 
 shrubberies of myrtle—amantes litora myrtos, as Virgil tells 
 us—all the way out to the lanterna at the end of the low 
 peninsula which is about five miles long, the violet sea 
 breaking softly on both sides, and then look back at Sicily, 
 at the coast beautiful, or forward at the floating islands of 
 /Eolus, lofty Vulcano, only 15 miles away, with its white 
 feather of smoke, larger Lipari the capital of the archipelago, 
 Isola Salina, which the ancients called Didyme the twins, 
 because of its two cones of extinct volcanoes, Filicuri, 
 which the Greeks called the palmy, Alicuri which they called 
 
 the healthy, and Pinaria with its satellites. Altogether — 
 
 Milazzo is a jolly place where every tiniest bay has its name 
 and every rounded headland too. The only thing one 
 
 
 
 os ae 
 7 < sibs ic a al 
 ee Sa ee ee a ee Ee ee pee 
 
 could have against it is that they have made a prison of — 
 
 Charles V’s Castle, which occupies the site of the Greek 
 acropolis : but stone walls could not a prison make in such 
 a place as this and beside such a sea. 
 
 The Greek city of Myle stood on the base of this penin- 
 sula as Milazzo does. It was an establishment rather than 
 a colony, I suspect, of Zankle (Messina), and was erected 
 here where there is a good harbour to secure Zankle’s 
 
 communications upon the north coast. It was certainly 
 founded before Himera in 648 B.c., but the first historical — 
 
 notice we have of it is found in 427 B.c. when it was attacked 
 by the Athenian fleet then at Rhegium. It was defended 
 by Messina but was taken. It never seems to have had 
 
 any separate existence at all and its relation to Messina 
 seems to have been much the same as that of Acre to — 
 
 Syracuse. 
 The long peninsula forms the western headland of the 
 
 fine gulf of Milazzo. This gulf is famous in history for 
 two great actions. The first of these can hardly be called — 
 
 a naval action. It was a great fight at sea between the 
 Roman fleet under Duillius and the Carthaginians, in the 
 First Punic War, in which the Roman was victorious. It 
 
 was a most astonishing result, for the Carthaginians were ~ 
 the finest sailors in the world and the Romans about the ~ 
 worst. Rome hated and feared the sea, therefore she q 
 
 
 
MILAZZO 231 
 
 tried, and successfully, to turn a naval action into a land 
 fight to her advantage. Even her sea-sick soldiers could 
 fight on terra firma. On terra firma they fought. For the 
 Roman artificers had contrived covvi—in other words, means, 
 of holding and boarding the enemies’ ships. It seems that 
 in the forepart of the ship the Romans fixed perpendicu- 
 larly a round pole 24 feet high ; at the top was a pivot upon 
 which a ladder was set 36 feet long and 4 broad; at the 
 end was an iron spike, and the ladder was lowered by a 
 rope so that it overreached the enemies’ bulwarks and the 
 spike was driven into the opposing ship. The enemy was 
 thus held while across the ladder, or up and down it, the 
 Roman “sailors? swarmed aboard the Carthaginian and 
 fought it out in the waist. The covvus was thus a sort of 
 magnificent grappling iron and boarding ladder. It gave 
 the Roman the victory in this engagement, which goes 
 to show that nothing is ever certain in war, which is an 
 art and not a science, and a game of chance much more 
 than an art. No one in the world at that time could have 
 believed that the Romans would defeat the Carthaginians 
 at sea; nor would they ever have done so but for this 
 very lubberly contrivance. 
 
 The second affair for which this bay is famous is a 
 naval action between Romans: Agrippa, who commanded 
 the fleet of Octavian, here defeated the ships of Sextus 
 Pompeius, 36 B.C. 
 
 I determined to visit Tyndaris from Milazzo for I could 
 hear of nowhere to sleep there ; and to make this excursion 
 more delightful I determined to go by sea, getting a boat 
 at the tonnara. It was a sail of some two hours or more 
 across the bay in sight of that lovely shore under the great 
 mountains of the Peloritan range. 
 
 Tyndaris is an amazing thing: a granite cliff a thousand 
 feet high rising sheer out of the sea. You land in the 
 ancient port beyond the Santuario della Madonna di Tin- 
 daro and scramble up the steep hillside to find the ruins of 
 the old city wall, a wonderfully preserved Theatre, various 
 mosaic pavements and other remains: altogether Tyndaris 
 is one of the places most well worth seeing upon this 
 northern coast. 
 
232 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 Tyndaris gets its noble name from the Peloponnesians 
 who were its first colonists. They named it in honour of 
 their native divinities the Tyndaride, the Dioscuri, Castor 
 and Polydeuces, the brothers of Helen of Troy. Thus 
 Tyndaris was a purely Greek city, one of the latest, as it 
 happens, to be founded in Sicily, having been established 
 by the elder Dionysius in 395 B.c. after the failure of the 
 Carthaginian attempt against Syracuse. The original 
 settlers whom he established there were those exiles who 
 had been driven from the Peloponnese by the Spartans 
 after the close of the Peloponnesian War. These had first 
 been placed at Messina, but as the Spartans objected to 
 this, Dionysius transferred them to Tyndaris. They 
 welcomed new colonists and very soon they numbered 
 5,000 citizens, and Tyndaris was thus a place of consider- 
 able importance. In fact its enormous strength must 
 always have brought it into consideration. It might seem 
 to occupy upon the Tyrrhene Sea much the same position as 
 Tauromenium upon the Ionian, and upon one occasion we 
 find Hieron in his attack upon Messina in 269 B.c. resting 
 his position upon Tyndaris on his left and Tauromenium 
 on his right. It was a strategic point of the first import- 
 ance, and probably for this reason it enjoyed as long a life 
 as Tauromenium, played a part in the Punic wars, was a 
 considerable place in Cicero’s time, was looted by Verres, 
 is still alluded to by Strabo as a city, and by Pliny asa 
 colonia, which suggests that it had received a colony under ~ 
 Augustus as we read too in an inscription : Colonia Augusta 
 Tyndaritanorum. It is Pliny, too, who tells us of the 
 calamity which fell upon the city, the results of which are 
 in some sort still visible. He declares that half of it was 
 swallowed up by the sea, and to-day you may still see — 
 where the ruined walls end abruptly above the sheer face 
 of the cliff, here split, perhaps by an earthquake, and a 
 vast part hurled into the sea. a 
 
 I had toiled up that steep hillside in the hope of — 
 finding, as in so many other places in Sicily, Greek 
 ruins. I found none. Ruins there were in plenty and © 
 of considerable interest, but they one and all proved — 
 
 to be of the Roman time, even the Theatre being, like — 
 
 
 
TYNDARIS 233 
 
 that at Taormina, at best a Roman work upon Greek 
 foundations. 
 
 Still I was able to trace the walls of the city ; I went by 
 the roads that once upon a time the exiles from the Pelopon- 
 nesian Chersonese must have used, I passed in and out of 
 the two gates, I stumbled about the many ruins among the 
 cactus and myrtles and wondered what that might be which 
 has two fine stone arches and is obviously of the Roman 
 time. It resembles, or rather it reminds one, of the Roman 
 amphitheatre at Syracuse. I lingered in the Theatre. 
 
 This is not a large building: according to Baedeker its 
 internal diameter is 212 feet. It looks smaller. The 
 theatrum proper is divided into nine cunei, and there were 
 at least twenty-seven tiers of seats. But as usual the 
 stage is gone. Indeed I begin to doubt the existence of 
 the stage. I wonder whether Sophocles has ever been 
 played here? I should doubt it. We know that under the 
 Romans even the Theatre of Dionysus at Athens was the 
 scene of gladiatorial shows: the Romans were barbarians 
 and, except the few, had little taste for Greek literature. 
 They were themselves totally incapable of producing a 
 tragedy, and even their epic poetry is slavishly imitated 
 from those whom they conquered it is true, but who were 
 their masters in all the finer things of life, in art as in philo- 
 sophy. Probably here in this beautiful place above the sea 
 the crowd was used to make a Roman holiday... 
 
 I eluded such thoughts as these by scrambling up to 
 the Telegrafo and it was there I took farewell of Sicily. 
 
 Before me, sleeping on the Tyrrhene Sea, lay the A¢olian 
 Isles, from smoking Vulcano close at hand to smoking 
 Stromboli far away, lying off the Italian shore: islands 
 of the winds, the floating isles, past which the Nereids bore 
 in their white hands Jason’s Argo, to which Odysseus came 
 to beg for a wind to bear him home. To the north-east, 
 closing the wide bay, lay the long low peninsula of Myle, 
 that was called the Island of the Sun and all the fair shore 
 between. To the west stood up the Capo di Calava under 
 Monte Pezzecatori and higher still Monte Giojosa. Behind 
 me rose the Mountains of Neptune, before them the mighty 
 Rocca di Novara; and there far to the south, hovering in 
 

 
 284 CITIES OF SICILY = 
 
 the sky, appeared the ethereal snow-crowned cone of 
 10,000 feet in the blue air. | 
 
 Night came swiftly, as it were in a moment, as 
 sailed across the Bay of Tyndaris, back to Milazzo. 
 on the morrow I was in Messina, and not without ma: 
 a backward look, embarked for home. = 
 
 
 
INDEX 
 
 ABDURAHMAN, 206 
 
 Acesines, stream, see Alcantara 
 
 Achemenides, 30 
 
 Aci Castello, 25, 27, 30 
 
 Aci Reale, 25, 26, 27, 31 
 
 Aci S. Antonio, 26 
 
 Aci Trezza, 29 
 
 Acis, stream, 25, 26 
 
 Acis and Galatea, 25-6, 37 
 
 Acre (Palazzolo, q.v.), 48, 54, 
 66, 74, 102 sqq., 116 
 
 Acrean Rock, the, 63, 106 sqq. 
 
 Acragas, see Girgenti 
 
 Acragas, river, 120, 121, 131 
 
 fégadian Isles, 157, 158, 159 
 
 #égates, the, Roman victory, 154 
 
 fZolian Isles, 3, 5, 7, 8, 27, 210, 
 Zio. 333,230; 233 
 
 #Eschylus, 51, 56, 57, 70, 87, 88, 
 93, 102, L110, 117, 118 
 
 Agathocles, 17, 65, 70, 73, 170, 
 216 
 
 Alaesa, 228, 229 
 
 Alcamo, 167, 168 
 
 Alcantara (Acesines) river and 
 valley, 15, 16, 18, 24, 
 
 bia 25, 20, 35, 40 
 Alcibiades, 32, 35, 57, 58, 59-60, 
 102 
 
 Alcmene, 130 
 
 Alicuri, Isle of, 230 
 
 Alpheus, the, 71, 72 
 
 Altarello, 207 
 
 Amestratus, 228, 229 
 
 Amphinomus and Anapias, 36 
 
 Anapus, river and valley, 52, 53, 
 65, 68, 72, 78, 85, 89, 
 90, 92, 98, 99, 104-5, 
 107, III 
 
 Anchises, death of, 157 
 
 Andron of Catana, 36 
 
 Angell, Mr., 143, 146, 147 sqq., 
 201 
 
 Antiochenos, Admiral Giorgios, 
 IQI, 205 
 
 Antipater of Sidon, 35 
 
 Antisthenes, 125 
 
 Aphrodite Anadyomene, statue, 
 at Syracuse, 75-6 
 
 Apollocrates, 64 
 
 Apollonia, 228, 229 
 
 Aragon tombs, Ducmo, Catania, 
 
 a 
 
 Archias, 54 
 
 Archimedes, 66, 77 
 
 Arethusa, Fountain of, 71-2 
 
 Aristonous and Psystilus, 121 
 
 Asinarus, river, 63, 108 
 
 Athenian Expedition against 
 Syracuse, 16-17, 32, 
 35, 48, 49, 57 S9q-, 79, 
 73, 78, 83, 88, 89, 90, 
 103, 106 sqq., 125, 142, 
 153, 169, 223 
 
 Augusta, 45, 49, 90 
 
 BACCHIAD2, the, 54 
 Bacchylides, 56 
 
 Bagheria, villas of, 212 sqqi 
 Bagnara, 3 
 
 Balestrate, 168 
 
 Bartolo, Gesualdo di, 116 
 Bartolo, Giovanni di, of Siena, 
 
 34 
 Bartolo, Taddeo di, 203 
 Bellini, Vincenzo: tomb, 34 
 Bernini, 81 
 Bérard, Victor, 28, 156 
 Bianca, Punta, 120 
 Biblian wine, 113 
 Bove, Valle del, Etna, 43 
 Brolo, 229 
 
 235 
 
236 
 
 Biccheri, 111 
 Piano di, III 
 Buscemi, r1t 
 Butler, Samuel, 28, 113, 156, 162, 
 163 
 
 CALACTE, 228, 229 
 Calatafimi, 162-3, 164, 169 
 Calava, Capo di, 229, 233 
 Callipolis, 117 
 Caltabellota, 139 
 Caltagirone, I10, III, 112, 116, 
 208 
 Camarina, 17, 54, 55, I17 
 Camogli, Bartolommeo da, 203 
 Campala, promotory, II 
 Canicattini, 103 
 Carthage and Carthaginian inva- 
 sions, 17, 39-40, 55, 58, 
 63, 64 sqq., 92, 120, 
 122, 123, 125, 128, 133, 
 138, I4I, 142, 150, 153, 
 169, 170, 215, 222, 223, 
 232 
 Casmenae, 54 
 Caso di Sciacca, 139 
 Cassibili, stream, 108, I10 
 Castellamare, 167 
 Gulf of, 169, 212 
 Castelvetrano, 139, 
 149, 163 
 Castiglione, 24 
 Castrogiovanni, 45, 177, 179 
 Catalfano, Monte, 211, 213, 215 
 Catana, see Catania 
 Catania, 1-2, 25, 30, 31 Sqq., 45, 
 46 sqq., 67, 89, 102, 209 
 Amphitheatre, 36 
 Biscari Palace, 34 
 Cathedral, 33 sqq. 
 Piano de, 25, 46-7, 112 
 Piazza Stesichoro, 36 
 Via Etnea, 33 
 Cattolica, 126, 138 
 Cava, di Spampanato, 106 sqq. 
 Cefalu, 186, 189, I9I, 213, 215, 
 224 Sqq., 228, 229 
 Centoripa, 41 
 Chalcidian Colonies, see Leon- 
 tinoi, Messina, Naxos 
 
 140, 147, 
 
 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 Charles of Anjou, King of Sicily, 
 
 I 
 ‘Charybdis, 4, 5, 6, 8,9 
 
 Chiesazza, the, 216 
 
 Cicero, 67, 70, 77, 83, 87, 170-1, 
 219 225 
 
 Clashing Rocks, the, 3, 8 
 
 Cleomenes, I15 
 
 Climiti, Monti, 52, 90, 100, IoT 
 
 Cofano, headland, 160 
 
 Conca d’Oro, the, 193, 206, 207, 
 210, 213 
 
 Corleone, Simone da, 194 
 
 Crimissus, Battle of, 65, 126, 169 
 
 Cyane, fount and stream of, 75, 
 
 93 Sqq. 
 Cyclops, Rocks of the, 27 sqq. 
 
 DZDALUS, 138 
 
 Demarete, 56, 122 
 
 Demeter, 46, 47, 76, 82, 96, 97, 
 229 
 
 Didyme, Isle of, 230 
 
 Diodorus Siculus, 39-40, 47, 56, 
 68, 70, 73, 83, 116, 125, 
 127-8, 133, 159, 215, 
 217 
 
 Diogenes Lertius, 123 
 
 Dion, 64 
 
 Dionysius of Syracuse, 17, 32, 
 39, 51, 63, 64, 68, 69, 
 89, OI Sgqg., 100, 125, 
 126,138,142,150, 153-4, 
 170, 215, 232 
 
 Dionysius, the younger, 64 
 
 Dorian Colonies (see Syracuse),50 
 
 Drepanum, see Trapani 
 
 Duillius, 230-1 
 
 EGESTA, see Segesta 
 
 Elymi, the, 153, 159, 168, 215 
 
 Empedocles, 41,121, 123, 124,135 
 
 Enna, 68, 97, 177 
 
 Erbasso, III 
 
 Eryx, Mount, 45, 158, 159 
 
 Etna, Mount, II, 12, 15, 19, 21, 
 24 $9q., 27 Sq-, 31, 325 
 36, 37-8 sqq., 40, 41 
 $qq., 90, 93, IOI, 102, 
 III, 124, 135, 158, 236 
 
 
 
 Pe ee ee eee Ee ES EE eC a ee 
 
 r 7 7. 
 a ee ee ae ee, OF 
 
 — 
 
INDEX 
 
 Euripides, 27; 57, 79, 113 
 Evaenetus, 56 
 Evil Eye, the, 197 sqq. 
 
 FaLconeE, Monte, 159 
 Faro, the, 3, 9 
 Fata Morgana, 7-8, 12 
 Filicuri, Isle of, 230 
 Fiumefreddo, the, 26, 169 
 Fiume Grande, 216, 217 
 Floridia, 63, 89, 90, 103, 106, 
 ' 107, 108 
 Fountain of Arethusa, 71-2 
 of Cyane, 75, 93 sqq. 
 Frederick II, Emperor, 49, 183, 
 188, 206 
 Frumente, Monte, 44 
 
 GAGGERA, river and valley, 162, 
 163, 164, 165, 169 
 Gagini, the, 116, 151, 160, 180 
 Antonello, 151, 153 
 Antonio, 196 
 Galatea, 25, 26, 34, 36, 37 
 Gela, 16, 17, 54, 55, 95, 75, 
 77, 110, 117-18, 121, 
 122, 145 
 Geloi, Campi, 112, 116 
 Gelon, 16, 54 sqq., 70, 85, 87, 
 I22, 216 
 Giardini, 24 
 Giarre, 30 
 Giarretta, river, 38 
 Giojosa, Monte, 233 
 Giovanni di Niccold, 203 
 Girgenti, 31, 55, 67, 77, 110 sqq., 
 IIQ, I2I sgq., 134 $qq., 
 140, 163, 179, 180 
 Cathedral, 134 
 Museum, 133 
 Porta Aurea, 129, 133 
 Porta Empedocle, 120, 130, 
 135, 136, 137 
 Temples, 118, 119, 120, 172 sqq. 
 Gorgias, 48 
 Grammichele, 112 ~ 
 Granitola, Punta di, 141 
 Grifone, Monte, 206 
 Grotta, the, church of, La Pace, 3 
 del Palumbe, 27 
 
 237 
 
 Grotta, cont. 
 della Sibilla Cumana, Marsala, 
 155-6 
 di S. Rosalia, 209-10 
 Gylippus, 57, 58, 60 
 
 HALycus, river, 126, 138, 150, 
 215 
 Hamilcar, 55, 122, 158, 222, 223 
 Hannibal, 144, 145, 153, 154, 223 
 Hanno, 126 
 Harris and Angell, Messrs., 143, 
 146, 201 
 Hauteville, Tancred de, 178-9 
 William of the Iron Arm, 179 
 Helen of Troy, 12, 35, 115, 217, 
 218 sqq., 222 
 Helorine Road, 63, 108, 110 
 Helorus, 66, 110 
 Henry VI, Emperor, 183, 188, 
 194 
 Heraclea Minoa, 126, 138, 139 
 Herakles, 97, 130, 138, 150 
 Hermes, promontory of, 161 
 Hermocrates, 144 
 Herondas of Cos, 218 
 Herodotus, 52, 53, 95, 96, 115 
 Hicetas, 65 
 Hieron I, 16, 17, 56, 73, 85 
 Hieron II, 65-6, 73, 78, 85, 87, 
 232 
 Hieronymus, 66 
 Himera, 55, 63, 68, 122, 138, 200, 
 216, 222, 228, 230 
 Battle of, 55, 122, 216, 223 
 Bay of, 215, 216 
 Himilcar, 39 
 Himilico, 63, 170 
 Hippocrates of Gela, 16, 54, 66, 
 127 
 Homer, 6, 8-9, II, 12, 27 S9q., 95 
 Hyblean Mountains, 48, 49, 52, 
 90, IOI, 103, III 
 Hymettus, 101, 113 
 Hypsas, River, 120, 133, 141 
 
 IspRAHIM ibn Ahmad, 177 
 Iliad, the, 93, 164, 167 
 Inice, Mont’, 167 
 Totaline wine, 113 
 
238 
 
 Ismarus, 
 II4-15 
 Isola d’ Aci, 29 
 Isola Bella, 13 
 Isola Salina, 230 
 Ispica, Val d’, 104 
 
 KAIRAWAN, 177, 185 
 Kimon, 56 
 
 LAESTRYGONES, the, 5, 135 
 Lamachus, 57, 58, 59, 61 
 Latomie of Acre, 103, 105 
 of Syracuse, 55, 58, 63, 78 sqq. 
 Laurana, Francesco, 139, 155, 
 188 
 Lentinian fields and lake, 45 
 Leontinoi or Lentini, 16, 35, 37, 
 47, 48, 58, 63, 65, 66, 
 _ 14 117 
 Plain of, 25 
 Stream, 47 
 Licata, 110, 118 
 Lilybeum (see also Marsala), 
 I4I, 142,152, 153, 154, 
 158, 159, 172 
 Linguaglossa, 25 
 Liotta, Antonio: tomb, 155 
 Lipari Islands, see olian Isles 
 Lissus, stream, 47 
 Lorenzetti, Pietro, 203 
 Luna family, 139 
 Lycophron, 217 
 Lysimeleia, marsh, 61, 68, 77 
 
 MABUSE, 203 
 
 Madonie Mountains, 45, 234 
 
 Madonna of the Letter, Messina, 
 I, 6 
 
 Mago, 39, 40, 63 
 
 Mahomet, 150 
 
 Malaterra, 179 
 
 Malea, 5 
 
 Malta Channel, 55 
 
 Mamertine wine, 113 
 
 Manfred, 183, 184 
 
 Maniaces, George, 73, 150, 178 
 
 Maraglio, river and valley, 116 
 
 Marathon, 118 
 
 Marcellus, 49, 66, 67, 70, 90, 92 
 
 Thracian wine of, 
 
 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 Maron, 114 
 Marsala, 152, 159 
 Duomo, I 
 Grotta della Sibilla Cumana 
 at, 155-6 
 Museum, 155 
 Marsala wine, 113, II4-15, 152, 
 
 155 
 Matthew, Vice-Chancellor, 187 
 Maupassant, Guy de, 75 «© 
 Mazzara, 151, 177 
 Val di, 149 Sqq., 177 
 Mazarus, river, 141 
 Mediterranean Sea, 6, 28; 53, 
 176 
 Megalopolis, theatre of, 87 
 Megara, 48, 49, 55, 56, 58, 59, 66, 
 Q2, IOI, 124, I4I 
 Gulf of, 48 
 Melians, the, 57 
 Mellili, ror, 108 
 Memmi, Lippo, 203 
 Menelaus, 217, 219, 220 
 
 Mericus, 66 
 Messina, formerly Zankle, 1 sqq. 
 22, 39, 45, I17, 149, 
 
 178, 179, 180, 216, 230, 
 
 234 
 Cathedral, 1, 2-3 
 Churches and ex-Convents, 
 21-2 
 Earthquakes, I, 2 
 Harbour, 3 
 Palaces, 21 
 Strait of, 5-6, 9, IO-II, 53 
 Tidal wave of 1783, 11 
 Melkarth, Temple of, Girgenti, 
 I21 
 Milazzo, 229, 230-1, 234 
 Gulf of, 212, 230-1 
 Milton, 71-2, 97 
 Mimes of Sophron, 56 
 Minos, 138 
 Mistretta, 228, 229 
 Mola, 13, 14, 15, 21-2 
 Moloch, 121, 150, 153 
 Monreale, 207 
 Benedictine Monastery, 191 
 Cathedral, 191 sqq., 225, 226, 
 227 
 
 
 
 PN a ae ee ee eee Oe 
 
 
 
 ee le ee ee ee 
 
 wt. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Montagna, 116 
 
 Montagnolo, La, Etna, 44 
 
 Montallegro, 138 
 
 Montaperto, Bishop, 151 
 
 Montelepre, 168 
 
 Montepulciano wine, 113 
 
 Mosaics, 189, I9I, 204, 
 226-7 
 
 Motya, 63, 152 sqq., 159, 215 
 
 Myle, 228, 230 
 
 Myron, 133 
 
 Myrtillus, 201 
 
 225, 
 
 Nano, Cecco di, 194 
 
 Nava, Cavaliere Saverio Lando- 
 lina, 74 
 
 Naxos, 15, 16, 18, 35, 48, 54, 59, 
 
 II 
 
 Nelson, Admiral Lord, 114, 
 148 
 
 Neptune, Mountains of, 233 
 
 Netum, 66 
 
 Nikias, 49, 57 sqq., 103, 106 
 Ss 
 
 94: 
 Normans (see also Robert Guis- 
 card, & Roger I), 6, 180 
 Noto, 63, 95, I10 
 Val di, 177, 180 
 Novara, Rocca di, 233 
 
 ODYSSEUS, I, 3 59q., 27 5qq., 113, 
 114, 218 sqq., 233 
 
 Odyssey, the (see also Homer, & 
 Odysseus), 114, 156 
 
 Ognina, 27, 30 
 
 Olympieum, the, on the Anapus, 
 78, 94, 98, 107 
 
 at Athens, 128, 129 
 Orientalism, Palermitan, 174 
 
 Sqq- 
 
 Orlando, Capo d’, 229 
 
 Orsi, Professor Paolo, 74, 104 
 
 Ortygia, Island of (see under 
 Syracuse) 
 
 Ovid, 27, 37, 97 
 
 PALAGONIA, Prince of, 213, 
 214-15 ~ 
 
 239 
 
 Palazzolo (see also Acre), 54, 102 
 $qq., 110, III 
 Museo Judica, 104 
 Palermitani, Monti, 167 
 Palermo, 31, 55, 95, I12, 140, 
 143, 146, 150, 175 sqq., 
 179, 180 sqq., 184 sqq., 
 193, 197 Sqq., 204, 205, 
 207, 212 
 Archbishopric of, 186, 187 
 Casa Normanna, 194 
 Chiaramonte collection of 
 pictures, 203 
 Churches, 189, 190-1, 194 sqq., 
 20 
 S. Agata, 196-7 
 S. Agostino, 195 
 SS. Annunziata, 196 
 S. Antonio Abbate, 194 
 S. Cataldo, 185, 190, I91 
 210 
 S. Caterina, 197 
 Cathedral, 176, 186sqq., 210 
 
 S. Chiara, Palermo, 197 
 
 S. Cristina la Vetera, 195 
 
 S. Domenico, 196 
 
 S. Francesco, 195 
 
 S. Giorgio of the Genoese, 
 197 
 
 S. Giovanni degli Eremiti, 
 185, 190, 210 
 
 S. Giovanni dei Lebbrosi, 
 205 
 
 Incoronata, Church of, 
 194, 195 
 
 La Maddalena, 144 
 
 La Magione, 194 
 
 La Martovana, 190, Ig1, 
 193, 205, 210, 220, 237 
 
 S. Maria dell’ Ammiraglio, 
 I51I, I9I 
 
 S. Maria della Catena, 196 
 
 S. Maria di Gest, 81, 207 
 
 S. Maria Nuova, 196 
 
 S. Matteo, 194 
 
 S. Ninfa, 189 
 
 SS. Rosario, Oratorio del, 
 196 
 
 Santo Spirito, 195 
 
 S. Zita, Oratorio di, 196 
 
240 
 
 Palermo, cont. 
 Cistercian Monastery, 195 
 Conca d’Oro (q9.v.), 213 
 Convento de’ Cappucini, 196 
 Corso, 194, 196 
 Gardens, 207 sqq. 
 Marina, 175-6 
 Museum, 143, 200 sqq.,216, 224 
 Palazzo Palatini, 184 
 Chapel of, 188-9, 191, 210, 
 226 
 Porta Felice, 196 
 Porto Mazzara, 190 
 Porta Nuova, 204, 205 
 Quattro Canti, 194 
 Via del Incoronata, 194, 197 
 Via Valverde, 196 
 Villas outside, 204 sqq. 
 Belmonte, 209 
 Cuba, La, 184, 204, 205 
 Cubola, La, 204,205 
 Favara, La, 184, 204, 206 
 Favorita, La, 209 
 Giulia (La Flora), 208 
 Scalea, 209 
 Sofia, 209 
 Sperlinga, 208 
 Tasca, 207-8 
 Trabia, 208 
 Ziza, La, 184, 204, 205 
 Palermo, Bay or Gulf of, 174, 
 209, 212, 213 
 Palma, 118 
 Palmi, 3 
 Panormus (seé also Palermo), 55, 
 149, 153, 159, 210, 216 
 Pantalica, 100, 104-5, III 
 Pindar, 38-9, 51, 56, 69, 122, 
 216 
 
 Pantano, 3 
 
 Pantelleria, Island of, 160 
 
 Papyrus, 72, 94, 95, 96 
 
 Partinico, 168 
 
 Passaro, Capo, 45 
 
 Paterno, 42 
 
 Pellegrino, Monte, 209, 210, 211, 
 213 
 
 Peloritani Mountains, 13, 24 
 
 Peloro, Capo, 3, 212 
 
 Pentapolis, see Syracuse 
 
 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 Perolla family, 139 
 
 Pesaro, Gaspare da, 224 
 
 Persephone, 46, 47, 68, 75, 82, 
 96, 97, 98 
 
 Peter, King of Aragon, 184 
 
 Pezzecatori, Monte, 233 
 
 Philistis, 51 
 
 Philoxenus, 64 
 
 Phoenicians, the (see also Cartha- 
 ginians), 6, II, 12, 29, 
 152, 215 
 
 Pii Fratres, the, of Catana, 36 
 
 Pinaria, Isle and Islets, 230 
 
 Pisa, Bonanno of, 192 
 
 Pispini, stream, 169 
 
 Planctae, the (see also Clashing 
 Rocks), 5, 8 
 
 Platini, stream, 138 
 
 Plato, 64, 70, 102, II5 
 
 Plemmyrion, 49, 53, 61, 62, 68, 
 73, 85, 91 
 
 Pliny, 40, 232 
 
 Polichne, 68 
 
 Olympieum on, 78, 98, 99 
 
 Pollan wine, 113 
 
 Pollina, 228, 229 
 
 Polyphemus, 25, 26, 27 sqq., 37 
 
 39 
 Pottery, prehistoric, at Calta- 
 
 girone, 116 
 
 Publius Scipio, Africanus, 154, 
 170, 172 
 
 Pyrrhus, 17, 154, 170 
 
 QUARRIES of Syracuse, see Lato- 
 mie 
 Quintianus, 34 
 
 RAGUSA, IIO 
 
 Rama, Capo di, 167 
 
 Rametta, 150 
 
 Ransom, The, of Hector (Diony- 
 sius), 64, 93 
 
 Reggio, 3, 7, 48, 59, 179, 230 
 
 Ribera, 138 ‘ 
 
 Rinazzo, Monte, 44 
 
 Riposto, 30 
 
 Robbia, Andrea della, 157 
 
 Robert, Duke, of Normandy, 
 1789- 
 
 
 
 
 
INDEX 
 
 Robert Guiscard, 150, 179, 205, 
 216 
 
 Rocks of the Cyclops, 27 sqq. 
 
 Roger I, King of Sicily, 33, 36, 
 150, 151, 177, 179, 180 
 sqq., 185, 187, 191, 194, 
 207, 224 
 
 Romans in Sicily, 49 sgq., 67, 
 126, 133, 154, 168, 169, 
 216, 232-3 
 
 Rossi, Monti, 44 
 
 Rupe Atenea, Girgenti, 120, 121, 
 126, 135 
 
 Palermo, 188, 209-10 
 . Thomas of Canterbury, 155 
 . Venera, Pozzo di, Aci Reale, 
 26 
 . Vénera, torrent, 15, 16 
 . Vito, Mountains of, 160 
 Salamis, Battle of, 55, 216, 222 
 Salinas, Professor, 202 
 Saracens in Sicily, 6, 67, 95, 149 
 $qq., 177 Sqq., 183 
 Savoca, 22 
 Scamander (Sicilian), 159, 164, 
 169 
 Schisdé, Capo, 13, 15 
 Sciacca, 137, 138, 139 
 Caso di, 139 
 Scylla, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10-11, 39 
 Segesta, 58, 59, 63, 125, 130, 
 I4I, 142, 153,157, 162, 
 164 Sqq., 223 
 Temple, 163, 165, 166, 167, 
 - 169, 172-3 
 Theatre, 165, 166, 167-8, 169 
 Selerus, 42 
 
 S. AGaTa (town), 228 
 
 S. Alessio, Capo, 13 
 
 S. Andrea, promontory, 13 
 
 S. Croce, Capo, 48 
 
 S. Elmo, citadel, Naples, 174 
 
 S. Martino, 207 
 
 S. Michele torrent, 216 
 
 S. Panagia, Capo di, 48, 89, Io1 
 
 S. Pantaleo, Island of, 152 
 
 S. Paul at Athens, 81; at 
 Messina, 4, 80 
 
 S. Rosalia, patron saint of 
 
 S 
 
 Ss 
 
 S 
 
 Ss 
 
 241 
 
 Selinunte, 137 sqq., 149 
 Acropolis, 142-3 
 Temples, 127, 128, 129 sqq., 
 
 143 
 Selinus (see also Selinunte), 58, 
 63, 124, 125, 138, 139, 
 140, 141, 142, 144 Sqq., 
 153, 154, 157, 169 
 Temples at, 129 sqq. 
 River, 141 
 Serpotta, —, 196 
 Sertino, 90 
 Servile War, the, 139 
 Sextus Pompeius, 67, 231 
 Sicilian Expedition, see Athenian 
 Expedition 
 Sicilian Vespers, 184, 195 
 Sicily, 5 
 Food and Wines, 112, 113 sqq. 
 Inns, 140, 228 sqq. 
 Sikeli, the, 6, 17, 39, 103, 104-5, 
 159, 169, 215 
 Simois (Sicilian), 157, 164, 169 
 Simonides, 51 
 Sirens, the, 5 
 Solarino, 90, 103 
 Solefizzio, Serra del, 44 
 Solinus, 26 
 Soloeis, see Solunto. 
 Solunto (Soluntum), 153, 211, 
 215 
 Sophocles, 19, 57, 233 
 Sophron, 56, 218 
 Soprano, Capo, 118 
 Sortino, 100, 105, III 
 Sortino Fusco, 105 
 Sparagio, Monte, 167 
 Stesichorus, 35, 36, 216, 217, 222 
 Strabo, 41-2, 95, 160, 232 
 Stromboli, 2, 12, 233 
 Sulphur mines, 135 
 Swinburne, Henry, 137, 139 
 Symaethos, river, 25,26, 38, 45, 
 47, 48 
 Syraco, marsh, 54 
 Syracuse, 16, 17, 18, 31, 32, 35, 
 37, 45, 46 Sqq., 54 $94 
 73 Sqq., 77, 92, 107, III, 
 117, 142, 144, 145, 177, 
 178,223 
 
242 
 
 Syracuse, cont. 
 Achradina, 49, 51, 56, 67, 68, 
 77 $94., 82, 89, 91, 92, 
 93, IOI 
 Acropolis, see Ortygia below 
 Agora, 65, 68, 69, 77-8 
 Aqueduct, 89, 99 sqq. 
 Belvedere, 53, 90, 100, IOI 
 Casa Mezzi, 73 
 Catacombs, 81 
 Churches 
 Cathegral, 69 sqq. 
 S. Giovanni, 74, 80 
 S. Lucia, 81, 209 
 Cappella di, 81 
 S. Marciano, 80-1 
 Corso Umberto I, 68 
 Due Fratelli, Islands, 77 
 Ear of Dionysius, the, 82-4 
 Epipole, 37, 39, 45,49, 51, 52, 
 $3,056,.60, 637163, 767, 
 972, 88 sqq., 99 
 Euryalus, 51, 53, 60, 63, 64, 
 66, 88, 89, 90, 91, 100 
 Feasts, 115 
 Food, 112 
 Ginnasio Romano, 68 
 Granaries, 73 
 Greek theatre, 56, 57, 85 sqq., 
 100, 168 
 Harbours, 49, 52, 53, 62, 68, 
 72; 73» 77: 85, gt, 92, 
 IOI 
 Hexapylum, 66, 90 
 Labdalon, Fort, 60, 61 
 Latomia dei Cappucini, 78, 
 79, 80, 83 
 Casale, 78, 80, 83 
 del Filosofo, Epipole, 92 
 del Paradiso, 78, 83 4 
 di S. Vénera, 78, 83 
 Modern, 73 sqq. 
 Museo Nazionale, 49, 73, 74 
 Sqq., 104, 118 
 Neapolis, 51, 55, 60, 67, 82 
 SQq-> QI 
 Nympheum, 85, 88 
 Ortygia, Island of, 32, 49, 51 
 $qq., 63, 64, 66, 67, 68, 
 69, 71-2, 73 
 
 CITIES OF SICILY 
 
 Syracuse, cont. 
 Palazzo Bellomo, 73 
 Bucceri, 73 
 Interlandi, 73 
 Montalto, 73 
 Piazza del Duomo, 69 
 Pancali, 68, 69 
 Ponte Grande, 94 
 Porta Agragina, 77 
 Round about, 94 sqq. 
 Scala Greca, 66, 89, 90, 93 
 St. Paul in, 80 
 Temples, 51, 56, 82 
 Artemis, 69 
 Athena, 69 sqq. 
 Olympieum, 61, 62 
 Tyche, 49, 51, 61, 67, 68, 90, 
 QI, 102 
 Via Cavour, 69 
 Gelone, 73 
 Roma, 73 
 Villa Landolina, 82 
 Wines, 113 
 
 TaciiAvis, Duke of, 137 
 Tancred, King of Sicily, 183 
 Taormina, 13 sqq., 20, 37, 39, 45; 
 140, 150, 179 
 Castello, 13, 14 
 Carmine Church, 21 
 Forum, 20 
 Palaces, 20, 21 
 Piazza Vittorio Emanuele, 
 20 
 Porta Catania, 21, 22 
 Theatres, 13, 14, 18, 19, 20, 
 232-3 
 Tauromenium, see Taormina — 
 Taurus, Mount, 17 
 Terillus, 55, 222 
 Termini Imerese, 216, 223 
 Sqq. 
 Terranova (see ne Gela), 54, 
 I10, 117-18 
 Teutonic Order, Knights of the, 
 
 194 
 Thapsus, 48, 49, 52, 60, 61, 66, 
 
 9, 92 
 Theocles of Naxos, 16 
 
 - 
 
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INDEX | 
 
 Theocritus, 22, 26, 29, 37, 51, 52, 
 54, 66, 70, 71, 72, 73; 
 90, 93, I00, IOI, 102, 
 129 et alibi 
 Theron, 55, 122, 133, 222, 223 
 Thracian wine, 113 
 Thrasybulus, 56, 85 
 Thrasydeus, 123 
 Thucydides, 16-17, 39, 52, 57, 
 78-9, 89, 90, 103, 106 
 See e se. XT2T, 152, 
 158-9, 168, 215 
 Thurii, 59, 102 
 Thymbris, 90 
 Vale, Ior 
 Timeus, 17 
 Timoleon, 17, 64-5, 70, 78, 85, 
 138, 169 
 Tindari, Gulf of, 212 
 Torre del Filosofo, Etna, 43 
 Torre Medioevale, Taormina, 21 
 Torre del Teatro, Syracuse, 85 
 Torto Valley, 216 
 Trapani, 155, 156 sqq., 212 
 Trecastagni, the, 26 
 Trinacria, 154 
 Trogilus, Bay, 49, 66, 89 
 Promontory, 48, 89, Io sqq. 
 Troy, 8, 12, 30, 158-9, 168, 218 
 Tunny fishery of S. Panagia, 1o1, 
 102 
 Two Sicilies, Kingdom of, 182 
 Tyndareus, 217 
 Tyndarion, 17 
 Tyndaris, 228, 231 sqq. 
 Typheeus, 38 
 
 ULrxis, Portus, see Ognina 
 Urban II, Pope, 182 
 Urban IV, Pope, 183, 184 
 
 243 
 
 VACCARINI, —, 33 
 
 Van Dyck, 157, 196 
 
 Vanni, Turino, 203 
 
 Vaticano, Capo, 3, 9 
 
 Velia, 126 
 
 Vénere, Monte, 13, 14, 22 
 
 Venus Callipyge, 75 
 
 Venus Erycina, Temple of, 157, 
 158, 160, 161 
 
 Venus, the Paphian Temple of, 
 160 
 
 Verres, 66-7, 70, 73, 78, 82, 83, 
 1305-1907 (332 
 
 Verona, Amphitheatre of, 82 
 
 Villa San Giovanni, Calabria, 
 
 > 
 Virgil, 40, 71, 116, 158, 169 
 Vittoria, 110 
 Vizzini, III—12 
 Vulcano, 8, 230, 233 
 
 WALTER of the Mill, Archbishop 
 of Palermo, 186 sqq., 
 195, 224 
 
 William the Bad, King of Sicily, 
 181, 185, 192, 204 
 
 William the Conqueror, 179 
 
 William the Good, King of 
 Sicily, 182-3, 185, 186, 
 187, I9I, 192, 193, 205, 
 
 209 
 William III, King of Sicily, 183 
 Wines, Sicilian, 113 sqq. 
 
 XIPHONIAN Promontory, 48, 
 53, 101 
 
 ZAFFARANO, Capo, 215 
 Zankle (see also Messina), 3, 6, 
 I17, 216, 230 
 

 

 

 
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