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Segesta |
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Segesta
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During the whole
three millenia of its existence, Segesta
becomes part of the ancient Sicily's history, with a
role of great importance. Segesta (or Egesta) was the most important
city of the "Elimi", an unknown people whose geopolitical
area extended in all the north-western area of Sicily. In addition
to Segesta, the "Elimi" had also founded Erice (the
sacred city), Entella and other smaller centers. We know very
little about this people. It did not originally belong, for
sure, to none of the three greater ancient civilizations of
the Island. the sican one, the phoenician one and the greek
one. It seems it was a population, which was the result of the
fusion of native Sicans and of immigrants coming from Focea
or Anatolia (regions of the Minor Asia) which were joined, in
successive periods, by other coming groups from Greece. |
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According to some ancient historians
some trojan fugitives landed to the coasts of Trapani during the
long search of a new native land. Here they settled, having found
the ideal place where to make live again their civilization, melting
with the local populations. Segesta assimilated the Greek culture
soon. The finds of crockery with typically Greek decorations, the
rests of sure doric infuence, which have been found in the inside
of the sanctuary of Mango, the registrations in elym language but
with Greek characters on crockeries and segestan coins are the proof
of the deep hellenization of the city. Anyway Segesta has been the
great enemy of Selinunte, perhaps the greatest and most important
greek city of Sicily, which tried to conquer a place on the Tyrrhenian
sea in the area of the gulf of Castellammare. The war between the
two cities began around 580 b.C. with several trespassings of Selinunte's
people in the enemy territory. During the years, all Sicily was
involved in the war and when, in 416 b.C., Selinunte formed an alliance
with Siracusa, the people of Segesta asked for the aid of Athens
which, hoping to extend its dominion on the Mediterranean sea, took
part in the conflict sending its fleet and army. Siracusa, was besieged
by the Athenian army, resisted for two years and won, thanks to
the participation of Sparta which came to its assistance, in 413
b.C. Afterwards, Segesta searched for the aid of Carthage which
took its part because it feared that the expansion of Selinunte
could deteriorate the political-military equilibrium in this part
of Sicily. In 409 b.C., the people of Carthage, together with the
army of Segesta, destroyed Selinunte, then Gela, Imera and Camarina
and, finally, in 406, even Agrigent.
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the victory of Carthage marked the beginning of Segesta's decline,
which lost its political independence. The next centuries are
characterized by events which testify the progressive political
and military decline of Segesta. In 397 b.C. during the conquest
of western Sicily, the city was besieged by Dionysius from Syracuse.
In 339, after the famous battle of Crimiso (the present "Fiume
Freddo"), during which the people of Syracuse guided by
Timoleonte won against Asdrubale and Amilcare at the head of
the people of Carthage, Segesta formed an alliance with Agatocle
of Syracuse. |
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But, in order to take his revenge for the insufficient
contribution given in the war against Carthage, after having killed
the inhabitants through atrocious tortures, he destroyed it in a
single day changing its name in Diceopoli (city of justice) and
transforming it in the city of the deserters and deporting the young
people and women who were sold as slaves to the Bruzzi. Later on,
having allied again with Carthage, it was besieged by it and deprived
of the assets in order to punish the people of Segesta who had helped
Phyrrus in 269 b.C. During the first punic war Segesta is a faithful
allied of Rome. Thanks to its port of call, the city had became
an important strategic base for Rome which, in name of the legendary
trojan origin that the two cities had in common, granted to the
people of Segesta a special consideration: it elected Segesta as
"civitas libera et immunis" freeing it from the payment
of fees. In 104 b.C. the slaves revolts in Sicily, the so-called
servile wars, which were suppressed in blood in 99 b.C., began just
from Segesta under the guide of Atenione.
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not exist but it seems that the city has been definitively destroyed
by the Vandals in the V century. Later on a small settlement persisted
and after the expulsion of the Arabs, the Normans built up a great
castle - afterwards widened during the swabian age - that constituted
the center of a medieval village. Successively, we don't hear anything
about this place until when, in 1574, the dominican historian Thomas
Fazello, who identified the 80 % of the ancient cities of Sicily ,
localized the site. |
| Through the archaeological searches,
they still have not completely rebuilt the city which extended on
the slopes of the Barbaro mount and was surrounded by two different
walls going back to different ages. The temple, built up on a hill
outside the city walls at the end of the V century b.C., is one of
the most important examples of doric style we know. According to many
scholars, it hasn't been completed: in fact there are no flutes in
the columns and there isn't any trace of the cell inside it. Others,
instead, assert that the building is complete, that it was in the
past just as it is today and that it was a cult place in which, according
to the habits of oriental people from whom the "Elimi" descended,
they celebrated rituals in the open air on a temporary altar. The
temple's style elegance expresses the advanced degree of civilisation.
The style is near the greek doric manner. Its 36 columns forming the
peristyle are on a stylobat having the following size: m 61.15 x 26.25.
They are m. 9.36 high (including the capitals), and have a diameter
at the base of m 1.95 and, in the higher part, of m 1.56; the distance
between them is m. 2.40 and still holds the trabeation, which is m
3.58 high and the frontons of the two facades. The temple has to be
contemplated through the imposing harmony of its proportions. |
This harmony can already be caught
when it appears from far away in the middle of the landscape, and
when, arrived under its columns, you enter in it, catching the indescribable
feeling of uniqueness of the place.
Walking through the path that leads to the theatre, crossing the ancient
city, you can observe, on the right, the rests of a great quadrangular
tower which flanked one of the ancient doors; further, on the left,
the rests of another tower from which it is possible to follow the
rests of the more ancient walls. Farther on, you'll meet the rests
of the second town-walls (in which materials taken away from preexisting
constructions are employed), which encircled the city, already small
after the destruction of it, because of Agatocle (307 b.C.). |
| Along the sides of the road, a careful
eye will notice all along the way numerous traces of buildings, some
of which have their big importance. There are, moreover, the rests
of a paved road in a zone that had to be the center of Segesta's social
life of and an interesting house of the Roman period, which has been
almost entirely brought to light. Finally, on one of the two acropolis,
where the location of the Agorà has been identified, you can
see the rests of a little church of the XV century having one apse
and which has been dedicated to St. Leone and the rests of the normann
castle. The construction of the theatre goes back to the second half
of the III century b.C. It is situated inside the walls of the city,
just on the top of mount Barbaro. From there, it is possible to enjoy
the wonderful sight of the below landscape. The "cavea"
is contained in a semicircle of 63 meters and is composed by seven
quoins with the inferior tiers completely dug in the rock. The stage,
of which only some traces remain, had to be richly decorated with
columns and pillars. During the roman times, it was rehashed and embellished
keeping the original structure of the "orchestra" wich allowed
the actors to suddenly appear on the stage through an underground
passage. |
| During the excavations of 1927, the
rests of a building have been discovered under the stage and under
the "cavea"; it was perhaps a religious buiding, which can
be dated around the X-IX century b.C. and the entrance of a cove where
abundant material belonging to the prehistoric times and of successive
ages has been found. At the feet of mount Barbaro, in "contrada
Mango" the excavations of 1967 have brought to light the rests
of a "sanctuary" of archaic age encircled by a great rectangular
wall of squared rocks. In its inside they have discovered the rests
of one or more doric buildings, whose construction was realised between
the VI and the V century b.C.. Even if the excavation operations are
bringing to light rests of great importance, for many aspects, Segesta
is still an unknown city. Mount Barbaro keeps since several centuries
the secrets of a civilization that so much importance has had in Sicily's
history and in all the area of the Mediterranean sea. These secrets,
once revealed, will be able to make light on this mysterious people,
the "Elimi". |
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