Ovid’s Metamorphoses tells the story of a beautiful nymph named Cyane who fell in love with young Anapos.
One day, the nymph was walking with her friend Persephone on the shore of a lake.
While the young girl was picking flowers, Hades, god of the underworld and in love with Persephone, decided to kidnap her.
Cyane tried everything to prevent the abduction, clinging with all her strength to Hades’ chariot, but the god punished her with his sceptre, turning her into a spring with turquoise waters.
Anapos, no longer able to live without his love, asked the gods to turn him into a river so that he could rejoin her at the end of his journey and flow into the splendid Porto Grande of Syracuse.
This would explain the origins of the Anapo River, the tributary of which has hollowed out the walls of the Pantalica necropolis over the millennia.
