The term Civitas Decumana meant all the cities which, under Roman rule, were obliged to send one tenth of their harvest to Rome and the rest of Italy. After the Second Punic War, the Roman consul forced the Sicilians to lay down their arms and devote themselves to agriculture, in particular the cu...

The conquest of Agrigento has been handed down to us by the precious writings of the historians of the time, who recounted it with meticulous precision and different perspectives depending on where they came from. Polybius, a Greek historian, focused his stories on the majesty of the conquered city...

Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus (236-183 BC) was an important Roman politician and leader. Born from one of the oldest Roman gens, the Cornelii, he began his political and military career at a very young age. Polybius tells us that already in 218 BC he had shown great honour in the Battle of Ti...

The Battle of the Aegates was the final battle of the First Punic War. Fought on 10 March 241 BC, it saw the Roman fleet, commanded by consul Gaius Lutatius Catulus, inflicting a disastrous defeat on the Carthaginian fleet, under the orders of general Hanno. The heavy toll of 50 ships sunk, 70 cap...

Timoleon was a Corinthian general from the 4th century BC, famous for killing his brother Timophanes, who had tried to proclaim himself tyrant of Corinth. For this reason he was called upon by the Sicilians of Syracuse, to protect the city from the tyrant Dionysius the Younger and the threat of th...

The corvus is a device that the Romans invented during the First Punic War. It was a special hook-shaped boarding device that Polybius, in Book III of The Histories, describes as a mobile walkway around 11 metres long and 1.2 metres wide. Thanks to the sharp hooks placed at the ends, the corvus eas...

Cicero tells us that in Agrigento, in the cella (shrine) of the Temple of Heracles, there was a beautiful bronze statue dedicated to the demigod, so ardently venerated that it was ruined at the chin and mouth, because of the kisses that worshippers left as a sign of their adoration. Verres, governo...

As often happens with the temples of Agrigento, the traditional name of the Hera Lacinia temple is also wrong. The mistake is due to the confusion with the Temple of Juno Lacinia mentioned by Pliny the Elder and located on the Lacinium promontory in Crotone, in Calabria....

In the architecture of the classical world, the term trabeation indicates three horizontally overlapping architectural elements that join the columns and support the weight of the roof. These are: the architrave, which rests on the capitals of the columns; the frieze, an often richly sculpted orna...

Timoleon was a Corinthian general from the 4th century BC, famous for killing his brother Timophanes, who had tried to proclaim himself tyrant of Corinth. For this reason, he was called upon by the Sicilians of Syracuse to protect the city from the tyrant Dionysius the Younger and the threat of th...