In ancient Rome, it was common for landowners to exploit prisoners for work in the fields. As in the rest of Italy, in Sicily the slaves were also subjected to terrible living conditions and increasing harassment. In 136 BC, Sicily took centre stage in the First Servile War: from Enna the revolt...

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, a German writer, poet and playwright, visited the Valley of the Temples during his trip to Sicily in 1787, where he produced several writings on the wilderness and the monumental temples of Akragas, which still evoke the feelings the author experienced “at the point whe...

Salt, in ancient times, was considered such a treasure that it was called “white gold”. In Realmonte in the province of Agrigento, there is the Salgemma salt mine, still in operation today, whose deposit was formed around 6 million years ago. Through a path of galleries and tunnels, 30 metres ...

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...

An ogival arch is a pointed Gothic arch. The design of two parts of a circle which meet at a central point forming a tip, characterises an ogival arch or vault....