The peristasis, from the Greek for "enclosure", is a porticoed colonnade, mostly quadrangular in shape, surrounding the temple's shrine....

Aeschylus was a Greek poet and playwright who was born in 525 BC to an aristocratic family from Eleusis. After moving to Athens to try his hand at dramatic agonies, he lived for a period in Sicily, at the court of his patron, tyrant Hiero I of Syracuse. It is likely that during his stay in Sicily, ...

The illustrious Syracusan novelist Elio Vittorini was inspired throughout his life by the places of his birthplace, which became a sort of sentimental route even within his novels. In fact, the Sicilian writer always wandered between two places in Via Minerva: the more frequented Minerva bar and th...

In his 1980 Viaggi e scritti letterari (Travels and Literary Writings), Cesare Brandi dedicates a chapter to Pantalica entitled "Quella fata Morgana chiamata Pantalica" (The Fata Morgana named Pantalica), in which he gives an evocative account of his journey through the Anapo valley, discovering a s...

The first Christian tombs were extremely simple and poor. Following Christ's example, corpses were wrapped in a sheet with no coffin. Different types of tombs can be found in the catacomb of San Giovanni. The tuff walls were dug into for loculi, rectangular niches enclosed by tiles, marble slabs o...

When Virgil published the Aeneid, Syracuse and its shores were a name already well known to the Greek and Roman world. As a matter of fact, Ortygia, gathered in the embrace of the "Plemmyrium ondosum" gulf, is mentioned by the Latin poet, who provides this immortal caption of the place: "Across the...

Dionysius was tyrant of Syracuse for a long time. He was very interested in art and literature, but is best known for his evil and suspicious character. The years of his tyranny are in fact remembered as a period of real terror. It seems that Dionysius trusted no one: to avoid relying on a barber,...

The orchestra is a circular or semicircular area at the base of the cavea. This space was dedicated to the choir performance. The choir members, called choralists, walked or danced together, commented using song on what was happening on stage and sometimes intervened directly in the action. ...

In a wealth of detail, the Siceliot historian Diodorus Siculus recounted the epochal undertaking of the construction of the Dionysian Walls and the Euryalus Fortress, describing the various phases of construction. As reported by the Agira-born writer, 70,000 slaves and 6,000 oxen divided into teams...

Damokopos was a Greek architect who lived around the 5th century BC. As reported in the chronicles, he was responsible for the construction of the theatre of Syracuse, described by the historian Diodorus as "the most beautiful theatre in Sicily" (XVI, 83.3). It is said that Damokopos was given the ...