Sicily

**Sicily is** the largest island in the Mediterranean, and is just off the tip of Italia, the ‘boot’. Sicily is located in the central Mediterranean Sea, south of the Italian Peninsula, from which it is separated by the narrow Strait of Messina. Its most prominent landmark is Mount Etna, the tallest active volcano in Europe, and one of the most active in the world. The island has a typical Mediterranean climate.

## History

### First people

The first inhabitants of Sicily were comprised of three defined groups. The earliest and most prominent group were the Sicani, who arrived from the Iberian Peninsula, also known as Iberia, which is in the southwest corner of Europe. The Elymians, thought to have come from the area of the Aegean Sea, became the next tribe to join the Sicanians on Sicily. Sicily was mashed between two different influences: European coming from the Northwest, and the Mediterranean from the east. Because of this, the Sicanians moved eastwards when the Elymians settled in the northwest corner of the island.

The third defined group was the Sicels, who came from mainland Italy, and forced the Sicanians to move back across Sicily and to settle in the middle of the island. Later other minor groups settled in Sicily, including the Ausones from the Aeolian Islands, and the Morgetes of Morgantina.

### Greeks and Romans

About 150 years later, the Greeks began to to settle in Sicily, establishing many important towns and colonies. The most important colony was in Syracuse. Others were started at Akragas, Selinunte, Gela, Himera and Zancle. The native Sicani and Sicel peoples were absorbed into the Greek culture, and the area became part of Greece’s territory, along with the rest of southern Italy, which the Greeks had also colonised.

Sicily was very fertile, so when olives and grape vines were introduced to the land, they grew well and became very profitable in trading.

When the Greeks came over, they not only brought their culture and plants, but also their religion. It because very significant on Sicily, where many temples were built throughout the island, including a cluster of them at Agrigento, in what is called the Valley of the Temples.

((Politics on the island was intertwined with that of Greece; Syracuse became desired by the Athenians who set out on the Sicilian Expedition during the Peloponnesian War. Syracuse gained Sparta and Corinth as allies and, as a result, the Athenian expedition was defeated. The Athenian army and ships were destroyed, with most of the survivors being sold into slavery.

Greco-Roman theatre at Taormina

Greek Syracuse controlled eastern Sicily while Carthage controlled the West. The two cultures began to clash, leading to the Greek-Punic wars. Greece had begun to make peace with the Roman Republic in 262 BC, and the Romans sought to annexeSicily as their republic's first province. Rome attacked Carthage's holdings in Sicily in the First Punic War and won, making Sicily the first Roman province outside of the Italian Peninsula by 242 BC.

In the Second Punic War, the Carthaginians attempted to take back Sicily. Some of the Greek cities on the island sided with the Carthaginians. Archimedes, who lived in Syracuse, helped the Carthaginians, but was killed by the Romans after they invaded Syracuse in 213 BC. They failed, and Rome was even more unrelenting in its annihilation of the invaders this time; Roman consul M. Valerian told the Roman Senate in 210 BC that "no Carthaginian remains in Sicily".

As the empire's granary, Sicily was an important province, divided into two quaestorships: Syracuse to the east and Lilybaeum to the west.  Some attempt was made under Augustus to introduce the Latin language to the island, but Sicily was allowed to remain largely Greek in a cultural sense. The once prosperous and contented island went into sharp decline when Verres became governor of Sicily. In 70 BC, noted figure Cicero condemned the misgovernment of Verres in his oration In Verrem.

The island was used as a base of power numerous times, being occupied by slave insurgents during the First and Second Servile Wars, and by Sextus Pompey during the Sicilian revolt. Christianity first appeared in Sicily during the years following AD 200; between this time and AD 313, Constantine the Great finally lifted the prohibition on Christianity, but not before a significant number of Sicilians had become martyrs, including Agatha, Christina, Lucy, and Euplius. Christianity grew rapidly in Sicily over the next two centuries. The period of history during which Sicily was a Roman province lasted for around 700 years.))