histories of sicily
History of Sicily. The history of Sicily has seen Sicily usually controlled by greater powersâRoman, Vandal, Byzantine, Islamic, Hohenstaufen, Catalan, Spanishâbut also experiencing short periods of independence, as under the Greeks and later as the Emirate then Kingdom of Sicily.
Sicily was inhabited 10,000 years ago. Its strategic location at the centre of the Mediterranean has made the island a crossroads of history, a pawn of conquest and empire, and a melting pot for a dozen or more ethnic groups whose warriors or merchants sought its shores.