Sicily's Greco-Roman ruins

Selinunte temple in the wildflowers

If you love history or architecture or just pure beauty, you will find Sicily’s many magnificent Greek and Roman ruins just the places for you.  Most were toppled and scattered in the succession of earthquakes that have always plagued Sicily or destroyed by various wars of ancient and modern times.  Two particularly gorgeous temples, Segesta and Concordia (Agrigento), still stand just as they were more than 2000 years ago, and several have been partially reconstructed by archaeologists.

The Concordia Temple in Agrigento survived because later Christians turned it into a church, holding up the structure with interior walls that outlasted all the earthquakes.  Segesta stood on its own throughout and still stands grandly in a field, full of wildflowers in April, and rarely visited by tour groups.

Concordia temple, Agrigento

Segesta also has a Greek theater atop a neighboring hill overlooking the vineyard-covered hills of Western Sicily.  The Greeks used theater to entertain and educate the people, requiring them to sit in the theaters 8 hours a day for 15 days watching performances of 2 tragedies and 1 comedy, so our guides told us.  This was a way to teach the people the values their rulers wanted to impart.  But, these theaters were also the places where the Greeks conducted their community forums in which the population could discuss important issues of the day.

There were endless wars among the Greek city-states that played out in Sicily as well.  Romans and Carthaginians fought for control of the Mediterranean.  Muslims from North Africa conquered parts of the island and left their mark.  And Normans controlled Sicily before the Swabians and then the Spanish took over the island.  Many of these invaders took the giant stones from the Greek and Roman structures and used them for other purposes, from churches to palaces to protective walls.  So, many of the stones are now scattered some distance from their original sites.  The great gods of the temples vanished as the conquerors turned the buildings into mosques or churches or simply destroyed them.

Greek column in field near Selinunte

The Greeks invented increasingly sophisticated systems of pulleys to lift the stones into place.  These stones usually had to be hauled considerable distances from the quarries to the temple sites, a dreadful activity performed by slaves and, in some cases, oxen.  Slaves came from North Africa, but also from conquered cities in Sicily and elsewhere in the Mediterranean.  Their lives were grim and short.

loading elephant onto boat--Villa Romana del Casale

Northeast of Ragusa is the town of Piazza Amerina where you can visit the Villa Romana del Casale, filled with incredible mosaics of daily life of the Roman elite.  There are animals being loaded onto boats in Africa to bring to the Roman coliseums and game parks, women in bikinis (I’ve never seen that before) playing ball and dancing, family members living their lives.  It is an astonishing place.  And jam-packed with tourists, though going later in the day seems to bring relief from the crowds.  Another Roman villa to the south hasn’t been discovered by tourists, but also has beautiful mosaics, and no one goes there so you can see them all by yourself.  This is Villa Romana del Telaro near the Vendicari Nature Reserve.

lion mosaic, Villa Romana del Telaro

Siracusa has a small archaeological park with a large Greek theater overlooking the harbor, a huge quarry that used to be covered by a roof of stone until one of the great earthquakes caused it to collapse, and a Roman coliseum.  The city was briefly the Greek capital and one of the most important cities of the era.

And then there’s gorgeous Taormina, a tourist haven and ancient Greek and Roman city on the side of a mountain high above the Mediterranean.  It was a resort for wealthy families, but also site of one of the main highways during Roman times.  The Roman road is now the main street of this charming town, which is full of shops, pizzerias, gelaterias serving excellent ice cream and hidden treasures from days past and present.

Taormina

Greek theater, Taormina