Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/1004

 984 SICILIA. forward a law to admit them without distinction to the Roman franchise (Cic. ad Att. xiv. 2), but neither of these measures was accomplished ; and we learn from Pliny that Messana was in his day the only city in the island of which the inhabitants possessed the Koman citizenship: three others, Cen- turipa, Netum, and Segesta enjoyed the Jus Latii, ■while all the others (except the colonies already mentioned) were in the ordinary condition of " civi- tates stipendiariae " (Plin. iii. 8. s. 14). We hear very little of Sicily under the Empire; but it is probable that it never really recovered from the state of decay into which it had fallen in Strabo's time. Almost the only mention of it in history is that of an outbreak of slaves and banditti in the reign of Gallienus which seems to have resembled on a smaller scale the Servile wars that had formerly devastated it (Treb. Poll. Gallien, 4). The in- creasing importance of the supply of corn from Africa and Eftypt renders it jirobable that that from Sicily had fallen off, and the small number of re- mains of the imperial period still existing in the island, though so many are preserved from a much eai'lier date, seems to prove that it could not then have been very flourishing. At a late period of the Empire, also, we find very few names of towns in the Itineraries, the lines of road being carried through stations or " mansiones " otherwise wholly unknown, a sufficient proof that the neighbouring towns had fallen into decay. {Itin. Ant. pp. 86 — 98.) In the division of the provinces under Augustus, Sicily was assigned to the senate, and was governed by a pro- consul ; at a later period it was considered as a part of Italy, and was governed by a magistrate named a Consularis, subject to the authority of the Vii'arius Urbis Romae. {Nutit. Di'jn. ii. p. 64; and Booking, ad loc.) Its insular position must have for a considerable time preserved Sicily from the ravages of the barba- rians who devastated Italy towards the close of the Western Empire. Alaric indeed attempted to cross over the straits, but was foiled by a tempest. {Hist. M'lscell. xiii. p. 535) But Genseric, being master of a powerful fleet, made himself master of the whole island, which was held by the Vandals for a time, but subsequently passed into the hands of the Goths, and continued attached to the Gothic kingdom of Italy till it was conquered by Belisarius in A. u. 535. It was then united to the Eastern Empire, and continued to be governed as a dependency by the Byzantine emperors till the ninth century, when it fell into the hands of the Saracens or Arabs. 'I'hat people first landed at Mazara, in the W. of the island in a. u. 827, and made themselves masters of Agrigentum; but their progress was vigorously opposed. They took Messana in 831, and Panormus in 835, but it was not till 878 that Syracuse, the last fortress in the island, fell into their hands. The Lsland continued in the possession of the Sa- racens till the middle of the eleventh century, when it was partially recovered by the Byzantine em- perors with the assistance of the Normans. But in 1061 the Norman Roger Guiscard invaded Sicily on his own account, and, after a long struggle, wholly reduced the island under his dominion. It has since remained attached, with brief exceptions, to the crown of Naples, the monarch of which bears the title of King of the Two Sicilies. The extant remains of antiquity in Sicily fully confirm the inference which we should draw from ithe statements of ancient historians, as to the SICILIA. prosperity and opulence of the island under the Greeks, and its comparatively decayed condition under the Romans. The ruins of the latter period are few, and for the most part unimportant, the exceptions being confined to the three or four cities which we know to have received Roman colonies : while the temples, theatres, and other edifices from the Greek period are numerous and of the most striking character. No city of Greece, with the exception of Athens, can produce structures that vie with those of which the remains are still visible at Agrigentum, Selinus and Segesta. At the same time the existing relics of antiquity, especially coins and inscriptions, strongly confirm the fact that almost the whole population of the island had been gradually Hellenised. It is evident that the strong line of demarcation which existed in the days of Thucydides between the Greek cities and those of non-Hellenic or barbarian origin had been to a great degree effaced before the island passed under the dominion of Rome. The names of Sicilian citizens mentioned by Cicero in his Verrine orations are as purely Greek where they belong to cities of Siculian origin, such as Centuripa and Agyrium, or even to Carthaginian cities like Panormus and Lilybaeum, as are those of Syracuse or Agrigentum. In like manner we find coins with Greek legends struck by numerous cities which undoubtedly never received a Greek colony, such as Alaesa, Menaenum, and many others. It is probable indeed that during the Roman Republic the language of the whole island (at least the written and cultivated language) was Greek, which must, however, have gradually given way to Latin under the Empire, as the Sicilian dialect of the present day is one of purely Latin origin, and differs but slightly from that of the south of Italy. Of the language of the ancient Sicels we have no trace at all, and it is highly probable that it was never used as a written language. III. Topography, The general description of the physical features of Sicily has been already given. But it will be necessary here to describe its coasts in somewhat more detail. The E. coast extending from Cape Pelorus to Pachynus, consists of three portions of a very different character. From Pelorus to Tauro- meniuni, a distance of about 40 miles, it is closely bordered by the chain of mountains called the Jlons Neptunius, the slopes of which descend steeply to the sea, forming a very uniform line of coast, furrowed by numerous small torrents. Two of the small head- lands between these valleys appear to have borne the names of Drepanum (Plin.) and Argennum (Ptol.), but their identification is quite uncertain. S. of Tauromenium, from the mouth of the Acesines to that of the Symaethus, the whole coast is formed by beds of lava and other volcanic matters, which have flowed down from Aetna. Off this coast, about midway between Acium and Catana are some rocky islets of volcanic origin, called by Pliny the Cyclo- jium Scopuli: the name of Portus Ulyssis is given by the same author to a port in this neighbouriiood, but it is impossible so say which of the many small sheltered coves on this line of coast he means to designate. S. of the Symaethus the coast is much varied, being indented by several deep bays and inlets, separated by projecting rocky headlands. The principal of these is the bay of Megara (Sinus Magarensis) so called from the Greek city of that name ; it was bounded on the N. by the Xiphonian