Listed 4 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for wider area of: "LICATA Town SICILY" .
FINTIAS (Ancient city) SICILY
Phintias (Phintias: Eth. Phintiensis: Alicata), a city on the S. coast
of Sicily, situated at the mouth of the river Himera, about midway between Agrigentum
and Gela. It was not an ancient city, but was founded about 280 B.C. by Phintias,
tyrant of Agrigentum, who bestowed on it his own name, and laid it out on a great
scale, with its walls, temples, and agora. He then peopled it with the inhabitants
of Gela, which he utterly destroyed, compelling the whole population to migrate
to his newly founded city. (Diod. xxii. 2, p. 495.) Phintias, however, never rose
to a degree of importance at all to be compared to that of Gela: it is mentioned
in the First Punic War (B.C. 249) as affording shelter to a Roman fleet, which
was, however, attacked in the roadstead by that of the Carthaginians, and many
of the ships sunk. (Diod. xxiv. 1, p. 508.) Cicero also alludes to it as a seaport,
carrying on a considerable export trade in corn. (Cic. Verr. iii. 8. 3) But in
Strabo's time it seems to have fallen into the same state of decay with the other
cities on the S. coast of Sicily, as he does not mention it among the few exceptions.
(Strab. vi. p. 272.) Pliny, indeed, notices the Phintienses (or Phthinthienses
as the name is written in some MSS.) among the stipendiary towns of Sicily; and
its name is found also in Ptolemy (who writes it Phthinthia); but it is strange
that both these writers reckon it among the inland towns of Sicily, though its
maritime position is clearly attested both by Diodorus and Cicero. The Antonine
Itinerary also gives a place called Plintis, doubtless a corruption of Phintias,
which it places on the road from Agrigentum along the coast towards Syracuse,
at the distance of 23 miles from the former city. (Itin. Ant. p. 95.) This distance
agrees tolerably well with that from Girgenti to Alicata, though somewhat below
the truth; and it seems probable that the latter city, which is a place of some
trade, though its harbour is a mere roadstead, occupies the site of the ancient
Phintias. There is indeed no doubt, from existing remains on the hill immediately
above Alicata, that the site was occupied in ancient times; and, though these
have been regarded by local antiquarians as the ruins of Gela, there is little
doubt of the correctness of the opinion advanced by Cluverius, that that city
is to be placed on the site of Terranova, and the vestiges which remain at Alicata
are those of Phintias. (Cluver. Sicil. pp. 200, 214.) The remains themselves are
of little interest.
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited August 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
A Greek city on Mt. Eknomos at the mouth of the river Himera, between
Gela and Agrigento. The city took its name from the Akragan tyrant who founded
it at the beginning of the 3d c. B.C. for the citizens of Gela, whose city he
had destroyed in 286-282 B.C. Inscriptions and coins show that the new inhabitants
long retained the name Geloi, which still appears in an inscription of the 1st
c. B.C. listing victorious ephebes. Diodorus Siculus mentions (22.2) that the
city had a large agora with porticos; however, since no regular excavation has
yet taken place, the Hellenistic and Roman material which can be connected with
Phintias comes from chance finds.
Before the founding of Phintias, Mt. Eknomos was occupied by archaic
settlements. The first was probably a Greek center founded by Geloan colonists
in their march along the S coast of Sicily. Later, during the second quarter of
the 6th c. B.C., a phrourion was founded by the Akragan tyrant Phalaris (Diod.
19.2). This archaic phase is attested by Corinthian, Ionic, and Geloan pottery
and figurines, sporadically found in the area and at present exhibited in the
Museums of Palermo and Agrigento. A recent, though rather improbable, hypothesis
would locate the Sikanian city of Inicos on the Eknomos.
P. Orlandini, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Sep 2002 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
KAKYRON (Ancient city) SICILY
A fortified center ca. 20 km N of Licata on the right shore of the
Salso river (fl. Himera). It seems to have been in existence from the end of the
7th to the end of the 4th c. B.C. Excavations have brought to light a stretch
of the E wall, with small towers added at the time of Agathokles. Within these
towers were built reused architectural elements in stone with painted decoration,
a few altars with similar decoration, and blocks with late archaic inscriptions.
These items probably belonged originally to a sanctuary on a hill outside the
walls, which still preserves the foundations of a rectangular shrine (8 x 14 m).
This small temple, originally decorated with archaic terracotta revetments, was
probably rebuilt during the second half of the 4th c. B.C. with the architectural
elements which, a few decades later, were re-employed in the fortification towers.
The votive deposit of the sanctuary has yielded pottery, terracotta figurines,
and bronzes dating from the beginning of the 6th to the end of the 4th c. B.C.
The foundations of three more sacred buildings of the archaic period have been
recently identified on the mountain top plateau.
The total absence of local wares and the typical Geloan-Agrigentine
form of the architectural terracottas, of some of the pottery, and of figurines
and inscriptions, show that this center was a Greek sub-colony, founded as a consequence
of the penetration of Geloan and Agrigentine colonists into the Salso valley from
the second half of the 7th c. B.C. This center was destroyed by the Carthaginians
in 311 B.C. after they had defeated Agathokles' army in the battle of the Eknomos
at the mouth of the river Salso (Diod. 19.110).
This site should perhaps be identified with ancient Kakyron, the city
which Ptolemy (3.4.6) locates to the NW of Phintias (modern Licata) and, between
463 and 461 B.C., the refuge of the Syracusan mercenaries who fled to Geloan-Agrigentine
territory after the fall of the Deinomenids (Oxyrh. Pap. 4.665, lines 1-7). The
archaeological material from the site is in museums in Palermo, Gela, and Agrigento.
P. Orlandini, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Nov 2002 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
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