Listed 4 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for wider area of: "MAZZARINO Town SICILY" .
MAKTORION (Ancient city) SICILY
Mactorium (Maktorion), a town of Sicily, in the neighbourhood of Gela,
mentioned by Herodotus (vii. 153), who tells us that it was occupied by a body
of Geloan citizens, who were driven out from their country, and were restored
to it by Telines, the ancestor of Gelon. The name is also found in Stephanus of
Byzantium (s. v.), who cites it from Philistus, but no mention of it occurs in
later times. The only clue to its position is that afforded by Herodotus, who
calls it a city above Gela, by which he must mean further inland. Cluverius conjectures
that it may have occupied the site of Butera, a town on a hill about 8 miles inland
from Terranova, the site of Gela. (Cluver. Sicil. p. 363.)
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 modern village in S central Sicily in the environs of which are
ancient settlements of different periods. To the SE rises Mt. Bubbonia, on whose
summit there developed a settlement which replaced sporadic earlier habitation.
It lasted from the end of the 7th c. to the beginning of the 3d c. B.C. This settlement
came into contact with the Rhodio-Cretan world of Gela around the end of the 7th
c. or the beginning of the 6th c. B.C., but the strongest evidence of Greek influence
is from the second half of the 6th c. Probably the agger fortification, and a
smaller fortification of the same type which defended the acropolis, go back to
this period as well as the acropolis with its prominent archaic shrine. This small
temple has a masonry base in the Greek manner and was decorated with gorgon antefixes
of the second half of the 6th c. of Geloan type. On the N side, but outside the
walls, a votive deposit has been identified and partly excavated; it has proved
rich in archaic statuettes and bronzes. The figurines are mostly Geloan in type
but of local manufacture. From the necropoleis scattered on the E side of the
mountain come grave goods reflecting contact with Gela toward the end of the 7th
c. The site, therefore, joined the Geloan chora at the end of the 7th c. or the
beginning of the 6th c. B.C. Quite likely during the 6th c. it also adopted a
city plan per strigas, as if it were a sub-colony. Its name was probably Maktorion.
In the Sofiana district on the E border of the territory is the statio
Philosophiana, which dates to the first half of the 1st c. A.D. To this period
belongs the first phase of the bath complex, which was, however, repeatedly altered
down to the 4th c. A.D. At the time of the Antonine Itinerary the statio is mentioned
on the large Roman traffic artery connecting Catane with Agrigentum. Settlement
at Sofiana actually goes back to the 4th c. B.C. when in the same area there already
existed a Hellenistic farm.
At the SW border of the habitation area, toward the end of the 4th
c. A.D., an Early Christian basilica with three naves and prothyron was built,
and around it spread rich cemeteries which continued in use until the 10th c.
Other necropoleis connected with the settlement stretch in all directions, but
the earliest are those to the E and to the N.
Since the statio lies near the great imperial villa of Piazza Armerina,
some connection between the two monuments might be postulated. Brick stamps found
at Sofiana carry the inscription FIL (O) SOF, and it is probable that we are dealing
with a Praedium Philosophianum, similar to that of Calvisianus in the Geloan plain.
D. Adamesteanu, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited July 2003 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
The seat of an indigenous center. The mountain, ca. 20 km to the N
of Gela and on the left side of the national highway to Piazza Armerina, is now
almost entirely covered by oak and eucalyptus woods. The center, which under Greek
influence can perhaps be identified with Maktorion, is mentioned by Herodotos
as being near Gela (7.153). Excavations have uncovered parts of the necropoleis
and of the ancient town. On the peak of the acropolis (529 m high), at the W end
of the mountain, the foundations of a small shrine were found, together with some
of its beautiful polychrome antefixes in the shape of a Gorgon. The foundations
are built with large blocks and closely resemble those of the Athenaion in Gela.
The terracotta antefixes, datable to the middle of the 6th c. B.C., are also of
Geloan type.
The city was protected by a dry stone wall that followed the edge
of the mountain for ca. 5 km. This wall probably dates as early as the 6th-5th
c. B.C. A defensive wall barring access to the acropolis must on the other hand
date from the end of the 4th c. B.C. The inhabited quarter occupied the long B
plateau, where aerial photography clearly shows a system of regular streets oriented
N-S. An archaic kiln in good state of preservation has also been found near the
walls.
The necropolis has yielded some native graves of the 8th-7th c. B.C.,
followed at the end of the 7th c. onward by tombs purely Greek in typology and
grave goods, comprising exclusively Corinthian, Ionic, Attic, and Geloan vases.
Most of the material from the excavations is in the National Museum of Gela.
P. Orlandini, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited July 2003 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
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