Images in this gallery of the ancient Greek settlement of Himera, located under the shadow of the imposing Monte San Calogero on the central northern coast of Sicily.
Himera, named after the Imera River that is nearby, was founded in 648 BC by Greek settlers from the established Greek colonies of Zankle (modern Messina) and Syracuse on the east of Sicily. Himera was a frontier city as it the most westerly Greek city on the northern Coast dominated by Carthaginians and Phoenician...
more »Images in this gallery of the ancient Greek settlement of Himera, located under the shadow of the imposing Monte San Calogero on the central northern coast of Sicily.
Himera, named after the Imera River that is nearby, was founded in 648 BC by Greek settlers from the established Greek colonies of Zankle (modern Messina) and Syracuse on the east of Sicily. Himera was a frontier city as it the most westerly Greek city on the northern Coast dominated by Carthaginians and Phoenician settlements.
In 480 BC, supposedly on the same day as the Battle of Salamis, Himera was the site of a famous and decisive battle when a huge Carthaginian force of 300,000 landed and attempted to take the city and most probably the rest of Sicily away from the Sicilian Greeks. However, the Carthaginians suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of a league of Sicilian Greeks from Agrigento Gel and Himera) which affirmed Greek supremacy in Sicily.
The Temple of Victory in Himera was built in 470 BC to honour the crushing defeat of the Carthaginians by the Greeks. Also built to commemorate the victory was the monumental Temple of Olympian Zeus at Agrigento, the largest Doric Temple of the ancient Greek world.
In 409 BC the Carthaginians returned to avenge their crushing defeat 70 years ago. They burnt and destroyed the temple of Victory and the city. The remaining inhabitants, who were able to escape, fled to Thermae (modern Termini Imerse).
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