HOME | DD

Description
Segesta - Sicilia - Italia

(You can see the Doric Temple, it's almost in the middle of the photo)

Segesta (Sicilian: Seggesta) was the political center of the Elymian people, located in the northwestern part of Sicily, in what are now the province of Trapani and the comune of Calatafimi-Segesta.
According to the tradition used in Virgil's Aeneid, Segesta was founded jointly by the territorial king Acestes (who was son of the local river Crinisus by a Dardanian woman named Segesta or Egesta) and by those of Aeneas' folk who wished to remain behind with Acestes to found the city of Acesta.
The belief that the name of the city was originally Acesta or Egesta and changed to Segesta by the Romans to avoid its ill-omened meaning in Latin is disproved by coins showing that Segesta was indeed the earlier name.
Segesta, called Egesta (Ancient Greek: Ἕγεστα) by the Greeks, was one of the major cities of the Elymian people, one of the three indigenous peoples of Sicily. The other major cities of the Elymians were Eryx and Entella.
The population of Segesta was mixed Elymian and Ionian Greek, though the Elymians soon Hellenized and took on external characteristics of Greek life.
Segesta was in eternal conflict with Selinus (modern Selinunte), which probably tried to assure itself a port on the Tyrrhenian Sea. The first clashes were in 580-576 BC, and again in 454 BC, but later the conflict would have repercussions for all of Sicily.

The temple
On a hill just outside the site of the ancient city of Segesta lies an unusually well preserved Doric temple. It was built sometime in the late 5th century BC and has 6×14 columns on a base measuring 21×56m, on a platform three steps high. Several things suggest that the temple was never actually finished. The columns have not been fluted as they normally would have been in a Doric temple and there are still tabs present in the blocks of the base (used for lifting the blocks into place but then normally removed). It also lacks a cella and was never roofed over. The temple is also unusual for being a Hellenic temple in a city not mainly populated by Greeks

Description
Segesta - Sicilia - Italia

(You can see the Doric Temple, it's almost in the middle of the photo)

Segesta (Sicilian: Seggesta) was the political center of the Elymian people, located in the northwestern part of Sicily, in what are now the province of Trapani and the comune of Calatafimi-Segesta.
According to the tradition used in Virgil's Aeneid, Segesta was founded jointly by the territorial king Acestes (who was son of the local river Crinisus by a Dardanian woman named Segesta or Egesta) and by those of Aeneas' folk who wished to remain behind with Acestes to found the city of Acesta.
The belief that the name of the city was originally Acesta or Egesta and changed to Segesta by the Romans to avoid its ill-omened meaning in Latin is disproved by coins showing that Segesta was indeed the earlier name.
Segesta, called Egesta (Ancient Greek: Ἕγεστα) by the Greeks, was one of the major cities of the Elymian people, one of the three indigenous peoples of Sicily. The other major cities of the Elymians were Eryx and Entella.
The population of Segesta was mixed Elymian and Ionian Greek, though the Elymians soon Hellenized and took on external characteristics of Greek life.
Segesta was in eternal conflict with Selinus (modern Selinunte), which probably tried to assure itself a port on the Tyrrhenian Sea. The first clashes were in 580-576 BC, and again in 454 BC, but later the conflict would have repercussions for all of Sicily.

The temple
On a hill just outside the site of the ancient city of Segesta lies an unusually well preserved Doric temple. It was built sometime in the late 5th century BC and has 6×14 columns on a base measuring 21×56m, on a platform three steps high. Several things suggest that the temple was never actually finished. The columns have not been fluted as they normally would have been in a Doric temple and there are still tabs present in the blocks of the base (used for lifting the blocks into place but then normally removed). It also lacks a cella and was never roofed over. The temple is also unusual for being a Hellenic temple in a city not mainly populated by Greeks