[6] In the interior of the island a few inhabitants possess Enna,1 in which there is a temple of Ceres;2 it is situated on a hill, and surrounded by spacious table-lands well adapted for tillage. The fugitive slaves, who placed themselves under the leading of Eunus,3 and sustained in this city a long siege, scarcely being reduced by the Romans, occasioned much damage to the city. The Catanæi, Tauromenitæ, and many others, suffered, much in like manner. † Eryx,4 a very lofty mountain, is also inhabited. It possesses a temple of Venus, which is very much esteemed; in former times it was well filled with women sacred to the goddess, whom the inhabitants of Sicily, and also many others, offered in accomplishment of their vows; but now, both is the neighbourhood much thinner of inhabitants, and the temple not near so well supplied with priestesses and female attendants.5 There is also an establishment of this goddess at Rome called the temple of Venus Erycina, just before the Colline Gate; in addition to the temple it has a portico well worthy of notice. † The other settlement and most of the interior have been left to the shepherds for pasturage; for we do not know that Himera is yet inhabited,6 or Gela,7 or Callipolis, or Selinus, or Eubœa, or many other places; of these the Zanclæi of Mylœ8 founded Himera,9 the people of Naxos, Callipolis,10 the Megaræans of Sicily,11 Selinus,12 and the Leontini13 Eubœa.14 Many too of the cities of the aboriginal inhabitants15 have been destroyed, as Camici, the kingdom of Cocalus, at whose house Minos is reported to have been treacherously cut off. The Romans therefore, considering the deserted condition of the country, and having got possession both of the hills and the most part of the plains, have given them over to horse-breeders, herdsmen, and shepherds, by whom the island has frequently been brought into great perils. First of all the shepherds, taking to pillage here and there in different places, and afterwards assembling in numbers and forcibly taking settlements; for instance, as those under the command of Eunus16 seized upon Enna.17 And quite recently, during the time that we were at Rome, a certain Selurus, called the son of Ætna, was sent up to that city. He had been the captain of a band of robbers, and had for a long time infested the country round Ætna, committing frequent depredations. We saw him torn to pieces by wild beasts in the forum after a contest of gladiators: he had been set upon a platform fashioned to represent Mount Ætna, which being suddenly unfastened and falling, he was precipitated amongst certain cages of wild beasts, which had also been slightly constructed under the platform for the occasion.
1 Castro-Ioanni.
2 Ovid, in the fourth book of his Fasti, thus alludes to the temple,
“
Grata domus Cereri, multas ea possidet urbes,
In quibus est culto fertilis Enna solo.
” Diodorus Siculus, lib. v. cap. 3, says that there was a fable about the seizure of the virgin [Proserpine] in the meadows near Enna. The locality is very near the town, embellished with violets and all kinds of beautiful flowers. An ancient coin of the place described by Ezech. Spanheim, page 906, is inscribed with the letters M U N. H E N N A E. Pliny, lib. iii. cap. 8, writes, ‘Municipes Hennenses.’
3 About 146 years B. C.
4 The sentence from ‘Eryx’ to ‘notice,’ placed between daggers, seems to have been transposed from the end of § 5; it should immediately succeed the words Ægestus the Trojan.
5 Diodorus Siculus, lib. iv. § 83, tom. i. p. 326, gives a different account of the state of this place at this time.
6 The Carthaginians had destroyed it about 409 years B. C.
7 Some colonists from Rhodes made a settlement here 45 years after the foundation of Syracuse. It was overthrown about 279 years B. C.
8 Milazzo.
9 About 649 B. C.
10 It is supposed that Callipolis anciently occupied the site of Mascalis.
11 Those who inhabited Hybia Minor. We know that Selinus was in existence 640 B. C., and destroyed 268 B. C.
12 Now ruins called di Pollece on the river Madiuni in the Terra de' Pulci.
13 The Leontini arrived in Sicily 728 B. C., and founded Leontini, now Lentini.
14 Eubmœa was destroyed by the tyrant Gelon, who reigned from 491 to 478 B. C. Eubali, Castellazzio, and a place near the little town of Licodia, not far from the source of the Drillo, have been supposed to be the site of the ancient Eubœa. Siebenkees thinks that the words between daggers at the end of § 7 should follow ‘Eubœa.’
15 Lit. barbarians.
16 About 134 B. C.
17 Castro-Ioanni.
The Geography of Strabo. Literally translated, with notes, in three volumes. London. George Bell & Sons. 1903.
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