History and Myth
The History
Taormina is a historical city of the ancient Magna Graecia (Greater Greece - Megalê Hellas/Μεγάλη Έλλάς), i.e. the area in Southern Italy and Sicily that was inhabited by Greek settlers since the 8th century BC. Greek colonies were in fact widely spread in a region ranging from the eastern coast of the Black Sea to Marseille, including settlements in Sicily and the southern part of the Italian peninsula. Romans called the Sicily and southern part of Italy as Magna Graecia, since it was so densely inhabited by Greeks. A significant part of Greek culture on the island was that of Greek religion and many temples were built across Sicily, such as the Valley of the Temples at Agrigento. Politics on the island was intertwined with that of Greece and Syracuse became desired by the Athenians, who during Peloponnesian War set out on the Sicilian Expedition. Syracuse gained Sparta and Corinth as allies, as a result the Athenian army and ships were destroyed, with most of the survivors being sold into slavery.
While Greek Syracuse controlled much of Sicily, there were a few Carthaginian colonies in the far west of the island. When the two cultures began to clash, the Sicilian Wars erupted. Greece began to make peace with the Roman Republic in 262 BC and the Romans sought to annex Sicily as its empire's first province. Rome intervened in the First Punic War, crushing Carthage so that by 242 BC Sicily had become the first Roman province outside of the Italian Peninsula. The Second Punic War, in which Archimedes was killed, saw Carthage trying to take Sicily from the Roman Empire. They failed and this time Rome was even more unrelenting in the annihilation of the invaders.
The two Punic wars brought to Rome the government of North Africa and the control of the Mediterranean Sea, that become so far the “Mare Nostrum”.
The religion of Christianity first appeared in Sicily during the years following 200 AD, between this time and 313 AD when Constantine the Great finally lifted the prohibition, a significant number of Sicilians became martyrs such as Agatha, Christina, Lucy, Euplius and many more. Christianity grew rapidly in Sicily during the next two centuries, the period of history where Sicily was a Roman province lasted for around 700 years in total.
As the Roman Empire was falling apart, a Germanic tribe known as the Vandals took Sicily in 440 AD under the rule of their king Geiseric, but they soon lost these newly acquired possessions to another East Germanic tribe in the form of the Goths. The Ostrogothic conquest of Sicily (and Italy as a whole) under Theodoric the Great began in 488; although the Goths were Germanic, Theodoric sought to revive Roman culture and government and allowed freedom of religion.
The Gothic War took place between the Ostrogoths and the Eastern Roman Empire, also known as the Byzantine Empire, whose Sicily became so part along three centuries, but by the 11th century mainland southern Italian powers were hiring ferocious Norman mercenaries, who were Christian descendants of the Vikings.
Palermo continued on as the capital under the Normans. During this period the Kingdom of Sicily was prosperous and politically powerful, becoming one of the wealthiest states in all of Europe, while in terms of church it would become completely Roman Catholic, previously under the Byzantines it had been more Eastern Christian.
From 1282 Sicily was ruled by Spanish and finally became part of the kingdom of Piedmont, that unified Italy in a single Country.
The real unification of Italy started in 1860 with the landing in Sicily of the expedition of General Giuseppe Garibaldi together with his 1000 volunteers. After the Expedition of the Thousand, Sicily became part of the Kingdom of Italy in 1860 as part of the Risorgimento. The conquest started at Marsala and was finally completed with the Siege of Gaeta where the final Bourbons were expelled and Garibaldi announced his dictatorship in the name of Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia.
In the 20th century, the Allied invasion of Sicily on July 9th 1943, was a major World War II campaign, in which the Allies took Sicily from the Axis (Italy and Germany). It was a large scale amphibious and airborne operation, followed by six weeks of land combat. It launched the Italian Campaign in World War II.
A hundred-headed monster—when he fell,
Resistless Typhoon who withstood the Gods,
…
Flashed for the ravage of the realm of Zeus.
But on him came the bolt that never sleeps,
…
And now a heap, a helpless, sprawling hulk,
He lies stretched out beside the narrow seas,
Pounded and crushed deep under Aetna's roots.
But on the mountain-top Hephaestus sits
Forging the molten iron, whence shall burst
Rivers of fire, with red and ravening jaws
To waste fair-fruited, smooth, Sicilian fields.
The above words comes from the “Prometheus Bound” by Aeschylus (525-456 BC). In the text Prometheus speaks about the beginning of the Greek world when Gaia (Mother Earth), angry that her “adorable little” Titans had in turn been imprisoned, gave birth to one last offspring, a horrid creature named Typhoon.
At a glance when the gods saw Typhoon coming at them, they changed themselves into animals, ran and hid by the Pyramids down in Egypt.
Later Zeus regained his courage and a terrible battle raged. Zeus stunned Typhoon with a thunderbolt. As Typhoon tore up huge Mount Aetna to hurl, Zeus used the thunder and lightning. Unleashing one hundred well-aimed lightning bolts at the mountain, it fell back, pinning Typhoon underneath. Typhoon was buried under Mount Aetna in Sicily and there he lies to this day, belching fire, lava and smoke through the top of the mountain. Hephaestus was the god of fire, blacksmiths and technology that consequently settled his workshop on the top of Mount Aetna.
