Giardini Naxos is a comune in Messina province on the island of Sicily in Italy. Its population is about 9000 (2002). Naxos, founded in 734 B.C., was the first Greek colony in Sicily. Today it is a popular seaside-resort. In Italy, the comune, (plural comuni) is the basic administrative unit of both provinces and regions, and may be properly approximated in casual speech by the English word township or municipality. ... Messina, Italy Strait of Messina, Italy. ... Sicilian disambiguates here; see also Sicilian language or Sicilian Defence. ... Colonies in antiquity were city-states founded from a mother-city, not from a territory-at-large. ...
ancient Naxos
Founded by Thucles the Chalcidian in 734 B.C., it was never a powerful city, but its temple of Apollo Archegetes, protecting deity of all the Greek colonies, gave it prominence in religious affairs. Leontini and Catania were both colonized from here. Hippocrates, tyrant of Gela, captured it in 494 B.C. Its opposition to Syracuse ultimately led to its capture and destruction in 403 B.C. at the hands of Dionysius the tyrant, after it had supported Athens during that city's disastrous Sicilian Expedition. Though the site continued to be inhabited, most activity shifted to neighbouring Tauromenium. Leontini (mod. ... Location within Italy Catania is the second largest city of Sicily with 306,464 inhabitants, has the second highest population density on the island and is the capital of the province which bears its name. ... Gela is a commune in the province of Caltanissetta, in the island of Sicily, Italy. ... Map of central Mediterranean Sea, showing location of Syracuse on the island of Sicily. ... This page is about Dionysius the tyrant of Syracuse. ... A tyrant (from Greek Ï„ÏÏαννος týrannos) is a usurper of rightful power, possessing absolute power and ruling by tyranny. ... Athens (Greek: Αθήνα AthÃna IPA ) is the capital of Greece and one of the most famous cities in the world. ... The Sicilian Expedition was an Athenian expedition to Sicily from 415 BC to 413 BC, during the Peloponnesian War. ... Greek Theater in Taormina Taormina is a town on the island of Sicily in Italy, and in ancient times was a Greek colony (Tauromenium), dating from about 400 BC, which submitted to Roman authority in 212 BC during the Second Punic War. ...
Naxos in antiquity: Founded by Thucles the Chalcidian in 734 BC, it was never a powerful city, but its temple of Apollo Archegetes, protecting deity of all the Greek colonies, gave it prominence in religious affairs.
The Naxos Museum of Archaeology, located in the Tower of Capo Schisò, cointains archaeological items found during the recent excavations in the area of the old Greek colony, including prehistorical objects of the Neolithic Age, as well as items from the early Greek period to the late Roman and Byzantine ones.
Next to the Museum is the Archaeological Park, with remains of the old walls of Naxos, built in huge lava blocks, small temples (in Latin called sacelli), a sacred area of the 7th century BC dedicated probably to Aphrodite, furnaces probably used for baking pottery, votive items, construction tiles.
According to Thucydides, Naxos was founded in 735 B.C. by settlers from Khalkis (Evvoia) and the Cycladic island of Naxos, after which the new town was named.
The subsequent fortunes of Naxos were determined by the tension which existed between the Ionians (Naxos and its satellites) and the Doric Greeks from Syracuse and Gela.
In a revenge campaign in 403 B.C. Dionysios I of Syracuse, aided by a deserter from the town, conquered Naxos, razed it to the ground and enslaved the population.
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