According to Thucydides (vi:2), before the arrival of Greek colonists, the Sicels (or Siculi) were one of the three tribes who inhabited Sicily: the Sicels (Greek Sikeloi) in eastern Sicily (as well as southern Italy), who spoke an Indo-European language, and the Sicani (Greek Sikanoi) and Elymi (Greek Elymoi) in central and western Sicily, who may have spoken non-Indo-European languages, although this is not quite certain, particularly with regard to the Elymian language, which some would consider related to Ligurian or to Anatolian. The common assumption is that the Sicels were the more recent arrivals. The Sicels have given Sicily the name it has held since antiquity, but they were rapidly absorbed into the culture of Magna Graecia. Bust of Thucydides Thucydides (between 460 and 455 BC–circa 400 BC, Greek Θουκυδίδης, Thoukudídês) was an ancient Greek historian, and the author of the History of the Peloponnesian War, which recounts the 5th century BC war between Sparta and Athens. ... Colonies in antiquity were city-states founded from a mother-city, not from a territory-at-large. ... Sicily (Sicilia in Italian) is an autonomous region of Italy and the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, with an area of 25,700 sq. ... The Sicani (or Sikanoi) were an ancient people of Italy who dwelt along the Tiber river. ... The Elymian people (Greek Elymoi, Latin Elymi) were an ancient civilization located in Sicily. ... The Elymian people (Greek Elymoi, Latin Elymi) were an ancient civilization located in Sicily. ... The Ligurian language was spoken in pre-Roman times and into the Roman era by an ancient people of north-western Italy and south-eastern France known as the Liguri. ... The Anatolian languages are a group of extinct languages, either Indo-European or (in some classifications) closely related to Indo-European, which were spoken in Asia Minor, including Hittite. ... Sicily (Sicilia in Italian) is an autonomous region of Italy and the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, with an area of 25,700 sq. ... Magna Graecia (Latin for Greater Greece, Megalê Hellas/Μεγάλη Ελλάς in Greek) is the name of the area in ancient southern Italy that was colonised by ancient Greek settlers in the 8th century BCE. Sources differ on whether it included Sicily, as well as Apulia and Calabria. ...

Thucydides and other classical writers were aware of the traditions according to which the Sicels had once lived in Central Italy, east and even north of Rome (Servius' commentary on Aeneid VII.795; Dionysius of Halicarnassus i.9.22). Thence they were dislodged by Umbrian and Sabine tribes, and finally crossed into Sicily. Maurus (or Marius) Servius Honoratius, Roman grammarian and commentator on Virgil, flourished at the end of the 4th century AD. He is one of the interlocutors in the Saturnalia of Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius, and allusions in that work and a letter from Quintus Aurelius Symmachus to Servius show that he... The Aeneid is a Latin epic written by Virgil in the 1st century BC that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who traveled to Italy where he became the ancestor of the Romans. ... Dionysius Halicarnassensis (of Halicarnassus), Greek historian and teacher of rhetoric, flourished during the reign of Augustus. ... Umbrian, an Indo-European language of the Italic family, is a dead language formerly spoken in Umbria, Italy. ... Sabine (in Latin and in Italian, Sabina) is a sub-region of Latium, Italy, on the North-East of Rome toward Rieti. ...

Of the Sicel language we know a little from glosses of ancient writers and from some inscriptions. It is thought that the Sicels did not employ writing until they were influenced by the Greek colonists. The first inscription was found on a spouted jug found at Centuripe; it uses a Greek alphabet of the 5th or 6th century BCE. Four Sicel inscriptions have been found in recent decades. An important inscription has been found at Centuripe. A Sicel necropolis has been found at Noto. Sicel was an ancient language spoken by the Sicels (Greek Sikeloi, Latin Siculi), one of the three indigenous (i. ... Noto, a city of Sicily, in the province of Syracuse, and 20 miles southwest of it, 520 feet above sea-level. ...

Their characteristic cult of the Palici is influenced by Greek myth in the version that has survived, in which the local nymph Talia bore to Adranus, the volcanic god whom the Greeks idenified with Hephaestus, twin sons, who were "twice-born (palin "newly"; ikein "to come"), born first of their nymph mother, and then of the earth, because of the "jealousy" of Hera, who urged Mother Earth, Gaia, to swallow up the nymph. Then the soil parted, giving birth to the twins, who were venerated in Sicily as patrons of navigation and of agriculture. In the most archaic level of Greek mythology, a titan, Tityos, grew so vast that he split his mother's womb and had to be carried to term by Gaia herself. He came to the attention of later Greek mythographers only when he attempted to waylay Leto near Delphi. If such a mytheme is set into action as ritual, it is unavoidable to see a pair of sacrificial children who are laid in the earth to encourage the green growth. The term Palici refers to twin gods in Roman and, to a lesser extent, Greek mythology. ... Adranus was a fire god worshipped by the Sicels, the original inhabitants of the island of Sicily. ... In Rubens gritty Vulcan [Hephaestus] forging the thunderbolts of Jove, only the title is mythic in an essay in realism illuminated by the firelight of the forge. ... In the Olympian pantheon of classical Greek Mythology, Hêra (Greek or ) was the wife and sister of Zeus. ... Gaia (land or earth, from the Greek Γαία; variant spelling Gaea—see also also Ge from Γη) is a Greek goddess personifying the Earth. ... Greek mythology comprises the collected narratives of Greek gods, goddesses, heroes, and heroines, originally created and spread within an oral-poetic tradition. ... In Greek mythology, the Titans (Greek Τιτάν, plural Τιτᾶνες) are among a series of gods, some of whom opposed Zeus and the Olympian gods in their ascent to power. ... In Greek mythology Lētō (Greek: Λητώ, Lato in Dorian Greek, the hidden one) is known to be a daughter of the Titans Coeus and Phoebe, and in the Olympian scheme of things, Zeus is the father of her twins, Apollo and Artemis. ... A ritual is a formalised, predetermined set of symbolic actions generally performed in a particular environment at a regular, recurring interval. ...

In the temple to Adranus, father of the Palici, the Sicels kept an eternal fire. A god Hybla (or goddess Hyblaea), after whom three towns were named, had a sanctuary at Hybla Gereatis. The connection of Demeter and Kore with Henna (the rape of Proserpine) and of the nymph Arethusa with Syracuse is due to Greek influence. Dêmêtêr (or Demetra) (DEH-MEH-ter) (mother-goddess or perhaps distribution-mother) is the Greek goddess of agriculture, the pure nourisher of youth and the green earth, the health-giving cycle of life and death, and preserver of marriage and the sacred law. ... Bust of Persephone In Greek mythology, Persephone (per-SE-fo-neh) was the queen of the Underworld, the Kore or maiden, daughter of Demeter. ... Enna, the ancient Henna, is located in the center of Sicily, towering above the surrounding countryside. ... There is also an asteroid 26 Proserpina and a character in Larry Nivens Known Space universe called Proserpina. ... Arethusa means the waterer. In Greek mythology, Arethusa was one of the Hesperides A nymph, daughter of Nereus (making her a Nereid), Arethusa ran from a suitor, Alpheus, the river god, making her way to Sicily. ... Map of central Mediterranean Sea, showing location of Syracuse on the island of Sicily. ...

The chief Sicel towns were: Agyrium (Agira); Centuripa or Centuripae (Centorbi, but now once again called Centuripe); Henna (Castrogiovanni, which is a corruption of Castrum Hennae through the Arabic Qasr-janni, but since Fascism once again called Enna); and three sites named Hybla: Hybla Major, called Geleatis or Gereatis, on the river Symaethus; Hybla Minor, on the east coast north of Syracuse (possibly pre-dating the Dorian colony of Hyblaean Megara); and Hybla Heraea in the south of Sicily. Enna, the ancient Henna, is located in the center of Sicily, towering above the surrounding countryside. ... The Dorians were one of the ancient Illyrian (Greek) tribes acknowledged by Greek writers. ... Megara Hyblaea (perhaps identical with Hybla Major) is the name of an ancient Greek colony in Sicily, situated on the east coast, 12 miles NNW of Syracuse. ...

External link

• Archaic Italy: the Siculi

Further reading

• L. Bernabò Brea, 1966. Sicily Before the Greeks (rev ised edition; originally published in Italian, 1966)