Ancient Greek Sites
Temple of Juno Lacinia
The Temple of Juno Lacinia is a ruined ancient Greek temple dedicated to Hera (Juno) located on Capo Colonna in Calabria. The remaining feature is a Doric column with capital, about 8.2 m in height. Remains of marble roof-tiles have been seen on the spot and architectural fragments were excavated in 1886–1887 by the Archaeological Institute of America. The sculptures found were mostly buried again, but a few fragments, ...
Founded: 480-440 BCE |
Location:
Capo Colonna, Italy
Itanos
Itanos was particularly powerful community during the Greek era and it was flourishing by the seventh century BC. Itanos was continuously at war with its neighbours Praisos, and later Hierapytna. In the 8th century AD Itanos was destroyed in an earthquake but the inhabitants stayed and rebuilt the town. Only in the 15th century after attacks by pirates the town was finally destroyed and deserted. Because the west of Cr ...
Founded: 700 BC |
Location:
Vai, Greece
Megara Hyblaea
Megara Hyblaea is an ancient Greek colony in Sicily It was founded about 728 BC by colonists from Megara in Attica. In 628 the city established a colony at Selinus but in 483 was destroyed by the Syracusan leader Gelon. The city had a brief independent existence in the 4th century BC, when it issued coinage, but is heard of mainly as a fortified place. Excavations carried on in 1891 led to the discovery of the nor ...
Founded: 728 BCE |
Location:
Augusta, Italy
Morgantina
Morgantina is an archaeological site in east central Sicily. It was inhabited in several periods. According to Strabo Morgantina was founded by a pre-Roman Italian group known as the Morgetes of Rhegium. Dionysius of Halicarnassus wrote that the Morgetes were led by a king named Morges. The earliest historical date associated with Morgantina is 459 BCE, when Ducetius, leader of the indigenous Sicel population of central S ...
Founded: 5th century BCE |
Location:
Aidone, Italy
Ietas
Ietas was an ancient town in the modern comune of San Giuseppe Jato. Ietas was mentioned by Philistus as a fortress, and it is called by Thucydides a fortress of the Siculians, which was taken by Gylippus on his march from Himera through the interior of the island towards Syracuse. It first appears as an independent city in the time of Pyrrhus, and was attacked by that monarch on account of its strong position and the ad ...
Founded: 6th century BC |
Location:
San Giuseppe Jato, Italy
Diana Archaeological Park
The Archaeological Park of Lipari is located at the Diana district. In the park there are the remains of walls for a length of about 50 m, a tower of the 4th century BCE and some Roman fortifications built by Sextus Pompey. Behind the Greek walls there are buildings of the Imperial-Roman period (2nd century AD). Within the walls there is a street with some home facades of the Imperial-Roman period, mainly located under t ...
Founded: 4th century BCE |
Location:
Lipari, Italy
Scylletium
Scylletium was situated on the east coast of Calabria (ancient Bruttium), According to a tradition generally received in ancient times, Scylletium was founded by an Athenian colony, a part of the followers who had accompanied Menestheus to the Trojan War. But no historical value can be attached to such statements, and there is no trace in historical times of Scylletium having been a Greek colony, still less an Athenian on ...
Founded: 4th century BCE |
Location:
Catanzaro, Italy
Heraclea Minoa
Heraclea Minoa was an ancient Greek city situated near the mouth of the river Halycus (modern Platani). Excavations have revealed several parts of the city which are now open to the public. Archaeological finds from the necropolis show the city was founded in the mid-6th century BC. The first written mention of the city is of a small town and a colony of the Greek settlement of Selinus. The city was only briefly under th ...
Founded: 6th century BCE |
Location:
Cattolica Eraclea, Italy
Temple of Artemis
The Temple of Artemis is an Archaic Greek temple in Corfu, Greece, built in around 580 BC in the ancient city of Korkyra. The temple was dedicated to Artemis. It is known as the first Doric temple exclusively built with stone. It is also considered the first building to have incorporated all of the elements of the Doric architectural style. Very few Greek temple reliefs from the Archaic period have survived, and the large ...
Founded: 580 BCE |
Location:
Corfu, Greece
Temple of Victory
The Greek Temple of Victory (Greek Nikē) was located in the ancient city of Himera, today in the archaeological area of Termini Imerese. The temple dates to the fifth century BC and has been identified with the temple built by the Carthaginians at the command of the tyrant Gelon of Syracuse, who commanded the Greek coalition which defeated them at the Battle of Himera in 480 BC. Probably dedicated to Athena, the build ...
Founded: 5th century BC |
Location:
Termini Imerese, Italy
Gournia
The Late Minoan town of Gournia was excavated by Harriet Boyd in the first years of the 20th century. The original name of the settlement is not known and its present name comes from the hollow vessels found all over the site, many of which can still be seen at the entrances to the rooms. Gournia lies on a small hill, a few hundred metres from the sea in the Gulf of Mirabello. Its position is important as it lies on the ...
Founded: 1700 BC |
Location:
Ierapetra, Greece
Lissos
Lissos and Syia were the harbours of the city of Elyros, the most important ancient city of the area, located near the village Rodovani. It was established in the Classical period and flourished until the Late Antiquity. The early history of the city is unknown. Based on inscriptions and coins of the 3rd century BC, we know the city allied with King Magas of Cyrene, and joined the League of Oreians. Lissos had powerfu ...
Founded: 400 BC |
Location:
Kandanos Selinos, Greece
Halaesa
Halaesa was an ancient city of Sicily, situated near the north coast of the island. The city was of Siculian origin; in 403 BC the tyrant Archonides of Herbita, having concluded peace with Dionysius I of Syracuse, gave the northern part of his territory to the Sicilians as well as to mercenaries and others who had helped him during the war. He named it Halaesa, to which the epithet Archonidea was frequently added for the ...
Founded: 403 BCE |
Location:
Tusa, Italy
Temple of Demeter
The so-called Temple of Demeter (the remains of which are located below of the church of San Biagio) can be dated between 480 and 470 BCE. This temple offers an interesting example of distylous building in antis, i.e.without an outer colonnade. It has a simple cella preceded by a pronaos (ante-room) with two columns. Still preserved from the original structure are the base (30 by 13 m approx and partly visible), the oute ...
Founded: 480 BCE |
Location:
Agrigento, Italy
Sybaris
Sybaris was an important city of Magna Graecia. The city was founded in 720 BC by Achaean and Troezenian settlers. Sybaris amassed great wealth thanks to its fertile land and busy port. Its inhabitants became famous among the Greeks for their hedonism, feasts, and excesses, to the extent that 'sybarite' and 'sybaritic' have become bywords for opulence, luxury and outrageous pleasure-seeking. In 510/09 BC the city was su ...
Founded: 720 BCE |
Location:
Cassano all'Ionio, Italy
Kamarina
Kamarina was an ancient city on the southern coast of Sicily. It was founded by Syracuse in 599 BC, but destroyed in 552 BC. The Geloans, however, founded it anew in 461 BC, under the Olympic charioteer Psaumis of Camarina. It seems to have been in general hostile to Syracuse, but, though an ally of Athens in 427 BC, it gave some slight help to Syracuse in 415–413 BC. It was destroyed by the Carthaginians in 405 BC, re ...
Founded: 599 BCE |
Location:
Vittoria, Italy
Helorus
Helorus was an ancient Greek city of Sicily, situated near the east coast. It was probably a colony of Syracuse, of which it appears to have continued always a dependency. The name is first found in Scylax; for, though Thucydides repeatedly mentions the road leading to Helorus from Syracuse, which was that followed by the Athenians in their disastrous retreat, he never speaks of the town itself. It was one of the cities w ...
Founded: 8th century BCE |
Location:
Noto, Italy
Azoria
Azoria is an archaeological site on a double-peaked hill overlooking the Gulf of Mirabello in eastern Crete. The excavations have recovered evidence of an Archaic Greek city, established c. 600 BC, following a long period of continuous occupation throughout the Early Iron Age or Greek Dark Age (1200-700 BC) and Early Archaic (700-600 BC) (or Orientalizing) periods. The city was destroyed by fire early in the 5th ...
Founded: 600 BC |
Location:
Kavousi, Greece
Cave di Cusa
Cave di Cusa was an ancient stone quarry in Sicily. This site was quarried beginning in the first half of the 6th century BC and its stone was used to construct the temples in the ancient Greek city Selinunte. It was abandoned in 409 BC when the city was captured by the Carthaginians. It is now an official Sicilian Archeological Zone and a popular tourist site.
Founded: 559 BC |
Location:
Campobello di Mazara, Italy
Capo Soprano
Built in 333 BC along Gela"s western coastline at Capo Soprano by the tyrant of Syracuse, Timoleon, Gela"s ancient Greek fortifications are remarkably well preserved, most likely the result of being covered by sand dunes for thousands of years before their discovery in 1948. The 8m-high walls were originally built to prevent huge amounts of sand being blown into the city by the blustery sea wind. Today authoriti ...
Founded: 333 BCE |
Location:
Gela, Italy