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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 advantages it offered for operations against Panormus; but the inhabitants readily capitulated.
In the First Punic War it was occupied by a Carthaginian garrison, but after the fall of Panormus drove out these troops and opened its gates to the Romans. Under the Roman government it appears as a municipal town, but not one of much importance. The Ietini are only noticed in passing by Cicero among the towns whose lands had been utterly ruined by the exactions of Verres; and the Ietenses are enumerated by Pliny among the populi stipendiarii of the interior of Sicily. Many manuscripts of Cicero read 'Letini', and it is probable that the Λῆτον of Ptolemy is only a corruption of the same name. The town minted coins in antiquity, examples of which survive.
The position of Ietas is very obscurely intimated in ancient sources, but it appears from Diodorus that it was not very remote from Panormus, and that its site was one of great natural strength. Silius Italicus also alludes to its elevated situation. Fazello assures us that there was a mediaeval fortress called Iato on the summit of a lofty mountain, about 25 km from Palermo, and 20 km north of Entella, which was destroyed by Frederick II at the same time as the latter city; and this he identified as the site of Ietas. The mountain is still called Monte Iato, though formerly known as Monte di San Cosmano, from a church on its summit.
References:The settlement of Trepucó is one of the largest on Menorca, covering an area of around 49,240 square metres. Today, only a small part of the site can still be seen, the two oldest buildings, the talaiots (1000-700 BCE). Other remains include parts of the wall, two square towers on the west wall, the taula enclosure and traces of dwellings from the post-Talayotic period (650-123 BCE).The taula enclosure is one of the biggest on the island, despite having been subjected to what, by today’s standards, would be considered clumsy restoration work. This is one of the sites excavated around 1930 by Margaret Murray, a British archaeologist who was a pioneer of scientific research on Prehistoric Menorca.
The houses are perfectly visible on the west side of the settlement, due to excavation work carried out several years ago. They are multi-lobed with a central patio area and several rooms arranged around the outside. Looking at the settlement, it is easy to see that there was a clear division between the communal area (between the large talaiot and the taula) and the domestic area.The houses near the smaller talaiot seem to have been abandoned at short notice, meaning that the archaeological dig uncovered exceptionally well-preserved domestic implements, now on display in the Museum of Menorca.The larger talayot and the taula stand at the centre of a star-shaped fortification built during the 18th century.