What to see in Segesta, an ancient city, now uninhabited, located in the north-western part of Sicily on Monte Barbaro, not far from Alcamo and Castellammare del Golfo.
Tourist information
Solitude and grandeur come together in this place immersed in the mountains, where the temple and the theater rise imposingly, the only remains of the glorious past that affected this city.
The origins of Segesta are lost in prehistory before the Greek and Phoenician colonization.
The poet Virgil attributes it to the Trojan Aeneas and the mysterious Elini who were its inhabitants were also of Trojan origin, this according to a theory elaborated by ancient historians.
We still find Segesta in historical times, which has now become Greek and irreducible enemy of Selinunte who threatened its dominion.
Since it was too weak to defend itself, the city first resorted to the support of Athens, subsequently to that of Carthage.
After the sacking carried out by the Syracusan Agotocle, it flourished during the first period of Roman domination, after which it began to gradually decline, until it was irreparably devastated by the vandals and Saracens who caused its destruction.
What see
Of the city of Segesta today there are only a few ruins scattered here and there, in addition to the two large buildings of the Theater and the Temple.
The Temple, erected on a rocky spur, stands out in the middle of the arid hills and represents one of the greatest examples of Doric architecture.
Elegant and imposing, it consists of 36 columns, six of which are frontal in support of the two pediments and the entablature.
Absent the traditional, for this type of construction, the cell of God, which made us believe that there was only one altar intended for the worship of some local divinity.
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A few meters higher, at the top of Monte Barbaro, stands the Theater, a vast semicircle with a diameter greater than sixty meters, comprising a spectacular staircase divided into seven wedges and carved into the rock, beyond which, unexpectedly, opens a wonderful panorama .
