Parco archeologico Segesta

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Segesta was one of the main cities of the Elimi, a people of peninsular culture and tradition that according to ancient tradition, came from Troy. The city, strongly Hellenized in appearance and culture, achieved a leading role among the Sicilian centers and in the Mediterranean basin, to the point of involving Athens and Carthage in its secular hostility with Selinunte. Destroyed Selinunte thanks to the Carthaginian intervention in 408 B.C., Segesta lived with alternate fortunes the following period, until it was conquered and destroyed by Agatocle di Siracusa (in 307 BC), which imposed the name of Dycoopolis, City of Justice. Later, after its name, it passed in the course of the first Punic war to the Romans who, by virtue of the common Trojan legendary origin, exempted it from tributes, endowed it with a vast territory and allowed it a new phase of prosperity. Segesta was completely rescheduled on the model of the great micro-Asian cities, taking on a highly scenographic aspect.

It has long been assumed that Segesta was abandoned after the vandal raids, but recent investigations have detected a late-ancient phase, a large village of Muslim age, followed by a Norman-Swabian settlement, dominated by a castle at the top of Monte Barbaro. Already famous for its two main monuments, the Doric temple and the theater, Segesta now has a new season of discoveries, due to scientific excavations aimed at restoring an overall image of the city. The map shows the area of ​​the Archaeological Park: the city occupied the summit of Monte Barbaro (two acropolis separated by a saddle), naturally defended by steep rock walls on the east and south sides, while the less protected side was provided in the classical age a wall with monumental doors, later replaced (during the first imperial age) by a second line of walls at a higher level.

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