Sicily, the “Four Corners” of that little ancient world that was bounded on the west by the Pillars of Hercules, is to southern Europe what Britain is to northern Europe, Chief of Isles, universal Cross-roads. Sicily lies nearer both to Africa and to Europe than any other Mediterranean island, and is the true connecting link between East and West. Battle-ground of contending races and creeds, it has been soaked over and over again in the blood of the strong men who fought each other for its possession. There has never been a Sicilian nation. Perhaps that is the reason the story of the island is so hard to follow, it’s all snarled up with the history of first one, then another nation. The most obvious way of learning something about Sicily is to read what historians have to say about it; a pleasanter way is to listen to what the poets from Homer to Goethe have sung of it, paying special heed to Theocritus—he knew Sicily better than anybody else before his time or since! Then there’s the geologist’s story—you can’t spare that; it’s the key to all the rest. The best way of all is to go to Sicily, and there fit together what little bits of knowledge you have or can lay your hands upon, —scraps of history, poetry, geology. You will be surprised how well the different parts of the picture-puzzle, now knocking about loose in your mind, will fit together, and what a good picture, once put together, they will give you of Sicily.
When a child in the nursery, you learned the story of the earliest time! How Kronos threw down his scythe, and it sank into the earth and made the harbor of Messina. (The geologists hint that the wonderful round, land-locked harbor is the crater of a sunken volcano, but you and I cling to the legend of Kronos.) In that golden age of childhood, you learned the story of the burning mountain, Etna, and went wandering through the purple fields of Sicily with Demeter, seeking her lost daughter, Persephone. You raced with Ulysses and his men from the angry Cyclops down to that lovely shore, put out to sea with them, and felt the boat whirled from its course and twisted like a leaf in the whirlpool current of Charybdis. When you left the nursery for the schoolroom, you learned the names of the succeeding nations that have ruled Sicily, every one of whom has left some enduring trace of their presence. As you cross from the mainland of Italy to this Sicily, you can, if you will use your memory and imagination, see in fancy the hosts who have crossed before you, eager, as you are, to make this jewel of the south their own.
First of all, look for the Sicans; some say they are of the same pre-Aryan race as the Basques. After the Sicans come the Sikels. They are Latins, people we feel quite at home with; their coming marks the time when the age of fable ends and history begins. Next come the Phoenicians, the great traders of the world, bringing the rich gift of commerce. They set up their trading stations near the coasts, as they did in Spain, and bartered with the natives—a peaceful people—as they bartered with the Iberians of the Peninsula. The real fighting began when the Greeks came, bringing their great gift of Art. Sicily now became part of Magna Graecia, and rose to its apogee of power and glory. Syracuse was the chief of the Greek cities of Sicily. The Greek rulers were called Tyrants. They were great rulers indeed; the greatest of them, Dionysius, ruled 406 B.C. Then came the heavy-handed Romans and the first glory of Sicily was at end. The Romans made a granary of Sicily and carried off its treasures to adorn imperial Rome. They stayed a long time, but with the crumbling of the Roman Empire there came a change in Sicily, the first Roman province, and for a time the Goths and the Byzantines ruled her. Then came the Saracens.
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