★ 21 Selinunte

Selinunte was one of the most important of the Greek colonies in Sicily, situated on the southwest coast of that island, at the mouth of the small river of the same name, and 6.5 km west of the Hypsas river (the modern Belice). It was founded, according to the historian Thucydides, by a colony from the Sicilian city of Megara Hyblaea, under the leadership of a man called Pammilus, about 100 years after the foundation of Megara Hyblaea, with the help of colonists from Megara in Greece, which was Megara Hyblaea's mother city. The date of its foundation cannot be precisely fixed, as Thucydides indicates it only by reference to the foundation of Megara Hyblaea, which is itself not accurately known, but it may be placed about 628 BC. Diodorus places it 22 years earlier, or 650 BC, and Hieronymus still further back in 654 BC. The date from Thucydides, which is probably the most likely, is incompatible with this earlier date. The name is supposed to have been derived from quantities of wild celery (Ancient Greek: σέλινον, romanized: (selinon)) that grew on the spot. For the same reason, they adopted the celery leaf as the symbol on their coins.
Selinunte was the most westerly of the Greek colonies in Sicily, and for this reason they soon came into contact with the Phoenicians of western Sicily and the native Sicilians in the west and northwest of the island. The Phoenicians do not at first seem to have conflicted with them; but as early as 580 BC the Selinuntines were engaged in hostilities with the non-Greek Elymian people of Segesta, whose territory bordered their own. A body of emigrants from Rhodes and Cnidus who subsequently founded Lipara, supported the Segestans on this occasion, leading to their victory; but disputes and hostilities between the Segestans and…

The ancient city is beside the sea, between the Modione River in the west and the Cottone River in the east, on two high areas connected by a narrow isthmus. The part of the city to the south, next to the sea, contains the acropolis which is based around two intersecting streets and contains many temples (A, B, C, D, O). The part of the city on the Mannuzza Hill to the north, further inland, contained housing on the Hippodamian plan contemporary with the acropolis and two necropoleis (Galera-Bagliazzo and Manuzza).
Other important remains are found on the high places across the rivers to the east and west of the city. In the east there are three temples (E, F, G) and a necropolis (Buffa) north of the modern village of Marinella. In the west are the most ancient remains of Selinus: the Sanctuary of the Malophoros and the archaic necropolis (Pipio, Manicalunga, Timpone Nero). The two ports of the city were in the mouths of the city's two rivers.
The modern Archaeological park, which covers about 270 hectares can therefore be divided into the following areas:

The Acropolis at the centre with temples and fortifications
Gaggera Hill in the West, with the sanctuary of Malophoros
Mannuzza Hill in the north with ancient housing
The East Hill in the east, with other temples
The necropoleis

The Acropolis

The acropolis is on a limestone massif with a cliff face falling into the sea in the south, while the north end narrows to 140 m wide. The settlement was in the form of a massive trapezoid, extended to the north with a large retaining wall in terraces (about eleven metres high) and surrounded by a wall (repeatedly restored and modified) with an exterior of squared stone blocks and an interior of rough stone (emplecton). It had five towers and four gates. To the north, the…

The coins of Selinus are numerous and various. The earliest, as already mentioned, bear merely the figure of a parsley-leaf on the obverse. Those of somewhat later date represent a figure sacrificing on an altar, which is consecrated to Aesculapius, as indicated by a cock that stands below it. The subject of this type evidently refers to a story related by Diogenes Laërtius that the Selinuntines were afflicted with a pestilence from the marshy character of the lands adjoining the neighboring river, but that this was cured by works of drainage, suggested by Empedocles. A figure standing on some coins is the river-god Selinus, who was thus made conducive to the salubrity of the city.
The Seal of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine is based on a coin of Selinus struck in 466 BC which was designed by the sculptor and medallist Allan Gairdner Wyon FRBS RMS (1882–1962). It shows two Greek gods associated with health – Apollo, the god of prophecy, music and medicine, and his sister Artemis, goddess of hunting and chastity, and comforter of women in childbirth – in a horse-drawn chariot. Artemis is driving while her brother the great archer is shooting arrows. The fruitful date palm was added to indicate the tropical activities of the School but also has a close connection with Apollo and Artemis: when their mother Leto gave birth to them on the island of Delos, miraculously a palm sprang up to give her shade in childbirth. Asclepius, Apollo's son, was the god of ancient Greek medicine, and was frequently shown holding a staff entwined with a snake. Snakes were used in this healing cult to lick the affected part of the patient. Significantly Asclepius' daughters were Hygeia (the goddess of health) and Panacea (the healer of all ailments). Asclepius' staff with a…

The Great Table of Selinus was discovered in the adyton of Temple G in 1871. It contains a catalogue of the cults practiced at Selinus and is therefore the basis for all attempts to determine the cults of the various temples of Selinus. It says "The Selinuntines are victorious thanks to the gods Zeus, Phobos, Heracles, Apollo, Poseidon, the Tyndaridae, Athena, Demeter, Pasicrateia and other gods, but especially thanks to |eus. After the restoration of peace it was decreed that a work be done in gold with the names of the gods inscribed, with Zeus at the top and that it be deposited in the Temple of Apollo, and that sixtent talents of gold be spent on this."
The figurative art recovered at Selinus is very important and much of it is kept in the Regional Archeological Museum Antonio Salinas. The best examples of the distinctive archaic artistic style of Selinus are the metopes (most of which are discussed above in the context of their temples).
The Ephebe of Selinus is a bronze statue of an ephebe offering a libation, cast in a severe style, with features typical of the Greek West and dating to 470 BC. Apart from the Ram of Syracuse, it represents the only large-scale bronze work which has survived from Greek Sicily. It is kept at Castelvetrano. The discovery happened by chance in the Ponte Galera district near Selinunte, home to one of the Selinuntine necropolises. It was discovered by chance in 1882 by two young boys digging the earth hoping to find gold objects to sell from the rich tombs of Selinunte. It was likely laid in a clay sarcophagus and hidden during dangerous times as it was not part of a funerary collection. At the end of the Punic invasion the owners had never recovered it so it had escaped the clutches of the Carthaginians.
The necropoleis have yielded a…