Search Results: Gela

Gela (Greek: Ghéla), in southern Sicily, was a Greek colony founded c. 689 BCE and it remained an important cultural centre throughout antiquity. Prospering on trade and expanding its territory, the city-state founded Agrigento. In the 5th...

A silver coin depicting a man-headed bull from Gela, Sicily. 5th century BCE (Numismatics Museum, Athens)

The walls are the most important monument that has come to us from Hellenistic Gela, preserved in a truly extraordinary way thanks to the sudden cover-up of the area. They are located at the western end of the modern city, in the locality...

Equivalent to four drachmae, this coin is perhaps the most beautiful issued by the Gela mint, made by an unidentified engraver named as the "Master of Sosipolis" (440 BCE). The characteristic of this tetradrachm is the presence of a female...

The Mediterranean island of Sicily, with its natural resources and strategic position on ancient trading routes, aroused the intense interest of successive empires from Carthage to Athens to Rome. Consequently, the island was never far from...

From around 800 BCE, ancient Greek city-states, most of which were maritime powers, began to look beyond Greece for land and resources. As a consequence, they founded colonies across the Mediterranean. Trade was usually the first step in...

There are at least a thousand reasons to visit Sicily, the great island – indeed the largest in the Mediterranean – that forms the triangular football to the boot that is the Italian peninsula. They are all very good reasons, including amazing...

It is a well-known fact that Sicily, the largest island in the Mediterranean sea, went through a quite complex prehistoric period. So much so that it is difficult to navigate through the muddle of people that have followed each other over...

Agathocles of Syracuse (c. 361 - 289 BCE) ruled as tyrant of the Sicilian city for over 25 years. Ambitious, unprincipled, and seeing himself as a new Alexander, he famously attacked Carthage in a three-year campaign and made conquests in...

Magna Graecia (Megalē Hellas) refers to the coastal areas of southern Italy which were colonized by various ancient Greek city-states from the 8th to 5th centuries BCE. Sicily, although also a region of Greek colonization, is not usually...