Ancient Sicily: The History and Legacy of the Mediterranean's Largest Island in Antiquity

*Includes pictures*Includes ancient accounts*Includes online resources and a bibliography for further readingIt is hard to find an island on the map more central than Sicily. Located at the crossroads between Europe and Africa, and between the Eastern and Western Mediterranean, Sicily has rarely been governed as an independent, unified state. Nonetheless, the island has always occupied a front-row seat to some of the most important events in history, and nowhere is this more obvious than during antiquity.Very fertile in ancient times, Sicily was especially prized for its grain production. The island had been inhabited by native tribes since prehistoric times, but by the 9th and 8th centuries BCE, Sicily would be the staging area for a confrontation between the Greeks and the Phoenicians, seafaring powers that scrambled to establish colonies along its coasts. These colonies, in time, would grow independent, and by the Classical era (510-323 BCE), they would be waging wars of their own.