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LELA URQUHART

Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles

Greek POLIS settled on SICILY’s central‐southern coast (BA 47 D4) around 580 BCE that became a major colonial classical city‐state, modern‐day Agrigento. “Agrigentum” is the Latinized version of the Greek “Akragas”; Herodotus only uses the city‐ethnic, “Acragantines” (Ἀκραγαντῖνοι). Literary tradition attributes its foundation to GELA (Thuc. 6.4.4), with possible joint participation from RHODES (Pind. F105 S‐M; Polyb. 9.27.8). Later sources like Diodorus Siculus (19.108.1–2) and Polyaenus (Strat. 5.1.3) claim that Agrigentum began a campaign of military expansionism into central Sicily during the tyranny of Phalaris (c. 570–555). However, the absence of Phalaris or any notice of Agrigentine territorial gains prior to 500–490 in classical‐era historical writing (notably Antiochus of Syracuse, Herodotus, or THUCYDIDES) has suggested that a Phalarid “Agrigentine conquest” was probably a late fabrication. Agrigentum’s growth in power is clearer for the fifth century, particularly in relation to THERON, the city’s “sole ruler” (μούναρχος, 7.165) who ruled between 489/8 and 473/2. Theron’s ousting of TERILLUS from the tyranny at HIMERA set in motion events leading to the Greeks’ victory over Carthaginian forces at the Battle of Himera in 480. Theron’s actions also, however, indicate the widened political influence of Agrigentum in the fifth century, as does Herodotus’ note (7.170.1) that Agrigentines inhabited the polis of CAMICUS, former seat of the Sican king Kokalos, in his time.

Many of the sanctuaries of ancient Agrigentum are visible on the lower ridge’s “Valley of Temples”; the city’s AGORA, residential sectors, and the excellent Agrigento museum are located between the lower ridge and the center of modern Agrigento.

SEE ALSO: Carthage; Colonization; Gelon; Sicania; Tyrants