Naxos

Listen first. Small waves break against black rock, and somewhere a scooter climbs the road towards Taormina. Under your feet the ground is dark and rough. It is old lava, cooled long ago into a low headland that pushes into the sea. Locals call this point Capo Schisò. Around you, between olive trees and patches of dry grass, low walls of grey stone run in straight lines. These are the foundations of the first Greek city in Sicily. Its name was Naxos.

The ancient historian Thucydides tells the story briefly. He writes that Greeks from Chalcis, a city on the island of Euboea, sailed west and founded Naxos before any other Greek settlement on Sicily. The traditional date is 734 BCE. Their leader is remembered as Theocles. The name Naxos probably honours settlers from the Aegean island of the same name, who may have joined the voyage. Think about that for a moment... this quiet field is where the Greek story of Sicily begins.

Why here? Look at the shape of the land. The headland gives shelter to a curved bay. Ships could land on the beach and stay out of the worst wind. Fresh water was close, and the slopes inland were green and fertile. Behind you, on a clear day, Mount Etna rises with its long, gentle profile. The volcano gave this soil its richness. It also built the very rock you are standing on.

Naxos was more than a harbour. Thucydides adds a detail that most visitors never hear. The colonists built an altar to Apollo Archegetes, which means Apollo the Founder or Leader. For centuries afterwards, Greek envoys leaving Sicily for the great religious festivals of Greece stopped at this altar first. They made a sacrifice here before they sailed. So this small city became a kind of sacred doorway between Sicily and the Greek homeland.

Now walk along the lines of stone. Archaeologists have uncovered a grid of streets, laid out in a regular pattern of long blocks. Notice how straight the lines are. That order was a deliberate choice. Greek planners divided space into equal plots for citizens. You can still follow some of the ancient street lines with your eyes, even where only the lowest course of stones survives above the soil.

Look closely at the walls themselves. Many are built from dark volcanic stone, cut into irregular, many-sided blocks that fit tightly together. Builders call this polygonal masonry. There is no mortar. The weight and the careful fit hold everything in place. Run your hand along a block if it is permitted. The surface is porous and slightly rough. It is the same lava that forms the headland, shaped by human hands.

Near the old city walls lies a sacred area. Excavators found the remains of temples here, and many scholars connect one of them with the goddess Aphrodite. Here is a second surprise. Archaeologists have also identified long, narrow structures near the shore that they interpret as ship sheds. These were covered slipways where warships were pulled out of the water for storage and repair. Few Greek sites in the western Mediterranean preserve anything like them.

Naxos was rich enough to mint its own coins. In the fifth century before Christ, its silver coins showed the head of Dionysus, the god of wine, on one side. On the other side sat a bearded Silenus, one of his wild companions, holding a wine cup. Today coin experts count some of these pieces among the finest of the ancient Greek world. The image fits the place. Vines still grow on the volcanic slopes nearby.

The city's story does not end gently. Sicily in the classical period was a place of rival Greek cities and constant war. Naxos often stood against powerful Syracuse, on the southern coast. In 403 BCE, the Syracusan ruler Dionysius the First captured the city. Ancient writers say he destroyed it and sold many inhabitants into slavery. After nearly three centuries, the first Greek city on the island had fallen.

But the people did not vanish completely. Turn and look up at the steep hill above the bay. That is Taormina. According to ancient sources, survivors and descendants of Naxos later settled on that height, and a man named Andromachus helped to establish the new town of Tauromenion there in the fourth century before Christ. His son Timaeus became a well-known historian. So in a sense, Naxos simply moved uphill, to a place that was easier to defend.

Before you leave the park, visit the small archaeological museum. It sits inside an old fortified building on the headland, built long after the Greeks, when this coast needed protection from raids by sea. Inside you will find pottery, architectural fragments, and objects pulled from the excavations and from the waters of the bay. Many anchors and amphorae, the tall clay jars used to carry wine and oil, have come up from this seabed over the years.

As you walk, notice how the modern town presses close around the ruins. Holiday apartments, lemon trees, and garden walls stand right at the edge of the ancient grid. Much of the old city likely still lies under the streets and houses of Giardini Naxos. Excavation here is slow and patient work. Each new trench can change the map of the ancient town.

Now return to the tip of the headland, where the lava meets the water. Stand still and look across the bay. The sun moves over the sea, Taormina hangs on its cliff, and Etna watches from inland. The view is very close to what those first sailors saw from their ships nearly three thousand years ago. As you walk back along the shore, listen again to the waves on the black rock... the same sound the first Greeks of Sicily heard when they stepped onto this beach.