Himera

Listen first. Out here on the coastal plain the wind comes off the Tyrrhenian Sea, and it carries salt and the dry smell of wild fennel. Under your feet the ground is pale and dusty, broken by low walls of yellowish stone. A road and a railway line run close by, and their noise sounds strangely modern here. You are standing in what was once one of the westernmost Greek cities in Sicily.

This is Himera. Its name comes from the river that runs nearby, which the Greeks called the Himeras. Today the site sits in the territory of Termini Imerese, a few kilometres east of the town. The modern name Imerese is the clue. The town you drove through grew out of Himera's survivors, as you will hear later.

The ancient writers tell us that Greek settlers founded the city in the middle of the seventh century before Christ. They came mainly from Zancle, the city we now call Messina, joined by a group of exiles from Syracuse. That mix mattered. Historians note that the people of Himera spoke a blend of Greek dialects. It was a frontier town from the very start.

Why a frontier? Look west along the coast. Not far beyond the horizon lay the Phoenician and Carthaginian cities of western Sicily, including Panormus, the city that became Palermo. Carthage was a great sea power based in North Africa. Himera stood almost on the line between the Greek world and the Carthaginian one. For more than two centuries, that position brought it trade, wealth and, in the end, war.

In peaceful years the city did well. It sat on two levels. A residential quarter climbed onto the plateau behind you, laid out in a regular grid of streets. Below, near the river mouth and the coast, stood the harbour area and sanctuaries. Himera also minted its own silver coins. Many of them show a rooster. Some scholars link the bird to the city's name, because the Greek word for day, hemera, sounds very close. A rooster greets the day.

The city also has a place in literature. Ancient tradition names Himera as the home of Stesichorus, a lyric poet of the sixth century before Christ. He retold the old myths in long sung poems. Only fragments of his work survive. Even so, later Greeks remembered him as one of the great early poets. It is a surprise to many visitors that such a quiet field produced a famous voice.

Now to the event that made the name Himera famous. In 480 BC, a large Carthaginian army landed here under a commander named Hamilcar. Two Greek rulers marched against him. One was Gelon, tyrant of Syracuse. The other was Theron, tyrant of Akragas, the city we now call Agrigento. On this plain the Greek allies won a decisive victory.

The Greek historian Herodotus records a dramatic story about that day. According to his account, Hamilcar stood by a sacrificial fire through the whole battle. When he saw his army breaking, he threw himself into the flames. Other ancient writers tell the end differently. So treat this as an ancient tale, not certain fact. Later Greeks also liked to say the battle fell on the same day as the Greek naval victory at Salamis, which feels more like symbolism than history.

After the victory the Greeks built a temple near the coast. Today it is known as the Temple of Victory. It was a Doric temple, which means a style with sturdy, fluted columns and plain, cushion-shaped capitals on top. What you see now is mostly the stone platform and the bases. Stand at one end and picture a long row of columns rising around a closed inner chamber. The scale of the foundations gives you the idea.

Here is a detail many visitors miss. The temple once had lion heads carved in stone along its roof edge. They worked as rainwater spouts. Several of them survived, and they are now in the archaeological museum in Palermo. If you visit that city, look for them. Their open mouths once carried rain off this very building, above this very ground.

The victory did not last forever. In 409 BC, Carthage returned. This time the army was led by Hannibal Mago, the grandson of the defeated Hamilcar. The ancient sources describe a siege, a breach in the walls, and a city destroyed. Many of the people were killed or taken away. The writers present it as revenge, seventy years after his grandfather's death on this plain.

Archaeology has added a grim, very real layer to these stories. In recent decades, work for the railway uncovered large cemeteries outside the city. Among thousands of burials, excavators found mass graves of men who appear to have died in battle. Scholars connect them with the great fights of 480 and 409. Skeletons here carry the marks of weapons. The ancient histories, for once, have bodies to match them.

Himera was never rebuilt as a Greek city. Survivors and new settlers moved a short way west, to the place with hot springs. The Greeks called it Thermae, and later Thermae Himeraeae, which means the hot springs of Himera. That settlement became Termini Imerese. So the town behind you carries the dead city in its name. A small museum on the site holds finds from the excavations, from pottery to architectural pieces.

Before you leave, stand still for a moment by the temple platform. Look up toward the plateau where the houses once stood, and then out to the sea where the Carthaginian ships came in. The traffic still passes. The fennel still moves in the wind. As you walk back, watch the low stone lines in the grass. Each one is a wall that someone built, and someone lived beside.