Selinunte Archeological Park

Founded in 628 BC as the westernmost Greek colony in Sicily, Selinunte became a city of temples before its destruction by Carthage in 409 BC. Its ruins preserve the most complete picture of a Greek sacred landscape in the Western Mediterranean.

Selinunte's founding around 628 BC by colonists from Megara Hyblaea placed Greek civilization at the edge of its westward expansion. The colonists named their city for the wild celery that grew abundantly in the area, adopting the plant as the symbol on their coins.

The settlers immediately began building temples. The earliest, now designated Temple R, dates to around 580 BC and served as the spiritual axis of the young colony. Recent excavations have revealed an intact adyton containing over 300 votive objects, rewriting our understanding of Selinunte's earliest religious life.

By the fifth century BC, the city had accumulated enormous wealth. Thucydides described Selinunte on the eve of the Athenian expedition of 416 BC as powerful and prosperous, possessing great military resources by both land and sea. This wealth was poured into temple construction. Temple E rose between 465 and 450 BC with perfect proportions. Temple G, begun around 530 BC, aimed to create one of the largest temples in the Greek world but was still unfinished when catastrophe came.

The rivalry with neighboring Segesta proved fatal. When Segesta called on Carthage for aid in 409 BC, the Carthaginian general Hannibal Mago besieged Selinunte with overwhelming force. After nine days, the city fell. The destruction was systematic and intentional. Though a reduced settlement continued for another century and a half, Selinunte never recovered. Final abandonment came in 250 BC.