Notes on Sicily

Sicily sikelia was once called triniakia  then thrinakia because of it being triangular. Syracuse settled by archias  who wanted wealth andwas advised by the delphic Oracle that Syracuse was his best bet if he wanted to make extreme amounts of money and thus a proverb was created. His friend wanted health so he was advised by the Oracle to settle at Kroton and it became synonymous with good living. The myth of the river flowing underground from Greece to sicily is supposedly complete nonsense and regarded by strabo as an impossibility. The river was said to emerge above a coastal town in sikelia. Catania was katane. Panormos is now palermo. Rhegion is reggio. Locris loggia. One of the finest examples of roman engineering still stands at Nimes in France nemausos the 800 m aqueduct. The Romans made good use of the hellenic arch. Masses of Greeks migrated to sicily and southern Italy. Messene is now messina. Messenger? Mt Aitna.  Brettians. Nelson owned a bit of sicily called bronte and he always signed his letters Duke of bronte! Greek colonies were at war all over Italy and sicily. Megara. A man once chambered up Aitna got over the wall and jumped down into the crater and witnessed a 200 ft smoke cloud above a dark hot sandy terrain and he decided not to venture too far in as the sand got deeper and hotter and indeed he lost a bronze shoe before he climbed back out. Brindisi was Brentian as it resembles a deers horns regarding the shape of the town and harbour. Baris was not far. Most trade to Rome from Greece came through Brindisi across the adriatic and Ionian seas. Supposedly Taranto Taras had a bronze colossus of zeus nearly as big as the one in Rhodes and there was also a large bronze statue of herakles. Italia was a successful roman starting point as the country goes through many climates and is protected on one side by the appennine mountains making the adriatic coast a formidable place to invade. Hera was volcanic in the liparaian island chain where today we call it stromboli. Many hot springs in that area due to the fault lines in the tyrrhenian sea. Etna stromboli vesuvius.