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Agrigento
The town stands on a long narrow hill, perhaps the acropolis of ancient Akragas. Via Atenea, the main street, with smart shops and old churches, leads up to the 14th-century duomo di San Gerlando on the summit, dedicated to the patron saint, the Norman Bishop Gerland. The walk along the Valley of the Temples (open 9-7, late closing in summer, combined ticket to include museum available, where the golden sandstone columns emerge among olives and almonds, between the sea and the sky, should begin at the Temple of Hera, or Juno Lacinia, on the highest point of the crest. Continue along the fortifications to the magnificently-preserved Temple of Concord, and thence, after passing Villa Aurea, a house now used as offices, but from 1921-33 the home of Captain Alexander Hardcastle, an eccentric Englishman who provided the funds for much of the excavations in this area, to the oldest of the group, the 6th-century bc Temple of Herakles, still showing the parallel ruts where the stones were dragged from the quarry to the site, after being fitted with wooden wheels. The catacombs to be seen here, with tunnels extending under the road, form part of a Palaeo-Christian Necropolis (no access). Across the road is the ticket office and the Temple of Olympian Zeus, measuring 110.1m x 52.7m, the largest Doric temple in existence, built to celebrate the victory over the Carthaginians in 480 bc. Abandoned still unfinished in 406 bc, its subsequent complete destruction is due to earthquakes and to 18th-century quarrying, when stones were taken from here to build the harbour structures at Porto Empedocle (now known as Porto Empedocle Vigata, Agrigento's ancient port was the birthplace of Andrea Camilleri, creator of Police Superintendent Salvo Montalbano, and currently Italy's most popular writer). Unique in design, the 14 columns along the sides were engaged in the walls, alternating with 38 colossal telamons and caryatids, almost 8m high, fragments of which can be seen in the museum. A cast of one of the giants can be seen in the middle of the temple. The U-shaped grooves on the stones were to accommodate the ropes used for shifting them into position. West of the temple is the vast excavation of ancient sanctuaries dedicated to the Chthonic Divinities (gods of the earth), and the picturesque group of columns known as the Temple of Castor and Pollux, more probably the remains of the Temple of Dionysus. Close by is the entrance to the Garden of Kolymbetra, once an artificial lake dug by Carthaginian prisoners taken at the Battle of Himera in 480 bc, and used as a fishpond and a reservoir. It was soon filled in, probably due to malaria, and later the Arabs turned it into a garden planted with oranges, dates and pomegranates. From the garden it is easy to cross the railway line in order to reach the two surviving columns of the Temple of Hephaistos. Agrigento has a museum, the Museo Archeologico Regionale with a superb collection of painted vases, statues and sarcophagi found during the excavations. Not to be missed is the Ephebus, a 5th-century bc marble statue of a young man, representing perhaps a victorious athlete from Agrigento at the Olympic Games. To top of page |
Founded as Akragas,
a colony of Gela, in 580 bc, Agrigento became the
wealthiest city of Magna Graecia, and boasted a series of Doric temples,
defiantly built along a crest between the sea and the city as a demonstration
of power and the protection afforded by the gods. It was the birthplace
of the philosopher Empedocles and, more recently, of the Nobel prizewinning
playwright and short-story writer Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936).