Soluntum or Solus was an ancient city on the Tyrrhenian coast of Sicily, near present-day Porticello in the comune of Santa Flavia, Italy. The site is a major tourist attraction. The city was founded by the Phoenicians in the sixth century BC and was one of the three chief Phoenician settlements in Sicily in the archaic and classical periods. It was destroyed at the beginning of the fourth century BC and re-founded on its present site atop Monte Catalfano. At the end of the fourth century BC, Greek soldiers were settled there and in the 3rd century BC the city came under the control of the Roman Republic. Excavations took place in the 19th century and in the mid-20th century. Around half of the urban area has been uncovered and it is relatively well preserved. The remains provide a good example of an ancient city in which Greek, Roman and Punic traditions mixed.
Names
The Punic name of the town was simply Kapara (, ), meaning "Village".
The Greek name appears in surviving coins as Solontînos () but appears variously in other sources as Solóeis (),Thuc. Soloûs (),Diod., Eth. and Solountînos.Diod. Some scholars contend that Soluntum and Solus were two different cities at close quarters, Soluntum, higher upon the hillside, being a later habitation displacing the earlier settlement of Solus, at a lower elevation. These were Latinized as and , which became the modern Italian name Solunto.
Geography Soluntum lay above sea level on the southeast side of Monte Catalfano (), commanding a fine view from a naturally-strong situation. It is immediately to the east of the bold promontory called Capo Zafferano. It was about east of ancient Panormus (modern Palermo). The city covers an area of about , around half of which has been excavated.
History The Phoenicians founded the city in the 8th or 7th century BC, according to Thucydides.Thuc. 6.2.6 They had established several other trading emporia in the west of Sicily, including Motya and Panormus (modern Palermo). In 539 BC, the Phoenicians in the eastern Mediterranean were conquered by the Persian empire. The Phoenicians of the western Mediterranean (known to the Romans as Punics) became independent and Carthage in particular developed into a major city, which brought the Phoenician settlements in Sicily under its control at an uncertain point in time. Increasingly the Phoenicians and Greeks in Sicily came into conflict with one another.
The location of the archaic city has long been uncertain. No archaic remains have been found in the excavations at Soluntum, so it is clear that it was not located on the same site as the later city. Recent excavations revealed a Punic necropolis at Capo Solanto to the south of the city, with remains from the sixth and fifth centuries BC, and this is now believed to have been the location of the archaic city.
In 409 BC, the Carthaginians invaded Sicily and conquered many Greek cities, including Selinus, Agrigentum, and Gela. After a short piece, the Carthaginians besieged Syracuse in 398 BC, whose tyrant Dionysius I managed to fend them off, recapture most of the lost territory. Soluntum remained loyal to Carthage even in 397 BC, when Dionysius invaded the Punic part of the island and destroyed Motya, causing most of Carthage's allies to defect.Diod. 14.48.4-5 Dionysius ravaged its territory without success, but in 396 BC it was betrayed to DionysiusDiod. 14.78.7 and destroyed. The city was rebuilt in the middle of the fourth century, in its present location, atop Monte Catalfano. In 307 BC the Carthaginians gave the city to the soldiers and mercenaries of Agathocles, who had made peace with the Carthaginians after their leader abandoned them in Africa.Diod. 20.69.
Roman period For the first half of the First Punic War (264–241 BC) it was still subject to Carthage, but it surrendered to the Romans after the conquest of Panormus in 250 BC. cites: Diod. 23. p. 505. Archaeology shows that the city flourished under Roman rule, especially in the second and first centuries BC, when extensive construction provided it with all the typical buildings of a Hellenistic city. The theatre and a new stoa were built in the 2nd century BC. The great statue of Zeus/Baal was dedicated in a local temple at around the same time. In the 1st century BC, baths were constructed. High-quality wall paintings from this century survive in one of the private houses.
The location of the city atop Monte Catalfano made it easy to defend, but difficult to supply with goods and food. In the times of peace after the Roman conquest, it was much more convenient to live down on the coast. Many Sicilian settlements, which had been founded on mountains, were thus abandoned in the Roman period. In the first century BC, Soluntum was one of the main exceptions to this pattern, inhabited by rich citizens, as the sumptuous decoration of the various houses shows. Cicero says that the city was a civitas, when Gaius Verres was governor of Sicily (73-71 BC).Cicero In Verrem 2.42, 3.43.9
A decline is observed in the first century AD. There was no notable construction in this period, except that the baths were renovated and new ones may have been built by the Agora. It is mentioned in passing in the first century AD by Pliny, in the second century AD by Ptolemy, cites: Pliny Natural History 3.8. 14; Ptol. 3.4.3 (where the name is corruptly written ) and at the beginning of the 3rd century in the Itinerarium Antonini, which place it 12 miles from Panormus and 12 from Thermae (modern Termini Imerese). cites: Antonine Itinerary p. 91; Tabula Peutingeriana. A Latin dedicatory inscription survives from the city, erected by the citizens in honour of Fulvia Plautilla, the wife of emperor Caracalla. The city was subsequently abandoned. Armin Wiegand suggests that this was due to an earthquake or landslide.
There are some Greek inscriptions from the city naming prominent citizens. One of them records that Antallus son of Asclapus from the family of the Ornichi paid for the main street to be paved from his own funds. Another one names Sextus Peduceus, who was governor of Sicily from 76 to 75 BC:
A Latin inscription, erected by the citizens in honour of Fulvia Plautilla, the wife of Caracalla, was found in 1857. cites: Tommaso Fazello de Reb. Sic. viii. p. 352; Amico, Lex. Top. vol. ii. pp. 192-95; Hoare's Class. Tour, vol. ii. p. 234; Serra di Falco, Ant. della Sicilia, vol. v. pp. 60-67.
Coinage The city minted its own coinage, including numerous silver coins. The coins of the fifth century BC bear the Punic legend kpr or the Greek name ΣΟΛΟΝΤΙΝΟΝ. The silver coins were mostly didrachms and obols. The bronze coins consisted of the hemilitra (a Sicilian unit of coinage and weight) and the tetrras (quarter). A second phase of minting dates between the fourth and the mid-third centuries BC. It again consisted of silver coinage. The main motifs were Heracles and maritime symbols like the hippocamp. The final phase of coin production runs into the Roman period. The main motifs at this point were Poseidon, Athena, and perhaps Ares. Coins from Soluntum are found in many settlements throughout Sicily, indicating the economic power of the community.
Excavations and remains
Excavations have brought to light considerable remains of the ancient Roman town, and a good deal still remains unexplored. The site was identified using ancient literary sources by Tommaso Fazello in his 1558 history of Sicily. The first excavations were carried out in 1825 by Domenico Lo Faso Pietrasanta and published in his Le antichità della Sicilia. Vol 5: Antichità di Catana — Palermo. 1842, pp. 57–67. He unearthed a sanctuary and discovered several statues. Francesco Saverio Cavallari carried out systematic excavations from 1856, following his appointment as the first professor of archaeology at the University of Palermo. The first plan of the city was published in 1875.
Cavalleri's excavations were continued by Antonino Salinas, who published the first detailed reports. Minor excavations by Ettore Gabrici in 1920 only revealed a few rooms inside the city. Vincenzo Tusa began excavations in 1951. He found the "House of Leda" in 1953, the theatre in 1963, and the "House of Harpocrates" around 1970. One reason for the intensification of excavations was the potential seen for the ruins to become a tourist attraction. No final publication of Tusa's excavations has ever been published. Some of the artefacts recovered (especially the coins) are now kept in the Antonino Salinas Regional Archaeological Museum in Palermo; the rest is on display in the museum at the site.
Starting in 1964, the city was excavated by the German Archaeological Institute of Rome. Under Helmut Schläger, the architecture of the agora was investigated, but Schlager's early death prevented publication of the results. From 1988, Armin Wiegand investigated the theatre, eventually publishing a study of the building Markus Wolf has worked on the agora and the houses of the city, with a special focus on the gymnasium. In 2014, Alberto Sposito published an architectural study, presenting all excavated buildings and the current state oft heir remains.
Overview
The city is located on the east slope of Monte Catalfano. The highest point of the city is some 60 metres above the lowest point. Despite the uneven terrain, the city's streets were laid out in a regular grid pattern, in accordance with the Hippodamian system. The individual insulae (blocks of housing) are now identified using Roman numerals. Only the entrance to the city in the southeast is adjusted to the steeply sloping terrain. The road winds its way up the mountainside until it becomes the "Via dell’Agora" ("Street of the Agora"), the main street of the city, which runs through the middle of town to the agora in the north. It is roughly level with the natural ground level, while the east-west side streets that cross it are essentially staircases running up and down the slope. Two more level streets run in parallel with the Via dell'Agora, one above it to the west and the other below it to the east, which are now known as the Via degli Artigiani (Street of the Artisans) and the Via degli Ulivi (Street of the Olives) respectively. These three main streets are about 6 metres wide, while the side streets are only 3 metres across. The blocks of houses formed by the grid measure about 40 × 80 metres. Each block is split in half by an east-west alleyway, which is about a metre wide. Most of the streets are paved with stone slabs. Especially, on the Via dell'Agora, the street frontage of most houses was occupied by workshops and shops.
It is uncertain when this Hippodamian grid pattern was imposed upon the city. Below the theatre are remains of an earlier house which is not aligned with this grid. This seems to indicate that it belongs to an earlier stage in the city's history before the grid pattern. Armin Wiegend suggested that the grid pattern was imposed when the Greek soldiers of Agathocles settled there in 307 BCE.