Catania
Catania is the second-largest municipality in Sicily, after Palermo, both by area and by population. Despite being the second city of the island, Catania is the centre of the most densely populated Sicilian conurbation, which is among the largest in Italy. It has important road and rail transport infrastructures, and hosts the main airport of Sicily. The city is located on Sicily's east coast, facing the Ionian Sea at the base of the active volcano Mount Etna. It is the capital of the 58-municipality province known as the Metropolitan City of Catania, which is the seventh-largest metropolitan area in Italy. The population of the city proper is 297,517, while the population of the metropolitan city is 1,068,563.
Catania was founded in the 8th century BC by Chalcidian Greeks in Magna Graecia. The city has weathered multiple geologic catastrophes: it was almost completely destroyed by a catastrophic earthquake in 1169. A major eruption and lava flow from nearby Mount Etna nearly swamped the city in 1669 and it suffered severe devastation from the 1693 Sicily earthquake.
During the 14th century, and into the Renaissance period, Catania was one of Italy's most important cultural, artistic and political centres. It was the site of Sicily's first university, founded in 1434. It has been the native or adopted home of some of Italy's most famous artists and writers, including the composers Vincenzo Bellini and Giovanni Pacini, and the writers Giovanni Verga, Luigi Capuana, Federico De Roberto and Nino Martoglio.
Catania today is the industrial, logistical, and commercial centre of Sicily. Its airport, the Catania–Fontanarossa Airport, is the largest in Southern Italy. The central "old town" of Catania features exuberant late-baroque architecture, prompted after the 1693 earthquake, and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Etymology
The ancient indigenous population of Sicily, the Sicels, named their villages after geographical attributes of their location. The word katane means "grater, flaying knife, skinning place" or a "crude tool apt to pare". Other translations of the name are "harsh lands", "uneven ground", "sharp stones", or "rugged or rough soil". The latter etymologies are easily justifiable since, for many centuries following an eruption, the city has always been rebuilt within its black-lava landscape.Around 263 BC, the city was variously known as Catĭna and Catăna. The former has been primarily used for its supposed assonance with catina, the Latin feminization of the name catinus. Catinus has two meanings: "a gulf, a basin or a bay" and "a bowl, a vessel or a trough", thanks to the city's distinctive topography.
Around 900, when Catania was part of the emirate of Sicily, it was known in Arabic as Balad al-fīl and Madīnat al-fīl, respectively meaning "the Village of the Elephant" and "the City of the Elephant". The Elephant likely referred to the ancient lava sculpture, now placed over the fountain in Piazza Duomo. The sculpture is most likely a prehistoric sculpture that was reforged during the Byzantine Era, prized as a protective talisman against enemies, both human, natural or geologic. Another Arab toponym was Qaṭāniyyah, allegedly from the Arabic word for the "leguminous plants". Pulses like lentils, beans, peas, broad beans, and lupins were chiefly cultivated in the plains around the city well before the arrival of Aghlabids. Afterwards, many Arabic agronomists developed these crops and the citrus orchards in the area around the city. The toponym Wādī Mūsá, or "the Valley of Moses", was rarely used.
History
Foundation
Around 729 BC, the ancient village of Katane was occupied by Chalcidian Greek settlers from nearby Naxos along the coast. It became the Chalcidian colony of Katánē under a leader named Euarchos and the native population was rapidly Hellenised.Thucydides states that it came into existence slightly later than Leontini, which he claims was five years after Syracuse, or 730 BC.
The settlement's acropolis was on the hill of Monte Vergine, a defensible hill immediately west of the current city centre. The port of Catania appears to have been much frequented in ancient time and was the chief place of export for the corn of the rich neighbouring plains.
Greek Catania
Catania was associated with the ancient legend of Amphinomos and Anapias, who, on occasion of a great eruption of Etna, abandoned all their property and carried off their aged parents on their shoulders. The stream of lava itself was said to have parted, and flowed aside so as not to harm them. Statues were erected to their honour, and the place of their burial was known as the Campus Piorum; the Catanaeans even introduced the figures of the youths on their coins, and the legend became a favorite subject of allusion and declamation among the Latin poets, of whom the younger Lucilius and Claudian have dwelt upon it at considerable length.The Greek polis of Catania appears to have been a local center of learning. The philosopher and legislator Charondas, born in Catania, putatively wrote program of laws used here and in other Chalcidic cities, both in Sicily and through Magna Graecia. suggesting a link between Catania and other cities during this time. The poets Ibycus and Stesichorus lived in Catania. The latter putatively was buried in a magnificent sepulchre outside one of the gates, therefore named Porta Stesichoreia. Xenophanes, one of the founders of the Eleatic school of philosophy, also spent the latter years of his life in the city. The first introduction of dancing to accompany the flute was also ascribed to Andron, a citizen of Catania.
Catania appears to have remained independent until the conquest by the despot Hieron of Syracuse; in 476 BC, he expelled all the original inhabitants of Catania and replaced them with his subjects from the town of Leontini – said to have numbered no less than 10,000, consisting partly of Syracusans and Peloponnesians. Hieron changed the city's name to Αἴτνη. The old Chalcidic citizens returned to the city in 461 BC.
The period that followed appears to have been one of great prosperity for Catania, as well as for the Sicilian cities in general.
In 415 BC, Catania became involved with the expedition to Sicily pursued by the Athenians to punish Syracuse. Initially the Catanaeans refused to allow the Athenians into their city, but after the latter had forced an entrance, the Athenian leader Alcibiades made a famous speech in front of the assembly. Catania became an ally, and the headquarters of the Athenian army for the first year of the expedition, and a base of their subsequent operations against Syracuse. After the defeat of the Athenians, Catania was again threatened by Syracuse. In 403 BC, Dionysius I of Syracuse plundered the city, sold its citizens as slaves, and repopulated the town with Campanian mercenaries. However, the Carthaginians would take possession of Catania under Himilco and Mago, after the nearby great naval Battle of Catana where they defeated Leptines of Syracuse, and in 396 BC forcing the local Campanian mercenaries to relocate to Aetna.
Calippus, the assassin of Dion of Syracuse, held Catania for a time ; and when Timoleon landed in Sicily in 344 BC Catania was subject to the despot Mamercus who at first joined the Corinthian leader, but afterwards abandoned this allegiance for that of the Carthaginians. As a consequence he was attacked and expelled by Timoleon in 338 BC.
Catania was now restored to a fragile independence; changing sides during the wars starting in 311 BC of Agathocles of Syracuse with the Carthaginians. When Pyrrhus landed in Sicily in 278 BC, Catania was the first to open its gates to him, and welcomed him with great splendor.
Roman rule
During the First Punic War, Catania was one of the first cities of Sicily to submit to the Roman Republic after their first successes in 263 BC when it was taken by Valerius Messalla. A sundial was part of the booty which was placed in the Comitium in Rome. Since then the city became a civitas decumana i.e. was subject to the payment of a tenth of its agricultural income as a tax to Rome. The conqueror of Syracuse, Marcus Claudius Marcellus, built a gymnasium here.It appears to have continued afterwards to maintain its friendly relations with Rome and though it did not enjoy the advantages of a confederate city, like its neighbours Tauromenium and Messana, it rose to a position of great prosperity under the Roman rule.
Around 135 BC during the First Servile War, it was conquered by rebel slaves.
One of the most serious eruptions of Mount Etna happened in 121 BC, when a great part of Catania was overwhelmed by streams of lava, and the hot ashes fell in such quantities in the city itself, as to break in the roofs of the houses. Catana was in consequence exempted, for 10 years, from its usual contributions to the Roman state. The greater part of the broad tract of plain to the southwest of Catana, appears to have belonged, in ancient times, to Leontini or Centuripa, but that portion of it between Catana itself and the mouth of the Symaethus was annexed to Catana and must have furnished abundant supplies of grain.
Cicero repeatedly mentions it as, in his time, a wealthy and flourishing city; it retained its ancient municipal institutions, its chief magistrate bearing the title of Proagorus; and appears to have been one of the principal ports of Sicily for the export of corn.
In the Sicilian revolt from 44 BC Sextus Pompeius selected Sicily as his base and Catania gave in to Sextus' revolt and joined his forces. Sextus amassed a formidable army and a large fleet of warships at his base at Messana, with many slaves joining from the villas of patricians. After the victory of Augustus in 36 BC much of the vast farmland in Sicily was either ruined or left empty, and much of this land was taken and distributed to members of the legions which had fought there. Catania suffered severely from the ravages but was afterwards one of the cities raised to the status of colony by Augustus which restored its prosperity through the settlement of veterans, so that in Strabo's time it was one of the few cities in the island that was flourishing.
Another revolt led by the gladiator Selurus in 35 BC created mayhem for a while.
The Roman aqueduct of Catania was the longest in Roman Sicily at, starting from the springs of Santa Maria di Licodia.
It retained its colonial rank, as well as its prosperity, throughout the period of the Roman Empire; so that in the 4th century Ausonius in his Ordo Nobilium Urbium, notices Catania and Syracuse alone among the cities of Sicily.