Segesta

Segesta, perched on Mount Barabaro, was the most important of the Elymian cities.

Reference point not only of the same Elimi, also present at Entella and Erice, but also of Punica, attested in the western part of the island and committed to contain the expansionist ambitions of Selinunte.

From the sixteenth century the fame of Segesta has always been linked to the Doric temple and theater.

Only since 1987, the research has begun to identify the conformation of the city in the various historical periods.

Around the middle of the fifth century BC the Doric temple was built, one of the most remarkable and best preserved examples of Sicily.

The building, of monumental dimensions, with six columns on the short sides, has no cell and cover, probably because never completed.

In fact, the columns without grooves, the blocks of unpaved steps and the incomplete abachi testify.

In Hellenistic times Segesta assumed a strongly scenographic aspect.

The southern acropolis was occupied almost exclusively by private buildings. While on the north acropolis there were large public buildings, including the agora (identified in the current parking lot) and the bouleuterion, both compromised by the subsequent settlement of the Middle Ages.

In this context the famous theater built between the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC in a dominant position to the north on the landscape of the surrounding hills and the sea.

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