The story 1

 

Fallen columns, lonely foundations, dismantled towers and ruins of walls: Selinunte shows to the charmed visitors the traces of its past greatness. Lying on a low terrace (50 m. above sea level), the acropolis is 500 m. long and 300 m. wide, with a right angle on the coast on which the structure of the perimetrical walls rises. It is circumscribted by two rivers wich flow in the West and the East: the Selinus, today called Modione, and the Hypsas, today called Cottone, at whose mouths were two thriving ports, today unfortunately covered with earth. Other city walls crenellated and strengthened by round towers protected it in the North; underground paths provided, in case of siege, rapid shiftings of troops and sudden sorties. A hipodamic (after the ionic architect Hippodamus from Miloto) grid plan was chosen for the town, that's to say an orthogonal cross-roads suitable for a flat area; twelve functional roads without any monumental character ran from East to West, crossing the main North-South road with a right angle, and so shaping the insulae, put at a distance of 32 m. one another. The acropolis, which has a plan with the pecular shape of a pear, is linked in the North to the new city, Neapolis, by an isthmus 50 m, large; it obeys to the urban shape of hippodamic settlements.

The pursuit of a spectacular impression and the will to amaze (common to all the Greek cities which hem in the Mediterranean basin), are surely marvellously expressed by this ancient Greek colony, which seems to rise from the Valley of Cottone River, just like a symbol of civilization, absolute power and everlasting strenght. The choice of the place is successful: the water is plentiful, the earth is excellent, the sea is abounding in fish. The city was wanted to be rich, divine and eternal; the climate is temperately mediterranean, characteristic which in ancient times was considered of particular benignity. Moreover, the sky of Selinus, that wonderful cobalt-blue sky is among the most beautiful existing because it was the favourite home of Hera and Zeus, lords of the sky; the beneficent river bearer of fertility for the earth, and the places inhabited by river divinities, were the bases of a safe future of development and prosperity; the "selinon", the divine plant of celery, with his curative in victory, is consecrated to Apollo, the god of medicine . According to tradition, Melillo, the "ecista" (founder) sent by Megara Hyblaea, the mother country, to set up the colony, after the rituals of foundation, traced the perimeter of the city, while 200 inhabitants were singing hymns. The city owed its name to the Selinus river, which was said to be Neptune's son; Selinus derives from "selinon", name of the above mentioned plant which grows in that place. But such a great empire was to finish miserably in a short time: only 242 years lasted the indipendent life of this city, which rose in 651 B.C. thanks to settlers from Magara Hyblaea, according to the tradition collected by with Africa, and its wonderful land, whose products were largely beyond local needs, conferred on Selinus the role of "pearl" in the precious commercial neck-lace of Mediterranean sea.