Etna at sunrise

In very early times, when demigods made history and myth together, heroic beings moved upon the southern land and sea, in seasons of beauty and of strength, sometimes of terror, that pursued each other, changing and interchanging forms, appearing and disappearing, rising from the waters as a mirage and sinking into the bosom of the earth, then springing into life again elsewhere in the more vivid day of a nearer reality, half human still but already mortal, to die at the last, to be buried in tombs that endure, and to leave names behind them which history can neither quite accept nor wholly overlook.

First, ancient Kronos is the kindly god of the golden age in all Italy, but changes in Sicily to Baal-Moloch, grasping tyrant, devourer of human flesh, fortified against mankind in the high places of the earth; and he slays Ouranos, his father, whose blood falls as a fertilizing rain from heaven upon the burning Sicilian earth. Armed with the scythe, he rules in wrath, then fades from existence, and leaves his crooked weapon twice buried in the earth in Drepanon, the sickle of Western Trapani, and in Zancle, the wide reaping-hook of land that guards Messina from the southern storms.

Poseidon next, his son, god of the Mediterranean Sea, smites his trident deep into the uncertain land. He is the father of many heroes, of Trinakros and Sikelos, whose names stuck fast, of giant Polyphemus, of the man-eating Laestrygones, of Eryx, Aphrodite’s son; he is the father, too, of great Demeter, who fights forever with fiery Hephaestos for possession of her rich inheritance, of Demeter, who first taught men to sow corn;º while the nymph Aetna, high on her mountain throne, watches the eternal strife, forever umpire of a never-ending war. Still the fight for bread against fire is raging, and in the wild burnt lands between Randazzo and Brontë, the ‘thunder-town,’ the myth of Hephaestos and Demeter is truth still.

From her springs the lovely fable-allegory of the seed hidden in the earth, dead half the year and half the year alive again. For of Demeter, by Zeus, was born Kore, the ‘Maiden,’ the girl Persephone, who played in Sicilian fields with maiden Athene and maiden Artemis, and each chose a playground of her own. Athene took Himera, on the west, for hers, and on the east Artemis chose Ortygia in the sea; but Kore loved best the fruitful land of Enna in the island’s heart, where violets grew so close and sweet that the Huntress’s own hounds could follow no scent there, and the chase ended among the flowers. There Kore wandered, gathering the violets to make a dark blue mantle for her father Zeus, the sky-king; but though the meadows were so fair, the gate of Hades was close at hand, among the trees at the foot of Enna’s hill, and thence dark Pluton, master of hell, watched her with glowing eyes, and sprang forward at last and took her in his arms to bear her away. But when he was hard by Syracuse, the nymph Kyane, p4Kore’s playmate, leapt lightly from the woods and stood in the way as he rushed along, and she prayed with all her heart for her friend’s freedom, but could not move the raging god to mercy; so she sank to earth and was lost in her own tears, which made a deep translucent well, the most beautiful of all springs in the world to this day. After that Demeter went out to seek for her lost daughter, and lighted Aetna’s fires for a torch, but could not find her, for Kore had eaten the seed of the pomegranate in Pluton’s house, and was wedded, and could only come back for half the year. Therefore Zeus gave her Sicily for a wedding gift. By this is fabled the hiding of the seed in the earth, and its return to the upper world in leaf and flower.

Next came mysterious Daedalus, art and skill in person, flying before angry Minos, king of Crete, touching Sicily first and wandering from island to island, beautifying each and leaving in each some stable work to tell that he had passed there; while the Sicanians burned his enemies’ ships, and drowned King Minos in the bath, burying him deep, and building above his grave their temple to Aphrodite. Daedalus built great reservoirs and impregnable cities, treasuries for kings and temples for gods, whose images he carved in rare wood, and set them moving with cunning devices hidden within. So, when bread had first been won, and when husbandry had grown strong in peace, thought and art came likewise, that Sicily might be a perfect home for men. The great legend of Troy embraced the island then. When old Laomedon had sacrificed his daughter Hesione to atone for his broken word, many Trojans fled, or sent away their children secretly, lest like should befall them. Hippotes sent his child Egesta to Sicily, and she loved Crimisos and bore him Acestes, who went back when he was fully grown, and fought for Troy, but returned again and brought with him Elymos, son of Anchises; and this Elymos left his name to the children of Acestes, who were called Elymians. But some say that these were the Elamites of the Bible.

Soon after that came great Ulysses, wandering by sea, when he had dragged his unwilling companions from the shores of the Lotus land; and first he came to the eastern shore of Sicily, where Polyphemus dwelt p6among cliffs and caves, pasturing huge sheep, and he was taken with his companions by the giant; but he blinded him and escaped with those who still lived; and the Cyclops tore up great boulders, that were like hills, and sent them whirling after the Greeks, but could not hit them, being quite blind; so the rocks fell into the sea and became three islets, fast and firm to this day. One of them, moreover, is like a vast monster’s head rising above the water, and where the eye should be there is a round aperture, through which the light shines brightly from side to side; for which reason it may well be that the Cyclops was made a one-eyed creature in the imagination of early men, as anyone who may understand who will go to Aci Castello or to Trezza and look at the rocks for himself.

Isles of the Cyclops, near Catania

Thence Ulysses sailed by the southern coast, round Sicily, touching here and there, and landing on islands where many advantages befell him, and along the Italian shore, so that his name and fame linked Sicily and Southern Italy with Greece.

Next, still from Troy, came Trojans with Aeneas and his fleet, wandering hither and thither, and founding the great temple of Idalian Venus, of Venus Erycina, on Mount Eryx, named after Aphrodite’s son; and then Orestes came, crossing to Sicily when he had purged himself of his crime in Rhegium, and he built the temple of Artemis in Mylae, which is Milazzo, to hold the sacred image he had brought from far away.

So gods and heroes came and went, and left their names upon the south, and some of them found their last resting-places there; and tradition grew out of myth, and history was moulded upon tradition, till the legends would have filled volumes, and gradually concentrated themselves toward the point of transition at which fable becomes fact. Out of it all results clearly the main truth, that from very early times the rich south was a possession for which several races fought one with another, Orientals, Greeks, and peoples who p8had come down from Italy, and who were afterwards driven back by degrees into the inner country, the Sicanians and the Sicelians.

Isles of the Sirens, Gulf of Salerno

The most learned modern historian of Sicily, Adolf Holm, has proved almost conclusively that these two peoples were of common and Italian origin, and came in succession from their Latian home, somewhere near Anxur, which is now Terracina. The Sicanians came first, in small bands of wanderers, leaving many at home, whence afterwards arose the confusion of names, by which the stronger Sicelians were sometimes called Sicanians, but when the latter sailed down in force and took possession, the confusion ceased. The first comers had intrenched themselves in strong passes and had built fortresses on inaccessible heights, as men do who know that they may be easily destroyed. But the Sicelians came in hordes, driven from their homes by the vast immigration of the Pelasgian race when it moved westward and descended into Italy. They were Latins, speaking a Latin language, closely allied with that of the Romans, for they called a hare ‘leporis’; and a basin ‘katinon,’ and they named a certain river ‘Gela’ because the hoar frost settled along the banks more thickly than elsewhere. And so, as Holm says, the Sicelians are proved by their language to have been closely connected with the Latins and the Oscans, and descended from the common Pelasgian stock; and it is clear that they had wandered from the Haemus p9to the Apennines, before they reached the island to which they gave their name, and that in their immigration they had overrun and filled the southern mainland of Italy. Once there, they built all those early cities of which remains exist that are not manifestly Greek; they built ships and sailed out on marauding expeditions, and some of them even attempted to plunder the Egyptians, joining themselves with Tyrrhenians and Sardinians, Achaeans and Lycians, as is proved by a hieroglyphic inscription found in Thebes, which tells how two hundred and fifty Sicelians were slain, under King Merenptah, and their...