L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2020 www.italoamericano.org 16 L'Italo-Americano LIFE PEOPLE PLACES HERITAGE S i c i l y : cradle of beauty and ferti- le, golden trian- gle the world and t h e g o d s h a s envied us since the begin- ning of times. Only region t h e m i g h t y G r e e k s , t h e Fathers of Western Culture and inhabitants of one of the most blessed lands of t h e M e d i t e r r a n e a n t r u l y wanted to add to their pos- s e s s i o n s , b e c a u s e o n l y a p l a c e c h e r i s h e d b y t h e Olympian divinities could be so rich, so beautiful and so near. Sicily, the granary of the Empire, when the Romans became lords, the home of Italy's first truly illuminated court and the corner of the world where Italian poetry w a s b o r n . W e k n o w a l o t about the history of Sicily and many you reading right n o w p r o b a b l y k n o w a l o t m o r e t h a n I d o , b e c a u s e t h e y m a y i n d e e d h a v e Sicilian blood in their veins, and fond memories of just as fond tales of youth, love and longing, passed on by parents and grandparents. Of course, we love Sicily f o r i t s p e o p l e , a b i t o l d - fashioned when it comes to m o r e s , e s p e c i a l l y w h e n compared to their northern siblings, but ready to soothe all pain with good food and a reminder that life, in the end, needs to be enjoyed for what it is: sorrow yes, but also an infinite number of small, priceless pleasures to share with the people you love. A fresh prickly pear, the patron saint feast with the village filled with people in their best clothes, Sunday mornings and carne al sugo s i m m e r i n g o n t h e s t o v e since 6 am, the heady scent of jasmine. But I digress. History, we were saying. When thinking about the g l o r i o u s h i s t o r y o f t h e i s l a n d , t h e G r e e k s , t h e Romans, the Normans and t h e A r a b s c o m e t o m i n d : each of them left incredible vestiges to its culture and heritage. But have we ever thought about the people who were there before? Of the "Sicilians" before the coming of the Romans? L e t ' s g o b a c k i n t i m e together, to some three mil- lennia ago: Sicily was then, as it is today, in a strategic position, at the heart of the M e d i t e r r a n e a n a n d t h i s meant sea merchants often used it as s pit stop while traveling from a side to the other of the mare nostrum. The Greeks, we said, were among the first to explore it and appreciate its riches; they were also the first to c a l l i t T r i n a c r i a , t r e i s (three) and akra (promon- t o r y ) , t o e v o k e i t s v e r y shape in a name. But there were indeed others before our Hellenic cousins took over the island, filling it with their temples and sta- tues, some of which we can still admire. The earliest people inha- b i t i n g S i c i l y w e e k n o w about were the Sicanians, t h e S i c e l s a n d t h e Elymians. The first occu- pied the central part of the i s l a n d , t h e s e c o n d t h e eastern part, while the last w e r e l o r d s o f i t s w e s t e r n portion. According to Greek historian Thucydides, the Sicanians were the first to reach the island from the lands we today call Spain, but not everyone agrees on i t . A c c o r d i n g t o s o m e modern historians both the S i c a n i a n s a n d t h e S i c e l s originated from the island or, at least, from the Italian peninsula: let's see how. Around the first millen- nium BC, the inhabitants of t h e c e n t r a l a n d s o u t h - western areas of the island, who had been there since the third millennium BC, h a d t o f a c e t h e t h r e a t posed by potential invaders coming from the sea. It was in these occasions they rea- lized they shared a common language, as well as com- m o n h a b i t s a n d m o r e s . They were, in other words, one people whom we know t o d a y a s t h e S i c a n i a n s . Shortly afterward, it seems, colons from the peninsula, m o r e p r e c i s e l y f r o m C a l a b r i a , C a m p a n i a a n d Puglia, crossed the Messina Strait and settled with locals in the eastern region of the island: slowly but steadily, the merging of local people with the continentals crea- ted another Sicilian tribe, the Sicels. Always around the year 1000 BC, another g r o u p o f p e o p l e , t h e Elymians, settled in the western part of the island, w h i c h b e l o n g e d t o t h e Sicanians. The latter didn't feel threatened at all and allowed the new community to thrive, virtually transfor- ming Sicily in a very early example of multi-cultural society. The Elymians, Sicels and Sicanians are little known by most of us, but they are the first, original Sicilians. The exact moment in time w h e n t h e G r e e k s , t h e P h o e n i c i a n s , t h e C a r t h a g i n i a n s a n d t h e Latins (not yet known as the mighty Romans) came into contact with these people is n o t k n o w n , b u t w e c a n make an educated guess: we known that the Mycenaeans sailed the Mediterranean in the 13th century BC already and that the Phoenicians h a d c o m m e r c i a l h u b s i n Sicily in the 8th century BC. The Greeks founded their first colonies around the 7th c e n t u r y B C a n d l o c a l s weren't one bit happy about it at first: but how could one resist the culture and the elegance of such char- ming conquerors? And this is how the conquered were bewitched by the conque- rors and, by the 5th century BC, they had become "more Greek than the Greeks." The Greek conquest was pivotal for the island — as it was for the rest of the South of Italy — because it intro- duced it to a level of culture and intellectual sophistica- tion Italic population could n o t e v e n i m a g i n e . I t w a s here in Sicily that the early Romans saw and touched w i t h h a n d t h e d i f f e r e n c e b e t w e e n t h e m s e l v e s — a people of unrefined, rustic shepherds — and the sons and daughters of Athens, whose language sounded like music and whose favo- rite past time was to love one another while discus- s i n g p h i l o s o p h y . E n c o u n t e r i n g t h e G r e e k s w a s t o b e c r u c i a l f o r Romans and for the sha- p i n g o f t h e i r i d e n t i t y , a s well as that of the Western world as a whole. GIULIA FRANCESCHINI A Sicilian folk group dancing in the street: this is the typical image of "Sicilian" we have, but the island has a long and varied history when it comes to its inhabitants (Photo: Gandolfo Cannatella/Dreamstime) The people of Sicily… 3000 years ago

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