Erice
Erice sits on the legendary Mt Eryx (750m), a naturally fortified Elymian city, Erice had one of the most famous pagan sanctuaries, dedicated to the goddess of fertility called Astarte by the Phoenicians, Aphrodite by the Greeks and Venus Erycina by the Romans. The goddess was the protector of sailors, venerated by all Mediterranean people, and the sacred site was regularly attended by pilgrims and believers. In Roman times, even though it had lost its importance as a fortified site, the sanctuary was put at the head of a religious confederation including 17 Sicilian cities, and protected by a Roman garrison. Under Tiberius, the whole sacred area was restored, thus maintaining its original religious importance. Aeneas, who mentions the sanctuary as a holy landmark in the Aeneid tells us that inside the holy temple acolytes practised the peculiar ritual of sacred prostitution with the temple prostitutes accommodated in the temple itself. Needless to say, despite countless invasions the sacred site remained inviolate - no guesses why.
Erice became a Carthaginian stronghold and was stormed by Pyrrhus In 277 BC and reconquered by the Carthaginians in 275 BC. During the first Punic War it was destroyed by the Carthaginian army in 260 BC, with the subsequent deportation of its inhabitants to Drepano, present-day Trapani. No remarkable historical information exists on Byzantine Erice; the town was still inhabited and its fertile surroundings were scattered with farms. Towards 831 AD the stronghold was occupied by the Arabs and called Gebel-Hamed. Under the Normans, in the 12C, a period of great prosperity began; the town was repopulated and underwent radical transformations which gave it its present-day peculiar appearance.
Since July 2004, Erice is reachable by the new cableway from Trapani, from which the panorama is breathtaking. However Erice has preserved the charms of the two panoramic roads going up the city, crossed by thousands of visitors and travellers since ‘700.
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