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Translation of poem
Fissatu (talk) 01:46, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

= History of Sicily = The history of Sicily has been influenced by numerous ethnic groups. It has seen Sicily sometimes controlled by external powers — Roman, Vandal and Ostrogoth, Byzantine and Islamic — but also experiencing important periods of independence, as under the Siceliotes of Greek origin and later as the autonomous Emirate then Kingdom of Sicily. The Kingdom was founded in 1130 by Roger II, belonging to the Siculo-Norman family of Hauteville. During this period, Sicily was prosperous and politically powerful, becoming one of the wealthiest states in all of Europe.

Prehistory
The indigenous peoples of Sicily, long absorbed into the population, were tribes known to ancient Greek writers as the Elymians, the Sicani and the Siculi or Sicels (from which the island derives its name). Of these, the last was clearly the latest to arrive and was related to other Italic peoples of southern Italy, such as the Italoi of Calabria, the Oenotrians, Chones, and Leuterni (or Leutarni), the Opicans, and the Ausones. It is possible, however, that the Sicani were originally an Iberian tribe. The Elymi, too, may have distant origins from outside Italy, in the Aegean Sea area.



Elymians
Little is known about the identity and culture of the Elymians. They are indistinguishable from their Sicani neighbours in the archaeological record of the early Iron Age (c. 1100–c. 700 BC). Thereafter they appear to have adopted many aspects of the culture of the Greek colonists of Sicily, erecting the remarkable temple at Segesta and using the Greek alphabet to write their own language.

As yet, no one has succeeded in deciphering the Elymian language. It is widely believed to have been part of the Indo-European language family, but even that is uncertain. Within the Indo-European languages, it has been speculated that Elymian was related to either the Italic languages or the Anatolian languages (such as Hittite), although both theories are disputed.

The Elymians maintained friendly relations (and alliances) with Carthage but came into frequent conflict with the expansionist Greek colonies of western Sicily, especially Selinus.

They turned on Carthage during the First Punic War and allied with Rome instead.

The Elymi shared western Sicily with the Sicani, the Phoenicians, and later the Greeks. Their three most important cities were Segesta, the political centre; Eryx (the modern Erice), a religious centre; and Entella. Other cities were Elima, Halyciae (referred to as Alicia in modern Italian sources), Iaitas, Hypana, and Drepanon.

Entella was a very ancient city, and apparently of Sicanian origin, though the traditions concerning its foundation connected it with the Elymi and the supposed Trojan colony. According to some writers it was founded by Acestes, and named after his wife Entella, a tradition to which Silius Italicus alludes,Entella Hectoreo dilectum nomen Acestae, Silius Italicus xiv. 205. and Virgil represents Entellus (evidently the eponymous hero of the city) as a friend and comrade of Acestes. Thucydides, however, reckons Eryx and Egesta the only two cities of the Elymi, and does not notice Entella at all, any more than the other places of native Sicanian or Siculian origin.

Sicani
The Sicani are thought to be the oldest inhabitants of Sicily with a recorded name. The Greek historian Thucydides claimed they immigrated from the Iberian Peninsula (perhaps Valencia) driven by the Ligurians from the river Sicanus, drawing his information from the Sicilian historian Antiochus of Syracuse, but his basis for saying this is unknown. Timaeus of Tauromenium considered them as aboriginal. Some modern scholars think the Sicani may have been an Illyrian tribe that gained control of areas previously inhabited by native tribes.

The Elymians are thought to be the next recorded people to settle Sicily, perhaps from the Aegean, Anatolia, or Liguria. They settled in the north-west corner of the island, forcing the Sicanians to move across eastward.

Siculi
The Sicels (Siculi; Σικελοί Sikeloi) were an Italic tribe who inhabited eastern Sicily during the Iron Age. Their neighbours to the west were the Sicani. The Sicels gave Sicily the name it has held since antiquity, but they rapidly fused into the culture of Magna Graecia.

It is possible that the Sicels and the Sicani of the Iron Age had consisted of an  Illyrian population who (as with the Messapians) had imposed themselves on a native, Pre-Indo-European ("Mediterranean") population. Thucydides and other classical writers were aware of the traditions according to which the Sicels had once lived in Central Italy, east and even north of Rome. Thence they were dislodged by Umbrian and Sabine tribes, and finally crossed into Sicily.

Linguistic studies have suggested that the Sicels may have spoken an Indo-European language and occupied eastern Sicily as well as southern Italy. Thucydides reported that there were still Siculi in Italy; he derived "Italia" from an eponymous Italo, a Sicel king.

Ausones
"Ausones", (Αὔσονες; Ausoni) the original Greek form for the Latin "Aurunci," was a name applied by Greek writers to describe various Italic peoples inhabiting the southern and central regions of Italy.

Hellanicus according to Dionysius wrote of the Ausonians as crossing over into Sicily under their king Siculus, where the people meant are clearly the Siculi.

Moregetes
The Morgetes (Μόργητες, Morgetes) are a largely mythical ancient Italic people, who are meant to have occupied areas of Calabria and Sicily.

According to some ancient historians, they were one of the three branches of the Oenotrians, along with the Italoi and the Sicels.

A final definition claimed that they were the Sicels who moved into Sicily under the leadership of King Morges. In this version, Morges was the brother of Italus and son of Siculus, who was also the founder of Rome.

In Sicily, the Morgetes were also meant to have settled in the interior, driving away the Sicans and establishing the city of Morgantina and other communities in the 10th century BC.

Phoenicians
From the 11th century BC, Phoenicians begin to settle in western Sicily, having already started colonies on the nearby parts of North Africa. Within a century, we find major Phoenician settlements at Soloeis (Solunto), present day Palermo and Motya (an island near present-day Marsala). As Phoenician Carthage grew in power, these settlements came under its direct control.

Greek Period
Sicily was colonized by Greeks in the 8th century BC. Initially, this was restricted to the eastern and southern parts of the island. The most important colony was established at Syracuse in 734 BC. Other important Greek colonies were Gela, Akragas, Selinunte, Himera, Kamarina and Zancle or Messene (modern-day Messina, not to be confused with the ancient city of Messene in Messenia, Greece). These city states were an important part of classical Greek civilization, which included Sicily as part of Magna Graecia - both Empedocles and Archimedes were from Sicily.

In the far west, Lilybaeum (now Marsala) was never thoroughly Hellenized. In the First and Second Sicilian Wars, Carthage was in control of all but the eastern part of Sicily, which was dominated by Syracuse. However, the dividing line between the Carthaginian west and the Greek east moved backwards and forwards frequently in the ensuing centuries.

Punic Wars
The constant warfare between Carthage and the Greek city-states eventually opened the door to an emerging third power. In the 3rd century BC, the Messanan Crisis motivated the intervention of the Roman Republic into Sicilian affairs, and led to the First Punic War between Rome and Carthage. By the end of the war in (242 BC), and with the death of Hiero II, all of Sicily except Syracuse was in Roman hands, becoming Rome's first province outside of the Italian peninsula.

The success of the Carthaginians during most of the Second Punic War encouraged many of the Sicilian cities to revolt against Roman rule. Rome sent troops to put down the rebellions (it was during the siege of Syracuse that Archimedes was killed). Carthage briefly took control of parts of Sicily, but in the end was driven off. Many Carthaginian sympathizers were killed - in 210 BC the Roman consul M. Valerius told the Roman Senate that "no Carthaginian remains in Sicily".

Roman Period
For the next 600 years, Sicily was a province of the Roman Republic and later Empire.

The empire made little effort to Romanize the region, which remained largely Greek. One notable event of this period was the notorious misgovernment of Verres, as recorded by Cicero in 70 BC in his oration, In Verrem. Another was the Sicilian revolt under Sextus Pompeius, which liberated the island from Roman rule for a brief period.