Salvete, amici. This, my friends, is the remains of Temple G at Selinunte, and yes, that is me from October of last fall, awkwardly looking where to step as my friend flashes peace signs in the background. I may be biased, but this archaeological park is my hands-down most favorite place in Sicily. Hopefully, you guys really enjoyed it as well.
Historically, Selinunte has some great stories and they’ve accomplished a lot. Not only were they the ones that moved around their riches to deceive the Greeks (see Thucydides), but they knew how to build their temples. Like, a ton of Doric temples. 8 temples are represented at this park, and although not pictured, many of them stand almost as they did two thousand years ago. Consequently, they rank as some of the best preserved temples in the world, along with the one present at Segesta and the ones in Agrigento (see next post). What’s amazing to me is that the majority of these temples were built in a span of 100 years, which suggests a sort of golden age before the Carthaginians wiped the floor with the poor Selinuntians in 409 BCE. But that, I suppose is another story. See you for the next post!
Works Cited:
Centro Program Selinunte Lecture, October 2016. Professor Matthew Panciera.