From Erice, we travelled on to Selinunte, a coastal town of Sicily originally colonized by the Greeks. Here, we visited the ruins of many Greek temples. The Doric temple in this picture is termed “temple E”, also known as the Temple of Hera. We learned that this temple had likely been finished based on its fluted columns, triglyphs, and metope. Even parts of the cella, or the inner chamber of the temple, remain to this day.
A characteristic peripteral hexastyle temple, the relatively stable ruins of this majestic temple sit on a high plain overlooking the sea next to the less intact ruins of two other temples. These two temples were destroyed around 400 BC when Selinunte was attacked and defeated by the Carthaginians.