Agrigento.
The ancient city (Akragas for the Greeks, but Agrigentum
for the Romans, whence its present name, given to
it in 1927) occupied a magnificent panorarnic position
on a high plateau dominated to the N by two hills,
which constituted the Acropolis (the Rupe Atenea
and the adjacent Colle di Girgenti), and terminating
to the S in the Hill of the Temples, so called because
on it, a part from other minor items, stand the
remains of the 7 temples out of the original 10
or more which still remind us of this glorious centre
of Greek civilization in Sicily. Felicitous circumstances
of time and place allowed the city to have an exceptionally
prosperous development (the "tyrannies"
of Phalaris and Theron, though quite different in
nature, had equal influences on the historical destiny
of Agrigento in the first two centuries of its existence)
and very soon the city presented itself, also to
foreign visitors, with an air of magnificence. Thus
Pindar in the l2th pythian Ode sings of it in about
490 BC, as "the lover of splendour", "the
most beautiful city of mortal men", the site
that was "sacred to Persephone", the goddess
who with her mother Demeter was the object of intense
veneration.
