Camarina

Camarina, an ancient city of Sicily, situated on the south coast, about 17 m. S.E. of Gela (Terranova). It was founded by Syracuse in 599 b.c., but destroyed by the mother city in 552 for attempting to assert its independence. Hippocrates of Gela received its territory from Syracuse and restored the town in 492, but it was destroyed by Gelon in 484; the Geloans, however, founded it anew in 461. It seems to have been in general hostile to Syracuse, but, though an ally of Athens in 427, it gave some slight help to Syracuse in 415-413. It was destroyed by the Carthaginians in 405, restored by Timoleon in 339 after its abandonment by Dionysius’s order, but in 258 fell into the hands of the Romans. Its complete destruction dates from a.d. 853\. The site of the ancient city is among rapidly shifting sandhills, and the lack of stone in the neighbourhood has led to its buildings being used as a quarry even by the inhabitants of Terranova, so that nothing is now visible above ground but a small part of the wall of the temple of Athena and a few foundations of houses; portions of the city wall have been traced by excavation, and the necropolis has been carefully explored (see J. Schubring in Philologus, xxxii. 490; P. Orsi in Monumenti dei Lincei, ix. 201, 1899; xiv. 756, 1904). To the north lay the lake to which the answer of the Delphic oracle referred, μὴ κίνει Καμάριναν, when the citizens inquired as to the advisability of draining it.

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