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Modern Description: The remains of the ancient city on the S coast of Sicily, between Agrigento and Selinus, on the plateau dominating Capo Bianco, at the mouth of the river Platani (fl. Halykos). Minoa is the earlier component in the city's double name; the name Herakleia was probably added in the second half of the 4th c. B.C. when the city appears to have been repopulated by colonists from Kephaloidion (Cefalu). Ancient authors connected the name Minoa with Minos, and this name may go back to an Early Minoan settlement, of which however no archaeological evidence has as yet been found. During the second half of the 6th c. B.C. Minoa was violently disputed between Selinus, of which it formed the E outpost, and Akragas, which wanted to invade the valley of the Platani river. The city was also briefly occupied by Spartan exiles who took part in the abortive expedition of Dorieus to Sicily (Herod. 5.46). During the whole of the 5th c. B.C. Minoa remained under Akragan control. After 406 B.C. and until the Roman conquest at the end of the second Punic war (210 B.C.) Minoa was under Carthaginian domination, with the exception of brief and sporadic periods of freedom between Timoleon's time and Pyrrhos' expedition (339-277 B.C.). After becoming civitas decumana, the city was destroyed during the first Servile war and was recolonized by the consul Rupilius. It also suffered from Verres' abuses and was visited by Cicero (Verr. 5.112. 129). At the end of the 1st c. B.C. the city seems to have been completely abandoned.
Excavations have not yet revealed positive traces of the archaic city, which must have occupied the E part of the plateau. However a necropolis of the second half of the 6th c. B.C. has been partially brought to light near the mouth of the Platani river. The present remains belong to the Hellenistic-Roman period. The fortification wall has been cleared along the N limit of the city. It is built of chalky stone with sun-dried brick superstructures and is reinforced by square towers with gates and posterns. The most imposing stretch is seen where a powerful wall of masonry and mud brick extends between a square bastion and a round tower that was probably added during the 3d c. B.C. Here the fortifications stop at the edge of the great landslide into the sea which, through the centuries, has eroded a great part of the town. A second fortification wall was rebuilt twice and lies now in the interior of the city, near the theater and along the houses. It represents a narrowing of the urban area during the Punic and Servile wars.
The theater, recently cleared and protected with plastic material, dates from the end of the 4th c. B.C. Its cavea is oriented to the S and divided into nine sectors (kerkides); it retains ten rows of seats in friable marly stone. Both the orchestra and the strong retaining walls of the cavea (analemmata) are well preserved. Nothing remains of the stage building except the holes for a wooden platform; some Roman buildings were erected against the orchestra. The foundations of a temple and a shrine have been excavated to the N of the theater. To the S excavations have uncovered parts of the Roman habitation quarter during the Republican period, in two superimposed layers. The upper stratum must be connected with Rupilius' recolonization. The lower level (3d-2d c. B.C.) retains two particularly notable and well-preserved houses on parallel streets, with square plan and rooms gathered around a central atrium. One of the houses had two stories; its high mud brick walls and cocciopesto floors are well preserved. The second house still retains its lararium with altar and walls painted in incrustation style (First Pompeian Style).
A small antiquarium in the archaeological area houses part of the excavation finds and attempts to reconstruct and illustrate the various phases of the city's life. The remainder of the archaeological material from the site is displayed in the National Museum of Agrigento. (P. ORLANDINI)
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heraclea_Minoa
Wikidata ID: Q1502156
Trismegistos Geo: 38467

Info: Princeton Encyclopedia

(Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites, from Perseus Project)

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