Home > Elymians

1 Origins

The origins of the Elymians are unknown. Thucydides wrote about the Elymians as refugees from Troy. When the city was destroyed, to avoid being captured by the Achaeans, a group of Trojans escaped and, after a long journey through the Mediterranean sea, landed in Sicily, close to the Sicani . Plutarch remembers the Trojan origin of the Segestans. Others wrote about their Anatolian origins.

The three most important cities of the Elymians were: Segesta (called Egesta by the ancient Greeks), the political center; Eryx (the modern Erice), the city that hosted the religion most diffused through the Elymian region; and Entella.

There has been speculation that the Elymians may have been related to the ancient Ligurians. This hypothesis is largely based on the following extraordinary coincidence: the names of the above-mentioned three Elymian cities coincide exactly with the names of three ancient coastal cities of Liguria: Segesta Tigulliorum (the modern Sestri Levante ), Eryx (the modern Lerici), and Entella (the modern Lavagna ).

On the other hand, numerous connections have been pointed out between what is known of Elymian religion and mythology and the religion and mythology of ancient Anatolia.

2 Continuous wars

The Elymians were strong enough to resist Greek colonies such as Selinunte.

In the 415 BCCenturies: 6th century BC 5th century BC 4th century BC Decades: 460s BC 450s BC 440s BC 430s BC 420s BC 410s BC 400s BC 390s BC 380s BC 370s BC 360s BC Years: 420 BC 419 BC 418 BC 417 BC 416 BC 415 BC 414 BC 413 BC 412 BC 411 BC 410 BC Events End of the there was an Athenian expedition to Sicily following an appeal from the ambassadors of Segesta.

In the 340 BCCenturies: 5th century BC 4th century BC 3rd century BC Decades: 390s BC 380s BC 370s BC 360s BC 350s BC 340s BC 330s BC 320s BC 310s BC 300s BC 290s BC Years: 345 BC 344 BC 343 BC 342 BC 341 BC 340 BC 339 BC 338 BC 337 BC 336 BC 335 BC Events Battle of t there was an hard battle close to Crimiso river between CarthageThis article is about the ancient city-state of Carthage in North Africa. For other uses of the word, see Carthage (disambiguation). Mediterranean Sea, showing location of Carthage (near modern Tunis). Map also shows Italy and the islands Sicily, Sardinia and SyracuseMediterranean Sea, showing location of Syracuse on the island of Sicily. Map also shows Italy, Tunisia, and the islands Sardinia and Corsica. Syracuse Siracusa in Italian) is a city on the eastern coast of Sicily, Italy. Syracuse was founded in 734 BC by. In this battle the commanders were Hamilcar Barca and Hasdrubal for Carthage and Timoleon for Syracuse.

3 The cities