Controlling territory: the Greek fortress of San Basilio near Lentini, Sicily

Lecture by Mr Italo Giordano, specialised archaeological guide, Sicily.

North of the Greek colony of Leontinoi and on the southern edge of its ancient chora, today’s Piana di Catania, rises a hilly ridge from which the hill of Colle San Basilio stands out. The most ancient human traces of the site seem to date back to the Early Bronze Age (first half of the 2nd millennium BC) and human occupation is recorded until the medieval period (XIII cent.) in alternate periods. Its major development seems to be attested during the III century BC when it became a military outpost, a phrourion, to control the vast territory of the Greek city. Inside the fortress there is a monumental hypogeal building with pillars, whose use, although not yet clarified, seems to find specific comparisons with numerous water cisterns distributed in the Mediterranean, then transformed into a church during the medieval period when the site was granted in emphyteusis to the Basilian Monks by King Roger II.