ENNA
Sicily.
Principal city of the province
of that name located 950 m above sea level on a wide
rocky plateau in central Sicily. Cicero called it “Umbilicus Siciliae” and accurately described the town and
its environs in a famous passage of his orations against
Verres (4.107), which stresses the altitude, isolation,
abundance of water, pastures, groves, and lakes in the
entire area. A few necropoleis of the 9th-8th c. B.C. with
rock-cut tombs imitating natural grottos (
tombe a grotticella) near Calascibetta and Pergusa constitute the only
remains of the original Sikel settlement. Ancient Greek
sources state that Enna was founded by Syracusans in
664 B.C. (Stephanos of Byzantium) or in 552 B.C. (Philistos). These dates may not refer to an actual foundation;
they reflect however a phase of Syracusan penetration of
the site during the 7th-6th c. B.C. In its Greek period,
and even more so in its Roman period, Enna was famous
for its cult of Demeter and Kore. Not only did Enna possess one of the most renowned sanctuaries of the two
goddesses, but according to the poetic tradition related
by Cicero (loc. cit.) and Diodorus Siculus (5.32) it was
in the vicinity of Enna, on the shores of present-day
Lake Pergusa, that Hades, dashing with his chariot from
a dark cave, snatched Kore-Persephone away to the
Underworld. The urban sanctuary, which contained highly revered statues of Demeter, Kore, and Triptolemos,
must have been located on the high spur of rock still
called Rock of Ceres, in front of the mediaeval Castle
of Lombardy. The only extant traces of the shrine are
a few steps, cuttings, and storage pits carved in the
natural rock. Coins represent the only real archaeological evidence for the cult; the earliest are silver litras
from the middle of the 5th c. B.C., with a youth sacrificing at an altar on the obverse, and Demeter in a
quadriga on the reverse. In 396 B.C. Enna fell under
the rule of Dionysios I of Syracuse. It recovered its freedom when the tyrant died, but fell again under Agathokles in 307 B.C. In 277 it must have been under
Carthaginian control since it was liberated by Pyrrhos
during his brief expedition to Sicily. In the first Punic
war Enna sided with Rome against the Carthaginians,
but during the second Punic war, in 214 B.C., it attempted to revolt against the Romans. The rebellion was
cruelly suppressed by Pinarius, who slaughtered the
citizens gathered in assembly within the theater. From
that day Enna lost its privileges of civitas libera atque
iminunis and became civitas decumana. Between 136 and
132 B.C. Enna was the center of the revolt of the slaves,
led by Eunus of Apamea. Eunus was proclaimed king
and around him gathered slaves and freedmen from all
parts of Sicily. The Roman army was in great danger
and in vain the Consul L. Calpurnius Piso attempted
to capture Enna. This was accomplished by Consul P.
Rupilius in 132 B.C.; Eunus was captured and killed.
Archaeological evidence for this war is provided by the
numerous lead sling-shots, inscribed with the name of
the Consul Piso or the symbols of the slaves, which
have been found around Enna. In 70 B.C., when Cicero
went to Enna to gather proof of the thefts and robberies
committed by Verres, Enna must still have been a city
of notable size and importance, especially as a pan-Sicilian religious center. The city must have declined fairly
rapidly in the course of the 1st c. B.C., since Strabo, at
that time describes Enna as “a town of few inhabitants.”
Enna recovered its importance only after the Arab conquest and in the Middle Ages, when it took the name
of Castrogiovanni.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
V. Amico,
Dizionario Topografico della
Sicilia (1855); P. Ziegler in
RE XV, s.v. Henna; P. Orsi
in
NSc (1915) 232; B. Pace,
Arte e civiltà della Sicilia
antica (1935-49) 1-3, passim; G. E. Rizzo,
Monete
greche della Sicilia (1946) 164, 265, pl. 59; G. V. Gentili in
EAA 3 (1960); M. Guido,
Sicily: an archaeological
guide (1967) 131ff.
P. ORLANDINI