MONTE SAN BASILE
(“Brikinniai”) Sicily.
A fortified hilltop above the modern town of Scordia,
controlling the junction of the plain of Leontinoi and the
valley of Katane. The site was first occupied by a village
of the Castelluccio culture (ca. 1800-1400 B.C.); oval
huts have been excavated. Later Sikel occupation is indicated by rock-cut tombs. In the early 5th c. the hilltop
was fortified by Greeks, probably from Leontinoi across
the plain; stretches of the wall and a handsome stone
cistern survive. A necropolis of the 4th-3d c. B.C. occupied the E slope; one tomb contained a bronze cuirass,
weapons, and a Sikeliote amphora of ca. 340 B.C. The
site (also called Monte Casale and Monte San Basilio)
has been plausibly identified with the Brikinniai held by
Leontinoi in 424 B.C. (
Thuc. 5.4).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
De Mauro,
Sul colle di San Basilio
(1861); P. Orsi,
NSc (1899) 276f; id., “Insigne scoperta
a Monte Casale presso Scordia,”
Aretusa, 15 June 1922;
T. J. Dunbabin,
The Western Greeks (1948) 12 if.
M. BELL
