PANORMOS
(Palermo) Sicily.
The ancient
town is under the well-known city on the NW coast of
Sicily. Together with Soloeis and Motya, it belonged to
that group of W Sicilian cities to which, according to
Thucydides (
6.2), the Phoenicians retreated when the
Greeks arrived in Sicily, especially in E Sicily where the
Phoenicians themselves had settled. Greek imports found
in the necropolis, especially proto-Corinthian vases, seem
to confirm the foundation date mentioned by Thucydides,
that is, ca. mid 7th c. B.C. The name of the city was presumably given to it by the Greeks, who must have been on excellent terms, at least at the commercial level, with the local inhabitants, as attested by the considerable
Greek material found within the necropolis.
Besides Thucydides' account, no other information is
available until the first Punic war; it is likely however
that the city was involved in earlier Graeco-Punic relationships on account of its strategic position and harbor. The Phoenicians always defended Panormos not only during the Punic wars fought by Dionysios of Syracuse
but also, more than a century later, when Pyrrhos made
one last attempt to unify Sicily under Greek political
domination. On that occasion (276 B.C.), Pyrrhos conquered the city but held it for only a short time. The Romans occupied it in 254 B.C. but in 250 B.C., Asdrubal tried to recapture it on behalf of the Carthaginians; he
was defeated by the Consul Metellus near the river
Oreto. Again in 247 B.C. the Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barca occupied the plateau of Mount Eircte near
Panormos, which is almost certainly to be identified with
Monte Pellegrino, while the Romans held the city at the
foot of the mountain. After three years, Hamilcar abandoned his position and the city passed into Roman hands.
The habitation center was delimited by the sea to the
N, Piazza Indipendenza to the S, and the two streams
Papireto and Kemonia to the W and E respectively. The
entire area was divided into palaeapolis to the S and
neapolis to the N, and was surrounded by walls of which
a few stretches remain, though heavily repaired in later
periods.
The necropolis of Palermo occupies a considerable
area defined by Piazza Indipendenza to the N, Via Cuba
and Via Pindemonte to the S, Corso Pisani to the E, and
Via Danisinni to the W. Several hundred graves have
been found, both inhumation and cremation burials in
rock-cut chambers or pits. Inhumation was practiced in
limestone sarcophagi, cremation in amphoras and pots
of various shapes and sizes. From the extent of the cemetery it is estimated that Panormos, after the Punic period, had a population of ca. 30,000, deserving Polybios' description of it (1.38) as the most important city of the
Carthaginian dominions. The finds from the necropolis
consist largely of Greek vases, both imports and local
imitations, of various shapes and periods; there are also
objects of silver, bronze, bone, glass, and a few coins and
limestone cippi. Panormos had its own mint.
The Archaeological Museum in Palermo is one of the
most important in Italy, containing all the archaeological
material found in Selinus, Soloeis, Panormos, and many
other Sicilian cities, as well as objects from various private collections.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
G. M. Columba, “Per la topografia antica di Panormo,”
Centenario di Michele Amari (1910)
II, 396ff
MP; M. O. Acanfora, “Panormo punica,”
MemLinc 8, 1 (1947) 197ff
PI; G. Cavallaro, “Panormos pre-romana,”
ASS (1950-51) 7ff
MP; I. Tamburello, “Palermo—Tombe puniche rinvenute in via Denisinni,”
ArchCl 20 (1968) 126ff (with previous bibliography); id., “Problemi ceramici di Palermo arcaica,”
Sicilia Archeologica 6 (1969) 39ff.
V. TUSA