Viaggio in Sicilia / 3: 16 giugno 2024 – domenica
Early departure after a stop at Paneficio Bernardo to grab our pane cunzato then on to Selinunte.
Selinunte, a high point of a 5-star trip! A forest of symbolic vivants piliers petrified over time, as if cascaded down from the heavens in some remote corner of our past. A poignant memorial to the meaning of time, to this epic caduta degli dei, and to the vanity of human aspirations of power and domination. A unique testimony to humanity’s paradoxical if not implacable impulse to honor the gods while betraying their fundamental dictates. Or, maybe a reminder of the raging, vengeful gods of old… or new? Or same? An extraordinary example of the sublime beauty of the elements of destruction and decay that are essential to the human experience of pathos and tragedy. We walked both hills, reconstructed in our minds the various temples whose outlines remained along with their various component parts, columns, capitals, bits and pieces of metopes and triglyphs, strewn to the winds of time and the whims of nature –olive trees, oleander, various sorts of bushes and grass. These outlines and remnants help us to sketch in our own imaginations distant realities, they help us struggle to bridge the gulf of human history in order to reconstruct and plumb what relevance there may be in the example of Selinunte for our contemporary life. These thoughts overcame us as we struggled to see how the history of settlement (Syracusan Greek), conquest (Carthaginian Phoenicians with Mozia calling the shots) and reconquest (Greeks again, from Akragas and Siracusa) was inscribed in the mishmash of this granite graveyard of monumental proportions. Perhaps it was the bathtub –an unassuming and completely unexpected, perfectly preserved little bathtub sitting in the corner of some ancient Phoenician abode, where little butts would bath before heading off to temple or market… it was this bathtub that rendered this entire complex site so immediate, so human, so real in all of its carnal essence.
Days later in Palermo’s archeological museum displays, more and more beautiful remains and a stunning video brought into even greater relief the magic and splendor of this once major city, of 300,000 inhabitants, whose majestic shrines reached high to the heavens as they looked out, like their rulers, over the Mediterranean Sea, gazing as if to expand out with their eyes the outer horizons of their dominion. Ubi sunt?
From Selinunte we continued on to Agrigento (Akragas to the Greeks). Our host, Andrea, greeted us at the entrance to our apartment: a beautifully renovated room with many perks and a sparkling mid-Ikea design. We previewed what would be tomorrow’s more in depth walk along Agrigento’s main before settling into a splendid fish dinner at Sal8.
Photo album available on Flickr at: https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjChynS
