Eraclea Minoa

Eraclea Minoa was a Greek colony founded by the Selinunte inhabitants. Disputed over by the Syracusans and Carthaginians it was finally subjected to the Romans after the Second Punic War. From the first century BC onwards it was abandoned. Archaeological excavations were undertaken in a systematic manner from 1950. Most interesting are the theatre, built at the end of the fifth century BC, whose seating area faces the Mediterranean; the Hellenistic and Roman neighbourhood with urban plan of “insulas”, separated by parallel streets; and the Antiquarium, that houses a collection of ceramic findings and small votive statues discovered in the inhabited centre and the Necropolis. The remains of the town walls built between the end of the sixth and the end of the fourth centuries BC are also partly visible, with an estimated length of around six kilometres.