The sense of wonder that ruins of Selinus arouse is proverbial. The superlatives, the metaphors, the passionate tones characterising the impressions of the great travellers on Selinus could be contained in a book on hyperbole. For Guy de Maupassant, Selinus was “an immense heap of fallen columns, now aligned and placed side by side on the ground like dead soldiers, now having fallen in a chaotic manner”.

In 1993 an archaeological park was set up, with a surface area of 270 hestares, and every day big groups of visitors walk round among fragment of coloumns and the moss caressing them. Selinus was born rich, founded in the middle of the 7^th century BC by settler of Megara Hyblaea, near Syracuse, who pushed into the heart of the Carthaginian dominions on the island. For two centuries it was florid and powerful, with its own mint, and had, it seems, 80.000 inhabitants, on a calcareus hill surrounded by two rivers, the Modione (the ancient Selinus) and Cottone, on whose banks there abundantly grew wild parsley (selinus, hence the name Selinunte).

Apart from the frequent border quarrels with Segesta, at Selinus gradually developed typically Punic customs and fashions.

(English extract by “Civiltà antiche”, Azienda Provinciale Turismo Trapani)

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