Lentini, Italy

... More

important in economic terms.

History

The Leontinoi of ancient times was, like its parent town Naxos and Catane (Catania), with which it is contemporary, an Ionian Greek settlement. With Catane already established to the south of Naxos, the Ionian area of influence was pushing further and further to the southwest, when Leontinoi was founded from Naxos in 730 B.C. In the sixth century, when the tyrant Panaitios ousted the oligarchy which had held power up until then, the town extended its sphere of influence westwards, apparently peacefully. The fifth and fourth centuries B.C. were marked by conflicts with the Dorian towns of Gela and Syracuse. Hieron I of Syracuse resettled the people who had been driven out of Naxos and Catane in Leontinoi. The town then sent a delegation under the leadership of the renowned orator Gorgia to Athens, where they were to ask for help against Syracuse. The two expeditions which Athens then sent both ended in failure, Syracuse expelled the inhabitants after 413 and towards the end of the fifth century Leontinoi was for part of the time uninhabited, until a new influx from Chalcis arrived. Dionysios I then resettled most of the inhabitants in Syracuse. Leontinoi was then to lose its independence irrevocably. In 214 it was conquered by Marcellus and became part of the Roman Empire, but nevertheless it acquired no importance. In later periods it was destroyed, first by the Arabs in 848, then by the earthquake (1693), both times being rebuilt.

Around 1210 Giacomo da Lentini, the notary of Frederick II and an important poet, was born.