Akragas, Sicily: A City of Gods, Giants and Philosophers

On the southern coast of Sicily, where a long ridge rises above fertile countryside and looks towards the Mediterranean, stands one of the great surviving landscapes of the ancient Greek world. Below the modern city of Agrigento, which sits on the hills beyond, lies the vast archaeological area of ancient Akragas, now more famously known as the Valley of the Temples.

The name is misleading. The principal temples do not stand on a valley floor but command a broad, sacred ridge that once formed the southern edge of the ancient city. Here, amid olive trees, almond groves and sun-baked earth, monumental Doric temples still rise above the landscape more than 2,400 years after their construction.

The UNESCO World Heritage-listed archaeological area contains some of the finest surviving examples of Greek architecture anywhere in the Mediterranean, together with fortifications, sanctuaries, cemeteries, waterworks and extensive areas of the ancient city that still lie beneath surrounding fields.

Agrigento. Sicily. Italy. Panoramic view of the modern town of Agrigento, which overlooks the magnificent ruins of the Valley of the Temples. Akragas, modern-day Agrigento, is home to the UNESCO World Heritage listed site ‘Valley of the Temples’ which had the largest known assemblage of colonnaded temples in the Greek world.

The Rise of Akragas

Akragas was founded around 580 BCE by Greek colonists from nearby Gela, itself established about a century earlier by settlers whose origins included Rhodes and Crete.

The new colony occupied an enviable position. Two rivers, the Akragas and Hypsas, bordered a naturally defensible plateau, while the surrounding countryside offered rich agricultural land and access to maritime trade. Although founded as part of Gela’s expansion westwards, Akragas rapidly grew beyond the shadow of its mother city.

Its early development is associated with the tyrant Phalaris, who ruled during the sixth century BCE. Later tradition transformed Phalaris into one of antiquity’s most notorious tyrants, forever connected with the gruesome legend of the Brazen Bull, an instrument in which victims were supposedly roasted alive.

How much of this belongs to history and how much to later storytelling remains uncertain. What is clearer is that during this period Akragas strengthened its fortifications, expanded its territory, and began its rise towards extraordinary prosperity.

The city’s wealth was rooted in the fertile Sicilian landscape. Cereals, olives, vines and livestock supported a powerful agricultural economy, while trade carried its produce across the Mediterranean.

Agrigento. Sicily. Italy. A view down the Via Sacra reveals the impressive Greek Doric Temple of Concord, also known as Tempio della Concordia, in the Valley of the Temples. Constructed circa 430 BCE, the temple retains all 34 of its original columns, fashioned from local shell limestone. A peripteral hexastyle layout arranges these columns, featuring six columns on the ends and thirteen along the sides. Only the ceiling and roof are absent from the structure. Its conversion into a Christian church in the 6th century CE ensured its preservation.

By the early fifth century BCE, Akragas had become one of the richest Greek cities in the western Mediterranean.

The lyric poet Pindar, who knew the city during its golden age, famously praised Akragas as the “fairest of mortal cities”. He also associated it with Persephone, an appropriate connection for a city whose prosperity depended so greatly upon the fertility of the earth.

Theron and the Golden Age

Akragas reached the height of its political power under the tyrant Theron, who ruled from 488 until around 472 BCE.

Theron allied himself with Gelon of Syracuse, and together their forces confronted a major Carthaginian invasion of Sicily. In 480 BCE, the Greeks achieved a decisive victory at the Battle of Himera on Sicily’s northern coast.

The effects on Akragas were profound and far-reaching.

Agrigento. Sicily. Italy. View of the front of the magnificent Greek Doric Temple of Concord, or Tempio della Concordia, at the Valley of the Temples. Dating from around 430 BCE, the Temple has all of its original 34 local shell limestone columns still standing in a peripteral hexastyle plan of 6 by 13 columns; only the ceiling and roof are missing.

The victory brought wealth, prestige, and confidence, helping to fuel an astonishing program of public construction. The magnificent temples that still define the landscape today largely belong to this fifth-century BCE period, when the citizens of Akragas expressed their prosperity in stone on a colossal scale.

The city was also supplied by an ingenious network of underground aqueducts and water channels traditionally associated with the engineer Phaeax. These systems carried water through the rock towards reservoirs and cultivated areas, including the great basin later known as the Kolymbethra.

Ancient writers described a prosperous city filled with grand houses, temples and gardens, while its citizens acquired a reputation for luxury and extravagant living.

Yet this period of material splendour also produced one of the most remarkable minds of the ancient Greek world.

Agrigento. Sicily. Italy. View of the steps leading to the rear of the Doric Temple of Hera, or Tempio di Giunone Lacina, at the Valley of the Temples. Dating from 450 BCE, the Temple originally had 34 local shell limestone columns in a peripteral hexastyle plan of 6 by 13 columns, of which 25 are still upright.

Empedocles: Philosopher, Poet and Wonder of Akragas

Empedocles was born at Akragas in the early fifth century BCE, when the city was approaching the height of its power.

He remains one of the most fascinating and enigmatic figures of Greek antiquity: philosopher, poet, physician, political thinker, religious teacher, and investigator of the natural world. Even during antiquity, stories accumulated around him until it became difficult to separate the historical man from the extraordinary legend.

Empedocles attempted nothing less than an explanation of how the world worked.

He proposed that everything in existence was formed from four eternal “roots”, which later tradition would call the four elements: earth, air, fire and water. These could neither be created nor destroyed. Instead, they were endlessly combined and separated by two great cosmic forces: Love and Strife.

Love drew things together; Strife pulled them apart.

From their continual struggle emerged the changing world, the formation of living creatures, the cycles of nature, and ultimately their dissolution. Nothing truly disappeared; it merely changed its arrangement.

Agrigento. Sicily. Italy. View of the medieval town of Agrigento through the upright columns of the Temple of Herakles, or Tempio di Ercole, at the Valley of the Temples. Dating from around 500 BCE, it is the oldest and second largest of the temples here and originally had 38 local shell limestone columns in a peripteral hexastyle plan of 6 by 15 columns. In 1924, people partly re-erected the south colonnade of the temple.

For a thinker living amid the fertile fields, flowing waters, blazing Sicilian sun, and monumental stone of Akragas, the idea seems almost inseparable from the landscape itself.

Empedocles also speculated about the origins and development of living beings, breathing, perception, and the workings of the human body. His writings moved freely between observation, philosophy, and poetry, giving his vision of nature an almost cosmic quality.

Yet he was not simply an early natural philosopher.

His surviving verses also speak of purification, reincarnation, and the wandering of souls. He believed that human beings existed within a vast living order in which animals, plants, people and the divine were deeply interconnected. Ancient accounts portray him healing the sick, advising cities, rejecting political power and attracting followers who regarded him with something approaching reverence.

Some traditions even claimed that he possessed miraculous abilities.

The most famous legend concerns his death. According to a story repeated for centuries, Empedocles threw himself into the crater of Mount Etna, hoping that his disappearance would convince others that he had become a god. The volcano supposedly betrayed him by throwing back one of his bronze sandals.

Agrigento. Sicily. Italy. View of a copy of one of the colossal Telamon or Atlas figures that adorned the monumental Temple of Olympian Zeus. Builders constructed 38 enormous figures, each 7.75 meters tall. They set these figures on the outer wall of the temple. The temple measured 112.5 x 56.3 meters and stood 30 meters high, making it the largest Doric temple in Classical Greece.

The tale is almost certainly fictional, but its endurance says something about the extraordinary aura surrounding the man.

It is tempting to imagine Empedocles walking through Akragas during its greatest age, passing temples still under construction, looking across vineyards and grain fields towards the sea, and contemplating the forces he believed governed everything around him.

Few ancient cities produced a thinker whose philosophy seems so perfectly connected with the landscape from which he emerged.

A City Built for Eternity

The people of Akragas became famous for their appetite for luxury and grandeur. An ancient observation claimed that they feasted as though they would die tomorrow and built as though they would live forever.

The remark has often been attributed to Empedocles, although ancient sources do not securely support the attribution. Whoever first said it, the description seems remarkably appropriate.

Nowhere is this more apparent than along the city’s sacred southern ridge.

At its eastern end stands the so-called Temple of Hera, dramatically positioned above the surrounding plain. Built during the fifth century BCE, it retains a substantial portion of its Doric colonnade and occupies one of the most commanding positions at Akragas.

Its traditional association with Hera is not certain, as the original dedication of several temples at the site remains unknown. Nevertheless, the surviving structure reveals the extraordinary care with which the Akragantines combined architecture and landscape.

Further west stands the masterpiece of the site, the great Doric temple traditionally known as the Temple of Concordia.

Its true ancient dedication is unknown. The familiar name derives from a Latin inscription found nearby centuries later and has no proven connection with the original temple.

Agrigento. Sicily. Italy. View of piles of masonry blocks from the monumental Temple of Olympian Zeus. They have deep U-shaped grooves, which enabled them to be raised with ropes. Begun in 480 BCE to celebrate the victory over the Carthaginians at Himera, the temple was never completely finished; however; it was the largest Doric temple in the Greek world, measuring 113 x 56 metres and 30 metres high.

Built around the middle of the fifth century BCE, the temple has six columns across its facades and thirteen along its sides. Its remarkable preservation makes it one of the finest surviving Doric temples anywhere in the Greek world.

Its survival owes much to its conversion into a Christian basilica during late antiquity. Although the conversion altered the ancient structure, it also protected it from the extensive dismantling that destroyed many other pagan temples.

Walking westwards brings the visitor to the Temple of Herakles considered the oldest of the great monumental temples along the ridge.

Only eight columns remain standing today, yet their scale still conveys something of the sanctuary’s former power. Herakles was widely venerated throughout the Greek world, and ancient tradition records that Akragas possessed an especially revered image of the hero.

Nothing, however, approached the ambition of the Temple of Zeus Olympios.

The Colossal Temple of Zeus Olympios

Begun following the victory over the Carthaginians at Himera in 480 BCE, the Olympieion was conceived as a monument to triumph, wealth, and civic power.

Measuring approximately 112 by 56 metres, it was the largest Doric temple attempted in the ancient Greek world.

Its architecture was equally extraordinary.

Instead of the conventional free-standing outer colonnade, enormous Doric half-columns were incorporated into massive enclosing walls. Between them, high above the ground, stood colossal male figures known as telamon, each more than seven metres tall.

These stone giants appeared to support the enormous architectural weight above them.

Agrigento. Sicily. Italy. View of a copy of one of the colossal Telamon or Atlas figures that adorned the monumental Temple of Olympian Zeus. Thirty-eight enormous 7.75-meter-tall figures were built, and builders set them on the outer wall of the Temple. The Temple measured 112.5 x 56.3 meters and stood 30 meters high, making it the largest Doric temple in Classical Greece.

The effect must have been overwhelming.

Visitors approaching the Olympieion would have encountered a building deliberately designed to dwarf the individual, its colossal human figures making ordinary mortals below seem almost insignificant.

Today the temple lies largely in ruins, an immense field of fallen blocks, shattered columns and architectural fragments. Yet even in destruction, its scale remains astonishing.

The temple may never have been fully completed. Construction appears to have continued for decades before the fortunes of Akragas changed dramatically.

The Return of Carthage

In 406 BCE, over seventy years after the Greek victory at Himera, Carthaginian forces returned to Akragas.

Agrigento. Sicily. Italy. View of a circular altar with a bothros in the centre (for drink offerings to the gods) at the Sanctuary of the Chthonic Divinities. The sanctuary was a sixth-century BCE sacred walled complex of the underground Queen Persephone and her mother, the earth goddess Demeter. These and other divinities had shrines and altars scattered throughout the sanctuary.

After a siege lasting many months, the city was evacuated, captured and devastated.

The destruction ended the brilliant classical age that had produced the grand temples. Akragas was resettled later and went through periods of recovery, but it did not reclaim the commanding wealth and power of the fifth century BCE.

During the Punic Wars, the city became contested ground between Carthage and Rome. Roman forces captured it in 262 BCE, and by 210 BCE it had passed permanently into Roman hands.

Under Roman rule, the city became known as Agrigentum and continued as an important regional centre.

Demeter, Persephone and the Chthonic Gods

Among the most evocative areas of ancient Akragas is the Sanctuary of the Chthonic Deities, traditionally associated with the cults of Demeter and Persephone.

The connection is particularly fitting.

Akragas was surrounded by some of the most productive agricultural land in Sicily, and the cult of Demeter and Persephone was intimately connected with grain, fertility, death, and renewal. Pindar’s ancient description of Akragas as a seat of Persephone gives the association an additional resonance.

Within this sacred area stands one of Agrigento’s most familiar landmarks, the picturesque four-column structure traditionally called the Temple of the Dioskouroi.

Its identification with the divine twins Kastor and Polydeukes is uncertain, and the monument visible today is partly a nineteenth-century reconstruction assembled from surviving ancient architectural elements.

Nevertheless, its four columns have become an enduring symbol of Agrigento.

The sanctuary as a whole is more important than the romantic reconstruction alone. Altars, small shrines, and sacred structures reveal that this part of Akragas remained a major centre of worship over a long period, deeply connected with ideas of fertility and the mysterious cycle of life and death.

Agrigento. Sicily. Italy. View of the reconstructed northwest corner of the Temple of Castor and Pollux (Dioscuri) at the Valley of the Temples. Dating from the 5th century BC, the temple originally had 34 local shell limestone columns in a peripteral hexastyle plan of 6 by 13 columns. Around 1850, restorers reconstructed four columns and portions of the architraves using elements from other nearby buildings. The temple is in the Sanctuary of the Chthonic Divinities. In the background is the modern town of Agrigento.

The Garden of Kolymbethra

Nearby, the Kolymbethra reveals another side of ancient Akragas.

The sophisticated hydraulic system developed during the city’s golden age directed water through subterranean channels towards a great basin. Ancient accounts describe a place rich in water, fish, birds, and vegetation.

Over succeeding centuries, the basin disappeared, and the landscape became cultivated ground.

Today the Garden of Kolymbethra is filled with citrus trees, olives, almonds, pomegranates and Mediterranean vegetation. Ancient channels still carry water through parts of the landscape, creating an extraordinary continuity between Greek engineering and the living garden above.

Here, archaeology and nature become almost inseparable.

Stone, water, cultivation, and vegetation tell different chapters of the same story.

The Eternal Landscape of Akragas

The Archaeological Area of Agrigento was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1997, recognising not simply its famous temples but the extraordinary survival of an entire ancient urban landscape.

Yet it is the temples that remain unforgettable.

Their honey-coloured stone changes with the Sicilian light; columns rise above olive trees, fallen blocks and monumental ruins lie among grasses and wildflowers, and beyond them the land stretches towards the distant Mediterranean. The grandeur of the ancient architecture here is inseparable from the natural landscape from which it emerged.

Akragas was a city that displayed its prosperity openly and magnificently. Its rulers fortified it, its engineers brought water through the rock, its farmers drew wealth from the fertile earth, and its citizens crowned their sacred ridge with monuments intended to impress both gods and mortals.

It also gave the world Empedocles, a man who looked upon nature and imagined everything held together and torn apart by the eternal powers of Love and Strife.

Pindar’s “fairest of mortal cities” eventually suffered war, conquest, religious transformation, earthquakes, and the relentless passage of time.

Yet something of its ambition survived.

More than two millennia later, people still walk beneath the columns of Akragas and marvel at what its citizens attempted.

In that sense, the ancient observation proved unexpectedly prophetic.

They really did build as though they would live forever.

View a selection of images from Akragas

All images, text, and content are copyright Steven Sklifas.