La Sicilia (di Strabone)

This paper aims to reread Strabo’s description of Sicily from a historical perspective and in light of the findings of modern scholarship. Strabo describes the history of the early Roman province using the knowledge of his time and applying the political categories of a Greek living in the Roman world. He almost always deals with Greek history and the history of colonization in particular, but some events from Roman history are also present in his work; as far as current affairs are concerned, what interests Strabo most is the ‘functionality’ of Sicily. Strabo looks at the island through the eyes of a Greek noting the decay of the polis system: the institutional changes of the Roman age can only partially compensate for what he considers the collapse of the polis system within the territory.