Sicel-Sicilians and the Birth of Sicilian Culture

Tom Verso (October 16, 2014)

"Jouneying to the Godedess" http://journeyingtothegoddess.wordpress.com/2012/10/04/goddess-hybla/

Most histories of Sicily make a passing almost obligator comment about the three ‘Original Sicilians’ encounter by the Greeks when they began colonizing the island in 735 B.C.: Sicels, Sicans and Elymians. Histories of Sicily generally begin with preface comments about the existing occupants and then jump into the Greek colonization. For example, Professor Gaetano Cipolla in his very very excellent book “Siciliana: Studies on the Sicilian Ethos” (Legas 2005), while giving an interesting and fair presentation of the Sicels, nevertheless writes: “We know little of the [Sicels] and Sikans, (more can be learned through a more aggressive archeological program)” (Kindle Location 673). Yes, it is true that “we know LITTLE of the [Sicels] and Sikans”! However, it is also true that we know MUCH more than what gets into contemporary history books. For example, Edward A. Freeman, in his “The History of Sicily From The Earliest Times Vol. I & II” (1891), devotes hundreds of pages of critical linguistic and historiogarpahic analysis of ancient texts dealing with the ‘Original Sicilians’; the Appendices alone are staggering works of scholarship and analysis. /// /// In short, while the American university system worships and perpetuates the myth that ‘Tuscany = Italy’, with endless studies of the ‘Johnny-come-lately’ Arno Valley culture, southern-Italian Americans can trace there history back over 3,000 years to the primordial beginnings of Western Civilization. If Guido / Guidette knew the profound history coursing their veins, they would stop being Guido / Guidette. But, then again: How can Guido KNOW … if there are NO … teachers … yoh?

Tools

Preface

Classical Language Education (Latin & Greek) and South of Rome Historiography

A commenter on one of my blog articles took me to task because I used ‘old’ sources as a basis for developing my thesis. Why would anyone cite a book published in 1891?

This thinking is characteristic of our science/technology culture and the pervasiveness of the concept of ‘progress’ inherent in science/technology. Scientist and technologist always strive to improve upon the work of predecessors.

However, while science is accurately characterized as a progressive discipline that may be graphically represented as a linier graph always moving upwards, it would be a grossly fallacious generalization to assume that the humanities are or should be similarly progressive with each generation improving on the previous.

Rather, a graphic representation of the humanities would more accurately be something akin to a sine curve moving from low points to high and back down to low etc.

Classical education and scholarship being a case in point!

Language – the raw material of historians

Historians seek knowledge of past societies based on the remnant documents of the past society; which differentiates them from archeologists who seek knowledge of the past based on remnant materials (shards, arrowheads, structures, etc.). Accordingly, the ability to read and understand the language written in relevant documents is a necessary prerequisite for historians.

Reading, in this sense, is not to be understood as simple comprehension and denotative translating. Rather, the historian must have mastered fluency in the language of the society being studied, such that the nuances and connotation of the language allow her/him to grasp cultural implications.

Language then is the historian’s raw material. With any craft, the more refine the raw material, the higher the quality of the final product. Similarly, the Historian’s Craft; the better mastery of the language, the more refined the raw material and the higher the quality of the history produced.

Up to circa 1900 ‘classical education’, modeled on the fifteenth-century Italian standards, was the principle form of upper-middle class education in much of Europe. It consisted of very intense training in ancient Greek and Latin.

The great classical scholar A. J. Toynbee, explained what very intense meant:

“The form current in England, during the years 1896 to 1911, when I was receiving my classical education there, had been established, between four and five hundred years back in Italy. (A Study of History Vol. XII, p. 575)

“The aim was not merely to read and write Greek and Latin prose, and verse [but also] produce counterfeits of the original literature that an ancient Greek or Latin author, in each genre, might have mistaken for authentic pieces” (p. 577)

This is to say, students compose their own original texts and verses in the ancient language.

However, Toynbee noted:

“My generation was the last in England to be given an education in the Greek and Latin languages and literature.” (p. 577)

In short, starting at a low point in fifteenth-century Italy, classical scholarship moved to a sine curve high point in the nineteenth century. Subsequently, in the twentieth century, classical studies receded to arguably below fifteenth-century Italian standards and seemingly continues to descend.

Contemporary classical education, accordingly to Toynbee, does not approach the depth and breath of ninetieth century classical education. It is at the low point of the sine curve and moving lower.

Accordingly:

Given that such an intense classical education no longer prevails, it is reasonable for students of ancient Southern Italy and Sicily history to seek out nineteenth century classically trained scholars before contemporary scholars, who are given attenuated at best classical language training.

Any student of the Hellenic roots of Western Civilization not apprised of the work of ninetieth century scholars like Toynbee et al., seriously compromises the confidence they can have in their studies.

Any contemporary historian who ignores or challenges those great scholars, the burden of proof is on the contemporary.

For example, one of the foremost scholars of ancient Sicilian history, Edward A. Freeman, was a product the classical education to which Toynbee was referring. Accordingly, typical of his generation of scholars, the first two volumes (1300 pages) of his 1891 opus The History of Sicily from the Earliest Times manifest a profound grasp to ancient Greek and Latin source documents, and French and Germany language historiographic documents. The details in the annotated footnotes and appendices written in ancient and modern languages are, so far as I can determine, beyond the gasp of the majority (not all) of ‘scholars’ writing today about Sicily.

Any history of Sicily that does not draw heavily on Freeman is obliged to demonstrate why it is more accurate than Freeman’s. Writers who simply ignore him succumb to the ‘progressive fallacy’ (new is better), and do a serious injustice to the reader (especially if the reader is a student!).

Accordingly, The History of Sicily from the Earliest Times and Toynbee’s A Study of History, will largely be the basis for this thumbnail overview of the Sicels (aka Siculi, Sikels) - “the people whom the island took the name Sicily”

To one who thinks Freeman, Toynbee, etc. are ‘old fashion’: “I’m from Missouri … Show Me!” … I’d be most grateful. Knowledge acquisition in the humanities is a dialectical process a la Socrates in Plato’s dialogues.

Sicels – First Sicilians…Culturally!

To characterize the Sicels as ‘first Sicilians’ is not to imply that they were the first to physically inhabit the island. Indeed, it is generally accepted that the Sicani arrive before the Sicels.

Freeman writes, Sicani (aka Sikans):

“...those whom all tradition makes the oldest recorded inhabitants of the island...They are the first inhabitants of the island who have any share in the continuous history of Europe (Vol I, p. 107 emp.+)

Sicel Culture

While, the Sicani preceded the Sicels to the island, the Sicels seem to embody the origins of Sicilian culture, which in part comes down near three thousand years to the generations of the great migration circa 1880-1920. Freeman writes of the Sicels:

“It is wonderful how long a list we can put together of places which are recorded as Sicel sites. Not a few of them grew into considerable towns, towns which play a considerable part in history …” (vol. I, p. 136)

“He tills the fruitful ground, he grows rich in flocks and herds and honey; but, like his successors to this day, the center of Sicel life was the fortified town, however small, perched on its hill-top. (I, p.137 emp.+)

“The history of the Sicels is no small part of the history of the island which was specially theirs. It was not without fitness that the island bore their name and not that of any other of its inhabitants.

“The Greek-speaking people of Cicero’s time must have been made up of many elements strangely unlike each other; but, if heads could have been counted, the Sicel element must have outnumbered every other. (I, p.194 emp.+)

Note, he writes: “to this day” i.e. 1891 the date of publication, and the time of the great Sicilian migration to America. This is to say: there was a continuous Sicilian cultural tradition from the second millennium B.C. (when the Sicels arrive on the island) down to twentieth century “Little Italy”.

Tell me again professor why you are so enamored with the Arno Valley!

Savor the irony: The Arno Valley culture did not come into existence until late in the first millennium A.D. and had an approximate two century cultural flash in the middle of the second millennium A.D. More importantly, virtually no Americans of Italian descent can trace their linage back to it. Yet, in the American university system the crème de la crème of the Italian American literati are devoted to the Arno Valley culture … talk about Terroni–ism!

Sicels and Greeks

Of course the greatest historic influence on Sicilian culture is the Greek; rivaled only by that of the Arabs in the late first millennium A.D. (as Cipolla cogently points out in some detail in his book cited above). Evidence of the Greeks is pervasive throughout the history of Sicily down to the present magnificently preserved monuments such as those at Agrigento and Taormina.

In 735 B.C. the Greeks arrived in Sicily to stay. They originally colonized the Western side of Sicily e.g. present day Messina, Taormina and Syracuse. The Syracusians became an especially prominent and powerful Greek colony.

However, Greek-Sicilian culture did not develop in a cocoon. Indeed, the Greeks did not call themselves Greeks. They took on the name Sikeliot, by which they differentiated themselves from the Greek homeland and the Italian Greeks who were called Italiots (Freeman I, p.18).

In turn, the Sikeliot culture developed in the context of interaction with the Sicels who inhabited that part of western Sicily. Freeman:

“In Sicily the inland neighbors of the Greeks [i.e. Sicels] were neither savages doomed to die out … nor yet powerful neighbors who threatened the existence or the independence of the Greek settlements.” (Freeman I, p.3)

“Something that may be truly called a rivalry with the [Sicels] may be seen. The Sikeliots had to strive with the [Sicels] who were nearly on their own level.” (I, p.18 emp.+)

However, while the Sicels were different than the Greeks, there was a certain commonality that allowed for the evolution of a common culture. Freeman writes:

“The Sicels were an underdeveloped Latin. (I, p.18)

As such Sicels were European as were the Greeks. This common ethnicity lent itself to the ability of the two groups to ultimately meld into a common culture.

Whereas the Greeks and later the Romans were irreconcilable with the Carthaginians (who were Middle Eastern in origin), the Greeks of southern Italy melded with the Latin Romans, and the Greeks of Sicily melded with the Latin Sicels.

Freeman comments on the melding of Sicels and Sikeliots:

“The distinction between Sicel and Sikeliot, between the folks of the land and the Greeks who had settled in their land, the distinction so strongly drawn in the days of Thucydides [circa 420 B.C.], died out slowly but surely, and was wholly forgotten in the days of Cicero [circa 100 B.C.].” (I, p 20)

While the Sicels ultimately melded with the Greek culture the process took centuries, punctuate by periods of serious military conflict. The Greeks founded Syracuse in 734 B.C.; yet, three hundred years later, during the Peloponnesian War circa 420 B.C., the Secils fought major battles with the Sikeliots as allies of other Sikeliots.

Sicels and Sikeliots … Antagonism and Synergism

"The Sikel accepted Greek culture, but they did not accept it at the hands of subjects or dependents. (Freeman II, p. 391)

To my mind, the relationship between the Sicels and Sikeliots described by both Freeman and Toynbee may be characterized as a combination of antagonism and synergism (or in psychological terms: “approach-avoidance conflict").

Below are three examples of this dynamic giving rise to what I would call the ‘origins of the Sicilian culture’ that came down to circa 1900 A.D. at the time of the great Sicilian emigration.

I. Sikeliots call on Sicels for miliarty help

Circa 466 B.C., the Sikeliots of Syracuse were in revolt against the tyrannical Deinomenid dynasty. Freeman, quoting the great first century B.C Sicilian historian Diodorous Siculus writes:

“[The leaders of the revolt] sent messengers to all parts of Sicily, alike to Greeks and to Sicels, to ask for help.

“ The Sicel towns of the inland sent help to the patriots of Syracuse against the son of Geloan Deinomenes…the Syracusan commonwealth seemed to [the Sicels] a less dangerous neighbor than the Syracusan tyrant.” (II, p 306-07 emp.+)

Thus, in this story, we see that almost three centuries after the Greeks arrived in western Sicily, the Sicels were still maintaining independent towns a had military prowess that could be used against the Sikelot tyrants (antagonism). However, at the same time they were engaged in and apart of the Sikelot society helping the revolutionaries (synergism).

The Sicels both conflicted and melded with the Syracuse Sikeliots. Freeman writes:

“The notice of the Sicel allies has a special interest.

“Hellenic influences had so far spread among the elder race of the island (i.e. Sicels) that they were now for a while able to play apart in the affairs of their Greek neighbours. (II, p. 307 emp.+)

II. Ducetius – Sicel ‘king’(ducebat 466-440 B.C.)

A second and more significant piece of evidence of the Antagonism and Synergism relation between Sicels and Sikelots is the story of Ducetius, the Sicel leader who would be king. Freeman writes:

“Ducetius the Sicel, one of the few men of his folk of whom we know even the name, one of the still fewer men of his folk of whose acts we can form a clear idea, sets us a-thinking as to what the history of Sicily might have been if the destinies of him and his folk had been other than what they were.

“If we are right in holding that the Sikels were underdeveloped Latins, we may see in Ducetius a Scipio or a Caesar ...” (II, p 351 emp.+)

Ducetius lead a revolt against the Sikeliots (antagonism). But his Sicel state would be modeled on the Sikeliot city-states (synergism). Toynbee writes:

“Ducetius’s original enterprise, with its ambitious aim of uniting all the Sicel communities into a single commonwealth, was manifestly inspired by the examples of …Agrigentum and Syracuse.”(Study vol. VI, p. 235)

Significantly, this Sicel attempt at unity and independence came just after the Sicel intervention in the above Syracuse Deinomenid dynasty civil war. Toynbee writes:

“Ducetius’s attempt to set up a Sicel empire in Sicily … was made after the Deinomenids’ fall from power” (VI, p.235 fn. 1)

It’s as if at that point in space and time (Syracuse 466 B.C.) the Sicel had the greatest sense of at once being a unique people, but taking on a Greek culture. Toynbee writes:

“Ducetius imitated the methods of Hellenic statesmanship; for the device by which he sought to give his new Sicel commonwealth cohesion was to ‘synoecise’ it into a city-state a la grecque with its civic center at Palice.” (VI, p. 235 emp.+)

Important! Notice that the center of the Sicel commonwealth was to be the city of Palice.

Palice was only about 20 miles due west of the Mediterranean coast, 15 miles from the Sikeliot city of Leontinni, and 30 miles north-east of Syracuse (“by way the crow flies”) – see map below.

The implication is that after three centuries of Greek colonization, the Sicles were still occupying land in very close proximity to the Sikeloit cities. The Sicles had not been push inland or absorbed into the Sikeloit society, as one so often reads in abbreviated histories of ancient Sicily.

The Sicels were clearly a unique Sicilian culture and force to be reckoned with on the borders of Sikeliot city-states.

The magnitude of that reckoning force (antagonism) is implied by the fact that two of the largest Sikeloit cities joined forces to suppress the Ducetius Sicel independence movement. Toynbee:

“Ducetius [and his followers] incurred disaster by falling foul of Agrigentum and Syracuse simultaneously. (VI, p.235)

But, in defeat, the measure of the Sicel and Sikeliot synergism can be seen in how the Syracusans treated Ducetius. They did not kill him. On the contrary they exiled him to Corinth. Toynbee:

“The victorious Syracusan adversaries sent the defeated Sicel patriot into an honorable exile at Corinth – the mother city of Syracuse. (VI, p.235)

Further, perhaps the ultimate measure of the Antagonism / Synergism relationship between Sicels and Sikliots, Ducetius return to Sicily as the head of a new group of Greek colonist. Toynbee:

“Far from becoming estranged … Ducetious completely convert to Hellenism and returned from Corinth to Sicily, not as a refugee who had broken out of prison, but as the Sicel leader of a new swarm of Greek colonist. (VI, p.235)

However, although he was “completely convert to Hellenism" (synergism), nevertheless, he still dreamed of leading a second attempt of creating a unified Sicel Commonwealth (antagonism).

This time centered on the town of Calacte (modern Caronia) on the northern coast near Messina. Toynbee:

“When death overtook Ducetius .. it found him engaged once again on his original enterprise of attempting to unite all the Sicel communities into a single commonwealth … at Calacte. (VI, p.236)

Again the significance of the location at Calacte should not be ignored. See map below: Calacte is about 60 miles north of Palice, demonstrating the extent of the territory that the Sicels occupied at the end of the fifth century B.C.

III. Sicel / Sikeliot antagonism and synergism in the Peloponnesian War (431 -404)

There are scores of references in Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War, attesting to the significant role the Sicels played in that historically profound war. For example, both Athens and Syracuse vied for Sicel military support. Thucydides writes:

“Hermocrates the son of Hermon, believing that he had certain information, came forward, and warned the Syracusans in the following words: 'Let us take courage then, and put ourselves into a state of defence; let us also send envoys to the Sicels, (Book 6 Chapter 34)

“[The Athenian] Alcibiades urged … negotiate with the Sicels, making friends of the independent tribes, and persuading the rest to revolt from the Syracusans. (Book 6 Chapter 48)

Again, three hundred years after the Greeks came to their land, the Sicels acted the role of both Sikeliot allies (synergism) and enemy (antagonist). For example allies with Naxo and enemy of Messenia. Thucydides writes:

“The Messenians, with their whole power by land and with the allied fleet, made war upon Naxos ...

“They forced the Naxians to retire within their walls and ravaged the country; on the morrow they sailed round to the mouth of the river Acesines, again ravaged the country, and with their land-forces made incursions right up to the city.

But in the meantime a large body of Sicels came down over the heights to assist the Naxians against the Messenians.

Perceiving this the besieged took heart … charged the Messenians, and put them to flight with a loss of more than a thousand men; the rest with difficulty escaped, for the [Sicels] fell upon them in the roads and destroyed most of them. (Book 4, Chapter 25).

Conclusion

The above represents a small fraction of the Sicel-Sikeliot cultural dynamic which constitute of origin of Sicilian culture that came down to circa 1900 A.D. Freeman provides hundreds of pages on the Sicels and hundreds more on the other two groups of origianl Sicilians: Sicans and Elymians.

Similar classical volumes are available about the cultural origins of southern main land Italy.

Sadly, this long and rich history is not presented to students of southern-Italian decent

Representations of pre-1960s Little Italies in literay fiction (e.g. The Fortunate Pilgrim and Underworld) and anthropology (e.g. Street Corner Society and Urban Villagers) clearly indicate that southern-Italian Americans knew literally nothing about their mighty history.

Moreover, I’m confident that any random sample of today’s suburban southern-Italian Americans, if quizzed about their history will be in a greater state of ignorance.

The Little Italy generations had no pretensions about knowing their history. Today, southern-Italian Americans think they know something because they have been saturated with baseless media representations and little weight historiography.

However, as the above indicates, southern-Italian history is long and complex; and not easy to know and appreciate. It is intellectually challenging.

Pedagoic implications

If it should ever come to pass that Italian-American prominenti and literati should see fit to make available, to near seventeen million Americans of southern-Italian descent, a curriculum of their three thousand year history and culture, that curriculum should consists of something more than narrative stories and biographies.

Such a curriculum should consist of training in the concepts, methods and techniques historians use to gain knowledge of the past. We don’t need students who can regurgitate hiSTORIES that they read in hiSTORY books.

We need rigorously trained intellectuals who can think analytically and critically about history; not only able to discourse about the past but also stipulate how we come to Know what we think we Know about the past.

The history of Italy south of Rome is so complex and profound that southern-Italian American students should be trained as philosopher-historians:

- appreciating the magnitude of their mighty ancestry;

- instilling a respect and passion that south of Rome history deserves;

- effectively passing on that history and culture to following generations.

Needless to say, there is absolutely no evidence indicating that the Italian American literati (aka teachers) are interested in such a pedagogic project.

This is impeccably demonstrable by the methods of the “historian’s craft” – i.e. gather and critique documents. Look (knowledge begins with observation) at the:

- documents describing themes, papers presented, panels and workshops of the conferences held by major literati organizations (Italian American Studies Association and the American Association of Italian Studies);

- documents describing college curriculums and course descriptions

- documents describing Ph.D. dissertations and journal articles

- documents describing locations of Italian Studies Abroad programs

In any of these documents does one see evidence of comprehensive (not anecdotal) south of Rome historiography? (Will we ever see Association for Patria Meridionale Studies?)

In short, so far as I have seen, the overwhelming preponderance of documents describing the education made available to southern-Italian American students clearly and unequivocally demonstrate that the teachers of these students have virtually no interest in bringing the history and culture of Italy south of Rome to their students.

The southern-Italian American students are … in a word … terroni-ized!

Evidence see:

To Educate Italian American Children…or NOT??

http://www.i-italy.org/bloggers/8870/educate-italian-american-children-or-not

April 23, 2009

“Italian Studies: Northern Italian “Ivory Towers” Southern Italian Americana – Patterns of Italian Translations”

http://www.i-italy.org/bloggers/18228/italian-studies-northern-italian-ivory-towers-southern-italian-americana-patterns-ita

September 27, 2011

American Terroni – 3,000 year Lost History of “Patria Meridionale”

http://www.i-italy.org/bloggers/16791/american-terroni-3-000-year-lost-history-patria-meridionale

February 27, 2011

Terroni Americana - Gramsci Test Case...M. Amari (Scholar, Revolutionary, Statesman) vs. A. Manzoni (novelist)

http://www.i-italy.org/bloggers/16728/terroni-americana-gramsci-test-case-m-amari-scholar-revolutionary-statesman-vs-manzon

February 18, 2011

Folklore of Sicilian Peasant Culture – Perniciously ignored in Italian (Italy Ends at the Garigliano) Studies Programs

http://www.i-italy.org/bloggers/34923/folklore-sicilian-peasant-culture-perniciously-ignored-italian-italy-ends-garigliano-

November 28, 2012

“Chickens come home to roost” – Italian Studies suffers consequences for aversion to Patria Meridionale.

http://www.i-italy.org/bloggers/16911/chickens-come-home-roost-italian-studies-suffers-consequences-aversion-patria-meridio

March 16, 2011

Sicilian and Southern Italian languages: Lessons of Norway and Ireland

http://www.i-italy.org/bloggers/16517/sicilian-and-southern-italian-languages-lessons-norway-and-ireland

January 19, 2011

Guy de Maupassant’s “SICILY” – Sicilian Mosaics and Guido Education

http://www.i-italy.org/bloggers/19674/guy-de-maupassant-s-sicily-sicilian-mosaics-and-guido-education

February 6, 2012

Towards an American Terroni “Education Manifesto” – i-Italy’s role (if any)

http://www.i-italy.org/bloggers/20060/towards-american-terroni-education-manifesto-i-italy-s-role-if-any

March 5, 2012

Etc.

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