Centuripe

Centuripe (Latin: Centuripae;Sicilian: Centorbi) is a town and comune in the province of Enna (Sicily, southern Italy). The city is 61 kilometres (38 mi) from Enna in the hill country between the Rivers Dittaìno and Salso.

The economy is mostly based on agriculture. There are caves for sulphur and salt mineral, and water springs.

History

Thucydides mentions Kentoripa as a city of the Sicels, hellenized in the 5th century BC. It became an ally of the Athenians at the time of their expedition against Syracuse, and maintained its independence almost uninterruptedly (though it fell under the power of Agathocles) until the First Punic War. Cicero describes it, perhaps with some exaggeration, as being by far the largest and richest city of Sicily, and as having a population of 10,000, engaged in the cultivation of an extensive territory. It was granted Latin rights before the rest of Sicily. It appears to have suffered much in the war against Sextus Pompeius because of his loyalty to Octavian, but these reconstructed and gave the inhabitants the Roman citizenship. The Clapham of the Imperial Roman age is what left the most impressive monumental remains. Grandiose monumental ruins, a rich complex of sculptures, numerous inscriptions: a whole series of elements seem to mark the accomplishments of a local family that, in the 2nd century, came to express a consul, a son of one of the components of the entourage of the emperor Hadrian. A large number of monumental remains were lost forever due to the neglect of the past and systematic theft and plundering for collectors and collections of every where. Gradually declined in the late Empire.