Page 442 - The Rough Guide of Sicily

last decades of the sixth century BC, it’s a long structure, with nine of the original

thirty-eight columns re-erected, and everything else scattered around like a half-
finished jigsaw puzzle.

Tempio di Esculapio
No set hours • Free

The quickest way to reach the Tempio di Esculapio (Asclepius) is to climb over the
wall to the side of the Tempio della Concordia and scramble down to the SS115, from
which a dusty track leads down to the undersized temple, which has solid walls
instead of a colonnade.

The western zone

The western zone is less impressive than the eastern end of the site, though its vast
tangle of stone and fallen masonry from an assortment of temples is still engaging.
Most notable is the mammoth pile of rubble that was the Tempio di Giove (Jupiter, or
Zeus). The largest Doric temple ever known, it was never completed, left in ruins by
the Carthaginians and further damaged by earthquakes and the removal of stone to

build the port of Porto Empedocle to the south. Still, the stereobate remains,
unnaturally huge in scale, while on the ground, face to the sky, lies an 8m-high
telamone: a supporting column sculpted as a male figure, arms raised and bent to bear
the weight of the temple. As excavations continue, other scattered remains litter the
area, not least piles of great column drums marked with a U-shaped groove, which

enabled them to be lifted with ropes.

Tempio dei Dioscuri
Beyond the Tempio di Giove, behind the excavated gates and walls of the Greek city,
is the earliest sacred site, the Sanctuary of the Chthonic Deities, dedicated to the

gods of the underworld and marked by two altars (one square and fire-reddened, the
other round), dating from the seventh century BC, before the official foundation of the
colony. Considerably more romantic-looking are the ruins of the so-called Tempio dei
Dioscuri (also known as Tempio di Castore e Polluce, or Castor and Pollux),
assembled in 1832 from various columns and other random architectonic fragments
discovered nearby.

Giardino della Kolymbetra
Daily: April–June 10am–6pm; July–Sept 10am–7pm; Oct to early Jan & Feb–March 10am–5pm • €3

Behind the Temple dei Dioscuri is the entrance to the Giardino della Kolymbetra, for
which you need a separate ticket. Part of the city’s irrigation system in the fifth century

BC, it’s now an extensive sunken garden, lush and green amid the aridity of the rest of
the archeological zone. There is nothing monumental here, but it makes a pleasant