Tempio della Concordia

241 BC, Sicily was conquered by the Romans who replaced the Greeks by making Zeus, Jupiter, and so on for the other gods of Olympus. For Catone the Censor the island was “the granary of Rome“. Sicily alone exported about 3 million quintals per year to the capital. Even today, especially the center of the island, is an endless expanse of grain, as if it were sea, which makes it particularly characteristic landscape: deep green in winter and spring, and blinding yellow in the summer months.

The temple of Concord is one of the most beautiful monuments in the world, still there, soaring into the sky, after about three thousand years, witness to the power achieved by the Sicelioti (the Greeks of Sicily). The temple of  Concord is one of the monuments of the amazing Valley of the Temples, where temples, almonds, prickly pears and ruins of the ancient Akragas (Agrigento today), enchant even the most disenchanted of visitors. The imperious Doric columns date back to the fifth century BC. The temple of Concordia is, together with the Parthenon of Athens, the best preserved Doric temple in the world.

 (photo)Agrigento, view of the valley with the medieval on the left and severa lGreek temples below, cc 1751