[3] But though it may be inferred from this story that it was an ancient city, and probably of Spartan origin (as a colony of the very near town of Demenna), we find no mention of it in history until after Sicily became a Roman province.
During the Second Punic War it became the headquarters of a band of robbers and freebooters, who extended their ravages over the neighboring country, but were reduced by the consul Laevinus in 210 BCE, who transported 4000 of them to Rhegium.
[4] It very probably was deprived on this occasion of the municipal rights conceded to most of the Sicilian towns, which may account for our finding no notice of it in Cicero, though it is mentioned by Strabo among the few cities still subsisting on the north coast of Sicily, as well as afterwards by Pliny, Ptolemy and the Itineraries.
If this last measurement be supposed correct it would exactly coincide with the distance from Caronia (Calacte) to a place near the seacoast called Acquedolci below San Fratello and about 3 km west of Sant'Agata di Militello, where Fazello describes ruins of considerable magnitude as extant in his day: but which he, in common with Cluverius, regarded as the remains of Aluntium.
Fazello accordingly placed it near Capo d'Orlando, but admits that there were scarcely any vestiges visible there, and modern scholars continue to accept the identification.