Apollonia (Sicily)

Apollonia (Greek: Ἀπολλωνία) was an ancient city of Magna Graecia in Sicily, which, according to Stephanus of Byzantium, was situated in the neighbourhood of Aluntium and Calacte.

Cicero also mentions it[1] in conjunction with Haluntium, Capitium, and Enguium, in a manner that seems to imply that it was situated in the same part of Sicily with these cities, and Diodorus states that[2] it was at one time subject to Leptines the tyrant of Enguium from whose hands it was wrested by Timoleon in 342 BC and restored to independency.

[3] But it evidently regained its liberty after the fall of the tyrant, and in the days of Cicero was still a municipal town of some importance.

[4] In the 1st c. BC it was civitas decumana subject to sending a tenth of its agricultural income to Rome, and it sent one ship to the fleet to counter pirates.

Its site had been much disputed but the passages above cited a point in the north-eastern part of Sicily and the remains have been located through excavations in 2003-5 on Monte Vecchio near San Fratello, rather than at the modern Pollina which was postulated.