Between the promontory of Lilybaeum (Capo Boéo) and that of Aegithallus (San Teodoro), the coast forms a deep bight, in front of which lies a long group of low rocky islets, called the Stagnone.

[9] The confined space on which the city was built agrees with the description of Diodorus that the houses were lofty and of solid construction, with narrow streets (στενωποί) between them, which facilitated the desperate defence of the inhabitants.

The Tophet, a type of cemetery for the cremated remains of children, possibly (but not entirely proven) as sacrifice to Tanit or Baʿal Hammon is exposed.

This prosperity caused rivalry with powerful Carthage nearby on the North African coast, despite their ancient common ancestry.

Motya recovered and the population quickly rebuilt the city on a monumental scale and, after two centuries without them, built the first defensive walls, some of the earliest in the central Mediterranean.

[13] Motya is first mentioned by Hecataeus of Miletus,[14] and Thucydides notes it among the chief colonies of the Phoenicians in Sicily at the time of the Athenian expedition in 415 BC.

[16] After the fall of the latter city, we are told that Hermocrates, the Syracusan exile, who had established himself on its ruins, laid waste the territories of Motya and Panormus.

[18] In common with the other Phoenician settlements in Sicily, it passed under the government or dependency of Carthage, since Diodorus calls it a Carthaginian colony, but this may not be strictly correct.

[20] Motya became one of the chief Carthaginian strongholds, as well as one of their most important commercial cities in Sicily due to its proximity to Carthage and its opportune situation for communication with North Africa, as well as the natural strength of its position.

Their struggle only increased the hatred of the Sicilian Greeks for the Carthaginians and when the troops of Dionysius were victorious, they put the whole population, men, women, and children, to the sword.

But the next spring (396 BC) Himilcon, the Carthaginian general, having landed at Panormus with a large force, recovered possession of Motya with comparatively little difficulty.

During the Middle Ages, Basilian monks settled on the island and renamed it San Pantaleo, and in 1888 it was rediscovered by Joseph Whitaker.

[2] Recent archaeology carrìed out by La Sapienza Universìty in the area of the "Kothon" found the earlìest occupation of the Phoenician settlement dating from the second quarter of the 8th century BC.

[26] It started at the anchorage identified on the southern shore of the island, and grew around the nearby springs, where the earliest sacred area was erected (Temple C5).

The cothon at Motya is an artificial lake on an otherwise very dry island that had long puzzled archaeologists since the first excavations by Joseph Whitaker in 1906/07.

The basin, which was slightly bigger than an Olympic-sized swimming pool, was carved into the rock with a maximum depth of 2.5 metres (8 ft).

The 399 BC Battle of Motya, part of the war of Syracuse's tyrant Dionysios I against Carthage is a major event in the 1965 historical novel The Arrows of Hercules by L. Sprague de Camp.