Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Taormina

TAORMINA (Tauromenium), now an unimportant village of about 3000 inhabitants, is magnificently situated at the edge of a precipitous cliff 900 feet high on the east coast of Sicily, about 32 miles from Messina and the same from Catania. The original city was founded by a tribe of Siculi after the destruction of the neighbouring city of Naxos in 403 b.c. by Dionysius of Syracuse. It was built on the hill of Taurus, whence came the name Ταυρομένιον (Diod., xiv. 58). In 358 b.c. the city was increased by the settlement of the exiled survivors from Naxos, which was only 3 miles distant; and hence Pliny (H. N., iii. 8) speaks of Naxos as having been the original name of Tauromenium. Owing to its commanding site, the city has frequently been the scene of important struggles. When with the rest of Sicily it passed into the possession of the Romans, it shared with two other Sicilian cities the privileges of a "civitas fœderata." During the Servile War (134-132 b.c.) Tauromenium was occupied by a body of rebel slaves, but was finally taken by the consul Rupilius, and the whole garrison slaughtered. In 36 b.c. it was one of Sextus Pompey's chief strongholds in his war with Augustus, who after his victory established a Roman colony there. Under the empire it was a flourishing city, famed for its wine (Pliny, H. N., xiv. 6) and red mullets (Juv., v. 93). In 902 a.d. it was taken from the Byzantine emperor by the Saracens, who called the place Moezzia. In 1078 it was captured by the Normans. A large number of ancient remains bear witness to its former importance. Fine autonomous silver coins of c. 300 B.C. exist, with obv. a laureated head of Apollo, and rev. a tripod, with the legend TAYPOMENITAN, and a magistrate's initials AI. The theatre is, next to that at Aspendus (Pamphylia), the best preserved in existence. It is Greek in plan, but the existing structure belongs mostly to the Roman period, and is specially remarkable for the preservation of its lofty scena wall, and two large chambers which form entrance-porches to the cavea. It is excavated in an elevated peak of rock, and commands one of the most magnificent views in the world, with Mount Etna in the distance. Remains of five piscinæ and a large bath, popularly called a naumachia, still exist, together with remains of the ancient city wall and that of the arx.

See Serradifalco, Antichiità di Sicilia, Palermo, 1834–42, vol. v.; Hittorff and Zanth, Architecture Antique de la Sicile, Paris, 1870.