Sikanen
The Greeks referred to a part of the pre-Greek population of Sicily as Sikanen or Sikaner ( ancient Greek wurdeικανοί Sikanoi , Latin Sicani ) . In ancient times they were considered to be the very early inhabitants of the island. According to Thucydides , only the mythical Cyclopes and Laistrygons lived on the island before them . The Sicans, after which Sicily was originally called Sikania, originally came from Iberia , from the area around the Sikanos River , where they were driven out by Ligurians . As Thucydides writes in the same place, however, the Sicans claimed of themselves that they were autochthonous. Timaeus of Tauromenion , followed by Diodorus , said that the Sicans were the native inhabitants of the island.
According to Thucydides, after the Trojan War, some Trojans settled in the northwest ( Eryx and Segesta ) of the island and were given the name Elymer . Later, the Sicans were of the coming from Italy Sicels displaced to the south and west of the island - according to Thucydides almost 300 years before the Greek colonization. After that, Sicily was named after the Sicelians. Diodorus, on the other hand, writes that the Sicans emigrated to the west of the island because of a huge eruption from Mount Etna , which devastated more and more fields over the years. The areas that were freed as a result were settled generations later by the immigrants from Sikel.
At the time of the Greek colonization of Sicily (from the 8th century BC) the Sicans lived mainly in the central and southwestern part of the island, while the Sicelians lived in the east and northeast, the Elymers in the northwest of Sicily.
The Sican language could not yet be assigned to any language family. This is mainly due to the small number of clearly Sicilian written finds. Many of the inscriptions from the 6th to 4th centuries BC that were previously considered Sican. BC, which were found mainly in the south of Sicily., Stood now as sikulisch or with the Siculian related out.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War 6,2,1
- ↑ Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War 6,2,2, s. also Herodotus , Historien 7,170.
- ↑ Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War 6,2,2, who quotes Antiochus of Syracuse regarding the origin of the Sikanen according to research .
- ↑ Diodorus Siculus 5. 6. 1.
- ^ Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War 6.3.
- ↑ Diodorus Siculus 5. 6. 3.
- ↑ See also: Paolo Poccetti: Language Relations in Sicily. Evidence for the speech of the Σικανοί, the Σικελοί and others. In: Olga Tribulato (Ed.): Language and Linguistic Contact in Ancient Sicily. Cambridge University Press, 2012, pp. 65ff.