Giardini Naxos Tour

In the placement of Giardini-Naxos, near Cape Schisò, in 734 BC calcidesi of settlers founded what has been considered for a long time the first greek settlement in Sicily (recent studies say that it was rather Zancle in 756 BC the first greek outpost of Sicily). The new colony was given the name of Naxos as the homonymous island in the Aegean Sea. Although it remained a center of modest dimensions retained its symbolic value, since it was erected an altar in honor of Apollo Archegetes, and was the starting point of the Greek ambassadors to return to the motherland. During the Peloponnesian war Naxos sided with Athens, but when in 413 BC military Athenian expedition to Sicily failed, the Syracusan tyrant Dionysius the Elder razed and built on the height above Tauromenion (Taormina).