The story tells Diodorus that the city was founded at the end of the 5th century BC. At the behest of Arconide tyrant of Herbita, on a narrow and elongated hill overlooking the north coast (altitude 204 meters) and the wide valley of the Halaisos (present day Tusa), an important penetration road in the heart of the Nebrodis. to 269 BC, in the decisive moment of the war between Gerone II and the Mamertines, Alesa, followed by Abaceno and Tindari, spontaneously surrendered to Gerone II. A few years later, while the First Punic War was raging, first of all the cities of Sicily he chose to submit to the Romans, starting a political line that was to provide the city with particular advantages.
The excavations have made it possible to trace first of all large sections of the walls that surrounded the whole hill on which the town developed. The wall, with an irregular layout, conforming to the course of the land, dates back to the 4th century BC, but underwent various restoration interventions over the centuries; the defensive system included towers and bulwarks in the most steep points; the entrances of the city were connected to it: two doors that opened at the only naturally accessible slope, the southern one.
The most interesting is that of the agora - main square, economic, political and administrative heart - brought to light for no more than fifty percent, located almost in the center of the town, on the route of the cardo maximus, in correspondence with an open terrace to the east with a view of the wide valley of the Tusa river.
Continuing from the agora to the north, particular monumentality has the remains of what appears today as a grandiose curvilinear construction, (so-called "buttresses"), probably originally the construction of a viaduct on which one of the main roads leading to the plateau had to pass Northern.
Archaeological Zone Halaesa Arconidea
Address: contrada Santa Maria delle Palate,98079
Phone: 0921 334531
Site:
http://www.regione.sicilia.it/beniculturali/dirbenicult/database/page_musei/pagina_musei.asp?ID=45&IdSito=52Location inserted by
Culturalword Abco