ABSTRACT
Even if the history of Syracuse is shortened appreciably, as I have argued earlier here, nevertheless there remains a mighty hiatus before the literary sources begin to recount events in this part of Sicily. Th e earliest temples that can still be seen at Syracuse – the temple of Apollo on the Island and the temple of Zeus at Polichne – are considered on the basis of architectural style to belong to the earliest phase of peripteral temple development and are thus dated to between 620 and 580 BC.1 Since the Apollo temple lies near the harbour of Syracuse’s initial settlement, it is likely to have been an earlier structure than the Olympieion at outlying Polichne some 5 or 6 kilometres to the south of the city and mid-way across the bay.2 Th e completion of a temple to Apollo within about a generation of the Greeks’ arrival on the Island, if as late as the 650s, would therefore fi t well with the generally accepted date for the temple.3
