Agrigento (redirected from Akragras)

Agrigento (ägrējān`tō), Lat. Agrigentum, city (1991 pop. 55,283), capital of Agrigento prov., S Sicily, Italy, on a hill above the Mediterranean Sea. It is an agricultural market and a tourist center, but per capita income is among the lowest in Italy. Sulfur and potash are mined. Founded c.580 B.C. as Acragas (or Akragas) by Greek colonists of Gela, the city became one of the most prosperous in the Greek world, as is indicated by the imposing ruins that remain. It was destroyed c.406 B.C. by Carthage but recovered. During the first of the Punic Wars the city suffered at the hands of both the Romans and the Carthaginians. It fell definitively to Rome in 210 B.C. during the Second Punic War. After the fall of Rome, Agrigento passed to the Byzantines and then to the Arabs (9th cent.) and to the Normans (11th cent.). Of note in the city are the remains of several Doric temples (6th–5th cent. B.C.), Roman ruins, Christian catacombs, and archaeological and art museums.

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Agrigento

a town in Italy, in SW Sicily: site of six Greek temples. Pop.: 54 619 (2001)

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Agrigento 

Italian city in southern Sicily. It is the administrative center of Agrigento Province, with a population of 51,400 as of 1966. It is a center for the extraction of sulfur, which is shipped from Porto Empedocle. There is an archaeological museum in the city.

Agrigento was founded by Rhodians from Gela in about 582 B.C. (in ancient Greek called Acragas; in Latin, Agrigentum). It was a major trading center of the ancient Mediterranean world. In the period of the Punic Wars it was occupied by the Romans in 262 B.C. During the first Sicilian slave revolt in the second century B.C., the city was an important center of the slave movement. Ruins of the ancient city, including Greek temples of the sixth and fifth centuries B.C., have been preserved.