TAORMINA, a town on the east coast of Sicily (ancient Tauromenium), in the province of Messina, from which town it is 3o tn. S.S.W. by rail. Pop. It is a favourite winter resort, chiefly on account of its fine situation and beau tiful views. It lies on an abrupt hill 65o ft. above the railway station, and was occupied at least as early as the 8th cent. B.C. (as the discovery of a Sicel cemetery of that period shows). It was refounded by the Carthaginian Himilco in 397 B.C., after the destruction, by Dionysius the Elder of Syracuse, of the neighbouring city of Naxos. In 392 Dionysius occupied it and settled his mercenaries there. In 358 the exiles from Naxos at last found a home there. It was the city at which both Timoleon and Pyrrhus first landed. During the First Punic War it belonged to the kingdom of Hiero, and after his death it was allied to Rome. During the first Servile War it was occupied by Eunous and some of his followers, but was at length taken by the consul Publius Rupilius in 132. It was one of the strongholds of Sextus Pompeius, and after defeating him Augustus made it into a colonic. In the time of Strabo it was inferior in population to Messana and Catana; its marble, wine and mullets were highly esteemed. In A.D. 902 it was taken and burnt by the Saracens; it was retaken in 962, and in 1078 fell to the Normans.
The ancient town perhaps had two citadels; one the hill above the town to the W., now crowned by a mediaeval castle, the
other the hill upon which the theatre was afterwards constructed. There are some remains of the city walls. The church of San Pancrazio, just outside the modern town, is built into a temple of the 3rd century B.C., dedicated to Serapis, the south wall of the cella of which is alone preserved. The other ruins belong in the main to the Roman period. The theatre, largely hewn in the rock, is of Greek origin, but entirely reconstructed. The stage and its adjacent buildings, especially the wall, in two storeys, at the back, are preserved. The view is of exceptional beauty, Mount Etna being seen from the summit to the base on the south-west, while to the north the rugged outlines of the coast and the mountains of Calabria across the sea to the north east make up one of the most famous views in the world. There are also remains of a much smaller theatre (the so-called Odeum), and some large cisterns ; a large bath or tank which was appar ently open, known as the Naumachia, measures 4261 ft. in length and 391 in width. There are remains of houses, tombs, etc., of the Roman period, and fine specimens of Romanesque and Gothic architecture (notably the Palazzo Corvaia) in the modern town.
See Rizzo, Guida di Taormina e dintorni, Catania, 1902.