CATANIA, a city in Sicily, the ancient Latina, situ ated in N. Lat. 37° Jo', E. Long. 15° 19', at the foot of Mount Etna, in the Valley of Noto, one of the three dis tricts into which the island is divided, and on the shore of the Ionian sea.
Whether we consider the political revolutions which this city has experienced, from its earliest history down nearly to the present tunes, or those awful convulsions of nature which have so often buried it. in ruins, Catania must equally attract our notice. In treading upon clas sic ground, however, it is with regret that we narrow ourselves to the limits which must be observed, lest a subject of particular interest should betray us into a trespass upon other articles, which, though of less mo ment, must not be omitted. Wherever the earth is inha bited, we find man invariably attached to the spot of his nativity, identifying himself, as it were, with the soil, however few its inducements may be ; but the force of the principle is infinitely more striking, where we behold him undismayed by the dangers that perpetually threat en him, constructing his abode of the very lava that had UtVuy in it 'nurse the nlanbiOnS of his foref.aners, upon a foundation that he has often felt shaken by earth quakes, in the midst of surrounding monuments of de solation. Such are the circumstances in which Catania stands. In addition to these, it has undergone every vi cissitude to which a city was exposed, from having fre quently arrived at sufficient opulence and splendour, to excite the cupidity of barbarians, and the envy of the powerful and ambitious.
Catina, one of the most ancient cities in Sicily. was founded in the time of the Sicanians, who were driven from it by the Siculi, at the period of their landing horn Italy, then a Grecian colony, from which they had been expelled. From them Sicily derived the name it still retains. Ifaving established themselves in possession of Catina, they enacted NV ilOICSOnle law:. under which it prospered, until Gero the first of Syracuse. growing en vious of their prosperity. and confident in his own power,
attacked the city, which he soon sacked. lie removed the inhabitants to Leontium, now Leontini, and supplied their places with new settlers from the Peloponnesus. So ambitious was Giro of the reputation of founding ci ties, that ;e attempted to abolisn the name of Catina, calling mat place Etna, and himself a citizen of Etna. His death, u ich happened in the first year of the 79th Olympiad, afforded a oppert which the Sicilians nnity. I I ea...;erly availed themselves of, to drive the Gre cian intru.,crs from their territory. After sum edit g in their enterprise, they entreated their countryman Caron das to quit the asylum to which he had fled, in Italy, on the conquest of Catina by Gero, and to return to his na tive city, to assist them in framing laws for their govern ment ; and the result evinced the wisdom of the mea sure, for Catina again prospered. It next fell a prey to the Carthaginians, who proved themselves the greatest scourge it had hitherto experienced. In the 93d Olym piad, Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse, obtained possession of Catina, through the perfidy of Archilaus, the prefect of the place. The tyrant plundered the city, and laid it desolate ; he sold the inhabitants for slaves, and gave their lands to others.
The Roman yoke was the next which this ill-fated ci ty was destined to feel. While Sicily was a province of the empire, it flourished ; but on the decline of that pow er, it fell a prey to the Saracens : and from the period of their expulsion by Roger the Norman invader, it shared the chequered fortune of the island, until its settlement by treaty upon the second branch of the royal family of Spain, now the only branch of the once powerful house of Bourbon, from whose hands the sceptre has not been wrested.
Catania was laid in ruins by an earthquake in the year 1693 ; and upon the situation which it occupied, the pre sent city was built, the lava serving at the same time for a foundation as well as a quarry, from which stone was dug for its construction.