AGRIGENTUM, ig-ri-je'n'tiiin, a town in Sicily, of which this was the Roman name, the Greek name having been Agragas and the mod ern Italian name being Girgenti. It is thought to have been founded by Dorian colonists about 582 a.c. Its situation on the southern shore of the island was peculiarly strong and impos ing, standing as it did on a bare and precipitous rock about 1,000 feet above the level of the sea. During the Greek period Agragas rose to a position of great wealth and importance and was adorned with splendid temples and public buildings. Among Sicilian towns it was second only to Syracuse. In 406 ac. the city received a blow from which its dignity and power never recovered, in its capture by the Carthaginians. Under the Roman dominion we do not hear much of the town, which, however, seems to have been always prosperous, having mines as well as the most fertile territory. The town
is celebrated in Greek history as the birthplace of the famous philosopher Empedocles, and the celebrated and almost legendary tyrant Phalaris was ruler there — in what capacity is not clearly recorded. In the history of fine arts Agragas was famous as the centre of a school of sculp ture and refined architecture. We still have vestiges of this in the extraordinary group of temples, that dedicated to Hera Lacinia; that called "Temple of Concord," a remarkably well preserved monument of the Doric style; that called "Temple of Hercules," much ruined; and, finally, the gigantic Temple of Zeus, a building wholly unique in Grecian art as hay mg columns engaged in the walls of the cellar and a great interior evidently treated as a pub lic hall.