According to legend, Erice, son of Venus and Neptune, founded a small town on top of a mountain (750 metres above sea level) more than three thousand years ago. The founder of modern history, Thucydides (~ 500 B.C.), writing about events connected with the conquest of Troy (1183 B.C.) and the escape on the sea towards the West, said that the Elymi - historical founders of Erice - were survivors from the destruction of Troy. This inspired Virgil to describe the arrival of the Trojan royal family in Erice and the burial of Anchises, by his son Aeneas, on the coast below Erice. Homer (~1000 B.C.), Theocritus (~300 B.C.), Polybius (~200 B.C.), Virgil (~50 B.C.), Horace (~20 B.C.), and others have celebrated this magnificent spot in Sicily in their poems. From the 13th to the 19th century the town of Erice was under the leadership of a local oligarchy, whose wisdom assured a long period of cultural development and economic prosperity which in turn gave rise to the many churches, monasteries and private palaces which you see today.

 In Erice you can admire the Castle of Venus, the Cyclopean Walls (~800 B.C.) and the Gothic Cathedral (~1300 A.D.). Erice is at present a mixture of ancient and medieval architecture. Other masterpieces of ancient civilization are to be found in the neighbourhood: at Motya (Phoenician), Segesta (Elymian), and Selinunte (Greek). On the Aegadian Islands - theatre of the decisive naval battle of the first Punic War (264-241 B.C.) - neolithic and paleolithic vestiges are still visible: the grottoes of Favignana, the carving and murals of Levanzo.