Sicily: Art and Invention between Greece and Rome is the only English-language book that focuses on the watershed period between the victory over the Carthaginians at the Battle of Himera in 480 B.C. and the Roman conquest of Syracuse in 212 B.C., a time of great social and political ferment. Intended as a sourcebook for Classical and Hellenistic Sicily, this anthology features current research by more than forty international scholars. The essays investigate Sicily not simply as a destination for adventurers and settlers, but as a catalyst that shaped Greek culture at its peak and transmitted Hellenism to Rome. In the opulent courts of the Sicilian city-states, artists, poets, and scientists attained levels of refinement and ingenuity rivaling, even surpassing, those of “old Greece.” Innovation in architecture, engineering, coinage, philosophy, and literature flourished in mixed cultural communities, which offered room for experimentation and gave birth to such influential figures as Empedokles, Theokritos, and Archimedes. Buona lettura!