Ruling Grain-Rich Sicily

This chapter examines the articulation and political valences of Sicilian regional identity. Although Sicily as a region was defined according to geographical criteria, namely, the boundaries of the island, a subjective sense of Sicilian-ness developed that relied in part on two goddesses, Demeter and Kore (or Persephone). Myths described them as patrons of the whole island, making Sicily the location of key events in their biographies, and their cults were widespread there, including among non-Greeks. Sicilian leaders and tyrants from the Deinomenids onward used the two goddesses to create legitimacy for themselves. Moreover, a second criterion also contributed to Sicilian identity: a sense of contrast with Greeks of the mainland, especially Athens, beginning around the time of the Persian Wars and culminating with Athens’s Sicilian Expeditions. By excluding mainland Greeks and possibly including non-Greeks on the island, Sicilian identity cut across familiar ethnic categories.