Greeks and Phoenicians
In 734 BC Phoenicians from Tyre (Lebanon) established a flourishing merchant colony in the Palermo area. The relationship of the new city with the Siculi, the people living in the Eastern part of the Island involved both commerce and war. The first building in which soon became a great city was called Mabbonath ("lodging" in Phoenician). It was the most important of the three buildings forming the “Phoenician triangle” cited by Thucydides. The others were the Motya and Soluntum. Only traces of the necropolis remain from the Phoenician age in Palermo.
Between the 8th and the 7th centuries BC, the Greeks colonized Sicily. They called the city Panormus ("All port") and traded with the Carthaginians, Phoenician descendants who were creating an empire from the coast of what is today’s Tunisia. The two civilizations lived together in Sicily until the Roman conquest. The Greek colony of Panormus had two nuclei: the Palepolis ("ancient city"), between the two rivers Kemonia and Papirethos, and the Neapolis ("new city"). Curiously, early Naples was divided in two parts with the same name. Its current name stems from the latter.
Read more about this topic: History Of Palermo
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