Lilybaeum was born of a destruction: in 397 BC, when Dionysius I of Syracuse razed Motya, the Phoenician survivors withdrew to the mainland and founded a new city here, at the far western tip of Sicily. They ringed it with mighty walls and two ditches, and those defences made it almost impregnable: it withstood the siege of Dionysius in 368 BC, that of Pyrrhus in 277 BC — the one city the Epirote king could not take — and the Romans for nine years during the First Punic War. Only the peace of 241 BC handed it to Rome, which made it one of the most important centres on the island.
What to see
Ancient Lilybaeum today is a 28-hectare archaeological park in the green heart of Marsala, on the Capo Boeo promontory. Walking through it you meet the line of the Decumanus Maximus, stretches of the Punic walls and ditches, a whole insula with two rich imperial-age houses, mosaic floors and small private baths. Among the treasures brought to light is the Venus Callipyge, known as the Lilybetana, a 2nd-century AD marble statue found in 2005 by the church of San Giovanni al Boeo. A chapter of its own is the hypogeum of Crispia Salvia, a 2nd-century AD burial chamber a husband dedicated to his wife: the walls are painted in vivid colour, with a flute-player, dancers and a banquet. The finest finds, together with the famous Punic ship from the Battle of the Aegates, are kept in the nearby Baglio Anselmi museum.
Visiting
The park is crossed on foot, in the open air: in the grass it is not unusual to tread on fragments of ancient terracotta or to see stretches of wall emerging from the ground. The hypogeum of Crispia Salvia, because its paintings are fragile, can be visited by reservation only. The Baglio Anselmi museum, on the same promontory, rounds off the route with the Carthaginian warship and the Roman sculptures found in the digs.
Our editors' tip
Pair Lilybaeum with nearby Motya: a few hundred metres apart on the Stagnone, the two cities tell the rise and the end of the Phoenician-Punic world in Sicily. And don't miss the painted hypogeum of Crispia Salvia — book ahead — one of the few Roman tombs on the island with colours this well preserved.