A Sicilian Village 
vines. H ere and there are strange heavy 
benches and at the end a rude attempt at 
exedra and pergola. 
However charming the convent garden, or 
interesting the village, it is not these alone 
that brings the traveller to Taormina, but its 
greatest treasure, 'The Remains of the Antique 
Theatre. This is rightly celebrated as one of 
the best preserved of such structures. Its seats 
are not in as perfect a condition as those of 
several other examples, but its Proscenium 
Wall is with a single exception the most 
complete of any remaining from antiquity. 
Though often so called, it is not properly a 
Greek theatre, since the theatre which the 
Greek colonists or their successors erected 
was largely destroyed to make room for one 
of Roman construction. Doubtless some¬ 
thing of the Greek original remained in the 
plan of this later building, but it is really the 
ruins of a Roman theatre that we see to-day 
and not a Greek one. The proscenium wall 
which affords an excellent idea of the sump¬ 
tuous background of a Roman play was 
pierced by three great doorways leading to the 
stage. It was also enriched by niches and 
columns of which such abundant remains 
exist that the general arrangement may very 
clearly be made out. The cavea according 
to the ancient custom is placed in the top 
of a hill which inclines gently toward the 
west and commands a magnificent plain 
spreading out as far as the crests of Agosta 
and of Syracuse. The varied green of 
this flourishing country is marked from 
time to time by villages, market-places and 
castles. Etna’s crest, covered with eternal 
snow, towers beyond the clouds. In the 
easy folds of its side facing the sea are con¬ 
spicuous the white houses of Piedimonte and 
of Calatabiano. Says John Addington 
Symonds: “It was there, looking northward 
to the straits, that Ulysses tossed between 
Scylla and Charybdis : there, turning towards 
the flank of Etna, that he met with Poly¬ 
phemus and defied the giant from his galley. 
Then, leaving myths for history, we remem¬ 
ber how the ships of Nikias set sail from 
Reggio, and coasted the forelands at our feet, 
past Naxos, on their way to Catania and Syra¬ 
cuse. Cylippus afterwards in his swift galley 
took the same course : and Dion, when he 
came to destroy his nephew’s empire. Here 
too Timileon landed resolute in his firm will 
to purge the isle of tyrants.The stage 
of these tremendous pomps is very calm and 
peaceful now. Lying among acanthus leaves 
and asphodels, bound together by wreaths 
of pink and white convolvulus, we only feel 
that this is the loveliest landscape on which 
our eyes have ever rested or can rest. 1 he 
whole scene is a symphony of blues,—gem¬ 
like lapis lazuli in the sea, aerial azure in the 
distant headlands, light-irradiated sapphire in 
the sky, and impalpable vapour-mantled 
purple upon Etna. The gray bones of the 
neighboring cliffs, and the glowing brick¬ 
work of the ruined theatre, through the 
arches of which shine sea and hillside, en¬ 
hance by contrast these modulations of the 
one prevading hue. Etna is the dominant 
feature of the landscape,—than which no 
other mountain is more sublimely solitary, 
more worthy of Pindaris’ praise, ‘The pill¬ 
ar of heaven, the nurse of sharp, eternal 
snow’.” 
