In Sicily the permanent Phoenician settlements were chiefly towards the west and the north-west.  They included Motya, Eryx, Panormus (Palermo), and Soloeis.  That the Phoenicians founded Motya, Panormus, and Soloeis is distinctly stated by Thucydides;[5106] while Eryx is proved to have been Phoenician by its remains.  Motya, situated on a littoral island less than half a mile from the western shore, in Lat. 38º nearly, has the remains of a wall built of large stones, uncemented, in the Phoenician manner,[5107] and carried, like the western wall of Aradus, so close to the coast as to be washed by the waves.  It is said by Diodorus to have been at one time a most flourishing town.[5108] The coins have Phoenician legends.[5109]

Eryx lay about seven miles to the north-east of Motya, in a very strong position.  Mount Eryx (now Mount Giuliano), on which it was mainly built, rises to the height of two thousand feet above the plain,[5110] and, being encircled by a strong wall, was rendered almost impregnable.  The summit was levelled and turned into a platform, on which was raised the temple of Astarte or Venus.[5111] An excellent harbour, formed by Cape Drepanum (now Trapani), lay at its base.  There were springs of water within the walls which yielded an unfailing supply.  The walls were of great strength, and a considerable portion of them is still standing, and attests the skill of the Phoenician architects.  The blocks in the lower courses are mostly of a large size, some of them six feet long, or more, and bear in many cases the well-known Phoenician mason-marks.[5112] They are laid without cement, like those of Aradus and Sidon, and recall the style of the Aradian builders, but are at once less massive and arranged with more skill.  The breadth of the wall is about seven feet.  At intervals it is flanked by square towers projecting from it, which are of even greater strength than the curtain between them, and which were carried up to a greater height.  The doorways in the wall are numerous, and are of a very archaic character, being either covered in by a single long stone lintel or else terminating in a false arch.[5113] The commercial advantages of Eryx were twofold, consisting in the produce of the sea as well as in that of the shore.  The shore is well suited for the cultivation of the vine,[5114] while the neighbouring sea yields tunny-fish, sponges, and coral.[5115]

Panormus (now Palermo) occupies a site almost unequalled by any other Mediterranean city, a site which has conferred upon it the title of “the happy,” and has rendered it for above a thousand years the most important place in the island.  “There is no town in Europe which enjoys a more delicious climate, none so charming to look on from a distance, none more delightfully situated in a nest of verdure and flowers.  Its superb mountains, with their bare flanks pierced along their base with grottoes, enclose a marvellous garden, the famous ‘Shell of Gold,’ in the midst of which are seen the