History and etymology of Caltabellotta
The prehistoric site of Caltabellotta is pointed by two caves on top of Mount Pellegrino and four tombs called " Saracen Caves." However, despite the massive presence of the Arabs, the true history of Caltabellotta is much more complex.
The tangled history of the ancient town began with a justly famous essay by the German scholar Julius Schubring [1839-1914] (“Kamikos-Triokala-Caltabellotta”, in “Zeitschrift fur allgemaine Erdkund”, I, 1866, 133-158), in which were laid the foundations of the endless scientific debates that currently characterize the mysterious history of Caltabellotta. In the first part of his work, Schubring outlined a topographical picture of the area, while in the end of the essay he quoted the legend of Minos and drew his conclusions on "Kamikos" and "Triokala," the two toponyms that are at the basis of the ancient history of Caltabellotta.
According to legend, when Daedalus, the inventor of the Labyrinth, fled from the anger of King Minos, he took refuge to Sicily with Cocalus, a powerful Sicanian king, where he lived for a while, filling the island of his fame. Here he built 'Kamikos', a city on a rock, absolutely impregnable. Meanwhile, King Minos prepared an invasion, and landing in the territory of Agrigento, turned against Kamikos, asking Cocalus the consignment of Daedalus. Cocalos with a deception invited him to a meeting, and after promising that he would run everything, hospitably received Minos. While Minos went for a bathe, Cocalus detaining him in hot water killed him and returned the body to the Cretans, saying that he had fallen into the hot water and died.
Schubring emphasized that the legend, veiled the fact that Cocalos and Kamikos were attacked by an army from Crete. Schubring's intuition was confirmed by contemporary studies: “ The mythological substrate connected to the military expedition of Minos, in search of Daedalus, who escaped from the Labyrinth and took refuge at the court of the Sicanian King Cocalus, reveals the historical reality of a possible military confrontation between the ancient military powers for the control of the Mediterranean routes, trades and technologies” (See, C. Montagna”, “Il tesoro di Minos. L'architettura della Gurfa di Alia tra preistoria e misteri”, Officina di studi medievali, Palermo, 2009, pp. 12-13).
According to tradition, perhaps Kamikos was destroyed in the age of Theron, tyrant of Akragas ( 540-472 BC), and it was abandoned by its inhabitants. With the disappearance of Kamicos, "Triokala" made its appearance; so the Greeks called the city, that with this name identifies its main properties, namely "Triokala" = Three good things: water, fruit, and impregnability. However it is not a foregone conclusion that Triokala appeared "after" the disappearance of Kamikos; according to Schubring, Triokala would have been the fortress of Kamikos and it was situated on a rocky peak overlooking the town; so Triokala was the fortress (frourìon) of Kamikos, which was the vantage point of the slaves during the first Servile War in Sicily (134-132 BC).
Indeed, from a topographical point of view, Triokala perfectly coincides with the current Caltabellotta. About the antiquity of Triokala, Freeman wrote: “ If I rightly undestand him [that is Schubring] he places the original Triokala at Sant'Anna, between the hills of Caltabellotta and the river Caltabellotta. (...) I Suppose be the akropolis of the old Triokala (...) For old Sikan history, Kamikos is of fist-rate importance, and Triokala of very little” ( See Freeman, 1891, pp. 504 sgg. ). Following the events of the Servile War, also Triokala was destroyed, as appears from a poem by Silius Italicus (28-105 AD) [XIV 270]: “Et mox servili vastata Triocala bello” [And then Triokala was destroyed during the Servile War].
The identification of Schubring enjoyed great prestige and it was initially accepted by almost all scholars, but in more recent times Eugenio Manni spotted Kamikos in the area of ??Sciacca, and V. Giustolisi in “Rocca Nadore.” Today Kamikos is located in “San Angelo Muxaro”, northwest of Agrigento, where archaeological researchs have found traces of late Mycenaean influences (tombs carved in the form of "Tholos" [they consist of a circular, subterranean burial chamber]). The big settlement, not far from Kamikos - S. Angelo Muxaro, perhaps fell into the orbit of Agrigento at the time of Phalaris (died 554 BC). According to P. Griffo, the identification of Kamikos with Caltabellotta was “based on general impressions”: "[...] This is due to insufficient identification of some local scholars. Also the official science has been participating in the confusion, and its assumptions are not consistent (…) Based on the general impression is that of Schubring (Caltabellotta), which has been slavishly followed [...] "(See P. Griffo, “Sull'identificazione di Camico con l'odierna S. Angelo Muxaro a Nord-Ovest di Agrigento”, in “Archivio storico per la Sicilia orientale”, 1954, p. 61). In conclusion, for the moment the situation is fluid, for which Kamikos seems to coincide with S. Angelo Muxaro.
However, the local historians strongly defend the equation of Caltabellotta with Kamikos. L. Rizzuti writes: "[...] Today one tends to give a primary value to the archaeological evidences, considering of secondary or ancillary importance other assumptions, and the site proposed is San Angelo Muxaro [...]". However, since one of the characteristics of the ancient Kamikos was to be an almost impregnable fortress, this responds more to the fortress of Caltabellotta than to the site of S. Angelo Muxaro: "[...] The historical sources give us a completely different idea on Kamikos.
It is not the figment of one’s imagination, but it really existed and became famous thanks to its peculiarities that an investigation should disclose and strictly respect. Some might say that historical sources are not always reliable, because they are invalidated by the legend. This may be true in theory, but if we now attribute the name of Kamikos to the top of a mountain, if we go in search of an impregnable fortress that was capable of withstanding a long siege and which lived its history in a defined time, we have to locate these features in the site that we suggest [that is Caltabellotta] and we can not change completely them, saying, as Peter Griffo, that 'the impregnability of Kamikos, which is described by Diodorus (90-27 BC), is not necessary to admit it, as many claim, in an absolute sense’. An alternative suggestion is Caltabellotta. This is nothing new, other scholars in past times indicated Caltabellotta as the probable site of Kamikos [...] ( See Luciano Rizzuti, “Ecco perché Camico è a Caltabellotta”,in “Caltabellotta. La Voce”, Luglio 2006, pp. 12-13).
The scholar also believes in the "continuity" of the site, and that Kamikos was followed by Triokala. In fact, much of the criticism just considers that Triokala was located at Caltabellotta. But there are doubts about this; for example, Jean-Yves Frétigné notes that «Triocala [est] identifiée 'sans certitude' avec l’actuelle Caltabellotta [Triokala is identified "without certainty" with Caltabellotta] (See Jean-Yves Frétigné, "Histoire de la Sicile: des origines à nos jours, Fayard, 2009, p.96). This implies an erosion of old certainties started from Fazello and then continued with Holm, Schubring, Freeman and other scholars. However, for equity, we observe that even the equation with S. Angelo Muxaro is far from certain: “Kamikos is most often identified with S. Angelo Muxaro, but the evidence is 'equivocal'” ( See Thomas Heine Nielsen, “Even More Studies in the Ancient Greek Polis”, 2002, p. 134). V. La Rosa, author of an important study on the Aegean-Cretan influences in Sicily, proceeds warily and with regard to the equation S. angel Muxaro = Kamikos, he confines himself to a "presumabably" (See V. La Rosa, “Élites sicane e antroponimi micenei”, Mare Internum (Pisa und Rom) 1, 2009, 55-60 and footnote 16).
Among other things, the skein has got trangled because of a different tradition ensuring that Daedalus arrived with Cocalus in a Sicanian town called “Inycon” [Pausanias, 7,4,5: “Daìdalos es Inycon Sikelòn polin aphikneitai parà Kòkalos” . The problem is then to determine whether Inycon coincided with Kamikos or if Inycon was located "close" to Kamikos.
As we can see the problem, rather than to become simpler, doubles; not only we do not know for sure if Kamikos was at S. Angelo Muxaro or Caltabellotta, but we do not even know if Kamikos and Inycon were the same place. It will also be a prosaic speech, but the only sure thing is that Kamikos-Inycos-Triokala were “in the territory of Agrigento.” Triocala is mentioned in Roman times for the slave rebellion, and “ it appears as 'civitas' in the alphabetical list of Pliny (23-79 AD) and it is mentioned by Ptolemy (100-175 AD), who proves that it existed at the middle of the second century of the Roman Empire (...) It is said ‘frourìon’ [fortress] of Akragas [Agrigento] by Diodorus” (See E. Pais," “Alcune osservazioni sulla storia della Sicilia ...”, 1888, p. 172, 219, 167 note 2).
Focusing again on Triocala, E. Pais wrote: “ This castle was the headquarters of the slaves during the Servile War. This fact would suffice to explain why Triokala was included among the punished cities, but perhaps it became a ‘censorial’ city, since the time of the first Punic War. Dr. Schubring wrote that Triocala was nothing more than the castle of Kamikos, situated in the territory of Agrigento” (E. Pais, p. 151).
In the Early Byzantine period Triokala was a Bishopric, and then, after the threatening Arab invasion, the population moved to Sciacca and the bishopric was moved from Triocala to Mount “Cronio”. Also the ancient town of Triokala was destroyed and rebuilt in the ninth century by the Arabs under the name of "Kalat al ballut '(stronghold of the oaks). Here in 1091 King Roger (1031-1101) won the Arabs, and in memory of the victory he erected a temple to St. George. Here the Normans built a castle, where in 1302, between Frederick II of Aragon (1272-1337) and Charles of Valois (1270-1325) was signed the Treaty of Caltabellotta after the war of Vespers, and then the island was ceded to the Aragonese.
It was a feud of the Peralta, and then of the De Luna, Moncada and Alvarez de Toledo. Caltabellotta became a county in the mid-fourteenth century, when King Peter of Aragon (1319-1387) granted the title to Raymond Peralta, who became the poweful Earl of Caltabellotta. The county was ruled by the Peralta until the fifteenth century, when it passed for matrimonial law to the family of De Luna. Very important was also the Jewish component of the county (on the problem of not always idyllic relations between Jews and the De Luna, See V. Mulè, , “Gli ebrei di Caltabellotta e la famiglia de Luna”, in “Guglielmo Raimondo Moncada alias Flavio Mitridate: un ebreo converso siciliano”, edited by M. Perani, 2004, pp. 225 ff.). The Spanish rule lasted at Caltabellotta until the early eighteenth century; then it passed to the Bourbons and finally it entered into the Kingdom of Italy (1861).