This city, situated at the foot of Mount Etna, was founded by a colony from Chalcis, seven hundred and fifty-three years before the Christian era; and soon after the settlement of Syracuse. There have not been wanting some, however, to assert that ancient Catanea was one of the oldest cities in the world.

It fell into the hands of the Romans, and became the residence of a prÆtor.

It was then adorned with sumptuous buildings of all kinds. It was destroyed, however, by Pompey; and restored by Augustus with greater magnificence. It was large and opulent. Being so contiguous to Mount Etna, it is rendered remarkable for the fatal overthrows to which it has been subjected by the eruptions of that mountain; in some of which it has been known to discharge a stream of lava four miles broad and fifty feet deep, and advancing at the rate of seven miles in a day.

The number of eruptions from the page of history are 81.

In 1693 Catanea was entirely destroyed by an earthquake, so that hardly one stone remained upon another. It began on the 9th January, and on the 11th the earth opened in several places. Almost in a moment 11,000 persons, who had fled to the cathedral for shelter, perished by its fall; the canon, with the ministers at the altar, and about one hundred persons, being all that escaped. The undulations of this shock were felt, it is said, in Germany, France, and even in England. Fifty-four towns of some magnitude were, more or less, sufferers by this earthquake, and the total loss of human life, it is supposed, amounted to nearly one hundred thousand.

"The present town," says Malte Brun, "is well built. Its fine edifices are so many proofs, not of its prosperity, but of its misfortunes; for, in Catanea, houses never become old; they give way either to lava or volcanic shocks. It is to the earthquakes of 1693 and 1783 that it owes its magnificence; almost wholly destroyed, it was rebuilt with greater regularity. Most of its edifices, however, have been injured by the shocks in 1819."

A great many antiquities are contained in the Biscari Museum, which was founded by a wealthy noble of the same name, who spent his fortune in exploring or digging for antiquities in the territory of Catanea. The ancient theatre and amphitheatre, the old walls, baths, and temples, were buried under several layers of lava and alluvial deposits, that were removed by the same individual; lastly, the town is indebted to him for several ancient statues.

"There are many remains of antiquity," says Mr. Brydone, "but most of them are in a very ruinous state. One of the most remarkable is an elephant of lava, with an obelisk of Egyptian granite on his back. There are also considerable remains of a great theatre, besides that belonging to the prince of Biscaris, a large bath, almost entire; the ruins of a great aqueduct eighteen miles long; the ruins of several temples, one of Ceres; another of Vulcan. The church, called Bocca di Fuoco, was likewise a temple. But the most entire of all is a small rotunda, which, as well as the rotunda at Rome, and some others to be met with in Italy, demonstrates that form to be the most durable of any."

There is also a well at the foot of the old walls, where the lava, after running along the parapet, and and then falling forwards, produced a very complete and lofty arch over the spring.

Through the care, and at the expense of prince Biscaris, many other monuments of ancient splendour and magnificence have been recovered by digging down to the ancient town, which, on account of the numerous torrents of lava that have flowed out of Mount Etna for the last thousand years, is now to be sought for in dark caverns many feet below the present surface of the earth.

Mr. Swinburne states, that he descended into baths, sepulchres, an amphitheatre, and a theatre, all very much injured by the various catastrophes that have befallen them. He found, too, that these buildings were erected not on the solid ground and with brick or stone, but on old beds of lava, and with square pieces of the same substance, which, in no instance, appears to have been fused by the contact of new lavas: the sciarra or stones of old lava having constantly proved as strong a barrier against the flowing torrent of fire as any other stone could have been, though some authors have been of opinion, that the hot matter would melt the whole mass, and incorporate itself with it.

There was a temple at Catanea, dedicated to Ceres, in which none but women were permitted to appear[186].