Vincenzo Girasoli
7.Where does Catania ends and Mount Etna begins?
Catania was founded in 700 BC by the Greek settlers. Back then, the city known as Katan or Katane (from the Greek) used to be the main site of worship to Demeter, goddess of harvest and agriculture. Three centuries later, a tyrant who conquered the city renamed it Aitna, from the Greek word for “burning”. For some reason, this new ruler considered the city to be one thing with the volcano. Then the Romans came and they changed the name again: the city itself was given the name Catana, whereas the volcano was named Aetna, thus ideally separating the two places. During the centuries, these Latin words would be reshaped by the ever-changing language and become today’s Catania and Etna. But when we take into consideration how often the city has been modified by Mount Etna’s eruptions, one can’t fail to notice that probably the tyrant who named it “burning place” had a point.
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