, the old inhabitants retook their city,
and drove out the newly-settled strangers, who betook themselves to
Inessa, occupied it, and changed its name to _Aetna_. At a later period
the Katanians sided with the Athenians against the Syracusans. But in
403 B.C. Dionysius of Syracuse took and plundered the city, sold the
inhabitants as slaves, and established in it a body of Campanian
mercenaries. The latter quitted it and retired to Aetna in 396 B.C.,
when the city was taken by the Carthaginians after a battle off the
rocks of the Cyclops. Katana submitted to the Romans in 263 B.C.,
during the first Punic War, and it soon became a very populous city.
Cicero mentions it as a wealthy city and important seaport. During the
Middle Ages it underwent many changes both at the hands of nature and of
man; it belonged in succession to the Goths, Saracens, and Normans; and
in 1169 was destroyed by an earthquake, during which 15,000 of its
inhabitants perished. Again in 1669, and 1693, it was almost destroyed
by earthquakes. The present town is comparatively new, many of its more
ancient remains are covered with lava, among them the remains of a fine
Greco-Roman theatre, in which it is probable that Alcibiades addressed
the Catanians in 415 B.C. There are also remains of a Roman
amphitheatre, bath, and tombs. Of more modern structures, the cathedral
is the first to claim our notice. It was commenced by Roger I. in 1091,
but in less than a century was almost entirely destroyed by an
earthquake. At one corner of the building you descend through a narrow
passage cut in the lava, to a crypt in which some ancient Roman arches
are shown, partly filled up with lava. Here also is seen a small stream
of very clear water flowing through the lava. The cathedral contains
several interesting tombs, and in the chapel of S. Agata, her body is
preserved in a silver sarcophagus, which during certain fetes is carried
through the town in procession, attended by all the authorities. S.
Agata was martyred by the Praetor Quintianus in the reign of Decius, and
is the patron saint of the city. Whenever Catania has been in trouble
from the approach of lava streams, or from earthquakes, the veil of S.
Agata has been used as a charm to avert the evil.

The University of Catania is the most celebrated in Sicily. It was
founded in 1445 by Alfonso of Arragon, and has produced several men of
eminence. The city also possesses one of the finest monasteries in the
wo