La fontana d'Aretusa

The Aretusa fountain in Ortigia, the original and oldest  part of Siracusa is a fresh water fed pool right next to the sea.  Papyrus grows there in abundance. It has fascinated for centuries. This is of Course the original Syracuse that once was more important than Rome and challenged Athens for supremacy in the Greek world. The decline of the Peloponnese dominance began when Athens, the most powerful Greek city state unsuccessfully waged war to Syracuse at around 440 BC. Syracuse victory and supremacy was short lived as after the Punic wars and with  the intrigues with Carthage that led to these, Sicily became the first Province of Rome. It was the beginning of a period of brutal and barbaric treatment at the  hands of the Romans who robbed, pillages and exploited the Island making it it's main source of grain. Being not a Hellenized  people these conquerors can be called barbarians using the Greek origins and usage of the term. The Romans still rule today but instead of barbarism, they use inefficiency,  political corruption and utter  administrative incompetence to detriment of Sicily and to a lesser extent, the rest of Italy. If you add the excessive intrusion of the Roman Church, you begin to appreciate the sorry mess that we Sicilians are in.