City
Thermis
Termini Imerese
Listen to the story
Thermis simply means “at the hot baths”, and the town on Sicily’s northern coast, today Termini Imerese, was famous for its mineral springs. It rose in 407 BC across the river Himera from the old Greek city of Himera, which the Carthaginians had destroyed. Augustus raised it to a Roman colony, and the orator Cicero noted how much the Romans favoured it. The map marks it with a pair of towers, the sign of a town of standing, and counts twenty-four Roman miles on to Cephaledo, today’s Cefalù.