Agira

Agira sits on the summit and slopes of Monte Teja in the mid-valley of the Salso river, thirty-five kilometers east of Enna. The town stands on the site of the Sicel city of Agyrion, where the Greek general Timoleon settled ten thousand colonists in 339 BC. The lower town spreads at the base of the mountain while the old quarter climbs its slopes in stone lanes toward the castle at the summit, a layout that stacks Greek, Byzantine, Norman and Aragonese remains one above the other as the ground rises.

In July 1943 Agira fell to the Canadians after five days of fighting, the largest Canadian battle of the Sicilian campaign. The town's position on high ground, the same position that made it a Sicel stronghold and a Norman abbey seat centuries earlier, is what made it worth the five days of fighting: whoever held Monte Teja held the central Sicilian interior below it.