Santa Maria di Licodia (Sicilian: **Santa Marìa di Licuddìa **) is a town and comune in the Metropolitan City of Catania, eastern Sicily, southern Italy.

History

Santa Maria di Licodia occupies traditionally the site of the ancient Aetna, a settlement founded by the colonists whom Hiero I of Syracuse had placed at Catania after their expulsion by the original inhabitants in 461 BC, which absorbed or incorporated an already existing Sicel town named Inessa.

Main sights

A large hoard of coins was found also outside Santa Maria di Licodia in 1891. In the nearby district of Civita is a large elliptical area, enclosed by a wall of masses of lava, which is about 8.5 m wide at the base and 3 m high. The ground is covered with fragments of tiles and pottery of the classical period, and it is probably a hastily built encampment of historic times rather than a primitive fortification, as there are no prehistoric traces.

Twin towns