The Sicilian Inheritance

by Jo Piazza

She was a goddess of self-defense and also of female conquest. Massive temples were built to honor her here in the island’s western towns like Erice and Trapani and Sciacca. When the Greeks came to the island some scholars say that the worship of her disappeared, but her followers would never have let that happen. The women kept her alive. They knew assimilation was the only way to survive and continued to worship the ideals of Astarte, her bravery, independence, passion, through temples to the Greek goddesses Artemis and Aphrodite, and then the Roman Diana and Venus. Eventually, when the Christians came, the women transferred Astarte’s spirit and her strength into the Virgin Mary. This is how Astarte lives on. It is one of the reasons that the island’s women were so quick to accept the idea of the Virgin Mary. We transfer the love of our previous goddesses into acceptable figures for whatever time we are living in. Astarte remains alive in all of us Sicilian women.”