AGIRA (formerly

See also:

• SAN

SAN FILIPPO D'ARGIRO)  , a town of the province of Catania, Sicily, with a railway station 44 M. to the south of the town, 35 M . W. of Catania . Pop . (Igo') 17,738 . It occupies the site of Agyrion, an ancient Sicel cityvhich was ruled by tyrants, one of whom, Agyris, was the most powerful ruler in the centre of Sicily . He was a contemporary of Dionysius I., and with him successfully resisted the Carthaginians when they invaded the territory of Agyrium in 392 B.C . Agira was not colonized by the Greeks until Timoleon drove out the last tyrant in 339 B.C. and erected various splendid buildings of which no traces remain . Agyrion was the birthplace of the historian Diodorus Siculus .