TERMINI IMERESE (anc. Thermae Himeraeae)  , a seaport

town of Sicily, in the province of Palermo, 23 M . E.S.E. of it by rail . Pop . (loot) 20,633 . It is finely situated on a promontory above its harbour, and it is possible that it was occupied by an early Phoenician settlement; as a town, however, it was not founded until 407 B.C. by the Carthaginians, after their destruction of Himera, in the vicinity of hot springs mentioned by Pindar (Od. xii . 1o) which are still resorted to and are well fitted up (temp . 110 F.) . It remained a Carthaginian colony, though thoroughly Greeks in character, until it was taken by Rome in the First Punic war . In the time of Cicero it was flourishing; though not of great importance . Augustus sent a Roman colony to it, and a Roman road ran from it to Catana . Its medieval castle was destroyed in 186o . The modern town presents no features of interest; there is a collection of antiquities and pictures, with a considerable number of Roman inscriptions .

Scanty remains of buildings of Roman times (an

amphitheatre and a so-called basilica) exist in the upper part of the town; and outside it on the S. are considerable remains of two aqueducts of the same period crossing a deep ravine . The surrounding district is fertile . Four m . E. of Termini, about 1 m . W. of the railway station of Cerda, on an E. spur of the Monte S . Calogera, called Monte Castellaccio, is a Cyclopean wall, about 66 ft. long, to ft. thick, and 30 ft. high in the middle, blocking the only access to the summit of the spur, on the N.E . Fortifications in this style are very rare in Sicily . See B . Romano, Antichitd Termitane (Palermo, 1838) ; Mauceri, Acropoli Pelasgica nei dintorni di Termini Imerese (Palermo, 1896) . T .