Phoenicians had been early settlers before the Greeks in Sicily also; Palermo is a name of Phoenician origin.

Sicily’s strategic location at the center of the Mediterranean makes the island a crossroads of history, a pawn of conquest and empire, and a melting pot for the dozen or more ethnic groups whose warriors or merchants seek its shores.

Three peoples occupy Sicily at the coming of the Greeks: in the east are the Siculi, or Sicels, who have given their name to the island but are reputed to be latecomers from Italy; to the west of the Gelas River are the Sicani; and in the extreme west are the Elymians, a people to whom a Trojan origin had been assigned, with their chief centers at Segesta and at Eryx (Erice).

The Siculi speak an Indo-European language; there are no remains of the languages of the other peoples.