Hybla Heraea or Hybla Hera (Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

: or ) was an ancient city of Sicily

Sicily

Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...

; its site is at the modern località

Località

A località, in Italy, is the name given to inhabited places that are not accorded a more significant distinction in administrative law such as a frazione, comune, municipio, circoscrizione, or quartiere. The word is cognate to English locality...

of Ibla, in the comune

Comune

In Italy, the comune is the basic administrative division, and may be properly approximated in casual speech by the English word township or municipality.-Importance and function:...

of Ragusa. There were at least three (and possibly as many as five) cities named "Hybla" in ancient accounts of Sicily which are often confounded with each other, and which it is sometimes very difficult to distinguish.

History

Hybla Heraea is called by Stephanus of Byzantium

Stephanus of Byzantium

Stephen of Byzantium, also known as Stephanus Byzantinus , was the author of an important geographical dictionary entitled Ethnica...

 "Hybla the Less or Hybla the Least" , in distinction to Hybla Major

Hybla Major

Hybla Major or Hybla Maior or Hybla Magna – the "Greater Hybla" – was a used to identify the most important of the ancient cities named Hybla in Sicily.-Controversy:...

 and Hybla Minor, and surnamed Hera or Heraea . Of the cities of Sicily bearing the name "Hybla", it is much the least known from ancient sources. No allusion to it is found in Pausanias

Pausanias (geographer)

Pausanias was a Greek traveler and geographer of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. He is famous for his Description of Greece , a lengthy work that describes ancient Greece from firsthand observations, and is a crucial link between classical...

, where he is distinguishing Hybla Major

Hybla Major

Hybla Major or Hybla Maior or Hybla Magna – the "Greater Hybla" – was a used to identify the most important of the ancient cities named Hybla in Sicily.-Controversy:...

 from Hybla Minor, nor in any of the geographers: but we find in the Itineraries a town of Hybla, placed on the line of road from Syracuse

Syracuse, Italy

Syracuse is a historic city in Sicily, the capital of the province of Syracuse. The city is notable for its rich Greek history, culture, amphitheatres, architecture, and as the birthplace of the preeminent mathematician and engineer Archimedes. This 2,700-year-old city played a key role in...

 to Agrigentum (modern Agrigento

Agrigento

Agrigento , is a city on the southern coast of Sicily, Italy, and capital of the province of Agrigento. It is renowned as the site of the ancient Greek city of Akragas , one of the leading cities of Magna Graecia during the golden...

, which is certainly distinct from both Hybla Major and Minor (and from Megara Hyblaea

Megara Hyblaea

Megara Hyblaea – perhaps identical with Hybla Major – is the name of an ancient Greek colony in Sicily, situated near Augusta on the east coast, north-northwest of Syracuse, Italy, on the deep bay formed by the Xiphonian promontory...

 and Hybla Gereatis

Hybla Gereatis

Hybla Gereatis , is the name of an ancient city of Sicily, located on the southern slope of Mount Etna, not far from the river Symaethus, in the modern comune of Paternò...

 which may equate with them), and can therefore be no other than the third Hybla of Stephanus. It was situated, according to the Itineraries, 18 miles from Acrae (modern Palazzolo

Palazzolo

Several villages of Italy bear the name Palazzolo:*Palazzolo, in Firenze province*Palazzolo, in Milano province*Palazzolo, a frazione of Fossato di Vico in Perugia province*Palazzolo, in Verona province....

). (Itin. Ant.

Antonine Itinerary

The Antonine Itinerary is a register of the stations and distances along the various roads of the Roman empire, containing directions how to get from one Roman settlement to another...

 p. 89; Tab. Peut.

Tabula Peutingeriana

The Tabula Peutingeriana is an itinerarium showing the cursus publicus, the road network in the Roman Empire. The original map of which this is a unique copy was last revised in the fourth or early fifth century. It covers Europe, parts of Asia and North Africa...

). A passage in which Cicero

Cicero

Marcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...

speaks of a town called "Hera", in Sicily (ad Att. ii. 1. § 5), has been thought to refer to this town; but the reading is very doubtful.