The Palici of Sicily

Catalogue ID: 05-local-and-lesser/156-palici-sicily-macrobius-aeschylus

Cycle: Local and lesser — Sicilian twin gods / crater lakes / oath cult

Version line: Aeschylean *Aetnaeae* notices + Macrobian antiquarian synthesis — twin sons of Zeus and Thalia (or Aetna); boiling lakes; sanctuary of oaths

Sources: Macrobius, *Saturnalia* 5.19.15–31; Aeschylus, *Aetnaeae* (fragments / testimonia); Stephanus of Byzantium s.v. Palikē; Diodorus Siculus 11.89

Source file: /workspace/greek-myth-catalogue/05-local-and-lesser/156-palici-sicily-macrobius-aeschylus.md

Characters

Artemis — father (common strand)
Oath-swearers — cult clients
Palici — twin Sicilian gods of the crater lakes
Philotes — feared pursuer (birth strand)
Thalia — nymph mother; earth-swallowed

Places

Mount Etna — sanctuary and settlement
Mount Etna region — mythic birth-sphere
Twin crater lakes — boiling ordeal waters

Themes

Narrative

The Palici were twin Sicilian gods, born—in one strand—when Zeus impregnated the nymph Thalia (or Aetna) and she, fearing Hera, prayed to be swallowed by earth; the twins then emerged from the ground. Near Palice, twin crater lakes (the *Delloi*) boiled and surged; oaths sworn there were perilous—perjurers were punished by blindness or death, and runaway slaves found asylum at the sanctuary. Diodorus describes the historical shrine’s merciful law for fugitives. Catalogue the Palici as a Sicilian chthonic twin cult with birth-from-earth and ordeal-lake aetiology.