History of Sicily politics in Greece itself, leading Athens, for example, to mount the disastrous Sicilian Expedition in 415 BC during the Peloponnesian War. In Greek mythology, the goddess Athena threw Mount Aitna onto the island of Sicily and upon either the gigante Enceladus or Typhon during the giants' war against the gods. The Greeks came into conflict with the Punic trading communities, by now effectively protectorates of Carthage, with its capital on the African mainland not far from the southwest corner of the island. Palermo was a Carthaginian city, founded in the 8th century BC, named Zis or Sis ("Panormos" to the
Roger II of Sicily the fleet by two Greeks, first Christodulus and then George of Antioch, whom he made in 1132 "ammiratus ammiratorum" or "Emir of Emirs", in effect prime vizier. (This title later became the English word admiral). Roger made Sicily the leading maritime power in the Mediterranean. Roger II had a kingdom where a Muslim scholar such as al-Idrisi could draw from a variety of intellectual traditions, because Sicily is positioned in the center of the Mediterranean and was a major stopping point for people traveling across the Mediterranean. Sicily had been run by several different groups in its history and Sicily