Today Mount Etna is a highly touristic place. A volcano that, despite being continuously active, allows humans to exploit and enjoy it at their leisure. The establishment of the Regional Park, in the 1980s, gave a further boost to mass tourism among woods, skiing and extinct – or not! – craters. But in ancient times, how many people came to explore Etna out of pure passion?

Etna, a tourist paradise since forever

We know that tourism on Etna developed, in the true sense of the word, between the 18th and 19th centuries. It was the period of the “Grand Tour”, the educational journey that many young people from good families undertook throughout Europe and it was also the dawn of geology. The charm of volcanoes had only recently entered the standard Italian itinerary.

Yet Etna has attracted visitors and travellers since long before the 18th century. We have traces and timid confirmations of very famous people in history who came here, voluntarily or by chance. To name one above all: Empedocles, who apparently chose to end his life by jumping into the crater of Etna. And, staying on the subject of philosophers, Plato also set foot on our volcano.

Plato on Etna

There are theses, still much discussed today, on some trips that Plato undertook towards Sicily, over the course of twenty years, between the years 388 and 360 BC.

If Plato came to Sicily, however, he certainly climbed Etna. The philosopher had arrived on the island to go to Syracuse, to Dionysius, and stopped on Etna or in any case at its foot. Plutarch writes, taking it almost as a certainty, that “Plato came to Sicily by some divine fortune, since he was not drawn there […], so he also wanted to visit Sicily, perhaps to see Etna above all “.

According to this story, Plato stayed in a city called precisely “Etna”, or Aitna-Inessa, a mysterious center that certainly no longer exists today and that many identify with the ancestor of the current Motta Santa Anastasia.

About Plato

We read on the Knowunity website  that “Plato’s journey to Syracuse and his relationship with Dionysius of Syracuse represent a fundamental chapter in his life. Plato recounts his first journey to Sicily in the Greek version, describing his attempt to realize the project of an ideal state governed by philosophers. However, the confrontation with Plato and Dionysius the Elder proved problematic, so much so that the philosopher risked becoming a slave Plato. In this context, Plato and Dionysius formed an important political and intellectual alliance”.

Plato’s real name was “Aristocles” even if he became famous by his nickname. He was born in Athens in 428 BC and died in 348. He was educated at the schools of Cratilus and Hermogenes and during his youth he also took part in several battles. The meeting with Socrates would have put a definitive imprint on his philosophical vocation. The first works date back to 395. In total, his production includes “numerous philosophical dialogues that address issues such as ethics, politics, metaphysics and the theory of knowledge” says Knowunity “His thought has profoundly influenced Western philosophy, so much so that Aristotle’s historical period developed precisely from the criticism and overcoming of Platonic theories. In Plato’s century, the V-IV century BC, his Academy became the first center of philosophical and scientific studies in the ancient world, training generations of ancient Greek thinkers and politicians”.