n, and diligently cultivated, till it was rendered almost desolate by the exactions of Verres. From this time little is known about Enna: Strabo speaks of it as still inhabited, though by a small population, in his time: and the name appears in Pliny among the municipal towns of Sicily, as well as in Ptolemy and the Itineraries.
Post-Roman
After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, it continued to flourish throughout the Middle Ages as an important Byzantine stronghold. In 859, in the course of the Islamic conquest of Sicily, after several attempts and a long siege, the town was taken by Muslim troops who had to sneak in one by one through a sewer to breach the town's hardy defenses. The name for the city, 'Qas'r Ianni' (Fort of John), was a combination of "qas'r" (a corruption of the Latin "castrum", fort), and "Ianni", a corruption of "Henna". The name in the native dialect of Sicily remained Castro Janni (Castrogiovanni) until the renaming by order of Benito Mussolini in 1927. The Normans captured her in 1087. Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Sicily, established a summer residence here.
Enna had a prominent role in the Sicilian Vespers that lead to the Aragonese conquest of Sicily, and thenceforth enjoyed a short communal autonomy. King Frederick III of Sicily favored it and embellished the city; it however suffered a period of decay under the Spanish domination. It was restored as provincial capital in the 1920s. It has become a university city in 2002
