Daedalus and the mythical origins of Sutera
According to legend, the mythical Daedalus was the founder of the city of Sutera.
The story of Daedalus, a famous character from Greek mythology, known for the labyrinth of Minos, is closely linked to the city of Sutera.
Daedalus was a great sculptor, it was said that the statues he created were almost like living beings in how much they seemed able to see and walk. He was in fact the first to depict the eyes and to reproduce the legs spread apart in the act of walking. Daedalus was a great architect and is famous for being the creator of the famous labyrinth of the Minotaur. Daedalus was a great inventor, creator of the wax wings with which he managed to fly over the sea. But Daedalus was also a murderer who, envious of the talent of Talus, the son of his sister, for fear that his fame would exceed his own, killed him.
For this reason he was sentenced to exile and thus came to Crete where, thanks to the grandeur of his genius, he became a friend of King Minos. The king every year sacrificed a bull to Poseidon but in that year a bull was born so beautiful that the king did not want to sacrifice it to the god and chose another one. This gesture unleashed the wrath of Poseidon who made Pasife, wife of Minos, fall in love with the beautiful bull.
It was Daedalus who conceived a gimmick with the appearance of a cow, which allowed Pasifae to satisfy his desire with the bull. From this union the mythical Minotaur was born, with the appearance of a bull up to his shoulders, and of a man in the rest of his body. It was then that Daedalus built a labyrinth where the Minotaur was raised and to which girls and boys were sacrificed. Daedalus informed of the threat that Minos was moving to him, due to the construction of the cow, he left Crete. According to the myth he fled with his son Icaro with wax wings. During the journey the son got too close to the sun and died, while Daedalus flying low and wetting his wings and managed to reach Sicily by finding hospitality in the Sican king Cocalo.
It is said that during his stay in the kingdom of Cocalo , Daedalus built great works and founded new cities, including the city of Sutera. It seems that Daedalus, once he visited the hills surrounding the current Sutera, was enchanted by the views that could be admired from their peaks, immediately taking action in the construction of the first buildings, so as to be able to give life to the first historic urban settlement.
