Catania is the second largest city in Sicily, after Palermo, and among the ten largest cities in Italy. The Sicels founded the town of Katane, meaning "sharp stones", and Chalcidian Greeks occupied the village in 729 BC. Its population was rapidly Hellenized by the colonists of Magna Graecia, and the Greeks built an acropolis atop Monte Vergine. Catania frequently suffered from the effects of the eruption of Mount Etna, and the city was always rebuilt within its black-lava landscape. Katane retained its independence until the tyrant Hiero of Syracuse expelled Katane's original inhabitants in 476 BC and replaced them with his subjects from the town of Leontini (Lentini). Hiero renamed the city to "Etna" and settled it with Syracusans and Peloponnesians from the Greek mainland, but, in 461 BC, the Chalcidians reconquered their town from the Syracusans. In 415 BC, despite initial hostility towards Syracuse's ally, Athens, Katane was persuaded by Alcibiades to ally with the Sicilian Expedition. In 403 BC, ten years after the failure of the Sicilian Expedition, the Syracusans plundered Katane, repopulating the town with Campanian mercenaries. In 397 BC, however, the Carthaginians captured Katane. Katane changed hands several times during the Sicilian Wars, and its independence was restored by Timoleon in 338 BC. In 278 BC, when Pyrrhus of Epirus landed in Sicily, Katane opened its gates to him and welcomed him as a liberator. In 263 BC, Katane offered the same reception to the Roman Republic at the start of the Punic Wars, and, in 135 BC, Katane was conquered by local slaves during the First Servile War. In 44 BC, Katane sided with Sextus Pompeius during the Sicilian Revolt, and Katane suffered severely from the ravages of the ensuing suppression of the revolt by Octavian and his allies. Katane was also thrown into mayhem by a gladiatorial revolt in 35 BC, and, from 440 to 441 AD, Geiseric's Vandals ravaged Roman Catania. In 535, the Byzantines reconquered Catania from the Ostrogoths, and it became the seat of the Byzantine governor of the island. Catania was also under the rule of the Emirate of Sicily for a short time, but it fell to Roger I of Sicily's Normans and was placed under the rule of a bishop-count in 1072. From 1194 to 1197, the city was sacked by German soldiers after the Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI's conquest of the island. In 1232, Frederick II made Catania a royal city and built the Castello Ursino. Catania was one of the major centers of the 1282 Sicilian Vespers revolt against the French, and it was the site of the coronation of King Peter I of Sicily. Catania and the rest of Sicily came under Spanish rule for centuries, and Catania rebelled against the Spanish in 1516 and 1647. The city was nearly completely destroyed by a 1693 earthquake, but it was rebuilt in Baroque architecture. Catania became a center of Sicilian autonomism during the 19th century, and it suffered 87 Allied air raids during World War II due to the presence of two Axis airfields in the city. On 5 August 1943, the British Army liberated Catania from Nazi Germany. After the war, Catania and southern Italy lagged behind the north in economic and social development due to the ravages of war and the threat of the Sicilian Mafia. Catania enjoyed brief economic booms in the 1960s and 1990s before the city again fell into a financial crisis under its Forza Italia administration in 2008.
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