The doorways in the wall are numerous, and are of a very archaic character, being either covered in by a single long stone lintel or else terminating in a false arch.[5113] The commercial advantages of Eryx were twofold, consisting in the produce of the sea as well as in that of the shore.

The shore is well suited for the cultivation of the vine,[5114] while the neighbouring sea yields tunny-fish, sponges, and coral.[5115] Panormus (now Palermo) occupies a site almost unequalled by any other Mediterranean city, a site which has conferred upon it the title of "the happy," and has rendered it for above a thousand years the most important place in the island.

"There is no town in Europe which enjoys a more delicious climate, none so charming to look on from a distance, none more delightfully situated in a nest of verdure and flowers.

Its superb mountains, with their bare flanks pierced along their base with grottoes, enclose a marvellous garden, the famous 'Shell of Gold,' in the midst of which are seen the numerous towers and domes, the fan-like foliage of the palms, the spreading branches of the pines, and Mount Reale on the south towering over all with its vast mass of convents and churches."[5116] The harbour lies open to the north; but the Phoenician settlers, here as elsewhere, no doubt made artificial ports by means of piers and moles, which have, however, disappeared on this much-frequented site, where generation after generation has been continually at work building and destroying.

Panormus has left us no antique remains beyond its coins, which are abundant, and show that the native name of the settlement was Mahanath.[5117] Mahanath was situated about forty miles east of Eryx, on the northern coast of the island.
Solus, or Soloeis, the Soluntum of the Romans (now Solanto), lay on the eastern side of the promontory (Cape Zafferana) which shuts in the bay of Palermo on the right.