Coordinates: 37°46′27″N 13°07′19″E / 37.774051°N 13.121900°E Entella (Greek: Ἔντελλα), was an ancient city in the interior of Sicily, situated on the left bank of the river Hypsas (modern Belice), and nearly midway between the two seas, being about 40 km from the mouth of the Hypsas, and much about the same distance from the north coast of the island, at the Gulf of Castellamare.
It was a very ancient city, and apparently of Sicanian origin, though the traditions concerning its foundation connected it with the Elymi and the supposed Trojan colony. According to some writers it was founded by Acestes, and named after his wife Entella, a tradition to which Silius Italicus alludes, while others ascribed its foundation to Elymus, and Virgil represents Entellus (evidently the eponymous hero of the city) as a friend and comrade of Acestes.Thucydides, however, reckons Eryx and Egesta the only two cities of the Elymi, and does not notice Entella at all, any more than the other places of native Sicanian or Siculian origin.
The first historical mention of Entella is found in Diodorus, who tells us that in 404 BCE the Campanian mercenaries, who had been in the service of the Carthaginians during the war, having been admitted into the city on friendly terms, turned their arms against the inhabitants, put all the male citizens to the sword, and made themselves masters of the place, of which they retained possession for many years. During the subsequent wars of Dionysius with the Carthaginians, the Campanian occupants of Entella sided with their former masters, and even continued faithful to their alliance in 396 BCE, when all the cities of Sicily except five went over to that of Dionysius.