on the flanks of the hill. The monumental area of the city was moved to Capo Soprano. Under Agathocles (317-289 BC), the city again suffered internal strife between the people and the aristoi (aristocrats). When the Carthaginians arrived in 311 BC, they met little resistance and captured the city with the help of the aristoi. The acropolis site at Molino a Vento was then definitively abandoned. In 282 BC Phintias of Agrigento ruthlessly destroyed Gela to crush its power forever and transferred its population to his new city of Phintias next to present-day Licata. This assertion, however, seems to be refuted by a careful reading of the sources that name the Mamertines as the real destroyers of the city, five years earlier. Roman, Byzantine and mediaeval ages The city subsequently disappeared from the chronicles. Under Roman rule, a small settlement, which is mentioned by Virgil, Pliny the Elder, Cicero, and Strabo, still existed. Later it was a minor Byzantine center. Under the Arabs, it was known as the "City of Columns". A later city called "Terranova", by which name it remained known until 1928, was founded in 1233 by Frederick II. The new settlement was located west of ancient Gela, and was provided with a castle and a line of walls. Terranova, also known as Heracles, was a royal possession until 1369, when King Frederick III of Aragon gave it to Manfredi III Chiaramonte. In 1401, however, after the treason of Andrea Chiaramonte, the city was confiscated and was assigned to several Aragonese feudataries. In 1530, the title of Marquis of Terranova was created for Giovanni Tagliavia Aragona, and in 1561, his son Carlo obtained the title of Duke. The Terranova Aragona held the city until 1640, when the marriage of Giovanna Tagliavia Aragona and Ettore Pignatelli give the possession to the Pignatelli, who held the fiefdom until 1812. Modern era Terranova was renamed Terranova di Sicilia, and in 1927, it was renamed Gela. In World War II, during the during the initial assault on 9 July 1943 of the Allied invasion of Sicily , the U.S. 1st Infantry Division and the 82nd Armored Reconnaissance Battalion landed on the beaches of Gela, which were strongly defended by the Livorno Division. The Allied forces repelled an Italian and German armored counter-attack at Gela. The U.S. Army Engineers built several advanced landing airfields, which was used by the Twelfth Air Force during