
The city was founded by the Phoenicians, but named by the Ancient Greeks as Panormus meaning all-port. Palermo became part of the Roman Republic and eventually part of the Byzantine Empire, for over a thousand years. For a brief period it was under Arab rule during the Emirate of Sicily where it first became a capital. Following the Norman reconquest, Palermo would become capital of a new kingdom from 1130 to 1816, the Kingdom of Sicily. Eventually it would be united with the Kingdom of Naples to form the Two Sicilies until the Italian unification of 1860.