Marettimo has always been an important post of call for all the peoples going across the Mediterranean to trade or to conquer, and its history is characterized by continuous invasions. The first certain inhabitants were the Phoenicians (Mozia, near Marettimo, is the cradle of Phoenician settlements).
The historians suppose that during the numerous fights between the Romans and the Carthaginians the island had an important role: just off the coasts of the Egadi, in 241 b.C., took place the decisive battle between the Carthaginian fleet and the Roman fleet. The Romans, led by Lutazio Catullo, won the battle and settled in Marettimo too a little garrison witnessed today by the rests at Case Romane ("Roman Houses").In 440 the Vandals of Genserico arrived at Favignana to raid, and they didn't spare Marettimo.
In 485 the Egadi passed to Odoacer and then to Theodoric, the king of the Goths.
After the occupation of Sicily in 810, the Saracens built in Marettimo some sighting towers. Under the Arab domination in the Egadi Islands, witnessed by the typical architecture of the houses, Marettimo too enjoyed a period of peace, characterized by intense trade.
Then the Normans drove the Arabians away, and later the Swabians took the place of the Normans: the succession of the dominations didn't change the state of things, until Charles V of Hapsburg ascended the throne: the pirate Khair-Ad-Din called the "Barbarossa", master of Algiers and Tunis, organized an expedition against him. The soldiers arrived at Marsala and subjected the Egadi to sacks and all kinds of outrages. Many inhabitants of Marettimo were captured and ended up as slaves in Algeria, until the government ransomed them after the peace negotiations.
In 1637 Philip IV of Bourbon of Spain sold the Egadi to the Palllavicinos of Genoa. During the XVIII century they introduced agriculture in these islands, thus helping the inhabitants to improve their way of life: they began
