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This article deals with the role Diodorus allots to the material marks of the mythical and historical memory. Contrary to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Diodorus rarely uses objects as archaeological evidence. In his evocation of Sicily, it is at the works of Daedalus that he gives the greatest importance. Daedalus is a positive figure whose civilizing action is to put in the sphere of that of the Greeks in the Mediterranean and whose architectural realizations foreshadow those of the kings of Sicily (Dionysius the Elder, Timoleon or Agathocles). When the historian evokes the island’s landscapes, especially Enna’s, it is to show they bear the mark of myth and let discern the civilizing presence of the gods or the heroes like Heracles. Diodorus does not seem to be interested by works of art for themselves : they bear witness sometimes to the cities’ affluence (Agrigento), but they are carrying a dangerous ambiguity insofar as, objects of luxury, they attract cupidity, induce looting and sacrilege. During Syracuse’s siege in 396 BC, the sanctuaries’ desecrated wealth is at the same time the cause and the tool of the divine revenge. Like Cicero, Diodorus opposes the temperance of great men like Timoleon to the cupidity of rulers blinded by hubris.