Sybaris
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Coin from Sybaris, c. 550-510 BC. |
Sybaris (Italian:
Sibari) was a city of
Magna Graecia on the
Gulf of Taranto, between the rivers Crathis (Crati) and Sybaris (Coscile), which now meet about 5 km from the sea, but in ancient times had independent mouths. It was the oldest Greek colony in this region. The site is located within the commune of
Cassano allo Ionio, in the
province of Cosenza (
Calabria),
Italy.
Sybaris was an
Achaean colony founded by
Isus of Helice about
720 BC, but had among its settlers many
Troezenians, who were ultimately expelled. Although the region is now unhealthy, at the time it was very fertile, and following a liberal admission policy, the city became large and wealthy, with a vast subject territory and diverse daughter colonies even on the
Tyrrhenian Sea (
Poseidonia,
Laus,
Scidrus).
For magnificence and luxury, the Sybarites were proverbial throughout
Greece. Probably in the 6th century BC, no
Hellenic city could compare with its wealth and splendor. Tension between the democrats and oligarchs, in which many of the latter were expelled and took refuge at
Croton, led to a war with that city, and the Crotoniats with very inferior forces were completely victorious. They razed Sybaris to the ground and turned the waters of Crathis to flow over its ruins in
510 BC.
Explorations undertaken by the Italian government in
1879 and
1887 failed to lead to a precise knowledge of the site. Only two discoveries were made: an extensive
necropolis, some 12 km to the west of the confluence of the two rivers, of the end of the first Iron age, known as that of Torre Mordillo, the contents of which are now preserved at Potenza; a necropolis of about
400 BC – the period of the greatest prosperity of
Thurii – consisting of tombs covered by tumuli (locally called
timponi), in some of which were found fine gold plates with mystic inscriptions in Greek characters; one of these tumuli was over 2.7 m in diameter at the base with a single burial in a sarcophagus in the center.
