#sibari

Mosaic flooring from a Roman villa in Roggiano Gravina (1st-2nd century) at the archeological museum in Sibari, Calabria, Italy

Photo by Karen Haid

"Sybaris was, for a time, the largest and most powerful Archaic Greek settlement of Magna Graecia in the region of Calabria, in southern peninsular Italy.

The wealth and excesses of this center over time are believed to have lead to its downfall and ruin".

Archaeological Park of Sybaris, Calabria, Italy 

THE LUXURY OF SYBARIS

Down in the foot of Italy, or more accurately under the instep and facing the blue Ionian sea, in the region of Calabria, lies the Greek city of Sybaris. Sybaris was apparently the earliest of all the Greek colonies in this part of Italy, being founded, according to the statement of Scymnus Chius, as early as B.C. 720. Famed since antiquity for its great wealth and luxury (our expressions “sybarite” and “sybaritic banquet” acknowledge this fact), Sybaris has held the attention of historians and archaeologists for many centuries.

Founding their city between the Crathis (modern Crati) and Sybaris (modern Coscile) rivers on a vast and fertile coastal plain in northern Calabria, the Sybarites prospered rapidly by agriculture and trade, and grew mightily in numbers.

The city amassed great wealth thanks to its fertile land and busy port. Its inhabitants became famous among the Greeks for their hedonism, feasts, and excesses, to the extent that "sybarite" and "sybaritic" have become bywords for opulence, luxury and outrageous pleasure-seeking.

Contrary to the policy of many of the Greek states, the citizens also freely admitted settlers of other nations to the rights of citizenship, and the vast population of the city is expressly ascribed in great measure to this cause. (Diod. xii. 9.) The statements transmitted to us of the power and opulence of the city, as well as of the luxurious habits of its inhabitants, have indeed a very fabulous aspect, and are without doubt grossly exaggerated, but there is no reason to reject the main fact that Sybaris had in the sixth century B.C. attained a degree of wealth and power unprecedented among Greek cities, and which excited the admiration of the rest of the Hellenic world.

The bull is the symbol of Sybaris and It probably represented the two rivers Krathis and Sybaris to which the plane owed its fertility. The bull was also imprinted on Sybaris' ancient coins.

However, this happy condition of economic prosperity and political supremacy aroused the jealousy of the nearby town of Kroton. Soon the Sybarites got into a conflict with their neighbor Kroton and Sybaris was heavily defeated and completely destroyed in 510 BCE.

Strabo claims that the Krotoniates diverted the course of the river Crathis to submerge the city.

The ruins of Sybaris became forgotten as they were buried by sediment from the Crati river over time. The ruins were rediscovered and excavated in the 1960s by Donald Freeman Brown. Today they can be found near the modern town of Cassano allo Ionio in the Calabria region, southern Italy. The Archaeological Museum of Sybaris houses important archaeological finds of the area from proto-history to Roman civilization, until the Middle Ages.

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