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SYBARIS

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Originally appearing in Volume V26, Page 275 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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SYBARIS , a See also:

city of Magna Graecia, on the Gulf of See also:Tarentum, between the See also:rivers Crathis (Crati) and Sybaris (Coscile), which now meet 3 M. from the See also:sea., but in See also:ancient times had See also:independent mouths, was the See also:oldest See also:Greek See also:colony in this region. It was an Achaean colony founded by Isus of Helice (about 720 B.c.), but had among its settlers many Troezenians, who were ultimately expelled. Placed in a very fertile, though now most unhealthy, region, and following a liberal policy in the See also:admission of citizens from all quarters, the city became See also:great and opulent, with a vast subject territory and See also:divers daughter colonies even on the Tyrrhenian Sea (Posidonia, Laus, Scidrus). For magnificence and luxury the Sybarites were proverbial throughout See also:Greece, and in the 6th See also:century probably no Hellenic city could compare with its See also:wealth and splendour. At length contests between the democrats and oligarchs, in which many of the latter were expelled and took See also:refuge at See also:Crotona, led to a See also:war with that city, and the Crotoniats with very inferior forces were completely victorious. They razed Sybaris to the ground and turned the See also:waters of Crathis to flow over its ruins (510 B.C.). Explorations undertaken by. the See also:Italian See also:government in 1879 and 1887 failed to See also:lead to a precise knowledge of the site. The only discoveries made were (1) that of an extensiye See also:necropolis, some 8 m. to the See also:west of the confluence of the two rivers, of the end of the first See also:Iron See also:age, known as that of Torre Mordillo, the contents of which are now preserved at See also:Potenza; (2) that of a necropolis of about 400 B.e.—the See also:period of the greatest prosperity of See also:Thurii (q.v.)—consisting of tombs covered by tumuli (called locally timponi), in some of which were found See also:fine See also:gold plates with mystic See also:inscriptions in Greek characters; one of these tumuli was over 90 ft. in See also:diameter at the See also:base with a single See also:burial in a See also:sarcophagus in the centre. See F. See also:Lenormant, La Grande-See also:Grace, i. 325 seq. (See also:Paris, 1881); F.

S. Cavallari, in Notizie degli Scavi (1879, passim; 188o, 68, 152); A. Pasqui, ibid. (1888), 239, 462, 575, 648; P. Orsi, in Atti del congresso di scienze storiche, v. 195 sqq. (See also:

Rome, 1904) (T.

End of Article: SYBARIS

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