Scylletium or Scolacium was an ancient seaside city in

Calabria , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographics1_title2 ...

southern Italy Southern Italy ( it, Sud Italia or ) also known as ''Meridione'' or ''Mezzogiorno'' (), is a macroregion of the Italian Republic consisting of its southern half. The term ''Mezzogiorno'' today refers to regions that are associated with the peop ...

. Its ruins can be found at the ''

frazione A ''frazione'' (plural: ) is a type of subdivision of a ''comune'' (municipality) in Italy, often a small village or hamlet outside the main town. Most ''frazioni'' were created during the Fascist era (1922–1943) as a way to consolidate territ ...

'' of Roccelletta, in the ''

comune The (; plural: ) is a local administrative division of Italy, roughly equivalent to a township or municipality. It is the third-level administrative division of Italy, after regions ('' regioni'') and provinces (''province''). The can also ...

'' of

Borgia The House of Borgia ( , ; Spanish and an, Borja ; ca-valencia, Borja ) was an Italian-Aragonese Spanish noble family, which rose to prominence during the Italian Renaissance. They were from Valencia, the surname being a toponymic from the town ...

, near

Catanzaro Catanzaro (, or ; scn, label= Catanzarese, Catanzaru ; , or , ''Katastaríoi Lokrói''; ; la, Catacium), also known as the "City of the two Seas", is an Italian city of 86,183 inhabitants (2020), the capital of the Calabria region and of its p ...

, facing the

Gulf of Squillace The Gulf of Squillace ( it, Golfo di Squillace; Latin: Scylleticus Sinus or Scyllaceus Sinus; Greek: ) is a body of water, an inlet of the Ionian Sea along the Calabrian coast of Italy. The gulf is part of the Ionian Sea and makes up part of the e ...

History

Scylletium was situated on the east coast of

(ancient Bruttium), on the shores of an extensive bay, to which it gave the name of Scylleticus Sinus. It is this bay, still known as the Gulf of Squillace ( it, Golfo di Squillace), which indents the coast of Calabria on the east as deeply as that of Hipponium or Terina (the

Gulf of Saint Euphemia The Gulf of Saint Euphemia ( it, Golfo di Santa Eufemia or Golfo di Sant'Eufemia, la, Lametikos Kolpos or Vibonensis Sinus) is a gulf on the west coast of Calabria, southern Italy. It is part of the Tyrrhenian Sea and borders the province of Cosen ...

, Italian: ''Golfo di Sant'Eufemia'') does on the west, so that they leave but a comparatively narrow isthmus between them. According to a tradition generally received in ancient times, Scylletium ( grc, Σκυλλήτιον) was founded by an

Athenian Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...

colony, a part of the followers who had accompanied

Menestheus In Greek mythology, Menestheus (; Ancient Greek: Μενεσθεύς) was a legendary king of Athens during the Trojan War. He was set up as king by the twins Castor and Pollux when Theseus travelled to the Underworld after abducting their sister, ...

to the

Trojan War In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans (Greeks) after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, king of Sparta. The war is one of the most important events in Greek mythology and has ...

. Solinus also mention that the Scylaceum was established by Athenians. Another tradition was, however, extant, which ascribed its foundation to

Ulysses Ulysses is one form of the Roman name for Odysseus, a hero in ancient Greek literature. Ulysses may also refer to: People * Ulysses (given name), including a list of people with this name Places in the United States * Ulysses, Kansas * Ulysse ...

. Its name is not mentioned either by

Scylax Scylax of Caryanda ( el, Σκύλαξ ὁ Καρυανδεύς) was a Greek explorer and writer of the late 6th and early 5th centuries BCE. His own writings are lost, though occasionally cited or quoted by later Greek and Roman authors. The peri ...

Scymnus Chius Scymnus of Chios ( grc-gre, Σκύμνος ὁ Xῖος; fl. c. 185 BC) was a Greek geographer. It was thought he was the author of the ''Periodos to Nicomedes'', a work on geography written in Classical Greek. It is an account of the world ( ...

in enumerating the Greek cities in this part of Italy, nor is there any allusion to its Athenian origin in

Thucydides Thucydides (; grc, , }; BC) was an Athenian historian and general. His ''History of the Peloponnesian War'' recounts the fifth-century BC war between Sparta and Athens until the year 411 BC. Thucydides has been dubbed the father of "scientifi ...

at the time of the Athenian expedition to

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

. We learn from

Diodorus Diodorus Siculus, or Diodorus of Sicily ( grc-gre, Διόδωρος ; 1st century BC), was an ancient Greek historian. He is known for writing the monumental universal history ''Bibliotheca historica'', in forty books, fifteen of which su ...

that it certainly did not display any friendly feeling towards the Athenians. It appears, indeed, during the historical period of the Greek colonies to have been a place of inferior consideration, and a mere dependency of

Crotona Crotone (, ; nap, label= Crotonese, Cutrone or ) is a city and '' comune'' in Calabria, Italy. Founded as the Achaean colony of Kroton ( grc, Κρότων or ; la, Crotona) in Magna Graecia, it was known as Cotrone from the Middle Ages u ...

, to which city it continued subject until it was wrested from its power by the elder Dionysius, who assigned it with its territory to the Loerians. It is evident that it was still a small and unimportant place at the time of the

Second Punic War The Second Punic War (218 to 201 BC) was the second of three wars fought between Carthage and Rome, the two main powers of the western Mediterranean in the 3rd century BC. For 17 years the two states struggled for supremacy, primarily in Ital ...

, as no mention is found of its name during the operations of

Hannibal Hannibal (; xpu, 𐤇𐤍𐤁𐤏𐤋, ''Ḥannibaʿl''; 247 – between 183 and 181 BC) was a Carthaginian general and statesman who commanded the forces of Carthage in their battle against the Roman Republic during the Second Puni ...

in Bruttium, though he appears to have for some time had his headquarters in its immediate neighborhood, and the place called Castra Hannibalis must have been very near to Scylletium. In 124 BC the

Romans Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

, at the instigation of C. Gracchus, sent a

colony In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the ''metropole, metropolit ...

to Scylletium, which appears to have assumed the name of Minervium or Colonia Minervia. The name is written by

Velleius Marcus Velleius Paterculus (; c. 19 BC – c. AD 31) was a Roman historian, soldier and senator. His Roman history, written in a highly rhetorical style, covered the period from the end of the Trojan War to AD 30, but is most useful for the per ...

Scolatium; and the form Scolacium is found also in an inscription of the reign of

Antoninus Pius Antoninus Pius (Latin: ''Titus Aelius Hadrianus Antoninus Pius''; 19 September 86 – 7 March 161) was Roman emperor from 138 to 161. He was the fourth of the Five Good Emperors from the Nerva–Antonine dynasty. Born into a senatoria ...

, from which it appears that the place must have received a fresh colony under

Nerva Nerva (; originally Marcus Cocceius Nerva; 8 November 30 – 27 January 98) was Roman emperor from 96 to 98. Nerva became emperor when aged almost 66, after a lifetime of imperial service under Nero and the succeeding rulers of the Flavian dy ...

. Scylletium appears to have become a considerable town after it received the Roman colony, and continued such throughout the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterr ...

. Towards the close of this period it was distinguished as the birthplace of the Roman statesman ''

Cassiodorus Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator (c. 485 – c. 585), commonly known as Cassiodorus (), was a Roman statesman, renowned scholar of antiquity, and writer serving in the administration of Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths. ''Senator'' w ...

'', founder of the ''Vivarium'', a monastery dedicated to the coexistence of coenobitic monks and hermits, who has left us a detailed but rhetorical description of the beauty of its situation, and fertility of its territory.Cassiod. ''Var.'' xii. 15. Cassiodorus' writings also make mention of production of highly priced

terra cotta Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based unglazed or glazed ceramic where the fired body is porous. In applied art, craft, construction, and architecture, terracotta ...

Sculpture

In 2006 a sculpture with the title ''Time Horizon'' was set up in the park by the English sculptor

Antony Gormley Sir Antony Mark David Gormley (born 30 August 1950) is a British sculptor. His works include the ''Angel of the North'', a public sculpture in Gateshead in the north of England, commissioned in 1994 and erected in February 1998; ''Another Pla ...

Literature

*''Antony Gormley: Time Horizon Intersecione'', Intersecione 2 al Parco Archeologico di Scolacium, 2006

Notes

References

* * {{authority control Pre-Roman cities in Italy Bruttium Coloniae (Roman) Former populated places in Italy Archaeological sites in Calabria National museums of Italy Colonies of Magna Graecia