Sybaris

Sybaris (in Greek old Σύβαρις, Subaris ), quoted of the Large Greece, was a colony founded by Achaens of Milet, in the south of Italy (current Calabria), towards 720 av. J. - C. It is located on the Golfe of Tarente, in a site protected by the mouths from two rivers: Crathis (current Crati) and Sybaris (current Coscile). On their arrival, there was a population of natives who were massacred by the quarrelsome Achaens.

It was the most powerful city of the Grande Greece. It would have gathered to 300.000 citizens, which was considerable at the time. Dynamics and expansionist, it founded at the beginning of, the colonies of Marcellina and Skydros (Sciro). In 680, it founded Métaponte and in 675 Poseidonia (Paestum). It dominated to four people and twenty-five cities.

The luxury of the sybarites was proverbial. Its richness was ensured by the vast alluvial and fertile plain which it dominated, by the strategic role that it held in the Mediterranean trade of the antiquated time, and by the close links that it preserved with the Millet city. Sybaris was famous for its sumptuousness, its places of pleasures, and mollesse of its inhabitants:

the gourmets of Sybaris invented a plate with fish, punt and broad with fish painted on the bottom, for better tasting truths.
the legend tells that a rich person citizen of Sybaris, name of Smindyrides, went on a journey to Athens with a succession of 1.000 people.

About the middle of, Sybaris to the head of a league of cities of Achaean origin, whose Crotona and Métaponte, destroyed Syris which was a colony founded by the Ionie NS originating in Colophon. The legend tells that they cut the throat of fifty young people who, during the attack of the city, étreignaient the statue of Minerve. They cut the throat of also the priestess of the goddess, glaze of her ritual veils, in the middle of the furnace bridges.

In 511, she declared the war with Crotona which had refused to extradite and to give to him of the sybarites whom she had banished. Crotona then took the head of a league of cities and overcame Sybaris in 510. The city was taken, destroyed and shaven by Crotoniates, which diverted the course of the Crati river so that it passes on the ruins.

The survivors found refuge with Poseidonia and Laüs which they founded.

Sybaris today

Current Sybaris, was built in the Sixties following the drainage works which the government financed along the mouth of Crati by cleansing the flat of Sibari, largest of Calabria. Sibari has a population of approximately 5000 inhabitants and is always a località commune of Cassano hello Ionio in spite of its attempts without result to obtain a distinct communal existence. Sibari experiences an important balneal and cultural tourist development. Its agriculture produces Agrume S, Olive S and Riz.

Guide of the Voyages of Navy of Sibari

Internal bond

the Sybaritisme.

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