Capo Colonna (sometimes Capo Colonne or Capo della Colonne) is a

cape A cape is a clothing accessory or a sleeveless outer garment of any length that hangs loosely and connects either at the neck or shoulders. They usually cover the back, shoulders, and arms. They come in a variety of styles and have been used th ...

Calabria Calabria is a Regions of Italy, region in Southern Italy. It is a peninsula bordered by the region Basilicata to the north, the Ionian Sea to the east, the Strait of Messina to the southwest, which separates it from Sicily, and the Tyrrhenian S ...

located near

Crotone Crotone (; ; or ) is a city and ''comune'' in Calabria, Italy. Founded as the Achaean colony of Kroton ( or ; ), it became a great Greek city, home of the renowned mathematician-philosopher Pythagoras amongst other famous citizens, and one ...

. In ancient Roman times the promontory was called Promunturium Lacinium (). The modern name derives from the remaining column of the Temple of Hera Lacinia. The peninsula was the site of a great sanctuary of Hera from the 7th c. BC, the most famous in

Magna Graecia Magna Graecia refers to the Greek-speaking areas of southern Italy, encompassing the modern Regions of Italy, Italian regions of Calabria, Apulia, Basilicata, Campania, and Sicily. These regions were Greek colonisation, extensively settled by G ...

. Later the Romans built the fortified town of Lacinium over the area. The entire peninsula is now within the Capo Colonna Archaeological Park and a museum nearby houses important finds. Excavations from 2014 have greatly increased knowledge of the site.

History

The Cape became an ancient Greek sanctuary to Hera in the 7th c. BC and one of the most important sanctuaries of Magna Graecia. It was closely linked to the ancient Greek colony of Kroton nearby.

The Roman colony of Lacinium

In 194 BC after the

Second Punic War The Second Punic War (218 to 201 BC) was the second of Punic Wars, three wars fought between Ancient Carthage, Carthage and Roman Republic, Rome, the two main powers of the western Mediterranean Basin, Mediterranean in the 3rd century BC. For ...

the Romans created a maritime

colony A colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule, which rules the territory and its indigenous peoples separated from the foreign rulers, the colonizer, and their ''metropole'' (or "mother country"). This separated rule was often orga ...

here, entrusted to the '' triumvirs'' Cn. Octavius, L. Aemilius Paulus, C. Laetorius. The occupation was not limited to the settlement at Capo Lacinio as excavations have shown that the agricultural hinterland was occupied by at least 91 rural farms of various sizes and periods, presumably on land distributed to the settlers after 194 BC, and with occupation continuing to the late empire. Colonies usually received 300 men, generally veterans, each who would be assigned from 1 to 2.5 hectares of agricultural land from the '' ager colonicus'' (state land), as well as free use of the '' ager compascus scripturarius'' (common state land) for pasture and woodland. With their families, around 1500 Roman citizens in total can be assumed. The maritime role of the colony of Lacinium was highlighted as early as 190 BC when

Livy Titus Livius (; 59 BC – AD 17), known in English as Livy ( ), was a Roman historian. He wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people, titled , covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome before the traditional founding i ...

, as prefect of the Roman fleet, inspected the ships coming from the Tyrrhenian and Ionian seas there before they set off towards the Aegean against

Antiochus III Antiochus III the Great (; , ; 3 July 187 BC) was the sixth ruler of the Seleucid Empire, reigning from 223 to 187 BC. He ruled over the region of Syria and large parts of the rest of West Asia towards the end of the 3rd century BC. Rising to th ...

. The settlement eventually occupied the entire northern end of the promontory and was organised with a rectangular street plan with three main streets oriented east-weast and avoiding the Sanctuary of Hera and its immediate surroundings on a different alignment. From the second half of the 2nd century BC, town house construction increased which occupied a good part of the sectors between the central plateau and the northern edge of the cliff. Near the NE cliff two houses belonging to rich local people arose from the end of the 2nd century BC. The domus "DR" is the oldest (end of the 2nd century BC, of about 15 x 34 m) and had a residential part around the atrium and a sector for service and production which overlooked a courtyard. The ''

tablinum In Roman architecture, a (or , from , board, picture) was a room in a ''domus'' (house) generally situated on one side of the atrium and opposite to the entrance; it opened in the rear onto the peristyle, with either a large window or only an a ...

'' has a mosaic floor with animals (ducks, dolphins, fish). The baths were originally built for another public function (the first two phases are in ''opus quadratum'' and ''opus implectum''). Between the end of the 2nd and beginning of the 1st century BC the building was remodeled and enlarged in ''

opus incertum ''Opus incertum'' ("irregular work") was an Ancient Rome, ancient Roman construction technique, using irregularly shaped and randomly placed uncut stones or fist-sized tuff blocks inserted in a core of ''opus caementicium''. Initially it consist ...

'' to create a bath complex or ''balneum'' (III phase,

Sulla Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix (, ; 138–78 BC), commonly known as Sulla, was a Roman people, Roman general and statesman of the late Roman Republic. A great commander and ruthless politician, Sulla used violence to advance his career and his co ...

n era), by the '' duumvirs'' Lucilius Macer and Annaeus Trasus in 80-70 BC, as attested by an inscription on the mosaic. A circular sweating room (''

laconicum The ''laconicum'' (i.e. Spartan, ''sc.'' ''balneum'', "bath") was the dry sweating room of the Roman ''thermae'', sometimes contiguous to the ''caldarium'' or hot room. The name was given to it (Laconia: Sparta) since it was the only form of warm ...

'') and a furnace (praefurnium) were built to heat the water for the hot bath (solium) in a large room on whose floor is a mosaic with geometric motifs (meandering 3D polychrome swastikas, a wave motif) framing a central rhomboidal checkerboard with four dolphins at the corners. The later domus "CRr" (last 30 years of the 1st century BC) is exceptional both for its building techniques and its area of over 2100 m². The entrance portico provided a sheltered public area for shops including a room for the sale of drinks (a '' caupona'') with a serving counter in calcarenite. The domus was entered via a large atrium, in the first phase Tuscan (i.e. without columns), and then tetrastyle (i.e. with four columns supporting the roof to collect rainwater). After abandonment and ruin at the beginning of the 2nd century AD, some of its rooms were rebuilt between the end of the 2nd and the beginning of the 3rd century with a pottery kiln for terracotta artefacts. The defensive walls in ''

opus reticulatum ''Opus reticulatum'' (also known as reticulate work) is a facing used for concrete walls in Ancient Roman architecture, Roman architecture from about the first century BCE to the early first century CE. Facings are a type of polygonal masonry us ...

'' with a rectanglar plan were reconstructed probably after the pirate raids of the second and third quarter of the 1st century BC and after the siege of

Sextus Pompeius Sextus Pompeius Magnus Pius ( 67 – 35 BC), also known in English as Sextus Pompey, was a Roman military leader who, throughout his life, upheld the cause of his father, Pompey the Great, against Julius Caesar and his supporters during the la ...

in 36 BC. The sanctuary was renovated soon afterwards, as shown by tile stamps. Clara Stevanato, Senators and memory in the funerary epigraphy of Roman Italy (1st century BC-3rd century AD), 2020, p. 95 A public L-shaped portico forming a public square or forum, aligned with the adjacent domus, is from the Augustan age. A major complex with an imposing monumental fountain near the sanctuary also dates from the late 1st century BC lasting until the 3rd/4th century AD. The decline and progressive abandonment of the town of Lacinium probably began after the Augustan era. The settlement became a ''

mansio In the Roman Empire, a ''mansio'' (from the Latin word ''mansus,'' the perfect passive participle of ''manere'' "to remain" or "to stay") was an official stopping place on a Roman road, or ''via'', maintained by the central government for the use ...

'' or ''

statio A statio (Latin for "position" or "location") is the place where, in the Roman Rite, a devotion to the stations of the Cross is celebrated. On specific station days, on which in the Late Roman Catholic liturgy of the Late Antiquity a devotion ...

'' marked as "Licenium" on the

Peutinger Map ' (Latin for 'The Peutinger Map'), also known as Peutinger's Tabula, Peutinger tables James Strong and John McClintock (1880)"Eleutheropolis" In: ''The Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature''. NY: Haper and Brothers ...

, and more and more concentrated around the sanctuary. Even after the abandonment of the town, the continuation of devotion to Hera Lacinia is still attested between 98 and 105 AD from an altar dedicated by Oecius imperial procurator (libertus procurator), in favour of Ulpia Marciana, sister of Trajan.

Sights

Sanctuary of Hera Lacinia

The ruins of an

Ancient Greek temple Greek temples (, semantically distinct from Latin language, Latin , "temple") were structures built to house deity statues within Greek sanctuaries in ancient Greek religion. The temple interiors did not serve as meeting places, since the Ancien ...

dedicated to

Hera In ancient Greek religion, Hera (; ; in Ionic Greek, Ionic and Homeric Greek) is the goddess of marriage, women, and family, and the protector of women during childbirth. In Greek mythology, she is queen of the twelve Olympians and Mount Oly ...

(

Juno Juno commonly refers to: *Juno (mythology), the Roman goddess of marriage and queen of the gods * ''Juno'' (film), the 2007 film Juno may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Fictional characters *Juno, a character in the book ''Juno of ...

) are visible on the cape. The temple was said to have still been fairly complete in the 16th century, but was destroyed to build the

episcopal Episcopal may refer to: *Of or relating to a bishop, an overseer in the Christian church *Episcopate, the see of a bishop – a diocese *Episcopal Church (disambiguation), any church with "Episcopal" in its name ** Episcopal Church (United States ...

palace at Crotone. The remaining feature is a

Doric column The Doric order is one of the three orders of ancient Greek and later Roman architecture; the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian. The Doric is most easily recognized by the simple circular capitals at the top of t ...

with capital, about in height.

References

Bibliography