Scylletium or Skylletion or Scolacium was an ancient seaside city in

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 ...

southern Italy Southern Italy (, , or , ; ; ), also known as () or (; ; ; ), is a macroregion of Italy consisting of its southern Regions of Italy, regions. The term "" today mostly refers to the regions that are associated with the people, lands or cultu ...

. Its ruins can be found at the ''

frazione A ''frazione'' (: ''frazioni'') 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 consolidat ...

'' of Roccelletta, near

Catanzaro Catanzaro (; or ; ), 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 province and the second most populated comune of the region, behind Reggio Calabr ...

, facing the Gulf of Squillace.

History

Greek era

Skylletion may originally have been founded in the 7th c. BC on the Punta di Staletti promontory. In any case Scylletium was situated from the 6th c. BC on the east coast of

(ancient Bruttium), on the shores of an extensive bay, to which it gave the name of Scylleticus Sinus. According to a tradition generally received in ancient times, Scylletium () was founded by an

Athenian Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...

colony of

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 ...

, a part of the followers who had accompanied Menestheus to the

Trojan War The Trojan War was a legendary conflict in Greek mythology that took place around the twelfth or thirteenth century BC. The war was waged by the Achaeans (Homer), Achaeans (Ancient Greece, Greeks) against the city of Troy after Paris (mytho ...

Solinus __NOTOC__ Gaius Julius Solinus, better known simply as Solinus, was a Latin grammarian, geographer, and compiler who probably flourished in the early 3rd century AD. Historical scholar Theodor Mommsen dates him to the middle of the 3rd century. ...

also mention that the Scylaceum was established by Athenians. Another tradition was, however, extant, which ascribed its foundation to Ulysses. However, it did not display any friendship towards the Athenians. It appears during this period to have been a minor place and a mere dependency of

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

until it was wrested from its power by the elder Dionysius, who assigned it with its territory to the

Locrians The Locrians (, ''Lokroi'') were an ancient Greek tribe that inhabited the region of Locris in Central Greece, around Parnassus. They spoke the Locrian dialect, a Doric-Northwest dialect, and were closely related to their neighbouring tribes ...

. 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 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 ...

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

Hannibal Hannibal (; ; 247 – between 183 and 181 BC) was a Punic people, Carthaginian general and statesman who commanded the forces of Ancient Carthage, Carthage in their battle against the Roman Republic during the Second Punic War. Hannibal's fat ...

in Bruttium, though he appears to have had his headquarters for some time at Castra Hannibalis very near Scylletium.

Roman era

In 124 BC the Romans, at the instigation of C. Gracchus, sent a

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 ...

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

Velleius Marcus Velleius Paterculus (; ) 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 period from the death o ...

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

Antoninus Pius Titus Aelius Hadrianus Antoninus Pius (; ; 19 September 86 – 7 March 161) was Roman emperor from AD 138 to 161. He was the fourth of the Five Good Emperors from the Nerva–Antonine dynasty. Born into a senatorial family, Antoninus held var ...

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

Nerva Nerva (; born Marcus Cocceius Nerva; 8 November 30 – 27 January 98) was a 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 dynast ...

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

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Roman people, Romans conquered most of this during the Roman Republic, Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of ...

. 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 Christian Roman statesman, a renowned scholar and writer who served in the administration of Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths. ''Senato ...

'', 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 dated to around 530 AD, and fertility of its territory. Cassiodorus also mentioned production of highly priced

terra cotta Terracotta, also known as terra cotta or terra-cotta (; ; ), is a clay-based Vitrification#Ceramics, non-vitreous ceramicOED, "Terracotta""Terracotta" MFA Boston, "Cameo" database fired at relatively low temperatures. It is therefore a term used ...

. His villa was located at Punta di Staletti.Cassiodorus Chapter 6: Vivarium https://faculty.georgetown.edu/jod/texts/cassbook/chap6.html

Sculpture

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

Literature

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

Notes

References

*Roberto Spadea (a cura di), Scolacium una città romana in Calabria. Il museo e il parco archeologico, Milano, ET, 2005, pp. 506-542 e pp. 51-65 * * {{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 Ancient Greek archaeological sites in Italy