Tauriana
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Tauriana or Taureana (Taurianum in
Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
, ''Ταυρανία'' in
Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...
) was an ancient city located in present Palmi,
Reggio Calabria Reggio di Calabria (; ), commonly and officially referred to as Reggio Calabria, or simply Reggio by its inhabitants, is the List of cities in Italy, largest city in Calabria as well as the seat of the Metropolitan City of Reggio Calabria. As ...
province. The city stood 1 km south of the river ''Metauros'' (probably ''Petrace'') on the north-western Tyrrhenian coast and in ancient Greek times marked the border of
Rhegion Reggio di Calabria (; ), commonly and officially referred to as Reggio Calabria, or simply Reggio by its inhabitants, is the largest city in Calabria as well as the seat of the Metropolitan City of Reggio Calabria. As of 2025, it has 168,572 ...
(Reggio Calabria) territory facing that of
Locri Locri is a town and ''comune'' (municipality) in the province of Reggio Calabria, Calabria, southern Italy. Its name derives from that of the ancient Greek region of Locris. Today it is an important administrative and cultural center on the Ion ...
. Its territory was adjacent to the city of
Metauros Metauros (also known as Metauria, in ancient Greek: Μέταυρος, and in Latin: Matauros) was an ancient city of Magna Graecia, located on the right bank of the Metauro River (modern-day Petrace) in what is now the town of Gioia Tauro, Calabr ...
, founded in the 7th century BC near the mouth of the river of the same name. The river served, among other things, as a division between the two cities.


History

The location of the territory was strategic, almost at the entrance to the Messina Strait which favoured maritime trade routes to the Aeolian archipelago and the north-eastern coast of Sicily, whose artistic-commercial links with this territory since the proto-historic age are documented by obsidian and ceramic finds. Some legends tell of an original Achaean Greek colonisation of the area. Other hypotheses link the birth of the city to the second half of the 4th century BC, when groups from Reggio and Locri reached the site conquering nearby cities such as Terina,
Hipponion Vibo Valentia (; Monteleone before 1861; Monteleone di Calabria from 1861 to 1928; or ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) in the Italian region of Calabria, near the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the capital of the province of Vibo Valentia, and ...
and
Petelia Petilia or Petelia () was a city name found in some ancient works of classical antiquity. It's widely accepted that in antiquity there were two cities with this name, both located in Southern Italy. One of them, Petilia, was located in ancient Lu ...
. Therefore, in the Hellenistic age there was the conquest of the territory south of the Metauros by the people of Rhegion, specifically the "Taurians", an
Italic people The concept of Italic peoples is widely used in linguistics and historiography of ancient Italy. In a strict sense, commonly used in linguistics, it refers to the Osco-Umbrians and Latino-Faliscans, speakers of the Italic languages, a subgroup of ...
. During the
2nd 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 Ita ...
(218–201 BC) it had rebelled but subsequently returned to the protection of Rome. With the Romanisation of the area following the Social Wars, the Bruttian presence in the territory disappeared and the Taurians, owing to good relationship with the Romans, gained political and administrative autonomy over their territory, losing their subordination to the city of Rhegion. Il periodo Brettio https://web.archive.org/web/20130627111402/http://www.archeocalabria.beniculturali.it/archeovirtualtour/calabriaweb/taureanabretti.htm The first settlement was almost completely erased by the subsequent layout in the 2nd century BC when a new city was built on the old walls and with a rectangular street grid delimiting ''
insulae The Latin word (; : ) was used in Roman cities to mean either a city block in a city plan (i.e. a building area surrounded by four streets) or later a type of apartment building that occupied such a city block specifically in Rome and nearby ...
''. Later
Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...
Tauriana was destroyed by the
Saracens file:Erhard Reuwich Sarazenen 1486.png, upright 1.5, Late 15th-century History of Germany, German woodcut depicting Saracens ''Saracen'' ( ) was a term used both in Greek language, Greek and Latin writings between the 5th and 15th centuries to ...
in the middle of the 10th century. Most of the
archaeological Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...
finds today are in the .


Ecclesiastical history

From circa 600 (others say the 3rd or 4th century) Taurianum was also the see of a Catholic diocese, in the
ecclesiastical province An ecclesiastical province is one of the basic forms of jurisdiction in Christian churches, including those of both Western Christianity and Eastern Christianity, that have traditional hierarchical structures. An ecclesiastical province consist ...
of
Reggio Calabria Reggio di Calabria (; ), commonly and officially referred to as Reggio Calabria, or simply Reggio by its inhabitants, is the List of cities in Italy, largest city in Calabria as well as the seat of the Metropolitan City of Reggio Calabria. As ...
. In its territory was born and lived in
Saint Fantino the Elder In Christian belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of holiness, likeness, or closeness to God. However, the use of the term ''saint'' depends on the context and denomination. In Anglican, Oriental Ortho ...
alias the Wonderworker, the oldest saint of
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 ...
(not be confused with St. Fantinus the Younger). The
crypt A crypt (from Greek κρύπτη (kryptē) ''wikt:crypta#Latin, crypta'' "Burial vault (tomb), vault") is a stone chamber beneath the floor of a church or other building. It typically contains coffins, Sarcophagus, sarcophagi, or Relic, religiou ...
where his remains were buried, below the 'Temple' of Santo Fantino, is the oldest Catholic
place of worship A place of worship is a specially designed structure or space where individuals or a group of people such as a congregation come to perform acts of devotion, veneration, or religious study. A building constructed or used for this purpose is s ...
in the region. In 1040 it lost territory to establish the
Diocese of Oppido Mamertina The Diocese of Oppido Mamertina-Palmi () is a Latin diocese of the Catholic Church in southern Italy, existing under that name since 1979. Historically it was the Diocese of Oppido Marmertina (Oppidensis).< ...
. In 1093 it was suppressed, its territory being merged into the
Diocese of Mileto The Diocese of Mileto-Nicotera-Tropea () is a Latin diocese of the Catholic Church in Calabria, southern Italy, created in 1986. In that year the historical Diocese of Mileto was united with the Diocese of Nicotera-Tropea. The diocese is a suffra ...
.


The site

Research conducted since the mid-1990s has exposed a town dating between the second half of the 4th and the 1st century BC with road axes, houses, drainage channels, ''dolia'' for foodstuffs. The buildings discovered include: *a protohistoric village dating to 2000 BC; *remains of the city (first Brettian then Roman) including: **to the north, public, sacred and private architecture such as the "house of the Mosaic" and an area paved with rhomboidal terracotta slabs and a channel with bricks bearing the ethnic ''TAURIANOYM'' **the "urban sanctuary", known as the "house of Donna Canfora". **a Roman street on the westernmost part of the plateau, 5 m wide and one of the main axes on which residential buildings open to the south **an amphitheatre, perhaps built in the 1st century AD and remaining in use until the 4th century, unique in southern Italy both for its small size and architectural particularities, it could have been used simultaneously for games and theatrical performances.


The House of the Mosaic

The orientation of the house from the 2nd to the 1st century BC is completely out of line with the rest of the town for which there would have been strongly symbolic reason, as the home of a public figure. Further elements set this building, on the edge of the terrace, apart such as large ashlars which gave it an imposing appearance and the wealth of stucco decoration, the painted plaster, the floor mosaics and the particularly fine ornaments. There were at least twenty rooms which gave onto what was probably a portico surrounding a courtyard paved with terracotta tiles. The banquet hall at the North end had space for seven couches. One of these was made of bronze and decorated with silver ornaments and precious stones. The floor of the hall was probably decorated with a black and white mosaic. At its centre a splendid hunting scene was laid with minute polychrome ''tesserae'' depicting a hunting scene with two knights and a spear-bearer on either side of a wounded bear. The scene, dominated by a large tree, is completed by a dog, a feline and a wild boar. The couch is currently on display in the National Archaeological Museum of Reggio Calabria. The house was demolished and the materials reused for the construction of the great sanctuary.


Roman sanctuary

The construction of this building on the western edge of the Tauriana plateau, unique in the architectural and religious context of ancient Calabria, was particularly significant of the new Roman phase. The choice to erect it in the most visible point of the plateau overlooking the coast was not accidental: the temple, close to the northern edge, almost isolated and emerging from the rest of the residential context, would have been immediately visible to anyone sailing from the north. The temple typologically fits Etruscan-Italic type podium temples: the high quadrangular podium (approximately 10x20 m) on a 2.25 m foundation was made in ''
opus caementicium Roman concrete, also called , was used in construction in ancient Rome. Like its modern equivalent, Roman concrete was based on a hydraulic-setting cement added to an aggregate. Many buildings and structures still standing today, such as br ...
''. Originally it featured decorations and coverings in local stone, marble and stucco. A brick facing partially covered the elevation, and on a couple of bricks the stamp "(C) Numitori" is still legible, already known in Palmi on bricks found in the past century in the Tauriana area. The access consisted of a staircase, no longer preserved today, and was probably located on the short north side, a portico of which the walls at foundation level are preserved on three sides. Its construction involved a modification of the previous Brettian settlement as demonstrated, among other things, by the obliteration of the quadrangular canal with the stamps, brought to light a couple of metres west of the temple.


References

{{Reflist


External links


GCatholic
Palmi Destroyed populated places Calabria Pre-Roman cities in Italy Archaeological sites in Calabria Populated coastal places in Italy Former populated places in Italy Roman sites of Calabria Populated places established in the 1st millennium BC Catholic titular sees in Europe