Sybaris
Frieze-Dennison Vergil
- A town in Magna Graecia, noted for the effeminacy and debauchery of its inhabitants, afterwards called Thurii, Varr. R. R. 1, 7, 6; Cic. Rep. 2, 15, 28; Liv. 26, 39, 7; Plin. 7, 22, 22, § 86; 3, 11, 15, § 97; Ov. M. 15, 51.—Hence,
- 1 Sybărīta, ae, m., an inhabitant of Sybaris, a Sybarite, Sen. Ira, 2, 25, 2; Quint. 3, 7, 24.—
- 2 Sybărītānus, a, um, adj., of or belonging to Sybaris, Sybaritan: ager, Varr. R. R. 1, 44, 2: exercitus, Plin. 8, 42, 64, § 157.—
- 3 Sybărītĭcus, a, um, adj., of Sybaris, Sybaritan: libelli, Sybaritan, i.e. lewd, obscene, Mart. 12, 96, 2; Lampr. Elag. 30.—
- 4 Sybărītis, ĭdis, f., the name of a lascivious poem, Ov. Tr. 2, 417. —
- II Masc.
- A The river on which Sybaris was situated, now Coscile, Plin. 3, 11, 15, § 97; Ov. M. 15, 315.—
- B The name of a young man; acc. Sybarin, Hor. C. 1, 8, 2.
SY´BARIS (Σύβαρις: Eth. Συβαρίτης, Sybarita), a celebrated city of Magna Graecia, situated on the W. shore of the Tarentine gulf, but a short distance from the sea, between the rivers Crathis and Sybaris. (Strab. 6. p. 263; Diod. 12.9.) The last of these, from which it derived its name, was the stream now called the Coscile, which at the present day falls into the Crati about 3 miles from its mouth, but in ancient times undoubtedly pursued an independent course to the sea. Sybaris was apparently the earliest of all the Greek colonies in this part of Italy, being founded, according to the statement of Scymnus Chius, as early as B.C. 720. (Scymn. Ch. 360; Clinton, F. H. vol. 1. p. 174.) It was an Achaean. colony, and its Oekist was a citizen of Helice in Achaia: but with the Achaean emigrants were mingled a number of Troezenian citizens. The Achaeans, however, eventually obtained the preponderance, and drove out the Troezenians. (Strab. l. c.; Arist. Pol. 5.3.) The Sybarites indeed appear to have sought for an origin in heroic times; and Solinus has a story that the first founder of the city was a son of Ajax Oïleus (Solin. 2.10); but this is evidently mere fiction, and the city was, historically speaking, undoubtedly an Achaean colony. It rose rapidly to great prosperity, owing in the first instance to the fertility of the plain in which it was situated. Its citizens also, contrary to the policy of many of the Greek states, freely admitted settlers of other nations to the rights of citizenship, and the vast population of the city is expressly ascribed in great measure to this cause. (Diod. 12.9.) The statements transmitted to us of the power and opulence of the city, as well as of the luxurious habits of its inhabitants, have indeed a very fabulous aspect, and are without doubt grossly exaggerated, but there is no reason to reject the main fact that Sybaris had in the sixth century B.C. attained a degree of wealth and power unprecedented among Greek cities, and which excited the admiration of the rest of the Hellenic world. We are told that the Sybarites ruled over 25 subject cities, and could bring into the field 300,000 of their own citizens (Strab. l. c.), a statement obviously incredible. The subject cities were probably for the most part Oenotrian towns in the interior, but we know that Sybaris had extended its dominion across the peninsula to the Tyrrhenian sea, where it had founded the colonies of Posidonia, Laüs, and Scidrus. The city itself was said to be not less than 50 stadia in circumference, and the horsemen or knights who figured at the religious processions are said to have amounted to 5000 in number (Athen. 12. p. 519), which would prove that these wealthy citizens were more than four times as numerous as at Athens. Smindyrides, a citizen of Sybaris, who was one of the suitors for the daughters of Cleisthenes of Sicyon, is said by Herodotus to have surpassed all other men in refined luxury. (Hdt. 6.127.) It was asserted that on this occasion he carried with him a train of 1000 slaves, including cooks, fishermen, &c. (Atlien. 6. p. 273; Diod. viii. Fr. 19.) It is unnecessary to repeat here the tales that are told by various writers, especially by Athenaeus, concerning the absurd refinements of luxury ascribed to the Sybarites, and which have rendered their very name proverbial. (Athenae. xii. pp. 518--521; Diod. viii. Fr. 18--20; Suid. s. v. Συβαριτικαῖς.) They were particularly noted for the splendour of their attire, which was formed of the finest Milesian wool, and this gave rise to extensive commercial relations with Miletus, which produced a close friendship between the two cities. (Timaeus, ap. Athen. 12. p. 519; Hdt. 6.21.) As an instance of their magnificence we are told that Alcimenes of Sybaris had dedicated as a votive offering in the temple of the Lacinian Juno a splendid figured robe, which long afterwards fell into the power of Dionysius of Syracuse, and was sold by him for 120 talents, or more than 24,0001. sterling. (Pseud. Arist. Mirab. 96; Athen. 12. p. 541.)
Notwithstanding these details concerning the wealth and luxury of Sybaris. we are almost wholly without information as to the history of the city until shortly before its fall. Herodotus incidentally refers to the time of Smindyrides (about 580--560, B.C.) as the period when Sybaris was at the height of its power. At a later period it seems to have been agitated by political dissensions, with the circumstances of which we are very imperfectly acquainted. It appears that the government had previously been in the hands of an oligarchy, to which such persons as Smindyrides and Alcimenes naturally belonged; but the democratic party, headed by a demagogue named Telys, succeeded in overthrowing their power, and drove a considerable number of the leading citizens into exile. Telys hereupon seems to have raised himself to the position of despot or tyrant of the city. The exiled citizens took refuge at Crotona; but not content with their victory, Telys and his partisans called upon the Crotoniats to surrender the fugitives. This they refused to do, and the Sybarites hereupon declared war on them, and marched upon Crotona with an army said to have amounted to 300,000 men. They were met at the river Traeis by the Crotoniats, whose army did not amount to more than a third of their numbers; notwithstanding which they obtained a complete victory, and put the greater part of the Sybarites to the sword, continuing the pursuit to the very gates of the city, of which they easily made themselves masters, and which they determined to destroy so entirely that it should never again be inhabited. For this purpose they turned the course of the river Crathis, so that it inundated the site of the city and buried the ruins under the deposits that it brought down. (Diod. 12.9, 10; Strab. 6. p. 263; Hdt. 5.44; Athenae. 12. p. 521; Scymn. Ch. 337--360.) This catastrophe occurred in B.C. 510, and seems to have been viewed by many of the Greeks as a divine vengeance upon the Sybarites for their pride and arrogance, caused by their excessive prosperity, more especially for the contempt they had shown for the great festival of the Olympic Games, which they are said to have attempted to supplant by attracting the principal artists, athletes, &c., to their own public games. (Seymn. Ch. 350--360; Athen. l. c.)
It is certain that Sybaris was never restored. The surviving inhabitants took refuge at Laüs and Scidrus, on the shores of the Tyrrhenian sea. An attempt was indeed made, 58 years after the destruction of the city, to establish them anew on the ancient site, but they were quickly driven out by the Crotoniats, and the fugitives afterwards combined with the Athenian colonists in the foundation of Thurii. [THURII] At the present day the site is utterly desolate, and even the exact position of the ancient city cannot be determined. The whole plain watered by the rivers Coscile and Crati (the ancient Sybaris and Crathis), so renowned in ancient limes for its fertility, is now a desolate swampy tract, pestilential from malaria, and frequented only by vast herds of buffaloes, the usual accompaniment in Southern Italy of all such pestiferous regions. The circumstance mentioned by Strabo that the river Crathis had been turned from its course to inundate the city, is confirmed by the accidental mention in Herodotus of the dry channel of the Crathis( παρὰ τὸν ξηρὸν Κρᾶθιν, Hdt. 5.44): and this would sufficiently account for the disappearance of all traces of the city. Swinburne indeed tells us that some degraded fragments of aqueducts and tombsw ere still visible on the peninsula formed by the two rivers, and were pointed out as the ruins of Sybaris, but these, as he justly observes, being built of brick, are probably of Roman times, and have no connection with the ancient city. Keppel Craven, on the other hand, speaks of a wall sometimes visible in the bed of the Crathis when the waters are very lowa s being the only remaining relic of the ancient Sybaris. (Swinburne's Travels, vol. i. pp. 290--292; Craven's Southern Tour, pp. 217, 218.) The ruins marked on Zannoni's large map as l'Antica Sibari are probably those of Thurii [THURII] But it is certain that the locality has never yet been thoroughly examined, and it is probable that some light may even yet be thrown upon the site of this celebrated city: especially if the marshy plain in which it is situated should ever be reclaimed and cultivated. There is no doubt that if this were done, it would again be a tract of surpassing fertility: it is cited as such by Varro, who tells us that in Sybaritanow heat was said to produce a hundred-fold. (Varr. R. R. 1.44.) Even at the present day the drier spots produce very rich crops of corn. (Swinburne, l. c.)
The river Sybaris was said to be so named by the Greek colonists from a fountain of that name at Bura in Achaia (Strab. 8. p. 386): it had the property, according to some authors, of making horses shy that drank of its waters. (Pseud. Arist. Mirab. 169; Strabl. 6. p. 263.) It is a considerable stream, and has its sources in the Apennines near Murano, flows beneath Castrovillari, and receives several minor tributary streams before it joins the Crathis. COIN OF SYBARIS.
[E.H.B](Σύβαρις). (1) Now Coscile or Sibari; a river in Lucania, flowing by the city of the same name, and falling into the Crathis.
(2) A celebrated Greek town in Lucania, situated between the rivers Sybaris and Crathis, at a short distance from the Tarentine Gulf, and near the confines of Bruttium. It was founded B.C. 720 by Achaeans and Troezenians, and soon attained an extraordinary degree of prosperity and wealth. Its inhabitants became so notorious for their love of luxury and pleasure that their name was employed to indicate any voluptuary. At the time of their highest prosperity their city was fifty stadia, or upwards of six miles, in circumference, and they exercised dominion over twenty-five towns, so that we are told they were able to bring into the field 300,000 men, a number, however, which appears incredible. But their prosperity was of short duration. The Achaeans having expelled the Troezenian part of the population, the latter took refuge at the neighbouring city of Croton, the inhabitants of which espoused their cause. In the war which ensued between the two States, the Sybarites were completely conquered by the Crotoniates, who followed up their victory by the capture of Sybaris, which they destroyed by turning the waters of the river Crathis against the town (B.C. 510) (Herod. v. 44; Diod.xii. 9; Athen. p. 521). The greater number of the surviving Sybarites took refuge in other Greek cities in Italy; but a few remained near their ancient town, and their descendants formed part of the town of Thurii founded in B.C. 443 near Sybaris. See Thurii.
An archaic Greek colony founded by Achaians and Troezenians about 720 B.C. on a fertile plain drained by the Crati and Sybaris rivers in a region lying between Metaponto and Kroton. Sybaris and the two successive cities of Thurii and Copia built on the same site are mentioned by at least 70 Greek and Roman writers, notably Herodotos (5.45), Aristotle (Pol. 5.2.10), Diodorus Siculus (11.90.3-4; 12), Strabo (6.1.13), and Athenaeus (Deip. 12.519). There is general agreement that the original city was destroyed by the Greeks of Kroton about 510 B.C.
Ancient authorities agree in placing the archaic colony somewhere on the plain of the Crati (125 sq. km). Systematic search for the site, begun in 1879, was finally rewarded in 1968. The precise location was defined and it was concluded that archaic Greek Sybaris was succeeded by Thurii and Copia on the same site (see Thurii).
Archaic Greek pottery was found in several hundred drill borings at a depth of 4.5-6 m; later Greek and Roman pottery in upper levels was still below 3 m in depth. The archaic deposits are now some 3 m below sea level and 4-5 m below the water table. Soundings exposed stone foundations of 6th c. B.C. structures, masses of roof tiles, and archaic pottery in a single level of occupation in the N sector of the site, i.e., not covered over by later Greek and Roman structures. But in the S sector only later Greek and Roman structures were found overlying a level of archaic Greek pottery at ca. 6 m in depth. A stone retaining wall was traced by the magnetometers, drills, and soundings for 800 m roughly parallel and to the N of the Crati river. The lower part of the wall was built in the Hellenistic period (Thurii) and the upper part during the period of Roman settlement.
Since 1968 there have been three seasons of excavation at the site. Utilizing a well point system, large sectors have been pumped constantly so that the water table has been reduced to a depth below the archaic level allowing dry excavation to at least 6 m. Four separate excavations have been made, the largest extending over 2 ha in the Parco del Cavallo area where a Roman structure protruding above ground was found in 1928, and where there were excavations in 1961-62. The principle structure now unearthed there is a theater of the 1st and 2d c. A.D., surrounded by a residential area of the period of Roman Copia. There is also a major road of the same period passing the theater in an E-W direction. Below the Roman theater, soundings have exposed Greek structures and pottery extending over the period from the 8th to the 5th c. B.C., indicating no significant period when the site was not occupied after the original settlement by the archaic Greeks. This excavation indicates that the site was abandoned in the 4th c. A.D.
The second major excavation was made in the N sector (Stombi—now called the Parco dei Tori) where the earlier research disclosed only an archaic level. Here the foundations of the three buildings have been uncovered; also a pottery kiln. Although unidentified, the structures appear to be part of an organized town settlement of the 6th c. B.C.
A third excavation in the locality of Casa Bianca, at the E end of the long retaining wall, exposed more of the Roman habitation area and part of a road which probably connects with another passing the Parco del Cavallo section in an E-W direction. The fourth excavation in the San Mauro area to the S and outside the limits of the Sybaris zone, exposed a small Roman structure in the upper level.
The almost total destruction of the archaic city, indicated by the six soundings excavated in the years 1962-67, is borne out by the large excavations in the Stombi area. The recent excavations also clarify the problem of the physical deposition of the ruins. It is now clear that the plain of the Crati settled below the present sea level after the period of Roman occupation rather than before, as assumed in the 1968 report. The problem of preserving the site is still to be solved. At present, constant and expensive pumping is required to expose Roman buildings which lie below the water table.
BIBLIOGRAPHYF. G. Rainey & C. M. Lerici, The Search for Sybaris (1967). [In introductory chapters all the pertinent material from the ancient authors is translated and the early excavations are summarized.]; Rainey, “The Location of Archaic Greek Sybaris,” AJA 73 (1969) 261-73; Autori vari, Sibari, NSc 1969, Suppl.
I. Report on the Italian excavations at Parco del Cavallo. F. RAINEY- his picture: Paus. 6.6.11
- Paus. 5.8.9, Paus. 6.19.9
- afterwards called Lupiae: Paus. 6.19.9
- in southern Italy, attacked by Dorieus: Hdt. 5.44
- its capture by the Crotoniats: Hdt. 6.21
- its former prosperity: Hdt. 6.127
- treasury of Sybarites at Olympia: Paus. 6.19.9