Everything about Scylletium totally explained
Scylletium or
Scolacium – also spelled
Scylacium,
Scolatium,
Scyllaceum,
Scalacium, or
Scylaeium in
Latin – (
Greek: Σκυλλήτιον, per
Steph. B. and
Strabo, or Σκυλάκιον, per
Ptolemy), and later,
Minervium and
Colonia Minervia, was an ancient seaside city of
Bruttium,
Italy. Its ruins can be found at the
frazione of
Roccelletta, in the
comune of
Borgia,
Province of Catanzaro in the southern Italian region of
Calabria, facing the
Gulf of Squillace.
History
Scylletium was situated on the east coast of Calabria (ancient
Bruttium), situated on the shores of an extensive bay, to which it gave the name of Scylleticus Sinus (
Strabo vi. p. 261.) It is this bay, still known as the Gulf of Squillace (
Italian:
Golfo di Squillace), which indents the coast of Calabria on the east as deeply as that of Hipponium or Terina (the
Gulf of Saint Eufemia, Italian:
Golfo di Sant'Eufemia) does on the west, so that they leave but a comparatively narrow isthmus between them. (Strab.
l. c.;
Plin. iii. 10. s. 15.) According to a tradition generally received in ancient times, Scylletium was founded by an
Athenian colony, a part of the followers who had accompanied
Menestheus to the
Trojan War. (Strab.
l. c.; Plin.
l. c.; Serv.
ad Aen. iii. 553.) Another tradition was, however, extant, which ascribed its foundation to
Ulysses. (Cassiod. Var. xii. 15; Serv.
l. c.) But no historical value can be attached to such statements, and there's no trace in historical times of Scylletium having been a
Greek colony, still less an Athenian one. Its name isn't mentioned either by
Scylax or
Scymnus Chius in enumerating the Greek cities in this part of Italy, nor is there any allusion to its Athenian origin in
Thucydides at the time of the Athenian expedition to
Sicily. We learn from
Diodorus (xiii. 3) that it certainly didn't display any friendly feeling towards the Athenians. It appears, indeed, during the historical period of the Greek colonies to have been a place of inferior consideration, and a mere dependency of
Crotona, to which city it continued subject until it was wrested from its power by the
elder Dionysius, who assigned it with its territory to the
Loerians. (Strab. vi. p. 261.) It is evident that it was still a small and unimportant place at the time of the
Second Punic War, as no mention is found of its name during the operations of
Hannibal in Bruttium, though he appears to have for some time had his headquarters in its immediate neighborhood, and the place called
Castra Hannibalis must have been very near to Scylletium.
In
124 BCE the
Romans, at the instigation of
C. Gracchus, sent a
colony to Scylletium, which appears to have assumed the name of
Minervium or
Colonia Minervia. (Vell.
Pat. i. 15;
Mommsen, in
Berichte der Sächsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften, 1849, pp. 49-51.) The name is written by
Velleius Scolatium; and the form
Scolacium is found also in an inscription of the reign of
Antoninus Pius, from which it appears that the place must have received a fresh colony under
Nerva. (Orell.
Inscr. 136; Mommsen,
l. c.). Scylletium appears to have become a considerable town after it received the Roman colony, and continued such throughout the
Roman Empire. (
Mela ii. 4. § 8; Plin. iii. 10. s. 15; Ptol. iii. 1. § 11.) Towards the close of this period it was distinguished as the birthplace of
Cassiodorus (Aurelius Cassiodorus), 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, and fertility of its territory. (Cassiod.
Var. xii. 15.) Cassiodorus' writings also make mention of production of highly priced
terra cotta.
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