Part 18

METAPONTUM.[55] Its name shows the same formation which we have already observed on several other occasions, and leads us to a form Μεταποῦς, analogous to Μαλοῦς. This town, which was founded under the protection of Sybaris, may in reality not have been in a state of independence as long as Sybaris was a powerful state; in order to preserve the possession of its territory, Metapontum required the protection of the Sybarites against the neighbouring Oenotrians and Apulians; but after the fall of Sybaris, Metapontum may be regarded as an independent town. In the traditions we have of this place, as in those of several others, statements about its earlier Oenotrian condition are mixed up with those about its later Hellenic character; the Pelasgian traditions about it always refer to the Trojan legend, and hence Metapontum is mentioned as a Pylian colony. During the period down to the time when the Lucanians became powerful, the place, from the extraordinary fertility of its territory, became so wealthy as to equal the richest Greek towns in Italy. The Metapontines are said to have sent a θέρος χρυσοῦν to Delphi, which was probably a golden sheaf, the produce of the tithes. Their great wealth is also attested by the very numerous gold and silver coins of Metapontum, of very beautiful workmanship, and mostly of great antiquity. Afterwards, however, all the towns in those parts were overpowered by the Lucanians, and Metapontum, also, which was deprived of its territory, must have lost its greatness in consequence. Afterwards, it suffered severely from the Greek and Epirot armies, which were called into the country by the Tarentines. Alexander of Epirus and Cleonymus of Sparta for a time occupied Metapontum with garrisons, and Cleonymus in particular acted with disgraceful cruelty: he took hostages, and plundered and pillaged the town. After that time it never recovered. In the war of Pyrrhus, Metapontum was an insignificant place; in the second Punic war, it attached itself to Hannibal, and afterwards it is, as if a wave had passed over it and washed it away, though we do not know how or when; but we hear no more of it. In the age of Strabo, it was a small place, but in point of fact, it had perished.

The destruction of Sybaris by the Crotoniats was the death-blow to the Greek towns in those parts, for the Crotoniats were not able to protect the country against the invading Lucanians and Oenotrians. Some of the surviving Sybarites withdrew to their colonies of Laos and Scidros, and others built a small place of the name of Sybaris in a distant part; all attempts to rebuild the ancient city failed, for Croton and the vengeance of the emancipated serfs prevented it. In this distress they applied to the Athenians, who in the days of their greatness appear everywhere as the defenders of the Hellenic name: on this occasion, too, they were ready to assist the unfortunate Sybarites, and invited colonists from all parts of Greece to settle at Sybaris. The reason why Croton did not oppose this new settlement may have been the fact, that the people of the interior were advancing more and more; the Crotoniats probably felt, that a powerful Greek colony in the neighbourhood might be very useful to them: Posidonia, too, was probably already lost. At a deliberation of the Spartans and their allies, a Greek said, that if Athens were destroyed, “the spring would be taken out of Hellas,”[56]—the destruction of Sybaris had taken the spring out of Magna Graecia. The settlement at THURII succeeded without any opposition on the part of the Italicans. It was called an Athenian colony; but the Athenians formed only a small portion of the population, which consisted of Dorians and Ionians, islanders as well as emigrants from the mainland, who had been invited by the Athenians, without any distinction, as to a general Greek enterprise; the Athenians did not reserve for themselves any petty advantages, being satisfied with the consciousness that history would call them the restorers of Sybaris. Thurii must have been a strong colony, whence it soon rose to importance. The ancient name was probably ominous, as Sybaris had been destroyed twice, or perhaps even three times. The name Thurii is said to have been derived from a well. This is possible; but the emblem of Sybaris on ancient coins (for there are some very ancient ones) is always a bull, whence it is quite possible, that this emblem may have been the cause of the name, for θούριος signifies _ferox_, fierce, wild. Thurii soon became involved in constant wars with the Lucanians; but fifty or sixty years after its foundation it was already so powerful that it could lose more than 10,000 men in battle against the Lucanians. This loss, however, was a blow from which it never could thoroughly recover; it was soon after confined to its own territory, and perhaps even obliged to pay tribute to protect itself against the devastations of the Lucanians. In the wars of the Tarentines and the other Greeks against the Lucanians, Thurii is indeed still mentioned, but it sank more and more, until in the end it was taken and plundered by the Lucanians. Afterwards, it placed itself under the protection of the Romans, who, however, were unable to prevent its being plundered a second time by the Tarentines. Subsequently it sank so low, that after the Hannibalian war a Latin colony was established there; but this colony was equally unfortunate, for during the war of Spartacus it was razed to the ground, as we see from the fragments of Cicero’s speech for Tullius, recently discovered by A. Mai.

The next place is CROTON, which, according to tradition, was founded shortly after Sybaris. There exist very contradictory accounts about this town, and it is difficult to discover any connection among them. Heyne has written several essays on all the towns of Magna Graecia; he ought not to be undervalued, but nearly all his works were written in too great a hurry; he had overburdened himself with official business and his own undertakings, and it is melancholy to see how a man of such truly beautiful talents does not rise above mediocrity in his writings. On the whole, he has only produced imperfect works; if he had concentrated himself more, if he had been willing to do less, and if he had not been possessed by an unfortunate πολυπραγμοσύνη, he would certainly have acquired a great and lasting reputation. The best intentions in such a case are of no avail; posterity will not heed them; for it does not ask, What is the number of a man’s works? but, What are they? His fate may be described in the words of Scripture: “He is gone hence, and not a trace of him is left behind.” Heyne also founded a school which was bad, though his followers were celebrated in Germany, as if they were great scholars. From it, however, men proceeded, who, though outwardly belonging to it, kept themselves independent of the school, as F. A. Wolf and others, who are the real restorers of the sound philology which is now flourishing. Heyne’s essays are pleasant to read; but he who is familiar with their subjects, sees before him a man who does not take the trouble to examine things, who is satisfied with vague conceptions, and shows the greatest indifference as to what is possible and what is not; it is only now and then that a bright idea reminds us of his original talent. But, notwithstanding all this, Heyne’s essays ought not to be left unread. Very different is the case of Bentley, and I must strongly recommend to you every thing he has written on similar subjects.

There is great difficulty in the tradition about Croton, according to which it was so powerful that it became insolent, and attempted to subdue the Locrians; the Locrians, however, it is said, owing to the favour of the gods, who took pity on the oppressed, gained quite an unexpected and glorious victory over them. Hereupon, tradition says, the Crotoniats renounced war and lived in effeminacy, until Pythagoras appeared among them, and by a new religion which he taught, and by new ordinances, introduced a fresh spirit and improved manners among them. Yet here again the mystery is, how, during that very period of moral debasement, the Crotoniats could stand in the same relation to Sybaris, as that in which Locri stood to Croton. One might be inclined to place the battle on the Sagra, according to Justin and other indications, between Olympiad 70 and 80; and I myself formerly entertained this opinion; but after the discovery of the “Excerpta de Sententiis” from Diodorus and Polybius, it cannot be doubted that the ancients placed it in Olymp. 50. From this, then, it follows, that the stories of their insolence, effeminacy, and moral debasement, must be regarded as mere arbitrary inventions. Although no such exaggerated numbers are mentioned in the case of Croton as in that of Sybaris, yet 100,000 armed men are said to have been arrayed against the Locrians on the Sagra, and the circumference of the city is said to have been twelve Roman miles; Livy, who no doubt took the account from Polybius, states it to have been 100 stadia, and this does not appear fabulous. The greatness of Croton belongs to an early period, but afterwards its power must have sunk in consequence of circumstances which are unknown to us. Traces of internal commotions occur in the well-known account of the persecution of the Pythagoreans. This sect went hand in hand with the aristocracy; its downfall was connected with the development of democracy, and was not so much the consequence of its religious as of its political character. This accounts for the fact, that Croton had already ceased to be a powerful state, when, according to Diodorus, Magna Graecia becomes prominent in history, that is, about the time of the foundation of Thurii. When the Lucanians were spreading far and wide, and Thurii received its fatal blow at Laos, the Crotoniats are not mentioned with any degree of distinction, but are treated like the inhabitants of the other cantons of that country. But if it had been a town of small extent, Dionysius the elder would not have been so anxious to gain possession of it; he besieged and conquered it in a nocturnal surprise, by attacking it on a side where it was believed to be almost inaccessible. This capture of Croton, which Diodorus strangely says nothing about, must have been very destructive in its effects upon the place. Dionysius, it is true, afterwards quitted it, and it recovered its independence, but thenceforth its fate was always very deplorable. Croton was obliged to submit to Alexander of Epirus, though he inflicted no injury upon it; but Agathocles, in his undertaking against Corcyra, besieged it in passing; the town was then governed by the tyrant Menecrates, whom Agathocles deceived by pretending that he was anxious to form connections with him; but he then suddenly changed the course of his fleet which was bound for Corcyra, and having landed at Croton, captured the town. Not quite twenty-five years later, in A.U. 450, the Romans under P. Cornelius Rufinus took it by assault; and this catastrophe, as we see from Livy’s account of the Hannibalian war, completely broke its power. It now shrunk together within its ancient circumference in the same manner as e.g., Pisa, or Leyden, which once had 100,000 inhabitants, while at present it has only 20,000. When a person walks on the ramparts of Pisa, he sees the modern town concentrated in the centre of its ancient circumference. Pisa is at present as desolate as many an eastern city, such as, e.g., Basra or Ispahan; such also was the condition of Rome in the middle ages, especially during the time when the popes resided at Avignon. The arx of Croton was situated in the centre of the town, and around it a few houses were still standing: all the rest had become changed into fields. In the Hannibalian war, the Bruttians took the town and demanded of the inhabitants to share it with them, but the Crotoniats preferred emigrating to living together with them. The Bruttians then established a colony there, but after the conclusion of the war they were expelled by the Romans, who now sent a colony thither; but this was not very successful either. At present Croton is a little country-town.

It is remarkable that, considering the importance of the cities of Magna Graecia, so few monuments of antiquity are found in all of them: there are cameos and coins of Tarentum, but few statues.

In the neighbourhood of Croton there was a temple of _Juno Lacinia_ on the Lacinian promontory. This promontory on the one side, and the Iapygian on the other, inclose the gulf of Tarentum. Lacinia is generally taken as a proper name of Juno, and from it the name of the promontory is derived; but this is incorrect: the adjective is an ethnic name, and _Juno Lacinia_ and _Acra Lacinia_ are nothing else but Juno and the Acra of the Lacinii, that is, the Latini, in the sense in which all the Pelasgian Italiots are so called. According to the most authentic accounts, this temple of Juno Lacinia is more ancient than the Greek settlements on those coasts; in the remotest times it was the common sanctuary of the Oenotrians, and afterwards it passed into the hands of the Crotoniats. During the period of Croton’s greatness it was extremely rich, and traces of its wealth existed as late as the Hannibalian war; but in the course of this war it was profaned and plundered by the Romans. Hannibal had his head-quarters there for a long time, and caused a large tablet, containing a history of his own exploits in the Greek and Punic languages, to be set up in the temple. How valuable would such a document be, if it were preserved! I shall pass over the small places south of the Lacinian promontory, and proceed to—

CAULON or CAULONIA, a small Achaean town, which had a common diet with the other places.

LOCRI, was probably not a real Greek colony, but a Hellenized place. If Locri was a Greek colony, this fact, too, would show, what is everywhere probable from their very situation, that the Ozolian Locrians and those πέραν Εὐβοίας once belonged to each other, and that they were torn asunder only by the immigration of the Dolopians; and that accordingly they were a much larger people. We must, therefore, be on our guard not to blame Virgil, as he has been blamed for calling the Locrians _Narycii_. People say, it is inconceivable that the Locrians should have been called _Narycii_, as mount Naryx was situated opposite Euboea, while the Italian Locrians were descended from the Ozolian Locrians (according to Strabo). Virgil did not conceive the Locrians as divided, but as one unbroken race, extending from the Corinthian to the Euboean sea. The Locrians in Italy are called Ἐπιζεφύριοι, that is, ἐπὶ Ζεφυρίῳ, on the promontory of Zephyrium. Hitherto the traditions about these Locrians have been a curious puzzle. The ancient excerpts from the twelfth book of Polybius contain traces of a great controversy of Timaeus, who is raving against Aristotle on account of what he had said about the origin of the Locrians. But what Aristotle actually had said, is not mentioned by the epitomizer, and it could only be guessed that he had derived their origin from slaves. Besides this, there was a passage of Dionysius Periegeta, in which he says of the Locrians σφετέρῃς μιχθέντες ἀνάσσαις, on which the passage of the scholiast is incomplete. But from the new “Excerpta de Sententiis,” the whole matter has become clear. Aristotle relates the following tradition. In the first Messenian war, the Locrians furnished the Spartans with auxiliaries, and all their men capable of bearing arms had taken the field. During their absence, their wives and daughters led a licentious life with their servants; and from fear of their returning masters, the servants with their concubines emigrated. Timaeus in saying that this story sounds fabulous, made easy game of Aristotle, if he supposed that Aristotle believed it to be true; but I would undertake to answer for it that Aristotle did not give the story as a real historical tradition, but that he mentioned it only as a legend of the Locrians. He no doubt asserted that the Italian Locrians were not a colony of the Greek Locrians, and that, if they were Locrians, they were so only through the women. Timaeus might easily have investigated the matter; but his object was only to find fault with Aristotle. But such disgraceful conduct always receives its punishment in due time, and Polybius has prepared it for him. If here, as everywhere else, we put aside the mythical story, we find that the foundation of the Locrian state in Italy belongs to the period of the decay of the constitution of the _gentes_, when in various places illegitimate marriages between the ancient families and the δῆμος gave rise to a mixed race, which became dangerous to the aristocracy, and was, therefore, obliged to emigrate. The same fact forms the basis of the story about Phalanthus and the Parthenii.

But whatever may have been the origin of the Locrians, they bore in ancient times a very respectable character, for they defeated the Crotoniats in the battle on the Sagra. The Greek proverb ἀληθέστερα τῶν ἐπὶ Σάγρᾳ must probably not be taken quite literally, at least, not in our narrative, in which it is said that the Dioscuri decided the issue of the contest. In like manner, St. James is said to have appeared on a white charger in the army of Ferdinand Cortez: a distinguished officer, who had been present at every point of the battle and seen nothing, got himself out of the difficulty by saying, that he had not been worthy to behold the saint. Such, also, may have been the case with the Dioscuri in the battle on the Sagra. At all events, however, the Locrians, through that battle, secured their independence, and for a period of 150 years thereafter, they lived in happy prosperity, which was disturbed by Dionysius, who endeavoured to gain influence in the Greek towns of Italy by marrying a citizen of one of them. A Rhegine maiden being refused to him, he took a Locrian for his wife. For this reason Locri was greatly favoured; but after Dionysius’ death, his son, on being obliged to withdraw from Sicily, betook himself to Locri, where he raged like a Nero or an Elagabalus. When, afterwards, he was forced to return to Sicily, the Locrians took vengeance on his family, and then had to sustain a siege, during which, there being no hope of pardon, they offered a most vigorous resistance, and risked their all upon it. Their territory fell into the hands of the Bruttians, but in the war of Pyrrhus, Locri was still a considerable state. On that occasion, however, they acted an unworthy part: they first requested the Romans to send them a garrison against the Bruttians, and then betrayed it into the hands of Pyrrhus. After this, Pyrrhus placed a garrison of Italicans and Bruttians there, who again betrayed the town to the Romans. Sixty years later, the Locrians delivered up a Roman garrison into the hands of Hannibal: they then repented of their treachery—a fickleness which, often occurs among the Greeks—and again opened their gates to the Romans. But this last act was not set down to their credit, for Q. Pleminius, who was left behind there by Scipio with a garrison, conducted himself like the commanders of the troops of the League during the thirty years’ war, like Colonel Hatzfeld at Rostock, and as the imperial commanders in general, with their Croats, conducted themselves in Germany. Pleminius treated the town as if it had been taken by the sword; at length, however, the Locrians succeeded in inducing the Roman senate to interfere, and to punish the offender; the account of his conduct gives us some idea of the manner in which war was carried on in those times. The town continued to exist after these events, but was quite insignificant; its greatest importance consisted in a temple of Proserpine with a rich treasury. Pyrrhus had plundered the sanctuary, but being warned by visions in a dream, he restored the treasures; Q. Pleminius afterwards plundered it more effectually.

The next town, RHEGIUM, was a Chalcidian colony, of a much more recent date than the others, being founded about Olymp. 50. During the period when it was the residence of Anaxilaus, it was a powerful city. At the time of the Sicilian expedition, Rhegium, like all the other Chalcidian towns, was allied with Athens. The Rhegines refused to give one of their daughters in marriage to Dionysius, and were injudicious enough to insult him, by saying that they had no other girl suited to him except the daughter of the hangman, which was the most offensive thing they could have done. At the time when Corsica was still independent, no Corsican ever took the office of hangman, but from hatred of Genoa, the Corsicans always appointed a Genoese. Dionysius laid siege to the town, and the Rhegines defended themselves with the courage of lions, but were overpowered; and their fate was terrible. But the situation of the town is so fortunate, that a town will always exist there in spite of earthquakes and other ravages. A hundred years later, Rhegium was, if possible, still more unfortunate. In the war of Pyrrhus, a Campanian legion, at the request of the Rhegines themselves, was sent there by the Romans, for the purpose of cutting off the communication between Pyrrhus and the Mamertines in Sicily. But this garrison, under the command of Decius Jubellius, massacred the male inhabitants, and took possession of their wives and children. At the conclusion of the war, the Romans took the town by force, and the 300 survivors of the 4,000 who had composed the Campanian legion, were beheaded in the Forum at Rome. The surviving Rhegines were then called together, and their territory was restored to them. Henceforth, Rhegium remained a prosperous little commercial town, and experienced no further misfortunes.

HIPPONIUM, a colony of Locri, was taken and destroyed by the Bruttians, and then rebuilt by the Carthaginians, which is the only instance of a Carthaginian town in Italy. During the latter period of Agathocles, and shortly before the war with Pyrrhus, the Bruttians seem again to have been masters of the place. Afterwards the Romans established a colony there, under the name of _Vibo Valentia_.

Proceeding along the coast in a northern direction, we come to LAOS, on the line which subsequently formed the frontier between Lucania and Bruttium. It was a colony of Sybaris, and is celebrated on account of the defeat sustained by the united towns of Magna Graecia, especially Thurii, against the Lucanians, who wanted to relieve the town from a siege. At that time, the Lucanians had already extended themselves along the coast, and Posidonia was their first conquest.

PYXUS or BUXENTUM, between Laos and Posidonia, was founded by the Rhegines at the time of Anaxilaus and Micythus, who were contemporaries of Darius Hystaspis. There can be no doubt that it was afterwards taken by the Lucanians, but it was snatched from them by the Romans, who surrendered it to the Campanians at the settlement they made with them, whence Buxentum is afterwards mentioned among the Campanian towns. After the Hannibalian war, the Romans established a colony there.