Thurii
Thurii, or
Thurium, was a city of
Magna Graecia on the
Gulf of Taranto, near the site of the older
Sybaris. It owed its origin to an attempt made in
452 BC by Sybarite exiles and their descendants to repeople their old home.
The new settlement was crushed by
Croton, but the
Athenians lent aid to the fugitives and in
443 BC Pericles sent out to Thurii a mixed body of colonists from various parts of
Greece, among whom were
Herodotus and the orator
Lysias.
The pretensions of the Sybarite colonists led to dissensions and ultimately to their expulsion; peace was made with Croton, and also, after a period of war, with
Tarentum, and Thurii rose rapidly in power and drew settlers from all parts of Greece, especially from
Peloponnesus, so that the tie to Athens was not always acknowledged. The
oracle of
Delphi determined that the city had no founder but
Apollo, and in the
Sicilian Expedition of
413 BC Thurii was at first neutral, though it finally helped the Athenians.
Thurii had a
democratic constitution and good laws, and, though we hear little of its history till in
390 BC it received a severe defeat from the rising power of the
Lucanians. Many beautiful coins testify to the wealth and splendour of its days of prosperity.
In the
4th century BC it continued to decline, and at length called in the help of the
Romans against the Lucanians, and then in
282 BC against Tarentum. Thenceforward its position was dependent, and in the
Second Punic War, after several vicissitudes, it was depopulated and plundered by
Hannibal in
204 BC.
In
194 BC a Roman colony was founded, with Latin rights, known for a time as
Copiae, but afterwards by the old name of Thurii. According to
Suetonius, the Octavian family held some renown there, and Gaius Octavius (father of the future
Caesar Augustus) defeated a
Spartacist army near there; as a result, the future emperor was granted the surname Thurinus shortly after birth.
It continued to be a place of some importance, the situation being favourable and the region fertile, and does not seem to have been wholly abandoned till the
Middle Ages. The site of the original Greek city is not accurately known, though that of the Roman town, which probably though not certainly occupied the same site, is fixed by insignificant ruins as being 4 miles to the east of
Terranova di Sibari, and as occupying an area some 4 miles in circuit.
