Sibari

Sybaris was founded between two rivers that the settlers called Chratis and Sybaris, at the end of the 8th century B.C., by a group of Achaeans coming from the Peloponnese. In 510 B.C., after a 70-year-long war, Krotoniates conquered the town, diverted the river course and flooded it. In 444-443 B.C. the Panhellenic foundation of Thurii, from the name of a nearby spring, took place; the town was later conquered by the Lucanians. It began to lose its importance and in 193 B.C. the Romans established there one of their colonies, and called it Copia. In 84 B.C. it became a Municipium and it developed again during the Imperial Period, in the 1st-3rd centuries A.D. During the 5th-6th centuries A.D. the town began to decline because the land rapidly turned into a marsh; one century later, the area was completely abandoned. Several excavation campaigns brought to light the remains of Copia, Thurii and the ancient Sybaris, the important Magna Graecia town founded by the Greek around 700 B.C. and destroyed by the Krotoniates around 510 B.C. Archaelogical evidences showed that Sybaris was attacked and destroyed by that Krotoniates because it was too powerful. The few Sybarites who survived took refuge in Greece, but they were back again and settled Thurii, whose foundation dates back to between 510 and 443 B.C. The town plan was developed by the renowned urban planner Hyppodamus of Miletus.