Metapontum

Metapontion (Metaponto)

A Greek city in Lucania (southeast Italy), on the coast of the Ionian Sea (Gulf of Taranto). Metapontum was situated between the mouths of the rivers Bradanus (Bradano) and Casuentus (Basento), which in ancient times flowed only six hundred yards apart, thus providing a site that could be defended on either side against the dense native (Messapian) population of the hinterland. The Greek colony was founded by Achaeans (under pressure from Sybaris [Sibari], which wanted a buffer against Taras [Tarentum, Taranto]) under the leadership of a certain Leucippus (or, according to other accounts, by men from Pylos; and Daulius of Crisa and Metabus are also described as leaders). The foundation probably took place in the later eighth century BC, since Eusebius' date 773 seems too early—though according to an alternative theory, the Achaeans followed earlier Greeks, who had colonized the site because their earlier settlement at nearby Incoronata had been destroyed.

Near the mouth of the Casuentus, the Metapontines possessed an artificial harbor (which is now completely silted up, and lies a thousand yards inland from the receded coastline). The region was famous for the fertility of its farmland, which it celebrated by depicting ears of corn upon its coins, of which the first (incuse) specimens have now been dated as early as 550. Metapontum possessed its own Treasury at Delphi, full of valuable objects. During the later years of the sixth century, the city was the refuge and burial place of the philosopher Pythagoras—whose pupil Aristeas urged the inhabitants to maintain their worship of Apollo with reverence. The Metapontines supported the Athenians in their expedition against Syracuse (415–413), and allied themselves with the invading Alexander of Epirus (332), whom was buried nearby. In 303/2 Metapontum was captured by Cleonymus of Sparta (to whom it had appealed against the Lucanians), and in 278 surrendered to the Romans, who were fighting against Pyrrhus of Epirus.

Then, after various vicissitudes during the Second Punic War—in which for a time it was the headquarters of Hannibal and his army—its population was evacuated by the Romans in 207. Although this did not mean the final abandonment of the town, its dissolution was well under way when Cicero made a pilgrimage to the house of Pythagoras in 50. By the mid-second century AD, only a theater and walls were still more or less complete.

Air photographs, supplemented by trial investigations, have revealed the plan of ancient Metapontum, based on broad east-west avenues. Its dimensions were expanded in the fifth century to create a new agora in a zone outside the original center, now under study and excavation. Flanked by a recently discovered assembly hall (ecclesiasterion) of the sixth and fifth centuries (evidently superseding an earlier wooden structure), the agora also adjoined a frequently modified temple of Apollo Lykeios (from which fine reliefs can be seen in the Museum at Potenza). Not far away from these buildings are the foundations of two other temples, one of which dates back to the years before 600 BC. But the most substantial remains are those of another shrine a mile outside the city, dating from the later sixth century and probably dedicated to Hera, though its popular name is the `Knights' Table’ (Tavole Paladine). Another sanctuary, dedicated to Zeus Aglaios, has recently been uncovered beside a spring four miles from the walls. Numerous other cults are also attested by literary sources and local coinages, one of which, of the fifth century BC, refers to Games held in honor of the Greek mainland river-god Achelous (Acheloio aethlon). A theater, reconstructed in the third century, provides the first known example of an auditorium made out of an artificial mound supported by a retaining wall.

The territorial possessions of Metapontum outside the city were distributed in the sixth and fifth centuries BC among allotments divided latitudinally by boundaries three hundred and eighty yards apart and longitudinally by drainage ditches every two hundred and twenty four yards. More than two hundred farm buildings have been located in the area between the river Casuentus and another nearby stream, the Chalicandrum (Cavone).