Sybaris Archaeological Park

Listen for a moment. Out here on the plain, the loudest sound is often the wind moving through tall grass and reeds. The ground is flat and soft, and the air carries the smell of damp earth and orange groves. Low walls of stone and brick sit in shallow trenches around you. Far off, mountains rise in blue layers. It looks like a quiet field. But under your feet lies one of the most talked-about cities of the ancient Mediterranean.

This is Sybaris. You are in the territory of Cassano allo Ionio, in northern Calabria, near the coast of the Ionian Sea. Greek settlers from Achaea, a region in the northern Peloponnese, founded a colony here in the late eighth century before Christ. Ancient tradition places the founding around 720 BCE. They chose a fertile plain between two rivers, with good land, good water, and access to the sea. It was a very good choice.

The city grew rich, and fast. The plain produced grain, wine, and livestock. Sybaris also controlled routes across the toe of Italy, so goods could move between the Ionian and Tyrrhenian seas without a long sea voyage. Ancient writers describe a large population and a wide network of allied towns. Some of those numbers are almost certainly exaggerated. Still, archaeologists agree on the main point. For about two centuries, this was one of the wealthiest Greek cities in the western world.

And here is the first surprise. You already know this city's name. The English word "sybarite" means a person devoted to luxury and pleasure. It comes directly from this place. Even in antiquity, Greeks told stories about how soft and comfortable life was here. Over two and a half thousand years later, a whole language still uses this city as a word for indulgence.

Many of those stories come from later writers, so treat them as legend rather than history. According to one tale, the Sybarites banned roosters from the city, so no one would be woken too early. Another says that noisy trades, like metalworking, had to stay outside the walls. One popular story says a cook who invented a new dish could keep the rights to it for a year. If true, that would be one of the earliest ideas of a patent.

The end of Sybaris is dramatic. In 510 BCE, the city went to war with Croton, its powerful neighbour further down the coast. Croton won. Ancient sources say the victors then diverted the river Crathis, today called the Crati, so that its water ran over the ruined city. Whatever happened exactly, Sybaris disappeared. The richest city of the region was destroyed in a single generation.

There is a strange legend about that battle. Locals still tell it with a smile. The story says the Sybarites had trained their cavalry horses to dance to the music of flutes. When the armies met, the soldiers of Croton played flutes. The horses began to dance, broke their lines, and threw their riders. Historians doubt it happened this way. But the story shows how the ancient world remembered Sybaris — rich, refined, and perhaps a little too comfortable.

The site did not stay empty. In the middle of the fifth century before Christ, a new city called Thurii was founded close to the old one. Athens supported it, and settlers came from many Greek cities. Tradition links the historian Herodotus to Thurii, and some ancient writers call him "Herodotus of Thurii". Later, in the early second century before Christ, Rome founded a colony here named Copia. The name means abundance, which says a lot about this plain.

So what are you actually looking at? This is the second surprise. Much of what is visible today belongs to the later Roman town, not to the famous Greek city. The layers sit on top of each other. Archaic Sybaris lies deepest, then Thurii, then Roman Copia closest to the surface. Look for the straight lines of streets, the bases of buildings, and the patterns of brick and stone. Each wall belongs to a different chapter of the same place.

For centuries, nobody knew exactly where Sybaris was. The rivers had moved, and layers of mud had covered everything. Systematic searches in the 1960s, including work with early geophysical instruments, finally helped locate the ancient city. Excavation here is hard work. The water table is very high, so the trenches fill with water. Pumps have long been needed to keep the remains dry enough to study.

The river has never fully let go of this place. In 2013, the Crati flooded and covered parts of the park with mud and water once again. Volunteers, archaeologists, and local people worked to clean the site. It is worth pausing on that. The same river that ancient writers said buried Sybaris returned, more than two thousand years later, to try again. Here, the past is not only a story. It is still part of the landscape.

If you want to see the objects found here, visit the national archaeological museum of the Sibaritide, which is nearby. There you can see pottery, small bronzes, and finds from the different cities on this plain. The park shows you the shape of the place. The museum shows you the people who lived in it. Together, they make the story much easier to picture. Wear good shoes, and bring water and a hat. There is little shade on the plain.

Now look around you once more. Notice how flat the ground is, and how close the mountains feel on a clear day. Notice the low walls, the ditches, the grass growing between old stones. Once, this was a city that gave the world a word for luxury. Today it is quiet, open, and slowly drying in the sun. As you walk away, listen again for the wind in the reeds. It is the same sound the Sybarites heard.