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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 January 2009
On 14 December 1968 the following report from New York appeared on the front page of the Guardian: ‘An American-Italian team of archaeologists has found the long-lost site of Sybaris, known throughout the ancient world for its wealth and the luxurious life of its citizens. The discovery of the city was announced last night at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. F. G. Rainey, director of the University's museum, and Professor Giuseppe Foti, superintendent of antiquities at Calabria, said that the city, which disappeared around 510 B.c. after a civil war, had been found “beyond reasonable doubt”…’ When the excavation of Sybaris starts in earnest, it is expected to produce material of the first importance for the study of Greek colonial history in the archaic period. In view of the general interest that the excavation will arouse, it is worth summarizing what is known about Sybaris, to explain both the considerable efforts that have been made to find the site of the city, and the potential importance of its discovery.
page 168 note 1 cf. Aristotle, Politics 1326b.
page 168 note 2 xii. 9. 1.
page 169 note 1 xii. 9. 2–10. 1.
page 169 note 2 v. 44. 1.
page 170 note 1 Deipnosophistae xii. 520c.Google Scholar
page 170 note 2 Hdt. vi. 21. 1.Google Scholar
page 170 note 3 Strabo vi. 1. 13 (263).Google Scholar
page 170 note 4 Hdt. v. 45. i.Google Scholar
page 170 note 5 vi. 127. 1.
page 170 note 6 Wasps 1259Google Scholar; 1427 ff.
page 170 note 7 vi. 1. 13 (263).
page 170 note 8 Cf. esp. xii. 519b ff.
page 170 note 9 A full summary of the literary evidence is given by Dunbabin, T. J., The Western Greeks (Oxford, 1948), 75–83.Google Scholar I repeat some of the salient points here, but prefer to emphasize discoveries made since Dunbabin wrote.
page 170 note 10 Strabo vi. 1. 14 (264).Google Scholar
page 171 note 1 xii. 9. 2.
page 171 note 2 Strabo v. 4. 7 (246).Google Scholar
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page 173 note 4 For a discussion of Sybaris II, see Kraay, , NC 1958, 14–16.Google Scholar
page 173 note 5 xi. 90. 3–4.
page 173 note 6 By Mattingly, H. B., Atti I° Convegno Cent. Internat. St. Num. Nap., 04 1967 (Rome, 1969), 210–11.Google Scholar
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page 174 note 1 HN2 169.Google Scholar
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page 174 note 4 vi. 21.
page 174 note 5 Ap. Athenaeus xii. 519b=F. Gr. Hist. I 205, fr. 60.Google Scholar
page 175 note 1 Vallet, G., Rhégion et Zancle (Paris, 1958), 139 ff. and esp. 163–5.Google Scholar
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page 176 note 1 Rainey, F., Ill. Lond. News 8 12 1962, 928–31Google Scholar; 15 Dec. 1962, 972–4.
page 176 note 2 The most recent account of work in the plain of Sybaris, published after this article was finished, is less hopeful about the archaeological prospects there—see Rainey, F., AJA Ixxiii (1969), 261–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar But one fact of considerable importance has emerged: Thurii seems to have been built over the southern section of the city of Sybaris.
