Download Pdf of Dissertation - Nautical Archaeology at Texas A&M ...

or, thereafter, Roman Copia, flourished for centuries. Metapontum was a possible small
port-of-call. Following this they would arrive at the port-canal of Sybaris, with docks at
the estuary of the river Crati. 57 Then came Croton, a good resting place for ships and
their crews, the Roman cities of Scolacium, Caulonia, and Locri Epizephyri. In this way
it was possible to divide the 450-km Tarentum to Rhegium route into as many as five or
six legs (Fig. 13). Additional small and now unknown landing places were probably also
available, like the landing spot at the mouth of the Hylias River (modern Nicà) between
Sybaris and Croton, where the Athenian army embarked in 415 B.C. 58 The written
sources fully support this proposed reconstruction. Thucydides, describing the Athenian
expedition to Syracuse in 415 B.C. (Fig. 13), recorded in ample detail the route the
trierarchs chose to direct their warships to Sicily. The main part of the fleet left the
Piraeus, sailed around the hostile Peloponnesian coast, and reached Corfu, where the
Athenians decided to stop and build new supply ships and additional triremes. From
there
all the ships began together to cross the Ionian sea to Italy; and when they
reached the Iapygian promontory or Tarentum, or where each happened to
make landfall, they made their way along the Italian coast, the cities
refusing them admittance to market or town, but allowing them water and
beaching facilities, Tarentum and Locri not admitting them even to these,
until they came to Rhegium, the toe of Italy. 59 (Fig.13).
57 Schmiedt 1975, 128-33; Zancani Montuoro 1972-73, 75-9.
58 Thuc. 7.25.1-2.
59 Thuc. 6.44.2-3. The Iapygian promontory is modern Santa Maria di Leuca.
32