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Document Details :

Title: The Search for Sybaris
Subtitle: an Evaluation of Historical and Archaeological Evidence
Author(s): KLEIBRINK, Marianne
Journal: BABESCH
Volume: 76    Date:   
Pages: 33-70
DOI: 10.2143/BAB.76.0.76

Abstract :
The ancients contrasted normal life sharply with that at Sybaris. Many ancient tales of excess do not just describe the luxuries in the streets and houses of this Greek colony of Southern Italy, but focus on the wickedness and spoiled ways of its inhabitants. The story of the complete disappearance of Sybaris in the floods of the river Khratis in 510 BC after its riva lcolony, Kroton, had destroyed it, seems at first sight ,o less fabulous than these tales. A 'Sodom and Gomorrah' ending is a good way to enhance such stories with a sense of impending doom. However the meagre results of many searches for the famed city of Sybaris have reminded even the most tenacious of archaeologists of divinely ill fate. This paper is once again concerned with the contrast between the ancient texts and the archaeological evidence regarding Sybaris and the Achaian colonisation of the coastal plains along the Ionian Sea.

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