The colony at Tarentum, also known as Taras or Taranto, was founded in 706 BC by a group of Spartans forced by social tensions to leave Sparta (Boardman 1980a, p. 184) . These men, called Partheniae, were the illegitimate sons of Spartan women, born during a time when the Spartans were off at war with Messenia. These men, who had been deprived of their rights as citizens, were forced out by the free citizens. Their leader was Phalanthus, who went on the advice of the oracle at Delphi.

A famous son of Tarentum was the 4th century mathematician Archytus, a friend of Plato, whose solution to the problem of doubling a cube is a construction in three dimensions.

Map showing the colonies of Sparta, including Tarentum

The Tarentines sent several offerings to Delphi, after winning battles against the Messapians and the Peucetii, non-Greek peoples whose territories bordered theirs in Southern Italy. In a prominent place along the first stretch of Delphi's Sacred Way, the people of Tarentum erected a sculptural group of bronze horses and captive women, of which only the bases remain.

In his letters, Plato described how the Syracusan tyrant Dionysius was anxious to have it known that he had studied with the famous philosopher. Dionysius used Plato's friends in Tarentum to persuade Plato to make the journey to Syracuse, despite the failure of Plato's first attempt to advise the tyrant several years earlier. The Tarentines convinced Plato to go by telling him his refusal to visit would cause political difficulties between them and Dionysius. ...Dionysius was greatly afraid, I believe, because of his love of glory, lest any should suppose that it was owing to my contempt for his nature and disposition, together with my experience of his mode of life, that I was ungracious and was no longer willing to come to his court... Dionysius...sent a trireme to fetch me, in order to secure my comfort on the voyage; and he sent Archedemus, one of the associates of Archytas, believing that I esteemed him above all others...and all...were giving me the same account, how that Dionysius had made marvellous progress in philosophy... ...And other letters kept coming both from Archytas and from the men in Tarentum, eulogizing the philosophy of Dionysius, and saying that unless I come now I should utterly dissolve their friendship with Dionysius which I had brought about, and which was of no small political importance. Plato, Letters, 7.338e-7.339d

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