KROTON
(Crotone) Calabria, Italy.
On the
E coast of the toe of Italy some 246 km NE of Reggio
di Calabria, the city stands on a promontory which forms
two defensible ports. In accordance with the Delphic
oracle, Myskellos of Rhypai founded an Achaian colony
there (
Strab. 6.1.12) in 710 B.C., ten years after the
establishment of Sybaris. The city soon spread into the
fertile plains to the S, and in ca. 675 B.C. it initiated
the foundation of another Achaian colony, Kaulonia. In
the middle of the 6th c B.C. Kroton attacked Lokroi with
an army of 120,000 men (Just. 20.2-3) but was decisively
defeated at the river Sagra (perhaps the modern Allaro).
A period of decline set in, from which the town was
aroused by the arrival from Samos in ca. 530 B.C. of
Pythagoras, who remodeled the constitution. The city
became famous as the home of athletes, doctors, and
philosophers. In 510 B.C. Kroton became embroiled in a
war with Sybaris and defeated it in a single battle near
the river Krathis. Kroton now became the most powerful
city in S Italy. During the 4th c. B.C. it suffered from
attacks by the Lucanians and Bruttians and became further exhausted during the campaigns of Pyrrhos. The
final blow came when Hannibal made it the center of his
desperate retreat from Italy. In 194 B.C., when the
Romans planted a colony on the site, it ceased to be a
place of importance.
No traces of the ancient city remain. The harbor still
exists although much changed by modern construction.
The site of the acropolis is marked by the castle built
in A.D. 1541 by Don Pedro di Toledo. Attempts have been
made to trace the city walls, which Livy (
24.3.1) says
extended 12 Roman miles. It is likely that the walls ran
in a NW direction from the harbor, crossing the Esaro
river, and that the town lay facing the sea, half on one
side of the river and half on the other.
Excavations have taken place in the important Sanctuary of Hera Lakinia, which stood on a promontory
(the modern Capo Colonna) some 10 km to the S. Here
processions and games took place in a yearly assembly
of the Italian Greeks. The interior of the temple contained paintings, the most celebrated of which was a
picture of Hera by Zeuxis. A single Doric column out
of 48 now remains, together with the stereobate in the
NE corner; the rest was carried away by Bishop Lucifero
of Crotone at the beginning of the 16th c. The peristyle
(hexastyle x 16) had columns inclining inwards. There
was a double colonnade across the E front in the old
Sicilian fashion, and the porches were distyle in antis.
The temple was remarkable for its marble decoration—
roof tiles, interior cornices, and pedimental sculpture of
Parian marble, fragments of which have been found. The
present temple dates to the second quarter of the 5th c.
B.C., but an earlier one of the 7th c. had once stood on
the site. Other buildings of the temenos also survive. The
peribolos wall exists and in places rises to a height of
7 m. In the E side is a monumental propylon, which has
been cleared and repaired. Nearby two buildings have
been discovered. One has a central court surrounded by
rooms, and on its exterior runs a portico with stone columns faced with stucco. The other consists of a corridor
dividing two series of rooms. Other edifices include
priests' dwellings and treasuries. Crotone has a museum
which contains finds from the area.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
G. Abatino, “Note sur la Colonne du
Temple de Héra Lacinia,”
MélRome 23 (1903) 353-61;
P. Orsi, “Croton,”
NSc (1911) Suppl. 77-124
I; E. D. van
Buren,
Archaic Fictile Revetments in Sicily and Magna
Graecia (1923)
I; D. Randall-Maclver,
Greek Cities in
Italy and Sicily (1931); T. J. Dunbabin,
The Western
Greeks (1948)
MP; M. Guido,
Southern Italy: an Archaeological Guide (1972) 166-70.
W.D.E. COULSON
