PYXOUS
later BUXENTUM (Policastro di S. Marina）
Lucania, Italy.
A port at the mouth of the Bussento, the only good harbor other than Sapri on the Golfo
di Policastro (sinus terinaeus). In the 6th c. B.C. when it
first appears in history, Pyxous was apparently a dependency of Sybaris and issued coins of Sybarite type that also
bear the name of Siris on the Gulf of Tarentum. It is possible that an overland route connected these cities. Pyxous
may have collapsed after the fall of Sybaris in 510 B.C.,
for it is next heard of as a foundation of Mikythos, tyrant
of Messine and Rhegion in 467. The majority of the colonists planted there is said by Strabo (
6.253) to have
soon departed, and we next hear of it as the site of a
Roman colony of 300 families in 194 B.C. that had then
to be reinforced with a second draft of colonists in 186
(
Livy 32.29.4; 34.42.6; 34.45.2; 39.23.4). Though it
seems never to have flourished, it is mentioned by geographers in the Imperial period, and inscriptions show that
it had duovirs as magistrates and was inscribed in the
tribus Pomptina.
All that is known of the ancient city is a stretch of
Roman road recently excavated. The name Buxentum,
which Strabo (
6.253) says was also given to the cape,
harbor, and river, refers to the abundance of box growing in the vicinity.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
T. J. Dunbabin,
The Western Greeks
(1948); V. Panebianco,
BdA 49 (1964) 364.
L. RICHARDSON, JR.
