SILVIUM
(Gravina di Puglia) Bar Apulia, Italy.
The ancient city lies in the Botromagno district
of the present town. Strabo (
6.283) mentioned it for its
position on the inner side of Peucezia, and Pliny (
HN
3.105) included it among the principal cities of the region. The first mention of it in the literary sources (
Diod.
20.80) pertains to its conquest by the Romans, who
seized it from the Samnites in 306 B.C. Known in the
itineraries also as Silitum, or Silutum, it is doubtful that
this Roman statio should be identified with the Greek
Sidis or Sidion. The Museum at Gravina preserves rich
grave gifts dating from the 7th to the 3d c. B.C.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
K. Miller,
Itineraria Romana (1916)
343;
RE 3.1 (1927) 129-30; M. D. Mann in
Atti II
Convegno Studi Magna Grecia (1962) 87; G. B. Ward
Perkins et al., “Excavations at Botromagno, Gravina di
Puglia”
BSR 37 (1969) 100ff.
F. G. LO PORTO