CASTRA HANNI´BALIS
CASTRA HANNI´BALIS a town or port of Bruttium, mentioned by Pliny as situated on the Gulf of Scyllacium, at the point where the two bays, the Sinus Terinaeus and Scyllacinus, approach nearest to one another, so that the isthmus between them is the narrowest part of Italy. (
Plin. Nat. 3.10. s. 15;
Solin. 2.23.)
It is evident from the name that the place derived its origin from having been a permanent station of Hannibal during the latter years
[p. 1.563]of the Second Punic War, when he was shut up within the Bruttian peninsula; but we have no mention of it in the history of that period.
It has, however, been suggested that the Castra mentioned by Livy (
32.7: “Castrorum portorium, quo in loco nunc oppidum est” ) as a seaport, without indicating its locality, may probably be the place in question; and that the small colony of 300 settlers was established there soon after the Second Punic War (B.C. 199), with a view to retain it in being. (Zumpt,
de Colon. p. 236.)
It subsequently appears to have served as the seaport of Scyllacium, where a more considerable Roman colony was established in B.C. 122. (Zumpt,
l.c.; Mommsen, in
Berichte der Sächsisch. Gesellschaft der Wiss. 1849, p. 49, foll.) Its name is still found under the corrupt form “Annibali” in the Tabula, which places it 36 M. P. from the Lacinian Promontory. (
Tab. Peut. The other distances are evidently corrupt.) Its exact site has not been determined, but it was probably situated near the mouth of the little river
Corace. Earlier topographers had placed it at a spot now called
Le Castelle, near the north-east extremity of the Gulf of
Squillace; but this is inconsistent with Pliny's statement, though it would accord better with the accounts of Hannibal's operations in Bruttium, which represent him as generally making his headquarters near Crotona and the Lacinian Promontory. (
Liv. 28.46,
29.36,
30.19,
20; Barrius,
de Sit. Calabr. 4.4; Romanelli, vol. i. p. 185.)
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E.H.B]
