CLAMPETIA
CLAMPETIA or
LAMPETIA (
Λαμπέτεια,, Pol. ap.
Steph. B. sub voce a city of Bruttium, placed both by Pliny and Mela on the coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea, between Blanda and Temesa. The Tab. Pent. places it 40 M. P. south of Cerillae, and 10 N. of Temesa. Hence its position has been fixed, with some probability, on the site, or at least in the immediate neighbourhood, of the modern
Amantea, one of the most considerable towns on this part of the coast. Clampetia is mentioned by Livy among the towns of Bruttium recovered by the Roman consul P. Sempronius during the Second Punic War (29.38, 30.19); and it appears to have been one of the few which still continued to exist under the Roman empire, though Pliny calls it only “
locus Clampetiae,” so that it was no longer in his time a municipal town. (Mel. 2.4.9;
Plin. Nat. 3.5. s. 10; Tab. Peut.) We learn from Stephanus of Byzantium that the Greek form of the name, as used by Polybius, was Lampetia; and there can be little doubt that the promontory called by Lycophron LAMPETES (
Λαμπέτης), was connected with it, though he appears to describe it as the northern headland of the Hipponian gulf.
There is in fact no promontory worthy of the name near
Amantea, the coast being almost perfectly straight from the mouth of the river
Lao [p. 1.630](Laus) to the headland called
Capo Suvero, about 14 miles south of
Amantea, which constitutes in fact the northern boundary of the gulf of Hipponium, and is probably the Lampetes of Lycophron.
[
E.H.B]
