Herakleia (Basilicata)
Herakleia (Latin form: Heraclea ) was an ancient city in Lucania near present-day Policoro , five kilometers from the coast of the Gulf of Taranto , between the Agri ( Aciris ) and Siris (Sinni) rivers , about 23 kilometers south-southwest of Metapont .
history
Herakleia was a Greek colony founded in 432 BC. Was founded by Taranto and Thurii , with the former dominating. After the fall of Croton , the city was designated as the meeting point of the Italiotischen Bund , the general assembly of the Greeks in Italy , which Alexander I of Epirus wanted to move after his expulsion from Taranto to Thurii. King Pyrrhus of Epirus struck here in 280 BC. The Roman consul Publius Valerius Laevinus after he had crossed the river Siris ( Battle of Heraclea ). 278 BC BC, maybe also 282 BC BC the Romans made a treaty with Herakleia, possibly to free it from Taranto, with such advantageous conditions that 89 BC. The Roman citizenship , which the lex Plautia Papiria granted the inhabitants, was accepted only reluctantly. 212 BC Chr. To Herakleia submitted under duress Hannibal and in the Social War burned the State Archives. In his defense speech for the poet Archias , an adopted citizen of Heraclea, Cicero speaks of a prosperous city. As a consequence of Roman citizenship, Herakleia became Municipium ; the part of the copy of the lex Iulia municipalis from 46 BC. BC, which was found between Herakleia and Metapont, is of the greatest importance for the knowledge of this law; the text is engraved on the back of two bronze tablets with a Greek inscription from the 3rd century BC on the front. BC, which describes the national borders and the property of the various temples.
Herakleia still had some importance in the Roman Empire , a junction of the road from Venusia met the coastal road here. The circumstances of the destruction and abandonment of the city are unknown, the place is now only marked by a pile of ruins. Her medieval successor was Anglona, then a bishopric, today only a ruin, including a church from the 11th century.
Museum and archaeological park
Today, north of the modern city of Policoro, in the Museo archeologico nazionale della Siritide, the finds from the excavations of Herakleia are exhibited, the foundations of which can be viewed in the nearby Parco Archeologico .
trinket
Coin finds
Ceramics
Ceramics
literature
- Gualtiero Calboli : Herakleia 10. In: The New Pauly (DNP). Volume 5, Metzler, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-476-01475-4 , Sp. 368.
- Brinna Otto (ed.): Herakleia in Lucania and the source sanctuary of Demeter. I Greci in Occidente (= publications of the University of Innsbruck. Volume 220). Athesia-Tyrolia, Innsbruck 1996, ISBN 3-9012-4934-6 .
Web links
- Policoros website, the Museo nazionale della Siritide
- Information on the excavations from the Archaeological Institute of the University of Innsbruck
Coordinates: 40 ° 12 ' N , 16 ° 40' E