page_title: Metapontum
section_title: Decline
hierarchical_section_title: Metapontum / History / Decline
caption_attribution_description: English: Metapontum
context_page_description: Metapontum or Metapontium was an important city of Magna Graecia, situated on the gulf of Tarentum, between the river Bradanus and the Casuentus. It was distant about 20 km from Heraclea and 40 from Tarentum. The ruins of Metapontum are located in the frazione of Metaponto, in the comune of Bernalda, in the Province of Matera, Basilicata region, Italy.
context_section_description: From this time the name of Metapontum does not again appear prominently in classical history; and it seems certain that it never recovered from the blow thus inflicted on it. But it did not altogether cease to exist; for its name is found in Pomponius Mela who does not notice any extinct places; and Cicero speaks of visiting it in terms that show it was still a town. That orator, however, elsewhere alludes to the cities of Magna Graecia as being in his day sunk into almost complete decay; Strabo says the same thing, and Pausanias tells that Metapontum in particular was in his time completely in ruins, and nothing remained of it but the theatre and the circuit of its walls. Hence, though the name is still found in Ptolemy, and the ager Metapontinus is noticed in the Liber Coloniarum (p. 262), all trace of the city subsequently disappears, and it is not even noticed in the Antonine Itineraries where they give the line of route along the coast from Tarentum to Thurii. The site was probably already subject to malaria, and from the same cause has remained desolate ever since.
  Though  Metapontum is mentioned less than of Sybaris, Crotona, and Tarentum, yet all accounts agree in representing it as, in the days of its prosperity, one of the most opulent and flourishing of the cities of Magna Graecia. The fertility of its territory, especially in the growth of corn, vied with the neighbouring district of the Siritis. It is known that the Metapontines sent to the temple at Delphi an offering of a golden harvest, perhaps referring to a sheaf or bundle of corn wrought in gold. For the same reason an ear of corn became the characteristic symbol on their coins, the number and variety of which in itself sufficiently attests the wealth of the city.  They had a treasury of their own at Olympia still existing in the days of Pausanias. Herodotus tells  that they paid particular honors to Aristeas, who was said to have appeared in their city 340 years after he had disappeared from Cyzicus. They erected to him a statue in the middle of the forum, with an altar to Apollo surrounded by a grove of laurels. From their coins they would appear also to have paid heroic honours to Leucippus, as the founder of their city. Strabo tells, as a proof of their Pylian origin, that they continued to perform sacrifices to the Neleidae.
  The site and remains of Metapontum have been carefully examined by the Duc de Luynes, who has illustrated them in a special work.    No trace exists of the ancient walls or the theatre of which Pausanias speaks. The most important of the still existing buildings  is a temple, the remains of which occupy a slight elevation near the right bank of the Bradanus, about 3 km from its mouth. They are now known as the Tavola dei Paladini. Fifteen columns are still standing, ten on one side and five on the other; but the two ends, as well as the whole of the entablature above the architrave and the walls of the cella, have wholly disappeared. The architecture is of the Doric order, but its proportions are lighter and more slender than those of the celebrated temples of Paestum: and it is in all probability of later date. Some remains of another temple, but prostrate, and a mere heap of ruins, are visible nearly 3 km to the south of the preceding, and a short distance from the mouth of the Bradanus. This spot, called the Chiesa di Sansone, appears to mark the site of the city itself, numerous foundations of buildings having been discovered all around it. It may be doubted whether the more distant temple was ever included within the walls; but it is impossible now to trace the extent of the ancient city. The Torre di Mare, now the only inhabited spot on the plain, derives its name from a castellated edifice of the Middle Ages; it is situated 2.5 km from the sea, and the same distance from the river Basiento, the ancient Casuentus. Immediately opposite to it, on the sea-shore, is a small salt-water basin or lagoon, now called the Lago di Santa Pelagina, which, though neither deep nor spacious, in all probability formed the ancient port of
caption: The Temple of Hera at Tavole Palatine, a sanctuary near Metapontum.
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