page_title: Locri
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Locri / History
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Pinax von Persephone und Hades auf dem Thron. Gefunden im Persephoneheiligtum von Locri im Ortsteil Mannella. Locri war Teil der Magna Graecia und liegt am Ionischen Meer in Kalabrien in Italien. English: Pinax of Persephone and Hades on the throne. Found in the holy shrine of Persephone at Locri in the district Mannella. Locri was part of Magna Graecia and is situated on the coast of the Ionian Sea in Calabria in Italy. Source: Picture taken by myself in the Museo Nazionale Archeologico at Reggio Di Calabria in Italy, September 2002. See other Pinakes from Locri Eros Hermes And Aphrodite Persephone Opens Likon Mystikon Man With Horse
context_page_description: Locri is a town and comune in the province of Reggio Calabria, Calabria, southern Italy. Its name derives from that of the ancient Greek region of Locris. Today it is an important administrative and cultural centre on the Ionian Coast and within its province.
context_section_description: Epizephyrian Locris (Greek Ἐπιζεφύριοι Λοκροί; from  ἐπί epi, "on", Ζέφυρος (Zephyros), West Wind, and the plural of Λοκρός, Lokros, "a Locrian," thus "The Western Locrians") was founded about 680 BC on the Italian shore of the Ionian Sea, near modern Capo Zefirio, by the Locrians, apparently by Opuntii (East Locrians) from the city of Opus, but including Ozolae (West Locrians) and Lacedaemonians. Its Latin name, Locri, is the plural of the Latin Locrus, which was used both to mean an inhabitant of Locris and the eponymous ancestor of the Locrians. Strabo suggests that it was the Ozolae who were the main founders. 
  Due to fierce winds at an original settlement, the settlers moved to the present site. After a century, a defensive wall was built. Outside the city there are several necropoleis, some of which are very large.
  Epizephyrian Locris was one of the cities of Magna Graecia. Its renowned lawgiver Zaleucus decreed that anyone who proposed a change in the laws should do so with a noose about their neck, with which they should be hanged if the amendment did not pass.  Plato called it "The flower of Italy", due to the local peoples' characteristics. Locris was the site of two great sanctuaries, that of Persephone — here worshipped as the protector of fertile marriage — and of Aphrodite.
  At Locri, perhaps uniquely, Persephone was worshiped as protector of marriage and childbirth, a role usually assumed by Hera, and Diodorus Siculus knew the temple there as the most illustrious in Italy. 
  During the 5th century BC, votive  pinakes in terracotta were often dedicated as offerings to the goddess, made in series and painted with bright colors, animated by scenes connected to the myth of Persephone. Many of these pinakes are now on display in the  National Museum of Magna Græcia in Reggio Calabria. Locrian pinakes represent one of the most significant categories of objects from Magna Graecia, both as documents of religious practice and as works of art.
  In the iconography of votive plaques at Locri, her abduction and marriage to Hades served as an emblem of the marital state, children at Locri were dedicated to Persephone, and maidens about to be wed brought their peplos to be blessed.
  In the early centuries Locris was allied with Sparta, and later with Syracuse. It founded two colonies of its own, Hipponion and Medma. During the Pyrrhic Wars (280-275 BC) fought between Pyrrhus of Epirus and Rome, Locris accepted a Roman garrison and fought against the Epirote king. However, the city changed sides numerous times during the war. Bronze tablets from the treasury of its Olympeum, a temple to Zeus, record payments to a 'king', generally thought to be Pyrrhus. Despite this, Pyrrhus plundered the temple of Persephone at Locris before his return to Epirus, an event which would live on in the memory of the Greeks of Italy. At the end of the war, perhaps to allay fears about its loyalty, Locris minted coins depicting a seated Rome being crowned by 'Pistis', a goddess personifying good faith and loyalty, and returned to the Roman fold.
  The city was abandoned in the 5th century AD. The town was finally destroyed by the Saracens in 915. The survivors fled inland about 10 kilometres (6 mi) to the town Gerace on the slopes of the Aspromonte. 
  In 1982, the famous Ludovisi Throne, found in Rome in 1887, was securely linked to the newly studied Ionic temple at Marasà, in Locri.  A reconstruction of the throne was shown to fit exactly into remaining blocks in the temple's foundations, and it has been suggested that terracotta votive plaques, or pinakes, of cults at Lokri Epizefiri, are the only stylistic parallel to the Throne.
  The marble sculpture, in its bas-relief decoration, represents on the front side Aphrodite born from the sea foam (but some scholars sees in it the representation of Persephone coming back from the Hades) and helped by two maidservants to raise from the water, while on the left side is represented a naked flute-girl seated on a cushion and playing the double-flute, and on the right side a veiled woman using an incense-bur
caption: Pinax from Locris: Persephone and Hades sitting on the throne
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