Note 754 — Chapter XXII · WESTERN COLONIES OF GREECE — IN EPIRUS, ITALY, SICILY, AND GAUL.

Varro, De Re Rusticâ, i, 44. “In Sybaritano dicunt etiam cum centesimo redire solitum.” The land of the Italian Greeks stands first for wheaten bread and beef; that of Syracuse for pork and cheese (Hermippus ap. Athenæ. i, p. 27): about the excellent wheat of Italy, compare Sophoklês, Triptolem. Fragm. 529, ed. Dindorf.

Theophrastus dwells upon the excellence of the land near Mylæ, in the territory of the Sicilian Messênê, which produced, according to him, thirty-fold. (Hist. Plant. ix, 2, 8, p. 259, ed. Schneid.) This affords some measure of comparison, both for the real excellence of the ancient Sybaritan territory, and for the estimation in which it was held; its estimated produce being more than three times that of Mylæ.

See in Mr. Keppel Craven’s Tour in the Southern Provinces of Naples (chapters xi, xii, pp. 212-218), the description of the rich and productive plain of the Krathis (in the midst of which stood the ancient Sybaris), extending about sixteen miles from Cassano to Corigliano, and about twelve miles from the former town to the sea. Compare, also, the picture of the same country, in the work by a French officer, referred to in a previous note, “Calabria during a Military Residence of three years,” London, 1832, Letter xxii, pp. 219-226.

Hekatæus (c. 39, ed. Klausen) calls Cosa,—Κόσσα, πόλις Οἰνωτρῶν ἐν μεσογαίᾳ. Cosa is considered to be identical, seemingly on good grounds, with the modern Cassano (Cæsar, Bell. Civ. iii, 22): assuming this to be correct, there must have been an Œnotrian dependent town within eight miles of the ancient city of Sybaris.