Scolacium Archaeological Park: An Ancient Greek and Roman City in Italy
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.6
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- Italy
- Primary era
- Classical
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Classical, Medieval
- Civilizations
- Byzantine, Norman, Roman
- Site type
- City
On this page23 sections
History
Scolacium Archaeological Park in Italy preserves the remains of an ancient city on Calabria’s Ionian coast, overlooking the Gulf of Squillace. The site occupies a coastal plain near the mouth of the Corace River, at a land crossing between the Ionian and Tyrrhenian seas that could be completed in about half a day. Its long history includes Greek, Roman, Byzantine, and Norman phases, followed by abandonment and agricultural reuse.
Prehistoric and Greek Settlement
Human activity in the surrounding territory began by the Lower and Upper Paleolithic. Stone tools were found on Santoregno Hill during investigations in 2002 and 2003, while earlier prehistoric material was identified on Rotondone Hill in the 1980s. Bronze Age settlement structures at Fiasco, together with pottery linked to several southern Italian cultural traditions, show that the area supported stable communities. Two axes dating to approximately 2000 to 1700 BC were probably deposited for ritual purposes.
The Greek settlement was known as Skylletion, although its exact status and early history remain uncertain. Later traditions attributed its foundation either to Menestheus, a legendary Athenian king and commander associated with the Trojan War, or to Ulysses, also known as Odysseus. Archaeological evidence places Greek activity at the site no earlier than the mid-sixth century BC, but it has not established whether the first settlement was a colony, fortress, trading station, or rural sanctuary.
Skylletion was associated with Crotone and later came under Locrian control, which was expanded by Dionysius I of Syracuse. One account attributes to Dionysius an attempt to block the isthmus with a wall, ostensibly to protect the inhabitants from peoples outside the Greek sphere while also weakening alliances among the Greek cities. Another tradition places the city under the control of the Brettii, an ancient Italic people of southern Italy, during the fourth century BC, followed by a period of decline before the Roman foundation.
Roman Colony and Imperial Renewal
Between 123 and 122 BC, a Roman colony was founded at the site under the name Scolacium Minervia. Its creation formed part of Gaius Gracchus’s program of land settlement, colonial foundations, improved communications, and road and bridge construction in Italy. The colony experienced periods of abandonment and reoccupation but continued into the Byzantine period.
Scolacium reached its greatest prosperity after a refoundation under the emperor Nerva, who ruled from AD 96 to 98. Urban activity remained especially strong until the third century AD. During the early imperial period, the city’s public center was substantially reorganized, with new administrative and representative buildings replacing earlier commercial spaces.
Late Roman and Byzantine Occupation
Urban abandonment began gradually around the fourth century AD, and settlement shifted toward the theatre hill. A probable earthquake at the end of that century contributed to the abandonment of the theatre. The upper part of the hill was later occupied by a Byzantine settlement, represented by structures probably intended for private use.
A cemetery was established behind the theatre between the second half of the sixth and the seventh century AD. Signs of wider abandonment appear from the end of the seventh century, when the site was probably transferred to ecclesiastical ownership. The settlement’s later history therefore developed around smaller communities, burial grounds, and reused Roman structures rather than the earlier urban center.
Norman and Agricultural Periods
During the Norman period, between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Roger of Hauteville commissioned the Basilica of Santa Maria della Roccella. It was the last major monumental building erected within the ancient urban territory. The building was probably left unfinished after an earthquake.
The area later became part of the estates of the Massara family of Borgia and then of the baronial Mazza family. The land was used for agricultural production, including olive oil. Ancient objects began to emerge from the property by 1800 and were retained by the owning families. In 1910, Paolo Orsi negotiated the purchase of a monumental bronze arm from the landowners, and the object subsequently entered the state heritage collections.
Excavation and Archaeological Park
Systematic archaeological investigation began in the mid-1960s under Ermanno Arslan, with the principal excavation campaign starting in 1965. Work between 1965 and 1975, followed by further investigations in 2001, exposed the forum, theatre, houses, roads, public buildings, and walls. Later research also revealed Greek walls beneath or among the Roman remains, indicating that the two urban phases partly overlapped.
The state expropriated the property in 1982, and the area was established as an archaeological park covering approximately 35 hectares. A museum opened in the renovated Mazza residence in May 2005, while a separate industrial archaeology museum occupies the former farm complex and includes the restored olive mill built by the Mazza family in 1934. Together, the park and its museums preserve the evidence of a city that passed through Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Norman, and agricultural phases.
Remains
The park lies within an olive grove and includes the ancient urban area, the theatre hill, the Roman forum, cemeteries, Byzantine domestic remains, the Basilica of Santa Maria della Roccella, the former farm complex, and museum buildings. The surviving architecture is concentrated around the Roman public center, while Greek evidence is scattered among later construction and Byzantine remains occupy parts of the former city.
Greek Evidence and Roman Forum
Greek Remains
Later Roman construction covered or disturbed much of Skylletion, but several finds illuminate the earlier settlement. They include two coins, one a late-sixth-century-BC incuse stater of Crotone, a sixth-century-BC fragment of black-figure pottery, and a miniature lekythos from the early fifth century BC that was reconstructed as part of a funerary assemblage. Two late-sixth-century-BC votive terracotta fragments depict standing and enthroned female figures. Numerous fourth-century-BC red-figure fragments and Campanian pottery also belong to the Greek phase.
The only identified Greek architectural fragment is part of a Doric capital made from calcarenite. It was reused as fill near the Byzantine cemetery. Its rigid echinus, the curved element beneath the top block of the capital, suggests a date from the mid-fourth century BC onward.
Roman Forum
The Roman forum, the city’s principal public square, measures approximately 38.14 by 81.60 metres and is oriented northwest to southeast. It was built at the foot of Rotondone Hill, extending toward the sea and opening north toward the alluvial plain of the Corace. In its earliest phase, associated with the colony founded under Gaius Gracchus, Tuscan colonnades in calcarenite bordered the long sides. Behind them were square tabernae, small commercial or service spaces, each measuring approximately 6 by 6 metres.
The tabernae remained visible and were remodeled during the Augustan period. The decumanus maximus, the main east-west street of the Roman settlement, ran beside the forum’s northwestern short side and originally lay at the level of the square. During the early imperial period, the northern sector was radically altered. The tabernae were demolished and replaced by public administrative and representative buildings, while the street was raised and connected to the forum by three steps and a ramp.
Capitolium and Decumanus
The Capitolium, the temple of the Roman city’s principal state cult, stood beyond the decumanus maximus on the northwestern side of the forum. It occupied a terrace above an ashlar wall, creating a three-level arrangement of forum, street, and temple. Very little of the building survives. The principal remnant is a corner of the podium with a yellowish limestone cyma reversa, a reversed-S-shaped moulding, together with traces of the stone substructure that supported the stripped podium.
The decumanus maximus was paved with irregular blocks of local granite. Its late Republican or early imperial date is supported by the lettering style of an inscription associated with Lucius Decimius Secundio.
Public Buildings
Caesareum
The building identified as the Caesareum replaced tabernae II, III, and IV. A Caesareum was associated with the imperial cult. The structure is a rectangular hall with an apse, measuring approximately 17.5 by 6.5 metres, and had an external Tuscan portico connecting it to the forum. Elements from the demolished earlier colonnades were reused in the portico, which was altered repeatedly until its final building phase in the third century AD.
Marble figures of men wearing the toga were found around the building. They include high-quality portraits of Germanicus, the nephew of Augustus, and a fragmentary portrait of his wife Agrippina the Elder. A later excavation produced a headless female sculpture with traces of a cornucopia held against the left arm.
Curia
A second public building, identified as the curia or meeting place of the town council, was constructed during the first century AD after the demolition of tabernae V and I. It measures approximately 12 by 8 metres and is built in reticulate masonry, a wall technique using small diamond-shaped blocks in a net-like pattern. Two low steps ran along the shorter sides.
During the third century AD, a podium was added against the rear wall of the long side. It stood above the remains of a black-and-white tessellated mosaic dating from the mid-second century AD.
Theatre and Amphitheatre
Theatre
The theatre lies beyond the forum and was built in a Greek manner, with its tiered seating placed against the hillside. Semicircular retaining walls supported the cavea rather than the wedge-shaped structures commonly used in Roman theatres. The excavated remains reveal three principal building phases, together with spoliation and later reuse, especially in the upper seating area. The theatre held approximately 3,500 people.
The first phase belongs to the late Republican period. It included the orchestra, the space between the seating and stage, and an ima cavea of three broad steps that supported wooden seats for prominent citizens. The media cavea was divided into five wedges. Two vaulted lateral entrances in ashlar masonry probably supported tribunalia, elevated seats reserved for distinguished spectators.
During the Julio-Claudian period, the cavea was enlarged with retaining walls in reticulate masonry. An inscription on the altar of the Augustales, a civic priesthood connected with the imperial cult, records this refurbishment. Other inscriptions describe the first-century reconstruction of the three-apsed stage front and the suspended wooden stage platform by a local notable.
The second-century phase left the cavea substantially unchanged but renewed the stage decoration with elements imitating the earlier design. Excavated material includes marble column fragments, Corinthian capitals, pilaster capitals, two headless statues of toga-wearing figures, and a semi-nude heroic torso of a bearded figure. Three portraits were hidden in a theatre well in antiquity, probably to protect them from theft after the public buildings that housed them had been abandoned. Two portraits date from the Julio-Claudian period and one from the Flavian period.
Amphitheatre
A large elliptical amphitheatre is visible against the steep slopes of Rotondone Hill beside the theatre. It has been known since the late nineteenth century but has not been excavated. Its estimated capacity was approximately 9,500 to 12,000 spectators, and it was used for gladiatorial and other spectacles.
Cemeteries and Later Settlement
Roman Cemeteries
Two Roman cemeteries lay outside the city boundary, northeast and southeast of the ancient settlement, probably beside roads leaving the city. The northeastern cemetery contained cappuccina burials, graves covered by sloping roof tiles arranged like a small pitched roof. The southeastern cemetery remained in use until the third century AD and contained rows of mausolea surrounded by cremation burials and inhumations in simple earth graves. Intermittent exploration has left the funerary assemblages only partly known.
Later Cemetery
The cemetery behind the theatre was used in two principal phases. Sixth-century graves faced toward the sea and were built as brick-lined cists from reused materials. Some contained multiple burials accompanied by small metal objects, glass, and local pottery. Seventh-century graves were dug directly into the ground, generally lacked grave goods, and were arranged in an apparently irregular manner. The local pottery included small, flat-bottomed, two-handled Scolacian amphorae, either plain or covered with red slip.
Two large underground rooms beneath the later graves are probably Roman city cisterns. Northeast of the forum, the foundations of a rectangular hall with an apse and rooms along its eastern and western sides are interpreted as a Byzantine domus, or domestic residence, dating from the sixth or seventh century AD. Beside it stands a large, multi-level imperial Roman structure whose function remains unidentified. Beneath a room east of the excavation is a Roman furnace with water-management channels, possibly part of an installation for producing bricks.
Norman Basilica and Agricultural Complex
Basilica of Santa Maria della Roccella
The Basilica of Santa Maria della Roccella is a large, single-nave Romanesque church with three apses. Its exterior has niches in the middle and upper sections, repeated along the walls of the nave. An elevated transept, the cross-arm projecting across the nave, is reached by steps and follows a western Romanesque arrangement associated with the medieval tradition of Monte Cassino.
The structural shell was substantially completed, but interior investigations have revealed no surviving floor or wall coverings. The decorative phases may therefore have remained unfinished. Numerous cracks in the south wall of the nave may record the earthquake that interrupted construction.
Farm Complex and Museum Collections
The former farm complex contains the archaeological museum and the restored olive mill built in 1934. The collections include Paleolithic stone tools, Greek and Brettian ceramics, Roman marble sculpture, and imported ceramics and tableware from Corinth, Roman Africa, Mauritania, the Carthaginian region, and Phocaea.
A monumental Roman bronze right arm measures approximately 81 centimetres from elbow to wrist. It belongs to the Imperial period and probably came from a statue more than twice life-size. The museum also preserves Roman marble statuary, including a female figure whose front surface carries extensive scratches apparently caused by agricultural hoes, another female figure with finely rendered drapery, and a first-century Flavian portrait known as the “obese old man.”
