bgr_771819 - CALABRIA - TARAS Diobole

CALABRIA - Taranto

(380-345 BC)

Architas strategist

From 380 BC, for Taranto found themselves in the hands of Archytas of Tarentum (460-360 BC), a Pythagorean philosopher, friend of Plato, mathematician, astronomer, politician and general who was placed seven times at the head of his city. It gives the inventor of the screw, pulley, rattle and kite. Horace dedicated an ode to him. The Panhellenic Foundation Thurium in 443 BC gave rise to a conflict that was against Taranto in Athens for more than thirty years. The two rival cities had finally found Heraclea, however Tarentine under influence. Tarentines eventually impose on cities Metaponto and Siris. Archytas in the first half of the fourth century BC, became the strategist italiote confederation whose capital was Heraclea and which included, in addition to Taranto, Metaponto and Thurii, Crotone, Velia and Naples. This period Tarentine hegemony ended with the death of Archytas and was the starting point for interventions general mercenaries as Archidamus of Sparta, Alexander the Molossian or Pyrrhus of Epirus.