14
Jan-2014

A walk through the ruins between the myth and the history

Besides the Calabria, the narrow toe of Italy, of myth and legend, there is another one, but “glorious and real, which begins in a time – the Stone Age–  when the prehistoric men lived in underground shelters and caves embellished with graffiti and encarvings. (Bos Primigenius di Papasidero)  and when, on the slopes of the largest forest of Italy, the Bruzi or Brettii tended  the sheep and the goat and produced wine.  After that the Greek landed on the fertile plains of the Ionian Sea and under the Greek colonization, Calabria reached its maximum splendour.  Ships full of weapons, fabric, painted vases, iron and olive trees transported legendary and illustrious people. Philophers like Phytagora, Protagora, sculptors like Praxiteles, Learco, Clearco, Pitagoras (Lisippo’s teacher); poets like Ibico, Stesicoro, Historians like Erodoto and Lico; athletes and leaders like the legendary Milone, doctors like Alcmeone, Democede, Filistione, Cantors like Nosside amd legistlators like Zaleuco.

And when their glory ended (Fatal was the prediction of the oracle of Delphi: The colonists will never come back to their homeland!),  Calabria was conquered by many others civilizations, which left an important footprint: the Romans, the Byzantines, the Arabs, The Normans, The Angevins, the Aragonese, the Bourbons.

So different cultures, illustrious and very important people lived here in Calabria and their witnesses are visible in many places, where you can still smell their importance and where traces of two or more civilizations can be admired one near the other. Which one got the supremacy? It is difficult to say. Traditions merge, fuse and blend all together. This is the real mistery and charm of a region that has to be discovered and that diverge, slowly showing  its 1,000 faces.

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