Kaulonia

Kaulonia was situated  east of the Sagras river.
Foundation of the Achaeans.
Kaulonia was first called Aulonia on account of the neighbouring valley.

Typhon founder of the city. The name is suggestive of the windy character of the site of the city,
only about sixteen miles from Locri, surnamed 'of the west wind' Epizephyrii.
The name Kaulonia may be derived from the Greek root 'to blow'. It may also be derived from 'valley' or 'gorge'
(through which the winds blow), and to which Apollo went to purify himself (see Apollo hereafter).

Dicon, son of Callibrotus, was winner of the great prize in the Stadium in 384 BC.
As a boy a Kaulonian. Afterwards, when corrupted by gifts, caused himself to be proclaimed a Syracusan.
Dicon the Syracusan gave painful publicity to the fact that the free community of Kaulonia no longer
existed (in 388 BC destroyed by Dionysios I of Syracusa ).


Founders Achaean colonists came via Croton (seventy miles to the east of Kaulonia).


           aristocratic government
480 BC ca. democratic government
           (similar change in government in the other cities of Magna Graecia)
422 BC     Athenian envoys in S. Italy and Sicily
415-413 BC War between Athenians and Syracusans. Kaulonia seem to have taken the side of Athens.
           Thusydides (historian 5th C BC): Syracusans burnt timber in the Kaulonian territory
           which had been got ready for the Athenians.
400 BC ca. Prosparity of Kaulonia ended when the Lucanians began to menace the city.
393 BC ca. League of Greek cities for their mutual defence against the Lucanians on the north and
           Dionysius of Syracuse on the south.
... BC     Lucanian rule?
389/388 BC Kaulonia ruined by Dionysius.
           The inhabitants were taken away to Sicily.
           The ruined city was given to the Locrians, who had sided with Dionysius.
... BC     According to Pausianus the city was taken by the Campanian auxiliary forces of the 
           Romans (the name of the city is not mentioned by those who wrote of the Roman victories 
           in Southern Italy).



The earliest type found on the coins of Kaulonia looks like an attempt to reproduce some group of statuary
on the market place of the city or the temple of Apollo. 


Apollo (with small running figure on his arm)

Apollo is certainly the city's guardian deity.
Recalls in general the part played by Delphian Apollo in the foundation of the South Italian colonies.
Apollo, after taking possession of Delphi by killing the serpent Pytho, went to the Vale of Tempe in Thessaly to
purify himself, and there crowned himself with laurel and took a branch of laurel in his right hand.
The small figure is the messenger of Apollo who will announce his return to Delphi and is carrying laurels
for the purification of the sanctuary. 



Small running figure with winged feet and holding branches in each hand

- Messenger of Apollo.
- Emblem of the wind with which the god Catharsius cleanses the air.
  AW Hands (1909) noticed a great number of branches torn from the trees after a storm at Corneto.
- Figure signifies fear (Rathgeber)
- Emblem of the wrath of Apollo, but this is usually figured by arrows rather than by branches.



Stag

Town symbol of Kaulonia?
Stag or hind often found in connection with Apollo and/or Artemis



Lit. AW Hands  (1909) Coins of Magna Graecia. Spink & Son Ltd, London
     CM Kraay  (1976) Archaic and Classical Greek Coins. reprint Sanford J Durst, New York
     NK Rutter (1997) Greek Coinages of Southern Italy and Sicily. Spink & Son Ltd, London