Origins and Foundation
The foundation of Taras in roughly 706 BC represents a unique episode in archaic Greek colonization, as it was the sole overseas settlement officially established by Sparta. Classical historiography preserved colorful traditions regarding its origin. According to accounts recorded by Antiochus of Syracuse, Ephorus, and later historians, the colony was founded by the Partheniai ('sons of virgins'), a cohort born out of wedlock to Spartan women during the protracted First Messenian War. Denied full citizen status and land allotments upon reaching adulthood, the Partheniai conspired against the Spartiate aristocracy. When the conspiracy was discovered, the Delphic oracle instructed their leader, the oikistes Phalanthos, to lead the disenfranchised band west to establish a city where 'rain fell from a clear sky' and to settle upon the promontory of Satyrion on the Iapygian coast.
Alongside this historical legend stood the mythological narrative attributing the settlement to the demigod Taras, a son of Poseidon and the nymph Satyrion. Cast away in a maritime storm, Taras was reputedly carried safely ashore by a dolphin sent by his divine father, establishing a hero cult that became the central emblem of the community. Archaeological excavations demonstrate that Greek colonists did not arrive in an empty landscape. The strategic peninsula and adjacent lagoon had sustained indigenous settlements from the Bronze Age, evident at Scoglio del Tonno and Borgo Nuovo, with materials indicating earlier Mycenaean trade contacts. The incoming Dorian settlers displaced or marginalized the native Iapygian and Messapian communities, fortifying the rocky peninsula and setting the foundations for an expansive urban center.
Political History
Throughout the Archaic period, Taras engaged in relentless warfare with neighboring Messapians, Peucetians, and Daunians for territorial control of the Salento peninsula. Around 473 BC, the Tarentines and their allies from Rhegion suffered a catastrophic defeat against the Iapygians. Herodotus recorded this engagement as the greatest slaughter of Greeks within his historical memory. The massacre decimated the Tarentine nobility, precipitating the violent downfall of the city's aristocratic regime and the institution of a democratic constitution.
Taras reached its political and cultural zenith during the first half of the fourth century BC. Under the extraordinary guidance of the Pythagorean philosopher Archytas, who was elected supreme commander (strategos autokrator) for seven consecutive terms between roughly 380 and 345 BC despite statutory term limits, Taras became the uncontested hegemon of the Italiote League. Archytas successfully defended the Greek poleis from Lucanian raids, pursued diplomatic alliances, and fostered close ties with Plato.
The late fourth century BC witnessed mounting pressures from inland Italic tribes and the inexorable southward advance of the Roman Republic. Lacking a citizen body willing to endure endless campaigning, the wealthy polis adopted a policy of hiring foreign generals (condottieri). King Archidamus III of Sparta arrived in 343 BC and was killed in battle against the Lucanians at Manduria in 338 BC. Alexander I of Epirus was invited in 334 BC; though initially successful, he soon fell out with the Tarentines and died in battle at Pandosia in 331 BC. Further interventions followed under Cleonymus of Sparta and Agathocles of Syracuse.
Direct confrontation with Rome became inevitable after 282 BC, when Roman naval vessels entered the Gulf of Taranto, violating a bilateral pact concluded in 302 BC that barred Roman ships from sailing east of Cape Lacinium. Taras attacked the squadron and expelled the Roman garrison from nearby Thurii. When Rome dispatched envoys demanding reparations, the Tarentine assembly mocked their speech and soiled their garments, prompting an immediate declaration of war in 281 BC. Taras summoned King Pyrrhus of Epirus to lead the coalition. Despite Pyrrhic tactical victories at Heraclea (280 BC) and Asculum (279 BC), Pyrrhus failed to break Roman resolve and withdrew to Greece in 275 BC. Left isolated, Taras fell to the Roman consul Lucius Papirius Cursor in 272 BC. Reduced to an unequal naval ally (socius navalis) hosting a permanent Roman garrison, the city made a final bid for independence during the Second Punic War. In 212 BC, local partisans admitted the Carthaginian general Hannibal, though the Roman citadel held out. In 209 BC, Quintus Fabius Maximus recaptured Taras through internal betrayal, brutally sacking the city and extinguishing its sovereign existence.
Territory and Geography
The geopolitical dominance of Taras was fundamentally rooted in its exceptional physical setting on the western coast of the Salento peninsula. The core urban settlement occupied a narrow, easily defensible limestone promontory flanked by two bodies of water: the open outer bay of the Gulf of Taranto (the Mare Grande) and a vast, landlocked, and sheltered lagoon (the Mare Piccolo). Connected by a narrow natural canal, this lagoon formed the finest deep-water haven in southern Italy, entirely shielded from Mediterranean gales.
From this maritime redoubt, the civic territory (chora) extended deep into the fertile plains of modern Apulia, bounded by the Murge plateau to the north and the Messapian frontier to the east. Taras defended this frontier with a network of outlying fortresses, agricultural villas, and fortified border posts. To project power along the Ionian coastline, Taras collaborated with Thurii in 433/432 BC to found the major colony of Heraclea near the ancient site of Siris. Heraclea served not only as an agricultural breadbasket but also as the official meeting seat of the Italiote League under Tarentine leadership.
Government and Civic Institutions
The constitutional architecture of Taras evolved dramatically over its five centuries of independence. The archaic state reflected its Laconian origin, featuring a monarchical or aristocratic oligarchic council and magistrates derived from Spartan models. Following the disastrous military defeat of c. 473 BC, the surviving citizenry instituted a full democracy. The newly enfranchised popular assembly (halia or demos) held ultimate decision-making power, accompanied by a smaller governing council (boule) and annually elected magistrates.
Aristotle, in his Politics, specifically praised the civic administration of Taras for its inventive social mechanisms designed to maintain political stability and alleviate class strife. The polis instituted a system whereby public lands and revenues were shared with the poorer classes, ensuring basic subsistence and preventing the violent civil strife (stasis) that consumed many neighboring Greek cities. Executive leadership was exercised by a college of strategoi (generals), of whom Archytas proved the most illustrious example. The government managed a complex naval bureaucracy, minting authorities, and judicial bodies capable of regulating a sprawling maritime commercial empire.
Society, Religion, and Culture
Tarentine society maintained its Dorian dialect and Spartan heritage while absorbing diverse cultural currents from Magna Graecia and indigenous populations. The city was uniquely celebrated in antiquity for allowing burials within the urban walls. Polybius recorded this practice, which modern archaeology has confirmed through thousands of subterranean chamber tombs found throughout the ancient lower city. These necropolises yielded an extraordinary wealth of gold jewelry, terracotta plaques, and ornate funerary vessels, reflecting a deeply held eschatological ideology influenced by Orphic and Dionysiac mysteries.
The state religion venerated Poseidon as patron of maritime supremacy and Apollo through the celebration of the Hyakinthia festival. A colossal bronze statue of Herakles sculpted by Lysippos stood proudly upon the acropolis. Under Archytas, Taras emerged as the preeminent intellectual capital of western Hellenism, attracting mathematicians, astronomers, and philosophers. The city contributed significantly to the development of Greek theatrical arts: Rhinthon of Taras pioneered the phlyax play (hilarotragedy), a burlesque dramatic genre that lampooned mythological themes. Aristoxenus of Taras, a student of Aristotle, composed foundational treatises on music theory. The cultural impact of Taras was such that after the Roman conquest of 272 BC, a captured Greek slave named Livius Andronicus was brought to Rome, where his Latin adaptations of Greek drama and Homeric epic inaugurated formal Roman literature.
Economy and Trade
The economic prosperity of Taras was legendary throughout the Mediterranean basin. Its commercial wealth rested primarily on the intensive maritime exploitation of the Mare Piccolo, which hosted the largest shellfish and oyster beds in Italy, alongside a substantial fishing fleet. A premier specialized industry was the manufacture of royal purple dye derived from the murex sea snail, producing garments that rivaled the celebrated dyes of Phoenician Tyre. The surrounding plains supported vast flocks of selectively bred sheep, yielding the famed Tarentine wool (lana Tarentina), renowned for its extraordinary softness and exported across the Hellenistic world.
Agriculture in the hinterland generated large surpluses of premium olive oil, wheat, and wine, which were praised by Roman poets such as Horace. Taras became one of the Mediterranean's most prominent ceramic production centers between the late fifth and third centuries BC, manufacturing magnificent Apulian red-figure vases and polished Gnathia-ware pottery. This vibrant economy was underpinned by an exceptionally abundant coinage. The silver nomoi of Taras, famously depicting a youthful hero astride a dolphin on one face and a mounted cavalryman on the reverse, functioned as an international standard of exchange across southern Italy.
Decline and Legacy
The devastation suffered during the Roman recapture in 209 BC dealt an irrevocable blow to Taras. Fabius Maximus slaughtered thousands of citizens, enslaved 30,000 survivors, and stripped the city of countless artistic masterpieces, including Lysippos' colossal Herakles, which was transported to the Capitoline Hill in Rome. In 123/122 BC, the Roman Republic founded a colonial settlement on part of the confiscated territory under the name Colonia Neptunia. The older Greek community and the Roman colony coexisted until they were unified into a single Roman municipium following the Social War in 89 BC.
Despite political subjugation, Taras preserved its Greek language, customs, and luxury culture well into the early Roman Empire, serving as a favored seaside retreat for Roman intellectuals, including Virgil and Horace. In the long term, modern Taranto grew atop the ancient acropolis, retaining the historic layout around the canal. Today, the artistic and archaeological legacy of the city is housed in the National Archaeological Museum of Taranto (MArTA), whose world-renowned collection of Hellenistic goldwork (the 'Ori di Taranto') and terracotta statuary bears testimony to the artistic genius and material grandeur of Magna Graecia's most powerful polis.
References
- Tarentum. Historical Overview and Archaeology
- Taranto. History
- Taras/Tarentum/Neptunia. Overview and Location
- Taras. Coinage of Taras