SYBARIS, a city of Magna Graecia, on the Gulf of Tarentum, between the rivers Crathis (Crati) and Sybaris (Coscile), which now meet 3 miles from the sea, but anciently had independent mouths, was the oldest Greek colony in this region. It was an Achaean colony founded by Isus of Helice (720 b.c.), but had among its settlers many Troezenians, who were ultimately expelled. Placed in a very fertile, though now most unhealthy, region, and following a liberal policy in the admission of citizens from all quarters, the city became great and opulent, with a vast subject territory and divers daughter colonies even on the Tyrrhenian Sea (Posidonia, Laus, Scidrus). For magnificence and luxury the Sybarites were proverbial throughout Greece, and in the 6th century probably no Hellenic city could compare with its wealth and splendour. At length contests between the democrats and oligarchs, in which many of the latter were expelled and took refuge at Crotona, led to a war with that city, and the Crotoniats with very inferior forces were completely victorious. They razed Sybaris to the ground and turned the waters of Crathis to flow over its ruins (510 b.c.). Explorations undertaken by the Italian Government in 1879 have failed to lead to a precise knowledge of the site.

See Academy, vol. xvit p. 73 (24th January 1880); Lenoπnant, La Grande-Grèce (1881), i. 325 sq. ; and Thurii.