Castiglione di Paludi: nuove ricerche nel sito della città antica

The research in Castiglione di Paludi gives a new image of the ancient set-tlement, reassembling a series of well known elements in a more correct topo-graphical and cultural framework. The characters which emerge from this studyshow a well organized and complex political settlement, with an articulate de- fensive system which reflects the technological development of the Greek world and which has significant comparisons with Epirus and southern Illyria. Insidethe walls, an orthogonal urban system can be reconstructed, with a main plateiawhich crosses the settlement to the wide agora: in that area public buildings canbe recognized, as for example the theatre and a sacred building. A large terracingwall separates the public space from a lower zone, maybe another level of the sa-me square: it can be compared with other cases, and first of all with the Mor-gantina example. The analysis of the history of the centre and the archaeological evidence probably induces, at last, the recognition in the settlement of a situa-tion similar to that of Laos: the development of a border center, in a zone dispu-ted by colonial Greeks and the Brettian federation, probably a re-foundation car-ried out by this last political authority in the territory of Sybaris on the Traente