Vibo Valentia

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Vibo Valentia is a town and comune (municipality) in the Calabria region of southern Italy, near the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the capital of the Vibo Valentia province, and is an agricultural, commercial and tourist center (the most famous places nearby are Tropea, Ricadi and Pizzo). There are also many important manifacturing industries, and here there is the tuna district of Maierato. Very important for the local economy is the Vibo Marina's harbour. Its population according to the 2001 census was 33,957.

History

Vibo Valentia was originally the Greek colony of Hipponion. It was founded, probably around the late 7th century BC, by inhabitants of Locri, a principal city of the Italian Magna Graecia, south-west of Vibo Valentia on the Ionian Sea. Diodorus Siculus reports that the city was taken in 388 BCE by Dionysius the Elder tyrant of Syracuse, who deported all the population. The population came back in 378 BCE, with the help of the Carthaginians. In the following years Hipponion came under the dominion of the Bruttii, who controlled most of Calabria. After the town fell to Rome, the name was Latinized to Hipponium. The town became a Roman colony in 194 BCE with the name of Vibo Valentia. After a phase of prosperity during the late Republic and early Empire, the town was almost completely abandoned after the fall of the Roman Empire. In 1070 the Normans build a castle at the site of the old Acropolis and in 1235 a new city was established by Frederick II, Holy Roman emperor and king of Sicily, with the name of Monteleone. The city got back the old Roman name of Vibo Valentia only in 1928.

References

• Official site
• The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Columbia University Press. 2001.
• The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites; Stillwell, Richard. MacDonald, William L. McAlister, Marian Holland. Princeton, N.J. Princeton University Press. 1976. ISBN 0-691-03542-3

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Last updated on Friday March 07, 2008 at 12:39:18 PST (GMT -0800)
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