1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Caulon

by Thomas Ashby

CAULON (Gr. καυλωνία), a town of the district of the Bruttii, Italy, on the east coast. Its exact site is uncertain (though the name has been given to a modern village), and depends on the identification of the river Sagras. It was the southernmost of the Achaean colonies, founded either by Croton or direct from Greece itself. In the 7th century it was allied with Croton and Sybaris, and its coins, which go back to 550 B.C., prove its importance. It took the side of Athens in the Peloponnesian War. In 388 B.C. it was destroyed by Dionysius, but soon afterwards restored. It was captured during the invasion of Pyrrhus by Campanian troops. Strabo speaks of it as deserted in his time. The erection of the lighthouse at Capo Stilo, on the site of one of the medieval guard towers of the coast, led to the discovery of a wall of Greek origin, and close by of a number of terra-cottas, belonging perhaps to a temple erected in honour of the deities of the sea. Other remains were found at Fontanelle, 21/2 m. away, including the fragment of a capital of an archaic Greek temple (P. Orsi in Notizie degli Scavi, 1891, 61). These buildings may be connected with the Caulon or a village dependent on it.  (T. As.)