Lagaria was an ancient town of Lucania

Lucania

Lucania was an ancient district of southern Italy, extending from the Tyrrhenian Sea to the Gulf of Taranto. To the north it adjoined Campania, Samnium and Apulia, and to the south it was separated by a narrow isthmus from the district of Bruttium...

, situated between Thurii

Thurii

Thurii , called also by some Latin writers Thurium , for a time also Copia and Copiae, was a city of Magna Graecia, situated on the Tarentine gulf, within a short distance of the site of Sybaris, whose place it may be considered as having taken...

 and the river Siris

Sinni River

The Sinni is a 94 km long river in southern Italy. It flows through the region of Basilicata and into the Ionian Sea near Policoro; in antiquity, the city of Siris lay at its mouth....

 (modern Sinni).

According to a legend, it was founded by a colony of Phocians

Phocis

Phocis is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the administrative region of Central Greece. It stretches from the western mountainsides of Parnassus on the east to the mountain range of Vardousia on the west, upon the Gulf of Corinth...

 under the command of Epeius

Epeius

There were two characters named Epeius in Greek mythology.#A Greek soldier during the Trojan War. He was the son of Panopeus and had the reputation for being a coward. In the Iliad he participated in the boxing match at the funeral games for Patrocles against Euryalus and won...

, the architect of the Trojan Horse

Trojan Horse

The Trojan Horse is a tale from the Trojan War about the stratagem that allowed the Greeks finally to enter the city of Troy and end the conflict. In the canonical version, after a fruitless 10-year siege, the Greeks constructed a huge wooden horse, and hid a select force of men inside...

. Strabo

Strabo

Strabo, also written Strabon was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus , a city which he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea...

, the only geographical writer who mentions Lagaria, calls it only a fortress , and it was probably never a place of any importance; though deriving some celebrity in later times from the excellence of its wine, which was esteemed one of the best in Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

. The statement of Strabo, above quoted, is the only clue to its position, which cannot therefore be determined with any certainty. Cluverius placed it at Nocara

Nocara

Nocara is a town and comune in the province of Cosenza in the Calabria region of southern Italy....

, about 16 km from the sea, and this conjecture (for it is nothing more) has been adopted by Romanelli

Romanelli

Romanelli is a family name of Italian origin. The 1990 Census found that Romanelli was the 21,280th most common surname in the United States. Some people named Romanelli include:*Carl Romanelli , a Green Party activist in Pennsylvania...

. The editors of the Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World

Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World

The Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World is a large-format English language atlas of ancient Europe, Asia, and North Africa, edited by Richard Talbert. The time period depicted is roughly from archaic Greek civilization through Late Antiquity . The atlas was published by Princeton...

, along with most modern scholars, place the ruins of Lagaria at Monte Coppolo, in the comune

Comune

In Italy, the comune is the basic administrative division, and may be properly approximated in casual speech by the English word township or municipality.-Importance and function:...

of Valsinni

Valsinni

Valsinni is a village and comune in the province of Matera, in the Basilicata region of southern Italy.The village is bordered by Colobraro, Nocara, Noepoli, Nova Siri, Rotondella and San Giorgio Lucano.-History:...

, Matera Province, Basilicata

Basilicata

Basilicata , also known as Lucania, is a region in the south of Italy, bordering on Campania to the west, Apulia to the north and east, and Calabria to the south, having one short southwestern coastline on the Tyrrhenian Sea between Campania in the northwest and Calabria in the southwest, and a...

. The wines of this neighborhood are said still to preserve their ancient reputation.