Medma
Encyclopedia
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Medma or Mesma (Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

: , Steph. B.
Stephanus of Byzantium
Stephen of Byzantium, also known as Stephanus Byzantinus , was the author of an important geographical dictionary entitled Ethnica...

; , 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...

, Scymn. Ch.; but on coins, and so Apollodorus
Apollodorus
Apollodorus of Athens son of Asclepiades, was a Greek scholar and grammarian. He was a pupil of Diogenes of Babylon, Panaetius the Stoic, and the grammarian Aristarchus of Samothrace...

, cited by Steph. B.; Scylax has , evidently a corruption for ), was an ancient Greek city of Southern Italy (Magna Graecia
Magna Graecia
Magna Græcia is the name of the coastal areas of Southern Italy on the Tarentine Gulf that were extensively colonized by Greek settlers; particularly the Achaean colonies of Tarentum, Crotone, and Sybaris, but also, more loosely, the cities of Cumae and Neapolis to the north...

), on the west coast of the Bruttian (now Calabrian) peninsula, between Hipponium and the mouth of the Metaurus. The site is located at Rosarno
Rosarno
Rosarno is a comune in the province of Reggio Calabria in the Italian region of Calabria. It is about southwest of Catanzaro and about northeast of Reggio Calabria. Rosarno stands on a natural terrace cloaked in olive plantations and vineyards on the left bank of the river Mesima, overlooking...

, Province of Reggio Calabria
Province of Reggio Calabria
The Province of Reggio Calabria is a province in the Calabria region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Reggio., it has an area of 3,183 km², and a total population of 565,866. There are 97 comuni in the province, see Comuni of the Province of Reggio Calabria.- Economy :The region is...

, Calabria
Calabria
Calabria , in antiquity known as Bruttium, is a region in southern Italy, south of Naples, located at the "toe" of the Italian Peninsula. The capital city of Calabria is Catanzaro....

.

It was a colony founded by the Epizephyrian Locrians
Locri
Locri is a town and comune in the province of Reggio Calabria, Calabria, southern Italy. The name derives from the ancient Greek town Locris.-History:...

, and is said to have derived its name from an adjoining fountain . But though it is repeatedly noticed among the Greek cities in this part of Italy, it does not appear ever to have attained to any great power or importance. It is probable, however, that the Medimnaeans , who are noticed by Diodorus as contributing a body of colonists to the repeopling of Messana (modern Messina) by Dionysius
Dionysius I of Syracuse
Dionysius I or Dionysius the Elder was a Greek tyrant of Syracuse, in what is now Sicily, southern Italy. He conquered several cities in Sicily and southern Italy, opposed Carthage's influence in Sicily and made Syracuse the most powerful of the Western Greek colonies...

 in 396 BCE, are no other than the Medmaeans, and that we should read in the passage in question. Though never a very conspicuous place, Medma seems to have survived the fall of many other more important cities of Magna Graecia, and it is noticed as a still existing town both by Strabo and Pliny the Elder
Pliny the Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian...

. But the name is not found in Ptolemy
Ptolemy
Claudius Ptolemy , was a Roman citizen of Egypt who wrote in Greek. He was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer, and poet of a single epigram in the Greek Anthology. He lived in Egypt under Roman rule, and is believed to have been born in the town of Ptolemais Hermiou in the...

, and all subsequent trace of it disappears. It appears from Strabo that the town itself was situated a little inland, and that it had a port or emporium on the seashore.

The name of Mesima is still borne by a river which flows into the sea a little below Nicotera
Nicotera
Nicotera is a comune in the province of Vibo Valentia, Calabria, southern Italy.-History:Nicòtera origins lie with the ancient Greek city of Medma which was founded by the Locresis of Locri Epizephyris....

, in the neighbourhood. Nicotera, the name of which is already found in the Antonine Itinerary
Antonine Itinerary
The Antonine Itinerary is a register of the stations and distances along the various roads of the Roman empire, containing directions how to get from one Roman settlement to another...

, probably arose after the decline of Mesma.
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