Syagrius
SYAGRIUS (d. 487), the last of the independent Roman administrators of Gaul, was the son of Aegidius, who had seized Gaul while Ricimer was master of Italy. P'rom 464 to 486 he governed that part of Gaul which lies between the Maas, the Scheldt and the Seine, and was termed " king of the Romans " by the German invaders, Franks, Burgundians and Visigoths, who already occupied the rest of Gaul. Defeated in 486 by Clovis, king of the Salian Franks, at the battle of Soissons, Syagrius fled, leaving his land at the mercy of the Franks. He sought refuge with Alaric II., king of the Visigoths, at Toulouse, but Alaric imprisoned him instead of granting him refuge, and delivered him up to Clovis. He was executed in 487, secretly and by the sword, according to Gregory of Tours.
S7BARIS, a city of Magna Graecia, on the Gulf of Tarentum, between the rivers Crathis (Crati) and Sybaris (Coscile), which now meet 3 m. from the sea, but in ancient times had independent mouths, was the oldest Greek colony in this region. It was an Achaean colony founded by Isus of Helice (about 720 B.C.), but had among its settlers many Troezenians, who were ultimately expelled. Placed in a very fertile, though now most unhealthy, region, and following a liberal policy in the admission of citizens from all quarters, the city became great and opulent, with a vast subject territory and divers daughter colonies even on the Tyrrhenian Sea (Posidonia, Laus, Scidrus). For magnificence and luxury the Sybarites were proverbial throughout Greece, and in the 6th century probably no Hellenic city could compare with its wealth and splendour. At length contests between the democrats and oligarchs, in which many of the latter were expelled and took refuge at Crotona, led to a war with that city, and the Crotoniats with very inferior forces were completely victorious. They razed Sybaris to the ground and turned the waters of Crathis to flow over its ruins (510 B.C.). Explorations undertaken by the Italian government in 1879 and 1887 failed to lead to a precise knowledge of the site. The only discoveries made were (i) that of an extensive necropolis, some 8 m. to the west of the confluence of the two rivers, of the end of the first Iron age, known as that of Torre Mordillo, the contents of which are now preserved at Potenza; (2) that of a necropolis of about 400 B.C. the period of the greatest prosperity of Thurii (q.v.) consisting of tombs covered by tumuli (called locally timpani), in some of which were found fine gold plates with mystic inscriptions in Greek characters; one of these tumuli was over 90 ft. in diameter at the base with a single burial in a sarcophagus in the centre.
See F. Lenormant, La Grande-Grece, i. 325 seq. (Paris, 1881); F. S. Cavallari, in Notizie degli Scavi (1879, passim; 1880, 68, 152); A. Pasqui, ibid. (1888), 239, 462, 575, 648; P. Orsi, in Atti del congresso di scienze storiche, v. 195 sqq. (Rome, 1904) (T. As.)
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
