Helmets and weapons from the battle of Alalia discovered in Velia

It was 540 BC when the first great naval battle in history took place off the coast of Corsica, in what the ancients called the Sardinian Sea. An epic and bloody struggle, recounted by Herodotus, which saw the powerful Phocaeans, Greek colonists based in the Corsican city of Alalia, under joint attack from the Etruscans and Carthaginians.

In the clash, according to the partisan Herodotus, the Greeks prevailed. And yet the ships that they had managed to save could no longer fight, so much so that they had to embark their families, abandon Alalia and set sail for the south of Italy, where, as skilled merchants as they were, they bought a piece of land and founded Hyele, later renamed Elea (Velia according to the Romans), the city of Magna Graecia that gave birth to the philosopher Parmenides.

And it is precisely here, as the general director of the museums Massimo Osanna exclusively anticipated to ANSA, that an excavation started by archaeologists from the Archaeological Park of Paestum-Velia has brought to light weapons that most likely came from that epochal battle.

A discovery, the scholar underlines, “which sheds new light on this fascinating page of ancient history“. And even the Minister of Culture Franceschini applauds, underlining the importance of “continue to invest with conviction in archaeological research that never ceases to return important pieces of the history of the Mediterranean".

Begun last summer on the top of what was the city's acropolis, just below the still evident remains of the temple dedicated to Athena, the excavations directed by Francesco Scelza have brought to light the remains of a rectangular structure of considerable size, 18 meters long by 7 meters wide, dating back to the XNUMXth century BC. Inside, on a beaten earth floor, painted ceramics all marked with the word Ire ("sacred") which attests to the dedication to the divinity, decorative architectural elements in baked clay that appear to have been made by Cumaean craftsmen, perhaps not by chance one of the Greek cities on the front line against the Etruscans of the sea, as well as some fragments of the ancient roof.

But not only that, because next to the pottery the floor of the temple hosted various bronze and iron weapons. There are, Scelza says, many fragments of weapons, those that at the moment appear to be the pieces of a large decorated shield and two splendid helmets in perfect condition: one Etruscan of the “calotta” type, which experts indicate as Negau from the name of the Slovenian location where they were found for the first time, the other of Chalcidian shape.

And the biggest surprise is right here: “They are relics offered to Athena, most likely the spoils from the battle of Alalia.“, says Osanna, who, while waiting for the installation of the new director Tiziana D'Angelo, has taken over the management of the Park for herself over the last year.

Of course, these are just initial considerations. Freed from the earth only a few days ago, the two helmets still need to be cleaned in the laboratory and studied. There may be inscriptions inside them, which is quite common in ancient armor, and these could help to reconstruct their history precisely, and who knows, perhaps even the identity of the warriors who wore them.

However, the discovery of the archaic temple with its dating and the objects preserved inside clarifies many details of that story from more than 2500 years ago.

"The structure of the oldest temple dates back to 540-530 BC, that is, the years immediately following the battle of Alalia.“, Osanna points out. While that of the more recent temple, which was believed to be of the Hellenistic age, dates back initially to 480-450 BC and then underwent a renovation in the XNUMXth century BC.

It is therefore possible that the Phocaeans fleeing from Alalia erected it immediately after their arrival on this stretch of coast - today identified between Punta Licosa and Palinuro in the province of Salerno - where, as was their habit and as Herodotus tells us once again, by dealing with the native Enotrians they had bought the land necessary to settle and resume the flourishing trade for which they were famous.

It goes without saying that the foundation of the temple in this process had to be considered of crucial importance for the success of the new settlement and that the memory of the bloody battle had to be still very much alive, so much so that the goddess was offered, to propitiate her benevolence, the weapons taken from the Etruscan enemies in that epic battle at sea which had in fact changed the balance of power in the Mediterranean.

A bit of the same thing will happen a century later, in 474 BC with the battle of Cuma. And if at Alalia the Greeks were finally forced to flee, at Cuma it will be the Etruscans who succumb, dragging nearby Pompeii into the abyss at least for a long period of time.