For It Was The Traeis Near Whose Estuary Was Fought The Battle Between 300,000 Sybarites (I Refuse To Believe These Figures) And The Men Of Croton Conducted By Their Champion Milo - A Battle Which Led To The Destruction Of Sybaris And, Incidentally, Of Hellenic Culture Throughout The Mainland Of Italy.

This was in the same fateful year 510 that witnessed the expulsion of the Tarquins from Rome and the Pisistratidae from Athens.

Pines, the characteristic tree of the Sila, now begin to appear. Passing through Verace I had already observed, on the left, a high mountain entirely decked with them. It is the ridge marked Pale-parto on the map; the Trionto laves its foot. But the local pronunciation of this name is Palepite, and I cannot help thinking that here we have a genuine old Greek name perpetuated by the people and referring to this covering of hoary pines - a name which the cartographers, arbitrary and ignorant as they often are, have unconsciously disguised. (It occurs in some old charts, however, as Paleparto.) An instructive map of Italy could be drawn up, showing the sites and cities wrongly named from corrupt etymology or falsified inscriptions, and those deliberately miscalled out of principles of local patriotism. The whole country is full of these inventions of litterati which date, for the most part, from the enthusiastic but undisciplined Cinque-Cento.

The minute geographical triangle comprised between Cosenza, Longobucco and San Demetrio which I was now traversing is one of the least known corners of Italy, and full of dim Hellenic memories.

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