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ELEA
(ay-LAY-uh)
Ancient
town of Italy founded by the Greeks around 538-535 BC Common
clues: Zeno's home; Zeno of ____; Parmenides' home; Whence Zeno;
Ancient Greek city; Parmenides's birthplace Crossword
puzzle frequency:
3 times a year Video: Zeno's
Paradoxes
Velia
is the Italian (and Latin) name of the ancient town of Elea
located on the territory of the commune of Ascea, Salerno,
Campania, Italy in a geographical sub-area named Cilento.
Originally founded by the Greeks as Hyele in Magna Graecia around
538–535 BC, it is best known as the home of the
philosophers Parmenides and Zeno of Elea, as well as the Eleatic
school of which they were a part. The site of the Acropolis of
ancient Elea, once a promontory (castello a mare, meaning "castle
on the sea") and now inland, was renamed in the Middle Ages
Castellammare della Bruca.
According
to Herodotus, in 545 BC Ionian Greeks fled Phocaea, in modern
Turkey, which was being besieged by the Persians. After some
wanderings (8 to 10 years) at sea, they stopped in Reggio
Calabria, where they were probably joined by Xenophanes, who was
at the time at Messina, and then moved north along the coast and
founded the town of Hyele, later renamed Ele and then,
eventually, Elea. The location is nearly at the same latitude as
Phocaea.
Elea
was not conquered by the Lucanians, but eventually joined Rome in
273 BC and was included in ancient Lucania. According to Virgil's
Aeneid, Velia is the place where the body of Palinurus washed
ashore.
This
article is licensed under the GNU
Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the Wikipedia
article "Velia".
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