The Sybarites
The present significance of the word Sybarite is a person devoted to luxury and pleasure. The ancient city of Sybaris was situated in Southern Italy, near the west shore of the Gulf of Taranto. It was founded by the Greeks 720 B.C., and became very powerful. In its most flourishing period it had command of four neighboring nations, with their twenty-five towns, and could send an army of 300,000 men into the field.
The walls encompassing the city were said to extend six and a half miles, and the suburbs covered a space of seven miles. The people of Sybaris became noted for effeminacy and self-indulgence, and it is said that no trade which made a noise was allowed in the city.
A tale is told by Seneca, of a Sybarite who complained that he had not rested comfortably at night; on being asked the reason, he replied that "he had found a rose leaf doubled under him, and it hurt him." Byron refers to it in Don Juan:"--
Aloud, because his feelings were too tender
To brook a ruffled rose leaf by his side."
Thus it is easy to see how Sybarite is but a synonym for one who is effeminate and self-indulgent.
In 510 B. C., Telys, a demagogue, succeeded in overthrowing the old constitution of the city, whereupon, about five hundred of its most wealthy inhabitants emigrated to Crotona. Telys demanded their surrender, and this being denied, he declared war against Crotona.
The Crotonians, followers of Pythagoras, routed and massacred the Sybarite army, and totally destroyed the city by changing the course of the river Crathis and flooding Sybaris with its waters. The city never recovered from the disaster, but in 443 B.C. a small town, called Thurium, was built not far from the site of Sybaris.