THURII. – An ancient city of Magna Graecia on the Gulf of Taranto, founded by the survivors of Sybaris, not far from the ancient and opulent city.
Pliny places it “inter duos amnes Crathim et Sybarim,” while the Antonine Itinerary records it as 12 miles from Rossano. Both Pliny and Ptolemy refer to it as a maritime city; hence it is very likely that its site was at the locality called “Le Muraglie,” near the present-day station of T., between Corigliano and Terranova di Sibari, which would be its successor. It grew to considerable prominence, even rivaling its mother city; but the wars of Pyrrhus and Hannibal with the Romans brought about its decline. In 282 B.C. it had a Roman garrison and became a “civitas foederata”; in 194 B.C. a Latin colony of 3,000 persons was established in the Thurian territory under the name of Copia Thurii, which cannot in any way be identified with S. Marco Argentano, in the Valley of the Crati. From the Social War onward it was a Roman municipium.
It may be confidently held that T. received the Gospel at a very early date. However, it is not proven that the popes S. Telesphorus and S. Dionysius were natives of the city. The hierarchy appears there from the end of the 5th century; but its existence may be traced back to the Constantinian era. Bishop John took part in the Roman Synod of 504, and Lanzoni, along with others, thinks he might be the recipient of some letters of Pope Gelasius (492–96), e.g., that of 13 April 496. In the
Register of St. Gregory the Great, T. is mentioned several times. At the Synod of Pope Agatho in 679, Bishop Theophanes attended. He is the last prelate of T. recorded by history. After him, nothing more is known. It seems that toward the middle of the 8th century T. was destroyed by Lombard raids, for at that time the Byzantine sources mention in its place the two dioceses of Rossano and Cassano; the territory south of the Crati went to the former, the rest to the latter.