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Tindari (; ), ancient Tyndaris (, Strabo) or Tyndarion (Τυνδάριον, Ptolemy), is a small town, frazione (suburb or municipal component) in the comune of Patti and a Latin Catholic titular see.
The monumental ruins of ancient Tyndaris are a main attraction for visitors and excavations are continuing to reveal more parts of the city.
Tindari has a famous sanctuary and is also famous for the poem Vento a Tindari, written by Salvatore Quasimodo.
It was one of the latest of all the cities in Sicily that could claim a purely Greek origin, having been founded by the elder Dionysius in 396 or 395 BC in Magna Graecia; the site is so strategic that it is a surprise it was not occupied earlier. The original settlers were the remains of the exiles, who had been driven from Naupactus, Zacynthus, and the Peloponnesia by the after the close of the Peloponnesian War. These had at first been established by Dionysius at Messana, when he repeopled that city; but the Spartans having taken umbrage at this, he transferred them to the site of Tyndaris, which had previously been included in the territory of Abacaenum. The colonists themselves gave to their new city the name of Tyndaris, from their native divinities, the "Tyndaridae" or Dioscuri, and readily admitting fresh citizens from other quarters, soon raised their whole population to the number of 5000 citizens.Diodorus xiv. 78. The new city thus rose at once to be a place of considerable importance.
It is next mentioned in 344 BC, when it was one of the first cities that declared in favor of Timoleon after his landing in Sicily.Diod. xvi. 69. At a later period we find it mentioned as espousing the cause of Hiero II, and supporting him during his war against the Mamertines, 269 BC. On that occasion he rested his position upon Tyndaris on the left, and on Tauromenium (modern Taormina) on the right.Diod. xxii. Exc. H. p. 499. Indeed, the strong position of Tyndaris made it an important strategic post on the Tyrrhenian sea, as Tauromenium was on the Sicilian sea, and hence we find it frequently mentioned in accounts of subsequent wars. In the First Punic War it was at first dependent upon Carthage; and though the citizens, alarmed at the progress of the ancient Rome armies, were at one time on the point of turning to Rome, they were restrained by the Carthaginians, who carried off all the chief citizens as hostages.Diod. xxiii. p. 502. In 257 BC, the Battle of Tyndaris took place off the coast of Tyndaris, between the city and the Lipara, in which a Roman fleet under Gaius Atilius Regulus obtained some advantage over the Carthaginian fleet, but without any decisive result.Polybius i. 25; Zonar. viii. 12. The Roman fleet is described on that occasion as touching at the promontory of Tyndaris, but the city had not yet fallen into their hands, and it was not until after the fall of Panormus (modern Palermo) in 254 BC that Tyndaris expelled the Carthaginian garrison and joined the Roman alliance.Diod. xxiii. p. 505.
We hear little of Tyndaris under Roman government, but it appears to have been a flourishing and considerable city. Cicero calls it nobilissima civitas In Verrem iii. 43. and we learn from him that the inhabitants had displayed their zeal and fidelity towards the Romans upon many occasions. Among others they supplied naval forces for the armament of Scipio Africanus the Younger, a service for which he repaid them by restoring to them a statue of Mercury which had been carried off by the Carthaginians and which continued as an object of great veneration in the city, until it was stolen by the rapacious Verres.Cicero, In Verrem iv. 3. 9-42, v. 47. Tyndaris was also one of seventeen cities selected by the Roman senate, apparently as an honorary distinction, to contribute to certain offerings to the temple of Venus at Eryx.Cicero In Verrem v. 47; Zumpt, ad loc.; Diod. iv. 83. In other respects it had no peculiar privileges, and was in the condition of an ordinary municipium, with its own magistrates, local senate, etc., but was certainly in the time of Cicero one of the most considerable places in the island. It, however, suffered severely from the exactions of VerresCicero In Verrem ll. cc.. and the inhabitants, to revenge themselves on their oppressor, publicly demolished his statue as soon as he had quit the island.Cicero In Verrem ii. 66.
Tyndaris again bore a considerable part in the Sicilian revolt between Sextus Pompeius and Octavian. It was one of the points occupied and fortified by the former, when preparing for the defence of the Sicilian straits, but was taken by Agrippa after his naval victory at Mylae, and became one of his chief posts, from which he carried on offensive warfare against Pompey.Appian, B.C. v. 105, 109, 116. Subsequently, to this we hear nothing more of Tyndaris in history; but there is no doubt of its having continued to subsist throughout the period of the Roman Empire. Strabo speaks of it as one of the places on the north coast of Sicily which, in his time, still deserved the name of cities; and Pliny gives it the title of a Colonia. It is probable that it received a colony under Augustus, as we find it bearing in an inscription the titles of Colonia Augusta Tyndaritanorum.Strabo vi. p. 272; Plin. iii. 8. s. 14; Ptol. iii. 4. § 2; Orell. Inscr. 955. Pliny indeed mentions a great calamity which the city had sustained, when (he tells us) half of it was swallowed up by the sea, probably from an earthquake having caused the fall of part of the hill on which it stands, but we have no clue to the date of this event.Pliny ii. 92. s. 94. The Itineraries attest the existence of Tyndaris, apparently still as a considerable place, in the fourth century.Itin. Ant. pp. 90, 93; Tab. Peut.
The chief monuments, of which the ruins are still extant within the circuit of the walls, are:
But Tindari and its Church are reachable by trains run by Trenitalia, including services from Messina with the Oliveri railway station situated on the Palermo–Messina railway. Outside of the station is available an Uber service by app.
Tindari is also served by bus provided from Azienda Siciliana Trasporti.
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