On the right bank of the Bradano river, inside the archaeological area of Metapontum, are the remains of ancient columns. They seem to have defied time imperishable, immortal with their graceful fluting and elegant Doric capitals. They are called “Palatine Tables”, a heritage of ancient historical events. It is said that in the shadow of those columns taught the philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras and that his famous School met here. In Metapontum, the stones seem alive: they tell of millennia past, of how we were and perhaps how we will be.
The Palatine Tables of Metapontum, many questions
Before the columns of Metapontum, so elegant that they do not look like ruins at all, many questions arise. At least until the late 19th century, the locals did not know what those ancient remains were. Remnants of a stone palace, vestiges of lost eras? Indeed, from a popular misunderstanding, romantically intertwined with legend, the name Tavole Palatine was born. It is said that at the ruins the Emperor Otto II camped with his army, actually for a short time1.
It was 982 and part of southern Italy was subject to raids by the Saracens, who were stationed in Sicily. The island was under the Islamic rule, headed by Emir Abu l-Qasim Ali. The Holy Roman Emperor then decided to travel to Italy to drive out, once and for all, the Saracen enemy2. Otto II could count on the help of the southern Lombard duchies and the Pope, who hoped that Sicily could become Christian again. However, to reach the island the emperor’s army had to cross Apulia, Basilicata and Calabria, still ruled by the Byzantines. Basil II strongly opposed Otto II’s descent. He commanded his troops to entrench in the cities to resist the Saxon advance as much as possible. Sieges of Matera, Taranto and Bari were then conducted, though without success.
Mensae
The settlement of the Ottonian troops near Metapontum dates to this period. In the collective imagination, perhaps because of the fear caused by the sieges, the Emperor’s soldiers appeared gigantic and invincible. Thus Thus people began to use the name “Palatine Tables”. The first noun derives from the Latin word mensae, that is, the table where the meal is eaten; the term palatin, on the other hand, referred to Otto II’s soldiers. The Paladins were, in Charlemagne’s time, the most important knights in the army, the military elite. In the Chanson de Roland of the Carolingian literary cycle, they embody the values of the Christian knight who fights against the barbarism of the Saracens.
Thus, in popular imaginative tradition, the remains of the Palatine Tables were the giant shelf where the powerful knights of Otto consumed their meal. Although such a vision may make the reader smile, it appears instead to be anthropologically and historically relevant. It allows to understand the fears of the peoples and the political dynamics that were being established; moreover, it anticipates the themes of the Breton literary cycle. Consider, for instance, the epic of the Knights of the Round Table.
The unglorious ending of Otto II
The expedition of Otto II was not successful as hoped. A decisive battle among the Saxons and Saracens took place in Capo Colonna, near Crotone. Here, in the place of the remains of another famous Great-Greek temple, that of Hera Lacinia, the future of Southern Italy was decided. During the violent fight, the emir Abu l-Qasim Ali was killed. However, the German and Lombard human losses were so many that they were defeated. Otto II was forced into a daring escape, it is said thanks to a horse provided to him by a Jew. “The flower of the homeland was cut by the iron. The honor of the blonde Germany has fallen” wrote a chronicler of the time3.
The archeological evidences
Some archaeological evidences have demonstrated that, in the area where the Palatine Tables are located, there was a settlement inhabited since the Neolithic period. In fact, traces of a preexisting village were found. The fertility of the area, near the Bradano river, allowed the human habitation. In this primitive context the Great-Greek residential area was established. Near, there were the colonies of Siris and Heraclea; the Achaean Metapontum was only a few kilometers away. Particularly, from planimetric reconstructions, the place where the Tables were could be located on the border between the urban and the agricultural areas. Hence, it had the function of a sacred temenos, establishing an ideal and apotropaic boundary between the city and the non-anthropized area. Here there was a Greek cult temple, whose ptèron was for centuries identified as “Palatine Tables”.
The Hera temple
Fifteen columns on the stylobate are the only remains of the Hera temple. The columns had grooves and Doric capitals. The 6th century BC temple originally was a peripteral with 32 columns, 6 of which were on the short sides. There are few traces of the entablature, the tympanum and of the remaining parts, since the local limestone used for the construction has not survived the test of time. Several testimonies are available about the clay decoration, dating back to the 5th century BC. The archaeological National Museum of Metaponto hosts remains of gargoyles and polychrome ceramic protomes. They were found during the excavations of 19264.
Interesting revelations derive from the planimetry of the temple. The cell hosting the statue of the divinity, the naos, had posteriorly a special room called adyton. It was reserved to the officiants of the cult to perform the mystery rites. Anteriorly there was the pronao, whose archaeological traces are still visible.
Initially it was hypothesized that the temple was dedicated to the goddess Athena. Nonetheless, during the 1926 excavations, some statues representing the goddess Hera were found, as well as a fragment of a jar with an inscription dedicated to her5. Wife of Zeus, she was considered the protector divinity of marriage and childbirth. Hence, by extension, also of fertility, often recalled by the representation of the pomegranate. The statue of the divinity, generally chryselephantine, was depicted wearing the polos, a cylindrical headdress and emblem of the mother goddess. Then, it is not surprising that near the rural area there was a so powerful remainder to the fertility of the land.
The Palatine Tables and the Pythagorean School
The remains of Hera temple in Metaponto, known as Palatine Tables, were also called as “Pythagorean School”. In fact, ancient historiographical sources refer that the great philosopher and mathematician moved to the Great-Greek colony after that his home in Kroton was burned down6. He moved his famous school to Metaponto. Near the temple of Hera he restarted to teach until his death (495 BC).
Porphyry, a Greek philosopher of the 232-305 AC., told that Phytagoras:
“After having taken refuge in the little temple dedicated to the Muse, stayed there for 40 days without the necessary to live. Other authors affirmed that his friends, who were in the house set on fire, threw themselves into the flames and opened an exit door to their master, forming a sort of fire bridge with their bodies. Escaped from the fire Pythagoras decided to die, for the pain of being deprived of his friends”.
Porphyry, Vita Pythagorae
Samuele Corrente Naso
Map of places
Notes
- A. Canino, Basilicata, Calabria, Touring Editore, 1980. ↩︎
- K. Uhlirz, Jahrbücher des Deutschen Reiches unter Otto II. und Otto III, Legare Street Press, 2022. ↩︎
- Bruno di Querfurt, Brunonis Vita S. Adalberti, S.205. ↩︎
- E. Lippolis, M. Liviadotti e G. Rocco, Architettura greca. Storia e monumenti del mondo della polis dalle origini al V secolo, PBM Editori, 2007. ↩︎
- E. M. De Juliis, Metaponto, Edipuglia, 2001. ↩︎
- Porphyry, Vita Pythagorae, (ΜΑΛΧΟϒ Η ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΠϒΘΑΓΟΡΟϒ ΒΙΟΣ), translation by S. Fumagalli, Mimesis Edizioni, Milano, 1996. ↩︎
