- chapter 40: Seafaring –
decreed the establishment of a colony, never realized, in the middle or upper Adriatic, to
ensure the φυλακής επί τυρρηνοῖς (“guard-post against the Tyrrhenians”: IG 2, 2, 1629),
or instead Syracuse, which in 384 bc promoted a strong expedition of 60 triremes and 40
transport ships, personally led by the same Dionysius, into the north-central Tyrrhenian
Sea against Etruscan pirates, during which he attacked and looted the port of Pyrgi and
its sanctuary (ps.Aristot. Oec. 2, p. 1349 b; Diod. 15.14.3; Strabo 5.2.8 C 226; Aelian.
1.20; Polyaen. 5.2.21; see Chapter 30).
The phenomenon of Etruscan piracy during the second half of the century had reached a
signifi cant size and was not limited to the Adriatic district, if indeed it was the Tyrrhenian
where the Campanian region was with the base of Postumius who overran the sea with
at least 12 ships and in 339 bc appeared in the harbor of Syracuse to offer his services to
Timoleon (Diod. 16.82). Equally, the Etruscans of the Tyrrhenian region of southern Etruria,
or the group from Campania, must be those pirates who, along with the Antiati (men from
Antium/Anzio), were raiding in Magna Graecia and against whom the fi rst Alexander, in
334 bc, and then, near the end of the fourth century bc, Demetrius Poliorcetes, invited
Rome to take action (Memnon, FGrHist 434 F 18; Strabo 5.3.5 C 232).
If the famous Etruscan helmet dedicated by Hieron at Olympia for the victory in
the waters off Cumae (474 bc), now in the British Museum (see Fig. 39.11), together
with the other helmet of the Archaeological Museum at Olympia (Fig. 40.1), is an
exceptional testimony on the level of monumental evidence, of an episode of Etruscan
history on the sea, to which may be added the case of the two helmets from the years
around the middle of the fi fth century bc, one found at Populonia in the waters of the
Gulf of Baratti, the other in the area in front of the necropolis of Buche delle Fate, which
then may be suggestive when connected with the events caused by the two Tyrrhenian
expeditions of Syracuse in 453 bc, led by Phayllos and Apelles, although a helmet of
the same type was recovered from the seabed to the east of the center of Agde, in the
Gulf of Lyons, also witnessing a maritime circulation of this type of military equipment,
still, archaeological evidence for piracy remains scarce. Inasmuch as the interpretative
possibilities are necessarily ambiguous, mute testimony of pirate action seems to be the
wreck of the ship found in the waters off the island of Spargi in the archipelago of La
Maddalena, in north-western Sardinian waters, the remains of which show traces of a
Figure 40.1 Helmet from Olympia. Olympia, Archaeological Museum, inv. M9.