Rhegion

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The ancient city of Rhegion (Latin Rhegium) (nowadays: Reggio Calabria) was one of the Magna Graecia colonies founded by Chalcidians in 730 BC.

Thucydides wrote that before to found Rhegion, there was a consulting to the Delphi oracle, and then the Messenians, coming from Messene in the Peloponnesos participate to the foundation by order of Apollo and Artemis.

The legend of fundation says that the settlers built their new city "where a female and a male will hugs together"; then in this place, near the "Punta Calamizzi" promontory, they found a corious scene: a grape plant clutched to a ficus tree. The settlers thought that this was the right place to estabilish their new colony and called it "Rhegion", the oldest city in Calabria.

The city's contemporary name is Reggio Calabria.

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