What is the origin of the name Calabria? Book by Francesco Lopez reveals etymology and territory in antiquity

What is the origin of the name Calabria? In ancient times, what territory included Calabria? A fascinating volume by Francesco Lopez, PhD in History of Science at the University of Pisa, 'The Historical Landscape of Ancient Kalabría. Balkan and Aegean Linguistic Influences', dedicated to the interdisciplinary study of the name 'Calabria/Kalabría' from its origins to the Early Middle Ages, sheds light on this issue.

Lopez's research, the first monograph dedicated to the subject, starts from the testimonies of the choronym Kalabría in chronological order, from the Hellenistic age to the early Byzantine age (3rd century BC/8th century AD). The starting point is the identification of Kalabría with Messapia, a territory corresponding to today's Salento, in a journey through the centuries up to the current region of Calabria. The history of the landscape is fundamental, allowing us to grasp a deep connection with the karst nature of the places to which the name Kalabría is associated in the sources.

"The idea of ​​reconstructing the historical-linguistic origin of the name Calabria was born operationally in 2015 following the meeting at the University of Pisa with Prof. Francesco Perono Cacciafoco (now professor of Linguistics at Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University in Suzhou, China), who was studying the Indo-European root *kar- / *kal- in the sense of 'stone dug by water' in some Ligurian toponyms - Lopez replies to Adnkronos - The concrete possibility of extending the investigation to Calabria has led to the development of a multi-year research project, now published by the international academic publisher Brill with the supervision of Prof. Carlotta Viti of the University of Lorraine in France".

What prompted you to do this research?

"The original input - he says - in addition to the curiosity, as a Calabrian, to delve deeper into the origins of the name of his region, was offered by a particular circumstance, due to the fact that I lived for about forty years in a small town in the province of Crotone, Altilia di Santa Severina, where there was an ancient monastery, first Basilian and then Cistercian, dedicated to the cult of the Madonna della Calabria or Calabromaria, today Palazzo Barracco. Having then created, together with a group of colleagues and friends, in 2006 a circle for the knowledge and dissemination of local history, the Centro Studi Cornelio Pelusio Parisio, has further fueled my curiosity".

According to the first testimonies, what areas did the territory of Calabria include and what changes over time led to the current Region?

"The name Calabria, in the Greek form Kalabría, originally indicated Salento - explains Lopez - the area of ​​Puglia between the Taranto-Brindisi line and Capo Santa Maria di Leuca, a territory also known as Messapia. Only towards the middle of the 7th century AD, when the Lombards of Benevento occupied Puglia, the name was adopted by the Byzantines to designate the current region of Calabria, previously known by the term Brutium or Terra Brutia by the Italic people of the Bruttii. More specifically, the novelty emerged at the time of the Byzantine emperor Constans II (630-668 AD). It seems significant, in this regard, that Pope Martin I, taken prisoner in Rome by the exarch Theodore Calliopa in 653 AD, in recalling the crossing from Ostia to the Greek coast, after Messina only remembered Calabria; as if, at the time, Terra dei Bruttii and Salento had begun to take on a single name".

"Certainly - he continues - at the end of the century at the third Council of Constantinople, in 680 AD, the bishops of Locri, Turio, Tauriana, Tropea and Vibona declared themselves no longer belonging to the eparchy of the Brettii but to that of Kalabría, on a par with those of Otranto and Taranto. In a definitive manner, the Byzantine historian Theophanes Isauro during the 8th century AD distinguishes the territories of Southern Italy, without hesitation, between 'Loggibardía, Kalabría and Sikelía'. Previously, for many centuries, the current region of Calabria had borne the name of Brutium, so called in the reform of the Roman provinces of Octavian Augustus (1st century AD), and then confirmed under Diocletian (3rd century AD) and Constantine (4th century AD). With reference to Salento, the Latin authors (Varro, Livy, Pliny the Vecchio, Tacitus), while distinguishing between 'land of the Calabrians' towards the north-east and 'land of the Sallentini' towards the south-west understood as names of local origin as Strabo had done (about 60 BC-24 AD), focus more on the geographical notion of Calabria, especially in relation to the coasts, equating it to the Greek concept of Messapia. Salento, as 'land of the Sallentini' does not yet appear to be perceived as a territorial unit in its own right. In the Greek context, Kalabría was Messapia, or the entire Salento Peninsula. The first testimony dates back to Rintóne, a Magna Graecia poet of the 3rd century BC, originally from Syracuse but who lived in Taranto".

Let's explain to the readers, what is a choronym?

"The term 'coronimo' designates the name of a region, from the Greek 'chora' ('region, country') and 'onoma' ('name'). In linguistics, it has a more specific meaning than the general term 'toponym' (from the Greek 'topos', 'place'). Calabria, Salento, Puglia, and so on, are in this sense properly 'coronimos'", explains the scholar.

What is the origin of the name?

"Over time, various explanations have been proposed for the choronym Calabria/Kalabría associated with Messapia, the ancient Salento. Among the most important - he underlines - elaborated by scholars of ancient history, we recall the one that considers the name of Illyrian-Balkan origin on the model of the Galabrioi tribe in Dardania; of Greek or Aegean origin, on the basis of an initial 'Poseidon Kalauros', god venerated on the island of Kalauria near Crete; from the Hellenic term 'kolabros', 'little pig', probably used by the inhabitants of Taranto in a derogatory sense to address the Messapians, their enemies. The reconstruction of linguistic scholars is separate. In this sense, the most accredited hypothesis is the one that sees in Kalabría a pre-Greek name formed by the Indo-European root *kar- / *kal- in the sense of 'stone' and the stem *bru- which generated the verb 'bryo' in Greek, 'grow, spring forth'. Kalabría would designate the country of the 'rock dwellers', with reference to the mountainous area of ​​the Murge and the Serre Salentine, and to the typical stone buildings (trulli). Re-examining the various aspects, in the recently published volume Kalabría is considered a pre-Hellenic crownonym formed by the Indo-European or pre-Indo-European root *kar- / *kal- in the more specific and better documented meaning of 'stone dug by water', and by the appellative suffix 'bria/uria' in the value of 'country, region, land'. The reference is thus directed to the karst nature of the places, and above all to the jagged coasts of the Salento Peninsula, characterized by inlets, promontories, gulfs, coves and inlets".

Are there any previous investigations or can we call this pioneering?

"The studies are characterized by numerous articles, especially from the mid-late twentieth century, but a complete monograph was missing until now - says Lopez - In this sense, the published volume appears innovative and can be defined as pioneering as for the first time it collects in synthesis and re-elaborates together historical research and linguistic investigations. Not only that, but it combines landscape history, historical-archaeological studies, philology, toponymy and comparative linguistics. It is a new proposal that overcomes from a methodological point of view the distance that often reigns between scholars of ancient history and specialists of Indo-European languages".

Which chapters remain open, susceptible to further study?

"Naturally, like any scientific investigation, the work presents itself as a 'contribution' to research, susceptible in itself to further investigation. Specifically - he highlights - the question remains open whether the origin of the name Kalabría is indigenous, linked to proto-historical Messapia, or Balkan, connected to Illyria, or of Aegean origin, attributable to the Minoan-Mycenaean context. The possible scenarios to date are equivalent".

Research summary and conclusions?

"In conclusion - he observes - the new methodological perspective, which organically combines toponymy and landscape history, allows us to identify a deep connection with the karst nature of the places to which the choronym Kalabría is associated in the sources, especially with regard to the system of natural inlets and promontories that characterize Salento. A prominent place is occupied by the possibility of projecting the choronym in the pre-Greek phase towards the Crotoniatide, with Crotone as the 'city of the gullies', a privileged port in antiquity, and the southern mouth of the Gulf of Taranto".

The book, published by the international academic publisher Brill (Leiden-Boston), in English, in the series Ancient Languages ​​and Civilizations, is funded by Beijing Normal University (China) and sponsored by the Jao Tsung-I Academy of Sinology in Hong Kong. The text is published in Open Access, downloadable for free from the website Brill.com, as well as purchasable in paperback.