As a traditional outpost of the Greek colony of Crotone (Kroton), the territory of Cirò held a preminent role in terms of the dynamics of the settling of this region between the Greek colonies of Sibari (Sybaris) and Crotone which had been the scene of articulated settlement phenomena since the protohistoric age. Evidence of a human presence dating from the late Bronze Age has been identified on the foot hills overlooking the coastal plain (Motta, Oliveto, Taverna). The passage into the subsequent Iron Age is testified to in the organisation of settlements on larger sites which were far from the coast and in naturally defensive positions (hill of St. Elia). To this context can be linked the findings made in the necropolis at Cozzo del Santarello near Cirò Superiore which have been interpreted as possible indications of the wine production which is well documented by other contemporary Calabrian settlements (Francavilla Marittima, Castiglione di Paludi). It does not seem that this populating of the area was interrupted in the colonial period; the history of Krimisa,  a town in Enotria (Licophron, Stephanos Bizantios), situated on the river of the same name, traditionally identified as the Lipuda stream, near Crotone, is interwoven in these parts with the stories of Thessalian hero Philoctetes, the legendary instigator of the colonisation of the territory north of Crotone and founder of the sanctuary  of Apollo Aleo which lies on the promontory of Punto Alice and is thought to have been the site of ancient Krimisa, founded by the very same hero.
  The findings made at Cozzo Leone and on the hill of St. Elia in Cirò Superiore, along the slope down towards the sports field, have been attributed to this period. The hill of Cozzo Leone is the origin of the oldest finds in the votive deposits of the little sanctuary, identified by Orsi (1914 – 1915). Greek materials, either imported or of local or colonial production (VII-VI centuries B.C.) are characteristic of the burial treasure which has been brought to light in the area of the sports field, the site of an Iron Age necropolis. Systematic research along the southern slope of St. Elia hill, in Contrada Sanguigna, on the part of the Soprintendenza Archeologica della Calabria (1985), revealed a series of structures (a rectangular space with a probable elevation in unfired bricks on stone plinths) thought to be an integral part of a small dwelling as a consequence of the considerable quantity of cooking ceramics and containers for foodstuffs (VII –VI centuries B.C.). The presence of votive objects suggested that a place of worship had stood beside the dwelling, which was built in a comanding position on the strip of land between the Santa Venere and the Lipuda river basins. A deposit of votive ceramics, imported or of colonial production, found at Taverna, South-West of Cirò Marina, can be placed in the same chronological context and indicates an ancient pathway to Crotone. This deposit includes Corinthian alabastra, coppa a filetti, a krater with a Corinthian-influenced, zoomorphic decoration, and miniature vessels and has been dated from between the middle of the VII and the beginning of the VI centuries B.C. (J. De La Genière).

Information about the history of the territory from the IV century B.C. on is both lacking and uncertain. The partial depopulation of the settlements on the hills of Cirò Superiore correspond with an increase in the population density of the coastal plain and this is particularly clear from the remains of dwellings and furnaces found at Ceramidio, Castello Sabatini and Taverna (IV – III centuries B.C.) and connected to the settlements of the Bretti people, whose hierarchy would seem to be reflected in the burial contexts discovered at nearby Contrada Capella and Contrada Franza (figs.1-4).  

Figure 1. Cirò, Contrada Catena. Disegno ricostruttivo del corredo della tomba 2 (IV-III sec. a.C.)

Figure 2. Cirò, Contrada Catena. Tomba 2 in fase di scavo; in primo piano scheletro di bambino con corredo

Figure 3. Cirò, Contrada Catena. Oggetti in piombo dal corredo della tomba 2 (morsi di cavalli, varga frammentaria, alare)

                                                a                                                                        b

Figure 4. a-b Cirò Marina. Contrada Taverna. Tomba 2

The burial equipment, to accompany the deceased on his journey into the next world, recovered from a burial vault at Contrada Franza is particularly significant. It consists of an entire banquet service in lead (skewers, andirons and kottabos) and a great bronze belt indicating the high social status of the deceased. From the same sector comes some female burial equipment made up of, amongst other things, elements relating to a crown with leaves and bunches of grapes, in wood, decorated bronze and gilded terracotta, which has significant parallels in other contemporary types found at Taranto and in Macedonia (late IV – early III centuries B.C.). The burial context identified to the North-East of Castello Sabatini, on the hill looking over the coastal plain, has produced a great quantity of female tomb equipment characterised by fibulae, containers for cosmetics and symposium objects in lead, drinking vessels and metallic objects (bronze belts, iron or bronze cleaning combs and horse bits). An indication of the Britti world’s prosperity is chamber tomb in Contrada Olivetto, planned for an emergent personage of Italic extraction. The famous horse tomb in Contrada Sabatini and the deposits of little terracotta horses and riders in Contrada Carosello would seem, moreover, to indicate high knightly standing in the Bretti social structure.

THE SANCTUARY OF APOLLO ALEO AT PUNTA ALICE

The cult of Apollo Aleos, which originated in the city of Patara in Asia Minor, is born witness to by the sanctuary at Punto Alice which, tradition has it, was founded the Thessalian hero Philoctetes.
Critical observations with regards Paolo Orsi’s initial reports on his archaeological dig in 1924 induced D. Mertens tocarry out a systematic investigation of the entire building in collaboration with the Soprintendenza Archeologica della Calabria (1977). Whereas Orsi had interpreted the ruins as the remains of a single contemporary temple, judging from the continuity of the structures, the data which emerged from the careful investigation indicated a late-archaic (late VI century B.C.) phase with a narrow, elongated layout, an open-fronted cell and a wooden pedament. The elongated cell (27 x 7.90 m) was set on a plinth of calcareous river stone with an elevation in unfired bricks. The naos, lacking in a pronaos, was divided into two aisles by a central column. Amongst the architectural elements which are pertinent to the older part of the complex, a series of architectonic terracotta tiles making up part of the facing to the wooden trabeation and the geison. The complete façade of the building and the demolition of the foundations to the archaic temple’s lateral pedament are attributed to the Hellenistic age (first quarter of the III century B.C.). Some inscriptions in Oscan and a series of Italic antefixes of pan’s head from the area of the sanctuary, similar in their style to other finds from the Bretti centre of Castiglione di Paludi, suggest that there was, in the area of the sanctuary, a marked Bretti presence, perhaps bringing about the building renewal of the III century B.C. (Mertens).
At that time the stone structure was absorbed into the new construction which kept the primitive cell, with the addition of a rich colonnade in stone (8x19). Along the short sides, the space between the cell and the front of the pediment was occupied by another colonnade following a archaic-style, planimetric arrangement formed of distinctive, Doric-based elements (fig.5)

Figure 5. Cirò. Santuario di Punta Alice. Proposta ricostruttiva del tempio di Apollo Aleo: prospetto e pianta 

Some architectonic fragments (geison, Doric capitals, column segments, fragments of architrave) of the “stone” phase are now conserved in the museums of Crotone and Reggio Calabria.
The old structure was dismantled with great care, whilst much of the previous sacred equipment, covered with two layers of earth and stone chippings, was buried inside the adyton. It was here that precious votive objects were uncovered including the marble head, fragmented left hand and the feet of an acrolith (figs. 6), a fine example of a rare religious image of Apollo playing a lyre (440-430 B.C.).

Figure 6. Cirò Marina. Santuario di Punta Alice: cella del Tempio di Apollo. Piedi in marmo greco dell'acrolito

The investigation, which began in the mid nineteen-eighties (J. De la Géniere), involved the systematic exploration of the area lying between the west side and the south-west corner and confirmed traces of the presence of man over the period from the VII-VI to the III centuries B.C.. It was this site which produced a highly interesting set of finds, which is now to be found at the Cirò civic Antiquarium, including a statuette with a polos in terracotta from the first half of the VI century B.C., a small, archaic, male head from the first half of the VI century B.C. and a series of votive objects in bronze. The oldest material recovered (a group of bronzes produced in Magna Graecia, a gold-laminated statuette with a patera (fig. 7a) and an inscription on a fragment of marble tile) is an example of the existence of the cult of Apollo (fig.7b). 

Figure 7. Cirò Marina. Santuario di Apollo Aleo: a) Statuetta maschile in oro raffigurante Apollo (metà del IV sec. a.C.) conservata presso il Museo Nazionale di Reggio Calabria; b) Tempio di Apollo (scavo Orsi 1924). Parrucca di statua in bronzo (secondo quarto del V sec. a.C.) conservata presso il Museo Nazionale di Reggio Calabria

However, what remains uncertain is the origin of epiclesis of this god who was traditionally venerated as Alaios or Halios (protector of good navigation and god of the sea), even though a bronze laurel branch at the Museum of Crotone recalls some aspects of the cult of Apollo Katharsios and the saga of the sanctuary’s founder, Philoctetes, and suggests a connection with a redeeming cult.