Elea

Elea (Velia by the Romans; see also List of traditional Greek place names) was a Greek coastal city founded around 540 BC in Lucania in southern Italy, 15 miles southeast of the Gulf of Salerno. It is best known as the home of the philosophers Parmenides and Zeno of Elea, as well as the Eleatic school of which they were a part.

History

Image:Velia2.jpg Elea was founded by Phocaean Greeks fleeing the Persian invasion of Ionia on the western coast of present-day Turkey. It, together with the rest of the Greek colonies in southern coastal Italy, formed the so-called Magna Graecia, the Greek expansion into southern Italy, which began in the 8th century BC. It remained independent longer than many Greek cities in Italy, finally becoming an ally of Rome around 273 BC, and, as a result of the Social War or Italian War, it gained the Roman franchise as a citizen municipium in 90-89 BC. It was abandoned in the middle ages and today it is the site of extensive ruins situated inside the Cilento National Park.de:Elea eo:Novi Velia fr:Élée it:Novi Velia nl:Elea ja:ノーヴィ・ヴェリア nap:Novi Velia no:Elaia pl:Novi Velia pt:Novi Velia fi:Elea