The history of Tursi, a town in southern Italy, likely originated in the early Middle Ages with the fifth-century barbarian invasions by the Goths..
The historian Placido Troyli said the city originated from the decay of Pandosia,. François Lenormant, an Assyriologist, said it was the ancient Roman Turiostum of the Tabula Peutingeriana,. the historian Antonio Nigro said it was founded by the Goths of Odoacer towards the end of the 5th century,. and Lorenzo Giustiniani states it was founded by the Saracens in the 9th century.. The archaeologist Lorenzo Quilici also said the latter, and that Arab pressure in the Agri Valley culminated with the conquest of Grumento, Stigliano, and the founding of Castelsaraceno, around the year 872..
All of them agreed on the Gothic construction of the castle in the early 5th century and the later Saracen rule, and said the present-day Rabatana town center was the latter. In the hilly area of Murata, adjacent to the castle, many tombs, without any grave goods, covered by huge slabs, have been found, indicating the area was already inhabited prior to the construction of the castle,. and Giacomo Racioppi said that there was already an oppidum (Roman town) in the area.
The territory was inhabited from the early Iron Age by the Oenotrians to whom Pandosia attributed the founding,. and renamed by the Ionians during the Hellenic colonization of Italy..
Origin of the name Many historians have said that the toponym Tursi derives from Turcico, a man-at-arms of Byzantine origin, commander of the area, who expanded downstream the ancient Saracen village, Rabatana, giving the new area the name Toursicon, Tursikon or Tursicon,. which later, with French pronunciation under Norman rule, became first Tursico, then Tursio and finally Tursi. The toponym Turcico, comes from the Byzantine era and probably to the restoration of the city, implemented by Nikephoros Phokas the Elder after 885; the slings found near the castle confirm this reconquest., Other sources state that the name derives from Turris,. making clear reference to the original Gothic castle tower.
Giacomo Racioppi said the toponym came from the Greek tύρσìς, πύργος, tower,. referring to a summit tower, perhaps the one perpetuated by the central tower of the castle, which effectively dominated the vastness below.
Racioppi said it was probably derived from Turcia, which came from Torcia or Torsia, "embankment to hold back the winter floods.".
Racioppi said a popular etymology, says Tursi derives from Turks,Carla Marcato, Dizionario di Toponomastica, 1990, p. 672 probably in confusion with the first Arab and then Byzantine memory of Rabatana.
Mario Cosmai, among other etymological proposals, said it was a possible derivative of Turseni or Tirreni..
Giovanni Alessio also said it might come from Turcius..
According to the French Assyriologist François Lenormant, the name is from the Latin Turiostum.
In 1154, the Arab geographer Muhammad al-Idrisi during the making of the Tabula Rogeriana on behalf of Roger II of Sicily, in his Kitab nuzhat al-mushtaq fi'khtiraq al-'afaq, known as the book of King Roger, called the city by the toponym of Tursah..
The first documented mention is from 968, when the city is called "Turcico" and "Tower of Turcico," in the Relatio de legatione Constantinopolitana of Bishop Liutprand of Cremona.Liutprand, bishop of Cremona, Relatio de legatione Constantinopolitana. Later, in the Norman era, the name “Turcico” changed first to “Tursico” and then to “Tursio,” and in the papal bull drafted by Pope Alexander II in 1068 the town is called "Tower of Tursio,". until it later attained its later babe "Tursi."
The Iron Age
Archaeological excavations carried out in the municipal territory, more precisely, around Anglona and nearby Policoro, have unearthed countless items currently housed in the National Archaeological Museum of the Siritide, ascertaining the existence of settlements dating back to the early Iron Age. As of the 15th century B.C., the inhabitants of these areas were called Oenotrians, but in particular, the inhabitants settled around the Agri and Sinni rivers were called Coni or Choni.
Later, around the 8th century BC, several colonies were founded on the Ionian coast by Greeks from Ionia, including Siris, Heraclea, Metaponto and Pandosia. Siris is believed to have been founded in the early seventh century B.C. by the peoples of Epirus, destroyed by Metaponto, Sibari and Crotone in the sixth century B.C., and from its ruins rose Heraclea between 443 B.C. and 430 B.C. In the ninth century the city is mentioned under the name Polychorium, and in 1126 in a deed of gift to the monastery of Carbone, the present name Policoro appears.
Pandosia, which bordered Heraclea, is considered the oldest city in the Siritide, in fact, Antonini. basing himself on passages from the Genealogy of Pherecydes of Athens and passages from the Ancient History of Rome by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, speculates that Pandosia was founded by Oenotrus, one of the 23 sons of Lycaon, many centuries before Rome, and that he ruled over the whole eastern part of Lucania. It was very rich and important because of the fertile soil and strategic location. The two large Lucanian rivers, the Agri and the Sinni, which were navigable at that time, and the ancient Via Herculea, which ran from Heraclea up the Agri valley for more than 60 km to the Roman city of Grumentum, facilitated communications and thus favored a rapid expansion of the city.. Romanelli, relying on findings from the Heraclean Tablets and Pliny the Elder's Naturalis Historia,: «et Pandosiam Lucanorum urbem fuisse Theopompus, in qua Alexander Epirotes occubuerit». asserts that the Pandosia of Lucania is the place where Alexander Molossus, king of Epirus and maternal uncle of Alexander the Great, lost his life in 330 B.C. in a battle against the Lucanians.. In 281 B.C. it was a battlefield between the Romans and Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, who ran to the aid of the Tarentines and camped between Heraclea and Pandosia. This battle went down in history mainly because of the use of war elephants, still unknown to the soldiers of the Roman Republic. It was thanks to this unit that Pyrrhus won the battle of Heraclea, however, taking a very high number of casualties, and it was from this circumstance that the expression “Pyrrhic victory” was born. In 214 B.C. it was the scene of yet another battle in the course of the Second Punic War between the Romans and Hannibal, king of the Carthaginians, to gain dominance over the Mediterranean.
Pandosia was destroyed between 81 B.C. and 72 B.C. during the Social Wars led by the Roman general Lucius Cornelius Sulla. From the ruins of Pandosia arose, shortly before the Christian era, Anglona (Anglonum)..
The Middle Ages
In 410 the Visigoths of Alaric I sacked and half-destroyed Anglona. To control the surrounding territory they built a castle on a hill halfway between the Agri and Sinni rivers. The surviving inhabitants of the town of Anglona took refuge around the castle, giving rise to Rabatana, Tursi's first populated village..
In the ninth century, around 826 to be precise, at the height of the Islamic campaign, there were numerous violent Arab raids throughout southern Italy. Their armies from North Africa were predominantly of Saracen origin. Initially these raids were intended to plunder villages and take prisoners to be used as slaves in the centers of the Islamic empire. Later, having overcome the initial religious and cultural differences with the native populations, the invaders around 850 conquered much of the Metapontine plain and decided to quarter themselves in dominant and strategic areas, to better control trade within the territory. Since they were expert dry-crop farmers and skilled artisans, the Saracens quickly managed to weave peaceful relationships with the local inhabitants. The flourishing exchange made possible the development of small military garrisons (ribāṭ) into full-fledged residential quarters called rabatane, the most important of which still include those of Tursi, Tricarico and Pietrapertosa. In later years, the Saracens inhabited the village, enlarged it and they were the ones who gave it its name, in memory of their Arab village Rabhàdi. The Saracen influence is still present today in the buildings, customs, food and dialect of Rabatana..
In 890 the Byzantines reconquered the territories that once belonged to the Western Roman Empire and succeeded, during the Arab-Byzantine wars, in finally driving out the Arab influence from the Lucanian lands as well. During the years of Byzantine rule, the center experienced both demographic and building development, and the village began to extend toward the valley below. The entire center took the name Toursikon, after its founder Turcico.
Toward the end of the 10th century, Emperor Basil I first formed the theme of Longobardia and the theme of Calabria and later, in 968 the theme of Lucania with Toursikon as its capital,. thus completing the Hellenization plan of the Catepanate church. In fact, in his Relatio de legatione Constantinopolitana, written in the same year, Liutprand of Cremona reports that at that time Patriarch Polyeuctus of Constantinople received from Emperor Nikephoros Phokas the authorization to erect the metropolitan see of Otranto, giving Metropolitan Peter the authority to consecrate the suffragan bishops of Acerenza, Tursi, Gravina, Matera and Tricarico. It is unclear, however, whether these provisions had any real effect, since the Notitiae Episcopatuum of the patriarchate of Constantinople mentions only one suffragan see of Otranto, namely the one of Tursi,. while the other dioceses mentioned by Liutprand likely continued to gravitate to the area of Latin influence...
Tursi thus became the seat of the Greek-rite diocese with an episcopal chair at the church of St. Michael the Archangel where the synod of bishops was held in 1060.. The first known bishop of Tursi is the Greek Michael, documented in a testamentary act of 1050...
Later, towards the end of the year 1000, a large migration of Normans, in the guise of pilgrims heading to holy places of Christianity and in the guise of mercenaries ready to fight for a piece of land, arrived in southern Italy.. They easily inserted themselves into the internal struggles between the Lombards and Byzantines, soon gaining land and benefits. The Normans contributed greatly to the city's growth, just as the Swabians did first and then the Angevins.
Tursi, seat of the diocese
In 968 the bishopric was established in Tursi (Tursiensis), and until the early 12th century the diocese adopted the Byzantine rite. The first known bishop of Tursi is the Greek Michael, documented in a testamentary act of 1050. With the second half of the 11th century, concurrently with the passage of the territory into Norman hands, the diocese was included in the Latin ecclesiastical organization. In the bull granted by Pope Alexander II in 1068 to Arnaldo of Acerenza, Tursi is listed among the suffragans of the new metropolitan see of Acerenza..
Between the 11th and 12th centuries, in the context of a reconsolidation of ecclesiastical arrangements in the region,.. the bishopric was transferred to Anglona, a few kilometers from Tursi. The first known bishop with the title Anglonensis is Peter, mentioned in a diploma of 1110...