I doni di Poseidon. Taranto e le risorse dei suoi mari

The ancient maritime traditions and the marine biodiversity characterising Taranto have produced over time an incredible variety of traditional fishing techniques. Aristotle, in a well-known passage of the fourth book of Politics, mentions the demos of Taranto, characterized by a large number of people employed in fishing activities. The production of salt was an essential resource for the city already in Classical times. It was related both with the salting and conservation of fish and with related activities, such as the manufacture of high quality and renowned wool. Literary and archaeological evidence characterizes Taranto as one of the main manufacturing centers of purple, which was extracted from murices. A particular and little-known manufacturing process was that of the filaments used by the pinna nobilis to fix itself to the seabed. Byssus, or sea-silk, was obtained from them. Sometimes the sources refer to other sea ‘products’, in particular to the oysters. Pliny attests that they were much appreciated and cultivated in the Mar Piccolo. Fishing was a major source of income and work and strongly shaped the city’ s identity throughout Antiquity. In addition to direct fishing, an essential feature of the ‘harvest of the sea’ was intensive fish farming, carried out mainly in the fishponds of the Mar Piccolo.