SEE IT DIFFERENTLY
What to take with you
- Bronze sculpture by Tony Custureri
- Nossis, a poet of the fourth century BCE
- Twelve epigrams preserved in the Greek Anthology
Read the complete story ＋
You are standing on Locri’s seafront. What you see is not an ancient ruin, but a contemporary gesture: a bronze figure by the sculptor Tony Custureri, giving a possible face to Nossis.
Nossis lived in ancient Locri in the fourth century BCE. We know very little about her life, yet twelve epigrams preserved in the Greek Anthology still allow us to encounter her voice. These short poems hold together love, beauty, dedications and images. In an ancient world most often described through male voices, Nossis speaks in the first person and offers the perspective of an educated woman from Magna Graecia.
The monument stands in one of the most open parts of the modern town, between the road, the square and the sea. Its position matters. To begin our journey towards Locri Epizefiri, we are not asked to leave the present behind. The town meets its past here, in the everyday space of an evening walk, and places that memory in the hands of a poet.
Look at the figure, then turn towards the horizon. The sea is more than a backdrop. For the cities of Magna Graecia it was a route for contact, travel and exchange. Modern Locri bears the name of the ancient polis, but it does not imitate it. It remembers it, questions it and continues to reshape its legacy.
This is the first key to our route: a city can preserve the past through a voice. And the first voice we meet is that of Nossis.