Editing Crotone (section)

===Urban excavations===

Urban excavations between from 1975 have considerably expanded knowledge of the history of the settlement. As on all sites where modern cities are built over ancient towns, archaeological research is limited. The data seems to confirm the contemporary occupation of the whole walled area by reasonably close nuclei, between the hill of the Castle and that of the Battery, and northwards beyond the river Esaro, in an area still unoccupied by the modern town. The urban layout has emerged with a sequence of superimpositions throughout the life of the colony, datable between the end of the 7th and start of the 6th century BC. Three large urban blocks have been identified,  organised with an orthogonal network of narrow streets (stenopoi) and streets between individual houses (ambitus). Numerous houses, both of residential nature and mixed house-artisan workshops, have been excavated, as have furnaces and shops specialising in pottery products, areas of necropolis of Hellenistic date. The construction techniques were functional and economical, generally using roughly cut stone, typical of the archaic age. To prevent the deterioration of the lower part of the walls due to rain water, stone footings were additionally protected by tiles or pieces of pithoi (large pottery vessels). 

Prior to the construction of a new school in Acquabona di Crotone an excavation over a larger area has recently been possible. Two [[stenopoi]] about 5 m wide run across it on an alignment of + 30° E.<ref>{{Cite web |title=FASTI - Record View Page: AIAC_2940 |url=https://fastionline-org.translate.goog/excavation/micro_view.php?fst_cd=AIAC_2940&curcol=sea_cd-AIAC_4374&_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-GB |access-date=2024-03-13 |website=fastionline-org.translate.goog}}</ref>

The discovery of a building in 2010 dating to the Republican age in Via Discesa Fosso indicated the possibility of locating of the Roman colony in the acropolis. The building had painted plaster in Pompeian style with tiled and marble floors.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Celsi |first=Giuseppe |date=2022-03-27 |title=La colonia romana di Croto e la statio di Lacenium |url=https://www.gruppoarcheologicokr.it/la-colonia-romana-di-croto/ |access-date=2024-03-13 |website=Gruppo Archeologico Krotoniate (GAK) |language=it-IT}}</ref>

An important ''domus'' found in Discesa Fosso includes baths and indicates a Roman-era "neighbourhood" which may have been distinguished from the rest of the Roman town by its secluded position of absolute prestige.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2020-03-18 |title=Margherita Corrado - Memorie e realtà di una Crotone ipogea (2013) |url=https://www.gruppoarcheologicokr.it/biblioteca/margherita-corrado-memorie-e-realta-di-una-crotone-ipogea-2013/ |access-date=2024-03-13 |website=Gruppo Archeologico Krotoniate (GAK) |language=it-IT}}</ref> It seems that it also had a small service port for the domus,<ref>Marino D., Corrado M., Ruga A., Crotone, via Discesa Fosso. 2009, in Arch. Med., XXXVI, 2009a, p. 173</ref> perhaps a breakwater built to protect the port from which the Krotonian aristocrats during the second Punic war, having descended from the upper part of the city, embarked for Locri.<ref>Livy: Ab Urbe Condita XXIV, 3, 15</ref> Perhaps it is the Krotonian port mentioned by Cicero that determined the location of the colony as overlapping with the Greek polis.<ref>Cicero, Att., IX, 19,3</ref>