S.Eufemia Vecchia (old Saint Euphemia) is a small village that has been abandoned for over a century because of malaria. It rises from an elevated portion of the the land, and its actual appearance may be said to be of the 1600s. In the old uninhabited houses I noticed large dressed stones that must have been taken from Greek buildings. In front of the small church there are four ancient granite columns, which may have come from the Norman abbey of the same name. The baptismal stand is a small marble sarcophagus (1.29 X 0.36 meters). In the main view, one sees a boy holding up two friezes decorated with leafs and branches and bearing two masks of sad Medusas, and in the corners there are small victories on a globe, dating from the imperial era around the 3rd century. On the northern slope of the hill I noticed a lot of ancient crockery. Was this the acropolis of Terina, on this little hill, which is the only one that comes up from the level plain? The land to the south still bears the name Terravecchia (old land), an indicator of an ancient dwelling-place. It was precisely here, in a deep furrow cut into the ground by a rivulet, that in 1865 a famous treasure was discovered, called for no valid reason the treasure of Agatocles because of the presence of many haloed heads of that prince, most of which ended up being melted down. It is said that there was a gold scaled armor and a lot of jewels, a portion of which went to the British Museum.

The Benedictine Abbey of S. Eufemia is not far removed from the small village of the same name. Founded in 1062, it collapsed for good in 1638; Lenormant (Gr. Grece III, p.97) says it was swallowed up by the sea, but which today it is a kilometer and a half away and consists of imposing ruins that I have visited on repeated occasions and which merit further study. Unfortunately, for almost three centuries these ruins have been exploited as a source of stone, bricks, tiles, and above all marble with which the abbey was well endowed. The abbey even had a fortified enclosure with towers. Those who built the railway line from Catanzaro to S. Eufemia savagely denuded the ruins and dealt the last blow to these glorious remains. One fact that for us is of exceptional importance in terms of the purpose of our research is that the founding charter of the abbey says it was erected on the site of an ancient town whose name was lost, but which could be nothing else than Terina.

Remains of the Benedictine Abbey of S. Eufemia