The Gulf of Squillace is a body of water, an inlet of the Ionian Sea

Ionian Sea

The Ionian Sea , is an arm of the Mediterranean Sea, south of the Adriatic Sea. It is bounded by southern Italy including Calabria, Sicily and the Salento peninsula to the west, southern Albania to the north, and a large number of Greek islands, including Corfu, Zante, Kephalonia, Ithaka, and...

 along the Calabria

Calabria

Calabria , in antiquity known as Bruttium, is a region in southern Italy, south of Naples, located at the "toe" of the Italian Peninsula. The capital city of Calabria is Catanzaro....

n coast of Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

.

The gulf, renowned for its natural beauty, is part of the Ionian Sea and makes up part of the east coast of the region of Calabria. It takes its present-day name from the coastal town of Squillace

Squillace

Squillace is an ancient seaside town and comune, in the Province of Catanzaro, part of Calabria, southern Italy, facing the Gulf of Squillace....

.

Ancient history

Anciently known as Scylleticus Sinus, from the ancient coastal city of Scylletium

Scylletium

Scylletium was an ancient seaside city in Calabria, southern Italy. Its ruins can be found at the frazione of Roccelletta, in the comune of Borgia, near Catanzaro, facing the Gulf of Squillace.-History:...

, which Strabo

Strabo

Strabo, also written Strabon was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus , a city which he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea...

 mentions is situated on the east coast of Bruttium (modern Calabria), situated on the shores of an extensive bay, to which it gave the name of Scylleticus Sinus. It is this bay, still known as the Gulf of Squillace, which indents the coast of Calabria on the east as deeply as that of Hipponium or Terina (the Gulf of Saint Eufemia, Italian: Golfo di Sant'Eufemia) does on the west, so that they leave but a comparatively narrow isthmus between them.

The Scylleticus Sinus, or Gulf of Squillace, was always regarded as dangerous to mariners; hence Virgil

Virgil

Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...

 calls it navifragum Scylaceum. There is no natural port throughout its whole extent, and into the 19th century, it still bore an evil reputation for shipwrecks. The name is found in Aristotle

Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...

 as well as Antiochus of Syracuse

Antiochus of Syracuse

Antiochus of Syracuse was a Greek historian, who flourished around 420 BC. Little is known of his life, but his works, of which only fragments remain, enjoyed a high reputation because of their accuracy...

, but would seem to have been unknown to Thucydides

Thucydides

Thucydides was a Greek historian and author from Alimos. His History of the Peloponnesian War recounts the 5th century BC war between Sparta and Athens to the year 411 BC...

; at least it is difficult to explain otherwise the peculiar manner in which he speaks of the Terinaean gulf, while relating the voyage of Gylippus along the east coast of Bruttium.