Moio della Civitella

On the top of the hill above the town there are the remains of Greek walls. It was a phrourion, a fortified outpost of Elea: the city on the sea, whose vocation stayed maritime and commercial, had very little land to cultivate, and it put a garrison up here facing inland to protect that little from the Lucanians. The ring wall was built between the fifth and the fourth century before Christ, of large blocks regularly squared and laid in pseudo-isodomic courses, that is in rows of differing height but well aligned: it survives for almost the whole of a perimeter of about eight hundred metres. On the southern side, which dominates the mountain passes, there is a gate of the fourth century, particularly well defended and finished; on the eastern side the walls become thick and imposing. Inside one can make out the remains of houses and perhaps of a sacred area, and a medieval chapel that the rebuildings of the last century have entirely transformed.

In the Middle Ages Moio was probably a casale of Vallo della Lucania; in the eighteenth century it belonged to the Pepe, with the title of barony. After the annexation to the Kingdom of Italy the town stopped being called simply Moio — there were too many similar place names — and took the name of the ruin it has on its hill: Moio della Civitella. Between 1928 and 1945 it lost even that, because the comune was merged into Vallo della Lucania, and it took itself back after the war. Today the country is planted with vines, olives and cereals, with chestnut woods and wide pastures for cattle, sheep and pigs; and on the first weekend of August the old centre fills with acrobats, jugglers, musicians and clowns for a festival of street artists.