The city stood 1 km south of the river Metauros (probably Petrace) on the north-western Tyrrhenian coast and in ancient Greek times marked the border of Rhegion (Reggio Calabria) territory facing that of Locri.

[4] The first settlement was almost completely erased by the subsequent layout in the 2nd century BC when a new city was built on the old walls and with a rectangular street grid delimiting insulae.

Research conducted since the mid-1990s has exposed a town dating between the second half of the 4th and the 1st century BC with road axes, houses, drainage channels, dolia for foodstuffs.

The buildings discovered include: The orientation of the house from the 2nd to the 1st century BC is completely out of line with the rest of the town for which there would have been strongly symbolic reason, as the home of a public figure.

Further elements set this building, on the edge of the terrace, apart such as large ashlars which gave it an imposing appearance and the wealth of stucco decoration, the painted plaster, the floor mosaics and the particularly fine ornaments.

The construction of this building on the western edge of the Tauriana plateau, unique in the architectural and religious context of ancient Calabria, was particularly significant of the new Roman phase.

Its construction involved a modification of the previous Brettian settlement as demonstrated, among other things, by the obliteration of the quadrangular canal with the stamps, brought to light a couple of metres west of the temple.