Magna Graecia

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Magna Graecia around 280 BC

Magna Græcia (Latin for "Greater Greece", Greek: Μεγάλη Ἑλλάς, Megálē Hellás) is the name of the coastal areas of Southern Italy on the Tarentine Gulf that was extensively colonized by Greek settlers, especially the Achaean colonies of Tatentium, Crotone and Sybaris but also, more loosely, the cities of Cumae and Neopolis to the north^[1]. The colonists who started arriving in the eighth century BC brought with them their Hellenic civilization, which was to leave a lasting imprint in Italy and particularly on the culture of ancient Rome.

History

Antiquity

In the eighth and seventh centuries BC, for various reasons, including demographic crisis (famine, overcrowding, etc.), the search for new commercial outlets and ports, and expulsion from their homeland, Greeks began to settle in southern Italy (Cerchiai, pp. 14-18). Also during this period, Greek colonies were established in places as widely separated as the eastern coast of the Black Sea and Massalia (Marseille). They included settlements in Sicily and the southern part of the Italian peninsula. The Romans called the area of Sicily and the foot of the boot of Italy Magna Graecia (Latin, “Great Greece”), since it was so densely inhabited by the Greeks. The ancient geographers differed on whether the term included Sicily or merely Apulia and Calabria — Strabo being the most prominent advocate of the wider definitions.

With this colonization, Greek culture was exported to Italy, in its dialects of the Ancient Greek language, its religious rites and its traditions of the independent polis. An original Hellenic civilization soon developed, later interacting with the native Italic and Latin civilisations. The most important cultural transplant was the Chalcidean/Cumaean variety of the Greek alphabet, which was adopted by the Etruscans; the Old Italic alphabet subsequently evolved into the Latin alphabet, which became the most widely used alphabet in the world.

Many of the new Hellenic cities became very rich and powerful, like Capua, Neapolis (Νεάπολις, Naples), Syracuse, Acragas, Sybaris, (Σύβαρις). Other cities in Magna Graecia included Tarentum (Τάρας), Epizephyrian Locris (Λοκροί Ἐπιζεφύριοι), Rhegium (Ῥήγιον), Croton (Κρότων), Thurii (Θούριοι), Elea (Ἐλέα), Nola (Νῶλα), Ancona (Ἀγκών), Syessa (Σύεσσα), Bari (Βάριον) and others.

Following the Pyrrhic War, Magna Graecia was absorbed into the Roman Republic.

Temple of Hera in Metaponto, Matera, Italy

The Middle Ages

During the Early Middle Ages, following the disastrous Gothic War, new waves of Byzantine Christian Greeks came to Magna Graecia from Greece and Asia Minor, as Southern Italy remained loosely governed by the Eastern Roman Empire. The iconoclast emperor Leo III appropriated lands that had been granted to the Papacy in southern Italy^[2] and the Eastern Emperor loosely governed the area until the advent of the Lombards then, in the form of the Catapanate of Italy, superseded by the Normans. Moreover the Byzantines would have found in Southern Italy people of common cultural root, the Greek-speaking eredi ellenofoni of Magna Graecia.

Although most of the Greek inhabitants of Southern Italy became entirely Italianized (as Paestum had already been in the 4th century BC) and no longer spoke Greek, remarkably a small Griko-speaking minority still exists today in Calabria and mostly in Salento. Griko is the name of a language combining ancient Doric, Byzantine Greek, and Italian elements, spoken by people in the Magna Graecia region. There is rich oral tradition and Griko folklore, limited now, though once numerous, to only a few thousand people, most of them having become absorbed into the surrounding Italian element. Records of Magna Graecia being predominantly Greek-speaking, date as late as the eleventh century (the end of Byzantine domination in Southern Italy).

Modern Italy

Today a small minority of around 30,000 speakers of Griko live in the Italian regions of Calabria and Apulia. Though modern Griko is closely related to the koine, or common Greek, which had spread throughout the Mediterranean in Hellenistic times, it is said to maintain some elements of Doric Greek, and some believe its origin may ultimately be traced to the colonies of Magna Graecia.

Citations

"...since the land of Italy was Greater Greece."
Ovid - Fasti, IV

See also

• Greeks in Italy
• Names of the Greeks
• Griko language

Notes

References

• Luca Cerchiai, Lorena Jannelli, Fausto Longo, Lorena Janelli, 2004. The Greek Cities of Magna Graecia and Sicily (Getty Trust) ISBN 0-89236-751-2
• T. J. Dunbabin, 1948. The Western Greeks
• A. G. Woodhead, 1962. The Greeks in the West

External links

• Map
• Italy rediscovers Greek heritage
• Rindinedda, traditional Griko song