![]() ![]() ![]() 4.64) but the common form of expression was certainly Graecia Magna (Cic. Mull.), and employed by Justin and Ovid (Justin, l.c. The same author in one passage (31.7) uses the phrase “Graecia Major,” which is found also in Festus (p. It must be added that the name was never understood (except perhaps by late geographers) as a territorial one, including the whole of Southern Italy, but applied merely to the Greek cities on the coasts, so as to correspond with the expression “Graecorum omnis ora,” employed by Livy ( 22.61). Indeed, the name itself sufficiently implies (what is expressly stated by many ancient writers) that it was derived from the number and importance of the Greek colonies in Southern Italy, and must, therefore, naturally have been extended to them all. 3.1.10) but it is probable that this distinction was introduced only by the later geographers, and did not correspond to the original meaning of the term. Sometimes, indeed, the name is confined within still narrower limits, as applying only to the cities on the Tarentine gulf, from Locri to Tarentum ( Plin. Strabo seems to imply that the Greek cities of Sicily were included under the appellation but this is certainly opposed to the more general usage, which confined the term to the colonies in Italy Even of these, it is not clear whether Cumae and its colonies in Campania were regarded as belonging to it: it is certain at least that the name is more generally used with reference only to the Greek cities in the south of Italy, including those on the shores of the Tarentine gulf and the Bruttian peninsula, together with Velia, Posidonia, and Laüs, on the W. Nor is the use of the term, even at a later period, very fixed or definite. It is perhaps still more significant, that the name is not found in Scylax, though that author attaches particular importance to the enumeration of the Greek cities in Italy as distinguished from those of the barbarians. 2.39) and it appears certain that the name must have arisen at an early period, while the Greek colonies in Italy were at the height of their power and prosperity, and before the states of Greece proper had attained to their fullest greatness.īut the omission of the name in Herodotus and Thucydides, even in passages where it would have been convenient as a geographical designation, seems to show that it was not in their time generally recognised as a distinctive appellation, and was probably first adopted as such by the historians and geographers of later times, though its origin must have been derived from a much earlier age. The name is not found in any extant author earlier than Polybius: but the latter, in speaking of the cities of Magna Graecia in the time of Pythagoras, uses the expression, “the country that was then called Magna Graecia” (Pol. The Roman poet Ovid notably referred to the south of Italy as such in his poem Fasti.MAGNA GRAE´CIA MAGNA GRAE´ CIA ( ἡ μεγάλη Ἑλλάς), was the name given in ancient times by the Greeks themselves to the assemblage of Greek colonies which encircled the shores of Southern Italy. The term Magna Graecia first appears in Polybius' Histories. They also influenced the native peoples, especially the Sicilian Sicels, who became hellenised after they adopted the Greek culture as their own. The settlers who began arriving in the 8th century BC brought with them their Hellenic civilization, which was to leave a lasting imprint on Italy, such as in the culture of ancient Rome. Magna Graecia (/ˌmæɡnə ˈɡriːsiə, ˈɡriːʃə/, US: /ˌmæɡnə ˈɡreɪʃə/ Latin meaning "Great Greece", Greek: Μεγάλη Ἑλλάς, Megálē Hellás, Italian: Magna Grecia) was the name given by the Romans to the coastal areas of Southern Italy in the present-day regions of Campania, Apulia, Basilicata, Calabria and Sicily these regions were extensively populated by Greek settlers. ![]()
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