Magna Graecia

[Sigel]

I'm sure you guys know more about this than I do, but I thought it may be of interest:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4116006.stm

Italy rediscovers Greek heritage
By David Willey
BBC correspondent in Rome


A world-class archaeological exhibition opened this week in Calabria, in the toe of Italy.
Its subject is Magna Graecia, or Greater Greece - the name given to parts of southern Italy colonised by the ancient Greeks 2,500 years ago.

The migrations of modern Europe are nothing new.

But for the ancient Greeks, southern Italy was their America.

Long before the Roman empire flourished, they sailed west in search of new lands.

They settled around the hospitable coastline of Calabria and Sicily, dominating local tribes, building huge temples to their gods and founding Greek-speaking colonies.

However, their cities and culture were later destroyed by the Romans. Only very recently have archaeologists been able to reconstruct their history.

It is a jigsaw puzzle with many pieces still missing.

Ancient treasures

Salvatore Settis of the University of Pisa, one of Italy's leading archaeologists, has brought together in Catanzaro, Calabria's regional capital, more than 800 pieces of sculpture in marble and terracotta from Magna Graecia.

They were originally dug up or recovered from the sea all around the coasts of southern Italy, but are now scattered in museums and private collections around Europe.


MAGNA GRAECIA
Greek settlers arrived in 8th Century BC
Founded colonies among small coastal settlements
Built an important centre of Greek civilisation
Cities began to decline after 5th Century
There are also gold and silver coins, ancient maps, books, inscriptions and Greek vases, as well as portrait busts and votive offerings to Greek gods whose shrines once dotted the Italian landscape.

Some of Europe's finest Greek temples are still to be seen at Paestum, south of Naples.

The area around them has delivered up some stunning archaeological discoveries, including wall paintings, elaborate bronze containers for honey, wine and oil, and inscriptions which provide important clues about this now almost vanished world.

Two large sheets of bronze, known as the Tablets of Heraclea, dug up in 1732 and now in the Naples museum, are also on show in Catanzaro.

They bear ancient inscriptions on one side in Greek and, on the other, a text dating from several hundred years later in Latin.

They provided some of the first documentary evidence about the lives of the Greek-speaking ancient inhabitants of this part of the Mediterranean.

Regeneration hopes

Mr Settis told me that as a native of Calabria, he had first become fascinated by an unexpected legacy of Magna Graecia - the large number of ancient Greek words that have survived more than 2,000 years in his local dialect.


"It was English aristocrats who first became infatuated with the Greek sculptures dug up in southern Italy in the late 18th Century.

"Your consul in Naples, Sir William Hamilton, was one of the first serious collectors of Greek art from Italy," Mr Settis said.

"Italian archaeologists and collectors began to get interested during the 19th and 20th centuries. The memory of this long-forgotten world is now being resurrected."

Catanzaro, situated right down in the toe of Italy, is a rather dull and ugly provincial capital built on two sides of a deep gorge, and does not normally figure on Italian art city tours.

However, the local authorities are hoping that foreign visitors who come to visit the new exhibition may also be interested in seeing the recently uncovered remains nearby of the city of Scolacium.

That was the city the Romans built when they conquered Magna Graecia, and founded their colonies on the ruins of former Greek settlements.

The house of a former big landowner has been converted into a small museum with some fine pieces of Roman sculpture on show, dug up during recent excavations.

[Strengthandhonour]

the influence of the Greeks in Southern Italy is clearly visible. For example, the city of Naples, in Italian Napoli comes from Neapolis(New Town in Greek). There is pleny of Greek museums throughout southern Italy, one of the best ones in Catania,Sicila. There is a book written by a Milanese profesor(can't remember his name right now) called "Conqueror" about the colonial wars between Athens and Sparta in Sicily.

[Theobald]

Originally Posted by Strengthandhonour

the influence of the Greeks in Southern Italy is clearly visible.

Like in many Mediterranean areas

[Carnyx]

Particularly in Southern Italia because greek families were established there unlike to Massalia f.e. which was just a port and a trade zone. Aren't southern italians geneticaly related to Greeks?

[Strengthandhonour]

Originally Posted by Duchemin

Particularly in Southern Italia because greek families were established there unlike to Massalia f.e. which was just a port and a trade zone. Aren't southern italians geneticaly related to Greeks?

Yes I believe so. I saw a good article on this once, i'll see if I can find it.

[Theobald]

Originally Posted by Duchemin

Particularly in Southern Italia because greek families were established there unlike to Massalia f.e. which was just a port and a trade zone.

Are you sure there wasn't a Greek colonization in South France (not in the countryside, but in the cities they founded) ? Agathé (Agde), Massalia (Marseille), Nikaia (Nice), Antipolis (Antibes), Arelate (Arles), Monaco, ...



I'm not sure but I think there was a (minor) Greek settlement in South France :

http://wps.ablongman.com/wps/media/o...KISH_02_34.gif

[Carnyx]

I agree, don't get me wrong. There was greeks in the cities they founded, it's a fact.

I wonder if Greeks in southern France contributed to the genetic pool of the locals. In southern Italia they did. But in France were there enough greek inhabitants? I think it's comparable to the Phenician's settlements.

An interesting thing. An idiom very similar to Greek ("Griko") is still spoken in the Puglia region. Very interesting indeed. I saw once a silly backtriper rep in Puglia (very nice places). What about the greek wedge there?

[Strengthandhonour]

the man from Calabria in this article who says his dialect contains Greek words(which I am assuming is the Calabrese dialect) my grandfather and many of my relatives speak this. Sometimes I have a hard time comprehending it completely but it is because it contains words from other languages that are foreign to me. As far as Southern France goes, I am sure the French in the board can provide more information than I can, but I have met many French(from the Southern regions) that look very Southern European, in other words, they woudln't be out of place in the Southern regions of Italy and parts of Greece.

[Theobald]

Originally Posted by Strengthandhonour

I have met many French(from the Southern regions) that look very Southern European, in other words, they woudln't be out of place in the Southern regions of Italy and parts of Greece.

Well, you have examples of people from French Med areas there :

Give some examples from the West Mediterranean area (Corsica)
Give some examples from the West Mediterranean area (Provence)
Give some examples from the West Mediterranean area
(Languedoc and Roussillon)

You have also to take into account the fact that these regions (especially Provence with Marseille) had had many Southern Italian immigrants (since 1860 or so, so now they are generally integrated and regard themselves as French).

Originally Posted by Strenthandhonour

As far as Southern France goes, I am sure the French in the board can provide more information than I can

I don't have datas or genetical informations about Greek settlement in Southern France, but perhaps some other experts ?

[Carnyx]

Originally Posted by Strengthandhonour

the man from Calabria in this article who says his dialect contains Greek words(which I am assuming is the Calabrese dialect) my grandfather and many of my relatives speak this. Sometimes I have a hard time comprehending it completely but it is because it contains words from other languages that are foreign to me.

Once in southern France I heard some tourists speak, their language was unknown to me. I finally discovered they were italians thanks to their number plate, but this language didn't sound Italian. Maybe they were from southern Italia. ^^

As far as Southern France goes, I am sure the French in the board can provide more information than I can, but I have met many French (from the Southern regions) that look very Southern European, in other words, they wouldn't be out of place in the Southern regions of Italy and parts of Greece.

They could have been French of southern european ancestry as they could have been full blooded french. I don't deny that french with this kind of phenotype exist (if you mean some guys dark in hair and complexion), even if they don't really look like eastern med to me. However I believe resemblance in phenotype doesn't imply genotype resemblance, no?

[Menydh]

Originally Posted by Der Elsasser

Are you sure there wasn't a Greek colonization in South France (not in the countryside, but in the cities they founded) ? Agathé (Agde), Massalia (Marseille), Nikaia (Nice), Antipolis (Antibes), Arelate (Arles), Monaco, ...

I had always thought that the city-fortress of Saguntum (Saguntum, Sakhyntos?) which resisted the Carthagenians was Greek. After the discovery of a small town nearer to the coast, it was thought that that settlement would have belonged to the indigenous Iberians, the Edetanians. However, others argue that it was all the way round.

The Edetanians would have assimilated the Greek culture through a process of acculturation. The Greeks would set up trading outposts to commerce with the indigenous peoples.

That might probably have been the case in Massilia and other towns of the Provence too.

[Carnyx]

To all ignorants (me).

Saguntum (Sagunto)

Town, Valencia province, in the autonomous community (region) of Valencia, eastern Spain, at the foot of the Peñas de Pajarito, on the western bank of the Río Palancia, just north-northeast of Valencia city. Of Iberian origin, the town is the ancient Saguntum, which is thought to have been founded by Greek colonists from Zákinthos (Zante; whence its name). About 225 BC, the Romans, disquieted by the growth of Carthaginian power in Spain, concluded an alliance with the Carthaginian general Hasdrubal that guaranteed the independence of Saguntum and required his forces not to cross the Río Ebro. In 219 BC, however, the town was taken by Hannibal, the brother of Hasdrubal, after a heroic resistance. Rome complained to Carthage, demanding Hannibal's surrender; this demand was rejected, and the Second Punic War began.

After the Romans recaptured Saguntum in 214, they restored its ancient importance; its inhabitants received Roman citizenship, and they enriched the town with the monuments of which the remains may still be seen.
The Roman theatre built under the emperors Lucius Septimius Severus and Caracalla is the most notable building. There are also remains of different periods; the acropolis (fortresses on the curved crest of rock that dominates the city), the temples of the goddesses Diana and Venus, and the aqueduct (constructed in various structural types ranging from crude Iberian through Roman and Moorish).

The Edetanians would have assimilated the Greek culture through a process of acculturation. The Greeks would set up trading outposts to commerce with the indigenous peoples.

That might probably have been the case in Massilia and other towns of the Provence too.

I believe so. The cultural print is obvious, the genetic print is maybe less plausible since they were far less numerous than indigenous.

[Ederico]

Malta was also settled by Greeks, the Greek name given to Malta was in Latin script Meliteion and in the Hellenic Script it was MEΛITAIΩN. Here is a representation of a coin or medal from Greek Malta:

[Theobald]

Originally Posted by Mynydd

The Edetanians would have assimilated the Greek culture through a process of acculturation. The Greeks would set up trading outposts to commerce with the indigenous peoples.

That might probably have been the case in Massilia and other towns of the Provence too.

It seems not, because according to Silius Italicus :

"The Phoceans [Greeks from Marseille] were surrounded by arrogant tribes and were terrified by the savage rituals of their cruel neighbours."

"Les Phocéens étaient entourés de tribus arrogantes et terrifiés par les rituels sauvages de leurs voisins barbares"

Source

According to old texts, the Greeks had very bad relationships with Celto-Ligurians (natives of Southern France), who tried to kick them out many times; and the Greeks from Marseille finally asked Roman help then Southern France became a Roman colony in 122 B.C. (Provincia)
But there is a legend, that Massalia's foundation was sealed by the nuptials of the young head of the Greek sailors, Protis, with Gyptis, the daughter of a local king; and it seems there was a "colonial" relationship between Greeks and Celts in Southern France.

As for population I've read the Greeks were about 30,000 in Massalia. I don't know how many they were in other colonies though, but it seems Agathé/Agde was not only a port and a trade zone but also a rather big and organized city.