Adventure, a new start in life and flight from oppression at home all played a role. The earliest colony on Ischia seems to have been a trading post, though even there good farmland was important for all the colonies had to grow their own food. That conclusion seems clear from this brief survey. The motivation that drove the movement must have been diverse. is as good a date as any to mark the end of this wave of colonization in Magna Graecia and Sicily. The Panhellenic foundation of Thurii in 444-443 B.C. In 540 B.C., Phokaians from Asia Minor, rather than submit to the Persians, sailed to Italy and founded Elea, Roman Velia, and in 531 B.C., Samians, fleeing the tyranny of Polycrates of Samos, founded Dikaiarcheia, Roman Puteoli. with help from Corinth and a generation later, founded Poseidonia, Roman Paestum, without Corinthian help. Sybaris founded Metapontion about 630 B.C. Megara Hyblaia, founded by Megara shortly after Syracuse’s foundation, in turn founded Selinus, which brought the Greeks to the edge of Carthage’s sphere of influence. Kolophon in Asia Minor which was conquered by the Lydian king Gyges in the mid-seventh century, founded Siris on the Gulf of Tarentum (690-680 B.C.), and Crete and Rhodes founded Gela in Sicily in 688 B.C.īy the 680s, the colonies themselves started to send out daughter colonies.

Towards the end of the eighth century B.C., colonial expeditions from Achaia, south of the Gulf of Corinth, founded Sybaris and Kroton.

Naxos in Sicily was founded about the same time, and around 733 B.C., Corinth founded Syracuse. Chalcidian (rendered as ‘Kalchedian’ by ‘Translate-a-Book’) colonists founded Zankle (Messina) around 730 B.C., and shortly afterwards Rhegion (Reggio Calabria). Cumae was founded a little later on the mainland and after Cumae, there comes a flood of colonies. It begins with Pithekoussai, modern Ischia, where the Greeks founded a settlement in the mid-eighth century B.C. The book begins with an introduction which is a survey of Greek settlement in Magna Graecia and Sicily. However the translation detracts very little from the reader’s enjoyment of the book. 1 The flyleaf credits it to ‘Translate-a-Book’ in Oxford, and ‘Translate-a-Book’ has done an uneven job, as if several translators were assigned different sections to do, and no one checked the whole manuscript for consistency. The one flaw is the translation into English from the Italian original. The text is sound and the photography superb. The Greek Cities of Magna Graecia and Sicily meets a real need. Part of the reason is the lack of an accessible, good up-to-date book that surveys the cities of the western Greeks and summarizes current archaeological research in the region. Syracuse impinges on the curriculum because it defeated Athens in the Peloponnesian War and Dionysios the Elder is usually mentioned, but the cities of Magna Graecia are passed over swiftly if they are touched on at all.

The Greek cities in southern Italy and Sicily tend to get short shrift in survey courses of classical history.

Magna graecia greek