Pompeii is the most famous example of this process. The cities farther northwest around the Bay of Naples exhibited a more obvious cultural fusion with the Italian cultures with which they actively interacted. The cities farthest southeast, such as Tarentum and Heraclea, tended to retain their distinctive Greek character the longest. For example, Greek-style vases are regular features in all sorts of non-Greek settings, especially in Etruria. On the other hand, these ties to mainland Greece also provided an important conduit for Greek influence and commerce between the Greek and Italian worlds. The petty particularism of intercity rivalries and suspicion common to mainland Greece became an embedded feature of Magna Graecia as well. The colonies in Italy, like all Greek colonies, tended to retain loose political and economic ties to their mother cities. The Spartans had one Italian colony, although it gradually gained preeminence over many of the others. The most significant of the colonizers of Italy were the Achaeans, a confederation of small cities in the northwest part of the Peloponnese. Mycenaean remains at some of these sites confirm the existence of long-established trade ties between Greece and Italy. Most of these colonies were located where trading entrepots had already been established. Mainland Greeks established colonies around the Mediterranean and Black Seas, mostly in the eighth through sixth centuries b. The term can also be taken more generally to denote the Greek world outside mainland Greece. Some of the more prominent of these colonies were Tarentum (Taranto), Croton (Crotone), Paestum, Naples, and Cumae, but dozens of other cities are known, many of which have been at least partially excavated. This is the area where Roman and Greek cultures first came into conflict and merged.Ĭategory: Cities and civilizations Locale: Southern Italyīackground The term Magna Graecia (MAG-nuh GREE-shuh) generally refers to the coastal regions of Italy from the heel of the Italian peninsula clockwise to just north of the Bay of Naples, wherein a significant cluster of Greek-founded cities prospered before and into the Roman period.
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