Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Magna Græcia

GRÆCIA, Magna ([Greek]), was the name given to tha Greek cities along the coast of South Italy, while the people were called Italiotes ( IroAiomu). Like must Greek colonies, they were established first as trading stations, which grew into independent cities. At a very early time a trade in copper was carried on between Greece and the Terimean Gulf (Homer, Od., i. 181). The trade for long lay chiefly in the hands of the Euboeans ; and Cyme in Campania was founded far back in the pre-historic time, when the Eubccan Cyme was still a great city. To strengthen the connexion with the far off Cyme, the Clial- cidians, who became early the leaders of Euboean enterprise, established Rhegium (about 730 B.C.). After this the energy of Chalcis went onward to Sicily, and the states of the Corinthian Gulf carried out the colonization of Italy. Sybaris (720) and Crotona (710) were Achaean settlements ; Locri Epizephyrii (about 710) was settled by Ozolian Locrians, and when (about 708) the Spartans wished to get rid of a band of unruly citizens, the connexion formed by the trade in purple that was common to the shores of Laconia and Tarenturn directed their colony thither. Ionian Greeks fleeing from fureign invasion founded Siris and, much later, Elea (540). The Italian colonies were planted among friendly, almost kindred, races (comp. the legend in Herod., vii. 183), and grew much more rapidly than the Sicilian Greek states, which had to contend against the power of Carthage. After the Achaean cities had combined to destroy the Ionic Siris, and had founded Metapontum as a counterpoise to the Dorian Tarentum, there seems to have been little strife among the Italiotes. An amphictyonic league, meeting in common rites at the temple of Hera on the Lacinian pro montory, fostered a feeling of unity among them. In the 7th and 6th centuries B.c , they reached such a pitch of wealth and power as to justify the name Great Greece in contrast to the poor and weak mother country. The Pythagorean and Eleatic systems of philosophy had their chief seat in Magna Gr?ecia. Other departments of litera ture do not seem to have been so much cultivated among them. The poet Ibycus, though a native of Rhegium, led a very wandering life. They maintained some social inter course with Greece proper (Herod., iii. 131) and sent com petitors to the Olympic games (among them the famous Milo) ; but politically they appear to have generally kept themselves separate. One ship of Crotona, however, fought at Salamis, though it is not recorded that Greece asked the Italiotes for help when it sent ambassadors to Gelon of Syracuse. Mutual discord first sapped the prosperity of Magna Græcia. In 510 Crotona, having defeated the Sybarites in a great battle, totally destroyed their city. Crotona maintained alone the leading position which had belonged jointly to the Achyean cities (Diod., xiv. 103); bat from that time Magna Gnecia steadily declined. Foreign enemies pressed heavily on it. The Lucanians and Bruttians on the north captured one town after another. Dionysius of Syracuse attacked them from the south; and after he defeated the Crotoniate league (389 B.C.), Tarentum remained the only powerful city. Henceforth the history of Magria Græcia is only a record of the vicissitudes of Tarentum (see Tarentum), Repeated expeditions from Sparta and Epirus tried in vain to prop up the decaying Greek states against the Lucanians and Bruttians; and when in 282 the Romans appeared in the Tarentine Gulf the end was close at hand. The aid which Pyrrhus brought did little good to the Tarentines, and his final departure in 274 left them defenceless. During these con stant wars the Greek cities had been steadily decaying; and in the second Punic war, when most of them seized the opportunity of revolting from Rome, their very existence was in some cases annihilated. Malaria, which never affects a well-peopled city, increased in strength as the population diminished. We are told by Cicero (De Am., 4), "Magna Græcia mine quidem deleta est." Many of the cities completely disappeared; some, like Tarentum, maintained a feeble existence into modern times.