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The first Greek colonies were founded in eastern Sicily in the 8th century BC when the Chalcidian Greeks founded Zancle, Naxos, Leontinoi and Katane; in the south-east corner the Corinthians founded Syracuse and the Megareans Megara Hyblaea, while on the western coast the Cretans and Rhodians founded Gela in 689 BC, with which the first Greek colonisation of Sicily ended.
Magna Graecia [a] is a term that was used for the Greek-speaking areas of Southern Italy, in the present-day Italian regions of Calabria, Apulia, Basilicata, Campania and Sicily; these regions were extensively populated by Greek settlers starting from the 8th century BC.
Temple of Segesta. The history of Sicily has been influenced by numerous ethnic groups. It has seen Sicily controlled by powers, including Phoenician and Carthaginian, Greek, Roman, Vandal and Ostrogoth, Byzantine, Arab, Norman, Aragonese, Spanish, Austrians, British, but also experiencing important periods of independence, as under the indigenous Sicanians, Elymians, Sicels, the Greek ...
Illustration of an Archaic Greek ship on pottery, c. 520 BC The reasons for the Greeks to establish colonies were strong economic growth with the consequent overpopulation of the motherland, [1] and that the land of these Greek city states could not support a large city.
Greeks in Italy have been present since the migrations of traders and colonial foundations in the 8th century BC, continuing down to the present time. Nowadays, there is an ethnic minority known as the Griko people, [4] who live in the Southern Italian regions of Calabria (Province of Reggio Calabria) and Apulia, especially the peninsula of Salento, within the ancient Magna Graecia region, who ...
While the events in western Sicily played out and Carthage remained engaged in Sardinia, most of the Greek colonies in Sicily fell under the rule of tyrants. The tyrants of Gela, Akragas and Rhegion , expanded their respective dominions at the expense of native Sicilians and other Greek cities between 505 and 480 BC, with the Dorian city of ...
[81] [82] [83] Even in the period of Cicero, Greek was the main language used by the elite and almost all the Sicilians mentioned by Cicero in the Verrine Orations have Greek names. [84] Cicero also refers to the Greek calendar (in use throughout Sicily in this period), Greek festivals, relations between the Sicilian cities and panhellenic ...
Ancient Naxos map. Naxos or Naxus (Ancient Greek: Νάξος) was an ancient Greek city of Magna Graecia, presently situated in modern Giardini Naxos near Taormina on the east coast of Sicily. Much of the site has never been built on and parts have been excavated in recent years. Its remains are open to the public and an on-site museum contains ...