Ancient geographers differed on whether the term included Sicily or merely Apulia, Campania and Calabria, Strabo and Livy being the most prominent advocates of the wider definitions. The Romans called this area Magna Graecia (Latin for "Greater Greece") since it was so densely inhabited by the Greeks.
Colonies began to be established all over the Mediterranean and Black Seas (with the exception of Northwestern Africa, in the sphere of influence of Carthage), including in Sicily and the southern part of the Italian Peninsula. In the 8th and 7th century BC, due to demographic crises (famine, overcrowding, etc.), stasis, a developing need for new commercial outlets and ports, and expulsion from their homeland after wars, Greeks began to settle in southern Italy. Strabo also used the term to refer to the size of the territory that had been conquered by the Greeks, and the Roman poet Ovid used the term in his poem Fasti.įurther information: Greeks in pre-Roman GaulĪccording to Strabo's Geographica, the colonization of Magna Graecia had already begun by the time of the Trojan War and lasted for several centuries. The Greek expression Megálē Hellás, later translated into Latin as Magna Graecia, first appears in Polybius' Histories, where he ascribed the term to Pythagoras and his philosophical school. They also influenced the native peoples, such as the Sicels and the Oenotrians, who became hellenized after they adopted the Greek culture as their own. These settlers, who began arriving in the 8th century BC, brought with them their Hellenic civilization, which left a lasting imprint on Italy (such as in the culture of ancient Rome). 'Greater Greece', Ancient Greek: Μεγάλη Ἑλλάς, Megálē Hellás, Italian: Magna Grecia) was the name given by the Romans to the coastal 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.
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