When considering this subject, it should always be kept in mind that most of Southern Italy was never inhabited by Greeks; in fact, the overwhelming majority of ancient Southern Italy was populated by Italic peoples, while the Greek colonists — who, overall, were but a small minority — were concentrated in a relatively limited area along the southern coast.
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Map: Southern Italy in the 4th century BC; taken from Sewell & Witcher 2015 |
Here we will focus on those small parts of Southern Italy which were anciently settled by Greeks, and explain the fate of these Greeks and their cities.
The purported ‘Greekness’ of this territory rests on the premise of ethnic and historical continuity. That is to say, it is based on the erroneous belief that there is an unbroken historical continuity between ancient Greek colonies and modern South Italian cities; on the belief that the ethnic composition of these cities has remained unchanged for thousands of years; and on the claim that the ancient Greek language, Greek culture and Greek identity of the inhabitants persisted throughout the Roman period and into the Middle Ages, in some cases surviving even into the modern era. Therefore, so it is said, the current-day cities of Southern Italy can trace their roots to ancient Hellenic colonies, and the present-day inhabitants would in fact be of Greek origin, i.e. direct descendants of the ancient Hellenic colonists. Hence they would be more akin to Modern Greeks and not ‘truly’ Italian.
The problem however is that the entire premise is false, because none of these popular beliefs are actually true.
Overview: The Number of Hellenic Colonies
Setting aside the question of ethnic origins of the Modern Greeks, which surely is anything but Hellenic — (in view of the fact that one-third of Greece's population descends from 20th century Near Eastern refugees from Turkey, while a considerable number of Modern Greeks also descend from other non-Hellenic peoples such as Arvanites, Vlachs, Slavs, Armenians and Turks) — it remains a fact that their pretended relationship with the cities of Southern Italy is tenuous at best, and delusional at worst. Even if one ignores their diverse ethnic heritage and grants for argument sake that today's Greeks are unequivocally Hellenes — pure offspring of the same Dorians, Ionians, Aeolians and Achaeans who founded those Hellenic colonies thousands of years ago — it nonetheless remains beyond dispute that the Italian population living in these cities today has nothing to do with the ancient Greek colonists and that the modern cities themselves have little to do with the ancient Hellenic ones.
This is because there is no direct continuity between the ancient Hellenic colonies and the contemporary cities, nor between the populations which inhabited them.
The history of the Hellenic city-states in Southern Italy took place over a period of about 478 years (c. 750-272 BC), during which time the various colonies experienced great vicissitudes, tribulations and calamities. The majority of these ancient colonies were eventually abandoned and reduced to ruins. Some became Roman colonies, only to be destroyed later in the Middle Ages. Others declined into villages and were repopulated in subsequent centuries by other non-Greek people, who established new cities near the site of ruined or forgotten ones. Some disappeared entirely, never to be found still to this day.
Overall, between the 8th century BC (foundation of the first Greek colony) and the 3rd century BC (completion of the Roman conquest), the Greeks either founded or occupied about 35 (*) colonies and settlements along the coast of Southern Italy (excluding Sicily), not counting a few very minor villages or trading posts unworthy of note. These colonies did not all exist contemporaneously. In fact the number of Greek colonies and the size of their populations fluctuated greatly depending on the time period: in the 8th century BC, for example, there were only 8 Greek colonies; but in the 4th century BC there were 14. In the 6th century BC Sybaris was a great city which ruled over a mini ‘empire’, but by the middle of the 5th century BC it no longer existed. Similarly, in the 6th century BC Kroton was a military power, but by the 3rd century BC it had less than 2,000 inhabitants.
Over the course of several centuries some colonies were destroyed, some were abandoned, new ones were founded, some were sub-colonies of existing colonies (**), many of them declined, while still others were taken over by local Italic tribes or Romans. A large number of these ‘Greek colonies’ were also in reality Hellenized Italic settlements, not necessarily colonized by Greeks themselves in all instances. Moreover, many of them were quite small to begin with and never rose to the rank of a major center. To imagine that all of these cities existed simultaneously with each other, or that they were always as populous as they were at their peaks, or that they were always inhabited exclusively by Greeks, might give one the erroneous impression that the ancient Greek presence was greater or more widespread at any single given moment than it really was.
The purported ‘Greekness’ of this territory rests on the premise of ethnic and historical continuity. That is to say, it is based on the erroneous belief that there is an unbroken historical continuity between ancient Greek colonies and modern South Italian cities; on the belief that the ethnic composition of these cities has remained unchanged for thousands of years; and on the claim that the ancient Greek language, Greek culture and Greek identity of the inhabitants persisted throughout the Roman period and into the Middle Ages, in some cases surviving even into the modern era. Therefore, so it is said, the current-day cities of Southern Italy can trace their roots to ancient Hellenic colonies, and the present-day inhabitants would in fact be of Greek origin, i.e. direct descendants of the ancient Hellenic colonists. Hence they would be more akin to Modern Greeks and not ‘truly’ Italian.
The problem however is that the entire premise is false, because none of these popular beliefs are actually true.
Overview: The Number of Hellenic Colonies
Setting aside the question of ethnic origins of the Modern Greeks, which surely is anything but Hellenic — (in view of the fact that one-third of Greece's population descends from 20th century Near Eastern refugees from Turkey, while a considerable number of Modern Greeks also descend from other non-Hellenic peoples such as Arvanites, Vlachs, Slavs, Armenians and Turks) — it remains a fact that their pretended relationship with the cities of Southern Italy is tenuous at best, and delusional at worst. Even if one ignores their diverse ethnic heritage and grants for argument sake that today's Greeks are unequivocally Hellenes — pure offspring of the same Dorians, Ionians, Aeolians and Achaeans who founded those Hellenic colonies thousands of years ago — it nonetheless remains beyond dispute that the Italian population living in these cities today has nothing to do with the ancient Greek colonists and that the modern cities themselves have little to do with the ancient Hellenic ones.
This is because there is no direct continuity between the ancient Hellenic colonies and the contemporary cities, nor between the populations which inhabited them.
The history of the Hellenic city-states in Southern Italy took place over a period of about 478 years (c. 750-272 BC), during which time the various colonies experienced great vicissitudes, tribulations and calamities. The majority of these ancient colonies were eventually abandoned and reduced to ruins. Some became Roman colonies, only to be destroyed later in the Middle Ages. Others declined into villages and were repopulated in subsequent centuries by other non-Greek people, who established new cities near the site of ruined or forgotten ones. Some disappeared entirely, never to be found still to this day.
Overall, between the 8th century BC (foundation of the first Greek colony) and the 3rd century BC (completion of the Roman conquest), the Greeks either founded or occupied about 35 (*) colonies and settlements along the coast of Southern Italy (excluding Sicily), not counting a few very minor villages or trading posts unworthy of note. These colonies did not all exist contemporaneously. In fact the number of Greek colonies and the size of their populations fluctuated greatly depending on the time period: in the 8th century BC, for example, there were only 8 Greek colonies; but in the 4th century BC there were 14. In the 6th century BC Sybaris was a great city which ruled over a mini ‘empire’, but by the middle of the 5th century BC it no longer existed. Similarly, in the 6th century BC Kroton was a military power, but by the 3rd century BC it had less than 2,000 inhabitants.
Over the course of several centuries some colonies were destroyed, some were abandoned, new ones were founded, some were sub-colonies of existing colonies (**), many of them declined, while still others were taken over by local Italic tribes or Romans. A large number of these ‘Greek colonies’ were also in reality Hellenized Italic settlements, not necessarily colonized by Greeks themselves in all instances. Moreover, many of them were quite small to begin with and never rose to the rank of a major center. To imagine that all of these cities existed simultaneously with each other, or that they were always as populous as they were at their peaks, or that they were always inhabited exclusively by Greeks, might give one the erroneous impression that the ancient Greek presence was greater or more widespread at any single given moment than it really was.
* The 35 Greek colonies, sub-colonies and settlements were as follows:
- In Calabria: Chone, Hipponion, Kaulon, Kroton (Crotone), Krimisa, Laos, Lokroi Epizephyrioi, Medma, Metauros (Gioia Tauro), Petelia, Rhegion (Reggio Calabria), Sybaris, Tauriana, Temesa, Terina, Thurii
- In Campania: Dikaiarcheia (Pozzuoli), Elea-Velia, Kyme, Molpa, Palinuro, Parthenope, Neapolis (Naples), Pithekoussai, Poseidonia, Pyxous
- In Basilicata: Herakleia, Lagaria, Makalla, Metapontion, Siris, Pandosia, Pistoikos
- In Puglia: Taras (Taranto), Kallipolis (Gallipoli)
Overview: Fall of the Hellenic Colonies in Southern Italy
The following is a brief summary of the 35 Hellenic settlements and their fate:
- In Calabria the Greeks had a total of 16 settlements; of these 13 were abandoned. Moreover, 7 of these (Chone, Krimisa, Molpa, Palinuro, Petelia, Tauriana, Temesa) were in reality native Italian cities which had become Hellenized, while 2 of them (Metauros and Sybaris) were ethnically mixed settlements inhabited also by Italics.
- In Campania the Greeks had a total 10 settlements; of these 8 were abandoned. Moreover, 1 of them (Pithekoussai) was not really a proper Greek colony but an ethnically mixed community populated also by Etruscans.
- In Basilicata the Greeks had a total of 7 settlements, all of which were abandoned. Moreover, 4 of these (Lagaria, Makalla, Pandosia, Pistoikos) were in reality native Italian settlements which had been Hellenized, while 2 of them (Metapontion and Siris) were ethnically mixed settlements inhabited also by Italics.
- In Puglia the Greeks had a total of only 2 settlements: Taras and Kallipolis, the latter of which was a native Italian city whose status as a Greek sub-colony is doubtful.
Let's consider some representative examples in greater detail, in order to get a better understanding of how ethnic, cultural and historical continuity was broken between the ancient Hellenic colonies and the modern-day cities.
Sybaris - The ancient Hellenic colony of Sybaris — founded in 720 BC — is usually identified with the present-day hamlet of Sibari, located in Cassano all'Ionio, Calabria. Before the Greeks settled there, the hills around Sybaris were permanently inhabited by a proto-Italic people called Enotrians or Oenotrians. These indigenous Enotrians and their settlements were over time subdued by Sybaris. According to Diodorus Siculus, by 510 BC the Greek colony had grown in size by granting citizenship to several thousand Enotrians. In about 445 BC Sybaris was destroyed by other Greeks. Some of the survivors fled and founded the city of Laos (soon captured by the Italic Lucanians in c. 390 BC; it disappeared by the 1st century AD). Other survivors of Sybaris remained in the destroyed city and, together with those Greeks who had destroyed it, decided to establish in its place the new colony of Thurii. However, these new Greek colonists soon massacred most of the Sybarites. In 444 BC the survivors of this massacre founded the minor settlement of Sybaris on the Traeis, which was destroyed only one century later by the Bruttians (Italic tribe). Also in the 4th century BC the city of Thurii was temporarily conquered by the Lucanians and Bruttians, and in the next centuries continued to be threatened by Italic tribes. Thurii became a Roman dependency in the 3rd century BC. In 194 BC the Greek citizens were deported by the Romans, who repopulated the city with Latin colonists and named it Copia. The Latin city began to decline between the 5th and 6th centuries AD due to swamping, and by the 7th century was completely abandoned. The ruins of Sybaris and Thurii-Copia were forgotten and over time were buried by sediment from the nearby river. The current hamlet of Sibari was established in the 1960's; it is located near the site of the ancient colony, but it is unrelated to the ancient Greek city. In any case, even had it survived, it had already ceased to be Greek in the 2nd century BC when its successor city (Thurii) became a Latin colony.
Kyme (Cumae) - A similar case is the ancient Greek city of Kyme, located between what is now Bacoli and Pozzuoli, in Campania. Founded in 750 or 720 BC in a territory already inhabited by Italic people, Kyme — the earliest Greek colony in Italy — spent three whole centuries fighting against the Etruscans and local Italic tribes. In 421 BC the city was finally captured by the Campani (Oscan-speaking Italic people) who drove out the Greeks. Under the Romans, the Oscan city spoke Latin and was a faithful ally of Rome, with the name Cumae. It received a Latin colony under Augustus and additional Latin settlers under Emperor Claudius. The city survived the fall of the Roman Empire and the barbarian invasions, but by 1207 AD had to be abandoned due to coastal raids by Saracen pirates. The population fled to the nearby town of Giugliano. From that moment Cumae was uninhabited, was buried under water and became a marshland. The surrounding area was not reclaimed and resettled until the 17th century. Despite being founded by Greeks, the city of Cumae had not been Greek since the 5th century BC, and there is no link between the ancient Hellenic colonists and the present-day Campanian population.
Lokroi Epizephyrioi (Locri) - The colony of Lokroi Epizephyrioi, located in Calabria, was founded in the 7th century BC in a territory then inhabited by the native Sicels or Siculi (an Italic people who also inhabited eastern Sicily), who were violently driven out by the Greek colonists. In 272 BC the city was militarily occupied by the Romans who called it Locri. Following its defection to Hannibal, the city was re-conquered by the Romans in 205 BC and slowly declined into a small town, with large parts of the city being abandoned. Despite being initially permitted to retain its Greek customs, by the Roman Imperial period (27 BC onwards) the Greek language had disappeared: the inscriptions dating to that period are all written in Latin. The town therefore was either settled by Latin colonists or else was completely Latinized, leaving no traces of the earlier Greek population and culture. By the 8th century AD the area had become a swamp and, due to raids by Saracen pirates, it was abandoned by the inhabitants who retreated inland. According to local legend, it was these refugees who founded the nearby town of Gerace (originally called Santa Ciriaca) in the 9th or 10th century AD, after the Saracens had destroyed Locri. The modern-day town of Locri is not directly related to the ancient one, which has been in ruins for well over 1,000 years. The ruins of ancient Lokroi/Locri are located in what is now the town of Portigliola. Today's town of Locri, on the other hand, is located several kilometers away and was founded only in the 19th century by residents from Gerace; until the 20th century it was known as Gerace Marina; it was only in 1934 that it was renamed ‘Locri’ in honour of the ancient city.
Metapontion (Metapontum) - The city of Metapontion was founded by Greek colonists in the 7th century BC near the site of an earlier Italic-Enotrian settlement named Incoronata. The early population of Metapontion consisted of both native Enotrians and Greeks. After the Pyrrhic War (280-275 BC) it was conquered and severely punished by the Roman army which occupied the city. Some Greeks fled to the nearby outpost of Pistoikos (near today's Pisticci, Basilicata), others fled to Genusium (today Ginosa, Puglia), a city belonging to a local Italian tribe called Peucetians who were allied to the Greeks of Taranto. In 212 BC the city defected to Hannibal, and in 207 BC all the city's inhabitants fled with Hannibal in order to escape Roman retaliation. The Romans destroyed Metapontion as punishment, but later rebuilt it as a federated city called Metapontum. However, the city never recovered: by the 2nd century AD the city was already in complete ruins and by the 3rd century had disappeared entirely under sediment. The ruins were not unearthed until the 19th and 20th century. The present-day village of Metaponto, despite being named after it, is unrelated to the ancient city. In fact, this village was born many centuries later. In the 11th century AD, in the vicinity of the ancient ruins, there arose a castrum called Santa Trinità (Sanctae Trinitatis), later renamed Torre di Mare (Turris Maris) in 1197 AD. A village developed around this castle in the 13th century, but it was quickly abandoned in the 14th century owing to malaria. It was subsequently repopulated before disappearing again in the 17th century, following the plague of 1656 which left the whole area desolate. In the mid to late 18th century a farming settlement emerged nearby under the same name as the old one (Torre di Mare); this settlement — which became the present-day village — changed its name to Metaponto in 1869, in memory of the ancient Metapontum whose ruins had been discovered a few decades earlier. Between the death of the ancient city and the birth of the medieval castle there is a historical gap of nearly a millennium; between the ancient city and the current village there is a gap of at least 1,600 or 1,700 years, during which the region was generally uninhabited.
Siris - The ancient city of Siris, located in Basilicata, was originally a settlement of the Choni or Chones, a sub-group of the native Enotrian people (most of whom were later absorbed into other Italic tribes, while others were Hellenized and absorbed by the Greek city-states). Between the 8th and 7th century BC the city was taken from the Enotrians by Greek colonists from Ionia. From then on it was inhabited by both an Enotrian (Italic) and Greek population. However, already by 570-565 BC the city was in decay and before the close of that century was reduced to ruins. To this day the exact site of the city has never been found. It has no relation to the current-day town of Nova Siri ('New Siris'), which was founded hundreds of years later as a military outpost by the Romans and only began to develop into an urban center in the Middle Ages. In fact, this town was originally known as Bollita (Boletum) and only changed its name to ‘Nova Siri’ in 1872.
Poseidonia (Paestum) - The Greek colony of Poseidonia, built in Etruscan-Italic territory in the 7th century BC, was conquered by the Lucanians between 420-410 BC. Already before the Lucanian conquest, it is recorded that Italic people had begun to settle in the city and displace the Greeks. In 273 BC it became a Roman colony, populated by Latins, and was renamed Paestum. It declined between the 4th and 7th centuries AD. In the 8th or 9th century AD, owing to the spread of malaria and Saracen raids, the city was abandoned by the Roman inhabitants who sought refuge in the nearby mountains, settling in what is now the town of Capaccio Paestum. Once again, even if this ancient city had survived, it had already become an Italic town in the 5th century BC and Latin from the 3rd century BC.
Herakleia (Heraclea) - The Greek settlement of Herakleia, located not far from the destroyed city of Siris (in Basilicata), was founded by the citizens of Taras around 432 or 434 BC as an outpost against the Italic Lucanians. In the 4th century BC it temporarily fell to the Lucanians. It was subjugated in the 3rd century BC by the Romans who called it Heraclea. It was one of the only cities in Italy which was permitted to retain its Greek language and privileges, at least until 89 BC when it became a Roman municipium and adopted Latin. However, the city declined during the period of the Roman Empire and was reduced to a mere village. At some point, under wholly unknown circumstances, the population went extinct and the city disappeared beneath a malarial marshland. Its very memory vanished from the historical record. It was last mentioned by Pliny the Elder in the 1st century AD and afterwards was not spoken of again. It has been conjectured that the Byzantines later called this territory Polychorion, meaning ‘vast land’ or ‘large plain’, indicating that the site where Heraclea once stood had already been abandoned and covered by swamps before the Byzantine period. The ancient city was located near present-day Policoro, a town which arose in the High Middle Ages in a deserted area named Fons Policorii (mentioned for the first time in 1125 AD). From then on Policoro became a feudal estate and it too suffered periods of abandonment (in 1506 it was described as “terram inhabitatam” and “Pollicori inhabitati”, i.e. uninhabited). There is no evidence that the current-day inhabitants have any relation to the ancient Hellenic population nor to the ancient city of Heraclea. Among other things, until 1951 Policoro was a tiny farming village with only 826 inhabitants; the majority of today's inhabitants came from the Lucanian hinterland in the 1960's, when the modern town was built.
Terina - Terina was founded in the 5th century BC as a sub-colony of Kroton (Crotone), but was Italic longer than it was Greek. Between the 5th and 4th centuries BC it came under attack by the Italic Lucanians. In 356 BC it was conquered by the Bruttians (another Italic tribe). The city was recovered by Alexander I of Epirus a few decades later, but upon his death in 330 BC the Bruttians recaptured the city. Bruttian rule in Terina lasted until the beginning of the 3rd century BC, when it was briefly conquered by the Greek tyrant Agathocles of Syracuse. After the latter's death in 289 BC, the Bruttians again reconquered the city and held it until 203 BC, when it was finally destroyed by Hannibal in the Second Punic War. Its population was presumably slaughtered, and the city forever faded into obscurity. The location of ancient Terina still remains uncertain and controversial. Some think it was located in the territory of present-day Lamezia Terme, near Sant'Eufemia Vetere, perhaps beneath the Benedictine abbey. Others place it in Sambiase (also located in Lamezia Terme). At ant rate, the ancient city of Terina has no connection to Sambiase, which was born only in the 9th century AD during the Byzantine period, nor to the village of Santa Eufemia Vetere, which arose only in the 11th century AD under the Normans. Neither is there any evidence that can trace it to the town of Nocera Terinese, which assumed this name only in 1863 on the basis of unsubstantiated legends; prior to 1863 it was called Nocera della Pietra della Nave.
Metauros (Metaurum) - The colony of Metauros, located in what is now Gioia Tauro in Calabria, was founded by Greeks in the 7th century BC, although the earliest mortuary evidence suggests that it was a mixed town inhabited by both Greeks and native Italians. Around 445-400 BC it was occupied by the Bruttians (Italic tribe). In 201 BC it was colonized by the Romans who changed its name to Metauria or Metaurum. During the reign of Emperor Tiberius (14-37 AD) it was demoted to a simple naval station. After 69 AD the city was revived, but two plagues in 166 AD and 189 AD caused the almost total depopulation of the city, effectively marking its death except for a few survivors. In 568 AD it was attacked and finally destroyed by the invading Longobards, forcing the few remaining Roman inhabitants to take refuge in the plain. There in the 10th century AD the descendants of those survivors — together with other communities fleeing from the destroyed city of Tauriana — co-founded the new village of Metaurianova (today Terranova Sappo Minulio). Thus for some 700 years — from the 6th century until the 13th century — the site of the ancient Metauros/Metaurum was abandoned (except for a very brief occupation by Saracen pirates around the year 1000 AD). The modern city of Gioia Tauro appeared for the first time only in 1271 AD under the name Johe, which later became Gioia; the current name ‘Gioia Tauro’ was adopted only in 1863, presumably in memory of the ancient Metauros.
Pyxous - The city of Pyxous, located in an area already inhabited by the Enotri (Italics), was founded in the 5th century BC as a sub-colony of Rhegion, but was abandoned by the Greek colonists shortly after its foundation. The city ceased to exist for several hundred years, until the Romans set up a Latin colony there in 194 BC with the name Buxentum. There was no connection between the Roman city and the older Hellenic one. The current-day village of Policastro Bussentino in Campania traces itself directly to the Roman colony of Buxentum, not to the Hellenic colony which had been abandoned centuries earlier.
Parthenope - The city of Parthenope was founded as a sub-colony of Kyme or Cumae in the 8th century BC. It existed for only two centuries before being intentionally destroyed by the Greeks of Cumae at the end of the 6th century BC. The Cumeans would later found a new city nearby called Neapolis (Napoli). Following its destruction and subsequent absorption, the inhabitants of Neapolis ('new city') referred to Parthenope as Palaiopolis ('old city').
From these above examples one gets a very clear picture of what happened to nearly all of the ancient Hellenic cities in Southern Italy. One way or another, most of the former Greek colonies in Italy were destroyed or abandoned, either by the Greeks themselves during pre-Roman times, or later on by the descendants of the Italics and Roman colonists who had replaced them. In many cases the Hellenic populations were driven away, wiped out or gradually disappeared. As to why some towns today bear the name of ancient cities despite having no real link to them — a result of romantic revisionist history — this phenomenon was explained well by the historian and epigrapher Ettore Pais:
“This kind of error is unfortunately perpetuated by the unconscious laxity of the government in too readily allowing certain municipalities to embellish themselves with ancient names which do not belong to them.”
(Source: Ettore Pais, Ancient Italy: Historical and Geographical Investigations in Central Italy, etc., 1908, p. 54)
Overview: Surviving Cities in Southern Italy
Of the 35 settlements at various moments inhabited in ancient times by the Greeks, only 7 of them were never fully abandoned; that is to say, only 7 of them survived and have been continuously inhabited since Antiquity down to the present day:
In Calabria:
- Kroton (Crotone)
- Rhegion (Reggio Calabria)
- Hipponion (Vibo Valentia)
- Neapolis (Napoli)
- Dikaiarcheia (Pozzuoli)
- Taras (Taranto)
- Kallipolis (Gallipoli)
However, just because these cities have remained continuously inhabited throughout history, this does not mean that they were all continuously inhabited by Greeks. Quite the contrary, in fact.
Let's take into consideration the post-Greek history of these cities.
Taranto - The city of Taras — in Antiquity the largest Greek colony in Italy — suffered continuous attacks by the neighboring Italian populations: Peucetians, Messapians, Lucanians, Bruttians, Samnites. In 473 BC the Messapians defeated the Greeks in what was called in ancient sources “the greatest slaughter of Greeks ever recorded”, which prevented Greek expansion in Puglia. In 272 BC the city fell to the Romans. Initially the city was permitted to retain its identity, but in 209 BC — following the city's defection to Hannibal — the Romans punished it by seizing the city, massacring its inhabitants and selling 30,000 Greeks into slavery. In 125 BC the Romans established a colony nearby named Neptunia Tarentum. In 90 BC, with the Lex municipii Tarentini, the surviving Greek community of Taras and the Roman colony of Neptunia Tarentum were merged into a single municipium. However, the city's subsequent decline was catastrophic: by the 1st century AD it became so depopulated that it almost ceased to exist. To salvage it, additional Roman colonists were settled there during the reign of Emperor Nero (54-68 AD). The city became thoroughly Latin; the Hellenic population did not survive. Even during the late Byzantine period in Southern Italy (10th-11th century), when the Emperor tried to impose the Greek rite on the local population, Taranto remained one of the cities which clung to the Latin Rite and refused to celebrate the Greek Rite. Finally, according to a recent genetic study by Rathmann et al. (2019), already during the Hellenic period — prior to the Roman colonization — the ancient colony of Taras was predominantly populated by local Italians; the Greek colonists were in fact a minority in their own colony. In any case, by the 1st century AD the city was completely Latin in language, culture and character.
Napoli - The native inhabitants of the Gulf of Naples were Italic people called Ausones and Opici. They were present in the territory when Greeks from Cumae founded Neapolis as a sub-colony in 474 or 470 BC (some date the foundation to as early as 507-506 BC but this is controversial). Already in the course of its early history there was a large and steady immigration of Italic people to Neapolis, so much so that by the end of the 5th century BC the Campani had taken over the city and introduced the Oscan language. When the Romans conquered it in 327 BC, Neapolis was already a mixed Greek-Italic city, even if the local aristocracy predominantly identified as Greek. Neapolis was one of the only cities subjugated by the Romans which was permitted to retain its own customs, language and autonomy. During the Roman period it was only a minor city. In 89 BC it became a Roman municipium and lost its autonomy. In 82 BC nearly all the inhabitants were slaughtered by the Roman general Sulla. Neapolis thus lost its ancient ruling class and maritime power, and had to be repopulated. Shortly thereafter it was transformed into a Latin city. By the age of Augustus (31 BC - 14 AD) the majority of funerary inscriptions in Neapolis were already in Latin and commemorated people with Latin names; whenever Greek names did occur, they were usually of a type which suggests a slave origin; in other words they were not local Hellenes, but foreign Greek slaves. Sometime between 161 and 180 AD it was formally elevated from a municipium to the status of a Roman colony, with the name Colonia Aurelia Augusta Antoniniana Felix Neapolis. By then the city had already been predominantly Latin for at least two centuries. The persistence of certain customs in subsequent centuries, such as the Greek games, is not evidence of Hellenic continuity, as this is something that was enforced by a handful of Philhellenic elites (who, moreover, had Latin names), and even this custom was most likely a late imperial revival by the ruling class due to nostalgia of the city's past (comparable to today's neo-Celtic festivals and neo-pagan rituals invented centuries after the fact) — in this regard there is no evidence of ethno-linguistic or cultural continuity with the previous Hellenic period; the onomastic and epigraphical evidence demonstrates that by the 1st century AD the population of Neapolis was Latin or at any rate thoroughly Latinized. Throughout Late Antiquity and the entire Middle Ages it remained always a Latin-speaking city.
Reggio Calabria - The Greek colony of Rhegion was founded in 730 BC on the site of a preexisting Italic settlement belonging to the Ausones or Enotrians. In the 4th century BC, in order to counter raids by the Bruttians, the city became a confederate (civitas foederata) of Rome. In 270 BC it was named a naval ally (socia navalis) of Rome. Like Neapolis, it was one of the very few cities which were permitted a wide degree of cultural and institutional autonomy. Despite becoming a Roman municipium in 89 BC, it was granted the special privilege of self-governance (municipium cum suffragio) due to its loyalty to Rome. As a result, it was able to preserve the Greek language and laws longer than other cities. However, it too underwent a process of Romanization and political integration and gradually lost its autonomy. In the Augustan age it took the name Regium Julium (Reggio Giulia) and was colonized by Roman war veterans. By the 2nd century AD nearly all inscriptions in the city were in Latin, indicating a strong Latinization or a continuous influx of Italic people. Greek by then was used only by merchants and by parts of the ruling class. Hellenism in Regium did not survive the Roman Empire.
Pozzuoli - Dikaiarcheia or Dicaearchia was founded in 531 BC by Greek exiles from Samos. For the next century it was at war with the Etruscans and the Samnites, a local Italic tribe. The Samnites occupied the city in 421 BC and changed its name to Fistelia or Phistlus. There they minted coins in the Oscan language and turned it into an Italic city. The Romans conquered the territory in 338 BC and renamed it Puteoli (which later evolved into Pozzuoli). An official colony was established there by the Romans in 194 or 195 BC. Additional Latin colonists were settled there under Sulla and Augustus. During the Roman period it became the largest commercial port in Italy. Being a major port city, naturally during the Roman imperial period there was a Greek community present, just as there was also a Jewish one, alongside other foreign communities; however, these Greeks were later immigrants, unrelated to the ancient Hellenic colonists. At any rate, these too disappeared — together with all the other foreigners — when the city declined in Late Antiquity. Throughout the Middle Ages it continued to face severe depopulation and semi-abandonment, and on several occasions had to be repopulated by other Campanians.
Gallipoli - Gallipoli was originally a Messapian settlement named Anxa. The Messapians were the pre-Greek inhabitants of Salento in southern Puglia. It is thought that in the 4th century BC the city very briefly became a sub-colony of Taranto, under the name Kallipolis. This however is a reconstructed interpretation based on coins and on passing statements made by ancient authors. Given the obscurity of the historical and archaeological record, it is unclear whether the Messapian city was actually colonized by Greeks, or if it was merely subjugated by Taranto for commercial purposes. There is no indication as to what language was spoken there at that time, nor who its inhabitants were. At any rate, the city was soon conquered by the Romans in 265 BC and subsequently was completely Romanized. From then on there is no evidence of Greek life in Gallipoli. Nearly 1400 years later, in 1269 AD, the city was razed to the ground by the Angevins and nearly the entire population was slaughtered. The survivors took refuge in neighboring villages. It was rebuilt and repopulated in the 14th century. Given the known history of Gallipoli, not to mention the uncertainties concerning its earliest history, it can hardly be said that there is an “uninterrupted ethnic-historical continuity with ancient Hellenes”.
Crotone - Kroton was founded by Greeks in 708 BC on the site of a preexisting Italic settlement belonging to the Choni, a subgroup of the Enotrians. From the 6th to 5th century BC it was one of the most powerful Greek colonies. However, in the 4th century BC the city suffered attacks by Bruttians and Lucanians, so much so that its population was reduced to less than 2,000 people. In 277 BC it was conquered by the Romans. The archaeological record shows few signs of life in the 3rd century BC, confirming that it was sparsely inhabited during that century. In 194 BC a Roman colony was established there with the name Croto. Thus began the total Latinization of the city, which however would remain an unimportant and provincial town into the Middle Ages.
Vibo Valentia - The colony of Hipponion was founded by the Greeks on the site of an earlier indigenous Italic settlement named Veip or Veipuna, founded either by the Ausones or the Enotrians. In 389 BC it was taken by the Greek tyrant Dionysius of Syracuse, who destroyed the city and expelled its inhabitants. Ten years later, in 379 BC, the old inhabitants returned. However, in 356 BC it was captured by the Bruttians (Italic tribe). After this date coins were minted with both Greek and Oscan names, as well as with the Bruttian-Italic goddess Pandina and the Bruttian crab symbol, which confirms that Hipponion had become an Italic town. In 294 BC the Greek tyrant Agatocle of Syracuse briefly conquered the town. However, immediately after the Pyrrhic War (280-275 BC) the Romans occupied Hipponion. A formal Latin colony was established there in 192 BC with the name Vibo Valentia or Vibonia. The Roman city continued to exist in the Middle Ages, but suffered destruction as a result of Saracen raids in 850 AD and 983 AD. The city rapidly declined and was semi-abandoned for the next two centuries — some say totally abandoned, apart from a small castrum established by the Normans in the 11th century. The urban center was completely rebuilt and repopulated by people from nearby villages in the 13th century under Frederick II of Sicily, who changed its name to Monteleone in 1239. The ancient name Vibo Valentia was restored in 1928.
It is clear that in these cities there could be no ethnic, linguistic or cultural continuity with ancient Hellenes; the Roman period represented a break with the Hellenic past, inasmuch as under Rome there was a long process of Romanization, strong Italic colonization and eventual demographic replacement of the Greeks. In some instances (as in the case of Napoli and Pozzuoli) a process of Oscaniztion or Italicization was already taking place prior to the Roman takeover; the Roman conquest merely accelerated the inevitable decline of Greek language and culture. By the time of the Late Roman Empire every extant former Greek colony in Southern Italy (of which there were only the above seven) exhibited a well-established Latin character, in terms of language, culture and identity.
Hellenism Did Not Survive
Strabo tells us that by the period of the late Roman Republic (133-31 BC), the only surviving Greek cities were Naples, Taranto and Reggio Calabria, while all the others had become ‘barbarian’ (i.e. Italic). During the Imperial era (27 BC onwards) the Hellenic character even of those three cities was completely obliterated. This is confirmed also by Cassiodorus Senator who, writing in the early 6th century AD, describes Naples, Taranto and Reggio as Latin. Indeed by his time those cities had been Latin for centuries.
The same Cassiodorus, a native of Bruttium (modern Calabria), calls the Latin language “patrius sermo”, i.e. ‘mother tongue’ or more strongly ‘language of the fathers’, which indicates the speech of the Fatherland handed down by the ancestors.
The total disappearance of Greek in Southern Italy during the Roman period is borne out by all the written testimonies, as well as the historical linguistic and archaeological evidence. Hellenism did not survive there. Any noteworthy Greek presence in Southern Italy in subsequent centuries (particularly in Southern Calabria, Salento and Basilicata) was a result of the later arrival of Basilian monks during the Middle Ages, medieval Greek immigrants and Hellenization policies under Byzantine rule between the 8th and 11th centuries AD, completely unrelated to the ancient Hellenic colonists. Furthermore, some of the Greek-speaking minorities still existing in Italy today are not even related to the medieval immigrants of the Byzantine period, but are rather descended from much later refugees fleeing from the Ottomans in the 16th century, some 1,700 years removed from the Hellenic period.
The extinction of Hellenism during the Roman period is unanimously affirmed also by all major Italian philologists and scholars of the subject, including Giovanni Alessio, Carlo Battisti, Giuliano Bonfante, Domenico Comparetti, Giacomo De Gregorio, Nunzio Maccarrone, Giuseppe Morosi, Antonino Pagliaro, Oronzo Parlangeli, Astorre Pellegrini and Giorgio Piccitto, as well as the French linguist Hubert Pernot, the French patristic historian Pierre Courcelle and the French Hellenist François Lenormant — all of whom deny the theory of Greek survival or continuity in Southern Italy. Pretensions to the contrary are supported only by Gerhard Rohlfs and Greek nationalists.
Roman Naples Was Not Greek
Despite being only a minor city in Antiquity (smaller and less important, for example, than the nearby Dikaiarcheia, i.e. today's Pozzuoli), because Naples is today the largest city in Southern Italy it is always subject to greater interest and thus to greater historical pretenses compared to other southern cities. That is to say, its purported ‘Greek heritage’ and ancient grandeur is more frequently touted, as though it were an immutable and enduring reality. It needs to be emphasized, therefore, that our common perception that Naples was still a “Greek city” at the time of the Roman Empire largely derives from the writings of Strabo. However, the fragmentary and archaeological evidence does not really support this conclusion.
In fact, it has been pointed out that even at the time of Strabo's writing, the three cities of Neapolis, Tarentum and Rhegium were hardly ‘bastions’ of Greek culture but were already Roman. What led Strabo to identify Neapolis as still being a ‘Greek’ polis had nothing to do with the language or ethnicity of its inhabitants (which by this time was already predominantly Latin), but rather with the preservation of a local institution of Greek origin known as the ‘demarch’, as well as associations of ephebes and the existence of gymnasia. For Strabo, the outward preservation of these institutions was enough to still consider it a ‘Greek’ city.
In reality, however, under the Romans the office of ‘demarch’ had been reduced to merely a symbolic title whose holder supervised public festivals, and the role was actually occupied by Roman officials, not Greeks. Emperors Titus and Hadrian, for example, were both ‘demarch of Neapolis’, but they were not Greeks. What Strabo was describing in reality were either the traces or remnants of the city's former Hellenic culture, or a later nostalgic revival of previously-discontinued games — not a living and breathing Greek city:
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“The Greeks, however, succeeded in depriving the ancient inhabitants of a great portion of the midland country... to such a degree, that they called this region and Sicily, the Magna Grœcia. But now the whole region, except Tarentum, Rhegium and Neapolis, has become barbarian [non-Greek], and belongs partly to the Leucani and Bruttii, partly to the Campani; to these, however, only in name, but truly to the Romans; for these people have become Roman.”
(Source: Strabo, Geography, Book VI, Ch. I)
“In his time, however, he [Strabo] says, all these cities, excepting only Naples, Reggio and Tarentum (modern Taranto), had become ‘utterly un-Greek’. They were occupied by Italic peoples – Campanians, Lucanians and Bruttians.”
(Source: David Potter, The Origin of Empire: Rome from the Republic to Hadrian, 2019, p. 36)
“By the time of Cassiodorus in the first half of the sixth century even Reggio Calabria, Naples and Taranto, which had been reported by Strabo as strongholds of Greek culture, had been Latinized. Although the conquests of Justinian brought part of the peninsula within the Greek administrative sphere once more, the language of the south remained Latin for the most part, and so did the bishops, who retained their allegiance to the patriarchate of Rome.”
(Source: Paul Hostetler Mosher, The Abbey of Cava in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries, 1969, p. 148)
“Except in Naples, Velia and Rhegium, there are remarkably few Greek names preserved in the epigraphic record, other than those which are obviously slave names, or those of Greeks [immigrants] from outside Italy. Even the Greek inscriptions which record the activities of the élite—decrees of the boule, religious texts, victory lists of the Sebasta and honorific inscriptions—include very few non-Latin names. Most of these élite names are of Roman or Campanian origin, rather than being specifically local to Bruttium or Lucania. This apparent lack of an indigenous Greek élite has mystified scholars considerably, and has lent credence to the idea that the Punic Wars were a watershed, after which Magna Graecia was too impoverished and too Romanised to maintain a significant Greek identity.”
(Kathryn Lomas, Rome and the Western Greeks, 350 BC - AD 200, 2005, p. 171)
“It is possible that the magistrates of the municipium were allowed to continue to use Greek titles as a special concession for the fidelity of Rhegium, but this would scarcely last beyond the middle of the first century... In any case by the second century [AD] Rhegium had become a normal municipium with quattuorviri and had begun to use Latin for inscriptions.”
(Source: B. F. Cook, “The Lost Greek Inscriptions”, in The Antiquaries Journal, vol. 51, 1971, p. 263)
“Tarentum soon became so depopulated that it almost ceased to exist; under Nero Italian veterans moved there to obliterate its Hellenistic character more and more, and the city became thoroughly Latin. There are only a few meagre inscriptions in Greek. ... As late as the first century [AD] there were still archontic and demarchic inscriptions ... in Rhegium and Naples. By the second century, however, Latin had precedence in Rhegium. ...southern Italy was Latinized...”
(Source: A History of Rome under the Emperors, translated from the German Römische Kaisergeschichte: Nach den Vorlesungsmitschriften von Sebastian und Paul Hensel 1882/86, 2005)
“In southern Italy, Greek material culture — ceramics and metallurgy — was already in decline by the fall of the Roman Republic. ... But by the third century [AD], Greek inscriptions have disappeared from Naples and Rhegium. In the West, some of the Greek cities had lost their Hellenic character by the end of the Republic, but others kept Greek institutions into the empire... But those vigorous cities needed Roman government far more than they needed their ancestral Greek culture. ... The loss of Greek identity in the cities of Magna Graecia and Sicily and the virtual loss of the Greek language — at least until reintroduced by Byzantine Greeks fleeing iconoclasts or Slavic invaders — certainly needs further exploration...”
(Source: Ronald Mellor, “Graecia Capta: The Confrontation Between Greek and Roman Identity”, in Hellenisms: Culture, Identity, and Ethnicity from Antiquity to Modernity, 2016, pp. 123-124)
“Strabo tells us that in his time the whole of that country [south of Italy], with the exception of the cities of Tarentum, Rhegium, and Naples, had been completely barbarised, i.e. that it had ceased to use the Greek tongue; and from the absence of Greek inscriptions of the imperial period in that district — as far as the present state of our knowledge justifies us in speaking on the subject — we may conclude that that language became extinct there within the first, or at the utmost the second, century after Christ. From that period onward no considerable influx of Greeks into Italy took place until the outbreak of iconoclasm in the Eastern empire in the eighth century [AD].”
(Source: H. F. Tozer, “The Greek-Speaking Population of Southern Italy”, in The Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. 10, 1889, p. 38)
“In the time of Cassiodorus, just as in the time of St. Gregory [the Great], Bruttium is a purely Latin country, and there is no evidence to suggest the continued use of Greek at a time in which it could still be observed in Sicily. Since the end of the Roman Empire, only Latin inscriptions can be found in Taranto; and it is now a generally recognized fact that in ancient Magna Graecia, at the beginning of the Middle Ages, not a single trace of the Hellenic language and culture remained. If Hellenism later regained a foothold in this ancient region, it is solely due to Byzantine influence...”
(Source: Translated from the Italian of Giulio Gay, L'Italia meridionale e l'impero bizantino, p. 10)
“Historically, the unanimous agreement of all texts and all inscriptions establishes — leaving no room for doubt — that in that part [of Southern Italy] which was formerly called Magna Graecia the tradition of Hellenism had been absolutely interrupted in the first centuries of the Christian era. Already Strabo, who had traveled through this district, attests that in his time Neapolis, Rhegion and Taranto were the only cities that still resisted Latinization, or, to repeat his term, ‘barbarization'; everywhere then Greek had given way to Latin, as Roman customs had replaced Hellenic ones. The only three ramparts of Hellenism which he still pointed to were all extinguished during the Empire; for each of these cities the date in which they were definitively Latinized can be fixed. When the Christian Church was established in Southern Italy, it occurred under the direct action and supremacy of the Holy See and therefore, like it, the Church was Latin. In order for the Greek language and culture to reestablish itself again, it had to make a new conquest [under the Byzantines]... and this took place after an interval of at least five hundred years, during which the country had been wholly and exclusively Latin.”
(Source: Translated from the Italian of François Lenormant, La Magna Grecia, paesaggi e storia, vol. 2, 1976, pp. 367-368)
“It is natural that a city in such conditions under Rome would be Latinized eventually. ... And in light of what is affirmed by Procopius in general about Magna Graecia in Justinian's day — which he calls a Latin country, just like the region of Samnium —, and by Cassiodorus in particular who, living in Bruttium, calls the Latin language “patrius sermo” (mother tongue), without delimitation or exclusion of any kind, while he defines Regium as a flourishing Roman municipality —, I compared the titles of Regium during the period of the Late Empire and, far from being Greek, they are all written in the Latin language. ...it ought to be considered valid confirmation of the city's general passage from the Greek language to Latin, which had already taken place in Regium by the Late Imperial age. ...it was only [following the conquest of the Byzantines, after the end of the 7th century AD] that the Greek language and Greek liturgical rite was reintroduced in Bruttium... What I expounded upon... does not seem to have sufficiently attracted the attention of scholars specializing in the field of linguistics, namely the learned and acute author Rohlfs...”
(Source: Translated from the Italian of Nicola Putorti, “I romani in Regium Julium”, in Atti del Congresso nazionale studi romani, 1929, pp. 297-299)
The total disappearance of Greek in Southern Italy during the Roman period is borne out by all the written testimonies, as well as the historical linguistic and archaeological evidence. Hellenism did not survive there. Any noteworthy Greek presence in Southern Italy in subsequent centuries (particularly in Southern Calabria, Salento and Basilicata) was a result of the later arrival of Basilian monks during the Middle Ages, medieval Greek immigrants and Hellenization policies under Byzantine rule between the 8th and 11th centuries AD, completely unrelated to the ancient Hellenic colonists. Furthermore, some of the Greek-speaking minorities still existing in Italy today are not even related to the medieval immigrants of the Byzantine period, but are rather descended from much later refugees fleeing from the Ottomans in the 16th century, some 1,700 years removed from the Hellenic period.
The extinction of Hellenism during the Roman period is unanimously affirmed also by all major Italian philologists and scholars of the subject, including Giovanni Alessio, Carlo Battisti, Giuliano Bonfante, Domenico Comparetti, Giacomo De Gregorio, Nunzio Maccarrone, Giuseppe Morosi, Antonino Pagliaro, Oronzo Parlangeli, Astorre Pellegrini and Giorgio Piccitto, as well as the French linguist Hubert Pernot, the French patristic historian Pierre Courcelle and the French Hellenist François Lenormant — all of whom deny the theory of Greek survival or continuity in Southern Italy. Pretensions to the contrary are supported only by Gerhard Rohlfs and Greek nationalists.
Roman Naples Was Not Greek
Despite being only a minor city in Antiquity (smaller and less important, for example, than the nearby Dikaiarcheia, i.e. today's Pozzuoli), because Naples is today the largest city in Southern Italy it is always subject to greater interest and thus to greater historical pretenses compared to other southern cities. That is to say, its purported ‘Greek heritage’ and ancient grandeur is more frequently touted, as though it were an immutable and enduring reality. It needs to be emphasized, therefore, that our common perception that Naples was still a “Greek city” at the time of the Roman Empire largely derives from the writings of Strabo. However, the fragmentary and archaeological evidence does not really support this conclusion.
In fact, it has been pointed out that even at the time of Strabo's writing, the three cities of Neapolis, Tarentum and Rhegium were hardly ‘bastions’ of Greek culture but were already Roman. What led Strabo to identify Neapolis as still being a ‘Greek’ polis had nothing to do with the language or ethnicity of its inhabitants (which by this time was already predominantly Latin), but rather with the preservation of a local institution of Greek origin known as the ‘demarch’, as well as associations of ephebes and the existence of gymnasia. For Strabo, the outward preservation of these institutions was enough to still consider it a ‘Greek’ city.
In reality, however, under the Romans the office of ‘demarch’ had been reduced to merely a symbolic title whose holder supervised public festivals, and the role was actually occupied by Roman officials, not Greeks. Emperors Titus and Hadrian, for example, were both ‘demarch of Neapolis’, but they were not Greeks. What Strabo was describing in reality were either the traces or remnants of the city's former Hellenic culture, or a later nostalgic revival of previously-discontinued games — not a living and breathing Greek city:
“Most previous studies—driven by assumptions about Naples’ identity as a ‘Greek city’—have stressed the conservative nature of the city’s constitution in Roman times, as well as its continuity with earlier Greek institutions. These seemingly sound assumptions have often taken on a life of their own within the scholarly debate. Nevertheless, a partially different picture seems to emerge when we approach the ancient source material in a new and possibly provocative way, drawing on some of the theories and methodologies of reception studies. ... It will then move on to reconsider the traditional interpretations of this evidence, showing that some of the Greek magistracies in Naples were in fact substantially ‘reinvented’ at the time of the institution of the Sebasta games.”
(Source: Claudio Buongiovanni and Jessica Hughes, Remembering Parthenope: The Reception of Classical Naples from Antiquity to the Present, 2015, pp. 85-86)
“...much modern discussion of the supposed adjustments and changes in Neapolis’ constitution and administrative system after the Social War is dominated by presuppositions about the enduring Greek culture and heritage of this city.”
(Source: Idem, p. 88)
“In his famous excursus on Neapolis (on which see Lorenzo Miletti, Chapter 2 of this volume), Strabo emphasizes that the earliest names of their demarchs ‘are Greek only, whereas the later are Greek mixed with Campanian. And very many traces of Greek culture are preserved there—gymnasia, ephebeia, phratriae, and Greek names [...], although the people are Romans’. It is worth noting that Strabo clearly recognizes as the most distinctive Greek features its gymnasia, its clubs of ephebes (young men), and its phratries: apart from the demarchs, there is no reference to any other Greek civic magistrature or office in this passage. Moreover, according to Strabo, besides Neapolis only Tarentum and Rhegium survived a complete ‘barbarization’. Guy Bradley has rightly pointed out that ‘these are surprising choices to pick as standard-bearers of Greek culture in Italy, since Tarentum had received a Roman colony in the late second century [BC] and Rhegium was not only seized by the Roman legion which had been sent to garrison it in the early second century [BC] (and which killed most of the population in the process, according to Strabo) but had also been colonised by [Roman] veterans in the late Republic’. Strabo is one of the most significant of all our sources and his description of Neapolis has generated the idea that this city was a distinguished but fairly typical example of ‘Greek tradition’ in Italy, whose Greek language, culture, and institutions resembled those of other Greek democratic communities... Instead, such a peculiar articulation of Roman Neapolis’ political structure may well be seen as a reflection of what Kathryn Lomas has appropriately called ‘the revival of Hellenism’ during the first and early second centuries AD, that is, ‘a cultural construct, not something which is consequent on ethnicity’. It is therefore worth considering whether we should interpret Neapolis’ municipal structures in the first and second centuries AD in terms of a deliberate ‘revival of Hellenism’ through a process of manipulation of Greek heritage by the local elite, fostered by the central government.”
(Source: Idem, pp. 91-92)
“We might remember that Strabo's description of Naples identified the demarchs, its gymnasia, its associations of ephebes, and its phratries as the most distinctive Greek features of this city: these elements seem to have been sufficient to allow Naples to represent itself as a real Greek polis well into the Principate. ... Hopefully, though, it is now clear that any further investigation into city magistrates holding offices at Neapolis between the Social War and late antiquity has to start not from the oversimplistic concept that Neapolis was a ‘Greek city’ but rather from an examination of the hitherto untapped evidence of the Latin inscriptions from Naples that relate or allude to local municipal offices...”
(Source: Idem, pp. 102-104)
“The majority of funerary inscriptions from Naples is, in contrast, written in Latin, and commemorates people with Latin (or Latinized) names. Some of those which are in Greek are literal translations of the Latin D(is) M(anibus) type of epitaph, which suggests a high degree of Latinization of the epigraphic culture. ... It may also reflect socioeconomic status, as they commemorate people beyond the elite. Nevertheless, they reveal a division between the public culture of Naples, with its emphasis on Hellenism, and the increasingly Roman culture of the mass of the population. Onomastic practices are also revealing. From the Augustan period onwards, Greek names, where they occur, were mainly of a type which suggests slave origin. Most Neapolitans had adopted Roman names. Even the members of the elite who were commissioning public inscriptions in Greek, and of Greek type, had all adopted Roman names, expressed in Roman form. Much of the population, therefore, had adopted Roman naming practices – an important element in assessing cultural change (Leiwo, 1994; Lomas, 2003). This raises some important questions about demographic continuity. Studies of the onomastic history of Naples suggest that there was a fair amount of continuity until the first century AD, indicated by the survival of Greek and Campanian names. From the second century AD, Latin names became more predominant, which may point to the arrival of significant numbers of [Italic] people from other areas of Campania, perhaps migrating following the eruption of Vesuvius (Leiwo, 1994: 171–72). ... Latin was widely adopted, as were many features of Roman administrative organization, and the urban landscape appears to have changed to embrace the building types and architectural styles of contemporary Italy. ... The scarcity of evidence from the first century BC means that it is impossible to ascertain whether the Hellenism of the early empire was a direct development from the culture of pre‐Roman Naples or a revival of specific aspects of this. The fact that Hellenism appears to be confined to elite culture and to certain aspects of civic culture suggests that it may have become a restricted area of high culture, mainly used for the more ceremonial and public aspects of civic life such as exchanges of honors and benefactions.”
(Alison E. Cooley, A Companion to Roman Italy, 2016, pp. 248-249)
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Fascinating.
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