![Italie -800](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/23/Italie_-800.png)
The Italiotes ( grc-gre, Ἰταλιῶται, ') were the pre-
Roman
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
-speaking inhabitants of the
Italian Peninsula, between
Naples
Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...
and
Sicily
(man) it, Siciliana (woman)
, population_note =
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, demographics_type1 = Ethnicity
, demographics1_footnotes =
, demographi ...
.
Greek colonization
Greek colonization was an organised colonial expansion by the Archaic Greeks into the Mediterranean Sea and Black Sea in the period of the 8th–6th centuries BC.
This colonization differed from the migrations of the Greek Dark Ages in that i ...
of the coastal areas of
southern Italy
Southern Italy ( it, Sud Italia or ) also known as ''Meridione'' or ''Mezzogiorno'' (), is a macroregion of the Italian Republic consisting of its southern half.
The term ''Mezzogiorno'' today refers to regions that are associated with the peop ...
and Sicily started in the 8th century BC and, by the time of the Roman ascendance, the area was so extensively hellenized that Romans called it ''
Magna Graecia
Magna Graecia (, ; , , grc, Μεγάλη Ἑλλάς, ', it, 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 re ...
'', that is "Greater Greece".
The
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the o ...
is a derivative of the
Western Greek alphabet
Many local variants of the Greek alphabet were employed in ancient Greece during the archaic and early classical periods, until around 400 BC, when they were replaced by the classical 24-letter alphabet that is the standard today. All forms ...
used by these settlers, and was picked up and adopted and modified first by the
Etruscans
The Etruscan civilization () was developed by a people of Etruria in ancient Italy with a common language and culture who formed a federation of city-states. After conquering adjacent lands, its territory covered, at its greatest extent, rou ...
and then by the
Romans
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
* Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...
.
Italiote League
Tarentum Tarentum may refer to:
* Taranto, Apulia, Italy, on the site of the ancient Roman city of Tarentum (formerly the Greek colony of Taras)
**See also History of Taranto
* Tarentum (Campus Martius), also Terentum, an area in or on the edge of the Camp ...
controlled the Italiote League from about the end of the 5th century BC and levied troops from the Greek cities.
Dionysius I of Syracuse
Dionysius I or Dionysius the Elder ( 432 – 367 BC) was a Greek tyrant of Syracuse, in Sicily. He conquered several cities in Sicily and southern Italy, opposed Carthage's influence in Sicily and made Syracuse the most powerful of the Western Gre ...
conquered southern Italy (Magna Graecia), crushing the Italiote (Greek) League at the
Battle of the Elleporus
The Battle of the Elleporus was fought in 389 BC between the forces of Dionysius I of Syracuse and the armies of the Italiote League. The armies of Syracuse triumphed, and Dionysius' control was extended into Southern Italy.
After arriving in It ...
and destroying
Rhegium
Reggio di Calabria ( scn, label= Southern Calabrian, Riggiu; el, label=Calabrian Greek, Ρήγι, Rìji), usually referred to as Reggio Calabria, or simply Reggio by its inhabitants, is the largest city in Calabria. It has an estimated popula ...
.
[''The Encyclopedia of World History'' by Peter N. Stearns, William Leonard Langer Page 68 ]
See also
*
Ancient peoples of Italy
This list of ancient peoples living in Italy summarises groupings existing before and during the Roman expansion and conquest of Italy. Many of the names are either scholarly inventions or exonyms assigned by the ancient writers of works in anc ...
*
Battle of Pandosia
*
Greek coinage of Italy and Sicily
Greek coinage of Italy and Sicily originated from local Italiotes and Siceliotes who formed numerous city states. These Hellenistic communities descended from Greek migrants. Southern Italy was so thoroughly hellenized that it was known as the ...
*
Italiot Greek
The Italiotes ( grc-gre, Ἰταλιῶται, ') were the pre-Roman Greek-speaking inhabitants of the Italian Peninsula, between Naples and Sicily.
Greek colonization of the coastal areas of southern Italy and Sicily started in the 8th cent ...
: modern dialects
*
Magna Graecia
Magna Graecia (, ; , , grc, Μεγάλη Ἑλλάς, ', it, 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 re ...
*
Milo of Croton
Milo or Milon of Croton (late 6th century BC) was a famous ancient Greek athlete.
He was most likely a historical person, as he is mentioned by many classical authors, among them Aristotle, Pausanias, Cicero, Herodotus, Vitruvius, Epictetus, and ...
*
Phlyax play
A Phlyax play ( grc, φλύαξ, also phlyakes), also known as a hilarotragedy, was a burlesque dramatic form that developed in the Greek colonies of Magna Graecia in the 4th century BCE. Its name derives from the Phlyakes or “Gossip Players ...
*
Siceliotes
The Siceliotes (singular and adjectival form: Siceliot), formed a distinct ethno-cultural group in Sicily from about the 8th century BCE until their assimilation into the general Sicilian population. As Hellenic colonists (often reputedly of Dori ...
*
Sicels
The Sicels (; la, Siculi; grc, Σικελοί ''Sikeloi'') were an Italic tribe who inhabited eastern Sicily during the Iron Age. Their neighbours to the west were the Sicani. The Sicels gave Sicily the name it has held since antiquity, bu ...
Notes
References
* ''A history of earliest Italy'' By Massimo Pallottino, 15 April 1991, Page 118
* ''The Cambridge ancient history'' By John Boardman Page 709
* ''Rome and the Western Greeks, 350 BC-AD 200'' Page 103
* ''Gender and ethnicity in ancient Italy'' By Tim Cornell, Kathryn Lomas Page 40
* ''Calabria, the first Italy'' By Gertrude Elizabeth Taylor Slaughter Page 107
{{Ancient Greece topics