This volume presents studies by international experts on aspects of the society, economy, religion, culture, and history of the Greek settlements of the ancient western Mediterranean, one of the most innovative areas of the ancient Greek world.
Across 43 chapters, this book synthesizes material evidence, integrates this with ancient sources, and introduces key methodological debates on the nature and study of Greek settlement in the west. It provides an overview of the history of the region, from earliest contact with the Greek world to the Roman period, and examines the relationships between Greek and non-Greek populations of the western Mediterranean and how they shaped each other’s histories and cultures. The volume also explores aspects of the economy, society and culture of the region, illustrating the contribution of the western Greeks to shaping wider Greek culture and identity. By adopting a wide-ranging approach, integrating material evidence and ancient sources, it illuminates the diversity and innovative nature of the western Greek world from its earliest development to the aftermath of the Roman conquest.
The World of the Western Greeks is an essential reference work for students and scholars of the Greek western Mediterranean and its history, culture, and society.
Table of Contents:
1. Introduction: Approaches to the Western Greek world - Kathryn Lomas; Concepts and models; 2. Concepts and models of settlement in the Western Mediterranean - Robin Osborne; 3. Cultural Networks and Identities in the Western Mediterranean - Adolfo J. Domínguez; 4. Myth and Identity - Mark Thatcher; 5. Framing Greek presence in the West: a sociology of ‘Greek colonisation’ - Lieve Donnellan; 6. Postcolonial criticism and Magna Graecia - Gabriel Zuchtriegel; Historical and archaeological development; 7. Explorers, traders, pirates and refugees. The Aegean presence in Southern Italy and Sicily before Greek colonisation - Davide Tanasi; 8. The earliest Greek settlements in Italy and Sicily: Sources and evidence - Valentino Nizzo; 9. From settlement to Polis: The establishment of the Greek city in the Seventh–Sixth centuries BC - Giulia Saltini Semerari; 10. Archaic and classical Magna Graecia: lines of historical development - Maurizio Giangiulio; 11. Sicily in the Sixth and Fifth Centuries - Gillian Shepherd; 12. Sicily from Dionysius I to the Roman Sack of Syracuse - Richard Evans; 13. The Roman Conquest: Magna Graecia from Pyrrhus to Hannibal - Giovanna De Sensi Sestito; 14. From Greek to Roman: Magna Graecia from the end of the Punic wars to the early empire - Kathryn Lomas; 15. Roman Sicily - Laura Pfuntner; Greeks and Others: Greeks and non-Greeks in the Western Mediterranean; 16. Greeks and others in Campania - Carmine Pellegrino; 17. Greeks, Lucanians and Bruttians - Ilaria Battiloro; 18. “A bane to the Iapygians”. Greek-indigenous relations in south-east Italy - Edward Herring; 19. Sicans and Greeks in Central Western Sicily in the Archaic Age - Francesca Spatafora; 20. Greeks and Phoenicians in Sicily and Magna Graecia - Gabriella Sciortino; 21. The Western Greek world and central Italy: contacts with Etruria and Rome - Maria Rafaella Ciuccarelli; 22. Greeks, Greek settlements and relations with non-Greeks in the Far Occident (France and Spain) (Seventh-First centuries BC) - Michel Bats (with contributions by Rosa Plana-Mallart and Marta Santos-Retolaza); Agriculture, Trade, Craft Production and Material Culture; 23. Landscape, rural settlement and agrarian production in archaic Magna Graecia and Sicily. A landscape archaeological view - Peter Attema; 24. Agriculture and agrarian changes in Magna Graecia in the Roman period - Alastair M. Small; 25. The Straits of Otranto: a network node in Mediterranean trade from the Archaic to Late Hellenistic periods - Carlo De Mitri; 26. Building the city: Urban development in the Archaic and Classical periods - Emanuele Greco; 27. Public Architecture in Sicily and Magna Grecia - Spencer Pope; 28. Domestic Architecture: Rural housing in Magna Graecia and Sicily between the fourth and the first centuries BC - Valentina Trotta; 29. Greek Sculpture in Sicily and South Italy from the Geometric to the Classical Period - Clemente Marconi; 30. Apulian and Lucanian red-figure pottery: production, use and reception - T.H. Carpenter; 31. Textile production in Magna Graecia - Margarita Gleba and Francesco Meo; 32. Coins and the transfer of cultures in Magna Graecia and Sicily - †Keith Rutter; Culture and Society in the Greek west; 33. Ruling the city: civic constitutions, law-codes and their development - Loredana Cappelletti; 34. Armies, Mercenaries, and the Nature of War - Joshua R. Hall; 35. Women in the colonial and indigenous worlds of the western Mediterranean - Francesca Fulminante and Tamar Hodos; 36. Shaping (and rethinking) the sacred in Magna Graecia. Sanctuaries, votives and ritual practices in the Western colonies - Valeria Parisi; 37. Sport, Games and Athletic Festivals in Magna Graecia and Sicily - Diva di Nanni; 38. Literacy and the development of writing in the western Mediterranean - Stefania De Vido; 39. Medicine in Magna Graecia - Luigi Vecchio; 40. Science and Engineering - Aimee Schofield; 41. The Development of Philosophy in Magna Graecia - Benjamin Harriman; 42. Poetry and Performance in the Greek West - Federico Favi and Peter Wilson; 43. Feasting, drinking, and food in the culture of Magna Graecia - Adam Rabinowitz.
