Ancient Greece in Italy. In the 8th and 7th centuries BC, for various reasons, including demographic crises, the search for new commercial outlets and ports, and expulsion from their homeland, Greeks began to settle in southern Italy. They included settlements in Sicily and the middle and southern (but also northern) part of the Italian Peninsula. Many of the new Greek cities became very rich and powerful, like Parthenope/Neapolis (Νεάπολις, Naples, "New City"), Syracuse (Συράκουσαι), Acragas (Ἀκράγας), Sybaris (Σύβαρις) and Paestum (Ποσειδωνία). Other cities in Magna Graecia included Tarentum (Τάρας/Taranto), Epizephyrian Locri (Λοκροί Ἐπιζεφύριοι), Rhegium (Ῥήγιον), Croton (Κρότων), Thurii (Θούριοι), Elea (Ἐλέα), Nola (Νῶλα), Ancona (Ἀγκών), Syessa (Σύεσσα), Bari (Βάριον) and others. The Romans called the area of Sicily and the foot of Italy Magna Graecia (Latin for “Great Greece”), since it was so densely inhabited by the Greeks. Following the Pyrrhic War in the 3rd century BC, Magna Graecia was absorbed into the Roman Republic. With this colonization, Greek culture was exported to Italy, in its dialects of the Ancient Greek language, its religious rites and its traditions of the independent polis. An original Hellenic civilization soon developed, later interacting with the native Italic civilisations. The most important cultural transplant was the Chalcidean/Cumaean variety of the Greek alphabet, which was adopted by the Etruscans; the Old Italic alphabet subsequently evolved into the Latin alphabet, which became the most widely used alphabet in the world. Today's Griko people (Greek: Γκρίκο, sometimes spelled Grico, Greco in Calabria, and also known as Grecanici) are an ethnic Greek community of Southern Italy. They are found principally in regions of Calabria (Province of Reggio Calabria) and Apulia (peninsula of Salento). The Griko are believed to be remnants of the once large Ancient and Medieval Greek communities of southern Italy (the old Magna Graecia region). Although most Greek inhabitants of Southern Italy have become entirely Italianized over the centuries, the Griko community has been able to preserve their original Greek identity, heritage, language and distinct culture (15% of the surnames in the province of Reggio di Calabria have a Greek origin), although exposure to mass media has progressively eroded their culture and language. The Griko people traditionally spoke the Griko language which is a form of the Greek language. Modern DNA research confirms the genetic relation between Greeks and Southern Italians: "A study of chromosomal variation showed that the modern Greeks and Southern Italians have a common prehistoric genetic history, but also to a greater extent a historic one. The Southern Italians are largely Greek in origin." (Francalacci P, Morelli L, Underhill P A, Lillie A S, Passariono G, Uselli A, 2003) "The closest population to Greeks are Italians and Tuscans, the low genetic distance between Greeks and Italians (the lowest in the fst table, -0.0001 fst) confirms once again that southern Italians are little more than Latin speaking Greeks." (Tian et al, 2008) “The genetic contribution of Greek chromosomes to the Sicilian gene pool is estimated to be about 37% whereas the contribution of North African populations is estimated to be around 6%. In particular, the presence of a modal haplotype coming from the southern Balkan Peninsula and of its one-step derivates associated to E3b1a2-V13, supports a common genetic heritage between Sicilians and Greeks. The estimate of Time to Most Recent Common Ancestor is about 2380 years before present, which broadly agrees with the archaeological traces of the Greek classic era. […] We found a homogenous distribution of the E3b1a2-V13 marker over the island, which suggests an impact of the Greek colonization so impressive as to create a uniform stratum across Sicily. The Hg E3b1a2-V13 is estimated to contribute to the Sicilian gene pool by a fraction reaching 37%.” (Di Gaetano; et al. [2008], "Differential Greek and northern African migrations to Sicily are supported by genetic evidence from the Y chromosome", European Journal of Human Genetics 17 , https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2985948/ )

• published: 07 Feb 2016
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