History Of Greek Colonies In Sicily

As you know, I love the Romans, but I also love the Greeks. Greece, classical era, when you think of the land of the gods and the heroes. It's majestic and I was brought up with Greek legends and myths. In fact, when I was eight years old, my mother used to read to me Greek stories and the Odyssey, the Iliad, all these ancient poems she read to me when I was a child. And I was fascinated imagining these Greek heroes like Agamemnon and Menelaus and all these Greek gods like Athena and Aphrodite. But I think it's also because of the fact that, in a way, I am a bit Greek and a bit Roman and Phoenician perhaps. Yes, if you think about Sicily, it's the very center of the Mediterranean Sea. Loads of cultures have come here, creating a cluster of multicultural interaction and history. Now, the specific town where I come from, the city of Palermo, was Phoenician at the time when the Greeks came here and eventually will become, of course, a Roman province. But the Greeks had created, or at least Greek settlers, had created many colonies in Sicily. Today, we will both go to explore one of these colonies today. To be honest, one of my favorites, which is just one hour drive from Palermo, just going down south until we reach the southern coast of Sicily. And we will also learn the story of these settlers conquering Sicily. In the first half of the first millennium before Christ, Greek city-states, most of which were maritime powers, began to look beyond Greece for land, for resources. That's how they started founding colonies across the Mediterranean Sea. Now, of course, Sicily, being in the very middle of the action, in the very middle of the Mediterranean Sea, being the biggest island in the Mediterranean Sea, started to be filled with Greek settlers. Apparently, trade was one of the first steps in the colonization process. And as local population were subdued or included within the colonies, cities were established. Now, what's interesting about Sicilian Greek city-states is that although some did keep contact with the homeland, most of them became fully independent city-states, still maintaining a very distinctive Greek character, but at the same time also getting closer to local indigenous people. The Greek way of life was spread to Italy. In total, in this period, the Greeks established some 500 colonies which involved up to 60,000 Greek citizens-colonists. So in 500 BC, these territories, which had been acquired, would eventually account for 40% of all Greeks in the Hellenic world. So what were the Greeks exporting? Pottery, wine, oil, metalwork, textiles, timber, metals extracted from the land, and agriculture, mostly grain, dried fish, and leather. These areas became lucrative trading hubs and, of course, a source of slaves. A military presence was also set up in particular regions as to protect lucrative sea routes. The town of Syracuse, or modern Italian Syracusa, for example, became the largest polis in the entire Greek world, managing to rival the greatest founding cities of Greece. Now, of course, Sicily was not only Greek. A good example is my hometown, Palermo, which was a Phoenician colony. So I think it would be interesting to consider Sicily, and in a way also, of course, Southern Italy, as the new world for the Greeks of the time. As a matter of fact, the Etruscans, the Phoenicians, and the Greeks were the major cultures of the time, and Sicily was in the very middle. So it was perfect for trading. It would become the new trade center. And it is very interesting how this allowed these Sicilian towns, these new Sicilian towns, to prosper. Historians tell us they had vast riches, extravagant lifestyles, etc. A good example of that are, for example, the fine temples of Akragas, or modern-day Agrigento. Empedocles, as talking and mentioning people of Agrigento, says, the Akragantinians revel as if they must die tomorrow, and build as if they would live forever. Now, personally, my favorite Sicilian town of Greek origins is the town of Selinunte, and all the imagery that you see in this video was taken in Selinunte, because it's one of my favorites. It's just one hour drive from my home. Selinunte was an ancient Greek city of the southwestern coast of Sicily in Italy. The archaeological park contains five temples, which are centered on an Acropolis. The temple of Hera is the only one standing. It is also called Temple E. At its peak, before 409 BC, the city may have contained up to 30,000 people, excluding slaves. The Acropolis is made of chalk, massive, and it has a cliff face falling into the sea in the south, while in the north, ends narrow to 140 meters wide. Now, it's interesting. If you look at the actual shape of the settlement, then we notice that it's basically a massive trapezoid, and it has a large retaining wall in terraces, about 11 meters high. The urban plan is divided in quarters by two main streets. The Greeks who founded Selinunte were originally coming from Attica, from West Attica, from a city called, well, in English, Megara. As far as Greek is concerned, I'm not quite sure, so I might need your help, but I think it's either pronounced Me-ya-ra, Me-za-ra, or Me-wa-ra. Not sure, I'll be waiting for my Greek subscribers to tell me. It lies in the northern section of the Isthmus of Corinth, opposite to the island of Salamis, before being taken by Athens. Now, if we look at this map, for example, we can see that even though we consider all these cities to be Greek, but they were founded by different people of Greek origins, of course. The southern part of Sicily was mostly founded by Doric Greeks, northeastern part by Ionic, whereas Achaean Greeks were doing expeditions to southern Italy, mainland. The Greek city-states enjoyed long periods of democratic government, but in times of social stress, in particular, with constant warring against Carthage, tyrants occasionally usurped the leadership. These city-states were an important part of classical Greek civilization, and both Empedocles and Archimedes were from Sicily. As the Greek and Phoenician communities grew more populous and more powerful, the indigenous people, the Circanians, the Syccles, were pushed further into the center of the island. Now, when talking about politics, then we have to consider the Sicilian politics were interwined with politics in Greece itself. During the Peloponnesian Wars, for example, in 415 before Christ, Athens was led to mount later disastrous Sicilian expedition. In Greek mythology, Mount Etna in Sicily was actually thrown onto the island of Sicily by the goddess Athena herself. With 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. From this, the merging of the locals and the Greeks from mainland and regional Hellenic civilization, later interacting with the native Italic civilizations. All right, well, I hope that you enjoyed this video. If you did, please remember thumbs up and subscribe to my channel for more content from the Metatron.