Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/267

 MAGNA GRAECIA. There can be no doubt that tlie cities of Magna Graecia had suffered severely during these wars : the foreign troops placed within their walls, whether Roman or Greek, appear to have given way to simi- lar excesses ; and the garrisons of Pyrrhus at Locri and Tarentum were guilty of exactions and cruelties which almost rivalled those of the Campanians at Khegium. In addition to the loss of their indepen- dence, therefore, it is certain that the war of Pyrrhus inflicted a mortal blow on the prosperity of the few Greek cities in Southern Italy which had survived their long-continued struggles with the Lucanians and Bruttians. The decayed and enfeebled con- dition of the once powerful Crotona (Liv. xxiii. 30) was undoubtedly common to many of her neighbours and former rivals. There were, however, some ex- ceptions ; Heraclea especially, which had earned the fjwour of Rome by a timely submission, obtained a treaty of alliance on unusually favourable terms (Cic. pro Balh. 22), and seems to have continued in a flourishing condition. But the final blow to the prosperity of Magna Graecia was inflicted by the Second Punic War. It is probable that the Greek cities were viewed with unfavourable eyes by the Roman government, and were naturally desirous to recover their lost inde- pendence. Hence they eagerly seized the opportu- nity afforded by the victories of Hannibal, and after the battle of Cannae we are told that almost all the Greek cities on the S. coast of Italy (^Graecorum omnis ferme ora, Liv. xsii. 61) declared in favour of the Carthaginian cause. Some of these were, however, overawed by Roman garrisons, which re- strained them from open defection. Tarentum itself (still apparently the most powerful city in this part of Italy) was among the number; and though the city itself was betrayed into the hands of the Car- thaginian commander, the citadel was still retained by a Roman garrison, which maintained its footing until the city was recovered by Fabius, b. c. 209. (Liv. XXV. 8 — 11, xsvii. 15, 16.) Tarentum was on this occasion treated like a captured city, and plundered without mercy, while the citizens were either put to the sword or sold as slaves. Jleta- pontum was only saved from a similar fate by the removal of its inhabitants and their property, when Hannibal was compelled to abandon the town ; and at a later period of the war Terina was utterly destroyed by the Carthaginian general. (Liv. xxvii. 51 ; Strab. vi. 256.) Locri and Crotona were taken and retaken : Rhegium alone, which maintained its fidelity to Rome inviolate, though several times attempted by a Carthaginian force, seems to have in great measure escaped the ravages of the war. It is certain that the cities of Magna Graecia never recovered from this long series of calamities. We have very httle information as to their condition under the government of the Roman Republic, or the particular regulations to which they were subjected. But it is probable that, until after the complete subjugation of Greece and Macedonia, they were looked upon with a jealous eye as the natural allies of their kinsmen beyond the seas (Liv. xxsi. 7) ; and even the colonies, whether of Roman or Latin citizens, which were settled on the coasts of South- ern Italy, were probably designed rather to keep down the previous inhabitants than to recruit the exhausted population. One of these colonies, that to Posidonia, now known as Paestum, had been established at a period as early as b. c. 273 (Liv. Epit. siv. ; Veil. Pat. i. 14) ; and Brundusium, MAGNA GRAECIA. 251 which subsequently rose to be so important a cit)-, was also settled before the Second Punic War, b. c. 244. (Veil. Pat. I. c; Liv. Epit. xix.) But, with these exceptions, all the Roman colonies to the coasts of Lucania, Bruttium, and Calabria, date from the period subsequent to that war. Of these, Buxentuni in Lucania and Tempsa in Bruttium were settled as early as b. c. 194 ; and in the same year a body of Roman colonists was established in th.e once mighty Crotona. (Liv. xxsiv. 47.) Shortly after- wards two other colonies were settled, one at Thurii in Lucania, in b. c. 193, and the other at Hippo- nium or Vibo, in Bruttium, b. c. 192. (Liv. xxxiv. 53, XXXV. 9, 40.) The last of these, which under the name of Vibo Valentia became a flourishing and important town, was the only one of these colonics which appears to have risen to any considerable prosperity. At a much Inter period (b. c. 123), the two colonies sent to Scylacium and Tarentum, under the names of Colonia Minervia and Neptunia (Veil. Pat. i. 15), were probably designed as an attempt to recruit the sinking population of those places. But all attempts to check the rapid decline of this part of Italy were obviously unsuccessful. It is pro- bable, or indeed almost certain, that malaria began to make itself severely felt as soon as the population diminished. This is noticed by Strabo in the case of Posidonia (v. p. 251) ; and the same thing must have occurred along the shores of the Tarentine gulf. Indeed, Strabo himself tells us, that, of the cities of Magna Graecia which had been so famous in ancient times, the only ones that retained any traces of their Greek civilisation in his day were Rhegium, Tarentum, and Neapolis (vi. p. 253) ; while the great Achaean cities on the Tarentine gulf had almost entirely disappeared. (/6. p. 262.) The expressions of Cicero are not less forcible, that Magna Graecia, which had been so flourishing in the days of Pythagoras, and abounded in great and opu- lent cities, was in his time sunk into utter ruin {nunc quideni deleta est, Cic. de Amic. 4, Tusc. iv. 1 ). Several of the towns which still existed in the days of Cicero, as Metapontum, Heraclea, and Locri, gradually fell into utter insignificance, and totally disappeared, while Tarentum, Crotona, and a few others maintained a sickly and feeble existence through the middle ages down to the present time. It has been already observed, that the name of Magna Graecia was never a territorial designation ; nor did the cities which composed it ever constitute a political unity. In the earliest times, indeed, the difference of their origin and race must have effec- tually prevented the fonnation of any such union, among them as a whole. But even the Achaean cities appear to have formed no political league or union among themselves, until after the troubles growing out of the expulsion of the Pythagoreans, on which occasion they are said to have applied to the Achaeans in Greece for their arbitration, and to have founded by their advice a temple of Zeus Homorius, where they were to hold councils to deliberate upon their common affairs and interests. (Pol. ii. 39.) A more comprehensive league was formed in B. c. 393, for mutual protection against the attacks of Dionysius on one side, and the Lucanians on the other (Diod. xiv. 91) ; and the cities which com- posed it must have had some kind of general council or place of meeting. It is probable that it was on this occasion that the general meetings of the Italian Greeks, alluded to by Strabo (vi. p. 280), were first instituted ; though it is highly improbable