Great Video! Απίστευτος! Υπέροχος! I really like to study the Greek colonization in Southern Italy! Sicily (Σικελία), for example, was the heart and the epicenter of Magna Graecia (Μεγάλη Ελλάς), as the Romans called the Greek colonization within the current Italian regions of Sicily, Calabria, Basilicata, Puglia and Campania. In Sicily, however, it is important to highlight that the Greek colonization was NOT concentrated on the entire island, but only within the current provinces of Syracuse, Catania, Ragusa, Messina, Agrigento, Enna and Caltanissetta, including the southern part of the province of Trapani as well (where Selinunte is located). The current province of Palermo, on the other hand, was initially colonized by the Phoenicians/Carthaginians. Syracuse (Συράκουσαι), for example, was not only the most important city of Magna Graecia itself, but it was also one the most important cities of the western world as a whole, ESPECIALLY during Hiero II's reign (270-215 BC), when Syracuse rivaled with Rome and Athens! It was also the birthplace of Archimedes himself! Syracuse, in my historical analysis, was the "queen of Sicily" ("Η βασίλισσα της Σικελίας"). From a simple Corinthian colony, Syracuse became the most important city of Magna Graecia during Gelon I's reign (485-478 BC). Note: The death of Hiero II (215 BC), in my historical analysis, was catastrophic for the political independence of Syracuse. Hieron was able to maintain Syracuse as an independent polis (city) for over 50 years. However, after the rise of Hieron's son and successor, Hieronymus (Ιερώνυμος), Syracuse's political independence was completely compromised. Hieronymus simply abandoned his father's pro-Roman policy, allying himself with the Carthaginians during the Second Punic War. After this political "treason", the city was besieged and conquered by the Romans in 212 BC, which was carried out by the proconsul Claudius Marcellus, the "sword of Rome" ("Gladius Romae"). Nevertheless, Syracuse maintained its importance even after the Roman conquest in 212 BC, when it became the capital of the Roman province of Sicily (PROVINCIA SICILIA), the first Roman province outside Italy. Agrigento (Ακράγας), in turn, was the second most important city of Magna Graecia, ESPECIALLY during the reign of Theron/Θήρων (488-472 BC). After the Greek victory over the Carthaginians at the Battle of Himera (480 BC), Akragas became the most important polis of central Sicily. Pindar himself call it the "most beautiful city of the mortals". However, after the destruction of the city by the Carthaginians (406 BC), Akragas, in my historical analysis, completely lost its former glory and importance. When the consuls Quintus Mamilius Vitulus and Lucius Postumius Megellus conquered the city in 262 BC, Akragas, which was called Agrigentum by the Romans, was no longer the former powerful Akragas of Theron's reign. Just like Paestum (Ποσειδωνία), Agrigento is a "symbol" of the Greek presence in Southern Italy. I really like to visit the Valley of the Temples someday!
Thank you for your very informative and well-thought comment. My grandmothers side has some roots near Leuca, and some older relatives (long gone now) spoke a dialect I think called Griko.
Sicily was never regarded as Magna Grecia, it was always regarded as Sikelia, standing for its own. The Syracusan themselves founded many colonies outside the sicilian island, and the Italian main land. Neapolis was founded by Syracuse, Adria, Ancona, and many other city, even in the ex yugoslavia territories, and much more. After the disastrous military campaign of Athen against Syracuse, Athen started to decline while Syracuse became the emerging power of the Greek world up to the rise of the Roman power. Saying that, me as a sicilian, I feel as Greek as the Greeks of mainland themselves. Greeks are my brother and sister! Surnames, Rivers, lakes, mountains, hills, cities and much more still carrying Greeks names today, although latinized. The joke we have today in modern narratives and fake history is that everything that sounds not familiar with the Italian language is regarded as Arab, just to denigrate the Greek culture and achievement especially of the Sikeliotai or sicilian Greeks. As soon as you research deeply you find out that almost everything is a direct link to ancient Sicilian Greeks, and later Greek Sicilian Byzantines and not Arab, who themselves learned the majority of advancement only after the conquest of Greek Byzantines territories. We have in Sicily still today a very common first name that you find outside Sicily only on Greece, Calogero from the Greek Kalos Gheros. Ancient buildings, ruins, old roads carved in the rocks remind every sicilian it's ancients Greek root and connection. The ancient greek gods temple and statues can be found in many sicilian places and museums. Morgantina for example was a flourishing city in the middle of Sicily where the goddess Demetra and Persephone were worshiped, and where it is believed Demetra herself choose as her place. If the ancient Athenians didn't start an immense and catastrophic war amongst the Greeks city states, the Greek would have never been conquered by the Romans. The Romans on the other side incorporated and learned almost everything from the Greeks of Magna Grecia and Sikelia, and used it in their advantage. The majority of population in the south Italian peninsula was of greek culture. But again unfortunately they were never united and used to fight against each other. A little bit different then Magna Grecia, Sikelia was more uniform and more united body that's why they decided to call themselves, at some point all the tribes interrelated with Greeks Sikeliotai. At the time of the Roman rise, Syracuse was regarded by the Roman a city of wonder, rich, opulent, with a majestic urban structure, great buildings. Rome itself was designed by admiring and copying Syracuse. The main language in Sicily had always been Greek. Even during the Roman times the population language was Greek. Latin was never widely spoken in the island, in fact even during the short and unfortunate Arab oppression rule by the Arab the population was a Greek Byzantines one and Greek was the language spoken by the majority. When the Norman expelled and took Sicily from the Arabs, they found Greek speaking population everywhere. It was the Normans under the request of the Catholic Pope, that slowly the population were forced to adopt the Latin Christian Faith (Catholicism) and language. For the Roman Popes Sicilian Greek Byzantines, language, culture and Faith needed to be gone. Have a nice day
The title is grammatically incorrect. It should be Megale Hellas, because "Hellas" is feminine, whereas "megas" would be masculine. In Greek, as in Latin, the adjective must always follow the gender of the noun. Nonetheless, great video, as always!
It's also probably true, the cattle was much smaller during Classical period and wasn't heavier than 300kg. That particular bull might have been even smaller.
Finding out I have Sicilian ancestry and now finding out that history is actually Greek I am not surprised however I am astounded. Halleluyah now I understand myself
26:00 regarding the two temples. Yes, good question why you would build another one. I think the answer is that these are not examples of civil engineering; these are examples of attempts to please and appease gods which were very much viewed as real, capricious, having a tendency to be vindictive to those who failed to sufficiently venerate them. In short, very powerful sooks. In that sort of context, there could be numerous reasons why the locals decided to build another. Including that it was required for their protection.
Great video summary. When you talk about Achaean colonists, is this referring to the north area of the Peloponnese only, or does it encompass some later areas of the Achaean League including Arcadia? If not, do you know of any Arcadian colonies?
For the Algorithm! About to start the video, hope it will cover Greek colonies in modern day Croatian coast that were created from cities from Magna Graecia. edit: "cover" .... mention at least
A small but important detail of the Roman Sige of Syracuse. The Roman were not able to take Syracuse after more then 2 years of Sige. The Roman take advantage of a festivity the Syracusan were celebrating in honor of their Gods. Even during war times Greeks would not stop their celebration for their Gods. The Romans found this the best opportunity to take the city. Not the most honorable way, but this what the Roman were, opportunist conquerer.
I love to imagine a world where Alexander survived and took on Syracuse and Carthage from 320-310 then gets bogged down in the Italian mountains, meeting the Romans and beating them back but being unable to take Rome itself.
Great video! There is one question that this generated: how were the interactions between colonizers and natives? Hard to imagine such prime land being empty before the greeks
It was part of the difference between Italy and Sicily that the Italians were highly militarised even before the rise of Rome, and several Greek cities were conquered (as described in the video), whereas the Sicels of Sicily were not warlike so they were driven into the interior and then mostly ignored.
I can understand why Pythagoras' less salubrious activities get suppressed but I think there is a pretty easy parallel with modernity; Ted "the Unabomber" Kazcynski. He was a brilliant mathematician whose doctoral thesis is so complex and brilliant it can only be fully understood by like 10 people in the world. While not the leader of a cult, he certainly saw himself as the leader of a decentralized resistance and his manifesto has inspired many hundreds, even thousands of people. What we see in the ancient Greeks is often what we wish we were: rational and cultured. Modernity really is neither and often is an active expression of hatred towards such.
Btw the Syracusans were Dorics i think so the reason they sided with the Spartans is the coser blood ties to the Spartans, thoguh i could be spewing bullshit i am really not well informed in that stage of the peloponisian war and it's generally the most overlooked i think whilist beign hugely important
You are correct, there's even a story of a warband being led by athenians with some doric allies accidentally attacking each other because they mistook thier allies war songs for the enimies.
The Syracusans were more inclined toward friendship with Sparta because of the shared Dorian heritage, but they would not have gotten involved in the conflict at all if the Athenians hadn't arrived in Sicily and attacked them.
I do not mean any disrespect but the two words “Megas Hellas” do no go together grammatically. It should really be “Megali Hellas” The first word is an adjective and the second is a noun. They need to be of the same gender.
Sicily was never regarded as Magna Grecia, it was always regarded as Sikelia, standing for its own. The Syracusan themselves founded many colonies outside the sicilian island, and the Italian main land. Neapolis was founded by Syracuse, Adria, Ancona, and many other city, even in the ex yugoslavia territories, and much more. After the disastrous military campaign of Athen against Syracuse, Athen started to decline while Syracuse became the emerging power of the Greek world up to the rise of the Roman power. Saying that, me as a sicilian, I feel as Greek as the Greeks of mainland themselves. Greeks are my brother and sister! Surnames, Rivers, lakes, mountains, hills, cities and much more still carrying Greeks names today, although latinized. The joke we have today in modern narratives and fake history is that everything that sounds not familiar with the Italian language is regarded as Arab, just to denigrate the Greek culture and achievement especially of the Sikeliotai or sicilian Greeks. As soon as you research deeply you find out that almost everything is a direct link to ancient Sicilian Greeks, and later Greek Sicilian Byzantines and not Arab, who themselves learned the majority of advancement only after the conquest of Greek Byzantines territories. We have in Sicily still today a very common first name that you find outside Sicily only on Greece, Calogero from the Greek Kalos Gheros. Ancient buildings, ruins, old roads carved in the rocks remind every sicilian it's ancients Greek root and connection. The ancient greek gods temple and statues can be found in many sicilian places and museums. Morgantina for example was a flourishing city in the middle of Sicily where the goddess Demetra and Persephone were worshiped, and where it is believed Demetra herself choose as her place. If the ancient Athenians didn't start an immense and catastrophic war amongst the Greeks city states, the Greek would have never been conquered by the Romans. The Romans on the other side incorporated and learned almost everything from the Greeks of Magna Grecia and Sikelia, and used it in their advantage. The majority of population in the south Italian peninsula was of greek culture. But again unfortunately they were never united and used to fight against each other. A little bit different then Magna Grecia, Sikelia was more uniform and more united body that's why they decided to call themselves, at some point all the tribes interrelated with Greeks Sikeliotai. At the time of the Roman rise, Syracuse was regarded by the Roman a city of wonder, rich, opulent, with a majestic urban structure, great buildings. Rome itself was designed by admiring and copying Syracuse. The main language in Sicily had always been Greek. Even during the Roman times the population language was Greek. Latin was never widely spoken in the island, in fact even during the short and unfortunate Arab oppression rule by the Arab the population was a Greek Byzantines one and Greek was the language spoken by the majority. When the Norman expelled and took Sicily from the Arabs, they found Greek speaking population everywhere. It was the Normans under the request of the Catholic Pope, that slowly the population were forced to adopt the Latin Christian Faith (Catholicism) and language. For the Roman Popes Sicilian Greek Byzantines, language, culture and Faith needed to be gone. Have a nice day
No matter how many times all this hoopla is repeated WE ARE STILL HERE, US GREEKS, IN GRECIA MAGNA AND ANATOLIA (GREEK FOR WHERE THE SUN RISES), GRECO-ROMANS IN TOTAL. When those that call themselves Turks today get sick and tired of being subjugated, which they are to this day, you also will stop with the hoopla, hoboplay and go hobo back to where you came from. @hoboplay6703
I love the fact that the Greeks associated with sophistication and deep thought had a popular party game where you fling wine at a dish to see who can hit it.
Im loving these greek history episodes man... and the audio is waaaaaaaaaaay better, thank you!
Great Video! Απίστευτος! Υπέροχος!
I really like to study the Greek colonization in Southern Italy! Sicily (Σικελία), for example, was the heart and the epicenter of Magna Graecia (Μεγάλη Ελλάς), as the Romans called the Greek colonization within the current Italian regions of Sicily, Calabria, Basilicata, Puglia and Campania. In Sicily, however, it is important to highlight that the Greek colonization was NOT concentrated on the entire island, but only within the current provinces of Syracuse, Catania, Ragusa, Messina, Agrigento, Enna and Caltanissetta, including the southern part of the province of Trapani as well (where Selinunte is located). The current province of Palermo, on the other hand, was initially colonized by the Phoenicians/Carthaginians.
Syracuse (Συράκουσαι), for example, was not only the most important city of Magna Graecia itself, but it was also one the most important cities of the western world as a whole, ESPECIALLY during Hiero II's reign (270-215 BC), when Syracuse rivaled with Rome and Athens! It was also the birthplace of Archimedes himself! Syracuse, in my historical analysis, was the "queen of Sicily" ("Η βασίλισσα της Σικελίας"). From a simple Corinthian colony, Syracuse became the most important city of Magna Graecia during Gelon I's reign (485-478 BC).
Note: The death of Hiero II (215 BC), in my historical analysis, was catastrophic for the political independence of Syracuse. Hieron was able to maintain Syracuse as an independent polis (city) for over 50 years. However, after the rise of Hieron's son and successor, Hieronymus (Ιερώνυμος), Syracuse's political independence was completely compromised. Hieronymus simply abandoned his father's pro-Roman policy, allying himself with the Carthaginians during the Second Punic War. After this political "treason", the city was besieged and conquered by the Romans in 212 BC, which was carried out by the proconsul Claudius Marcellus, the "sword of Rome" ("Gladius Romae"). Nevertheless, Syracuse maintained its importance even after the Roman conquest in 212 BC, when it became the capital of the Roman province of Sicily (PROVINCIA SICILIA), the first Roman province outside Italy.
Agrigento (Ακράγας), in turn, was the second most important city of Magna Graecia, ESPECIALLY during the reign of Theron/Θήρων (488-472 BC). After the Greek victory over the Carthaginians at the Battle of Himera (480 BC), Akragas became the most important polis of central Sicily. Pindar himself call it the "most beautiful city of the mortals". However, after the destruction of the city by the Carthaginians (406 BC), Akragas, in my historical analysis, completely lost its former glory and importance. When the consuls Quintus Mamilius Vitulus and Lucius Postumius Megellus conquered the city in 262 BC, Akragas, which was called Agrigentum by the Romans, was no longer the former powerful Akragas of Theron's reign.
Just like Paestum (Ποσειδωνία), Agrigento is a "symbol" of the Greek presence in Southern Italy. I really like to visit the Valley of the Temples someday!
Much respect to you for your most informative comment and for your effort.
(Thanks man...)
Thank you for your very informative and well-thought comment. My grandmothers side has some roots near Leuca, and some older relatives (long gone now) spoke a dialect I think called Griko.
This comment is very informative and you have my thanks
I am not a bot
Πολύ καλό σχόλιο, εύστοχο και ενημερωτικό ταυτόχρονα
Sicily was never regarded as Magna Grecia, it was always regarded as Sikelia, standing for its own.
The Syracusan themselves founded many colonies outside the sicilian island, and the Italian main land.
Neapolis was founded by Syracuse, Adria, Ancona, and many other city, even in the ex yugoslavia territories, and much more.
After the disastrous military campaign of Athen against Syracuse, Athen started to decline while Syracuse became the emerging power of the Greek world up to the rise of the Roman power.
Saying that, me as a sicilian, I feel as Greek as the Greeks of mainland themselves.
Greeks are my brother and sister!
Surnames, Rivers, lakes, mountains, hills, cities and much more still carrying Greeks names today, although latinized.
The joke we have today in modern narratives and fake history is that everything that sounds not familiar with the Italian language is regarded as Arab, just to denigrate the Greek culture and achievement especially of the Sikeliotai or sicilian Greeks.
As soon as you research deeply you find out that almost everything is a direct link to ancient Sicilian Greeks, and later Greek Sicilian Byzantines and not Arab, who themselves learned the majority of advancement only after the conquest of Greek Byzantines territories.
We have in Sicily still today a very common first name that you find outside Sicily only on Greece, Calogero from the Greek Kalos Gheros.
Ancient buildings, ruins, old roads carved in the rocks remind every sicilian it's ancients Greek root and connection.
The ancient greek gods temple and statues can be found in many sicilian places and museums.
Morgantina for example was a flourishing city in the middle of Sicily where the goddess Demetra and Persephone were worshiped, and where it is believed Demetra herself choose as her place.
If the ancient Athenians didn't start an immense and catastrophic war amongst the Greeks city states, the Greek would have never been conquered by the Romans.
The Romans on the other side incorporated and learned almost everything from the Greeks of Magna Grecia and Sikelia, and used it in their advantage.
The majority of population in the south Italian peninsula was of greek culture.
But again unfortunately they were never united and used to fight against each other.
A little bit different then Magna Grecia, Sikelia was more uniform and more united body that's why they decided to call themselves, at some point all the tribes interrelated with Greeks Sikeliotai.
At the time of the Roman rise, Syracuse was regarded by the Roman a city of wonder, rich, opulent, with a majestic urban structure, great buildings.
Rome itself was designed by admiring and copying Syracuse.
The main language in Sicily had always been Greek.
Even during the Roman times the population language was Greek.
Latin was never widely spoken in the island, in fact even during the short and unfortunate Arab oppression rule by the Arab the population was a Greek Byzantines one and Greek was the language spoken by the majority.
When the Norman expelled and took Sicily from the Arabs, they found Greek speaking population everywhere.
It was the Normans under the request of the Catholic Pope, that slowly the population were forced to adopt the Latin Christian Faith (Catholicism) and language.
For the Roman Popes Sicilian Greek Byzantines, language, culture and Faith needed to be gone.
Have a nice day
The title is grammatically incorrect. It should be Megale Hellas, because "Hellas" is feminine, whereas "megas" would be masculine. In Greek, as in Latin, the adjective must always follow the gender of the noun.
Nonetheless, great video, as always!
I love these videos about specific areas of the ancient Greek world. Would love to see more.
Brother man I’ve been watching your videos for a few months now and I’m just glad to have come across your channel. I appreciate you
Thank you so mych much for these videos sir. I just found the channel and i plan on binge watching them over the weekend 😁😁
Heyyyy, love these videos! Appreciate what y’all do here. 🙏🏻
The Greatest Historian, of all time. 🦉
Toured there on my own 5 years ago, amazing temples and remains. The actual size of the temples was impressive.
Great content!
These are great, keep up the good work.
These temples are ancient than the partenon.
Everyone should visit these. Including my greek friends.
The archaic forms of these temples are amazing.
Amazing stuff
Really interesting listen.
Great stuff . . .
Milo's workout started with a calf which he would carry around his neck even as it grew and that is how he gained prodigious flex.
It's also probably true, the cattle was much smaller during Classical period and wasn't heavier than 300kg. That particular bull might have been even smaller.
Finding out I have Sicilian ancestry and now finding out that history is actually Greek I am not surprised however I am astounded. Halleluyah now I understand myself
Love your videos, do you ever plan on making one about the colonies in Gaul and Iberia?
Oooooooo learned a new word~
Sybaritic- fond of sensuous luxury or pleasure; self-indulgent.
Great video. I'd love geographical video references tho
26:00 regarding the two temples. Yes, good question why you would build another one. I think the answer is that these are not examples of civil engineering; these are examples of attempts to please and appease gods which were very much viewed as real, capricious, having a tendency to be vindictive to those who failed to sufficiently venerate them. In short, very powerful sooks. In that sort of context, there could be numerous reasons why the locals decided to build another. Including that it was required for their protection.
Great video summary. When you talk about Achaean colonists, is this referring to the north area of the Peloponnese only, or does it encompass some later areas of the Achaean League including Arcadia? If not, do you know of any Arcadian colonies?
For the Algorithm! About to start the video, hope it will cover Greek colonies in modern day Croatian coast that were created from cities from Magna Graecia. edit: "cover" .... mention at least
Oh, Magna Graecia... got it.
I always thought it was "Megale Hellas", since "Hellas" is feminine rather than masculine
I’ve literally spent countless hours listening to this channel. How is this free and so criminally unsubscribed…
@29:16 I'm pretty sure Dio wrote an hilarious song about this.
My Like and Comment
Wasnt the eureka moment about the measure of volume, not density?
Both. It allowed to understand the volume of the object, which when compared using weight, could determine density.
Magna Grecia!
Anaxilas was originally from Messenia so he renamed Zankle after his homeland.
A small but important detail of the Roman Sige of Syracuse.
The Roman were not able to take Syracuse after more then 2 years of Sige.
The Roman take advantage of a festivity the Syracusan were celebrating in honor of their Gods.
Even during war times Greeks would not stop their celebration for their Gods.
The Romans found this the best opportunity to take the city.
Not the most honorable way, but this what the Roman were, opportunist conquerer.
Read this as Mega Hellas, imagined some giant Greek dude living inside that temple
I love to imagine a world where Alexander survived and took on Syracuse and Carthage from 320-310 then gets bogged down in the Italian mountains, meeting the Romans and beating them back but being unable to take Rome itself.
He would have taken Rome
He wouldve taken Rome pretty easily though. They were advanced enough to have a good set of walls but nothing that Alexander didnt already see.
All I can think of are the sybaris suites. Nemesis of black lights.
Great video! There is one question that this generated: how were the interactions between colonizers and natives? Hard to imagine such prime land being empty before the greeks
There were 3 native peoples on the island before Greek Colonization.
It was part of the difference between Italy and Sicily that the Italians were highly militarised even before the rise of Rome, and several Greek cities were conquered (as described in the video), whereas the Sicels of Sicily were not warlike so they were driven into the interior and then mostly ignored.
I hope you talk about the westernmost Greeks too, like the Marseille and Spanish ones
I second this
hella hellas
Hopefully there's not a ton of ads on this 1.
if only there were some sort of ad blocker.................
Dorian, lokrian, ionian: these are all musical modes. I want to know the history or this.
They prolly built a second temple cause the first one wasn't rectangular enough lol
Quite possibly.
They decided the older one wasn't any good because it was out of proportion.
Not just Archaic, out of date.
Some of the most loungey Greeks lived there. Sybarites and Tarentines never really got their shit together
16:30 what?
It can't be less rectangular. It can be almost square
I can understand why Pythagoras' less salubrious activities get suppressed but I think there is a pretty easy parallel with modernity; Ted "the Unabomber" Kazcynski. He was a brilliant mathematician whose doctoral thesis is so complex and brilliant it can only be fully understood by like 10 people in the world. While not the leader of a cult, he certainly saw himself as the leader of a decentralized resistance and his manifesto has inspired many hundreds, even thousands of people.
What we see in the ancient Greeks is often what we wish we were: rational and cultured. Modernity really is neither and often is an active expression of hatred towards such.
Yamas
inject this shit right into my veins
Magna Grecia , they're still there and they speak Griko
Keep in consideration that these Greeks are proppably a product of Greek migration in Byzantine times.
The traces of ancient Greek are sadly lost
@@YiannissB. Από που προκύπτει ότι υπήρξε βυζαντινός εποικισμός κατά τη διάρκεια του Μεσαίωνα;
@@chrisg.k487 απο λήμα Griko στη Wikipedia
Btw the Syracusans were Dorics i think so the reason they sided with the Spartans is the coser blood ties to the Spartans, thoguh i could be spewing bullshit i am really not well informed in that stage of the peloponisian war and it's generally the most overlooked i think whilist beign hugely important
You are correct, there's even a story of a warband being led by athenians with some doric allies accidentally attacking each other because they mistook thier allies war songs for the enimies.
The Syracusans were more inclined toward friendship with Sparta because of the shared Dorian heritage, but they would not have gotten involved in the conflict at all if the Athenians hadn't arrived in Sicily and attacked them.
@@ThersitestheHistorian
It certainly made a change when they were notorious for bullying the nearby cities.
I do not mean any disrespect but the two words “Megas Hellas” do no go together grammatically. It should really be “Megali Hellas” The first word is an adjective and the second is a noun. They need to be of the same gender.
It's nice you devote a decent amount of research but sone of it is biased and lacks any reference to an alternative viewpoint.
34:52I'm Italian kroton still exists It's called Crotone
V
Sicily was never regarded as Magna Grecia, it was always regarded as Sikelia, standing for its own.
The Syracusan themselves founded many colonies outside the sicilian island, and the Italian main land.
Neapolis was founded by Syracuse, Adria, Ancona, and many other city, even in the ex yugoslavia territories, and much more.
After the disastrous military campaign of Athen against Syracuse, Athen started to decline while Syracuse became the emerging power of the Greek world up to the rise of the Roman power.
Saying that, me as a sicilian, I feel as Greek as the Greeks of mainland themselves.
Greeks are my brother and sister!
Surnames, Rivers, lakes, mountains, hills, cities and much more still carrying Greeks names today, although latinized.
The joke we have today in modern narratives and fake history is that everything that sounds not familiar with the Italian language is regarded as Arab, just to denigrate the Greek culture and achievement especially of the Sikeliotai or sicilian Greeks.
As soon as you research deeply you find out that almost everything is a direct link to ancient Sicilian Greeks, and later Greek Sicilian Byzantines and not Arab, who themselves learned the majority of advancement only after the conquest of Greek Byzantines territories.
We have in Sicily still today a very common first name that you find outside Sicily only on Greece, Calogero from the Greek Kalos Gheros.
Ancient buildings, ruins, old roads carved in the rocks remind every sicilian it's ancients Greek root and connection.
The ancient greek gods temple and statues can be found in many sicilian places and museums.
Morgantina for example was a flourishing city in the middle of Sicily where the goddess Demetra and Persephone were worshiped, and where it is believed Demetra herself choose as her place.
If the ancient Athenians didn't start an immense and catastrophic war amongst the Greeks city states, the Greek would have never been conquered by the Romans.
The Romans on the other side incorporated and learned almost everything from the Greeks of Magna Grecia and Sikelia, and used it in their advantage.
The majority of population in the south Italian peninsula was of greek culture.
But again unfortunately they were never united and used to fight against each other.
A little bit different then Magna Grecia, Sikelia was more uniform and more united body that's why they decided to call themselves, at some point all the tribes interrelated with Greeks Sikeliotai.
At the time of the Roman rise, Syracuse was regarded by the Roman a city of wonder, rich, opulent, with a majestic urban structure, great buildings.
Rome itself was designed by admiring and copying Syracuse.
The main language in Sicily had always been Greek.
Even during the Roman times the population language was Greek.
Latin was never widely spoken in the island, in fact even during the short and unfortunate Arab oppression rule by the Arab the population was a Greek Byzantines one and Greek was the language spoken by the majority.
When the Norman expelled and took Sicily from the Arabs, they found Greek speaking population everywhere.
It was the Normans under the request of the Catholic Pope, that slowly the population were forced to adopt the Latin Christian Faith (Catholicism) and language.
For the Roman Popes Sicilian Greek Byzantines, language, culture and Faith needed to be gone.
Have a nice day
The
Good point.
When you use the words Mega and Hellen together, Greek start to invade other people's land.
Magna Graecia was actually a term used by the Romans for that area.
Mega Hell? Sounds awful!
Hellas=KOŁASa
Greeks are Orthodox Turks not related to Hellens.
Do the Turks of Turkey look central asian?
@@t30dore59 Aλβανος ειναι , οχι τουρκος , αδερφε παλαβωσαν τα σκιπταργια
No matter how many times all this hoopla is repeated WE ARE STILL HERE, US GREEKS, IN GRECIA MAGNA AND ANATOLIA (GREEK FOR WHERE THE SUN RISES), GRECO-ROMANS IN TOTAL. When those that call themselves Turks today get sick and tired of being subjugated, which they are to this day, you also will stop with the hoopla, hoboplay and go hobo back to where you came from. @hoboplay6703
I love the fact that the Greeks associated with sophistication and deep thought had a popular party game where you fling wine at a dish to see who can hit it.
Oooooooo learned a new word~
Sybaritic- fond of sensuous luxury or pleasure; self-indulgent.