Magna Graecia (Great Greece, the Greek colonial world of southern Italy and Sicily, settled by Greek city-states beginning approximately 750 BC and lasting as a distinct cultural sphere until Roman conquest completed between the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC) is the most historically significant dimension of southern Italian heritage and the one most systematically underrepresented in the cultural narrative that Italy presents to international visitors. The standard Italy cultural narrative runs: ancient Rome → early Christianity → Byzantine → Norman → Renaissance → Baroque. The Magna Graecia insert (Greek colonization of the South, which predated Roman presence in the south by 500 years, produced the civilizational context in which Rome's own cultural development occurred, and left physical monuments of extraordinary quality distributed from the Phlegraean Fields north of Naples to the Strait of Messina) is systematically absent from this narrative because it doesn't fit the "Roman → Italian" continuity that the national cultural identity prefers.
The historical corrective: Rome wasn't a civilization that emerged from nothing. Roman law, Roman religion, Roman philosophy, Roman art, and Roman urban culture were all profoundly shaped by contact with the Greek colonial cities of the south, the specific influences of Pythagoras (Croton and Metaponto), of the Pythagorean communities on Roman philosophical thought. Of the Syracuse court on Roman theatrical tradition. Of the Cumae oracle on Roman religious practice. Understanding Magna Graecia is understanding where Rome's intellectual furniture came from.
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Magna Graecia: The Major Sites
Paestum (Campania)
Paestum (ancient Poseidonia, the Achaean Greek colony founded approximately 600 BC on the coastal plain south of Salerno, now in the province of Salerno, Campania) has the finest surviving Greek temples in Italy: the Temple of Hera I (the "Basilica", the oldest surviving temple at the site, approximately 550 BC, nine columns on the short side giving it the distinctive wide proportions of the archaic Doric order), the Temple of Hera II (the "Temple of Neptune", misnamed. Almost certainly Hera, approximately 450 BC, the best-preserved Doric temple in the world after the Hephaisteion in Athens), and the Temple of Athena (the "Temple of Ceres," approximately 500 BC). The Paestum museum contains the Tomb of the Diver (the only surviving example of Greek figural painting from the classical period in Italy, the famous painted slab showing a diver between two symposium scenes).
Agrigento/Valley of the Temples (Sicily)
The Valle dei Templi of Agrigento (see the Sicily road trip guide) is the most extensive surviving Greek colonial sacred precinct, seven temples on the ridge south of the ancient city, of which the Temple of Concordia (the best preserved, adapted into a Christian church in the 6th century AD, the preservation mechanism that saved it from quarrying) and the Temple of Hera are the most complete. The Agrigento museum (the Museo Regionale Archeologico Pietro Griffo) contains the specific finds from the excavations including the metope sculptures that explain the mythological programs of the temple decorations.
Selinunte (Sicily)
Selinunte (the westernmost Greek colony in Sicily, founded approximately 628 BC, destroyed by Carthage in 409 BC and never rebuilt) has the most dramatic archaeological landscape in Sicily: the massive temple ruins (Temples E, F, G, the largest temple ever begun in the Greek world, Temple G, was still under construction when the Carthaginians destroyed the city) standing on the coastal acropolis with the sea visible on three sides. The specific Selinunte quality: the deliberate non-reconstruction (unlike the partial restorations of Agrigento and Paestum, the Selinunte temples remain largely in their collapsed state, the architectural drums and capitals lying where they fell) preserves the specific tragic quality of an archaeological site where the destruction is as visible as the original construction.
Q&A: Magna Graecia Italy
What is the best single Magna Graecia site for a first visit?
Paestum, for three reasons: accessibility (2 hours from Naples by direct bus or train), concentration (three major temples in a single enclosed site), and the museum (the Tomb of the Diver, the painting that changes the visitor's understanding of what ancient Greek art looked like). Agrigento is the most spectacular in scale. Selinunte the most emotionally intense. Metaponto (see the Metaponto guide) the most intellectually specific. Paestum is the best introduction to the Magna Graecia world.
Internal Links
- Metaponto: La Città di Pitagora in Basilicata
- Sicilia: Agrigento e Selinunte nel Road Trip
- Dal Greco al Romano: La Transizione Culturale
- La Crisi della Civiltà: Dal Greco al Medievale
- Arte Greca e Arte Rinascimentale: Il Dialogo
- Paestum in Ottobre: Il Sito Senza Folla
- Scavi Magna Graecia: Partecipare alle Campagne
