Graecia Magna

GRAE´CIA MAGNA [MAGNA GRAECIA]

or Graecia Maior. A name given to the districts in the south of Italy inhabited by the Greeks. This name was never used simply to indicate the south of Italy; it was always confined to the Greek cities and their territories, and did not include the surrounding districts inhabited by the Italian tribes. It appears to have been applied chiefly to the cities on the Tarentine Gulf—Tarentum, Sybaris, Croton, Caulonia, Siris (Heraclea), Metapontum, Locri, and Rhegium; but it also included the Greek cities on the west coast, such as Cumae and Neapolis. Strabo extends the appellation even to the Greek cities of Sicily. See Lenormant, La Grande-Grèce, 3 vols. (Paris, 1881); and the article Italia.