MAGNA GRAECIA

The Italian colonies were planted among friendly, almost kindred, races, and grew much more rapidly than the Sicilian Greek states, which had to contend against the power of Carthage.

After the Achaean cities had combined to destroy the Ionic Siris, and had founded Metapontum as a counterpoise to the Dorian Tarentum, there seems to have been little strife among the Italiotes.

An amphictyonic league, meeting in common rites at the temple of Hera on the Lacinian promontory, fostered a feeling of unity among them.

The Pythagorean and Eleatic systems of philosophy had their chief seat in Magna Graecia. Other departments of literature do not seem to have been so much cultivated among them.

The poet Ibycus, though a native of Rhegium, led a very wandering life.

They sent competitors to the Olympic games (among them the famous Milo of Croton); and the physicians of Croton early in the 6th century (especially in the person of Democedes) were reputed the best in Greece; but politically they appear to have generally kept themselves separate.

One ship of Croton, however, fought at Salamis, though it is not recorded that Greece asked the Italiotes for help when it sent ambassadors to Gelon of Syracuse