[2] The settlements in this region, founded initially by their metropoleis (mother cities), eventually evolved into strong Greek city-states (poleis), functioning independently.

[6] The Second Punic War put an end to the independence of the cities of Magna Graecia, which were annexed to the Roman Republic in 205 BC.

[5] Noteworthy was the South Italian ancient Greek pottery, fabricated in Magna Graecia largely during the 4th century BC.

[13][14] Ancient authors use "Magna Graecia" to mean different parts of southern Italy,[15][16][17] including or excluding Sicily, Strabo and Livy being the most prominent advocates of the wider definitions.

During the Archaic period, the Greek population grew beyond the capacity of the limited arable land of Greece proper, resulting in the large-scale establishment of colonies elsewhere: according to one estimate, the population of the widening area of Greek settlement increased roughly tenfold from 800 BC to 400 BC, from 800,000 to as many as 7+1⁄2-10 million.

The second form was in what historians refer to as emporia; trading posts which were occupied by both Greeks and non-Greeks and which were primarily concerned with the manufacture and sale of goods.

[20] Their first great migratory wave was by the Euboeans aimed at the Gulf of Naples (Pithecusae, Cumae) and the Strait of Messina (Zancle, Rhegium).

The second wave was of the Achaeans who concentrated initially on the Ionian coast (Metapontion, Poseidonia, Sybaris, Kroton),[28][29] shortly before 720 BC.

[30] Remains of some of these Greek colonies can be seen today such as those of Neapolis ('new city', now Naples), Syracusae (Syracuse), Akragas (Agrigento), Taras (Taranto) and Rhegion (Reggio Calabria).

Issa in turn then founded Tragurium (now Trogir), Corcyra Melaina (now Korčula) and Epetium (now Stobreč, a suburb of Split).

After the second Punic War, Rome pursued an unprecedented program of reorganisation in the rest of Magna Graecia, where many of the cities were annexed to the Roman Republic in 205 BC, as a consequence of their defection to Hannibal.

[7] Roman colonies (civium romanorum) were the main element of the new territorial control plan starting from the lex Atinia of 197 BC.

In 194 BC, garrisons of 300 Roman veterans were implanted in Volturnum, Liternum, Puteoli, Salernum and Buxentum, and to Sipontum on the Adriatic.

[39] The social, linguistic and administrative changes arising from the Roman conquest only took root in this region by the 1st century AD, while Greek culture remained strong and was actively cultivated as shown by epigraphic evidence.

[40] During the Early Middle Ages, following the disastrous Gothic War, new waves of Byzantine Christian Greeks fleeing the Slavic invasion of Peloponnese settled in Calabria, further strengthened the Hellenic element in the region.

The administrative organisation of Magna Graecia was inherited from the Hellenic poleis, taking up the concept of "city-states" administered by the aristocracy.

The Greek colonists of Magna Graecia elaborated a civilization,[3] which had peculiar characteristics, due to the distance from the motherland and the influence of the indigenous peoples of southern Italy.

Griko is considered by linguists to be a descendant of Byzantine Greek, which had been the majority language of Salento through the Middle Ages, combining also some ancient Doric and local romance elements.

There is a rich oral tradition and Griko folklore, limited now but once numerous, to around 30,000 people, most of them having abandoned their language in favour of Italian.

The first examples of urbanistically more rational Greek cities belonged to Magna Graecia, in this case Taranto, Metapontum and Megara Hyblaea.

Only fragments of original dramaturgical works are left, but the tragedies of the three great giants Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides and the comedies of Aristophanes are known.

The Maniots (their name originating from the Greek word mania)[73] were known for their proud military traditions and for their bloody vendettas, many of which continue today.

[76] The Italian parliament recognizes the Griko people as an ethnolinguistic minority under the official name of Minoranze linguistiche Grike dell'Etnia Griko-Calabrese e Salentina.

[77] Messina in Sicily is home to a small Greek-speaking minority, which arrived from the Peloponnese between 1533 and 1534 when fleeing the expansion of the Ottoman Empire.

[78] The Valle dei Templi, or Valley of the Temples, is an archaeological site in Agrigento (ancient Greek Akragas), Sicily.

The temples are: The Valley is also home to the so-called Tomb of Theron, a large tuff monument of pyramidal shape; scholars suppose it was built to commemorate the Romans killed in the Second Punic War.

Much of the most celebrated features of the Poseidonia site today are the three large temples in the Archaic version of the Greek Doric order, dating from about 550 to 450 BC.

All are typical of the period,[c] with massive colonnades having a very pronounced entasis (widening as they go down), and very wide capitals resembling upturned mushrooms.

Remains of Elea walls, with traces of one gate and several towers, of a total length of over three miles, still exist, and belong to three different periods, in all of which the crystalline limestone of the locality is used.

There are many attested variants of the name of the city including Συράκουσαι Syrakousai, Συράκοσαι Syrakosai and Συρακώ Syrakō.