Magna Graecia

Magna Graecia, the name given in history to the cluster of Greek colonies founded, for the most part, in the 8th century B.C., in southern Italy. The chief of these colonies, in the order of their supposed foundation, are Comae, Sybaris, Crotona, Rhegium, Locri, Tarentum, Siris, Metapontum, and Arelia. Pythagoras visited Crotona in 530. For a long time the commerce of these colonies flourished greatly, but struggles with each other, luxury, and warfare with the neighbouring races, gradually weakened them, and they fell a prey to Rome early in the 3rd century B.C., the last to lose its independence being Tarentum. Some historians include the Greek colonies of Sicily in Magna Graecia.