Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 1.djvu/391

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B. VI. C. I. § 2.
ITALY.
377
“Some day, around the Dragon’s stony tomb,
A mighty multitude shall meet their doom.”

For the Greeks of Italy, enticed by this prophecy, marched against Laüs, and were defeated by the Leucani.[1]

2. Such, along the shores of the Tyrrhenian Sea, are the possessions of the Leucani, which at first did not reach to the other sea;[p 1] the Greeks who dwelt on the Gulf of Tarentum possessed it. But before the coming of the Greeks there were no Leucani, the Chones[2] and Œnotri possessed these territories. But when the Samnites had greatly increased, and expelled the Chones and Œnotri, and driven the Leucani into this region, while the Greeks possessed the sea-coast on both sides as far as the straits, the Greeks and the Barbarians maintained a lengthened contest. The tyrants of Sicily, and afterwards the Carthaginians, at one time making war against the Romans, for the acquisition of Sicily, and at another, for Italy itself, utterly wasted all these regions. The Greeks, however, succeeded in depriving the ancient inhabitants of a great portion of the midland country, beginning even as early as the Trojan war; they increased in power, and extent of territory, to such a degree, that they called this region and Sicily, the Magna Græcia. But now the whole region, except Tarentum, Rhegium, and Neapolis, has become barbarian,[3] and belongs partly to the Leucani and Bruttii, partly to the Campani; to these, however, only in name, but truly to the Romans; for these people have become Roman. However, it is incumbent on one who is treating of

  1. ↑ About the year 390 before the Christian era.
  2. ↑ Strabo seems here to distinguish the Chones from the Œnotri, and the Œnotri from the Greeks. According to Cluvier (Ital. Antiq. cap. 16, p. 1323) here was a double error: “not only (says he) Aristotle, but Antiochus, according to Strabo’s own testimony, positively affirmed that the Chones and Œnotri were one and the same nation, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Antiq. Roman., lib. i. § 11) makes no doubt that the Œnotri were of Greek origin.” But Mazochi justifies the distinction between the Œones and the Œnotri, and shows cause to doubt that the Œnotri were of Greek origin.
  3. ↑ ἐκβεβαρβαρῶσθαι. We think with Mazochi (Prodrom. ad Heracl. pseph. diatrib. 2, cap. 7, sect. 2) that, by the above word, Strabo probably expressed that, at the time when he wrote, Tarentum, Rheggio, and Naples were the only cities founded by the Greeks in Italy, which, although become Roman, retained the language, laws, and usages of their mother country.
  1. ↑ i. e. the Gulf of Tarentum.
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