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Document Details : Title: Western Greeks in their Regional Setting Subtitle: Rethinking Early Greek-Indigenous Encounters in Southern Italy Author(s): BURGERS, Gert-Jan Journal: Ancient West & East Volume: 3 Issue: 2 Date: 2004 Pages: 252-282 DOI: 10.2143/AWE.3.2.3291823 Abstract : Indigenous peoples throughout the eastern and western reaches of the Greek colonial world have commonly been regarded as socio-politically and culturally subordinate to the Greek colonists who settled among them. In this article I wish to reassess such long-standing perceptions by tracing the active, conscious role the indigenous peoples played in the historical process. Focusing on southern Italy, I hope to demonstrate that the small groups of Greeks who settled here in the 8th and 7th centuries BC, were only some of the many actors in a regional context of land reclamation, territorial expansion and redefinition enhanced to a significant degree by indigenous groups. It can even be argued that they were deliberately exploited in the contemporary indigenous socio-political arena, one marked by great ferment. |
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