Regional Mobilities in Métauros, Calabria (15 min)

Presenters

Clara Hansen, University of Vienna

Abstract

The very idea of Magna Graecia, a term used by ancient authors to denote Greek settlements in southern Italy, is based on the premise that different ethnic groups at different points in time undertook organized long-distance journeys from their homeland in various parts of Greece to found settlements elsewhere. However, recent research has shed light on the more complex range of mobilities that led to the establishment of Greek poleis in this part of the central Mediterranean, also including short-distance and regional mobilities. In line with this research, the settlement of Métauros in southern Calabria features a dataset that both confirms and deepens these insights.

The first point of interest presented in this paper is the settlement’s myths of foundation, which is alternately attributed to the Chalkidians of Rhegion or to the settlement of Lokri Epizephyrii on the Ionian coast of Calabria. Examined in the chronological, political, and cultural context of their emergence, these textual sources by ancient authors writing in Latin and Greek, will shed light on the regional dynamics during the Archaic period as well as ancient perspectives regarding so-called subcolonies, settlements founded from other ones nearby. The second point of interest focuses on the archaeological data from the necropolis of Métauros. Documented between the seventh and the early fifth centuries B.C.E., it shows a mixture of burial rites that are either associated with long-standing local traditions or with the arrival of long-distance migrants; a third set of data offers insight into the network of regional mobilities, including both Greek and non-Greek elements. Through examining first, the range of data from Métauros and, second, the significance of the composition of objects comprised within one tomb, this study will paint a more detailed and varied picture of the mobilities in archaic Magna Graecia and the identities contingent on them.

  AIA-5A