FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   494   495   496   497   498   499   500   501   502   503   504   505   506   507   508   509   510   511   512   513   514   515   516   517   518  
519   520   521   522   523   524   525   526   527   528   529   530   531   532   533   534   535   536   537   538   539   540   541   542   543   >>   >|  
tines who lived nearer to Tarentum but were constantly at feud with it, and that the towns that were soonest Graecized, such as Arpi, were not situated on the coast. The stronger influence exerted by Hellenism over Apulia than over any other Italian region is explained partly by its position, partly by the slight development of any national culture of its own, and partly also perhaps by its nationality presenting a character less alien to the Greek stock than that of the rest of Italy.(45) We have already called attention(46) to the fact that the southern Sabellian stocks, although at the outset in concert with the tyrants of Syracuse they crushed and destroyed the Hellenism of Magna Graecia, were at the same time affected by contact and mingling with the Greeks, so that some of them, such as the Bruttians and Nolans, adopted the Greek language by the side of their native tongue, and others, such as the Lucanians and a part of the Campanians, adopted at least Greek writing and Greek manners. Etruria likewise showed tendencies towards a kindred development in the remarkable vases which have been discovered(47) belonging to this period, rivalling those of Campania and Lucania; and though Latium and Samnium remained more strangers to Hellenism, there were not wanting there also traces of an incipient and ever-growing influence of Greek culture. In all branches of the development of Rome during this epoch, in legislation and coinage, in religion, in the formation of national legend, we encounter traces of the Greeks; and from the commencement of the fifth century in particular, in other words, after the conquest of Campania, the Greek influence on Roman life appears rapidly and constantly on the increase. In the fourth century occurred the erection of the "-Graecostasis-"--remarkable in the very form of the word--a platform in the Roman Forum for eminent Greek strangers and primarily for the Massiliots.(48) In the following century the annals began to exhibit Romans of quality with Greek surnames, such as Philipus or in Roman form Pilipus, Philo, Sophus, Hypsaeus. Greek customs gained ground: such as the non-Italian practice of placing inscriptions in honour of the dead on the tomb--of which the epitaph of Lucius Scipio (consul in 456) is the oldest example known to us; the fashion, also foreign to the Italians, of erecting without any decree of the state honorary monuments to ancestors in public places --a system beg
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   494   495   496   497   498   499   500   501   502   503   504   505   506   507   508   509   510   511   512   513   514   515   516   517   518  
519   520   521   522   523   524   525   526   527   528   529   530   531   532   533   534   535   536   537   538   539   540   541   542   543   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

influence

 

partly

 

development

 

century

 

Hellenism

 

national

 
culture
 
Greeks
 

Campania

 

traces


remarkable

 
adopted
 

strangers

 

constantly

 
Italian
 

honorary

 

encounter

 
commencement
 

conquest

 

appears


fourth

 

occurred

 

erection

 
increase
 

rapidly

 
decree
 

coinage

 

places

 

growing

 

public


incipient

 

wanting

 

system

 

ancestors

 

legislation

 

Graecostasis

 

religion

 

formation

 

monuments

 

branches


legend
 

platform

 

fashion

 

practice

 

placing

 

inscriptions

 

ground

 

Hypsaeus

 

customs

 

gained