Competing Traditions in the Historiography of Ancient Greek Colonization in Italy

Abstract

Recent assessments of the historiography of ancient Greek colonization have generally focused on its development in the context of European imperialism. Such studies have often overlooked a second tradition that evolved among Italian scholars and that differed from the “hellenization” paradigm common among scholars in northern Europe. Differing perceptions of non-Greek or “native” Italians informed these divergent representations of the process and significance of Greek colonization produced by each scholarly body. Such perceptions were, additionally, variantly shaped by both the political conditions of imperialism and Italian nationalism and the recursive dialectic in which Italian and European intellectuals engaged.