Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/415

became during the first two centuries of the Roman republic. But all these relations underwent a complete change after the breaking up of the power of Sybaris in 510 B. c., and the gradual march of the Oscan population from middle Italy towards the south. Cuime was overwhelmed by the Samnites, Poseido- nia by the Lucanians ; who became possessed not only of these maritime cities, but also of the whole inland territory now called the Basilicata, with part of the hither Calabria across from Poseidonia to the neighborhood of the gulf of Tarentum : while the Bruttians, a mixture of outlying Lucanians with the Greco-OEnotrian population once subject to Sybaris, speaking both Greek and Oscan, 1 became masters of the inland moun- tains in the farther Calabria, from Consentia nearly to the Sici- lian strait. It was thus that the ruin of Sybaris, coir.'i'ned with the spread of the Lucanians and Bruttians, deprived me Italian Greeks of that inland territory which they had enjoyed in the sixth century B. c., and restricted them to the neighborhood of the coast. To understand the extraordinary power and prosper- ity of Sybaris and Kroton, in the sixth century B. c., when the whole of this inland territory was subject to them, and before the rise of the Lucanians, and Bruttians, aud when the name Mag- na Grajcia was first given, it is necessary to glance by contrast at these latter periods ; more especially since the name still contin- aed to be applied by the Romans to Italian Greece after the contraction of territory had rendered it less appropriate. Of Kroton at this early period of its power and prosperity we know even less than of Sybaris. It stood distinguished both for the number of its citizens who received prizes at the Olympic games, and for the excellence of its surgeons or physicians. And what may seem more surprising, if we consider the extreme present insalubrity of the site upon which it stood, it was in an- cient times proverbially healthy, 2 which was not so much the case with the more fertile Sybaris. Respecting all these cities of Italian Greeks, the same remark is applicable as was before made in reference to the Sicilian Greeks, that the intermixture of the native population sensibly affected both their character and habits. "We have no information respecting their government 1 Fcstus, v, bilingucs Brutatcs. a Strabo, vi, p. '262.