Territorial expansion of Lokris in Ancient Calabria: preliminary results

Abstract

The Western Mediterranean, from the 8th century B.C., began to receive waves of Greek migrants willing to settle there permanently. Driven by the lack of agricultural land, by political instability in their places of origin, or even in search of a way of life linked to commercial activity, these groups, by force, had to establish relations with the inhabitants of the West. Founding settlements of various kinds – some more permanent, others more temporary –, the Greeks became partners with Sicanians, Sicels, Samnites, Phoenicians, Oenotrians, etc., establishing relationships that were often aggressive, but at other times of peaceful coexistence, accommodation, negotiation. In this context, a wave of migrants from Lokris in the Balkans arrived at the southern end of the Italian Peninsula, on the Ionian coast, and founded a new Lokris in the 7th century B.C.: Lokris Epizefri. Coming across a very narrow coastal strip, these Lokrians soon ventured over the Aspromonte towards the Tyrrhenian Sea, where they founded two new settlements: Medma and Hiponion. This paper discusses what archaeology reveals about how these new polis on the Tyrrhenian plain were established, thus extending the Lokrian area of influence.