LOL, Greek fights against Romanization

The 8th century BC brought the beginning of the Greek invasion to Italy. They came from all over Southern Greece, settling on the southern coasts (from Campania to Apulia) and eastern and southern Sicily. The term 'Magna Grecia', which was giving to the region describes a population and civilization, but not a political reality. Among the first to settle on the Italian coasts were the Achaeans (of Dorian origins) who founded towns like Taranto, Metaponto, Posidonia, and Sibaris. Locrians and then Chalcidians followed them from Euboea who founded Naxos, Zancle and, after the occupation of Pitecusa, Cumae and Neapolis (Naples) in Campania. The Corinthians founded Siracusa and Croton, still in the 8th century BC, and the Megarians Megara Hyblaea on the Gulf of Augusta. These Hellenic Colonies would expand all over Southern Italy and ally themselves with different kingdoms back in the Motherland. Taking part in different wars between the Hellenic City-States.

By 500 BC Greek Sicily and Magna Graecia began to decline, probably because of malaria and endless warfare among the colonies. Only Tarentum (now Taranto) and Cumae remained individually very significant. The Rest of the Hellenic population would end up being romanized.

Hellenism wouldn't grown again in Magna Grecia until Hellenic refugees took to the region once more to get away from invading Arabs and Slavs in the 7th Century. This helped reinforced Hellenism in the region once more. Also the Rule of the Byzantine Empire in some parts of Southern Italy until 1071 would also add to the Re-Hellenization of its people.

Orthodoxy itself has strong traditions in the Italian peninsula and flourished in Calabria, Pulgia and Sicily at one time. It was after the Norman Conquest in the 11th and 12th centuries that the Orthodoxy slowly diminished, but with the conquest of the Ottomans in the East would change all this. Immigrants from Epirus, Peloponeese, Crete, Cyprus, Macedonia, Asia Minor, and the entire Hellenic world fled to the Kingdom of Two Sicilies. Since then the Orthodox population has gone up and down until recent days.

It is estimated that the faithful of the Archdiocese of Italy, together with students from Greece, number about one hundred eighty thousand (180,000) people. The Greek Orthodox living in the country is an almost exclusively Italian citizen of a high social, economic and cultural level. There are also a few 1,000 people still speaking the old language of Griko to this day in the regions also.

With this in mind it is up to us to give our all to the rebirth of Magna Grecia and Hellenism in Italy. We must spread Orthodoxy and Griko amongst the population of Southern Italy so that they can return to their roots and fight against Northern Italy, which wishes to destroy them and their ancient culture.

http://enotitanpride.tripod.com/ellada/id8.html