The Greek Alphabet in South-East Italy

Abstract

The Greek alphabet in Sicily and southern Italy was widely used as a medium for writing in a variety of non-Greek languages. The non-Greek populations of the western Mediterranean do not simply receive and adopt the Greek alphabet uncritically. This chapter examines the development of writing in the Greek alphabet in south-east Italy, a region of considerable cultural diversity, and one which had many contacts with the Greek communities of Italy. Despite early contact with the Greeks of Tarentum and elsewhere, writing is not adopted in significant quantity until the fourth to third centuries BC. The smaller group of earlier inscriptions show a markedly different character. The chapter discusses the development of writing in this region in the context of the wider cultural developments of the fifth to third centuries BC. In particular, it explores the role of writing in the development of different types of identity (local, personal, and ethnic).