MAGNA GRÆCIA SUBDUED BY THE ROMANS
All the native peoples of southern Italy, who had welcomed Pyrrhus as a deliverer were finally subdued to the dominion of Rome. It was a deliverance for such Greek cities as still existed, but they were no more than the shadow of their former selves. Although free under the protection of Rome, they disappear obscurely from history. In the time of Strabo the name of Magna Græcia was already an ancient memory and the Greek language was no longer spoken save at Naples, Rhegium, and Tarentum. For want of a federal bond between the autonomous cities, the Hellenic race with its brilliant civilisation had gradually disappeared from the soil of Italy. The Romans were about to enter into its inheritance that they might eventually transmit it to Gaul and Spain. They repeopled some of the ancient Greek colonies which had lapsed into barbarism, notably Posidonia and Hipponium which had long been peopled, the one by the Campanians, the other by the Bruttians and which changed their Greek names for those of Pæstum[47] and Vibo Valentia.