However, the region was not a single harmonious entity, for just as on mainland Greece, small city-states or poleis (quite independent from their founding mother-city) both competed and cooperated with neighboring cities to form a constantly shifting political network of rivalries and alliances. Indeed, the amnesty ( ekecheiria) which was enforced during the Olympic Games was also respected in the colonies, and the list of victors at Olympia includes many a name from Magna Graecia. That the colonies became a fully integrated part of the Greek world is evidenced in the presence of votive offerings from Magna Graecia at the great religious sanctuaries of Delphi and Olympia. Greek colonists, following in the footsteps of the Bronze Age Mycenaeans, selected Magna Graecia as a suitable site for colonies due to the fertility of the land and, at the meeting point of the Greek, Etruscan, and Phoenician worlds, its advantageous geographical position for trade. The last colony to be founded was Heraclea in 433 BCE. 740 BCE) to the Spartan colony of Tarentum (founded c. The original region extends from the Euboean colony of Cumae (probably the earliest and founded c. However, later writers such as Strabo did include Sicily and the term even came to signify the entire Greek world. Sicily, although also a region of Greek colonization, is not usually included in this area. Magna Graecia ( Megalē Hellas) refers to the coastal areas of southern Italy which were colonized by various ancient Greek city-states from the 8th to 5th centuries BCE.
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