RICERCA ITALIANA     

Research program

The Third Greece and the West

University Co-ordinator

Università della CALABRIA - STORIA - ()

Research Unit Leader

Giovanna De Sensi

Description

Epirus, concerned by earliest migrations and settlements of Indo-European tribes in the Balcanic peninsula, is one of the regions that preserved for a long time ancient ways of life, territorial occupations and exploitations, original social and political structures (see LEPORE 1962; HAMMOND 1967).
For the reason given above, this area, even if is not involved in occidental colonial expansion, is an important comparison field for the ways of Greek settling in Magna Graecia, especially for the territorial administration, for the relations among not homogeneous tribes and for the patterns of sacred manifestations.
On these analogies, the aim of research group of University of Calabria is to specify, to emphasize and to compare the historical links and the prospective influences between Epirotic area and Greek poleis of Magna Graecia and Sicily, with special attention for the role of Corcyra, natural geographic and historical bridge head between these areas.
The research, in cooperation with Universities of Venezia and Parma, will articulate in progressive phases: the members of research groups will attend to a critic review of the documents from one of studied areas; then the contacts between mythical and historiographical traditions and historical realities will be object of a synergic work, concerning the various tribes or poleis and their own traditions.

Through a diachronic analysis, our research group will privilege some passages and thematic junctions, according to these directions:

Epirus

A) Review of Epirotic geographic arrangement, with particular regard to holy places, to locate the areas relative to every ethnic group and to study the relationships and their evolutions, beginning from studies of LEPORE (1962), HAMMOND (1967) and CABANES (1976, 1987, 1993, 1999). Detection of territorial belongings (pereiai) of the coastal islands and their possible influences on epirotic territorial settlements.
B) New analysis of mythical heritage of Epitotic ethne, chiefly for the traditions about oracular centre of Dodona (PARKE 1967) and Thesprotic Nekyomanteion. Even the references in Iliad and Odyssey need a more adequate comprehension. In particular, have to be enquired both the ethnical connotation of the region as pelagian, in Iliad, and the references to contacts between Epirus and Ionian and Aegean Sea islands, in Thesprotic episode of Odyssey (LEPORE 1962; MALKIN 1998 and 2001). With regard to traditions of Nostoi, (present in Pindar and tragedians) have to be investigate the self-assertion of ruling families and their ethne and of the entire Epirus not only as geographical reality but even as ethnic group with own identity.
C) Study about the marriage of the royal families of Molossians and Chaonians, during Alcetas’ reign, for its political consequences and for its importance in the formulation of mythical links with western results of Trojan legend.

D) Convergences of interests between Epirotic basileis and the greatest cities of Magna Graecia and Sicily between IV and III century b.C. and contextual phaenomena of cultural and economic osmosis between the two areas, to be inquired opportunely through the new plentiful - and still largely unknown - archaeological and epigraphic material, found in the excavations.

2. Corcyra

A reassessment of the position of Corcyra, beyond its certain natural role of hinge between the two poles examined in the project, cannot set aside a more exhaustive analysis of data on its origins offered by ancient sources. In this respect, the Search Team intends to study the indications of that tradition which closely reconnects its foundation to the ktisis of Syracuse and some other poleis of Magna Graecia (Strabo et alii), in order to clear the position and the role of Corcyra within the corinthian foundations and therefore to detect the eventual developments of ab origine recognizable relationships in historical, mythical, literary tradition, also in the light of the controversial relations with the mother land Corinth. This analysis represents a necessary premise to further thematic researches, aimed to reconstruct, as far as possible, the relationships of island with the own perea and therefore with the widest epirotic world, following, on the long duration (archaic age - hellenistic age), the ‘indicators’ offered by mythical, historiographic, epigraphic tradition and, above all, by the archaeological evidence, with new excavations in Albania, such as in Bouthrotos, Antigoneia and Phoinike. A still fragmentary framework, that apparently can be found only in relation to strong events, such as the crash with Corinth (435-432 b.C.) and the vicissitudes of the island and its perea in the course of Peloponnesian war (stasis of 427), but that every attempt of reconstruction cannot disregard. In this respect, Search Team aims to detect, in particular on the basis of epigraphic evidence, the possible corcyrious frequentations of the Dodona oracle, in order to delineate the typology of relationship in comparison to the connection with the panhellenic sanctuaries of Delphi and Olympia.

Innovation, Computerization and didactic Effects of the project

Searchers engaged in this Unit have already resolved to dedicate, during the two-year development of the plan, the monographic course of the respective disciplines (Greek History, Greek Epigraphy, History of the Ancient Historiography) to specific themes connected with the project. The courses moreover will be enriched, particularly in synergy with the units of the University of Venice and Parma, by seminaries, that allow Searchers to face partial results and involve the students. Specific aspects of problems and themes faced in the Unit plan could moreover be object of some theses of Magistral bachelor and doctorate. Such activities will be integrated with Study tours to archaeological excavations and to other sites of prominent interest for the plan (Corcyra, Western Greece) so that students, candidates of Graduation Degree, Scholarship Holders could meet and have debates. The prospective Study journeys and the substitutive activities of stage and training will produce a certification in credits (CFU). The search unit will open moreover a web site, connected to the main one of the plan, that will allow both members of local Team and those of the other operating units, to share materials of study, abstracts or integral tests. At the conclusion of the plan will be organized a seminar day to presentation of results with subsequent publication of the Proceedings Acts.