Greek “Colonisation” in Sicily and the West. Some Problems of Evidence and Interpretation Twenty-Five Years On

This paper provides a brief review of some of the major shifts in archaeological and historical approaches to the study of Greek settlement in the western Mediterranean, especially in Sicily. It observes three major and widespread shifts in scholarly opinion : firstly, that private rather than state enterprise may have provided the initiative for the foundation of Greek sites in Sicily ; secondly, that the inhabitants of the new settlements are likely to have derived from areas other than the mothercities named in historical sources ; and thirdly, that indigenous groups made significant contributions to the populations of Greek states through intermarriage and co-residence. Concomitant with these more recent views is a range of other revisions and additional areas of investigation, which include new theoretical approaches such as “hybridity” and the “middle ground”.