Newsbomb.gr released the video of Part 2 of their long trek in southern Italy and Sicily, in the areas once identified as Magna Graecia, as all the cities were founded and colonised by Greeks as early as the 8th century BC. However, today's residents are reviving these memories, choosing to shape their identity for the 21st century based on this very heritage. See Part 1 here.
In the second part of the Newsbomb.gr itinerary, they visited Kalavria (Καλαβρία, English: Calabria), specifically the town of Kroton (Κρότων, English: Crotone). It was preceded by the first part, in which the journey to Naples, Poseidonia, Taras and Metapontio was presented, while the third and last part includes Sicily and will be published in a week.
However, the journey starts from the world-famous destination and UNESCO-protected area, Matera.
There, traces of human presence were found many thousands of years before the Greek settlements - they were probably the first people to inhabit the Italian peninsula - in the caves that have survived to this day.
Some of them were transformed into Orthodox churches in later centuries, with wonderful frescoes, especially in the monastery of Agios Nikolaos the Greek.
We continue to the Gulf of Taranto and stop at Sybaris, a once famous Greek colony.
However, the Krotonians destroyed Sybaris, even levelling the city by diverting two rivers in its centre to drown it!
We arrive at Krotons, known worldwide - once - mainly for the super-athlete Milo and their outstanding performances in all sports, in the games of the then-known world.
The emblem of the city, which we find everywhere, is the tripod of Delphi, which is also the informal symbol of the current flag of Magna Graecia.
And here, today's residents remember that they owe the founding of their beautiful coastal city to Delphi and the Oracle of Pythias, and they duly honour it.
The official for the tourist development of the city makes a call to the Greeks to get to know another Greek city, and exchanges are already taking place with Samos, the hometown of Pythagoras, while the cultural group "Krotoniades" leads us to a big surprise...
An amazing discovery, in the basement of a building of 1,000 AD., which hides an ancient temple, many thousands of years ago... The altar is preserved; in fact, the blood of the sacrifices was also found, but something more important is still held...
A healthy 25 metres deep, which, however, did not serve for the traditional reason, but as a way of communication with the gods because before Olympus, they were chthonic, that is, they were on the earth...
The Krotoniades reward us doubly with an amazing performance right there, where there are also signs that Pythagoras himself taught…
A little further out and above the blue sea, the remains of a great temple of Hera and people who want to show us that they feel Greek and Krotonian so much that they exercise in the same way - and the same vision - as their role model, Milo...
And the surprises continue, since the Krotonian guide us to the residence of a great sculptor of the region - and if they hadn't told us, we would have never known about it...
We have the pleasure of being the first to see a huge statue of Pythagoras, which will be made of bronze and will be placed in Napoli.
"We must bring back the meeting of Mediterranean peoples, especially the Greeks, to connect what was history," sculptor Gaspare da Brescia explains to us...
Somewhere, there is the Greek village of Galitsiano, the village of "Homer's children", as they call it, and there is a reason for that, too...
We continue crossing Calabria in the direction of Sicily. One evening, they wait for us in a tavern with "Magna Graecia cuisine."...
We learn about the local specialties - they are similar to ours but not the same - and we sing with our "brothers" as they insist on calling us.
They have a reason for it: revolutionary songs...
A revolution, about which we do not learn in schools, while historical information is not easily available, since the winners usually write history...
In this case, the northerners of Italy, who relatively recently, and after our own Revolution, that is, in the middle of the 19th century, violently and very bloodily subjugated the until then independent Kingdom of Naples and the Two Sicilies.
We learn of Garibaldi as a liberator and a hero, but the Southerners have a very different point of view...
In fact, now timidly, but also loudly, opinions about independence are beginning to be heard, in an expression of "correction" of the historical events and persecutions of 1861.
Others say "why not" to a union with their cultural but also real "mother", which is Greece...
See the second part of the trek:
See photos:
Sotiris Skouludis is a reporter for Newsbomb.
READ MORE: MAGNA GRAECIA: 2 Doric temples found in the ancient Greek city of Poseidonia-Paestum, Italy.
