CAB@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU (Chuck Bigelow) (11/13/86)
The Roman perspective tends to blind us to other interpretations of history. From the Greek perspective, "Italic Greek" is a perfectly reasonable term, because the Greeks had several large colonies in southern Italy and Sicily. For example, the great Greek mathematician Archimedes lived in Syracuse in Sicily. The Roman alphabet was a borrowing from the Etruscans who borrowed it from (guess who?) the Greeks. It is said that Greek speaking villages survived in southern Italy into the 20th century. But the main Greek influence in Italy was eradicated by the Romans, who, like present day Californians, wanted a single-language state. The Greeks found the romans to be difficult foes. After a hard-won victory over the Romans at Asculum (in Italy) Pyrrhus, Greek king of Epirus said, "Another victory such as this, and we are utterly lost."