ABSTRACT
One of the fascinating questions about the history of Magna Graecia in the period after the Roman conquest is the interaction between Roman and Greek culture in the region. This shows a high degree of variability, with Hellenism remaining an important part of civic culture in some communities, but almost entirely disappearing from the record in others. The reasons underlying this variation and the factors which determine the persistence or disappearance of Hellenism (and, conversely, the adoption of aspects of Roman culture) are still very unclear. This chapter seeks to examine the role of social memory in determining the relationship between the cities of Roman Magna Graecia and their Greek past. It explores the implications of this for the relationship between the Greeks of Italy and contemporary Roman culture.
The specific focus is on Elea/Velia, which offers a considerable depth of archaeological and epigraphic evidence for the Hellenistic and Roman periods. It also offers a considerable contrast with neighbouring cities of Greek origin in Italy in both the nature of Hellenism after the Roman conquest and the ways in which it was expressed, and also some similarities with Greek settlements in the western Mediterranean which share Velia's Phocaean heritage. This raises some interesting questions about which social groups set the agenda for such cultural survivals, whether they were cultural memory or invented tradition, and how they were affected by relations with Rome, other neighbouring communities and the wider Greek world.
