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REGGIO ORIGIN OF ITALY
The history of Reggio Calabria has a mythological origin dating back from 2000 BC. But the town gained importance in VIII century BC when it became the greatest Greek polis in southern Italy.
Reggio was the flourishing town of Magna Grecia and later, allied to Rome, one of the largest centres of the Byzantine Empire. During the centuries it suffered the dominations of the Normans, the Swabians, the Angevin and Aragonese people.
Historians tell that the city of Reggio was founded on a previous settlement attributed to the great-grandson of Noah, Aschenez , who had reached the Calabrian coast in 2000 BC, giving the region a previous name of "Aschenazia".
Other legends, however, tell that the town was founded by god Aeolus’s son, Giocasto, whose monumental mausoleum could be built on the promontory of Punta Calamizzi, called Pallanzio (Pallantiòn).
As a proof of this reconstruction, some coins of the V century BC, which belong to the history of Reggio, depict a seated figure, leaning on a stick, who was supposed to be Jocasto, remembered as “oichista” of the town.
Other legends, however, tell that the town was founded by god Aeolus’s son, Giocasto, whose monumental mausoleum could be built on the promontory of Punta Calamizzi, called Pallanzio (Pallantiòn).
As a proof of this reconstruction, some coins of the V century BC, which belong to the history of Reggio, depict a seated figure, leaning on a stick, who was supposed to be Jocasto, remembered as “oichista” of the town.
In the centuries before the landing of the Greeks, a large settlement, known as Rhegion (Ρηγίων), had already existed, and still going back, the same place, with the name of Erythrà (Ερυθρά), had been inhabited by people from different origins like Ausoni, Enotri and finally Itali-Morgeti. The place had been ruled by a wisdom and generous Patriarch-king who had been so much loved by his subjects to enter the popular legend as a mythological Italo King, so that, after whose death, they decided to call themselves with the name of Itali.
Since then, the territory at the point of the boot, overlooking the Strait, took the name of "ITALY". With the Greeks arrival the name was not disused, but spread around as an evidence of the extraordinary mixture of cultures, traditions and religious rites among native people and new settlers. In fact, from the union of different cultures, in later centuries, the typical half-caste civilization of the western Greeks took the name of MAGNA GRECIA.
Time by time, the name ITALIA was consolidated in the common use to define the inhabitants of the state-towns in the South, first as Italioti and then as Italians. Finally, with the Romans arrival, the term ITALY included the peninsula to define it as a whole.
The geographical position of Reggio, strategic for trade and navigation, and the good government made it become one of the Mediterranean capitals, important town with a growing economic power in commercial exchanges.
Rhegion contentions, in fact, Syracuse hegemony Strait, being one of the most flourishing political and cultural centers of Ancient Greece especially during the government of Anassila, exerting considerable influence on the neighbor across the city of Zancle (Messina).
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