nd delivered the mainland Greeks from all fear of Etruscan
aggression. The extreme southwestern projection of the Italian peninsula
had passed completely under Greek control, but north as far as Posidonia
and east to Tarentum their territory did not extend far from the seaboard.
In these areas they had occupied the territory of the Itali and
Oenotrians, while on the north of the Bay of Naples Cyme, Dicaearchia, and
Neapolis (Naples) were established in the land of the Opici (Osci). The
name Great Greece, given by the Hellenes to South Italy, shows how firmly
they were established there.

*Lack of political unity.* However, the Greeks possessed even less
political cohesion than did the Etruscans. Each colony was itself a
city-state, a sovereign independent community, owning no political
allegiance to its mother city. Thus New Greece reproduced all the
political characteristics of the Old. Only occasionally, in times of
extreme peril, did even a part of the Greek cities lay aside their mutual
jealousies and unite their forces in the common cause. Such larger
political structures as the tyrants of Syracuse built up by the
subjugation of other cities were purely ephemeral, barely outliving their
founders. The individual cities also were greatly weakened by incessant
factional strife within their walls. The result of this disunion was to
restrict the Greek expansion and, eventually, to pave the way for the
conquest of the western Greeks by the Italian "barbarians."

*The decline of the Greek power in Italy and Sicily.* Even before the
close of the fifth century, the decline of the Western Greeks had begun.
In Italy their cities were subjected to repeated assaults from the
expanding Samnite peoples of the central Apennines. In 421, Cyme fell into
the hands of a Samnite horde, and from that time onwards the Greek cities
further south were engaged in a struggle for existence with the Lucanians
and the Bruttians, peoples of Samnite stock. In Sicily the Carthaginians
renewed their assault upon the Greeks in 408 B. C. For a time (404-367)
the genius and energy of Dionysius I, tyrant of Syracuse, welded the
cities of the island and the mainland into an empire which enabled them to
make head against their foes. But his empire had only been created by
breaking the power of the free cities, and after his death they were left
more disunited and weaker than ever. After further warfare, by 339,
Carthage remained in permanent occupation o