Oenotrians in the context of "Southern Italy"

Magna Graecia was the historical Greek-speaking area of southern Italy. It encompassed the modern Italian regions of Calabria, Apulia, Basilicata, Campania, and Sicily. These regions were extensively settled by Greeks beginning in the 8th century BC.

Initially founded by their metropoleis (mother cities), the settlements evolved into independent and powerful Greek city-states (poleis). The settlers brought with them Hellenic civilization, which over time developed distinct local forms due to both their distance from Greece and the influence of the indigenous peoples of southern Italy. This interaction left a lasting imprint on Italy, including on Roman culture. The Greek settlers also influenced native groups such as the Sicels and the Oenotrians, many of whom adopted Greek culture and became Hellenized. In areas like architecture and urban planning, the colonies sometimes surpassed the achievements of the motherland. The ancient inhabitants of Magna Graecia are referred to as Italiotes and Siceliotes.

Italus or Italos (from Ancient Greek: Ἰταλός) was a legendary king of the Oenotrians, ancient people of Italic origin who inhabited the region now called Calabria, in southern Italy. In his Fabularum Liber (or Fabulae), Gaius Julius Hyginus recorded the myth that Italus was a son of Penelope and Telegonus (a son of Odysseus by Circe).

According to Aristotle (Politics) and Thucydides (History of the Peloponnesian War), Italus was the eponym of Italy (Italia). Aristotle, writing in the 4th century BCE, relates that, according to tradition, Italus converted the Oenotrians from a pastoral society to an agricultural one and gave them various ordinances, being the first to institute their system of common meals.

The Timpone della Motta is a hill 2 km to the southwest of Francavilla Marittima in Calabria, Italy that was inhabited since the Middle Bronze Age. In the Iron Age the hill was the site of an Oenotrian settlement. The Oenotrians were influenced by the culture of the Greek colonists from nearby Sybaris, who eventually took over the site in the second half of the seventh century and transformed it into their acropolis and an important sanctuary, which was notable as the site of the first known ancient Greek temples of Magna Graecia on the Italian Peninsula.

The hill was abandoned when the Bruttians conquered the region in the fourth century BC.

Francavilla Marittima is a town and comune in the province of Cosenza in the Calabria region of southern Italy. It is known for the Timpone della Motta, a hill which was the site of an Oenotrian and ancient Greek settlement and sanctuary.

The syssitia (Ancient Greek: συσσίτια syssítia, plural of συσσίτιον syssítion) were, in ancient Greece, common meals for men and youths in social or religious groups, especially in Crete and Sparta, but also in Megara in the time of Theognis of Megara (sixth century BCE) and Corinth in the time of Periander (seventh century BCE).

The banquets spoken of by Homer relate to the tradition. Some reference to similar meals can be found in Carthage and according to Aristotle (Politics VII. 9), it prevailed still earlier amongst the Oenotrians of Calabria. The syssitia in the Carthginian constitution may have been called in the Phoenician origin "marzēaḥ".