Cumae and Pithecusae

Pithecusae and Cumae were the earliest settlements established by Greeks in Italy and Sicily after the end of the Bronze Age. Pithecusae seems to have been founded at an unoccupied site on the island of Pithecusae and became a multi-ethnic community in which economic activity focused on craft production and trade. Cumae, on the other hand, was built on the mainland opposite, directly over the remains of an indigenous community, and its foundation likely involved a violent displacement of the indigenous population. Over the course of the Archaic period, Pithecusae suffered from the effects of volcanic activity, whereas Cumae developed into a powerful polis that played an important role in the geopolitics of central Italy. The study of Pithecusae and Cumae thus offers important insights into the earliest phases of Greek “colonization,” the growth of a significant Greek presence in the central Mediterranean, and the ramifications of those developments for indigenous peoples.