Understanding Western Society
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Chapter Chronology
TTHE COLONIES ESTABLISHED BY GREEK POLEIS (city-states) in the Hellenic era included a number along the coast of southern Italy and Sicily (see Chapter 3). Although Alexander the Great created an empire that stretched from his homeland of Macedonia to India (see Chapter 4), his conquests did not reach as far as southern Italy and Sicily. Thus the Greek colonies there remained politically independent. They became part of the Hellenistic cultural world, however, and they transmitted much of that culture to people who lived farther north in the Italian peninsula. These people included the Etruscans, who built the first cities north of the Greek colonies, and then the Romans, who eventually came to dominate the peninsula.