Tristan Hughes

And then the Lucanians, they see it, but then they put their own twist on it with their own cultural ideas.

I mean, what do we think?

Do we think there is a link with the Greeks of Pestum here too?

admit the Lucanians compared to other peoples like the Romans, even the Etruscans, I haven't heard of them as much.

I'm guessing, are things like this invaluable for trying to learn more about this particular people who many of us haven't heard much of at all?

Too often, we can think of ancient Italy as just being Roman,

What coming to a place like Pestum makes you realise is just how many different cultures lived and interacted with each other on this peninsula throughout antiquity.

At Pestum, you can see clear connections between the Greeks, the Lucanians and the Etruscans.

Elsewhere in Magna Graecia, you can see Greek contact with other local Italian peoples – Samnites, Apulians, Brutians, Messapians, Campanians – showing how there was a rich mosaic of different powers in southern Italy before the Romans took over.

Speaking of which…

The Lucanians ruled Pestum for just over a hundred years.

But in the early 3rd century BC, great change was coming to southern Italy.

A new power had risen to the fore in central Italy and was now looking to expand.

Yep, these were the Romans.

We're not going to get into the complexities of the Samnite wars now.

That's a topic for another podcast or several.

But Rome's ultimate victory against the Samnites paved the way for their expansion into southern Italy.

Now this put them into conflict with the Greek cities led by Tarentum.

Yet these cities lacked the strength to oppose the Romans on their own.

In recent decades, they had grown used to requesting outside assistance – warlords from mainland Greece keen to expand their power into rich and fertile Magna Graecia.