Italy
Articles of cities and regions in Italy, Sicily and western Europe.
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Italy
Geographically, Italy, or Italia, referred to the Italian peninsula, which included the Apennines (Apennine Ranges) that extend from south of the river Po, all the way south to the "toe" (Calabrian Apennine). Southern Italy looked very much like a high-heel boot.
There was no single king ruling the whole peninsula in ancient myths, or even in ancient Italian history. There were many kingdoms or city-states in the Italian peninsula.
According to Apollodorus, in Heracles' 10th labour, he was returning to Greece with the cattle of Geryon, and on his way, he went through Italy. At the toe of Italy, near the city of Rhegium, he lost the best bull that swam to Sicily. When he asked the locals, who were Tyrrhenians, if they had seen the bull, they told the hero that the bull, which is italus for "bull" in their language, had run off and crossed the strait. So Heracles named the peninsula, Italy.
In ancient Italy, the majority of those living in Italy spoke one of a number of Italic languages. Italic languages belong to the family of Indo-European languages like Greek, Gaullish and Messapic (in Apulia), which could also be found spoken in the Italian Peninusla. There were also some non-Indo-European languages in Italy which can't be classified, like Etruscan, Rhaetic and some Sicilian dialects.
Latin was a language that would predominate the entire peninsula in the later part of Roman history, but originally the region it was spoken in was much smaller; around the Tiber River, east of the Etruscans, and surrounded by the Oscan-speaking tribes from the north and east. (See All Things Roman, Roman Alphabets for more information about Latin). Faliscan was the language probably the most closely related to Latin, but the people who spoke Faliscan were small in population and region. Faliscan was spoken north of Latium and east of Etruria, on the west bank of the Tiber, where the river Nera branched out from the Tiber.
The Oscan language was spoken by the largest population group of the Italic family - by the tribes of the Volsci, Samnites, Marsi, Paeligni, Marrucini and Vistini in Central Italy, and in the south by the Lucani and Bruttii. Closely related to Oscan was Umbrian, which was spoken at the Upper Tiber. The Venetic language was spoken in the northeast of Italy, north of the river Po, all the way north to the Danube river and east of Illyria. Venetic also included the area of what would later be called Venice. South Picene was spoken by the tribe of the Picentes who lived on the eastern coast of the Adriatic.
Sicily
Sicily is the large island on the other side of the Strait of Messina from the toe of Italy, the southern tip the peninsula.
It was known as the home of the cyclopes, including Polyphemus. Also, near the east coast at Mount Etna or Aetna was where Zeus had buried the monster Typhoeus, under the mountain.
Sicily was said to be the home of the Sicels, the natives of the island. However, many Greeks migrated to Sicily and founded new cities, particularly on the east coast. On the west coast, the city of Carthage founded a number of cities. Rivalry between the Greeks and the Carthaginians was the source of warfare between the two.
I have only included a few cities in the articles that have mythological importance. Other Greek cities include Naxos, Catane, Megara, Gela, Acragas, Segesta, Selinus and Himera. Cathaginian cities include Moyta, Drepana (Tripani) and Panormus (Palermo).
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