La tradizione poetico-musicale e la costruzione identitaria nella storia della grecità magnogreca: Eracle fra Reggio e Locri

The paper deals with the importance of mythical traditions and their poetic reworking in the process of defining the identity of the Hellenic societies of Magna Graecia and their politicalterritorial profile. The study is based on a series of sources relating to legends that would have accompanied the definition of the borders between Rhegion and Locroi in extreme southern Calabria. The analysis shows that they relate to the articulation of the mythical heritage of the two cities, but stresses that they should be read above all in the context of the development of the epic and lyric tradition in the two poleis. With reference to this, a specific group of traditions concerning Locroi, Crotons and other poleis of the so-called 'Ionian Arc' is also identified. They are known through later sources, which are also contaminated among themselves, but which may have originated from a process of 'vulgarisation' of mythical and poetic themes in an archaic chronological horizon.