Ἰταλία

Forms

Ῑ̓τᾰλῐ́ᾱ (Ītalíā) f (genitive Ῑ̓τᾰλῐ́ᾱς); first declension^[1] Ionic and epic Ἰταλίη (Italíē); in dactylic verse the first syllable is lengthened.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

Its origin is uncertain.^[1][5] Wiktionary takes it as an early borrowing, borrowed from Oscan 𐌅𐌝𐌕𐌄𐌋𐌉𐌞 (víteliú, “land of young cattle”) or a form of a related Italic language, whose initial /w/ was lost in Greek before the classical period; the name was then reanalysed as Ἰταλός (Italós) with the suffix -ία (-íā).^[1][6] The Oscan word would come from Proto-Italic *wetelos (“yearling, calf”), from Proto-Indo-European *wet- (“year”), and is akin to Latin vitulus (“calf”).^[1][7] The Samnite coins struck in the Social War (90–88 BC) bear this Oscan name of Italy.^[7]

Ancient writers (Timaeus, cited by Gellius, and Varro) already explained the name from an old word for “ox”, so that Italy was “the land of cattle”.^[7] Greek legend made Italus, Ἴταλος (Ítalos), a king of the Oenotrians, the eponym of the country.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the 5th century BC Herodotus, Sophocles' Antigone and Thucydides use the name.^[9][3][2] At first it meant only the southern tip of the peninsula, the toe south of the isthmus between the Terinaean and Scylletian gulfs, called after the Itali who lived there.^[10][7]

Semantic evolution

Antiochus of Syracuse gave the narrow early sense, which had already lapsed in his day; by the 5th century BC the Greeks had extended the name north to Metapontum and the Gulf of Posidonia, and Thucydides, like Antiochus, kept the Iapygian peninsula apart from Italy.^[7] The CGL notes that classical Greek usually meant only the south, modern Calabria.^[2]

From the time of Augustus, Greek and Latin writers applied the name to the whole peninsula up to the Alps, much as it is used today, and with the Roman conquest it became a political unit as well as a geographical term.^[7][10] The New Testament mentions Italy in the Acts of the Apostles and the Letter to the Hebrews.^[11][12][13] The Suda glosses it simply as Rome.^[14][15] Its people were Ἰταλός (Italós) and, for the Greeks of the south, Ἰταλιώτης (Italiṓtēs).^[7]

Timeline

• 5th century BC – Herodotus, Sophocles and Thucydides use the name, mainly for the south of the peninsula.^{[9][2][10][16]}
• 1st century BC – From Augustus on, Greek writers apply it to the whole peninsula as far as the Alps.^[7][10]
• 1st century AD – The Acts of the Apostles and the Letter to the Hebrews mention Italy.^[11][12][16]
• 10th century AD – The Suda glosses the name as “Rome”.^[14][15][16]

Meanings

Proper noun

1. In early use, the southern tip of the Italian peninsula (modern Calabria), and more broadly the Greek south.^[10][2][7]
2. Italy, the whole peninsula up to the Alps.^[7][10][11]

Related words

• Ἰταλός (Italós)
• Ἰταλιώτης (Italiṓtēs)
• Latin Italia
• Latin vitulus

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
3. ^ a b Bailly, Anatole (2020), Dictionnaire grec-français, Bailly 2020 Hugo Chávez ed., ed. Gérard Gréco et al.
4. ^ Дворецкий, И. Х. (1958), Древнегреческо-русский словарь, Moscow: ГИС
5. ^ Strong, James (1890), A Concise Dictionary of the Words in the Greek Testament, in The Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, New York: Hunt & Eaton
6. ^ Βικιλεξικό, the Greek Wiktionary, https://el.wiktionary.org
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Smith, William, ed. (1854), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, London: Walton and Maberly
8. ^ Cancik, Hubert; Schneider, Helmuth, eds. (2002–2010), Brill's New Pauly: Encyclopaedia of the Ancient World, Leiden: Brill
9. ^ a b Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
10. ^ a b c d e f Pleiades: a gazetteer of past places, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University, https://pleiades.stoa.org
11. ^ a b c Abbott-Smith, G. (1922), A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament, Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark
12. ^ a b Thayer, Joseph Henry (1889), A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, New York: American Book Company
13. ^ United Bible Societies (2023), UBS Dictionary of the Greek New Testament (revised Louw–Nida semantic domains), open-licence ed.
14. ^ a b Adler, Ada, ed. (1928–1938), Suidae Lexicon, 5 vols, Leipzig: Teubner
15. ^ a b Suda On Line: Byzantine Lexicography, ed. David Whitehead et al., Stoa Consortium, https://www.cs.uky.edu/~raphael/sol/
16. ^ a b c Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge