The Western Greek Systems

Abstract Most of the Greek colonies of Sicily and South Italy (Magna Graecia) were established before the time when decorated architectural terracotta systems had evolved in the motherland (Map 6). Therefore, it comes as no surprise that, when the Western Greeks began to use architectural terracottas, the forms and decorative vocabulary were different from those of the mainland of Greece, although some knowledge of their systems is evident. The plain roof tiles common in Italy, as in Asia Minor, form the ‘hybrid’ system which combines elements of two separate tile systems of mainland Greece, Laconian and Corinthian, using Laconian-style semicircular cover tiles and flat, Corinthian-style pan tiles with upward-curving side edges. This system, like the two mainland Greek systems just mentioned, may have grown out of the Protocorinthian system (see Chapter 3; Fig. I a-b).