A sword for a tribune

[Dan Diffendale]

No, I have never lived on the prairies. The landscape of southern Italy is, for the most part, decidedly un-prairielike. The Apulian Murge is similar, but there were no Greek colonies there. While weather may have prevented sailing on occasion, it was not so bad as to leave colonies in "isolation." Remember that the Greek colonies in Italy were not the European colonies in North America. They were in most cases not dependent on the metropolis for support, at least not by the 6th century BC, which seems to be what we're talking about here. (Of course, they would look for military support later, e.g. Taras applying for help from Sparta and elsewhere in the 4th century.) The desolate prairie ill compares with the landscape of 6th century BC South Italy. In addition to the Greeks -- and there were lots of Greeks -- there were Italians (and there were lots of Italians).

In any case, this is all mostly irrelevant since, as I believe, the sword is not of Greek manufacture but Italic.