In their state of dependence on the ancient Greek towns, these Oenotrians became completely hellenised. During the first century after the Greek settlements, they were not yet subdued, but they were reduced at the time when Sybaris and Croton had reached their highest prosperity. This is proved by the colonies of these two cities on the western coast, which oblige us to assume that the intermediate country was subject to them. Hence the almost fabulous accounts of the immense population of Sybaris and Croton, which must be understood to refer, not to the population of the cities alone, but also to comprise their subjects. The fall of Sybaris, in Olymp. 67, 3, was the death blow to the Greek dominion in southern Italy, and to the subjects who all lived in willing submission; for in the course of a long time a relation had arisen, in which the rule of Sybaris had become milder and milder, and in which the nations became more and more united with it. It was probably after the foundation of Thurii in the territory of Sybaris, that the Lucanians appeared in the northern part of the country, the modern Basilicata. They first attacked Posidonia and captured it; they next conquered the western part of the whole country, which derived from them the name of Lucania, and then advanced more and more against the Greek towns, as on the eastern coast against Thurii and Croton, which now dropped their former jealousy in order to defend themselves against the common enemy. But they were so far reduced as to be confined within their own walls. This extension of the Lucanians becomes manifest about the beginning of the Peloponnesian war. Strabo is not correct in saying, that the Lucanians expelled the Oenotrians and Chonians, for they only subdued them. The decisive battle of Laos between the population of Magna Graecia and the Lucanians, in which the latter gained the upper hand, belongs to the period of the conquest of Rome by the Gauls; and this battle prostrated the Greeks for ever. Lucania now became a great state, extending from the frontier of the Hirpinians to the gates of Rhegium. But it did not long maintain itself in this extent. The Sabellian Lucanians were not numerous enough to rule over so large a territory. The consequence of their victory over the Greek towns was, that the latter were broken, and that the ancient serfs of the Greeks in those parts, a portion of the Lucanians themselves, and the subjects of the Lucanians, constituted themselves as an independent state under the name of the Bruttii. Henceforth Lucania was reduced to about one half of its former territory; but it retained this extent until the last period of the Roman empire, and under its name a separate region of Italy was formed.