Hybla Major or Hybla Magna () – the "Greater Hybla" – was a name used to identify the most important of the ancient cities named Hybla in

Magna Graecia Magna Graecia refers to the Greek-speaking areas of southern Italy, encompassing the modern Regions of Italy, Italian regions of Calabria, Apulia, Basilicata, Campania, and Sicily. These regions were Greek colonisation, extensively settled by G ...

Sicily Sicily (Italian language, Italian and ), officially the Sicilian Region (), is an island in the central Mediterranean Sea, south of the Italian Peninsula in continental Europe and is one of the 20 regions of Italy, regions of Italy. With 4. ...

Controversy

There is much debate as to which of the cities named "Hybla" the name applied ( Hybla Gereatis or

Megara Hyblaea Megara Hyblaea () – perhaps identical with Hybla Major – is an Ancient Greece, ancient Greek colony of Magna Graecia in Sicily, situated near Augusta, Sicily, Augusta on the east coast, north-northwest of Syracuse, Italy, Syracuse, Italy, ...

) and whether the name uniformly applied to the same city over the period during which the name was used. Initially Megara Hyblaea was the more important; it was founded c. 728 BCE and destroyed in c. 481 BCE. Hybla Gereatis, however, played an important role in the

Second Punic War The Second Punic War (218 to 201 BC) was the second of Punic Wars, three wars fought between Ancient Carthage, Carthage and Roman Republic, Rome, the two main powers of the western Mediterranean Basin, Mediterranean in the 3rd century BC. For ...

, in the 3rd century BCE. A possible explanation of how the term arose is from a corruption of the

rho Rho (; uppercase Ρ, lowercase ρ or ; or ) is the seventeenth letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 100. It is derived from Phoenician alphabet, Phoenician letter resh . Its uppercase form uses the same ...

in Greek "Megara" to a

lambda Lambda (; uppercase , lowercase ; , ''lám(b)da'') is the eleventh letter of the Greek alphabet, representing the voiced alveolar lateral approximant . In the system of Greek numerals, lambda has a value of 30. Lambda is derived from the Phoen ...

generating "Megala" (meaning "greater"). The coins of Hybla Major bear the Greek legend "HYBLA MEGALAS".

References

* *T. Dunbabin, The Western Greeks, (), (1968), pp. 19, 44. Colonies of Magna Graecia Ancient cities in Sicily Former populated places in Italy {{Sicily-geo-stub