The fact that historical research on Italy can only make definitive statements from the turn of the 4th to the 3rd century B.C. onwards due to the source situation, whereas the 4th century is historically a dark age, favoured the convergence of classical studies in this field. It happened that changes in archaeological material were associated with historical processes, which in turn are not beyond doubt in their interpretation. It is precisely the problematic concept of “Hellenism”, which Droysen, the “inventor”, did not intend to signify Hellenization, that is capable of creating much confusion and of biasing the gaze towards the phenomena strongly. To locate Hellenism in the East is a post-Droysen development, and strangely enough the scientific historical division of the Mediterranean into East and West, which Droysen did not establish, created one of the still most impenetrable borders even in our post-colonial and post-modern world. Especially the conference volume “Hellenism in the West”, published in 2013 by Jonathan Prague and Josephine Crawley Quinn, shows that there is a need for discussion.
The term “Hellenistic times” in the title of the event should not be understood as a concept, but cum grano salis as a temporal localization, as a term for the period from the late 4th century to the 1st century B.C., the naming of which is inconsistent due to the lack of incisive political events in Italy itself. It might also be called Italian or Republican instead of Hellenistic, depending on the perspective.

In any case, what Alfred Heuß said in his inaugural lecture in Kiel in 1949 remains valid: “The cardinal problem of ancient history was the Italian peoples. They were not barbaric enough not to make higher historical demands, but they were also too unrestrained to bring about a relationship of modus vivendi with the Greeks. They were still in a state of flux, and their future was set on bringing Italy into play as a potency of its own ... The Hellenistic East opened itself to the Greeks once Alexander had broken the spell. The West, Italy, increasingly sealed itself off from them. There were no Hellenistic empires there to win overnight. Pyrrhus had to remain an episode under all circumstances, not only because he was dealing with the Romans.”
Why Italy did not become Hellenistic is an issue that is still awaiting clarification, and there are certainly many other problems that are driving those who are researching this period. Above all, however, it is important to recognise what makes the epoch special. The handbooks do not help because, as can be seen paradigmatically in the volumes of the Cambridge Ancient History, the world outside the Hellenistic kingdoms and the Roman Republic ceased to exist in the 4th century, unless it came into contact with the Roman sword or the Macedonian lance. Thus it is above all appropriate to give “Italian Hellenism” its own voice, to find a non-hierarchical approach, to use comparisons with the East to analyse the West, not to denigrate it, as Edward Bispham demands in the aforementioned volume “The Hellenistic West”.

The lectures of the conference should question prevailing dichotomies, regional borders and cultural definitions on the basis of the individual patterns presented. If there is one thing that unites East and West in this epoch, which one is certainly reluctant to call it “Hellenistic period” in Italy, it is possibly the increased connectivity through mobility, trade, cultural interaction and interpretation, which is also - always in need of interpretation - reflected in the material findings, in cultural production. In this respect, the conference should on the one hand give the floor to academics who work on concrete findings of the period in question, and on the other hand also reflect in principle and theoretically on what this epoch means for the cultures of Italy, the unifying factor of which in political terms is that ultimately everyone was to be conquered by Rome.