Most of Sicily was a greek and Syracuse was a greek colony. In fact Archimedes helped defend it against the romans. Most of southern Italy was greek, before Rome became big(and conquered other italians, greeks and carthaginians).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Graecia

And even after the romans conquered "everything", greek culture was still dominant since the romans were greekaboos(and greek culture was everywhere because of Alexander the OK).