Greek Colonization
Greek Migration and the Polis
Homer, Odyssey, Book 9.113-32
(trans. Stanley Lombardo)
A fertile island slants across the harbor’s mouth, neither very
close nor very far from the Cyclop’s shore. It’s well wooded
and populated with innumerable wild goats, uninhabited by
human traffic. Not even hunters go there, tramping through
the woods and roughing it on the mountainsides….Meadows
lie by the seashore, lush and soft, where vines would thrive. It
has level fields with deep, rich soil that would produce
bumper crops season after season.
Hesiod, Works and Days, lines 42-49
(trans. Tandy and Neale)
For the gods hid and kept sustenance from people. For before this
time you would easily accomplish even in one single day so as to
have enough even for a full year, even if you were an idler. Quickly
would you put away the steering oar up in the smoke, and the works
of the oxen and the work-enduring asses would disappear. But Zeus
hid it, struck with anger in his chest because Prometheus of crooked
counsel had deceived him. For that very reason he contrived
pernicious woes for people.
Kingdoms and Colonies
in the Seventh Century BCE
Stages of Greek Colonization:
Eastern Wave ca. 1050-950 BCE; Western Wave ca. 750-650 BCE
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Aeolian, Ionian, and Dorian colonization of Asia Minor (ethnē, ca. 1050-950
BCE); Miletus
Greek trading emporium at Al Mina in northern Syria (ca. 800 BCE)
Greek colonies in western Mediterranean--(southern Italy and Sicily):
Pithecusae on island of Ischia (Euboea, ca. 760 BCE); Naxos in Sicily (Chalcis,
734 BCE); Corcyra (Corinth, 734 BCE); Syracuse in Sicily (Corinth, 734
BCE); Catana and Leontini in Sicily (Sicilian Naxos, 729 BCE); Taras in Italy
(Sparta, 706 BCE); Gela in Sicily (Crete and Rhodes, 688 BCE); Himera in
Sicily (Sicilian Zancle, 649 BCE)
Greek foundation of Massalia [Marseilles] (Phocaea, ca. 600 BCE)
Greek foundation of Cyrene in north Africa (Thera, 630 BCE)
Greek foundation at Naucratis in Egypt (Hellenion, 610 BCE)
Al Mina on Orontes River (northern Syria)
Greek Mainland and Asia Minor Coast
Dialect Map of Greece and Aegean
Greek Colonization in Italy and Sicily
End of Sixth Century BCE
Greek Colonies in Southern Italy and Sicily
Stages of Greek Colonization:
Pontos or Euxine Sea (Black Sea)
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Mythic Memory of Colonization: Jason, Argonauts and Golden Fleece of
Colchis; Odysseus’ wanderings (Circe as sister of King Aeetes of Colchis)
Sinope (Miletus, before 756 BCE?; refounded ca. 600 BCE)
Trapezus (Sinope, 756 BCE?)
Sinope (Miletus, before 756 BCE?; refounded ca. 600 BCE)
Chalcedon and Byzantium (Megara, 660 BCE)
Istrus (Miletus, ca. 650 BCE?)
Sigeum on the Hellespont (Athens, 600 BCE)
Olbia (Miletus, ca. 550 BCE)
Phasis (Miletus, ca. 550 BCE)
Greek Colonies along Black Sea Coast
Greeks throughout the Mediterranean (ca. 550 BCE)
Greek Colonization: Causes
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Agricultural Poverty
Deficiency of Natural Resources
Land Hunger
Growing Populations in Geometric Period
Stasis
Seafaring; Commerce; Trading Posts
Sending Out the Colony
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Population pressures and/or stasis lead to motivation for colonization
Commerce and sea-borne piracy gives Greeks geographical
knowledge
Selection of portion of population to go out as colonists; oecist
Consultation of Delphi
Colonization and the Polis
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Close commercial relations between mother-city (metropolis) and
colony
Colonization places Greek polis communities in sharp relief in
comparison with indigenous forms of communal life
Exposes Greeks to new cultural values, artistic styles, religious ideas,
information technologies
Ancient Greek Coins (Ionia and Sicily)
“Orientalizing Phase” (ca. 700-600 BCE)
Phoenician Colonization
(Tan: Phoenician settlements; Green: Greek Settlements)
Letters (Alphabet) Phoinika
Herodotus, Histories, 5.58
These Phoenicians who came with Cadmus…brought to Greece, when
they settled in it, various matters of learning and, very notably, the
alphabet, which in my opinion had not been known to the Greeks before.
At first the Phoenicians used the same letters as all the other Phoenicians;
but, as time went on, as they changed their language, they also changed
the shape of their letters. The Greeks who lived round about the
Phoenicians at this time were mostly Ionians. They learned the alphabet
from the Phoenicians, and, making a few changes in the form of the
letters, they used them and, in using them, they called the letters
‘Phoenicians.’
Paradoxical Historical Development?
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Center and Periphery (imperial metropole and colonized subjects)
Archaeology: Old Smyrna as proto-polis (Asia Minor)
Greek rhetoric (rhetorikē) arises in Greek Sicily
Coinage adopted by Greek poleis in proximity to Lydian Kingdom
Alphabet developed by Greek communities in close proximity to Phoenician
commercial colonies
Greek arts influenced by Near Eastern art (“Orientalizing” period, ca. 700600 BCE)
Maturation of Greek poleis: from periphery to center