Greek colonisation

Ruins of Abdera, a classical city of Thrace, in present-day Greece

Numerous colonies were founded in Northern Greece, chiefly in the region of Chalcidice but also in the region of Thrace.

Chalcidice was settled by Euboeans, chiefly from Chalcis, who lent their name to these colonies. The most important settlements of the Euboeans in Chalcidice were Olynthos (which colony was settled in collaboration with the Athenians), Torone, Mende, Sermyle, Aphytis and Cleonae in the peninsula of Athos. Other important colonies in Chalcidice were Acanthus, a colony which was founded by colonists from Andros[5] and Potidaea, a colony of Corinth. Thasians with the help of the Athenian Callistratus of Aphidnae founded the city of Datus. During the Peloponnesian War, the Athenians with the Hagnon, son of Nikias founded the city of Ennea Hodoi (Ἐννέα ὁδοὶ), meaning nine roads, at the place were now is the 'Hill 133' north of Amphipolis in Serres.[6]

Numerous other colonies were founded in the region of Thrace by the Ionians from the coast of Asia Minor. Important colonies were Maroneia, and Abdera. The Milesians also founded Abydos and Cardia on the Hellespont and Rhaedestus in Propontis. The Samians colonised the island of Samothrace, becoming the source of its name. Finally, the Parians colonised Thasos under the leadership of the oecist and father of the poet Archilochus, Telesicles.

In 340 BCE, while Alexander the Great was regent of Macedon, he founded the city of Alexandropolis Maedica after defeating a local Thracian tribe.[7]

Ancient Greek colonies and their dialect groupings in Magna Graecia:

  Northwest Doric

  Achaean Doric

  Doric proper

  Ionic

Magna Graecia[8] was the name given by the Romans to the coastal areas of Southern Italy in the present-day Italian regions of Calabria, Apulia, Basilicata, Campania and Sicily; these regions were extensively populated by Greek settlers.[9]

The first to colonise Southern Italy were the Euboeans, who with the move to Pithecusae (on the isle of Ischia), founded a series of cities in that region. The second city that they founded was Cumae, nearly opposite Ischia. The colonists from Cumae founded Zancle in Sicily, and nearby on the opposite coast, Rhegium. Further, the Euboeans founded Naxos, which became the base for the founding of the cities of Leontini, Tauromenion and Catania. In this effort they were accompanied by small numbers of Dorians and Ionians; the Athenians had notably refused to take part in the colonisation.[quotes 1]

The strongest of the Sicilian colonies was Syracuse, an 8th-century B.C. colony of the Corinthians. Colonists of that same period from Achaea founded the cities of Sybaris and Croton in the Gulf of Taranto but also in the Metapontum in the same district. In the same area, refugees from Sparta founded Taranto which evolved into one of the most powerful cities in the area. Other Greek states that founded cities in Southern Italy were Megara, which founded Megara Hyblaea, and Selinous; Phocaea, which founded Elea; Rhodes, which founded Gela together with the Cretans and Lipari together with Cnidus, even as the Locrians founded Epizephyrean Locris.[3] According to legend, Lagaria which was between Thurii and the river Sinni River was founded by Phocians.

The Temple of Concordia, Valle dei Templi, in present-day Italy

Riace Bronzes exhibited in the National Museum of Magna Graecia in Reggio Calabria

Apulian pottery exhibited in the Archaeological Museum of Milan, 380-370 BC

A Syracusan tetradrachm (c. 415–405 BC), sporting Arethusa and a quadriga

Many cities in the region became in turn metropolia for new colonies such as the Syracusans, who founded the city of Camarina in the south of Sicily; or the Zancleans, who led the founding of the colony of Himera. Likewise, Naxos, which we see taking further part in the founding of many colonies while the city of Sybaris founded the colony of Poseidonia to its north. The city of Gela which was a colony of Rhodes and Crete founded its own colony, Acragas.[quotes 2]

There is evidence to suggest that there was frequent contact between the Greek settlers and the indigenous people's of Southern Italy. The evidence shown of these interactions comes from the Ionian coast in which the settlements of Timpone Della Motta which shows influence of Greek style in Oneotroian pottery. There is also evidence of Greek influence in architecture in the Oneotroian site that are similar to the construction of houses in nearby Greek colonies such as the colony of Sybaris.[12] Down south in Sicily when the settling of the Corinthians near Syracuse the native Sicels began attacking the Syracusans ultimately leading to the eviction of the Sicels from the area. The burials that are first discovered at Syracuse from early Greek colonists are buried not in a way that the Greeks would have buried their deceased.[2]

The areas of settlement in Southern Italy became so thoroughly Hellenised that Roman writers such as Ovid and Polybius referred to the region as Magna Graecia ("Great Greece"). To this day, some of the Griko people in Southern Italy still speak Griko and Calabrian Greek, Doric Greek-influenced dialects with a substantial Latin adstrate, and worship in the Greek Byzantine Catholic Church instead of the Latin Church more usual among other Italians. In Modern Greek, Southern Italy is referred to as Kato Italia (lit. "Lower Italy") and the relict Greek dialects there as Katoitalika.

Some of these Greek colonies in Italy still stand today such as Neàpolis ("New City", now Naples), Syrakousai (Syracuse), Akragas (Agrigento), Taras (Taranto), Rhegion (Reggio Calabria), or Kroton (Crotone). The type of government was in the form of "city-states" (poleis) administered by the aristocracy.[1] The most populous city of Magna Graecia was Sybaris (now Sibari), with an estimated population, from 600 BC to 510 BC, between 300,000 and 500,000 inhabitants.[13] The names of the inhabitants of Magna Graecia are Italiotes and Siceliotes.

From the motherland Greece, art, literature and philosophy decisively influenced the life of the colonies. Noteworthy was the South Italian ancient Greek pottery, fabricated in Magna Graecia largely during the 4th century BC. In Magna Graecia much impetus was given to culture, especially in some cities, such as Taras (now Taranto).[1] Among the illustrious characters born in Magna Graecia we mention: the philosophers Parmenides of Elea, Zeno of Elea, Gorgias of Lentini and Empedocles of Agrigento; the Pythagoreans Philolaus of Crotone, Archytas of Taranto, Lysis of Taranto, Echecrates and Timaeus of Locri; the mathematician Archimedes of Syracuse; the poets Theocritus of Syracuse, Stesichorus, Ibycus of Reggio Calabria, Nossis of Locri, Alexis of Thuri and Leonidas of Taranto; the doctors Alcmeon of Crotone and Democedes of Crotone; the sculptor from Reggio Clearchus; the painter Zeuxis, the musicologist Aristoxenus of Taranto and the legislator Zaleucus of Locri.

The Greek colonists of Magna Graecia elaborated a civilization of the highest level,[14] which had peculiar characteristics, due to the distance from the motherland and the influence of the indigenous peoples of southern Italy.[14] Magna Graecia, in some fields such as architecture and urban planning, sometimes surpassed the mother country and the other Greek colonies.[15] The settlers of Magna Graecia had great successes in the Ancient Olympic Games in their homeland. Crotone's athletes won 18 titles in 25 Olympics.[16] Although many of the Greek inhabitants of Magna Graecia were entirely Latinised during the Middle Ages,[17] pockets of Greek culture and language remained and have survived to the present day. One example is the Griko people in Calabria (Bovesia) and Salento (Grecìa Salentina), some of whom still maintain their Greek language (Griko language) and customs.[18] The Griko language is the last living trace of the Greek elements that once formed Magna Graecia.[19]

Greek Colonies on the Adriatic coast

The region of the Ionian Sea and that of Illyria were colonised strictly by Corinth. The Corinthians founded important overseas colonies on the sea lanes to Southern Italy and the west which succeeded in making them the foremost emporia of the western side of the Mediterranean. Important colonies of Corinth included Leucada, Astacus, Anactoreum, Actium, Ambracia, and Corcyra. The Corinthians also founded important colonies in Illyria, which evolved into important cities, Apollonia and Epidamnus. The fact that about the 6th century BC the citizens of Epidamnus constructed a Doric-style treasury at Olympia confirms that the city was among the richest of the Ancient Greek world. An ancient account describes Epidamnos as 'a great power and very populated' city.[20] Nymphaeum was another Greek colony in Illyria.[21] The Abantes of Euboea founded the city of Thronion at the Illyria.[22] The island of Paros founded the colony Pharos on the island of Hvar in the Adriatic.[4]

In 1877, archaeologists discovered in Lumbarda on the island of Korčula, in modern-day Croatia, a Greek inscription that writes about the founding of an Ancient Greek settlement on the island. The artifact is known as Lumbarda Psephisma.[23] Evidence of coinage on the Illyrian coast can be dated back to around the 4th cent. BCE. The locations of these coins were founded to minted in Adriatic colonies such as Issa and Pharos. These coins were used for trade between the Illyrians and the Greeks.[24]

Greek colonies along the Black Sea, marked by their corresponding centuries

The Greeks had at one point called the Black Sea shore "inhospitable". According to ancient sources, they eventually created 70 to 90 colonies.[25] The colonization of the Black Sea was led by the Megarans and some of the Ionian cities such as Miletus, Phocaea and Teos. The majority of colonies in the region of the Black Sea and Propontis were founded in the 7th century B.C. In the area of Propontis, the Megarans founded the cities of Astacus in Bithynia, Chalcedonia and Byzantium in which they occupied a privileged position. Miletus founded Cyzicus and the Phocaeans Lampsacus.[26]

On the western shore of the Black Sea region the Megarans founded the cities of Selymbria and a little later, Nesebar. A little farther north in the region of today's Romania the Milesians founded the cities of Istria and Orgame. And Miletus also founded a city on the western shore of the Black Sea, Apollonia. In the south of the Black Sea the most important colony was Sinope which according to prevailing opinion was founded by Miletus. The precise chronology of its foundation is not known at present but it appears that it was founded some time around the middle of the 7th century B.C.[26] Sinope was founded with a series of other colonies in the Pontic region: Trebizond, Cerasus, Cytorus, Cotyora, Cromne, Pteria, Tium, et al. The most important colony founded on the southern shore of the Black Sea was likewise a Megaran foundation: Heraclea Pontica, which was founded in the 6th century B.C.

On the north shore of the Black Sea Miletus was the first to start. The colonies of Miletus in this region of the Black Sea were Pontic Olbia and Panticapaeum (modern Kerch.) Later in the 6th century B.C. the Milesians founded Odessa in the region of modern Ukraine.[26] Further north from the Danube delta the Greeks colonised an islet, modern Berezan (probably then a peninsula). That location is found at the confluence of the Bug estuary (the River Hypanis to the Ancient Greeks) and the Dnieper (the Barysthenes to the Ancient Greeks) The islet or peninsula itself was called by the ancients Barythmenis; across from this, they found the site that would be settled later as Olbia. Next to Olbia was another Greek colony that had Istria as its mother city.

On the Crimean peninsula (the Greeks then called it Tauric Chersonese or "Peninsula of the Bulls") they founded likewise the cities of Sympheropolis, and Nymphaeum and Hermonassa. On the Sea of Azov (Lake Maiotis to the ancients) they founded Tanais (in Rostov), Tyritace, Myrmeceum, Cecrine and Phanagoria—the last being a colony of the Teians. In 2018, archaeologists discovered a previously unknown ancient Greek settlement of the 4th-3rd centuries BC near the town of Baherove in Crimea. According to the researchers, the settlement was called Manitra.[27]

On the eastern shore, which was known in ancient times as Colchis and in which today for the greater part is in Georgia and the autonomous region of Abkhazia, the Greeks founded the cities of Phasis and Dioscouris. The latter was called Sebastopolis by the Romans and Byzantines and is known today as Sukhumi—the ruins of the ancient and Byzantine foundations are now found principally below the waterline.

Legendary Greek king Odysseus on the island of sirens; the Odyssey typifies the particulars of the age.

The Greek colonies expanded as far as the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa.

In North Africa, on the peninsula of Kyrenaika, colonists from Thera founded Kyrene, which evolved into a very powerful city in the region.[3] Other colonies in Kyrenaika later included Barca, Euesperides (modern Benghazi), Taucheira, and Apollonia.

By the middle of the 7th century, the lone Greek colony in Egypt had been founded, Naukratis.[28] The pharaoh Psammitecus I gave a trade concession to Milesian merchants for one establishment on the banks of the Nile, founding a trading post which evolved into a prosperous city by the time of the Persian expedition to Egypt in 525 B.C.

2023 archaeological findings in Thonis-Heracleion at Egypt, suggested that Greeks, who were already allowed to trade in the city, "had started to take root" there as early as during the Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt and that likely Greek mercenaries were employed to defend the city.[29]

Similar to the emporion established in the Nile Delta it is possible there was a Greek trading colony established by the Euboians along the Syrian coast on the mouth of the Orontes river at the site Al-Mina in the early 8th century BC. The Greek colony of Posideion on the promontory Ras al-Bassit was colonised just to the south of the Orontes estuary later in the 7th century BC.[30]

Diodorus Siculus mention Meschela（Μεσχέλα), a city on the northern coast of Africa, founded by the Greeks after the Trojan War.[31][32]

On the north side of the Mediterranean, the Phokaians founded Massalia on the coast of Gaul. Massalia became the base for a series of further foundations farther away in the region of Spain. Phokaia also founded Alalia in Corsica and Olbia in Sardinia. The Phokaians arrived next on the coast of the Iberian peninsula. As related by Herodotus, a local king summoned the Phokaians to found a colony in the region and rendered meaningful aid in the fortification of the city. The Phokaians founded Empuries in this region and later the even more distant Hemeroskopeion.