An outline, era by era

Colonies across the Mediterranean and Black Sea

Iron Age · ~1200 – ~500 BCE

From the eighth century BCE, Greek cities sent out groups of settlers who founded new, self-governing towns along the shores of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. Some went west to Sicily and southern Italy, which later became known as Magna Graecia, and on to Massalia (Marseille) in southern France. Others went north to the Hellespont, the Propontis and the Black Sea, or south to Cyrene in Libya. The Phoenicians were founding their own settlements, such as Carthage, across the same waters at much the same time.

The cause was a mix of pressures: shortage of farmland, political quarrels at home, and the search for metals and trade. The new cities were independent of their mother cities, though they kept ties of cult and sentiment. The colonies spread Greek language, alphabet, gods and city-state life over a huge area, and they brought Greeks into close contact with Etruscans, Italic peoples, Scythians, Egyptians and Phoenicians. This movement shaped the later Greek world and the early history of Rome.

Things happened, and the rest is history

  1. Pithekoussai and Cumae: the first Greek settlements in the west

    Event

    What happened

    Around 770 to 750 BCE, settlers from Euboea, chiefly from Chalcis and Eretria, found a trading settlement at Pithekoussai on the island of Ischia in the Bay of Naples. Excavations of its cemetery and workshops show metalworking, imported goods from the Near East and Etruria, and a mixed community that included Phoenicians. A little later, probably in the mid-eighth century BCE, Euboeans found Cumae on the Italian mainland opposite. Ancient writers such as Livy and Strabo name Cumae as the oldest Greek colony in the west.

    The rest is history

    These sites opened the western Mediterranean to Greek settlement and linked Greeks with Etruscan and Italic peoples, who were rich in metals. Their trade drew on routes already used by Phoenicians. The Euboean alphabet, seen on Nestor's Cup from Pithekoussai, passed through Cumae to the Etruscans and Italic peoples, and from them it shaped the Latin alphabet. In the years after, Greek cities founded Naxos and Syracuse in Sicily, traditionally in 734 and 733 BCE, and many more colonies followed. Historians still debate the exact dates of the earliest foundings, because they rest on pottery sequences and later written traditions.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryStrabo. Geography 5.4.4 and 14.1.... Greek geographical work, c. 20 BCE-20 CE.Names Cumae as the oldest Greek foundation in Italy and Sicily.
    2. BookBoardman, John. The Greeks Overseas: Their Early Colonies and Trade. London: Thames and Hudson, 1999.Covers the evidence from Pithekoussai and Cumae.
    3. BookRidgway, David. The First Western Greeks. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.Excavation and interpretation of Pithekoussai.

  2. Battos and the oracle at Delphi

    Origin story

    The legend

    Battos, a man from the island of Thera who stammers, goes to Delphi to ask about his voice. The Pythia tells him instead to found a city in Libya. He ignores her, but drought strikes Thera and the oracle repeats the command. Battos sails, and after a false start on an island he founds Cyrene.

    The rest is history

    Herodotus tells this story and gives both a Theran and a Cyrenaean version, which differ in details. Cyrene was a real colony, founded around 630 BCE, and Battos's descendants ruled it as kings for generations. Delphi did advise many colonising expeditions, and later writers often credit it with guiding them, though such oracles were probably in part shaped after the event. A stone inscription from Cyrene, the Stele of the Founders, gives an account of the agreement under which Theran settlers went out, and it broadly supports the outline of Herodotus.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryHerodotus. Histories 4.150-159. Greek prose history, c. 430-420 BCE.
    2. BookGraham, A. J. Colony and Mother City in Ancient Greece. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1964.Classic study of how colonies were founded and how they related to their mother cities.
    3. BookMalkin, Irad. Religion and Colonization in Ancient Greece. Leiden: Brill, 1987.Examines the role of Delphi and cult in founding colonies.

  3. Dido and the founding of Carthage

    Origin story

    The legend

    Dido, a princess of Tyre, flees after her brother Pygmalion murders her husband. She sails to north Africa and asks local people for as much land as an ox hide can cover. She cuts the hide into thin strips, encloses a hilltop, and founds Carthage.

    The rest is history

    The ox hide tale is told by Roman writers such as Virgil and Justin, and may rest on a play on the Phoenician word for a citadel, though this is debated. The Phoenician settlement of Carthage is real, and ancient writers dated it to the later ninth century BCE. Archaeology has found pottery there from the later eighth century BCE, so the exact date is debated. Carthage was one of many Phoenician colonies in the western Mediterranean, alongside Greek ones, and the two peoples competed for sites, notably in Sicily.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryJustin. Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus 18.4-6. Latin epitome, 2nd or 3rd century CE.
    2. PrimaryVirgil. Aeneid, book 1. Latin epic poem, c. 29-19 BCE.
    3. BookAubet, Maria Eugenia. The Phoenicians and the West: Politics, Colonies and Trade. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.Surveys Phoenician settlement and the early history of Carthage.

  4. The Argonauts and the Golden Fleece

    Myth

    The legend

    Jason and his crew sail in the ship Argo to far Colchis at the eastern end of the Black Sea. There King Aietes guards a golden fleece. With the help of the king's daughter Medea, Jason takes it and escapes homeward.

    The rest is history

    The tale is old, already known to Homer, and the best surviving full version is Apollonius of Rhodes in the third century BCE. Its journey through the Hellespont and across the Black Sea probably reflects growing Greek knowledge of those waters once colonies were planted there. Greek cities such as Miletus founded many Black Sea settlements from about the seventh century BCE, including Sinope and Olbia. Colchis was a real place, in what is now Georgia, and gold was said to be caught there in sheepskins laid in streams, which some ancient writers offered as the source of the fleece.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryApollonius of Rhodes. Argonautica. Greek epic poem, 3rd century BCE.
    2. BookTsetskhladze, Gocha R., ed. The Greek Colonisation of the Black Sea Area. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1998.Collected studies on Greek settlement of the Black Sea.
    3. BookBoardman, John. The Greeks Overseas: Their Early Colonies and Trade. London: Thames and Hudson, 1999.

  5. Taras founded by the sons of unmarried mothers

    Origin story

    The legend

    During a long war with Messenia, Spartan men are away for years. Their young women bear children to men who stay behind, and these children are called Partheniai. When they grow up and plot against Sparta, an oracle sends them out to the west. Led by Phalanthos, they settle at Taras in southern Italy.

    The rest is history

    The story is reported by Strabo, who draws on two earlier writers, Antiochos of Syracuse and Ephoros, and who gives differing versions. Ancient writers dated the founding of Taras (Roman Tarentum) to about 706 BCE. Taras was the only major Spartan colony. It did become a rich and powerful city in Magna Graecia, and its harbour and coinage are well known. Modern scholars doubt the details of the Partheniai tale, and see it as an effort to explain the colony's founding in a way that fitted Spartan tradition.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryStrabo. Geography 6.3.2-3. Greek geographical work, c. 20 BCE-20 CE.
    2. BookDunbabin, T. J. The Western Greeks: The History of Sicily and South Italy from the Foundation of the Greek Colonies to 480 B.C. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1948.Standard older study of the western Greek colonies.

  6. Greek colonists were all poor exiles

    Popular belief

    The legend

    Colonies are often imagined as dumping grounds. Poor, landless or exiled Greeks are shipped off from overcrowded cities to find a fresh start, leaving their old homes behind for good.

    The rest is history

    Land shortage and political strife did drive many settlers, and some colonies began as the work of exiles. But foundings were planned. A city chose a founder, often from a leading family, and a group of settlers sailed with the backing of the mother city. Trade and access to metals also mattered, as at Pithekoussai on the island of Ischia, an early trading settlement of the eighth century BCE. Its excavated graves include the famous Nestor's Cup, an inscribed drinking vessel of around 725 to 700 BCE, which shows that its owners were literate and able to afford fine goods.

    Sources

    1. BookOsborne, Robin. Greece in the Making, 1200-479 BC. London: Routledge, 1996.Discusses the motives and character of Greek colonisation.
    2. BookBoardman, John. The Greeks Overseas: Their Early Colonies and Trade. London: Thames and Hudson, 1999.Includes the evidence from Pithekoussai.

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