Colonization was not the only response to the problem of overpopulation. Two major states are almost entirely absent from the colonizing movement. The first is Sparta which, granted, did found one early colony, that of Taras in circa 700 BC. That foundation, however, came just before the Messenian Wars which practically doubled Sparta’s land. After the Messenian Wars (see chap. 6), Sparta had more than enough land to feed its population and hence no need to send out any more colonies.
Athens, on the other hand, sent out no colonies in the early period. It too suffered from relative overpopulation, but seems to have overcome the problem in the sixth century through a large-scale redistribution of land (on this, see chap. 8). Athens, moreover, had fought a war against Megara over the rich Plain of Eleusis (Solon, Frr. 1-3 West; Hdt. I 30) and had wrested that region from its neighbor. Accordingly, Athens settled no colonies in the conventional sense until the fifth century BC when it founded Thurii in Italy (Diod. XII 10-11) on the site of Sybaris (destroyed by Croton - Hdt. V 44-45) as well as Brea (see Box 5.3) and Amphipolis in the northern Aegean (Thuc. IV 102 and Diod. XII 32,3). Unlike Athens, Megara, deprived of land, founded colony after colony: Megara Hyblaea in the West (see Box 5.2), Chalcedon and Byzantium in the Propontis, and Heracleia Pontica on the Black Sea (Xen. Anab. VI 2,1).
The two Euboean cities of Chalcis and Eretria attempted both strategies to relieve the pressure of overpopulation. Not only did they send out many colonies, but they also went to war over the fertile Lelantine Plain which lay between them (Hdt. V 99; Thuc. I 15). The war lasted for many decades from the late eighth to the mid-seventh century (probably with intermittent periods of peace as with the Messenian Wars - see chap. 6). In this case both cities appear to have worn themselves out in the wars and, although Chalcis won possession of the plain (Hdt. V 77; Aelian, Historical Miscellany, VI 1), both cities sank into irrelevance thereafter.
Finally, it was possible to settle abroad for the purposes of trade without founding a colony as such. Probably for as long as they had been plying the seas, Greek traders had occasionally resided in foreign ports. When several traders stayed for prolonged periods of time, an emporion or “trading post” may have been established. On the basis of the Greek (specifically Euboean) pottery found there, Al Mina, near the mouth of the Orontes River in Syria, appears to have had a substantial Euboean presence in the second half of the eighth century BC. Yet Al Mina was clearly a Syrian town overall, not a Greek settlement - and certainly not a colony. Al Mina is the oldest known example of a continuing Greek presence in a non-Greek town, yet is later than the oldest colonies. For this reason there is no need to assume that emporia provided the idea or model for colonies. Chronologically, emporia might have been little more than a variant on the already established model of colonization. The reason for the variant might lie in the existence of well-organized states in the Near East which precluded the establishment of politically self-sufficient colonies. The best-known emporion, Naucratis in the Nile delta, supports this idea. Here from the late seventh century onwards (i. e., well after the founding of the oldest colonies), as shown by the earliest Greek pottery from the site, a large Greek trading settlement flourished, clearly with the permission of the rulers of Egypt, who presumably did not desire an independent Greek city on their territory. The trade, however, was mutually beneficial, and Naucratis, drawing its population from across the Greek world, grew to a substantial size - without ever becoming a colony.
World History
