As people became more settled and prosperity slowly returned, the Greeks took their still-growing culture with them during a 200-year colonization period. Mainland Greece is about 75 percent mountains. While olives trees and grapes grow successfully in Greece’s thin soil, it has few good areas for growing grains such as wheat and corn. As a city-state’s population outgrew its arable (farmable) land, colonization was one solution to the potential problem of food shortages.
The first colonists were sent to cumae in southern Italy in about 750 B. C.E. Corinth’s colony at Syracuse on the island of Sicily was established in 734 B. C.E. and would become as significant as Corinth itself. Within 200 years, hundreds of Greek city-states were in place from the western end of the Mediterranean Sea in modern-day Italy, France, and Spain, to the eastern end on the island of Cyprus. There were Greek settlements on Africa’s north coast, around the Black Sea, and in Asia Minor.
By sending out colonies, overpopulation on the mainland was relieved, additional markets for Greek goods were created, and new Greek ports were established for all the trading that occurred around the Mediterranean. Sometimes colonists went willingly, sometimes they did not.
Some colonies were founded peacefully, and wives were easily found among neighboring populations. But sometimes it was more challenging. Land had to be fought for and wives perhaps kidnapped from among the area’s natives. And sometimes a colony no longer wanted a connection with the mother city. The island colony of Corcyra (modern Corfu), for example, often had a rebellious relationship with its founding city-state,
Corinth.
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Today you can still see many remains of the sacred buildings at Delphi. This is the Tholos temple, the gateway to Delphi.. The temple, built in the early fourth century B. C.E., forms a circle, representing sacred forest groves.
Before any party of emigrants was sent out, the gods were consulted to make sure this was the right decision. Most often Apollo’s advice was sought at Delphi, where the gods were believed to speak through priestesses, sometimes called oracles.
Sparta and Athens established relatively few colonies. Instead, they conquered the land around them. Sparta conquered a southern area of the Peloponnese called Laconia and enslaved the neighboring people of Messenia, and Athens grew into the large urban center of Attica. Sparta’s only colony, in Italy, was formed to send away a large group of illegitimate males (born to women whose husbands were off at war).
World History
