The Athenians Found Brea

The following inscription (Fornara, Nr. 100) comes from the mid-fifth century. Although the great age of colonization was the eighth and seventh centuries, Greek cities continued to found sporadic colonies in the sixth, fifth, and even fourth centuries. The later colonies are, on the whole, better known owing to more documentary evidence and contemporary historical accounts (for example, that at Thuc. III 92 on the lacedaemonian colony of Heracleia Trachinia). The distribution of land to the colonists, for example, is specifically attested in the decree for the foundation of Brea. Occasionally it becomes necessary to extrapolate backwards from the fifth-century colonies to the older ones - for example, scholars usually assume that there was some procedure for the division of land in the colonies of the eighth and seventh centuries as well even though it is never explicitly attested. Granted, this method of extrapolation backwards has its risks as the principles of colonization did not remain static (for example, the fifth-century colonies such as Heracleia Trachinia appear to function at times as little more than expressions of the mother-city's geopolitical strategy - that is unknown for the early colonies).

. . . the colonists are to provide. . . for them so as to have good omens for the colony, however many they decide. They are to select ten men as geonomoi [i. e., "land-distributers"], one per tribe. These are to distribute the land. Democleides [i. e., the oecist] shall have full powers to establish the colony however he may best be able. They shall leave the sacred precincts which have been reserved Just as they are, and they are to mark off no others. They [i. e., the colonists] are to send an ox and a suit of armor to the Greater Panathenaea and a phallus to the Dionysia [i. e., two festivals at Athens]. But if anyone should invade the colonists' land, then the cities shall come to their aid as quickly as possible according to the agreements which were made when [the name is here missing] was secretary (of the Boule) concerning the cities in Thrace. (The Athenians) are to write these things on a column and to erect it in the city. The colonists are to provide the column at their own expense. If anyone should propose any decree contrary to the column or any orator speak in the assembly or attempt to persuade (anyone else) to remove or to cancel any one of the provisions (of this decree), he shall lose his citizenship, both he and his children after him; and his property shall be confiscated and a tenth part (of this property) shall be the goddess's [i. e., Athena's], unless the colonists themselves in some way... [a few words are missing]. All those enrolled for the colony who are soldiers, after they come back to Athens, within thirty days are to be in Brea as colonists. (The colonists) shall lead out the colony within thirty days. Aeschines shall go with them and shall provide funds.

(A small addendum, written on the side of the column:)

Phantocles moved the motion: Concerning the colony at Brea, (let everything be) just as Democleides has moved; but the Erechtheid prytany shall introduce Phantocles to the Boule in its first session. As for Brea, the colonists shall come from the Thetes and the Zeugitae.

Everything in the new colony had to be built from the ground up - houses, temples, public buildings. As a general rule the colonists attempted to replicate abroad what they had known at home. They established the same cults to the same gods; they made the same institutional arrangements which they knew from home; they spoke the same dialect and used the same calendar. Changes might occur over time, but in general the newly founded colony was as close to a duplicate of the mother-city as possible. To give one quick example, there was a king (Grinnus by name - Hdt. IV 150) reigning on Thera when Cyrene was founded; so the colony too had to have a king - the oecist Battus became the first King of Cyrene.

Over time institutions in both mother-city and colony could change. The historian Ephorus commented on this already in the fourth century BC (BNJ 70, Fr. 149), and those of Cyrene were reformed in the sixth century BC by the lawgiver Demonax (Hdt. IV 161). But in many cases the institution or cult which existed in the colony existed also in the mother-city and vice versa.