Of all the developments considered in this chapter, permanent settlement overseas, which escalated dramatically with the beginnings of western colonization in the last decades of the eighth century, was perhaps of the greatest long-term significance. The full story of its motivation, development, and consequences belongs in later chapters. It is now clear that most of the earliest colonies attested by Thucydides were founded within native settlements which were either destroyed (in the case of Syracuse) or gradually displaced. They were also small-scale; the laying out of a chora and systematic town planning on any scale lay some way ahead.35 A rather different picture emerges from the long and complex history of overseas connections to east and west through the Early Iron Age which formed the background to permanent settlement. To the west, the twelfth century was a period of intensive contact with Italy, and Apulia in particular (Jones 2000: 44-6; Fisher 1988: ch. 5). The intensity and wealth of settlement around the periphery of the former kingdom of Pylos - notably in the Patras area and the Ionian islands - created a new focus of interaction across the Ionian and southern Adriatic seas, indicated both by the movement of pottery and by Italian emulation of Aegean ceramics. The principal Apulian findspots, Roca Vecchia on the coast near Lecce, and Punto Melisso by Cape Leuca (within sight of Corfu), confirm the importance of this network (Benzi 2001; Guglielmino 1996). Thereafter, there is a hiatus in material evidence until the beginning of systematic imports (initially Corinthian) into Otranto from the ninth century onwards. Whether or not Corinthians lived at Otranto even temporarily, the Messapian identity of the settlement, as of the entire region, is clear. When Corinth did establish a colony along this route, it was rather on Corfu. As Douwe Yntema (2000) has emphasized, the problems of interpretation surrounding imported artifacts at Otranto recur in even more complex form elsewhere along the Ionian coast, and attempts to characterize “native” as opposed to “Greek” phases of particular settlements are fraught with difficulty. In the case of Incoronata, for example, it is debatable whether the quantity of Greek imports which distinguished the coastal site of Incoronata Greca from its inland neighbor, Incoronata Indigena, should be seen as reflecting the distinctive identity of its inhabitants, rather than native interest in imports which encouraged a second settlement by the coast (Yntema 2000: 11-13).
Some Greek settlements were founded anew in areas where Greek goods, and probably also travelers, had circulated for some time. Pithekoussai on the island of Ischia in the Bay of Naples is such a case. The settlement was clearly Euboean, both in archaeologically visible customs and ancient tradition, although other ethnic groups traded and probably settled there too (Ridgway 1992: 31-42, 107-20). Following Strabo (5.4.9) and Livy (8.22.5-6), Eretrians and Chalcidians were involved in the foundation, and the identity of the oikists of the related mainland colony of Cumae (Megacles of Chalcis and Hippocles of Cyme) draws in Euboea’s third major settlement, Cyme, now known to be an extensive eighth-century town (Sapouna-Sakelleraki 1998). The foundation of Pithekoussai consolidated Euboean engagement with well-established networks of Phoenician, Sardinian and various Italian groups which extended out to Sardinia and up to Etruria and beyond, perhaps attracted by trade in metals and metalwork.36 This multi-ethnic milieu, where Greeks and Phoenicians traded and probably lived in close proximity, is exactly the kind of situation in which, during the eighth century, Greeks must have learned to write their own language using an adapted Phoenician alphabet. The role of the Phoenicians as teachers was emphasized in antiquity (Herodotos 5.58.1-2), and its importance is clear from the fact that the simple presence of inscribed Phoenician objects in much earlier Greek contexts37 had no impact. The Bay of Naples is not the only candidate for the place of transfer - Al Mina, Crete, Rhodes, or a mainland city such as Athens or the cities of Euboea have also been proposed (Coldstream 1990). But the case is greatly strengthened if a graffito on a local flask in grave 482 of the Osteria dell’Osa cemetery in Latium is accepted as Greek, as the grave can date no later than 775 (Ridgway 1996). The reading remains controversial, however, and the wider issue unresolved (see further ch. 28, below). A second long-term consequence of Euboean settlement in this area stems from its proximity to the increasingly hierarchical native societies of Campania and southern Latium (e. g. Pontecagnano: Cuozzo 2003). Following the establishment of Greek settlement on the neighboring mainland at Cumae, there are indeed similarities between the rich early seventh-century warrior and “princely” cremation burials on the acropolis and burials of the super-elite in the Euboean homeland, such as the West Gate at Eretria (Crielaard 2000, 500-3). Even stronger, however, are links with the burials of the “princely” elite of Campania and Latium noted above: the aristocracy of Cumae positioned themselves between their Euboean roots and the values of the native elites with whom they most closely interacted.
Connections with the east were even richer and more complex, with a palimpsest of shifting regional Greek, Cypriot, and Levantine interests moving and utilizing a variety of products from dining pottery to gold jewelery. In the eastern Aegean, strong connections between Crete, Cyprus, and the Levant continued through the twelfth and eleventh centuries, when contacts with the mainland Greek world were in temporary decline (Stampolidis 2003b: 48-55). By the tenth century, oriental imports were plentiful in elite burials at Lefkandi too (Stampolidis 2003b: 51; Popham 1994), and they increased in number in the following centuries. From this time, pottery of probable Euboean origin is also found in Cyprus and in very small quantities in the Levant, notably at Tyre and Ras al Bassit/Posideion (Lemos 2001). Yet when one examines find-contexts, the nature and purpose of import seems somewhat different. On Cyprus, Greek pottery (mostly Euboean and some Attic drinking vessels and other tableware) circulated as exotica in local elite-controlled exchange systems from the later tenth century until ca. 700. Together with a range of other non-Greek imports, these vessels formed part of the banqueting sets found mostly in funerary contexts and certain sanctuaries, and seem, therefore, to have answered a specific desire among the Cypriot elite to command imports from far and wide (Crielaard 1999a). In the Levant, by contrast, tenth-century imports at Tyre and Ras al Bassit were initially closed container vessels, implying the movement of commodities (perhaps fine-quality olive oil), with a full table-setting appearing somewhat later.38 As noted, the identity of the carriers involved in this trade remains a matter of debate, especially as the late tenth century also saw the beginning of Phoenician expansion westwards which proceeded rapidly thereafter (Markoe 2000: ch. 7). The establishment of the tripillar shrine at Kommos dates to the early ninth century, the first Phoenician presence at Kition on Cyprus to the mid-ninth, and in Iberia, a phase of “precolonial” contact was followed by settlement by the end of the century (Almagro-Gorbea 2001). There is no shortage of possible carriers, and every likelihood that most routes were frequented by almost all nationalities at some point in this long period.
As in the west, the eighth century saw an increase in the volume, variety, and geographical spread of Greek imports, raising the possibility of temporary or permanent Greek settlement. Here too, the full story falls outside our period, and we can only touch upon its beginnings. Perhaps the most debated case is that of Al Mina on the river Orontes, the probable port of the neo-Hittite state of Unqi which had its capital at Tell Tainat on the Amuq plain. Prior to the foundation of Al Mina, at the very beginning of the eighth century, Greek imports (exclusively pottery) were relatively few in number and found in high-status contexts (Crielaard 1999a: 280-4). Thereafter, they increased greatly in quantity, shape, range, and origin, including, by the second half of the century, Cypriot imitations of mainland vessels too. Who controlled this flow? Did the coincidence of the foundation of the settlement and the expansion of imports represent a local re-orientation of trade, or a Greek initiative? The question of whether (and at what point) Al Mina had a permanent or seasonal Greek population remains open, and the partial publication of the site makes arguments based upon find statistics somewhat risky. It is, however, worth noting that the architecture of the early site fits local standards, and the pottery assemblage does not look much like usual Greek kitchen kit. While it seems an unlikely Greek foundation, the idea of some seasonal residence remains attractive (Luke 2003: esp. ch. 3).
World History
