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Contents:
Introduction to the Historical Overview in PerseusGeographical and Historical IntroductionThe Early Greek Dark Age and Revival in the Near EastRemaking Greek CivilizationThe Archaic AgeThe Late Archaic City-StateIntroduction to the Fifth CenturyClash Between Greeks and PersiansAthenian Empire in the Golden AgeAthenian Religious and Cultural Life in the Golden AgeContinuity and Change in Athenian Social and Intellectual HistoryThe Peloponnesian War and Athenian LifeIntroduction to the Fourth CenturyThe Aftermath of the Peloponnesian WarNew Directions in Philosophy and EducationThe Creation of Macedonian Power |
Thomas R. Martin, An Overview of Classical Greek History from Mycenae to Alexander
The Archaic Age
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5.9. V. The Tensions of Colonization
The case of the foundation of a Greek colony in Cyrene (in what is now Libya in North Africa) in about 630 B.C. reveals how full of tensions the process of colonization could be. The people of the polis of Thera, on an island north of Crete, apparently were unable to support their population. Sending some people out as colonists to Cyrene therefore made sense as a solution to population pressures. A later inscription purports to tells us what happened at the time of colonization and reveals the urgency of the situation at the time: “One adult son [from each family] is to be conscripted....If any man is unwilling to leave when the polis sends him, he shall be subject to the death penalty and his property shall be confiscated.” (M. Crawford and D. Whitehead, Archaic and Classical Greece: A Selection of Ancient Sources in Translation, Cambridge, 1983, no. 16B) Evidently the young men of Thera were reluctant to leave their home for the new colony. This evidence shows, then, that colonization in response to population growth was not always a matter of individual choice of the people feeling the pressure. The possibility of acquiring land in a colony on which a man could perhaps grow wealthy obviously had to be weighed against the terrors of being torn from family and friends to voyage over treacherous seas to regions filled with unknown dangers. Greek colonists had reason to be scared about their future. Moreover, in some cases, colonies were founded to rid the metropolis of undesirables whose presence was causing social unrest. The Spartans, for example, colonized Taras (modern Taranto) in southern Italy in 706 B.C. with a group of illegitimate sons whom they could not successfully integrate into their citizen body. These unfortunate outcasts certainly did not go as colonists by their own choice.
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OCLC: 33900145
ISBN: 0300069561
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