Beginning in the second half of the eighth century, Greeks began to migrate from their Balkan homeland and establish new settlements all around the Mediterranean Basin. This Greek diaspora transformed Greek culture. But the Greek diasporic movement was not part of a single process. The diaspora developed over centuries. As best we can calculate the rate of new foundations it looks like: 1. 10thc: 5 2.9thc: 6 3.8thc: thc: 57Interactive MapInteractive Map 5. 6thc: 52

The colonies founded during the 8thc appear to be connected to the metals trade. Chief among the Greeks involved were Eretria and Chalkis on Evvoia. Earliest colonies were at Pithikoussai & Kymai.

Pitikoussai is a relatively barren island off the coast of Italy near Naples. The archaeological evidence indicates that it was occupied by Greeks from a number of communities & other Eastern traders. The settlement may have been as large as 10,000 people.

Evidence from the site indicate that large parts of it were dedicated to the production of metals: bronze and iron. The stone circles in the photo are the bases of iron-smelting furnaces. The source of the metals was area around Veii in Italy.

Another type of Greek settlement abroad was the entrepots, or trading post. Al-Mina in Syria was such a place. Another was Naukratis in Egypt. King Amasis of Egypt gave Greeks from Chios, Teos and 5 other places permission to build a neighborhood in Naukratis for the purpose of trade. Men moving here did not sever connections with their home community. Temporary residence abroad.

Korinth is a good example of an earlier diaspora group. Korinthians moved out first to unoccupied areas of western Greece, like Kerkira and Lefkas, and then others crossed over to southern Italy and Sicily. Over a period of 150 years, men and women from Korinth established 15 new communities located all around the Mediterranean basin. Once these people migrated they became attached to their new community and lost their membership in their old one.

Tying the colony to its “mother-community” were bonds of kinship between families and common religious cults. At Korinth’s colonies, the worship of Apollo was key.

1.Land Hunger: as the population boom of the 8thc continued, there developed a relative shortage of land. The developing elite group consumed more and more of the available good land. The Greek practice of inheritance by equal division of property also accelerated the land shortage. The relatively scarce good arable land available in most areas of Greece meant that internal colonization was not really viable– accept at Athens, as you will see. The solution: send people abroad to live. Not surprisingly, then, the first thing that happened at the new settlement was the equal division of land among the settlers. REMEMBER::: possession of land was required to be a citizen of the community. If a family lost its land, it lost its citizenship.

2.A Safety Valve: in many communities, like Korinth, there were social tensions both between the aristocracy and the masses, and between members of the elite, especially between young aristocrats eager for power. The solution: hive off the most troublesome of the young aristocrats. At Korinth, for example, almost every settlement expedition was headed by a younger member of the Bakkhiad clan (the clan that emerged as the dominant power among the Korinthian aristocracy). 3.Trauma Colonies: some colonies were set up after a natural disaster, like a drought, in order to save the home community. The Theran settlement of Cyrene in Libya was this type of colony. See, Document 3.1 (page 92), in your text. 4.Copy-catting: there developed a competition between communities over colonization.

1.At home, colonization helped to defuse, at least monetarily, the rising social tensions between the elite and the remainder of the community. 2.The spread of Greek agricultural communities into a number of widely diverse environments facilitated the exchange of foodstuffs that lower the risk of famine and disaster. Population could continue to grow. Greek trade and commerce flourished. 3.Colonization accelerated the development of distinctive Greek identity by juxtaposing Greeks from various regions with non- Greeks. Ties of language, culture & religion became manifest. 4.Colonization transformed slavery. Non-Greeks came to supplant Greeks as slaves. 5.Greek culture became a Mediterranean culture.

Greek colonization persisted during the fifth century. The Athenian Empire in particular was active founding colonies along the northern Aegean and Black Sea. The older colonies in the west sent out their own colonists and Greek settlement spread N and W.

Under the dynamic leadership of first Phillip II and then his son Alexander the Great, Greek settlements began to be founded in the interior of the Balkans, especially in what are now the states of Bulgaria, Albania, FYROM, Serbia and Rumania.