CLAS1300 THE GREEK WORLD

Week 2, lecture 3: The Greek Expansion

Early overseas expansion: exploratory phase in early Geometric/ Iron Age, in later 9th C.
to coast of Syria, with settlement at Al Mina, Tell Sukas and Tarsus; then early C8 to
Pithekoussai in Bay of Naples. Both movements led by Euboeans (evidence of pottery),
motivated by desire for metals. Trading posts involve interaction with orientals esp.
Phoenicians, perhaps Mediterranean-long trade route (‘Lyre Player Seals’).
Consequences of expansion: techniques, forms and decoration in art; myth and ideas;
literacy (communication, identity, permanent record) – all adapted by Greeks.

Colonisation: from 735 (trad.) to early 6th C.; continuity with Greek mobility (evidence of
Odyssey), but (at least partly) different activity – founding cities from scratch: note
development and preservation of traditions, role and cult of founder (oikistes).
Principal areas are 1) S. Italy & Sicily; 2) Black Sea; 3) N. Africa; 4) W. Mediterranean,
almost always not in areas of developed culture.
Possible motives: population pressure
on land, economic and political factors are
all detectable. Details in each case tend
to vary: conditions in Greece, traditions
and archaeology (including nature of site)
all need scrutiny, and answer is often a
mixture for each colony.

‘When he was in Byzantium he learnt

that the Chalcedonians had settled Stater from Metapontum in S. Italy, 600-
there seventeen years earlier than 470 BC; note scooped-out ‘incuse’ reverse
the men of Byzantium, and when he
learnt this he said that the
Chalcedonians must have been blind ‘For it is not at all a fair or
at the time, for with a finer one at desirable place, nor lovely, like
0 the land around the streams of
hand they would never have chosen
to settle on the worse site had they Siris’. Archilochus fr.22
not been blind.’ Herodotus 4.144

Recommended reading (see General Bibliography)

Sources: Dillon & Garland (2010), ch.2; Pomeroy et al. (2015), pp.57-61, 71-74; note
also Fornara (1983), nos. 6, 17.
Discussions: Murray (1993), chs.3-7 with suggestions for further reading; Osborne
(2009), chs.3-4 (n.b. pp.98-101 for Lyre Player Seals) and pp.153-61, also his lively
treatment of Pitthekoussai in Osborne (2003), chs.2-3; Hall (2007), ch.5; Jeffery (1976), ch.4
is still worth a look too.

Further reading
Boardman, J. 1999. The Greeks overseas. 4th edn. London: Thames & Hudson is
essential for the whole topic, esp. chs.3, 5, 6 (and see extra ch.7 in the 4th edn. for recent
developments). On early mobility, n.b. Purcell, N. 1990. Mobility and the polis. In O. Murray
& S. Price eds. The Greek City. Oxford: OUP, pp.29-58. The traditional view of colonisation
as a polis-driven activity is challenged by Osborne, R. 1998. Early Greek Colonisation? The
nature of Greek Settlement in the West. In Fisher & van Wees eds., pp.251-67. Broodbank
2013 [lecture 1 h/o] chs. 9-10 offers a pan-Mediterranean perspective, esp. for Phoenicians.
There is a useful summary of eastern influences on Greece in West, M.L. 1997. The
East face of Helicon. Oxford: OUP, ch.1, and note also ch.12, on transmission; for art see
also the brief but useful survey in Osborne, R. 1998 Archaic and Classical Greek Art. Oxford:
OUP, pp.42-51. On literacy (an on-going debate) try Thomas, R. 1992. Literacy and orality
in ancient Greece. Cambridge: CUP, chs.1, 2, 4. Good discussions of all the basic topics can
be found in the 2nd edition of the Cambridge Ancient History Vol.III Parts 1 & 3, and the
Plates volume is worth consulting for an overview of the material culture of the period.