Introduction

Greek colonies of the Archaic period are found on or off the coasts of modern Spain, France, Italy, Sicily, Albania, Greece, Turkey in Europe, Bulgaria, Romania, Russia, Turkey in Asia, Egypt and Libya. Hence this is often regarded as the ‘age of colonization’ or period of Greek colonization par excellence. In fact colonization was practised in all periods of Greek history. What distinguishes the colonization of the Archaic period is, firstly, its scale and extent, only rivalled by the very different colonization of Alexander and the Hellenistic period, and, secondly, its character, as a product of the world of the independent city-state, the polis. Later colonization of the Classical, and, even more clearly, of the Hellenistic, periods reveals in many ways that it emanated from a world dominated by larger political units. It is more difficult to distinguish Archaic colonization from its predecessor in the migratory period, when the Greeks settled the islands of the Aegean and west coast of Asia Minor. Indeed, the ancients themselves made no such distinction. However, it seems doubtful if the dominating political units of those days could properly be called poleis. In any case, a distinction is required by the great difference in the quality of our knowledge of the colonization of the migratory period as compared with that of Archaic times. With some over-simplification one might say that the literary sources for the Archaic period present real historical evidence, even though they are partly contaminated by legendary elements, whereas those for the migratory period are all legend, even if a kernel of truth is concealed somewhere within them.