European Forum ||| Special Homages: Meister Eckhart / David Copperfield ||| Donate
| |
|
|
|
|
|
Start |||
The
Philosophical Europe ||| The Political Progress ||| European Witness ||| EU News
European Forum ||| Special Homages: Meister Eckhart / David Copperfield ||| Donate |
|
From Hutton Webster's, Early European History (1917); edited for this on-line publication, by ELLOPOS
I. THE LANDS OF THE WEST AND THE RISE OF GREECE TO ABOUT 500 B.C.
» Contents of this Chapter
Page 25
COLONIAL EXPANSION OF GREECE (ABOUT 750-500 B.C.)
THE GREAT AGE OF COLONIZATION
While Athens, Sparta, and their sister states were working out the problems of government, another significant movement was going on in the Greek world. The Greeks, about the middle of the eighth century B.C., began to plant numerous colonies along the shores of the Mediterranean and of the Black Sea. The great age of colonization covered more than two hundred years.
REASONS FOR FOUNDING COLONIES
Several reasons led to the founding of colonies. Trade was an important motive. The Greeks, like the Phoenicians, could realize large profits by exchanging their manufactured goods for the food and raw materials of other countries. Land hunger was another motive. The poor soil of Greece could not support many inhabitants and, when population increased, emigration afforded the only means of relieving the pressure of numbers. A third motive was political and social unrest. Greek cities at this period contained many men of adventurous disposition who were ready to seek in foreign countries a refuge from the oppression of nobles or tyrants. They hoped to find in their new settlements more freedom than they had at home.
THE MAKING OF EUROPE / EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY: Table of Contents
url: www.ellopos.net/politics/european-history/default.asp
Cf. The Ancient Greece * The Ancient Rome
Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) * Western Medieval Europe * Renaissance in Italy