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THE MAKING OF EUROPE / EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY

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.

Em. Macron, Rediscovering the Path to Europe

» Contents of this Chapter

* Physical Europe   * Greece and the Aegean   * The Aegean Age (to about 1100 B.C.)   * The Homeric Age (about 1100-750 B.C.)   * Early Greek Religion   * Religious Institutions—Oracles and Games   * The Greek City-State   * The Growth of Sparta (to 500 B.C.)   * The Growth of Athens (to 500 B.C.)   * Colonial Expansion of Greece (about 750-500 B.C.)   * Bonds of Union among the Greeks

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OTHER MEDITERRANEAN COLONIES

In Corsica, Sardinia, and on the coast of Spain Carthage also proved too obstinate a rival for the Greeks to gain much of a foothold. The city of Massilia (Marseilles), at the mouth of the Rhone, was their chief settlement in ancient Gaul. Two colonies on the southern shore of the Mediterranean were Cyrene, west of Egypt, and Naucratis, in the Delta of the Nile. From this time many Greek travelers visited Egypt to see the wonders of that strange old country.

RESULTS OF COLONIZATION

Energetic Greeks, the greatest colonizers of antiquity, thus founded settlements from the Black Sea to the Atlantic Ocean. "All the Greek colonies" says an ancient writer, "are washed by the waves of the sea, and, so to speak, a fringe of Greek earth is woven on to foreign lands." [28] To distinguish themselves from the foreigners, or "barbarians," [29] about them, the Greeks began to call themselves by the common name of Hellenes. Hellas, their country, came to include all the territory possessed by Hellenic peoples. The life of the Greeks, henceforth, was confined no longer within the narrow limits of the Aegean. Wherever rose a Greek city, there was a scene of Greek history.

[28] Cicero, De republica, ii, 4.

[29] Greek barbaroi, "men of confused speech."

 

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THE MAKING OF EUROPE / EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY: Table of Contents

url: www.ellopos.net/politics/european-history/default.asp

IN PRINT

Cf. The Ancient Greece * The Ancient Rome
Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) * Western Medieval Europe * Renaissance in Italy