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.
