Greek Colonization

General causes

The sténochôria

The Greek texts evoke the sténochôria like main cause of colonization. The Greek word sténochôria comes from " stnénochoréo_o" and means “being with narrow”, this being, the contemporaries perceived this phenomenon as being a reality of the time. In the same way, of many old texts saw in the demography of the time, an increasing overpopulation. Thus, one of the solutions approved by the Greeks was the departure towards new grounds.

Internal conflicts

By stasis one indicates any interior crisis, going until the Civil war. Colonization is a way of avoiding a civil war, the group being found in minority is left to found a news quoted. It is not a question inevitably of a conflict between aristocracy and people, but especially of the debates to be able it between aristocratic groups, or of one opposition inside the group directing, such as for example with Corinthe (see Bacchiades).

The colonists have the desire to found an ideal city. This decision is made only at the time of a situation of extreme gravity.

Commercial motivations

The provisioning of the city is a vital need for the Métropole, nevertheless, reality on the commercial motivations is rather complex.

The motivations are not always sure, since the situation of the metropolis is not always known. Moreover, the volume of the exchanges between the colony and the metropolis were generally insufficient to make live the colony. The founded Greek colonies for trade names are rather rare: one can quote the clérouquies of Athens or Naucratis.

Progress in navigation

Maritime knowledge strengthening itself, of important progress is made as regards navigation, that makes it possible for example to charge the ships more. That also contributes to reassure the individuals and to encourage them to leave since they do not have with all to leave any more behind them.

Conditions and starting moments

The departure of the colonists is always a moment of tearing. The colony being founded to avoid in the city a famine, it is heard that, as from the moment when the colonists left the city, they lost straight to the return. The Métropole would not bring any assistance to them. The civic body underwent a true amputation: between a tenth and a quarter of the population left, without hope of return.

The decision and actors

A colony is not based on a purely private basis (except rare exceptions), but results from a decision taken by the city, although this one is put seldom ahead.

For the foundation of a colony, one submits initially a project to the assembly which approves it or rejects it. In the event of agreement, the aristocratic council deals with the choice of the methods and the concrete measures to indicate which will leave.

It is then necessary to appoint a chief of forwarding, named Oikiste , generally selected in the aristocratic medium. This oikist chooses the name and the precise place of the new establishment. Once arrived, it establishes and equips the colony with a defensive system.

Within the framework of the mythical thought where one grants a big part to the gods, the cities need a divine guarantee which is used to consolidate the human decisions; the foundation of a colony was risked and caused tearings between those which were to leave, without hope of return and those which remained. One thus takes very quickly the practice to go to consult the oracle of Apollon to Delphes. The oracle proposes a general geographical orientation and delivers its opinion on a project worked out by the city.

Selection criteria

They are fixed by oracle. However, a good sense is generally observed: it avoids countries too structured on the political plan like the Egypt or the syro-Palestinian coast (Assyrian and Phéniciens), while advising to leave towards the west or the east.

It also describes the place where the city-girl will be established. Certain elements are found in all oracles, which describe a whole a site which will be capable to guarantee the Souveraineté and the autonomy of the colony:

  • the site will be easy access by the sea;
  • the site will be easy to defend (on an island close to the coast, a headland or a hill);
  • the site will be surrounded by a rich soil;
  • the site will have moreover a permanent water provision.

These criteria call for some observations. First of all, the accessibility by the sea is essential when one leaves to found one of them while leaving by sea. It is thus about a truism. Being given the factors pushing to the foundation of a colony (need for reducing the demographic pressure on the territory of the metropolis), the other criteria are essential as much. These oracles are thus a recall to what will be necessary to the colony. Moreover, the state of the settlement around the the Mediterranean at eighth century BC returns the availability of such an illusory site: the meeting at the same place of so much of favorable factors on a site which is not occupied is impossible. Therefore, when the colonists unload, they must inevitably expel the predecessors. And although the accounts of foundation never evoke a violent episode at the origin of the city, the excavations show, to each time one goes down below the Greek level, a level of fire proving that the installation of the colony was not done peacefully.

Stages of the movement

In general, one distinguishes two phases from the Greek colonial movement:

Specific characters of the new establishments

Relations of the colonies with Greece

The colonists carry a whole emotional luggage and religious: one leaves with fire crowned the metropolis, the colony preserves same the the Pantheon and often same the Divinité polyade.

The bonds are concretized by displacements of metropolis in colony and vice versa at the time of great religious holidays.

On the political plan, one generally preserves the institutions of the metropolis, at least at the beginning. The evolution is done only in the long life.

At the beginning, the commercial exchanges are rather modest. Little time afterwards, one attends nevertheless a true explosion. Thus, the richness of people of Sybaris is legendary. There is however no political bond between the colony and its metropolis: the new city is completely independent. It happened that a colony is found opposite during a war with its metropolis: for example the conflict between Corcyre and its metropolis Corinthe was at the origin of the Peloponnesian War.

New perceptions

One notices a resistance of the Greek colonists to any external cultural impregnation, even in Egypt. Under the Pharaon Psammétique I {{er}}, one needed interpreters to discuss with the inhabitants Naucratis.
One notes a little more receptivity in the religious field. The Syncrétisme seems to them means of being made accept on the new grounds.

On the other hand, colonization has a rather strong impact on the perception of themselves. One thus notes a development of the schools of Philosophie as from sixth century BC confrontation with other cultures stimulates a philosophical reflection, but the other is used only as detonator by its existence, it is not a interlocuteur.
With the antiquated time, the traditional Greek world is however not impregnated by this new philosophical thought, it is necessary to await the traditional time.

See too

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