In the small, mountainous and barren peninsula of Greece, on the Eastern side of the Mediterranean, in 800 B.C., 300 years had already passed from the time when the Mycenaean society had collapsed. In this dark and unknown age, the social upheavals were continuous. Each group tried to acquire a piece of land in order to survive. In this effort, already from an early stage, many of the residents decided to leave for the East and so, the First Greek colonization of the Asia Minor took place.

The Greek land, however, had always been wild and barren. The abundance of mountains left only small pieces of land, which could not provide for all. While the population increased, the social problems increased along with it. Only few had ensured for themselves large parts of the land, not willing to give them over to the young, and the youth did not wish to become underprivileged citizens. The solutions were but few, since the citizens did not follow the advice of Hesiod: “Let there also be an only son in order to augment the fatherly fortune”. Either there should be a revolution against the existing social system, or new places should be found for the emigration of those with no descendants.

This solution seemed welcomed by all interested parties. The rulers were exempted from the problem, while the young dreamed of new places where they would build a new life. The exodus to the East was directed towards Propontis and the Black Sea, since the regions of Asia Minor had already been inhabited. The most dynamic exodus was to the West, where the known world ended. The second Greek Colonization had begun.

Agrigento

Οι ετοιμασίες

The mother-city understood that in order for this metoikesis (emigration) to be carried out, there should be financial help. Therefore, a first step would be to provide ships for the voyage of the colonists. A colonist was not someone leaving for a short period, but rather for his entire life, since one would carry along one’s “home”. It was also forbidden for anyone to return before at least 5 years had gone by. Herodotus mentions the fact that colonists from Santorini, who had failed to settle in a new land, had gone back to their island only to find those on the piers who once waved them a tearful goodbye, casting now stones upon them so that the returnees could not reach the shore. The law of survival left no room for displaying any spirit of understanding.

Before any decision was to be made, they should consult the Delphi Oracle that would prophesize on the success or failure of any venture, suggesting at the same time the most suitable “colonist”, the leader of this effort

Syracuse (Siracusa)

The Oracle of Delphi

 The advice of the Delphi Oracle had been undisputed; such was its prestige that no one dared to leave for metoikesis, had he not made his offerings to the Oracle thus receiving the necessary oracle. Looking at the Delphi Oracle today, one is surprised by the flexibility and knowledge it possessed.  With the passing of time, the Oracle had acquired a “database of facts and data” which made its consultation imperative.

Mentioning once more the colonists of Santorini, Herodotus reports that, when they received the oracle that told them to go to Libya, they were extremely surprised, wondering about this place. As time passed, and after the first colonizations, we have many oracles from Delphi that determined the precise location of the new colonists. This knowledge seems to be quite incredible, especially for such an era where apart from the knowledge of Aegean there was but a foggy picture of the rest of the world. The Oracle, of course, always made corrections even after the actual events prophesized had taken place, or even explaining its own prophesies afterwards, and at the same time, highlighting the failures of those colonists who had not consulted Delphi in advance.

Οι Δελφοί όπου απευθύνονταν οι αποικιστές, πριν ξεκινήσουν το μεγάλο ταξίδι τους για τη νέα εγκατάσταση τους.

The voyage

The trip from Greece to Italy was an “adventure” that lasted more than a month. One of the two more important bases of pirates that the settlers would have to deal with were close to the cape of Malea (on the Eastern leg of Peloponnese) and the other, the one of the Illyrians, along the current borders of Greece and Albania

It is quite difficult for us today to comprehend the conditions and the fear provoked by those voyages to unknown seas and faraway lands. One might think that in the wandering of Ulysses, Skylla (or Scylla) and Charybdis had been placed in the straits of Messina between Italy and Sicily. The ships that usually began these efforts were simple military ships, called pentikontoroi (with 25 canoeists on each side). In the ship, there were also almost 30 individuals of various specialities and naturally, the settler (oikistes), the head of the mission. If one should consider that in a space of 25-30 metres with barely any facilities, eighty individuals should have lived for a period of thirty up to sixty days, then one might comprehend the difficulty of the whole venture. The trip began either by the circumnavigation of Peloponnese and by reaching Corfu from where they passed over to Italy, or in Corinth, from where the distance was smaller. During the trip, apart from the harsh conditions due to the winds, they also had to escape from the pirates who had lighter ships. The pirates infested the Mediterranean, and the two more dangerous points for travellers were the cape of Maleas, in the Eastern leg of Peloponnese, and the passage from Corfu to Italy, where the Illyrian pirates were found, people that lived in the Adriatic Sea. If all went according to plan, then these bold travellers reached South Italy and Sicily or further away, to the coasts of northern Africa. In order to cover the 800 -1000 nautical miles, the colonists needed to travel, while the passage to the Adriatic Sea would take them just two days. 


The settlement

The settlement in a new place under today’s circumstances might seem perhaps effortless. But it was much more complex 2.700 years ago. The ship reached the coast and the exhausted travellers, heavily armed, got off. In these regions, of course, there were the locals, some of which saw the newcomers with hostility, while others were friendlier.

Distress, however, took over these people who with barely any food and only their courage had begun this adventure. The disembarkment should take place many times over until the suitable spot was finally found, with enough space for the settlement to take place, as well as an area for the creation of a fortress and an acropolis. Before all of this was to ever take place, the region should have drinkable river water. This sine qua non was quite understandable, and so there are certain cities, like Selinuntas, that took its name from the corresponding river. After that, the `vital area' would be found; it would determine the limits of their city and where their properties for culture and pasturage could be. The clashes with the natives over this issue were many times inevitable. Such was the difficult environment where the trip and the installation of the settlers began, an undertaking so bold that was, of course, not always successful.


Magna Graecia in South Italy and Sicily

The colonization began towards the West without a concrete objective, but quite fast Southern Italy and Sicily attracted the bold colonists. The colours, the land, the mountainous area, all of them reminded them of Greece. The area was familiar, they thought that they were once again in their homeland. In a 300-year period, a new Greece was created in this land, “Magna Graecia”. Greece, after the completion of this colonization, is considered that it controlled the known world of the time, from Gibraltar and all the way to Propontis. The Greeks felt safe everywhere they went and circumstances have come to the point where the cultural miracle could be expressed, which after the defeat of the Persians as well as the Carthaginians reached a peak in the middle of the 5th century.

The blue dots are the cities mentioned; orange dots are the tribes of Greece that founded colonies in the south of Italy – Sicily. The Greek colonization of Magna Graecia started in 750 B.C. with the city of Pithekoussai, founded by the Chalkideans and the Eretrians, just off the bay of Napoli (Ιsla d’ Ischia) and lasted until 380 B.C., when Taormina was founded, replacing the previous city of Naxos in Sicily (green dots).

The colonies in Magna Graecia were created by seven cities of Greece (Corinth - Megara, Chalkis etc.), three cities from Asia Minor (Colophon - Knidos - Phokaea) and three tribal groups (Achaeans- Cretes - Lokroi).

Poseidonia (Paestum)

Relations among the cities

One might believe that metropolis in Greece or in Magna Graecia would control its colony, and also enjoy good relations with it. However he/she should take into consideration the peculiarities of the Greeks. They were united only as a front against the “barbarians”'. As soon as any external danger disappeared, there were permanent conflicts among them. Each city as soon as it was able to stand on its own feet, cut the bonds with the metropolis and followed its own policy, which many times was the opposite to that of the metropolis. If one reads the history of the cities of Magna Graecia, one would be astonished by the events that took place. Syracuse, for example, in 598 B.C. founded the “sub-colony” of Camarina, south of the city. Camarina became significantly powerful and autonomous, breaking the bonds with its metropolis, making agreements that conflicted the interests of Syracuse. Only 50 years after its foundation, in 553 B.C. did the Syracusians with their almighty army attack and destroy the city, banishing its residents, which fled to various places. But, violence did not stop there. There was an effort of the reconstitution of the city, but in 484 B.C., the Syracusians destroyed it again, banishing its residents once more. To cut this story short, Camarina finally disappeared from the map, after it was seized and destroyed by the Carthaginians, the permanent opponents of the Greeks, until the Romans appeared. The ephemeral alliances of certain cities with the Carthaginians, the “Barbarians”', seemed incomprehensible to the Greeks of mainland Greece and they justified them by saying that the Greeks of Magna Graecia were also foreigners, since they got involved with the native tribes.


Relations with the natives

As we saw above, the Greeks, reached Magna Graecia, had to fight with the natives, which were scattered without any complex social structure. Although enough information existed on the failure of settlements of the colonists because they were defeated by the natives, the Greeks in general, due to their higher level (militarily, but also culturally), quickly conquered them, using them many times as slaves. There are, of course, some cases where the locals welcomed the Greek settlers like king Hyblon who welcomed the Megareians who named their colony after him, Hyblaea Megara.


The women

As we saw before, the colonists were always men, who, when they reached Magna Graecia, were not accompanied by women, since they were mainly young people that had not created their own family in their homeland. Miscegenation with native women was necessary and inevitable. Many times, rapes of women also took place. This subject, however, is not really mentioned by the historians of antiquity.

Metapontium (Metaponto)

The development of the colonies

We could only picture these pestered men that got off in Magna Graecia to simply create certain small villages, to cultivate their properties and to remain there in the backwaters of history. Things, however, developed completely differently and thus today we talk about the “miracle” of the Greek Colonization. It was indeed a miracle: in 100-150 years on the coasts of Italy and Sicily, temples and cities were raised that caused the admiration of visitors. With some sort of ‘’megalomania’’, they built such temples, cities and citadels of gigantic proportions, that Empedokles, a famous philosopher from Akragas, mentioned “Akragantians enjoy life as if they would die tomorrow and they construct buildings as if they were to live eternally”.

The wealth of the region was legendary; the term “sybaritism” (from the city of Sybaris) is valid to this very day and means a life of wastefulness and opulence. It is also said that when a Tarantian visited the metropolis of his city, Sparta, and saw how the Spartans lived, he said that “a Tarantian would prefer to kill himself than to live a single day in such conditions”.


The tyrants

Tyranny was the main regime that prevailed in Magna Graecia. The archaic society that colonized this region had learned to be administrated by tyrants or by oligarchies. The idea of democracy, that was later created in Greece, influenced little the social system of Magna Graecia, and thus only in certain cities and for a short period of time, during the 500 years of history of Magna Greacia, would any democratic governing exist. The tyrants of the Sicilian cities remained famous for their extremities. Such was Phalaris of Akragas, that put his opponents in a hollow bronze bull and lit fire under them, as well as Agathocles of Syracuse, that blew his opponents with the catapult as a missile.

Selinuntas (Selinunte)

The sanctums and the Doric temples

The settlers leaving Greece knew the Doric rhythm and using it, they built their temples in their new cities. Their temples, although many times oversized, impress with their harmony and the visual effect they manage to convey. All the temples are usually built with limestone that does not possess the gloss of marble or the white surface that we usually see today in the temples of Greece. However, that period of time the majority of the temples were plastered and dyed with intense colours.

In the temples of Sicily, along with those of South Italy, the worn out surface of the limestone, along with its earthy colour, achieve a visual result which is as impressive as the marble temples of Greece.

IMPORTANT EVENTS	YEAR B.C.
First settlement of the Greeks in Pithikoussai	750
The Corinthians found Syracuse	733
The Spartans found Taranto	706
Selinuntas is founded by Hyblaea Megara	628
Akragas is founded by Gela	582
Carthaginians’ defeat in Himera	480
Athenians’ defeat in Syracuse	413
Destruction of Selinuntas by the Carthaginians	409
Destruction of Acragas by the Carthaginians	406
Second defeat of the Carthaginians in Syracuse	403
Archimedes is born in Syracuse	287
Taranto is finally subjugated to the Romans	209
Fall of Syracuse to the Romans	210
Submission of the whole of Sicily to the Romans	200

After the conquering of South Italy by the Romans, the region of Magna Graecia had fate similar to that of the Roman Empire.

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