Greek Colonization

Abstract

Greek colonization had a long and varied history; it had begun indeed had already accomplished its first great period of expansion before the first Greek historians wrote; it continued in different forms intermittently throughout the classical period, had a second great era under Alexander the Great and the early Hellenistic monarchies, and again persisted with modifications after Rome became mistress of the eastern Mediterranean. The result we all know: the Greek polis, that closely integrated self-governing community of citizens, became the dominant political unit and political ideal of the Mediterranean world, and left its indelible imprint, for good or ill, on the Western World.