A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE GREEK COLONIES.
An important part of the history of Greece is that which embraces
the age of Grecian colonization, and the extension of the commerce
of the Greeks to nearly all the coasts of the Mediterranean. Of
the various circumstances that led to the planting of the Greek
colonies, and especially of the Ionic, Æolian, and Dorian colonies
on the coast of Asia Minor and the islands of the Ægean Sea, we
have already spoken. These latter were ever intimately connected
with Greece proper, in whose general history theirs is embraced;
but the cities of Italy, Sicily, and Cyrena'ica were too far
removed from the drama that was enacted around the shores of the
Ægean to be more than occasionally and temporarily affected by
the changing fortunes of the parent states. A brief notice,
therefore, of some of those distant settlements, that eventually
rivaled even Athens and Sparta in power and resources, cannot be
uninteresting, while it will serve to give more accurate views of
the extent and importance of the field of Grecian history.
At an early period the shores of Southern Italy and Sicily were
peopled by Greeks; and so numerous and powerful did the Grecian
cities become that the whole were comprised by Strabo and others
under the appellation Magna Græcia, or Great Greece. The earliest
of these distant settlements appear to have been made at Cu'mæ
and Neap'olis, on the western coast of Italy, about the middle
of the eleventh century. Cumæ was built on a rocky hill washed
by the sea; and the same name is still applied to the ruins that
lie scattered around its base. Some of the most splendid fictions
of Virgil's Æneid relate to the Cumæan Sibyl, whose supposed cave,
hewn out of the solid rock, actually existed under the city:
A spacious cave, within its farmost part,
Was hewed and fashioned by laborious art,
Through the hill's hollow sides; before the place
A hundred doors a hundred entries grace;
As many voices issue, and the sound
Of Sibyl's words as many times rebound.
--Æneid B. VI.
GROTE says: "The myth of the Sibyl passed from the Cymæ'ans in
Æ'olis, along with the other circumstances of the tale of Æne'as,
to their brethren, the inhabitants of Cumæ in Italy. In the hollow
rock under the very walls of the town was situated the cavern of
the Sibyl; and in the immediate neighborhood stood the wild woods
and dark lake of Avernus, consecrated to the subterranean gods,
and offering an establishment of priests, with ceremonies evoking
the dead, for purposes of prophecy or for solving doubts and
mysteries. It was here that Grecian imagination localized the
Cimme'rians and the fable of O-dys'seus."[Footnote: The voyage of
Ulysses (Odysseus) to the infernal regions. Odyssey, B. XI.]
The extraordinary fertility of Sicily was a great attraction
to the Greek colonists. Naxos, on the eastern coast of the island,
was founded about the year 735 B.C.; and in the following year
some Corinthians laid the foundations of Syracuse. Ge'la, on
the western coast of the island, and Messa'na, now Messï'na, on
the strait between Italy and Sicily, were founded soon after.
Agrigen'tum, on the south-western coast, was founded about a
century later, and became celebrated for the magnificence of its
public buildings. Pindar called it "the fairest of mortal cities,"
and to The'ron, its ruler from 488 to 472, the poet thus refers
in the second Olympic ode:
Come, now, my soul! now draw the string;
Bend at the mark the bow:
To whom shall now the glorious arrow wing
The praise of mild benignity?
To Agrigentum fly,
Arrow of song, and there thy praise bestow;
For I shall swear an oath: a hundred years are flown,
But the city ne'er has known
A hand more liberal, a more loving heart,
Than, Theron, thine! for such thou art.
Yet wrong hath risen to blast his praise;
Breath of injustice, breathed from men insane,
Who seek in brawling strain
The echo of his virtues mild to drown,
And with their violent deeds eclipse the days
Of his serene renown.
Unnumbered are the sands of th' ocean shore;
And who shall number o'er
Those joys in others' breasts which Theron's hand hath sown?
--Trans. by ELTON.
In the mean time the Greek cities Syb'aris, Croto'na, and Taren'tum
had been planted on the south-eastern coast of Italy, and had
rapidly grown to power and opulence. The territorial dominions
of Sybaris and Crotona extended across the peninsula from sea
to sea. The former possessed twenty-five dependent towns, and
ruled over four distinct tribes or nations. The territories of
Crotona were still more extensive. These two Grecian states were
at the maximum of their power about the year 560 B.C.--the time
of the accession of Pisistratus at Athens--but they quarreled
with each other, and the result of the contest was the ruin of
Sybaris, in 510 B.C. Tarentum was settled by a colony of Spartans
about the year 707 B.C., soon after the first Messenian war. No
details of its history during the first two hundred and thirty
years of its existence are known to us; but in the fourth century
B.C. the Tar'entines stood foremost among the Italian Greeks, and
they maintained their power down to the time of Roman supremacy.
During the first two centuries after the founding of Naxos, in
Sicily, Grecian settlements were extended over the eastern,
southern, and western sides of the island, while Him'era was the
only Grecian town on the northern coast. These two hundred years
were a period of prosperity among the Sicilian Greeks, who dwelt
chiefly in fortified towns, and exercised authority over the
surrounding native population, which gradually became assimilated
in manners, language, and religion to the higher civilization of
the Greeks. "It cannot be doubted," says GROTE, "that these first
two centuries were periods of steady increase among the Sicilian
Greeks, undisturbed by those distractions and calamities which
supervened afterward, and which led indeed to the extraordinary
aggrandizement of some of their communities, but also to the ruin
of several others; moreover, it seems that the Carthaginians in
Sicily gave them no trouble until the time of Ge'lon. Their position
will seem singularly advantageous, if we consider the extraordinary
fertility of the soil in this fine island, especially near the
sea; its capacity for corn, wine, and oil, the species of
cultivation to which the Greek husbandman had been accustomed
under less favorable circumstances; its abundant fisheries on
the coast, so important in Grecian diet, and continuing
undiminished even at the present day--together with sheep, cattle,
hides, wool, and timber from the native population in the
interior."[Footnote: "History of Greece," vol. iii., p. 367.]
During the sixth century before the Christian era the Greek cities
in Sicily and Southern Italy were among the most powerful and
flourishing that bore the Hellenic name. Ge'la and Agrigentum,
on the south side of Sicily, had then become the most prominent
of the Sicilian governments; and at the beginning of the fifth
century we find Gelon, a despot of the former city, subjecting
other towns to his authority. Finally obtaining possession of
Syracuse, he made it the seat of his empire (485 B.C.), leaving
Gela to be governed by his brother Hi'ero, the first Sicilian
ruler of that name.
Gelon strengthened the fortifications and greatly enlarged the
limits of Syracuse, while to occupy the enlarged space he
dismantled many of the surrounding towns and transported their
inhabitants to his new capital, which now became not only the
first city in Sicily, but, according to Herodotus, superior to
any other Hellenic power. When, in 480 B.C., a formidable
Carthaginian force under Hamil'-car invaded Sicily at the
instigation of Xerxes, King of Persia, who had overrun Greece
proper and captured Athens, Gelon, at the head of fifty-five
thousand men, engaged the Carthaginians in battle at Himera, and
defeated them with terrible slaughter, Hamilcar himself being
numbered among the slain. The victory at Himera procured for
Sicily immunity from foreign war, while the defeat of Xerxes at
Salamis, on the very same day, dispelled the terrific cloud that
overhung the Greeks in that quarter.
Syracuse continued a flourishing city for several centuries later;
but the subsequent events of interest in her history will be
related in a later chapter. Another Greek colony of importance
was that of Cyre'ne, on the northern coast of Africa, between
the territories of Egypt and Carthage. It was founded about 630
B.C., and, having the advantages of a fertile soil and fine
climate, it rapidly grew in wealth and power. For eight generations
it was governed by kings; but about 460 B.C. royalty was abolished
and a democratic government was established: Cyrene finally fell
under the power of the Carthaginians, and thus remained until
Carthage was destroyed by the Romans. We have mentioned only the
most important of the Grecian colonies, and even the history that
we have of these, the best known, is unconnected and fragmentary.