III.

Expansion of the Greek World

Travel and emigration from Greece remained a persistent fact of Greek history and an important impulse for the achievements in art and thought which are admired today. These three early ventures abroad were the necessary preliminary to the “Greek Renaissance” that followed in the 8th century bc. From contact with Phoenicians, Greeks developed a new, accessible alphabet with consonants and vowels. They also learned new techniques of metalwork and enlarged their myths about gods and heroes. By settling in western Asia, they founded the poleis that became leading centres of power and culture until 500 bc. Cities like Miletus and Ephesus developed through foreign contact overseas and close encounters with the kingdoms of inland Asia. This eastern Greek world is almost certainly the homeland of Homer and the setting of his epic poetry.

The western adventure also proved long-lasting. By c. 900 bc, Phoenicians had already voyaged as far as Spain, searching for precious metals, especially silver and the rare tin which was needed for alloying with copper to make bronze. Greeks, also in search of scarce metals, were their followers into the west. They settled first on Ischia, in the Bay of Naples, c. 770 bc. When Greek traders’ reports of a “New World” became known, Greeks at home followed up with a wave of new colonies in Sicily and southern Italy which were located outside the Phoenicians’ zone. These colonies were poleis from their first foundation and mark a clear break with the villages and homesteads of the previous century. The beginnings of the change to a polis are visible in the background to Homer’s Odyssey. Greek history, thereafter, is dominated by separate poleis and their mutual alliances, especially by Athens, Sparta, Corinth, Thebes, Syracuse in Sicily, or Miletus in the east. They shared a common Greek language and similar gods and customs, but their awareness of this heritage did not enable them to unite into one Greek state.