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:

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:

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.