The history of Greek Colonization is a long story that traces its roots back as early as 1050 BCE where the first Greeks began to colonize Asia Minor and in the span of 500 years the Greeks will have spread themselves from Levant to Iberia and Crimea to Naucratis respectively. This colonization process would play a hand in many of the Greek conflicts both domestically and abroad as well has having a profound effect on the cultural and civil trajectories of the mother cities of Hellas. The question to be answered though is why the Greeks first set off on this mass emigration from Greece. The Greeks began to send out colonies due to a scarcity of resources in Greece, the desire for trade and commerce, and lastly the pressures that stasis had
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As previously stated the Greek population tended to increase beyond the resource limits that the Polis could sustain, therefore the excess population needed to be dealt with in some manner. This could be done with war, which was almost a constant manifestation in the region during these years, or by sending citizens out to form colonies. More and more though the disparity of wealth and resources led Greek citizenry to grow resentful of the aristocracy. This accompanied by the stasis would give rise to a new breed of rulers, the Tyrant. These Tyrants gained power illegitimacy often by killing or exiling their rivals making numerous enemies among the citizenry and aristocrats. Yet colonies seemed an excellent means of controlling the populace, thus consolidating power. Greek scholar Herodotus explains the mindset of the Tyrants in maintaining power: ”And ever and again as he saw one of the ears of grain growing above the rest he would strike it down, and what he struck down he threw away, until by this means he had destroyed all the fairest and strongest of the grain….” (Herodotus 5.92). The tyrant would dispose of the troublesome elements of the population wither by killing or more relevantly by sending them off to colonies. This is not all the tyrants did to alleviate the problem of the stasis, they also created an aristocracy based on wealth rather than land. This
As previously stated the Greek population tended to increase beyond the resource limits that the Polis could sustain, therefore the excess population needed to be dealt with in some manner. This could be done with war, which was almost a constant manifestation in the region during these years, or by sending citizens out to form colonies. More and more though the disparity of wealth and resources led Greek citizenry to grow resentful of the aristocracy. This accompanied by the stasis would give rise to a new breed of rulers, the Tyrant. These Tyrants gained power illegitimacy often by killing or exiling their rivals making numerous enemies among the citizenry and aristocrats. Yet colonies seemed an excellent means of controlling the populace, thus consolidating power. Greek scholar Herodotus explains the mindset of the Tyrants in maintaining power: ”And ever and again as he saw one of the ears of grain growing above the rest he would strike it down, and what he struck down he threw away, until by this means he had destroyed all the fairest and strongest of the grain….” (Herodotus 5.92). The tyrant would dispose of the troublesome elements of the population wither by killing or more relevantly by sending them off to colonies. This is not all the tyrants did to alleviate the problem of the stasis, they also created an aristocracy based on wealth rather than land. This