What happened to the Ancient Greek Colonies ?

Most of them became Roman.

The map is inaccurate as far as Spain goes. The only certain Greek colony was Ampurias (Emporiae), which was probably dependent on Marseilles (as we now call it) - certainly not joined up in some colony as shown. There isn't any real evidence for the colony shown lower down, it's possibly just traded goods found through archaelogy. I would imagine some of those other coastal strips shown around the Med are fairly imaginary, limited to coastal fortified towns.

Writings suggest that at Ampurias it was actually quite perilous to go outside unless in force or with an escort - the relationship with the locals being rather strained, despite the trade arrangements.

As Dan says they more or less beame Roman and the Romans found a small colony more or less imprisoned by their surroundings.

It IS small, you can visit the Greek and subsequent Roman cities at L'Escala. The info I am just reading at the moment is in this book. Although links never seem to work anymore from here you can see the title. Ezquerra is the compiler from multiple contributions.


ENTRE FENICIOS Y VISIGODOS: LA HISTORIA ANTIGUA DE LA PENINSULA I BERICA - JAIME ALVAR EZQUERRA - 9788497347617, comprar el libro

Aham Brahmasmi said:

i know that Greeks in Ancient times conquered Southern Italy and colonized S.Italy, Spain and Afghanistan. some even Migrated to Egypt. so what happened to tm after greek Power waned ? Were they conquered? did the economy collapse or what happened? at one point in history the turks took over but before that what happened to alexander the great and the ancient greeks?

Click to expand...

You got that map image from Wikipedia, so I would advise you to read a couple of articles there or in other online encyclopedia (like Britannica.com) so you can cover the basics. Probably those articles will explain it better than most of the answer you will get here in a forum. After that you could follow some internal links in the Encyclopedia or come here to ask some questions that the encyclopedia didn’t cover.

I made this introduction because you initial post seems confuse and confusing several periods of Ancient Greece. The Greeks didn’t conquest or (totally) colonized Italy, Spain and Afghanistan (and those words are today’s political concepts). In the end what we call the Greek Dark Ages, and in the Archaic period Greek city-states begun to trade all along the Mediterranean and the Black Seas. Some of this trades established colonies (cities) to allow that trade – and that is what you have in the map that you posted: Areas where the Greeks established colonies: In the South of Italy, in South of Spain, in the South of France… those were costal colonies to support the trade. Those colonies were related with the motherland but politically independent. In times some of those cities developed and expanded controlling considerable territories, but generally the controlled area was only around the city limits.

But the major boost to the expansion of the Greek culture was made in what we call the Hellenistic period…

The Macedonians were a tribe partially barbarian (i.e. Foreigner) partially Greek in culture that with Philip II and his son Alexander conquest and controlled first Greece and than the Persian Empire. With Alexander begun a merger between the cultures in the controlled territories, but with a special emphasis in the Greek Culture: this is in a summarized summary the Hellenistic period. And it was in this period that were established colonies in today’s Afghanistan and Alexandria in Egypt (one of the many Alexandrias).

The fate of this colonies was diverse, but it was already said here that most fall in Roman orbit.

Aham Brahmasmi said:

i know that Greeks in Ancient times conquered Southern Italy and colonized S.Italy, Spain and Afghanistan. some even Migrated to Egypt. so what happened to tm after greek Power waned ? Were they conquered? did the economy collapse or what happened? at one point in history the turks took over but before that what happened to alexander the great and the ancient greeks?

Click to expand...

Well Greek population, as in mainland and also in colonies survived and struggled to survive till today or until recently.

For example Thrace, which was not originally Greek received a vast amount of Greek colonies, leading to its hellenization afterwards:



Cross check for example with the ancient Greek colonies in Thrace: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ancient_cities_in_Thrace_and_Dacia
Agathopolis, Anchialos, Mesembria, Philippoupolis etc etc retained their Greek population.

The same, in much greater number and extent occured in Minor Asia and Cyprus. Cyprus was colonized heavily since Mycenean times, from colony had became a proper Greek region with its own archaic dialect, shared with Arcadians, and it is still inhabited in majority by Greeks.

The situation in Minor Asia, where most Greek colonies were and survive as cities,like Nikaia, Smyrna, Attaleia, Phokaia has rapidly changed in 1922 when about 1.500.000 millions Greeks were driven out to Greece.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minor_Asia_Catastrophe



The situation in Pontos was similar.

Both survived in great number in the Black Sea coasts of Anatolia, known today as Pontioi (Pontic Greeks), and in the northen shores of Black Sea, in Crimea (and subsequently in Mariupol region).


The greatest change was in southern Italy and Sicily, where Greek language prevailed until roughly the Norman conquest. Today, around the ancient Greek colonies Greek language survives in a struggling language minority of the so calle Grecanici or Greci....

Interestingly enough, for example the most populous cities today around Black Sea were originally Greek colonies : Byzantion-Konstantinoupolis("Istanbul'), Trapezous (Trebzond), Amisos/Samsous(Samsun), Odessos (Varna), Tomis(Constanza), Pyrgos(Burgas), Colchis(Batumi), Bata (Novorossiysk), Sevastopol right next to Chersonesos , Tyras & Olbia (Odessa) etc

And around the Mediterranean many of the most important and populous cities today were originally Greek colonies : Alexandria Egypt, Marseilles (Massalia), Nice (Nikaia), Napoli(Neapolis), Latakia Syria (Laodikeia), Atalya(Attaleia), Adana, Izmir (Smyrni), Catania (Katane), Messina (Messene), Benghazi (Euesperides) , Taranto (Taras/Tarantas),Durres (Dyrrachion), Vlora (Avlona), Split Croatia (Aspalathos) etc etc.