of Greek descent were the western seaboard
of Asia Minor, Sicily and the southern parts of the Italian peninsula.
Nor were the least prosperous communities those which were sprung from
earlier colonies. The causes that led to the foundation of the Greek
colonies were very various. As in Phoenicia, pressure created by the
narrow limits of the home country coincided with an adventurous desire
to seek new sources of wealth beyond seas; but very many Greek
emigrations were caused by the expulsion of the inhabitants of conquered
cities, or by the intolerable domination of a hated but triumphant
faction within the native state. The polity of the new community, often
founded in defiance of the home authorities, might either be a copy of
that just left behind or be its direct political antithesis. But
wherever they went, and whether, as apparently in Asia Minor, Greek
blood was kept free from barbaric mixture, or whether, as in Magna
Graecia and Sicily, it was mingled with that of the aboriginal races,
the Greek emigrants carried with them the Hellenic spirit and the
Hellenic tongue; and the colonies fostered, not infrequently more
rapidly and more brilliantly than at home, Greek literature, Greek art
and Greek speculation. The relation to be preserved towards the mother
states was seldom or never definitely arranged. But filial feeling and
established custom secured a measure of kindly sympathy, shown by
precedence yielded at public games, and by the almost invariable
abstinence of the colony from a hostile share in wars in which the
mother city was engaged.

The relation of Rome to her colonies was altogether different. No Roman
colony started without the sanction and direction of the public
authority; and while the _Colonia Romano_ differed from the _Colonia
Latina_ in that the former permitted its members to retain their
political rights intact, the colony, whether planted within the bounds
of Italy or in provinces such as Gaul or Britain, remained an integral
part of the Roman state. In the earlier colonies, the state allotted to
proposing emigrants from amongst the needy or discontented class of
citizens portions of such lands as, on the subjection of a hostile
people, the state took into its possession as public property. At a
later time, especially after the days of Sulla, the distribution of the
territories of a vanquished Roman party was employed by the victorious
generals as an easy means of satisfying the claims of