Colonies in antiquity were post-Iron Age city-states founded from a mother-city or metropolis rather than from a territory-at-large. Bonds between a colony and its metropolis often remained close, and took specific forms during the period of classical antiquity. Generally, colonies founded by the ancient Phoenicians, Carthage, Rome, Alexander the Great and his successors remained tied to their metropolis, though Greek colonies of the Archaic and Classical eras were sovereign and self-governing from their inception. While earlier Greek colonies were often founded to solve social unrest in the mother-city by expelling a part of the population, Hellenistic, Roman, Carthaginian, and Han Chinese colonies served as centres for trade (entrepôts), expansion and empire-building.
Egyptian colonies
Egyptian settlement and colonisation is attested from about 3200 BC onward, all over the area of southern Canaan, by almost every type of artifact: architecture (fortifications, embankments and buildings), pottery, vessels, tools, weapons, seals, etc. Narmer had Egyptian pottery produced in Canaan and exported back to Egypt, from regions such as Arad, En Besor, Rafiah, and Tel Erani. An area of permanent settlement may have been administered from Tell es-Sakan, which is the largest Egyptian settlement in the region. An Early Bronze Age brewery belonging to an Egyptian settlement was found in Jaffa. Shipbuilding was known to the ancient Egyptians as early as 3000 BC, and perhaps earlier. The Archaeological Institute of America reports that the earliest dated ship — dating to 3000 BC – may have belonged to the Pharaoh Aha.
Phoenician and Carthaginian colonies
The Phoenicians were the major trading power in the Mediterranean in the early part of the first millennium BC. They had trading contacts in Egypt and Greece, and established colonies as far west as modern Spain, at Gadir (modern Cádiz), and modern Morocco, at Tingis and Mogador. From Spain and Morocco, the Phoenicians controlled access to the Atlantic Ocean and the trade routes to Britain and Senegal.
The most famous and successful of Phoenician colonies was founded by settlers from Tyre in 814–813 BC and called Kart-Hadasht (Qart-ḥadašt, literally "New Town"), known in English as Carthage. The Carthaginians later founded their own colonies in the western Mediterranean, notably a colony in southeast Spain, Carthago Nova, which was eventually conquered by their enemy, Rome.
According to María Eugenia Aubet, Professor of Archaeology at the Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona:
The earliest presence of Phoenician material in the West is documented within the precinct of the ancient city of Huelva, Spain... The high proportion of Phoenician pottery among the new material found in 1997 in the Plaza de las Monjas in Huelva argues in favour, not of a few first sporadic contacts in the zone, but of a regular presence of Phoenician people from the start of the ninth century BC. The recent radiocarbon dates from the earliest levels in Carthage situate the founding of this Tyrian colony in the years 835–800 cal BC, which coincides with the dates handed down by Flavius Josephus and Timeus for the founding of the city.
Sabaeans and the Horn of Africa
The nature of the origins of Dʿmt (founded c. 800 BCE around Ethiopia's Tigray Region) regarding the role played by Sabaeans from Sheba in South Arabia continues to be debated by historians. Evidence of strong Sabaean influence includes Sabaic inscriptions and Sabaean temples. As of 2017, scholars of South Arabian archaeology and epigraphy tended to favour a migration and/or colonisation, while scholars of African archaeology tended to stress an indigenous origin. However writing in 2025 Alfredo González-Ruibal said that "idea of colonisation as such has been discarded".
In 2019, Sabaean inscriptions were found in Somaliland and Puntland, as well as a Sabaean temple whose inscriptions say its construction was ordered by the admiral of Sheba's fleet. González-Ruibal said "we can perhaps discern two different models: a proper colonialist one along the northern Somali seaboard, with direct intervention of the state and aimed at the extraction of resources, and a diasporic model in the northern Horn, led by élites who soon mixed with local people, while maintaining ties with their ancestral homeland".
Ancient Greek colonies
In Ancient Greece, a defeated people would sometimes found a colony, leaving their homes to escape the subjugation of a foreign enemy. Sometimes colonies formed as a result of civil disorder, where the losers in internecine battles left to form a new city elsewhere; sometimes they would form to relieve population pressure and thereby to avoid internal unrest; and also, as a result of ostracism. In most cases, however, colony founders aimed to establish trade relations with foreign areas and to further the wealth of the metropolis. Colonies were established in Ionia and Thrace as early as the 8th century BC.
More than thirty Greek city-states had multiple colonies, dotted all across the Mediterranean world. From the late 9th to the 5th century BC, the most active colony-founding city, Miletus of the Ionian League, spawned more than 60 colonies encompassing the shores of the Black Sea in the east, the Iberian Peninsula in the west, Magna Graecia (present-day southern Italy) and several colonies on the Libyan coast of northern Africa.
Greeks founded two similar types of colony:
- the apoikía (ἀποικία from ἀπό apó “away from” + οἶκος oîkos "home", pl. ἀποικίαι apoikiai), an independent city-state
- the emporion (ἐμπόριov, pl. ἐμπόρια emporia), a trading colony
Greek city-states began to establish colonies between 900 and 800 BC; the first two were Al Mina on the Syrian coast and the Greek emporium Pithecusae at Ischia in the Bay of Naples, both established about 800 BC by Euboeans.
In the "Great Greek Colonization", two new waves of colonists set out from Greece between the Dark Ages and the start of the Archaic Period – the first in the early 8th century BC and the second in the 6th century BC.
Population growth and cramped conditions at home seem an insufficient explanation for these migrations, while the economic and political dynamics produced by the competition between the frequently leaderless Greek city-states – newly introduced as a concept and striving to expand their spheres of economic influence – better fits as their likely incentive. By means of this Greek expansion, the use of coins flourished throughout the Mediterranean Basin.
Influential Greek colonies in the western Mediterranean – many in present-day southern Italy — included Cyme; Rhegion frounded from Chalcis and Zancle (c. 8th century); Syracuse from Corinth and Tenea (c. 734 BC); Naxos from Chalcis (c. 734 BC); Massalia (Marseille, c. 598 BC) and Agathe, shortly after Massalia, from Phocaea; Hyele in Italy and Emporion in Spain from Phocaea and Massalia (c. 540 BC and early 6th century); Antipolis in France from Achaea; Alalia in Corsica from Phocaea and Massalia (c. 545 BC) and Cyrene (Cyrenaica, Libya) from Thera (762/61 and 632/31 BC).
The Greeks also colonised the Crimea in the Black Sea. The settlements they established there included the city of Chersonesos (modern Sevastopol). Another area with significant Greek colonies was the coast of ancient Illyria on the Adriatic Sea (e.g. Aspalathos, modern Split, Croatia).
Cicero remarks on the extensive Greek colonization, noting that "Indeed it seems as if the lands of the barbarians had been bordered round with a Greek sea-coast."
Several formulae generally shaped the solemn and sacred occasions when a new colony set forth. If a Greek city decided to send out a colony, the citizenry almost invariably consulted an oracle, such as the Oracle of Delphi, beforehand. Sometimes certain classes of citizens were called upon to take part in the enterprises; sometimes one son was chosen by lot from every house where there were several sons; and strangers expressing a desire to join were admitted. A person of distinction was selected to guide the emigrants and to make the necessary arrangements. It was usual to honor these founders as heroes after their death. Some of the sacred fire was taken from the public hearth in the Prytaneum, from which the fire on the public hearth of the new city was kindled. Just as each individual had his private shrines, so the new community maintained the worship of its chief domestic deities, the colony sending embassies and votive gifts to the mother-city's principal festivals for centuries afterwards.
After the conquests of Macedonia and Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC, a further large number of Hellenistic colonies were founded, ranging from Egypt to India.
Greek colonies in Anatolia
By the 15th century BC, the Mycenaeans had reached Rhodes, Crete, Cyprus (where the legendary Teucer allegedly founded the first colony) and the shores of Anatolia. In addition, Greeks settled in Ionia and Pontus. Miletus in Ionia was an ancient Greek city on the west coast of Anatolia, near the mouth of the Meander River. In the late Bronze Age (13th century BC), Miletus saw the arrival of the Carians, Luwian-speakers from south central Anatolia. Later in that century, other Greeks arrived. The city at that time rebelled against the Hittite Empire. After the fall of that empire, the city was destroyed in the 12th century BC and starting about 1000 BC was resettled extensively by Ionians.
Before the invasion from Persia in the middle of the 6th century BC, Miletus ranked as one of the greatest and wealthiest Greek poleis. Over several centuries, numerous ancient Greek city-states were established on the coasts of Anatolia. Greeks began developing Western philosophy on the western coast of Anatolia (Pre-Socratic philosophy). Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes and Diogenes of Apollonia were among the renowned philosophers of the Milesian school. Heraclitus lived in Ephesus another ancient Greek city in Ionia, and Anaxagoras came from Clazomenae, a member of the Ionian League. All the Ancient Greek dialects were spoken in Anatolia in the various city-states and the list of ancient Greek theatres in Anatolia is one of the longest among all places where the Greeks settled.
Greeks traditionally lived in the region of Pontus, on the south shores of the Black Sea and in the Pontic Alps in northeastern Anatolia, in the area of the present-day province of Kars in the Caucasus, and also in Georgia. Those from southern Russia, Ukraine, and Crimea are often referred to as 'Northern Pontic Greeks', in contrast to those from 'South Pontus', which strictly speaking is Pontus proper. Those from Georgia, northeastern Anatolia, and the ones who lived in present-day Armenia are often referred to as 'Eastern Pontic Greeks' or Caucasus Greeks. Many Greek-founded colonies are well-known cities to this day. Sinope and Trabzon (Greek: Τραπεζοῦς Trapezous), were founded by Milesian traders (756 BC) as well as Samsun, Rize and Amasra. Greek was the lingua franca of Anatolia from the conquests of Alexander the Great up to the invasion of the Seljuk Turks in the eleventh century AD.
Jewish colonies
The historian Josephus states that Abraham "contrived to settle [his sons and grandsons] in colonies", referring to those of his family descended from Keturah.
During the Ptolemaic rule of Judea (from 301 BC to 198 BC), large-scale Jewish settlement in Egypt commenced. The Hellenistic Ptolemies brought in Jewish soldiers along with their families, while other Jews migrated from Judea to Egypt — likely for economic opportunities. Additionally, the Ptolemies established Jewish colonies in the cities of Cyrenaica (modern-day Libya).
Relations of colony and metropolis
The relation between colony and mother-city (metropolis) was viewed as one of mutual affection. Differences were resolved peacefully whenever possible, war being seen as a last resort. (Note though that the Peloponnesian War of 431–404 BC broke out partly due to a dispute between Corinth and her colony Corcyra.)
The charter of foundation contained general provisions for the arrangement of the affairs of the colony, and also some special enactments. A colony would usually adopt the constitution of the mother-city, but the new city remained politically independent. The "holy fire" of the metropolis was preserved in a special place to remind people of the common ties. If the colony sent out a fresh colony on its own account, the mother-city was generally consulted, or was at least asked to furnish a leader. Frequently the colonies, declaring their commitment to the various metropolitic alliances formed in the Greek mainland and for religious reasons, would pay tribute in religious centres such as Delphi, Olympia, or Delos.