Map 5 The Mediterranean and Black Sea region, showing the location of some Greek cities founded in
the eighth to fifth centuries BC.
Not only did the motives for the founding of different settlements vary; surely the various individuals who
participated in the founding of the same settlement did so for a variety of reasons. Unfortunately, we know
very little about the details of the foundations before the fifth century because the very sparse written
records are of little help and the later accounts that exist are overlaid with embellishment and legend.
Archaeology can at least tell us whether a given site was previously inhabited and occasionally it can tell
us by whom. It is clear that, in some instances, Greek settlers simply moved into an uninhabited area and
built a new Greek community. In many, perhaps most, cases an earlier, non-Greek population was
displaced, either forcibly or by being gradually outnumbered or assimilated. Whatever the circumstances,
the new foundation became a Greek community, inhabited by Greeks, and it was considered to be part of
“Greece,” whether it was located in what is now Spain or Libya or Bulgaria or the Ukraine. Rather, it
was considered to be part of “Hellas,” which is the name the Greeks used (and still use) to refer to their
land, the land of the “Hellenes,” or Greeks. In fact, the Greek settlements in southern Italy and Sicily were
so populous and became so prosperous that, at some point, the area that they occupied came to be known
as “Megale Hellas,” or “Greater Greece” (map 6).