Archaic Greece · 750-550 BC

Greek colonies: a new city across the sea

In two centuries the Greeks founded hundreds of new cities, from Spain to the Black Sea. Students follow settlers from a crowded mother city to Syracuse, Massalia and Byzantium, and ask what a colony owed to home.

Teach it live New Open on the map
Length
50 minutes
Ages
10–13
On the map
3 steps, 733 BC to 500 BC
Live lesson
7 rounds, 3 on the map
Worksheet
Two A4 pages, with Classroom
You need
A projector; phones for live

Live lesson · new in Classroom

Teach it live. The class answers on their phones.

Put the board on the projector. Students join with a six-digit code, no account needed, and tap the map: where was the frontier, where did the grain come from. Their pins drop in together when you reveal, and the closest student takes the round.

€19 per month: every lesson live, every worksheet, cancel anytime. Rome at its height runs live for free.

A live lesson on the projector: the class's pins on the map around Alexandria, the closest students listed beside it A student's phone: the question and a map to tap
7 rounds
3 places to find on the map, quiz questions, a class vote and a one-line answer.
About 15 minutes
Run it as the map step, or to open the discussion. You move on with the space bar.
A report
Every answer, per student and per round, to read back or print after the lesson.
1

Introduction

5 min

Read aloud

In two centuries the Greeks founded hundreds of new cities, from Spain to the Black Sea. Students follow settlers from a crowded mother city to Syracuse, Massalia and Byzantium, and ask what a colony owed to home.

By the end of the lesson, students can

  • Name three reasons Greek cities sent out colonies.
  • Locate Syracuse, Massalia (Marseille), Cyrene, Byzantium and Olbia and name their mother cities where known.
  • Explain how colonies spread Greek language and culture around the Mediterranean and Black Sea.
2

Explore the map

15 min

Project the map, or let students follow on their own devices. Each step opens the map at the right year and place.

a

733 BC

Sicily and Italy first

Open the map in 733 BC on Sicily. Settlers from Corinth founded Syracuse in 734 or 733 BC; others from Chalcis founded Naxos nearby a year earlier. Turn on the Cities layer. Why was Sicily, only a few days' sail from Greece, the first target?

Open this view on the map
b

600 BC

Far west and far south

Jump to 600 BC and zoom out. That year Greeks from Phocaea founded Massalia (Marseille) at the mouth of the Rhone. In 631 BC settlers from the island of Thera had founded Cyrene in Libya. Find both places and estimate how far each is from Greece.

Open this view on the map
c

500 BC

Frogs around a pond

Go to 500 BC and look at the map: Greek city-states now line southern Italy, Sicily, the coast near Massalia and the Aegean. Turn on the Cities layer and find Byzantium on the strait to the Black Sea, founded by Megara around 657 BC. What did the Black Sea offer that Greece lacked?

Open this view on the map
3

Class discussion

15 min

Pick two or three. They run from what happened to why it mattered.

  1. A colony was sent out by a mother city with a founder, a plan and often the oracle's approval. Why ask Delphi before leaving?
  2. The Greeks did not conquer the lands they settled. They took coasts and traded with the people inland. How did the local people, such as the Sicels in Sicily or the Scythians by the Black Sea, gain or lose?
  3. Greek colonies kept the gods, festivals and dialect of home but ran their own affairs. What would make a colony loyal to a mother city it never needed again?
  4. Massalia sent wine and pottery up the Rhone to Celtic chiefs and got tin and slaves in return. Who profited most from such trade?
  5. Marseille, Naples, Syracuse and Istanbul all began as Greek colonies. Why did so many of them last 2,500 years?
4

Game round

10 min

Play one round of Rule History as Alexander the Great, who founded about twenty cities named Alexandria. Compare: his cities were planted by a king and an army; the old colonies by a few hundred settlers from one town. Which kind of city do you think lasted better?

Open Rule History
5

Worksheet

5 min

This worksheet comes with Classroom

€19 per month unlocks every worksheet, every live lesson and the class workspace. The free lesson prints without a subscription.