Vorlesung Alte Geschichte: Griechische Kolonisation
Instructors: Univ.-Prof. Dr. Thomas BlankShortname: VL Aufbaumodul
Course No.: 07.068.260a
Course Type: Vorlesung
Requirements / organisational issues
The lecture is ungraded.Guest attendance is, of course, always possible.
Digital teaching
The lecture will take place as a classroom-based course. In the event of unforeseen cancellations, videos may be provided as a supplement.Materials for the lecture will be provided digitally via LMS/Moodle.
Recommended reading list
- Camilla Colombi et al. (2022) Comparing Greek Colonies. Mobility and settlement consolidation from Southern Italy to the Black Sea (8th – 6th Century BC). Berlin.
- Martin Mauersberg (2019) Die "griechische Kolonisation". Ihr Bild in der Antike und der modernen altertumswissenschaftlichen Forschung. Bielefeld.
- Winfried Schmitz (2017) Die griechische Gesellschaft. Eine Sozialgeschichte der archaischen und klassischen Zeit. Heidelberg.
- Theresa Miller (1997) Die griechische Kolonisation im Spiegel literarischer Zeugnisse. Tübingen (Classica Monacensia14).
Contents
‘Also, [the world] is huge,’ he said, ‘and we inhabit only a small part of it, the space between the Phasis and the Pillars of Heracles, just as ants might dwell around a pond or frogs around an entire sea, and elsewhere many other people settle in many other comparable places’ (Plat. Phaid. 109ab).The description of Plato's Socrates of the areas in which Greeks used to settle has often been quoted to illustrate the situatedness of Greek “distant settlements” (apoikies) around the Mediterranean and Black Seas, while at the same time emphasising the centrality of the sea as the most relevant transport route in Greek culture. Focussing on the sea as a medium of connectivity between Greek cities also serves to illustrate the extent to which the inhabitants of Greek apoikiai felt more connected to the Greek koine and, in particular, to their “mother cities” (metropoleis) than to their immediate and "foreign" regional environment.
The image may be suitable for expressing the fact of a transregional presence and simultaneous coherence of Greek culture in the ancient Mediterranean since the 8th century BCE. However, it ignores the context of Plato's quotation, which concerns the limitations of the cosmological worldview of the Greeks. And more importantly, the idea of a local isolation of Greek culture follows an essentialist view that arose during the age of nationalism when scholars had a particular interest in emphasising “Greek culture” as that of a coherent “nation”, a nation that had inspired modern Western Culture. The term “colonies” still used to describe the apoikiai also stems from this way of thinking. What is neglected here is the question that has dominated ancient historical and archaeological research in recent decades: how did the local culture change in the various regions to which the Greeks immigrated and where they founded settlements? Conversely, how did the self-image and cultural reality of “Greeks” transform in their respective environments? Concerning the so-called “Magna Graecia” and the Black Sea region, at least, cultural differences to the Greek world between the southern Balkans and western Anatolia have long been emphasised.
The lecture will examine the so-called “Greek colonisation” from this perspective and, using selected examples (with a focus on Magna Graecia), will look at the local cultural realities, which include cultural development in the local context as well as the continuous exchange with the Hellenic Koine, not least due to trade. The lecture is divided equally into a source reading section, in which prepared sources are evaluated along key questions, and the actual lecture section, in which these sources are ultimately classified within the overarching topic of the lecture.
Dates
| Date (Day of the week) | Time | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 04/14/2026 (Tuesday) | 10:15 - 11:45 | 01 431 P104 1141 - Philosophisches Seminargebäude |
| 04/21/2026 (Tuesday) | 10:15 - 11:45 | 01 431 P104 1141 - Philosophisches Seminargebäude |
| 04/28/2026 (Tuesday) | 10:15 - 11:45 | 01 431 P104 1141 - Philosophisches Seminargebäude |
| 05/05/2026 (Tuesday) | 10:15 - 11:45 | 01 431 P104 1141 - Philosophisches Seminargebäude |
| 05/12/2026 (Tuesday) | 10:15 - 11:45 | 01 431 P104 1141 - Philosophisches Seminargebäude |
| 05/19/2026 (Tuesday) | 10:15 - 11:45 | 01 431 P104 1141 - Philosophisches Seminargebäude |
| 05/26/2026 (Tuesday) | 10:15 - 11:45 | 01 431 P104 1141 - Philosophisches Seminargebäude |
| 06/02/2026 (Tuesday) | 10:15 - 11:45 | 01 431 P104 1141 - Philosophisches Seminargebäude |
| 06/09/2026 (Tuesday) | 10:15 - 11:45 | 01 431 P104 1141 - Philosophisches Seminargebäude |
| 06/16/2026 (Tuesday) | 10:15 - 11:45 | 01 431 P104 1141 - Philosophisches Seminargebäude |
| 06/23/2026 (Tuesday) | 10:15 - 11:45 | 01 431 P104 1141 - Philosophisches Seminargebäude |
| 06/30/2026 (Tuesday) | 10:15 - 11:45 | 01 431 P104 1141 - Philosophisches Seminargebäude |
| 07/07/2026 (Tuesday) | 10:15 - 11:45 | 01 431 P104 1141 - Philosophisches Seminargebäude |
