Franco De Angelis

Trade and Agriculture at Megara Hyblaia

The terms of twentieth-century debate on the causes of Greek overseas settlement were set by Gwynn and Blakeway: overseas settlements were either founded to feed hungry mouths in an overpopulated homeland, or they were founded to improve Greek trading opportunities in the rest of the Mediterranean and Black Sea. Although the trade versus agriculture dichotomy is increasingly being regarded as false, its legacy lingers on, even in recent work. Detailed attention to the earliest remains at one of the best-known Greek overseas settlements, Megara Hyblaia in south-east Sicily, provides strong evidence in favour of seeing agriculture as central to Greek settlement abroad, but agriculture as a basis for trade rather than agriculture for its own sake.

The archaeology of Greek colonisation : essays dedicated to Sir John Boardman

The growth and understanding of the Early Western colonies, A.M. Snodgrass pre-colonization - early Greek contact with the East, M.R. Popham Phoenicians and Greeks in the West - a view from Pithekoussai, D. Ridgway prospectors and pioneers - Pithekoussai, Kyme and Central Italy, J.N. Coldstream Massalia and colonization in the North-Western Mediterranean, B.B. Shefton the foundations of Selinous - overpopulation or opportunities?, F. De Angelis Greek penetration of the Black Sea, G.R. Tsetskhladze settlement for trade and land in North Africa - problems of identity, J. Boardman.