Page:Outlines of European History.djvu/186

 146 Outlines of European History Section 24. Greek Expansion in the Age of THE Nobles Greek colo- nies in the Black Sea Greek colo- nies in the east — south- em Asia Minor and Cyprus Cyprus Egypt and Cyrene Discovery of the west The oppressive rule of the nobles, and the resulting impover- ishment of the peasants, was an important influence, leading the Greek farmers to seek new homes and new lands beyond the ^gean world. Greek merchants were not only trafficking with the northern ^gean, but their vessels had penetrated the great northern sea, which they called the " Pontus," known to us as the Black Sea (see map, p. 146). Their trading stations among the descendants of the Stone Age peoples in these distant regions offered to the discontented farmers of Greece plenty of land with which to begin life over again. Before 600 B.C. they girdled the Black Sea with their towns and settlements, but no such development of Greek genius took place in this harsher climate of the north as we shall find in the ^gean. The Pontus became the granary of Greece but never contributed anything to its higher life. In the east, along the southern coasts of Asia Minor, there were already maritime peoples in possession ; but Greek expan- sion in this direction was stopped by the Assyrian Sennacherib (p. 72) when he defeated a body of Greeks in Cilicia about 700 B.C., in the earliest collision between the Hellenes and a great power of the Tigris-Euphrates world. At the eastern end of the Mediterranean, Greek colonists absorbed nearly all of the large Island of Cyprus, which long remained the eastern- most outpost of the Greek world. In the south they found a friendly reception in Egypt, where they were permitted to estab- lish a trading city at Naukratis (Mistress of Ships), the prede- cessor of Alexandria. West of the Delta also they eventually founded Cyrene. It was the unknown west, however, which became the America of the early Greek colonists. Many a Columbus pushed his ship into this strange region of mysterious dangers on the distant borders of the world, where the heroes were believed to live in