What motivated the Greeks to form colonies?

Answer 1

In Ancient Greece, colonies were sometimes founded by vanquished peoples, who left their homes to escape subjection at the hand of a foreign enemy; sometimes as a sequel to civil disorders, when the losers in internecine battles left to form a new city elsewhere; sometimes to get rid of surplus population, and thereby to avoid internal convulsions. But in most cases the object was to establish and facilitate relations of trade with foreign countries.

There were two similar kinds of colonies, apoikiai and emporia. The first were city-states on their own; the second were Greek trading-colonies.

The Greek city-states began establishing colonies around 800 BC. Among the earliest of the Greek trading emporia were Al Mina in northern Syria and the Greek emporium at Ischia (Pithekoussai) in the Bay of Naples, both established about 800 BC.

Two flushes of new colonists set out from Greece at the transition between the "Dark Ages" and the start of the Archaic Period, in the early 8th century BC and a second burst of the colonizing spirit in the 6th century BC. Population growth and cramped spaces at home seem an insufficient explanation for the phenomena.

Several formulae were generally adhered to on the solemn and sacred occasions when a new colony set forth. If a Greek city was sending out a colony, an oracle, especially one such as the Oracle of Delphi, was almost invariably consulted beforehand. Sometimes certain classes of citizens were called upon to take part in the enterprises; sometimes one son was chosen by lot from every house where there were several sons; and strangers expressing a desire to join were admitted. A person of distinction was selected to guide the emigrants and make the necessary arrangements. It was usual to honor these founders of colonies, after their death, as heroes. Some of the sacred fire was taken from the public hearth in the Prytaneum, from which the fire on the public hearth of the new city was kindled. And, just as each individual had his private shrines, so the new community maintained the worship of its chief domestic deities, the colony sending embassies and votive gifts to the mother-city's principal festivals for centuries afterwards.

Answer 2

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