§ 6. _The Greek Colonies._ ♦The Ægæan colonies.♦ It must have been in the time between the days represented by the catalogue and the beginnings of contemporary history, that most of the islands of the Ægæan became Greek, and that the Greek colonies were planted on the Ægæan coast of Asia. We have seen that the southern islands were already Greek at the time of the catalogue, while some of the northern ones, _Thasos_, _Lêmnos_, and others, did not become Greek till times to which we can give approximate dates, from the eighth to the fifth centuries. ♦Colonies in Asia.♦ During this period, at some time before the eighth century, the whole Ægæan coast of Asia had become fringed with Greek cities, _Dorian_ to the south, _Aiolian_ to the north, _Ionian_ between the two. The story of the Trojan war itself in the land is most likely a legendary account of the beginning of these settlements, which may make us think that the Greek colonization of this coast began in the north, in the lands bordering on the Hellespont. At all events, by the eighth century these settlements had made the Asiatic coast and the islands adjoining it a part, and a most important part, not only of the Greek world, but we may almost say of Greece itself. ♦Their early greatness.♦ The Ionian cities, above all, _Smyrna_, _Ephesos_, _Milêtos_, and the islands of _Chios_ and _Samos_, were among the greatest of Greek cities, more flourishing certainly than any in European Greece. Milêtos, above all, was famous for the number of colonies which it sent forth in its own turn. But, if their day of greatness came before that of the European Greeks, they were also the first to come under the power of the Barbarians. ♦Lydian and Persian conquests.♦ In the course of the fifth century the Greek cities on the continent of Asia came under the power, first of the _Lydian_ kings and then of their _Persian_ conquerors, who subdued several of the islands also. It was this subjection of the Asiatic Greeks to the Barbarians which led to the Persian war, with which the most brilliant time in the history of European Greece begins. We thus know the Asiatic cities only in the days of their decline. ♦Colonies in Thrace.♦ The coasts of Thrace and Macedonia were also sprinkled with Greek cities, but they did not lie so thick together as those on the Asiatic coast, except only in the three-fingered peninsula of _Chalkidikê_, which became a thoroughly Greek land. Some of these colonies in Thrace, as _Olynthos_ and _Potidaia_, play an important part in Greek history, and two among them fill a place in the history of the world. _Thermê_, under its later name of _Thessalonikê_, has kept on its importance under all changes down to our own time. And _Byzantion_, on the Thracian Bosporos, rose higher still, becoming, under the form of _Constantinople_, the transplanted seat of the Empire of Rome.