Agriculture and Agricultural Life. Rural Property in the Greek World from the Sixth to the Fourth Century before Christ

One economic consequence of the colonial expansion of the Greeks was that the area of land, tilled or otherwise exploited by them, was very greatly increased. The new territories were among the most fertile in the Mediterranean region— the greater part of Sicily, the best parts of southern Italy, the plateau of Cyrenaica, the plains and low-lying valleys of western Asia Minor, the seaboard of Thrace, and the shores from the Hellespont to the Bosphorus.