Many more cities are founded along the Anatolian coast during the great period of Greek expansion after the eighth century BCE.

One among them is Byzantium, a distant colony established on the Bosporus by the city-state of Megara.

Mediterranean Southwest Europe (765–622 BCE):

Greek Colonization, Phoenician Expansion, and Early Etruscan Influence

Between 765 and 622 BCE, Mediterranean Southwest Europe—including Italy, southwestern Spain, Andorra, and the Western Mediterranean Islands (excluding Corsica)—undergoes dynamic cultural and political transformations. This period sees intensified Greek colonization in Sicily and southern Italy (Magna Graecia), expanded Phoenician settlement across the region, and the rising prominence of the Etruscans, setting the stage for Rome's early development.

Greek Colonization of Magna Graecia

Greek settlers, notably from Chalcis, Corinth, Megara, and Sparta, begin establishing permanent colonies in Sicily and southern Italy from about 750 BCE onward. Important early settlements include Cumae (founded ca. 750 BCE), the first significant Greek mainland colony in the west, serving as a key center of trade and culture near present-day Naples. In Sicily, Chalcidian Greeks found Naxos (734 BCE), Zankle (Messina) (730 BCE), and Catana (ca. 729 BCE). Corinthian Greeks under Archias settle Syracuse (734 BCE), soon to become a dominant city-state in Sicily.

The Megaran Greeks establish commercial colonies such as Megara Hyblaea (728 BCE), subsequently founding the influential colony of Selinus in western Sicily around 651 BCE. Settlements like Leontini (729 BCE), Gela (688 BCE), and Himera (649 BCE) rapidly expand Greek influence throughout Sicily.

On mainland Italy, Achaeans from Sybaris and Croton found prosperous cities including Metapontum (ca. 700 BCE) and Caulonia. The Spartans colonize the strategic site of Taras (Taranto) around 706 BCE, establishing Spartan political and cultural practices. Another significant colony, Locri Epizephyrii, emerges in 680 BCE, becoming notable for adopting one of Europe's earliest written law codes under Zaleucus (ca. 660 BCE).

Phoenician Maritime Expansion and Settlement

Phoenician traders from Tyre actively expand their settlements along the Western Mediterranean shores, consolidating their economic and cultural presence in the region. Around 800 BCE, Phoenicians settle extensively on Sardinia, including the strategic port of Karalis (modern Cagliari), providing crucial links to their African trade networks.

Further west, they establish the colony of Ibossim (modern Ibiza) around 654 BCE, which rapidly emerges as a vital hub for maritime trade. Phoenician expansion on the Iberian Peninsula continues with the reinforcement of cities like Gadir (Cádiz) and Malaka (Málaga), cementing Phoenician influence across southern Iberia.

Early Rome and the Villanovan Cultural Legacy

Central Italy experiences significant cultural continuity and transformation. The Villanovan culture (900–700 BCE), associated with the early Iron Age in Italy, establishes a foundation for subsequent Etruscan civilization. In approximately 753 BCE, local Latins and Sabines associated with the Villanovan tradition found Rome, according to tradition, under Romulus on the Palatine Hill.

Roman mythology vividly details Rome’s foundation, including stories such as the Rape of the Sabine Women, representing early integration of Latin and Sabine populations. Numa Pompilius, Rome's second king (715–673 BCE), introduces significant religious and calendar reforms, creating the position of Pontifex Maximus around 712 BCE, which profoundly shapes Roman religious practices.

Emergence and Expansion of the Etruscans

The Etruscans, arising from the Villanovan cultural milieu, significantly impact central Italy. Notable artistic achievements, such as finely decorated tombs (Tomb of the Ducks, ca. 675–650 BCE) at Veii, demonstrate the sophistication of Etruscan art and culture. Around 625 BCE, Etruscan power extends into Latin territories as they cross the Tiber to dominate the settlements collectively known as Roma, introducing the influential Tarquinian dynasty. Their urban planning, governance structures, and cultural practices lay essential groundwork for Rome's future prominence.

Legacy of the Era

The era from 765 to 622 BCE fundamentally transforms Mediterranean Southwest Europe. Greek colonization dramatically reshapes Sicily and southern Italy, creating lasting cultural and economic connections between Magna Graecia and mainland Greece. Concurrent Phoenician maritime expansion secures extensive trade networks and solidifies cultural influence across Sardinia, Ibiza, and southern Iberia. In Italy, the rise of the Etruscans and their integration with Latin and Sabine peoples profoundly influences early Roman civilization, setting crucial foundations for subsequent historical developments in the Western Mediterranean.

The Megaran Greeks establish such commercial colonies as Megara Hyblaea (founded about 728 BCE) on the east coast of Sicily, twelve miles (nineteen kilometers) north of Syracuse.

The cities of Chalcis and Eretria (both on the island of Euboea) had jointly founded Cumae in Italy in about 750 BCE.

When they fall out in the late eighth century BCE over colonial disputes and trade rivalry, the war between them splits the Greek world in two: Samos, Corinth, Thessaly, and perhaps Erythrae (an Ionian city) join Chalcis, while Miletus, Megara, and perhaps Chios take the Eretrian side.

The Lelantine war, which derives its name from the Chalcidic victory won by Thessalian cavalry at the fertile Lelantine Plain separating Eretria and Chalcis, is the earliest Greek war (after the mythical “Trojan War”) that has any claim to be considered “general,” in the sense that it involves distant allies on each side.

Eretria is to become the more prominent city in the home island of Euboea, while its allies Miletus and Megara prosper and soon colonize the best sites of the Bosporus. (An interesting modern suggestion has Lefkandi itself as the site of Old Eretria, abandoned about 700 BCE in favor of the classical site of Eretria at the east end of the plain, perhaps as a consequence of Eretria's defeat in the Lelantine War. This theory, however, needs to account for Herodotus' statement that at the early sixth-century entertainment of the suitors of Cleisthenes of Sicyon there was one Lysanias from Eretria, “then at the height of its prosperity.”)

The Boeotian cities of Chalkis and Eretria battle on the Lelantine Plain, the natural boundary between them, in the culmination of a mercantile conflict known as the Lelantine War.

Corinth, Samos, and the Thessalian League back Chalkis; Aegina and Miletos (and possibly Megara) back Eretria.

In the final battle, from which the war derives its name, Thessalian cavalry defeat the Eretrian forces.

Indirect evidence in Thucydides points towards a date circa 705 BCE, situating the conflict halfway between history and legend.

As a consequence, Eretria loses control of Andros, Tenos, and Kea islands.

Lefkandi may have been the predecessor of Eretria and abandoned as the result of the victory of Chalkis in the war.

Megara also colonizes northward and eastward on the Bosporus River and Sea of Marmara at Chalcedon (676) on a site so obviously inferior to that of Byzantium (on the opposite shore) that it is soon accorded the name of the “city of the blind.”

The name Byzantium may derive from that of Byzas, leader of the Megaran Greeks who captured the peninsula from pastoral Thracian tribes and built the city.

The origins of Byzantium are shrouded in legend.

The traditional legend has it that Byzas from Megara (a town near Athens), founded Byzantium in 667 BCE, when he sailed northeast across the Aegean Sea.

Byzas had consulted the Oracle at Delphi to ask where to make his new city.

The Oracle told him to find it "opposite the blind."

At the time, he did not know what this meant.

But when he came upon the Bosporus he understood: on the opposite eastern shore on the Asiatic side was a Greek city, Chalcedon, whose founders were said to have overlooked the superior location only three kilometers (1.9 miles) away.

Byzas founded his city here on the European coast and named it Byzantion after himself.

It is mainly a trading city due to its location at the Black Sea's only entrance.

Byzantion will later conquer Chalcedon.

The chief Megaran colony is Astacus (modern Izmit) in northwestern Asia Minor.

The city of Selinus (at modern Selinunte), on the south coast of Sicily, is founded in in 651 (or 628) BCE, a century or so after the founding of the Greek colony of Megara Hyblaea on the deep bay formed by the Xiphonian promontory, by colonists from that city and from Megara in Greece.

The westernmost of the Greek colonies in Sicily, the city gets its name from the wild celery—Greek selinon—that still grows in the locality.

Selinus is destined to rise to far greater power than its parent city. (Thuc. vi.4; Scymn. Ch. 291; Strab. vi. p. 272.)