Note 984 — Chapter XIII · —Island Peoples

Even when agriculture, fisheries and commerce have done their utmost, in the various stages of civilization, to increase the food supply, yet insular populations tend to outgrow the means of subsistence procurable from their narrow base. Hence islanders, like peninsula peoples, are prone to emigrate and colonize. This tendency is encouraged by their mobility, born of their nautical skill and maritime location. King Minos of Crete, according to Thucydides and Aristotle, colonized the Cyclades.984 Greece, from its redundant population, peopled various Aegean and Ionian islands, which in turn threw off spores of settlements to other isles and shores. Corcyra, which was colonized from the Peloponnesus, sent out a daughter colony to Epidamnos on the Illyrian coast. Andros, one of the Cyclades, as early as 654 B.C., colonized Acanthus and Stagirus in Chalcidice.985 Paros, settled first by Cretans and then by Ionians, at a very early date sent colonies to Thasos and to Parium on the Propontis, while Samos was a perennial fountain emitting streams of settlement to Thrace, Cilicia, Crete, Italy and Sicily. [Map page 251.]