Editing Tyche's Favourites/Massalia (section)

==Massalia's Early History==

In around 600BC, Greeks from the Ionian city of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phocaea Phokaia] founded a trading port on the southern coast of Gallia. The precise circumstances and date of Massalia's founding is a mystery, but a legend persists. Protis, while exploring for a new trading outpost or emporion for Phocaea, discovered the Mediterranean cove of the Lakydon. Protis was invited inland to a banquet held by the chief of the local Ligurian tribe for suitors seeking the hand of his daughter Gyptis in marriage. At the end of the banquet, Gyptis presented the ceremonial cup of wine to Protis, indicating her unequivocal choice. Following their marriage, they moved to the hill just to the north of the Lacydon; and from this settlement grew Massalia.

Massalia was one of the first Greek ports in Western Europe and was the first settlement given city status in Gallia. A number of other colonies followed, including Agathe Tyche, Emporion and Rhode in Iberia and Alalia on Kurtyn (Corsica). This common mother city helped foster trading links between those Phokaian-founded settlements and Massalia. However, the Carthaginians and Etruscans did not accept the rising commercial power of Massalia lightly, and after a costly naval victory, the colonists were driven off Kurtyn. In around 540BC, a second wave of colonists from Phokaia arrived, fleeing destruction of that city at the hands of the Persians, many eventually settling at Elea in Italia. 

Facing an opposing alliance of the Etruscans, Carthage and the Celts, the Greek colony allied itself with the expanding Roman Republic for protection. This protectionist association brought aid in the event of future attacks, and perhaps equally important, it also brought the people of Massalia into the complex Roman market. The city thrived by acting as a link between inland Gaul, hungry for Roman goods and wine, and Rome's insatiable need for new products and slaves.

Massalia founded colonies of its own, largely to secure its trade routes and ensure safe places for ships to take on food and water, and shelter against bad weather. They covered a sweep of villages and towns along the southern coast of Gallia, including Tauroeis, Olbia, Antipolis, Nikaia and Monoikos.

Some time between 330BC and 320BC, the mathematician, astronomer and navigator [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pytheas Pytheas] set off on his famous voyage through the Pillars of Herakles and into the northern waters around Alba (Britain) and Scandia. He hoped to establish an alternate trading route for tin from Alba, but it was cheaper and simpler to continue trading over land routes.