Anyway... : In passing, Marx talks about what is that is so inspiring about Greek aesthetics, & one can only speculate why the fascination with the history of it stays with us as well. I am mindful that MP's remarks were really directed at whether Ireland was "the first colony". Like MP's generous "giving way" on the matter so do I.
I just wanted to drop in two other scholars who both, talk of colonies in Athenian Greece.
One is recent: - Christian Meier: "Athens - A Portrait of the city in its golden Age".; New York; 1998.
"Chalcis & Eretria, both early commercial centers, were the first Greek city states to establish colonies. Since the colonies were far away .. they were generally set up as independent cities. Colonies enhanced the prestige of the mother cites by paying them tributes of respect, helping them in various ways, & facilitating their commercial ventures........ the Greek cities differed radically from Rome, which continually increased its territory with the aim not of conquering but of maintaining i& securing its position. Rome fortified what it had won by establishing colonies."""; P. 44-45.
"But Athens did not take part in the great colonizing movement that began about 750 & led to the founding of so many cities in Italy, Sicily, Southern France etc..."; p. 36;
There are several other potential citations from Meier.
But for me, the explanations of Greek society offered by George Thomson are especially rich & meaningful. I have not seen him referred to by serious Greek scholars. I think this is because he was a convinced Marxist (& later a Maoist). For me his various books explaining the relation of Greek arts & philosophy to the real developments in Greek society at the time, are revelatory. Sorry to be so 'wowed' - but I suppose I regret that as a lad, I never tried to see him up the road from London, in Birmingham. My repentance if you will.
Anyway, Thomson writes:
"Thus there was a well established slave trade in the Aegean in the 6th C BC. Indeed it seems likely that one of the main incentives to colonization, Phoenician & Greek alike, was the quest for slaves, who were brought up.." Thomson: "The First Philosophers"; London 1977; p.189.
He goes on to cite Marx from Capital to state that "there can be no capitalism without the existence of a a class of free labourers selling their labor power, & consequently capitalism must be sharply distinguished from pre-capitalist forms of production"; Ibid; p. 190.
So while I am inclined to agree that in a stictly 'capitalist' nexus, Greek colonies are nto what we normally thikn of - I think that MP's pointing out of these earlier coliens is a fiar point.
But like MP - I 'give' easily. I think people might be interested to chase down Thomson, a great man in my non-specialist viewpoint.
Cheers, H