This struggle did not take place directly on Italian soil, but its effects were deeply and permanently felt in Italy.

The fresh energies and more universal endowments of the younger competitor had at first the advantage everywhere.

Not only did the Hellenes rid themselves of the Phoenician factories in their own European and Asiatic homes, but they dislodged the Phoenicians also from Crete and Cyprus, gained a footing in Egypt and Cyrene, and possessed themselves of Lower Italy and the larger eastern half of the island of Sicily.

On all hands the small trading stations of the Phoenicians gave way before the more energetic colonization of the Greeks.

Selinus (126) and Agrigentum (174) were founded in western Sicily; the more remote western sea was traversed, Massilia was built on the Celtic coast (about 150), and the shores of Spain were explored, by the bold Phocaeans from Asia Minor.