Hi /u/TheHondoGod,

There was indeed a Phocaean (or Phokaian) settlement established at what is today Marseilles. This shouldn't be confused with a Phokian colony. Phocis is a region in central Greece, while Phocaea was an Ionian Greek city on the coast of what is today Turkey.

The ancient town - Masssalia - was an important entrepôt linking the Mediterranean and inland areas of western Europe. These links existed before the foundation of the town, but there is no doubt that Massalia helped grow them.

But, the question of whether or not the presence of Massalia Hellenized the region is rather difficult to answer. I recently recorded a podcast for The Ancients (yet to be released) discussing the polis, and this question did come up. Personally, I find it rather difficult to answer with too much certainty, but there is evidence that the Greek presence influenced the local Celtic (Hallstatt) culture in a variety of ways.

Archaeologists have pointed to a few ways this happened. New types of painted pottery were likely inspired by Hellenic technique, and certain types of belts are said to have been influenced by examples from Phrygia and Ionia (Boardman 1999, 218). Greek pots and other artistic outputs certainly did circulate in Hallstatt Europe at this time, as shown by the remarkable grave assemblage referred to as the "Lady of Vix" and the massive krater found in it. It's also possible that through Massalia came the builders/architects/others that influenced new fortification techniques further north such as at the sites of Mont Lassois or the Heuneburg (e.g. Fernández-Götz and Krausse 2016). Certanly, the Roman author Justin recorded that the Celts learned fortifications from the Greeks at Massalia.

In fact, Justin's epitome of Pompeius Trogus portrays an extremely Hellenized region around (and thanks to) Massalia. It's worth quoting him at length:

"From the people of Massilia, therefore, the Gauls learned a more civilized way of life, their former barbarity being laid aside or softened; and by them they were taught to cultivate their lands and to enclose their towns with walls. Then too, they grew accustomed to live according to laws, and not by violence; then they learned to prune the vine and plant the olive; and such a radiance was shed over both men and things, that it was not Greece which seemed to have immigrated into Gaul, but Gaul that seemed to have been transplanted into Greece." (Just. Epit. 43.4.1-2)

To what extent we should believe this is unclear. Justin wrote his epitome - or summary - of Pompeius Trogus' history sometime between the first and fourth centuries AD. Which sets it fairly far apart in time from the question at hand. However, Pompeius Trogus - the author of the Philippic Histories upon which Justin is based - wrote in the first century BC and was from a Gallic family from Narbonensis, the region around Massalia. So, perhaps what he wrote was accurate! After all, he was writing about the world in which he presumably grew up and whence his family came.

But, this should also inspire us with a bit of doubt. Trogus was writing at a period when this region had been a Roman province for only a century or less. By portraying it as a region heavily influenced by Greek culture, he was linking the natives to the wider pan-Mediterranean culture and state being forged by Rome. So in this digression we may have to read back some of these politics.

Regardless, there was some amount of Hellenization that occurred around and because of Massalia. Its influence and importance should not be doubted as a nexus for the transmission of both Greek goods and culture into northern western Europe.

Bibliography

J. Boardman, The Greeks Overseas: Their Early Colonies and Trade, Thames and Hudson 1999.

M. Fernández-Götz and D. Krausse, "Early Centralisation Processes North of Alps: Fortificatons as Symbols of Power and Community Identity," in P. Fontane and S. Helas (eds.), Fortificazioni arcaiche del Latium vetus e dell'Etruria meridionale, Institut Historique Belge de Rome 2016, 267-86.

Map of the Phocaean “Far West” (ca. 500 BCE to 300 BCE)

As Massalia was founded ca. 600 BCE (not as much in the Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age, than in the latter period of the Early Iron Age), the southern coast of Gaul, first known to Greeks as the shore of Ligyes or Ligustikè, was in a contact with Mediterranean traders since the VIIth century BCE) together with Etruscans or Phoenicians/Iberians traders, . searching for trade partners in the region, to obtain tin but also iron, salt and agricultural products, they found in the coastal societies and early polities and agglomerations (broadly identified in the “Grand Bassin” and “Suspendien” horizons, itself an evolution of LBA “Mailhacien”, in relation with Hallstatt C/D) people not only producing or carrying over these products but susceptible to exchange them for prestigious good : wine, of course, but sumptuous tableware, mirrors, perfumes, precious pottery and tableware, oil, bronzeware, etc.

It’s not wholly clear how exactly these indigenous societies emerged from a likely difficult LBA/EIA (comparatively to western Mediterranean basin, possibly due to an agricultural crisis), : although Massalia was founded at a period of radical transformations, earlier contact seem to have influenced concentration of indigenous populations (possibly around earlier sanctuaries) in mediterranean “oppida”, e.g., Montlaurès, Pech-Maho and Saint-Blaise. In the process of development of indigenous societies, Massalia would be “merely” a step, especially considering an earlier foundation of Rhôdé (Béziers I) possibly by Greeks from Sicily; and the establishment of an Etruscan trading post at Lattara (Lattes) both ca. 625.

This development was not particular to the shores of Keltikè, however, and with the “princely seats” or fürstensitze of the Alpine arc, or the “Iberian principalities” of southern-western Spain, they were part of the first phenomenon of agglomeration and proto-urbanization in western Europe : on which trade itself might not have been the initiating event (possibly related to agricultural and non-agricultural production) but certainly fueled the development at various degrees.

The best known founding myth of Massalia transmitted from abstracts of Aristotle (Deipnosophists; XIII, 36) and more famously Pompey Trogue (Historia Philippicae; Justin; XLIII; 3.1) account for a peaceful settlement by Phocaeans in the lands of the king Nannos that invited them to partake in a matrimonial feast where his daughter choose to marry the leader of the Greeks. While likely no much more historical in character than the Roman tale of the foundation of their city, this tradition could be paralleled with the trade contacts of the region involving a form of local agreement between contactors and contactees, a meeting place was decided, probably materialized by the construction of an empty square or a wall, perpetuated by the settlement of outsiders, hinting at relatively normalized and critically ritualized relations, but also to a certain development of lineaged quasi-state society prior the foundation, although in indigenous perspective more an hosting and territorial lending than giving away newcomers what will become their territory (chôra)

While “only” a step, however, the foundation of Massalia was a very important one in the historical development of the region, bringing radical and swift transformations of local societies : it’s not clear how important the city was in its first decades, economically speaking, but it appears to have been enough to provide for a stabilization,concentration and development of existing Mediterranean agglomerations in Lower Rhône basin (with a similar development around Rhôdè in the coast of Languedoc) whereas relative instability and vulnerability to crisis tended to threaten other centers of power too remote from coastal centers and its benefits. Interestingly, the foundation myth of Massalia involving a matrimonial union between indigenous and immigrant lines (whereas other rites tend to focus on the immediate violent conflict) could both

Moreover, immediate relations between natives and colonists can be illustrated by the agglomerated housing is attested at the edge of the city’s basin, formerly fairly inhabited, without certainty of how to interpret it : seasonal or day labourers or workers for the city farmers? negotiators with indigenous partners? indigenous peasants getting closer to the city to sell their surproduction? As it might have been, it is likely that Phocaeans already entered in regular and formal relation with their neighbours, that would expand over time with commercial or military treaties and establishments in the immediate hinterland.