Three movements of expansion can be distinguished in what we know of. the history of the Greeks. The first, that of the so-called Dorian, and Ionian migrations, left them in possession of the Greek mainland, the principal islands of the Aegean, and the western seaboard of Asia Minor. The second, that of Greek colonisation properly so-called, extended the Greek world to the limits familiar to us in the history of Greece during the fifth and fourth centuries. The third, in which. Macedonian kings act as leaders, began with the conquests of Alexander, and resulted in that Hellenisation of the East which was the permanent achievement of his successors. The general character of the second of these movements forms the subject of this essay.