The Greeks, the Carthaginians, and the Romans, established numerous colonies, sometimes of a military nature, to secure distant conquests, but more generally of a civil kind and for commercial purposes, or to furnish an outlet for a superabundant population. In the former instance, the removal was compelled, in the two latter voluntary, but in all, the parent country retained and exercised certain rights over her colonists, founded on the express or implied engagement to protect them. The colony always continued so much a part of the parent country that, if she entered into war, the colony was rendered a party to it, and an attack upon the latter, without any hostile declaration against the parent, was held to be an attack upon the parent.
This relation produced certain consequences which were considered beneficial to both. The internal administration of the colony was either immediately directed by the parent state or subjected to her revision, and its trade was either confined to their mutual intercourse, or sparingly allowed to be shared with other countries.
We are not clearly informed, in what manner a revenue for the benefit of the parent state was extracted from them. In some mode it was probably attained, since it is reasonable that those who receive protection out of the public purse, should proportionally contribute to the public expense. One important political feature in these institutions is, that the members of the parent state are entitled to participate in the civil rights of the colony. An Athenian was received as a citizen at Crotona, and a Corinthian at Corcyra; and vice versa, the colonist continues a subject or a citizen of the parent state. A
