Directions: Read the following passage and answer the question that follows.

It was after the period of Homer and Hesiod that the first great expansion of Greek knowledge about the world began, through the extensive colonisation which was carried on by the Greeks around the Eastern Mediterranean. Even to this day the natives of the southern part of Italy speak a Greek dialect, owing to the wide extent of Greek colonies in that country, which used to be called "Magna Grecia", or "Great Greece". In the East, too, Greek cities were dotted along the coast of the Black Sea, one of which, Byzantium, was destined to be of world-historic importance. So, in North Africa too, and among the islands of the Ægean Sea, the Greeks colonised throughout the sixth and fifth centuries BC, and in almost every case, communication was kept up between the colonies and the mother-country.

What are Greek colonies referred to in the passage?