Wandering Greeks

by Garland, Robert

  Their story has several twists. On its way to Sicily, the flotilla was intercepted by Anaxilaus, tyrant of Rhegium, who urged the Ionians to take possession of Zancle, which happened to be undefended at the time of their arrival. Before the Ionians could act upon this suggestion, however, the Zancleans learnt of Anaxilaus’s plot and rushed home, having first elicited military support from Hippocrates, the tyrant of Gela. Hippocrates, however, proved to be duplicitous. He took possession of Zancle, imprisoned its king, and gave the city to the Ionians. He did so on condition that the Ionians hand over half of all the urban slaves who were living in the city and all the agricultural slaves. In addition, he enslaved and deported most of the citizen population. However, when he transferred 300 of the most prominent Zancleans to the Ionians and urged them to slit their throats, the latter refused to do so. Herodotus clearly admired the Samians both for their resourcefulness and their compassion—he fails to mention the Milesians for some reason—and he ends by saying, “So this is how the Samians, having escaped from the Persians, acquired Zancle, the most beautiful city of all” (6.24.2).

  One other attempt at relocating all the Ionians occurred. After their victory over the Persians at the Battle of Mycale in 479 the Greeks held a conference to weigh the merits of permitting them to settle in the west. Evidently there was a strongly held opinion that it would be impossible to protect the Ionians in the long term and that one day the Persians would exact savage reprisals for their defeat. The Spartans and others recommended that the Ionians should be relocated in those port cities on the mainland that belonged to Greeks who had “medized,” viz sided with the Persians. The Athenians, however, vehemently opposed the plan on the grounds that the Peloponnesians had no right to determine the fate of the Athenian settlers who resided in Ionia. One of the consequences of the debate was to strengthen Athens’s hand by drawing attention to the Ionians’ need for naval protection (Hdt. 9.106.2–4).

  Themistocles’ Threat to Relocate the Athenians

  On the eve of the naval battle that was fought in the straits off Salamis in 480, the commanders of the Greek fleet heatedly debated whether to hold the line or withdraw south. When the Athenian general Themistocles strongly advocated holding the forward position, a Corinthian named Adeimantus taunted him with being “a man without a fatherland” and objected to any proposal being put forward “on the recommendation of a man who is a mere apolis [without a city]” (Hdt. 8.61). His point was that Athens, following the evacuation of its women and children, no longer enjoyed the status of an independent polity.

  Themistocles angrily retorted that his city-state and its land were greater than that of the Corinthians, and that if the allies withdrew and made no attempt to defend the straits, the Athenians with their fleet of 200 triremes would set sail for Siris in southern Italy, “which has long been ours and which an oracle prophesied we would settle” (8.62.2). As the Athenians had already evacuated their civilian population to Salamis, Aegina, and Troezen in advance of the Persian invasion of Attica (see later, chapter 6), Themistocles’ threat had to be taken seriously. His advice carried the day, and the Greeks won a spectacular victory.

  Did Themistocles seriously contemplate the permanent resettlement of the entire citizen body? Was he in fact telling the truth about the oracle? Was Herodotus inventing? Scholars have generally been skeptical. True, months earlier Apollo had recommended that the Athenians should “flee to the ends of the earth.” Even so, the difficulties in implementing an operation of this magnitude on the eve of a battle are mind-boggling, particularly since the civilian population had already been dispersed to three separate locations. Only a fraction of the evacuees could have been transported to Italy, and many thousands would have been abandoned to their fate. It is also uncertain what reception the Athenians could have expected from the people of Siris, particularly since the latter would have had little if any advance warning of their arrival. In light of the fact that the refugees would have been under armed escort, however, they would have had little option but to receive them. An alternative possibility is that Siris was unoccupied at the time, though the problem with that hypothesis is that it was certainly occupied by ca. 440 (Hansen and Nielsen 2004, 294).

  Even if Themistocles’ threat seems like a desperate stratagem and a not entirely plausible one at that, there were, as we have seen, precedents for an overnight evacuation. A naval victory in the straits off Salamis was, moreover, anything but a foregone conclusion, and, if the Greeks had lost, the Athenians would have had no alternative but to relocate instantly with what ships they had remaining. It is not unlikely, therefore, that Themistocles did have such a plan in mind, though there is no evidence that he ever put it to the Athenian Assembly. It might have seemed too defeatist.

  The Synoecism of Olynthus

  In 433/2 the people of Chalcis in Thracian Chalcidice, fearing that war with Athens was imminent, tore down the walls of their coastal towns and relocated to Olynthus “in order to form one strong city.” They did so with the help of Perdiccas, the local king of Macedon (Thuc. 1.58.2). Not all the people in the region participated, however. Resettlement almost invariably met with stout resistance among some of the population.

  The Chalcidian settlers did not build an entirely new city. Instead they expanded an existing one. But though there is archaeological evidence for an increase in the population of Olynthus at this date, it is highly unlikely that everyone moved to the new city at once. It is interesting to note that the walls of the expanded city were made of mudbrick and erected with haste, which suggests that the settlers were eager to preempt Athenian aggression. Those who joined in the merger now identified themselves as a new political unit known as the Chalcidian League.

  The Athenian Fleet as the Dêmos in Exile

  A particularly interesting instance of polis-relocation is recorded in the case of the Athenian fleet. When the oligarchy known as the Four Hundred seized power in Athens in 411, it “slew a handful of men whom it considered useful to get rid of, imprisoned others, and exiled others still” (Thu. 8.70.2). Learning of its actions, the sailors in the Athenian fleet that was stationed at the island of Samos revolted against the Four Hundred, claimed that it and it alone represented the dêmos, and formed itself into a self-determining political entity. It did so on the grounds that “the polis had revolted from them” (8.76.3). The sailors in the fleet thus came to resemble other poleis in exile. They held meetings of the Assembly, in which they voted to replace all the generals and trierarchs whom they suspected of treason by others who were favorable to their cause; heard an appeal from Alcibiades that led to his election as general; and received ambassadors from the Four Hundred and from Argos (Thuc. 8.76.2, 77, 81.2–82.1, 86). It was largely as a result of the opposition of the fleet that a more moderate form of government, known as the Five Thousand, ousted the Four Hundred, after the latter had ruled Athens for about four months. The Five Thousand were in turn replaced by a full democracy when the fleet won a significant naval battle over the Spartans at Cyzicus, an event that signaled the dissolution of the fleet’s separatist status in exile.

  Dionysius I of Syracuse’s Program of Mass Resettlement

  Nowhere was the polis more portable than in Sicily. In the debate that took place in the Athenian Assembly in 416 about whether to dispatch an expedition to conquer Sicily, Alcibiades contemptuously observed. “Its cities are populated by mixed hordes of people and they have easy metabolai [transfers of people] and additions of citizens. No one feels he has his own homeland…. Everyone thinks that either by specious words or by party strife he can get hold of someone else’s land and settle there, if things don’t turn out for the best” (Thuc. 6.17.2).

  FIGURE 6 Bronze coin from Syracuse, time of the tyrant Agathocles, 319–289. The obverse depicts the head of Persephone. The reverse depicts a butting bull. In the exergue is the legend SURAKOSIÔN. Gelon, tyrant of Gela, transferred his capital to Syracuse in ca. 485 and by mass deportation caused it to double in size. By the
middle of the fourth century, however, Syracuse’s population had declined appreciably. It was resettled in ca. 340 by Timoleon under an oligarchic constitution. Syracuse experienced nineteen instances of stasis—the highest number of any polis.

  Alcibiades’ words must be taken with a grain of salt: he wanted to persuade the Athenians that the conquest of Sicily would not present them with a major challenge. Even so, his observation was not wide of the mark. Seven years previously the aristocracy of Leontini had deported the commoners and relocated them to Syracuse, where they were granted citizenship (Thuc. 5.4.2–3). And though the Greek cities of Sicily had been relatively stable over the past few decades, in the first half of the fifth century the Deinomenid tyrants had resettled the populations of Catania, Camarina, Euboea, Megara Hyblaea, and Naxos (see later, chapter 5). The earliest mass resettlement, though not in this case a deportation, had taken place in ca. 485 under Gelon, tyrant of Gela, who had permitted 10,000 mercenaries to settle in Syracuse. Not surprisingly the Syracusan citizens regarded the mercenaries as interlopers, particularly those who were Sicels and Campanians, and for this reason they had denied them full political rights (D.S. 11.72.3).

  Dionysius I, who became tyrant of Syracuse in 405, knew better than anyone that mercenary settlements could be usefully turned to political as well as military advantage. They served not only as payment for services rendered, but also as a stronghold of loyal support. It is also the case that a mercenary army is a portable polis in waiting, so to speak, since mercenaries look to their commander for settlement when their period of service draws to an end. The earliest one to be founded in Dionysius’s reign, however, owed nothing to his initiative. A year after he took control of Syracuse, some Campanian mercenaries, whom he had recently ejected from Aetna because of their untrustworthiness, marched to Entella, where, “having persuaded the citizens to receive them as sunoikoi [fellow-inhabitants], they attacked them by night, slew those of military age, married the wives of the men they had deceived, and took possession of the city” (D.S.14.9.9). How Dionysius responded to this flagrant act of rebellion is not recorded. Henceforth, however, he took personal responsibility for settling his mercenaries.

  Accordingly in 403, after seizing Catania and enslaving its population, Dionysius resettled it with a contingent of Campanian mercenaries. In the same year he enslaved the population of Naxos. Naxos (not to be confused with the Aegean island of the same name) was the oldest Greek settlement on Sicily. He now destroyed it, leaving perhaps only its temples intact, and handed over its territory to the neighboring Sicels in the hope of gaining their support (D.S. 14.15.2). He also took Leontini and removed its population to Syracuse, this time leaving the city intact. Two or three years later he founded a colony at Adranum, about ten miles to the northwest of Mount Aetna. After defeating Carthage in 396 he resettled Leontini with his mercenaries (14.78.2–3). Last in 392 he expelled “most of the Sicels who were living in Tauromenium” if and “selected and settled in their place the most suitable of his mercenaries” (4.96.4).

  By the time of his death in 367 Dionysius had relocated the inhabitants of no fewer than fourteen poleis, five of which were intended for his mercenaries. With the exception of Messina (formerly Zancle), all the cities on the east coast of the island were now either abandoned or had been resettled. Much of southern Italy was also within his sphere of influence. But though he had confined the Carthaginians to the northwest part of Sicily, he had not succeeded in his larger aim, which was to expel them from the island altogether. Moreover his resettlements, particularly those involving mercenaries, were a failure. Mercenaries almost by definition lack the skills and mindset that are needed to create a stable urban entity and promote civic virtues. Nor should we forget the horrendous consequences that his program of self-aggrandisement had for the tens of thousands of indigenous peoples who became displaced, of whom we learn virtually nothing.

  MAP 2 Sicily.

  Timoleon’s Revival of Syracuse

  Some twenty years after the death of Dionysius I, the Corinthian general Timoleon undertook one of the most ambitious ancient urban relocation programs on record. In ca. 365 Timoleon had been implicated in the killing of his brother and had been living under a cloud ever since. When he was approached by Syracusan exiles living in Corinth, he decided to throw in his lot with them. He arrived in Sicily in ca. 346/5 at the head of a small army to challenge Dionysius’s successor and eldest son, Dionysius II. After successfully besieging Syracuse, Timoleon drove Dionysius into exile. He then defeated the Carthaginians and went on to “uproot all the tyrants throughout the island” (D.S.16.82.4). He too, however, never succeeded in driving the Carthaginians out of Sicily.

  Even so, it was extremely fortuitous for the Sicilian Greeks that Timoleon arrived at the exact moment he did. By all the evidence, archaeological as well as literary, Dionysius I’s policy of mass resettlement had been a failure, and at the time of his death the Sicilian polis could fairly be described as a failing enterprise. Writing of the period immediately prior to Timoleon’s arrival, Plutarch describes the island as “anastatos [uprooted] and apolis [bereft of cities] because of wars, added to which most of the cities were occupied by barbarians of mixed ethnicity and by unemployed mercenaries” (Tim. 1.1). Horses, he goes on to say, were grazing in the Syracusan agora, other cities were inhabited by deer and wild pigs, and their citizens were neglecting the summons to fulfill their civic duties (22.4–5; cf. D.S. 16.83.1). One estimate is that the population of Syracuse, which at its peak exceeded 100,000, had now sunk to below 10,000, doubtless as a result of “casualties in war and strife, executions and banishments, voluntary withdrawals of citizens unable to make a livelihood in conditions of insecurity” (Westlake 1969, 284). Though Plutarch’s description of Sicily as anastatos and apolis may be something of an exaggeration, the picture he paints of long-term devastation is amply supported by archaeological data.

  Now that he had dealt with the Carthaginian threat to Syracusan independence, in ca. 340 Timoleon appealed to Corinth for help in increasing the city’s population. The Corinthians responded by inviting the Syracusans and Sicels who were living outside Sicily to return to their ancestral home “on equal and fair terms,” much as if Syracuse were a new foundation (Plu. Tim. 23.6). Initially only a few of them answered the call. It is fair to assume that many of those who had left their home lands long ago had done very well for themselves and were reluctant to exchange their current prosperity for an uncertain future in what many of them no longer thought of as home. So the Corinthians extended the offer of Syracusan citizenship to all Greeks, irrespective of ethnicity. Once again the response was disappointing. Eventually, however, when peace was formally concluded with Carthage, some 60,000 Greeks volunteered, including 10,000 mercenaries (Plu. Tim. 23.6 = Athanis, FGrH 562 F 2; cf. D.S. 16.82.5).

  Many of the Sicilian Greeks who migrated to Syracuse had been living in Carthaginian territory. They did so in part to escape the tithe that the Carthaginians exacted from all subject peoples domiciled within their territories. Indigenous people who had long been hellenized probably contributed to the ranks of the immigrants as well. Another group comprised deportees from Leontini, whom Timoleon forcibly relocated to Syracuse. The Leontines had earned his resentment because their tyrant Hicetas had opposed him when he first arrived in Sicily (D.S. 16.82.7). It may be that an exchange of populations took place between the deportees arriving from Leontini and some of the colonists who had settled in Syracuse (Westlake 1969, 290).

  It probably took several years before Syracuse’s fortunes finally revived. No population transplantation ever runs entirely smoothly, and there was considerable opportunity for disagreement even within the ranks of the newcomers. Those who arrived first would obviously have received preferential treatment, including, most conspicuously, larger allotments of land, and this is likely to have built in resentment from the beginning, especially if there was only a relatively short lapse of time between the arrival of other groups of s
ettlers. We learn, too, that Syracusan exiles returning from abroad were permitted to repurchase their former homes, which meant that the current owners had to be bought out and in effect evicted (Plu. Tim. 23.6–7). We do not know how they were compensated. It is also unclear how the original owners would have provided proof of ownership. Probably many bogus claims were lodged by those falsely claiming to have been exiled. Timoleon also resettled the town of Aetna, after first slaughtering its mercenary population (D.S. 16.82.4).

  Timoleon’s goal seems in large part to have been to rehellenize Sicily, both by increasing the size of its Greek population and by reducing the numbers of foreign mercenaries. As the author of the Eighth Epistle attributed to Plato had noted several years earlier, there had been a real possibility “may the god prevent it—that the Greek language would be eliminated from the whole of Sicily, either by the Carthaginians or by the Italians” (353e). It was largely due to Timoleon that this danger had finally been averted, and for that he deserves much credit. He excelled, we might say, in what Purcell (1990, 47) described in a masterly phrase as “the creative politics of management of the human resource.” He also seems to have been an accomplished self-publicizer. He could not have succeeded without convincing thousands of Siceliots that they would benefit by supporting his cause, as he arrived in Sicily with inadequate forces to win by military might alone.

  Writing of the year in which he established a new constitution for Syracuse (339/8), Diodorus states: “An abundance of new settlers now flooded into Sicily and thanks to a long period of uninterrupted peace the land was again cultivated, producing crops in all their variety” (16.83.1). Plutarch is equally congratulatory of Timoleon’s efforts, ending his biography with the following eulogy (39.7): “Using the constitution and the laws which he introduced, the Syracusans lived happily for a long time.” Tomolan was buried in the agora at Syracuse—a fitting honor for a man who had earned his status as the city’s second founder and a strong indication of the depth of gratitude he had earned from its people.