Of the tens of thousands of economic migrants who populated the Greek landscape hardly any have left us any indication as to why they chose to settle abroad. Even the most basic question—did they leave home out of necessity or in order to seek new opportunities?—cannot be addressed. Nor do we know what percentage of economic migrants settled abroad with their families. Did some of them occasionally find ways to send remittances back home, as is frequently the case today? Did others arrive singly and then summon their families to join them? We are equally poorly informed about the social networks that must have facilitated and encouraged migration in ancient Greece, as they do in the modern world, providing migrants with a temporary place to stay and assisting them while they struggle to get on their feet. We do not know how many migrants remained abroad and how many returned to their place of birth at the end of their working lives. Did Hesiod make it back to Cyme in later life? Did he actually want to? Or did he eventually adjust to the dreadful weather?
In the ancient world as in the modern, economic migration had benefits for both parties. Indeed the migration of artisans and professionals from one polis to another was an essential factor in Greece’s cultural, economic, and political development. As Aristotle observed, “It is necessarily the case that city-states contain a large number of slaves, metics, and foreigners” (Pol. 7.1326a 18–20). This state of affairs is likely to have been true of “even the smallest, most isolated, most ‘backward’, most agriculturally-oriented polis,” as Whitehead (1984, 50) notes. Certainly the quality of life in Athens, as well as its culture, depended to a large degree on a continual influx of migrants. The citizen body understood this, for it certainly would not have permitted this influx unless it judged it to be in its best interests, even though it is unlikely to have understood the relationship between migration and economic growth. And although Athens is a special case, it was by no means unique.
The size of the immigrant population obviously varied from one city-state to another. Some poleis were highly restrictive, others less so. At the high end of the scale was Athens; at the low end, Sparta. Herodotus claims that until his day only two foreigners had been awarded Spartan citizenship, and this was because one of them was a highly valued seer (9.35.1). (The other was his brother.) Likewise the Megarians proudly maintained that they had granted citizenship only to two non-Megarians (Plu. Mor. 826c). Sparta had a reputation for being extremely xenophobic, a circumstance that drew disparaging comments from other Greeks, the Athenians especially (Thuc. 1.144.2; 2.39.1; Plu. Mor. 238e). No doubt foreigners stuck out like a sore thumb in a Spartan street. Another polis that exhibited xenophobic tendencies “in accordance with Spartan law” was Apollonia in northwest Greece, and there may well have been others (Ael. VH 13.16). Xenophobia, after all, operates along a sliding scale.
It goes without saying that no Greek state had anything resembling an “official” immigration policy or imposed a quota, and the extent to which it accommodated permanent settlers from abroad has to be understood in terms of its relationship with Greeks of different ethnicity in general. The fact that Athens was more receptive to foreigners than any other state was due largely to its imperial role in both the fifth and fourth centuries. In the modern world societies that absorb migrants successfully become more dynamic, even though the frequent consequence of that dynamism is social inequality and deep cultural divides (Scheffer 2011, 319). We are in no position to judge whether this was the case, too, in Athens, and in fact we can hardly begin to estimate the contribution that metics made to its culture and economy, other than to acknowledge the self-evident fact that foreigners would have been evident in all aspects of Athenian society (Cohen 2000, 18). Part of Athens’s appeal for foreigners lay in the fact that it would have scored higher than any other polis on the Human Development Index, which ranks countries according to the criteria of income, health, and education. Athens, in other words, was the prototype of the modern cosmopolitan urban center like London, New York, and Hong Kong, whose vitality and dynamism depend largely on their sizable immigrant population.
A state’s outlook toward the foreigners living in its midst is hardly likely to have been constant and unchanging. In wartime latent tensions and hostilities between citizens and foreigners are likely to have resulted in persecution, as happened in Syracuse when its ruler Dionysius I declared war against Carthage in 396. The Sicilian Greeks responded by persecuting many wealthy Carthaginians who dwelt among them, “not only by plundering their property but also by seizing them and subjecting their bodies to all manner of torture and insult” (D.S. 14.46.3). Though we hear of such occurrences only rarely, there may well have been many such instances that have gone unrecorded.
Immigration scholars identify two related phenomena as the catalyst for migration: a “push” from the country of origin due to its unfavorable internal conditions and how those conditions impact upon specific individuals and groups; and a “pull” to another country or region that holds out the expectation, promise, or hope of a better existence. As noted already, the evidence rarely permits us to determine what drove tens of thousands of Greeks to exchange one city-state for another. In fact it is often impossible to differentiate economic migrants from refugees. We have no means of knowing what percentage of Athens’s metic population was motivated to leave its place of origin because of economic considerations and what percentage left, whether voluntarily or under compulsion, because of political discontent or persecution. Scholars tend (tacitly for the most part) to assume that economic improvement was the primary incentive and that most economic migrants were free to return at will. However, this hardly permits us to conclude that a “push” from one’s place of origin played no part at all in the decision to emigrate.
The Origins of Economic Migration
We have evidence that city-states were permitting economic migrants to settle permanently within their borders from the sixth century onward, though the legal status of these migrants in the archaic period is obscure. While some of the professional dêmiourgoi (literally “those who work for the people”) whom Homer identified as itinerants probably became permanent settlers abroad (see chapter 10), we do not know in what way that might have affected their legal status in their country of adoption—assuming they were accorded any status whatsoever. Most itinerants are likely to have settled abroad on a purely informal basis, perhaps at the invitation of an appreciative employer.
The first economic migrants of whom we have note are the aristocrats who left their homes to marry into wealthy foreign families of similar status. Dynastic marriage is already a feature of life in the Odyssey, as we see from the fact that the Phaeacian king Alcinoüs is eager for the stranger Odysseus to become his son-in-law (7.311-15). Whether dynastic marriage was as central to alliance-building in archaic Greece as it has been at other periods of history, is, however, impossible to determine. When suitors travel vast distances to compete for the hand of the daughter of Cleisthenes, tyrant of Sicyon, the latter goes out of his way to thank them “for their willingness to marry into my family and leave behind their own homes” (Hdt. 6.126.–130). His complimentary remark seems to suggest that a willingness to relocate was the exception rather than the rule among the élite.
Plutarch reports that it was Solon who first permitted skilled workers to settle in Attica and that he did so on condition that they brought their families with them (Sol. 24.2). Though he denies that Solon’s motivation was to drive undesirable foreigners away, he claims that he took note of the fact that Athens was “filled with people who were constantly flooding into Attica from elsewhere in order to find security” (22.1). In other words, it is unclear whether the lawgiver intended to implement a pro- or an anti-immigration policy (Whitehead 1977, 141–42). Plutarch, moreover, is writing hundreds of years after the event, and it would be naïve to assume that he had any insight as to what had prompted Solon’s legislation.
Though many scholars believe that it was the reforms of Cleisthenes that first granted officia
l recognition to Athens’s immigrant population, the word metoikos, which most frequently describes an economic migrant to Athens, does not occur in a literary context until 472 (Aes. Pers. 319). Other data suggest that the terminus ante quem for the introduction of metic status was ca. 460.
The Legal Status of the Athenian Metic
Metoikos means literally either “a person who has changed his oikos” or “a person who lives with others of the same standing.” Aristotle defined metics as “citizens only in the sense in which children who are too young to be inscribed in the list and old men who have been removed from the list can be called citizens” (Pol. 3.1275a 14–16). They would no doubt have been subject to controls and restrictions of the kind Aristotle has in mind in every community, but it is Athens alone that has provided us with a relatively full account of what these controls and restrictions actually amounted to. We learn, for instance, that foreigners seeking permanent immigrant status in Athens were required to record the fact that they were residing in Attica after a statutory period of time. Their chances of escaping detection in a close-knit and self-policed society like Athens were obviously slim. We do not know the length of the statutory period, but it was probably a month at most. Registration meant enlisting in one of Attica’s 140-odd demes. Failure to do so meant either immediate expulsion (Lys. 23.2) or enslavement (Sud. s.v.pôlêtês). There is no evidence that an immigrant was required to undergo any form of scrutiny to determine his or her worthiness to reside long-term in Athens. Plato recommended that “any foreigner who pleased” should be permitted to take up residence in his ideal polity, so long as he or she practiced a craft (Laws 8.850ab).
Metics were required to secure the goodwill of an Athenian citizen, who would act as their prostatês (patron, guardian). The role of the prostatês is only vaguely understood, but the person so charged probably acted both as their legal representative and as their supervisor. This simple and rather informal arrangement would have guaranteed that most metics were law-abiding, since the reputation of their sponsors would have been seriously compromised otherwise. There is no indication as to whether there was any limit to the number of metics whom a single prostatês could sponsor. It is not inconceivable that some had very large numbers under their charge. The close relationship between metic and prostatês seems to have remained in effect until around the middle of the fourth century, when much of the power invested in the prostatês was transferred to the courts (Gauthier 1972, 133–35; Demetriou 2012, 200–201).
Metics had to pay a regular, presumably monthly, poll tax, known as the metoikion. This amounted to one drachma for an adult male and half a drachma for an adult female living on her own. Though this was a relatively modest fee, it may have been sufficient to induce a substantial proportion of metics to return to their homelands once their working lives were over. Metics also had to pay a market-tax known as xenika telê (foreigners’ tax) for permission to trade in the agora (Dem. 57.34). Those who performed some special service for the state might be granted isoteleia, which meant that they had the right to pay the same taxes as an Athenian citizen. Those who were in the equivalent of the super-tax bracket were required to subsidize important and costly public programs called liturgies, just as wealthy citizens had to do. These programs included the financing of dramatic choruses, triremes, and gymnasia. Like citizens in the same wealth bracket, in times of war and other emergencies they had to pay a property tax known as the eisphora (Lys. 12.20). Overall, the financial burden borne by metics would have greatly enriched the state, as Xenophon fully appreciated (Vect. 2.1), quite aside from the benefits accruing from their skills and their entrepreneurship.
Metics were also required to perform military service, either as hoplites or as rowers. It seems they were not permitted to serve in the cavalry (Vect. 2.5). Metic hoplites may have numbered as many as 13,000. So far as we know, they did not receive any military training, so their service may have been minimal. They seem to have played little part in the Peloponnesian War. In fact the only occasion that we hear of them serving in the ranks is at the Battle of Delium in 424. Perhaps they mainly functioned as the Greek equivalent of the British Home Guard in World War II. As such, they would have been called upon to defend the city only as a last resort (Duncan-Jones 1980, 103–5). Given the fact that most metics were artisans and small traders, however, most of them probably served as rowers in the fleet, for which they would have received pay. Indeed they may have constituted a very sizable proportion of Athens’s rowers, particularly if we take seriously an observation by [Xenophon], the author who goes under the modern name of the Old Oligarch, that Athens needed metics in order to man its fleet (Ath. Pol.1.12).
Until the 350s metics were not permitted to own land or property in Attica. From this date onward, however, they occasionally received gês enktêsis (“the right of land tenure in a country or district by a person not belonging to it” [LSJ9]). One important consequence of this was that metics were now permitted to establish permanent sanctuaries in honor of their gods in Attica. An inscription dated 333/2 granted permission to merchants from Citium, a Phoenician town in Cyprus, to buy land on which to build a sanctuary of Aphrodite (Tod 189 = Harding 111 = Rhodes and Osborne 91). The importance of this measure can hardly be exaggerated. The freedom to worship one’s own gods in a permanent sanctuary specifically designated for that purpose would have accorded both migrants and immigrants a wholly new sense of belonging, even though the main motive on the part of the Athenians may well have been economic self-interest. We should note, moreover, that this was a reward for good behavior, if not good service, and not an entitlement. Sanctuaries provided the ideal setting for social and organizational networks. Such networks not only enabled metics to mix freely with others of the same ethnicity, but also to plan joint business ventures.
The inscription relating to the merchants from Citium cites as a precedent a previous grant of gês enktêsis, which Egyptians had received to establish a sanctuary in honor of their goddess Isis. The only other metic community known to have been accorded such a right is that of the Thracians—in their case, in honor of the goddess Bendis. However, the fact that none of the many cults that made their entry into Athens from 350 onward alludes to this privilege may simply be due to the fact that within a short space of time gês enktêsis was no longer seen as a privilege to be remarked upon. That said, several sanctuaries that served the interests of the metic community were established on land that was leased out by the Athenian state in this same period. It is also striking that a number of inscriptions relating to foreign religious associations were discovered on the outskirts of the residential area, an indication perhaps of their somewhat marginalized status.
Marriage between metics and Athenians seems to have been officially discouraged. A law ascribed to Pericles (dated 451/450) decreed that “a man could not have a share of the polis unless he was born from two astoi” ([Arist.] Ath. Pol. 26.4), which meant that if a metic married an astos, their offspring was not eligible for citizenship.1 Though this law was rescinded during the Peloponnesian War when Athens faced a manpower crisis due in large part to the plague, it was renewed immediately afterward ([Arist.] Ath. Pol. 26.3; Plu. Per. 37.3–4). If a metic was killed, the crime would be treated as the equivalent of an unintentional homicide, irrespective of the circumstances (Lape 2010, 48–49). Though this denied metics the full protection of the law, since the maximum penalty for unintentional homicide was exile rather than execution, it may at the time of its passage have signaled an improvement in their legal status, viz from no legal protection at all to at least partial protection. Metics were also incorporated into the religious life of the community, notably by being required to participate in the Panathenaic festival held in honor of Athena. Very likely this was seen as a duty rather than a privilege, intended to remind the metic population that they were invested in the welfare of the state. They also played a significant role in the affairs of the demes to which they belonged (Cohen 2000, 74).
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p; Once a foreigner had been identified as a metic, he or she was free to reside in Athens indefinitely—much to the displeasure of Plato, who recommended in his imaginary lawcode that the entitlement be limited to twenty years (Laws 8.850b). It would tell us a great deal about the level of comfort and acceptance enjoyed by metics if we knew what percentage of them remained in Attica till their death. Like productive and hard-working immigrants in general, some at least would have achieved considerable social standing. It is hardly fortuitous that Plato chose the house of the elderly and wealthy metic Cephalus as the setting for the Republic. Cephalus had evidently chosen to end his days abroad, like many long-term immigrants.
Incidentally, the Piraeus, which is where Cephalus lives, was particularly popular as a residential center for metics, accounting for about 20 percent of their total number. Fourth-century sepulchral inscriptions that have come to light there testify to the presence of immigrants from at least 60 different poleis (Garland 2001, table 1, p. 64; IG II2 7882–10530). The popularity of the Piraeus derived from the fact that it was both a port city and a manufacturing center. We should note, however, that metics settled throughout Attica, many of them in rural areas, and few demes had no metic residents at all (Cohen 2000, 122–23). A substantial number of Athenian citizens internally migrated to the Piraeus as well, attracted by its economic opportunities. The scale of this movement is indicated by the fact that out of 240 funerary inscriptions commemorating Athenian citizens discovered in the region only 8 belong to demesmen of the Piraeus (Garland 2001, 60).
Wandering Greeks Page 18