Wandering Greeks

by Garland, Robert

  Chapter 8. The Fugitive

  Fugitives in Archaic Literature. Herodotus (6.95) indicates that the Aleian Plain was located in Cilicia. Tlepolemus’s division of his men into three tribes is thought to be a reference to the three major city-states that existed on the island in Homer’s day—namely, Lindus, Ialysus, and Camirus. Schlunk (1976, 201) sees the murderer who flees from his homeland to escape the exaction of blood vengeance by the relatives of his murdered victim and who is received in a rich man’s house as an important “minor motif” in the Iliad. Priam’s supplication is, moreover, a memorable instance of ring composition. As Schlunk further notes, the poem begins with a suppliant Trojan father appealing on behalf of his daughter to Agamemnon, who rejects his appeal, and ends with a suppliant Trojan father appealing on behalf of his son to Achilles, who answers his entreaty. Fugitives in myth include Alcmaeon, Cadmus, and Orestes. In each case their wandering ends because of intervention from Apollo (Montiglio 2005, 31). The classic instance of upward mobility on the part of a fugitive and his family in early Roman history involves Demaratus of Corinth, who fled to Tarquinii because of political upheavals and whose son Lucumo became the fifth king of Rome (Li. 1.34.2). No less upwardly mobile was Jephthah, who was driven from his father’s house by his half-brothers because he was the son of a prostitute, and who later became commander and judge of all Israel (Judges 11–12).

  Exile as Punishment for Crime. For Athenian homicide law, see MacDowell (1978, 73–75, 114) and Phillips (2008). For the court in Phreatto, see MacDowell (1963, 82–84). For Socrates, see Forsdyke (2005, 273). For exile as a punishment imposed on members of the Delian League, see IG I3 14.29–32 = Fornara 71 (Erythrae, mid-460s or late 450s) and IG I3 40.6–7 = Fornara 103 (Chalcis, mid-440s or mid-420s). Pl. Laws 9.865de claims that the reason why a homicide is exiled is to avoid giving offense to the dead man “by seeing his killer frequenting the same places he had frequented.” In fifth-century Syracuse several sentences of exile were passed by petalismos (see later). After Syracuse’s defeat at the hands of the Athenians at the Battle of Cyzicus in 411 all the generals were exiled (Xen. Hell. 1.1.27). In Greek tragedy voluntary exile is occasionally the preferred fate of those who regard themselves guilty of crimes that put them outside the human fold. Examples are Oedipus, who requests that Creon send him into exile (Soph. OT 1381–82, and so on), and Medea, who announces that she will depart from Corinth for Athens and reside with King Aegeus (Eur. Med. 1384–85). Exile was imposed on Spartan kings who were found guilty of accepting bribes or performing inadequately on military campaign. See Forsdyke (2005, 295–97). Several Euripidean tragedies end with exile being pronounced upon an offender. Apollo orders Orestes to depart from Argos and go into exile in Parrhasia for one year because he has murdered his mother Clytemnestra (Or. 1643–45); the Dioscuri pass a similar sentence upon Orestes (El. 1250–51); and Hecuba becomes an enslaved exile (Tro. 1271).

  Ostracism. ML 21 includes a list of 61 candidates, together with the total number of ostraka that are assigned to each, up to date of publication. See most recently Brenne (2002, 36–166). The total now stands at over 10,000 ostraka. The largest single cache, 191 in all in only fourteen hands, was intended for use against Themistocles. Literary sources include [Arist.] Ath. Pol. 22.3–8; D.S. 11.55.2; Plu. Arist. 7.4–6; and Poll. 8.20. For discussion, see Rhodes (1993, 267–71) and Forsdyke (2005, 144–204). Forsdyke (p. 283) argues that the annual posing of the question before the Assembly as to whether the dêmos wanted to hold an ostracism had the consequence in and of itself of quelling inter-élite conflict. There was a learned debate in antiquity as to whether ostracism was the equivalent to exile. The Scholiast on Aristophanes Wasps (l. 947) defined ostracism as the equivalent of a species within the genus exile. The chief difference between the two, the Scholiast explained, lay in the fact that those who were ostracized kept their property, whereas those who were exiled forfeited theirs. A form of ostracism was practiced in Syracuse, where the process was called petalismos, literal meaning “leafing” so called because the names of those to be exiled were inscribed on leaves (D.S. 11.87.1–2). There is also evidence for the practice at Argos, Chersonesus, Cyrene, Miletus, and Megara (Forsdyke 2005, 285–88). For Megara, see also Hansen and Nielsen (2004, 464). It is unclear whether any of these cities was inspired by the Athenian model.

  High-Profile Exiles. For other versions of Themistocles’ flight and exile, see the sources cited in Frost (1980, 200–218). Diodorus Siculus (11.56–58) is particularly detailed. For a full account of Plutarch’s narrative of Alcibiades’ exile, see the relevant sections in Verdegem (2010). For Alcibiades as a traitor, see Bottineau (2010, 118–49). A decree that was passed by the dêmos of Amphipolis (dated 357/6) exiled in perpetuity, along with their children, two high-profile Amphipolitans who had favored an alliance with Athens in preference to one with Philip II of Macedon, and further declared that if they were apprehended they were to be killed (SIG3 194 = Tod 150 = Rhodes and Osborne 49; cf. D.S. 16.8.2).

  Runaway Slaves. See Christensen (1984, 23–32); Kudlien (1988, 232–52); Chaniotis (1996, 79–83); Andreau and Descat (2011, 138–41); and McKeown (2011, 155–57). For the protection of the Acropolis against runaway slaves, see Wernicke (1891, 51–57). On the branding of slaves, see Ar. Babylonians fr. 88 in CAF I, p. 414 and—more dubiously—upolis fr. 318 in CAF I, p. 342, though neither of these explicitly refers to runaways. It is unclear whether the individual who bore the imprint of a stag was a runaway slave, though such a marking would, of course, have been appropriate and ironic (Lys. 13.19). As McKeown (2011, 160) notes, runaways do not feature in Greek comedy, though some slaves consider the possibility of flight. In addition, there was a comedy by Antiphanes called the Drapetagôgos (Ath. Deipn.4.161d). For asylum for slaves, see ThesCRA III, 219 with nos. 70–78. Similar regulations to those of Messene are known from Samos and Ephesus (Chaniotis 1996, 80–81). Though it lies outside the time frame of this investigation, the story told by the third-century BCE ethnographer Nymphodorus of Syracuse of a bandit-slave named Drimacus, who led his fellow-runaways “as a king leads his army”’ terrorized the population of Chios, and exercised awesome power, is highly instructive (ap. Ath. Deipn. 6. 265d–266e). The slave-owners came to an agreement that Drimacus would receive into his ranks only runaway slaves who had been grossly mistreated and would return all others to their owners. See further Forsdyke (2012, 37–46, 74–85, and so on). For the Hebrew treatment of runaway slaves, see Deuteronomy 23:15–16: “You shall not give up to his master a slave who has escaped from his master to you; he shall dwell with you, in your midst, in the place which he shall choose within one of your towns, where it pleases him best; you shall not oppress him.”

  Chapter 9. The Economic Migrant

  Reasons for Becoming an Economic Migrant. See Dummett (2001, 44f.) for the modern use of the term “economic migrant” as a propaganda device intended to blur the distinction between refugees and immigrants and to suggest that the motives of those claiming asylum are deceptive and trivial. Hornblower (1991, 13f.) believes that Thuc. 1.2.6 indicates an awareness that prehistoric Athens benefited from an influx of foreigners. For Hesiod’s father’s move to Ascra, see West (1978, 30). Scheffer (2011, 319) rightly states, “The dynamism of [the United States] is closely connected to its ability to integrate people of extremely diverse backgrounds.” It would, however, be presumptuous to suppose that the ancient world duplicated the modern in this regard. Overall, we lack the means even to begin to assess the effects of immigration on Athenian culture and can only surmise from a distance, so to speak, its impact on the Athenian economy. For a useful survey, see Cohen (2000, 17–22). De Ste. Croix (1983, 95) assumed a priori that metics were “living by choice in their city of residence.” The Spartans were unusual in the fact that they were “not permitted to reside abroad, for fear they would acquire foreign customs and undisciplined lifestyles” (Plu. Mor. 238e; cf. Xen. Lac. 14.4). For Athenians living as metics in Megara, see Hansen and Niels
en (2004, 464 [entry by Legon]).

  The Legal Status of the Athenian Metic. The verb metoikein is not commonly used of “being a metic” in the technical—that is, Athenian—sense of the word until the fourth century. Other words that describe a permanent immigrant include epoikos, katoikos, paroikos, and sunoikos. For discussion of the date of the introduction of official metic status in Athens, see Whitehead (1986b, 148). For the requirement to register as a metic, see Whitehead (1975, 94 with n. 3; 1986b, 146) and Cohen (2000, 72 with n. 154). For the prosecution of metics failing to register with a guardian or seeking to evade their responsibilities, see Lape (2010, 188–90). For metics granted isoteleia and other honors, see IG II/III2 7862–81. In contrast to the relative frequency of honorifics awarded to metics, few foreigners were awarded citizenship. For discussion, see Baslez (1984, 93–109) and Demetriou (2012, 205–217). Cohen (2000, 72–73) asserts that “many individuals (or their offspring) ultimately became fully involved in Athenian life, and physically and culturally indistinguishable from the mass of politai [citizens].” The law forbidding metics to leave Athens during wartime was probably put into effect some time before the battle of Chaeronea in 338. For foreign deities worshipped in the Piraeus, see Garland (2001, table 3 [p. 109]) with the important revision by Demetriou (2012, 217–27). For leases of sacred properties, see Walbank (1983, part 4, table 1).

  The Composition and Size of Athens’s Metic Population. Krentz (1980, 305) notes that 19 of the 69 metics whose profession is recorded in IG II2 10 were involved in agriculture, 31 in small manufacturing, and 19 in commerce. These figures reflect the fact that the rebellion they joined began in a remote district of Attica. See Garland (2001) for the metic tomb in Kallithea (p. 62 with figure 11) and for the ethnic diversity of Athenian metics (pp. 62–67). For non-Greek metics, see Whitehead (1977, 109–14), who concludes, “The ethnic origin of a metoikos was ultimately less important, de facto as well as de iure, than the fact that he was, precisely, a metoikos and not a politês, i.e., citizen.” No doubt, too, there were many short-term visitors, known as parepidêmoi or parepidêmountes, who had to register as metics. Finally, a few metics were former slaves who had been manumitted, though these constituted “a distinct subgroup within the metic category, at least socially and economically” (Lape 2010, 47). They include Pasion and Phormion, both of whom were later granted citizenship.

  Prejudice against Immigrants. David Whitehead suggests to me that [Xenophon]’s main gripe at Ath. Pol. 1.10 is with foreigners in general, rather than with metics per se. For the ideal metic and his opposite, see Baslez (1984, 130–32). Plu. Sol. 24.2 states that Solon trusted only “those who had by necessity been thrown out of their homes and those who had left their homes for some purpose.” Judging from the titles of their plays, it is probable that the comic dramatists occasionally ridiculed metics, especially those who were non-Greek. There are uncomplimentary references to the Thraco-Phrygian god Sabazius in four Aristophanic comedies, including one in which he and other foreign deities are expelled from Athens (Cic. Leg. 2.37). To escape the Thirty Tyrants, Lysias fled to Megara (12.7). When the democracy was restored, he returned to Athens and prosecuted Eratosthenes, one of the Thirty, for causing his brother’s death. See Phillips (2008, 153–84) for full discussion of the speech. The verdict in the trial is unknown. Krentz (1982, 129) writes movingly of the metic contribution to the overthrow of the Thirty Tyrants: “Men who did not have the vote fought to preserve Athenian democracy, not because they expected to become voting citizens, but because the radical restructuring of society intended by the oligarchs would have meant either their complete exclusion from Attica or their reduction to a subservient role.” For the decree dated ca. 401/400 granting citizen rights to metics who had fought against the Thirty, see IG II2 10 = Harding 3; [Arist.] Ath. Pol. 40.2; Lys. 31.29. Krentz (1980, 303–4) tentatively suggests that they may have received isoteleia. Thrasybulus had originally proposed awarding them citizenship, but this had been blocked. Metic status evidently endured after death. In Eur. Heracl., when Eurystheus, king of Argos and Mycenae, requests burial in Athens, he promises “to lie beneath the earth as a metoikos for all time and be hostile to the descendants of these people [viz the Spartans]” (ll. 1032–33). Demetriou’s claim (2012, 199–200) that, “The arrival of these non-Athenians contributed to making Peiraieus a multicultural society that may have challenged the Athenian concept of citizenship” is somewhat exaggerated.

  Emigrant Workers. See MacDonald (1981, 159–68) and Hornblower (2011, 208–9).

  Chapter 10. The itinerant

  Itinerants in Archaic Greece. For the Homeric dêmiourgos, see Baslez (1984, 50–53) and Finley (2002, 51–52). It is likely that Herodotus has retrojected the phenomenon of the public physician into the sixth century, since all other examples belong to the fifth century. See Cohn-Haft (1956, 21f., 26, 46f., 53) for physicians specifically.

  Itinerants in Classical Greece. See McKechnie (1989, 142–77). Seers have been the subject of a number of important recent studies, including those of Johnston and Struck (2005); Flower (2008); and Johnston (2008). For wandering female seers, see Flower (2008, 211–39). Agurtês, like chrêsmologos and magos, was a term of abuse when applied to a seer. For sophists as celebrity itinerants, see Garland (2006, 79–81). For the variety of cities to which the craftsmen working at Epidaurus belonged, see Burford (1969, 199–201).

  Long-Distance Traders. For the beginnings of long-distance trading in the Greek world, see Tandy (1997, 59–83). For evidence of trading contacts with Cyprus from around 1000 BCE onward at Lefkandi, see Popham (1994, 12f.). Winter (1995, 258) is of the opinion that the Phoenicians in the Homeric poems “must be seen as neither historical nor ethnographic entities, but rather as well-crafted literary tropes” (cited in Hall 2002, 117).

  Pirates and Brigands. See McKechnie (1989, 101–41); van Wees (1992, 207–17); De Souza (1999, 17–42), and Horden and Purcell (2000, 387–88). For the Phoenicians in the Odyssey, see Winter’s important article (1995, 247–71), in which she argues that their portrayal is in part the product of “suspicion regarding the consequences of dispersal and mobility” (p. 264). She concludes, “‘Homer’s Phoenicians’ do not represent the world of the Phoenicians; rather, they present a masterful literary construct.” For Odysseus’s Cretan guise as the son of Castor, see De Souza (1999, 18–21).

  Mercenaries. Both Polyb. 11.13.6–8 and Xen. Hier. 10 stress the dependency of tyrants on mercenaries. For hoplite mercenaries having to provide their own armor, see Whitehead (1991, 105–13). For the rise of mercenaries in the fourth century and the profound implications that this development had both for the life of the polis and for the structure of Greek society, see Marinovic (1988), who notes that this was fostered by “the semi-permanence of warfare, the recrudescence of social conflicts … and the impoverishment of the masses” (p. 3). See also Baslez (1984, 171–75). When Cyrus reviewed the Ten Thousand, they were all wearing crimson tunics (Xen. Anab. 1.2.16). For the ethnic composition of the Ten Thousand, see Roy (1967, 302–309) and Marinovic (1988, 32–34). For a vivid description of the rigors attendant upon life as a mercenary, see Lee (2007, 232–54). For the conditions of service, see Roy (1967, 312–16) and McKechnie (1989, 89–93). Hornblower (2011, 200) aptly describes mercenary service as “a kind of alternative to colonization, both being a form of emigration to escape poverty.” He suggests, perhaps somewhat fancifully, that it would have done much to erode racial prejudice among Greeks. For the fate of the mercenaries who served under Darius III following his defeat by Alexander, see Badian (1961, 25–28). For Alexander’s mercenary settlements, see Bosworth (1994, 866–88). A major recruitment center for mercenaries from the 330s onward was the sanctuary of Poseidon of Taenarum, located at the tip of the Mani peninsula in the Peloponnese (D.S. 17.111.1; cf. RE, s.v. “Tainaron,” col. 2040f.; Badian 1961, 27–28; Schumacher 1993, 72–74).

  Persons of No Fixed Abode. For beggars, see Finley (2000, 52–53). For the poor, see Hands (1
968, 62–72).

  Chapter 11. Repatriation

  LEsprit de Retour. “Nostalgia” first entered the English language in 1770 to describe what was identified as a disease among a ship’s company longing for home (OED). Regarding the problem presented by returnees today, Long and Oxfeld (2004, 13) write: “While return is a way to reconcile and heal past conflict, it also gives rise to new tensions and boundaries, sometimes fueling ethnic hatreds”—a fitting comment on Hom. Od. 24. For the Paionians, see Demand (1988, 418–19). Xen. Anab. is also infused with l’esprit de retour. For the repatriation of the Athenian dêmos in exile, see Garland (2001, 32–37) and Wolpert (2002, 100–118). In 406 the Syracusan Assembly passed a decree recalling all exiles (D.S. 13.92.4–7).

  The “Return” of the Messenians. The invention of tradition to bolster claims of ethnic identity has been extensively researched by historians. A classic work is that edited by Hobsbawm and Ranger (1983). The most thorough investigation of the reality behind the claim of the Messenians to be the heirs of a venerable mythic and historical heritage is by Luraghi (2008, pp. 210–30 for the regional implications of the foundation of Messene; and pp. 245–58 for its ethnic composition). See also Shipley’s important entry in Hansen and Nielsen (2004, 561–64).

  Mass Enforced Repatriation. See Loraux (2002, 242–44) for further discussion of the return of the exiles from Phlius.

  The Exiles’ Decree of Alexander the Great. See Badian (1961, 28–31) and Poddighe (2011, 117–19). The claims put forward by Balogh (1943) that Alexander’s decree shows him as “the protector of the unfortunate” (p. 68) and that “a serious social evil came to an end, or was at least considerably lessened” (p. 69) are implausible. For extensive discussion of the Tegean Decree, see Heisserer (1980, 205–29) and Lonis (1991, 99–103). Heisserer (p. 221) points out that it implicitly sanctioned the return (among others) of those who had joined the revolt against Macedon orchestrated by Agis III of Sparta in 331 and whose leaders had been exiled in 330, following the suppression of the revolt by Antipater (Curt. 6.1.20). Courts consisting of foreign judges became increasingly common in the hellenistic period, evidence of their effectiveness as a way to settle disputes (Lonis, 1991, 108; Rhodes and Osborne, pp. 530–31). The inscription from Tegea is the only surviving document directly connected with the Exiles’ Decree. Other poleis, however, may well have made similar pronouncements in an attempt to implement the terms of Alexander’s mandate according to local conditions. The only comparable piece of legislation is a decree from Mytilene that was passed in 334 or perhaps a few years later when a change of government in favor of democracy occurred (Tod 201 = Heisserer 1980, 123–31 = Harding 113 = Rhodes and Osborne 85).