Wandering Greeks

by Garland, Robert

  Melos

  In 416/5, after massacring all the adult males of Melos and enslaving the women and children, the Athenians sent out 500 apoikoi to occupy the island (Thuc. 5.116.2–4).

  Naxos

  In 453–48 Tolmides established a cleruchy of either 500 or 1,000 citizens on Naxos to punish the islanders for their recalcitrance as allies (D.S. 11.88.3; Plu. Per. 11.5; Paus. 1.27.5).

  Neapolis (Campania)

  At an unknown date the Athenians, the Chalcidians, and the inhabitants of Pithecusae “sent out epoikoi” to Neapolis (Str. Geog. 5.4.7 C246).

  Notion

  In 428/7 the Athenians sent Athenian oikistai to Notion, a dependent polis on the west coast of Anatolia, “and settled it according to their own laws, bringing in all the Colophonians from the city-states” (Thuc. 3.34.4).

  Potidaea

  In 430/29, after expelling the inhabitants of Potidaea, a polis in Chalcidice, the Athenians sent out epoikoi to occupy it (Thuc. 2.70.4). Diodorus Siculus (12.46.7) puts their number at 1,000. A dedication by these epoikoi on the eve of their departure from Athens has come to light (ML 66 = Fornara 129). Some seventy years later, in 362/1, the Athenians sent cleruchs to Potidaea, seemingly at the request of the inhabitants. However, by 356 the cleruchs had been expelled by Philip II of Macedon.

  Salamis

  A decree describing the settlement of Salamis, which has been dated ca. 510–500 on the basis of its letter forms, contains a possible reference to cleruchs who have recently settled on the island (IG I3 1.1 = ML 14 = Fornara 44b). If the dating is correct, Salamis would have been the first Athenian cleruchy.

  Samos

  Horoi (boundary stones) found on Samos have been interpreted as evidence that the Athenians established a cleruchy on the island in ca. 446 to quell discontent prompted by their increasingly high-handed behavior toward their allies. Craterus’s reference to the Athenians “expelling the local people” may also refer to this period (FGrH 342 F 21). See further Shipley (1987, 114–16). The Athenians reestablished a cleruchy on Samos in or after 365, following the conquest of the island by their general Timotheus (Isoc. 15.111). The cleruchs occupied the island until the Lamian War broke out in 323/2, after which the Macedonian commander Perdiccas “brought the Samians back to their homeland 43 years after they had been deported” (D.S. 18.18.9).

  Scione

  In 421 the Athenians successfully besieged Scione, a polis in Chalcidice, which had attempted to secede from their empire. They put to death all the adult males and enslaved the women and children. They then divided the land into lots and offered it to the exiled Plataeans to inhabit (Thuc. 4.122.6; 5.32.1; D.S. 12.76.3). Scione was returned to its former inhabitants in 405/4 by the Spartan navarch Lysander (Plu. Lys. 14.3; cf. Xen. Hell. 2.2.3 and 9).

  Scylace

  Scylace, situated on the Propontic coast in Asia Minor, is said to have had a mixed population of Athenians and Pelasgians—that is, pre-Greek inhabitants of the Aegean region (Hdt. 1.57.2). It is uncertain whether it was an Athenian foundation.

  Scyros

  In 476/5 Cimon enslaved the so-called Dolopian (that is, non-Greek) inhabitants of Scyros, an island in the Sporades, and settled it with Athenians (Thuc. 1.98.2; Plu. Cim. 8.3–5; D.S. 11.60.2; Ephorus, FGrH 70 F 191 line 10 = POxy 13.1610 fr. 6). No numbers are given. For the status of the settlement, probably an apoikia rather than a cleruchy, see Figueira (1991, 221 note b).

  Sestus

  Founded by settlers from Lesbos in the seventh century, Sestus, a polis in the Thracian Chersonese, was resettled by Athenians in the sixth century (Hansen and Nielsen 2004, 910). In 353/2, after seizing the city and slaughtering the men and enslaving the women and children, the Athenians established a cleruchy (D.S. 16.34.4; IG II2 1613.297).

  Sinope

  In ca. 437 Pericles expelled a tyrant from Sinope, a polis on the southern shore of the Black Sea, and passed a decree to the effect that “600 Athenian ethelontes [volunteers] should sail to Sinope and settle alongside the Sinopians, dividing up the land and the houses that the tyrants had previously held” (Plu. Per. 20.2).

  Thracian Chersonese

  In 453 or 447 Pericles sailed to the Thracian Chersonese with 1,000 Athenian epoikoi in order to “strengthen the cities there with the flower of manhood” (Plu. Per. 19.1–2, cf. 11.5; D.S. 11.88.2–3).

  Thurii

  In 446/5 the Athenians established a panhellenic colony at Thurii on the site of Sybaris, which had been destroyed in 510. Settlers of Athenian origin comprised one-tenth of the mixed population (D.S. 12.9–10; Plu. Per. 11.5). Strabo (Geog. 6.1.13 C263) states that the Athenians and other Greeks slew the few survivors from Sybaris, who “had collected together and were settling it again.” For the importance of Thurii to the Athenians, see Figueira (1991, 163 n. 8).

  Torone

  In 422 the Athenians captured Torone, a polis in Chalcidice, enslaving the women and children and deporting the men to Athens. They may have intended to send out settlers of their own to replace the population and establish an imperial settlement. Instead, when the war ended the following year, they exchanged the deportees for Olynthians who were being held prisoner by the Peloponnesians. In consequence, the deportees returned to Torone (Thuc. 5.3.2–4).

  APPENDIX C

  CATALOGUE OF DEPORTEES

  See, too, Hansen and Nielsen (2004, 1363–64) for instances of expulsion and andrapodismos.

  546 BCE

  When he came to power, the Athenian tyrant Peisistratus expelled the powerful genos known as the Alcmeonids. The Alcmeonids returned to Athens in 510 when Peisistratus’s son Hippias, who succeeded his father as tyrant, was driven into exile, largely as a result of the machinations of the Alcmeonids (Hdt. 5.62.2; 6.123.1).

  496

  Citing an oracle, the Athenian general Miltiades the Younger expelled the so-called Pelasgian (that is, non-Greek) inhabitants of Lemnos (Hdt. 6.140; D.S. 10.19.6). The Athenians probably also expelled the inhabitants of Imbros around this date (Hdt. 5.26). No numbers are given.

  494

  When the Persians captured Miletus after its unsuccessful attempt to revolt, their king Darius, having enslaved the women and children, “did the men no further harm but settled them in the sea called the Erythraean [that is, the Persian Gulf] in the city of Ampe” (Hdt. 6.19.3–20). Since the majority of the Milesian population had been slaughtered by the Persians, those unharmed probably amounted to only a privileged few, viz Persian sympathizers.

  491

  The dêmos and the slaves of Syracuse exiled the gamoroi (land-owners) to Casmenae. A few years later Gelon defeated the dêmos and made himself tyrant of Syracuse, whereupon he invited the gamoroi to return (Hdt. 7.155.2).

  ca. 490

  After destroying Eretria for assisting the Ionians in their revolt, Darius ordered the survivors to be brought before him in chains since he bore a bitter grudge against them. Thereafter, however, he “did them no further harm” and settled them at Arderikka, about 20 miles from Susa (Hdt. 6.119.1–2). Anaxilas, tyrant of Rhegium, “exiled the inhabitants of Zancle, and settled it with a mixed population and renamed it Messana, after his old homeland” (Thuc. 6.4.6)

  ca. 485

  To increase the size of Syracuse’s population, Gelon, its tyrant, deported thither all the inhabitants of Camarina, half the population of Gela, and the well-to-do of Megara Hyblaea, granting them all citizenship. He also deported the common people of Megara Hyblaea to Syracuse, but these he enslaved and sold abroad (Hdt. 7.156.2; see chapter 5).

  480

  After the battle of Thermopylae and as a mark of their enslavement, Xerxes branded “the majority of the Thebans” whom he had taken prisoner, before deporting them to Persia (Hdt. 7.233.2).

  476

  Hieron I, tyrant of Syracuse, deported the entire populations of Naxos and Catania to Leontini. Though Naxos was not resettled, Catania received 10,000 settlers from the Peloponnese and Syracuse. It was renamed Aetna (D.S. 11.49.1; see chapter 5).<
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  464

  Following the great earthquake, Sparta’s helots revolted and took refuge on Mount Ithome. They eventually surrendered and were permitted to depart from Messenia under a truce. The Athenians invited them to settle in Naupactus (Thuc. 1.103.1–3; see chapter 11).

  457

  After defeating the Boeotians at Oenophyta, the Athenians deported some of their prisoners, along with (possibly) the people of Phocis. A decade later in 447 the deportees inflicted a heavy defeat upon the Athenians at Coronea. They then returned to their homeland (Thuc. 1.108.3 and 1.113).

  446

  After putting down a revolt, the Athenians deported the in habitants of Histiaea in revenge for their massacre of some Athenian prisoners. A local people called the Ellopioi, however, were permitted to remain because, being subject to the Histiaeans, they had not been responsible for the massacre. The Athenians sent out their own settlers to occupy Histiaea (Thuc. 1.114.3; IG I3 41).

  441–40

  Possibly after installing a democracy on Samos, the Athenians seized fifty men and fifty boys as hostages and sent them to Lemnos, an Athenian cleruchy. However, a group of Samian fugitives undertook a daring night raid to rescue the hostages and returned with them to Samos (Thuc. 1.115.3–5). The Athenians blockaded Samos and after eight months took the island. They imposed terms that included the seizing of an unknown number of hostages, whom they presumably deported to Athens (1.117.3).

  mid-430s?

  Some Athenians settled in Amisus and renamed it Piraeus, perhaps expelling the former inhabitants (Theopompus FGrH F 389 = Str. Geog. 12.3.14 C547).

  433

  For strategic reasons Perdiccas II, king of Macedon, persuaded the Chalcidians to destroy the cities that they occupied along the coast and to settle inland at Olynthus, making it a strong foundation (Thuc. 1.58.2; see chapter 4).

  ca. 431

  The popular faction in Epidamnus expelled the dunatoi (powerful), viz the oligarchs. The latter joined forces with the barbarians (viz those living in the surrounding territory) and proceeded to plunder their home city. We do not know when the exiled oligarchs returned (Thuc. 1.24–29; see chapter 5).

  ca. 431?

  The popular faction in Megara expelled the oligarchs (Thuc. 4.66.1; see chapter 5).

  431

  In response to the Theban attack on Plataea, the Athenians seized all the Boeotians resident in Attica (Thuc. 2.6.2). Their fate is unknown, but it is likely that they were deported. Shortly after the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War the Athenians expelled the Aeginetans, some of whom fled to Thyrea, a city and region on the east coast of the Peloponnese, where they settled, while others “scattered throughout the length and breadth of Greece” (Thuc. 2.27.1–2; see chapter 5).

  430/29

  Following the surrender of Potidaea after a two-year siege, the Athenian generals decided to deport the entire population either to Chalcidice (that is, to the region around Potidaea) or “to where each of them could go.” The Athenian dêmos was severely displeased with its generals for this decision, “since it believed that it could have taken the city on its own terms,” viz without striking a deal (Thuc. 2.70.4). We hear no more about the Potidaeans and have no way of knowing what percentage of them survived as refugees. It was a banal occurrence in a bloody war that generated many similar incidents. The Potidaeans were lucky to be deported. It was only because the Athenian army was experiencing hardship as a result of the protracted siege that their generals had accepted the offer of surrender, though the condition of the besieged had been so dire that they had even resorted to cannibalism. Had the Athenians taken Potidaea by siege, they would probably have slaughtered the men and enslaved the wives and children, which is perhaps what the dêmos had desired.

  429/8

  The Athenian general Phormion conducted an operation that was aimed at securing the political allegiance of Acarnania by “expelling persons judged not to be trustworthy from Stratus, Coronta [of unknown location], and other places” (Thuc. 2.102.1). We are not told where the refugees, who presumably included women and children, headed, nor what numbers were involved.

  427

  After capturing Plataea, the Spartans and their allies massacred some 200 of its citizens and enslaved about 110 women. They then permitted political refugees from Megara who were friendly to Thebes to inhabit the vacant city for about a year and afterwards destroyed its walls (Thuc. 3.68; see chapter 5). In recognition of their alliance with Plataea, the Athenians granted citizenship to the refugees.

  424

  Phugades from Mytilene and other cities on Lesbos, who had presumably fled from the island when Athens imposed a severe settlement on it after putting down the revolt in 427, sought to restore themselves to power “by seeking to subdue the Aeolian cities on the mainland.” They were eventually defeated by the Athenians when attempting to fortify Antandrus (Thuc. 3.50, 4.52.2, 4.75.1). We never hear of them again. The Athenians destroyed Thyrea and deported all the Aeginetans living there to Athens. They then slew them “on account of their previous long-standing hatred” (Thuc. 4.56.2–57; see chapter 5). The Athenians removed “a few” of the inhabitants of Cythera whom they considered untrustworthy and settled them “in the islands” (Thuc. 4.57.4). The dunatoi of Leontini, with the aid of the Syracusans, expelled the dêmos (Thuc. 5.4.2–4; see chapter 5).

  424/3

  The Spartan general Brasidas, having taken Amphipolis, proclaimed that those Athenians and Amphipolitans who did not wish to remain in the polis had five days to depart and could take their property with them (Thuc. 4.105.2). We are not told how many took up the offer nor where they went.

  422

  The Athenians expelled the Delians from their island, maintaining that “when they had been consecrated as a sacred people they had been impure because of an ancient offence” (Thuc. 5.1). The Persian satrap Pharnaces permitted the deportees to settle in Adramyttium (modern Adramyti) in the region called Mysia on the coast of Turkey. (For possible motives behind Pharnaces’ action, see Hornblower [2004, 423–24].) The following year the Athenians restored the Delians to their island, “stirred to do so by their reverses and by an oracle of the god at Delphi” (5.32.1). Not all the refugees returned, however, for in 411 “the chief men among them,” who were still living in Persia, were enticed out of Adramyttium by Arsaces, lieutenant of Tissaphernes, Pharnaces’ successor. Tissaphernes laid an ambush for them while they were at dinner and had them all slaughtered (8.108.4). It is with this incident that Thucydides’ history breaks off. The dunatoi in Leontini, with the assistance of the Syracusans, expelled the dêmos, laid waste their city, and migrated to Syracuse. Later, not finding conditions in Syracuse to their liking, they withdrew from the city, came to terms with “the majority of the exiled people,” and established themselves between a part of Leontini called Phocaeae and a neighboring settlement called Bricinniae (Thuc. 5.4.2–4).

  417

  The dêmos of Argos overthrew the oligoi by “slaughtering some of their opponents and exiling others.” The oligarchic phugades were received by the people of Phlius, a polis in the northwest Argolid, whose territory the Argives plundered shortly afterward “because they had received their exiles.” The following year the exiles, now allied to the Phliasians, ambushed the Argives when they invaded Phlius. In the winter of 416/5 the Spartans settled the Argive exiles at Orneae by appropriating some of the territory that was owned by the Orneatae. They then made the Orneatae and the Argive exiles undertake a truce not to harm each other’s territory. Soon afterward, however, the Athenians and the Argives began besieging Orneae. The exiles managed to escape by night, and we never hear of them again (Thuc. 5.82.2, 5.83.3, 5.115.1, 6.7.1).

  416/5

  Alcibiades seized 300 pro-Spartan Argives and deported them “to nearby islands under Athenian control” (Thuc. 5.84.1). The deportees were massacred by the Argives the following year with the connivance of the Athenians (6.61.3). The Athenians sailed with some Macedonian phugades who had bee
n residing in Athens to Methone and plundered the coastline of Macedonia (Thuc. 6.7.3). It is unclear why the refugees were residing in Athens.

  415

  The inhabitants of Thurii expelled those who were hostile to the Athenians in advance of the arrival of the Athenian expedition in Sicily (Thuc. 7.33.5).

  412

  The dêmos of Samos executed about 200 of the dunatôtatoi and banished 400 others. They appropriated their land and houses (Thuc. 8.21; cf. IG I3 96).

  407

  The Athenian commander Thrasybulus expelled Spartan sympathizers from Thasos and partly resettled the island with Athenian citizens (Xen. Hell. 1.1.32; 1.4.9).

  405

  As a reward for their loyalty, the Athenians granted citizenship to “all the Samians who stood by the demos of the Athenians” (ML 94 = Fornara 166). We do not know how many Samians accepted the offer and migrated to Athens.

  404/3

  At the end of the Peloponnesian War the Spartans decreed that all Athenian exiles should immediately return to Athens and be subject to the Thirty Tyrants (Xen. Hell. 2.2.23; see chapters 5 and 11). Following Athens’s defeat the Samians capitulated to the Spartan navarch Lysander on condition that “every free person should depart with only a single cloak” (Xen. Hell. 2.3.6). An Athenian decree dated 403/2 commends the people of Ephesus and Notus “for having welcomed warmly [those of the] Samians who were in exile” (Tod 97.8 = Harding 5). Probably some of the deportees migrated to Athens (see Shipley 1978, endnote I, for evidence of Samians resident in Attica at this time). Rather than a mass expulsion from Samos, we should perhaps be thinking of “a lopping-off of the highest ears of corn” (Shipley 1978, 132–33). “More than half of Athens’ population” fled from Athens to the Piraeus to escape the violence of the Thirty Tyrants (D.S.14.5.7). The Thirty Tyrants compelled “more than 5,000 Athenian citizens to take refuge in the Piraeus” (Isoc. 7.67).