Wandering Greeks (28 page)

¹
For discussion of the terms
astos
and
politês
, both commonly translated “citizen” see Cohen (2000, 62-63 with n. 84).

10
THE ITINERANT

Itinerants in Archaic Greece

Outside the confines of the city walls a very different life existed, one beset by all manner of danger, yet one too that held out the tantalizing possibility of reward. Odysseus, though eager to return home, tells the Phaeacians, “If you were to suggest that I remain here for a year—on condition that you provide me with an escort home and furnish me with splendid gifts—I should be willing to do that, since it would be much better for me to return home with my hands amply filled” (
Od.
11.356–59). Returning home with one's hands “amply filled” was the reason, too, to become an itinerant. It was a lifestyle to which many different entrepreneurial individuals were committed—peddlers, trinket vendors, seers, bards, physicians, merchants, entertainers, prostitutes, and others whose skills or commodities were in high demand, not to mention brigands, footpads, pirates, and the like. Markets, fairs, and festivals would have provided the ideal venue for the sale of their wares or the hire of their talents. In later times intellectuals became itinerants. Journeymen, too, filled their ranks, as did transhumance pastoralists. By far the largest group, however, were the mercenaries.

Itinerants are differentiated from the economic migrants whom we investigated in the previous chapter by virtue of the fact that they regularly moved from one place to another, some making only a brief stop, others staying a month or more. Some might have a home to which they periodically returned, others presumably did not. Even so, their lifestyle had points in common with that of the migrant, which is why it deserves inclusion in this study. The ubiquity of itinerants in the
Greek world, as Purcell (1990, 44) has noted, is a reflection of the relative scarcity of the human resource in the Mediterranean world.

The earliest evidence occurs in the
Odyssey
, where we learn of a group of highly valued itinerants whose reputations were such that they are “invited from the ends of the earth”—a turn of phrase that already in Homer's day meant from south Italy and Sicily to Asia Minor. They include “seers, healers of ills, builders in wood, and bards,” among whom we should of course number Homer himself (17.382–86). The noun that Homer uses to describe this specialized group is
dêmiourgos
, which literally means “one who works for the community or the
dêmos.”

This brief mention of
dêmiourgoi
leaves many questions unanswered. How and by whom were they remunerated? Did they receive a fixed income? Were they available for hire by each family in the community or were they “invited” (and reimbursed) at the bidding of the entire community? Did they move from place to place according to a fixed annual schedule or did they come and go either as they pleased or as the “invitation” went out? Who made up the majority of their clients? If they were employed by the
dêmos
, as their name suggests, what was their relationship with the aristocracy?

As long-distance travel became more common, the reputations of a few highly gifted individuals became widespread, as Herodotus makes clear. A few examples will serve. Arion of Lesbos was credited with transforming the dithyramb, a song in honor of the god Dionysus, into a vehicle for avant-garde musical showmanship. Having performed at the court of Periander tyrant of Corinth, Arion visited Italy and Sicily, where he earned a considerable fortune before returning to Corinth—famously on the back of a musically inclined dolphin after he dove into the Aegean to escape pirates (1.24.1). The physician Democedes of Croton, who acquired expertise in treating injured athletes, was wooed successively by Aegina, Athens, and Samos, his salary increasing each time he moved, before he was captured and pressed into service by the Persian king Darius I (3.131). Several other renowned Greek physicians practiced medicine at the Persian court, including Apollonides of Cos, Ctesias of Cnidus, and Polycritus of Mende. Though Democedes and Apollonides both owed their appointment to the fact that they were
taken prisoner, their reputations, like those of Ctesias and Polycritus, no doubt preceded them. Underlying many such stories (Arion's included) is the dangers that beset itinerancy.

In wartime all Greek travelers, itinerants included, would have been at grave risk. When at the outset of the Peloponnesian War some Peloponnesian ambassadors were passing through Thrace on their way to solicit help from the Persians, the Thracian king handed them over to some Athenians who happened to be at his court. The latter escorted them to Athens, where upon arrival they were summarily executed and their bodies cast into a pit (Thuc. 2.6).

Itinerants in Classical Greece

Dêmiourgoi
remained a feature of the classical landscape. Given the increase in population from the archaic period, they would have become much more numerous. They are also the first celebrities whose reputations owed nothing to either birth or privilege.

Homer's classification of itinerants begins with
manteis
(seers) or charismatic religious specialists, as we might call them.
Manteis
comprised both women and men, traveled extensively, and sometimes received high honors. Teisamenus of Elis, for instance, was granted Spartan citizenship for his services as a military seer—virtually a unique privilege in that closed society (Hdt. 9.35.1). Though it no doubt helped to be able to trace one's lineage back several generations to a legendary diviner, all one actually needed to set oneself up in business was a collection of prophecies. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that some
manteis
abused their position of trust. One such was Thrasyllus of Siphnos, who, after being bequeathed a set of scrolls by a childless seer called Polemaenetus, “became an itinerant, passed his time in many cities, and had intimate relations with several women, some of whom gave birth to children he never recognized as legitimate.” Having acquired a fortune abroad, he returned home to Siphnos, where he became its wealthiest citizen (Isoc. 19.5–9). In the absence of what we would call today “quality control,” fraudulence must have been rife within the
profession. Oedipus's taunting of the blind seer Teiresias for having “eyes only for profit” no doubt drew appreciative nods from some members of Sophocles' audience (
OT
380–89; cf.
Ant
. 1033–47). Plato, too, was scathing toward the profession, castigating “
agurtai
[begging priests] and
manteis
who go to the houses of rich men and persuade them that they hold power from the gods by virtue of their sacrifices and spells” (
Rep
. 2.364b).

Rhapsodes or song-stitchers, probably so-named because they provided extempore performances, were also perpetually on the move, competing for prizes at public festivals. Plato's
Ion
is named for a famous rhapsode from Ephesus who tells Socrates at the beginning of the dialogue that he has just arrived in Athens from Epidaurus. Ion has won first prize in the quadrennial games held in honor of the healing god Asclepius and is confident that he will be equally successful in the forthcoming Panathenaic Games. The ubiquity of rhapsodes throughout the Greek world is indicated by the claim of one aficionado that he listened to their recitations “almost every day” (Xen.
Symp
. 3.6). From the fourth century onward, actors also traveled widely, often specializing in set-piece renditions, such as Timotheus of Zacynthus, who became famed for his memorable rendition of Ajax's suicide (Sch.
ad
Soph.
Ajax
864).

A number of big-name sophists were itinerants, delivering public lectures and offering formal instruction to students, for which they were handsomely rewarded. They include Protagoras of Abdera, Gorgias of Leontini, Hippias of Elis, and Thrasymachus of Chalcedon. Though Athens was their primary venue, it was by no means their only destination. Hippias of Elis, for instance, claimed to have earned twenty
minae
—a very considerable sum of money—by lecturing to the inhabitants of a small Sicilian village (Pl.
Hp. Ma
. 282e). Sophists made appearances at the Panhellenic games, and it may well be that something akin to the modern lecture circuit was established by the middle of the fifth century. Though the length of their sojourn in any one place varied, it is likely that those at the top of their profession were constantly on the move. Philosophers were also in high demand. Diogenes the
Cynic is known to have visited Megara, Myndus, Samothrace, Olympia, Sparta, Delphi, as well as Athens (D.L. 6.41, 57, 59–60). They were often accompanied by an admiring group of pupils, as we know from the fact that Aeneas Tacticus recommended keeping a register of foreigners who were resident “for education or any other purpose” (10.10).

Celebrity dramatists became the equivalent of present-day artists-in-residence at prestigious universities. Aeschylus accepted an invitation from the tyrant Hieron I of Syracuse in ca. 476 to visit his court and write a play in celebration of the foundation of Aetna (see earlier,
chapter 5
;
Vit. Aes
. 8–11). Euripides'
Andromache
(dated 425) received its first performance abroad, no doubt with the poet in attendance (Sch.
ad
l. 445). Later Euripides visited Magnesia in Thessaly, where he was treated as an honored guest. Toward the end of his life he accepted an invitation to reside at the court of Archelaus, king of Macedon, where he wrote a lost play called
Archelaus
, which sought to justify the king's shaky dynastic claim to the throne. He remained in Macedon until his death two or three years later (
Vit. Eur
. 21–25).

Last, sculptors and other kinds of artists were itinerants. The Athenian Phidias, who was the most celebrated sculptor of his generation, undertook important commissions both at Delphi and Olympia. And when a famous sculptor like Lysippus of Sicyon undertook one of his many commissions abroad it is natural to suppose that he was accompanied by a small army of apprentices. Noteworthy, too, is the ethnic diversity of the craftsmen who worked on the temple of Asclepius at Epidaurus in the 370s. The chryselephantine statue was the product of ivory workers from Aegina, Ephesus, and Sicyon; of stonemasons from Athens and Corinth; of joiners from Corinth; and of a painter from Corinth. The workforce that constructed the temple consisted of Argives, Athenians, and Corinthians (Burford 1969, 199). And when the city of Thebes was rebuilt in 316 following its destruction by Alexander the Great some twenty years earlier, it was masons from Athens who constructed “the greater portion of its walls,” and Greeks from cities in Sicily and Italy who erected buildings “to the extent of their ability” (D.S. 19.54.2).

Long-Distance Traders

From the twelfth to the eighth centuries, trade in the Greek world had contracted sharply, almost to the point of extinction. It revived in the eighth century, as we learn both from Homer and archaeology. At the beginning of the
Odyssey
we encounter Mentes, the lord of the Taphians—actually the goddess Athena in disguise—who has disembarked on Ithaca in search of bronze while en route for Temese with a cargo of iron ingots (1.184). Neither Taphus nor Temese is mentioned elsewhere in Greek literature, so we do not know how far Mentes sailed with his cargo before landing on Ithaca nor how far away is his destination, but perhaps that is Homer's point—these were places off the map.

The Homeric poems lead us to suppose that most long-distance traders were Phoenicians. As Finley (2002, 67) noted, there is no word for “trader” in Homeric Greek. To be a Phoenician meant in effect being either a trader or a pirate. When Nestor greets Telemachus at Pylos, he says, “Strangers, who are you? Where do you come from along the sea lanes? Are you traveling for trade? Or are you roaming like pirates?” (
Od
. 3.71–74; cf. 9.252–55). It is, however, tendentious, to see these two “vocations,” as we might call them, as mutually exclusive. On the contrary, many traders would have engaged in piracy when the opportunity offered itself. As scholars have regularly noted, both trading and piracy are forms of redistribution. Given their close association with piracy, it is hardly surprising that the Phoenicians constituted a byword for greed (Od. 14.288–89; 15.415–16). The prejudice they experienced subsequently extended to merchants in general and to Greek merchants in particular. It was partly for this reason that wealth accruing from land ownership was judged superior to wealth that had been acquired from (dubious) commercial undertakings.

The contribution that mercantile itinerants made to Greek civilization can hardly be overestimated, however. It was largely due to them that the overseas settlement movement was so successful, that the Greeks became literate, and that their culture became informed and enriched by other cultures. And if for no other reason merchants were to be admired for their enterprise. Herodotus clearly admired Sostratus of
Aegina (ca. 600), whom he describes as the wealthiest trader of his day (4.152.3). Sostratus's trading activities took him from the Aegean Sea to Etruria. His voyage may have been facilitated by the
diolkos
(stone slipway) that was used for dragging ships across the Isthmus of Corinth between the Saronic and Corinthian gulfs, though we do not know the exact date of its construction. His name (or that of his namesake) turns up in an inscription dated to the late sixth or early fifth century on a stone anchor that was dedicated to Apollo at Gravisca in Etruria (Demetriou 2012, 64 with fig. 4). Long-distance traders who transported their wares by sea would mostly have confined their activity to the period from late spring to early autumn. Presumably they remained at home in the winter months or in a port that passed for home.

Pirates and Brigands

Pirates and brigands have been described as “a normal manifestation of Mediterranean production and redistribution” and “a systematic epiphenomenon of connectivity, suppressed by powerful states only for brief periods in Mediterranean history” (Horden and Purcell 2000, 387). Known as
leïstai
or
leïsteres
, they are prominent in the Homeric poems. They frequently traveled long distances in search of plunder, not only stealing movable property but also abducting women and children. Eumaeus, Odysseus's faithful swineherd in the
Odyssey
, is himself a victim of human trafficking. Descended from royal stock, he was abducted by Phoenician raiders while still a child (15.403–484). Odysseus's former nurse Eurycleia, who seems to have been of good birth, was presumably trafficked (1.429). So, too, going back one more generation, was Eumaeus's former Sidonian nurse (15.42–29). In “real life” women and children who were trafficked would have been forced to provide sexual services.