Wandering Greeks (32 page)

The Tegean decree made a distinction between (1) daughters and widows who had gone into exile with their fathers and husbands but who had returned after their fathers and husbands had died, and (2) daughters and widows who had remained in exile after the latter's death and were only now returning. The former group, having already had their marriages annulled, were to be treated preferentially, and had already, it seems, been permitted to inherit their former husbands' property; the latter group, however, were to be subject to investigation regarding their entitlement to inherit (ll. 49–56).

Given the limited nature of written records, many disputes must have come down to verbal claims about ownership. The lawyers, or rather the speechwriters, must have had a field day trying to settle all the claims. Violence no doubt occurred when the previous owner was forced to evict the family that had taken possession of his property. Many of those who were evicted may even have found themselves homeless—hardly a recipe for amicable relations.

For the sixty days following the promulgation of this decree, a “court composed of foreigners” in nearby Mantinea was to adjudicate the settlement of disputes (ll. 24–36), evidently because it was thought more likely to exercise impartiality than a court composed of Tegean citizens. To alleviate tensions, the decree ends with an oath taken in the name of Zeus, Athena, Apollo, and Poseidon, in which the citizenry promises “to be well disposed toward the returning exiles … and not to bear a grudge against any of them” (ll. 58–60)—a pious hope if ever there was one and one that reminds us that when returnees reconnect with their former friends, communities, and ancestors, much pain and anger will come to the fore, since “there is no such thing as a genuine,
uncomplicated return to one's home” (Edward Said, quoted in Long and Oxfeld 2004, 15).

The Exiles' Decree represented a flagrant violation of the cherished autonomy of the Greek city-states. That autonomy had been enshrined in the charter of the League of Corinth, established by Philip II after the Battle of Chaeronea, which Alexander had pledged to honor. He had certainly interfered in the inner workings of individual cities on previous occasions, but this was on an unprecedented scale. Evidently he no longer cared to mask his contempt for public sentiment. To make matters worse it was around this time that he either requested or demanded that the Greeks recognize him as a god. Hardly surprisingly, some six months later a number of cities sent ambassadors to his court to present arguments against the return of exiles. Diodorus tells us that Alexander “did his best to send all of them away satisfied” (17.113.4). What exactly this amounted to is anyone's guess. We do know, however, that some states were successful in petitioning to introduce changes in line with their individual circumstances. The decree from Tegea, for instance, states explicitly in the introduction that it was promulgated “in accordance with corrections that were made by the city-state regarding issues in the
diagramma
(regulation) to which objection had been made” (ll 2–4).

In conclusion, though the Exiles' Decree addressed a very great social evil, it would be naïve to assume that a humane concern for the welfare of his subjects featured remotely in Alexander's thoughts, as some modern commentators have suggested. It is equally clear, too, that Alexander never thought through the devastating practical consequences of this measure for the recipients of the exiles—or that if he did, decided he had little choice but to propose their return.

The Return of the Samians

We may well wonder how many exiles returned to their homes as a result of Alexander's decree. Diodorus's claim that “most Greeks welcomed the exiles” seems highly improbable. Clearly many Greeks would have
deeply resented the turmoil that their return occasioned, particularly those who had to relinquish their residences. The most vigorous protest came from the Athenians, who were required to give up an important overseas possession (18.8.6).

In 365 the Athenians had conquered Samos and expelled its population. Four years later they established a cleruchy on the island, composed exclusively of Athenian citizens. Then in 324, acting on the advice of one of his generals, Gorgus of Iasus, Alexander announced to his army that he was “giving Samos back to the Samians.” It was an evocative turn of phrase and one calculated to earn the goodwill of exiles everywhere, especially those who were serving in his army. Gorgus's goodwill toward the Samians went further. He took it upon himself, presumably with the agreement of his
polis
, to proclaim that Iasus would cover the travel expenses of the returning exiles. We learn this from an inscription passed by the Samian
dêmos
some time between 334 and 321, honoring him and his brother Minnion for the services they had rendered to the exiles (
SIG
³
312.20–23, rev. Heisserer [1980, 184–86] = Rhodes and Osborne 70).

The Athenians had probably heard of Alexander's promise to the Samians shortly before the promulgation of the Exiles' Decree. Being “in no way willing to give Samos up,” they promptly sent a delegation to Alexander, hoping to make him change his mind. The Samians meanwhile had taken Alexander at his word, and a number of them now crossed from the mainland, where they had been living, to Samos. Learning this, the Athenian
dêmos
ordered the general in charge of the island to round them all up and send them back to Athens to stand trial. On their arrival, they were imprisoned and sentenced to death. We learn of these events from a decree honoring a certain Antileon of Chalcis for his support in securing their release (Habicht 1957, no. 1).

When Alexander died in 323, the Athenians promptly revolted from Macedonian rule. They did so largely because of their resentment at his interference in their internal affairs. Though the origins of the so-called Lamian War that gives its name to the revolt can be traced back to Alexander's execution of his court historian Callisthenes of Olynthus in 327, it is fair to state that hostility toward the Exiles' Decree played a
major part. The Roman historian Curtius (first or second century CE) tells us that the Athenians claimed that Alexander's objective had been to repatriate “a cesspool of social orders and people” and that they “preferred to tolerate anything rather than receive back what was once the filth of their own city, and was now the filth of their place of exile” (10.2.6).

Perdiccas, who succeeded to the throne on Alexander's death, upheld the ruling in favor of the Samians. Athens was eventually defeated and the Samians returned home in 322/1, “after an exile that had lasted 43 years” (D.S. 18.18.9). It must have been a profoundly emotional occasion, especially if there was a handful of elderly survivors among the returnees. Given the lapse of time, however, most of those who repossessed the island would have been the sons, if not the grandsons, of the original exiles.
¹

Very likely the Athenian cleruchs living on Samos fought tooth and nail for what they, too, saw as their homeland (Shipley 1987, 168). After all, most of them had lived their entire lives on the island. We do not know what reception they received when they returned “home.” Habicht (1966, 401) estimated that the number of cleruchs who were displaced was equivalent to “almost a third of all adult male citizens of Athens.” For them, too, it was a humanitarian crisis—and for us one more whose details elude us.

¹
One of the refugees was the philosopher Epicurus, who eventually founded the philosophical school known as “the Garden,” where he and his followers lived in seclusion. As Paul Cartledge has suggested to me, his desire for seclusion may have been a response to the violence that his parents had experienced as refugees.

CONCLUSIONS

Targeted by Death Squads, Raped by Soldiers, Tortured by the State; More Than 40 Million People around the World Have Been Forced out of Their Homes and into Exile.

—GUARDIAN WEEKLY (JANUARY 11, 2013)

Horrific events, comparable to the preceding, occurred repeatedly in the Greek world. Yet terrible though the sufferings of the Greeks were, the thesis of this investigation has been that migration, displacement, and relocation, both forced and voluntary, were central to the survival, viability, and (it necessarily follows) phenomenal success of Greek societies. Though population movements in antiquity were for the most part modest by modern standards, many were large in proportion to the total population. In fact they were a persistent feature of daily life, often with devastating consequences for those who were dislocated.

A major problem throughout this survey has been the imprecision of the Greek language, which in important ways fails to distinguish between different types of migrants. The wanderer was none the less central and integral to hellenic identity, witness Homer's
Odyssey
and Xenophon's
Anabasis
. For a variety of reasons, still keenly debated, from the second half of the eighth century to the end of the sixth the
polis
exported a sizable proportion of its population. The desire to extend the frontiers of trade, obtain resources or land, escape famine or destitution, or simply fulfill one's human potential, were among the leading factors. When compelled to do so, moreover, the Greeks were fully capable of putting their roofs on their backs and moving an entire population
elsewhere. Flexibility was a necessary part of the Greek, or rather Mediterranean,
mentalité
, though the Greeks were among the leaders in mobility. Both to head off civil strife and to safeguard their interests, political factions and tyrants regularly deported their opponents.

Of the many thousands who became homeless in the Greek world, a few could seek shelter, either temporarily or permanently, through
asulia
and
xenia
, though to what extent either institution did much to alleviate the hardship of the average refugee or migrant is questionable. In wartime those living in unprotected areas sought shelter inside a walled city, thereby engendering disease and fomenting social and political unrest. A number of individuals either went into enforced exile or took to their heels to escape vengeance-seekers or the law. Excepting those with powerful connections abroad, theirs was a daily battle for survival. Slaves, too, occasionally found freedom in flight, though with what frequency or success is impossible to determine. Itinerants and economic migrants were a prominent feature of the Greek landscape from the archaic period onward. They took to the footpaths (there were scarcely any roads to speak of) or to the high seas, motivated primarily by ambition or a taste for adventure. No itinerant was more ubiquitous than the mercenary, whose numbers proliferated in the fourth century.

If anything, the situation may well have deteriorated in the period covered by this survey, with an increasing number of vagrants and out-of-work mercenaries threatening to destabilize the Greek world. To what extent Alexander the Great, who certainly added to the problem, was able to arrest it, is impossible to determine. Finally, as is true of émigrés in all periods of history, the yearning to return to one's homeland remained a vivid and haunting dream. When realized, however, it would often produce serious tensions within the community that sometimes resulted in civil discord.

Unsurprisingly Athens presents a case study that is often exceptional and sometimes unique. The
polis
sent out few overseas settlements until it acquired its empire in the fifth century, when it employed cleruchies and the like partly as a way of exercising control over regions that were critical to its security. Athens also relocated its population from the countryside to the city during both the Persian and the Peloponnesian
wars. The state accommodated a far larger population of immigrants than any other
polis
. It employed ostracism seemingly as a way to defuse
stasis
and thereby to eliminate the need for mass deportation. The amnesty that initiated the return of its exiles in 401/400, following the civil war that had seen the overthrow of the Thirty, was exemplary.

In conclusion, it is hardly any exaggeration to state that the brilliance of Greek civilization was predicated in part upon the shiftlessness of its population. Being Greek meant facing the prospect of being displaced at some point in one's life without any certainty of return. Praxithea's comment in Euripides' lost play
Erechtheus
that the populations of all Greeks cities (with the exception of Athens) were “distributed in the same way as by the throw of the dice” is
au point
(50.7–10 Austin). It was also the case that the mobility of the Greeks, and the spirit of adaptability that this bred inside them, encouraged the construction of panhellenic institutions and fostered cultural homogeneity. Greece in sum was a civilization of displaced persons.
¹

¹
All this said, we should not overlook the fact that the Greeks were merely “one of many actors playing a role within an extensive network of communications spanning the Mediterranean” (Hall 2002, 92). This is the underlying premise to Horden and Purcell's
The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean History
(2000). It is also the case that the inbred nature of the
polis
hampered the Greeks from capitalizing on the full potential of their diaspora. As Purcell (1990, 58) eloquently puts it, “The success that came with the currents of Mediterranean mobility was reserved for the people whose first community of shepherds grew by the addition of vagabonds and runaways, which preyed on more stable and involuted neighbours for the procreative resource, and whose first leaders were reared on the milk of the roving wolf.”

—καὶ μακρὸς Ὄλυμπος.
—and lofty Olympus.

HOM.
IL
. 15.193

He rests. He has travelled.

—JAMES JOYCE,
ULYSSES

ENVOI

This investigation has raised numerous questions that I have been unable to answer adequately, owing to lack of evidence.
¹
The following are some of the most compelling.