Wandering Greeks (5 page)

To wander without end in sight was the fate of Leto, when, pregnant with Apollo and Artemis and pursued by Hera, she roamed the Mediterranean in the hope of finding somewhere to give birth, before eventually the island of Delos welcomed her (
Hom. h. Ap.
30–50). The unburied Patroclus describes himself as having to “wander pointlessly around the wide gates of Hades”—an eschatological view that retained its force in classical times (Hom.
Il
. 23.74; cf. Eur.
Suppl
. 62).

The world evoked by the
Odyssey
further testifies to the bleakness that beset persons of no fixed abode. Consider Odysseus's expression of gratitude to the swineherd Eumaeus for granting him shelter under his roof (15.341–45):

I wish, Eumaeus, that you could be as dear to Zeus the father as you are to me for having called a halt to my
alê
[wandering] and my dreadful sorrow. No life is worse for mortals than
planktosunê
[roaming]. Even so, because of crippling hunger men have to endure grievous hardship, when wandering and pain and sorrow come upon them.

What further increased the misery of the vagrant was the fact that he aroused mistrust. In particular he was regarded as someone who was prepared to invent any rigmarole to earn a crust of bread. As Eumaeus had earlier pointed out, “
Alêtai
[wanderers] in need of provisions randomly tell lies and have no interest in telling the truth” (14.124–25). Odysseus's yearning to return home should thus be seen against the background of his despised identity as a wanderer. He resembles Menelaus, who “returned from people he could not have expected to return from, after being driven off course to a place so far across the deep that not even birds return from it in the same year” (3.319–22). Not for nothing, therefore, when he is making his way to the palace of the Phaeacian king Alcinoüs, had Athena advised him, “Don't look at anyone or ask anyone any questions. For they don't easily put up with strangers” (7.31–32). The fact that Odysseus was hospitably received by the Phaeacians despite his unprepossessing appearance and abject neediness is one among many signs that he has ventured into fairyland. In short the Greeks of Homer's age were in no doubt as to the dangers and discomforts of homelessness.
¹

Lyric and Elegiac Poetry

The Spartan elegiac poet Tyrtaeus (mid-seventh century), some of whose compositions are thought to have been recited during military campaigns, perhaps even in the immediate lead-up to a battle, contrasted the wretched condition of the man who has been driven from his homeland after his city has fallen with the valiant hoplite who sacrifices his life (fr. 10
IEG
):

It is good for a good man to fall and die fighting in the front ranks for his native land, whereas to leave one's city-state and rich fields and be a beggar is the most wretched condition of all, being a wanderer with one's
dear mother and aged father and little children and wedded wife. For he is hateful to everyone whom he approaches, being bound to neediness and hateful poverty. He disgraces his lineage and betrays his good looks. Since there is no consideration, no honor, no respect, and no pity for a man who is a wanderer, let us fight with courage for our land and die for our children and never spare our lives.

In other words, the exile is stripped of everything that makes life worthwhile. His disgrace is compounded by the fact that he is publicly deemed to be a coward. Here as elsewhere Tyrtaeus is exhorting the Spartans to risk their lives in battle, using as blackmail, so to speak, the wretchedness of a wanderer's life, which includes destitution for all his dependents.

Exile features in the work of the lyric poet Alcaeus of Mytilene, who was driven from his home on the island of Lesbos in ca. 600 as a result of political unrest. Alcaeus's comments appear in poems that were intended for delivery at a symposium or drinking party, and as such may well have had a political and/or educational function. The relevant lines appear to be autobiographical, though we cannot dismiss the possibility that he has adopted an imaginary persona. In one of them Alcaeus appeals to the triad of Zeus, Hera, and Dionysus “to save us from these labors and painful exile” (fr. 129.11–12 Campbell). In another he articulates his despair to a friend as follows (fr. 130B 1–9 Campbell):

I poor wretch live the lot of a rustic, longing to hear the assembly being summoned, Agesilaidas, and the council: the property in possession of which my father and my father's father have grown old among these mutually destructive citizens, from it I have been driven, an exile at the back of beyond … (trans. Campbell).

The corpus that is ascribed to the elegiac poet Theognis of Megara (ca. 640–540?) also includes references to an exile's lot. Though it is possible that Theognis was forced from his homeland, the verses supporting this supposition, in which he claims that “other men possess my flourishing fields,” are corrupt (ll. 1197–1202
IEG
). Earlier in the
collection he speaks with feeling about the isolation that a homeless person faces (ll. 209–210
IEG
):

To be sure, no-one is a friend and trustworthy companion to one who is a
pheugôn
[exile]. This fact is more painful than
phugê
[exile] itself.

Elsewhere, however, he warns his friend Cyrnus to steer clear of such people (ll. 333–34
IEG
):

Never be friends with a man in exile, Cyrnus, looking to the future. Once he returns home, he won't be the same man at all.

Tyrtaeus's gripe is that exiles try to ingratiate themselves to advance their own interests. But once they no longer need your services, their promises will quickly be forgotten.

Finally, these lines written by the Athenian elegiac poet and lawgiver Solon strike a decidedly and deliberately poignant note (fr. 36.8–12
IEG
):

I brought back many people to Athens, back to their homeland that was founded by the gods. Some of them had been sold legally, others illegally, still others had fled through compelling necessity. They no longer spoke the Attic tongue, as is the case when men wander in all directions.

We should bear in mind that Solon composed these lines in order to depict himself as an enlightened reformer who did outstanding service on behalf of his compatriots. The suggestion that the returnees had forgotten their mother tongue can only have been true of those who were children at the time of their departure.

Tragedy

The solitary wanderer features in tragedy. In Aeschylus's
Prometheus
we are told, evocatively, that Zeus has “thrown” her wanderings at Io for
having rejected his advances (l. 738). When Oedipus discovers the horrific nature of the crimes he has committed, he repeatedly asks Creon to grant his request to become
apolis
(without a city) (Soph.
OT
1381–82, 1440–41, 1518). We never discover whether Creon agrees to this, notwithstanding the fact that Apollo's oracle had previously ordered “the expulsion of the unholy one” (ll. 96–98). Euripides reverses the picture. The last scene of the
Phoenician Women
is devoted to Creon's banishment of Oedipus, which he administers in accordance with the seer Teiresias's pronouncement that the city will not prosper so long as he resides in it (ll. 1589–94). In response, Oedipus describes the awfulness of such a fate for someone like himself, who is blind, elderly, and without anyone to attend him. “If you expel me, you will kill me,” he states flatly (l. 1621). Even so, his dignity prevents him from supplicating Creon to reverse his decision. His daughter Antigone, who was betrothed to Creon's son Haemon, condemns Creon for the hubris he has perpetrated against her father and then accompanies him into exile. “Banishment with a blind father is a disgrace,” Oedipus warns her (l. 1691). “Miserable sufferings await you far from your homeland and the prospect of death in exile,” Antigone responds, undeterred (ll. 1734–36). In Euripides'
Bacchae
, whose ending is known only from a twelfth-century Medieval adaptation titled
Christus Patiens
, Dionysus banishes Agave and her sisters from Thebes on the grounds that they have become polluted murderers through the killing of Pentheus.

Only once in tragedy does an exile describe his experiences abroad. This occurs in an exchange between Polyneices and his mother Jocasta in Euripides'
Phoenician Women
. Polyneices has just returned to Thebes after having been exiled by his brother Eteocles. Eteocles had refused to give up the throne to him after a year as had been agreed, and Polyneices returns with the intention of wresting it from him. In the interim he had been living in Argos (ll. 387–406):

JOCASTA
: The first thing I want to know is what's it like to be deprived of one's city? Is it a terrible misfortune?

POLYNEICES
: It's the greatest misfortune—greater than can be put into words.

JOCASTA
: What's its character? What hardship befalls exiles?

POLYNEICES
: The worst is that you no longer have freedom of speech.

JOCASTA
: You mean you're a slave because you can't say what you're thinking?

POLYNEICES
: You have to endure the ignorance of those who have power over you.

JOCASTA
: This is indeed painful, to have to suffer in silence the stupidity of others.

POLYNEICES
: You have to act as a slave, against your nature, in order to make money….

JOCASTA
: Didn't your father's guest-friends give you assistance?

POLYNEICES
: They would if I'd have been wealthy. They don't do anything for you if you're not.

JOCASTA
: Your aristocratic birth didn't advance you socially?

POLYNEICES
: Not having any resources was the evil. My birth did not fill my belly.

JOCASTA
: It seems that one's fatherland is the dearest thing to mortal man.

Polyneices' remarks are an indictment of the evils of exile. As we shall see later, they were later used by philosophers, who refuted them point by point to demonstrate that exile was in fact a tolerable, even desirable condition for the man who is set on the path of enlightenment.

And yet Polyneices' fate is hardly that of the typical refugee, not least because he had the good fortune during his sojourn abroad to marry the daughter of Adrastus, the king of Argos. He thus speaks from a position of immense privilege, even though, being the citizen of a city-state that values freedom of speech, he bemoans the fact that he had to keep a close watch on his tongue. Having to work for his living was no less irksome to him. He says nothing, however, of the physical hardship endured by refugees, of which he presumably knows nothing. In short, Euripides presents Polyneices' experience from a highly privileged, Athenian perspective. This, we may note, contrasts sharply with Sophocles's portrayal of the elderly and blind exile Oedipus, who is almost pathologically fearful of being dishonored by anyone whom he encounters (
OC
49–50). Polyneices' most revealing statement is that his Argive guest-friends refused to lend him any assistance on account of his poverty—an interesting and no doubt realistic commentary on the limitations of charity in the Greek world even when the two parties were bound by ties of obligation.