Wandering Greeks

Most classical authors and modern historians depict the ancient Greek world as essentially stable and even static, once the so-called colonization movement came to an end. But Robert Garland argues that the Greeks were highly mobile, that their movement was essential to the survival, success, and sheer sustainability of their society, and that this wandering became a defining characteristic of their culture. Addressing a neglected but essential subject, Wandering Greeks focuses on the diaspora of tens of thousands of people between about 700 and 325 BCE, demonstrating the degree to which Greeks were liable to be forced to leave their homes due to political upheaval, oppression, poverty, warfare, or simply a desire to better themselves.

Attempting to enter into the mind-set of these wanderers, the book provides an insightful and sympathetic account of what it meant for ancient Greeks to part from everyone and everything they held dear, to start a new life elsewhere-or even to become homeless, living on the open road or on the high seas with no end to their journey in sight. Each chapter identifies a specific kind of "wanderer," including the overseas settler, the deportee, the evacuee, the asylum-seeker, the fugitive, the economic migrant, and the itinerant, and the book also addresses repatriation and the idea of the "portable polis." The result is a vivid and unique portrait of ancient Greece as a culture of displaced persons.

Auteur
Robert Garland is the Roy D. and Margaret B. Wooster Professor of the Classics at Colgate University. His many books include The Eye of the Beholder: Deformity and Disability in the Graeco-Roman World and The Greek Way of Death.

Contenu

List of Illustrations xi
List of Maps xiii
Preface xv

1. Prolegomena 1
2. The Wanderer 15
3. The Settler 34
4. The Portable Polis 57
5. The Deportee 79
6. The Evacuee 99
7. The Asylum-Seeker114
8. The Fugitive 131
9. The Economic Migrant 150
10. The Itinerant 167
11. Repatriation 181
    Conclusions 197
    Envoi 205
    Further Reading 207
    A. The Terminology of Diaspora 239
    B. Catalogue of Athenian Cleruchies and Colonies 244
    C. Catalogue of Deportees 253
    D. Catalogue of Exiles 264
    E. Catalogue of the Enslaved 271
    Chronology 279
    Glossary 283
    Bibliography 287
    Index of Personal Names 301
    Index of Place Names 305
    Index of Sources 309
    General Index 317