Wandering Greeks (42 page)

ca. 770–750

BCE Al-Mina (modern name of the port, whose ancient name is unknown) is founded at the mouth of the Orontes River in Turkey, possibly as the first Greek
emporion
.

ca. 770

Pithecusae, the island of Ischia in the Bay of Naples, is established by Chalcidians and Eretrians as the earliest Greek overseas settlement in the west.

ca. 750–550

Approximate dates of the so-called Greek age of colonization.

ca. 650

A sizable number of Colophonians and other Ionians partially relocate to Siris in southern Italy.

ca. 621

The Athenian Alcmaeonid
genos
is exiled in perpetuity.

ca. 607/6

The Athenians make an abortive attempt to colonize Sigeum in the Troad.

ca. 555

Voluntary
émigrés
from Athens under Miltiades the Elder settle in the Thracian Chersonese.

ca. 545

The Phocaeans evacuate their city in order to avoid being enslaved by the Persians. A few years later they establish themselves at Elea on the west coast of Italy. The Teans partially relocate to Abdera.

494

The population of Miletus is massacred, enslaved, or resettled on the Erythraean Sea by the Persians.

487

Hipparchus is ostracized from Athens—the first victim of the process.

ca. 485

Gelon, tyrant of Gela, orders the mass transfer of the populations of Gela, Camarina, Megara Hyblaea, and Euboea to Syracuse.

480

The population of Athens is evacuated in advance of the Persian invasion under Xerxes. Themistocles threatens to relocate the
polis
to Siris in south Italy before the Battle of Salamis.

476

Hieron, tyrant of Syracuse, transplants the populations of Naxos and Catania to Leontini and refounds Catania as Aetna.

479

Following their defeat of Persia, the Greeks debate whether to abandon Ionia and resettle its entire population in the west.

ca. 470

Themistocles is ostracized from Athens.

465/4?

Athens sends out 10,000 settlers in a failed attempt to establish a settlement at Ennea Hodoi (Nine Ways). After several other failed attempts, in 437 they found a settlement nearby, which they name Amphipolis.

461

Acragas, Gela, and Himera receive back those exiled during the period of tyrannical rule and expel those who had wrongfully appropriated their dwellings.

457/6?

Athens settles in Naupactus the helots who had revolted from Sparta after the great earthquake.

446

The Athenians found the panhellenic colony of Thurii.

431

In advance of the Peloponnesian invasion Athens's rural population evacuates the countryside and shelters inside the city walls. The Athenians deport the Aeginetans and occupy their island.

429

When their city is being besieged by the Spartans and their allies, 212 Plataean refugees escape to Athens.

427

Megarian oligarchs go into voluntary (or perhaps enforced) exile.

426

The Spartans destroy Plataea. Plataean refugees are given Athenian citizenship.

424

Megarian democrats go into voluntary exile. The historian Thucydides goes into exile.

422

The aristocracy of Leontini, having deported the
dêmos
, migrates to Syracuse and is given citizenship.

ca. 417

Hyperbolus is ostracized from Athens—the last victim of the process.

411

Athens's interim oligarchic government, known as the Four Hundred, exiles a large number of its political opponents.

410/9

Oligarchs flee from Athens after the restoration of democracy in consequence of a decree permitting the killing of those who had participated in the overthrow of democracy by the Four Hundred.

409

The Himerans evacuate half their population on board triremes to Messene; many who cannot be accommodated are either slaughtered or enslaved by the Carthaginians.

406/5

Under siege from the Carthaginians, the people of Acragas are evacuated to Leontini, Syracuse, and southern Italy.

405

Dionysius I, future tyrant of Syracuse, evacuates the populations of Gela and Camarina.

405/4

The Athenians award citizenship to the Samians in recognition of their loyalty during the Peloponnesian War.

405–392

Dionysius I undertakes a mass relocation program in southeast Sicily involving the populations of 14
poleis
.

404

According to the peace treaty at the end of the Peloponnesian War, the Aeginetans, Melians, and Scionians, whom the Athenians had deported, are permitted to return to their homes. In addition, Athens is required to receive back all its exiles. Most of these are oligarchs, who had been exiled in 411–410. When Athens is taken over by the Thirty Tyrants, many leading democrats flee. Later the Thirty expel an unknown number of democrats, many of whom flee to the Piraeus.

401

Athens passes an amnesty permitting all its political exiles to return. The Persian prince Cyrus the Younger hires 10,000 Greek mercenaries.

395

Dionysius I settles 10,000 mercenaries in Leontini.

379

With Athenian help, returning Theban exiles establish Thebes on a democratic footing and liberate the city from Spartan control.

377–67

Mausolus, satrap of Caria, moves his capital from Mylasa to Halicarnassus by relocating the inhabitants of five of the neighboring towns.

371/370

Mantinea undergoes a resynoecism.

369

The supposed descendants of the helots who revolted from Sparta in 464 found the city of Messene on the slopes of Mount Ithome.

368/7

Megalopolis is founded as a synoecism of twenty Arcadian villages.

ca. 367–54

Dionysius II, tyrant of Syracuse, redistributes populations in thirteen Sicilian
poleis
.

366/5

The inhabitants of Cos relocate from Astypalaea on the southwest tip of their island to a site on the northeastern tip, naming their new city Cos.

365

The Athenians establish a cleruchy on Samos, exiling the entire population.

340

Alexander the Great deports an insurgent people known as the Maedi in the Strymon valley and resettles it with immigrants. Timoleon invites 60,000 Greeks to settle in Sicily.

335

Alexander the Great destroys Thebes and drives its entire population into exile.

324

Alexander promulgates the Exiles' Decree, which grants amnesty to all political refugees apart from those who had been exiled as a result of his actions.

333

Greeks who abandoned their settlements in the remotest parts of Alexander's empire are massacred on their way back home.

321

The Samian survivors (and their descendants) return to Samos after 43 years in exile.