Over Land and Sea - Massimo Livi-Bacci - E-Book

Over Land and Sea E-Book

Massimo Livi Bacci

0,0
16,99 €

-100%
Sammeln Sie Punkte in unserem Gutscheinprogramm und kaufen Sie E-Books und Hörbücher mit bis zu 100% Rabatt.
Mehr erfahren.
Beschreibung

Human history has always been marked by the mobility of people and populations, from the earliest movement of human beings out of Africa to the flows of migrants and refugees today. While mobility is intrinsic to human nature, migration is not always voluntary: it can be the result of free choice, but it can also be forced, in different ways and to varying degrees. 

In this book, Massimo Livi-Bacci examines migrations past and present with reference to the degree of free choice behind them. The degree can be minimal, as when migration is compelled by war, natural disaster or the actions of a tyrant, but in other cases the decision to migrate can be fully voluntary and deliberate, as when individuals and groups weigh up their options and decide whether to move. Between these two poles there is a continuum of different situations, with gradually increasing or decreasing degrees of freedom and choice. Livi-Bacci explores these variations by focusing on fifteen stories of migration from Antiquity to the present day, ranging from the Greek colonization of the Eastern Mediterranean in the Ancient world to the great migration of millions of people from Europe to the Americas in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Taken together, these stories of human movement shed fresh light on the millennia-long history of migration and its motivations, causes and consequences.

Sie lesen das E-Book in den Legimi-Apps auf:

Android
iOS
von Legimi
zertifizierten E-Readern

Seitenzahl: 263

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Bewertungen
0,0
0
0
0
0
0
Mehr Informationen
Mehr Informationen
Legimi prüft nicht, ob Rezensionen von Nutzern stammen, die den betreffenden Titel tatsächlich gekauft oder gelesen/gehört haben. Wir entfernen aber gefälschte Rezensionen.



CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Introduction

I. Antiquity

1.1. Seneca, two thousand years ago

1.2. Settlers and founders: ápoikoi and oikistés

1.3. Augustus’s Res gestae

1.4. Peoples on the march

Notes

II. In the Hands of the State

2.1. Forced migration

2.2. Peru: up and down the Andes

2.3. The end of an empire

2.4. The Soviet Union and its internal enemies

Notes

III. Misdeeds of Nature

3.1. Unkind nature

3.2. Drought

3.3. A Caribbean odyssey

3.4. Ireland: the blight of diaspora

Notes

IV. Organized Migration

4.1. On the road, not alone

4.2. The filles du roi in the laboratory of Nouvelle France

4.3. The Drang nach Osten and the Germanization of Eastern Europe

4.4. From the Rhine to the Volga with Catherine the Great

Notes

V. Free Migration

5.1. A rare phenomenon

5.2. Moving freely

5.3. The great transoceanic migration

5.4. America: the ‘advancing wave’ of migration

Notes

Reconsiderations

Notes

Index

End User License Agreement

List of Maps

Map A:

From where, to where: outline map of the migratory movements within Europe cover…

Map B:

Outline map of the migratory movements within the Americas covered in this book …

List of Plates

Plate 1.

Greek colonies in the Mediterranean. © Geo4Map – Novara.

Plate 2.

Ethnicities of Germania, based on the writings of Pliny (Naturalis Historia) and…

Plate 3.

The Res gestae of Augustus, fragment of an inscription found in Ankara. Wikimedi…

Plate 4.

Battle between Goths and Romans, Ludovisi Sarcophagus, circa 251/252 AD, Museo N…

Plate 5.

The Incas’ road system consisted of two parallel routes, one coastal (roughly fr…

Plate 6.

The city of Potosí, Bolivia. Taken from John Ogilby, America, Being the Latest, …

Plate 7.

Deportations and population exchanges, Balkan front, Greece and Turkey, 1915–192…

Plate 8.

Deportation of Germans from Norka, a colony founded in the Volga region in 1767,…

Plate 9.

Dust Bowl: the arrival of a dust storm. Wikimedia Commons.

Plate 10.

Port-au-Prince, capital of Haiti, destroyed by the earthquake on 12 January 2010…

Plate 11.

Allegory of Ireland, Hunger, Emigration and a ‘Coffin Ship’. Thomas Nast, ‘The H…

Plate 12.

Germanic Drang nach Osten: foundation of a village, under the leadership of a lo…

Plate 13.

The arrival of the filles du roi in Quebec, 1667, painting by Charles William Je…

Plate 14.

Portrait of Catherine the Great, at the time of the German migration to the Volg…

Plate 15.

A transhumant shepherd of the Mesta (a powerful sheep breeders’ association) in …

Plate 16.

The meeting of the two branches of the Transcontinental Railroad, built by the C…

Plate 17.

Irish emigrants set off for the United States, from The Illustrated London News,…

Plate 18.

The Titanic in Southampton harbour. Having set off 10 April 1912, it sank five d…

Plate 19.

Italian migrants head to the Opera assistenza emigranti upon arrival in Buenos A…

Guide

Cover

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Introduction

Begin Reading

Reconsiderations

Index

End User License Agreement

Pages

iii

iv

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

40

41

42

43

44

45

46

47

48

49

50

51

52

53

54

55

56

57

58

59

60

61

62

63

64

65

66

67

68

69

70

71

72

73

74

75

76

77

78

79

80

81

82

83

84

85

86

87

88

89

90

91

92

93

94

95

96

97

98

99

100

101

102

103

104

105

106

107

108

109

110

111

112

113

114

115

116

117

118

119

120

121

122

123

124

125

126

127

128

129

130

131

132

133

154

155

156

157

158

159

160

161

162

163

164

Over Land and Sea

Migration from Antiquity to the Present Day

MASSIMO LIVI-BACCI

Translated by David Broder

polity

First published in Italian as Per terre e per mari. Quindici migrazioni dall’antichità ai nostri giorni © 2021 by Società editrice il Mulino, Bologna

This English edition © Polity Press, 2023

This book has been translated thanks to a translation grant awarded by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation / Questo libro è stato tradotto grazie a un contributo alla traduzione assegnato dal Ministero degli Affari Esteri e della Cooperazione Internazionale italiano.

Polity Press65 Bridge StreetCambridge CB2 1UR, UK

Polity Press111 River StreetHoboken, NJ 07030, USA

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-5531-4

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022952026

The publisher has used its best endeavours to ensure that the URLs for external websites referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press.However, the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate.

Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been overlooked the publisher will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition.

For further information on Polity, visit our website:politybooks.com

1. Greek colonies in the Mediterranean. © Geo4Map – Novara.

2. Ethnicities of Germania, based on the writings of Pliny (Naturalis Historia) and Tacitus (Germania), late 1st century AD. Wikimedia Commons.

3. The Res gestae of Augustus, fragment of an inscription found in Ankara. Wikimedia Commons.

4. Battle between Goths and Romans, Ludovisi Sarcophagus, circa 251/252 AD, Museo Nazionale Romano, Palazzo Altemps. Wikimedia Commons.

5. The Incas’ road system consisted of two parallel routes, one coastal (roughly from the region of Guayaquil to the region of Santiago de Chile) and one mountainous (from Quito in Ecuador to the region of Mendoza in Argentina), each about 5,000 km long, with many cross-connections © Emily Carter.

6. The city of Potosí, Bolivia. Taken from John Ogilby, America, Being the Latest, and Most Accurate Description of the New World, London, 1671. The Cerro (mountain) of Potosí provided more than half of the silver destined for Europe, with the employment of thousands of migrants (mitayos) who arrived from as far as a thousand kilometres away for the annual mita (corvée). © Album / Alamy Stock Photo.

7. Deportations and population exchanges, Balkan front, Greece and Turkey, 1915–1925.

8. Deportation of Germans from Norka, a colony founded in the Volga region in 1767, 60 kilometres south of Saratov, September 1941. 1.2 million Germans were deported between September 1941 and January 1942.

9. Dust Bowl: the arrival of a dust storm. Wikimedia Commons.

10. Port-au-Prince, capital of Haiti, destroyed by the earthquake on 12 January 2010. © REUTERS / Alamy Stock Photo.

11. Allegory of Ireland, Hunger, Emigration and a ‘Coffin Ship’. Thomas Nast, ‘The Herald of Relief from America’, Library of Congress, 91732265.

12. Germanic Drang nach Osten: foundation of a village, under the leadership of a locator. Illustration from the ‘Sachenspiegel’ by Eike von Repgow, 13th century (Cpg. 154, Library of the University of Heidelberg). Between the 11th and 14th centuries, thousands of villages were founded east of the line made up by the rivers Elbe and Saale. Wikimedia Commons.

13. The arrival of the filles du roi in Quebec, 1667, painting by Charles William Jefferys, Paris, Bibliothéque Nationale de France. Wikimedia Commons.

14. Portrait of Catherine the Great, at the time of the German migration to the Volga region, attributed to Giovanni Battista Lampi the Elder, c.1793, private collection. Wikimedia Commons.

15. A transhumant shepherd of the Mesta (a powerful sheep breeders’ association) in Spain. Millions of sheep transhumed annually, up to a maximum of 5 million at the end of the 18th century, accompanied by many tens of thousands of shepherds. © Gianni Dagli Orti/Shutterstock

16. The meeting of the two branches of the Transcontinental Railroad, built by the Central Pacific and Union Pacific, at Promontory Point, Utah, 10 May 1869. Wikimedia Commons.

17. Irish emigrants set off for the United States, from The Illustrated London News, 6 July 1850. Between 1845 and 1850, 1.8 million Irish migrants left their country on the ‘Coffin Ships’. Wikimedia Commons.

18. The Titanic in Southampton harbour. Having set off 10 April 1912, it sank five days later; there were 2,233 people aboard, of whom 1,503 (67%) perished. First class accommodated 325 rich passengers, of whom 125 (38%) perished, but there were also 706 third-class passengers, almost all British, Irish and Scandinavian migrants, of whom 528 (75%) perished. Wikimedia Commons.

19. Italian migrants head to the Opera assistenza emigranti upon arrival in Buenos Aires. According to official statistics, between 1876 and 1930, almost 2.5 million Italian expatriates reached Argentina. © MARKA/Alamy Stock Photo.

Introduction

Changing abode is a prerogative of human beings who migrate from one location to another, whether to flee from danger or to seek out new opportunities. For hundreds of thousands of years, humankind gradually spread across the planet sustained by this instinct – a quality innate to our species. Even today, in an age of sedentary populations, mobility is a pervasive social phenomenon, functional to our existence. During their lives, almost all our contemporaries have experienced one or more migrations, but they also vary in their distance and duration, and may be driven by the most diverse motives. At the same time, migration as a phenomenon is difficult to define and classify, given the various factors that drive it; the different ways in which it takes place; its intermittent flow over time; and the multiple circumstances surrounding it. Migration is a biodemographic phenomenon, for it implies genetic and ethnic mixing. Migration is a social phenomenon, for it is a factor in the turnover and renewal of communities. Migration is a political fact, for it influences government decisions. Migration eludes generalizations, paradigms or models, even though these do provide tools, or instruments, necessary for ordering and narrating what we do understand.

In the pages of this book, I have knotted together the scattered threads of observations I have made over time on phenomena regarding migration. I have chosen to do this by telling a series of stories – fifteen in all – ranging from Antiquity to the present day, and concerning America and Europe, to the exclusion of the other continents, which are beyond my remit here. These stories do not, and cannot, constitute an embryo of a history of migrations and are not integrated into any systematic, chronological or geographical treatment of my subject. They are, however, interconnected by a criterion that allows us to compare different eras, peoples and contexts. For if the inclination towards mobility is intrinsic to human nature, it is also true that migrations are not necessarily a voluntary act, a matter of free choice, resulting from an individual decision. They may be forced or the result of strong pressure. It is thus worth considering migrations – both past and present – also taking into account what degree of free choice lay behind them.

This freedom may be non-existent, when migration is ‘forced’, imposed by the overbearing actions of some tyrant or strongman; or it is compelled by a conflict, or a war, that endangers survival; or, again, by a natural disaster, an earthquake, a drought, a virus, a destructive micro-organism. At the opposite end of the spectrum are fully voluntary and deliberate migrations, based on a choice made after weighing up the pros and cons of moving, and where it would also have been possible not to leave. Between these two poles there is a continuum of different situations, with gradually increasing measures of voluntariness and choice. A broad middle segment of this continuum consists of ‘organized’ migrations: that is, ones that would not have taken place if not for the outside organizational and financial support of a government, a lord or an elite, whose intervention substantially shifts the balance of benefits and disadvantages to be expected from migration.

The fifteen examples of migration here collected span these typologies: they vary considerably, but they are grouped in each chapter with reference to similar assumptions. Thus, among the forced migrations we find the case of the mitimaes, colonists transplanted from one side of the Inca Empire to the other during its two centuries of expansion; or the deportations and expulsions of minorities caused by the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and, two decades later, by the conflicts of the Second World War. At the other extreme, among the cases of free migration – the result of voluntary choices – we find the movement of workers within the Western Europe of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, or the great transoceanic migration of the late nineteenth and the early twentieth. The Germanization of Central and Eastern Europe in the late Middle Ages, on the eastern side of the Elbe, took place under the organizing impulse of the great economic potentates that financed it; the migrations that led to the settlement of Greek colonies on the Black Sea and the coasts of the Mediterranean are also an example of organized migration. In North America, the great nineteenth-century migration from the Atlantic to the Pacific was, essentially, a free migration, but one that was intertwined with the forced expulsion of native populations (for instance the Trail of Tears). At the same time, America received migrants driven out of Ireland by a natural disaster, the potato blight, bringing a mass of refugees from the Great Famine. In the following century, another disaster – the drought that caused the Dust Bowl – would set hundreds of thousands of migrants on their way to California. Further north, the arrival of the ‘Filles du Roi’ – the young girls sent by Colbert and Louis XIV to Quebec – was an example of organized migration for demographic purposes, which though small in numbers surely was the focus of careful preparations.

The fifteen stories are brief forays into the millennia-long history of migration, in a search for paradigms that bind them together. All the cases of forced migration, caused by political violence or natural disasters, generated unspeakable suffering. Organized migrations had positive consequences when some external intervention gave migrants a greater chance of success and strengthened their fitness or capacity to adapt to new conditions. But in many cases the assumptions and calculations behind them were wrong and led to painful failures. Freely chosen migration has generally been successful; it is the desirable form of all consciously made movements, and it is not far-fetched to say that historically the successes have outweighed the failures.

Two last considerations. The first is that – judging from what can be garnered from the history of the last two millennia – humanity’s spread across the planet owes in considerable part to non-free migration. We need only think of the Americas, where the population of supposed African origin, descended from the victims of the slave trade – the most total and absolute form of forced migration – stands at about two hundred million out of a total population of one billion. Or of the almost one hundred million refugees and displaced persons registered by international organizations today. Contemporary examples of migration have no place in these pages, except for one instance. They have deliberately been excluded, since contemporary migration flows are well known, studied and recounted. What the reader will be able to do is compare what is happening in today’s world with our narration of the often-forgotten movements of eras past.

Map A. From where, to where: outline map of the migratory movements within Europe covered in this book (Copyright © Società editrice il Mulino)

Map B. Outline map of the migratory movements within the Americas covered in this book (Copyright © Società editrice il Mulino).

IAntiquity

1.1. Seneca, two thousand years ago

I find some writers who declare that mankind has a natural itch for change of abode and alteration of domicile: for the mind of man is wandering and unquiet; it never stands still, but spreads itself abroad and sends forth its thoughts into all regions, known or unknown; being nomadic, impatient of repose, and loving novelty beyond everything else.1

Seneca, exiled to Corsica by the emperor Claudius, wrote these words in his epistle to his mother Helvia. For him, man’s nature is not ‘formed from the same elements as the heavy and earthly body, but from heavenly spirit: now heavenly things are by their nature always in motion, speeding along and flying with the greatest swiftness.’ And the human spirit revels in this, moved as it is by an intimate need for change. The same goes for peoples and nations. Indeed:

What is the meaning of Greek cities in the midst of barbarous districts? or of the Macedonian language existing among the Indians and the Persians? Scythia and all that region which swarms with wild and uncivilized tribes boasts nevertheless Achaean cities along the shores of the Black Sea. Neither the rigours of eternal winter, nor the character of men as savage as their climate, has prevented people migrating thither. There is a mass of Athenians in Asia Minor. Miletus has sent out into various parts of the world citizens enough to populate seventyfive cities…. Asia claims the Tuscans as her own: there are Tyrians living in Africa, Carthaginians in Spain; Greeks have pushed in among the Gauls, and Gauls among the Greeks. The Pyrenees have proved no barrier to the Germans.2

Two thousand years ago, for Seneca, the known world was a melting pot of many ethnicities, cultures and languages; it was a world of migrants, driven along often impervious and unknown routes by human nature itself:

men drag along with them their children, their wives, and their aged and worn-out parents. Some have been tossed hither and thither by long wanderings, until they have become too wearied to choose an abode, but have settled in whatever place was nearest to them: others have made themselves masters of foreign countries by force of arms: some nations while making for parts unknown have been swallowed up by the sea: some have established themselves in the place in which they were originally stranded by utter destitution.3

If human nature is mobile – that is, if humanity is predisposed to migration – there must still be some cause that prompts a concrete move. For migration is nothing but the abandonment of one’s living context, one’s customs, one’s domus, one’s home:

Nor have all men had the same reasons for leaving their country and for seeking for a new one: some have escaped from their cities when destroyed by hostile armies, and having lost their own lands have been thrust upon those of others: some have been cast out by domestic quarrels: some have been driven forth in consequence of an excess of population, in order to relieve the pressure at home: some have been forced to leave by pestilence, or frequent earthquakes, or some unbearable defects of a barren soil: some have been seduced by the fame of a fertile and over-praised clime…. the movement of the human race is perpetual: in this vast world some changes take place daily. The foundations of new cities are laid, new names of nations arise, while the former ones die out, or become absorbed by more powerful ones.4

I have prefaced my thoughts with these eloquent passages, written some two millennia ago, because they provide fitting guidance for our efforts to interpret the vicissitudes of human migration. They could serve as an apt beginning for a modern treatise on migrations, if that type of literature still existed. Indeed, in these words we find all the themes of modern debate on this subject. First, the fact that migration is inherent in the human species, as it is to all animal species, just as the stars – and nature – are always ‘flying along with the greatest swiftness’. Still today, as in Seneca’s time, the mixing of peoples and ethnicities – a consequence of the historical stratification of migratory movements – is a self-evident reality. Today, several hundred million people do not live in the country where they were born; in the Roman context, Seneca had no statistics to back him up, but he could draw on his own observations, the testimony of contemporaries, and historical facts and evidence. Then, there are the different modes and characteristics of people’s movements to which Seneca refers, with the ‘children, wives, and aged and worn-out parents’; for some, this was a matter of movements without precise destinations; for others to deserted spaces, or spaces occupied by other populations to be conquered ‘by force of arms’. But if migration is inherent to humans, what are the direct causes that set them in motion? Well, people migrate because they have ‘lost their own lands’, because they are driven out by conflicts, or by natural curses such as plagues and earthquakes. Or because of factors that today would be called Malthusian – ‘an excess of population, in order to relieve the pressure at home’ – or because they have been ‘seduced by the fame of a fertile and over-praised clime’. Lastly, Seneca did not neglect to mention that migrations ensure the renewal and turnover of societies, because ‘new names of nations arise, while the former ones die out, or become absorbed by more powerful ones’. Today’s scholars are eager to explain the causes of migration with models and algorithms, weighing and measuring the ‘pull’ and ‘push’ factors, or the costs and benefits resulting from a change of abode. They, like Seneca, are driven by intellectual curiosity about a phenomenon whose innermost content has not changed so much over the millennia.

I cite these passages from Seneca not as a rhetorical artifice, but as a reminder that today’s migratory phenomena unfold through modes and mechanisms that are similar in content, if different in form, to those of two thousand years ago. Historical reflection thus provides essential fuel for reflection on the present. This means comparing people’s different motivations for moving, and the forms and modes their migrations take; the existence of selective factors in determining who migrates; the ability of migrants, both individually and in groups, to take advantage of migration; and the mutual benefits of migration, for migrants and for the communities that receive them. Thinking through these aspects allows for a better understanding of migration as a phenomenon even when (as is true of almost all past cases) we lack information that we would today consider essential: how many migrants there are, what their demographic and social characteristics are, where they come from and where they are going. Antiquity provides an opportunity to reflect on a variety of models of migration.

We know very little about the numerical dimensions of the migration movements that took place over the centuries of ancient history, which we have thus far only briefly glossed over. Moreover, the circumstances, modes and times that characterized human mobility over these centuries varied in the extreme: they ranged from a gradual spread, determined by the natural evolution of communities and peoples in relation to the territory they occupied, to rapid migrations, even over very long distances, of entire populations in search of new settlements. The phenomenon of mobility was thus articulated in a great variety of ways. In these pages we shall attempt to identify some of the most typical (because they have been replicated throughout history) and frequent of them.

As in all eras, there was individual mobility, which is to say, that determined by factors related to the individual, or to his family, or clan, associated with the search for better survival or living conditions. We could call this ‘free mobility’, usually of short range, and above all typical of relatively homogeneous ethnic contexts. Such a mobility rarely leaves traces, but presumably is related to the urban and commercial development of populations. We may imagine that the flourishing of Greek and Phoenician trading hubs in the Mediterranean – arrival points for the traffic of goods by sea – fostered a particular form of individual migration, as did the stopover stations for overland caravans. Or, furthermore, that matrimonial exchanges, centres of religious devotion and the development of itinerant professions generated opportunities for movement. We can call this type of mobility ‘free’ because the individual’s choice to move is an essential factor in it, if not the only one.

The foundation of the Greek colonies – ἄποικoι – is a model of organized migration, through the twinning of mother cities and the settlement of their citizens in distant lands, for political, economic or Malthusian reasons. The new colonies and cities, in turn, sowed the seeds of further settlements. In the Roman Empire, mobility and migration received a strong impulse from the central political authorities and the army, through the distribution of land to veterans and the formation of new colonies. The Roman limes or frontier – that along the Rhine as well as that along the Danube – manned by tens of thousands of soldiers, with their fortifications and satellite and service settlements, constituted another engine of mobility. In addition to their defensive role, they also had another function of catalysing exchanges and mixing with barbarian populations. Beyond the limes there were no few cases of forced migration, as Roman militias sent groups and tribes on their way for reasons of defence and control. In the late phase of the empire, the barbarian peoples, whose mobility and competition had been constant, gave rise to forms of collective migrations of entire peoples: those of the Goths, the Huns and the Lombards, known to us also from the writings of contemporary historians such as Ammianus Marcellinus and Paul the Deacon.

1.2. Settlers and founders: ápoikoi and oikistés

Seneca wrote to Helvia that the ‘whole coast of Italy which is washed by the Lower [Tyrrhenian] Sea is a part of what was once “Greater Greece” [Magna Graecia]’. Yet the expansion of Greek civilization, from the eighth century BC onward, encompassed the coasts and islands of the eastern Mediterranean, Asia Minor, the Black Sea, the Italian peninsula and its large islands, up to the Mediterranean seaboard of Iberia. This brought various cases of settlement through migration, often in an organized form, whether owing to demographic growth and land scarcity in the motherlands; commercial needs; or political strife and internal conflicts. The emigration process took place in forms moulded by long previous experience. The settlement and founding of colonies by the ἄποικoι took place under the leadership of a chosen prominent personality – an οἰκιστής (oikist). There were criteria for the selection of migrants and modes were followed which were supposed to maximize the success of the new colony, which maintained close contacts with the motherland even after its foundation. Many settlements had the character of a trading outpost (ἐμπόριoν), whereas others were stable settlements that, in turn, gave rise to further settlements. Thucydides describes the history of settlements in Sicily:

The first Greeks to colonize Sicily sailed from Chalcis in Euboea, with Thucles as their leader, and founded Naxos. They set up an altar to Apollo Archegetes which still stands outside the city (and delegates to festivals make sacrifice at this altar before they sail from Sicily). In the following year Archias of Corinth, one of the Heracleidae, founded Syracuse, first driving out the Sicels from the island of Ortygia. This, no longer now completely surrounded by water, is the site of the inner city: some time later the outer city was included within the walls and its population grew large.5

Thucydides does not tell us whether Naxos was founded in agreement, or in conflict, with the local populations, but the foundation of Syracuse took place violently, and the city prospered ‘and its population grew large’. The native peoples could not rest easy and in fact: ‘[i]n the fifth year after the foundation of Syracuse Thucles and the Chalcidians set out from Naxos, evicted the Sicels by force of arms, and founded first Leontini, then Catana’.6

As mentioned, contacts with the motherland were maintained – as confirmed by the following passage about the departure of colonists from Megara, who founded Megara Hyblaea in Sicily, and who after a hundred years – following the oikist Pammilus who came from the mother-city of Megara – founded Selinus. The foundation of Megara Hyblaea, it should be noted, took place at the invitation of King Hyblon who, presumably, wanted to profit from its lands:

At about this same time Lamis arrived in Sicily bringing colonists from Megara. He settled a place called Trotilum on the river Pantacyas, but later moved from there to join the Chalcidian community in Leontini for a short while, until they expelled him. He then went on to found Thapsus, where he died. His colonists uprooted themselves from Thapsus and founded the city known as Megara Hyblaea when Hyblon, a Sicel king, in betrayal of his own people made them a gift of the land and escorted them to it…. Before this removal, and a hundred years after their own foundation, they sent out Pammilus to found Selinus: he had come from their mother-city of Megara to help them establish this new colony.7

Groups of colonists, led by their oikists, also arrived from the islands; they came from Crete and Rhodes, or from Cumae, a Greek settlement close to Etruria:

The foundation of Gela, in the forty-fifth year after Syracuse was founded, was a joint enterprise by Antiphemus from Rhodes and Entimus from Crete, each bringing their own colonists…. Zancle [Messina] was originally settled by raiders who came there from Cumae, the Chalcidian city in Opicia. Later they were joined by a substantial number of colonists from Chalcis and the rest of Euboea who shared in the distribution of land: the founder-colonists [oikists] were Perieres from Cumae, and from Chalcis Crataemenes.8