Aristotle in the Policy it relates archaic colonization with the development of territorial oligarchies and with class dynamics (or struggles). Is he right? Is this a reliable testimony? To tackle this problem we must take a step back and retrace the fundamental stages of archaic colonization.
Between the eighth and sixth centuries BC the Greeks moved to lands inhabited by "barbarian" populations and founded cities (or poleis) quite similar to the metropoleis of origin, but independent of them (Finley 1976; Lepore 1978 and 1981). We know that they had a specific term to connote this phenomenon: apoikía, which literally means away from home . It is therefore easy to understand how the foundation of a city far from home has very little in common, institutionally speaking, with the concept of colony (and colonialism). With colonialism we mean the modern phase of colonization, a phenomenon that we know since the fifteenth century, and which is connected to the creation of a real colonial system, entirely dependent on and in some way functional to an international division of labor and intensive exploitation of natural resources.
Today I would like to reflect on archaic colonization not only to underline the differences with respect to modern movements, which here will remain in the background, but to make explicit a characteristic of the archaic world or, at least, of the way of understanding and living the export of uses, customs and read:conservatism. What is meant by archaic colonization? This term indicates the displacement, even if not coordinated and not "en masse", of one or more ecists or founders ( oikistés in ancient Greek it means founder) with the aim of organizing a new city that had to have particular characteristics.
All the new cities were in fact associated with the mother city, or metrópolis , in the sense that the latter was in charge of the preparations for the expedition and the appointment of the ecista, a key figure since he had the task of organizing the community, establishing cults and laws, dividing the territory by organizing the city spaces. And he did not do this on her own initiative but using the habits, customs and laws of the mother city as a model. The motherland therefore remained a point of reference also for the foundation of the sub-colonies, but the relations ended there:etymologically apoikía it implies detachment and often the "settlers" were even prevented from returning home!
Only relative economic independence corresponds (or seems to correspond, from the documents we have) to an institutional and cultural conservatism. If we really wanted to find analogies with some modern experience, we would have to appeal to the British colonial system, " the only one that simultaneously developed all types of colonization (from commercial to plantation to penal colony) also produced a settlement colony, formed in virgin land for free farmers. This model of modern colonization is the only one that can come close to that of certain Greek foundations in non-Greek territory, without prejudice to the obvious difference in exported production relations ”, (Federica Cordano, Ancient Greek Foundations , p.16).
The Greek colonization therefore has peculiar characteristics that have their roots in the processes of formation of the polis , that differentiate it not only from European experiences in modern times, in which there is a complex relationship of institutional, social, cultural and economic dependence with the motherland, but also with previous experiences in the history of archaic Greece. I am thinking of the passage in Asia Minor of the Ionians and Aeolians and of the Mycenaean contacts established in the second millennium.
As Federica Cordano points out very well, even if ancient sources define these experiences as examples of colonization, the term must be understood cum gran salis :these movements respond to a completely different logic and belong to a period in which Greece was the scene of migrations, not of movements explicitly aimed at the foundation of a polis (which did not even exist institutionally speaking, as Greece was not yet Hellás , that is, a set of city-states capable of "exporting" the political institutions typical of this form of social aggregation).
The cities of Ionia and the Aeolian , conceived (as we have mentioned) however as apoikíai , as the later tradition has not been able to interpret mass displacements except in these terms, they arise from the dissolution of the Mycenaean world and their development is due to ethnic presuppositions and mythical ecysts . In fact, between these two experiences, improperly designated by the same term, is the so-called Greek Renaissance , a process that leads Greece to come out of a dark age and which is well attested in the pages of Hesiod (and in the archaeological documentation between the ninth and eighth centuries).
" Moses I. Finley outlined the types of ancient colonies starting from the analysis of English and French colonial terminology to warn of easy overlaps. Ettore Lepore resumed the discussion by expanding the examination of the specific bibliography. He points out in particular how the modernist interpretations of Greek colonization have 'spoiled the debate on its causes even in shrewd and acute analyzes' leading to the schematic division into agrarian colonies and commercial colonies, a division that is also found in the fundamental studies on Greek colonization of Dunbabin and Bérard and, differently reworked, by Cl. Mossé. Having borrowed the word colony dragged all the colonial terminology with it. [...] This terminology was not adopted only for reasons of convenience, but because the interest expressed by modern historians for Greek colonization is never completely separate from that for modern and European colonization. This has happened above all in past centuries and in the first half of our ”, (Federica Cordano, Ancient Greek Foundations , p.16).
Colonization in Sicily:A Conservative Example? Sicilian foundations are just one of many examples we could make to show how the new settlements were not intended as places to build a new model of society and possibly improve existing institutions in the metropoleis, but they were experienced as "copies" of the poleis from which the founders came. Probably it could not have been otherwise, given that the process of recovery and revision of legislation had just begun, family and social structures were consolidating and we are still far from the classical period, from what will happen between the fifth and fourth centuries. That said, it is interesting to reflect on philosophical readings that were given of this phenomenon in the classical period.
The analysis of the sources coming from philosophical reflection seems to testify in favor of the need for the colonization process and conservatism in the management of new cities. In the Laws Plato clearly states that settlers can be obtained from overpopulation phenomena, ie in those cases in which land and foodstuffs prove insufficient for the livelihood of the inhabitants of the region (707e). He later specified that due to civil strife it may happen that an entire party is forced into exile and that, in the most extreme cases, an entire population is forced to move due to social upheavals or worse because of a war. (708b). The concept is clear: a colony is founded out of necessity, not because there is a specific political or social project behind it.
As I mentioned at the beginning, Aristotle seems to go even further. The Platonic idea is in fact to some extent absolutized, if we read some passages from Politics which speaks of the need to limit the number of citizens (1265a and 1326b), to control births (1265b, 1266b, 1270b) and to keep the number of family lots fixed also through adoptions (1274a-b). Finally, and here Aristotle is very clear, it is forbidden to alienate landed property (1265b-1266b, 1270a, 1319a).
All these instances are evident in the entire colonization process, particularly in the Chalcidian colonies which gave life to Zancle (Messina) who founded Mylai (Milazzo) and Imera for strictly commercial reasons, Reggio, Nasso (734), Leontini and Catania (728). The political structure of the Chalcidian colonies resumes that of the motherland :Chalcis and Eretria had in fact elaborated an oligarchic system founded on aristocratic and census criteria, based on the privileges of birth and wealth. And it is Aristotle himself who places these regimes at the same time as archaic colonization and, therefore, indicates in the class dynamics the engine of this process, which would become the privileged escape route for those who could not find a chance of success at home. . Oligarchy and economic mobility therefore seem to be its essential ingredients.
And this can help us dispel some myths about the causes of archaic colonization. It is important at this point not to be misled and not to fall into the trap of the debate between commercial, agricultural and or population reasons. It is entirely legitimate to question the causes of archaic colonization and its meaning; it is illegitimate to use modern ideas, concepts and find an answer in their uncritical feedback.
It is natural that those who move away from their homeland do it also (and perhaps above all) to seek fertile lands and to make a fortune; this falls within the specificity of the ancient economy which, despite knowing the dynamics introduced by commercial and craft activities, remains essentially linked to agriculture. The most evident reasons are of a political-religious nature, as Aristotle shows well. Demographic and territorial reasons, accompanied by social and religious discrimination, lead to a clash between those who do not have full possession of political rights and the narrow conservative oligarchies.
I conclude with a clear example of institutional conservatism. Just think of the ancient laws . It is a real "export" of customs, traditions and laws already in force in the mother country. The reference figures are poised between history and myth: Zaleuco di Locri Epizefiri (the name means shining white) according to tradition it was monocle and is described with all the characteristics typical of solar deities. In fact, there are many doubts about its real existence (and we are not surprised). The law of retaliation and capital punishment for theft are usually attributed to him or, better still, to the traditions that were widespread in that period.
With Caronda from Catania the speech is similar. Instead to Draconte (whose name means snake, the animal sacred to Athena) we owe the laws written in blood. But the important point here is that we are in 621/620 and that Solon in 594 he kept the part relating to the murders, which constitutes a significant step forward towards affirming the power of the state. The initiative for the criminal action lies with the family, but it is the legislator who establishes the times, methods and limits of the punishment. Distinguishing, then, between voluntary, unintentional and justified crime , the idea of the objectivity of the fault is overcome and the subjectivity of the guilty is taken into consideration . So it matters little whether it was Draconte or not; the important point is the conservative attitude in the foundation of the Greek "colonies". All this to say that Aristotle's testimony seems to me quite reliable.
Bibliography and Sources:
Plato, The Laws, BUR.
Aristotle, Politics, Laterza.
F. Cordano, Ancient Greek Foundations, Sellerio.
M. I. Finley, Colonies. An Attempt at a Typology , “Transaction of the Royal Historical Society”, 1976/26, pp. 166-188.
E. Lepore, The flowering of aristocracies and the birth of the polis , "History and Civilization of the Greeks", 1978/1, pp. 183-253.
E. Lepore, The Greeks in Italy , "History of the Italian Society I. From Prehistory to the Expansion of Rome", 1981/1, pp. 213-268.
C. Mossé, La colonization das l'antiquité, Paris, 1970.
D. Musti, The economy in Greece, Laterza.
C. Bearzot, Manual of Greek history, Il Mulino.
L. Braccesi, F. Raviola, Guide to the study of Greek history, Laterza.
D. Musti, Greek history. Lines of development from the Mycenaean age to the Roman age, Laterza.