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Phoenicians Among Others: Why Migrants Mattered in the Ancient Mediterranean

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Denise Demetriou discusses the history of Phoenician immigrants in the ancient Mediterranean from the fourth to the first centuries BCE.

Image courtesy of interviewee. May 29, 2024

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This video outlines the author's journey and motivations for writing a book about the Ians (Phoenicians) and their significant role in the ancient Mediterranean. The author reflects on their previous work, which focused primarily on Greek perspectives, and expresses a desire to highlight the importance of Ians who often lacked substantial historical evidence.

While initially approaching the topic as one of diplomacy among Mediterranean states in the 4th century BCE, the author realized that the narrative was more about the experiences and contributions of migrants. The book emphasizes that migrants made up a considerable percentage of urban populations, detailing their legal restrictions, challenges, and contributions. For example, many migrants were unable to own property or participate directly in government yet created professional associations to circumvent limitations and advocate for their rights.

Zeno, the founder of Stoicism and an immigrant from Cyprus, serves as a case study illustrating these points. Despite facing discrimination, Zeno and other migrants significantly influenced the societies in which they lived, affecting culture, religion, and politics. The author concludes that ancient Greek society was likely shaped by migrants' contributions, challenging traditional views that idealize Greek culture as purely homogenous. This video presents a nuanced understanding of how migration played a critical role in forming diverse and thriving communities in the ancient Mediterranean.

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I began thinking about this book when I was

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finishing my first book.

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Um, in that book I talked about the common people

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of the Greek diaspora

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who lived in Greek commercial settlements in non-Greek areas

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of the ancient Mediterranean.

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Um, but that book told primarily a Greek story,

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from a Greek perspective.

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And I had originally written a chapter on Ian,

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on a Ian trading post that I had to cut out from the book.

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And that was the right decision for that book.

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But it left me with a desire to go back to the Ians

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because I thought that they were just as important

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as the other Mediterranean populations

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who lived at that time.

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Um, it's just that they didn't live behind as much evidence.

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So I thought that there was more to say about

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how the Venetians changed the medi,

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the ancient Mediterranean, and not just how the Greeks

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or the Romans did, which is mostly

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what my field has really focused on.

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Um, and there was much more

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to say on this topic I discovered.

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And so that was, centering the Ians in the history

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of the ancient Mediterranean was one of the main motives

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for writing this book.

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Uh, the other thing that happened when I was finishing the

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book was that I kept running into these texts that were

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dedications, made by Ian Kings

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in Greek sanctuaries.

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So Greek temples on the islands of cause

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and dealers on India, GNC.

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And both of these, I, I discovered two specific ones,

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and both of these were, were bilingual.

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So they were written both in Greek and Ian.

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They both had a religious aspect,

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and they both kind of let me wondering why Finnish

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and kings were making dedications in Greek sanctuaries in

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the fourth century, PCE.

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So for a long time, what I thought I was writing about was,

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diplomacy

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among different states in the ancient Mediterranean in the

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fourth century, PCE.

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But as I read

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and I interpreted the sources, I realized

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that I was really writing a book about migrants.

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Migrants is a demographic that is not often paid attention

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to in my, in my field.

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Uh, but the reality is that immigrants made up a,

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a high percentage of any cities resident population.

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Um, if we take the example of Athens, for instance,

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ancient Athens, we estimate that between 16 to 20%

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of the population was an immigrant population,

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and that figure is actually lower than it was in reality

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because it doesn't, include the enslaved population

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of Athens, all of whom were foreign born,

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and it doesn't include people who didn't register

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as resident aliens.

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So these estimates that we have include only that,

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population, which I should also add.

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We are talking about just the free male, population of,

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so we are talking about a significant portion

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of a state's residents.

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And so I started to wonder why are we not paying attention

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to it, first of all, but also,

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what can migrants tell us about their experiences?

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How did their identities change because they were migrants?

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Um, what was their relationship with their host state,

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or their home state that they left?

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And how did their presence in this new societies changed

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these societies that they j that they joined?

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And I also, that that kind of led me to the,

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question that really motivated the book,

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which is did migrants matter and how,

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and eventually this became the book's subtitle,

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which is why migrants mattered in the Ancient Mediterranean.

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My first step was actually to learn biblical Hebrew so

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that I could learn to read Ian,

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because I was trained as a historian

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of ancient Greece in a classics department.

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Usually classics department teach,

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teach the departments teach Greek and Latin.

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Um, they don't usually teach Semitic languages.

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Those are usually covered in near Eastern

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studies departments.

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Um, so I had no background in any Semitic languages.

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And I also thought, you know, if I'm going to study,

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a group that spoken, wrote, I think as a language,

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I should really be able to read the sources in the original.

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That's what historians do.

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You have to be able to understand the

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nuances of the language.

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And so I was committed to doing that.

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Um, and this was also important

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because, you know, these disciplinary boundaries

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that we have don't allow us to study together people

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who lived together.

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So, that was an important thing for me to do.

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And very few universities teach Ian,

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although that seems to be take

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changing a little bit right now.

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Um, so I had to start with biblical Hebrew.

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They both, both languages belong to the same subgroup

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of Semitic languages.

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So my, the easiest thing for me to do was to,

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take an intensive summer course in biblical Hebrew.

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And then I, moved to the University

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of California in San Diego from my previous job,

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which was at Michigan State University.

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And I, worked here with one of my colleagues, bill Prop,

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who helped me transition from biblical Hebrew to Ian.

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Uh, so that was the first step, had to retool a little bit.

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And then, once I was able to read Finian, then I started

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to collect and study, the sources that,

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were about Ians living in Greek communities.

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And eventually I expanded that to include, sources by

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Ians or about Ians who lived in Egypt

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and Carthage in North Africa, the islands

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and the islands of Malta, Sicilian, Sardinia,

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where there was also a significant Ian migrant,

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population.

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So what these sources are, are usually texts

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that are inscribed on stone,

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or sometimes also other materials.

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And some were bilingual in Ian

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and Greek, others bilingual in Ian and Egyptian.

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Some just infinian, some just in Greek,

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some just Infinian, in Egyptian.

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And most of these texts, this, this is basically most

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of the Ian texts

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that we have from the ancient Mediterranean.

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And most of them are tombstones,

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are inscribed on tombstones.

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They are dedications

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that were given in sanctuaries, religious sanctuaries.

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Uh, some of them are state produced

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administrative texts as well.

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Uh, and they're usually very short.

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They're 2, 2, 4 lines long each about.

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Uh, but as I, was, as I kept looking at them

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and reading them and interpreting them, you know,

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they became revelatory to me

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because they really uncovered the social

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and cultural world of migrants that we don't usually look

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for or, or see.

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Um, and the other thing

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that I did in the very initial stages

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of my research was actually visit, spend some time on Delos,

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because there was a significant population

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of Ians there.

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Um, and then also sometime in museums in Italy and France

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and Greece to look at some of the material,

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like the tombstones, for instance,

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that I talk about in the book, immigrants, all immigrants,

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including definitions faced,

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some very practical problems, as immigrants

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that stemmed from their legal, legal status

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as immigrants, basically.

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So first of all, immigrants had to

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register once they arrived in their destination,

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if they stayed there longer than a prescribed amount

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of time, which we think was about a month in

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the Greek states.

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Um, and they had to pay an immigrant tax.

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Um, second, they faced many legal restrictions.

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They didn't have the right to own property, for example.

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So they couldn't, this meant

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that they couldn't be buried in public cemeteries

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because you had to own the plot of land for your grave.

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They couldn't build houses.

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They also couldn't build temples for their own gods.

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Um, they didn't have the right

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to participate in government directly.

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So they had very little say over the

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conditions in which they lived.

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And their status as immigrants were, was inheritable.

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So if immigrants have children,

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their children were, were immigrants.

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If those children had children, they too,

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their children too would be immigrants.

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Um, these are not the only legal restrictions

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that they face, but there are probably some

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of the more clear

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and important limitations that immigrants,

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that were imposed on immigrants in at least the Greek world.

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And there were other problems as well,

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like facing prejudice and discrimination or xenophobia.

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Um, for example, we have some ancient texts from Athens

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that suggest that some sectors of the Aian society thought

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that immigrants were a concern.

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Um, one specific treaties complains that,

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privileged immigrants

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and enslaved persons were practically indistinguishable from

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citizens in the way that they dressed or they, look

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or the rights that they had.

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So in other words, the person is complaining

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that immigrants passed as citizens, and this was the problem

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because it eroded the notion of citizenship

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that this person wanted to maintain.

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I'm sure this sounds familiar. So we know that this existed.

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And in addition to this, these kinds of attitudes existed.

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And in addition to these, IANS

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or rather, Greeks had a lot of stereotypes about Ians.

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They describe them as crafty and deceitful.

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Um, the only professions we hear about

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are they were traders.

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They are for crafty and deceitful or bankers.

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They are for crafty and deceitful.

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So immigrants also had to deal with these kinds of,

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prejudices and these types of challenges.

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I think there's a good story, the story of Xeno, the founder

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of the Philosophical School of Stoicism,

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that illustrates I think some of these problems really well.

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Uh, stoicism was one of the most influential schools,

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philosophical schools in antiquity.

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And also it's widely regarded today as one

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of the major contributions of the ancient Greeks.

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But Zeno, the founder of this school, was not Greek.

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He was actually Ian.

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He was a Ian immigrant in Athens from the city state

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of Kiton, which is on the island of Cyprus.

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Modern day, Larnaca

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and Zeno became an immigrant in Athens,

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and he established his school in the very heart of Athens.

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It was actually really publicly accessible

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because it was in the marketplace.

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And then stoicism flourished, in Xenos time,

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but also among the Romans winning over people like the

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Emperor Marco Aurelius among its adherence.

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And also it continues to enjoy a lot of popularity today,

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because we have things like stoic week

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where people choose to live as stoics, for a week,

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corporate gurus who talk to corporations like Google about

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how stoicism can increase their profitability.

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Um, so, the important thing here is

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to recognize that without migration

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and mobility, racism may not have developed into one

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of the most influential schools of antiquity

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or have taken the form that it did.

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And Xeno, the founder, this Finnish

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and immigrant in Athens, clearly was

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upwardly socially mobile.

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Um, but he also faced a lot of discrimination.

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So, for example, his Greek teacher

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called him little Ian,

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which was a demeaning term of endearment.

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One of our ancient sources calls him stingy

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because he was a foreigner.

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Um, another philosopher accused him of plagiarism,

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and he said that Zino stole his ideas

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and dressed them in Ian style.

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And we all even have some poetry from some of Zino students

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who tried to downplay the fact

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that he was a finian immigrant, right?

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So in addition to the legal restrictions that came with

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being an immigrant, immigrants had this sense

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of otherness imposed on them by their host communities.

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But even in the face of discrimination,

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they profoundly changed the societies in which they lived.

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So I think Zeno's story is a good,

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you know, example of this.

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Migrants were pretty resourceful in trying to deal

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with the legal limitations that were imposed upon them

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and the discrimination that they faced.

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One strategy that they adopted

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that perhaps facilitated their status

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as immigrants was name changing, which has been

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familiar, a familiar practice

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among immigrants for a long time.

13:30.775 --> 13:33.355
Um, I live in the us so we can think of stories

13:33.415 --> 13:36.435
of immigrants arriving at Ellis Islands, right?

13:36.535 --> 13:39.195
And adopting English sounding names

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or being given English names.

13:43.485 --> 13:46.255
Many Ian migrants in ancient Greek communities

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and also in Egypt too, seem to have done the same

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and voluntarily changed their names to Greek sound ones,

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or even just Greek names, even at they adopted Greek names.

13:58.815 --> 14:02.715
Uh, one thing to note is that even

14:02.855 --> 14:06.595
as they did this, they never hid their origins.

14:07.415 --> 14:10.675
So in various tombstones that I study in the book,

14:10.735 --> 14:13.875
for example, they mentioned their Greek name,

14:14.815 --> 14:16.715
but they also give us their Ian name.

14:17.225 --> 14:19.755
They also tell us which Ian city they came from.

14:20.695 --> 14:23.435
And, they write this infinian as well.

14:23.615 --> 14:26.635
So by changing their names, they were not trying to

14:27.345 --> 14:28.955
hide their foreign origin,

14:29.975 --> 14:33.955
but name changing as a practice might have helped them.

14:34.875 --> 14:38.235
Ians, in this case, Ian immigrants acquire more class

14:38.595 --> 14:41.635
mobility, create stronger professional networks,

14:42.255 --> 14:45.035
lessen the prejudice that they encountered.

14:46.005 --> 14:50.785
So that's one strategy. Um, another one that I

14:51.295 --> 14:56.045
Think is important is that they found a way to bypass

14:57.065 --> 15:00.365
the legal restrictions that host imposed on immigrants.

15:01.225 --> 15:04.765
Um, and this was the creation of professional associations.

15:05.645 --> 15:09.015
Usually in the case, most of the professional associations

15:09.015 --> 15:11.575
that we know of are of traders.

15:13.415 --> 15:16.075
Um, these institutions,

15:16.075 --> 15:20.075
these associations were basically like expat communities

15:20.535 --> 15:23.475
or cultural organizations that we have today,

15:23.475 --> 15:25.275
like the National Helen Society,

15:25.415 --> 15:28.595
or maybe the Alliance Francis, some, something like that.

15:28.655 --> 15:30.075
Not, not, doesn't quite overlap,

15:30.135 --> 15:35.075
but similar, as a, you know, what, without,

15:35.225 --> 15:36.835
without the right to own land,

15:37.345 --> 15:41.155
like migrants couldn't build their own temples without the

15:41.155 --> 15:42.915
right to participate directly in government,

15:43.185 --> 15:46.115
they didn't really have political say.

15:47.465 --> 15:51.995
Wealthy migrants found ways to circumvent these limitations

15:52.655 --> 15:56.595
as individuals, but for the rest of the migrant communities

15:57.265 --> 16:00.975
community, organizing into groups

16:01.515 --> 16:03.375
and working as a collective meant

16:03.375 --> 16:05.295
that they had more bargaining power.

16:06.845 --> 16:08.025
And this allowed them

16:08.205 --> 16:11.065
to basically almost lobby their host state.

16:11.095 --> 16:15.065
They could petition the host state for privileges

16:15.065 --> 16:16.145
for individual members

16:16.565 --> 16:19.465
or the right to own land, specifically so

16:19.465 --> 16:22.825
that they could build a temple to their ancestral gods.

16:23.325 --> 16:26.665
And we have several examples of such petitions

16:26.665 --> 16:27.865
that we are successful.

16:28.085 --> 16:32.505
And so the, the, these associations were granted these,

16:32.785 --> 16:34.105
requests that they made.

16:34.615 --> 16:36.665
This meant that migrants were able

16:36.725 --> 16:39.265
to worship their own gods in their own temples.

16:40.135 --> 16:42.545
Also, that they were able to introduce the worship

16:42.725 --> 16:46.465
of foreign divinities into their host states as well.

16:48.365 --> 16:52.865
And even though they did not have direct political stay in

16:52.865 --> 16:57.035
their host state, they were still able to

16:57.905 --> 17:02.865
influence it and influence its policies through these

17:03.885 --> 17:07.985
semi-autonomous quasi-state almost associations.

17:09.285 --> 17:13.105
Uh, the associations themselves mimicked,

17:13.725 --> 17:17.145
or the organization of the associations mimicked,

17:17.205 --> 17:18.785
the organization of a state.

17:18.845 --> 17:22.345
So it had its own governing bodies, it had its own officers,

17:22.725 --> 17:24.145
it made its own decisions.

17:24.485 --> 17:26.985
And eventually what we see is that over time,

17:27.395 --> 17:32.345
these associations were incorporated into

17:33.405 --> 17:36.385
the, political apparatus of the host state.

17:37.495 --> 17:38.675
So in a way,

17:38.675 --> 17:40.795
even though they didn't have direct political say,

17:40.825 --> 17:45.315
they could actually affect policy in the new society

17:45.345 --> 17:48.155
that they had joined, these,

17:49.145 --> 17:51.205
Uh, phenomenon I didn't mention,

17:51.345 --> 17:53.965
but it's specifically a Ian phenomenon on the fourth

17:53.965 --> 17:55.165
century, BCE.

17:55.185 --> 17:59.325
So it's one of the strategies that helped, migrants

18:00.265 --> 18:04.205
become active members of their, of the society that they,

18:04.675 --> 18:05.765
that they lived in.

18:06.105 --> 18:09.845
And over time, we have to imagine that, you know, tombstones

18:09.955 --> 18:13.245
with foreign alphabets, inscribed on them,

18:13.385 --> 18:15.645
and temples dedicated to foreign gods

18:15.645 --> 18:17.925
and names of individuals that sounded Greek,

18:18.345 --> 18:21.205
but were actually Venetian, that all

18:21.205 --> 18:23.525
of these things became integrated into the fabric

18:23.545 --> 18:27.285
of society, and they changed how cities looked.

18:27.955 --> 18:30.765
They altered the daily sounds of communities.

18:31.185 --> 18:33.845
And at the end of the day, I think we can say that

18:34.605 --> 18:36.925
migrants helped create states whose

18:37.735 --> 18:40.965
civic bodies were made up of diverse populations

18:41.355 --> 18:44.125
with different religions and different languages

18:44.125 --> 18:45.525
and different institutions.

18:46.225 --> 18:47.605
And both immigrants

18:47.985 --> 18:52.005
and migrants were, integral members

18:52.025 --> 18:55.045
of these communities who contributed to, and maintained

18:55.045 --> 19:00.005
and belonged, in the societies of their, new homes.

19:00.655 --> 19:05.325
Greek societies were profoundly altered by the presence

19:05.465 --> 19:08.045
of immigrants and of Ian immigrants.

19:08.045 --> 19:12.005
In the case of my book, have intellectuals like Zeno,

19:12.025 --> 19:13.925
for example, introduced new ideas.

19:14.825 --> 19:18.165
Um, Finnish and traders created these associations,

19:18.385 --> 19:21.285
new institutions, basically that became part

19:21.525 --> 19:24.205
of a state's political economy.

19:25.405 --> 19:30.205
Migrants collectively helped form these multi-ethnic diverse

19:30.635 --> 19:33.525
societies that thrived throughout the Mediterranean

19:33.825 --> 19:37.205
and even made notions of citizenship more fluid.

19:38.305 --> 19:43.005
So traditionally we have idealized ancient

19:43.055 --> 19:46.205
Greek thought and politics and art.

19:47.065 --> 19:51.405
And what I hope is that my research shows that it's unlikely

19:51.555 --> 19:54.445
that Greek thought and politics

19:54.545 --> 19:58.165
and art would have taken the form they did without the

19:58.525 --> 19:59.565
contribution of migrants.

"Rediscovering the Ians: The Role of Migrants in the Ancient Mediterranean"

00:00:00 - I began thinking about this book when I was finishing my first book. in that book I talked about the common people of the Greek diaspora who lived in Greek commercial settlements in non-Greek areas of the ancient Mediterranean. but that book told primarily a Greek story, from a Greek perspective. And I had originally written a chapter on Ian, on a Ian trading post that I had to cut out from the book. And that was the right decision for that book. But it left me with a desire to go back to the Ians because I thought that they were just as important as the other Mediterranean populations
00:00:43 - it's just that they didn't live behind as much evidence. So I thought that there was more to say about how the Venetians changed the medi, the ancient Mediterranean, and not just how the Greeks or the Romans did, which is mostly what my field has really focused on. and there was much more to say on this topic I discovered. And so that was, centering the Ians in the history of the ancient Mediterranean was one of the main motives for writing this book. the other thing that happened when I was finishing the book was that I kept running into these texts that were
00:01:29 - in Greek sanctuaries. So Greek temples on the islands of cause and dealers on India, GNC. And both of these, I, I discovered two specific ones, and both of these were, were bilingual. So they were written both in Greek and Ian. They both had a religious aspect, and they both kind of let me wondering why Finnish and kings were making dedications in Greek sanctuaries in the fourth century, PCE. So for a long time, what I thought I was writing about was, diplomacy
00:02:06 - fourth century, PCE. But as I read and I interpreted the sources, I realized that I was really writing a book about migrants. Migrants is a demographic that is not often paid attention to in my, in my field. but the reality is that immigrants made up a, a high percentage of any cities resident population. if we take the example of Athens, for instance, ancient Athens, we estimate that between 16 to 20% of the population was an immigrant population, and that figure is actually lower than it was in reality because it doesn't, include the enslaved population
00:02:50 - and it doesn't include people who didn't register as resident aliens. So these estimates that we have include only that, population, which I should also add. We are talking about just the free male, population of, so we are talking about a significant portion of a state's residents. And so I started to wonder why are we not paying attention to it, first of all, but also, what can migrants tell us about their experiences? How did their identities change because they were migrants? what was their relationship with their host state,
00:03:32 - And how did their presence in this new societies changed these societies that they j that they joined? And I also, that that kind of led me to the, question that really motivated the book, which is did migrants matter and how, and eventually this became the book's subtitle, which is why migrants mattered in the Ancient Mediterranean. My first step was actually to learn biblical Hebrew so that I could learn to read Ian, because I was trained as a historian of ancient Greece in a classics department. Usually classics department teach,

"Overcoming Disciplinary Barriers: The Journey to Understanding and Analyzing Ian Migrant Sources"

00:04:15 - they don't usually teach Semitic languages. Those are usually covered in near Eastern studies departments. so I had no background in any Semitic languages. And I also thought, you know, if I'm going to study, a group that spoken, wrote, I think as a language, I should really be able to read the sources in the original. That's what historians do. You have to be able to understand the nuances of the language. And so I was committed to doing that. and this was also important because, you know, these disciplinary boundaries that we have don't allow us to study together people who lived together. So, that was an important thing for me to do.
00:04:57 - although that seems to be take changing a little bit right now. so I had to start with biblical Hebrew. They both, both languages belong to the same subgroup of Semitic languages. So my, the easiest thing for me to do was to, take an intensive summer course in biblical Hebrew. And then I, moved to the University of California in San Diego from my previous job, which was at Michigan State University. And I, worked here with one of my colleagues, bill Prop, who helped me transition from biblical Hebrew to Ian.
00:05:39 - And then, once I was able to read Finian, then I started to collect and study, the sources that, were about Ians living in Greek communities. And eventually I expanded that to include, sources by Ians or about Ians who lived in Egypt and Carthage in North Africa, the islands and the islands of Malta, Sicilian, Sardinia, where there was also a significant Ian migrant, population. So what these sources are, are usually texts
00:06:19 - or sometimes also other materials. And some were bilingual in Ian and Greek, others bilingual in Ian and Egyptian. Some just infinian, some just in Greek, some just Infinian, in Egyptian. And most of these texts, this, this is basically most of the Ian texts that we have from the ancient Mediterranean. And most of them are tombstones, are inscribed on tombstones. They are dedications that were given in sanctuaries, religious sanctuaries. some of them are state produced administrative texts as well. and they're usually very short. They're 2, 2, 4 lines long each about.
00:07:03 - and reading them and interpreting them, you know, they became revelatory to me because they really uncovered the social and cultural world of migrants that we don't usually look for or, or see. and the other thing that I did in the very initial stages of my research was actually visit, spend some time on Delos, because there was a significant population of Ians there. and then also sometime in museums in Italy and France and Greece to look at some of the material, like the tombstones, for instance, that I talk about in the book, immigrants, all immigrants,
00:07:43 - some very practical problems, as immigrants that stemmed from their legal, legal status as immigrants, basically. So first of all, immigrants had to register once they arrived in their destination, if they stayed there longer than a prescribed amount of time, which we think was about a month in the Greek states. and they had to pay an immigrant tax. second, they faced many legal restrictions. They didn't have the right to own property, for example. So they couldn't, this meant that they couldn't be buried in public cemeteries because you had to own the plot of land for your grave.

"Legal Limitations and Social Challenges Faced by Immigrants in Ancient Greek Society"

00:08:25 - They also couldn't build temples for their own gods. they didn't have the right to participate in government directly. So they had very little say over the conditions in which they lived. And their status as immigrants were, was inheritable. So if immigrants have children, their children were, were immigrants. If those children had children, they too, their children too would be immigrants. these are not the only legal restrictions that they face, but there are probably some of the more clear and important limitations that immigrants, that were imposed on immigrants in at least the Greek world.
00:09:06 - like facing prejudice and discrimination or xenophobia. for example, we have some ancient texts from Athens that suggest that some sectors of the Aian society thought that immigrants were a concern. one specific treaties complains that, privileged immigrants and enslaved persons were practically indistinguishable from citizens in the way that they dressed or they, look or the rights that they had. So in other words, the person is complaining
00:09:49 - because it eroded the notion of citizenship that this person wanted to maintain. I'm sure this sounds familiar. So we know that this existed. And in addition to this, these kinds of attitudes existed. And in addition to these, IANS or rather, Greeks had a lot of stereotypes about Ians. They describe them as crafty and deceitful. the only professions we hear about are they were traders. They are for crafty and deceitful or bankers. They are for crafty and deceitful. So immigrants also had to deal with these kinds of, prejudices and these types of challenges.
00:10:33 - of the Philosophical School of Stoicism, that illustrates I think some of these problems really well. stoicism was one of the most influential schools, philosophical schools in antiquity. And also it's widely regarded today as one of the major contributions of the ancient Greeks. But Zeno, the founder of this school, was not Greek. He was actually Ian. He was a Ian immigrant in Athens from the city state of Kiton, which is on the island of Cyprus. Modern day, Larnaca and Zeno became an immigrant in Athens,
00:11:16 - It was actually really publicly accessible because it was in the marketplace. And then stoicism flourished, in Xenos time, but also among the Romans winning over people like the Emperor Marco Aurelius among its adherence. And also it continues to enjoy a lot of popularity today, because we have things like stoic week where people choose to live as stoics, for a week, corporate gurus who talk to corporations like Google about how stoicism can increase their profitability. so, the important thing here is
00:11:58 - and mobility, racism may not have developed into one of the most influential schools of antiquity or have taken the form that it did. And Xeno, the founder, this Finnish and immigrant in Athens, clearly was upwardly socially mobile. but he also faced a lot of discrimination. So, for example, his Greek teacher called him little Ian, which was a demeaning term of endearment. One of our ancient sources calls him stingy because he was a foreigner. another philosopher accused him of plagiarism,

"Resilience and Adaptation: The Immigrant Experience in Ancient Societies"

00:12:38 - and dressed them in Ian style. And we all even have some poetry from some of Zino students who tried to downplay the fact that he was a finian immigrant, right? So in addition to the legal restrictions that came with being an immigrant, immigrants had this sense of otherness imposed on them by their host communities. But even in the face of discrimination, they profoundly changed the societies in which they lived. So I think Zeno's story is a good, you know, example of this. Migrants were pretty resourceful in trying to deal with the legal limitations that were imposed upon them and the discrimination that they faced.
00:13:19 - that perhaps facilitated their status as immigrants was name changing, which has been familiar, a familiar practice among immigrants for a long time. I live in the us so we can think of stories of immigrants arriving at Ellis Islands, right? And adopting English sounding names or being given English names. Many Ian migrants in ancient Greek communities and also in Egypt too, seem to have done the same and voluntarily changed their names to Greek sound ones, or even just Greek names, even at they adopted Greek names.
00:14:02 - as they did this, they never hid their origins. So in various tombstones that I study in the book, for example, they mentioned their Greek name, but they also give us their Ian name. They also tell us which Ian city they came from. And, they write this infinian as well. So by changing their names, they were not trying to hide their foreign origin, but name changing as a practice might have helped them. Ians, in this case, Ian immigrants acquire more class mobility, create stronger professional networks,
00:14:46 - So that's one strategy. another one that I Think is important is that they found a way to bypass the legal restrictions that host imposed on immigrants. and this was the creation of professional associations. Usually in the case, most of the professional associations that we know of are of traders. these institutions, these associations were basically like expat communities or cultural organizations that we have today,
00:15:25 - or maybe the Alliance Francis, some, something like that. Not, not, doesn't quite overlap, but similar, as a, you know, what, without, without the right to own land, like migrants couldn't build their own temples without the right to participate directly in government, they didn't really have political say. Wealthy migrants found ways to circumvent these limitations as individuals, but for the rest of the migrant communities community, organizing into groups and working as a collective meant that they had more bargaining power.
00:16:08 - to basically almost lobby their host state. They could petition the host state for privileges for individual members or the right to own land, specifically so that they could build a temple to their ancestral gods. And we have several examples of such petitions that we are successful. And so the, the, these associations were granted these, requests that they made. This meant that migrants were able to worship their own gods in their own temples. Also, that they were able to introduce the worship of foreign divinities into their host states as well.

"Influence and Integration: The Role of Migrant Associations in Shaping Ancient Societies"

00:16:52 - their host state, they were still able to influence it and influence its policies through these semi-autonomous quasi-state almost associations. the associations themselves mimicked, or the organization of the associations mimicked, the organization of a state. So it had its own governing bodies, it had its own officers, it made its own decisions. And eventually what we see is that over time, these associations were incorporated into
00:17:37 - So in a way, even though they didn't have direct political say, they could actually affect policy in the new society that they had joined, these, phenomenon I didn't mention, but it's specifically a Ian phenomenon on the fourth century, BCE. So it's one of the strategies that helped, migrants become active members of their, of the society that they, that they lived in. And over time, we have to imagine that, you know, tombstones with foreign alphabets, inscribed on them, and temples dedicated to foreign gods
00:18:18 - but were actually Venetian, that all of these things became integrated into the fabric of society, and they changed how cities looked. They altered the daily sounds of communities. And at the end of the day, I think we can say that migrants helped create states whose civic bodies were made up of diverse populations with different religions and different languages and different institutions. And both immigrants and migrants were, integral members of these communities who contributed to, and maintained and belonged, in the societies of their, new homes.
00:19:05 - of immigrants and of Ian immigrants. In the case of my book, have intellectuals like Zeno, for example, introduced new ideas. Finnish and traders created these associations, new institutions, basically that became part of a state's political economy. Migrants collectively helped form these multi-ethnic diverse societies that thrived throughout the Mediterranean and even made notions of citizenship more fluid. So traditionally we have idealized ancient
00:19:58 - And what I hope is that my research shows that it's unlikely that Greek thought and politics and art would have taken the form they did without the contribution of migrants.

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