How has migration changed the world?
Robert Garland
“Migration was central to growth and sustainability for both ancient Greek and Roman civilisations”
According to United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) figures, as of June 2018 there were 68.5 million forcibly displaced people worldwide.
An unprecedented crisis? Hardly. Though the scale was much smaller in antiquity, proportionately the suffering was just as great. Before the Persian invasion of Greece in 480 BC, the Athenians evacuated some 100,000 women, children, elderly and slaves to the Peloponnese and islands off the coast of Attica. When the Athenians finally arrived at their destinations, there were no medical services, no reception centres, no aid workers, no supplies of clothing, bedding or clean water to greet them. The evacuees returned to their homes to find them burned down – not once but twice. Had the Persian invasion been successful, they would have been either enslaved or massacred.
Both Greek and Roman civilisations were dependent upon the movement of displaced persons, though they rarely feature in ancient accounts, largely because no one much cared. The Greeks exported their surplus population around the Mediterranean. When the island of Thera (now called Santorini) experienced a severe famine, it sent an expedition to Libya. The enterprise failed, and the would-be settlers sailed home. However, on their return their compatriots pelted them with rocks and ordered them not to land – such was the extremity of their hunger. Sending out boatloads of refugees has always been a hazardous enterprise and then as now, no doubt, many thousands perished at sea.
By contrast, Rome’s rapid demographic growth depended on an influx
