The Emigration of Phocaeans to the West

The article discusses the problem of the "second exile" of Phocaeans to the Western Mediterranean (Corsica, France and Spain), after the capture by Persian commander Harpagos their hometown in 546 BC. Special attention is paid to demographic and ethnic aspects because they give a complete picture of the problem, which was often considered superficial due to the lack of archaeological evidences and poor studied ancient written sources. Great interest in the subject of population count showed Cook in the 1950s. In his study he tried to calculate the number of the citizens of Phocaea in the times of the battle of Lade in 494 BC. A few years later came the work of W. Johannowsky, where he estimated the number of population of Alalia in the period of Phocaean possession of the city. Later the demographic aspect of the emigration of Phocaeans to the Western Mediterranean was raised by such well-known European archeolo-gists as J.-P. Morel, M. Gras, A. Dominguez Monedero and others. The author of the article believes that, based on the data of Herodotus and modern methods of calculation of the quantity of population, one can get information on the approximate number of people who moved to Alalia and Massalia, and also find out what the nations with the Phocaeans emigrated to the Western Mediterranean, and how many people moved to Italy, after the naval Battle of Alalia. erodotus gave us unique information about the number of Phocaeans and united Etruscan-Carthaginian ships at the Battle of Alalia - "each with 60 ships". In that case the number of Phocaeans before the battle could be (if we assume that each galley could accommodate about 50-55 people) from 3,000 to 3,300 people and the total number of Greeks living in Alalia would be equal to 12,000 people. But this last estimation does not correspond to the reality, because in the Battle of Alalia also took part the massaliotes. Phocaea was not a big polis. There were about 19.000-20.000 inhabitants in the city (intramural space) and in the surrounding area (extramural space). According to Herodotus, after the emigration "more than half of the citizens were seized with yearning and regret for their city and for their native land, and they proved false to their oath and sailed back to Phocaea". We assume that most of the people who decided to return to their native city were 60% of the total population of Phocaea, the rest 40% would be equal to 8.000 or slightly more in numerical terms. Of this number only % of the population was combat-ready, i.e. about 2.000 people. In conclusion, we can say that the information of Herodotus, in particular the fragment I 164-166, can assist in obtaining information about the number of Phocaeans, who immigrated to Western Mediterranean. Thanks to him we can determine the number of Phocaeans who participated in the Battle of Alalia, as well as how many people immigrated to Italy, after the so-called Cadmean victory in 540 BC.

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