La dinamica isola-perea nelle strategie di rientro in patria di esuli e fuoriusciti greci fra V e IV secolo a.C.: il caso di Clazomene

This paper focuses on the relation between the Greek islands and their mainland pos- sessions (peraiai). While previous scholarship has deeply investigated the relation between islands and peraiai from a political, economic, and juridical point of view, less attention has been paid to peraiai as a place of refuge for Greek political exiles. I argue that the exiles’ choice to move to peraiai – lands close enough to the islands to main- tain contacts with their relatives and friends, but marginal enough for avoiding strict control by the governments of their native countries – is revealing about their attitude towards exile. Far from adopting an attitude of resignation, this particular kind of exiles continued behaving as de facto citizens doing everything possible to return home. The occupation of the peraiai should be seen as a part of their political activism: such a strategy allowed them to experience a sort of resilience that could result even in the violent threats against their homeland without incurring in any sanctions by or retali- ations from the international community. After describing the ways in which Greek islands felt their insularity, I turn my attention to the case of Clazomenae, a very small island in the gulf of Smyrna, and to the relation between Clazomenian exiles and three different settlements in Clazomenae’s peraia between the V and IV centuries BC.