In “The Comedy of Errors,” Egeon has spent five years searching for his family.
Egeon explains this in the opening scene while pleading with Solinus, the Duke of Ephesus, to spare his life. After a shipwreck separated him from his wife Emilia and their infant son, his surviving son eventually left Syracuse to search for his lost twin. When that son did not return, Egeon spent five years travelling through Greece, Asia, and the surrounding regions in search of him.
The search brings Egeon to Ephesus, where a law hostile to Syracusans places him under sentence of death. The grim opening contrasts sharply with the farcical action that follows: both sets of identical twins are unknowingly in the same city, causing mistaken identities, beatings, arrests, and accusations of madness.
A common mix-up is confusing Egeon’s five-year search with the longer period since the family was separated. The twins were separated as infants, but Egeon specifically says he spent five years searching after his grown son departed.