Kinship Myth in Ancient Greece

by Patterson, Lee E.

• ISBN13: 9780292722750
• ISBN10: 0292722753
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-12-15
• Publisher: Univ of Texas Pr

Summary

In ancient Greece, interstate relations, such as in the formation of alliances, calls for assistance, exchanges of citizenship, and territorial conquest, were often grounded in mythical kinship. In these cases, the common ancestor was most often a legendary figure from whom both communities claimed descent. In this detailed study, Lee E. Patterson elevates the current state of research on kinship myth to a consideration of the role it plays in the construction of political and cultural identity. He draws examples both from the literary and epigraphical records and shows the fundamental difference between the two. He also expands his study into the question of Greek credulity--how much of these founding myths did they actually believe, and how much was just a useful fiction for diplomatic relations? Of central importance is the authority the Greeks gave to myth, whether to elaborate narratives or to a simple acknowledgment of an ancestor. Most Greeks could readily accept ties of interstate kinship even when local origin narratives could not be reconciled smoothly or when myths used to explain the link between communities were only "discovered" upon the actual occasion of diplomacy, because such claims had been given authority in the collective memory of the Greeks.

Table of Contents

Abbreviations	p. ix
Note on Translations and Transliterations	p. xi
Preface and Acknowledgments	p. xiii
Kinship and Constructed Identities	p. 1
Credulity and Historical Causation	p. 22
Kinship Myth in the Literary Sources	p. 45
Alliances and Assistance
Kinship Myth in the Literary Sources	p. 69
Conquests and Territorial Possession
Alexander the Great	p. 83
Epigraphical Evidence of Kinship Diplomacy	p. 109
Paradigmatic Inscriptions
Epigraphical Evidence of Kinship Diplomacy	p. 124
Local Myths in Pausanias
Conclusions	p. 154
The Historical Context of Plutarch, Solon 8-10	p. 165
Greek Myth and Macedonian Identity	p. 170
A Tale of Two Phoci	p. 174
Notes	p. 177
Bibliography	p. 221
Index Locorum	p. 235
General Index	p. 247
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