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Genealogical thinking, Hesiod's Catalogue, and the creation of the Hellenes1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2013

Robert L. Fowler
Robert L. Fowler
Affiliation:
University of Bristol
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Extract

Genealogy was important in early Greece. One thinks readily of aristocratic lineages proudly recited by Homeric heroes, and the family lore carefully recorded by epinician poets; but passing remarks are even more revealing. In the seventh book of the Iliad Nestor tells of an embassy he once led north to Phthia, where he hoped to enlist the aid of Peleus' mighty son in the coming campaign. Welcoming his Argive guests, Peleus asks eagerly about their ‘ancestry and descent’, and hears the answers with much pleasure:

In Peleus' part of the country southerners were not often seen. He seeks by his questions to relate the unknown to the known; he is hoping that somewhere in the pedigree a familiar name will turn up to give him a point of reference. Genealogy gives him his bearings. For those within the system a genealogy is a map. They can read its signs. To the names are attached stories, thousands of them; collectively they gave the listeners their sense of history and their place in the world. Hence Peleus' great pleasure in hearing the answers. Centuries later, the Greeks were no different; the sophist Hippias says that the crowds at Olympia like to hear nothing better than his recitations of genealogies.

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Research Article
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Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society (Second Series) , Volume 44 , 1999 , pp. 1 - 19
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Copyright © The Author(s). Published online by Cambridge University Press 1999

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References

2 Il. 7.127f. (cf. 11.769f.).

3 Plato, , Hippias Major 285dGoogle Scholar.

4 I place it about 580, accepting in the main West, M. L.'s arguments in The Hesiodic Catalogue of women (Oxford 1985)Google Scholar and adding that the connection of Sikyon and Athens (Sikyon is made a son of Erechtheus in fr. 224) was more likely to be invented before the demise of Kleisthenes c.575 than after, even if the tyranny lasted another twenty years. Although Janko, R.'s statistical methods in Homer, Hesiod, and the Hymns (Cambridge 1982)Google Scholar are generally valid, particularly with respect to the sequence Iliad – Odyssey – Theogony – Works and Days, the date of c.675 which they yield for the Catalogue seems based on an unreliably small number of verses. Further discussion of the date in Marcotte, D., REA 57 (1988) 249–57Google Scholar.

5 West (above, n. 4) 125–8.

6 See for instance Bremmer, Jan N., ‘The importance of the maternal uncle and grandfather in archaic and classical Greece and early Byzantium’, ZPE 50 (1983) 173–86Google Scholar; id., Fosterage, kinship and the circulation of children in ancient Greece', forthcoming (Dutch original in Tydschrift voor Geschiedenis 109 (1996) 343–60Google Scholar); Littman, Robert J., Kinship and politics in Athens 600–400 B. C. (New York etc. 1990)Google Scholar; Bettini, M., Anthropology and Roman culture (Baltimore and London 1991)Google Scholar; Hallett, J. P., ‘Agnatio, affinitas and cognatio in classical Rome’, in Jocelyn, H. D., ed., Tria Lustra (Liverpool 1993) 215–28Google Scholar. Kinship has been a consistent theme in the work of Humphreys, S. C., notably in Anthropology and the Greeks (London etc. 1978)Google Scholar.

7 West (above, n. 4) ch. 1 offers a valuable survey of genealogizing the world over, drawing important conclusions about genealogical patterns; the crucial point about retrospective shaping is stated forcibly on p. 11. The present paper seeks to complement his labours by emphasizing rather more the anthropological perspective. Thomas, Rosalind, Oral tradition and written record in classical Athens (Cambridge 1989)CrossRefGoogle Scholar is also very important. See further Calame, Claude's illuminating study, ‘Spartan genealogies: the mythological representation of a spatial organisation’, in Bremmer, J., ed., Interpretations of Greek mythology (London and Sydney 1987) 153–86Google Scholar, and, most recently, Hall, Jonathan M.'s Ethnic identity in Greek antiquity (Cambridge 1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Broadbent, M., Studies in Greek genealogy (Leiden 1968)Google Scholar, is eccentric; Prakken, D. W., Studies in Greek genealogical chronology (Lancaster, PA 1943)Google Scholar believes in the straightforward possibility of translating genealogies into dates.

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9 Bohannan (above, n. 8) 314.

10 Hdt. 2.143.1 = FGrHist 1 T 4.

11 Leach (above, n. 8) 54.

12 Cf. Calame (above, n. 7) 170, 174.

13 Hall's useful term (above, n. 7), 42.

14 Or to be perfectly accurate, although one may concede that these genealogies provide evidence of a somewhat unusual degree of maternal filiation, they are clearly patrilineal. One could not expect them to be strictly unilineal, since these trees are endogamic, which accords nicely with the lack of evidence for exogamy in Indo-European society (Humphreys (above, n. 6), 198); as explained above, endogamy means that unilineal descent is compromised, and the tree begins to look bilateral.

15 Hall (above, n. 7) 56ff., ch. 4.

16 According to a later inscription from Thera, there had also been a group in old Sparta who identified themselves as Oibalidai: IG XII 3.869, 6; see Calame (above, n. 7) 169.

17 ‘… far too large a proportion of royal genealogies received through oral tradition will show very long series of father/son successions and then, significantly, branch out into more typical collateral forms of succession as the genealogy approaches the time of ultimate transmission’: Henige, , ‘Oral tradition and chronology’ (above, n. 8) 379Google Scholar, citing a range of examples from Africa and India.

18 After West (above, n. 4) p. 177.

19 Henige, , ‘Oral tradition and chronology’ (above, n. 8) 375f.Google Scholar, cites examples of genealogical lengthening for precisely the purpose from Korea, Ireland, Scotland, and India. The added figures are frequently ‘eponyms, patronyms, toponyms, or otherwise symbolically named’ (376).

20 Astutely pointed out by Jacoby on Philochorus 328 FF 99–101, n. 39 (p. 316); in the days of the Athenian empire the contrast of Ionians and Dorians was all that mattered, or rather of Athens and Sparta (see Hdt. 1.56).

21 See Harder, A., Euripides' Kresphontes and Archelaos (Leiden 1985) 129ff.Google Scholar; Hall, E., Inventing the barbarian (Oxford 1989) 180Google Scholar; Bremmer, J., ZPE 117 (1997) 12Google Scholar.

22 I continue to place them in this order, considering them roughly contemporary.

23 See S. West on Od. 1.344; LfgrE s.vv. ; Wathelet, P., ‘L'Origine du nom des Hellènes et son développement dans la tradition homérique’, Les Études classiques 43 (1975) 119–28Google Scholar; Beloch, K. J., Griechische Geschichte I I2 (1912) 332 n. 1Google Scholar; Lévy, E., ‘Apparition des notions de Grèce et des Grecs’ in Saïd, S., ed., ΕΛΛΗΝΙΣΜΟΣ. Quelques jalons pour une histoire de l'identité grecque (Leiden 1991) 49–69 at 62Google Scholar. This sense of curiously survives in Demosthenes 19.303 (cf. Pliny NH 4.23; Lévy wrongly cites also Paus. 2.29.7). Vannicelli, P., ‘Il nome ΕΛΛΗΝΕ Σ in Omero’, RFIC 117 (1989) 34–48Google Scholar, examines these facts from a slightly different perspective.

24 Ancient references, beginning with Thuc. 1.3.3 (Hellen king of Phthiotis), in West (above, n. 4) 53 n. 43. Hellen's tomb was shown in Melitaia (Strabo 9.5.6 p. 432).

25 See e.g. Snodgrass, A., Archaic Greece (London 1980) 87fGoogle Scholar.

26 We cannot construct the original list of members with confidence, for our sources have certainly been influenced by subsequent transformations. Theopompus, , FGrHist 115 FGoogle Scholar 63 names Achaioi, Boiotoi, Dorians, Ionians, Perrhaiboi, Magnetes, Dolopes, Phthiotai, Malians, Phokians, Ainianes, Delphoi; Paus. 10.8.2 omits Ainianes. Delphoi, Boiotoi, and Perrhaiboi, and adds the Thettaloi and the Epiknemidian Lokroi; Aisch. 2.116 gives the fourth-century list: Thettaloi, Boiotoi, Dorians, Ionians, Perrhaiboi, Magnetes, Dolopes, Lokroi, Oitaioi, Phthiotai, Malieis, Phokeis. (Pausanias is sometimes said to be reproducing Androtion's list, but Androtion is cited in this passage en passant for an aberrant opinion about the meaning of ‘amphiktyony’.) The Thettaloi were not a single corporation in the seventh century; how many Boiotoi, Dorians outside Doris, and Ionians were early members is wholly conjectural. The persistence of the Magnetes is interesting; the Catalogue of women has reduced them to the level of the Makedones (both eponyms are sons of Thyia, daughter of Deukalion: fr. 7.2), but in the Iliad they are Thessalian (2.756).

27 Grote, G., History of Greece (J. M. Dent, London, 1906 [1846]) I 89Google Scholar, also pointed out the probable connection between Hellenes and the amphiktyony; cf. also Unger, G., Philol. Supphd. 2 (1863) 682Google Scholar, after Curtius, E., Griechische Geschichte (1857) I 96Google Scholar. Grote is especially interesting in that he is aware of the fictitious aspect of genealogies. Miller, J., RE VIII (1913) 159Google Scholar s.v. , judged that the suggestion had ‘wenig Wahrscheinlichkeit’, and it seems to have dropped out of sight until quite recently, when one or two writers have briefly mentioned it: Lévy (above, n.23) p.66 (who also cites the influence of Olympia, but the extension occurred before this was a panhellenic sanctuary) and J. F. Lazenby in OCD 3 s.v. Hellenes; cf. also Wade-Gery, H. T., JHS 44 (1924) 64 n.34CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The present paper seeks to provide the reasons why the connection is cogent. Ulf, C., ‘Griechische Ethnogenese versus Wanderungen von Stämmen und Stammstaaten’ in Ulf, C., ed., Wege zur Genese griechischer Identität. Die Bedeutung derfrüharchaischen Zeit (Berlin 1996) 240–80Google Scholar credits epic poetry sung up and down the Asia Minor seaboard, where Aeolians, Ionians, and Dorians lived next to each other and the barbarians, with the invention of the genealogy of Hellen, which was then localized back on the main land; this seems unnecessarily complicated, and he has difficulty accounting for the role of Xouthos. I can see no reason at all to support the speculation of Bury, R. and Meiggs, R., A History of Greece (London4 1975) 80CrossRefGoogle Scholar, that the name originated in Megale Hellas.

28 Tausend, K., Amphiktyonie und Symmachie. Formen zwischenstaatlicher Beziehungen im archaischen Griechenland (Historia Einzelschriften 72, Stuttgart 1992); see esp. pp. 57ffGoogle Scholar.

29 The securest link is with Lokros, who is Amphiktyon's grandson (by way of Physkos) in Plut., Quaest. graec. 15Google Scholar, and Eust. Il. 277.18; the latter has a good chance of going back to Hellanicus, if as I conjecture the otherwise unattested name of Lokros' grandmother, Chthonopatra (wife of Amphiktyon), is a corruption of the similarly unique Xenopatra, daughter of Hellen in Hell. fr. 125 (Amphiktyon thus married his niece). In ps.-Skymnos 587ff. (GGM 1.219) Lokros is great-grandson of Amphiktyon; in schol. Pind. Ol. 9.96, he is son (and Amphiktyon is son of Zeus). As for the others, Boiotos is son of Itonos son of Amphiktyon only in Steph. Byz. s.v. Βοιωτία (normally he is son of Poseidon and Arne), and Malos is son of Amphiktyon only in Steph. Byz. s.v. Μαλιεύς; one could wish for better evidence. Amphiktyon himself is founder of the league in Theopompus, , FGrHist 115 F 63Google Scholar, Marmor Parium 239 A 5, Dionys. Hal. Ant. Rom. 4.25.3. He was also one of the Attic kings, either before or after Kranaos; the relative consistency of the king-list, as Jacoby, on FGrHist 4 FF 38–49Google Scholar argued, points to a definitive treatment, probably that of Hellanicus. His name is not among the extant fragments of the Catalogue. We cannot say how he might have comported with Hellen in the early propaganda of the amphiktyony, but having both makes good sense: one symbolizes the act of association, the other the raison d'être.

30 For discussions see Tausend (above, n. 28) 43ff., 161ff.; Jeffery, L. H., Archaic Greece. The city-states (1976) 73f.Google Scholar; Jacoby, on Androtion FGrHist 324 F 58Google Scholar, Marmor Parium 239 A 5, and Das Marmor Parium (1904) 33 ffGoogle Scholar. Robertson, N., ‘The myth of the First Sacred War’, CQ 28 (1978) 38–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar, dismisses the whole war as a fiction created in the aftermath of the Third Sacred War. He is answered by Lehmann, G. in Historia 29 (1980) 242–6Google Scholar and Cassola, F., ‘Note sulla guerra crisea’, Miscellanea … Eugenio Manni 2 (Rome 1980) 416–22Google Scholar. There is no room here for a full treatment. The burgeoning of discussions in the 340s is suspicious, to be sure; but though some exaggeration and tendentious rewriting has certainly occurred, there are insufficient grounds to dismiss the whole story. The silence of Herodotus proves nothing; Vannicelli, P. has shown that Herodotus is consistently and deliberately reticent about things that happened before the three-generation horizon he sets for his history: Erodoto e la storia dell'alto e medio arcaismo (Rome 1993)Google Scholar. Isocrates 14.31 (373/2 B.C.) seems to allude to the war. The amphiktyony was certainly transferred, Thessaly had the lead, the Pythian games were reorganized; these facts are sufficient for our purposes.

31 West (above, n. 4) 162ff. Phokos is half-brother of Peleus and Telamon in the Alkmaionis fr. 1 Davies/Bernabé. The date of the poem is uncertain; Wilamowitz, Homerische Untersuchungen (1884) 73 n. 2Google Scholar argued it could not be earlier than 600.

32 Cf. Huxley, G., Greek epic poetry (London 1969) 93–4Google Scholar; F. Cassola (above, n. 30) 436; Tausend (above, n. 28) 44; Ellinger, P., La Légende nationale phocidienne (Paris 1993) 315Google Scholar. Panope was also the refuge of the Phlegyai after their attack on Delphi, at least of those who survived Apollo's revenge (Paus. 9.36.3, 10.4.1); this story too may be connected with the war. If Panopeus and his townsmen were the aggressors in these myths (cf. Tzetzes on Lycophr. 930–32), not Krisa, we need not, with Tausend, weaken our case with an ad hoc hypothesis that there was some earlier form of the twins story. The details of the narrative can hardly be recovered at this distance. On the folktale motif of quarreling twins see Bremmer, J. in Clauss, J., Johnston, S. I., edd., Medea (Princeton 1997) 92Google Scholar.

33 Aeschin., Ctes. 107Google Scholar. Tausend 164ff. thinks the participation of Athens in the war was a patriotic fiction of the fourth century, mainly, it seems, because he can discover no persuasive political or economic motive for their participation; this seems to sit ill with his own conclusions quoted above about the purpose of these associations. Still, the scale of this war has surely been exaggerated, and the starring role of Solon is suspicious. But whatever the truth of the war may be, the sixth-century membership of Athens in the amphiktyony may be accepted. The same passage of Aeschines reports that the mysterious Kragalides fought alongside the Krisaians, to disappear from history thereafter no less surely; the eponymous Kragaleus is found in Antoninus Liberalis as a son of Dryops. The perfectly unhellenic Dryopes are ignored by the Catalogue, so far as we know. Dryopes and the decidedly barbarous Phlegyes are numbered among the defeated by Speusippus, , Epistle to Philip 30Google Scholar.

34 Cf. West (above, n. 4) 53; Hall (above, n. 7) 64.

35 We do not know how Lokros, the eventual leader of the Leleges who changed their name, was fitted into the Catalogue. On the Graikoi see the references in West, , Catalogue 54 n. 48Google Scholar. The Helloi/Selloi of Dodona, the oldest Greek sanctuary according to Hdt. 2.52.2, were also contenders for the donors of the national name; see Caduff, G. A., Antike Sintflutsagen (Göttingen 1986) 103f.CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wathelet, P., ‘L'Origine’ (above, n. 23) 122f.Google Scholar; Hammond, N. G. L., Epirus (Oxford 1967) 365ff.Google Scholar; Lesky, A., WSt 46 (1928) 115ff.Google Scholar; Wilamowitz, , Kleine Schriften V 123Google Scholar. Only the faintest echoes of these controversies survive into classical sources, so thorough was the victory of the Hellenes.

36 So Beloch (above, n. 23) 331.

37 Text after West, , IEG II 62Google Scholar. The date of the first Pythia is not certain. For 586 see Brodersen, K., ZPE 82 (1990) 25–31Google Scholar; for 582 see Mosshammer, A., GRBS 23 (1982) 15–30Google Scholar.

38 My anthropological advisors, the professors Lyons (n. 1), point out that the terms ‘fission’ and ‘fusion’ are normally used of societies with segmentary kinship systems to describe the coming together and drifting apart of kinship groups under changing circumstances; it is a novelty to apply the concept to retrospective manipulation as I have done in this paper. They find it perfectly acceptable, however, to extend the principle in this manner. Indeed it is quite logical. Anthropologists have perhaps not extended the principle because most societies in their experience would not have the opportunity to conduct such manipulation; Greek society did because of its genealogically complex heroic legends.

39 Cf. Thomas, R., Oral tradition and written record in classical Athens (Cambridge 1989) 181 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

40 ‘One of the drawbacks of literacy for the Somali was that it became harder to adjust genealogies to the realities of the day’: Vansina, J., Oral tradition as history (Madison 1985) 182Google Scholar citing I. M. Lewis.

41 Wilson (above, n. 8) 199.

42 In FGrHist 1 F 13, Deukalion's three sons are Orestheus, Pronoos, and Marathonios; from Orestheus is descended Aitolos (fr. 15), Hellen is son of Pronoos, and I conjecture that Ion and Achaios more probably descended from Marathonios than from Hellen or Orestheus, in spite of fr. 16, which appears to connect Ion and Lokros (it is corrupt, and in my view Ion's presence there is wholly illusory). I shall discuss this matter elsewhere.

43 See Cole, M. and Scribner, S., The psychology of literacy (Cambridge, Mass. 1981)Google Scholar; Thomas (above, n. 7); ead., Literacy and orality in ancient Greece (Cambridge 1992)Google Scholar; Andersen, Øvind, ‘Mündlichkeit und Schriftlichkeit im frühen Griechentum’, AuA 33 (1987) 29–44Google Scholar; Street, Brian V., ed., Cross-cultural approaches to literacy (Cambridge 1993)Google Scholar.

44 See particularly Lloyd, G. E. R., Magic, reason, and experience. Studies in the origin and development of Greek science (Cambridge 1979)Google Scholar.