The ethnic populations of the Argolid

The Argolid area of the northeastern Peloponnese (fig. 2) is bounded to the north by Korinthia, to the northeast and east by the Saronic Gulf, to the south and southeast by the Argolic Gulf and Kynouria, and to the west by Arkadia. It can be thought of as divided into two distinct regions. The Argive plain itself, which covers an area of approximately 200 square km, is triangular in shape and was formed from black alluvial soil washed down from the surrounding mountains. On the western side of the plain are the setdements of Argos (by far the most important and best documented site of the Argive plain in the post-Mycenaean period) and Lerna (modern Míli). On the eastern side are the settlements of Mykenai (Mikínes), the Argive Heraion, Berbati, Midea (Déndra), Tiryns, Nauplia (Náfplio) and, a little further to the southeast, Asine. The second region is the eastern Argolid, or Aktí Peninsula, divided into two by the Adhéres mountain range which runs like a spine from east to west. On the southern coast of Aktí are the sites of Mases (on the modern Koiládha bay), Halieis (Portohéli) and Hermione (Ermióni), while on the northern coast are the sites of Troizen (Trizína) and Epidauros (Epídhavros) along with the Methana peninsula and the island of Kalaureia (modern Póros).

The reason why the Argolid has been selected to provide a more detailed illustration of the discursive construction of ethnicity is due to the fact that – as figure 3 shows – it is a region whose population is characterised by the literary sources as being multi-ethnic in its composition.

I have insisted throughout on the constructive nature of ethnicity. Like all ethnic groups, collectivities such as the Dorians, the Ionians, the Akhaians, the Pelasgians or the Dryopes should not be viewed as ‘essential’ categories. There is no evidence to suggest that any one of these groups can be traced by a direct and exclusive association with a certain type of pottery, a particular class of dress ornament, a distinctive form of burial ritual or a specific dialect. Nor is there any reason to suppose that they will ever be identified by running DNA tests on their skeletal remains. Ethnic identity is not a ‘natural’ fact of life; it is something that needs to be actively proclaimed, reclaimed and disclaimed through discursive channels. For this reason, it is the literary evidence which must constitute the first and final frame of analysis in the study of ancient ethnicity. In saying this, I am certainly not advocating a general principle of granting to literary evidence a primacy in all approaches to antiquity; it is simply that the very nature of ethnic identity demands this.

It is, of course, easy to see why the practitioners of a more objectivist view to the past should have turned their back on the literary references to ancient ethnicity. Accounts which purport to be ethnographic records of historical populations are interspersed with tales which belong more to the realm of fantasy.

The rise and fall of instrumentalism

It was once thought that ethnicity was a transient phenomenon. This had much to do with the substitution of an ‘instrumentalist’ view of ethnic groups for one that was ‘primordialist’. Put briefly, the primordialists consider ethnicity (along with religion, race and territory) to be a basic and natural unit of history and humanity. Ethnicity is merely an extension of kinship and the normal vehicle through which common goals might be pursued. As an historical ‘given’, it is frequently granted a deterministic role: Max Weber, for instance, regarded ethnicity as having played a decisive part in shaping the patterns and directions of economic forces in ancient Israel, China and India, as well as in the Protestant kingdoms of the Reformation period.

Ethnic groups in ancient Greece

While the term ‘ethnicity’ apparently made its first appearance only in 1953, the phenomenon which it describes is indisputably more ancient. The genesis of nationalism in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries did not create ethnic consciousness, but demanded that ethnic boundaries should be coterminous with political ones. Thus, although Catalan nationalism may be a product of the modern era, the earlier existence of a distinct Catalan identity is demonstrated by the enrolment of the Catalan natio (this time without its political connotations) in the statutes of the University of Bologna in AD 1265. Similarly, Serbian consciousness is not a product of the nationalist movement of the 1980s, but has been preserved in the ritualised songs and epics telling of the conquest of the Old Serbian Kingdom by the Turks.

Although the English words ‘ethnic’ and ‘ethnicity’ are derived from the Greek ethnos (plural, ethne), even the most cursory survey of the ancient sources is sufficient to demonstrate that ethnos could embrace a wider variety of meanings than simply ‘ethnic group’. While it certainly can describe groups of people, its use does not appear to be strictly circumscribed in any defined sociological sense. On the one hand, it may be applied to the inhabitants of a polls, as when Herodotos refers to the Athenian and Attic ethne, or the ethnos of the Khalkidians.

One of our most important sources for an ethnolinguistic understanding of the Greek language is the epigraphical evidence furnished by formal inscriptions and dedications carved on bronze or stone tablets, as well as graffiti and dipinti casually scribbled on personal items. Relatively free from the artificial literary idioms that characterise the literary corpus from as early as the time of the Homeric epics, inscriptions (unlike the literary manuscripts which have been subjected to centuries of textual transmission) bear the unmediated mark of their scribes.

Two sorts of information are present in inscriptions. The first is linguistic: slight differences in speech and dialect can be discerned through phonological, morphological and sometimes even lexical variations. The second is strictly speaking stylistic rather than linguistic and involves variations in the manner of writing. The existence of localised chirographic traditions and conventions means that the provenance of inscriptions can often be ascertained from the shapes of letter forms. It is, however, the existence of a repertoire of alternative letter forms which presents each community with the need to choose between them. As with elements of material culture, this choice is seldom random and may well indicate a conscious selection intended to stress local identities. It is to these non-linguistic variations that we turn first.

Scripts and alphabets

The ancient Greeks attributed the invention of writing to mythical figures such as Hermes, Prometheus, Palamedes and Kadmos, though the earliest alphabetic inscriptions do not generally predate the eighth century BC – ironically, some of the earliest were found in Italy.

Excavating the ethnic group

It was argued in chapter i that, in the course of the nineteenth century, the study of ethnicity in Greek antiquity came to be dominated by the twin movements of romanticism and positivism. It was, therefore, only natural that the nascent discipline of archaeology, with its seemingly objective materiality, should be harnessed to the pseudo-scientific quest for the Volksgeist At first sight, the archaeological record appears to provide a number of dimensions in which to search for the ethnic group. An examination of ceramics might indicate the decorative styles favoured by certain ethnic groups as well as the types of vessels its members used for the storage, preparation, cooking and consumption of their food. Floral and faunal analysis could identify dietary preferences. A study of metalwork could reveal the sort of adornment favoured (and perhaps, by extension, the mode of dress worn) as well as the tools, implements and weapons employed in times of peace and war. Finally, an architectural survey might bring to light the preferred type of houseform.

Above all other classes of information, it is the evidence of burial which has traditionally ranked paramount in archaeological approaches to social phenomena. There are two principal reasons for this. Firstly, the conscious action of placing a corpse or a cinerary urn in a trench results in a ‘closed’ (or self-contained) deposit. This means that the grave goods, and particularly the ceramic objects, are likely to remain relatively intact: it is no coincidence that the vast majority of Greek pots displayed on museum shelves originate from burials rather than other contexts.

THE WORLD OF HOMER

As the oldest evidence for the history of friendship in the classical world, the two epic poems attributed to Homer present a paradox. The relationship between Achilles and Patroclus in the Iliad is often cited in antiquity as one of three or four legendary friendships. Theocritus (29.34), for instance, calls it exemplary; Bion of Smyrna (fr. 12) lauds Achilles and Patroclus along with Theseus and Peirithous and Orestes and Pylades, and Dio Chrysostom (Or. 57.28) mentions the same three pairs as the only examples of true friendship in all history. Lucian (Toxaris 10, trans. Harmon 1936: 119) remarks on the Greek “poets, who have rehearsed in the most beautiful of epic lines and lyric verses the friendship [philia] of Achilles and Patroclus and the comradeship [hetaireia] of Theseus, Peirithous, and all the rest”; Plutarch (On Having Many Friends 93E) praises them; in the fourth century AD, Themistius (Or. 22.266b, 271a), tutor to the emperor Gratian, and Libanius (Or. 1.56), tutor to Julian the Apostate, are still mentioning Achilles and Patroclus as model friends. Their friendship, according to William Anderson (1993: 35), “showed the way for later Greek tragedy to explore the pathos of self-sacrifice and the guilt in allowing another to take on one's own fatal danger.”

Nevertheless, many modern scholars suppose that in archaic epic, friendship is conceived as a formal and non-emotional bond based on obligation rather than love. Thus Paul Millett (1991: 120–1), summarizing the influential argument of Arthur Adkins (1963), writes: “Homeric ‘friendship’ appears as a system of calculated cooperation, not necessarily accompanied by any feelings of affection.”

UNEQUAL FRIENDS

Among the epistles ascribed to the orator Isocrates is a letter of recommendation on behalf of a disciple of his named Diodotus (Ep. 4); the letter is addressed to Antipater, regent in Macedonia during Philip's absence. Assuming that the text is genuine and not a later composition passed off as classical – such exercises were fashionable in subsequent centuries – it may be dated to the year 340 or 339 BC. In the letter, Isocrates praises Diodotus for his moderation, thrift, and sense of justice, as well as for his pleasant nature and fluency (ligurōtatos), qualities that make him an excellent companion with whom to share the day or spend one's entire life. In addition to this, Isocrates says, Diodotus possesses parrhēsia or frankness in the highest degree – not an inappropriate outspokenness, but rather the kind of candor that manifests itself as the truest sign of good will toward his philoi. Isocrates continues:

SELF-DISCLOSURE AND CHRISTIAN FRIENDSHIP

During the third and fourth centuries AD, the Roman state endured as a central political authority controlling a vast empire that included Western and South-Eastern Europe, North Africa, and the Near East up to the borders of Persia. The periphery of this territory and Italy itself were subject to invasions by warlike peoples that had been partly assimilated to Roman social life; destruction was at times massive, and regions periodically achieved varying degrees of local autonomy. Internally, class divisions hardened into statuses: laws prescribed different treatment for citizens according to rank, and the lowest stratum was reduced to a serf-like state of dependency (the “colonate”) that was often little different from slavery. At the same time, traditional civic institutions, or at least forms, exhibited a remarkable tenacity, and many cities preserved ancient offices and titles under radically changed conditions. Finally, Constantine's decision to grant religious freedom to all Christians in 313 confirmed the pre-eminence of the church, and created the conditions for vigorous campaigns of conversion as well as confrontations between rival Christian sects.

Within the church, attitudes toward friendship were conditioned both by theological or ethical principles and by organizational considerations. Monastic life, which took various forms in different parts of the empire, had a profound influence on Christian social thought. When the church fathers wrote about friendship, they were as often concerned with relations among monks, priests, or other devotees who lived together in religious communities as with forms of familiarity among lay people.