Irad Malkin

Greek mythology and cult often served both as expressions of collective, historical identity and of attitudes to lands and territories. Functioning historically, myths provided justifications and legitimations of conquest, displacement, and settlement. Focusing on the Spartan Mediterranean--the world of Sparta and its colonies--this book examines the spectrum of the uses of myth. Extending beyond the Greek world, the book also raises the important question of how peoples relate to and justify their national and territorial identities.

Myth and Territory in the Spartan Mediterranean

In this book, prominent historians apply Mediterranean paradigms to Classical Mediterranean Antiquty (Greece and Rome), allowing for a new approach to the ancient world and enhancing antiquity's relevance to the understanding of other historical periods as well as our contemporary world. This book was previously published as a special issue of the journal Mediterranean Historical Review.

Mediterranean Paradigms and Classical Antiquity

Jenny Strauss Clay

Yannis Z. Tzifopoulos

This volume discusses the multidimensional aspects of the unique, and so far unprecedented for Macedonia, 191 sherds from Methone in Pieria, dated to ca 700 BCE, which bear inscriptions, graffiti, and (trade)marks inscribed, incised, scratched and rarely painted. The 191 vessels were unearthed during excavations in ancient Methone in Pieria, the oldest colony of Greeks from Eretria in the north according to tradition. The Methone find is unique for two reasons. First, most of the pottery dates between 730 and 700 BCE, a period from which very few examples of Greek writing survives. And second, inscribed ceramics, scratched or painted, are extremely rare in Macedonia. This new evidence of inscribed pottery from Methone is invaluable for classical studies, and the papers of this volume contribute notably to current discussions about: the Greeks and the Greek language in Macedonia; the Greek colonization; the pottery trade and the early Greek transport amphoras; trade, the symposium, and other contexts for the development of writing; the ‘alphabets’ of Methone and the introduction of the alphabet in Greece; the dialect(s) of Methone in relation to the Greek dialects; early Greek writing, literacy, and literary beginnings.

Graphê in Late Geometric and Protoarchaic Methone, Macedonia (ca 700 BCE)

Panhellenes at Methone

Greek civilization and identity crystallized not when Greeks were close together but when they came to be far apart. This book looks at how Greek the network shaped a small Greek world where separation is measured by degrees of contact rather than by physical dimensions.

Networks in the Ancient Mediterranean

A Small Greek World

Cummings Chair for Mediterranean History and Culture and Professor of Ancient Greek History Irad Malkin

This book is a study of the variable perceptions of Greek collective identity, discussing ancient categories such as blood- and mythically-related primordiality, language, religion, and culture. With less emphasis on dichotomies between Greeks and others, the book considers complex middle grounds of intra-Hellenic perceptions, oppositional identities, and outsiders' views. Although the authors do not seek to provide a litmus test of Greek identity, they do pay close attention to modern theories of ethnicity, its construction, function, and representation, and assess their applicability to views of Greekness in antiquity. From the Archaic period through the Roman Empire, archaeological, anthropological, historical, historiographical, rhetorical, artistic, and literary aspects are studied. Regardless of the invented aspects of ethnicity, the book illustrates its force and validity in history.

Ancient Perceptions of Greek Ethnicity

This remarkably rich and multifaceted study of early Greek exploration makes an original contribution to current discussions of the encounters between Greeks and non-Greeks. Focusing in particular on myths about Odysseus and other heroes who visited foreign lands on their mythical voyages homeward after the Trojan War, Irad Malkin shows how these stories functioned to mediate encounters and conceptualize ethnicity and identity during the Archaic and Classical periods. Synthesizing a wide range of archaeological, mythological, and literary sources, this exceptionally learned book strengthens our understanding of early Greek exploration and city-founding along the coasts of the Western Mediterranean, reconceptualizes the role of myth in ancient societies, and revitalizes our understanding of ethnicity in antiquity. Malkin shows how the figure of Odysseus became a proto-colonial hero whose influence transcended the Greek-speaking world. The return-myths constituted a generative mythology, giving rise to oral poems, stories, iconographic imagery, rituals, historiographical interpretation, and the articulation of ethnic identities. Reassessing the role of Homer and alternative return-myths, the book argues for the active historical function of myth and collective representations and traces their changing roles through a spectrum of colonial perceptions—from the proto-colonial, through justifications of expansion and annexation, and up to decolonization.

Colonization and Ethnicity

The Returns of Odysseus

Christy Constantakopoulou

Katerina Panagopoulou

How useful is the concept of "network" for historical studies and the ancient world in particular? Using theoretical models of social network analysis, this book illuminates aspects of the economic, social, religious, and political history of the ancient Greek and Roman worlds. Bringing together some of the most active and prominent researchers in ancient history, this book moves beyond political institutions, ethnic, and geographical boundaries in order to observe the ancient Mediterranean through a perspective of network interaction. It employs a wide range of approaches, and to examine relationships and interactions among various social entities in the Mediterranean. Chronologically, the book extends from the early Iron Age to the late Antique world, covering the Mediterranean between Antioch in the east to Massalia (Marseilles) in the west. This book was published as two special issues in Mediterranean Historical Review.

Irad Malkin

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