CHAPTER 16
Autochthony in Ancient Greece
1James Roy
“Autochthon” and Autochthonos ̄
Among ancient Greeks, there developed many collective identities, such as a common
Greek identity, an identity as Dorians or Ionians, anethnosidentity as Boiotians or
Phokians or Arkadians, and an identity as citizens of apolis: this list is not exhaustive (see
Malkin 2001). These various forms of identity were not necessarily mutually exclusive,
and a Greek could have identified himself in various ways in different contexts, as a
Greek similar to other Greeks, an Ionian among Ionians, or an Athenian different
from the citizens of other Greek cities. These identities were commonly rooted in an
unhistorical past and expressed through mythical genealogy (though they could also
be founded on more recent achievements and cultural values, as in Thucydides’ funeral
speech). Greek communities thus traced their existence back to a mythical founder
or founders. Genealogical links also allowed communities to claim shared kinship,
and even to locate non-Greek communities within the network of interlinked Greek
identities (see Bickerman 1952). In Greek myth, geographical movement is common,
and the majority of Greek communities traced their myth–history back to ancestors who
came from elsewhere to the community’s present homeland. In other cases, however,
communities believed that they had always lived in the same territory—in other words,
that they were autochthonous. Greeks were also willing to believe in the autochthony of
non-Greek communities.
Aeschylus (Agamemnon536) says that Priam caused the downfall of his ancestral
house, “land and all,” usingautochthonosto express that idea (Blok 2009a: 253). The
word is slightly odd, and did not gain a place in normal Greek vocabulary, unlike
autochthon, which is found soon afterward and rapidly became an established term.
Hermann suggested that Aeschylus chose the uncommon form because he wanted
A Companion to Ethnicity in the Ancient Mediterranean, First Edition. Edited by Jeremy McInerney.
© 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.