Autochthony in Ancient Greece 243simply “native.” Later examples can be found, particularly in the work of Pausanias, who
was fond of applyingautochthonto individuals. At 6.20.15–19, he retails the different
views held about Taraxippos, a structure resembling a round altar in the hippodrome
at Olympia. One was that it was the tomb of anautochthoncalled Olenios. There was
an Elean claim to autochthony (see the text that follows), but the point here is that
Olenios was from Elis, whereas the other men supposedly connected with Taraxippos
were from elsewhere. Pausanias reports several Greek communities who claimed that an
autochthonwas their founder or first inhabitant (e.g., Sikyon 2.5.6; Phlious 2.12.4; 7.18.2
Patrai; Pheneos 8.14.4; Phigalia 8.39.2; Alalkomenai 9.33.5), but does not describe these
communities as autochthonous. These passages have been taken by scholars (including
the present writer) to mean that the communities were indeed autochthonous, but it
is at least possible that Pausanias means only that the individuals were natives of the
various places, not incomers. Pausanias also has (3.1.1) the puzzling and, in the con-
text, historically insignificant individualautochthonLelex, first king of Lakonia (Calame
1987: 156–9; see also Descat [2001] on the Leleges): the reference would be easier to
understand if Lelex were simply “local.” Rosivach (1987: 305–6) suggested that, for
authors earlier than Ephorus,autochthon, when applied to the Arkadians, meant sim-
ply “indigenous”. His arguments have been countered by Nielsen (2002: 70–1), but
in other contexts, the word may well mean “indigenous,” particularly when applied
to individuals.
Greek Interest in Autochthony
Some aspects of autochthony had been incorporated into Greek mythology before the
fifth century. Earth-born Pelasgos, important for the myth–history of the autochthonous
Arkadians ([Apollodorus]Bibliotheca3.8.1, Paus. 8.1.4), was known to Asius in the sixth
century, and possibly to Hesiod (see the preceding text). The early earth-born ancestors
of the Athenians were equally known in the archaic period (see Parker 1987). Indeed,
already in theIliad(2. 546–8), the Athenians were the people of Erechtheus, whom
Athena fostered when the Earth bore him. However, it is hard to tell whether inter-
est in autochthony developed in the archaic period. It is clear, for instance, that belief
in Arkadian autochthony was well established and widely known by Herodotus’ day
(8.73), but we have no means of tracing when it began. The Suda says that Pherecy-
des of Athens, writing in the earlier fifth century, produced a work titledAutochthons
about the early history of Athens, and this, if true, would suggest that belief in Athenian
autochthony was well developed by the mid-fifth century. It is not impossible that some
interest was being shown in autochthony earlier, but on present evidence it first appears
as a topic of widespread interest in the mid-fifth century, roughly at the time when the
wordautochthonappears in the surviving literature.
When such interest appeared, it took two forms. One was claims by Greek communities
that they were autochthonous, and had always lived in the same place. Some of these will
be considered in the text that follows, including notably the Athenian claim, for which
the surviving evidence vastly outweighs that for any other community. The other form of