Messenia, Ethnic Identity, and Contingency 287the lofty mountains of Ithome” (fr. 5, cf. Diod. 16.66.3, Paus. 4.9–14, with 4.15–23
for the second phase of the Spartan conquest). Memories of an “old Messene” in the
distant past were fundamental to Messenian identity in the fifth and fourth centuries.
Thucydides states that most of the rebel helots on Mount Ithome were “descendants of
the early Messenians who had been enslaved of old” (1.101.2, cf. Diod. 15.66.4, Paus.
3.11.8, 4.24.6), while thepolisof Epaminondas was imagined as the restoration of the
“old Messenians” from overseas exile to a liberated homeland (Paus. 4.26.5, 4.27.9–11,
Diod. 15.66.6, Plut.Ages. 34.1,Pelop. 24.9, cf. Strabo 8.5.8). Some contemporary
critics countered that the settlers were not “true” Messenians, but helots (Isoc.Archid.
28, 87–88, cf. Lycurg.Leoc. 62). However, it was later possible to argue that the
settlement of ex-helot Messenians at Messene was universally acknowledged as a just
and noble act (Dio Chrys.Or. 15.28). Messenian ethnicity was the antithesis of helot
status, and it was constructed in terms of putative biological descent from the “old
Messenians” of the distant past.
The citizens of the fourth-centurypoliscreated written accounts of the history of Messe-
nia to lay claim to the Messenians of the pre-Spartan past and legitimate their own new
existence as a city and as a people. However, before this time, Messenian ethnicity was
not the focus of written discourse in the region. Some scholars thus cite oral traditions
to support their conviction that the helots of Messenia had an identity based on his-
torical consciousness throughout the period of Spartan rule (Shero 1938: 504; Treves
1944: 104; Chambers 1978: 275; with further examples cited by Ogden 2004: 20).
Recent scholarship generally argues against continuity: ethnic difference did not define
the Spartan rituals of repression, and it is difficult to attribute ethnic consciousness to
the helots of either Messenia or Laconia (Figueira 1999: 221; Luraghi 2001: 295–6,
2008: 203; similarly, for helots of Laconia: Ducat 1990: 18; van Wees 2003: 49–50). It
is no less difficult to discern ethnic differences between the Spartans andperioeci,andit
may be that theperioeciof Messenia perceived themselves as Lacedaemonian by default
(Luraghi 2002a: 67–8, 2008: 206; cf. Kennell 2010: 91). Messenian identity in the fifth
and fourth centuries can thus be viewed as the product of ethnogenesis, although there
are still dissenting voices (see van Wees 2003: 49 and Ogden 2004: xiii). Proponents of
the ethnogenesis model emphasize the natural barrier of the Taygetus and the physical
separation of Messenia from the rest of theLakonike(Luraghi 2002a: 68, 2008: 207; cf.
Alcock 2002: 154; Cartledge 2001: 148). Emphasis is also given to a shared sense of the
past, but with terms such as “identity” or “tradition” now replacing earlier assumptions
of a fully formed Messenian historical narrative. This trend is exemplified in the analy-
sis of cult rituals at Bronze Age tombs in Messenia in the Archaic and Classical periods.
Scholars speak of “social memories” (Alcock 1999: 336–7, 2002: 146–52) and “ances-
tralizing strategies” (Hall 2003: 160). Scholarship past and present has sought to give a
voice to the enslaved and subject peoples of Messenia, and there is a renewed consensus
that Messenian ethnic identity in the Peloponnese was forged by the local inhabitants.
The importance of the Messenian diaspora in Italy and Sicily is acknowledged, and it is
argued that the emergence of a Messenian identity in Italy and Sicily under the Anaxilads
gave credibility to the ethnic claims of the Peloponnesian Messenians in the wider Greek
world (Luraghi 2008: 207, cf. 147–72; this analysis supersedes the view that the west-
ern diaspora was able to maintain the continuity of Messenian ethnic identity throughout
the centuries of Spartan rule: Shero 1938: 504; cf. Alcock 2002: 158–9). In contrast,