Greeks and Phoenicians in the Western Mediterranean 331rigid dichotomy in which one may choose only between land and sea, so to speak, accord-
ing to which indigenous cultures appear as immutable and monolithic—a “traditional”
world, frozen, concerned only with preserving its integrity—and imported cultures, a
merciless wave that one resists or to which one succumbs. Applied to Sicily, the con-
cept of “middle ground” has already been shown to be a fertile concept for thinking
about a space of transaction not only metaphorically but also physically (Malkin 2004,
2011)—that is, the island space coveted and necessarily divided up between many dif-
ferent ethnic groups. From this point of view, it is important to stress the fact that, just
as in the Great Lakes region dear to Richard White, in Sicily we do not find a binary
confrontation between Greeks and Phoenicians. The indigenous worlds also have a place
in these processes, and in terms of ethnicity, they contribute to the Greeks’ definition
of it—and they are the only ones to have left traces of their social relations in diasporic
contexts—as an identity built on contrasts. The case of the sanctuary of the Palikoi, which
served the indigenous city of Palike, founded in 453BCby Douketios (Diod. Sic. 11.88;
cf Cusumano 2013), nicely illustrates the fact that relations with the indigenous popu-
lation were an integral part of the island’s cultural landscape. These relations shaped the
landscape. Diodorus (11.89) actually describes a rather primitive and forbidding sanctu-
ary, with hot water spouting out of the ground, groaning, and foul smelling. This spot,
however, or the communication between humans and divine power that occurs here, is
so manifest that it becomes dangerous, the setting for cultic practices concerned with
the need to regulate relations between ethnic groups. Solemn oaths are offered, pro-
claimed by priest–magistrates and put down on tablets that are then thrown into the
sulfurous water in order verify the good faith of the word that has been given. In a space
of contact between indigenes and Greeks that was liable to lead to conflicts, the gods
were entrusted with the regulations of transactions at the very center of “the middle
ground,” according to procedures that were completely exceptional, and by recourse
to writing, a procedure borrowed from the colonists of Hellenic origin. Furthermore,
the twin Palikoi are sometimes supposed to be the descendants of Zeus and the nymph
Thalia, but at other times the children of Adranos, an indigenous god, and are always
tied to the ground from which they rise up at their birth, similar to water spraying
from geysers. This example demonstrates the interweaving of identities and practices in
Sicilian territory.
At Selinus too, the entire situation is, just as we have seen in the preceding text, similarly
oriented toward compromise. Take, for example, the many clay tablets found in the city
archives preserved in Temple C, dedicated to Apollo, on the Acropolis (De Simone 2010)
that, in the Punic phase, continued to be adorned with typically Greek motifs, such as
Apollo with lyre, and Herakles wrestling the Cretan Bull or Hermes holding a sandal. In a
medium where one might have expected a powerful symbolic assertion of identity, instead
one is faced by a shared repertoire that relates to akoine, at once local and Mediterranean,
promoting integration, continuity, and the compatibility of the populations present.
The choice of Selinus to illustrate the cultic “middle ground” is not a matter of chance.
It is designed to underscore the considerable differences in our perception of transcul-
tural dynamics, depending on whether we rely on epigraphic, archaeological, or literary
sources. Because literary sources are engaged in the construction of memory while aim-
ing to provide the keys to the (author’s) past as much as to the (author’s) present, they