references to the mythical forbears of their illustrious patrons, such as
those exploited in poems for patrons in central Greece and the West.^22
There are, of course, other ways of explaining a historic Argive connec-
tion, such as a significant early royal marriage. A union between a scion
of the Macedonian royal house and a distinguished Argive claiming
Temenid descent would have produced the same tradition of an‘Argive’
pedigree. Nevertheless, this sort of argumentation may be unduly literal.
There is no need to assume that the ruling house was not indigenous;
simply that it was well connected, as royal dynasties tend to be. The
indigenous origin of the royal house seems also to be the view of
archaeologists who have excavated within the cemetery at Aigeai,
where a direct connection between the early burials and the historic
royal tombs is now more usually assumed.^23
If we now return from the debatably indigenous members of the royal
house to the non-royal, but more certainly indigenous, inhabitants of the
two kingdoms, they are thankfully now much more visible than they
were. This is because the compilation of theInventory of Archaic and
Classical Poleisnow provides historians with a broad-based resource, far
wider in its scope than any previous attempt to map the relationship
between historical communities and the territories they occupied. By
deploying the expertise of a very large number of researchers in the
compilation of data sets for regions outside as well as inside the areas
covered by most historical accounts of Greek history, scholars can now
see what has never been seen before—a pattern of urban and proto-
urban units extending as far as the survey’s own parameters were set. Not
only can we see the historical agglomerations of the Greek mainland, the
Aegean islands, and Ionia; we can also see how these compare with
inland Sicily, or Epirus, Macedonia and inland Thrace, to select just
some of the most relevant examples.^24 However, the enquiry that led to
this compilation was in essence a literary rather than an archaeological
one.^25 In consequence contributors have had to decide how far they
(^22) Hornblower 2004, 180–1 on poems for the Macedonian dynasty; Pindar celebrated
the‘namesake of the blessed Trojans... bold-counselling son of Amyntas’(Alexander I, the
‘philhellene’, son of Amyntas,c. 498 – 454 bc) in a poem of which one fragment survives
(F120). Bacchylides also composed a praise poem for Amyntas himself (F20b); King
Archelaos won a four-horse chariot race at Olympia in 408bc.
(^23) See e.g. Drougou 2011, 251–5; cf. Saatsoglou-Paliadeli 2011, 272–3, 295.
(^24) Inventory, 172 – 248 (Sikelia); 249–320 (Italia and Kampania); 338–50 (Epeiros); 794– 809
(Makedonia); 885–99 (Inland Thrace).
(^25) Hansen 2006, 33–47, 56–61.‘What follows is, therefore, about the Greeks’under-
standing of themselves, and in such an investigation the written sources must take centre-
stage’(ibid. 56).
54 Herdsmen with golden leaves—narratives and spaces