CHAPTER 15
Ethnicity and Local Myth
Angela Ganter, née Kühr
Tell me where you come from, and I’ll tell you who you are. The curiosity of getting to
know someone else is universally shared by human beings of contemporary and bygone
worlds. By questioning the other’s origins, we get insights into the other’s personality,
we get a glimpse of his identity. This is equally true for processes of self-recognition, and
this applies not only to individuals but also to societies looking back at their roots in order
to see who they are. Conversely, stories about origins reveal a lot about self-perception.
They hint at the identities of the storytellers, at their views of themselves and of the world.
Being convinced that the first human beings and the first events related to a phenomenon
are decisive for defining its essence, the Greeks were especially fond of telling foundation
stories. If we decode their specific ways of describing the past, Greek foundation myths
help us to understand better who the Greeks were and what they wanted to be.
How History Began: Approaches to Ethnicity
in Local Myths
The first to occupy the land of Thebes are said to have been the Ectenes, whose king was
Ogygus, an aboriginal. From his name is derived Ogygian, which is an epithet of Thebes
used by most of the poets. The Ectenes perished, they say, by pestilence, and after them
there settled in the land the Hyantes and the Aones, who I think were Boeotian tribes and
not foreigners. When the Phoenician army under Cadmus invaded the land these tribes were
defeated; the Hyantes fled from the land when night came, but the Aones begged for mercy,
and were allowed by Cadmus to remain and unite with the Phoenicians. The Aones still
lived in village communities, but Cadmus built the city which even at the present day is
called Cadmeia. (Paus. 9.5.1–2; translation by W. H. S. Jones)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.