Ethnicity and Local Myth 231a chronological sequence of the sources, we get at least an idea of certain tendencies
prominent at specific times and places.
To return to the passage in Pausanias, several questions arise. If we imagine identity
existing on a series of levels, almost similar to matryoshka dolls, extending from the very
proximate—family, clan, village—up to tribal and regional levels, then which identities
are depicted here, and at what levels do they operate? On the one hand, there are several
ethneonly preserved by their names. Given their later disappearance and their exiguous
earlier existence, how do we calculate their impact on the various local identities operating
in Boiotia? On the other hand, we can see one very clear dynamic at work in Boiotia, and
that is a tension between the local city identity centered on Thebes, which was frequently
at odds with the regional ethnicity of the Boiotians. ThepolisThebes was a central locus
of myth in the Greek world, but these myths focus on Thebes and have little to say about
Boiotia, as if the regional identity was little more than a superstructure added to The-
ban foundations. Yet, in political terms, the Boiotians constituted a sophisticated state
from the fifth century onward. By no later than the early fourth century, Thebes was
the most powerful city in the region. This complicated history presents us with press-
ing questions: how did different levels of identity develop in this part of Greece; how
did the identity levels of the Boiotianethnosrelate to Thebes as the dominantpolisof
the region?
Furthermore, Pausanias writes the book on Boiotia from a trans-regional perspective.
How local is the version presented by him? Do we get inside views on regional identities
at all? Can we distinguish internal (i.e., emic) from external (i.e., etic) views? Method-
ologically, therefore, not only is a generic approach necessary, but so too is a spatial one.
The places conserving, or re-evoking, memory range from topographical phenomena to
monuments and names. A close look at the sites that myths are related to and at spatial
aspects conserved in myths may help us to get an idea of the localities where the stories
took place and to grasp how local thinking was mirrored in myths.
To illustrate how much the landscapes of memory had changed over 900 years up to the
time when Pausanias wrote down his version in the second centuryAD, it will be useful
to begin by contrasting his section on Boiotia with the oldest description of the region
we have: the HomericCatalogue of Ships. Next, Theban and Boiotian foundation myths
will be chronologically reviewed in order to bridge the divide between these tempo-
rally distant descriptions. Here, the focus will be on thepolisThebes because her double
foundation in myths points to the interdependency ofpolis-bound and ethnic identity.
Similarly, the foundation myths of the regional ethnos, the Boiotoi, will be examined
more closely.
Mind the Gap: Two Very Different
Descriptions of Boiotia
In book 9, Pausanias makes a sharp distinction between the city of Thebes, at the very
core of the book, and only two other segments of the Boiotian territory: the region of
Plataiai in the south and the region of Orchomenos in the north. While Plataiai represents
the main opponent of Thebes in the decades around the Persian Wars, Orchomenos is the