Ethnicity and Local Myth 235the Spartoi as the earth-grown men represented the Theban element of autochthony.
The adaptability of this myth guaranteed its success and the pre-eminence of the peo-
ple, who defined themselves by telling stories of their ancestor Kadmos, the hero of the
Theban citadel.
We do not know whichethnosselected Amphion and Zethos as its founding fathers.
Perhaps the story hints at an earlysynoikism(union) taking place in the area of Thebes.
A final answer to this question remains elusive. What the double foundation of Thebes
does clearly depict, however, is the fact that early Greek history is a complex history of
many ethnic groups emerging, fading, and mingling with each other, a complex history
ofethne, which largely eludes us, apart from a pale shade preserved in local myths or
names. Whether theseethnebelong to the partly nomadic culture of the so-called Dark
Ages or whether they can be traced back to the Bronze Age, they certainly represent
earlier levels than the Boiotoi, the ethnic group related to the region which was named
“Boiotia” from the HesiodCatalogue of Womenonward (Hes. F 218 Merkelbach/West).
The Boiotoi: Ethnicity on a Regional Level
Who were these Boiotoi? Sources proceeding from the Classical age give relatively simple
answers by identifying them with the political organization of the Boiotian federal state
and equating them with the Thebans, who predominated as head of the Boiotian League
from the fourth centuryBConward. If we go back further, we come across Pindar, who
cites a proverb qualifying the Boiotians as “swine” (Pind. Ol. 6.89–90; Dithyr. F 83
Maehler). As a native Theban, Pindar dismisses the proverb by calling it an old prejudice.
This attitude is significant because it demonstrates how the emic and the etic view, that is
to say, the internal and the external perceptions of the Boiotianethnos, differed from each
other. Of course, a Boiotian such as Pindar could not accept that non-Boiotians dismissed
his ethnic compatriots as rustic boors with no more than an agricultural background. He
himself is the best example that Boiotia did produce famous poets, and that the region
was much more than a cultural hinterland consisting of dumb farmers and warriors in
contrast to Athenian cultural splendor. To prove the opposite of a prejudice is not the
point here, though. What counts is that the prejudice itself sheds light on processes of
ethnogenesis. The external perspective, the etic view, strengthened Boiotian identity by
provoking mental resistance to this ascription. Rejecting ethnic characteristics applied
from outside furthers the coherence of a group.
Our problem consists of getting to know Boiotian self-perception because most of
the literary sources we have are of Athenian provenience, and the Athenians cultivated
prejudices against their neighbor in the north by stylizing them as anti-Athenians, as a
negative counter-image to everything they wanted to be themselves. How local, then,
are local myths as we encounter them in the sources? We have to be very careful indeed.
Concerning the Boiotians, we do get at least some idea of how they defined themselves
via foundation myths. The inside view revolves around the eponymous hero Boiotos as
the common ancestor and Arne as the shared homeland. If there ever was a real place of
that name, its geographical setting is unclear. The authors of our sources located Arne
sometimes in Thessaly, sometimes in Boiotia. Apparently, they did not know any more
and tried to reconstruct Boiotian pre-history as we try to do. However, our scholarly