238 Angela Ganter, née Kühr
and to understand which identity levels prevailed, whetherpolis-bound or ethnic identity,
and whether these levels co-existed harmoniously or if they provoked tension and strife.
This is especially true for Boiotia. In the long run, Boiotia was equated with Thebes as
its dominant center, at least from external points of view. Inside Boiotia, the perceptions
differed. Boiotia was not Thebes, of course not, and Thebes did not dominate the region
at every period of time. However, Theban myths became so prominent and so varied
that other Boiotian poleis had to refer to Theban foundation stories, joining or rejecting
Theban explanations of the world, in order to say who they were. Local myths defined the
regionalethnos. The regionalethnoswas defined in opposition to, or in accordance with,
poleisidentities, which themselves were constituted by severalethne, which sometimes
were nothing more than names preserved in local myths.
Conclusion
Buxton (1994: 183) compares approaches to history via myths to a “peach theory of
story-telling.” By peeling the peach, scholars attempt to get closer to the stone symbol-
izing the very core of the story, thus to a nucleus of “real” history transmitted via myths.
Unfortunately, he adds, there is also an analogy to the peeling of an onion: after taking
off one layer after another, in the end one is left with nothing except tears.
Is he right? We certainly do not want to invest a great effort to be rewarded with
tears. Of course there is much more to get. The message of the metaphor is not to stop
investigating myths but to be aware of the dangers inherent in this fascinating material.
A literal interpretation of foundation stories has been rightly rejected by the majority of
scholars because we should refrain from assuming that myths describe real events at the
dawn of history. The metaphor of the peach or the onion calls us to be methodologically
aware of what we are doing. First, we should try to distinguish myths, which do have
a core of historical events wrapped into layers of flesh and peel, from others, which do
not. However, the latter do not have to make us cry, on the contrary. Rarely can we
peel back the layers of a story to reach the historical event behind them. Often, we can
do little more than guess. And sometimes it is even more interesting to examine the
layers themselves, to observe the emergence and the changes of a mythical tradition,
since these developments tell us a lot about ethnic identity understood as a continually
changing phenomenon.
Methodologically, we should choose a generic approach to myths. We should take into
account that the written version of a myth is only one variant out of many. We should
keep in mind that the presentation of the myth very much depends on the circumstances
of when, why, by whom, and for whom it was told. There are different layers of time, and
there are different views we have to consider. Regarding local myths, we have to distin-
guish between emic and etic views in order to separate inside from outside perspectives
on ethnic groups. Very often, it is hardly possible to distinguish stories of local prove-
nience from those that were widely spread in the Greek world. Spatial approaches linking
myths with the places they are bound to can help. In such cases, we can see through the
tears and get a real opportunity to see Greek identities hovering between local, regional,
and Panhellenic levels.