242 James Roy
to express an idea different from the sense of the already well-knownautochthon:the
suggestion was accepted by Fraenkel in his commentary (Pelling 2009: 473–4). If
correct, it would mean thatautochthonwas well established in the Greek vocabulary
before the mid-fifth century. It is clearly a compound of the wordsautos(either “same”
or “self”) andchthon(“land,” “earth”), which would give the meaning, depending
on the sense ofautos, of either “from the land itself” (i.e., earth-born) or “from the
same land.” Herodotus (8.73), usingautochthonof the Arkadians and Kynourians,
clearly means that they inhabit the same land that they have held since antiquity, and
Rosivach (1987) showed by careful analysis that that was indeed the original meaning
of the word.
However, Greek mythology knew of various figures “born from the earth” (gegenes).
Many of these were monsters, but some Greek communities, including notably Athens,
acknowledged such figures as their ancestors. Where the community concerned believed
itself to be autochthonous, a connection could be made between the earth-born ances-
tor(s) and the community’s continued residence in the same place: this connection was
certainly made in Athens. The wordautochthonthus extended its range of meaning to
include “earth-born” (Rosivach 1987; see also Blok 2009a, suggesting that traces of this
development are seen at the end of the fifth century). Certainly, the word had acquired
that sense when the author of the ApollodoranBibliotheca(2.1.1, 3.8.1) wrote that Hes-
iod had said that Pelasgos wasautochthon, which could only mean “earth-born.” Asius
(fr. 8 K, quoted in Pausanias 2.1.4–2.2.1) did say that Pelasgos was born from the earth.
Hesiod would scarcely have used the actual wordautochthon, not found till the fifth cen-
tury, and was evidently paraphrased (if indeed he did make such a statement: see Rosivach
1987: 305–6 for the suggestion that he did not). It is also interesting that, in the fifth
century, the comic playwright Poliochus could refer, clearly jokingly, to autochthonous
vegetables (fr. 2 Kassel-Austin, from AthenaeusDeipnosophistae2.60C). The fragment is
brief, and the point of the joke is obscure: Gulick (1927 Loeb edition of Athenaeus) trans-
lated “local vegetables” and Olson (2006 Loeb edition) “wild vegetables.” Vegetables
are, of course, earth-born.
Autochthons were frequently contrasted those who had migrated to a place, often
referred to asepeludes(see Blok 2009a: 251–2). Sometimes, particularly whenautochthon
is applied to an individual, the most important point conveyed by the word is that
the individual is a native, not an incomer. Thus, Herodotus (9.73) says that Titakos,
anautochthon, betrayed Aphidnai in Attica to the Tyndaridai. Titakos, as an Athenian,
could have been considered autochthonous (though Herodotus never uses the word
of the Athenians): however, the point of the story is clearly that Titakos was on the
spot in Aphidnai, available to betray it, and not that he was an autochthonous Athenian.
Herodotus also says (4.45) that Libya took its name from a woman Libye, anautochthon,
whereas Asia took its name from the wife of Prometheus. Herodotus believed that all
the Libyan peoples were autochthonous (4.197), although he also described them as
many and of all kinds (4.167). However, here again, the point is not particularly that
the eponym Libye belonged to a people that had always lived in the same place, but
rather that she was a native of Libya, whereas the wife of Prometheus was not a native of
Asia. It therefore seems that, already in the fifth century,autochthonoccasionally meant