Autochthony in Ancient Greece 245Athenians being originally of non-Greek Pelasgian stock. Thucydides acknowledges
Athenian autochthony briefly in the funeral speech that he gives to Perikles (2.36.1),
but earlier says that Attika was always occupied by the same people because the soil was
thin (1.2.5). (He says much the same about Arkadia, another autochthonous region, at
1.2.3.) This explains autochthony by purely rational consideration of the environment.
Certain themes have emerged from the study of Athenian autochthony. It was a very
positive feature of Athens’ standing in the Greek world, linked to Athens’ political, mili-
tary, and cultural achievements. It was related to Athenian democracy, and indeed belief
in autochthony developed in the fifth century at the same time as democracy. Peri-
cles’ citizenship law of 451/0 made two citizen parents necessary in order to inherit
citizenship: all Athenians born from citizen marriages contracted after the passage of
the law were thus of pure citizen descent, and all alike could share the now exclusive
inheritance of autochthony. Blok and Lambert have recently developed this argument
further, in relation to priesthoods of the Athenianpolis(Blok and Lambert 2009; Lam-
bert 2010). Priesthoods of cults existing before 451/0 were held for life by members
ofgene, descent groups that claimed pure Athenian descent from origins in the heroic
and mythical past (Blok 2009b; see also Lambert [2008] on the Euenoridai, agenos
recently discovered on a new inscription). For cults adopted after 451/0, however, priests
were appointed annually from among the whole citizen body, that is, in the same man-
ner as appointments to most other public offices in democratic Athens. The law of
451/0, Blok and Lambert argue, had given all Athenian citizens a pure Athenian descent
from Athens’ mythical and autochthonous ancestors, allowing democratic appointments
to priesthoods.
By the later fifth century, at least, aristocratic virtues such asarete andandreia
could be presented as virtues of the ordinary Athenian citizen. Aristophanes jokes
about this (Wasps1071–8 andLysistrata1082–4), linking these virtues not only with
autochthony but also with blatant virility, but his jokes do not seek to undermine the
value of autochthony (Blok 2009a: 255). Tragedy, too, could examine the belief in
autochthony, and explore its complexities, and even problems. The clearest example
is Euripides’Ion(Mastronarde 2003; Zacharia 2003). In it, Ion is the child borne by
the Athenian Kreousa after being raped by Apollo; he has been exposed as a baby, but
saved and taken to Delphi, where he has grown up in Apollo’s sanctuary, unaware of
his parents or his Athenian origin. Kreousa, having married the non-Athenian Xouthos,
comes to Delphi with her husband because their marriage is childless: both are entirely
unaware of Ion’s identity. When Xouthos proposes to adopt Ion and take him back to
Athens, Ion makes a long speech (ll. 585–647) about the difficulties that he would
face as an outsider in autochthonous Athens. After misunderstandings, in the course of
which Kreousa is persuaded to try to poison Ion and he reacts violently against her, the
situation is resolved, though Xouthos does not learn of Ion’s identity. Ion, recognized
as an Athenian by birth, is to be king of Athens, and will have four sons, the eponyms
of the four pre-Kleisthenic tribes in Athens; their later descendants will go to Ionia.
Kreousa and Xouthos are to have as sons Doros and Achaios, ancestors of the Dorians
and Achaians.