248 James Roy
as gifts.” The remaining eight lines identify the statues that stood on the monument:
they include Arkas and his sons, who represent various areas of Arkadia. Strikingly,
the sons include Triphylos, eponym and ancestor of the Triphylians, who had only
just become Arkadian by joining the Arkadian confederacy. Their very recent Arkadian
status nonetheless allowed them to share the autochthony of the people of holy Arkadia,
and their place in the Arkadian genealogy was secured by Triphylos, son of Arkas.
Arkadian autochthony clearly could be both exclusive and welcoming. Lykomedes,
according to Xenophon, distinguished the Arkadians from their non-autochthonous
neighbors; but Arkadia’s boundaries shifted over time, with communities moving in
and out of Arkadia (Roy 2000, 2009), and, when an Arkadian confederacy was created,
previously non-Arkadian Triphylia was admitted. Yet, there were limits as to how far
Arkadian identity could be extended: when, in the Arkadian–Elean war that began in
365, Arkadia overran Pisatis and detached it from Elis, it became an independent state,
not a member of the Arkadian confederacy. According to theEtymologicum Magnum
(623.16-17), Pisos, the eponymous hero of Pisatis, married Olympia, daughter of Arkas:
this genealogical combination most probably reflects the brief period of an independent
Pisatis supported by Arkadia. That is, however, as far as the attachment of Pisatis to
Arkadia went, probably because Pisatan identity was so strongly linked to Olympia (on
these events, see Nielsen 2002: 118–9).
Arkadian mythical genealogy, like Aitolian, is not part of the descent stemming from
Hellen that lent the Greeks a Hellenic identity (see Hall 1997: 47), but there is no indi-
cation that the Arkadians were considered less Greek on that account. Certainly, there is
no trace of any Arkadian attempt to find a balance between local autochthonous descent
and Hellenic identity as sophisticated as the Athenian identity explored in Euripides’
Ion, but there were numerous mythical connections between the Arkadians’ ancestors
and Greeks from other regions, as is evident in Pausanias’ account (8.1.4–5.13) of Arka-
dian myth–history. It is also notable that numerous communities, Greek and non-Greek,
developed myths of an Arkadian origin (Scheer 2010, 2011). Pausanias gives the fullest
surviving version of the mythical genealogy of the Arkadians, beginning with Pelasgos,
and immediately afterward writes: “The Arkadians recounted the genealogy to me in
these terms when I was taking great care over the matters relating to the kings [of Arka-
dia]” (8.6.1). Clearly, belief in Arkadian autochthony was still alive in Arkadia when
Pausanias visited the region in the second centuryAD.
Unlike the Arkadians, the Eleans were not generally recognized to be autochthonous,
but they claimed autochthony at least once. Strabo (10.3.2) gives the texts of two
inscriptions, both four-line epigrams—one at Thermos in Aitolia on the base of a
statue of Aitolos, and the other in the agora of Elis on a statue of Oxylos. Strabo cites
Ephorus (BNJ70 F122a) as the source of his information. The inscription at Thermos
ran: “The Aitolians set up this statue of Aitolos, child of Endymion and founder of
the land, once reared beside the eddies of the Alpheios, neighbor of the race-tracks of
Olympia, as a memorial to behold of his valor.” At Elis, the inscription said: “Aitolos
once left this autochthonous people and won the land of Kouretis, toiling greatly with
his spear, and of the same family, the tenth offspring, Oxylos, son of Haimon, founded
this ancient city.” The Aitolian inscription thus records that Aitolos went from Elis to
found Aitolia, while the inscription at Elis records both that Aitolos went to Aitolia