A Companion to Ethnicity in the Ancient Mediterranean

Herodotus and Ethnicity 347

least of their number are Abantes from Euboea, who do not even share in the name “Ionian”;

Minyans from Orchomenos are mixed in with them (σ휑ι

,

αναμεμ ́ιχαται); and Cadmaeans,

Dryopians, a contingent of Phocaeans, Molossians, Pelasgians from Arcadia, Dorians from

Epidauros, and many other ethnic groups are mixed in (

,

αλλα τε ́ εθνεα π’ ́ oλλα`

,

αναμεμ ́ιχαται).

The Ionians of Panionion have an exclusive league of precisely 12 cities in Asia not
because they are more Ionian than the other Ionians, says Herodotus, but simply because,
before their migration, when they lived in the Peloponnese, they were subdivided into 12
territories (1.145). Ethnic fusion, moreover, continued after the Ionians arrived in Asia:

Those who started from the Prytaneion in Athens and who believe they are the best-born

(γενναιóτατoι) of the Ionians did not bring wives with them to the colony, but they took

Carian women whose parents they killed. (1.146.2)

As a result of that murder, Milesian women established the custom, handed down from
mother to daughter and confirmed by oath, never to eat in the company of their husbands
or address them by name (1.146.3). Moreover, the Ionians were ruled by non-Greek
elites descending from the Lycian Glaucus or the Cauconian Codrus (1.147.1). Never-
theless, concludes Herodotus, “since they are more attached to the name than the other
Ionians, let them stand as ‘thepure-born’ Ionians” (’Aλλαγαρ περι εχ́ oνται τo ̃υoυ’νóματoς
μαλλ~ óντιτων~

,

αλλων ́ ’Iωνων ́ ,εστωσαν δ’ ́ ηκὰ `ιo

,
ι καθαρως γεγ~ oνóτες’ ́Iωνες) (1.147.1).
After Herodotus has accumulated evidence of the hybridity of the Ionians, his final
concession to their subjective ethnic identity parallels his qualified acceptance of the
names of the continents (4.45.5). In this passage, he concludes his discussion of both
the conventional names and the entire representation of the earth, replete with subdivi-
sions and made canonical by Ionian geographers, with the observation that none of this
matches reality; he dismisses these accounts with expressions such as “I laugh” (γελω~)at
4.36.2 and “I have no idea why” (oυ’δ’εχω συμβαλ’ ́ εσθαί
,
επ’
́,
oτεo) at 4.45.2, roughly
corresponding to his dismissive phrase “great idiocy” (μωρ ́ιη πoλλη ́), at 1.146.1. On
the subject of their ethnic claims, however, Herodotus turns the Ionians’ cultural code
against them with a harsher ironical effect. The aberrantnomosby which the Milesian
women keep their distance from their men represents an enduring sign that the Ionians
are wrong on two counts: besides being ethnically hybrid, they are also far from “purely
born” (καθαρως γεγ~ oνóτες) in a moral and religious sense (McInerney 2001: 58).

Mixed Breeds

Herodotus’ polemic against “the fictive quality of Ionian ethnic identity” (McInerney
2001: 59) encourages us to consider the ethnicity of Herodotus, who was himself an
Asiatic Greek (Thomas 2001: 227–8, Kurke 2010: 391–7). His native Halicarnassus
was founded at the end of the heroic age by colonists from Troezen, and its citizens
continued to consider themselves Dorian (7.99.3). However, fifth-century inscriptions
indicate that Ionic was the language commonly used (Meiggs and Lewis 1969, no. 32=
Fornara, no. 70 (=Tod 45); cf. Tod 46; Hornblower 1982: 14–8). The city was expelled
from the Dorian league of Triopion on account of an old religious infraction, according