Ethnicity and Representation 369Figure 24.9 ThePseudo-Athleteportrait of an Italian of ca. 100–88. From the House of
the Diadoumenos at Delos. Athens, National Archaeological Museum 1828. Photograph by
J. Patrikianos. © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Tourism/Archaeological Receipts Fund.
Miller 1997; I. Morris 2000). There is a persistent sense, though, that the Persian Wars
forged the very idea of the Hellene that later emerged as Hellenism, a unique force in
the Mediterranean.
AreturntotheOxford Classical Dictionarydefinition reveals some problems with this
idea: Hellenization is “thediffusionof [Greek]culture,aprocessusually seen asactive”
(my emphasis). Hellenization is a concept caught between competing approaches to
identity, especially primordialist (universalizing), with its fixed Greek culture, and instru-
mentalist, with the idea of change as a process. Initially, the potential of transmission is
presented as originating within Greek culture itself (its ability or tendency to diffuse, a
view promoted by scholars such as M. L. West 1997). Already by the end of the sentence
the theory of agency has been appended. Only a little scrutiny suggests that it is probably
impossible to reconcile diffusion with a process initiated by local agents.
Differences between Hellenization and the conception of the Near East’s impact
on the culture of Iron Age Greece are likewise revealing (Figure 24.10). Iron Age
culture is described as “Orientalizing” (never “Orientalized”) and results in the flow-
ering of Hellenism. In contrast, “Hellenizing” is a movement between the poles of