Identity and Politics in Greek Sicily and Southern Italy
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A Variable Tapestry: Identity and Politics in Greek Sicily and Southern Italy By Mark Robert Thatcher B.A., Northwestern University, 2004 Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Classics at Brown University PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND MAY 2011 © Copyright 2011 by Mark Robert Thatcher This dissertation by Mark Robert Thatcher is accepted in its present form by the Department of Classics as satisfying the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Date: Kurt Raaflaub, Adviser Recommended to the Graduate Council Date: David Konstan, Reader Date: Susan Alcock, Reader Approved by the Graduate Council Date: Peter Weber, Dean of the Graduate School iii Curriculum Vitae Mark Thatcher was born in 1982 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and earned a B.A. from Northwestern University in 2004, with a thesis entitled ―Educating the Statesman: Polybius and Cultural Conflict,‖ and received the Joseph Clyde Murley Prize from the Classics Department in 2003. He also studied at the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies in Rome in 2002. While at Brown, Mark has presented several papers on identity in Sicily and Italy and on Polybius, one of which, ―Camarina between Ethnicity and Civic Identity,‖ is due to be published in a volume entitled Identity and Identification in Antiquity, edited by Hartmut Ziche and forthcoming from Cambridge Scholars Press. He currently serves as a Lecturer in the Department of Greek and Latin at The Ohio State University. iv Acknowledgements The present work has benefitted from the advice and support of innumerable people. The entire Brown Classics community, both teachers and fellow students, who provided mentorship, friendship, and an environment rich in thought on the ancient world. In particular, Chris Witmore helped me acquire a basic training in archaeological analysis and offered ever-stimulating discussions and criticism. I thank first my committee members, especially Kurt Raaflaub for thought-provoking discussions in settings across North America and David Konstan for his challenging comments on several drafts; I thank them all especially for their flexibility and understanding during my time away from Brown, and for providing sterling examples of scholarly inquiry. Portions of the manuscript were also read by David Grant Smith, Lee Patterson, Maurizio Giangiulio, and Julia Nelson-Hawkins, whom I thank for their thoughts and criticism. Much of the writing was completed during a year of dissertation fellowship at The Ohio State University, generously funded by Brown University. I would like to express my gratitude to the students and faculty there for welcoming me as a member of the community, since I, like Pindar‘s Hagesias, found that my own identities multiplied as I travelled back and forth. No academic work can proceed without the help of administrative staff, and I thank Jenna Legault, Suzanne Bertrand, and Ruthann Whitten at Brown and Erica Kallis and Wayne Lovely at Ohio State for their logistical help and forbearance with my long-distance needs. Finally, the sine qua non of this project has been the continual support and encouragement of my wife, Hanne Eisenfeld, without whom this would never have been possible, and I dedicate it to her with love. v Table of Contents Table of Maps.....................................................................................................................ix Introduction: Definitions, Questions, Sources................................................................1 Definitions and Theories ............................................................................................... 3 Criteria and Salience ............................................................................................... 4 Ethnicity: Towards a Definition.............................................................................. 6 Beyond Ethnicity .................................................................................................. 11 Questions..................................................................................................................... 15 Change over Time ................................................................................................. 16 Strategies of Manipulation and Legitimation ....................................................... 18 Scope of Research ................................................................................................. 21 Sources ........................................................................................................................ 25 Archaeology .......................................................................................................... 26 Numismatics ......................................................................................................... 29 Epinician Poetry .................................................................................................... 31 Historiography and Late Sources .......................................................................... 32 Thucydides ...................................................................................................... 34 Diodorus and Later Sources ............................................................................ 35 Chapter 1: Becoming Achaean in Italy..........................................................................40 Peloponnesian Achaeans in Italy ................................................................................ 45 Homeric Achaeans ................................................................................................ 47 Achaean Colonization ........................................................................................... 48 Achaean Foundations .................................................................................................. 51 Historical Foundations .......................................................................................... 53 Homeric Foundations ............................................................................................ 59 Achaean Coinage ........................................................................................................ 63 Croton ................................................................................................................... 65 Metapontion .......................................................................................................... 67 Sybaris................................................................................................................... 69 Incuse Coinage and Identity.................................................................................. 71 vi Achaean Religion ........................................................................................................ 73 Achaean Hera ........................................................................................................ 77 Flora and Fauna............................................................................................... 80 Hera the Warrior ............................................................................................. 84 Women ............................................................................................................ 86 The Sea............................................................................................................ 89 Achaean Hera and Identity.............................................................................. 91 Argive Hera and Achaean Ethnicity ..................................................................... 92 Hera Lacinia, Croton, and the Achaeans .................................................................... 98 Foundations ........................................................................................................... 99 Hera and the Crotoniates ..................................................................................... 104 Mourning for Achilles in Croton ........................................................................ 109 Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 111 Chapter Two: Sicilian Tyranny and the Manipulation of Identity...........................114 The Tyrant‘s House and Syracusan Identity ............................................................. 116 Hieron the Dorian ............................................................................................... 118 Hieron in the Syracusan Landscape .................................................................... 125 Population Mobility in Deinomenid Sicily ............................................................... 130 Attacking Civic Identity ...................................................................................... 131 Mercenary Mobility ............................................................................................ 137 Sicilian Identity ................................................................................................... 143 Greeks, Barbarians and the Memory of Himera ....................................................... 148 Public Dedications and Greek Identity ............................................................... 152 Himera and the Persian Wars .............................................................................. 157 Dionysius and Identity in Fourth-Century Sicily .....................................................