Archaeology and the Origo Myths of the Greek Apoikiai*

doi: 10.2143/AWE.10.0.2141823 AWE 10 (2011) 243-266 ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE ORIGO MYTHS OF THE GREEK APOIKIAI* DOUWE YNTEMA Abstract This paper deals with a crucial moment in the migration processes: the initial stages of the migrant settlements. It focuses on the character of ancient written sources on this subject and their relationship to the archaeological data. First, a very broad outline is given of the traditional views on this matter. These are based almost exclusively on the writings of ancient Greek authors. A short excursion into the field of post-antique colonisation raises the first doubts about the traditional paradigm. New data supplied by relatively recent archaeological excavations are adduced in order to generate new insights into this subject. These insights produce a new image of the Greek migrations of the 8th and early 7th centuries BC and suggest alternative explanations of the ancient Greek written sources. The case study concerns south-east Italy, but the insights gained from this migration area may well have a much wider significance. Introduction Ancient Greek colonisation is a hotly debated issue in both archaeology and ancient history and has spawned a huge bibliography. The present volume of AWE pays ample attention to the various problems posed by these Greek transmarine migrations and by the Greek diaspora communities that resulted from them. These communities were the Greek settlements in the coastal strip of the Mediterranean outside the traditional Greek core area (i.e. outside the central and southern Aegean). This paper deals specifically with a very crucial moment in the migration processes: the initial stages of the migrant settlements. It focuses on the character of ancient written sources on this subject and their relationship to the archaeological data. The reader may have noted that I prefer to use the neutral term ‘Greek (transmarine) migration’ rather than the classic term ‘Greek colonisation’. In my view the concept of colonisation has been applied to phenomena of such vastly different nature that it has essentially become meaningless (cf. Roman colonisation, French colonisation, etc.). * Photographs and drawings: Institute of Archaeology, VU University Amsterdam. Correction of the English text: Annette Visser Translations, Wellington, New Zealand. 94637_AWE10_13_Yntema.indd 243 19/12/11 13:37 244 D. YNTEMA First a very broad outline will be given of the traditional views on this matter. These are based almost exclusively on the writings of ancient Greek authors. A short excursion into the field of post-antique colonisation will raise the first doubts about the traditional paradigm of the early phases of Greek transmarine migration. New data supplied by relatively recent archaeological excavations will be adduced in order to generate new approaches to and new insights into this thorny subject. These insights will produce a new image of the Greek migrations of the 8th and early 7th centuries BC and suggest alternative explanations and new interpretations of the ancient Greek written sources.1 The case study presented here concerns south-east Italy, but the insights gained from this migration area may well have a much wider significance. Greek Migrations: The View of Ancient Authors Greek colonisation, or preferably Greek transmarine migration, had its heyday between ca. 750 and ca. 550 BC. If we can believe the ancient authors who wrote on this subject, it was a truly astonishing phenomenon. By about the late 8th century BC the Greek world in the Aegean began – suddenly and unexpectedly – to burst at the seams. Large numbers of Greeks migrated from their Greek homelands in the central and southern Aegean and travelled by sea to many other parts of the Mediterranean. They founded Greek towns in coastal areas from Spain to the Ukraine. As Aristotle (born in one such migrant settlement on the Thracian coast) put it: the Greeks sat like frogs around the pond. And that pond was, of course, the Mediterranean. By Aristotle’s time (4th century BC) the Mediterranean was indeed surrounded by a considerable number of fairly small political entities, each consisting of a town and its territory (the ‘city state’ or polis and its chora). The inhabitants of these diaspora communities spoke some variety of Greek, had political institutions of more or less Greek character, participated in pan-Hellenic games such as those at Olympia and Delphi, and mostly used Greek names for their gods and themselves. The Greek word for a migrant settlement of this type is apoikia (an ‘away-from-home’ or ‘away- from-the-family-group’). Modern historians of the ancient world called these settlements ‘Greek colonies’. Although the notion of a widely shared Greek identity came rather late to the Greek-speaking world (4th century BC),2 the fact that someone from Sicilian Syracuse could perfectly well understand someone from the settlement of Panticapaeum in the Crimea created a kind of common ground. 1 For a more detailed discussion of the nature of ancient written sources and their relationship to archaeological data on Greek colonisation, see Yntema 2000. 2 On Greek identity (Hellas, Hellenes), see J. Hall 2002, 45–47, 205–06. 94637_AWE10_13_Yntema.indd 244 19/12/11 13:37 ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE ORIGO MYTHS OF THE GREEK APOIKIAI 245 Fig. 1: Sites in south-east Italy mentioned the text. 94637_AWE10_13_Yntema.indd 245 19/12/11 13:37 246 D. YNTEMA These are general observations concerning the phenomenon of ancient Greek ‘colonisation’. But how did the ancient Greeks themselves perceive this process? How did they visualise the numerous migrations that left the Greeks sitting like frogs around the pond? What was their view on this particular aspect of early Greek history? Why and how – according to the ancient Greek historians – did these Greek speaking settlements in originally non-Greek territories come into being? We shall focus on south-east Italy for a brief case study. According to ancient Greek authors the area on the Gulf of Taranto had four Greek apoikiai: Sybaris, Siris (now Policoro), Metapontum (now Metaponto) and Taras (present-day Taranto) (Fig. 1). These were reportedly founded in ca. 720 (Sybaris), ca. 650/640 (Siris), ca. 680 (Metapontum) and 706/705 BC (Taras), with Taras eventually becoming by far the most important of these. In the 4th century BC the town was the unchallenged leader of the Italiote league, the rather loose confederacy of Greek-speaking towns of southern Italy. A fairly complete account of the foundation (ktisis) of this migrant settlement survives in the works of ancient authors. The most complete texts concerning the foundation of Taras can be found in the works of the Greek author Strabo who lived in the age of Augustus. In his Geography he quoted the ktisis of Taras as reported by the Greek authors Antiochus of Syracuse (5th century BC) and Ephorus of Kyme (4th century BC). According to these texts there was a plot in Sparta in which a man called Phalanthos played a crucial role: When the plotters perceived that the plot had been revealed, some of them began to run and others began to beg for mercy. But they were bidden to be of good cheer and were kept in custody. Phalantos was sent to the god [the oracle of Apollo in Delphi] to con- sult with reference to founding a colony. And the god responded: ‘I give to thee Satyrion and the fat lands of Taras to live in and to be a scourge of the Iapygians’ (Strabo 6. 3). According to the stories told by Antiochus and Ephorus the former plotters started to travel westward. They had been told (again by the Delphic oracle) to found the new town when it started to rain from a clear sky. So when Aithra (= clear sky), the wife of the prospective founder, started to weep as a result of the harsh circum- stances (Pausanias 10. 10), the people following Phalanthos knew what to do. Although this latter romantic story about Aithra’s tears was certainly not taken at face value by modern historians of the ancient world, much of the remaining information has often been regarded as ‘historical truth’. Probably every Greek migrant settlement had a similar foundation story that spoke of the provenance of its inhabitants (i.e. the metropolis of the apoikia), mentioned its founder (the oikist), quoted the foundation oracle and related the 94637_AWE10_13_Yntema.indd 246 19/12/11 13:37 ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE ORIGO MYTHS OF THE GREEK APOIKIAI 247 events concerning the town’s ktisis. Several of these stories have survived in the writings of ancient authors and we have snippets of information from many other foundation stories.3 These are known as the ‘Iron Age’ foundation stories. For the inhabitants of these migrant settlements, it was evidently crucial to know where they had their roots and what the origins of their settlement were. These stories about the original homeland and the ktisis of the settlement clearly formed an integral part of their local identities. They were especially important to the inhabitants since they lived among foreign tribes with vastly different languages, cus- toms, norms and values. In addition to these Iron Age foundation stories, there were stories about Homeric heroes acting as the founding fathers of both Greek apoikiai and non- Greek tribes and settlements in Italy. The writings of ancient authors feature several reports about protagonists of the Trojan War acting in this way. These were Trojan princes who had managed to flee from their burning town or Greeks heroes who attempted to sail to their homes after the fall of Troy, only to be driven to far-away coasts by angry gods.4 They somehow ended up in Italy and founded towns or fathered tribes.

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