The Ancient Messenians: Constructions of Ethnicity and Memory

405 Pages·2008·2.7 MB·English

by  Nino Luraghi

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THE ANCIENT MESSENIANS
Early in the archaic period of Greek history, Messenia was annexed
and partially settled by its powerful neighbor, Sparta. Achieving
independence inthefourthcentury bc, theinhabitantsofMessenia
set about trying to forge an identity for themselves separate from
their previous identity as Spartan subjects, refunctionalizing or
simply erasing their Spartan heritage. Luraghi provides a thorough
examination of the history of Messenian identity and consequently
addresses a range of questions and issues whose interest and
importance have only been widely recognized by ancient historians
during the last decade. By a detailed scrutiny of the ancient written
sources and the archaeological evidence, the book reconstructs how
the Messenians perceived and constructed their own ethnicity at
differentpointsintime,byapplyingtoMessenianethnicityinsights
developed by anthropologists and early medieval historians.
nino luraghi is Professor of Classics at Harvard University, and
has published widely on Greek history and historiography. Recent
works include an edited volume entitled The Politics of Ethnicity and
the Crisis of the Peloponnesian League (forthcoming) and Helots and
theirMastersinLaconiaandMessenia(coeditedwithS.Alcock,2003).

THE ANCIENT MESSENIANS
Constructions of Ethnicity and Memory
NINO LURAGHI
HarvardUniversity
CAMBRIDGEUNIVERSITYPRESS
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo
Cambridge University Press
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB28RU, UK
Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York
www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521855877
© Nino Luraghi 2008
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of
relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place
without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published in print format 2008
ISBN-13 978-0-511-39707-3 eBook (NetLibrary)
ISBN-13 978-0-521-85587-7 hardback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls
for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not
guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
Μὲ τί καρδιά μὲ τί πνοή
, ,
τί πόϑους καὶ τί πάϑος
πήραμε τὴ ζωή μας˙ λάϑος!
κι ἀλλάξαμε ζωή
.
For M. K. B.

Contents
Acknowledgments page ix
List of abbreviations xii
List of illustrations xiv
1 Introduction 1
Whythe Messenians? 3
Ethnicityandmemory 6
2 Delimiting the Messenians 15
Markingthe border: Artemis Limnatis 16
Straddling the border:Thourian ethnicity 27
Nothingtodo withMessenia: the oak-people 39
3 ThereturnoftheHeraclidsandthemythicalbirthofMessenia 46
Theorigins andmeaning of the mythofthe division 48
Kresphontes’ fate andhissuccessors 61
4 The conquest of Messenia through the ages 68
Tyrtaeusandthe Spartan conquest ofMessene 70
Messenian wars:the fifthandfourth centuries 75
Hellenistic constructs: apastfor the Messenians 83
Aherofor the Messenians 88
Pausanias’ wars 94
ArchaicMessenia: conquest andenslavement 100
5 Messenia from the Dark Ages to the Peloponnesian War 107
DarkAge inMessenia 108
Archaicandearly classical Messenia 117
Making sense ofthe evidence 132
6 The Western Messenians 147
TheMessenian Strait 147
Theethnic identity ofthe Western Messenians 157
AMessenian diaspora? 167
vii
viii Contents
7 The earthquake and the revolt: from Ithome to Naupaktos 173
Plato’s war 173
The revolt 182
The Messenians in Naupaktos 188
Who werethe rebels? 195
Messenian ethnogenesis 198
8 The liberation of Messene 209
The foundation ofMessene andits regional context 210
The newMessenians 219
Messenian identity inthe fourthcentury 230
Messenian ancestors 239
Messenian ethnogenesis: the second wave 245
9 Being Messenian from Philip to Augustus 249
The Messenians andthe Greek world, fromMantineatoActium 252
The Messenian polity, or playing withnames 266
Centralizing religion andmemory: thetemple ofMessene and
other regional cults 269
The Asklepieion 277
Messenian identity inthe Hellenistic period 286
10 Messenians in the Empire 292
Mnasistratos, the mysteries, andMessenian historiography 294
The bestof theMessenians 300
The Claudii Saethidae andMessenian memory 306
The newEpaminondas, sonofAristomenes 318
Pausanias’ Messenians 323
11 Conclusions 330
Stories ofthe Messenian identity 330
Damostratos andthe oppositional nature of ethnicity 337
A monument fromDelphi andthe construction ofthe past 340
Bibliography 345
Index locorum 377
Index of inscriptions 381
Archaeological sites 383
General index 384