Elaine Matthews (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197264126
- eISBN:
- 9780191734632
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197264126.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This book provides an interpretative guide to using a fundamental resource for the study of the ancient Greek world. Personal names are a statement of identity, a personal choice by parents for their ...
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This book provides an interpretative guide to using a fundamental resource for the study of the ancient Greek world. Personal names are a statement of identity, a personal choice by parents for their child, reflecting their own ancestry and family traditions, and the religious and political values of the society to which they belong. The names of the ancient Greeks, surviving in their tens of thousands in manuscripts and documents, offer a valuable insight into ancient Greek society. The chapters collected here examine how the Greeks responded to new environments. They draw out issues of identity as expressed through the choice, formation, and adaptation of personal names, not only by Greeks when they came into contact with non-Greeks, but of others in relation to Greeks, for example Egyptians, Persians, Thracians, and Semitic peoples, including the Jewish communities in the diaspora. Grounded in the ‘old’ world of Greece (in particular, Euboia and Thessaly), the book also reaches out to the many parts of the ancient world where Greeks travelled, traded, and settled, and where the dominant culture before the arrival of the Greeks was not Greek. Reflecting upon the progress of the Lexicon of Greek Personal Names project, which has already published the names of over a quarter of a million ancient Greeks, it will be of interest to scholars and students of the language, literature, history, religion, and archaeology of the ancient Greek world.Less
This book provides an interpretative guide to using a fundamental resource for the study of the ancient Greek world. Personal names are a statement of identity, a personal choice by parents for their child, reflecting their own ancestry and family traditions, and the religious and political values of the society to which they belong. The names of the ancient Greeks, surviving in their tens of thousands in manuscripts and documents, offer a valuable insight into ancient Greek society. The chapters collected here examine how the Greeks responded to new environments. They draw out issues of identity as expressed through the choice, formation, and adaptation of personal names, not only by Greeks when they came into contact with non-Greeks, but of others in relation to Greeks, for example Egyptians, Persians, Thracians, and Semitic peoples, including the Jewish communities in the diaspora. Grounded in the ‘old’ world of Greece (in particular, Euboia and Thessaly), the book also reaches out to the many parts of the ancient world where Greeks travelled, traded, and settled, and where the dominant culture before the arrival of the Greeks was not Greek. Reflecting upon the progress of the Lexicon of Greek Personal Names project, which has already published the names of over a quarter of a million ancient Greeks, it will be of interest to scholars and students of the language, literature, history, religion, and archaeology of the ancient Greek world.
Simon Hornblower
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- March 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199562336
- eISBN:
- 9780191804403
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199562336.003.0011
- Subject:
- History, Ancient History / Archaeology
This chapter uses as a springboard John Papadopoulos' argument against the popular view that the Euboians were active colonizers in the North Aegean in order to contribute to a much larger debate, ...
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This chapter uses as a springboard John Papadopoulos' argument against the popular view that the Euboians were active colonizers in the North Aegean in order to contribute to a much larger debate, one concerned with the identity of the main pioneers of Greek overseas settlement in the early archaic age. Papadopoulos points to the variety of the places of origin — not just Euboian — of the artefacts found at Torone. He suggests that Chalkidike derived its name from chalkos or chalk-(copper or bronze), and that the place-name indicates metal exploitation, not a colonial connection with Chalkis in Euboia. The chapter presents an explanation of ‘Chalkidic Torone’ and ‘Chalkidic Olynthos,’ that combines the simple view that Euboian origins are after all being asserted by Thucydides, with the possibility that the reality was more complex — in fact that Papadopoulos and others may well be right to identify wholly non-Euboian features in the archaeological record, and to believe that the ‘Chalkidic genos’ was ‘really’ non-Euboian in origin. In effect, is it argued that the distinction between the Chalkidic genos on the one hand and the Euboian Chalkidian settlers (if any) on the other would not have been accepted in the fifth or fourth centuries.Less
This chapter uses as a springboard John Papadopoulos' argument against the popular view that the Euboians were active colonizers in the North Aegean in order to contribute to a much larger debate, one concerned with the identity of the main pioneers of Greek overseas settlement in the early archaic age. Papadopoulos points to the variety of the places of origin — not just Euboian — of the artefacts found at Torone. He suggests that Chalkidike derived its name from chalkos or chalk-(copper or bronze), and that the place-name indicates metal exploitation, not a colonial connection with Chalkis in Euboia. The chapter presents an explanation of ‘Chalkidic Torone’ and ‘Chalkidic Olynthos,’ that combines the simple view that Euboian origins are after all being asserted by Thucydides, with the possibility that the reality was more complex — in fact that Papadopoulos and others may well be right to identify wholly non-Euboian features in the archaeological record, and to believe that the ‘Chalkidic genos’ was ‘really’ non-Euboian in origin. In effect, is it argued that the distinction between the Chalkidic genos on the one hand and the Euboian Chalkidian settlers (if any) on the other would not have been accepted in the fifth or fourth centuries.
