The Politics of Ethnicity and the Crisis of the Peloponnesian League (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Politics of Ethnicity and the Crisis of the Peloponnesian League Johannes Siapkas Peter Funke and Nino Luraghi, eds. The Politics of Ethnicity and the Crisis of the Peloponnesian League. Hellenic Studies 32. Washington, D.C.: Center for Hellenic Studies, 2009. Dist. by Harvard University Press. ix + 258 pp. Paper, $29.95. Ethnicity emerged as an important issue in classical studies in the late 1990s. Now, we can add this volume, which represents the publication of the proceedings of the conference, "Ethnizität als Argument. Der Untergang des Peloponnesischen Bundes," held at the Westfälische Wilhems-Universität of Münster in 2003, to the growing number of publications that elucidate ethnicity in ancient Greece. As such, the contributors scrutinize expressions of ethnicity in the Peloponnese during the late fifth and early fourth centuries B.C.E. While I believe that this volume has much to offer scholars of the political history of ancient Greece, I have serious concerns with the overarching critical understanding of the concept of "ethnicity" throughout the volume (a problem that I feel is compounded by the lack of an introduction and conclusion). The main problem lies in the contributors' dependence on literary evidence and avoidance of archaeological materials and recent theoretical developments with regard to ethnicity, especially those located outside classics and classical archaeology. I will address these concerns after summarizing the main arguments of each contribution. Peter Funke gives the political background to the dissolution of the Peloponnesian League, arguing that political processes in place before the decisive Battle of Leuctra (371 B.C.E.) contributed to the dissolution of the Peloponnesian League. He concludes that the political world of the Peloponnese was "ethnicized" from the late fifth century onwards. Ethnicization, according to Funke, is a political process, "the tendency to overstep the narrow borders of the polis" in an attempt at "founding or recovering the identity of the group beyond the polis" (11). Klaus Freitag examines whether or not ethnicity was a factor in the relations between the Achaeans and the Spartans. He concludes that ethnic arguments were insignificant in this context. James Roy analyzes the development of political identities in Elis. He argues that Elis incorporated perioikic communities that had cultivated local ethnic identities and that the resultant multiple layers of ethnic affiliations led to tensions. Thus, Roy illustrates the contested nature of Elian identity. Claudia Ruggeri presents the rise and fall of the Triphulioi. This ethnic group emerged in 400 B.C.E. only to be incorporated into the Arcadian ethnos three decades later. She shows that the ethnogenesis of the Triphulioi was articulated through the construction of a common mythic past which was founded on the [End Page 517] arrival of the Minyans in deep prehistory, while the incorporation of Triphylia into Arcadia was articulated through a mythic genealogy in which Triphylos, a son of Arkas, appears. In the political realm this means that the descendants of Triphylos, the Triphulioi, came to be viewed as an Arcadian tribe. Maurizio Giangiulio discusses the ethnic Pisatis, which emerged during the fourth century and was applied to the inhabitants of the Alpheios valley. As this was one of the local ethnē that posed a threat to Elian cohesion, Giangiulio argues that the accounts of a sixth-century Elian conquest of a Pisatian state should be viewed as an invention of the fourth century. Maria Pretzler details the process whereby Arcadian identity was created and traces its development within the context of the foundation of an Arcadian state after the Battle of Leuctra. Again, in the wake of the Battle of Leuctra, Nino Luraghi emphasizes the existence of competing versions of the Messenian past in his discussion of the rise of Messenian identity and the Messenian state during the early fourth century. Luraghi argues that Messenian identity had already emerged in exile during the fifth century and that this identity was articulated lavishly in pan-Hellenic settings. The Boeotian version excluded the indigenous population from the Messenian past and stood in stark contrast to the Messenian version of the past which, evidenced for instance by eponymous heroes and cults, re-invested earlier Laconian culture with new meaning rather than eradicating it. Eric...