Autochthon

For other uses, see autochthon

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Autochthones (from auto- self + chthon soil) in ancient Greek texts may refer to:

Mythology

In mythology Autochthones are those mortals to have sprung from the soil, rocks and trees . They are rooted and belong to the land eternally. They have neither personal father nor mother (self-born). An Autochthon is not the same with the demigods, offspring of Gaia, gegenes earth-born, although later the terms have been conflated.

Autochthons are reported in the following regions: In Attica: Amphictyon, Cecrops I, Cranaus, Erichthonius, Periphas. In Boeotia: Ogyges, Alalcomenes, Spartoí. In the Peloponese: Pelasgus of Arcadia, Lelex of Laconia and Aras of Phliasia. Finally, in Atlantis, Evenor.

Tribes in historiography

Ancient myth of autochthony in historiography is the belief of the historian or the tribe itself, that they were indigenous, the first humans to inhabit their possessed land. The term occurs firstly in 5th century BC ethnographic passages. In Herodotus:

Seven tribes (ethnea) inhabit the Peloponnese. Two of these are autochthonous and are now settled in the land where they lived in the old days, the Arcadians and the Cynurians^[1]...four nations and no more, as far as we know, inhabit Libya, two of which are autochthonous and two not; the Libyans in the north and the Ethiopians in the south of Libya; the Phoenicians and Greeks are later settlers (epêludes)^[2]... Then, a long time afterwards, the Carians were driven from the islands by Dorians and Ionians and so came to the mainland. This is the Cretan story about the Carians; but the Carians themselves do not subscribe to it, but believe that they are autochthonous inhabitants of the mainland and always bore the name which they bear now^[3].... I think the Caunians (in Caria) are autochthones, but they say that they came from Crete.^[4] The Budini, unlike Gelonians, in Scythia are autochthones.^[5]

In Thucydides:

The Sicanians appear to have been the next settlers, although they pretend to have been the first of all and autochthones; but the facts show that they were Iberians, driven by the Ligurians from the river Sicanus in Iberia.^[6]

In a fragment of Hellanicus:^[7]

Athenians, Arcadians, Aeginetans and Thebans are autocthones.

Strabo,^[8] elaborating the ethnographic Homeric passage on Crete, describes Cydonians and Eteocretans as autochthones.

Athenian autochthony concept

Athenians of 5th and 4th century, during the age of Athenian Empire, claimed with pride of being an autochthonous nation, that had never changed their place of habitation.^[9] According to Thucydides, Attica, where Athens is located, had known few migrations due to the poverty of the soil.^[10] They had personified their autochthony in the form of Erechtheus or Cecrops I and wore golden cicadas^[11] in their hair in token that they were born from the soil and had always lived in Attica.^[12][13]

The “autochthony” of the Athenians was a common theme on vase paintings, in political rhetoric, and on the tragic stage. In the epideictic oration of Panegyricus,^[14] Isocrates addressed to his countrymen with the following passage:

for we did not became dwellers in this land by driving others out of it, nor by finding it uninhabited, nor by coming together here a motley horde composed of many races; but we are of a lineage so noble and so pure that throughout our history we have continued in possession of the very land which gave us birth, since we are sprung from its very soil and are able to address our city by the very names which we apply to our nearest kin; for we alone of all the Hellenes have the right to call our city at once nurse and fatherland and mother.

In Menexenes, Plato has Socrates explaining the Athenian hatred against the barbarians:

because we are pure-blooded Greeks, unadulterated by barbarian stock. For there cohabit with us none of the type of Pelops, or Cadmus, or Aegyptus or Danaus, and numerous others of the kind, who are naturally barbarians though nominally Greeks.^[15]

It is unclear or unlikely that the above ideas belong to Plato himself, since Menexenus, the only non-philosophical Platonic work, has been regarded as a parody, a mock-patriotic funeral speech of Pericles or Aspasia,^[16][17] but in any case it provides an image of the Athenian ideology of that time. On the other hand, Herodotus^[18] gives the following passage on the Attic genealogy:

The Athenians, while the Pelasgians ruled what is now called Hellas, were Pelasgians, bearing the name of Cranaans. When Cecrops was their king they were called Cecropidae, and when Erechtheus succeeded to the rule, they changed their name and became Athenians. When, however, Ion son of Xuthus was commander of the Athenian army, they were called after him Ionians.

Apart from the political ideology of autochthonism, this concept which originated during the Athenian democracy sends also a message to the previous regime of Tyrants and Oligarchs: all Athenians, earth-brothers and regardless of origin, have equal access to political power.^[19]

See also

• Autochthon, Ancient Athens, Metic, Dorians
• Offspring of Gaia deity
• Greek primordial deities
• Di indigetes Roman indigenous deities
• Aborigines, a mythical people of central Italy
• Pelasgians

External links

• 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Autochthones
• Autochthonous The Soil's Offspring by Carlos Parada

References

• Antike Mythen: Medien, Transformationen und Konstruktionen By Ueli Dill, Christine Walde Page 251
  Gentrifying Genealogy: On the Genesis of the Athenian Autochthony Myth Josine H. Blok ISBN 3-11-020909-8 (2009)
• Autochthony and the Athenians, by Vincent J. Rosivach
• Born of the earth: myth and politics in Athens By Nicole Loraux, Selina Stewart ISBN 0-8014-3419-X