University of Heidelberg

The starting point of the project is the construction of a ‘genealogical’ linkage to the Greek world by the non-Greek cities (Curty 1995; Lücke 2000). The sudden proliferation of fictive kinship myths that followed the Macedonian conquest documents one of the results of the cultural encounter between Greek and non-Greek groups and foremost the attempt of the latter to shape the concept of their identity according to categories derived from what was perceived to be Greek. This altered social imaginary claiming Greek descent was bolstered by a repertory of new social practices on the political, cultic and social levels: the introduction of political institutions of a Greek type like the assembly and the council or even the notion of citizenship; the use of the Greek language as the official one; the civic performances like the establishment of new cults, new festivals and athletic competitions, which point to the appropriation of the two key Greek cultural institutions, namely the gymnasium and the theatre, but also of cults of certain Greek deities. In spite of this general pattern the available evidence documents widely differing modes of cultural appropriation.

In turn, the redefinition of the relationship between the Near East and the Greek Mainland provided also the framework for a reverse cultural flow, which had a profound bearing on the Greek mother cities. Again, the discourses related to an “imagined kinship” form the starting point. The broadening of “the mythic system of co-ordinates” (Scheer 2005) due to the claims of kinship by the “new Greeks” may have helped the cities with an ancient Greek tradition to come to terms with the current political und cultural developments, which occurred mostly outside the Greek mainland. Moreover, this reshaping of their own past instigated from the outside may be the reason for the revival of certain practices or even the increase of commemoration days, mostly associated with civic cult performances, and for the emphasis on tradition in general coupled with a notion of nostalgia.