Hellenicity

The Greeks – or Hellenes – can offer a useful parallel to the Phoenicians, in terms of identity. Like the Phoenicians, they were gathered, primarily, into city states, they were seawardorientated, and they had a shared culture, albeit with some regional differences. However, unlike the Phoenicians, the Greeks have a vast corpus of surviving literary material. Herodotus, writing in the mid-fifth century BC, offers an overview of what he thought made someone Greek: “the kinship of all Greeks in blood and speech, and the shrines of gods and the sacrifices that we have in common, and the likeness of our way of life” (8.144). Thus, a common way of life, including language and religion, as well as a belief in shared kinship, demonstrated through a myth of a common ancestor,…

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Ancient History (Digital) - 1 Issue, AH 53

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