MIXED MARRIAGES AT the FRONTIERS of the EARLY GREEK WORLD

TLDR

The prevalence of Italic dress ornaments in early Pithekoussai graves led G. Buchner to argue for widespread intermarriage between first Euboean colonists and Italian women. The paper investigates how such intermarriage, especially with southern Etruria, could have arisen and its implications, including new interpretations of the Aristonothos krater within a multigenerational intermarriage context. The study examines parallel intermarriage cases at other early Greek frontiers—such as Ionians in Caria and Levantine craftsmen in Crete—to illustrate similar outcomes. Bilingual offspring from these unions.

Abstract

Summary: Impressed by the prevalence of Italic dress ornaments in the earliest colonial graves of Pithekoussai, G. Buchner reasonably argued for widespread intermarriage between the first Euboean colonists and women from Italy. the paper pursues the implications of this hypothesis, and envisages how mixed marriages could well have resulted from Euboean precolonial contacts, notably with southern Etruria. the bilingual offspring of such marriages would have played a leading role in the spread of alphabetic literacy, and in the sharing of other ideas between the first Western Greeks and the Italic mainland. At other frontiers of the early Greek world, parallel cases of widespread intermarriage are considered, leading to similar results: early Ionians in Caria, and Levantine master craftsmen settling among Cretans. Finally, returning to the West, I offer some fresh thoughts on the Aristonothos krater, seen in the context of several generations of intermarriage between Euboeans and Etruscans. The text has been read by Dr T.J. Cornell, Dr Lin Foxhall, Dr G.L. Huxley and Mr D. Ridgway. I am most grateful to all four for their constructive comments, and also to those who contributed to the discussion after the paper at Oxford.