This book examines foundation myths told about the Ionian cities during the archaic and classical periods. It uses these myths to explore the complex and changing ways in which civic identity was constructed in Ionia, relating this to the wider discourses about ethnicity and cultural difference that were current in the Greek world at this time. From an examination of their foundation myths, it emerges that the Ionian cities rejected the oppositional models of cultural difference which set in contrast East and West, Europe and Asia, Greek and Barbarian, opting instead for a more fluid and nuanced perspective on ethnic and cultural distinctions. The conclusions of this book have far-reaching implications for our understanding of Ionia, challenging current models of Greek ethnicity and identity, and suggesting that there was a more diverse conception of Greekness in antiquity than has often been assumed.

The Ionian cities of Asia Minor have been the subject of much discussion, particularly in regard to their foundation. Traditional accounts of this foundation posit a large-scale migration from the Greek mainland led by Athenian colonists. This article reviews the historical, archaeological, and linguistic evidence for the origins of the Ionian cities, and offers a new analysis of the substantial body of later literary material written in Greek and Latin. This new analysis of the literary material brings the origin of the cities into sharper focus in terms of both the complex patterns of mobility and local settlement that contributed to their physical origins, and the equally complex sociopolitical concerns that shaped the origins of their Ionian identity.

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There has been much recent research in archaeology on the dynamics of imperial systems, and valuable work has been done on the complex relationships between the Hittite state and groups on its imperial periphery. The nature of the available source material means that these relationships are usually studied from a Hittite perspective, and that interactions with the Hittites are often seen as centrally important for these groups. In this paper, however, it is argued that archaeological evidence can be used to gain insight into alternative views − views which may not necessarily privilege relationships with the Hittites over those with other groups. One well-documented example of such a group is Arzawa, a quarrelsome coalition of principalities in western Anatolia. This paper will focus on the western Anatolian site of Beycesultan, caught between the Hittite and Arzawan heartlands. It will show that people at Beycesultan did not define themselves primarily in relation to either the Hittites or the Arzawan confederacy, but had their own dynamic and shifting world-view. Özetİmparatorluk sistemlerinin dinamikleri konusunda pek çok yeni arkeolojik araştırmalar yapılmıştır. Bu araştırmalara dayanarak, Hitit devleti ile çevresindeki gruplar arasındaki karmaşık ilişkileri inceleyen birçok değerli çalışma yapılmıştır. Mevcut olan kaynakların doğası gereği, bu ilişkiler genellikle Hitit bakış açısıyla incelenmekte ve çoğun-lukla Hititlerle etkileşimin bu gruplar için çok önemli olduğu varsayılmaktadır. Ancak, bu makale arkeolojik kanıt-ların farklı bakış açılarına sahip olabilmek için kullanılabileceğini savunmaktadır − ki bu bakış açısı, Hititlerle olan ilişkilerinin bu gruplara ayrıcalık sağlaması gerekmediğidir. Bunlar arasında iyi belgelenmiş olan bir örnek de, batı Anadolu'daki savaşçı beyliklerin koalisyonundan oluşan Arzawa grubudur. Bu makale batı Anadolu'daki Hitit ve Arzawa merkezlerinin arasında sıkışmış Beycesultan yerleşimi üzerinde yoğunlaşmaktadır ve aslında Beycesultan halkının kendilerini öncelikli olarak Hitit veya Arzawa birliklerine ait görmediklerini, farklı dinamiklere ve değişken bir dünya görüşüne sahip bir toplum olarak gördüklerini ortaya koyacaktır.

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