MIXED MARRIAGES AT the FRONTIERS of the EARLY GREEK WORLD

Abstract

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, 1 offer some fresh thoughts on the Aristonothos krater, seen in the context of several generations of intermarriage between Euboeans and Etruscans.

Intermarriage in the Western Greek Colonies

“…In his recent article on intermarriage in Greek settlements abroad, J.N. Coldstream (1993) recalls an anomaly observed in the material from Pithekoussai which was first highlighted by G. Buchner (1975, English adaptation 1979. Throughout the eighth century, many of the remains from the settlement and cemetery reflect a largely Greek community which seems to have maintained close contacts with its Euboean motherland.…”

¿culto Heroico Durante La Primera Edad Del Hierro E Ibérico Antiguo en El Noreste Peninsular? Algunas Consideraciones a Partir Del Registro Funerario

“…11 Véase por ejemplo los casos de la tumba 600 d'Osteria del'Osa (Lacio, Italia) con una rica panoplia militar en bronce (Bietti Sestieri 1992), la tumba de Wiesbaden-Erbenheim con extraña joyería y posición fetal (Pauli 1977); la tumba 1 de la necrópolis de Salamina, que según Gjerstad corresponde a una aristócrata ática casada con un miembro de la familia real de Salamina (Gjerstad 1979: 89-93); otros ejemplos han sido interpretados a partir de la difusión de algunos tipos de materiales, especialmente las fíbulas, entre las que destacan los estudios sobre les fíbulas itálicas y sus distribuciones hacia centroeuropa (Adam 1992), hacia Cerdeña (Bartoloni 2003: 116) o hacia ámbito griego (Coldstream 1993), pero también otros objetos de joyería o "quincallería" entre comunidades vecinas, como el caso de la necrópolis de Münsingen-Rain (Ruiz-Zapatero y Chapa 1991: 359), etc. 12 Sobre el valor de la mujer como bien intercambiable véase Bartoloni 2003Bartoloni , 1989Rallo 1989;Vernant 1973; en contra de esta interpretación véase Hodos 1999Hodos .…”

The wisdom of Semonides fr. 7

“…In the Hebrew Bible, for example, in the Book of Proverbs, a father advises his son: 'Have joy of the wife of your youth, your lovely hind, your graceful doe. 14 Boardman (1999) 46, 131, 140-1, 235;Lloyd-Jones (1975) Catling and Jones (1989); on mixed marriages see J. N. Coldstream (1993). Why then, my son, should you go astray for another's wife and accept the embraces of an adulteress?'…”