This analysis of the relationship between collective identities and politics in ancient Greece focuses on four key types of identity - polis identity, ethnicity (e.g., Dorian or Achaean), regional, and Greek - and places these multiple and flexible self-perceptions at the center of a new account of politics in the Greek West.

The Politics of Identity in Greek Sicily and Southern Italy offers the first sustained analysis of the relationship between collective identity and politics in the Greek West during the period c. 600-200 BCE. Greeks defined their communities in multiple and varied ways, including a separate polis identity for each city-state; sub-Hellenic ethnicities such as Dorian and Ionian; regional identities; and an overarching sense of Greekness. Mark Thatcher skillfully untangles the many overlapping strands of these plural identities and carefully analyzes how they relate to each other, presenting a compelling new account of the role of identity in Greek politics. Identity was often created through conflict and was reshaped as political conditions changed. It created legitimacy for kings and tyrants, and it contributed to the decision-making processes of poleis. A series of detailed case studies explore these points by drawing on a wide variety of source material, including historiography, epinician poetry, coinage, inscriptions, religious practices, and material culture. The wide-ranging analysis covers both Sicily and southern Italy, encompassing cities such as Syracuse, Camarina, Croton, and Metapontion; ethnic groups such as the Dorians and Achaeans; and tyrants and politicians from the Deinomenids and Hermocrates to Pyrrhus and Hieron II. Spanning the Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic periods, this study is an essential contribution to the history, societies, cultures, and identities of Greek Sicily and southern Italy.

The Hellenistic age witnessed a dynamic increase of cultural fusion and entanglement across the Mediterranean and Eurasian worlds. Amid seismic changes in the world writ large, the regions of central Greece and the Peloponnese have often been considered a cultural space left behind. Localism in Hellenistic Greece explores how various processes impacted the countless small-scale, local communities of the Greek mainland. Drawing on notions of locality, localism, local tradition, and boundedness in place, Sheila L. Ager and Hans Beck delve into some of the main hubs of Hellenistic Greece, from Thessaly to Cape Tainaron. Along with their contributors, they explore how polis and ethnos societies positioned themselves in a swiftly expanding horizon and the meaning-making force of the local. The book reveals how local discourses were energized by local sentiments and, much like an echo chamber, how discourses related back to the community and the place it occupied, prioritizing the local as the critical source of communal orientation. Engaging with debates about cultural connectivity and convergence, Localism in Hellenistic Greece offers new insights into lived experience in ancient Greece.

The island of Sicily was a highly contested area throughout much of its history. Among the first to exert strong influence on its political, cultural, infrastructural, and demographic developments were the two major decentralized civilizations of the first millennium BCE: the Phoenicians and the Greeks. While trade and cultural exchange preceded their permanent presence, it was the colonizing movement that brought territorial competition and political power struggles on the island to a new level. The history of six centuries of colonization is replete with accounts of conflict and warfare that include cross-cultural confrontations, as well as interstate hostilities, domestic conflicts, and government violence. This book is not concerned with realities from the battlefield or questions of military strategy and tactics, but rather offers a broad collection of archaeological case studies and historical essays that analyze how political competition, strategic considerations, and violent encounters substantially affected rural and urban environments, the island’s heterogeneous communities, and their social practices. These contributions, originating from a workshop in 2018, combine expertise from the fields of archaeology, ancient history, and philology. The focus on a specific time period and the limited geographic area of Greek Sicily allows for the thorough investigation and discussion of various forms of organized societal violence and their consequences on the developments in society and landscape.

The island of Sicily was a highly contested area throughout much of its history. Among the first to exert strong influence on its political, cultural, infrastructural, and demographic developments were the two major decentralized civilizations of the first millennium BCE: the Phoenicians and the Greeks. While trade and cultural exchange preceded their permanent presence, it was the colonizing movement that brought territorial competition and political power struggles on the island to a new level. The history of six centuries of colonization is replete with accounts of conflict and warfare that include cross-cultural confrontations, as well as interstate hostilities, domestic conflicts, and government violence. This book is not concerned with realities from the battlefield or questions of military strategy and tactics, but rather offers a broad collection of archaeological case studies and historical essays that analyze how political competition, strategic considerations, and violent encounters substantially affected rural and urban environments, the island’s heterogeneous communities, and their social practices. These contributions, originating from a workshop in 2018, combine expertise from the fields of archaeology, ancient history, and philology. The focus on a specific time period and the limited geographic area of Greek Sicily allows for the thorough investigation and discussion of various forms of organized societal violence and their consequences on the developments in society and landscape.

In this groundbreaking ethnography of "fearless governance", Stavroula Pipyrou shows how Grecanici—the Greek linguistic minority of Calabria, Southern Italy—have crafted the means to invert hegemonic culture and participate in the power games of minority politics on local and national scales.