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Isocrates and the paideia of the Lucanians

Culture and race in the fourth century BC
Gabriel Zuchtriegel
p. 383-401

Abstracts

Building on studies emphasizing the discursive nature of ethnicity and culture in ancient Greece, the paper argues that culture and ethnicity were closely linked from the Classical period onward. In particular, the author aims to demonstrate that at the time when Isocrates conceptualized for the first time something that resembles the modern notion of “culture” (which he calls paideusis or paideia), the idea of an ethnic dimension of culture was already virulent. Moreover, the link between culture and race was present not only in Isocrates’ writings, but also in the world in which he lived. The analysis of so-called Lucanian tomb paintings from Paestum, southern Italy, suggests that Hellenicity as a concept embracing ethnical, cultural, and political values was spreading beyond Athens and Greece as early as the fourth century BC. In the same period, the figure of the Barbarian as culturally and ethnically inferior also began to spread in non-Greek communities – well before it was adopted by the Roman imperial ideology and iconography.

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  • 1 I would like to express my gratitude to all those who provided helpful feedback and critique on th (...)
  • 2 Velkley 2002, p. 11-30 (my emphasis).
  • 3 E.g., Arendt 1951; Foucault 2004; Hannoum 2003. Recently, S. Gruzinski (2015) has argued that evol (...)

11When did “culture” become ethnically charged? The fact that it is ethnically, and even racially, charged appears quite clear. Take, for example, the UNESCO World Heritage emblem. It represents a Graeco-Roman temple, one of the signifiers that denote “world culture” as Classical (Western, European, white) culture. Although a seemingly universal symbol, the emblem in the shape of a Classical temple actually reiterates the centrality of one specific region. The very term “culture” is a European invention. The Chinese word for “culture” (文化 wénhuà), for instance, originally meant simply “education” and consists of the roots “rules, orbit of planets” and “movement, change”. It only came to indicate the broader field of “culture” in the Western sense in the late nineteenth/early twentieth century. The Latin word cultura, and the English term “culture” originally referred to agricultural cultivation and so it only acquired its modern meaning in eighteenth-century German literature. From the outset, the word “culture” was politically and ethnically charged, insofar as it referred “to all the ways in which human beings overcome their original barbarism, and through artifice, become fully human.”2 Note that the Barbarian is the backdrop against which culture is defined, a fact that had far-reaching implications for the policies and practices enacted by European countries way into the twentieth century. Representing the confrontation with the Other (the non-European) as a confrontation between culture and barbarism allowed Europeans to consider colonization as a civilizing process. Thus, the answer to our question – when did “culture” become ethnically charged – is often: in modernity, that is, in the same period in which modern racism is believed to have evolved.3

  • 4 Isaac 2004; McCoskey 2012; Vlassopoulos 2013.
  • 5 The issue was raised in a seminal paper by D.A. Puzzo as early as 1964: Puzzo 1964.

2However, there is good reason to believe that both culture and race are actually Classical categories, or, at least, belong to a pre-modern, ancient tradition. As regards culture, Werner Jaeger argued in his seminal work Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture (3 vols., 1933-1947) that ancient Greek culture stood at the beginning of an unbroken tradition that was worth being kept alive and revived. According to Jaeger, the notion of “culture” was already present in the use of the term paideia (literally “education”) in fourth-century BC philosophers such as Plato and Isocrates. Jaeger aimed to show that the Greeks not only had a highly sophisticated culture (which few would have doubted in his time) but that they also reflected on culture and education. Jaeger’s Paideia was widely read and translated into several languages. The same cannot be said of the works of those who argued that racism also has its roots in Classical antiquity. Benjamin Isaac, for example, made this point in his The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity (2004). D. McCoskey and K. Vlassopoulos have provided further evidence4. Their work shows that although there are significant differences in the construction of race from antiquity to modernity, it has become hard to ignore that the Greeks fostered ideologies and practices that can be described as “proto-racist.”5

3In this paper, I would like to build on both Jaeger’s work and that of Isaac, Vlassopoulos, McCoskey and others. I argue here that both culture and race are not only rooted in ancient Greek discourse, but that the two concepts were also closely linked as early as the fourth century BC. In particular, I aim to demonstrate that at the time when Isocrates conceptualizes for the first time something that resembles the modern notion of “culture” (which he calls paideusis or paideia), the idea of the ethnic/racial dimension of culture was already virulent. Moreover, the link between culture and race was present not only in Isocrates’ writings (this is actually easy to demonstrate), but also in the world in which he lived.

Isocrates, culture and race

4In 2000 and again in 2003, a teenager from Albania living in Michaniona near Thessaloniki came first in his class. On the basis of a national law, he thereby became eligible as the standard-bearer of the Greek flag in the October 28 Ochi (“No”) parade held all over the country to commemorate the 1940-1941 Greek-Italian war. However, public outcry ensued throughout the country as many wished to see only “real” Greeks carrying the flag. The young Albanian stepped down leaving his place to a Greek classmate. At some point in the debate, President Konstantinos Stephanopoulos defended the right of the young Albanian to represent his school in the national parade by quoting Isocrates: “Greeks are those who partake in Greek education.” The full passage, which is contained in the speech Panegyricus 50 (380 BC), reads: “She (Athens) has brought it about that the name Greeks suggests no longer a race but a mentality (dianoia), and that the title Greeks is applied rather to those who share our culture (paideusis) than to those who share a common blood.” The phrase seems to corroborate Jaeger’s thesis of a humanist, universal Greek culture that, albeit originally developing on Greek soil, appeals to all men. In the speech On the Peace (352 BC), Isocrates actually outlines a political and cultural program designed to appeal to “all men”, ἅπαντας ἀνθρώπους in the Greek original (On the Peace 21):

Ὀψόμεθα δὲ τὴν πόλιν διπλασίας μὲν ἢ νῦν τὰς προσόδους λαμβάνουσαν, μεστὴν δὲ γιγνομένην ἐμπόρων καὶ ξένων καὶ μετοίκων, ὧν νῦν ἐρήμη καθέστηκεν. Τὸ δὲ μέγιστον, συμμάχους ἕξομεν ἅπαντας ἀνθρώπους, οὐ βεβιασμένους ἀλλὰ πεπεισμένους, οὐδ᾽ ἐν ταῖς μὲν ἀσφαλείαις διὰ τὴν δύναμιν ἡμᾶς ὑποδεχομένους, ἐν δὲ τοῖς κινδύνοις ἀποστησομένους, ἀλλ᾽ οὕτω διακειμένους ὥσπερ χρὴ τοὺς ὡς ἀληθῶς συμμάχους καὶ φίλους ὄντας.

“We shall see our city enjoying twice the revenues which she now receives, and thronged with merchants and foreigners and resident aliens, by whom she is now deserted. And, what is most important of all, we shall have all men as our allies – allies who will not have been forced, but rather persuaded, to join with us, who will not welcome our friendship because of our power when we are secure only to abandon us when we are in peril, but who will be disposed towards us as those should be who are in very truth allies and friends.”(transl. G. Norlin, 1980, my emphasis).

5Yet, just a few lines below, Isocrates defines the limits of Greek-Barbarian friendship and universally shared cultural values (24). Living in peace and friendship inside Greece, he argues, will allow the exploitation and subjugation of “Barbarian” (i.e., non-Greek) communities outside the Greek world:

Καὶ μὲν δὴ καὶ τῆς Θρᾴκης ἡμῖν ἐξέσται τοσαύτην ἀποτεμέσθαι χώραν, ὥστε μὴ μόνον αὐτοὺς ἄφθονον ἔχειν, ἀλλὰ καὶ τοῖς δεομένοις τῶν Ἑλλήνων καὶ δι᾽ ἀπορίαν πλανωμένοις ἱκανὸν δύνασθαι βίον παρασχεῖν. ῞Oπου γὰρ Ἀθηνόδωρος καὶ Καλλίστρατος, ὁ μὲν ἰδιώτης ὤν, ὁ δὲ φυγάς, οἰκίσαι πόλεις οἷοί τε γεγόνασιν, ἦ που βουληθέντες ἡμεῖς πολλοὺς ἂν τόπους τοιούτους κατασχεῖν δυνηθεῖμεν. Χρὴ δὲ τοὺς πρωτεύειν ἐν τοῖς Ἕλλησιν ἀξιοῦντας τοιούτων ἔργων ἡγεμόνας γίγνεσθαι πολὺ μᾶλλον ἢ πολέμου καὶ στρατοπέδων ξενικῶν, ὧν νῦν ἐπιθυμοῦντες ἡμεῖς τυγχάνομεν.

“And, mark you, it will be possible for us to cut off from the region of Thrace enough land so that we shall not only have abundance ourselves but shall also be able to furnish adequate means of subsistence to those of the Hellenes who are in need and, because of their poverty, are now wandering from place to place. For where Athenodorus and Callistratus, (the former a private citizen, the latter an exile), have been able to found cities, surely we could gain possession of many such places if we so desired. And those who claim the right to stand at the head of the Hellenes ought to become leaders of such enterprises much rather than of war and of hireling armies, which at the present time are the objects of our ambition.”

6Who, then, are “all men” as referred to in paragraph 21 of On the Peace? Only the Greeks (but why speak of “all men” then)? Or really all men, even the colonized and enslaved Thracians? But how could they be “friends of Hellas”? Isocrates’ position remains ambiguous. The same ambiguity can be found in the Panegyricus. On the one hand, there is the statement quoted above according to which “Greeks are those who partake in Greek education.” On the other hand, Isocrates makes an explicit call to wage war against the “Barbarians” (paragraph 3, see also 15); he insists on the value of ethnic purity as a condition for cultural superiority and hegemony (24-26); he envisages making “all Barbarians the perioikoi (servants) of Greece” (131), thus “bringing enormous wealth from Asia to Europe” (187). The speech would have even offered support for those who in 2000 protested against an Albanian carrying the Greek flag, although it appears that none of the protesters were aware of this. In paragraph 157, Isocrates emphasizes that the priests of Eleusis “give solemn warning (to the Persians and) to other Barbarians, even as to men guilty of murder, that they are forever banned from the sacred rites.” (translation Norlin). This is justified, in Isocrates’ eyes, since the Barbarians have become guilty of a series of misdeeds and impieties in the past (much like the Albanians in the eyes of many modern Greeks). Isocrates does not fail to give an explanation for the wickedness of the Barbarians (150):

Kαὶ τούτων οὐδὲν ἀλόγως γέγονεν, ἀλλὰ πάντ᾽ εἰκότως ἀποβέβηκεν· οὐ γὰρ οἷόν τε τοὺς οὕτω τρεφομένους καὶ πολιτευομένους οὔτε τῆς ἄλλης ἀρετῆς μετέχειν οὔτ᾽ ἐν ταῖς μάχαις τρόπαιον ἱστάναι τῶν πολεμίων. Πῶς γὰρ ἐν τοῖς ἐκείνων ἐπιτηδεύμασιν ἐγγενέσθαι δύναιτ᾽ ἂν ἢ στρατηγὸς δεινὸς ἢ στρατιώτης ἀγαθός, ὧν τὸ μὲν πλεῖστόν ἐστιν ὄχλος ἄτακτος καὶ κινδύνων ἄπειρος, πρὸς μὲν τὸν πόλεμον ἐκλελυμένος, πρὸς δὲ τὴν δουλείαν ἄμεινον τῶν παρ᾽ ἡμῖν οἰκετῶν πεπαιδευμένος.

“And none of these things has happened by accident, but all of them have been due to natural causes; for it is not possible for people who are reared and governed as are the Persians, either to have a part in any other form of virtue or to set up on the field of battle trophies of victory over their foes. For how could either an able general or a good soldier be produced amid such ways of life as theirs? Most of their population is a mob without discipline or experience of dangers, which has lost all stamina for war and has been trained more effectively for servitude than are the slaves in our country. (transl. G. Norlin, 1980)”.

  • 6 In this, Isocrates turns out to be strikingly modern. In his texts we find the same ambiguity that (...)

7Culture and race are intrinsically linked here. While the Barbarians theoretically could become Greeks through culture/education (cf. Pan. 50), their entire way of life is such that they have a “totally ruined nature” (Pan. 151: μάλιστα τὰς φύσεις διαφθαρεῖεν). This is the underlying ambiguity in Isocrates’ work. In terms of rhetoric, Greek culture is presented as a universal heritage appealing to all men. However, in terms of political practice, the Barbarians are de facto excluded from fully partaking in ‘Greekness’ on the grounds that their way of life is so diverse that their very nature (physis) inhibits them from aspiring to the highest level of Greek culture and virtue.6 In a sense, reaching the heights of Greek culture and virtue, let alone participating in the sacred rites (say, carrying a flag), remains linked to being a “natural” (en physei) Greek as opposed to a natural Barbarian.

Isocrates and the Lucanians

  • 7 Torelli 1992; Musti 2005, p. 264-281. See also Isayev 2007, p. 16; Bourdin 2012, p. 164-166; Wonde (...)
  • 8 On the role colonization played in the formation of the notion of race cf. McCoskey 2012, p. 37; 1 (...)

8In order to demonstrate that these are not just the abstract ideas of a philosopher, but that there is a broader social and political background to Isocrates’ ethnic charging of culture, I would like to focus on one passage in particular. The passage, which is taken from the speech On the Peace dating to 352 BC, is renowned among scholars of pre-Roman southern Italy for the fact that it contains the first reference to the Lucanians in ancient literature.7 However, it contains much more. As I argue here, it provides an insight into how ethnicity and culture became part of colonialist ideologies and practices in the Greek world and beyond. The way in which Isocrates describes the Lucanians prefigures the modern nexus of culture, colonialization, and racism.8

  • 9 Zuchtriegel 2018.

9In a previous contribution, I argued that Greece’s colonial experience of the fifth and fourth century BC has far-reaching implications that go beyond the study of archaeology and ancient history and that the ideology that sustained Greek colonialism is still felt in many Western societies.9 The Lucanians, as depicted by Isocrates, are an example of how Greek colonization and colonial ideologies shaped Classical culture in its entirety, and Isocrates conceptualization of culture in particular. The passage in question (On the Peace, 49-50) reads:

Oἵτινες αὐτόχθονες μὲν εἶναί φαμεν καὶ τὴν πόλιν ταύτην προτέραν οἰκισθῆναι τῶν ἄλλων, προσῆκον δ᾽ ἡμᾶς ἅπασιν εἶναι παράδειγμα τοῦ καλῶς καὶ τεταγμένως πολιτεύεσθαι, χεῖρον καὶ ταραχωδέστερον τὴν ἡμετέραν αὐτῶν διοικοῦμεν τῶν ἄρτι τὰς πόλεις οἰκιζόντων, καὶ σεμνυνόμεθα μὲν καὶ μέγα φρονοῦμεν ἐπὶ τῷ βέλτιον γεγονέναι τῶν ἄλλων, ῥᾴδιον δὲ μεταδίδομεν τοῖς βουλομένοις ταύτης τῆς εὐγενείας ἢ Τριβαλλοὶ καὶ Λευκανοὶ τῆς δυσγενείας.

“For we assert that we are sprung from our very soil and that our city was founded before all others, but although we ought to be an example to all the world of good and orderly government, we manage our state in a worse manner and with more disorder than those who are just founding their cities. We glory and take great pride in being better born than the rest but we are readier to share this noble birth-right with any who desire it than are the Triballians or the Lucanians to share their ignoble origin.” (transl. G. Norlin, 1980).

  • 10 Wonder 2014, p. 523-524. Cf. Aristophanes, Birds, 1615-1616, 1628-1629, 1678-1681, where the barba (...)
  • 11 Isayev 2007, p. 16.
  • 12 Papazoglou 1978, p. 9-86.

10Isocrates apparently assumes that his audience is somehow familiar with the Lucanians and the Triballians, who are another “barbarian” tribe. As John W. Wonder has stressed, both the Triballians and the Lucanians were considered particularly uncouth and hostile barbarians. Furthermore, they had interfered with Athenian imperial policies in the past,10 and therefore were examples of the “underlying threat of barbarism” referred to at various points in Isocrates’ works, as Elena Isayev has observed.11 For the year 376 BC, Diodorus (15, 36) reports that the Triballians, oppressed by famine, sacked the territory of Abdera with an army of more than thirty-thousand. They even attempted to besiege the city of Abdera, and would have succeeded, if an Athenian fleet under Chabrias had not appeared and saved the Abderites at the last minute. However, apart from this, the evidence is scarce. The archaeological data consists almost entirely of tomb groups. We therefore have no information about the settlement patterns and the political organization of the Triballians in the fourth century BC.12

  • 13 Musti 2005.
  • 14 Ibid.
  • 15 Panegyricus 169.

11We have considerably more evidence about the Lucanians. Even before 352 BC, when Isocrates mentions them in his speech On the Peace, we hear of military conflicts between local groups, who were identified as Lucanians by later sources, and the Greek colonists of Thurii. Whether or not it is correct to label these groups as “Lucanian” remains open to debate.13 Whatever the case, the level of violence and conflict between the Greeks of southern Italy and local populations appears to have been quite high.14 Isocrates seems to have been aware of these problems, as he deplores the decline of southern Italian colonies at several points in his speeches.15

  • 16 Vlassopoulos 2013.
  • 17 I prefer the term “counter-colonization” to “decolonization” as used in David Asheri’s brilliant o (...)

12Still, there is more to it than the simple fact that both the Triballians and the Lucanians were considered as particularly hostile, uncouth, and potentially dangerous. This is basically a stereotype which the Greeks applied to almost all barbarians.16 What is special about the two peoples in question is that at the time when Isocrates was writing his speech On the Peace, both the Triballians and the Lucanians were engaged in some kind of counter-colonization.17 I will focus here on the Lucanians, as the evidence for them is far more plentiful.


13The term “counter-colonization” may be defined by a series of phenomena:

  • 18 Osanna 2008.
  • 19 De Cazanove 2008. See also Isayev 2007; Osanna 2009.

14Urbanization. Around the middle of the fourth century BC, a new settlement type emerges in Lucania, a region that traditionally was characterized by non-urban and non-fortified settlements such as Torre di Satriano near present-day Potenza.18 From the mid-fourth century BC, a large number of fortified hilltop settlements with suburban sanctuaries and necropoleis emerge in the archaeological record. In several cases, the internal organization of the settlement centers follows a regular grid layout, as at Civita di Tricarico and Monte Coppolo (fig. 1). As Olivier de Cazanove has observed, the settlement centers recall colonial settlements in other regions of the Mediterranean.19

Fig. 1 – Monte Coppolo (site plan, after Quilici – Quilici Gigli 2003).

Fig. 1 – Monte Coppolo (site plan, after Quilici – Quilici Gigli 2003).
  • 20 Russo 2006; Osanna 2010; Zuchtriegel 2016; Zuchtriegel 2018.

15Intensification of agriculture. At the same time, land use and agricultural practices in ancient Lucania underwent drastic change. Vast areas that had been forest or pasture began to be cultivated. These areas were exploited through a network of isolated farmsteads that spread around the countryside from around the middle of the fourth century BC, as observed in Monte Coppolo, Torre di Satriano, and Montescaglioso. The economic impact of such transformation processes can hardly be overestimated, especially with regard to grain production and carrying capacity.20

  • 21 Torelli 1992; cf. Battiloro – Osanna 2011; Bottini – Lecce 2013.

16Enfranchisement of the “middle class”. The new type of land use led to the enfranchisement of formerly subaltern groups who became landholders and farmers (described as a new “middle class” by Mario Torelli). The tombs discovered nearby many isolated farmsteads and hilltop settlements indicate relatively high living standards shown by the widespread use of Greek-style banquet pottery. Male burials are often denoted as warrior tombs by virtue of the presence of bronze belts and weapons (fig. 2). As new research suggests, the lifestyle of the rising “middle class” led to the diffusion of red-figure pottery workshops in inland areas to meet the increasing demand for Greek-style banquet and grave vases.21

Fig. 2 – Male burials T. 9 (a) and T. 13 (b) from the inland necropolis of S. Arcangelo (Mandić – Vita 2015).

Fig. 2 – Male burials T. 9 (a) and T. 13 (b) from the inland necropolis of S. Arcangelo (Mandić – Vita 2015).
  • 22 See, in particular, Diod., 14, 101-102, 1-3 on the battle of Laos (thirty thousand men and four th (...)
  • 23 Zuchtriegel 2015.

17Coordinated military campaigns. The enfranchisement of the “middle class” of Lucania gave rise to a significant increase in military power. The burials leave little doubt that the farmers living in the countryside were also soldiers/hoplites. The extremely high numbers mentioned by ancient authors who refer to Lucanian armies of over ten thousand men as early as the first half of the fourth century BC become understandable if they are associated with the owners of the numerous farmsteads that spread around the hilltop settlements.22 The same is likely to hold true for the Triballians who invaded the coastal plain around Abdera with more than thirty thousand men, according to Diodorus. Such numbers – even if only approximate – imply significant political, agricultural and demographic transformation processes which can be documented for Lucania in the fourth century BC. There is currently little evidence to suggest that similar transformation processes were underway in the Triballian territory. Nevertheless, the fact that Diodorus mentions a famine (sitodeia) as the cause of the military campaign points to a link between demography, agriculture and military action as has been suggested for Late Classical and Early Hellenistic Lucania.23

  • 24 Quilici – Quilici Gigli 2002.

18Expansion, land occupation, and foundation of new cities. The new settlement pattern was implemented in already extant sites such as Torre di Satriano and Serra di Vaglio, but also in newly occupied areas, especially toward the coastal areas. One example is Monte Coppolo, a fortified hilltop settlement situated on the border of the Greek territory of Heraclea Lucaniae (fig. 1). The archaeological evidence appears to show that the site was not occupied before the fourth century BC.24 The mention of “those who are just founding their cities” in the passage by Isocrates might therefore be a direct reference to the Lucanians mentioned in the following phrase of Isocrates’ text.

  • 25 On Laos, see Greco 1995; on Poseidonia, see Cipriani – Longo 1996; Cipriani 2000 and below.

19Other examples are Laos and Poseidonia, two Greek sites on the Tyrrhenian Coast which were apparently under Lucanian control by the late fourth century BC.25 Diodorus’ account of the Triballian attack on Abdera suggests that a barbarian army capturing a Greek city (Diodorus uses the word poliorkein, “siege, capture”) was a realistic possibility even in the northern Aegean, although in this particular case it failed.

  • 26 Asheri 1999.
  • 27 Cipriani – Longo 1996.
  • 28 Cipriani 2000.
  • 29 Strabo 5, 4, 13.

20As to Poseidonia, the question of how exactly the Lucanian take-over happened is still much debated. The only thing that appears to be certain is that by the second half of the fourth century BC the city had undergone a radical transformation. This is suggested by Aristoxenus of Tarentum, who was writing in this period and who is cited by Athenaeus (Deipn., 14, 632a): He claimed that the people of Paestum, “though they were originally Greeks, have become at last completely barbarized, becoming Tyrrhenians or Romans, and have changed their language, and all the rest of their national habits” (οἷς συνέβη τὰ μὲν ἐξ ἀρχῆς Ἕλλησιν οὖσιν ἐκβεβαρβαρῶσθαι Τυρρηνοῖς ἢ Ῥωμαίοις γεγονόσι, καὶ τήν τε φωνὴν μεταβεβληκέναι τά τε λοιπὰ τῶν ἐπιτηδευμάτων).26 Moreover, an official inscription in an Italic dialect (Oscan) containing the title of a magistrate was set up in the ekklesiasterion of Paestum, which had been built in the agora in the early fifth century BC. The inscribed stele shows that by the late fourth century BC the urban elite of Paestum was speaking Oscan and used Italic nomenclature for their magistrates.27 On the basis of tomb groups from Paestum containing weapons and armor as well as local pottery shapes, it has been argued that the arrival of these groups dates back to the second half of the fifth century BC.28 The spread of typically non-Greek, Italic burial customs in some of the city’s necropoleis suggests that new groups were arriving and establishing themselves in the city. However, although the various types of evidence mentioned here testify to a non-Greek elite in Paestum, there is no specific reference to the Lucanians. Paestum is only clearly identified as a Lucanian city in the first century BC by Strabo.29

  • 30 Nowak 2017.
  • 31 Masseria 2000. A different interpretation is given in Greco 2003 and 2012 as well as in de Cazanov (...)

21Recently, some scholars have questioned the reliability of Strabo, arguing that his definition of Lucania might have nothing to do with the situation some three centuries earlier.30 It has been argued that if Strabo sustains that Lucania extended south of the River Sele, which once marked the northern border of the territory of Paestum and where an important sanctuary of Hera was situated, he might be describing the geography of the region from the viewpoint of the Romans in the period after the Social war of the years 90-88 BC. However, I think there is good reason to believe that the geography of Late Republican Lucania is actually the outcome of earlier divisions. These divisions were not necessarily defined through formal borders, but rather through cultural affiliation and fluid identities. In this context, it is interesting to note that, according to Concetta Masseria, the sanctuary of Hera on the River Sele has yielded the northernmost example of a typically Lucanian templum known so far.31 The temple consists of a square cult building, as attested in many sites in the Lucanian inland (fig. 3). It dates to the fourth century BC; a marble statue of the goddess Hera was found inside. If Masseria is right, the elite of fourth-century BC Paestum were demonstrating, in one of the most famous extra-urban sanctuaries of southern Italy, their affiliation to the religious culture of inland Lucania.

Fig. 3 – Sanctuary of Hera on the River Sele (© Parco Archeologico di Paestum/Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo).

Fig. 3 – Sanctuary of Hera on the River Sele (© Parco Archeologico di Paestum/Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo).

22Creation of cultural self-awareness and ethnic identity. That there was such a thing as a Lucanian identity and self-awareness is suggested not only by the archaeological evidence, which points to common settlement patterns and forms of ritual. There are also written sources referring to the Lucanians as an ethnic and political unit. In particular, Strabo (6, 1, 3) argues that:

  • 32 Strab. , 6, 1, 3. οἱ δὲ Λευκανοὶ τὸ μὲν γένος εἰσὶ Σαυνῖται, Ποσειδωνιατῶν δὲ καὶ τῶν συμμάχων κρα (...)

the Lucanians are Samnite in race, but upon defeating the people of Poseidonia and their allies in war they took possession of their cities; at all other times, it is true, their government was democratic, but in times of war they were wont to choose a king from those who held magisterial offices; but now they are Romans.32

  • 33 On the coins, see Horsnæs 2017, p. 45-46. However, Isayev 2007, p. 24-25, has argued that these co (...)

23This is, of course, once again a rather late source. Still, the idea of a common Lucanian identity and military organization, maybe modelled on the leagues/koinà emerging in Late Classical/Early Hellenistic Greece (e.g., the Aitolian League, documented as early as 367 BC), is also suggested by a series of coins bearing the letters LUKIANOM/LUKIANON dating to the Hellenistic period.33


  • 34 This motive can be traced to as late as the first century BC: see Strabo 6, 1, 13 and the remarks (...)

24To sum up, not only did Isocrates describe the Lucanians in terms of “counter-colonization” (the foundation of cities, the enforcement of cultural/ethnic policies),34 but the developments in ancient Lucania actually had some aspects of a colonial movement. Although it is not clear to what degree it was a coordinated movement, the archaeological data suggests that it was quite homogeneous in terms of settlement patterns and cultural representation. Isocrates seems to have been aware of this, since he refers to the foundation of new cities and cultural/ethnic policies (rules of inclusion/exclusion) enacted by the Lucanians and the Triballians. He also seems to imply that both the foundation of cities and the enactment of cultural/ethnic policies are the domain of the Greeks rather than of Barbarian communities – or at least they should be in his eyes.

25The rhetorical function of the Triballians and Lucanians in Isocrates’ text stems from their ambivalence: On the one hand, Isocrates considers them Barbarians of “low birth” (he refers to their dysgeneia as opposed to Athenian eugeneia); on the other hand, they are presented as being ahead of the Athenians, since they enforce more efficient and rigid policies to protect their ethnical and cultural identity. This creates a contrast between the low birth (dysgeneia) of the Triballians/Lucanians and the restriction of access to their ethnic and cultural identity. Isocrates implies that this kind of restriction would be much more fitting of the Athenians than the Lucanians. Yet, the Athenians “let anyone who wants take part” in their noble lineage (eugeneia).

  • 35 Loraux 1981; Detienne 2001. I would like to thank Olivier de Cazanove for drawing my attention on (...)
  • 36 Cf. On the Peace 29.

26Triballians and Lucanians are thus both very distant from Greekness in terms of nobility of birth/lineage (or “race”, as nineteenth-century translators would have put it) and very Greek in terms of cultural and ethnic policies. This is in line with the importance Isocrates attributes to autochthony, as has been observed by scholars such as N. Loraux and M. Detienne: The Athenians’ autochthony is presented as foundational for certain cultural and civic values, but also as a distinction with peoples whose histories are characterized by migration and cultural/ethnical hybridization.35 At the same time, the Triballians and Lucanians are founding new cities, whereas Isocrates thinks the Greeks should be doing this instead.36 In a way, Isocrates depicts the Triballians and Lucanians as the “better Greeks”: In spite of their dysgeneia, they implement the kind of culture and ethnic policies that would be the natural domain of the Greeks who, however, fail to apply similar policies.

27The reason why Isocrates chooses the Triballians and the Lucanians to make his point might lie precisely in this ambivalence. They are extremely barbarian yet, at the same time, somehow Greek, and thus serve as a warning to the Athenians who claim to represent the pinnacle of Greekness. Isocrates seems to be warning his fellow citizens that these Barbarians are striving for the cultural unity and hegemony that the Greeks fail to achieve.

  • 37 This is one of the main arguments of the speeches Helen (cf. 67-68), Panegyricus (see, in particul (...)
  • 38 See for example Panegyricus 34, On the Peace 16-24, 41-44.

28The passage has to been seen against the backdrop of Isocrates’ earlier works where he claims that the Greeks shall unite under the banner of common lineage and culture and attack the Barbarians to establish Greek hegemony beyond the borders of the Greek world. The idea of a common Greek culture and identity is linked here to military expansion and aggression. Not only would cultural unity lead to military superiority and victory, but the very pursuit of victory and occupation of foreign lands is viewed as the ultimate purpose of national unity. It is worth emphasizing that Isocrates does not consider military superiority as a positive side-effect of national unity, but as the principal purpose of unification. Internal peace is presented as a side-effect of military aggression, since after the military campaigns Isocrates was hankering for, landless Greeks could be given land “in Thrace” (On the Peace 24) and in other occupied lands. Isocrates makes this clear at various points: Just as the Greeks did not wage war on Troy because they were united, but united in order to capture Troy, Isocrates envisages a major military campaign against the Barbarians as both the purpose and the means of unification.37 On the other hand, appeasement with the Great King of Persia necessarily implies, in Isocrates’ view, inner tensions in the Greek world.38

29We can now understand why Isocrates was so intrigued by the Lucanians that he mentions them, together with the Triballians, in his speech On the Peace. They indirectly confirm the link between the Greek model of culture and colonization that is so crucial to Isocrates’ thought.

30The point is not that culture is linked here to the idea of superiority and expansion – this is so widespread a phenomenon that it has little historical significance. There are essentially two new aspects in the time of Isocrates. Firstly, the colonizing culture is by definition Greek, in the sense that the very techniques of colonization are associated with Greekness. This clearly emerges from the passage on the Triballians and the Lucanians. By founding new cities and enacting certain ethnic/cultural policies, the Barbarians are invading the domain of the Greeks, as I have tried to show. Secondly, the link between Greek culture and colonization is not a mere invention of Isocrates or other Greek theorists, but a structural feature of Mediterranean ethnicity and urbanization. Founding new cities and creating cultural and ethnic self-awareness were perceived and interpreted as genuinely Greek techniques, even by non-Greeks.

  • 39 Hartog 1996.
  • 40 Bickerman 1952, p. 65-81.
  • 41 Liv., 1, 56 : his laboribus exercita plebe, quia et urbi multitudinem, ubi usus non esset, oneri r (...)
  • 42 Asheri 1996.

31The clearest example of this is Rome. The ideology that sustained the Roman colonization/conquest of the Mediterranean was largely of Greek derivation. Eventually the Romans developed a mythology that actually gave them a Greek pedigree (Euander, Aeneas, Ulysses).39 The adoption of Greek colonial practices and ideologies in Rome might have begun as early as the late sixth century BC. The fifth-century BC author Hellanikos of Mytilene refers to Rome as a polis Hellenis, a “Greek city”. It has been argued that this testifies to the aggressiveness and Hellenocentricity of Greek writers in the fifth century BC.40 However, it might also reflect the degree to which the Romans modeled expansionist policies on Greek practices and ideologies. Livy (1, 56) reports that Tarquinius Superbus had founded Roman colonies in Signia and Circeii in the late sixth century BC. Although the foundation ritual of Roman colonies remained rooted in tradition (possibly influenced by Etruscan traditions), the way in which Livy describes these foundations may point to a Greek background. Livy or his sources ascribe the foundation of the two colonies partly to the need to protect the southern borders of Latium, partly to the aim of getting rid of potential trouble-makers from the lower classes who had collaborated in the building of the Temple of Jupiter and the Cloaca Maxima and were now unemployed41. The passage recalls, of course, the model of fifth-century BC Sicilian tyrants (Gelon, Hieron) and may therefore reflect a later, somewhat anachronistic, projection. However, it might also be based on real facts, since the building projects in Rome were carried out and the colonies established. In this case, Tarquinius might have been imitating Greek attempts to lower population pressure and resolve social conflict through colonization, as attested for Tarentum or Cyrene.42 Moreover, as early as the sixth century BC, the cities of Syracuse and Sybaris had shown how demographic policies could be combined with strategic and military interests. Viewed in this light, the Roman colonization of southern Latium seems to be inspired by Greek models rather than by Etruscan ones, which appear to have remained based on aristocratic elites and craftsmen. As far as is known, during their invasions of Latium in the Archaic period, the Etruscans relied on aristocratic networks and military garrisons, whereas they did not use the settlement of low-class colonists as a tool of political and military domination.

32In the long run, the adoption of the Greek model of colonization would enable Rome to represent its own expansion as a civilizing mission in Barbarian lands. At the same time, Rome, a city which, according to legend, had been a place of refuge that “received anyone who wanted” under Romulus, started enacting policies designed to regulate access to participation and citizenship. During the Imperial period, this process was completed: In official reliefs of the emperors of the first and second centuries AD, we see the Romans taking pride in their “noble birth”, as conceived by authors such as Virgil and Livy, and at the same time drawing a distinctive line between themselves and Barbarian tribes “of low birth” whom they held in contempt, although they had once been Barbarians just like the Lucanians and Triballians (fig. 4). Indeed, the Roman policy of combining colonization and culture in the process of subjugating the barbari closely resembles Isocrates’ ideal – although, or because, the Romans were themselves originally Barbarians. This emerges, among other things, in the way the Romans represent themselves in reliefs and paintings, where they rely on the same stereotypes of the Barbarian established in Greek visual arts, while exalting and cultivating their own “race”. The representation of the Barbarians on the Column of Marcus Aurelius, for instance, clearly belongs to the iconographic tradition of fifth and fourth century BC Greece, only that it is now used by other Barbarians (i.e. the Romans). This shows how not only Greek paideia, but also Greek colonial ideology had taken hold beyond the Greek world.

Fig. 4 – Defeated Barbarian on the Marcus Column in Rome (Wegner 1931, fig. 40).

Fig. 4 – Defeated Barbarian on the Marcus Column in Rome (Wegner 1931, fig. 40).
  • 43 Pontrandolfo – Rouveret 1992. The “Lucanian” paintings are thought to be the outcome of the introd (...)

33Isocrates seems not to have been aware of the rise of Rome; he never mentions the city or its inhabitants, let alone the way in which they implemented Greek colonial ideologies and practices. Yet, what is interesting is that similar phenomena can be observed in ancient Lucania precisely during the period when Isocrates was writing his speech On the Peace. I refer here to the so-called Lucanian tomb paintings from Paestum (fig. 5). We know of the existence of over a hundred painted tombs from Paestum, dating to the fourth and early third centuries BC. Most of them are included in the volume Le tombe dipinte di Paestum by Angela Pontrandolfo and Agnès Rouveret from 1992; several more have been discovered in the last three decades during the course of rescue excavations carried out by the local Soprintendenza (Antiquities Department).43

Fig. 5 – Paestum, Tomb Andriuolo 20, reconstruction in the Museum court (© Parco Archeologico di Paestum/Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo).

Fig. 5 – Paestum, Tomb Andriuolo 20, reconstruction in the Museum court (© Parco Archeologico di Paestum/Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo).
  • 44 Pontrandolfo 1987.
  • 45 Lubtchansky 2005.
  • 46 Torelli 2017.

34In the past the tomb paintings were sometimes seen as directly reflecting the arrival of the Lucanians in Paestum.44 It is true that they convey traditional Italic values and give much importance to the figure of the warrior, as is typical of non-Greek communities in southern Italy.45 However, Mario Torelli has argued in a recent paper that the tomb paintings do not convey the authentic expression of the Lucanian identity, but rather a belated attempt – triggered by a social crisis, as Torelli suggests – of the local Graeco-Lucanian elite of Paestum to reconnect to traditional values.46 As a matter of fact, the figurative paintings appear in a relatively late phase, namely during the second quarter of the fourth century BC. The iconographic repertoire appears almost complete from the very beginning. The impression is therefore that we are dealing here with some kind of “invented tradition”, that is with a deliberate construction of identity, rather than with a slowly evolving Italic tradition.

35However, this tradition – even though, or rather because, it is invented – places considerable importance on ethnic identity. The so-called “Samnite belt”, which is typical of inland areas, frequently appears in the tomb paintings. The paintings should therefore be considered as unique evidence of the self-representation of the local elite and as their attempt to demonstrate their affiliation with Lucanian culture; in other words, the “sharing of Lucanian lineage” which Isocrates refers to in his speech. Viewed from this perspective, the tomb paintings from Paestum provide the opportunity to compare Isocrates’ perception of Lucanian identity policies with evidence from inside ancient Lucania.

  • 47 Pondrandolfo – Rouveret 1992, p. 202-205, 352.
  • 48 Pontrandolfo – Rouveret 1983.
  • 49 Zuchtriegel 2018, p. xi.
  • 50 Pontrandolfo – Rouveret 1992.
  • 51 A similar, though less well-preserved, representation can be found in Andriuolo Tomb 20, south wal (...)

36Interestingly, the tomb paintings appear to reflect the same adoption of Greek colonial ideologies as observed in Roman Imperial culture. This suggests that Isocrates’ characterization of the Lucanians as “better Greeks” does have some basis in Lucanian self-representation. I will attempt to corroborate this hypothesis with four examples from the necropolis of Paestum dating to the fourth-century BC: The first is a cist tomb found in 1937 in the Andriuolo necropolis north of Paestum (T. Andriuolo 1937).47 No grave goods are preserved but the paintings suggest that it was a male burial dating to the second quarter of the fourth century BC, in other words the first generation of figurative tomb paintings. On the east slab (fig. 6), we see the homecoming warrior on horseback being greeted by a woman who is performing a libation. The rider is wearing a typical bronze belt and a corselet which have actually been found in burials in Paestum and the Italic inland. The armor shows that the rider was depicted as a non-Greek. The woman is wearing a traditional local dress. Yet the iconographic scheme appears to take up Greek models, and, especially, those from Tarentum.48 Furthermore, the vessels the woman is using to perform the libation belong to the Greek tradition.49 The scene is a standard scene which appears on numerous other tombs of the period.50 Unusually, however, two prisoners are being dragged behind the rider. While they also wear bronze belts, the one on the left is clearly characterized as a Barbarian. All the features – the beard, the hair, the large nose, the very fact of being taken captive – correspond to the stereotype of Barbarian and, in particular, African, people as conceived in fifth and fourth century BC Greece (fig. 7).51 Evidently, the tomb from Paestum somehow re-enacts the Classical Greek binary opposition between Greek and Barbarian. However, it does so in a colonial context, where there are no “pure” Greeks in the traditional sense. Rather, what we see in this image, is a Greek-Barbarian vs. Barbarian opposition. The content and function of this binary opposition is very much the same as that of the Greek vs. Barbarian opposition in Greece, only that in Paestum the Greek is replaced by a somewhat hybrid identity – the Lucanian as urban, victorious colonizer.

Fig. 6 – Paestum, Tomb Andriuolo 1937, east slab (© Parco Archeologico di Paestum/Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo).

Fig. 6 – Paestum, Tomb Andriuolo 1937, east slab (© Parco Archeologico di Paestum/Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo).

Fig. 7 – Athenian Rhyton (around 480 BC) with representation of “pygmies” fighting cranes, conserved at the Ermitage, St. Petersburg (Harrison 2002, p. 105, fig. 2).

Fig. 7 – Athenian Rhyton (around 480 BC) with representation of “pygmies” fighting cranes, conserved at the Ermitage, St. Petersburg (Harrison 2002, p. 105, fig. 2).
  • 52 Pontrandolfo – Rouveret 1992, p. 188-191, 348-349.

37My second example is a tomb that dates to the same period – the second quarter of the fourth century BC (Tomb 24/1971 from Andriuolo) – and belonged to a woman.52 The west slab portrays a boxing match, a fairly common scene belonging to the events of the funerary games that were often represented in the paintings (fig. 8). The boxer, who appears to be losing the fight, since he is bleeding from a punch in the face, is depicted as having dark skin and a plump body (short arms, large belly). He is evidently modelled on the so-called Pygmies who can be found in Greek vase painting as early as the fifth century BC (fig. 9). It is likely that the Lucanians learned about this figure through Greek visual art, especially pottery. Once again, the Lucanians, despite being Barbarians themselves, use the Greek counter-model of the Barbarian to assert their own ethnic/cultural identity.

Fig. 8 – Paestum, Tomb 24/1971 from the Andriuolo necropolis, west slab (© Parco Archeologico di Paestum/Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo).

Fig. 8 – Paestum, Tomb 24/1971 from the Andriuolo necropolis, west slab (© Parco Archeologico di Paestum/Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo).

Fig. 9 – Athenian Rhyton (450/40 BC) with representation of a “Pygmy” and two women in conversation, Collection of the Friedrich Alexander University, Erlangen (Boss – Kranz – Kreilinger 2002, p. 78, fig. 30).

Fig. 9 – Athenian Rhyton (450/40 BC) with representation of a “Pygmy” and two women in conversation, Collection of the Friedrich Alexander University, Erlangen (Boss – Kranz – Kreilinger 2002, p. 78, fig. 30).
  • 53 Di Gregorio – Granese 2017.

38A similar characterization of the loser as non-Greek/Barbarian can be observed in a slightly later tomb that was excavated in 2011 north of Paestum and has recently been published for the first time (Tomb 418 from Spina-Gaudo: fig. 10).53 The southern slab depicts two fighting warriors. The fight takes place in a ritual context, as the flute player on the left suggests. The figure on the left has received an injury in the area of the genitals which are exaggerated – a feature that corresponds to the stereotype of the Barbarian. Like the prisoner in the first tomb, he has a beard, a large nose and thick black hair.

Fig. 10 – Paestum, Tomb 418 from the Spina Gaudo necropolis (© Parco Archeologico di Paestum/Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo).

Fig. 10 – Paestum, Tomb 418 from the Spina Gaudo necropolis (© Parco Archeologico di Paestum/Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo).
  • 54 Pontrandolfo – Rouveret 1992, p. 174-175; 344-345.
  • 55 Cipriani – Pontrandolfo – Rouveret 2002, p. 69-71.
  • 56 Himmelmann 1971; Krumeich 1997, p. 295.

39The last example is Tomb 114 from the Andriuolo necropolis, dating from around 330 BC.54 It is unique in that it shows what appears to be a historical episode: it would appear to concern a fight related to the theft of a cattle herd (fig. 11).55 The protagonist is evidently the warrior standing in the foreground. He is portrayed fighting naked just like the Greek heroes or the heroized dead of the Classical period, e.g. the so-called Protesilaos from the second half of the fifth century BC (fig. 12).56 The two rows of warriors engaged in the fight are fairly similar in terms of armour and clothing. However, one warrior in the right row, the one led by the naked hero, has a bronze helmet similar to that of the young protagonist of the painting, while all the others are wearing a local variant of pointed helmets made of leather, as the coloring suggests (bronze being represented through the color yellow). Thus, in the confrontation of two local, “Barbarian”/Lucanian, groups, the victorious group, which is probably the one to which the owner of the tomb belongs, is slightly less Barbarian and slightly more Greek. This is ultimately emphasized by the fact that the left group is characterized as mountain dwellers, as they stand beneath a mountain that bears a striking resemblance to Mount Calpazio further inland from Paestum (fig. 13), whereas the naked hero reappears on the left side of the slab (as well as on the east and west slabs) in an urban setting, symbolized by Ionian, i.e. Greek-style, columns.

Fig. 11 – Paestum, Tomb 114 from the Andriuolo necropolis, north slab (© Parco Archeologico di Paestum/Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo).

Fig. 11 – Paestum, Tomb 114 from the Andriuolo necropolis, north slab (© Parco Archeologico di Paestum/Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo).

Fig. 12 – So-called “Protesilaos”, mid fifth century BC, Metropolitan Museum, New York (Krumeich 1997, p. 295, fig. 80).

Fig. 12 – So-called “Protesilaos”, mid fifth century BC, Metropolitan Museum, New York (Krumeich 1997, p. 295, fig. 80).

Fig. 13 – The mount Calpazio (“Polveracchio” mountain) in the hinterland of Paestum.

Fig. 13 – The mount Calpazio (“Polveracchio” mountain) in the hinterland of Paestum.

40To conclude, a series of structural oppositions can be observed in these tombs:

 

Greek/Lucanian “Barbarian”
Belonging to a polis/city
Pious
Young/beardless/beautiful
Naked
Victorious(Heroic
Living in the mountains


Bearded/large nose/dark skin
Local clothing/haircut
Subjugated/enslaved

41The tombs from Paestum show how Greek colonial ideology was adopted by an Italic community long before it was theorized by Horace and Virgil from the perspective of another Barbarian tribe, i.e. the Romans. The iconographic strategies displayed in the so-called Lucanian tomb paintings are inspired by Greek visions of the Other and anticipate Roman imperial iconography. They clearly rely on Greek ideologies and practices rather than on archaic Italic traditions, and thus testify to the local agency of Italic elites in the construction of tradition and ethnicity. While this may appear unsurprising in the context of Roman visual strategies and ideologies, it certainly is striking in the context of fourth-century BC Poseidonia.

  • 57 Torelli 2017.

42As the data suggests, the city was controlled by a Lucanian elite (“Lucanian” in the sense of cultural affiliation and not necessarily in the sense of lineage). However, we know that Greeks continued to live in the city, as graffiti and signatures on locally produced vases demonstrate. As Mario Torelli has stressed, the coexistence of Greeks and Lucanians was not based on equal relations: After the fifth century BC; the Greeks seem to have been reduced to craftsmen and specialized workers of the middle and lower classes, while the local elite positively reaffirmed a Lucanian identity.57 Yet, it is not the Greeks who now appear as the colonized and subjugated, although they may have been in such a condition to some extent. In some ways, it would have been logical to present them as the new subaltern. Instead, it is the same stereotype of the Barbarian that is now used by the Lucanians to express superiority and hegemony.

43Therefore, the process of “decolonization” as described by D. Asheri, i.e. the backlash of local populations who gain power in formerly Greek areas and cities, is not simply an inversion of the process of colonization. Since the Lucanians make use of the same Greek-Barbarian opposition that ideologically structures Greek colonization, in a sense they perpetuate Greek colonization, although in this specific case the “colonized” people are Greeks. The source code of the process of colonization (“founding cities”, “taking land from the Barbarians” as Isocrates puts it) remains a Greek one, even though the program is run by others. In this program, the colonizers are identified with (Greek) culture (paideia, urbanity, whiteness), while the colonized are represented as naturally, i.e. racially (en physei), inferior. Thus, it turns out that the Hellenization of the Mediterranean coincides with what might be termed the “Barbarization of the Other” – i.e. the representation of colonized and marginalized groups according to Greek stereotypes. We should be aware that with the arrival of Greek culture, a specific image of the Other i.e. non-cultivated and non-Hellenized peoples – had spread throughout the Mediterranean: The Barbarian as the eternal enemy of culture or paideia. While Isocrates may have been the first theorizer of the racial framing of culture and colonization in the Classical world, the tomb-paintings from Paestum show that the “Barbarization of the Other” based on the Greek model had become part of colonial ideologies and practices even beyond the Greek world as early as the fourth century BC.

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McInerney 2014 = J. McInerney (ed.), A companion to ethnicity in the ancient Mediterranean, Oxford, 2014.

Musti 2005 = D. Musti, Magna Grecia. Il quadro storico, Bari, 2005. 

Niola – Zuchtriegel 2017 = M. Niola, G. Zuchtriegel (ed.), Action Painting: rito & arte nelle tombe di Paestum, Naples, 2017.

Nowak 2017 = C. Nowak, Bestattungsrituale in Unteritalien vom 5. bis 4. Jh. v. Chr.: Überlegungen zur sogenannten Samnitisierung Kampaniens, Wiesbaden, 2017.

Osanna 2008 = M. Osanna, Torre di Satriano. Morfologia e struttura di un insediamento della Lucania nord-occidentale dall’età del Ferro alla conquista romana, in H. Di Giuseppe, A. Russo (ed.), Felicitas temporum. Dalla terra alle genti: la Basilicata settentrionale tra archeologia e storia, Lavello, 2008, p. 143-167. 

Osanna 2009 = M. Osanna (ed.), Verso la città. Forme insediative in Lucania e nel mondo italico fra IV e III secolo a.C., Venosa, 2009. 

Osanna 2010 = M. Osanna, Paesaggi agrari e organizzazione del territorio in Lucania tra IV e III secolo a.C., in Bollettino di Archeologia Online, Volume Speciale (online) www.bollettinodiarcheologiaonline.beniculturali.it/documenti/generale/4_Osanna_paper.pdf.

Papazoglou 1978 = F. Papazoglou, The central Balkan tribes in Pre-Roman times: Triballi, Autariatae, Dardanians, Scordisci and Moesians, Amsterdam, 1978.

Pontrandolfo 1987 = A. Pontrandolfo, Le necropoli dalla città greca alla colonia latina, in Poseidonia-Paestum, Atti del XXVII Convegno di Studi sulla Magna Grecia, Taranto, 1987, p. 225-265. 

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Raeck 1981 = W. Raeck, Zum Barbarenbild in der Kunst Athens im 6. und 5. Jh. v. Chr., Bonn, 1981. 

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Notes

1 I would like to express my gratitude to all those who provided helpful feedback and critique on the present contribution or on single aspects, in particular: Paul Carter, Olivier de Cazanove, Marina Cipriani, Tiziana D’Angelo, Alain Duplouy, Massimo Osanna, and Mario Torelli. I also would like to thank Marta Ilaria Martorano and Colum Fordham for helping me with the English text and artwork.

2 Velkley 2002, p. 11-30 (my emphasis).

3 E.g., Arendt 1951; Foucault 2004; Hannoum 2003. Recently, S. Gruzinski (2015) has argued that evolutionist and racist views evolved as early as the sixteenth century as a response to the European conquest of the Americas. The history and notion of the terms “race” and “ethnicity” is highly complex and controversial and cannot be discussed here. On the relationship between modernity, (neo)liberalism, and ethnicity see Comaroff – Comaroff 2009. On the notion of “culture” as an ethnically charged discourse in the context of hegemony and colonization see Bhabha 1994; Spivak 1999.

4 Isaac 2004; McCoskey 2012; Vlassopoulos 2013.

5 The issue was raised in a seminal paper by D.A. Puzzo as early as 1964: Puzzo 1964.

6 In this, Isocrates turns out to be strikingly modern. In his texts we find the same ambiguity that characterizes modern European hegemonic discourse: on the one hand, Western culture claims to offer a set of universal values for all mankind (from Christianity to human rights and democracy) while, on the other, thousands of minor differences make it practically impossible for non-white, non-Western people to get full access to that culture.

7 Torelli 1992; Musti 2005, p. 264-281. See also Isayev 2007, p. 16; Bourdin 2012, p. 164-166; Wonder 2014, p. 515.

8 On the role colonization played in the formation of the notion of race cf. McCoskey 2012, p. 37; 105-109.

9 Zuchtriegel 2018.

10 Wonder 2014, p. 523-524. Cf. Aristophanes, Birds, 1615-1616, 1628-1629, 1678-1681, where the barbarian language and character of the Triballians appears to be emphasized.

11 Isayev 2007, p. 16.

12 Papazoglou 1978, p. 9-86.

13 Musti 2005.

14 Ibid.

15 Panegyricus 169.

16 Vlassopoulos 2013.

17 I prefer the term “counter-colonization” to “decolonization” as used in David Asheri’s brilliant overview (1996), which, in my eyes, remains one of the most valuable contributions to the field, although I believe it significantly overestimates the impact of Lucanian “decolonization” on the Greek cities of southern Italy.

18 Osanna 2008.

19 De Cazanove 2008. See also Isayev 2007; Osanna 2009.

20 Russo 2006; Osanna 2010; Zuchtriegel 2016; Zuchtriegel 2018.

21 Torelli 1992; cf. Battiloro – Osanna 2011; Bottini – Lecce 2013.

22 See, in particular, Diod., 14, 101-102, 1-3 on the battle of Laos (thirty thousand men and four thousand horsemen on the Lucanian side). More than a century later, the Lucanians stunned the Romans with unexpectedly high numbers when asked how many men they could muster.

23 Zuchtriegel 2015.

24 Quilici – Quilici Gigli 2002.

25 On Laos, see Greco 1995; on Poseidonia, see Cipriani – Longo 1996; Cipriani 2000 and below.

26 Asheri 1999.

27 Cipriani – Longo 1996.

28 Cipriani 2000.

29 Strabo 5, 4, 13.

30 Nowak 2017.

31 Masseria 2000. A different interpretation is given in Greco 2003 and 2012 as well as in de Cazanove 2008.

32 Strab. , 6, 1, 3. οἱ δὲ Λευκανοὶ τὸ μὲν γένος εἰσὶ Σαυνῖται, Ποσειδωνιατῶν δὲ καὶ τῶν συμμάχων κρατήσαντες πολέμῳ κατέσχον τὰς πόλεις αὐτῶν. Τὸν μὲν οὖν ἄλλον χρόνον ἐδημοκρατοῦντο, ἐν δὲ τοῖς πολέμοις ᾑρεῖτο βασιλεὺς ἀπὸ τῶν νεμομένων ἀρχάς· νῦν δ’ εἰσὶ Ῥωμαῖοι.

33 On the coins, see Horsnæs 2017, p. 45-46. However, Isayev 2007, p. 24-25, has argued that these coins were issued by the Carthaginians as payment for the Lucanians allied to them and that in this specific case the ethnic loukanon applied only to the groups that supported Hannibal instead of Rome. On the link between ethnos and koinon, see Mackil 2014; Scopacasa 2017, p. 115-117. On Lucanian identity in general, see Wonder 2014, p. 520-523.

34 This motive can be traced to as late as the first century BC: see Strabo 6, 1, 13 and the remarks by Asheri 1999 on the passage.

35 Loraux 1981; Detienne 2001. I would like to thank Olivier de Cazanove for drawing my attention on the issue of autochthony during the discussion on a talk I gave in Paris in 2018.

36 Cf. On the Peace 29.

37 This is one of the main arguments of the speeches Helen (cf. 67-68), Panegyricus (see, in particular, 133, 159, 181-187), On the Peace (cf. 41-44) and Philip (cf. 9, 16 and passim).

38 See for example Panegyricus 34, On the Peace 16-24, 41-44.

39 Hartog 1996.

40 Bickerman 1952, p. 65-81.

41 Liv., 1, 56 : his laboribus exercita plebe, quia et urbi multitudinem, ubi usus non esset, oneri rebatur esse, et colonis mittendis occupari latius imperii fines uolebat, Signiam Circeiosque colonos misit, praesidia urbi futura terra marique.

42 Asheri 1996.

43 Pontrandolfo – Rouveret 1992. The “Lucanian” paintings are thought to be the outcome of the introduction of typically Italic subjects into a local artisanal tradition of tomb painting at Paestum: Cipriani 2000; Cipriani – Pontrandolfo 2010; Niola – Zuchtriegel 2017.

44 Pontrandolfo 1987.

45 Lubtchansky 2005.

46 Torelli 2017.

47 Pondrandolfo – Rouveret 1992, p. 202-205, 352.

48 Pontrandolfo – Rouveret 1983.

49 Zuchtriegel 2018, p. xi.

50 Pontrandolfo – Rouveret 1992.

51 A similar, though less well-preserved, representation can be found in Andriuolo Tomb 20, south wall (Pontrandolfo – Rouveret 1992, p. 309). On Barbarian stereotypes, see Raeck 1981; Vlassopoulos 2013.

52 Pontrandolfo – Rouveret 1992, p. 188-191, 348-349.

53 Di Gregorio – Granese 2017.

54 Pontrandolfo – Rouveret 1992, p. 174-175; 344-345.

55 Cipriani – Pontrandolfo – Rouveret 2002, p. 69-71.

56 Himmelmann 1971; Krumeich 1997, p. 295.

57 Torelli 2017.

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List of illustrations

Title Fig. 1 – Monte Coppolo (site plan, after Quilici – Quilici Gigli 2003).
URL http://journals.openedition.org/mefra/docannexe/image/10327/img-1.jpg
File image/jpeg, 92k
Title Fig. 2 – Male burials T. 9 (a) and T. 13 (b) from the inland necropolis of S. Arcangelo (Mandić – Vita 2015).
URL http://journals.openedition.org/mefra/docannexe/image/10327/img-2.jpg
File image/jpeg, 50k
Title Fig. 3 – Sanctuary of Hera on the River Sele (© Parco Archeologico di Paestum/Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo).
URL http://journals.openedition.org/mefra/docannexe/image/10327/img-3.jpg
File image/jpeg, 98k
URL http://journals.openedition.org/mefra/docannexe/image/10327/img-4.jpg
File image/jpeg, 96k
Title Fig. 4 – Defeated Barbarian on the Marcus Column in Rome (Wegner 1931, fig. 40).
URL http://journals.openedition.org/mefra/docannexe/image/10327/img-5.jpg
File image/jpeg, 131k
Title Fig. 5 – Paestum, Tomb Andriuolo 20, reconstruction in the Museum court (© Parco Archeologico di Paestum/Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo).
URL http://journals.openedition.org/mefra/docannexe/image/10327/img-6.jpg
File image/jpeg, 255k
Title Fig. 6 – Paestum, Tomb Andriuolo 1937, east slab (© Parco Archeologico di Paestum/Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo).
URL http://journals.openedition.org/mefra/docannexe/image/10327/img-7.jpg
File image/jpeg, 232k
Title Fig. 7 – Athenian Rhyton (around 480 BC) with representation of “pygmies” fighting cranes, conserved at the Ermitage, St. Petersburg (Harrison 2002, p. 105, fig. 2).
URL http://journals.openedition.org/mefra/docannexe/image/10327/img-8.jpg
File image/jpeg, 216k
Title Fig. 8 – Paestum, Tomb 24/1971 from the Andriuolo necropolis, west slab (© Parco Archeologico di Paestum/Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo).
URL http://journals.openedition.org/mefra/docannexe/image/10327/img-9.jpg
File image/jpeg, 218k
Title Fig. 9 – Athenian Rhyton (450/40 BC) with representation of a “Pygmy” and two women in conversation, Collection of the Friedrich Alexander University, Erlangen (Boss – Kranz – Kreilinger 2002, p. 78, fig. 30).
URL http://journals.openedition.org/mefra/docannexe/image/10327/img-10.jpg
File image/jpeg, 129k
Title Fig. 10 – Paestum, Tomb 418 from the Spina Gaudo necropolis (© Parco Archeologico di Paestum/Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo).
URL http://journals.openedition.org/mefra/docannexe/image/10327/img-11.jpg
File image/jpeg, 246k
Title Fig. 11 – Paestum, Tomb 114 from the Andriuolo necropolis, north slab (© Parco Archeologico di Paestum/Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo).
URL http://journals.openedition.org/mefra/docannexe/image/10327/img-12.jpg
File image/jpeg, 187k
Title Fig. 12 – So-called “Protesilaos”, mid fifth century BC, Metropolitan Museum, New York (Krumeich 1997, p. 295, fig. 80).
URL http://journals.openedition.org/mefra/docannexe/image/10327/img-13.jpg
File image/jpeg, 111k
Title Fig. 13 – The mount Calpazio (“Polveracchio” mountain) in the hinterland of Paestum.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/mefra/docannexe/image/10327/img-14.jpg
File image/jpeg, 194k
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References

Bibliographical reference

Gabriel Zuchtriegel, “Isocrates and the paideia of the Lucanians”Mélanges de l'École française de Rome - Antiquité, 132-2 | 2020, 383-401.

Electronic reference

Gabriel Zuchtriegel, “Isocrates and the paideia of the Lucanians”Mélanges de l'École française de Rome - Antiquité [Online], 132-2 | 2020, Online since 25 February 2021, connection on 16 February 2026. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/mefra/10327; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/mefra.10327

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About the author

Gabriel Zuchtriegel

Parco archeologico di Paestum e Velia - gabriel.zuchtriegel@beniculturali.it

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