ABSTRACT
This book is an exploration of the different tiers of identity by which mainland Greek communities constituted themselves during the Early Iron Age and Archaic period. Just as individuals’ social identities consisted of a palimpsest of inherited and ascribed traits (such as age, gender, different forms of wealth, work and profession) which were more or less important under different circumstances, so too the political identity of each community was constructed of a complex of associations, including relationship to a polis, an ethnos or groups within these, which could be differently weighted to the perceived advantage of that community. Far from being distinct and alternative forms of state, poleis and ethne were thus tiers of identity with which communities could identify with varying enthusiasm and motivation at different times. And to these may be added extracommunity class or interest bonds (for example the ties of xenia), in doing so emphasising that while patriotism is praised as a public virtue in Archaic martial elegy, it is notably absent from the contemporary funerary epigrams of the elite.1
