ABSTRACT
The Greeks themselves may have thought of their arrangements as being more “historical,” in the modern sense of the word. That is, they seemed to have believed in the reality of distant heroic and divine figures whose long-past actions ensured their individual and familial status, the stability of their own homes, and the propriety of their ways of living. They would not dream of pinning the label “myth” onto any of the narratives that supported their key convictions. About sixty similarly constructed kin-groups dotted the political landscape in Athens, representing a pre-democratic stage of organization in which descent played a key role. Just as the saga of Jason and the Argonauts supported colonizing claims by the Greeks who established settlements along the shores of the Black Sea in the east, Odysseus’ voyages were mapped in the west onto real places, with transparent political pretensions. Ancient myth and history acknowledged deep connections between Greeks and the people of Asia and Africa.
