Heroic figures such as Heracles, Perseus, and Jason were seen by
the Greeks not as mythical figures but as real people who in a
bygone age traveled the world, settled new lands, and left
descendants who, generation after generation, could trace their
ancestry back to the "time of heroes." From the Homeric age to
Byzantium, peoples and nations sharing the same fictive ancestry
appealed to their kinship when forging military alliances, settling
disputes, or negotiating trade connections. In this intriguing
study of the political uses of perceived kinship, Christopher Jones
gives us an unparalleled view of mythic belief in action.
Throughout the centuries of Greek preeminence, the Roman
Republic and Empire, and into the early Christian era, examples of
kinship diplomacy abound. Ancient historians report, for instance,
that when the forces of Alexander the Great reached what is now
southern Pakistan they encountered a people called the Siboi, whom
they judged to be descendants of Heracles. Since Alexander was
himself a descendant of the same hero, the invading Macedonians and
the Siboi were clearly kinsmen and so parted in peace. Examining
the very origins of ancient diplomacy, and kinship as one of its
basic constituents, "Kinship Diplomacy" addresses fundamental
questions about communal and national identity and sheds new light
on the force of Greek mythic traditions.
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