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Hesperia
Th e J o u r na l of t h e A m e r i c a n S c ho ol
of C l as s i c a l S t u d i e s at At h e n s
Vo l u m e 8 6
2017
Hesperia Supplements
The Hesperia Supplement series (ISSN 1064-1173) presents book-length studies in
the fields of Greek archaeology, art, language, and history. Founded in 1937, the series
was originally designed to accommodate extended essays too long for inclusion in
Hesperia. Since that date the Supplements have established a strong identity of their
own, featuring single-author monographs, excavation reports, and edited collections on
topics of interest to researchers in classics, archaeology, art history, and Hellenic studies.
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(www.jstor.org), where all but the most recent titles may be found. For order informa-
tion and a complete list of titles, see the ASCSA website (www.ascsa.edu.gr). The
American School of Classical Studies at Athens, established in 1881, is a research
and teaching institution dedicated to the advanced study of the archaeology, art,
history, philosophy, language, and literature of Greece and the Greek world.
he s per ia 86 (201 7) Separating Fact from
Pa ge s 3 7 9 – 4 2 1
Fiction in the Ionian
Migration
ABS TRAC T
Traditional accounts of the foundation of the Ionian cities of Asia Minor posit
a large-scale migration from the Greek mainland led by Athenian colonists.
This article reviews the historical, archaeological, and linguistic evidence for
the origins of the Ionian cities and offers a new analysis of the substantial
body of later literary material written in Greek and Latin. This analysis brings
into sharper focus the complex patterns of mobility and local settlement that
contributed to the foundation of the cities, as well as the equally complex
sociopolitical concerns that shaped the origins of their Ionian identity.
In the 2008 volume of this journal, Brian Rose and Holt Parker published
a pair of articles on the Aiolian Migration in which they reconsidered the
evidence for a mass migration from mainland Greece to the northeastern
Aegean during the Early Iron Age.1 This article seeks to follow Rose and
Parker’s lead, examining the evidence for settlement in Ionia, the area
immediately to the south of Aiolia. Specifically, I offer a reassessment of
the evidence surrounding the Ionian Migration, a large-scale migration
from mainland Greece to Ionia thought to have occurred at roughly the
same time the Aiolian Migration, during the 12th, 11th, and 10th cen-
turies b.c.
Such a reassessment is now timely, given the significant advances
in knowledge of recent decades. Most obviously, archaeological and
epigraphical discoveries in Ionia have greatly changed our perspective, and
several excellent surveys of this material are already available.2 Less well
documented are the new developments relating to the relevant literary
1. This article owes much to the of the Archaeological Institute of for their insight and helpful suggestions
work of Rose (2008) and Parker (2008), America in 2015. I would also like to on earlier drafts of this article. Any
and I am grateful to both Brian Rose thank Susan Lupack and the anony- errors of fact or judgment are solely
and Jeremy McInerney for the oppor- mous reviewers for their helpful com- my own.
tunity to present some of these ideas in ments. I am extremely grateful to 2. See Lemos 2007; Herda 2009;
the Gold Medal Award Session honor- Olivier Mariaud, Antonis Kostonas, Greaves 2010; Mariaud, forthcoming.
ing Rose at the 146th Annual Meeting Jana Mokrišová, and Stephen Colvin