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Winnick, Benjamin

University of British Columbia

This dissertation explores the application of network theory to the study of Greek ethnicity through Greek mythic genealogies. Since the characters of Greek mythology often represented groups of people and places, their relationships with one another created proxy networks for Greek ethnicity. By treating the characters of Greek mythology as network nodes or vertices and the connections between them as network links or edges, Greek mythic genealogies can be modelled as networks and the quantitative tools of network theory can be applied to them. My methodology derives from Jonathan Hall’s claim that an ethnic group was defined by its connection to a specific territory and its myth of common descent. These criteria formalize my instrumentalist approach to ethnicity, in which a sense of kinship shaped by political, diplomatic, and economic factors defines an ethnic group. Hall’s theory applies especially to Ancient Greece, where groups of people claimed literal or metaphorical descent from interrelated eponymous mythic ancestors. Yet modeling mythic genealogies as family trees limited Hall and those he influenced. While a family tree implies a set of real and fixed relationships, a network approach demonstrates that mythic genealogies were constructed and changeable. The quantitative tools of network theory also allow deeper and more efficient analysis of mythic genealogies. This dissertation uses Book Eight of Pausanias’ Periēgesis Hellados (Description of Greece) as its primary source of mythic genealogies. I also use Kenna and MacCarron’s study of networks in epic poetry to compare my networks with other mythic networks and real-life social networks. I then examine the ways different parts of the network influenced its overall degree-assortativity and what this reveals about the influences on Greek ethnogenesis. I conclude by demonstrating how my methodology can advance a longstanding debate about the foundation of the city of Megalopolis. In this way, I create a methodological template for the study of Greek ethnicity through mythic genealogical networks and demonstrate its effectiveness on a specific case study.

Text

2024-10-31

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/89587

Classics

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/