ON THE POSSIBLE PREVIOUS LINKS OF THE DARK AGE AIOLIAN COLONISTS WITH THEIR NEWLY COLONISED TERRITORIES

Abstract

ON THE POSSIBLE PREVIOUS LINKS OF THE DARK AGE AIOLIAN COLONISTS WITH THEIR NEWLY COLONISED TERRITORIES

Abstract

Some of the modern authors have described the political development of the Dark Age Aiolian colonisation in general terms.1 By making use of the detailed anaysis of ancient literary evidence, in a different approach, we shall, on the other hand, strive to explain the possible ancestral and previous political links of the Aiolian colonists, who came from the Greek Mainland, with their newly colonised territories in Lesbos, Mysia, Troas and Southern Aiolis extending in region between the northern shores of the Elaean Bay (Çandarlı Körfezi) and the sourthern parts of the banks of Hermos (Gediz), including Smyrna. We assume that in one way or another the Dark Age Aiolian colonists must actually have had the previous knowledge of the places where they went to settle and one of the reasons in chosing to settle in these territories may have been due to the fact that they could easily have developed an ancestral claim over these newly colonised territorries on the grounds of their previous geneaological connection and political involvements. Although these connections are rooted in myth, which may have been invented or developed after the foundation of these colonies, the traditions concerning their previous ancestral and political connection with the newly colonized territories are strong and they at least need to be explained within a historical context.

References

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