Читать книгу The Herodotus Encyclopedia - Группа авторов - Страница 26

CHRISTOPHER BARON

University of Notre Dame

A people from EUBOEA who, Herodotus asserts (1.146.1), formed “not the least part” of the IONIANS inhabiting the twelve CITIES in Asia Minor which claimed exclusive membership in the PANIONION. HOMER uses “Abantis” for Euboea and credits the people with bringing forty ships to fight the Trojans (Il. 2.536–45). Here and elsewhere, the Abantes are known as fierce hand‐to‐hand warriors with a unique hairstyle (Plut. Thes. 5.2–3), and their eponymous ancestor Abas has a place in the mythical Argive GENEALOGY (Mitchell 2001, 345–48). Nevertheless, the Greekness of the Abantes had apparently come into question by the fifth century BCE: this is implied by Herodotus, who criticizes Ionian claims to purity, and in a fragment of his contemporary Ion of Chios (BNJ 392 F1 = Paus. 7.4.9); later, Aristotle of Chalcis gave the Abantes a Thracian origin, via ABAE in PHOCIS (BNJ 423 F3 = Strabo 10.1.3/C445).

SEE ALSO: Ethnicity; Migration; Myth; Pelasgians