Ethnos Vs Genos Herodotus
Ethnos Vs Genos Herodotus
Ethnos Vs Genos Herodotus
Author(s): C. P. Jones
Source: The Classical Quarterly, New Series, Vol. 46, No. 2 (1996), pp. 315-320
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/639789 .
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11 LSJ(s.v. yEvos V 2) cite PI. Parm.129C, but in fact Aristotleis the firstto establishthis
distinction(E. des Places,Lexiquede Platoni [Paris,1964],110).
12 A. W. Gomme, A Historical Commentaryon Thucydidesi (Oxford, 1945), 95-8; J. H. M.
Alty, JHS 102 (1982), 1-14.
13 For Herodotus' account of the expulsion of the Pelasgians from Attica, 6.137-40.
Thucydides' use of these two terms is fairly similar to Herodotus'. He uses 'Ovos
more often in the plural than than the singular, applying it both to Greeks and to
barbarians; as in Herodotus, the word tends to denote a people either as a territorial
unit, such as the •Ovr-'EAAivwv Ka' who inhabit Sicily (6.1), or as ethnic
7r• /3apadpowv
units in an army or an alliance (1.122.2, 2.9.4, etc.). ylvos refers to descent or family,
usually of individuals (yEvoS q' 'HpaKAEovs,1.24.2) but once or twice of groups
"rjv
(KopwOtvwv 7LViS Kal Toof&AAov JWptLKOoyEvovS, 1.24.2; 'Po&tot ywvos,
'Apy•Eio
7.57.6). In one place we might have expected W'Ovos.On the Thracian character
Thucydides observes: 'the Thracian yEvos, (being) similar to those of the most
barbaric (yEvog),is extremely murderous as long as it feels confidence' (7.29.4). Here,
however, he is talking of the Thracians not so much as a geographical people but as
one with inherent traits, so that the genetic viewpoint is uppermost.
Like Herodotus, Thucydides occasionally uses W'Ovos and y'vos close together. In
two places (1.24.1-2; 6.1.2-2.1) the collocation is fortuitous, but the other instance
is more instructive. Hermocrates at the Sicilian peace-conference of 424 argues that
the Sicilians must act for their collective good, and not along lines of Dorian and
Ionian. 'No-one should have the idea that, while the Dorians amongst us are the
Athenians' enemies, the Chalcidians are made safe by kinship with the Ionians (T6
XaAKL&K'KV T- 'dITh daaAi"s). It is not because the two peoples (rois
0vyyEVEl•a
OvEaLv)are at enmity that the Athenians are attacking out of hostility towards one
of them, but because they covet Sicily's advantages; and they showed as much
recently when those of Chalcidic descent (TrbXaAKLSLKbV yEvog) called them in'
(4.61.3-4). Thucydides uses JOvr-when thinking of Dorians and Ionians as hostile
groups, both of which are represented among the peoples of Sicily: referring to
settlers from Chalcis in Euboea, he uses the word y'vos, exactly as did Herodotus
when referring to Chalcidian settlers in Thrace (8.127), while evyyE•Vta stresses their
common descent from the original Ionians.
Harvard University C. P. JONES