Greeks and Pre-Greeks. Aegean Prehistory and Greek Heroic Tradition (review)

This book is an attempt to solve the puzzle of Greek prehistory from an interdisciplinary point of view. The author applies mainly linguistic evidence and myth to recreate society in the times previous to the Homeric epics. Finkelberg excels in her use of linguistic evidence, and it is precisely this use that strengthens her thesis. Although linguistic facts and the distribution of the Greek dialects form the basis of the argument, the author is conscious that her readership may not have the necessary background. Her explanations are therefore simple and always introduced with historical appreciation and context for the development in question, without dwelling on minutiae.

Most books that deal with Aegean prehistory have an archaeological slant, but archaeology without the analysis of linguistic data can only give a partial image. As Finkelberg herself remarks (146): “it is appropriate to ask whether the archaeological evidence is the only kind of evidence that should be taken into account” in cases such as the “coming of the Dorians.” Finkelberg adduces the parallels of other invasions in historical times for which there is no archaeological evidence. The freshness of the book resides in the author’s ability to reinterpret known evidence in a new, coherent light with the intention of solving old problems.

Let us now examine in some detail the eight chapters of which the book is comprised. In the introduction, Finkelberg discusses the four main points which the book will develop. First, she defends the role of linguistics in studying the past and advocates the study of myth as a cultural artefact that reflects the present and the past complementarily and simultaneously. Within the “mytho-historical continuum” (15) that the legends of the Heroic Age represent, Finkelberg abstracts the pattern of royal marriage and succession in order to “restore at least some of them to their historical context” (15). The fourth objective of the book is to shed light on the problems of identity and ethnicity of the “Hellenes.”

In the second chapter, the author discusses the heterogeneity of Greek genealogy and concludes that mythical genealogies “envisaged the population groups that inhabited heroic Greece as ultimately not of the same descent” (35). Therefore, the Greeks were conscious that there were Hellenes “by nature” and Hellenes “by convention.”

Before moving along with the argument about the consequences of having a mixed population and in order to identify the groups with whom the Greeks intermingled, Finkelberg analyzes in chapter three the linguistic issues of the so-called “Aegean substratum.” Finkelberg boldly defends the Indo-European origin of the populations that inhabited Greece in the second millennium BC. Whereas previous scholars had identified the suffixes -nth- and -ss- as Luwian, and Luwian itself together with other Anatolian languages as Indo-European, nevertheless the idea of a non-Indo-European pre-Hellenic substratum still prevails. Finkelberg’s boldness in opening our eyes to the contrary idea is welcome because it reinforces the hypothesis of an Aegean cultural koine based on a “systemic affinity” (62) between the Greek and Anatolian civilizations. As she explains (56–57), this koine calls into question the division between “West” and “East.” The East, contrary to the West, appears as familiar ground in Greek myth, and this implies according to Finkelberg that the Greeks saw themselves during the Aegean pre-history linked to the Anatolian world by more than just commercial enterprises.

After establishing the cultural similarity derived from linguistic affinity, Finkelberg examines in the fourth chapter the topic of kingship in Greece and western Asia. Her thesis is that “Greek tradition does not make provision for royal succession from father to son” (65). Her arguments are based on Greek myth and comparative evidence from the Hittites. She is conscious of the possible weakness of her arguments and insists that evidence must be taken cumulatively (69). The pattern of succession that Finkelberg proposes for Bronze Age Greece is that of an inheritance from...