The author of this work, Sara Adamo, has recently distinguished herself in the historical and historiographical analysis of mythical traditions related to craftsmen, such as Daedalus and Epeius,[1] while also contributing to the identification of categories and models useful for explaining the economic dynamics of Greek archaic society.[2] Her publications over the past five years constitute the scholarly foundation for this monograph dedicated to the figure of Epeius, her first comprehensive examination of the social status of the craftsman in Archaic Greece.
In the history of scholarship, the tekton has been studied occasionally and in relation to major themes of Greek colonization, from pre-colonial myths to the relationship between Greeks and natives. In the first half of the 20th century, scholars were divided: some of them, such as Ettore Pais,[3] considered the tradition concerning Epeius a legacy of Phocian colonists who settled along the Ionian coast before the Achaeans; others, such as Jean Bérard and Giovanni Pugliese Carratelli,[4] denied any Phocian component and emphasized his Elean origin. The Phocian background of Epeius was later reaffirmed by Ettore Lepore, within a different methodological framework. According to his view, Epeius would have been located on the Ionian coast because the area was associated with the timber economy, a sector in which Greeks and natives interacted.[5] The debate was revitalized in the 1990s by Irad Malkin and Domenico Musti through the application of the concept of “peripherality” to the analysis of the myth.[6] This framework was based on the location of the nostoi in marginal areas of the apoikiai: the protagonists of these myths were “offered” by the Greeks to the natives as “cultural devices of mediation” to foster economic ties. Only at a later stage do they become oikistai. Over the past thirty years, scholarly interest in the mythical tekton has been predominantly archaeological. The myth has been employed to identify the mythical city he is said to have founded, named Lagaria, with a series of sites, beginning with Francavilla Marittima. The indigenous funerary complex discovered there in the 1960s, known as the Royal Circle (9th–8th century BCE), which included tools for woodworking, was interpreted by Zancani Montuoro as the site of a hero cult, later reinterpreted by the Greeks through the myth of Epeius.[7] This hypothesis was later taken up by Marianne Kleibrink, who assigns an equal role to the indigenous component: recognizing the sacred value of the craftsman figure, the Greek colonists would have proposed the myth to the natives, who accepted it as part of a peaceful and “decolonized” coexistence.[8] In contrast, Juliette de La Genière has identified the ancient Lagaria with the site of Amendolara.[9] In more recent years, some scholars have even gone so far as to deny the archaic nature of the Western tradition of Epeius. Georgios Zachos distinguished the Homeric Epeius from the oikistes Epeius and considered the latter a product of a later tradition, traceable to the epic poet Lycophron.[10] The author of the present work challenges this “analytical” perspective and reconsiders the entire mythology of Epeius, beginning with continental Greek traditions and subsequently tracing their transposition to the West. The book’s title intentionally echoes Françoise Frontisi-Ducroux’s seminal work Dédale. Mythologie de l’artisan en Grèce ancienne and follows a “geographical” structure: it begins in Elis, passes through Phocis, and arrives in Magna Graecia.[11]
The first chapter is devoted to Epeius, the eponymous king of the Epeians, the most ancient people to have settled in Elis, and examines the entire process that led to their identification with the Eleians. Mythical genealogies are systematically analyzed alongside toponymic evidence and interpreted in light not only of the landscape features of the regions historically associated with the Epeians, but also of the gradual reshaping of local identities in response to political and territorial developments. In the Catalogue of Ships, the Epeians are represented by forty ships and four leaders, and they possess an epikrateia in the valley of the Peneus. As Elis gradually expanded to encompass the entire area, the Epeians came to be identified with the Eleians to such an extent that, according to a scholion on Lycophron, the earliest Eleians were considered descendants of a certain Epeius. Strabo’s description of Elis does not correspond to the Homeric one, thereby revealing a transition from a minor Elis to a greater Elis. The former developed in the Peneus valley and this exclusively valley-based topography explains the toponym “Elis” meaning “the valley.” The latter is more heterogeneous and includes also the Alpheus valley and Olympia. This expansion necessitates a redefinition of the region: it loses its original etymological sense, becoming generalized to encompass the entire area, while the Peneus valley is designated by the new toponym Koile Elis, “Hollow Elis”. Although tradition places the Epeians in various locations, the author identifies a possible Urheimat at Epeion, in the mountainous area between Acroreia and Triphylia, based on a Pindaric tradition. She revisits an observation by Richard Meister, who argued that when the Epeians expanded from Epeion to all of Elis, the ethnonym came to designate the entire population.[12] Etymologically, the Epeians are “those who dwell in the high city” in dialectical opposition to the valley-dwelling Eleians. All of these toponymic insights are masterfully integrated with various genealogical traditions to reconstruct the stages of Eleian ethnogenesis. In Homer, one can trace the initial period of subjugation by the Epeians, during which an Eleian ethnos emerged in the valleys in contrast to the mountainous Epeian one. At this stage, the Eleians had not yet gained sufficient strength to assert their autonomy and continued to acknowledge the predominance of the Epeian component by appropriating Epeian traditions. Later, due to the rapid rise of Eleian power in the 6th–5th centuries BCE, a new eponym was introduced and all levels of the genealogical framework were reorganized, allowing the Eleians to distance themselves from the Epeian ethnonym. The latter was thus reduced to a nominal phase of the Eleian ethnos, inaugurated by Epeius and concluded with Eleios. This section concludes by presenting two traditions that deny any role for the Epeians in the history of the region.
The second chapter is devoted to Phocis. Starting from the Homeric poems and the Epic Cycle, the author reconstructs a social profile of Epeius and arrives at significant conclusions concerning the timber-based economic system. In Homer, the only element linking Epeius to Phocis is his descent from Panopeus, the eponymous founder of a mountainous Phocian settlement on the border with Boeotia, the homeland of Schedius and Epistrophus, who led the Phocian contingent at Troy. Epeius appears twice in the Iliad, once as a boxer and once as an awkward discus thrower during the funeral games for Patroclus; he also appears twice in the Odyssey, in Demodocus’ song, as a hippotekton. In early literature, the Homeric portrayal of Epeius is often diminished, with some interpreting his low status as indicative of servility. However, the author emphasizes how his epithets point out an earlier, noble phase: he is the son of the eponymous founder of a Phocian city and the leader of a silvicultural and pastoral economy. He also becomes the object of prejudices typically associated with “highlanders,” such as martial ineptitude; however, his very participation in athletic contests alongside the great heroes indicates a formerly elevated status, in decline but still recognizable. In fragment 8 Bernabé of the Little Iliad, Epeius is said to personally go to Mount Ida to cut the wood needed to build the horse. Thus, the hero is involved both in sourcing the raw material and in the construction itself: he is simultaneously the agent of hylotomia (wood-cutting) and tektosyne (carpentry). This image of Epeius as an active hylotomos in the forest is fully consistent with the earlier portrayal of him as a boxer and the son of Panopeus. Broadening the perspective to encompass all artisan figures in the Homeric poems, it becomes clear that the tekton is the only manual laborer invited by the basileus to work within his oikos. The tektones are attached producers, tied to patrons who manage access to raw materials, obtained by hylotomoi and drytomoi. The figure of the hylotomos converges with that of the tekton when the material in question is timber for construction rather than firewood. The Homeric poems, therefore, present a Epeius both multifaceted and internally consistent, who possesses certain traits of the mountain hero, such as physical strength and manual skill, yet already functions as an anti-hero due to his lack of prowess in battle.
The third chapter is devoted to Epeian traditions in the West, specifically at Lagaria, Metapontum, and Pisa. The Lagaritan tradition maintains that Epeius either founded the site or arrived there and consecrated the organa used in the construction of the Trojan horse. Regardless of the much-debated localization of the site, it is noteworthy that this is a “frontier” location interpreted as Epeian by the Greek tradition, which only later elaborated a toponymic explanation, linking the site’s name to that of the tekton’s mother. The myth subsequently shifts from Lagaria to Metapontum, where Epeius becomes associated with the Pylian contingent and is recognized as an oikistes. This process is plausibly dated to the period following the fall of Sybaris, when the Metapontines occupied the resulting vacuum and imposed control over the area. At the end, the minor tradition identifying Epeius as the founder of Pisa is discussed; this version appears to be modeled on the Metapontine one and reflects a mechanism of superimposition of Italic toponyms onto Peloponnesian ones. After retracing the complex scholarly history concerning the Western localization of the myth, the author proposes a new interpretation grounded in a modular understanding of overseas myths. Considering that «il mito è il mezzo attraverso il quale i Greci organizzano concettualmente la realtà ‘nuova’ e ‘altra’ nella quale si inseriscono, sfruttando ‘immagini’ appartenenti al proprio patrimonio culturale» (p.166), the apoikoi along the Ionian coast interpreted this economic and environmental context through the Epeian myth. It is a system in which the “Greek” paralia and the “indigenous” mesogaia are interdependent, particularly in relation to the two sectors of the woodland-pastoral economy: grazing and timber production, for which Epeius functions as a hypostasis, and the agricultural-coastal economy. Thus, the Greeks situate Epeius at Lagaria, wherever it may have been located, as a hylotomos and only subsequently he would acquire the Phocian stature of tekton. It is in Italy that the “fusion” of the two Epeius figures, the woodcutter and the carpenter, takes place.
This work succeeds in reaching historical and economic conclusions, integrating different types of sources, from toponyms to genealogies, to myth, paying attention to the various layers in the formation of these traditions, and identifying the historical factors underlying the process itself. The identification of a “third” Epeius, the Eleian one, is of primary importance for repositioning the mythical figure within its proper economic context. At the same time, the revision of the Homeric tradition allows us to reaffirm the unified character of the tekton, in contrast with more recent interpretations. This is also fundamental to understanding the myth in overseas contexts: Epeius, the mountain hero, is no longer simply a frontier figure useful for the acculturation of natives or proposed as a peaceful mediator, but a “Greek instrument” to decode an economic landscape, made up of interconnected centers. This framework enables a reevaluation of the Sila region within the economic reconstruction: a peripheral eschatia, too often neglected, that played a crucial role in the ancient economic system. To this methodological solidity is added a constant and rigorous engagement with historiography, regarded as an indispensable starting point. In sum, the author fully succeeds in achieving what is promised in the title, offering a comprehensive analysis of the “mythology of an artisan”.
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Notes
[1] Adamo 2020, Adamo 2021, Adamo 2023a, Adamo 2024.
[2] Adamo 2022, Adamo 2023b.
[3] Pais 2001, 221-222.
[4] Berard 1963, 174; Pugliese Carratelli 1958, 246-249.
[5] Lepore, Mele 1983, 895.
[6] Musti 1991, 23-24; Malkin 1998, 207.
[7] Zancani Montuoro 1974-1976, 95-106.
[8] Kleibrink 2020, 136-195.
[9] de la Geniere 1991, 55-66.
[10] Zachos 2013, 5-23.
[11] Frontisi-Ducroux 1975.
[12] Meister 1889, 4 n.5.