Abstract: Heroic figures such as Heracles, Perseus, and Jason were seen by the Greeks not as mythical figures but as real people who in a bygone age travelled the world, settled new lands, and left descendents who could trace their ancestry back to the time of heroes. From the Homeric age to Byzantium, peoples and nations sharing the same fictive ancestry appealed to their kinship when forging military alliances, settling disputes, or negotiating trade connections. This is a study of the political uses of perceived kinship.
Publication Year: 1999
Publication Date: 1999-12-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 252
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