Operating as a semi-autonomous tribal confederation around the Pindus Mountains of Greece, the Athamanians, a group (or ethnos) of ancient inhabitants of this mountainous region, maintained fierce independence throughout periods of larger imperial control. Professor Jake Morton and Professor Cynthia Damon supervised a two-week expedition to Greece with Eila Planinc, Natalie Tatar, and myself to investigate this historically obscure population. The defensible terrain of southeastern Epirus and western Thessaly provided these people with natural fortification among the Pindus peaks, where they preserved their distinct identity from approximately 375-170 BCE according to surviving documentation. Our research aimed to map the geographical boundaries of their domain while examining their self-perception and alliance networks. Though some ancient authors labeled them as somewhat uncivilized, these mountain dwellers maintained Greek cultural identification and resisted subjugation by neighboring powers. The leadership of their monarch Amynander proved crucial during Roman military campaigns of the second century BC, yet the historical record before and after this documented timeframe remains frustratingly incomplete. Understanding their territorial extent and political relationships formed the core objectives of our investigative work during the summer research program.
Our itinerary alternated between extensive automobile journeys across mainland Greece’s numerous locations and foot-based exploration excursions. While some explorations were hindered by thick undergrowth or didn’t reveal archaeological remains (such as walls), each attempt deepened our understanding of the terrain and research methodology. The regional repositories housed in the archaeological museums of Ioannina and Arta became some of my favorite components of the entire expedition, as these venues contained extraordinary concentrations of pottery, tools, jewelry, and other material remains that made ancient Greeks societies feel immediate and tangible in ways that written sources and immersion in the breathtaking, relatively unchanged Greek landscape could hardly achieve on their own. We also trekked collectively toward lesser-known archaeological locations. Minor ruins—many of which consisted of a series of fragmented walls—were typically concealed beneath overgrown foliage, necessitating rigorous vegetation clearing during our ascents. Our schedule oscillated between motorized travel days covering vast distances and pedestrian survey periods in mountainous terrain.
Hiking with my colleagues through the Pindus peaks and experiencing the landscape of the Athamanians and other Hellenes, I witnessed firsthand how important the lay of the land likely was in actively shaping the construction of ethnic identity. The defensible terrain that allowed the Athamanians to maintain a sense of independence despite fighting for various polities in wars over the centuries wasn’t simply a backdrop to their ethnicity: to me, it was evident that it was somehow integral to their ethnic identity. As Jonathan Hall writes, for example, in Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity, the Dryopes of Asine, another Greek people, used settlement patterns and cultural practices to distance themselves from the Argive plain. We found that the Athamanians leveraged their mountain geography to construct a distinct ethnic identity that balanced belonging to an aggregated Greek army (for example, fighting on the Theban side of the Third Sacred War) with a sense of localism and autonomy. Ultimately, this demonstrated how environmental and geographical factors contributed to ethnic construction, alongside the likely factors of a shared material culture, language, and founding myth.
What I learned reached beyond the scope of the Athamanians, though. I was able to practice my modern Greek by ordering countless coffees, and, more importantly, to temporarily live in half a dozen smaller Greek cities and towns outside Athens, where I’ve spent most of my time in Greece. These aspects of the research contributed significantly to my sense of place: that is, being immersed in both the culture of modern Greece, and getting a sense for what the landscape and livelihoods of the ancient inhabitants of the mountainous parts of Greece might have looked like.