In this paper, I trace points of convergence between objects in the Ion and in the funerary context in Classical Athens, demonstrating how such objects could lead to intersubjective recognition within similar narratives of loss and remembrance. Although conditioned by the dramatic sensibilities of a tragic performance, Euripides’ use of objects would have been familiar to ancient audiences who approached objects in similar ways in their own lives. Moreover, it explores the issue of agency to establish by whom, how, and to what purpose the past was negotiated continuously in the Greek world.Įuripides’ Ion is set in a world where material objects shape human relationships, reuniting, at the play’s climax, a mother and son. The panel examines the ways communities, and individuals re-evaluated relations, actual and conceptual space, and their past in Classical Antiquity. Different perceptions of geographical space were a direct outcome of political developments and changing worldviews, thus adding a temporal aspect to geography and allowing communities to subscribe to multiple identities. On several occasions, however, narratives of the past were consciously modified as an answer to contemporary social and political needs. Tales of phyletic descent were used as separators between different population groups and made their mark on communities’ pasts. Local histories, imbued to the very core of the community, became a distinct genre after the late Classical period and an essential aspect of communal perceptions of the past. This collection of papers examines the development of different forms of communicating stories and perceptions of identity in the Ancient Greek world. These constructs gradually become ‘traditions’, through performance or ritualisation, and are perpetuated by social mechanisms. Collective identities are based on narrative constructs that social groups communicate to internal and external audiences.
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