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Wikipedia / List of ancient Greek tribes

The ancient Greek tribes () were groups of Greek-speaking populations living in ancient Greece and the various Greek colonies of antiquity. They were primarily divided by geographic, dialectal, political, and cultural criteria, as well as distinct traditions in mythology and religion.

Some groups were of mixed origin, forming a syncretic culture through absorption and assimilation of previous and neighboring populations into the Greek language and customs. Greek word for tribe was Phylē (sing.) and Phylai (pl.), the tribe was further subdivided in Demes (sing. Demos, pl. Demoi) roughly matching to a clan.

The name Pelasgians was used exclusively by the ancient Greek writers, who referred to the populations they considered the ancestors of the Greeks or "pre-Hellenic". Some, mainly later ones, use it to describe purely Greek populations.

With the dominion of land passing on from one tribe to the other, cultural exchange through art and trade, and frequent alliances toward common goals, the ethnic character of the different tribes had become primarily political by the dawn of the Hellenistic period. The Roman conquest of Greece, the subsequent division of the Roman Empire into Greek East and Latin West, as well as the advent of Christianity, molded the common ethnic and political Greek identity once and for all to the subjects of the Greek world by the 3rd century AD.

Ancestors

Proto-Indo-Europeans (Proto-Indo-European speakers

(?) Proto-Graeco-Aryans (proposed subgroup of Proto-Graeco-Aryan speakers)

Greek tribes

Late Bronze Age: Homeric Age of the Iliad (circa 1200 BC)

Names of the GreeksHellenes

Achaeans/Argives/Danaans (Danaoi)/Hellenes/Panhellenes (used as synonym of Greeks by Homer in the Iliad) (Mycenaean Greece before Late Bronze Age collapse and Dorian Invasion)

Central and Eastern Greek tribes (Aeolians, Achaeans and Ionians)

Achaeans (Broader sense)

Central Greek tribes (Aeolians and Achaeans)

Aeolians

Acarnanians, Pre-Dorian Acarnanians

Taphians and Teleboans - in the Echinades Islands

Boeotians

Thessalians

Achaeans (Narrower sense) - Pre-Doric people of Peloponnese Peninsula (mentioned in Iliad's Catalogue of Ships)

Eastern Greek tribes (Ionians)

Ionians

Oldest tribes (Phylai)

Attics

Euboeans

Western Greek tribes (Dorians and Magnetes)

Dorians

Oldest tribes (Phylai)

Northwestern Doric Greek tribes

Epirotes (Epirotic Dorians?)

Iron Age: Archaic and Classical Greece (from circa 800 BC)

Archaic and Classical Greece after Late Bronze Age collapse and Dorian Invasion

Names of the GreeksHellenes

Central and Eastern Greek tribes (Aeolians, Achaeans and Ionians)

Achaeans (Broader sense) - They lived in Eastern, East Central and Southern Greece (Mycenean Greece) before Dorian migrations or Dorian invasions (after that most Achaeans were displaced or assimilated by Dorians in Southern Greece regions, except for Arcadia). They spoke Mycenean Greek that was the ancestor of Aeolic, Arcado-Cypriot and Ionic Greek dialects of Classical Greece.

Central Greek tribes (Aeolians and Achaeans)

Aeolians - They spoke Aeolic Greek dialects (archaic dialects that preserved some Mycenean Greek features).

Thessalians - They lived in Thessaly (Thessalia/Aeolia). Mount Olympus is on the border between Thessaly and Macedon.

Aeolian Diaspora

Achaeans (Narrower sense) (Arcado-Cyprian tribes) - They spoke Arcado-Cypriot Greek dialects (archaic dialects that preserved some Mycenean Greek features).

Arcadians - They lived in Arcadia (Central Peloponnese Peninsula) and were a pre-Dorian invasion or Dorian migration Greek tribal confederation.

Triphylians - They were a group of three tribes (Tri - Three, Phylai -Tribes) that lived in Western Peloponnese, in southern part of Elis (south of Alpheiós river) but saw themselves as Arcadians and not Eleans.

Achaean Diaspora

Eastern Greek tribes (Ionians)

Ionians - They spoke Ionic Greek dialects (basis of the Greek Koiné and its descendant Modern Greek).

Oldest tribes (Phylai)

Attics - They lived in Attica (included ancient Athenians) (Marathon is in Attica)

Euboeans (West Ionians) - They lived in Euboea Island.

Euboean Diaspora

Cumaeans - They lived in Cumae, that was founded by settlers from Euboea island (from Chalcis and Eretria cities) in Magna Graecia. It was one of the Greek colonies that most influenced ancient Etruscan and Roman cultures, namely by the introduction of the Alphabet. Cumae by itself was the Metropolis of other poleis in southern Italy coast, including Nea Polis (New City), today's Naples (it was to the West and close of Naples).

  • Neapolitans - They lived in Naples (many were descendants from Rhodean and Ionic colonies, the last ones were more numerous).

Ionians, Cycladian (Central Ionians) - They lived in Cyclades Islands. Delos Island that had the important Delos sanctuary was in this group of islands.

Cycladian Diaspora

Ionian Diaspora

Asia Minor Ionians (East Ionians) - They lived in Ionia, Western Anatolian coast.

Western Greek tribes (Dorians and Macedonians)

Dorians - They spoke Doric Greek dialects (that were not descendants of Mycenean Greek but from a common Proto-Greek language).

Northwestern Doric Greek tribes - They spoke North-West Doric Greek dialect

  • Acarnanians, Northwestern Greek - They lived in Acarnania (this region had two groups of Greeks: the native Northwestern Greek Acarnanians and the Dorians Proper Acarnanians, many of whom were descendants from Corinthian colonies).

Achaean Dorians - Many were Achaeans assimilated by Dorians. They spoke a Northwest Greek dialect but with a stronger Achaean Greek substrate. They spoke Achaean Doric Greek (not to be confused with Achaean Greek).

Achaean Dorians of Peloponnese - They lived in Achaea (whose older name was Aegialus/Aegialea and was dwelt by Ionians) (North Peloponnese Peninsula).

Achaean Dorians Diaspora

Achaean Dorians of the Islands

Aetolians (Aetoloi)/Curetes - They lived in Aetolia.

Aetolian Mountain tribes (Southern Pindus Mountains)

Epirotes (Epirotic Dorians) - They lived in Epirus.

  • Amantes (?) (there is ongoing debate on if the tribe was Epirote Greek or Illyrian.)

  • Atintanes (?) (there is ongoing debate on if the tribe was Epirote Greek or Illyrian.)

Chaonians - They lived in Chaonia.

Molossians - A tribal confederation. They lived in Molossis/Molossia.

Thesprotians - They lived in Thesprotia.

Dorians Proper They spoke Doric Greek dialects.

Oldest tribes (Phylai)

Corinthians - They lived in Corinthia (Isthmus of Corinth and North-East Peloponnese Peninsula). Many Greek colonies were of Corinthian origin (i.e. Corinth was the Metropolis - Mother City, the origin of many Greek colonies).

Corinthian Diaspora

Laconians - They lived in Laconia (South Peloponnese Peninsula).

Spartans-Lacedaemonians - They lived in Sparta/Lacedaemon a part of Laconia (South Peloponnese Peninsula).

Spartan Diaspora

Thereans - They lived in Thera/Thira Island (Santorini).

Therean Diaspora

Dorian Diaspora

Doric Hexapolis

Rhodians - They lived in Rhodes Island.

Macedonians (Makedones)-Magnetes

Macedonians (Makedónes) - They lived in Ancient Macedonia and may have spoken a version of the Doric dialect.

Pre-Greek and non-Greek tribes (later Hellenized)

Pre-Greek and non-Greek tribes who became hellenized and whom some of the later Greek tribes claimed descent from

Anatolians?

Minoan Cretans (mentioned in Iliad's Catalogue of Ships)

Pelasgians (mentioned in Iliad's Catalogue of Ships and in Trojan Battle Order) - They lived scattered through several regions of ancient Greece (like Pelasgiotis) in enclaves.

Cynurians - They lived in Cynuria (Cynuria had two enclaves, one on the coast of eastern Peloponnese Peninsula, between Laconia and Argolis, and another inland, in the far southwestern Arcadia, also called Parrhasia) but it is not certain if Cynurians of East Peloponnese coast and Cynurians of the inland (Arcadia) were the same people, two branches of an original people or even if they were directly related.

Phrygians?

Thracians?

See also

References