A Small Greek World: Networks in the Ancient Mediterranean

by Irad Malkin

Greek civilization and identity crystallized not when Greeks were close together but when they came to be far apart. It emerged during the Archaic period when Greeks founded coastal city states and trading stations in ever-widening horizons from the Ukraine to Spain. No center directed their mother cities were numerous and the new settlements ("colonies") would often engender more settlements. The "Greek center" was at sea; it was formed through back-ripple effects of cultural convergence, following the physical divergence of independent settlements. "The shores of Greece are like hems stitched onto the lands of Barbarian peoples" (Cicero). Overall, and regardless of distance, settlement practices became Greek in the making and Greek communities far more resembled each other than any of their particular neighbors like the Etruscans, Iberians, Scythians, or Libyans. The contrast between "center and periphery" hardly mattered (all was peri-, "around"), nor was a bi-polar
contrast with Barbarians of much significance.
Should we admire the Greeks for having created their civilization in spite of the enormous distances and discontinuous territories separating their independent communities? Or did the salient aspects of their civilization form and crystallize because of its architecture as a de-centralized network? This book claims that the answer lies in network attributes shaping a "Small Greek World," where separation is measured by degrees of contact rather than by physical dimensions.

Genres: Ancient History, History, Nonfiction

306 pages, Hardcover

First published October 4, 2011

Reviews

[Marc Lamot · Rating 4 out of 5]

Without a doubt, a very important book to better understand the earliest history of ancient Greece. Irad Malkin (Tel Aviv University & Oxford University) approaches the period from the perspective of network theory, so it is logical that the early colonization of the Mediterranean basin, and somewhat later that of the Black Sea, comes into focus. The author makes it clear that the rather chaotic fanning out of Greek nodes across such a large area, and the complex interaction between all those points, helps explain the dynamic growth and major impact of what we conveniently call Greek civilization. Due to Malkin’s rather theoretical approach, this naturally is a book not really aimed at the general public. But it is certainly thought-provoking and groundbreaking. More in my HIstory account on GR: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Sense of History]

“Greek civilization as we know it emerged not in spite of distance but because of it.” This somewhat cryptic statement can be found in the introduction to this book, and the explanation follows immediately: due to the fanning out of Greek hubs across the Mediterranean and the Black Sea during the earliest phase of colonization (8th-6th century BCE), the Greeks indeed became spread over a very wide area, thus increasing the distance to their home city. However, precisely because of this, the colonists (be careful with that loaded term, of course) clung all the more tightly to their origins, perhaps cultivated that Greekness more than in their homeland, and even actively helped build a Greek identity.

Further on in the book, Irad Malkin illustrates this with concrete examples. It is striking, for instance, that many of the Greek colonies began cultivating their own founding myths (naturally incorporating as many elements as possible from the long-standing Greek mythology), which proved contagious for the mother cities back home, which promptly marketed their own founding myths in turn (the best-known example is Athens with the Theseus myth). This confirms what I have read elsewhere, namely that the highly experimental and dynamic character of the Greek “colonies” had a real influence on the political, social, economic, and cultural development of the homeland.

Malkin identifies this example of founding myths as a typical “back-ripple effect,” a term he derives from network theory. This network approach has become quite popular in the humanities and historically oriented research since the 2000s. This is primarily because it highlights the interactive and dynamic nature of historical phenomena much better than static models. It is not surprising that early Greek history also lends itself well to a network approach, precisely because of the phenomenon of dozens of Greek foundations across the Mediterranean and Black Sea regions. Malkin examines their interaction and evolution through the lens of network theory, which yields numerous new insights or confirms older theories.

If I must offer some criticism: due to the terminology inherent to specific models such as network theory, this book can occasionally come across as somewhat abstract. I also believe that Malkin unsufficiently takes into account the complex interaction with the Phoenician foundations, which usually precede the Greek ones; in this regard, I refer to the groundbreaking work of Carolina Lopez-Ruiz (Phoenicians and the Making of the Mediterranean, 2021). His focus is also primarily on the Archaic period, leaving the Classical era out of the picture. It would be worthwhile to examine that period from the perspective of network theory as well.

[Gary Reger · Rating 5 out of 5]

In A Small Greek World Irad Malkin has taken an interest Greek and Roman historians had been pursuing for a couple of decades in network theory and used it to articulate a full-blown model of the Archaic (and to a lesser degree Classical) Mediterranean world as a proliferation of nodes and hubs, interconnected by religion, trade, and politics. Since its publication in 2011, A Small Greek World has established itself as essential reading for anyone who wants to understand how the Greek Mediterranean came about.

Put simply, network theory is a way of seeing how units, called nodes, link up, transferring information, people, goods, whatever. Some nodes become "super nodes," that is, "hubs," which attract an abundance of connections and become the points through which whatever is transferred preferentially travels.

This model coheres nicely in many ways with the Mediterranean world articulated in Peregrine Horden and Nicholas Purchell's The Corrupting Sea (2000), which posited that world as a series of small, interlinked "microregions." Malkin's contribution shows how such a model could come into being and what factors caused and sustained it.

These factors include particularly the foundation of "colonies" (apoikiai) in the eighth through fifth centuries BCE and the spread of cult across the space. He looks notably at Greek colonies on Sicily and the role of Apollo. His arguments are wholly convincing.

It was wrong of me to write "Greek Mediterranean" above, because Malkin is very much alive to the participation of many other peoples, especially Phoenicians and Etruscans, in the system.

Simply put, A Small Greek World is essential reading for every Greek (and Roman) historian.