Autochthon (ancient Greece)

Autochthones (from Ancient Greek αὐτός autos "self," and χθών khthon "soil"; i.e. "people sprung from earth itself") are the original inhabitants of a country as opposed to settlers, and those of their descendants who kept themselves free from an admixture of foreign peoples. In mythology autochthones are those mortals to have sprung from the soil, rocks and trees. They are rooted and belong to the land eternally.
An autochthon is not the same as the offspring of Gaia, called gegenes (earth-born), although later the terms have been conflated.
==Mythology==
Autochthons are reported in mythology of the following regions: In Attica: Amphictyon, Cecrops I, Cranaus, Erichthonius, Periphas. In Boeotia: Ogyges, Alalcomenes, Spartoi. In the Peloponese: Pelasgus of Arcadia, Lelex of Laconia and Aras of Phliasia. Finally, in Atlantis, Evenor.
The practice in ancient Greece of describing legendary heroes and men of ancient lineage as "earthborn" greatly strengthened the doctrine of autochthony. In Thebes, the race of Sparti were believed to have sprung from a field sown with dragons' teeth. The Phrygian Corybantes had been forced out of the hill-side like trees by Rhea, the great mother, and hence were called δενδροφυεῖς. It is clear from the Ancient Greek play, Prometheus Bound, commonly attributed to Aeschylus, that primitive men were supposed to have at first lived like animals in caves and woods, till by the help of the gods and heroes they were raised to a stage of civilization.
==Tribes in historiography==
Ancient myth of autochthony in historiography is the belief of the historian or the tribe itself, that they were indigenous, the first humans to inhabit their possessed land. The term occurs firstly in 5th century BCE ethnographic passages. In Herodotus: 
In Thucydides:
In a fragment of Hellanicus], the author states that the "Athenians, Arcadians, Aeginetans and Thebans are autocthones." Strabo, elaborating the ethnographic Homeric passage on Crete, describes Cydonians and Eteocretans as autochthones.Geographica. Book 10, Section 6.
==Athenian autochthony concept==
Athenians of 5th and 4th century, during the age of Athenian Empire, claimed with pride of being an autochthonous nation, that had never changed their place of habitation.Herodotus 7.161.1 According to Thucydides, Attica, where Athens is located, had known few migrations due to the poverty of the soil.Thucydides. 1.2.1 They had personified their autochthony in the form of Erechtheus or Cecrops I and wore golden tettiges,τέττιξ. tettiges (pl.) is most often translated as "cicada," although in some works it is also seen as "grasshopper." See or cicada-shaped ornaments in their hair as a token representing their belief that, like cicadas, Athenians were born from the soil and thus had always lived in Attica.Thucydides 1. 6
The “autochthony” of the Athenians was a common theme on vase paintings, in political rhetoric, and on the tragic stage. In the epideictic oration of Panegyricus,Panegyricus 4.21 Isocrates addressed to his countrymen with the following passage: 
In Menexenes, Plato has Socrates explaining the Athenian hatred against the barbarians
It is unclear or unlikely that the above ideas belong to Plato himself, since Menexenus, the only non-philosophical Platonic work, has been regarded as a parody, a mock-patriotic funeral speech of Pericles or Aspasia, but in any case it provides an image of the Athenian ideology of that time.
On the other hand, HerodotusHerodotus. 8.44.1 gives the following passage on the Attic genealogy:
Apart from the political ideology of autochthonism, this concept which originated during the Athenian democracy sends also a message to the previous regime of Tyrants and Oligarchs: all Athenians, earth-brothers and regardless of origin, have equal access to political power.
==References==
==External links==
*1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Autochthones
*Autochthonous The Soil's Offspring by Carlos Parada
Category:Greek Mythology