The Ancient Messenians

Nino Luraghi is Professor of the Classics at Harvard University, and has published widely on Greek history and historiography. Recent works include an edited volume entitled The Politics of Ethnicity and the Crisis of the Peloponnesian League (forthcoming) and Helots and their Masters in Laconia and Messenia (co-edited with S. Alcock, 2003).

• 1. Introduction; 2. Delimiting the Messenians; 3. The return of the Heraclids and the mythical birth of Messenia; 4. The conquest of Messenia through the ages; 5. Messenia from the Dark Ages to the Peloponnesian War; 6. The Western Messenians; 7. The earthquake and the revolt: from Ithome to Naupactus; 8. The liberation of Messenia; 9. Being Messenian from Philip to Augustus; 10. Messenians in the Empire; 11. Conclusion.

'Luraghi draws an interesting and detailed picture of the construction of the ethnic identity of the ancient Messenians throughout the centuries from the Bronze Age to the Imperial era.' Arctos