The nature of Greek settlement in Spain in the Classical period and earlier has been a matter of considerable academic debate. In the archaic period, there is evidence of extensive Greek contact with southern Spain, especially in the area around Tartessos. East Greek and Etruscan prestige objects, notably fine pottery and bronzes, are found in large quantities throughout the region in the seventh and early sixth century (Shefton 1982: 337-53; Kerschner 2004). From c. 570 onwards, these are replaced by extensive imports of Corinthian and Attic pottery, a pattern which persists throughout the sixth century (Shefton 1982: 337-55; Tsirkin 1996). The processes by which these imports arrived there are, however, hotly debated. Literary sources make reference to the foundation of Greek settlements in the region at Mainake, Hemerosko-peion, Alonis and Akra Leuke (Strabon 3.4.2; Pseudo-Skymnos 203-4; Braun 2004: 303-13), but there is little or no archaeological evidence to support the presence of significant Greek settlement this far south (Garcia y Bellido 1948; Clavel-Leveque 1977: 25-30; Morel 1983: 127; Niemeyer 1990: 33-8). It is likely that the process which underpinned this diffusion of Greek goods was one of trade and exchange, not settlement, but the details of the mechanisms by which they arrived in Spain are uncertain. It has been suggested, in the light of the important Phokaian connections with the region, that the distribution of Greek prestige goods was the result of a Phokaian-dominated trade network. Although there is reason to believe that the Phokaians were very active in trade in the region, this ignores the complexities of interactions in the region, and it is extremely likely that at least some of the Greek material in Spain arrived with Phoenician traders (Shefton 1982: 359; Niemeyer 1990: 40-46; Dominguez Monedero & Sanchez 2001). At Huelva, for instance, the pottery recovered from excavations in the harbour area is 70 per cent Phoenician and 20 per cent indigenous wares, with only 10 per cent of pottery finds being of Greek manufacture (Fernandez Jurado and Cabrera Bonet 1987), suggesting a relatively small Greek presence in a predominantly Phoenician and indigenous settlement.
From the beginning of the fifth century, however, there is a major change in the nature and focus of the Greek contacts with Spain. In the south, the number of Greek imports drops sharply in the early fifth century. It recovers somewhat by c. 450, but in a form which suggests very different patterns of contact. The dominant form of imported pottery is Attic, and castulo cups, a type of black glaze cup made specially for export, are found in large numbers in Spain in the early fifth century. The distribution of Greek material, however, is now less widespread and more concentrated in the Guadalquivir valley. Both the changes in distribution and the evidence of growing Carthaginian dominance in the area may suggest that Greek imports were now being disseminated by indigenous Iberian networks of trade and exchange rather than by Greeks themselves (Shefton 1982: 365-7; Rouillard 1991: 317-30). The few references to southern Spain in fifth-century Greek literature also indicate that the Greeks of the Classical period regarded southern Spain as a very remote and distant region, suggesting that contact with it was not frequent (Pindar Olympian Odes 3.43, Nemean Odes 3.20, Isthmian Odes 4.12; Euripides Hippolytos 1-10, 745-5; Shefton 1982: 367-70; Prontera 1990).
The main focus of Greek activity in Spain in the Classical period undergoes a marked shift to the north-east, where it is centred on the demonstrably Greek settlements of Emporion and Rhode. Emporion was founded by the Phokaians at some point in the sixth century, although the exact date is not entirely clear. The traditional foundation date given in ancient literature is 575 (Strabon 3.4.8; Pseudo-Skylax 2-3; Pseudo-Skymnos 203-4; Polybios 1.3.76; Pomponius Mela 2.87-90; Pliny the Elder Naturalis Historia 3.21-23; Rouillard 1991: 244-51) but so far, there have been few finds earlier than the middle of the sixth century, and it is possible that it was established around the time of the destruction of Phokaia itself by the Persians in 540. In its first phase, in the sixth and early fifth centuries, it was a small settlement situated on an island off the coast of Spain, named as Palaipolis by Strabon (3.4.8) and close to the indigenous Iberian site of Ullastret. There have been conjectures that the motivation for placing the settlement in this area was to give access to the mineral resources of south-west Spain, and also to trade routes between Spain and southern France. It seems to have acted as an entrepot for Greek goods, as large quantities of Attic pottery have been found both at Ampurias itself and in burials at Ullastret and other indigenous sites in the hinterland (Mierse 1994: 792-3; Rouillard 1991: 244-81).
Little is known of the early settlement, but in the Classical period there is evidence of significant urban expansion, and the number and distribution of Greek finds (notably Attic pottery) at Emporion itself and on neighbouring indigenous sites suggests that it continued and enhanced its role as an entrepot and redistribution centre for imported Greek goods (Mierse 1994: 792-3). A new settlement, known as Neapolis, was established on the mainland and together with the original island settlement (which continued to be inhabited until the second century) formed the city of Emporion. The date at which this took place is unclear. There is evidence of settlement at Neapolis from the sixth century, but there is an important new phase of development from the beginning of the fourth century. It was heavily fortified c. 375 with walls of cyclopean masonry with double gateways, enclosing a relatively small area of c. 2.75 ha. The presence of the walls, together with the appearance of fortifications at neighbouring indigenous sites, may point to a period of tension and stress within the region in the early fourth century. The construction techniques also point to a complex history. The use of cyclopean masonry is also found at a number of indigenous sites, notably Gerona, although the plan of the gateways follows a very standard fourth-century Greek pattern (Mierse 1994: 794-6; Sanmarti 1988). The rest of the Classical city is poorly documented, but Greek sources note that it was a mixed community of Greeks and non-Greeks, who are described as living in adjacent settlements separated by a wall (Strabon 3.4.8; Silius Italicus 3; Livy 34.9). Although there is no certain evidence for this demarcation of urban space on ethnic grounds, analysis of the cemeteries of Emporion confirms that there was a significant non-Greek presence within the city (but cf. Jones 1997 for the difficulties of mapping ethnic divisions onto material culture). The Bonjoan cemetery (c. 525-475) consists mainly of inhumations accompanied by lekythoi, mostly of Attic origin, and small items ofjewellery (Almagro Basch 1953; Dominguez Monedero 2004: 438-40), and has been identified as the cemetery of the Greek settlers. The contemporary and slightly earlier burials by the north-east wall of the city contain rather different grave goods - local and imported pottery, along with armour and weapons - and may be burials of the indigenous population (Almagro Basch 1955; Sanmarti-Grego 1992). There appears to have been an erosion of this distinction over time, however, as the fourth-century Marti cemetery contains burials with both Greek and non-Greek types of grave-goods (Dominguez Monedero 2004: 438-41).
The small size of the settlement has also given rise to speculation about its status and organization. Greek sources refer to it as a polis (Pseudo-Skylax 2-3; Strabon 4.1.4; SEG 37 838.3), but estimates of its population based on the size of the enclosure indicate that it may have been a very small community. Dominguez (1986: 3-5) calculates that the area enclosed by the walls at Emporion could have accommodated only c. 2,000 people in the fifth century, and raises the question of whether it should be regarded as a polis or classified as an emporion, possibly under the control of Massalia. Size in itself would not disqualify Emporion as a polis and references in both ancient literature and the occurrence of the ethnic Emporitanon in inscriptions suggest that it was viewed as such, by the Emporitans and outsiders (Pseudo-Skylax 2-3; SEG 37 838.3; Hansen 2000). It also minted its own coinage, using a Massaliote weight standard but its own iconography (Head 1911). However, the small size of the community and the doubts about its status and organization are a stark reminder of the low levels of permanent Greek colonial settlement in Spain in this period.
Despite this relatively low level of actual Greek settlement, Greek contacts with Spain remained significant in the fifth and early fourth centuries, and there is a lively ongoing debate about the nature of Greek contacts with indigenous society and the impact of Greek culture on that of the Iberian population. Inscriptions, written in Greek and containing Greek names, from indigenous contexts seem to indicate that there was a significant level of settlement by individuals and small groups of Greeks in otherwise indigenous settlements. The famous lead tablet from Pech Maho, dating to the middle of the fifth century, records a complex mercantile transaction which seems to have involved both Iberians and Greeks with a long-term presence in the area (Lejeune, Pouilloux and Solier 1988; Rodriguez Somolinos 1996). In addition, inscriptions in both Greek and Iberian continue to be found at Emporion in contexts as late as the fourth century, suggesting that it continued to be a city with a mixed population rather than developing into a culturally ‘Greek’ polls in the manner of the Greek cities of Italy and Sicily (Almagro Basch 1952). The occurrence of inscriptions written in Greek in an Iberian context could potentially point to the adoption of Greek as a form of ‘link language’ used as a lingua franca by Greeks, Iberians and other groups such as Phoenicians, but in practice, this role seems to have been taken by Iberian rather than Greek (De Hoz 2004: 419-20).
The influence of Greek culture can be traced in numerous other fields of activity, but by no means as an indication of straightforward Hellenization. Iberian sculpture adopts Greek decorative motifs such as palmettes, volutes and orientalizing animals, and also Greek techniques, but the uses to which these are put are distinctively Iberian (Niemeyer 1990: 41-3; Dominguez Monedero 1999: 302-5). Stone sculptures of the early fifth century onwards from Obulco, Pozo Moro, Cabezo Lucero and Elche all show the influence of Greek sculptural techniques and styles, and comparison with contemporary sculptures from Emporion suggest that this was the point from which Greek influence was disseminated (Sanmartl-Grego 1992: 27-41; Boardman 1994: 69-70; Croissant & Rouillard 1996: 55-66; Dominguez 1999: 304-5). However, these Greek elements were combined with Phoenician influences and with distinctively Iberian styles and iconography to create a specifically Iberian form of representation (Almagro Gorbea 1983: 177-93; Dominguez 1999: 305). Greek pottery shapes were also adopted by Iberian craftsmen, particularly those such as kraters and cups which were associated with feasting, but it is significant that Greek decorative forms were not necessarily adopted along with them (Niemeyer 1990: 41-3; Dominguez Monedero 1999: 313-16). Where the influence of Greek decorative motifs can be seen, as on the white-painted pottery produced at Indiceta in north-east Spain in the late fifth century, they are developed into a very distinctive local style which is in no sense an attempt to copy the Ionian and Attic pottery from which they were derived (Dominguez Monedero 1999: 312-13). The emphasis was on selectively adopting aspects of Greek culture and adapting them to Iberian needs and cultural practices, not on simply copying Greek objects, styles or manufacturing techniques. The distribution of Greek pottery types also suggests that Greeks and non-Greeks were using these objects in very different ways. Assemblages of Greek or Greek-style pottery in Iberian contexts, notably burials, are mostly collections of kraters and drinking cups, all vessels connected primarily with wine-consumption and ritual feasting. In Greek burials, in context, these dining or sympotic assemblages are rare and the most commonly found type of pottery is the lekythos (Dominguez Monedero 1999: 319-20). A similar pattern of the adoption and adaptation of Greek technologies can be seen in the development of writing in Iberia. In the early fifth century, inscriptions in Iberian begin to appear in the so-called ‘Graeco-Iberian’ script, adapted from the Greek alphabet, but by c. 450, this is beginning to disappear in favour of a more specifically Iberian script developed from the Phoenician alphabet (De Hoz 1985-6: 285-98; Dominguez Monedero 1999: 306-7).
The implication of all of these developments is that Greek technologies and artefacts were well represented in Iberian contexts in the fifth and fourth centuries, but they do not necessarily bear the traditional interpretation of ‘Hellenization’. It has been argued that the extensive adoption of some aspects of Greek culture, such as pottery shapes, sculptural motifs or alphabet, is indicative of a fairly strong and extensive phase of Hellenization in the development of Iberian society. However, the extensive differences highlighted above in the ways Greeks and Iberians used these strongly suggests that it was a more interactive process than one-way adoption of Greek cultural norms. In all these cases, the Iberian elite seems to be using aspects of Greek culture to express their own concerns and adapting it extensively to meet their own needs (Dominguez 1999: 323-4). Greek contacts with Iberia, therefore, appear to be a process of interaction with indigenous elites who are selectively taking on and transforming Greek culture into something which can be used to represent their own Iberian identity.
World History
