genealogy

genealogy,
the enumeration of descent from an ancestor. Legendary pedigree was particularly important in Greece. Before fighting, Homeric heroes boast of their ancestry, citing between two and eight generations of ancestors (e.g. Iliad 6. 145–211, Glaucus). Hesiod's poetry is preoccupied with legendary ancestry (Theogony, Catalogue of Women); even aristocrats in Classical Athens (which put more stress on recent achievements) claimed descent from important local and Homeric heroes, and thence from the gods: cf. the Philaid genealogy (Marcellinus Life of Thucydides 3); Andocides was descended from Odysseus and therefore Hermes (Hellanicus, Fragmente der griechischen Historiker 323a F 24), Alcibiades from Eurysaces (and Zeus) (Plato Alcestis 1. 121a), [The entire page is 483 words long]

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