'Testi' e 'contesti' della migrazione: Neleo e gli Ioni d'Asia

The ‘migration texts’ are products in themselves inseparable from the ‘migration contexts’. The concept that the Greeks expressed in the definition of ἡ τῶν Ἰώνων ἀποικία is the result of a long process of elaboration of accounts – first city traditions, then Panionian adaptation and uniformation – in which the ethnic representation played a not indifferent role. It is this process that created the concept of a single τῶν Ἰώνων ἀποικία: initially there existed only many foundation stories of individual cities, independent of each other, which mentioned different origins, founders, times, events; later these foundation accounts were uniformed and integrated, in the form of different stages, in this one story which became the history of the τῶν Ἰώνων ἀποικία. These dynamics are at the base of our concept of ‘Ionian migration’.