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BOOKREVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
CLAUDE CALAME. Myth and History in Ancient Greece: The
Symbolic Creation of a Colony. Translated by Daniel W.
Berman. Princeton/Oxford: Princeton University Press.
2003· Pp. xvii + 178. US $39.50; £26·95. ISBN 0-691-11458-7.
Daniel Berman's English translation follows the French original of 1996
with the promptitude which we have come to expect for any work of
structuralist cultural anthropology. And Claude Calame. though based
in Lausanne rather than Paris. is perhaps the most prolific structuralist
at work today. Along with other studies of Greek literature. he has applied
his own kind of "semionarrative" analysis. inspired by the folktale
system of A.J. Greimas. to a growing range of texts. Genealogies and
local histories. chiefly those of Pausanias. are treated in various articles-"Spartan
genealogies" of 1987 was included in my survey of new
work at EMC 10 (1991) 69: the life of Theseus is treated in a book: and
the foundation stories of Cyrene in a series of articles now superseded
by the book before us. for Cyrene is the "colony" of the title. The French
original was widely and warmly greeted in French- and Italianlanguage
journals. But Calame makes for "difficult reading." as P.
Vidal-Naquet avowed in his preface to the Theseus book. For readers
more at home in English. Myth and History gives a fully representative
sample.
The book is divided into three parts. with extensive notes at the end.
There is a theoretical introduction (1-34). a treatment of the foundation
stories (35-1I3). and a coda on the meaning of muthos in Strabo. Porphyry
and Plato (114-119). which adds nothing and should have been
integrated with the account of muthos in the introduction. where Strabo
and Plato also appear.
Calame begins by showing that myth. mythology. and related categories
are of modern origin. that other peoples have other ideas of
story-telling. and that in Greek literature the term muthos is often tendentious.
sometimes strangely so. This has been better done in any
number of recent books. Nor does it follow. as Calame supposes. that
such categories have no point. so that we are forced back on structural
analysis. I do not know whether it is by inadvertence or by some exqui-