In
ancient Greece
Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of Classical Antiquity, classical antiquity ( AD 600), th ...
, a ''genos'' (
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
: γένος, "race, stock, kin", plural γένη ''genē'') was a social group claiming common descent, referred to by a single name (see also Sanskrit "
Gana
The word (; Sanskrit: गण) in Sanskrit and Pali means "flock, troop, multitude, number, tribe, category, series, or class". It can also be used to refer to a "body of attendants" and can refer to "a company, any assemblage or association of ...
"). Most ''gene'' were composed of noble families—Herodotus uses the term to denote noble families—and much of early Greek politics seems to have involved struggles between ''gene''. ''Gene'' are best attested in
Athens
Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...
, where writers from Herodotus to Aristotle dealt with them.
Early modern historians postulated that ''gene'' had been the basic organizational group of the Dorian and Ionian tribes that settled Greece during the
Greek Dark Ages, but more recent scholarship has reached the conclusion that ''gene'' arose later as certain families staked a claim to noble lineage. In time, some, but not necessarily all, ''gene'' came to be associated with hereditary priestly functions.
[Lambert, Stephen, "A Polis and its Priests: Athenian Priesthoods before and after Pericles' Citizenship Law," Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, Bd. 59, H. 2 (2010), pp. 143-175 ]
See also
*
Gana
The word (; Sanskrit: गण) in Sanskrit and Pali means "flock, troop, multitude, number, tribe, category, series, or class". It can also be used to refer to a "body of attendants" and can refer to "a company, any assemblage or association of ...
*
Gens
*
Phratry
In ancient Greece, a phratry ( grc, φρᾱτρῐ́ᾱ, phrātríā, brotherhood, kinfolk, derived from grc, φρᾱ́τηρ, phrā́tēr, brother, links=no) was a group containing citizens in some city-states. Their existence is known in most I ...
*
Phyle
''Phyle'' ( gr, φυλή, phulē, "tribe, clan"; pl. ''phylai'', φυλαί; derived from ancient Greek φύεσθαι "to descend, to originate") is an ancient Greek term for tribe or clan. Members of the same ''phyle'' were known as ''symphylet ...
References
*Fine, John V.A. ''The Ancient Greeks: A Critical History''. Harvard University Press, 1983.
*Hornblower, Simon, and Anthony Spawforth ed. ''The Oxford Classical Dictionary''. Oxford University Press, 2003. {{ISBN, 0-19-866172-X
Society of ancient Greece
Clans
