211 MIGRATION Violence and the Ionian Migration: Representation and Reality NAOÍSE MAC SWEENEY Abstract Classical Greek texts preserve numerous stories about the ‘Ionian Migrations’, describing how groups of Greek settlers arrived in Anatolia and founded cities on the coast. Central to these stories are accounts of how these settlers interacted with the indigenous people who previously occupied the land. In many cases, the myths suggest a violent encounter, and Greek domination eventually established after the conflict. However, these literary representations do not fully reflect historical reality. The archaeological remains usually associated with the ‘Ionian Migrations’ often tell a strikingly different story. They suggest that violence and domination may not have characterised all Greek-indigenous interactions, and that collaboration and partnership seem also to have been a feature of these early encounters between different groups. The Greek texts, written considerably later and for a specific audience, are therefore not accurate historical records but carefully constructed rep- resentations of the past. But why should the texts represent the ‘Ionian Migrations’ in this way, focusing on violence and domination? It is argued in this paper that the texts were the products of a specific set of historical circumstances, which led Greek authors to portray the migrations in a particularly combative light. The political agenda behind these texts in the Classical period shaped the image that they created of the Iron Age past. To fully understand the history of cultural encounter in western Anatolia therefore, we will have to consider both the representation and the reality of migrations. Part 2 ChaPter 9 "classical" with a small 'c' "with" "were" make italics