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According to Greek mythology and prehistoric legendary accounts, the Minyans were an autochthonous group inhabiting the Aegean region. Modern archaeologists sometimes apply the term "Minyans" differently to indicate the very first wave of Proto-Greek speakers in the 2nd millennium BCE, among the early Bronze Age cultures sometimes identified with the beginning of Middle Helladic culture. Gray "Minyan ware" is an archaeologist's term for a particular style of Aegean pottery associated with the Middle Helladic period (ca. 2100-1550 BCE). Thus the beginning of the Middle Helladic period is marked by the immigration of the Minyans. According to Emily Vermeule, this was the first wave of true Hellenes in Greece. Among modern archaeologists and paleoethnologists, however, the term "Minyans" is dropping from use.

The Mycenaean Greeks reached Crete as early as 1450 BCE. Greek presence on the mainland, however, dates to 1600 BCE as shown in the latest shaft graves. Other aspects of the "Minyan" period appear to arrive from northern Greece and the Balkans (tumulus graves, perforated stone axes). It is unknown whether Proto-Greeks were present from as early as EH III, and thus bearers of the "Minyan" culture, or if they arrived as late as 1600 BCE displacing Minyan/Middle Helladic culture.

Classical Greek uses of "Minyans"

Greeks did not always clearly distinguish the Minyans from the Pelasgian cultures that had preceded them. Greek mythographers gave the Minyans an eponymous founder, Minyas, perhaps as legendary as Pelasgus (the founding father of the Pelasgians), which was a broader category of pre-Greek Aegean peoples. These Minyans were associated with Boeotian Orchomenus, as when Pausanias relates that "Teos used to be inhabited by Minyans of Orchomenus, who came to it with Athamas." and may have represented a ruling dynasty or a tribe later located in Boeotia.

Heracles, the hero whose exploits always celebrate the new Olympian order over the old traditions, came to Thebes, one of the ancient Mycenaean cities of Greece, and found that the Greeks were paying tribute of 100 cattle (a hecatomb) each year to Erginus, king of the Minyans. Heracles attacked a group of emissaries from the Minyans, and cut off their ears, noses and hands. He then tied them around their necks and told them to take those for tribute to Erginus. Erginus quite understandably made war on Thebes, but Heracles defeated the Minyans with his fellow Thebans after arming them with weapons that had been dedicated in temples. This appalling and blasphemous behavior showed that Bronze Age rules of social decorum were over: Erginus was killed and the Minyans were forced to pay double the previous tribute to the Thebans. And Heracles was credited with the burning of the palace at Orchomenus: "Then appearing unawares before the city of the Orchomenians and slipping in at their gates he burned the palace of the Minyans and razed the city to the ground." The Argonauts were sometimes referred to as "Minyans" because Jason's mother came from that line, and several of his cousins joined in the adventure.

References

1. "To call the makers of Minyan ware themselves 'Minyans' is reprehensible", remarked F. H. Stubbings in reviewing A. Severyns, Grèce et Proche-orient avant Homère in The Classical Review New Series 11.3 (December 1961:259).
2. Pausanias, vii.3.6.
3. Bibliotheke ii.4.11 records the origin of the Theban tribute as recompense for the mortal wounding of Clymenus, king of the Minyans, with a cast of a stone by a charioteer of Menoeceus in the precinct of Poseidon at Onchestus; the myth is reported also by Diodorus Siculus, iv.10.3.
4. Diodorus Siculus, iv.10.5.
5. Ovid. Metamorphoses, vii. The Minyans were stark with fear.

See also

• Pelasgians
• Pre-Greek substrate

Sources

• Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities
• Valerius Maximus, Factorum et dictorum memorabilium iv, ix.
• H. J. Walker (translator). Memorable Deeds and Sayings: One Thousand Tales from Ancient Rome By Valerius Maximus. Rome: Hackett Publishing, 2004, p. 146-149. ISBN 0872206742

• Greek mythology
• Mythological peoples