The investigation of Aeolian foundation myths continues in this chapter, with examination of traditions of the founding of Boeotian Thebes. Ancestral Indo-European tradition is again evident, as is an Anatolian stratum, one which foregrounds technological expertise of Asian origin.

A synthetic, concluding discussion addressing the relationship between Ur-Aeolic and Special Mycenean and providing a historical framework for, especially, the introduction of Aeolic language and culture (pre-Thessalian/Boeotian) into European Greece following the Bronze-Age collapses and for the spread of pre-Aeolians (Iron-Age Ahhiyawans) eastward into Cilicia.

Exploration of Aeolian foundation traditions and the localizing of such traditions in both the eastern Aegean and Magna Graecia, and of the reflexivity and reciprocality of Aeolian ethnic identity that these mythic traditions entail.

This chapter addresses the extensive fragment attributed to Aeschylus’ Carians/Europa, in which the speaker Europa describes her rape by Zeus, the births of her three children, and her fear for the safety of her son Sarpedon; this speech allows the audience ‘to contemplate the sufferings of Europa over a woman’s full lifecycle, culminating in her role as aged mother awaiting her only surviving son’s return’. Considering issues of lexicon and dramatic technique, the chapter supports a date for the play in the 420s, noting with sympathy Martin West’s argument this play’s author was Aeschylus’ son Euphorion.