Santo Mazzarino’s Cultural Koiné of Asia Minor and Its “Limits”: New Perspectives on Old Greek Miracles

Abstract

The article assesses the legacy of Santo Mazzarino’s Fra Oriente e Occidente with respect to the author’s views on the emergence of the Greek polis against broader phenomena of cultural interaction between Greece and ancient Near Eastern civilizations. It argues that, eighty years after the publication of Mazzarino’s otherwise pioneering work, modern scholarship has not yet overcome the prejudice, central in Mazzarino’s thought, whereby Greek political culture constitutes the most important exception to the numerous cultural experiences that the Greeks shared with their eastern neighbors. Yet, the article also posits that a way to solve this prejudice can be found in Mazzarino’s work itself, namely among the author’s formulations of the concept of cultural koiné.