Mille e un modo di diventare Focidese. La Focide tra tendenze centrifughe, vocazione unitaria e Delfi

The history of Phokis is not a linear path from fragmentation to unity or from ethnos to koinon. It is, rather, a history of centrifugal movement, of a growing and deep-seated (yet irregular) unitary drive, as well as of an unresolved relationship with the international oracular centre of Delphi. From the Mycenaean period onwards, the territory of Phokis was remarkably heterogeneous and, more interestingly, resistant to ethnogenetic dynamics and unitary forces. This article examines the tension in Phokis between unity and centrifugal drives in light of the most recent archaeological and historical investigations. Issues such as the discontinuity/continuity between the Bronze Age and the Iron Age, the genealogies of Phokos, the Archaic War of Krisa, and the conflict between the Thessalians and Phokians are re-examined in relation to the complex interplay between supra-regional, regional and local levels.