Butes in Erix. Constructions and Religious Interpretation of an 'oikistes' between Hellenes, Phoenicians and Natives

nterpretatio is one of the most notable features of colonial religious contexts. The confrontation between different populations during the colonisation of the ancient Mediterranean (i.e. migrants and indigenous people) involved the development of identity processes and required immigrant populations to legitimize their presence on alien territory. In the field of religion, the foundation myth has been a vital tool in creating a common identity and legitimizing the colonial presence. Religion has indeed played a key role in the interaction processes between settlers and natives as it can be seen from syncretistic cults of some famous colonial sanctuaries, such as the cult of Erycinian Venus. North-western Sicily, where Greeks, Phoenicians and natives lived together, provides an ideal case scenario to analyse these interaction processes. The Greek myth of the hero Butes seems an exemplary case that shows the complexity of the processes of multi-ethnic interactions in colonial contexts. Butes is a Greek hero, but he founds Lilybaeum, a Phoenician city, and procreates Eryx, eponymous of a famous indigenous city and of the seat of the sanctuary of Aphrodite. In order to analyse non-Greek heroes, landscapes morphology and the reasons why Greek foundation myths were produced for non-Hellenic cities, it is necessary to understand the possible purposes of the foundation myths as well as the nature of the relationship between settlers and natives. The result is a composite framework and a continuous interpretatio process, at the end of which individual ethne do not appear more clearly distinguishable within a mythical tradition, but we rather find, in the words of C. Bonnet, multi-ethnic cultural interactions.