A legendary progenitor is a legendary or mythological figure held to be the common ancestor of a dynasty, people, tribe or ethnic group.
Overview Masculinity, femininity and "ghenos" or lineage linked to legendary progenitors were fundamental concepts of family identity in the Etruscan and Ancient Greek eras. The Greeks demonstrated the principles of family functionality in the mythological lives of Zeus, Hera, Hestia and Hermes. These included communal dining, and "charis" a form of charity that Vittoro Cigoli and Eugena Scabini described as being "deployed to oppose the core of violence inherent in the family relationship". Etrusco-Roman culture, developed from the Greek where each "gens" (family or house) had their own deified hero, prince or demi-god along with various household deities. The expansion of family trees to include heroic or legendary ancestors was used to boost social status and amass personal finances. Rome's patriarchal families, along with later European dynasties engaged in power struggles, such as that to be elected Pope based on this change in family culture. Peoples from all over the world have supposed themselves descended from various different eponymic or mythical progenitors. The Italians claimed ancestry from Italus, Lydians from Lydus, Phoenicians associated with Phoenix, Sicilians legendary progenitor was Siculus, Pelasgians revered Pelasgus, Dorians traced lineage to Dorus, Aeolians were linked to Aeolus and Hellenes looked up to Hellen. Legendary progenitors also gave their names to places, Memphis was alleged to have been built by Menes and Ninevah by Ninus. In later times, place names in Britain were given the names of legendary chieftains or Anglo-Saxon Kings. Isaac Taylor (1787–1865) suggested that "minute fragments of historic truth have been conserved". He noted however that the "greatest caution must be exercised as to the conclusions which we allow ourselves to draw. The traditions are generally vague and obscure and the personages whose names are associated with these sites have often only a mythical, or, to speak technically, an eponymic existence."
Europe In Armenian mythology, Hayk the Great or The Great Hayk, also known as Hayk Nahapet, is the legendary patriarch and founder of the Armenian nation. His story is told in the History of Armenia attributed to the Armenian historian Moses of Chorene (AD 410 to 490). In various Greek myths, Melampus is the legendary progenitor of a great, long line of seers. Along with his brother Bias, they became kings of territory in the Argeian and was acknowledged as a leader in Homer's Odyssey. His grandson is recorded as the prophet Theoklymenos. Niccolò Machiavelli discussed how in Ancient Rome, Aeneas the Trojan and Romulus were alternately said to have been the city's legendary founders. He considered how one's view of history could be influenced by the preference of one progenitor over another, saying, "if whoever examines the building of Rome takes Aeneas for its first progenitor [primo progenitore], it will be of those cities built by foreigners, while if he takes Romulus it will be of those built by men native to the place". Machiavelli does not take a preference and suggests Rome had "a free beginning, without depending on anyone". In his Germania, Tacitus asserted that the Germani (not their original name according to Tacitus) celebrated 'an earth-born god, Tuisco, and his son Mannus, as the origin of their race, as their founders. To Mannus they assign three sons, from whose names, they say, the coast tribes are called Ingaevones; those of the interior, Herminones; all the rest, Istaevones.' Varying manuscripts of the early medieval Frankish Table of Nations claim that thirteen Germanic tribes were descended from three brothers: Erminus, Inguo, and Istio. The names of these three brothers are evidently derived from the tribal names mentioned by Tacitus in the Germania (where the brothers go unnamed): Erminus from Herminones, Inguo from Ingaevones, and Istio from Istaevones. Most variations of the Table do not mention their father's name, but two manuscripts precede the Table by mentioning Analeus or Allanius as "the first king of the Romans", two others name "Mulius" as the three brothers' father, while the Historia Brittonum calls their father "Alanus". Míl Espáine is recorded in Christian writings to be the legendary progenitor of the Gaels or Goidels of Ireland. He was suggested to have led the Milesians to be the final inhabitants of Ireland. The five ancestors of Mieszko I as well as Chościsko, the father of Piast the Wheelwright have all been suggested as legendary progenitors of the Piast dynasty in Poland.
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