Abstract: The Greek city of Emporion is one of the few Greek emporia which ultimately became a polis. Consequently, the city had to adapt the previously held structures of an emporion to cope with the new circumstances which being a polis required; thus its urban space, territory, population, laws, government had to be modified in the conversion from one situation to another. Furthermore, this change had to be fulfilled in the midst of a non-Greek environment, which obviously had consequences in the development of Greek identity within the city. Fortunately, in the case of Emporion we have both archaeological and literary evidence (although not very abundant) to observe these processes. The aim of this paper is, consequently, to consider this evidence in order to see how interactions worked in Emporion itself as well as in the surrounding region in different historical moments and how those interactions contributed to shaping several interrelated identities within the Greek city, which also became a strong point for building the identity of the non-Greek peoples in that region of north-eastern Iberia.

Key words: Emporion, Greek colonisation, Iberia, Iberians.

It is generally accepted that the Greek city of Emporion in north-eastern Spain became a true Greek polis, perhaps in the 5th century BC (Domínguez 2004b, 157–171). However, its “official” name, Emporion, clearly reveals its origins as an emporion.