Cyrene to Chaeronea: Selected Essays on Ancient Greek History 0199593280, 9780199593286

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Cyrene to Chaeronea: Selected Essays on Ancient Greek History George Cawkwell

Print publication date: 2011 Print ISBN-13: 9780199593286 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199593286.001.0001

Title Pages (p.i) Cyrene to Chaeronea (p.iii) Cyrene to Chaeronea

(p.iv) Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press

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Title Pages in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York © George Cawkwell 2011 The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 2011 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose the same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available Typeset by SPI Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by MPG Books Group, Bodmin and King’s Lynn ISBN 978–0–19–959328–6 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

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Frontispiece

Cyrene to Chaeronea: Selected Essays on Ancient Greek History George Cawkwell

Print publication date: 2011 Print ISBN-13: 9780199593286 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199593286.001.0001

Frontispiece

(p.ii)

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Preface

Cyrene to Chaeronea: Selected Essays on Ancient Greek History George Cawkwell

Print publication date: 2011 Print ISBN-13: 9780199593286 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199593286.001.0001

(p.vii) Preface This collection of essays has not been made either out of vanity or out of lust for lucre, but to comply with the suggestion made by friends in the Sub-Faculty of Ancient History in Oxford that such a collection would be convenient, even if only for target practice. The first article I wrote was rather a parergon, on a numismatic topic. My real writing life began with articles on Demosthenes, in particular what I heard Hugh Last refer to as ‘that tedious business of the False Embassy’. This absorbed me for some years and earned me the opprobrium of those who thought that to criticize Demosthenes was to join a pack of hyenas. Like Edith Piaf, ‘Je ne regrette rien’, but I have chosen not to include here my principal articles on the subject, notably ‘Aeschines and the Peace of Philocrates’ and ‘Aeschines and the Ruin of Phocis in 346’ in the Revue des Études grecques 73 (1960) and 75 (1962). My friend Charles Hignett of Hertford College, Oxford, whose comments on the first version of the first of these articles I sought, responded: ‘Your paper and the studies which it has entailed have left me with a profound distaste for both Aeschines and Demosthenes as a couple of liars who could not be trusted to tell the truth about anything in which it was even remotely to their interest to lie. Your attempt to distil truth from their pronouncements about a period in their lives on which they both felt bound to lie their hardest seems to me doomed to failure; they could not even be consistent in 330 with what they had said (and presumably published) in 343.’ Later he wrote, ‘No statement in any orator of this period (Aeschines included) can be believed unless the speaker had no traceable motive for lying about it or unless it is not contradicted by something which he himself said somewhere else … The depressing upshot of this conclusion is that all reconstructions of this period are more or less built on quicksand.’

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Preface One cannot argue with anyone who takes such a sceptical view of the words of orators, a scepticism be it noted of very wide application in political history; it would not be just historians of the Demosthenic age who would be put out of business. The evidence for the period 348 to 336 BC is almost entirely in the speeches of Demosthenes and Aeschines, and any attempt to play the one off against the other can (p.viii) be foiled by saying ‘I don’t believe what x. is saying there’. A stalemate quickly ensues. But even those who do not practise such thorough scepticism and who may hold firm opinions, cannot be sure. So I have preferred to settle back the blade and not to include articles primarily concerned with the Peace of Philocrates, though I have included a small number of Demosthenica, mainly concerned to explore his strategic judgement. The core of the collection consists of discussions of Xenophon. For Xenophon the man I confess I have a special affection. Nearly sixty years ago I attended a meeting called by the then Wykeham Professor of the University of Oxford, H. T. Wade-Gery, for whom I had an almost hero-worshipping regard (and indeed still have), to discuss the arrangement of the Greek History lecture list. In the course of this meeting he remarked, ‘Of course the man who does not like Xenophon has lost his soul’. At that time I had read only the first two books of the Anabasis and the first two of the Hellenica and was not conscious of special affection for their author, but, in duteous mode, that evening I returned to my room and began to read with proper attention. I have been doing so ever since and presume to regard Xenophon the man as a kindred spirit. But that is not the reason why I have chosen to accord him such a large part in this volume. I am concerned here with Xenophon the historian, author of the complex and provoking history of his time. Historians will differ about the credibility of orators and what they said. With Xenophon the problem concerns what he did not say. He was, I believe, in his seventies when he wrote the bulk of the Hellenica and old men forget and no doubt things had dropped out of his mind.1 That could not be imagined of major matters, such as the Second Athenian Confederacy by which his native city had sought to restore her fifth-century power and which had virtually collapsed in the Social War in the very period Xenophon was writing his history. Indeed he wrote his Revenues not long after, in which he proposed ways in which Athens could regain its prosperity. So why did he studiously avoid the whole topic? Similarly, his son died heroically in a cavalry skirmish with the army of Epaminondas. So he would have been well aware and, one would expect, greatly interested in this great (p.ix) Theban general, but he completely omits to mention him in his account of the battle of Leuctra which was Epaminondas’ masterpiece, just as the other great Theban of the age, Pelopidas, is not named until the Theban diplomatic approach to the Great King was recounted, a very shabby affair in Xenophon’s judgement. If we had had no other source, we would have had no idea that Pelopidas had played a leading military role.

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Preface Omissions of that sort are notorious, scandalous, and fascinating. If the man can suppress knowledge of men and matters of great importance known to us, in what other matters are we being under-informed and misled? It is one of the themes of the papers in this volume that Xenophon is not to be trusted to tell us the whole truth. Nowhere does this emerge more plainly than in the chapter on the King’s Peace. Of course one’s speculations remain speculations, a picture of what might have been the case. The largest hypothesis of all, namely, that Xenophon has told us all we need to know, I reject. There was more to be said than he said and he is especially suspect on the subject of Persia. It has been argued that the King had little influence on Greece in the first half of the fourth century because the Hellenica has so little to say about the matter.2 We are not without evidence pointing to a different view but my main thesis is that Xenophon’s silence is not to be trusted. There is one particular case which should have put all historians on the alert. The third oration of Andocides as well as a fragment of Philochorus, to whom most agree in ascribing especial reliability (save when it does not suit their book), Fragment 149, show that diplomatic exchanges went on long after Xenophon declared (4.8.15) that all was ended; there he had clearly been economical with the truth. However when it comes to the peace negotiations which began with the mission of Pelopidas to the Great King in 367 (7.1.33–41), it is asserted by many that after the abortive negotiations at Thebes the whole attempt to renew Peace with Persia came to a stop. I maintain that this sort of confident assertion is unjustified. The reflection of the Ephoran version in Diodorus may be a mirage but to treat Xenophon as ein feste Burg and to insist that one toes the Xenophontic line is head-in-the-sand folly. As a character in one of Bernard Shaw’s plays says, ‘you don’t make progress toeing a line’. One should keep one’s (p.x) mind open. The truth may have been very different from what Xenophon lets on. The other major theme of my Xenophontic papers is that Sparta lost the hegemony of Greece not because the state was rotten at the core but simply because Thebes, thanks to the military genius of Epaminondas, outplayed Sparta in the game of war. The Spartan system was harsh and oppressive and moralists are prone to supposing that the city got what was coming to it for that reason, which would be a comforting reflection were it true. But it is my contention that Sparta was essentially as strong internally as it had been in its military heyday and that Thebes simply surpassed it on the field of battle. The rise of Thebes foreshadowed the rise of Macedon. Developments in the art of war provide the key to understanding. Articles relating to the fifth century and earlier have been included partly out of Tarn-like defiance, partly to draw the fire of critics and partly to encourage readers to read. When Dr Johnson was asked if he had read the work of a friend, he answered ‘No! I like the man too well to read his book’. One often wonders Page 3 of 4

Preface what happens to the offprints one sends to friends. I trust they will read here without fear or favour. The principal, if not the ‘onlie begetter’ of this book has been Christopher Pelling, once briefly a pupil, for many years a colleague, now Regius Professor of Greek in the University of Oxford. He has been aided and abetted by Lisa Kallet, the Ancient History Fellow of my college, who has conspired with Michael Flower, now a Senior Research Scholar at Princeton, thirty years past an uncommonly congenial pupil. If Simon Hornblower, magnum nomen, shortly to my great delight returning to All Souls College, had not undertaken to provide the Introduction, the Oxford University Press might quickly have shown me the door. Others too have played a part, notably John Ma of Corpus Christi College and, the éminence grise of the whole affair, Jack Kroll. I thank them all. I confess I took some pushing. In my ninety-first year I feel I have had my time and am become indifferent to esteem. Cicero (pro Marcello 25) said he had heard Caesar say, words suitable for the rebuffing of Divine Honours, ‘Satis diu vel naturae vixi vel gloriae.’ I modestly mumble similar. George Cawkwell June 2010 University College, Oxford Notes:

(1) I set out my reasons for believing that the whole of the second part of the Hellenica (i.e. 2.3.11–the end) was written in the 350s, in the Introduction to the Penguin Xenophon: A History of My Times (1979 edition), 17–22. (2) Cf. R. Seager, ‘The King’s Peace and the Balance of Power in Greece, 386–362 BC’ Athenaeum 52 (1974), 36–63.

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Note on Updating

Cyrene to Chaeronea: Selected Essays on Ancient Greek History George Cawkwell

Print publication date: 2011 Print ISBN-13: 9780199593286 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199593286.001.0001

(p.xi) Note on Updating These collected articles have been left unrevised except for minor corrections and the citation of inscriptions that whenever possible have been expanded to include references to collections containing translated texts. These collections, and the abbreviations used throughout, are: RO = P. J. Rhodes and R. Osborne, eds., Greek Historical Inscriptions 404-323 BC (Oxford 2003) (also includes Greek texts and commentary) Fornara = C. W. Fornara, Translated Documents of Greece and Rome 1: Archaic Times to the End of the Peloponnesian War, 2nd ed. (Cambridge 1983). Harding = P. Harding, Translated Documents of Greece and Rome 2: From the End of the Peloponnesian War to the battle of Ipsus (Cambridge 1985). (p.xii)

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Introduction

Cyrene to Chaeronea: Selected Essays on Ancient Greek History George Cawkwell

Print publication date: 2011 Print ISBN-13: 9780199593286 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199593286.001.0001

Introduction Simon Hornblower

DOI:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199593286.003.0001

Abstract and Keywords This introductory chapter identifies some of the threads running through this volume. One thread is the one common theme of the chapters in this volume, namely that Xenophon is not to be trusted to tell the whole truth. A second thread can be summed up as a refusal to moralize, or to accept the moralizing explanations of others. A third thread is an insistence on the permanent causal importance of ineluctable natural phenomena, especially in a pre-industrial world. Keywords:   Xenophon, refusal to moralize, natural phenomena, pre-industrial world

I The chapters in this volume are arranged chronologically, in the approximate order of the periods of ancient Greek history which they cover. If they had been arranged in the order in which they were written, the sequence of chapters would have been something like the reverse of what it is. Cawkwell’s career as a published scholar began in the early 1960s with a series of revisionist studies of the age of Demosthenes and Philip.1 From there, he gives the impression of having moved steadily backwards in time, until—with the 1990s—we reach such topics as the Sparta of the sixth century BC and of Kleomenes I;2 archaic tyranny; and early Greek colonization. The impression is not wholly accurate, not only because it is vulnerable in detail (thus the Festschrift contribution on the fall of Themistokles dates from as early as 1970),3 but because, throughout his many years of teaching at University College, Oxford, Cawkwell gave tutorials in archaic and fifth-century Greek history, as well as lecturing, in the University, on the fourth century.4 Indeed, he had evidently been (p.2) piling up knowledge Page 1 of 10

Introduction for the entire decade of the 1950s as a university lecturer and college teacher, before going into print in a big way (the pressure to publish is now so great that such an initially ruminative and accumulative career would today be unthinkable for a young scholar in a full-time post: more’s the pity).5 It is surely this background of knowledge and wisdom, about Greek history as a whole and I would add about Thucydides in particular (see below), which helps to give the present collection its enduring solidity and importance. The teaching dimension is rarely alluded to, although a sentence at the end of a long footnote in ‘Eubulus’ (1963) comes to mind: ‘I apologise for labouring what has seemed to many obvious, but teaching experience has shown that this is not always so.’ The (hardly obvious!) point there at issue was, whether a sentence of Demosthenes about the drop in Athenian revenues to a mere 130 talents should be referred to the year 355, after the end of the Social War, or to 405, after Aigospotamoi.6 The (presumed) origins of these essays in teaching and lecturing must be a large part of the explanation for their combative and—to repeat a word already used above—revisionist character.7 The articles, one feels, were written in order to correct misapprehensions encountered by their author in standard published works. This is one good reason why learned articles get written. Another good reason is that one has tried to find out, or get one’s ideas straight, about something, then discovers that nobody has dealt with it satisfactorily, so does it oneself. I am not sure how far, if at all, Cawkwell’s writings have been generated by the second of these motives, but the relevance of the first (p.3) is clear. It is also clear that—to give another example, and from the same article on Eubulus— if you are going to argue that the origins of an institution are fourth century and not Periklean, you had better be sure you know a great deal about the Periklean period, or you will make a fool of yourself. I refer to Cawkwell on the ‘theoric fund’.8 If one arranges the chapters in order of writing, another type of shift is discernible over the years: from purely political concerns and the study of prominent individuals (Demosthenes, Philip, Themistokles, Epaminondas, Agesilaos) to a more thematic approach (naval power, hoplite warfare, archaic tyranny, drought as a prime cause of colonization,9 Spartan manpower). Cawkwell tends—I think it is safe to say—to be cited nowadays more often for his later and more thematic, than for the earlier and more political, studies.10 This is partly because of changes in scholarly fashion—ancient Greek political and diplomatic history is at an undeniable discount in 2011, by comparison with military and religious history—and partly because it is human nature to praise the more recent songs.11 But again, having offered a generalization, I shall proceed to qualify and even subvert it. Not, however, before stopping for a moment on military and religious history.

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Introduction (p.4) Military matters are in evidence through many of Cawkwell’s writings.12 ‘Orthodoxy and Hoplites’ (Chapter XVIII below) is unusual only in having an explicitly military title.13 It was in any case a detailed defence and development of a notable chapter in his Philip book of a decade earlier.14 The current popularity of ancient Greek religion hardly needs demonstrating. By contrast, there is not much about ancient Greek religion in the present volume.15 Even ‘Cleomenes’ manages, rather surprisingly given the supposedly unorthodox religious behaviour of its human subject, to avoid religion entirely, except that the date of the Sounion festival is gone into with Cawkwell’s usual thoroughness, and there is mention of the annual sacrifices to Brasidas at Amphipolis (below, Chapter IV, p. 80 with n. 16, and p. 92). On the other hand, the impression given by the present selection is misleading, because there is religion in essays and reviews not here reprinted, most obviously the note on the deification of Alexander the Great in the Festschrift for Nicholas Hammond; this was cited immediately and respectfully by Robert Parker in his history of Athenian religion.16 And the review of de Ste Croix’s Origins of the Peloponnesian War could not, in view of the book’s main thesis about the character of the Megarian decrees, help discussing religion.17 Above all, there is (p.5) a very good discussion of Thucydides’ religious opinions near the beginning of Thucydides and the Peloponnesian War.18 An attention to wider, cross-period, themes is in fact (that is to say, despite the generalization above) distinctly detectable throughout the entire series of Cawkwell’s journal articles, even where the titles of the articles may not lead one to expect it.19 Inasfar as there is a difference over time, it is one of balance and emphasis; for he has always been generously able and willing to contextualize important assertions. This, interestingly, leads him to write in a strikingly different manner from his usual close concentration on a particular episode or problem. For example, ‘Epaminondas’ (1972) included a fine, long and discursive footnote about military training, arguing—surely rightly— that Greek hoplites received training in drill; discounting Perikles’ rhetoric (Th. 2. 39) about relaxed Athenian life as contrasted with Spartan; and adducing a wide range of other literary, and some epigraphic, texts in support (below, Chapter XIV, p. 311, n. 51 [= CQ 2 1972, 2 262f. n. 4]). This example allows us to observe two further points. First, there is the thorough knowledge and apt use of one literary source in particular, namely Thucydides, a feature which marks so many of the chapters in the present book, although only one (‘Thucydides’ Judgment of Periclean Strategy’, below, Chapter VII) tackles Thucydides directly. For instance, Thucydides, and in particular the Thucydidean Funeral Oration, are illuminatingly drawn on at several points in ‘NOMOΦϒΛAKIA and the Areopagus’;20 ‘Early Greek Tyranny and the People’ shrewdly notes that a famous passage of Thucydides’ Archaeology offers no support whatever to the once-dominant ‘hoplite theory of tyranny’;21 and the Page 3 of 10

Introduction treatment of the Peloponnesian (p.6) League in ‘Sparta and her Allies in the Sixth Century’ is as much an elucidation of Thucydides as of the more predictable Herodotus.22 Both of the two directly military essays, those on Athenian naval power and on hoplite fighting, draw heavily on the detail of Thucydides’ text—for example, to substantiate the valuable remarks on the importance of the role in Greek navies of the steersman or κυβϵρνήτης.23 Nobody, in view of all this, should have been surprised that Cawkwell’s first book after his retirement turned out to be Thucydides and the Peloponnesian War (1997), just as the ground was prepared for The Greek Wars (2005) by, inter alia, ‘The Peace between Athens and Persia’.24 Second, the conclusion, that there must have been more military training in Classical Greece than our sources suggest, is argued for almost entirely by reference to the primary evidence, apart from a closing reference to J. K. Anderson’s then very recent Military Theory and Practice in the Age of Xenophon (1970). This preference for ancient evidence over modern discussion means that Cawkwell’s work will not date nearly as fast as those modern studies which insist on citing the most recent bibliography, whether it is important or not. The preference was announced as an explicit principle in the preface to Philip: Cawkwell there explains that the endnotes give the ancient evidence but ‘rigorously eschew’ nearly all modern discussions.25 But nobody should think that this means he has not bothered to read what others have said. He continues, ‘this may seem an easy way out. I have found it rather the contrary. I dare say I know my way around the literature of this subject passably well, and to cover myself and pages with references to modern works has been a temptation hard to resist.’ Indeed, Cawkwell is not merely abreast of the modern literature; sometimes he is well ahead of it, and can justly claim quietly to have anticipated approaches for which others have received the credit. It is not my intention to examine his output as a whole, rather than just the contents of this volume, but in the present connexion (p.7) I may make mention of his most recent monograph. In the preface to The Greek Wars, Cawkwell both salutes the architects of the new approach to Achaemenid Persian history, and at the same time claims, with justice, to have got there first.26 And Cawkwell’s suspicion of the ‘hoplite theory of tyranny’ (see above) aligns him with some of the best modern authorities. Or rather, they are aligning themselves with Cawkwell, although they may not always acknowledge or even be aware of it.

II I turn now to an attempt to identify some threads running through this volume, though I do not propose laboriously to summarize the argument of individual chapters. In his Preface (above, p. ix), Cawkwell identifies one such thread himself: ‘it is one theme of the papers in this volume that Xenophon is not to be trusted to tell the whole truth’. This announcement will not come as news to the many student and non-specialist users of Cawkwell’s invaluable reissues, with very full new introductions and notes, of Rex Warner’s old Penguin translations Page 4 of 10

Introduction of the Anabasis and Hellenica.27 In the present collection, Xenophon is most severely taken to task in Chapters IX and X, a matching pair on ‘The King’s Peace’ (1981) and ‘The Foundation of the Second Athenian Confederacy’ (1973). The second (but first written) of these begins, in characteristic vein, ‘It is notorious that Xenophon omitted…’, the first begins, ‘Nothing about Xenophon’s Hellenica is more outrageous …’; and off we go! The first (but later (p.8) written) study re-asserts against critics28 one main thesis of the other, namely that in historical reality the King’s Peace of 386 must have gone into much more detail than Xenophon records in his main notice of it.29 Something similar could be said about Demosthenes and the orators generally. But here the problem of the unreliability of an orator as historical source shades off into that of the unwisdom of the orator’s policies. The final chapter in this collection (Chapter XIX, ‘The Crowning of Demosthenes’) addresses a curious silence in Demosthenes’ speech On the Crown: there is nothing about the years 336–330, and Cawkwell argues that this is because Demosthenes seeks to conceal unpalatable truths about his own conduct of affairs in those years. But oratorical and historical silences are, as Cawkwell realizes very well, not quite on the same footing. Xenophon’s silences are ‘too well known to need comment’,30 and cannot be used to show that something did not happen; if an orator fails to make an obvious point which would help his case, it must be because the point is not available—for instance because a relevant event had indeed not yet happened.31 A second theme—but perhaps ‘tendency’ would be a better word— can be summed up as a refusal to moralize, or to accept the moralizing explanations of others. ‘It is difficult to answer theorists of moral decline’, wrote Cawkwell in 1969;32 and he went on to urge by contrast that ‘the central fact of this age is military, not moral’. He there had in mind the age of Philip, and the ‘central fact’ was argued to be overwhelming Macedonian preponderance.33 But the essential (p.9) insight can, with some alteration of words and names, be pushed back some decades: the Spartans lost at Leuktra in 371, not through absolute shortcomings, but because the Thebans were militarily superior (see also Cawkwell’s own preface to this volume). That is the message of the mirror-image essays on the Spartan Agesilaos and the Theban Epaminondas; and a terse formulation of it forms the conclusion of ‘The Decline of Sparta’ (Chapters XII, XIII, and XIV). Here the analogy between Macedon and Thebes is spelled out: ‘Epaminondas was too good for Sparta, just as Philip was too good for Greece.’34 (This, incidentally, is further proof that the distinction suggested above between Cawkwell’s earlier studies, with individuals in their titles, and his later and more explicitly thematic ones, was too sharp. Similarly, the fourth-century Athenian navy had nothing much wrong with it, and we should not be misled by the orator Apollodorus’ accusations of moral turpitude in the speech Against Polykles,

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Introduction [Demosthenes] 50).35 Above all, Demosthenes’ opponents, notably Eubulus, were neither immoral nor corrupt. They may even have been right. This theme, a preference for fact over rhetoric, for prosaic explanations rather than oratorical posturing, leads me to a third, which is Cawkwell’s insistence on the permanent causal importance of ineluctable natural phenomena, especially in a pre-industrial world. One of these is the effect on naval activity of the ‘Etesian winds’, known today as the meltemi, and familiar to disappointed holidaymakers. These are the summer winds which blow strongly from the north Aegean and which can still actually force quite sizeable boats to stay in port, as well as merely whisking away unfastened tablecloths from open-air Cycladic tavernas. Cawkwell, in his work on the midfourth century, has more than once made use of arguments from these winds.36 Again, there is the effect of drought and consequent corn shortage. The evidence (not just archaic in date) is most fully set out, and the argument most fully developed, in ‘Early Colonisation’ (Chapter I below); but we have already seen37 that Cawkwell invokes corn (p.10) shortage at the end of his study of the decline of the Second Athenian Confederacy.

III When in 1991 Cawkwell’s friends and admirers, the present author included, offered him a Festschrift (above n. 4), he was seventy years old, and had retired three years earlier. Anyone could have been forgiven for thinking that that would be that, as far as heavyweight publication went. How wrong that would have been! Since then he has published two full-length monographs (1997 and 2005), and the present volume alone includes five substantial articles published since 1991. The year 2010 saw the publication of a contribution by Cawkwell to a multi-author edition of and commentary on Plutarch’s important On the daimonion of Socrates, a work which includes a remarkably interesting and detailed account of the liberation, from Spartan occupation, of the Theban Kadmeia or acropolis in 379. Cawkwell examines the historical background—and the problems of the conflicting sources.38 Who better? For anyone who wants to probe beneath the surface of ancient Greek history, and to go beyond what our tendentious literary sources say about it, the present volume will be essential reading. Notes:

(*) I gratefully acknowledge comments and improvements by Michael Flower, Lisa Kallet, Chris Pelling, Riet van Bremen, and Hilary O’Shea. (1) Cawkwell’s usually favoured vehicle was Classical Quarterly. Why two of these early articles should have appeared in Revue des Études Grecques is a mystery to me. (2) From now on, I shall not bother to specify that dates and centuries are ‘BC’. Page 6 of 10

Introduction (3) Below, Chapter V. (4) He did so in his lectures with conspicuous success, making the detail of a complex, even rebarbative, period accessible and attractive to beginners and strugglers, as well as to brighter undergraduate students. But this is not a biographical memoir, and for Cawkwell as teacher, personality, and friend I may be allowed to refer to my essay in M. Flower and M. Toher (eds), Georgica (London, 1991), pp. 1–12, where I call him ‘George’ not (as, deliberately, here) ‘Cawkwell’. Even that was offered as an assessment of Cawkwell’s contribution to Ancient History and Oxford, in that order, and I was sad and disappointed that the italicized words disappeared from the editors’ generous reference in their preface (vii) to my ‘opening essay on George and Oxford’. On the contrary, I had insisted on treating Cawkwell not merely as an Oxford character but also, and more important sub specie aeternitatis, as a powerful historian. (5) See, however, ‘A Note on the Heracles Coinage Alliance of 394 BC’, NC 16 (1956), 69–75. (6) Below, p. 359 [= JHS (1963), 62] n. 85, discussing Dem. 10. 37 and Didymus 8. 49. (7) Many examples could be given. A favourite of mine is the opening section of ‘Athenian Naval Power’ (Chapter XVII below). Only after eighteen lines, summarizing the Demosthenes-based communis opinio, does Cawkwell disclose his hand: ‘All this is illusory.’ (8) JHS 83 (1963), 55 (below, 348) n. 53. (9) The first, demographic, pages of this article (Chapter I below) are a masterpiece of polemical writing, and address some concerns which very much still preoccupy students of early Greek history (note the citation at R. Osborne, Greece in the Making 1200–479 BC2 [2009], p. 347). But Cawkwell’s first footnote reveals that the article was presented as a paper as early as 1977. And interest in corn supply and corn shortages is noticeable much earlier still, in ‘Defence of Olynthos’ of 1962 (Chapter XVI below, n. 17; see also Chapter XI, p. 239 = ‘Notes on the Failure of the Second Athenian Confederacy’, JHS (1981), 55). (10) Cawkwell’s altered approach means he continues to be anthologized; but in different types of work these days. ‘Defence of Olynthus’ (below, Chapter XVI) was reprinted, with other early and ‘Demosthenic’ Cawkwell, in S. Perlman’s very political collection Philip and Athens (Cambridge, 1973), but ‘The Decline of Sparta’ resurfaces in a welcome way as ch. 14 of M. Whitby’s much more thematic collection Sparta (Edinburgh, 2002).

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Introduction (11) I now do what Cawkwell sometimes frustratingly does not, when pulling quotations from his ample stock of biblical tags and allusions to English poetry, and give the reference, which is to a speech of Telemachos to his mother Penelope: Odyssey 1. 351–2. But—as a colleague involved with the plans for this volume remarked when I mentioned this feature of Cawkwell’s writing—if you don’t recognize the allusion, you can always Google it! Even the British national anthem makes an unflagged appearance (for ‘frustrate knavish tricks’ see ch. XVII, p. 404 [= CQ 34 (1984), 338]). (12) That Greek warfare is in vogue is shown by the two-volume multi-author Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare (eds P. Sabin, H. van Wees, and M. Whitby, 2007), and by such monographs as H. van Wees, Greek Warfare: Myths and Realities (London, 2004) and A. Chaniotis, War in the Hellenistic World (London, 2005), both of which treat warfare as part of social history. The influence of John Keegan’s work is palpable in all this (see pp. 17 and 410f. of the Cambridge History, vol. 1), and Chris Pelling rightly points out to me that Cawkwell’s military investigations share with Keegan a desire to establish what an ancient Greek battle was really like. (13) Or rather, it forms a companion piece to ‘Athenian Naval Power’, and the two are here juxtaposed as Chapters XVII and XVIII. (14) Philip of Macedon (London, 1978), ch. 10. (15) Note that Cawkwell’s three books—Philip (above, n. 14); Thucydides and the Peloponnesian War (London, 1997); The Greek Wars (Oxford, 2005)—follow roughly the same reverse chronological trajectory which I noted at the beginning of this Introduction. But only ‘roughly’, because The Greek Wars is about much more than the conflicts of 500–479 BC: it runs right through to the fourth century. (16) G. L. Cawkwell, ‘The Deification of Alexander the Great: A Note’ in I. Worthington (ed.), Venture into Greek History (Oxford, 1993), pp. 293–306; R. Parker, Athenian Religion: A History (Oxford, 1996), p. 257, n. 5. (17) CR 25 (1975), 258–61. See also ‘Anthemocritus and the Megarians and the Decree of Charinus’, REG 82 (1969), 327–35. (18) (London, 1997), pp. 2ff. (19) Conversely, there is a ‘late’ (1993) study of an individual: Cleomenes I of Sparta: Chapter IV below. Note also that the mainly demographic thesis of the 1983 essay on the decline of Sparta (below, Chapter XIII) by no means excludes biographical interest in the likes of Gylippos, Lysandros, and Kallikratidas. They get in because of their status as ‘mothakes’ (below, pp. 289–90 = CQ (1983), 394). Page 8 of 10

Introduction (20) Below, Chapter VII, pp. 4, 130–3, and n. 31 = JHS (1988), 4, 10f. and n. 31. (21) Below, Chapter II, pp. 47–9 = CQ (1995), 82ff., discussing Th. 1. 13. 1. Attention to what sources do not say, as well as to what they do, is the hallmark of the best ancient history writing (on this general topic, see L. Pitcher, Writing Ancient History (London, 2009), 123f.) As we shall see in Part II, one of Cawkwell’s concerns has always been the silences of sources. The article on the probable mid-fifth-century Peace of Kallias (below, Chapter VIII) investigates one of Thucydides’ best-known silences. Here we are told that ‘fewer and fewer scholars now hold that what Thucydides did not recount did not happen’. (Phoenix 1997, 121 = below, p. 159)—almost as if he were Xenophon! (22) Below, Chapter III; see esp. pp. 70–1 (= CQ [1993], 374f.) for the ‘old oaths’ of Th. 5. 30. (23) Below, Chapters XVII and XVIII. The steersman: CQ [1984], 338, and 340 (= below, pp. 406–7). (24) Below, Chapter VIII. See also ‘The Power of Persia’, Arepo 1 (1968), 1–5. (25) Philip of Macedon (London, 1978), p. 9. (26) See the preface (no page number) to The Greek Wars, paying tribute to Pierre Briant, Amélie Kuhrt, and the late Heleen Sancisi-Weerdenburg, but adding ‘this viewpoint [rejection of Hellenocentricity] I would modestly claim to have shared, and this book is the fruit of many years of reflection on Greek accounts of Persia and Persian policy towards the Greeks’. (27) The Persian Expedition (1973) and History of My Times (1979). The latter still has no rival as a student companion; but alongside the former we must now place Tim Rood’s impressive contributions to Robin Waterfield’s World’s Classics Expedition of Cyrus (Oxford, 2005). Rood is able to exploit the outpouring of good recent work on Xenophon in general and the Anabasis in particular, notably R. Lane Fox (ed.), The Long March (New Haven, 2004)—to which Cawkwell, the pioneer, contributed ch. 1, ‘When, How and Why did Xenophon Write the Anabasis?’ (pp. 47–67). (28) It is not my purpose to provide systematic bibliographical updatings for all the chapters in this volume, but two post-1981 contributions on this topic may be mentioned. They appeared simultaneously and independently twenty years ago. One was by Cawkwell’s first pupil E. Badian, and appeared in Cawkwell’s own 1991 Festschrift (see ‘The King’s Peace’, Georgica 25–48); the other ( M. Clark, ‘The Date of IG ii21604’, BSA 85 (1990), 47–67) used the evidence of the navy lists to argue, against Cawkwell, that the Peace did not restrict Athenian naval activity. For Cawkwell’s reply to this, see Greek Wars, pp. 193f., n. 17. (29) Xen. Hell. 5. 1. 31. Page 9 of 10

Introduction (30) Below, Chapter VI (JHS 1988), p. 127. Similar remarks can be found elsewhere. (31) See, for instance, below, Chapter XVI (CQ 1962), p. 386 for a simple example: the non-mention, in the Third Olynthiac, of the Athenian intervention in Euboia shows that Demosthenes ‘was speaking before the troubles in Euboea had begun’. (32) CQ 19 (1969), 164 (below, Chapter XIX, p. 439). (33) This is also the explanation for ‘the failure of Persia’ (the subtitle of The Greek Wars); but that is not our business here. (34) CQ 13 (1983), 400 (below, Chapter XIII, p. 298). (35) Below, Chapter XVII. (36) In the present volume, see CQ 12 (1962), 131 (Chapter XVI, p. 376). (37) Above, n. 8. (38) ‘Between Athens, Sparta, and Persia: the Historical Significance of the Liberation of Thebes in 379’, in H.-G. Nesselrath (ed.), Plutarch, On the daimonion of Socrates (Tübingen, 2010), pp. 101–9.

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Early Colonisation

Cyrene to Chaeronea: Selected Essays on Ancient Greek History George Cawkwell

Print publication date: 2011 Print ISBN-13: 9780199593286 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199593286.001.0001

Early Colonisation George Cawkwell

DOI:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199593286.003.0002

Abstract and Keywords This chapter examines the factors that spurred the Greeks' colonizing movement. It shows that colonization in the eighth and seventh centuries was the cure not for the endemic evil of overpopulation but rather the epidemic woes of climatic disaster. It also suggests that colonization petered out due to the development of trade, which made disasters less devastating. Food could be imported to tide a city-state over a disastrous period. If cities did not colonize to facilitate commerce, commerce made colonization unnecessary. Keywords:   commerce, Greeks, colonization, colonies, overpopulation, climatic disasters, trade

It is commonly supposed that in the eighth century BC there was a ‘population explosion’ in Greece which moved the Greeks to send out colonies.1 A. J. Graham in the Cambridge Ancient History iii2, 3 (1982) is typical: ‘The basic active cause of the colonizing movement was overpopulation’; ‘at the very time when the Archaic colonising movement began, in the second half of the eighth century, there was a marked increase in population in Greece’ (p. 157). The presumed connection between overpopulation and colonisation is not immediately obvious. The evidence for the population explosion is found in the increased number of burials in Attica and the Argolid, but Athens sent out no colony before the very end of the seventh century and Argos probably none at all, certainly none in this period.2 So special explanations have to be formulated for Athens’ and Argos’ lack of colonies while their postulated ‘population explosion’ is presumed for Greece as a whole and called in to explain the burst of colonising in the eighth

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Early Colonisation century. The hypothesis is not used for seventh-century colonisation when the number of burials declines.3 (p.12) Ne supra crepidam sutor iudicet. Confronted by such a chorus, dare one dissent? Demographers encourage one. Although A. M. Snodgrass has concluded4 ‘that in the space of two thirty-year generations, between about 780 and 720 BC, the population (sc. of Attica) may have multiplied itself by a factor of approximately seven’, J. Lawrence Angel5 designates ‘an increase of 20–30 per cent per generation or 1% per year’ as ‘astronomically rapid, in fact almost as rapid as present temporary rates for areas like Ceylon’. E. A. Wrigley6 asserted that ‘even on the most extreme assumptions no population is likely to be able to sustain a long-term rate of natural increase as high as five per cent per annum. Four per cent has very rarely been attained and then only briefly; three is a rapid rate of growth; and, except in recent years in the developing countries, few populations have shown rates of growth as high as two per cent per annum.’ So, although Snodgrass cites7 the first part of this latter statement as justification for his view, a seven-fold increase in two generations (i.e. a sustained increase of over 3 per cent per annum for sixty years) seems to be on the highly improbable side. So is the inference from the increased number of graves rightly drawn? Burial customs were not constant. Both cremation and inhumation appear to have co-existed; ‘surface pyres’, ‘cremations without urns’ have been suspected, and the increased number of burials discovered may reflect no more than a change in fashion.8 If one is not prepared to assert that the dramatic decline in the number of burials in the seventh century argues a sharp decrease of population, one should not assert that there was a population explosion in the eighth, and colonisation should be studied without such presumptions.

I (p.13) There is only one colonisation that is amply described and that is the Theran foundation of Cyrene, a curious story indeed if one believes that colonisation was caused by overpopulation. When the oracle at Delphi first gave the response ‘to found a city in Libya’, the Therans did not, it would appear, have any thought of sending out a colony. In the Theran version their King, Grinnus, was consulting ‘about other matters’ and he sought to excuse himself from taking part and to substitute Battus (Hdt. 4.150). In the Cyrenian version it was Battus himself who was consulting the oracle about his defect of speech; when Battus pointed out the irrelevance of the response, he got the same again and left abruptly in the middle of it (Hdt. 4.155.3f.). In neither version did the Therans heed the god’s advice. Yet if overpopulation was the problem, there was nothing to be done save obey the oracle. Indeed one would have expected the Therans to have decided themselves to send out a colony and appeal to Delphi solely for approval. Yet the position on Thera was such that the original colonists

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Early Colonisation tried shortly to return whence they had come, inexplicably if they had left intolerable overpopulation. There are in the story told by Herodotus two indications of the condition of the population of Thera. The first is the absence of women in the story; the second is the surprisingly small number of men who set out for Libya in the first place; both are suggested by the Theran decree ordaining the despatch of the colony (Hdt. 4.153), and both argue that Thera had its population under control. Θηραίοισι δὲ ἕαδϵ ἀδϵλϕϵóν τϵ ἀπ’ ἀδϵλϕϵοῦ πέμπϵιν πάλῳ λαχόντα καὶ ἀπò τῶν χώρων ἁπάντων ἑπτὰ ἐόντων ἄνδρας. (‘The Therans resolved to send men, brother from brother chosen by lot and from all the seven localities.’) Herodotus continues ‘Thus indeed they despatch two pentekonters to Platea’. A pentekonter carried two officers and fifty oarsmen.9 Herodotus allowed in his calculations for eighty men in all (7.184.3). So perhaps the common presumption of 100 men a ship, used for transport and not for war, is not necessarily excessive.10 But even as many as 200 is remarkably few (p.14) for the number of families with more than one son on an island of 76 square kilometres. Scholars have been reluctant to accept Herodotus’ text as it stands, and have happily followed Stein in requiring a numeral and Mahaffy in inserting after ἄνδρας a sigma (signifying 200), or if they dissent from that course, they insert a numeral before. But was Oliver11 correct in declaring that ‘a number must have been mentioned when the decision was taken to send out a colony’? The Therans may not have had a number in mind, but a class of citizen, namely, those whose fathers were alive and who had a brother.12 If we may trust Herodotus, manning the two pentekonters happened to be the result of the method of choosing, not the aim. Nor does ἄνδρας require a numeral. Its position in the sentence is emphatic, and may be signifying ‘Men Only’. (One notes that on the Foundation Stele, although ‘men, women, boys and girls’ swore curses on those who disobeyed, only those of masculine gender are to take part in the expedition.)13 The plain indication of Herodotus’ text is that the condition of Thera, demographically speaking, was such that very few families with two adult brothers existed in the middle of the seventh century, certainly no more than 200, possibly not many more than half that number. This might be explained in various ways, but one inevitably thinks of Hesiod’s remark about the desirability of an ‘only son’ (Op. 376) and when one notes the absence of women in the foundation of Cyrene, there is a strong suspicion that we are dealing not with an island where the population was increasing to bursting point and inevitable colonisation, but with an island where the level of population was kept steady by the primitive means available to the Greeks of the seventh century. Of course, we may be deceived by the omission of women in the story. There is no hint in either Herodotus or the Foundation Stele that women would follow Page 3 of 20

Early Colonisation when once the colony had established itself, (p.15) and it would seem that the Theran colonists had to forage for wives in Libya,14 just as the Ionians did who founded the cities of Ionia (at any rate according to Herodotus [1.146], ‘they set out from the city-hall of the Athenians and counted themselves the noblest of Ionians, but they did not take women to the colony; rather, they got hold of Carian women whose fathers they slew’). The evidence for intermarriage between Cyrenians and Libyan women in the later times is clear (SEG, ix. l, line 3 οἱ ἐκ τῶν Λιβυσςῶν), and Pindar’s Ninth Pythian Ode in honour of Telesicrates of Cyrene, a victor at the Pythian festival of 474, declares that Telesicrates’ ancestors had competed to gain the hand of the daughter of Antaeus (lines 105ff.), the Libyan giant. Of course, there is nothing to show that those who failed in the race to win this golden-haired beauty did not go back to Cyrene and marry some nice girl from Thera, but one suspects that Pindar is, in his way, declaring that the original settlers had to settle for Libyan women. So too Callimachus (Hymn 2.85ff.) spoke of the warriors of Ares dancing with the golden-haired Libyan women, while they were still living at Aziris, that is, where, according to Herodotus (4.157.3), the Theran colonists lived for their first six years on the mainland. The evidence is not conclusive, but on the whole it seems likely enough that the two pentekonters from Thera were full of men only and that no boatloads of women followed. Yet we should not think of a lot of Theran girls farewelling their own expectations and crying ‘Oh, we don’t want to lose you, but we think you ought to go’. The colonists took no women for there was some imbalance of the sexes on Thera, a sure mark of a population not ‘exploding’. The colonisation of Cyrene had nothing to do with ‘population explosion’. It was plainly due, as all have seen, to the drought (Hdt. 4.151.1)—seven years in which no rain fell and all the trees on the island save one withered away. Yet if the drought was severe enough to oblige up to 200 to leave the island, how could anyone remain? What real difference could the departure of such a small party make? To the ancient Greeks pestilences and earthquakes and droughts and similar unpredictable occurrences came from the gods.15 To put a (p.16) stop to such divine manifestations Delphi was consulted and the oracular advice acted upon, advice that always succeeded in curing the evil sooner or later (for such miseries in the nature of things do not last forever). But the advice not infrequently took the form of requiring scapegoats,16 and that would appear to be how the colonising party from Thera was regarded both by their fellow Therans and by themselves. The Therans would not even allow the colonists to set foot back on Thera (Hdt. 4.156.2f.); no mere formal foundation would suffice; the colonists must suffer for someone’s sins. No more is heard of the drought on Thera, but when the colonists had endured two years’ misery on Platea, leaving a single man there formally to maintain the colony, they went in a body to Delphi to plead for mercy, but had to return ‘for the god was not letting them off the colony until Page 4 of 20

Early Colonisation they reach Libya itself’ (Hdt. 4.157). In the case of Thera, in short, we are dealing with religion. The colony was intended solely to avert evil. That, at any rate, is the sense of Herodotus’ story.

II Oracles are of limited help. They do not necessarily tell us more than how later generations conceived of their origins (though that is of not negligible value). Probably enough, in the eighth century a good number of consultations of Delphi that concerned colonisation were of the kind represented in Thucydides’ account of the foundation of Heraclea in Trachis in 426 BC; the Spartans decided to send out the colony to that place and simply sought the gods’ approval (3.92.4f ). Indeed, in the early period there were states whose citizens made long voyages for the purpose of trade. These citizens no doubt knew perfectly well where a good colonial site was to be found. Moreover, even when, from the oracle preserved or fabricated, it might seem that Delphi prescribed where exactly to go, that may have been merely a matter of the form in which approval to a proposal was given. So oracular responses, genuine or pretended, are of no great use to us in determining why colonies were founded. It may, however, be noted that there are a number of cases where there seems to have been a (p. 17) situation not dissimilar to the Theran consultation. The Chalcidians who founded Rhegium had been sent to Delphi as a tithe because of a period of bad harvests (διὰ ἀϕορίαν). The tithing had been made in accordance with an oracle.17 The Chalcidians may not have been surprised to learn that Delphi had dealt with this refugee problem by packing them off to the West, but evidently the purpose of the oracle had been to cure the bad harvests and the colonists were scapegoats, just as Therans sent to Platea would be. That story may well be historical.18 Other cases belong to the legendary past, but presumably the legends reflected the sort of thing that could and did happen. With regard to the Pelasgi, Dionysius of Halicarnassus19 recounts (Ant. Rom. 1.23f.) how in a time of drought and crop failure the Pelasgi consulted an oracle—which oracle is not stated—as to which of the gods they had offended and so incurred their sufferings and what they could do to put a stop to them; the reply came that in a period of crop failure they vowed to sacrifice a tithe of all increase, which they proceeded to do in the case of crops and beasts but had omitted unwittingly in the case of human increase; the Pelasgians proceeded to repair this omission. In this way movement of people was conceived of as a cure for the sufferings of those who were left, a matter of religion not of economic pressure. Similar stories of scapegoats to give relief from drought, crop failure, and pestilence are to be found in the legends concerning Theseus (Plut. Thes. 15f. and Quaest. Graec. 35 = Mor. 298f.) and those concerning the foundation of Magnesia on the Meander20 (FGrHist 26 F 1.29, Inschriften von Magnesia no. 17). Likewise the cure of general pestilence and crop failure in Greece itself could be supposed to be effected by the restoration of cities (and their religious life) in the Troad

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Early Colonisation (FGrHist 327 F 17). From what is said of oracles, one would never guess that overpopulation was the evil that needed cure. For Plato in the Laws seeking to maintain his ideal population at the ideal figure, ‘the ancient device’ of sending out colonies was the (p.18) way to deal with excess (740b–e), and some pages earlier the proposal is made that the settlers for the new ideal foundation should be made up of ‘volunteers from all Crete, since in each city there has come to be a mass of people too large for the territory to sustain’ (707e). He cannot have imagined a very large surplus in the cities, if all the cities of Crete are to be involved. Nor does he suppose that the constraints of territory are the only reason for a colony going from a single city; there may be the ‘pressure of certain other such misfortunes (παθήματα)’ (708b), the nature of which he does not specify.21 A similar duality is to be found in the only other general statement that has survived, that is, the discussion of the migration of Italic peoples given by Dionysius of Halicarnassus in the introductory chapters of his Antiquitates Romanae (1.16). He speaks not only of the population of cities increasing to a point where their own produce was no longer sufficient for all but also of ‘the land being ill-affected by variations of climate (οὐρανίοις μϵταβολαῖς) and yielding a short supply of the usual crops’. In both cases some of the population was sent away, but with varying intent, for in the latter case the clear intention was to placate divine wrath and so get rid of the prevailing ill. Thus both Plato and Dionysius have in mind the sort of colonisation which is represented by the stories of the foundation of Rhegium and, as I have argued above, of Cyrene, but it is their idea of overpopulation which now calls for attention.

III There is no precise line between a state’s not being overpopulated and its being so. As the available supply of food is more thinly spread, nature and human resourcefulness strive to establish an equilibrium between supply and demand. If there ever was a time in the archaic age of Greece when population increased by as much as a quarter of the rate postulated by Snodgrass, we may be sure that the less abundant the supply of food became, the slower the rate of increase. If warfare against neighbours or piracy could not provide,22 lack of full nourishment prepared the way for disease to trim numbers, and (p.19) when there was a shortfall, famine and pestilence had their way. So much for nature, but human resourcefulness did not let the increase go unchecked.23 When Hesiod (Op. 376) recommended ‘the onlyborn son’, he left his brother Perses without a poetic account of how to secure this happy state of affairs. Perhaps Perses did not need one. By the time of Aristotle (H.A. 583a21ff.) something was known of contraception, and some of this knowledge may have been ancient. One tends to assume that the sin of Onan (Genesis 38.9), coitus interruptus, would be the primitive method of birth control, and although there are only two possible references to it in Greek medical literature of the classical age (Hipp. Genit. 5, Nat. Puer. 13—Littré 7.476 and 490), the assumption may well be Page 6 of 20

Early Colonisation correct.24 Where primitive contraception failed, abortion may have been practised, though again the evidence is thin. Aristotle (Pol. 1335b25) thought that the population could be kept in balance by this means and according to Plato (Theaet. 149c) midwives were adept. The clause of the Hippocratic oath forbidding the administration of an abortifacient to a woman25 argues nothing as to the frequency of the practice, and there is no evidence at all for abortion in archaic Greece. But Romulus, according to Plutarch (Rom. 22.3), made a law permitting a man to put away his wife without restoring her dowry if she had an abortion, and even if this ‘law’ reflects no more than later Roman feeling, it suggests that abortion was of long standing in Rome. It may similarly have played a part in keeping the population in archaic Greece in check. In any case there was always the possibility of infanticide by exposure. How widespread in the ancient world was the practice of exposing infants is much debated, inevitably since the evidence is so inadequate. The authors of the classical period allude to exposure as if it were a generally familiar thing,26 and Plato (Rep. 459DE, 460C, 461BC) (p.20) and Aristotle (Pol. 1335b19) do not waste words in recommending it as an instrument of population control. That the practice was widespread in the third century has been demonstrated by Tarn who adduced not only the familiar and perhaps overworked lines of Posidippus (‘Everyone rears a son even if he happens to be poor, but exposes a daughter even if he is rich’) but also the evidence of inscriptions which show the most startling difference between the number of boys in a family and the number of girls, which, it seems, is only to be explained by exposure of females.27 For the archaic period, exposure was a common enough feature in myths—on which Gomme28 chose to pour scorn; the exposed children of these stories were indeed often boys; illegitimate children are always likely to be disposed of in one way or another; the infants exposed in myth were not exposed for economic reasons. His vigorous arguments suit fifthcentury Athens, which was a prosperous age, comparatively speaking, and so, though very much less so, was the fourth century, and exposure of infants may have been very much rarer. Indeed Pericles’ citizenship law of 451/450 (Ar. Ath. Pol. 26.4) may perhaps reflect an increase in the number of Athenian women. But, earlier, things were different, and where myth presented the Greeks with the idea of a way of controlling misery by exposure of unwanted infants, why would such a method not be used? At Sparta there was a place called the Apothetae (the Dump) where unwanted offspring were thrown. Plutarch who gives this information (Lyc. 16) seems to refer only to the exposure of misshapen offspring and weaklings, but since the infant whose rearing has been approved by the elders of the tribe was promptly assigned an allotment of land (κλῆρος), the decision whether or not to rear a female may have been left entirely to the father. Polybius (12.6b.8) informs us that ‘with the Spartans it was traditional custom for three or four men to have the one wife’.29 Plutarch (Lyc. 15) puts an amiable gloss on Spartan polyandry, but it seems probable enough that it belonged to a world in which there was a Page 7 of 20

Early Colonisation shortage of women. After all, exposure, especially of female offspring, was sufficient of a custom in very early Rome for Romulus, according to Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Ant. Rom. 2.15), to have passed a law against it, and that law is striking indeed. It required (p.21) citizens to raise and rear all male children and the first-born girl. Any later-born females were presumably exposable; hence that penuria mulierum (Livy 1.9.1) which enforced the rape of the Sabine women. In Dionysius’ account of the rape (Ant. Rom. 2.30) it is claimed such a method of securing wives was ‘ancient Greek custom’, but there is no knowing on what he based this claim. It cannot at any rate be proved that penuria mulierum, that is, an imbalance of the sexes, even if only slight, was not a regular feature of archaic Greece.30 Herodotus’ remark, already adduced, about the original Ionian migrants to Miletus (1.146) shows at least how the Greeks thought about their remote past. The foundation of Locri in Italy is of especial interest. Some women did go from the metropolis with the first settlers but, as Polybius explains (12.5.6ff.), the position of women in Locrian society was exceptional, for Locrians boasted of their descent from women, not men, a thoroughly unusual state of affairs. Elsewhere it would seem women were not sent with colonies. There was perhaps a widespread imbalance of the sexes in the age of colonisation, the result of infanticide by exposure. It is no matter here whether it was practised on a large scale or not.31 The resource was available, and overpopulation cannot have been very great. It would seem consistent with this that such slight information as we have about the numbers involved in the colonies of the eighth and seventh centuries suggests that colonies were small.32 Apart from the petty numbers that were sent away from Thera, the only precise (p.22) statement is that in Stephanus of Byzantium about Apollonia near Epidamnus to the effect that there were 200 Corinthians involved.33 Since Corinth sent out so many colonies, the small number involved can hardly argue anything about the state of Corinth, demographically speaking, at the time; in any case it is not clear that the city was not a joint foundation of Corinth and Corcyra. Joint colonies in general provoke thought. When, for instance, Eretria and Chalcis combined to found Pithecusa (Str. 5.4.9 = 247c), was each city bulging with surplus population? And when colonists from Rhodes and from Crete went to Gela (Thuc. 6.4.3) did either island have enough surplus to found a colony on its own? If these colonies were meant as a cure for demographic woes, the woes can hardly have been very great. The whole hypothesis of colonies as a relief of surplus population is insecure. If Corinth and the states of Euboea were coming under that sort of pressure in the eighth century, one would expect other cities to be similarly affected in the course of the next century at any rate. One may leave aside the case of Athens, where it is regularly asserted that Attica was so ample that it could contain the growing population. What of Argos? There were probably no Argive colonies at all, certainly none known to us in the age of colonisation. And where are the Page 8 of 20

Early Colonisation colonies of Sicyon? The truth, one suspects, is that whether or not there had been this much talked of ‘population explosion’ in Greece, by the time population approached saturation point nature and human resourcefulness brought it under control and there was no great surplus that had to be exported in colonisation.

IV Such an argument may be welcome to those who suppose that the mainspring of the colonising movement in early Greece was the desire to facilitate and extend trade. It seems likely that, in Blakeway’s phrase, ‘the flag followed trade’, that colonies were founded in places (p.23) which had been well reconnoitred by traders.34 In so far as the oracle at Delphi indicated sites which the consulting party did not already have in mind (and such cases may have been rare), Delphi’s knowledge must have come from traders. But it by no means follows that colonies were sent for commercial purposes. After all, a regular settlement was more likely to arouse the resistance of natives than to make Matthew Arnold’s ‘shy traffickers’ less shy. Any Greek city had to have land to support itself and so any foundation whatsoever must have consisted largely of farmers, and if the site chosen was one in common use by traders, the choice may have been made for no other reason than that it would afford easy and regular contact with the mother-city. Similarly, the most distant sites may have been chosen first because at the terminus of a trade route more ships would be likely to call than at the various stopping places en route. Comfort has been drawn from the excavations on Pithecusa (modern Ischia),35 and it has been asserted with great confidence by Boardman36 that the island cannot have been settled purely for its agricultural purposes. The volcanic island has a soil good for nothing but vines and its present booming population is the result of the tourist trade: the Euboeans came neither to make wine nor to build hotels. Its interest in the metal trade is shown by early evidence of ironworking on Monte Di Vico itself, and in an early but short-lived extension of the settlement inland … Now it is not to be denied that there may have been, among the Euboeans who went to found the colony of Pithecusa, a number who intended to find their fortunes, or at any rate their livelihood, working metals. It is not to be denied because the evidence is so unsure, and certainly in the early decades of the colony there does seem to have been a lot of commercial activity. But, volcanic though the soil was, (p.24) and better for vine than cereals,37 the colonists did settle and did eat as well as drink and it is hardly to be thought that they did not grow their own food. So the situation may have been that an agrarian problem in Euboea was met by sending a colony to a well-known place, an offshore island where it would be secure, and security was more important than fertility; others would continue to trade; the colonists went to cultivate. But, of course, the Page 9 of 20

Early Colonisation founding fathers may have meant to do both things. When Xenophon set out the charms of the Harbour of Calpe (Anab. 6.4.1ff.), he made clear that the site was both suitable for agriculture and so well provided with timber near the shore and cereal-producing land behind, that trade would flourish: ‘Everything except olives.’ His eyes were on the cereal trade with Athens and imports of Athenian olive oil, and it cannot be proved that the colonists of an earlier age were not similarly of double intent. One general argument in favour of the commercial hypothesis stands. The two great colonising states, Corinth in the West and Miletus in the East, were pre-eminent in trade, and the two things are likely to be connected. Even if their earliest foundations were purely agrarian, the products of misery, their later foundations were probably to some extent commercial, the fruits of prosperity. There is nonetheless some reason not to invoke commerce as the motive for the earlier colonies, that is, that they seem to have been sent out when there was some sort of agrarian crisis. The majority of the colonists to Syracuse came, according to a report in Strabo (8.6.22 380c), from the inland village of Tenea, which suggests that the village was in some sort of agrarian difficulty. The Eretrians who went to Corcyra and, when expelled, tried to return home were violently rejected (Plut. Mor. 293a); if the colony had been sent out for commercial reasons, one would hardly expect them to be treated as if their mother city wanted to have nothing more to do with them. The Chalcidians who fetched up at Rhegium left Chalcis in a time of crop failure (Strabo 6.1.6 259c). Of course, agrarian difficulties may have prompted thoughts of commerce, but it seems unlikely that colonies were established for trade at the exact moment that colonists were being sent out to fresh fields and pastures new.

(p.25) V As already argued, in the case of Thera the problem was not overpopulation, but climatic disaster. Likewise for the colonising cities of the eighth century; no matter how fast the population had advanced towards saturation point, the nearer it approached it, the more effectively famine, disease, war, and human resource would have brought it under control, but if climatic disaster struck and there were a number of bad harvests,38 a colony was an obvious way out and in an important article, ‘A Drought in the Late Eighth Century B.C.’ (Hesperia 48 [1979], 397–411) John McK. Camp has argued that Athens and nearby cities in the centre of Greece suffered for about a hundred years from the middle of the eighth century a severe drought, which led in Athens to a sharp decline in population and elsewhere provoked the despatch of colonies. As evidence of this Great Drought (as it may be termed), Camp cites first the fact that the wells in the Athenian Agora in use in the eighth century seem to have ‘gone out of use in the years around 700 BC’. In supposing that drought had lowered the water table, he may well be right, but it is hardly proof of prolonged drought. There may have been several periods of drought. Again he is no doubt Page 10 of 20

Early Colonisation right in arguing that the votive offerings at the sanctuary, on Mount Hymettos, of Zeus Ombrios, the bringer of rain, are evidence for drought, but the near fourfold increase in the last third of the eighth century and the large number in the seventh century do not necessarily indicate one Great Drought rather than several periods of drought, while the great decline in the number of offerings in the sixth century may reflect not an absence of droughts so much as the development of more practical methods of mitigating the effects of drought than by appeal to Zeus. Finally, if the increased number of graves does signify the ill effect of famine and pestilence caused by drought, there is no reason to suppose that the burials were spread evenly over the period. In short, Camp has adduced evidence for drought, but it may be for periods of drought and not necessarily for a Great Drought. Indeed, if there had been the Great Drought that Camp postulates, the case of Chalcis sending a tithe of her men to Delphi in obedience to an oracle (Strabo 6.1.6 257c) is most curious; (p.26) the Great Drought would have struck widely and earlier and it is hard to imagine why Chalcis in particular should so act or in particular be so treated. If there were recurrent droughts, one that particularly affected Chalcis could have evoked the recorded tithing. Bad crops, generally due to drought, were common enough and almost regular enough in Greece39 for allowance and provision to be made. Two bad years on end was becoming serious. On one occasion a two-year drought provoked the Boeotians to appeal to Delphi (Paus. 9.40.1), but really serious droughts of a duration comparable to the seven-year drought Herodotus alleges for Thera and of very wide effect were not infrequent. Throughout Mediterranean history, there have been great droughts and consequential famines. In Braudel’s great work on the Mediterranean in the sixteenth century,40 there is reference to ‘a most appalling famine in the whole of Italy’ in 1554, to a serious crisis in the supply of food affecting the whole Mediterranean between 1586 and 1591, to a series of catastrophic periods of scarcity in Turkey between 1564 and 1568, 1572 and 1581, 1585 and 1590; periods comparable to Thera’s seven years and to the seven ‘lean years’ of Joseph’s administration of Egypt. ‘“Between 1561 and 1598” according to the dispatches of the Venetian Bailo “there were reckoned to be ninety-four months of plague (almost eight years in all) and this figure is probably an underestimate.” ’ (Plague very probably followed on famine, which followed on drought.41) The same sort of widespread disaster can be shown for antiquity. ‘The severe and world-wide famine which occurred in the reign of Claudius according to the author of the Acts of the Apostles (11.28) is a familiar example. Under the year 51, Tacitus spoke of ‘a shortage of crops (frugum egestas) and consequent hunger’ (Ann. 12.43), and what occasioned the so-called Bread Riots was a crop failure somewhere. Whether it was ‘world-wide’ is more doubtful. Imperial Rome relied in large measure on grain imported from Egypt, and Page 11 of 20

Early Colonisation frequently enough, as the Egyptian documents show, in consequence of what has been termed ‘the low Nile’ (i.e. when the Nile did not rise sufficiently (p.27) to allow normal irrigation),42 there was famine in Egypt. Such an occasion is to be met in Pliny’s Panegyric (§31), where he boasts of Italy sending food to nourish its normal supplier. A crop failure in Egypt due to drought caused by conditions far to the south could sufficiently dislocate the market in cereals throughout the Mediterranean to make it seem to a man in Palestine that local shortages due to drought in Palestine43 were being experienced world-wide, but the evidence of Acts does suffice to show widespread food shortage caused by drought in the Middle East, a situation very similar to that envisaged by the story of Joseph in Egypt. Whatever is behind that, the general famine coinciding with a famine in Egypt must have been at least credible.44 ‘The whole world came to Egypt to buy corn from Joseph, so severe was the famine everywhere’ (Genesis 41.57). Famines in Egypt resulted from climatic variation at the sources of the Nile, but when Joseph’s brothers went down like everyone else to buy corn, drought in Palestine induced them, just as earlier Abraham and Sarah were said to have gone down to escape famine (ibid. 12.10), though Isaac had stuck another one out (ibid. 26.1). Widespread drought in the Levant seems to have been a familiar idea, born of long and bitter experience of events like that recorded in the Second Book of Kings (8.1), the seven years of famine in Israel in the time of Elisha. That may have been only local. Nearer the Greek world is the famine in Anatolia in 1235 BC, to which the King of Egypt sent a huge relief supply of corn, followed thirty years later by another famine.45 How widespread these and other famines in Asia were felt is quite uncertain, but they do give some support to the celebrated story in Herodotus (1.94) about the migration of the Etruscans from Lydia. ‘A severe shortage of corn throughout the whole of Lydia’ for eighteen years is then said to have sent half the population off by sea to Italy. Whatever the truth of the story, the idea of severe climatic disaster leading to migration must have been credible. Indeed Aristotle in the Meteorologica (351b14ff.) speaks as if it was not uncommon, and Plato in the Meno (70c4) uses the metaphor of drought causing a migration of wisdom. (p.28) Within Greece itself we hear of major widespread droughts. Aristotle (Meteor. 360a4ff.) notes that in years of drought the drought is not necessarily uniformly felt through the affected area, but sometimes it was. The latter situation is reflected in the story told in Isocrates’ Evagoras (§14): when ‘droughts occurred amongst the Greeks and many persons had perished’ and ‘the magnitude of the disaster was exceeding all bounds’ the leaders of the cities came to Aeacus to get him to use his influence with Zeus, controller of droughts and rain. The version in Pausanias (2.29.7) makes clear that the droughts involved both the Peloponnese and an area outside the Isthmus,46 whilst that in Diodorus (4.61.1f.) sets it in the time of Theseus and Minos. Thus widespread drought within Greece itself had its place in legend. For the historical record we have to turn to the fourth century. Page 12 of 20

Early Colonisation In the Leptines of 355/354 (§33) Demosthenes spoke of ‘a shortage of corn throughout the human race (σιτοδϵία παρὰ πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποις) the year before last’, that is, in 357/356. This does not necessarily mean that there was a general crop failure. A ‘low Nile’ might have sufficed to produce such a general shortage. But in 362 and 361 it does seem as if widespread drought occurred. In the fiftieth speech of the Demosthenic corpus, the Polycles, which describes in some detail events of those years, not only is there mention of the Byzantians, the Chalcedonians and the Cyzicenes forcing the corn-ships from the Pontus to sell the cargo which had been bound for Athens (§§6, 17) but also it emerges that Maronea was affected and needed to have its corn-ships protected (§20), perhaps from Stryme which itself needed corn (§21). So it would seem that in the north-east Aegean area the corn shortage (σιτοδϵία) was general, and while one can only guess the cause one would not perhaps be guessing wildly to suppose that the trouble was climatic. For in 361 (§61) the situation in Attica was such that ‘not only did the soil not produce any crop, but even the water in the wells that year gave out, so that there wasn’t even a vegetable in the garden’. The years 362 and following may have been years of general climatic disaster, and it is possible that the trouble lasted until 357. With the celebrated corn-shortage of 330 to 326 we are on surer ground. In Egypt there was a moderate famine, elsewhere (ἐν τοῖς ἄλλοις τάποις) a famine most severe ([Ar.] Econ. 1352a16ff.). The man whom Alexander had appointed finance officer, Cleomenes (p.29) (Arr. Anab. 3.5.4), made the best of the situation (Dem. 56.7), somewhat in the manner alleged of Joseph and perhaps of many another Egyptian finance officer, and Cleomenes may have contributed considerably to the rise in the price at Athens. But the famous inscription from Cyrene (GHI 196 = RO 96) which records the gifts made by Cyrene to places all over the Greek world ‘at the time when the cornshortage (σιτοδϵία) happened in Greece’, makes clear that there was not merely dislocation of the normal system of distribution. The recipients include places in western and north-western Greece, Thessaly, Central Greece including Boeotian states, Opuntian Locris, the Oeteans, as well as Athens and Megara, the northern Peloponnesian states almost completely (save for Achaca and Epidaurus), and a fair sprinkling of Aegean islands including Rhodes, Cos, Crete, Thera, Cythcra, Aegina, possibly Lesbos. It is likely that a number of the recipients did not normally import corn.47 The explanation is almost certainly widespread drought, with widespread failure of harvests, perhaps ‘throughout the human race’ in Demosthenes’ phrase (20.33), ‘world-wide’ in the phrase of The Acts (11.28). The mention of four places in Crete is particularly to be remarked. One is reminded of Herodotus’ story of ‘a famine and a pestilence’ of both men and cattle which desolated the island (7.171). From the fifth century, one can cite only one possible case, namely the cluster of events in the mid 440s represented by the distribution of free corn in 445/444 to a large number of the Athenian citizenry (FGrHist 328 F 119), the drawing of the colonists for Brea at that date from the Page 13 of 20

Early Colonisation two lowest property classes, poorest first (cf. Meiggs-Lewis ad GHI2 49 = Fornara 100), and the Panhellenic colony to Thurii with an assemblage of Arcadians, Achaeans, Elcans, Boeotians, members of the Delphic Amphictyony, people from Doris, Ionians, Athenians, islanders (Diod. 12.11), perhaps all evidence of a corn shortage ‘throughout the human race’ (cf. IG i3.31). (p.30) The evidence for the fifth century is, however, different in kind. It is notable that although Thucydides referred to ‘great droughts and consequent famines’ contributing to the great sufferings of the war (1.23.3), he does not in his narrative allude to a single one of them. They were part and parcel of Greek life. That they occurred in the fifth century and indeed earlier with no less severity than in the fourth is not to be doubted. Given the occurrence of widespread and prolonged droughts,48 one inevitably wonders whether Greek colonisation in the eighth and seventh centuries was not in response to climatic disasters. The despatch of the Theran colony to Africa was due to drought. Perhaps that same drought was widely felt in the islands and moved other islands to colonise northwards, and if one had reliable dates for the foundations in the north by Aegean states, there might be striking coincidences. But such dates as we have are quite unreliable, and speculation whether the drought on Thera had its effect on Paros fifty miles to the north or on Andros, a further fifty, is useless. With the eighth-century colonies there is striking and more reliable evidence of synchronism. If we may trust the chronological scheme furnished by Thucydides at the start of Book VI,49 a curious fact emerges. At very much the same time, the Chalcidians in Euboea, the Megarians, and the Corinthians were moved to colonise (6.3.1ff.), and, if one may trust the stories of Strabo (6.2.4 269c),50 at the same period the Achaeans were colonising Croton. Further, according to Plutarch’s Quaest. Graec. (Mor. 293) before the Corinthians established themselves on Corcyra, they had to expel Eretrians whom Eretria then refused to have back. The Corinthian foundations of Corcyra and Syracuse are synchronised by Strabo (ibid.). When the Eretrians went to the former is not clear, but their subsequent fortunes suggest that Eretria and Corinth were somehow afflicted at roughly the same time. Is it not striking that all these states, Chalcis, Eretria, Corinth, Megara, Achaea, were all similarly affected at much the same moment? It cannot be argued that Corinth and Achaea were (p. 31) merely copying the Euboean states’ example. Pithecusae and Cumae had long enough existed for Corinthians to have the idea for themselves. The explanation suggests itself that all these states were affected by the sort of widespread drought which had been long familiar to the Greeks (cf. Isoc. Evag. 14, etc.).

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Early Colonisation There is another synchronism. Sparta attacked Messenia at roughly the same time as the first colonies were being sent off from the north of the Peloponnese.51 The drought which prompted that ancient appeal to Aeacus on Aegina involved ‘the Peloponnesians’ (Paus. 2.29.7), and it may be that if drought sent Corinthians and others westward, it also set the Spartans to attacking the fertile land of Messenia. (Certainly they were not strangers to food-shortage, due no doubt to drought. Aristotle [Mir. 832a20] records that on one occasion they were reduced to eating snakes.) It may well be, one cannot say more, that these synchronisms are not mere coincidences. Certainly if plain overpopulation had been the root cause of colonisation (which this chapter begs leave to doubt), the coincidence of so many states reaching the point of boiling over at much the same time would be greatly amazing. Given that severe and widespread droughts recurred in the Greek world, one is inevitably drawn to the hypothesis that the root cause of colonisation was climatic disaster. Only for Chalcis is it attested in the eighth century (Strabo 6.1.6 257c), but, as Thucydides shows, drought was too much part of Greek life to require a mention. Thera was not an isolated phenomenon. The hypothesis illuminates a curiosity of the story of the foundation of Syracuse, that is, that most of the Corinthian settlers came from the inland village of Tenea (Strabo 8.6.22 380c).52 One wonders why the one village should be so favoured, or accursed. If there was a failure of the water supply there, the prominence of Teneates is intelligible. Aristotle noted the freakishness and fitfulness of droughts (Meteor. 360b4ff). In general, what needs to be explained is why certain states did not colonise. Attica is alleged to be so ample that it could amply provide for its ‘exploding’ population; since so little is known of early Athens demographically speaking, the explanation is (p.32) unassailable, but not necessarily correct. There was in Attica the special element of the olive, a hardy tree not readily destroyed in drought. According to Herodotus (5.82), speaking of an early period, ‘there were olive-trees at that time, it is said, nowhere in the world save Athens’, a curious comment from a native of Asia Minor, but presumably reflecting the fact that the olive was established in Attica more effectively in the eighth and seventh centuries than anywhere else in mainland Greece. So the effect of drought on Attic life may well have been much less severe. In the case of Argos, a lack of colonies is readily explained by its exceptionally good supply of water, lakes, rivers, and subterranean reservoirs (ὑδρϵῖα) (Strabo 1.2.15 23c and 8.6.7 and 8 370 and 371c).53 As for Sicyon, although its fertility was celebrated, more especially the excellence of its pasture for horses suggests that it too was well-watered and less subject to the withering incidence of drought.54 Such particular explanations may not be correct, but if early colonisation was, initially or largely, the response to the climatic disaster of drought, the various record of cities is at any rate not surprising.

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Early Colonisation Colonisation in the eighth and seventh centuries was, it may be posited, the cure not of the endemic evil of overpopulation but of the epidemic woes of climatic disaster. One last question must be faced. Why did colonisation die down? Colonies were sent out in the sixth century from eastern Greek cities, but they are principally due to the rising threat of the Kingdoms of Asia. In the fifth and fourth century, colonies and cleruchies reflect both imperial ambitions and the increase in the population of the city of Athens. But the despatch from Greece and the islands of farmers to farm in distant places petered out. Their population did not cease to absorb the available produce of the land. Droughts continued to do their worst. There may, though we barely hear of it, have been a slow, steady emigration to the new cities (cf. Hdt. 4.159.2). More likely, however, as trade developed, disasters became less devastating. Food could be imported to tide a city-state over a disastrous period. If cities did not colonise to facilitate commerce, commerce made colonisation unnecessary. Tοιόνδ’ ἀπέβη τόδϵ πρᾶγμα.. Notes:

(1) A. M. Snodgrass, Archaic Greece (1980), p. 19. (2) After the period of migration, the first Athenian colony was to Sigeum, if indeed it is right to call it a colony, shortly before 600 (cf. Pros. Att. s.v. Φρύνων). If there is any truth in Strabo’s assertions of Argive origin for Aspendus (14.4.2 667c), Tarsus (14.5.12 673c), Tralles (14.1.42 649c), and Curium in Cyprus (14.6.3 683c), it belongs either to the world of the migrations (cf. Thuc. 2.68 on Amphilochian Argos) or to the Hellenistic period (cf. SEG 34 [1984], 282, a decree of the late fourth century according the Aspendians Argive citizenship, and A. J. Spawforth and S. Walker, JRS 76 (1986), 101 and n. 22). (3) Cf. J. McK. Camp, Hesperia 48 (1979), 400, and A. M. Snodgrass in R. Hägg (ed.), The Greek Renaissance of the Eighth Century B.C.: Tradition and Innovation (Stockholm, 1983), p. 170. (4) Snodgrass, Archaic Greece, p. 23. (Snodgrass has the support of Robert Sallares, The Ecology of the Ancient Greek World [Duckworth, 1991], p. 86.) (5) World Archaeology 4 (1972), 97. (6) Population and History, p. 54. (7) Archaeology and the Rise of the Greek State (Cambridge Inaugural Lecture, 1977), p. 13. (8) Cf. I. M. Morris, Burial and Ancient Society: the Rise of the Greek City-State (Cambridge, 1987), and R. G. Osborne, BSA 84 (1989) 313ff.

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Early Colonisation (9) J. S. Morrison and R. T. Williams, Greek Oared Ships (Cambridge, 1968), p. 47. (10) The Phocaean pentekonters in 546 had an ample cargo of women, children, and portable objects of some weight (Hdt. 1.164.3). (11) ‘Herodotus 4.153 and SEG ix 3’, GRBS 7 (1966), 25–9. (12) One might compare the procedure described in Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Ant. Rom. 1.16 (θϵῶν ὅτῳ δὴ καθιϵροῦντϵς ἀνθρώπων ἐτϵíους γόνὰς ἐξέπϵμπον). (13) Pace How and Wells Commentary ad loc. (‘The number of colonists must have been fixed. This is omitted by Herodotus, unless it has fallen out of his text.’), and L. H. Jeffery, ‘The Pact of the First Settlers at Cyrene’, Historia 10 (1961), 139 (‘The next phrase of the Greek requires a numeral to make sense’). Having supplemented the text of Herodotus, she proceeded to supplement the text of the Foundation Stele (Meiggs-Lewis, GHI 5 = Fornara 18) to match it. (14) F. Chamoux, Cyrène sous la monarchie des Battiades, pp. 129 and 223. Cf. J. Rougé, ‘La colonisation grecque et les femmes’, Cahiers d’histoire 15 (1970), 307–17. (15) Cf. e.g. Isoc. 11.13 (τῶν ὄμβρων καὶ τῶν αὐχμῶν … ταμίας), Hdt. 2.13.3, [Xen.] Ath. Pol. 2.6, and M. P. Nilsson, Geschichte der griechischen Religion3 i (1967), pp. 393ff. (16) R. C. T. Parker, Miasma, pp. 258ff. (17) Parke-Wormell, The Delphic Oracle, ii, no. 371 (Diod. 8.25.2 of οἳ ἐκ τῆς δϵκάτης ἀνατϵθέντϵς Xαλκιδεῖς, Strabo 6.1.6 257c). (18) That the colony went from Delphi was asserted by Timaeus (FGrHist 566 F 43). Pace Parke-Wormell, The Delphic Oracle, i.54f, we do not know that Antiochus (FGrHist 555 F 9) ‘omitted all reference to the dedication as a motive’. (19) Dionysius’ ultimate source, according to Jacoby, FGrHist III b (Kommentar) 380, was Hellanicus. (20) Cf. Parke-Wormell, The Delphic Oracle, i.52f. (21) … στϵνοχωρίᾳ τινὶ πολιορκηθὲν γῆς ἥ τισιν ἄλλοις τοιούτοις παθήμασιν ἀναγκασθὲν. (22) Cf. Thuc. 1.5.1. (23) Cf. E. Eyben, ‘Family Planning in Graeco-Roman Antiquity’, Anc. Soc. 11/12 (1980–1), 5–81.

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Early Colonisation (24) However, M. K. Hopkins, ‘Contraception in the Roman Empire’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 8 (1965), 124ff. is cautious. Cf. P. A. Brunt, Italian Manpower, p. 146. Herodotus (1.61.1) does not explain how precisely Pisistratus’ behaviour was οὐ κατὰ νóμον. K. J. Dover, Greek Homosexuality, p. 100, shows that other explanations are possible; cf. Ar. Pol. 1272a23–26. (25) The text is conveniently to be found in L. Edelstein, The Hippocratic Oath (Baltimore, 1943). (26) E.g. Aristophanes, Clouds 530f., Euripides, Ion 951. (27) Hellenistic Civilisation3, pp. 100ff. (28) The Population of Ancient Athens, pp. 79ff. (29) Cf. Walbank ad loc. (30) For the Pelasgian theft of Athenian women, Hdt. 6.138 and for the Messenian theft of Spartan women, Strabo 6.1.6 257c, and 8.4.9 362c. Sallares, The Ecology of the Ancient Greek World, p. 133 fastens on comments of Plato and Aristotle, which may be quite misleading for Archaic Greece. (31) D. Engels, ‘The Problem of Female Infanticide in the Greco-Roman World’, C. Ph. 75 (1980), 112–20 argued that a high rate of female infanticide could not have occurred without serious decline of population. W. V. Harris, ‘The Theoretical Possibility of Extensive Infanticide in the Graeco-Roman World’, CQ 32 (1982), 114–16 countered. Engels returned in CQ 34 (1984), 386–93. The fact of infanticide as a means of keeping population under control is not in doubt. Sallares, Ecology of the Ancient Greek World, pp. 102, 158ff., n. 4, argues that infanticide did not become common until the Hellenistic period and that it did not happen in Classical Athens (133ff. and 151ff.). Classical Athens was comparatively prosperous; the world of Hesiod was grimmer. Evidence for size of families in the Attic orators is not relevant to the eighth and seventh centuries. (32) Cf. C. R. Whittaker, PCPhS 20 (1974), 69 for the numbers involved in the foundation of Carthage. (33) Ἀπολλωνία, πρώτη πόλις Ἰλλνρίας, ἣν ᾢκουν Ίλλνριοὶ κατ’ Ἐπίδαμνον. ὓστϵρον διακοσίων Kορινθίων ἀποικία ϵἰς αὐτὴν ἐστάλη, ἧς ἡγϵῖτο Γύλαξ, ὃς Γνλακίαν ὠνόμασϵ. (34) Since Blakeway penned the phrase (BSA 33 [1932–3], 202), opinion has swung away from the notion of pre-colonial trade, but there is enough to suggest that the Western world was well enough known before the colonies were founded. Cf. J. N. Coldstream, Geometric Greece, p. 221 (‘During the first generation (c. 800–770 BC) and before the founding of the first colonies, Page 18 of 20

Early Colonisation Euboean merchants had already penetrated the Tyrrhenian sea and were trading with the inhabitants of Etruria and Campania’), and 233 for ‘the only clear evidence of Greek visitors before the arrival of the first colonists’. (35) Cf. G. Buchner, Expedition 8 (1966), 4–12, and J. N. Coldstream, Geometric Greece, p. 226. (36) The Greeks Overseas, p. 166. (37) Strabo 5.4.9 247c speaks of ϵὐκαρπία. J. N. Coldstream, 1.c. ‘The volcanic soil of the island is—and was—suitable only for the cultivation of the vine.’ (38) Ἀϕορία described both bad harvest and crop failure; cf. Xen. Poroi 4.9, where war is more serious than ἀϕορίαι ‘in as much as the land is not worked’. (39) Cf. P. Garnsey, Famine and Food-Supply in the Graeco-Roman World, p. 11 for the frequency of failure of the wheat and the barley crops in modern Greece. (40) F. Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II (English translation, Collins, 1972), pp. 245, 576, 593. (41) Cf. Hdt. 2.13.3. (42) Cf. J. Vandier, La Famine dans l’Égypte ancienne (Cairo, 1936). (43) For droughts in Palestine, Garnsey, Famine and Food-Supply in the Graeco Roman World, pp. 15 and 38. (44) ‘It is impossible to draw any historical inferences from the story of “Joseph and his brethren”,’ M. Noth, The History of Israel2 (London, 1960), p. 118. (45) CAH ii3, 2.360f., 369. (46) At 1.44.9 Pausanias said that this drought had befallen ‘the Greeks’. (47) From Xen. Hell. 5.4.56 and 6.1.11, Thessaly would appear to be an exporter of corn; cf. Garnsey, Famine and Food-supply in the Graeco-Roman World, pp. 71f., 187, 195. The comparative amounts on the Cyrene inscription are curious. Athens, by far the most populous city, received 100,000 medimni, Sicyon, a comparatively small state, 30,000. In Thessaly, Larisa 50,000 and Atras, a very minor Perrhaebian town, 10,000, and so on. There is a useful map on p. 160 of Garnsey, showing both the incidence of gifts and the remarkable absences; e.g. if Tanagra, Plataea, Delphi, Opus received, why did not other places within that circle? The gifts may reflect the fitfulness of the drought, but it is more likely that the beneficiaries were the states that had political relations with Cyrene.

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Early Colonisation (48) One may note that Aristotle spoke of widespread drought as a regular enough occurrence. In a fragment of his treatise On Signs (240) he averred that when there is a drought ‘in the islands’ birds migrate to where they can sustain themselves, and farmers take the arrival of ravens from the islands as a ‘sign’ of drought and bad harvest; that is, a drought in the islands is likely to make itself felt still more widely. (49) Cf. Dover’s note on Thuc. 6.2.5 in Gomme et al., A Historical Commentary on Thucydides iv. (50) But see Coldstream, Geometric Greece, p. 185. (51) The First Messenian War is a somewhat movable feast. Cf. Coldstream, Geometric Greece, p. 163 and CAH iii2, 3.323f. A date in the mid-730s for its commencement seems to be generally accepted. (52) Cf. Ernst Meyer, RE va.1, col. 492. (53) Cf. Hesiod, fr. 128 Merkelbach–West. (54) Cf. A. Griffin, Sikyon, p. 30.

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Early Greek Tyranny and the People

Cyrene to Chaeronea: Selected Essays on Ancient Greek History George Cawkwell

Print publication date: 2011 Print ISBN-13: 9780199593286 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199593286.001.0001

Early Greek Tyranny and the People George Cawkwell

DOI:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199593286.003.0003

Abstract and Keywords This chapter examines the emergence of the early Greek tyrants in the sixth and seventh centuries. It argues against the view of Aristotle and his latter-day satellites that, ‘the tyrant comes from the People and the multitude to confront the men of note and prevent the People being unjustly treated by them’. It shows that in Athens, tyranny was little felt or noticed by the People. Those who were fully aware of how power was being exercised and on whom the tyranny did indeed weigh heavily were the members of leading families. The chapter also supports Thucydides' claim that the early tyrants were essentially rich men. Keywords:   Greek tyrants, tyranny, Aristotle, Thucydides

Over sixty years ago, it was written of early Greek tyranny that it ‘had arisen only in towns where an industrial and commercial régime tended to prevail over rural economy, but where an iron hand was needed to mobilize the masses and to launch them in assault on the privileged classes … But tyranny nowhere endured. After it had performed the services which the popular classes expected of it, after it had powerfully contributed to material prosperity and to the development of democracy, it disappeared with an astonishing rapidity … The people regarded tyranny only as an expedient. They used it as a battering ram with which to demolish the citadel of the oligarchs, and when their end had been achieved they hastily abandoned the weapon which wounded their hands.’ Thus Gustav Glotz,1 whose view found favour with de Ste Croix.2 He too concluded with appeal to Aristotle, who in a famous passage3 declared that unlike monarchy, which arises to help ‘the great and good’ (οἱ ἐπιϵικϵῖς) against the People, and the monarch who is appointed as one of ‘the great and good’, ‘the Page 1 of 19

Early Greek Tyranny and the People tyrant comes from the People and the multitude to confront the men of note (οἱ γνώριμοι) and prevent the People being unjustly treated by them. This is clear from what actually happened, for, generally speaking, the majority of the tyrants became tyrants from being demagogues so to speak, having got themselves trusted by their abusive attacks on the men of note.’ Against this view of Aristotle and all his latter-day satellites, this chapter is directed. (p.34) The beginning of wisdom about the world of the early Greek tyrants is to be found in the consideration of the account given by the Aristotelian Constitution of the Athenians of the three ‘parties’ at the time of Pisistratus’ rise to power (13.4–5). Unlike Herodotus who furnished no more than the names of the three parties and their leaders (1.59.3–5), the Ath. Pol. gave, in addition, an account of what each party was striving for, and many have treated this as precious illumination. If it is illumination, it is pretty queer light. Herodotus (6.131.1) designated Clisthenes as ‘the man who established the tribes and the democracy’. Yet our author will have the politics of mid-sixth-century Athens no different from the constitutional wrangles of the late fifth with Megacles at the head of the paralioi (sic) striving for the moderate constitution (the μέση πολιτϵία) just like Theramenes and his ilk a hundred and fifty years later (cf. Xen. Hell. 2.3.48), Lycurgus and the men of the Plain pursuing oligarchy, and Pisistratus seeming to be the most democratic4 (δημοτικώτατος ϵἶναι δοκῶν); which is all very suspect. Just as any threefold division is now readily classified as Right, Left, and Centre, so too a fourth-century writer would easily assign to the three the labels familiar from the wrangles over the Athenian constitution from the later fifth century onwards. However, the Ath. Pol. goes on to designate some of the supporters of Pisistratus, and so appears to know something about sixth-century politics and not to be merely guessing. With these (i.e. the supporters of Pisistratus, which the Ath. Pol. termed the diakrioi) were arrayed those who had been deprived of their debts, because of the resulting hardship, and also those who were not of pure Athenian descent, because of the fear this fact induced. The fear of expulsion is intelligible; the hardship of those who had been rich enough to lend is surprising, for one would hardly expect it to be such that it drove them into supporting the ‘most democratic’ politician. Still, the statement is made, and one would hardly be justified in rejecting it, were it not that the Ath. Pol. goes on to give its reason for saying so. ‘The proof of this is that after the overthrow of the tyrants the Athenians made a review of the citizen body, on the grounds that many were sharing in the status of citizen (p.35) improperly.’5 The chapter closes with the curious and seemingly inconsistent remark that the parties took their names from the regions in which they farmed; so an essentially constitutional division is also stated to be a local one. But the ‘proof’ is the truly tell-tale remark. It shows that the author thought it proper to infer from the state of affairs in 510 BC what had prevailed in 560, a remarkable historical howler. The sixth century was a

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Early Greek Tyranny and the People period of very considerable change in Athenian society and an author who made such an inference is worthy of scant respect. Of course, it might be argued that although the inference from the review of the citizen body gravely discredits the author, it is still possible that what he says about the supporters of Pisistratus and of the other leaders is not worthless, that since the statements have been made they should not be utterly rejected without good reason. But there is good reason, provided by Herodotus. Herodotus recorded without rationalizing and was near enough to the events of 560 to 510 BC to learn by enquiry (ἱστορίη, as he termed it) a good deal about them. Nor should we think he recorded all he knew. His method was to make an excursus when some point in his narration of the great conflict of East and West needed illumination; his excursuses are, in general, strictly relevant; he does not aim to tell all he knows, but what he knows and does not have occasion to tell no doubt conditions what he does record. His account of Pisistratus and the Pisistratids makes clear that to his mind there was no question of Pisistratus being ‘most democratic’ or depending on or seeking popular support. The story is told entirely in the language of dynastic struggles. Pisistratus became tyrant by tricking the Athenians into allowing him to have a bodyguard of ‘club bearers’ which he used to seize the Acropolis (1.59.4–6); his success in the war with Megara had given him popularity which he abused; he was not a popularly appointed tyrant.6 He was driven out by a combination of his opponents; no popular protest is recorded, and his opponents resumed their former wrangling (1.60.1). He returned by means of a marriage alliance with one of them, Megacles, again exploiting the credulity of his countrymen (1.60.3); popular demand played no part in his return. When he declined to let (p.36) Megacles’ daughter have a child by him and so ensured that Megacles would not be grandfather of the next tyrant, he was again expelled, again without popular protest (1.61). The first time he was driven out, he stayed in Attica and was left alone while he left Athens to his opponents, but now he ‘left the land completely’ (1.61.3) and did not return for ten years and then not by popular demand but with money and men gathered abroad (1.61.3–62.1). While he kept away from the city, ‘those from the city’ went out to meet him ‘in full force’ (πανστρατιῇ); the battle of Pallene was fought and ‘the Athenians’ were routed (1.62.2–63). The only hint of popular support is that he was joined by ‘those of his faction in the city’ (οἱ ἐκ τοῦ ἄστϵος στασιῶται) and ‘others from the demes to whom tyranny was dearer than liberty’ (1.62.1), but clearly the mass of the Athenians, those who marched out ‘in full force’, opposed him. The whole story, as told by Herodotus, presents an utterly different picture from that of the Ath. Pol., not of an Athens divided by constitutional and social interests, but of an Attica divided by local loyalties, and when Pisistratus ‘collected supporters and put himself at the head of the hyperakrioi, as they were called’ (1.59.3),7 this dynast of the part of Attica ‘over the hills’ entered the struggle to dominate the city of Athens and so made what had previously been a Page 3 of 19

Early Greek Tyranny and the People straight contest between the two dynasts of the Plain and the Shore a threecornered affair. Either Herodotus or the Ath. Pol. is sadly wrong. The choice is not difficult. There is no evidence that Pisistratus did anything to benefit or deserve the support of the mass of the Athenians, or, rather, there is no good evidence. The thesis has been posed8 that he exploited a legacy of discontent with Solon’s reforms, for according to Solon himself he had disappointed those who wanted a redistribution of land (Ath. Pol. 12.3). Yet there is absolutely no evidence that Pisistratus redistributed any land whatever; even the estates of disgruntled aristocrats who went into exile appear to have been left intact (cf. Hdt. 6.103.3).9 The only evidence that there is of Pisistratus doing anything for the poor of Attica is the statement in the Ath. Pol. that he made (p.37) loans to poor farmers (16.2). It is, however, a singularly unimpressive piece, and it is worth while considering it more fully. ‘And he would make advance loans (προϵδάνϵιζϵ) of money (χρήματα) to the poor for their work (πρòς τὰς ἐργασίας) so that they might make a living out of farming.’ The word for ‘advance loans’ came into vogue in the 330s and the 320s,10 and it is quite uncertain what it at that time designated. One might guess that it concerned loans on which the liability for payment of interest did not begin immediately the money was borrowed. Certainly one would expect it to be something more sophisticated than an ordinary loan, and the word seems strangely ill-applied to the middle of the sixth century. Perhaps the author, to take the charitable view, meant no more than that Pisistratus made loans. But there are very unlikely to have been loans of money in that period. Athens did not, it would appear, get her silver coinage until some time in Pisistratus’ tyranny, or even in that of Hippias,11 and although the primitive currency of iron spits that we hear of in Sparta and know of from the excavations at Perachora12 may have been used for commercial life, it seems much more probable that in the countryside barter prevailed (and indeed continued to prevail, for the denominations of the coinage hardly allowed for the petty dealing of everyday life). So a system of loans and repayments of money seems very inappropriate, and one is probably safe to dismiss it as pure fabrication.13 The writers of the fourth century were not concerned to tell the truth and nothing but the truth.14 That there was nothing ‘popular’ about Pisistratus or his sons, is, further, strongly suggested by what we are told of their rule. Although Herodotus and Thucydides both spoke of Pisistratus and Hippias ‘ruling’, they both explicitly asserted that the constitution was (p.38) unchanged,15 save, as Thucydides added, that ‘they always saw to it that there was one of themselves amongst the archons (ἐν ταῖς ἀρχαῖς)’. There was, in short, no formal position of tyrant; indeed the Athenians could be in error as to which of the sons of Pisistratus was the one who was really in charge. Pisistratus died in 528/7; Hipparchus was murdered in 514. Yet Thucydides twice (1.20.2, 6.54.1) felt it necessary to tell Page 4 of 19

Early Greek Tyranny and the People the Athenians that they did not know what they were talking about when they spoke ‘about their tyrants and what actually happened’. Nor could he convince them all, for Plato in the Hipparchus (228b and 229b) showed that he thought that Hipparchus was the older brother and that Hippias was tyrant for a mere three years.16 Indeed Thucydides ’ argument in support of his firm assertion is itself not very persuasive (6.55.1).17 But he could not do better. There was no public position of tyrant; there were no records to which he could appeal. So where a tyrant neither had public position nor plainly established himself in his countrymen’s memory it is absurd to claim, as the author of the Ath. Pol., whoever he was, claimed, and as Aristotle himself in the Politics (1305a7–24, 1310b30) asserted, that the Athenian tyranny was established through leadership of the People (δημαγωγία). The People did not come into it. Pisistratus did nothing directly for them. They did nothing for him, and had a very dim idea of who was who, and what was what.18 That at any rate seems to be implied by Athenian confusion about the murder of Hipparchus, but it may be replied that in that case the Athenians must have been remarkably unobservant, or deaf to rumour. Much, of course, of what the Pisistratids are said to have done, they got done by what one might term ‘official channels’. When Thucydides recorded (6.54.5) that they ‘exacted a five per cent tax on produce from the Athenians and beautifully adorned their city, carried on the wars and as regards religion maintained sacrifices’, and (p.39) goes on to remark that there was no change in the constitution, we are meant to understand that under Pisistratid influence these things were done by the magistrates. So the Pisistratid role could well have been obscured from the mass of the citizens. Likewise their names could be associated with public works,19 but not necessarily indicating more than their parts as magistrates,20 and on that famous day when Hipparchus was murdered, he and his brother may have been mustering the procession as their offices for the moment required them. Thus not all that happened during the period of the tyranny will have been attributed by ordinary Athenians to Pisistratus and the Pisistratids.21 There were, however, some things that one would think were very noticeable indeed. First of all, when Pisistratus made his first attempt on the tyranny, he occupied the Acropolis (Hdt. 1.59.6), just as Cylon in his abortive attempt of 632 had done (Hdt. 5.71.1, Thuc. 1.126.5), and when Pisistratus was restored with the aid of a very tall, goodlooking woman whom he represented as the goddess Athena herself,22 he sent out heralds to proclaim that Athena was bringing back (p.40) her most highly honoured to her own Acropolis.23 One might wonder, therefore, whether Pisistratus and the Pisistratids continued to dwell on the Acropolis, as it were in the sight of all Athenians. That however seems unlikely.24 Perhaps the family dwelt in a house adjacent to the agora, as has been supposed, and only had recourse to the Acropolis in times of special danger, as in 510 BC when the Spartans came to remove them.25 So, although Pisistratus’ two occupations of the Acropolis and the trickery that had made both of them Page 5 of 19

Early Greek Tyranny and the People possible must have been notorious, by the time of the third tyranny and the end of the danger of aristocratic upheaval, such acts may well have faded from the general consciousness; the constitution, formally speaking, continued unchanged, and ordinary men were not constantly being made aware that in fact things were not what they seemed. But what of Pisistratus’ bodyguard, those so-called ‘club-bearers’ who helped him to his first occupation of the Acropolis (Hdt. 1.59.5)? Thucydides four times refers to the hired spear-bearers who were at hand the day forty-five years later when Hipparchus was killed,26 and one might suppose that Pisistratus and the Pisistratids went around for a great many years escorted by a group of thugs for all to see. This may, however, be quite wrong. Pisistratus’ bodyguard were citizens equipped with the weapon of thuggery27 and perhaps a mere fifty in number;28 the hired spear-bearers who appear in Thucydides’ (p.41) account were perhaps quite different. In the fifth century Athens was policed by three hundred Scythians armed with bows and arrows, badges of office perhaps rather than for use by mere slaves against citizens.29 The origins of this curious corps are quite obscure, but perhaps Andocides (3.5) was not wrong in assigning them to the period after the Persian Wars. Who then were the policemen of Athens before that? The point of having Scythian slaves is obvious enough; Athenians might be reluctant to arrest fellow citizens and even, in a comparatively small society, afraid of revenge. So these hired spear-bearers may be the sixth-century equivalent of the fifthcentury Scythians. Only such an hypothesis, at any rate, can salvage the Athenians’ credit. They might well have been confused as to whether Hippias or Hipparchus was the real man; both of them could conceivably have had their own bodyguard. But if after the death of Hipparchus Hippias was known to have his tyrant’s bodyguard, the Athenians would have had to be remarkably unobservant ever to think, at however great an interval, that the tyranny was ended with the murder of Hipparchus.30 All in all, it would seem that the tyranny was little felt or noticed by the Athenian People. Those who were fully aware of how power was being exercised and on whom the tyranny did indeed weigh heavily were the members of the other leading families, the Eupatridae, the men described in the Leipsydrion drinking song as good and of good fathers born who then made plain what sort of men their fathers were.

(Ath. Pol. 19.3) When Pisistratus triumphed, they had been faced with the awkward choice of retiring like the Alcmaeonid family into exile or of remaining to kiss the rod. Those who chose the latter were kept submissive by having their sons taken as hostages and placed on Naxos in the tender care of Lygdamis installed as tyrant by Pisistratus (Hdt. 1.64). (p.42) Those who had gone into exile either behaved Page 6 of 19

Early Greek Tyranny and the People like Cimon, the father of Miltiades the Younger, who came to terms with the Pisistratid family and returned to his estates (κατῆλθϵ ἐπὶ τὰ ἐαυτοῦ ὑπόσπονδος Hdt. 6.103.3), or joined with the other rebels and kept on trying to effect their return by force until they fortified Leipsydrion on Mt Parnes and came to disaster. In these various ways the Athenian tyranny showed what it in essence was, viz. a domination of aristocrats by one of their own kind. Their methods were well exemplified, one supposes, by the murder of Cimon by men lying in wait for him by night (Hdt. 6.103); whether or not it was the Pisistratids who were responsible for this dark deed, it at least shows what was considered credible. When Pisistratus stood trial before the Areopagus, if we may believe the story in Aristotle (Pol. 1315b21), perhaps a similar violent act was the occasion; he was, of course, in no danger of being convicted by a body packed with his supporters, but on the surface all was legal and dark deeds by night were the favoured method. Afterwards the descendants of those who had not gone into exile and stayed there while the Pisistratus family flourished doubtless covered up the truth. For the Alcmaeonids, it was easy. Although Clisthenes had been eponymous archon in 525–431 (perhaps having presumed that with the death of Pisistratus the ‘troubles’ were over and it was safe to return), the family had played a leading part in securing the downfall of Hippias and could safely affirm that they had remained in exile for the entire duration of the tyranny (Hdt. 6.123). The family of Cimon was less happily placed, and when the younger Miltiades was in 493 put on trial for having been tyrant in the Chersonese (Hdt. 6.104.2), he had a lot to explain away. Long ago the thesis was advanced32 that the story of Miltiades’ plan to destroy the bridge over the Danube and so leave Darius to his fate in Scythia (Hdt. 4.136–9) was derived not from the events of 512 (or whenever the ‘Scythian’ expedition occurred) but from what Miltiades said in his defence in 493 (Hdt. 6.104.2). For various reasons one may accept this, and, further, it is to be suspected that a large part of the account of the family given by Herodotus is derived from the same apologia (Hdt. 6.34–41, 103–4). Miltiades the elder was not one of those who had retired from Attica after the battle of Pallene and it has often been suspected that although Herodotus (6.35.3) said that he ‘resented the (p.43) rule of Pisistratus and wanted to get away’, he was nonetheless ‘powerful’ (ibid. §1) and went with the compliance of Pisistratus. The story (6.34f.) is curious. A group of wild Thracians were told by the Delphic oracle to invite the first man to entertain them on their way from Delphi to become their ‘founder’ (or ‘settler’); Miltiades happened to be sitting in the porch of his house as they were passing and chanced to offer them hospitality; they told him what the god had said and asked him to obey; their story straightaway convinced Miltiades, inasmuch as he was resentful of the rule of Pisistratus and was wanting to get away; so having got the approval of Delphi, he went off to the Chersonese taking every Athenian who wished to share in the expedition; he got hold of the land and ‘those who had brought him there made him tyrant’. Thus Page 7 of 19

Early Greek Tyranny and the People Miltiades played the part enjoined by Delphi; let those reproach who dare to question the god’s command. It all looks, in short, like apologia. If Miltiades did resent the rule of Pisistratus, he could have left with the others who did, and ‘taking every Athenian who wished to share in the expedition’ looks like a public act. How did they get there if not on ships provided by those in power? But the story was good enough for 493. There was, however, more to be explained away. The younger Miltiades might seek to excuse his having been a tyrant within a Persian satrapy with his story about the bridge over the Danube, and attribute to Delphi the family’s involvement with the Chersonese, but nonetheless he had been archon in 524/3 with the blessing of the Pisistratids who had sent him out to take over when his brother’s death left a vacancy in the dynasty, in this way a tyrant established by the tyrants. The younger Miltiades dealt with the charge. Although he might seem to have been very much in with the Pisistratids, they showed their fear and distrust of the family, he claimed, by having his father, Cimon, murdered by night outside the Town Hall. The tale is not convincing. Cimon certainly was murdered but his son would have had to be incredibly innocent not immediately to suspect the Pisistratids if relations had been at all strained. Yet they are said (6.39.1) to have treated Miltiades well as if they were not guilty of his father’s death. Now Miltiades became archon within four years, or possibly in the very year, of that event.33 He could not have been (p.44) better placed to investigate the murder. Why did he not instantly suspect the Pisistratids and fly to his brother in the Chersonese? Perhaps the accusation against them was all part of the apologia of 493. Perhaps the father had been murdered because he had come to terms with the Pisistratids, murdered by a hand hired by émigré opponents. It is at least possible. The whole of the Miltiades family story may have been put forward in 493 to dissociate them from the Pisistratids with whom they had collaborated all too closely. The whole drama was played out amongst the leading families. Those who stayed were perforce friends of the tyrants, as Isagoras is alleged to have been (Ath. Pol. 20.1). He quickly turned his coat when a greater power, to wit, Cleomenes of Sparta, came on the scene (Hdt. 5.70.1), but before that his staying in Athens marked his ‘friendship’, that is, his submission. He was no doubt typical of those who found their way through the archonship into the Areopagus in the second half of the sixth century. But for the rest, the mass of the People, things went on very much as they had while still only Lycurgus and Megacles were in contention. The People had not established Pisistratus in power, nor maintained his sons, and was largely unaware of the true state of affairs. The tyranny at Athens was in no sense popular. ‘The people’ of course existed, as the poems of Solon attest.34 He claimed to ‘have brought together the people’ (F 36 ξυνήγαγον δῆμον); he spoke of leaders of the People (F 5 δῆμος δ’ ὥδ’ ἂν ἄριστα σὺν ἡγϵμόνϵσσιν ἕποιτο), who could Page 8 of 19

Early Greek Tyranny and the People be men of ‘unjust mind’ (F 4.7), and through whom the People could fall into slavery (FF 9, 11). How, then, is the picture presented in these poems to be reconciled with the unimportance of the People under Pisistratus and the Pisistratids? When, in 632 or 628, Cylon with his friends made his attempt to seize the Acropolis, the Athenians according to Thucydides (1.126.7) came in full force against them ‘from the fields’ (ἐκ τῶν ἀγρῶν)35 but, (p.45) wearying of the siege, returned whence they had come, and there seems to have been somewhat the same sort of dispersion seventy years later. Herodotus, it is true, speaks of both ‘the Athenians from the city’ and the demes (1.62.1, 60.5), and there is no way of knowing how numerous those ‘from the city’ were, but after the battle of Pallene Pisistratus sent his sons on horseback to encourage ‘each to go away to his own property’ (1.62f.) and so there was no further opposition. By 510 BC things were very different. There was by then a People for whose support Clisthenes could appeal, and with whose support he became far superior to his rivals (πολλῷ κατύπϵρθϵ τῶν ἀντιστασιωτέων—Hdt. 5.69.2). The cause of this was quite simply, it may be suggested, the growth of the population of Athens itself, of which there are various signs. Firstly one notes the large number of Athenians available for settlement on the land of the Hippobotai of Chalcis in 505 (Hdt. 5.77.2). Presumably not all of these four thousand came from farms in Attica; a good number most likely came from Athens itself. Secondly and most notably there is the fact that when Themistocles rebuilt the walls of Athens in winter 479/8, the circuit of the walls was, according to Thucydides (1.93.2), extended in every direction.36 No doubt he allowed for expansion, but too large a circuit would have been indefensible, and an all-round expansion argues that the city population had been increasing.37 Since Athenian democracy was inevitably to a large extent ruled by those who dwelt in or near the city as opposed to those scattered throughout Attica, growth of the city population was a necessary condition for the development of such a democracy. Clisthenes succeeded in ‘establishing the democracy’ (Hdt. 6.131) because by 510 there was a large enough city population to support him. If then it is claimed that the People was unimportant as a political force right down to 507, what is to be said of the People in the time of Solon? The People did meet in assembly, formally speaking, and when the nine archons were, according to Thucydides (1.126.8), (p.46) entrusted with the task of dealing with Cylon in 632, it was probably by means of an assembly. So when Solon (F 36) says ‘I gathered the People together’ (ξυνήγαγον δῆμον), one might wonder whether something new had happened; previously there had been leaders of the People (F 5) but now, it has been claimed, ‘the People had arrived in Athenian politics’.38 But what Solon did for them chiefly39 concerned the land they farmed, ‘the black Earth … previously enslaved, now free’ (F 36), and whether the People should be said to have arrived as an enduring force in Athenian politics depends very much on the view taken of the nature of the agrarian Page 9 of 19

Early Greek Tyranny and the People crisis. This is too large a topic for discussion here. I must content myself with asserting that Solon was concerned with an epidemic rather than an endemic evil; he was concerned with debt but he did nothing radical to cure the causes of men needing to borrow; yet although Solon did no more than remove the symptoms of the disease, no more is heard of agrarian unrest. That is why the People brought together by Solon relapsed into its former condition and, for the most part dispersed throughout Attica, did not become a force in Athenian politics. The growth of the urban populace was necessary for that, and this happened during the tyranny. When Clisthenes made his appeal for support, the People asserted itself. So much for Athens and the power and importance of the People in the age of the tyranny. But was it all very different elsewhere? In the last forty years much has been heard and much made of the emergence of the hoplite. Homeric warfare has been represented as essentially the duels of aristocrats little affected by the presence of a mass of common churls, but once wealth was sufficiently widely spread for a large number of citizens to be able to buy their own armour and once the hoplite panoply had been developed, all was different and these citizens fighting side by side, conscious of their power on the field of battle, began to assert themselves in the field of politics.40 A passage of Aristotle’s Politics (1297b 16–25) provides a convenient text; the first form of constitution after monarchy consisted of those who did the fighting, a constitution of the cavalry men (p.47) for a start, but later as citizens grew and the hoplites formed the real strength (τῶν ἐν τοῖς ὅπλοις ἰσχυσάντων μᾶλλον), the number sharing in the constitution increased. So Aristotle has pronounced and for some that is the end of the matter. The theory has, however, sustained a mortal blow. It has been shown by J. Latacz that Homeric warfare has been misrepresented and that the notion of a revolutionary change in the introduction of the hoplite phalanx is false.41 At what stage in the long development of Greek warfare Aristotle’s comment might be valid could vary greatly from state to state. What is undeniably clear is that in the case of the state of which we are most reliably informed, Athens, the occurrence of tyranny had nothing whatsoever to do with hoplites or a hoplite class. When Cylon made his attempt, he did so with the support of a number of admirers of his athletic prowess and a military force provided by his father-inlaw (Thuc. 1.126.5); the hoplite class, in so far as there was any such class, came to town and tried to eject him. Solon says he was urged by friends to make himself tyrant (Plut. Solon 14 = FF 32, 33, 33a W) but it is clear that the People on whose support he might count were impoverished, not the comparatively prosperous citizens who were hoplites. As to Pisistratus, there were as many hoplites opposed to him as in his support, and to judge by the battle of Pallene probably more (Hdt. 1.63). So in the case of Athens, tyranny had nothing to do with the alleged hoplite class. Nor was Athens unique. At Samos, Polycrates Page 10 of 19

Early Greek Tyranny and the People made his attempt with the help of fifteen hoplites (Hdt. 3.120.3) and maintained his power with mercenaries from abroad and Samian archers (ibid. 3.45.3), whilst in Mytilene, if we may trust Aristotle who for once eschews talk of people and popular leaders, the oppressive ruling clan of Penthilidae were dealt death by one Megacles assisted by his friends (Pol. 1311b26–30), dynasts feuding and nothing more, just as in Athens. The hoplite hypothesis, in short, is not in the best of health. Thucydides’ statement on the subject (1.13.1), however, retains its full force. Δυνατωτέρας δέ γιγνομένης τῆς Ἑλλάδος καὶ τῶν χρημάτων τὴν κτῆσιν ἔτι μᾶλλον ἢ πρότϵρον ποιουμένης τὰ πολλὰ τυραννίδϵς ἐν ταῖς πόλϵσι (p.48) καθίσταντο, τῶν προσόδων μϵιζόνων γιγνομένων (πρότϵρον δὲ ὖσαν ἐπὶ ῥητοῖς γέρασι πατρικαὶ βασιλϵῖαι). It is a curious sentence with two genitive absolute clauses separated by the statement ‘As a general rule tyrannies were established in the cities’, and the point of this form of sentence seems to be that the first genitive absolute generally provides the setting (i.e. ‘As Greece was becoming more powerful and was putting still more value than before on the acquisition of wealth’), but the second genitive absolute is concerned to contrast the vast personal wealth of the men who became tyrants with the strictly fixed incomes of kings (i.e. ‘the incomes (πρόσοδοι) becoming greater where previously there were hereditary kingships on the basis of fixed emoluments (γέρϵα)’).42 (The word translated ‘incomes’ is normally translated ‘revenues and supposed to apply to the revenues of the cities, but the sense here preferred is not unique in Thucydides and is common enough in the Orators,43 and above all it gives point to Thucydides’ remark in parenthesis concerning the wealth of kings.) Thus for Thucydides the early tyrants were essentially rich men. He says nothing of hoplites or of popular support. How did Thucydides come to formulate such a judgement? It occurs, admittedly, in the so-called Archaeology and one might wonder how much notice should be taken of such statements about early Greek history. But Thucydides would not have made such a statement if he did not have what seemed to him adequate grounds for making it, and his methods are not beyond the reach of our imagining. In addition to a critical assessment of oral tradition,44 Thucydides possessed what one might term the antiquarian eye. The man who at Sparta not only remarked the inscription on the grave of Pausanias (p.49) (1.134.4) but also pondered the discrepancy between Spartan power and the buildings from which it was controlled (1.10), no doubt was similarly alert at Olympia or at Delphi, or indeed in any of the leading cities of Greece. The tyrants left testimony of their riches, both in their own cities and in the national shrines, and a Thucydides would not fail to appreciate them, or to ponder the significance of any inscriptions (cf. 6.54.7). Above all, however, there was the testimony of the Page 11 of 19

Early Greek Tyranny and the People poetry of the archaic age, available to Thucydides in its fullness,45 nor would he be as much in the dark as we are about when particular poets wrote. When one considers what a rich mine for us the surviving fragments constitute, it becomes plain that from the full texts of these early poets an intelligent person could obtain a full understanding of the sort of circumstances in which tyranny arose. Thucydides’ statement was not a stab in the dark. In fact, all the indications we have in the fragmentary evidence bear out Thucydides. Perhaps the most illuminating are the poems of Solon, who wrote after one attempt at tyranny and before another and who felt moved to explain why he did not aspire to tyranny himself (F 32–3a). His concern is constantly with wealth and wealth dishonourably acquired by the sort of person who is indifferent to what befalls him ‘if he can get abundant wealth and be tyrant of Athens for a single day’ (F 33.5). The age of tyranny was clearly the age of unprecedented wealth, when surpluses of perishable produce need no longer perish, but could be transmuted into the imperishable, that is, lumps of gold and silver (F 24). It was an age when a Colaeus of Samos could return from Tartessus with immense wealth, though not, of course, to be compared with Sostratus of Aegina (Hdt. 4.152) but doubtless much in excess of what mere kings received, an age when an Alcmaeonid could return from a visit to Sardis a very much richer man (Hdt. 6.125).46 Navigation, which opened up the wider world to colonization, made possible also great new wealth, encouraging ambition. ‘The love of money and the arrogance that goes with it’ against which Solon railed (Ath. Pol. 5.3) belonged to a world in which money counted most, birth less and less. Alcaeus preserved the sneer of a Spartan: ‘Money’s the man. No poor man is good or honoured’ (Page LGS 169), for, as Solon declared (F 15), ‘many evil men are rich and good men poor’. ‘Wealth has confounded birth’ (p. 50) (πλοῦτος ἔμϵιξϵ γένος) in the words of Theognis (190),47 and the connection between wealth and tyranny is made most clearly by Archilochus (F 19W) ‘I do not care for the wealth of the gold-laden Gyges … I have no desire for mighty tyranny’. The poets indeed bear out the Thucydidean view. Herodotus too illuminates. Tyrants and would-be tyrants looked to their own sort for a wife. The son of Cypselus married the daughter of the tyrant of Epidaurus (Hdt. 3.50.2), just as Cylon had married the daughter of the tyrant of Megara (Thuc. 1.126.3) and as Hippias looked to the son of the tyrant of Lampsacus for his daughter to marry (Thuc. 6.59.3). So Herodotus’ story of the wooing of Agariste (6.126ff.) shows well the sort of person a tyrant or would-be tyrant was. The tyrant of Sikyon, Clisthenes, was so rich that he could be represented as having at Olympia issued an invitation to any Greek who deemed himself worthy of the hand of his daughter, to come to Sikyon and for a whole year, at Clisthenes’ expense, compete for his favour. At the end of the year Clisthenes gave each of the disappointed suitors a talent of silver.48 He was clearly a rich man, and while he sought a son-in-law who was both physically and intellectually the best, plainly only rich men competed. In the early sixth century to compete Page 12 of 19

Early Greek Tyranny and the People at Olympia no doubt required more than an athletic frame, but the details Herodotus gives of the competitors is especially revealing. The list was notably short. From the West, no more than a man from Siris and one from Sybaris, which latter ‘attained the greatest degree of luxury’ at a time when luxurious Sybaris was at its zenith. From the Peloponnese, allegedly, a son of the tyrant of Argos, Pheidon, and amongst others an Arcadian whose father was rich enough to entertain all comers, and an Elean, Ono-mastos (‘Famous’) son of Agaios (‘Enviable’), names presumably reflecting fact as well as aspiration. From Athens, Megacles son of the man who filled his socks with gold dust, and Hippoclides, ‘preeminent among Athenians for his looks and for his wealth’. From Euboea, only one man, from Eretria ‘in full flower at this time’, as Herodotus adds in explanation, while from Thessaly came a member of the Scopadae, a family famed for riches (cf. Plut. Cim. 10.5). Such were the aspirants to the hand of Agariste, and although we can only (p.51) guess by what telling and retelling the story came to Herodotus, it certainly illuminates the values of the world of the tyrants. Thucydides is, it would seem, right as far as he went. Should he have gone further? He said nothing about the rising political consciousness of hoplites, nor of the emergence of a People that knew and used its power. Should we stick with Thucydides, or follow Aristotle? Something has already been said about hoplites, but it must also be remarked that the shadowy figure of Pheidon, King of Argos, is much in evidence in the discussion of the importance of hoplites.49 How did a king become a tyrant? Aristotle spoke of a number of such cases (Politics 1310b18–27), but specified only Pheidon, nor did he say how or why they ‘exceeded their hereditary rights and aspired to more despotic rule’. Now if Pheidon was as successful militarily as he is commonly represented, his success would have made him in all probability a highly regarded king like Theopompus of Sparta but not necessarily more than that, and it is wanton to suppose that in consequence of his success he became tyrant. More relevant perhaps is his establishing the system of weights and measures that bore his name (Hdt. 6.127), which suggests a concern with commerce50 whereby his personal income came greatly to exceed the royal emoluments. Whatever the truth of that, the connection made between hoplites and the rise of tyranny is wild. Athens is the only case of which we are less than meagrely informed. There, no matter how successful and cohesive the hoplites were on the field of battle, in times of peace they were divided by local loyalties and being scattered through the countryside they did not come together for action save rarely. Why should it have been different elsewhere? Would-be tyrants, however, it has been argued needed some force to succeed in their attempts and so hoplites were in a sense a necessary part of their rise.51 Polycrates and his fifteen hoplite supporters seem to be a sufficient answer to that. If more is needed one has only to recall the circumstances of Pisistratus’ Page 13 of 19

Early Greek Tyranny and the People first two attempts. But, it will be countered, the would-be tyrant needed some popular support, or at any rate tolerance, if he was to succeed; Cylon’s attempt (p.52) failed because he lacked such support, whereas those who succeeded will have had it. It would be folly to deny tyrants any popular support. Solon’s championship of the impoverished put him, in his friend’s view, in a position to become tyrant (F 32–3a), and it may well be the case that others used such situations to establish themselves. It did not happen at Athens; Pisistratus had won himself a good reputation by his generalship against the Megarians (Hdt. 1.59.4), and he used it to trick the People into allowing him to maintain a bodyguard by means of which he proceeded to seize power. But elsewhere men may have used popular support to attain their ends. What must be emphasized, however, is the flimsiness of the evidence adduced for such a view. In the Hellenic parts of Nicolaus of Damascus’ Histories, he was, it is generally agreed, drawing on the work of the fourthcentury historian Ephorus,52 and when one considers how unsatisfactory the fourthcentury account of the tyranny of Athens is, one is little inclined to take very seriously what Nicolaus has to say about the tyrannies at Corinth and Sikyon. One detail, however, has been seized upon: ‘Cypselus ruled Corinth mildly, neither having bodyguards nor being hateful to the Corinthians’ (F 57.8);53 this shows, it is claimed, that Cypselus ruled with the support of the People.54 But the prized detail is worthless, if at any rate one believes Herodotus. Herodotus (5.92ϵ2) recounted that Cypselus, having become tyrant, exiled many Corinthians and deprived many of their property and by far the largest number of their lives. If he did all that, be he ever so popular with the mass of the Corinthians, he must have walked, and slept, in danger of reprisals, whether by kinsmen or by hired avengers, unless he had men to protect him. The statement is not to be taken literally. In fourth-century discussions of the age of the tyranny there was a broad classification of the tyrants into those on the one hand who, like Pisistratus, ruled more like a citizen than a tyrant, μᾶλλον πολιτικῶς ἢ τυραννικῶς, and, on the other, those who like Periander paraded their power and importance and did not conceal the fact that they were guarded. Thus somewhat vague traditions about these (p.53) notable figures of the seventh and the sixth century were given precise expression by writers of the fourth who did their best, which was their worst, not only for Pisistratus and the Pisistratids but also for all the tyrannical kind. After all, the fourth century thought it knew about tyranny. It had only to look to Syracuse, whose tyrants rate more frequent mention in Aristotle’s Politics than any of the early tyrants, and it is without a blush that he lumps them all together, Dionysius with Pisistratus and Cypselus and Theagenes of Megara (1310b29, 1305a26). Dionysius was a demagogue. All the rest were assimilated. The new and dominating element in Greek society in the seventh and sixth centuries was the emergence of rich men. Herodotus (5.92 ζ f.) has Thrasybulus of Miletus, when he was asked by Periander the safest way of controlling Page 14 of 19

Early Greek Tyranny and the People Corinth, vividly advise him to cut down those who were eminent like the outstanding ears of corn; which was indeed an apt metaphor. Some were growing tall in their riches, and the one who grew tallest would not suffer rivals. The People did not come into it. The age was the age of dynasts. Thucydides was right, and Aristotle and the fourth century generally and all his latter-day satellites wrong. Notes:

(1) The Greek City (London, 1929), pp. 109 and 115. (2) The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World (London. 1981), pp. 278–83. (3) Pol. 1310b9–16. For ἐπιϵικῖς, cf. Poetics 1452b34 where they are opposed to the μοχθηροί. For the influence of the Aristotelian view, cf. H. Berve, Die Tyrannis bei den Griechen (Munich, 1967), I. 10. (4) The word δημοτικός may be variously translated (see LSJ). For ‘democratic’, cf. Ath. Pol. 22.1. (5) Cf. the translation of P. J. Rhodes, The Athenian Constitution (Penguin edition, 1984) p. 55—‘this is confirmed by the fact that … ’ There is no good reason to take σημϵῖον otherwise. (6) Cf. Solon F 10W. (7) Tῷ λόγῳ is not equivalent to λόγῳ, which would suggest deception. (8) Notably by C. Hignett, A History of the Athenian Constitution (Oxford, 1952), p. 110, who cites Plutarch, Solon 29.1, a passage which may well derive from fourth- century discussion. (9) Cf. A. Andrewes, CAH2 III.3 406. (10) Cf. P. J. Rhodes, Commentary, p. 214. (11) Cf. C. M. Kraay, Archaic and Classical Greek Coins (London, 1976), p. 55. (12) J. B. Salmon, Wealthy Corinth (Oxford, 1984), p. 429 is sceptical about Corinth using spits as currency, but see Kraay, Archaic and Classical Greek Coins, pp. 313f. (13) There is the possibility that the author was referring not to loans of money, but to loans of things, which is the story that Aelian got hold of (Var. Hist. 9.25), but all this is improbable; those who in that world did not work starved and their families with them, and Aelian’s picture of idlers in the marketplace being induced by grants of seed or a yoke of oxen to refrain from plotting against Pisistratus and get on with their jobs seems a piece of fiction.

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Early Greek Tyranny and the People (14) C. M. Stahl, Aristokraten und Tyrannen im archaischen Athen (Stuttgart, 1987), pp. 66ff. (15) Hdt. 1.59.6, 5.65.3; Thuc. 6.54.5, 6.55.1 and 3, 1.20.2. (16) Perhaps Plato was somewhat thoughtless on the subject, for in the Symposium (182c) he spoke of Harmodius and Aristogiton ‘ending the rule of the tyrants’. (17) Cf. D. M. Lewis, CAH2 IV pp. 287f. (18) A. J. Podlecki, ‘The Political Significance of the Athenian “Tyrannicide” Cult’, Historia 15 (1966), pp. 129–41 argued that the version exalting the role of the Tyrannicides in ending the tyranny was decisively fostered by Themistocles after the Persian invasion, but even if his thesis is correct it presupposes widespread uncertainty about who was who in the Pisistratid family and about how they ceased to count in Athenian affairs. (19) E.g. τò Ἱππάρχον τϵιχίον (Suda s.v.). (20) There is no justification for thinking that the rules of the full democracy concerning the holding of office applied in the sixth century. Cf. W. G. Forrest and D.L. Stockton, Historia 36 (1987), pp. 235–40. The members of the family may have been archons repeatedly. (21) Much that happened between 560 and 510 may have been due to the contriving or with the assent of Pisistratus or his sons, but their method may have been to act through the archonship and their personal interest may not have been obvious to the populace. Hipparchus as a rich patron of literature (cf. Ath. Pol. 18.1 ϕιλόμονσος) attracted big names to Athens (Plato, Hipparchus 228), who may not have much concerned ordinary citizens, but it is not to be presumed that his erection of herms (ibid. 229a) was done in any other way than that in which his nephew, Pisistratus the Younger, erected altars, viz. as archon (Thuc. 6.54.6f). The same may be true of the fountain-house called Enneacrounus (ibid. 2.15.5). It is notable that the festival of Dionysus Eleuthereus was administered by the eponymous archon (Ath. Pol. 56.3–4), which has been taken as a sign of its ‘lateness’, but one cannot help wondering why, no matter when it was introduced, it was not simply assigned to the King Archon; perhaps the introducer, perhaps Pisistratus himself, acted during an archonship and wanted to see to the initial ceremony himself. To talk of ‘policies’ in all these matters is to go far beyond what is known (as F. Kolb, ‘Die Bau-, Religions- und Kulturpolitik der Peisistratiden’ JDAI 92 [1977], 99–138; cf. A. Andrewes’ cautious approach in CAH III2.3 410ff.). What the Pisistratid family did may have been done largely in virtue of office and have thus prevented the people at large appreciating the tyrants’ roles.

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Early Greek Tyranny and the People (22) Cf. W. R. Connor, ‘Tribes, Festivals and Processions in Archaic Greece’ JHS 107 (1987), 46. Herodotus’ account (1.60.4f.) suggests that the Athenians were genuinely deceived, but Phye, strikingly tall and good-looking, must have been known of by a good number of members of her deme at least and Connor’s remark seems apposite: ‘The citizens are not naive bumpkins taken in by the leader’s manipulation but participants in a theatricality whose rules and roles they understand and enjoy.’It was alleged that Phye was given in marriage to Hipparchus (FGH 323 F 15). (23) I presume that all that the Ath. Pol. says of the establishment of the tyranny derives simply from Herodotus, but that its story of the disarming of the populace (15.4, 5) is a misuse of the story in Thuc. 6.58.2. Cf. P. J. Rhodes, Commentary ad 15.4 for differing views. (24) Cf. J. S. Boersma, Athenian Building Policy from 561/0 to 405/4 BC (Groningen, 1970), pp. 14ff. (25) There is one remarkable detail in the story of the expulsion of Hippias which one is at a loss to explain, viz. that he was given five days in which to clear out of Attica (Hdt. 5.65.2). The ostracisés were given ten days to settle up their legal business. Was Hippias given five days to finish his illegal business? Or just to pack his bags? And what were the important People doing this while? If the former tyrant was not all that noticeable when he was there, another five days would not matter perhaps. (26) 6.55.3, 56.2, 57.1 and 4, 58.2. (27) In Mytilene ‘clubs’ were used to cow rival aristocrats (Ar. Pol. 1311b28). (28) Plut. Solon 30.3. (29) Busolt-Swoboda, Griechische Staatskunde, pp. 979ff., V. Ehrenberg, The People of Aristophanes (1962 edition), p. 175. (30) The most inconvenient evidence might be thought to be Hdt. 1.64.1, where Pisistratus ‘having got Athens for the third time’ is said to have ‘established the tyranny with many mercenaries’ (ἐπίκονροι, a word he does not use elsewhere of the tyranny at Athens). But perhaps these mercenaries assumed a more regular role in the course of time. The exaltation of the tyrannicides began early; their statues were carried off by Xerxes (Paus. 1.8.5, Arr. Anab. 3.16.7). (31) Meiggs-Lewis, G.H.I.2 6 = Fornara 23. (32) G. Thirlwall, The History of Greece (1846 edition) II, pp. 486ff.

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Early Greek Tyranny and the People (33) Opinion has differed on the date of Cimon’s death. Cf. H. T. Wade-Gery, Essays in Greek History (Oxford, 1958), p. 158, who preferred 528/7, but if Herodotus had thought that Cimon won his third victory while Pisistratus was still alive and was murdered shortly after Pisistratus’ death, one would expect him to have made that plain at 6.103.3. If, however, Cimon was murdered in 524/3, it will have been very shortly after his son became archon, which would be improbable only if it was indeed Hippias who was responsible, which one doubts. (34) References to Solon’s poems are given for M. L. West (ed.), Iambi et Elegi Graeci (Oxford, 1972). (35) Thucydides (2.14.2) notes that ‘the majority were used ever to dwell in the country’. Aristotle (Pol. 1305a 19) remarks that in the period of the tyrannies the δῆμος lived ἐπὶ τῶν ἀγρῶν. (36) The very existence of a sixth-century wall has been denied, but the discussion of H. Lauter Bufé and H. Lauter, ‘Die vorthemistokleische Stadtmauer Athens nach philologischen und archäologischen Quellen’ Archäologischer Anzeiger (1975), 1–9 puts the case for such a wall convincingly. (37) It may be noted that since pottery was an urban industry, the ever greater spread of black-figure ware in the sixth century (cf. B. L. Bailey, ‘The Export of Attic Black- figure Ware’ JHS 60 [1940], 60–70) is suggestive, for presumably other urban industries were also increasing. (38) A. Andrewes, CAH III2 3, 387. (39) Solon’s measures touching the position of the humblest citizens in the constitution have been much debated, but, to judge by the ἀναρχία after Solon (Ath. Pol. 13), their effect was too slight to check the abuse of power by prominent individuals. (40) Ian Morris, Burial and Ancient Society (Cambridge, 1987), p. 196 states the view well. (41) J. Latacz, Kampfparänese, Kampfdarstellung und Kampfwirklichkeit in der Ilias, bei Kallinos und Tyrtaios (Munich, 1977). (42) Hdt. 6.56 recounts the γέρϵα of the Spartan kings but omits their ‘incomes’; Plato, Alcibiades, 122d–123a fills the gap, as too [Xenophon] Lac. Pol. 15.3. (43) Berve, Die Tyrannis bei den Griechen, p. 519 ‘nach seinen Sprachgebrauch sind mit πρόσοδοι die staatlichen Einkünfte gemeint’. But at Thuc. 1.4 the πρόσοδοι of Minos come to him not to the state. Cf. L.S.J, s.v. II for the use of the word to denote personal income in the Orators as well as in Plato, Laws, 847a (e.g. Andoc. 4.11 ἰδίας ἀπò τῶν κοινῶν προσόδους κατϵσκϵνάσατο, Aesch. Page 18 of 19

Early Greek Tyranny and the People 3.173 τòν βίον οὐκ ἐκ τῶν ἰδίων προσόδων πορίζϵται …). The word used in Hdt. 1.64.1 for Pisistratus’ income is σὺνοδοι. (44) It is easy to belittle this. Cf. Rosalind Thomas, Oral Tradition and Written Record in Classical Athens (Cambridge, 1989), p. 3, ‘oral tradition provided most Greeks with a knowledge of their history’. But Thucydides was on his guard against τò μὺθῶδϵς (1.21.1, 22.4). (45) He refers to ‘the poets’ six times in the Archaeology. (46) For the date, cf. J. K. Davies, Athenian Propertied Families (Oxford, 1971), p. 371. (47) Cf. lines 523ff. (48) Bullion presumably, so early in the sixth century, if he really did give a talent of silver. Perhaps this detail should warn against taking the story literally. (49) Considering that there is no agreement even about the date of Pheidon (cf. Berve, Die Tyrannis bei den Griechen, p. 518), the part he plays in so many discussions about the rise of tyranny is surely his most notable achievement. (50) He gave his name to a type of oil can. Cf. L.S.J., s.v. Φϵίδων. (51) Cf. J. Salmon, ‘Political Hoplites?’, JHS 97 (1977), 84–101, esp. 97 and 100f. (52) Cf. F. Jacoby, FGH IIc, p. 248 ad F 57. (53) Cf. Aristotle, frag. 610 (1556a9ff.) from Diogenes Laertius 1.98. (54) Cf. Salmon, ‘Political Hoplites?’, 97 ‘it is perhaps worth noting that Cypselus found it unnecessary to maintain a bodyguard when he achieved power; that makes it as good as certain that he could rely on hoplite support, which in turn makes it more than likely that they had given him help in the revolution itself.

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Sparta and Her Allies in the Sixth Century

Cyrene to Chaeronea: Selected Essays on Ancient Greek History George Cawkwell

Print publication date: 2011 Print ISBN-13: 9780199593286 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199593286.001.0001

Sparta and Her Allies in the Sixth Century George Cawkwell

DOI:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199593286.003.0004

Abstract and Keywords This chapter examines accounts of Sparta and its allies in the sixth century. Among these is Thucydides's account in History about the Peloponnesian League and the decision of Spartans and allies that Athens had broken the Thirty Years' Peace. It argues that there is no reason to think that the sort of League encountered in Thucydides was in existence during the Persian Wars or indeed before the early part of the First Peloponnesian War. The Persian invasion, however, forced Spartans, the Peloponnesians, and the Greeks to face the possibility of war far away from their home bases. The Hellenic League was the result — an instrument that served Sparta's purposes well enough and enabled her to call on Athenians as well as Aeginetans to help quell the Messenian Revolt of the late 460s. Keywords:   Sparta, Sparta's allies, Thucydides, Peloponnesian League, Athens, Thirty Years' Peace, Hellenic League

In the first book of his History Thucydides shows ‘the Spartans and the Allies’, to give the Peloponnesian League its formal title,1 making the decision that Athens had broken the Thirty Years’ Peace. After receiving the complaints of various allies, the Spartans discussed in the assembly the conduct of Athens and what should be done about it (ch. 67ff.) and ended by voting that the treaty had been broken and that the Athenians were in the wrong (ch. 87). This decision they communicated to the allies who had come complaining, and declared that they wished to summon all the allies and submit it to the vote, ‘in order that after general consultation (κοινῇ βονλϵυσάμϵνοι) they might make war, should it so seem good’ (87.3 and 4). Then, after the Excursus on the Pentekontaetia, Page 1 of 19

Sparta and Her Allies in the Sixth Century Thucydides records the congress of the League in which the Spartans put to the vote whether it was necessary to go to war and the majority voted for war (119– 125). Thus Sparta proposed and the allies disposed. This bicameral procedure is plain also in the case of the appeal of the Mytileneans in 428.2 Elsewhere it is to be presumed (despite the (p.55) confusing accounts in Xenophon of the Acanthian appeal in 382 and of the making of peace in 372/1).3 In any case it would seem that whenever Sparta embarked on a war outside the Peloponnese which was not occasioned by the need to defend one of her allies,4 or whenever she brought such a war to an end, the allies shared both in decisions and in operations. The Peace of Nicias is the obvious example.5 The truce of 423 would seem to be another,6 as is the peace with Athens in 404 and the war in Asia begun in 396 and the renewal of the King’s Peace in 372/1.7 Where the allied share is not attested, it may none the less have happened. When Sparta resumed the war against Athens in 413, Thucydides makes little of the formalities of the resumption of the war, but since it involved the allies both in invasion of Attica and in preparations for the fortification of Decelea there may well have been a formal decision of the League Assembly.8 Only in Sparta’s appeal for peace in 425 is it clear that Sparta’s allies (p.56) had no part, but that is readily understood; Sparta was going behind her allies’ backs and betraying the cause she had professed to serve (cf. Thuc. 4.22.3), a measure of the disaster that would result if two hundred or so Spartiates were to be lost. For the rest, consultation with the allies over the beginning and the ending of ‘external’ wars was, it may be posited, regular.9 This was an essential part of ‘thinking the same people friends and enemies’, which was the customary Greek term for full alliance (συμμαχία) as opposed to defensive alliance (ἐπιμαχία), a distinction explicit in Thucydides’ account of the outcome of the Corcyra debate (1.44.1),10 and the term is used in Xenophon for accession to the Peloponnesian League (2.ii.20, 5.iii.26). It is also to be found in the (mysterious) Spartan treaty with the Aetolian Erxadieis, the date of which should probably be set after the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War in 431 BC.11 But there is, for the present discussion, an important further point to be remarked. Not only does there seem regularly to have been this common deciding by Sparta and her allies, before the allies were involved in ‘external’ wars, but also Sparta never engaged on such wars in this period without the participation of the allies. This latter point is obvious, but it may not be entirely otiose to spell it out. Leaving aside the Peloponnesian War, where no words need be wasted, one notes that there were Peloponnesians in the force that went with Thibron in 399 to Asia to defend the Greek cities (Xen. Hell. 3.i.3f.), as too in the army of Agesilaus in 396 (ibid. 3.iv.2) which set out with the larger purpose of campaigning against the Persian Empire (cf. στρατϵύϵσθαι ϵἰς τὴν Ἀσίαν). Page 2 of 19

Sparta and Her Allies in the Sixth Century Likewise the Peloponnesian (p.57) allies were involved at the outset in the Corinthian War (ibid. 4.ii.9).12 In the period of the full-blown League, Sparta did not fight alone. One other feature is worth remarking. When a member of her alliance was attacked by an outside state, Sparta did not call a meeting of the assembly to consider the rights and wrongs of the case. If she herself thought action was necessary, she proceeded without delay and summoned the allies to join in the campaign, as can be seen in the way Sparta acted in support of Phocis in 395 (Xen. Hell. 3.v.5–7). Similarly, when in 389 the Achaeans called on Sparta to defend them against the Acarnanians, the Spartans were at first (and understandably) reluctant, but when the Achaeans threatened to break off their alliance, Sparta accepted that a campaign was inevitable and Agesilaus marched out at the head of a League army; the allies do not seem to have had a chance to discuss the lightness of the Spartan decision (Xen. Hell. 4.vi.1–3). In the case of Spartan help for Epidaurus in 419, the significance of Thucydides’ account (5.54.1f.) has been disputed;13 the Spartan army did not move outside Spartan territory and it is unclear whether ‘the cities from which the army was sent out’ were the Spartan Perioecic towns or the allied states, but if they were, oddly, the Perioecic towns, the army might well have been joined outside Spartan territory by allied contingents as it was to be when the sacred Karneian month had passed;14 there was no question of allied debate; an ally was under attack, and Sparta without delay was sending an army to help. So much for attack from outside, but it must be added that Sparta acted promptly to deal with revolution within cities, to judge at any rate by what happened with Athens in 403. Accepting the flimsy claim that the Athenian people (ὁ δῆμος) had revolted from the Spartans, they proceeded with a League army to deal with the situation (Xen. Hell. 2.iv.28–30). There was no debate among the allies about the matter. The Corinthians and the Boeotians showed what they thought of it by refusing to join in the campaign, (p.58) but the rest sheepishly took part. When the Spartans found fault with the Boeotians, it was for their having persuaded the Corinthians in 403 (Xen. Hell. 3.v.5) but there was no suggestion that this was in a congress. In such cases the hegemon acted and the allies followed without debate. Much about the Peloponnesian League in the period of the Peloponnesian War is odd, much obscure. One may be at fault in generalizing from so little evidence, but it is clear enough that there was an established system. We know of one decree of the Assembly that came into force in 382 (Xen. Hell. 5.ii.21), and of a reorganization of the army in 378 (Diod. 15.31), and plainly the system developed. But equally plainly there was a system, as Thucydides’ account of the confusion in the Peloponnese after the refusal of four of the allied states to accept and observe the Peace of Nicias shows. There is reference to ‘the old oaths’ (οἱ παλαιοὶ ὅρκοι) which contained a clause making decisions of a majority of the allies binding on all unless there was some matter of religion Page 3 of 19

Sparta and Her Allies in the Sixth Century preventing (5.30). Furthermore it is to be suspected that the oaths were enshrined in a document. Quite apart from the general consideration that the only way to avoid contentious disagreement over what had been long ago sworn was to have it all in writing, it is to be noted that Thucydides in citing the clause just mentioned says ‘it is stated’ (ϵἰρημένον), the word he uses to cite clauses of the Thirty Years’ Peace between Athens and Sparta.15 But no matter whether there was a document. There was in some form a constitution. When and how did it arise? The view is fashionable that it arose in the late sixth century.16 In 506 King Cleomenes ‘collected an army from the Peloponnese without declaring what his purpose was’ but when he reached the plain of Eleusis the Corinthians refused to go on as then did the rest (Hdt. 5.74f.); when, shortly after, Sparta wanted to have Hippias restored to Athens, there was an assembly of the allies at which the Spartan proposal was rejected (ibid. 5.91, 93.2); the settling of the constitution of the Peloponnesian League is therefore posited in the interim, the occasion of ‘the old oaths’ spoken of by Thucydides. (p.59) This hypothesis is weak. When Herodotus stated that Cleomenes did not declare what his purpose was (οὐ ϕράζων ἐς τò συλλέγϵι), he went on to say what his secret intention really was, viz. to take vengeance on the demos of the Athenians and to establish Isagoras as tyrant (5.74.1). Such is unlikely to have been his actual intention.17 Presumably he intervened in Athens to quell what was deemed disorder and to restore the order he had established in 510, and of that those who marched under his command will have been well aware. It is absurd to treat a statement of Herodotus that reflected the hostile bias of his informants against Cleomenes as proof that the Spartans were simply ordering Peloponnesians hither and yon in a quite irresponsible fashion. Indeed when the Corinthians make their protest (ch. 75.1) words are used which are consistent with there being a recognized system of some sort. They do not reason amongst themselves that they are not acting justly, but rather that they are not doing ‘the just things’ (τὰ δίκαια) and that definite article is consistent with there being acts that could justly be required of them. So the proof of a great change of direction in Sparta’s relations with her allies in the late sixth century is hollow. In any case, whatever is said of Sparta and her allies before the Persian invasion of 480, there is one striking difference from the League we meet in Thucydides and Xenophon. Sparta always fights ‘external’ wars without the support of her allies, and this is true both before and after 506. Sparta allied with Croesus of Lydia (Hdt. 1.69) and prepared to answer the call for help (ch. 83), but the allies did not come into it just as they did not at the Battle of the Champions against Argos at much the same moment (ch. 82). It is true that the Corinthians transported the Spartan force that went to deal with Polycrates of Samos, but according to Herodotus they had special and private reasons for doing so18 and it was Spartans and only Spartans who did the fighting (Hdt. 3.48.1, 54ff.). Only Page 4 of 19

Sparta and Her Allies in the Sixth Century Spartans took part in the two expeditions to expel Hippias (ibid. 5.63f., cf. 76). The attack on Argos in the Sepeia campaign involved Spartans only (ibid. 6.76ff.). Again, they were transported by sea, this time by (p.60) the Aeginetans, but only because they were compelled, not because they were allies (ibid. 6.92). Finally, it was Spartans without allies who went to Marathon in 490 (ibid. 6.120). The one exception is that of 506, when Cleomenes ‘brought the Peloponnesians’ (ibid. 5.76) but if it is true as seems to me very likely, that Athens became an ally of Sparta when Hippias was expelled, this was an internal affair.19 There is no trace of full symmachy in the relations of Sparta and the states of the Peloponnese before the Persian invasion. If there is alliance, it is no more than epimachy, mutual defence. It is a false presumption that the League as it is seen in Thucydides existed in the sixth century. The assembly that debated the restoration of Hippias is similar to that in the first book of Thucydides, but whether it is an instance of what happened frequently enough though evidence is lacking or whether it is a freak and unique occurrence in the early period which became the model for the League in the fifth century needs to be discussed, but only after we have returned to the start of Sparta’s policy of alliance rather than conquest. When Croesus in search of allies in the coming struggle with Persia enquired which was the most powerful state in Greece, he was told Sparta; the Athenians were kept in subjection and division by Pisistratus who had just begun on his third period of tyranny, but Sparta was already in a strong state ‘being already superior to the Tegeates in the war’ (ἐóντας ἤδη τῷ πολέμῳ κατυπϵρτέρους Tϵγϵητέων—Hdt. 1.65.1); previously Sparta had repeatedly failed (προσέπταιον 1.65.1, αἰϵὶ κακῶς ἀέθλϵον 67.1) against the Tegeates, though she had clearly intended to treat Tegea as she had treated Messenia, fettering the inhabitants and making allotments of the land for themselves (1.66.4), but in the time of Croesus and in the reigns of Ariston and Anaxandridas the Spartans brought home the Bones of Orestes, and ’ from then on whenever they tried each other the Spartans were much superior in the war (κατυπέρτϵροι τῷ πολέμῳ 1.68.6) and already the majority of the Peloponnese had been subjected by them (ἡ πολλὴ τῆς Πϵλοποννήσου ἦν κατϵστραμμένη)’. The period is clear, the 550s.20 The significance of the Bones is debatable. The fact of subjection is plain. In some way many of the states of the Peloponnese are within Sparta’s power. It is also clear (p.61) that Tegea has not yet settled with Sparta; there had been the earlier war (τòν πρότϵρον πόλϵμον 1.67.1) in which Sparta had fared badly and the Bones were taken in a period of peaceful relations (ἐπιμϵιξίη 1.68.1), but the war went on. Whenever they tried each other the Spartans were much superior in the war, but despite the continuing conflict with Tegea Sparta had greatly extended her power and influence. Such at any rate is the account of Herodotus.21ef>

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Sparta and Her Allies in the Sixth Century Historians have reversed the order of events somewhat. A treaty of Sparta with Tegea has been held to prelude the extension of Spartan power, presumably because of Tegea’s geographical position. But the road through Tegean territory was not the only route northwards,22 and such a reason for reordering Herodotus is not strong. The war against Tegea went on, but there were periods of truce when Sparta could pursue other affairs, and by a different route. What ought never to have been dragged into the discussion is the treaty between Sparta and Tegea, one clause of which is cited in Plutarch’s Greek Questions (no. 5 = Mor. 292b). Who were the ‘good’ (χρηστοί) among the Arcadians and the Spartans? The Spartans, on settling with the Tegeans, made a treaty and set up a pillar for both parties on the Alpheus river, in which was included the clause: Let them expel Messenians from the land and let it not be permitted to treat them as ‘good’. (Plutarch adds Aristotle’s explanation of the term, which has generally been rejected as erroneous).23 This treaty has often been dated ‘around 550’ but while certainty is impossible, one can say with confidence that such a date has nothing to commend it.24 It is commonly thought that ‘Spartan policy throughout the sixth century was dominated by the fear of a Messenian or Helot revolt being instigated by one or more of her neighbours’.25 The only precise evidence for this is this treaty. For the rest, every action of Sparta suggests that she had not yet become taken up with the Helot (p.62) problem. She actually prepared to send a force to Asia to help Croesus in his need (Hdt. 1.83); there is no suggestion of reluctance to leave Sparta unprotected against the Helot menace as is constantly seen in the fifth century and later. Similarly a Spartan army was sent to Samos, large enough to attempt a siege of the city (Hdt. 3.56.1); no mention is made of Helots but even if there had been on this expedition seven for every Spartiate, as Herodotus asserts there were at Plataea in 479 (9.28.2), it is still remarkable that the city was left so long exposed. The truth may well be that after the savage repression of the Messenian Revolt in the seventh century, in the sixth the Helots were quiescent, and it was not until 490 and the first invasion by the Persians that thoughts of revolt took hold, but that from that mysterious and abortive uprising onwards they were a constant check on Sparta’s freedom of military action. When Thucydides remarked that ‘the majority of Spartan institutions with regard to the Helots have always been concerned principally with defence’ (4.80),26 that ‘always’ may not be an exaggeration, but it can hardly be denied that the Helots were a problem after 490 as they had not been before and there is no specific evidence that Sparta was much concerned in the sixth century. The institutions Thucydides had in mind may well have been ancient,27 but in the sixth century the miserable oppressed Helots did not raise their heads or even perhaps nourish hopes. When Croesus inquired about the power of Sparta he was not told that there was a Page 6 of 19

Sparta and Her Allies in the Sixth Century fatal weakness, the danger of a Helot uprising. Maiandrios of Samos and Aristagoras of Miletus seem unaware of it (Hdt. 3.148, 5.49ff. ). Perhaps it is Herodotus who was ignorant, but until other evidence emerges, the sixth century is a very unlikely context for the Spartan Tegean treaty. The treaty is much more likely to belong after the Messenian Revolt in 49028 and before the mid 460s, when Micythos, the slave of the tyrant Anaxilas, and himself later regent of Rhegium, returned to the Peloponnese. He resided in Tegea and made his famous (p.63) offerings at Olympia, on which he described himself as a ‘Messenian living in Tegea’, a boast which flaunted his flouting of the clause of the Spartan Tegean treaty.29 Within these limits there are two reconciliations between Sparta and Tegea, one after the battle of Tegea in the early Pentekontaetia and one in the 480s. Either would be a satisfactory occasion for our treaty.30 The date of ‘around 550’ should be abandoned. It is both unlikely and muddling. We simply do not know when first Tegea allied with Sparta. The claim the Tegeans are represented by Herodotus (9.26.2) as making before the battle of Plataea, viz. that ‘in all general expeditions made by the Peloponnesians both in ancient and in modern times’ the Tegeans have been deemed worthy of the position on the left wing of the army, might suggest that Tegea was allied by 506, the date of the only ‘general expedition’ we know of in the sixth century. But that hardly tells us much.31 Nor is it sound to argue that Tegea must have been dealt with for Sparta to fight the Battle of the Champions (Hdt. 1.82) and take over Thyreatis; there was another route from Sparta to that area (viz. by way of Ayios Petros to Astros). All we can assert is that though the war with Tegea remained unsettled, ‘the major part of the Peloponnese was already subjected’ (ibid. 1.68.6). If then in the sixth century there was no full alliance (συμμαχία) of the sort we meet in the pages of Thucydides, and if there is no real case for supposing an important development in 506 in the relations of Sparta and other Peloponnesian states, but if by the time of Croesus’ inquiry the major part of the Peloponnese was already (p.64) subjected to Sparta, of what kind was this subjection? Herodotus makes clear that when Sparta brought home the Bones of Orestes, she abandoned her policy of conquest. The days of trying to get Arcadia in general and Tegea in particular into the same conditions as Messenia were past. What then was the new order? The bringing home of the Bones of Orestes is a pleasing story in Herodotus (1.67f.). What is behind it historically speaking is somewhat uncertain. No doubt some change of policy is symbolized, just as it was in Sicyon where Clisthenes, to express hostility to Argos, sought to discredit the cult of the Argive hero Adrastus; when he was forbidden by the Delphic oracle to ‘expel Adrastus’ (whatever that was thought to involve), he ‘imported’ from Thebes Page 7 of 19

Sparta and Her Allies in the Sixth Century Adrastus’ bitter foe, Melanippus, and transferred to him cult previously paid to Adrastus (Hdt. 5.67).32 In the case of Sparta the last line of the oracle telling where the Bones of Orestes were to be found (1.67.4) shows that the transfer of the Bones had a political significance: ‘when you have brought him back you will be protector (ἐπıτáρροθος) of Tegea’.33 Nor was the change of policy confined to Tegea. The Bones of Tisamenus, the son of Orestes, also were at some point transferred from Helice in Achaea to Sparta and placed in a tomb there (Paus. 7.1.8). There is no indication of date, but it is reasonable to regard the two cases as related, manifestations of the same wideranging policy. After all, in Herodotus’ account the effect of the bringing home of the Bones concerned the major part of the Peloponnese. But what exactly was the change? Sparta could affect friendship for the preDorian peoples of the Peloponnese, claiming Agamemnon as a Spartan (Hdt. 7.159), their king Cleomenes, admittedly not at a loss for a pert reply, declaring himself ‘Achaean’ (Hdt. 5.72.3).34 So in (p.65) some sense Spartan policy was now Philachaean. But Herodotus’ word for the condition of these new friends was ‘subjected’ (κατϵστραμμένη), and this has perhaps contributed to the view that before the Spartans were forced in 506 to establish a regular constitution for the Peloponnesian League her allies were simply obliged to ‘follow wherever the Spartans led’.35 There is, as already argued, no warrant whatsoever for this view of what happened in 506, but Herodotus’ word ‘subjected’ must be explained and the nature of the new friendships elucidated. That elucidation is provided by Sparta’s suppression of tyrannies. Whether Sparta ever had a policy of suppressing tyrannies has often been doubted.36 The list of places where she is said to have intervened is hardly impressive. Most of them are too remote from Sparta to be acceptable, and those cases we know of from Herodotus may be explained as due to special reasons.37 On the other hand, both our main sources are clear. Where Thucydides in his discussion of early Greek history asserted that the majority (οἱ πλϵῖστοι) of the tyrants were put down by the Spartans (1.18.1), he knew, we may presume, what he was talking about. So there must have been a good many more cases of Spartan intervention than we are informed of. Herodotus is even more striking. When he composed a speech for the Corinthian representative at the assembly called to decide on the restoration of Hippias, he made him begin (5.92α 1) ‘Heaven is beneath the earth, and the earth is high above the heaven, and men (p.66) have their habitation in the sea and fishes where formerly men, when you, O Spartans, put down peerages (ἰσοκρατίας) and prepare to restore tyrannies to the cities’ (τυραννίδας ἐς τὰς πόλις κατάγϵιν). The presumption is that Sparta regularly put down tyrannies and restored peerages, by which one supposes he means aristocracies like the Spartan ‘Equals’ (ὅμοιοι). Of course, Herodotus may be wrong. Thucydides may not have as accurately informed himself as one thinks he regularly did. But what is there to be put against this concord of our two main, and our two earliest sources? It need not surprise us that later writers Page 8 of 19

Sparta and Her Allies in the Sixth Century should name so few and such unlikely names at that. The history of most cities in the Archaic period was probably never written down,38 and the sort of disorders occasioned by Clisthenes at Athens which Sparta moved promptly to prevent, may well have gone totally unheeded by history in smaller states.39 Herodotus and Thucydides knew about Spartan actions, but since it was not their business to record them, they were forgotten. But the two fifth-century historians knew what they were talking about, and it would be wrong to dismiss them. Their testimony suffices to show that Sparta had a policy of suppressing tyrants. The great exception, viz. the proposal to restore Hippias, was due to Sparta’s discovery that her whole unhappy attempt to control Athens had proceeded from (p.67) corrupted oracles (or at least that was what was said to have been discovered).40 For the rest, their practice and perhaps principle was to expel tyrants and restore exiled aristocrats. It would follow naturally on such actions that the new order was sealed with an exchange of oaths, guaranteeing support, and it may be posited that the sixthcentury form of the Peloponnesian League was essentially a series of defensive alliances (ἐπιμαχίαι as they were later called), not a by-product of or an extra to treaties of friendship but the core of friendship. Thus the pattern was set.41 At least it is conceded that the suppression of tyrants fell in the very period when, according to Herodotus, by bringing home the Bones of Orestes Sparta had extended her power and influence over much of the Peloponnese; it was during the reigns of Ariston and Anaxandridas, who cannot be precisely dated, but who seem each to have acceded not long before 550, and if we may trust the connection made by the Rylands Papyrus 18, it was in the Ephorate of Chilon in 556/542 that he and Anaxandridas set about the expulsion of tyrants, thus putting Sparta in the strong position in which Croesus learned that she was. But if the origin of the Peloponnesian League was no more than a set of defensive alliances between friends, how could Herodotus, it will be asked, have described such amiable relations as subjection?43 Indeed it has been held that the original condition of the member states was a one-sided obligation ‘to follow wherever the Lacedaemonians lead’, though the reason why states should put themselves in such a condition is unstated.44 So Herodotus’ view here needs explanation. The nature of the Peloponnesian League is well illuminated by what Xenophon has to say about the settlement of Mantinea in 385 (Hell. 5.ii.7). This has been discussed at some length elsewhere,45 and a brief summary will here suffice. In one sense the later Peloponnesian League was an ugly bargain. In return for military service Sparta (p.68) guaranteed landed aristocracies against the social changes inevitable with large urban populations led by demagogues. In preventing urbanization Sparta held down the mass of people in the Peloponnese, and that is why Thucydides (1.19) spoke of the Spartans ‘maintaining the hegemony by seeing to it that their allies under oligarchy follow Page 9 of 19

Sparta and Her Allies in the Sixth Century policies that suit only the Spartans’. Elsewhere (1.144.2) he makes Pericles speak of the hollowness of Spartan professions of according their allies autonomy, and Herodotus reflects a similar Athenian view when he speaks of much of the Peloponnese being ‘subjected’. That was not literally so, even in the fully fledged League.46 In the sixth century obligations were minimal, and the prevention of social development probably little felt, and the cities in that period could only be termed ‘subject’ by a stretch of the fifth-century imagination. If it is correct that in the sixth century the League was no more than a set of defensive alliances, it is necessary to explain both how in 506 Sparta called up ‘an army from the whole Peloponnese’, and also how an Assembly of allies came about not long afterwards (Hdt. 5.74, 91.2). There is no evidence which one can deploy in such discussions. One can only suggest answers. There is no reason to suppose that when Hippias was expelled and those aristocrats who had been exiled returned to share in the restored ancestral constitution, the constitution of Solon, there was not an exchange of the oaths made in other similar situations.47 Now if those oaths contained a clause similar to that which is found in the Argive–Spartan treaty of 418/17, stipulating ‘autonomy according to ancestral right’ (αὐτονόμως … καττὰ πάτρια, Thuc. 5.77.5; cf. 5.79.1), the actions of Clisthenes would have been deemed a threat to Athenian aristocracy. That would be why a herald was sent to Athens ordering Clisthenes and his supporters to withdraw (Hdt. 5.70.2), and Cleomenes followed up in person with a small band to see that Isagoras and his supporters were restored to power (ibid. 5.72.1). The expedition which followed (ibid. 5.74), the real aim of which was, it may be presumed, to restore Isagoras to what he had been expelled from,48 (p.69) was just to secure by military means what Sparta had failed to secure by political pressure. But why did ‘the army from the whole Peloponnese’ (ibid. 5.74.1) obey the callup? The common view is that the Peloponnesians simply did what they were ordered and that the Corinthian refusal to engage in battle on the plain of Eleusis (ibid. 5.75) was the first check to arbitrary despotism.49 It is, however, to be noted that King Demaratus, who shared the command with Cleomenes and had been up till that moment in concord with him, sided with the Corinthians. The revolt was against Cleomenes, not against Sparta. Indeed, as already remarked, the grounds of the Corinthian objection suggest that there were things that they could be legally obliged to do. In the full-blown Peloponnesian League, in the case of military action within the League, as already remarked, there was no debate.50 Without further ado Sparta called up the members of the League and proceeded to do what was necessary. That is precisely what was happening in 506, and the explanation I would propose is that this sort of situation was provided for in the oaths of the sixthcentury League as well as in the oath of the fifth. That is, there was not only a Page 10 of 19

Sparta and Her Allies in the Sixth Century guarantee of autonomy within the ancestral constitution, but also an undertaking to defend it in all the states that were ‘friends’ of Sparta.51 Proof is not possible. Nor is disproof. The hypothesis does, however, explain why the allies were involved in 506 but not in 510 (ibid. 5.64). Such an exchange of oaths guaranteeing mutual defence was sufficient. There was neither need nor room for a synod. What then is to be made of the meeting recorded in Herodotus (5.91–3) at which the Spartan plan to restore Hippias to Athens was debated and rejected? If it is right to suppose that the sixth-century oaths contained a clause whereby ‘friends’ of Sparta were guaranteed ‘autonomy under their ancestral constitution’, the restoration of Hippias was a monstrous inconsistency. On the plain of Eleusis the Corinthians had jibbed at the mere slanderous suggestion of Isagoras being reinstalled at Athens as tyrant. Now the Spartan state was formally proposing to put the clock back to the period before 510, and saw that special (p.70) means had to be found to achieve their purpose. So the Assembly was called, unique in the history of the early League. But when the Peloponnesian League we meet in Thucydides was organized, a League based no longer on mere defensive alliances, and so requiring a method of deciding whom to attack and when to make peace, this solitary occasion provided the precedent. When then was the full Peloponnesian League organized? When were ‘the old oaths’ sworn to which the Corinthians made appeal in 421 (Thuc. 5.30)? ‘Old’ (παλαιοί) inclines one to think of a date as far back as the sixth century, and it is worth remarking that the word had a somewhat different flavour for Thucydides. He used it for Athens’ alliance with Thessaly of the late 460s when he was recording the events of 431 (2.22, 1.102.4), as also for Athens’ alliance with Leontini when that city appealed for help in 427 (3.86.3), an alliance commonly supposed to belong to the mid 440s. He can even, when speaking of the events of 418/17, refer to Sparta’s ‘old oaths’ (παλαιοὶ ὅρκοι) with the Chalcidians of Thrace (5.80.2); the Chalcidian state did not exist until 432. So when he has the Corinthians appeal to ‘the old oaths’, he may not be thinking of events of more than thirty to forty years past. It is indeed in the early years of the First Peloponnesian War that I suggest the creation of the full symmachic League which we meet in Thucydides should be set. The proper title of the Peloponnesian League, ‘the Spartans and their allies’, is not met in Thucydides’ account of the Pentekontaetia until he records the result of the battle of Tanagra (1.108.1), and the ten thousand hoplites of the allies (1.107.2) that were engaged were clearly League forces. After that, the next mention of the title is in reference to the making of the Thirty Years’ Peace (1.115.1). Of course Thucydides commonly used ‘the Peloponnesians’ when he refers to the League, but again that word does not occur in his account of the Pentekontaetia until he describes the operations at the start of the First Page 11 of 19

Sparta and Her Allies in the Sixth Century Peloponnesian War (1.105.1, 3), save in a reference to the whole period (1.97.1). Thereafter it is common. The Great King hoped, it is said (1.109.2), to persuade ‘the Peloponnesians’ to invade Attica. The five years’ truce of 451 was made between ‘the Peloponnesians’ and the Athenians (1.112.1), and so on. On the other hand, neither term occurs at points in the narrative where one would expect it, if the later full-blown symmachy was in existence in 478 BC. The Spartan decision to withdraw from the war (p.71) against the Persians (1.95.7) appears to have concerned the allies not at all. When the Thasians called on the Spartans to invade Attica and so distract the Athenians from crushing the revolt, Sparta promised and intended to do so (1.101.1, 2); there is no mention of consulting the allies. The First Peloponnesian War began with a battle against the Corinthians and Epidaurians (1.105.1); there is no mention of how it began or who began it, although if there had been the later symmachy one would have expected something like the events of 432/1. But after this battle (how much after, Thucydides’ manner does not allow us to know) there was a sea battle between the Athenians and ‘ships of the Peloponnesians’ (1.105.1), and thereafter the League would seem to be engaged.52 I posit therefore that ‘the old oaths’ were sworn, that the fully symmachic League was born, between the land and the sea battle. It may be objected that the thesis is vitiated by the fact that before the First Peloponnesian War began the Megarians ‘revolted from the Spartans’ and went over to Athens (1.103.4). They may, however, like the Athenians shortly before (1.102.4), have been abandoning the Hellenic League against Persia; equally, it may have been the sixthcentury defensive alliance they were leaving; their reason for doing so was that they were at war with Corinth over boundaries; perhaps they considered Sparta had failed them when they needed defending. It is a more serious question whether the symmachic version of the League appears during the Persian invasion. The term ‘Peloponnesians’ occurs nearly thirty times in Herodotus and, like Thucydides, he twice uses it to refer to Athens’ opponents in the Peloponnesian War (7.137.1, 9.73.3). Likewise the term, ‘the Spartans and the allies’, is found once (8.142.4).53 So one may well ask whether the full symmachic League was already in existence. (p.72) An answer is likely to be to some degree indecisive. Sparta was head of the Hellenic League against Persia formed in 481, and Spartans commanded both Hellenic fleets and armies, and the presence of Peloponnesians in fleet or army may be variously explained. At moments when Herodotus uses the term, one has to wonder whether he is referring to the Peloponnesian League, but caution is advisable. When, for example, he records the debate after the battle of Mycale concerning the future of Ionia, he speaks of the Peloponnesians opposing the idea of leaving the Ionians in Ionia, as if that was their corporate opinion (9.106.3) and later he speaks of ‘the Peloponnesians with Leutychidas’ (οἱ ἀμϕὶ Page 12 of 19

Sparta and Her Allies in the Sixth Century Λϵυτυχίδην Πϵλοποννήσιοι) deciding to sail back to Greece from the Hellespont (9.114.2). Quite apart from the improbability of a debate amongst the generals where the generals of contingents from Peloponnesian states expressed a corporate view, the manner in which Thucydides records the departure of Leutychidas ‘with the allies from the Peloponnese’ (ἔχων τοὺς ἀπò Πϵλοππονήσου ξυμμάχους) leaving ‘the Athenians and the allies from Ionia and the Hellespont’ strongly suggests a division of the Hellenic alliance, not the withdrawal of the Peloponnesian League (1.89.2). Herodotus seems to have been at pains to emphasize the fixation of Peloponnesian minds with the security of the Peloponnese and their unadventurous notions about how and where to fight the war; Peloponnesians were reluctant to fight at Salamis (8.75.1, 79.4), were obsessed with the wall across the Isthmus (9.8.1), and displayed great reluctance to fight north of it (8.40.2). But he is speaking of a geographical area, not of a League, as is shown by his account of which Peloponnesian peoples ‘lent military aid and feared for Greece in its hour of danger’ (8.72). ‘The rest of the Peloponnesians’, he adds, ‘cared not at all.’ Clearly this is not the Peloponnesian League, and his account of the Peloponnesians coming north in 479 makes it even plainer. ‘The Spartans’, he says (9.19.1), ‘came to the Isthmus … and the rest of the Peloponnesians who chose the better side, learning this and seeing the Spartiates going forth, did not see fit to stay behind from the expedition’. Herodotus may mislead us, but as it stands his account is utterly remote from what we hear in Thucydides and Xenophon of the Peloponnesian League going on campaign. There is only one passage that gives one pause. At 8.142.4 in the speech of the Spartan embassy seeking to dissuade Athens from coming to terms with the Persians, a promise to look after Athenian womenfolk and those who could not fight is delivered in the name of ‘both the (p.73) Spartans and the allies’ (Λακϵδαιμόνιοί τϵ καὶ οἱ σύμμαχοι) which but for the intrusive particle would be the official title of the League in Herodotus’ day; it would nonetheless suit perfectly as a description of the other members of the Hellenic League.54 I conclude therefore that there is no reason to think that the sort of League we encounter in Thucydides was in existence during the Persian Wars or indeed before the early part of the First Peloponnesian War. The sixth-century defensive alliance had been adequate in a world dominated by petty border disputes and trivial ‘local difficulties’ caused by petty political strife.55 The Persian invasion changed all that: Sparta, the Peloponnesians both allied and not allied, and the Greeks generally had to face the possibility of war far away from their home bases. The Hellenic League was the result, an instrument that served Sparta’s purposes well enough and enabled her to call on Athenians as well as Aeginetans (and possibly others of whom we happen not to be informed) to help quell the Messenian Revolt of the late 460s (Thuc. 1.102.4, 4.56.2).56 When Athens abandoned the League, allied with Argos, and began to talk peace with Persia, and Megara went over to Athens (ibid. 1.102.4–103.4), Sparta needed a new instrument of power, a need shortly underlined by the opening hostilities of what Page 13 of 19

Sparta and Her Allies in the Sixth Century we term the First Peloponnesian War. The full symmachic League of the age of Thucydides was the result. τοιόνδ’ ἀπέβη τόδϵ πρᾶγμα. Notes:

(1) U. Kahrstedt. Griechisches Staatsrecht I (1922), pp. 81–118, 267–72, and G. Busolt and H. Swoboda, Griechische Staatskunde II (1926), pp. 1320–37 are the principal standard accounts. H. Schaefer, Staatsform und Politik (1932), pp. 200– 11 is of especial importance. K. Wickert, Der peloponnesische Bund von seiner Entstehung bis zum Ende des archidamischen Krieges (1961) surveys the history of the League to 421. J. A. O. Larsen, Class. Phil. 28 (1933), pp. 257–76, and 29 (1934), pp. 1–19 gives the evidence for and discusses the League in the age of Thucydides. G. E. M. de Ste Croix, The Origins of the Peloponnesian War (1972), pp. 101–24 and 333–46 is the most notable modern account. (2) Thuc. 3.4.5f., 15.1. The Mytilenean envoys address their speech to ‘Spartans and allies’ (9.1) but since it was delivered at Olympia (8.1) the Spartans addressed must be representatives at the League Assembly. Thucydides does not say explicitly that the Spartan Assembly voted for alliance and therefore war, but it must have done so and indeed one would suppose that some warning would have been given to the allies as to what their representatives should expect; presumably such major business was not normal at the Olympic festival. (3) Xenophon makes it seem that the envoys from Acanthus and Apollonia to Sparta in 382 were made by the Ephors to address the Spartan assembly and their allies at the same time (Hell. 5.ii.11f.) and at the end of their speech the Spartans threw the matter open for discussion by the allies; ‘those who wished to please the Spartans’ were most pressing for war (§20). How did they know what Sparta wanted if a decision had not previously been taken? One suspects a somewhat careless compression on Xenophon’s part. When he comes to the Peace of 372/1, he has the Athenians speak before ‘the ἔκκλητοι of the Spartans and the allies’ (6.iii.3) but they address themselves simply to the Spartans (§§4, 7, 10) and at the end of the debate the Spartans ‘voted to accept the peace’ (§18); the peace is then sworn to, seemingly without the allies having a say. Again one suspects that Xenophon has not taken the pains that Thucydides would have taken. Busolt-Swoboda, G. S. 1332 and n. 3 postulate a change of procedure. Perhaps they are right to adhere strictly to Xenophon, but he certainly is unmethodical. At 3.iv.2, where the expedition to Asia in 396 is under discussion, the allies are summoned to Sparta, and that is all we are told of their part. (4) For the Phocian appeal of 395 and the Achaean appeal of 389, v.i. p. 57. (5) Thuc. 5.17.2, 18.1, though the allies did not share in the exchange of oaths (19.2); cf. Xen. Hell. 6.iii.19.

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Sparta and Her Allies in the Sixth Century (6) Thuc. 4.118 is a curious document indeed, but at §9 it is declared to be a decree of ‘the Spartans and the allies’. (7) Xen. Hell. 2.ii.19, 3.v.5–7, 6.iii.19. (8) 7.18.4, 19.1. The Spartan aid for Syracuse in 414 was very small, consisting of one Spartiate and a body of Neodamodeis and Helots (Thuc. 6.93.2f., 7.2.5, and 58.3); there was no alliance or declaration of war. So the allies apart from Corinth (6.88.10) had no interest in the affair. It is unclear how or why Sicyonians were compelled to join in (7.19.4, 58.3). (9) Although Thucydides said that ‘the embassies from the Peloponnese’ had been summoned for ‘the fifty-year peace and afterwards the alliance’ (5.27.1), there is no trace of the allies in the text of the Athenian-Spartan alliance as we have it (5.23.1). Perhaps the decision of the League authorising the peace embraced alliance too. (10) Cf. Thuc. 5.48.2. (11) A text, somewhat different from that of F. Gschnitzer, Ein neuer spartanischer Staatsvertrag (1978), is to be found in the supplement to the second edition of Meiggs-Lewis Greek Historical Inscriptions (1989), p. 213. The first editor, W. Peek, ‘Ein neuer spartanischer Staatsvertrag’ Abhandlungen der Sächs. Akad. der Wissenschaft zu Leipzig LXV 3 (1974) suggested a date early in the fifth century, but P. A. Cartledge (‘A New Fifth-Century Spartan Treaty’ Liverpool Classical Monthly 1 [1976], pp. 87–92) argued more credibly for a date in the 420s, and D. H. Kelly (‘The New Spartan Treaty’ Liverpool Classical Monthly 3 [1978], pp. 133–41), even more credibly perhaps, for a date in the early fourth century. (12) The Corinthian War began as a mere defensive action on behalf of Phocis which culminated in the battle of Haliartus. After the formation of the Grand Alliance opposed to Sparta, the war proper began. Cf. Diod. 14.82. (13) De Ste Croix, op. cit. 345f. and Andrewes, Historical Commentary on Thucydides ad loc. represent the conflicting views. (14) In 386 Agesilaus did not send out call-up officers (ξϵναγοί) until the army was in Tegea (Xen. Hell. 5.i.33). The message sent to the allies in 419 after the Spartans had been forced by unfavourable omens to return home may have been to make up for time lost (Thuc. 5.54.2). (15) Cf. Andrewes, op. cit. ad 5.31.5. (16) It originated with J. A. O. Larsen, ‘Sparta and the Ionian Revolt’ Class. Phil. 27 (1932), pp. 139–43, and has been accepted by many, e.g. by Andrewes, op. cit. p. 26 and de Ste Croix, op. cit. 117f. (but not wholeheartedly). Page 15 of 19

Sparta and Her Allies in the Sixth Century (17) Was he to return to Sparta and announce that he had done such a thing? Or did he presume the wild act could pass unnoticed? He was not immune from prosecution (cf. Hdt. 6.82). Such things are more easily uttered in slander than seriously entertained and carried through (cf. L. A. Tritle, Historia 87 [1988], 459). (18) Opinion has divided on the significance of the Corinthian part in the Spartan campaign against Samos. Cf. Wickert, op. cit. 16f. I follow Schaefer, op. cit 201. (19) Below p. 68. (20) The dates of the two Spartan kings are not exactly known. (‘We have no other means than calculation by generations’—Beloch, Griechische Geschichte I2, p. 190.) (21) Cf. e.g. Kahrstedt, op. cit. 81 and N. G. L. Hammond, CAH III23, 335. (22) Thuc. 5.54.1 (for the site of Leuctrum, PW XII.2 col 2308). Cf. W. Loring, ‘Some Ancient Routes in the Peloponnese’, JHS 15 (1895), 36 ff. (and see plate 1). (23) Cf. F. Jacoby CQ 38 (1944), 15f. (= Abhandlungen 342f.). (24) Cf. H. Bengtson. Die Verträge der griechisch-römischen Welt no. 112. The reason for choosing a fifth-century or a sixth-century date is rarely discussed. Cf. Kahrstedt, op. cit. 109 and Schaefer, op. cit. 230. (25) P. A. Cartledge, Agesilaos (1987), p. 13. (26) This was the way of translating the sentence preferred by Gomme ad. loc. (27) Such, perhaps, as the annual declaration of war by the Ephors against the Helots and the secret police (Plut. Lycurgus 28). (28) Scholars have sharply differed over Plato’s mention of a Messenian war which prevented the Spartans from supporting Athens in time in 490 (Laws 698 E). The diverse evidence is reviewed by Cartledge (Sparta and Lakonia, 153f.) who keeps ‘an open mind’. I side with those who believe that on balance Plato’s statement is to be credited. (29) Hdt. 7.170.4, Diod. 11.66.1–3, Paus. 5.26.4–5, on the basis of which last passage the fragmentary inscriptions on three bases of statues at Olympia have been restored (Inschriften von Olympia 267–9; cf. Meiggs–Andrewes, Sources b 107). (30) For the battle of Tegea, Hdt. 9.35.2 and Andrewes, Phoenix 6 (1952), pp. 1–5, and for the troubles of the 480s, Hdt. 9.37, from which chapter one may not be wrong to extract from the barely credible story of the escape of the seer Page 16 of 19

Sparta and Her Allies in the Sixth Century Hegesistratus to Tegea the statement that Tegea was ‘not on good terms with Sparta at that moment’. When exactly that was, one can only guess. By 479 Tegea was again on good terms (Hdt. 9.26), and ‘the many dreadful things’ the Spartans had suffered through him were probably the troubles of 490. (31) Herodotus (9.26.4) has the Tegeans assert that the right for ever to be stationed on the left wing had been accorded in ancient times. There would therefore be no reason to use their place in the battle as an argument for Tegea being the first state to enter into the new relationship with Sparta. It has nonetheless been the almost universal opinion that the Tegean treaty was the start of the Peloponnesian League (cf. the firm assertion of Kahrstedt, op. cit. 81f.). (32) A parallel is often found in the story of Plutarch (Cimon 8.5f.) of Cimon searching in Scyrus for the Bones of Theseus, and bringing them back to Athens. As in the case of the Bones of Orestes, this was in obedience to an oracle. If it was understood to symbolise the foundation of the Delian League, Plutarch does not say as much. (33) The word ἐπıτáρροθος is used in Homer to describe a god who helps and protects (e.g. Od. 24.182). (34) Cf. Schol. Euripides, Orestes 46: ϕανϵρὸν ὅτι ἐν Ἄργϵι ἡ σκηνὴ τοῦ δρáματος ὑποκϵῖται. Ὅμηρος δὲ ἐν Mυκήναις ϕησὶν ϵἶναι τὰ βασίλϵια τοῦ Ἀγαμέμνονος, Στησíγχορος δὲ καὶ Σıμωνίδης ἐν Λακϵδαίμονι. The name Philachaeus, which is often called into play, is probably not sixth century and possibly not Spartan (cf. L. H. Jeffery, Archaic Greece, 131 n. 6). (35) According to D. M. Lewis, Supplement to Greek Historical Inscriptions2 (1988), p. 213 n. 67, ‘the surest result [of the discovery of the Aetolian treaty— v.s. n. 11] seems to be the confirmation of the view of de Ste Croix, Origins of the Peloponnesian War (108–110) that the alliance formula of lines 4–10 was the primitive formula of Spartan alliances’. This is, I believe, the inverse of the truth. Lines 16–23 are the primitive formula of the sixth century. One can only regret that we do not have whatever followed. (36) Cf. P. A. Cartledge, Sparta and Lakonia (1979), p. 148: the proposal to reinstate Hippias as tyrant of Athens ‘destroys the myth of Sparta’s principled opposition to tyranny’. (37) Of the list in Plutarch, de Malignitate Herodoti 859D, only Corinth and Sicyon are within the range of the conceivable for the sixth century. Of these Sicyon is perhaps rendered more respectable by the Rylands Papyrus n. 18 (= FGH 105.1); Corinth has been perhaps too contumaciously dismissed, for the Cypselid family may have lingered on after the murder of the last tyrant (FGH 90 F60), just as there were Pisistratids at Athens after the expulsion of Hippias. The Page 17 of 19

Sparta and Her Allies in the Sixth Century scholiast on Aeschines 2.77 has only three of the names on Plutarch’s list to offer. The cases in Herodotus are Athens and Polycrates of Samos. (38) Perhaps the source of Aristotle’s general statement (Pol. 1312b7) was Ephorus, and it is instructive to note how few Peloponnesian states are mentioned in the Politics; there is no mention, for example, of Tegea, Orchomenus, Epidaurus, Achaea (save for sharing in the colonisation of Sybaris). No wonder that the large number of lesser places like Cleonae or Nemea or Pallantion or Lepreum do not come into it. Mantinea is mentioned twice (1318b25, 27), once for its fourth-century constitution, once for its fifth (one presumes). There is no need to go on. It may be that he just happened not to think of Peloponnesian examples for his well-stocked book, but one cannot help concluding that he lacked the precise detailed histories of Peloponnesian states that would have informed him, at least when he was writing the Politics. When he took to writing up his 158 Constitutions, he may have done a lot of precious research, but it would be wrong to presume that they were necessarily all as full or of the same nature as the Constitution of the Athenians. We have fragments of 64. It is to be hoped that they are no index of the quality of the whole, but, quite apart from their value as history (which, fortunately, is not here relevant), many of these Constitutions may have been no more than a survey of the institutions in Aristotle’s own time and experience. It is not surprising that we know of so few tyrannies, pace E. Ruschenbusch, Untersuchungen zu Staat und Politik in Griechenland (1978); probably few were dealt with by historians. (39) Herodotus wrote of Clisthenes, only because he needed to explain how it was that Athens took part in the Ionian Revolt. Apart from that and the Ath. Pol., we would be pretty much in the dark about him. Yet Athens was news. Elsewhere, full many a short-lived flower may have blushed unseen. (40) Adopting Schweighäuser’s change of Ἀθηναῖοι at Hdt. 5.63 to Λακϵδαιμόνιοι. Cf. W. G. Forrest, GRBS 10 (1969), 281. (41) A number of tyrants may have been suppressed in the 550s and exiled aristocrats restored. Elsewhere the threat of tyranny may have been removed and the aristocracy reassured by the new sort of oaths exchanged. (42) Eusebius, Chron. (ed. Schoene) II 96/97, Diog. Laert. 1.68. (43) With 1.68.6 (κατϵστραμμένη), cf. 5.91.1 (ἑτοίμους ἐόντας πϵίθϵσθαι σϕίσι). (44) Above n. 35. (45) CQ 26 (1976), 71ff. (herein Ch. XII, 256ff.) (46) Curiously, members could conduct wars against each other (cf. Thuc. 4.134, 5.65.4, Xen. Hell. 5.iv.37), though not when a League expedition had been called, and they could also make private alliances (Thuc. 5.30.2). Page 18 of 19

Sparta and Her Allies in the Sixth Century (47) For Ehrenberg, PW IIIA col. 1,384, this is ‘sehr wahrscheinlich’, for Schaefer, op. cit. 204 ‘es fehlt auch jede innere Wahrscheinlichkeit’, that handy criterion. (48) Above n. 17. (49) Cf. n. 35. (50) Above, 57. (51) Although the Aetolian treaty (cf. n. 11) belongs to the Peloponnesian War or later, one would dearly like to know how it continued. If it is right to see in lines 16ff. the sixth-century substratum (cf. n. 35), it might have gone on to provide for the situation of Hdt. 5.74f. (52) As Wickert, op. cit. 62, points out, the phrase Kορίνθιοι μϵτὰ τῶν ξυμμάχων in 105.3 can hardly be supposed to include the Spartans, and the first full League expedition with Sparta leading is the Tanagra campaign. Their absence from the Corinthian incursion into the Megarid might be variously explained. One notes that in 429 the operations in the Corinthian Gulf involved οἱ Kορίνθιοι καὶ οἱ ξύμμαχοι (Thuc. 2.83.3), just as one sees the Corinthians acting seemingly independently in 426/5 (3.114.4), and the fact that the Spartans were not involved in operations before Tanagra does not prove that the foundation of the full symmachic league must come after the operations of Thuc. 1.105.3. A different account of Sparta’s role in the First Peloponnesian War is given by A. J. Holladay, JHS 97 (1957), 54ff. (53) At 7.157.1 Λακϵδαιμόνιοι καὶ οἱ τούτων σύμμαχοι (if that is the right text) seems to stand for the Hellenic League. (54) It is to be noted that one manuscript read οἱ λοιποὶ σύμμαχοι. The authors of The Athenian Tribute Lists (III 97) regard Herodotus 7.157.1 and this passage as the formal designation of the Hellenic League. Οἱ Ἕλληνϵς is a much stronger candidate (cf. their n. 12 on p. 97). (55) Cf. Thuc. 1.15.2. (56) I take the allies of Thuc. 1.90.1 to be members of the Hellenic League.

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Cleomenes

Cyrene to Chaeronea: Selected Essays on Ancient Greek History George Cawkwell

Print publication date: 2011 Print ISBN-13: 9780199593286 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199593286.001.0001

Cleomenes George Cawkwell

DOI:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199593286.003.0005

Abstract and Keywords This chapter deals with Herodotus' account of Cleomenes. It considers the date of Cleomenes' death and whether he played a part in the Helot Revolt. It argues that the revolt began in 490 and Cleomenes was active in Arcadia in 491 and died in that year. It also reiterates that apart from repetition of what Herodotus tells us, almost all that can safely be affirmed about Cleomenes is a set of negative propositions. The rest is speculation, unverifiable hypothesis, mere belief. Keywords:   Herodotus, Cleomenes, death, Helot Revolt, ancient Greece

‘Pray God our greatness may not fail Through craven fear of being great.’

If we had a text of Herodotus in which his narrative of the Persian Wars was printed in big black type, and his major excursuses in big light type and his lesser excursuses, ‘footnotes’ and parentheses in varying smaller types, it would be readily apparent that what he chooses to tell us is in general very relevant to his main theme. Occasionally he succumbs (for which we may be indeed thankful) to the temptation of giving us gratuitous information, but on the whole he sticks to his main business. It would be quite wrong to suppose that he tells us all he knows. If, for instance, Aristagoras had not appealed to Athens for help in 499, we might have been bereft of a great deal of the information given in the long excursus of 5. 55–97; yet it would be absurd to suppose that Herodotus

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Cleomenes could not have said a great deal more about the constitutional changes of Clisthenes. What he tells us about Cleomenes is very far from being a systematic account of his reign.1 For instance, in accounting for his madness he gives the Spartan version, that it was caused by excessive potation with hard-drinking Scyths who came to Sparta to propose a joint attack on Persia (6. 84). He does not give an account of how the embassy was received or indeed the precise circumstances of its coming, and we are left guessing about almost everything including (p.75) Cleomenes’ part in the affair.2 Likewise he saw no need to explain how and why ‘both Cleomenes the son of Anaxandridas and the Lacedaemonians happened to be present’ when the Plataeans sought the protection of Spartan alliance (6. 108), and we would not necessarily be correct to suppose that this and the three interventions in Attica were the only occasions, apart from his mysterious withdrawal to Thessaly (6. 74), when he was concerned with affairs north of the Isthmus. At all times, what Thucydides (5. 68) terms ‘the secretiveness of the state’ prevents both understanding and knowledge of Spartan affairs, and, given Herodotus’ method, any discussion of Sparta in the age of Cleomenes is bound to result in uncertainties and agnosticism. Herodotus was no fool. When, commenting on the early death of Cleomenes’ brother, Dorieus, he remarked (5. 48) that if he had put up with being ruled by Cleomenes and stayed in Sparta, he would have become king, ‘for Cleomenes reigned no long time, but died without a son and heir’, and yet in the Histories he recounted events that he must have known spanned about three decades, he should be given sufficient credit not to be thought uncritically to have written down what he was told by someone hostile to the memory of the king.3 Rather, he deserves to be taken as meaning that Cleomenes reigned no long time compared with what he might have reigned; he and his brother were of almost the same age and both could have been expected to live for quite a time longer. Herodotus should be exempted from a charge of crude error. Nonetheless, he is less easily discharged in other matters. One presumes that most of what he says about Cleomenes came from Spartans, and when he stayed with the grandson of the hero of the Samian expedition (3. 55. 2), he conversed with a good number of Spartiates whose fathers’ (and possibly their own) noses had been, literally perhaps, put out of joint by the raging king (cf. 6. 75. 1). There must have been others of course. Presumably it was the priestess herself or an attendant who reported his pert response when bidden not to enter the sanctuary on the Acropolis at Athens (p.76) (5. 72. 3), and the description of Cleomenes on Aegina, ‘working for the general advantage of Greece’ (κοινὰ τῇ Ἑλλάδι ἀγαθὰ προϵργαζόμϵνον 6. 61, 1), could well have come, at least in part, from an Athenian, for Athens must have regarded Cleomenes as a saviour in 491. Page 2 of 19

Cleomenes Again, that Athenian exile, Dicaeus (8. 65), of whom much, nay too much, has been made as the source of what Herodotus has to tell us about Demaratus, the other king,4 may have nonetheless had a lot to recount about Cleomenes, and in general it may be supposed that Herodotus is not reflecting a unitary tradition. As has often been noted, his remark about Cleomenes ‘proving himself the justest of men’ when he declined to accept the tempting gifts of Maeandrius (3. 148. 2) is hardly consistent with much else that he says.5 Inconsistency is not a serious charge. It is one of the supreme merits of Herodotus that he records without rationalising. Unlike the writers of the fourth century he leaves that to his readers. It is serious, however, when he seems to have been so little critical of what he was told that he was not moved to inquire further. Cleomenes was pronounced ‘not sane, a bit mad’ at his accession in about 520 BC, acceding to the kingship by seniority; if ‘manly excellence’ had been the criterion, Dorieus would have had it (5. 42. 1). Now Cleomenes certainly ended up in a state regarded as insanity. Speculation as to its cause was widespread through Greece (6. 75. 3; 84. 1),6 but since the majority of the Greeks supposed that it was due to his having bribed the prophetess at Delphi to help in the deposition of Demaratus, a matter that belonged entirely to 491 BC, he must have been previously sane enough to all appearances. Indeed the man to whom the Spartan (p.77) state entrusted the command of the army in 519, 510, 506, 494, to whom various persons and various states appealed, cannot have been what Herodotus so readily accepted that he was. Essentially, a Spartan king commanded the army and was high priest but for the rest was just another Spartiate (Arist. Pol. 1285 a 3–6) and he had power and influence in affairs of state only if he was highly regarded. Herodotus should have been more critical, both in this and in other matters. At 5. 74 he asserted that Cleomenes’ real purpose in taking an army from the whole Peloponnese against Athens was to take vengeance on the Athenian demos and to establish Isagoras as tyrant. Such things are easier said than done, if, that is, the doer is to get away with the deed. Demaratus, who shared the command (5. 75), must have known what the purpose of the expedition was and he followed the Corinthians in objecting to Cleomenes’ alleged ‘hidden agenda’. If Demaratus jibbed, what would have been the reaction of the Spartan state if Cleomenes had returned and reported that he had established Isagoras as tyrant? The statement of his private intentions is hardly to be accepted.7 It shows what Spartiates thought of Cleomenes, but no more. Herodotus should have been more critical, and probed further. Clearly Cleomenes was a man of whom his opponents were prepared to believe and to say anything, and Herodotus seems mostly to have swallowed it. There is a solemn crux. Much time and paper has been taken up with chronological problems and here it must suffice to state acceptance of the dates of c.520 for the accession and 494 for the battle of Sepeia.8 One minor matter needs discussion. What was the date of the (p.78) Scythian embassy to Sparta (6. 84)? Macan (ad loc.) poured scorn and scepticism on the whole affair and Page 3 of 19

Cleomenes perhaps he is right. Such a wild plan, whereby the Scyths would march up the river Phasis to invade Media and the Spartans would march up from Ephesus and meet up with the Scyths in the heart of Asia, is, like the three-month march said to have been proposed by Aristagoras (5. 50), more redolent of fantasising, or of the Panhellenist thinking of Herodotus’ own day than of solid fact. If there is anything behind the story other than a desire to explain Cleomenes’ outlandish way of drinking, the date of it should be during the unsettled years of the Ionian Revolt. Herodotus declares that the proposal was made after Darius’ Scythian Expedition and out of desire by the Scyths to get their revenge and it has generally been supposed that it followed shortly after Darius returned from Scythia.9 This is hardly warranted. Revenge can be long in coming in the world of Herodotus.10 What such an embassy could have been proposing is beyond conjecture, but the version that reached Herodotus rather suggests that it arose at a time when Ephesus was out of Persian hands (cf. 5. 100 and 102. 2) and when Persian forces were sufficiently distracted to make the thought of a Spartan march up-country conceivable. So what was said about Cleomenes associating with the Scyths probably pertains to the 490s. This, however, is not of great importance. The solemn crux concerns the date of Cleomenes’ death, and the significance of his last actions. Many have supposed that he did not die until two years or so after the battle of Marathon,11 in which case (p.79) the absence of his name from the (admittedly meagre) account of that crucial year is puzzling and, if there really was an uprising in Messenia in 490, challenging. (Which king led the two-thousand strong Spartan force to Marathon? What was the attitude of Cleomenes to the despatch of so meagre a support for Athens in her and Greece’s hour of need? Similarly as regards the Helots.) Opinion as to the Helot Revolt has varied between abrupt dismissal, prudent agnosticism, and bold acceptance.12 There is no need to go over the well- trodden ground here and I content myself with declaring that I believe it did indeed occur and that that is why from then on the Spartans were most reluctant to send out a large army for any great length of time or for any great distance for fear of Helot trouble.13 If there was such a revolt, it was presumably occasioned by the coming of the Persians and had nothing whatever to do with Cleomenes in Arcadia:14 if he had had any part in encouraging a Helot revolt, which would have been the most heinous offence, he would not have been taken back to Sparta to be king on the same terms as before (6. 75); evidently some time elapsed between his return and his being put in the stocks by his relatives and it hardly sounds as if he was thought to have fostered a Helot revolt. In any case the revolt, if it happened, began in 49015 and Cleomenes was active in Arcadia in 491 and died in that year. At least that is what is now to be argued. (p.80) The Persian demand for earth and water, the tokens of submission, from the states of Greece is not precisely dated by Herodotus (6. 48), though his account does claim that the heralds were despatched at the same time as orders Page 4 of 19

Cleomenes were given for the construction of ships. A date earlier rather than later in the Attic year 492/1 is likely. But whenever it was, there is undeniably a lot of narrative to fit in before the Aeginetans ambushed the sacred vessel full of leading Athenians on its way to the quadrennial festival at Sunium (6. 87), which is presumed to fall in the month sacred to Poseidon, that is, roughly December.16 Although Herodotus, who must have had some sense of time and space in the Greek world, placed this whole sequence of events before the Persian expedition to Marathon (6. 94. 1), some have considered that there is ‘an intolerable compression’ in Herodotus’ account.17 Others have accepted it.18 The resolution of the problem lies in consideration of Herodotus’ statement that ‘coming from there [i.e. Thessaly] to Arcadia he was engaging in revolutionary business, banding the Arcadians together against Sparta … making them swear that verily they would follow him wherever he might lead’ (6. 74. 1). This passage has always been taken au pied de la lettre, and the picture is presented of Cleomenes preparing, or affecting to prepare, to lead the Arcadians against his own country, with which military venture the leading Arcadians appear ready to comply, with no scruples arising from the fact that they already had friendship and alliance (of a sort) with the state against whom they have sworn; they could shortly expect battle against the leading military power of the sixth century assisted by such friends and allies as had not succumbed to the allure of the rogue (p.81) Spartan king. In all this we are, I believe, mightily misled. The claim that he was ‘banding the Arcadians together against Sparta (ἐπì τῇ Σπάρτῃ)’ is far more likely to reflect the hostility to Cleomenes of Herodotus’ informants than to record sober fact. Cleomenes’ purposes were thus misrepresented and maligned. If Cleomenes was not engaged in activities inimical to Sparta, what then was he likely to have been doing? On Aegina he had been, according to Herodotus, ‘working for the general advantage of Greece’ (6. 61. 1), and this he had done at the urging of Athenian ambassadors19 protesting at Aeginetan medising (6. 49. 2), and on his own initiative (6. 50. 2). He did not seek the approval of the state, perhaps because he was too high-handed, perhaps because he had no hope of obtaining it. But his fellow-king frustrated him and Cleomenes, to attain his ends with Aegina, had him deposed and replaced by his brother,20 on whom by reason of a private compact (6. 65. 1) he knew he could count, and shortly the medising Aeginetans were held hostage by the Athenians. As far as we can see, at no point did the state give its consent, and when Cleomenes had concluded his ‘working for the general advantage of Greece’, out of ‘fear of the Spartiates’ he found it prudent to withdraw to Thessaly (6. 74). All this story suggests a serious cleavage in the Spartan state between a Cleomenes vigorous against medisers and in defence of Greece and the majority who took a different view. But if Sparta would not play her part, what was Cleomenes to do? He was not the man to abandon the Greek cause. So he set out to find Greeks ready to do what Sparta would not do, viz. follow him in war against the invading Persian. He was Page 5 of 19

Cleomenes not ‘banding the Arcadians together against Sparta’. His enemies said so after he had gone back, only to find his countrymen no more minded to do their bit than before. It drove him to extremes (Hdt. 6. 75. 1) which were, or were treated as, madness, and he died by his own hand. If this, or something of this sort, was indeed the case, the alleged ‘intolerable compression’ of Herodotus’ narrative may be forgotten. Cleomenes was a man in a hurry to organise help for Athens and the (p.82) defence of Greece. He died in 491, seemingly having failed. We can cease to wonder what he thought of the meagre Spartan contingent to Marathon too late to play any part in a campaign that was long foreseen.21 Nor is his attitude to the Helot Revolt in question. He had no part in it and no knowledge of it. In 491 Cleomenes showed himself the strenuous anti-mediser. Earlier he is represented by Herodotus as having Maeandrius of Samos in about 516 BC ordered out of Sparta and in 499 himself ordering Aristagoras ‘to be gone before sundown’ (3. 148. 2 and 5. 50. 3). For whatever reason, he was not to be moved to try to get Spartans across the Aegean to oppose the advance of Persian power. However, his attitude to the extension of Persian power to Greece itself may well have been different. In 514 (or thereabouts) the new satrapy of Skudra, that is, Thrace, was added to the Persian Empire, the solid result of the so-called Scythian Expedition,22 and it must have been plain to those who had ears to hear that the power that had swallowed up the cities on the European side of the Bosporus and the Hellespont might well advance further into Greece itself. The only city of the Greek mainland directly affected was Megara, metropolis of Byzantium and Selymbria, but the Ionian and Aeolian metropoleis of other cities23 will not have been unheard at the Panegyreis of the mainland. Indeed the Athenian request for Persian alliance when Clisthenes was back in power in 507, which was successful but only at the price of giving earth and water (Hdt. 5. 73), must have been a very rude shock to certain Greeks, amongst whom Cleomenes may well have been numbered. Herodotus says that Cleomenes was moved to assemble the army from all the Peloponnese in 506 because ‘he felt he had been insultingly used in word and deed by the Athenians’ (5. 74. 1). That may have been the case and Herodotus’ informants on this point have (p.83) been correct. He may equally well have been uneasy about the way Athenian policy under Clisthenes was being conducted and have desired a return to the ancestral constitution, that is, the constitution of Solon. One simply cannot tell. It is even more uncertain how Cleomenes regarded the liberation of Athens in 510.24 According to Thucydides (6. 59), Hippias had married his daughter to the son of the tyrant of Lampsacus, ‘perceiving that they were greatly influential with the Great King Darius’, and it has been thought that Cleomenes moved against Athens in 510 to keep Persia out of Greece. But the hypothesis is wild. Hippias did not, as far as we know, give earth and water, and anything short of Page 6 of 19

Cleomenes that was not to be regarded as medising; tyrants liked to marry their daughters to a man with a secure future (cf. Hdt. 3. 50. 2; 6. 124ff.; Thuc. 1. 126. 3). In any case, there is no reason to reject Herodotus’ account of how Sparta was moved to liberate Athens, viz. that the Alcmeonids bribed the prophetess into constantly counselling Spartan inquirers to secure the liberation of Athens (5. 63. 1). Admittedly, he says that this was the Athenian account and omits to give any Spartan version, but when it came to the plan to restore Hippias, he says that it proceeded from the Spartans realising that they had been duped, and in the speech which he has ‘Spartiates’ deliver to the assembled allies they are made to allude to ‘spurious oracles’ (5. 90. 1; 91. 2). Nor is the fact that it was Cleomenes who led the large Spartan expedition to liberate Athens (5. 64. 1) necessarily a sign that at that stage Cleomenes had any special interest in getting rid of Hippias. An army going by land had to have a king in command, and Cleomenes may have been appointed because he had had more military experience, his fellow king Demaratus being new to office.25 The evidence affords no justification for holding that it was Hippias’ attitude to Persia that provoked Spartan intervention; Cleomenes’ interest in Athens may have been first aroused by nothing more than the allurements of Isagoras’ wife. In 491 Cleomenes was clearly the vigorous opponent of medism. The conduct of Demaratus is more difficult to assess. By the end of 491 he was in Persia where he was given an estate and an income (p.84) from three cities (Hdt. 6. 70. 2; Xen. Hell. 3. 1. 6),26 treatment similar to that to be accorded to Themistocles (Thuc. 1. 138. 5). The two cases are, however, not entirely similar. Themistocles was alleged by Herodotus to have sought to feather his own nest by treasonable communications with Xerxes during the invasion of Greece, and the Spartans alleged he was involved in the medism of Pausanias (v.i.). But all this, one cannot help suspecting, was based on no more than both Pausanias and Themistocles caring more for hegemony in Greece than they feared Persia, and when the latter fled to Persia hunted down by the Hellenes,27 he had nowhere else to go, nor did he assist the Persian cause in any way. Demaratus did. One cannot but be sceptical about the part Herodotus has him play during the Persian invasion; sometimes his advice to Xerxes seems to be for the greater glory of Sparta, more probably an instrument of Herodotus’ art than a record of what happened (7. 101–4; 209); his speech counselling Xerxes to make a naval assault on Laconia (7. 234f.), seemingly most damaging to the Spartan cause, is hardly to be taken seriously, for Xerxes did not have that many ships; the story of his sending advance notice of the campaign (7. 239) arouses our suspicions since it would have it thought that a messenger with an empty tablet would not arouse the suspicions of Persian guards. But Demaratus certainly went to Greece with the Persian army, in Herodotus’ phrase (7. 101. 1) ‘joining with Xerxes in the campaign against Greece’, in Xenophon’s account (Hell. 3. 1. 6) receiving his grant of cities from Xerxes as reward for his service. His medising was both active and self-chosen, for he did not have to betake himself to Persia, and one Page 7 of 19

Cleomenes wonders when it began. When Leotychidas taunted him over losing the kingship, the reply put into his mouth in Herodotus (6. 67. 3) might suggest that he expected not just that Sparta would have to fight against Persia but also that he would secure that it did—‘your question will cause the Spartans either immense misery or immense good fortune’. (p.85) Such a remark, isolated from context and of dubitable authenticity, is of no value as evidence. When Demaratus fled to Persia, he may have had no more in mind than that he had lost one world and would try his fortunes in another. It seems very unlikely that he wished the Persian campaign, shortly expected, to succeed, and in preventing Cleomenes taking Aeginetans hostage and handing them over to Athens, Demaratus may have been doing nothing more than protesting at his colleague’s high-handedness. He may also have had some sympathy for an island state which no Greeks would be able to save from the Persians, and some confidence that those in Aegina who had been responsible for the giving of earth and water would not join in the attack on Athens; in which he would perhaps have been right. In the middle of the battle of Salamis the son of the man who had confronted Cleomenes the first time he intervened in Aegina (Hdt. 6. 50), just after capturing a Phoenician ship got and seized a chance of railing against Themistocles for having cast the slur of medism on Aegina (8. 92). Aegina gave earth and water in 491 because she had no real alternative.28 Demaratus’ letter indicating that Cleomenes had no authority for what he sought to do did not argue any sort of softness towards Persia, and the negative conclusion must be that there are no grounds for supposing that Demaratus’ opposition to Cleomenes was centred on their attitude to whether the advance of Persian power should be resisted. Why then did Demaratus fall out with Cleomenes on the other attested occasion of disagreement, viz. in 506, when he sided with the Corinthians? He must have known what the city expected of the expedition. Whatever Cleomenes might have been claimed secretly to intend, why did Demaratus not insist on their accomplishing what they were sent to accomplish? One may suspect that he was glad to turn the malign motive attributed to his fellow king into an excuse for abandoning an expedition which he by no means favoured. ‘The Peloponnese’ was a psychological and emotional entity (cf. Thuc. 5. 27, 2), as can be seen in Xenophon’s Hellenica (cf. 7. 1, 23; 4. 35; 5, 1) or in Stesimbrotus’ comment about Cimon (‘he was utterly devoid of Athenian clever-clever talk; there was much nobility and truthfulness in his character; rather, the cast of the man’s mind was Peloponnesian’ F.G.H. 107f. 4). Perhaps by the late sixth century the idea had (p.86) taken root, and Demaratus was guided by the principles of ‘the Peloponnese for Sparta and Sparta for the Peloponnese’; on the plain of Eleusis he clearly perceived the folly of Sparta intervening in the affairs of an extraPeloponnesian state. Hinc illae lacrimae?

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Cleomenes Whether or not there is any truth in such imaginings, it is worth pointing out that there is no reason to suppose that Cleomenes was ever averse to the exercise of Spartan hegemony outside the Peloponnese. We do not know what he and the Spartans were doing, when they ‘happened to be about’ and so received the Plataeans’ request for alliance, but that story is itself very unsatisfactory (6. 108).29 Not only does the Spartan response and the reason Herodotus gives for it have the tang of the fifth century,30 but since, as far as we know, a king in the field had no power to make or reject alliances, the Spartan response would have come from the assembly and not from the army in the field. Cleomenes’ own attitude cannot be discovered. There is, none the less, something more to be said. In the middle of the sixth century, Sparta assumed the role of hegemon of the Greek world. She could have had no interest whatsoever in the survival of the Lydian kingdom other than as a means of protecting the Greeks of Asia, and that must have been why the Spartans prepared to cross the Aegean (Hdt. 1. 83).31 Although they declined to answer the appeal of (p.87) the Ionians and the Aeolians for help (once Lydia had fallen, their case must have seemed hopeless), yet they sent an embassy to Cyrus warning him ‘to harm no city of the Greek world, for they [sc. the Spartans] would not stand idly by’ (1. 152 ),32 a clear assertion of the role Sparta had assumed. Twenty years later came the appeal of Samian exiles appealing for help against Polycrates (3. 47). Sparta answered it; according to Herodotus, the reason the Spartans gave for going was not so much to help the Samians as to punish Polycrates for recent acts of piracy, but one guesses that either the Spartans were minded to remove a medising tyrant or they wanted to rescue the Samians (and others, cf. 3. 39. 4) from oppression.33 This ‘hegemonic’ act ended in failure and a mood of isolationism seems to have set in. Not only was the appeal of Maeandrius rebuffed (which is not surprising for they were being called on to repeat their attack on Samos now held by vastly superior forces), but also Aristagoras’ appeal on behalf of the Ionians was rejected and the cause of Greek liberty left to languish. Herodotus would have it that the Spartan rejection was as wise as the Athenian aid was foolish (5. 97. 2). He represents Aristagoras as proposing a march up-country of three months (5. 50), most improbably, for such schemes belong to the world of Panhellenist dreaming, but if Sparta had supported the revolt in Ionia, the cause of liberty for the Greeks of Asia could have been at least for some time sustained, as it was by Spartan arms in the 390s. The appeal of Aristagoras was couched in these terms: ‘That the sons of the Ionians are enslaved instead of free is a very great disgrace and grief to us and still more to you amongst others, in as much as you (p.88) stand as defenders of Greece’ (ὅσῳ προέστατϵ τῆς Ἑλλάδος 5. 49). In refusing Aristagoras Sparta was failing in her hegemonic role. With the coming of the Persians Sparta rallied. We know too little about her condition in 490 to say whether the two thousand she sent tardily to Marathon (6. 120) were a mean or, in view of troubles in Messenia, a gallant Page 9 of 19

Cleomenes contribution,34 but in 480 and 479 she played the role of leader, albeit in a somewhat ambivalent fashion. Spartan leadership was accepted as rightful and inevitable (8. 5), but the Spartans showed a remarkable unwillingness to come out of the Peloponnese and literally stand as defenders of Greeks (cf. 8. 40. 2) and in 479 had to be blackmailed into coming out (9. 7ff.) and fighting the decisive battle of Plataea in which their preeminence in valour was displayed (9. 71. 1). Thereafter their resolve faltered. Leotychidas led the Peloponnesians home not long after the battle of Mycale, leaving the Athenians to do what he should have done, viz. capture Sestos (9. 114), and after the members of the Hellenic League, revulsed by the conduct of Pausanias, turned to Athens for leadership of the fleet and refused to accept another Spartan commander, there happened in Sparta that crucial debate as the result of which the Spartans decided not to dispute with Athens the leadership of further operations against Persia. That result is crisply recorded by Thucydides (1. 95), the debate itself more fully in Diodorus (11. 50). According to the latter, it was generally felt in Sparta that it was necessary to fight a war against Athens to recover the hegemony of naval operations, but a speech by the otherwise unknown Hetoemar-idas carried the day: ‘It is not in Sparta’s interest to contend for the sea.’ One can only suppose that he was a speaker of quite un-Spartan powers of persuasion or that there was no real desire to remain the active leaders of the Greeks in the war against Persia. On that day the history of the fifth century was prescribed. Athens would take over power and exploit it, and it would require a war greater than all preceding wars (Thuc. 1. 21. 2) to break her grip. Pausanias could not accept the decision and slipped abroad without the approval of the assembly (ἄνϵυ Λακϵδαιμονίων) on a desperate mission to conduct ‘the Hellenic war’ which in Thucydidean usage means ‘the war (p.89) against the Hellenes’ (1. 128. 3). He carried a skutalè (1. 131. 1) and was able to requisition a trireme owned and presumably manned by the people of Hermione (1. 128). So he must have had some authorisation, but with a new board of ephors in autumn 476 he was summarily recalled (1. 131), and that was the end of thoughts of leadership in war against Persia until the Asiatic Greeks appealed for protection in 399 (Xen. Hell. 3. 1. 3). In the intervening decades it was the rising power of Athens that was the focus of Spartan policy, whether to oppose Athens on behalf of the Greeks or to seek to limit Athens’ hegemony by sharing. In some form or other, from 546 onwards Sparta had to grapple with the problems of hegemony. It may be that after the Samian debacle of the 520s Spartans were to a man unwilling to maintain the role of hegemon of Greece and the military involvements it carried, but if that was not the case (and such complete concord is very unlikely), it is hardly to be doubted that Cleomenes it was who carried the standard raised by his father Anaxandridas and borne later by the regent Pausanias. It is notable that he is the Spartan to whom those appealing for help look, to wit Maeandrius (Hdt. 3. 148), Isagoras (5. 70), Aristagoras (5. 49), the Athenians in 491 (6. 49f.), and if the story of the Scythian appeal (6. 84) is too Page 10 of 19

Cleomenes tall to be believed, it at least shows to whom legend attached such a story and who was thought likely to have time and tolerance for such an appeal. That he took the lead in rejecting the appeals of Maeandrius and Aristagoras is less potent than might be thought. Another campaign to Samos in support of such a dubious character (cf. 3. 142) must have been beyond serious consideration, and even if Cleomenes had entertained the thought, he would have known that the ephors and the gerousia would not.35 The story in Herodotus of (p.90) Maeandrius trying to bribe him suggests that it was thought that he was not inflexibly opposed. Likewise in the case of Aristagoras. When Cleomenes had turned down his appeal, Aristagoras followed him to his house and kept at him. Herodotus (5. 51) would have it that Aristagoras tried to bribe him and that he was weakening until the only other person present, his daughter Gorgo, uttered her celebrated warning; for which of course it is unlikely that there was more foundation than there is for most gossip in this world, but the story was told because Cleomenes was believed to be a person who could be won over to such designs. Cleomenes was called on to lead the hegemon of Greece to save the Asiatic Greeks, because he was known to hold that Sparta’s true role was to do such things. ‘The Spartans thereafter sent out no more commanders, being afraid that those who went out became corrupt, as indeed they saw happen in the case of Pausanias, and being anxious to be quit of the war against the Persians, and thinking that the Athenians were capable of leading and at that time welldisposed towards themselves.’ Thus Thucydides (1. 95. 7) summarised Spartan reasons for the policy decision of the Hetoemaridas debate. In addition to the folly of not foreseeing what Athens would make of the opportunity (and it may be recalled that according to Herodotus 5. 90 they had got hold of an abundance of ominous oracles, including predictions that Sparta and the rest of the Dorians would be ejected from the Peloponnese by the Persians and the Athenians combined, Hdt. 8. 141. 1), and a lack of the will themselves to continue in the cause of liberty, they confronted the real dilemma of the Spartan state, viz. that if Spartans were to do what seemed their manifest duty and lead the Greeks, the Spartan way of life, those customs (ἐπιτηδϵύματα) wherein for the author of the Xenophontic Constitution of the Spartans lay the secret of Spartan power and renown (l. 1), would be eroded. Their fears were fully (p.91) realised. Spartan character did not export well. Pausanias may or may not have acted like an oriental despot in the making although Thucydides clearly believed he did (1. 130; 95. 5), but the violent methods he preferred certainly were largely responsible for the allies turning to Athens in 478 and the foundation of the Delian League (Hdt. 8. 3. 2; Thuc. 1. 95). The end of the Peloponnesian War was to show the Spartan character full well. Brasidas was commended by Thucydides for his ‘virtue and intelligence’ (4. 81), high praise indeed coming from him, but he added that Brasidas led Athens’ allies to look to Sparta, for they thought that the rest of the Spartans would be the same. They were not. The violent Page 11 of 19

Cleomenes behaviour of Clearchus in Byzantium (Diod. 13. 66. 6; 14. 12) is a well-known example, as is that of Herippidas in Heraclea in Trachis in the early 390s (Diod. 14. 38). Violence was natural enough with Spartans but Clearchus exceeded even the city’s expectations and had to be driven out of Byzantium, the scene of his bloody deeds, by force. Unused to freedom, Spartans were all too liable to abuse it when they got it. Looking back in the mid 350s to the period of the Spartan Empire, Isocrates remarked (8. 96) that empire ‘in place of the way of life established at home [i.e. in Sparta] filled the individual citizens with injustice, slackness, lawlessness, and love of money’. In the 390s the author of the Xenophontic Constitution of the Spartans (14), similarly, found the reason for the neglect of the laws of Lycurgus in empire and the service away from home that it entailed.36 The fears of 478 were fully justified by events. Nor was it just moral corruption that was to be feared. If Spartans went outside the Peloponnese, they could attain personal prestige and the glory which consisted badly with their status in Sparta as Equals. Moral lapses could be dealt with by bringing offenders to trial. Un- Spartan preeminence was less easily managed. If Spartan forces were to be used outside the Peloponnese, Spartan commanders would inevitably acquire power and importance, which had to be accepted no matter how much it was resented. Pausanias did not scruple to have inscribed on the tripod the Greeks gave to Delphi a couplet in which Simonides proclaimed him ‘captain in chief of the Greeks’ (p.92) (Ἑλλήνων ἀρχηγός) and declared that he ‘destroyed the army of the Medes’ (Paus. 3. 8. 2; Thuc. 1. 132. 2). The Spartans had it erased and replaced with a list of the cities whose men had done the fighting.37 Pausanias’ share of the spoils at Plataea (Hdt. 9. 81) must have made him rich; he could propose, or could be thought to have proposed, a marriage with a member of the Persian royal family (Hdt. 5. 32; Thuc. 1. 128. 7). Of his second mission to the Hellespont it could be supposed that secretly he aimed at establishing with the cooperation of the Great King rule over the Greeks (Ἑλληνικὴ ἀρχή Thuc. 1. 128. 3 and 7). Aristotle (Pol. i 1307 a 4) spoke of his revolutionary aim of having sole rule over Sparta.38 Much of this may have very little truth in it, but it shows the un-Spartan designs that could be suspected of those who got away from the straitjacket of the laws of Lycurgus. Brasidas who was after his death honoured by the Amphipolitans as saviour (an appellation with a considerable future with Hellenistic rulers) and who was honoured with annual sacrifices as Founder (Hagnon the Athenian having suffered what the Romans would term damnatio memoriae, Thuc. 5. 11), was fortunate perhaps to die at the height of his glory and before malice and suspicion at home could undo him. The man who was deemed too big for his Spartan boots was Lysander. He became a very Colossus. Champion of Greek liberty against Athens, friend of the young ambitious Cyrus with whom he got on better than duty demanded and on whom he prevailed to pay and keep on paying for the Spartan navy, final victor of the Peloponnesian War and supervisor of the total reduction of Athens, and indeed much else,39 he was far too powerful to Page 12 of 19

Cleomenes accept or be accepted by the Spartan state as it then was. The honours he received were monstrous.40 He was recalled, and his system of controlling the Empire by decarchies—in effect his own clientes—had to (p.93) be abolished (Xen. Hell. 3. 4. 2). Lysander went to consult the oracle of Ammon, allegedly to corrupt it, and he was suspected, perhaps rightly, of wishing to reform the Spartan constitution.41 Much is obscure about what he aimed at and when, or indeed whether it was not all attributed to him out of malice and suspicion. But his career showed that power outside the Peloponnese was not consistent with the system of Equals under the laws of Lycurgus. Agesilaus profited by his bad example and took pains to conceal his own eminence. As Plutarch put it (Ages. 10), ‘he was admittedly the greatest and most illustrious man of his age, as of course Theopompus has indeed remarked, but he prided himself on virtue rather than on having command’ (διὰ τὴν ἡγϵμονίαν), and so he lasted (cf. Plut. Ages. 4; Xen. Ages. 11. 7). In Cleomenes’ time all this lay in the future, and the tension between the Spartan way of life within an ordered Peloponnese and the role of champion of Greece and of Greeks wherever they were threatened was no doubt less vividly perceived. Yet if one inquires why Cleomenes was opposed at Sparta, inevitably in view of what one knows of later events one inclines to centre it on the issue of the hegemony of the Greeks. No doubt he was high-handed. His first intervention in Aegina was made ‘without the approval of the Spartans’ (Hdt. 6. 50. 2 ἄνϵν Σπαρτιητέων). He professed respect for religion only when it suited him (6. 82. 1; 5. 72. 3). He had a great many Argives murdered in bad faith (6. 79. 1). Bribing the Delphic oracle was part of his bag of tricks, or was said to be (6. 66. 2). There was plenty for ‘his enemies’, as those who brought him to trial in 494 are termed by Herodotus (6. 82. 1), to disapprove of and resent. But one cannot help suspecting that essentially it was centred on fear of the consequences for the values and the way of life of little Sparta of the extension of Spartan power outside the Peloponnese, which gave him too much importance in the estimate of the Greek world and which he might be said to be all too willing to abuse for his own dark purposes, as in the abortive invasion of Attica in 506 (Hdt. 5. 74. 1). One cannot help suspecting that this was why he was opposed, but one cannot do more than suspect. The only support would be in Sparta’s attempt to restore Hippias, with which Cleomenes was not connected (5. 91). Going back to the state of affairs prior to 510 was (p.94) not the only option. They could have recognised Clisthenes and his reforms, as indeed the Corinthian opposition obliged them to do. The Spartan plan may have been due to a resolve to keep out of extra- Peloponnesian entanglements. Apart from repetition of what Herodotus tells us, almost all that can safely be affirmed about Cleomenes is a set of negative propositions. The rest is speculation, unverifiable hypothesis, mere belief. But that Sparta had to adapt her system if she was not to allow others the opportunity to destroy it and that

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Cleomenes her system was such that she could not adapt it, will hardly be denied. Perhaps in the reign of Cleomenes this dilemma began to emerge. Notes:

(1) Two modern discussions of Cleomenes are especially useful, viz. T. Lenschau, ‘König Kleomenes I von Sparta’, Klio 31 (1938), pp. 412–29, and P. Carlier, ‘La vie politique à Sparte sous le règne de Cléomène Ier: Essai d’interprétation’, Ktema 2 (1977), pp. 65–84. (2) N. G. L. Hammond in C.A.H. IV2, p. 497 asserts that Sparta ‘allied herself with the Scythians of Europe’! (3) One would in any case expect those who had been hostile to Cleomenes to have felt the reign went on for far too long and seemed like an eternity. (A. Griffiths even suggested, in Anton Powell [ed.], Classical Sparta [London, 1989], pp. 53f., that the negative in Hdt. 5. 48 is a corruption of ϵἰ; a curious piece of Greek would result.) (4) Cf. D. Mülder, ‘Die Demaratosschrift des Dikaios’, Klio 13 (1913), pp. 39–69. It is to be noted that Herodotus at 8. 65. 6 says that ‘Dicaeus used to say (ἔλϵγϵ) this’, hardly appropriate to a treatise. One would like to know more of this Athenian exile who became important (λόγιμος) among the Persians (παρὰ Mήδοισι), as Herodotus remarks (8. 65. 1). Perhaps Herodotus had quite a lot of discussions with him, but since we learn nothing about him (or his father) beyond what this chapter tells, talk of a treatise is absurd. (5) Cf. Lenschau, ‘König Kleomenes I von Sparta’, p. 412. (6) Beloch, Gr. Gesch. II2 1, p. 36, concerning Herodotus’ report of Cleomenes’ suicide, added: ‘Probably the ephors had him got rid of with the agreement of his step-brothers, Leonidas and Cleombrotus, the older of whom, Leonidas, succeeded him on the throne.’ The manner of the suicide is more dubitable perhaps than the fact. If Leonidas was in any way responsible, life with his wife, Cleomenes’ daughter Gorgo (Hdt. 7. 239, 4), may have made Thermopylae welcome. Self-mutilation is an occurrence familiar enough to psychologists. But speculation is here fruitless (cf. Griffiths, in Powell [ed.], Classical Sparta, pp. 53f.). (7) Cf. W. G. Forrest, A History of Sparta (London, 1968), p. 87, noting that the expedition must have had an official purpose, which could not have been concealed by Cleomenes. (8) H. T. Wade-Gery (in a lecture in 1947) argued for a date later than 519 for the accession of Cleomenes thus: in 5. 42ff. Herodotus says that Dorieus could not endure Cleomenes being king, demanded a following of Spartiates and set off to colonise Libya in such a hurry that he neglected to consult the Delphic oracle or Page 14 of 19

Cleomenes do any of the things custom required; his movements can then be roughly followed, for he returned from Libya after two years, was able to keep his following together (which could not have been done for very long), and set off for Italy where he took part in the war of Sybaris and Croton, which we fancy we can date c.510 (cf. Diod. 11. 90. 3; 12. 10. 2); a date for the accession of Cleomenes c.514 can then be posited. (Such argument required the emendation of the figure 93 at Thuc. 3. 68. 5, but the appeal of Maeandrius is no obstacle, for although the Persian occupation of Samos has to be sufficiently early for Aeaces, whom we meet at Hdt. 4. 138. 2, to succeed Syloson whom the Persians installed, cf. Hdt. 3. 141, that is not difficult, for the Scythian expedition is a movable feast.) However, Dorieus could be represented by Herodotus’ hostile source as unable to put up with his brother as king whether he left within eight months or eight years, and as to his neglecting to consult the Delphic oracle it is to be noted that according to Plutarch (Lysander 25. 4) there was an oracle from Ammon, it would seem, bidding the Spartans ‘to make a settlement in Libya’; perhaps Dorieus had lost confidence in the honesty of the prophetess at Delphi. As to ‘doing none of the things custom required’ (Hdt. 5. 42. 2), if Dorieus requested and obtained a following of Spartiates, his venture must have been in some sense official and one wonders whether the alleged neglect was not given as an explanation for the colony’s failure. There is no reason to abandon the date of 519 for the Plataean alliance (pace G. S. Shrimpton, CPh 79 [1984], pp. 299–305). Cleomenes acceded therefore c.520. (9) N. G. L. Hammond, C. A.H. IV2 p. 497 appears to date the appeal before the Ionian Revolt; L. H. Jeffery, ibid. p. 357, says ‘c.513’. Similarly Forrest, A History of Sparta, p. 86 n. 8. (10) Cf. 4. 1. 1; 4. 4; 1. 13. 2; 1. 18. 3; 3. 47. 1; 6. 136. 2; 6. 40 is a case to be approached with similar caution. (11) Cf, e.g. Beloch Gr. Gesch. I2 2, p. 488 and II2 1, 25 n. 3, who based himself on the oracle of c.505 recorded by Herodotus (5. 89. 2) to the effect that if Athens waited thirty years before attacking Aegina, it would be successful; Athens was successful against Aegina in 458, and so Beloch assumed that the hostilities of the war of Nicodromus (Hdt. 6. 87ff.) did not begin until 488, Herodotus having misplaced the oracle! Andrewes, ABSA 37 (1936–7), pp. 1ff. dealt with this argument. (12) P. A. Cartledge, Sparta and Lakonia (London, 1979), pp. 153f. provides a useful statement of the evidence. (13) According to Herodotus 9. 28. 2, there were seven helots per hoplite in the Spartan army at Plataea. As far as we know that sort of thing had not happened on such a scale previously, though there certainly were helots present at Sepeia (6. 81). Brasidas was able to do what he did because he used helots (Thuc. 4. 80. Page 15 of 19

Cleomenes 2). The only Spartiates in the Spartan armies in Asia in the 390s were the commanders and the groups of thirty sent out year by year (cf. Xen. Hell. 3. 4. 2, and 20; 3. 1. 4; 4. 3. 15). (14) Pace W. Wallace, JHS 74 (1954), pp. 32–35. The Messenians knew in 491 that the Persians were coming and there was no sense in being involved with a wayward Spartan king beforehand. (15) Plato Laws 692d 6, 698e 1–5. If it had begun in 491, the Spartans would have been moving to repress it in a year fairly fully reported in Herodotus and some trace of this could have been expected in his narrative. After Cleomenes’ death, Leotychidas hardly seems all that busy (Hdt. 6. 85f). (16) Lysias 21. 4f. is the basis of the belief that the festival was celebrated in 491. L. Deubner, Attische Feste (Berlin, 1932), p. 215, accepted the view that the festival to Poseidon fell in Posideion. If H. W. Parke, Festivals of the Athenians (London, 1977), p. 97, is right to doubt that a festival involving a regatta (cf. Lysias l.c.) would be held at that time of the year, the timetable could be somewhat stretched out. Demaratus made his exit from Sparta at the time of the Gymnopaedia (Hdt. 6. 67. 2), which to judge by the fact that the news of the defeat at Leuctra in 371, which happened on the 5th of Hekatombaion (Plut. Ages. 28. 7; Cam. 19. 4), arrived on the last day of the festival (Xen. Hell. 6. 4. 16), fell in midsummer. So if the Sunian festival fell early in the navigating season of 490, the chronological difficulty many have felt is greatly lessened. (17) The phrase is Andrewes’s, ABSA 37 (1936–7), n.13. (18) Cf. N. G. L. Hammond, Historia 4 (1955), pp. 406–11, with a possible timetable on 410. (19) One might guess that Themistocles had a leading part in this affair. Cf. Hdt. 6. 73. 2 and 8. 92f. (20) Plutarch (Ages. 11) recounts a procedure for the deposition of kings at Sparta, which took place every eight years, but it was no use to Cleomenes in 491, since it would not be available until autumn 490 (Leonidas was deposed by the ephors of 242/1). (21) Cf. Hammond, Historia 4 (1955), p. 410 n.20: ‘Athens and Sparta, the only states of the mainland already committed by past and present actions, were the object of Persia’s attack (7. 133).’ The reference to Sparta’s rough reception of the Persian envoys demanding earth and water in 492/1 is indeed apposite. It happened while Cleomenes was still dominant, and one wishes one was better informed about the affair, but it made plain to Sparta what she could expect. It is therefore amazing that help, and meagre help at that, was not sent to Athens

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Cleomenes until the Athenian generals sent for it (Hdt. 6. 105. 1). Those who hold that there was trouble in Messenia, have a ready answer. (22) Cf. Hammond, C.A.H. IV2 246f. (23) Perinthus was Samian, Aenus Mytilenaean, Abdera Tean, Maronea Chian. (24) Pace the firm assertion of Mülder art. cit. (n.4), p. 59. (25) The date for the accession of Demaratus is very imprecise. Hdt. 5. 75. 1 (οὐκ ἐὼν διάϕορος ἐν τῷ πρόσθϵ χρόνῳ Kλϵομένϵϊ) requires that some years have elapsed, but his part in Xerxes’ expedition and, if we may believe Plutarch (Them. 29. 7f.), his still being alive in the 460s argue for his still being a minor when Cleomenes acceded. Cf. Beloch Gr. Gesch. I2 2, p. 182. (26) Xenophon l.c. says that Demaratus was given the cities by Xerxes for his share in the campaign of 480. Herodotus suggests that it was Darius who was responsible, but at 7. 3 he has Demaratus present at Susa; perhaps Xenophon’s version is more probable. (27) Diod. 11. 55. 4 speaks of the threat of trial in the Synedrion of the Hellenic league; which is not excluded by anything Thucydides says. Trial and sentence could well have followed the flight. (28) Medising under compulsion was not punishable (Hdt. 7. 132). (29) Was it a ‘request for alliance’? According to E. Badian in Boiotika, ed. H. Beister and J. Buckler (Munich, 1989), pp. 103ff., when the Plataeans ‘gave themselves’ to the Athenians (Hdt. 6. 108. 4), they voluntarily became subject to Athens. In support it may be remarked that ‘sitting on an altar’, as Herodotus describes them, is hardly the normal posture for requesting alliance. However, previously (§2) the Plataeans are said to have been ‘trying to give themselves to the Spartans’, and whatever their status was in relation to Athens until 479, the only sense one finds likely as regards Sparta is that they were seeking alliance. Badian (p. 103 n.16) is sceptical about Herodotus’ account of Cleomenes and the Spartans happening to be about, and suggests that ‘the Plataeans, knowing him to be a king ambitious both for himself and for Sparta, sent to Peloponnese to make their offer to him’. This may be an added ‘bit of scene-painting’, but it must be remembered that Herodotus probably knew a great deal more than he included as relevant to his purposes. (30) It would be hard to tell what anyone was referring to if in 519 he described the Athenians as ‘not bad at giving help’ (Hdt. 6. 108. 3), but once Athens had insisted on not abandoning the Greeks of Asia (9. 106) and had stayed to finish the destruction of Persian power in the Hellespont (9. 114), such a reputation would have begun to grow.

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Cleomenes (31) Herodotus (1. 83) says ‘the ships were ready’, but omits to say whose and of what sort. When the Corinthians ‘took a share in the expedition to Samos so that it happened’, literally to translate Hdt. 3. 48. 1, but appear not to have done any fighting, one presumes that they provided the ships. This expedition to Samos was ‘large’ (3. 54. 1). Mere merchant-ships sufficed for the Sepeia campaign (6. 76. 2), and these were probably the Aeginetan and Sicyonian ships commandeered by Cleomenes (6. 92. 1). Anchimolius took his expedition to Attica in c.512 by sea on merchant-ships (5. 63. 1). So in the sixth century it would seem that Sparta had no navy (and one would like to know in what circumstances it acquired its ten triremes for Artemisium—8. 1. 2—and increased to sixteen at Salamis according to Herodotus 8. 43, an increase not accepted by Isocrates 12. 50). A large number of merchant-ships wallowing and straggling across the Aegean to Samos would have been a recipe for disaster, and the Corinthians must have transported the Spartans in oar-powered ships. The sceptical view of the so-called Thalassocracy list seems preferable (cf. L. H. Jeffery, Archaic Greece [London, 1976], pp. 252f.). Whatever Sparta professed, she was in no position to perform outside mainland Greece without the cooperation of other maritime powers. (32) One may compare the Athenian reply to the Persian embassy in 343: ‘friendship with the King continues unless the King goes against the Greek cities’ (Philochorus F 157). (33) For Polycrates’ large ambitions. Hdt. 3. 122. 3; 42. 2. (34) There is nothing to suggest that these two thousand were just an advance guard. If they had been, the main body would have been going out merely to congratulate the victors or, from a distance, to lament the defeat. (35) Cleomenes was not the man to wait on formalities. When Isagoras appealed, Cleomenes, according to Herodotus 5. 70. 2, sent a herald to order the expulsion of the Accursed; in which case we may be misled by Herodotus’ manner. In the case of Aegina, there is no doubt (6. 50. 2). However, to order a military expedition was beyond him and whatever his own inclinations he had to accept the fact that the Spartiates as a whole were quite unwilling again to go overseas. The method of rejecting appeals could vary. In the case of Aristagoras Cleomenes simply ordered him ‘out of Sparta by sundown’ (5. 50. 3); for Maeandrius he went to the ephors and advised them to expel him (3. 148. 2). There is, of course, no profound significance in the change of method; the five ephors, who were elected by what Aristotle termed a ‘childish’ method (Pol. 1270 b 26ff.) and Plato regarded as ‘nearly by lot’ (Laws 692a 5), were regarded as representative of common Spartiates but inevitably varied in political sympathies from year to year, so that in one year Cleomenes could count on them, but in another had to tread more warily. (Cf. Andrewes, in Ancient Society and Institutions, ed. Badian (Oxford, 1966), pp. 8f.) There is however one point Page 18 of 19

Cleomenes of difference that I cannot forbear to mention. Expulsions of foreigners (ξϵνηλασίαι) were from Sparta as is shown in the case of Aristagoras, but Maeandrius was to leave the Peloponnese. One cannot suppress the suspicion that Herodotus has taken literally, and commended Cleomenes for one of his ironic remarks, ‘It is better for Sparta that the Samian stranger quits the Peloponnese, to secure that he does not persuade either me or any other Spartiate to become bad’. Which meant perhaps ‘It is in the interests of narrow, little, stuck-in-the-mud Sparta for this man to be expelled from the whole of our precious little world, in case he persuades me or any other Spartiate to seek to do what ought to be done.’ (36) Gylippus, the hero of Syracuse, proved to have sticky fingers (Plut. Lysander 16: Diod. 13. 106. 8 f.). Thibron, harmost in Asia in 399, was fined on his return to Sparta and had to go into exile for some years (Xen. Hell. 3. 1. 8). His worthy successor, Dercylidas, a favourite of Xenophon and Agesilaus, preferred to spend his time abroad (ϕιλαπόδημος Xen. Hell. 4. 3. 2). (37) According to [Dem.] 59. 98, there was more to it than Thucydides (1. 132. 2) lets on. (38) Did Aristotle get the wrong Pausanias at Pol. 1333 b 34? (39) Insight is provided by Xen. Hell. 3. 4. 7f. Lysander, who had had a leading part in the accession of Agesilaus (ibid. 3. 3. 3) and in the despatch of Agesilaus to Asia (3. 4. 2), acted in Asia as if he was the really important person and held court to the multitude of his clients, ὥστϵ ὁ μὲν Άγησίλαος ἰδιώτης ἐϕαίνϵτο, ὁ δὲ Λύσανδρος βασιλϵύς (3. 4. 7). (40) Plut. Lysander 18, which contains matter much discussed. Cf. E. Badian, ‘The Deification of Alexander the Great’, in H. J. Dell (ed.), Ancient Macedonian Studies in Honour of Charles F. Edson (Thessaloniki, 1981), pp. 33–8, P. A. Cartledge, Agesilaos (London, 1987), pp. 82ff., M. A. Flower, CQ 38 (1988), pp. 131ff. (41) Diod. 14. 13, etc.; Aristotle Pol. 1301 b 19, etc. Cf. Cartledge, Agesilaos, pp. 94–6.

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The Fall of Themistocles

Cyrene to Chaeronea: Selected Essays on Ancient Greek History George Cawkwell

Print publication date: 2011 Print ISBN-13: 9780199593286 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199593286.001.0001

The Fall of Themistocles George Cawkwell

DOI:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199593286.003.0006

Abstract and Keywords This chapter examines accounts of Themistocles from favour, his ostracism, and exile. It presents the hypothesis that it was the news of the Persian decision to renew the struggle which set the scene both for the exiling of Themistocles and for the ruin of Pausanias. Keywords:   Themistocles, ostracism, exile, Pausanias

The fall of Themistocles from favour with the δῆμος, his ostracism and exile, remains something of a mystery. In 480 he had been at the height of his power. It was he who had urged the Athenians to ‘trust to the wooden walls’ of the fleet which he had created, who had taken a leading part in the councils and actions of the Greeks. He had gone as far north as Tempe to try and make a stand and had refused to leave Artemisium while the defenders of Thermopylae still stood. Above all, he had played, or was thought to have played, a decisive part in the battle of Salamis. At the end of the year he was honoured as ἀνὴρ πολλòν Ἑλλήνων σοϕώτατος throughout Greece, not least at Sparta, where praise was not lightly given (Hdt. viii 124). After 480 he continued to hold power. He played a leading part in the rebuilding of the walls of Athens, and Thucydides (i 93.4) remarked without further explanation that Themistocles τὴν ἀρχὴν ϵὐθὺς συγκατϵσκϵύαζϵν. After winter 479/8 the evidence grows slight. Such anecdotes as concern Themistocles in the 470s are not necessarily reliable. Yet that he was ostracized shows that he continued to be important; ostracism was a device for getting rid of political opponents, not political nonentities. Nowhere however is there a satisfactory explanation of why Themistocles fell. Plutarch, in his life of Themistocles (22.1), speaks of Themistocles becoming λυπηρός, in his speeches Page 1 of 18

The Fall of Themistocles of self-defence, but he does not explain what the διαβολαί against him were, and his ostracism follows mysteriously. Similarly with his exile. Thucydides (i 135.2) is brief on the cause. Tοῦ δὲ μηδισμοῦ τοῦ Παυσανίου οἱ Λακϵδαιμόνιοι πρέσβϵις πέμψαντϵς παρὰ τοὺς Ἀθηναίους ξυνϵπῃτιῶντο καì τòν Θϵμιστοκλέα, ὡς ηὓρισκον ἐĸ τῶν πϵρì Παυσανίαν ἐλέγχων, ἠξίουν τϵ τοῖς αὐτοῖς κολάζϵσθαι αὐτόν. οἱ δέ πϵισθέντϵς.… No word of explanation is given of what the two were alleged to be jointly contriving with the Persians, nor of why the Athenians were persuaded, (p.96) nor does Thucydides explicitly say what he himself thought of the whole affair. Herodotus however made clear enough what he thought by the tone of his account of Themistocles in 480 and 479. Although he does not neglect Themistocles’ part or omit to record the high honour in which he was held throughout Greece at the end of the Salamis campaign (viii 124), he constantly denigrates him, both his motives and his reputation, and Themistocles emerges as a cunning, corrupt, self-seeking schemer, the master of doing ‘the right thing for the wrong reason’. The very words that introduce him (vii 143) cast a slur on his origins. Ἦν δὲ τῶν τις Ἀθηναίων ἀνὴρ ἐς πρώτους νϵωστì παριών, τῷ οὒνομα μέν ἦν Θϵμιστοκλέης, παῖς δὲ Nϵοκλέος ἐκαλέϵτο. It was notorious in Athens that Themistocles’ mother had been foreign; some said Carian, some Thracian, nationalities common enough among Athenians’ slaves. Παῖς δέ Nϵοκλέος ἐκαλέϵτο adds the suggestion that Themistocles’ real father was not necessarily given by the patronymic. At any rate, no other Athenian is introduced in this fashion, least of all Aristides (viii 79).1 Next, Herodotus, having recorded Themistocles’ famous interpretation of the ‘wooden walls’ oracle, recorded (vii 144) the advice, which ἐς καιρòν ἠρίστϵυσϵ, to use the surplus money suddenly accruing from Laurium on building 200 ships ἐς τòν πόλϵμον, the fleet which largely saved Greece: but this is not to be set to Themistocles’ credit. The war he meant was the war against Aegina. Οὗτος γὰρ ὁ πόλϵμος συστὰς ἒσωσϵ τότϵ τὴν Ἑλλάδα, ἀναγκάσας θαλασσίους γϵνέσθαι Ἀθηναίους. The large number of ships proposed proclaims that Themistocles had more in mind than the war against Aegina. The truth must rather be with Thucydides (i 14)—Ἀθηναίους Θϵμιστοκλῆς ἒπϵισϵν Ἀιγινήταις πολϵμοῦντας, καì ἃμα τοῦ βαρβάρου προσδοĸίμου ὂντος, τὰς ναῦς ποιήσασθαι. When the ships were built, the Persian invasion was already expected, as Herodotus himself elsewhere shows (vii 20, 138), but he will concede no more merit to Themistocles than he has to. So too (p.97) elsewhere. The battle of Artemisium was fought as part of a combined attempt on land and sea to stop the Persians in the Thermopylae area. If the Greek navy had deserted its post at Artemisium, the forces under Leonidas would have been left in the lurch and Persian troops easily landed in the rear, and when Themistocles used his influence with Eurybiades, the Spartan nauarch, to stay and fight the battle, he was clearly advocating what was both honourable and strategically right. But according to Herodotus (viii 4, 5), Themistocles acted because he had received Page 2 of 18

The Fall of Themistocles an enormous bribe of thirty talents from the Euboeans, which he proceeded to distribute in a thoroughly Themistoclean way—five for Eurybiades (ὡς παρ’ ἑαυτοῦ δῆθϵν διδούς), three for Adimantus of Corinth, twenty-two for Themistocles. Πλϵονϵξία indeed, of the masterly sort which he was to display during the siege of Andros later in the year (viii 112). Themistocles, οὐ γὰρ ἐπαύϵτο πλϵονϵκτέων, demanded with menaces, and obtained, money from other islands, λάθρῃ τῶν ἄλλων στρατηγῶν. The truth is left to conjecture. Fleets cost money. The Corinthians with forty ships at Artemisium (viii 1) were perhaps feeling the pinch. What more natural than that money should be collected from those not actively engaged in the defence of Greece to pay for the costs of naval campaigns? Out of these tentative efforts of 480 came the tribute of the Delian League. But Herodotus will not see other than Themisto- clean cunning and greed. His Themistocles is master of taking what does not belong to him. In the account of the debate of the Greek generals whether to fight at Salamis or not (viii 56–64), Themistocles is represented as returning to the Athenian fleet with the news of the decision to move to the Isthmus, and then receiving a strong warning from Mnesiphilus (57) that such a move would ruin the Greek cause; οὐδὲν πρòς ταῦτα ἀμϵιψάμϵνος, Themistocles, who, if there is anything in Thucydides’ judgement of him as ἄριστος ϵἰκαστής (i 138.3), might be supposed to be well aware of what the move would mean and indeed to have already said as much to the council, returns to Eurybiades as bidden by Mnesiphilus and καταλέγϵι ἐκϵῖνα τϵ πάντα τά ἤκουσϵ Mνησιϕίλου, ἑωυτοῦ ποιϵύμϵνος, καì ἄλλα πολλὰ προστιθϵίς (58). That is, Themistocles got the credit which did not fully belong to him.2 Perhaps it is not to go too far in conjecture to suppose that the (p.98) real point of Themistocles’ return to Eurybiades, and of his successfully demanding a recall of the council of generals, lay in those ἄλλα πολλὰ, which contained the declaration that, if the Greeks moved to the Isthmus, the Athenians would not join them (62.2). But for Herodotus Themistocles is a cheat. So much for Herodotus’ general attitude; but in one passage (viii 108f.) he goes so far as to attribute to Themistocles a motive which suggests that Themistocles was not above treasonable communications with the Persians. Unable to persuade the Greeks to sail to the Hellespont and cut the Persian line of communications, he then dissuaded his own countrymen from doing so themselves, partly with the aid of the argument Eurybiades had used to counter him.3 Tαῦτα ἔλϵγϵ ἀποθήκην μέλλων ποιήσϵσθαι ἐς τòν Πέρσην, ἵνα ἢν ἄρα τί μιν καταλαμβάνῃ πρòς Ἀθηναίων πάθος, ἔχῃ ἀποστροϕήν· τά πϵρ ὦν καì ἐγένϵτο (109.5). If such had been Themistocles’ motive, presumably he did not divulge it, and it was by no means necessary for Herodotus to explain his conduct in such terms: if all the Greeks would not sail to the Hellespont, it would have been dangerous folly for the Athenians to go on their own.

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The Fall of Themistocles The reason for Herodotus’ antipathy is not far to seek. He plainly drew much of his information about Athens from Alcmeonid sources, which repeat themselves in his account of the murder of Cylon (v 71) and in his laboured defence of the family against the charge of showing the shield at Marathon (vi 121–31); and, since it was an Alcmeonid, Leobotas son of Alcmeon, who accused Themistocles of medism on the occasion of his exile (Plut. Them. 23.1) and was named, it would appear, in the inscription recording the ϵἰσαγγϵλία (Craterus F 11), it seems likely enough that Herodotus’ view of Themistocles is coloured with Alcmeonid prejudice. The second mission of Sicinnus, in particular, seems more appropriate to an Athenian prosecution than to sober history. The first mission, recently rejected as plain invention,4 will nonetheless continue to find a place in the history of the Persian Wars. If Aeschylus (Pers. 361f.) could within eight years of the battle ascribe so important a part to the (p.99) δόλος Ἕλληνος ἀνδρός, whether or not the Athenians were deceived in thinking that it brought on the battle, it must have happened. Presumably, too, Sicinnus later received the citizenship of Thespiae (Hdt. viii 75) for more than merely being the slave of Themistocles. So the mission of Sicinnus the night before Salamis must be accepted even if it is devalued. But the case of the second mission, that from Andros, is quite different. On this occasion Herodotus declares that Sicinnus was not sent by himself, but in the company of those who shortly afterwards delivered the threatening demands for money in the islands (viii 110, 112.1). It is hard to believe that a mission, so pointless from a Greek point of view, would be made known to more than the messenger himself, or that that messenger would risk a second encounter with the King whom he had earlier helped to mislead. Slipping across the bay by night was one thing, taking ship from Andros to find the King somewhere on his way north was another. Nor was the tradition firm. In one version (Plut. Them. 16.5) it was a captive eunuch of the King’s, Arnaces, who was sent. So it does seem as if this second mission is a fanciful embroidery of what happened at Salamis. Although Thucydides accepted the account (i 137.4), as he accepted much else about Themistocles and Pausanias, it is more credible that it is the invention of enemies who secured for it a place in the tradition and in the pages of Herodotus. Herodotus, then, is ready to suspect the worst of Themistocles. Yet it is notable that nothing that he records of 480 or 479 could be labelled medism. The worst, and it is a bad worst, is that he represents Themistocles envisaging in 480 that he will later need a bolt-hole in the very part of the world where he could least expect in 480 ever to want or find one. If therefore we are to find what is behind the charges of medism at the time of exile, charges which somehow linked him and Pausanias, we must look to the period after the Persian Wars. There too it is hard to imagine that there was anything solid in the Alcmeonid charge of medism. Until Themistocles was ostracized, he had no occasion to seek the friendship of the Great King; afterwards, he had very little to offer. He could do nothing with the one city in which he had real influence, and, although Page 4 of 18

The Fall of Themistocles in Argos he may have been popular, Argos was already an ally of the Great King and the services of a medizer were not required (Hdt. vii 151). Nor is it likely that the sort of influence that he had acquired elsewhere in the (p.100) Peloponnese5 was such as to render him more attractive to Persia, or Persia more attractive to the Peloponnese. Nor did his behaviour on first reaching Asia argue the guilt of medizing. Far from proceeding directly to the King, confident that he would be well received, he did not dare approach until Xerxes had died— a considerable lapse of time (even on the hypotheses of those most concerned to diminish it). But perhaps Themistocles in ostracism, like Alcibiades in exile, was seeking return by hook or by crook? Is it so improbable that a Greek statesman excluded from his own city should turn to its enemies? Thucydides forbids such a notion in the case of Themistocles. For in glossing the phrase, ϵὐϵργϵσία ὀϕϵίλϵται, in the letter of Themistocles to Artaxerxes (i 137.4), he refers only to events of 480 and makes no mention of recent acts of medism. So he evidently thought that there was nothing in the Spartan charges, and the Ephoran version (Diod. xi 54f.) supports his view.6 The only charge made against Themistocles by the Spartans was that he had not made public what Pausanias had revealed to him of his treasonable designs (54.4, 55.8). So too Plutarch (Them. 22). Neither probability nor evidence convicts Themistocles of active medism. Why then was he accused of medism? And why were the Athenians persuaded by the Spartans? What was there about him or his political (p.101) A certain answer is not possible. The evidence for the 470s is too slight. But the probable answer must be that Themistocles had been advocating policies which aimed more at the establishment of Athenian power in Greece than at taking vengeance on the Persians and preventing their return.7 The humiliating failure of Xerxes’ attempt to incorporate Greece in his realm must have made it seem very unlikely to many that the Persians would invade Greece by land again. In so far as they needed to be opposed, they would be opposed on the sea. For this reason, in Thucydides’ opinion (i 93.7), Themistocles concentrated on the navy, and Ephorus may well have been right to record his law providing for the building of twenty new ships a year in close connection with the building of walls (Diod. xi 43.3), which followed immediately on the Persian withdrawal in 479/8 (Thuc. i 89.3).8 But in maintaining and strengthening the navy, Themistocles had more in mind than defence against Persia. Tόν τϵ Πϵιραιᾶ ὠϕϵλιμώτϵρον ἐνόμιζϵ τῆς ἄνω πόλϵως, καì πολλάκις τοῖς Ἀθηναίοις παρῄνϵι, ἢν ἄρα ποτέ κατὰ γῆν βιασθῶσι, καταβάντας ἐς αὐτòν ταῖς ναυσì πρòς ἃπαντας ἀνθίστασθαι (Thuc. i 93.7). Clearly he had in mind, to some degree, the Spartans. Not only did he entertain no sympathy with their request to Athens not to refortify the city, but at the meeting of the Delphic Amphictyony shortly after the Persian with- drawal9 he was sufficiently suspicious of Sparta to oppose the plan to exclude the states which had medized: whereupon he came into direct opposition to the Spartans, who gave their support to Cimon, his principal opponent in Athens (Plut. Them. 20). Cimon’s policy was the Panhellenist ideal of Page 5 of 18

The Fall of Themistocles the shared hegemony, and received its clearest expression in the debate over the Spartan appeal for help in 465. Ephialtes opposed help and called on the Athenians ‘to let the pride of Sparta be laid low and trampled in the dust’, while Cimon, according to Critias, considered the increase of his country’s power less important than the interests of the Spartans and persuaded the people to march out to their aid with a large force of hoplites; and Ion recorded the actual remark Cimon made in getting the Athenians to (p.102) move, calling on them μήτϵ τὴν Ἑλλάδα χωλὴν μὴτϵ τὴν πόλιν ἑτϵρόζυγαπϵριϊδϵῖν γϵγϵνημένην (Plut. Cim. 16). Such was Themistocles’ opponent, friend of Sparta, friend of the allies (op. cit. 11), and it seems clear enough that he who τὴν ἀρχὴν ϵὐθὺς συγκατϵσκϵύαζϵν,10 and who envisaged opposition πρòς ἅπαντας, was, from 478 on, the firm opponent of Sparta. His ambitions in Greece are presumably the truth behind the story of his proposing to burn the rest of the Hellenic fleet at Pagasae (Plut. Them. 20). With that clarity of vision that Thucydides commended (i 138.3), Themistocles saw Sparta as Athens’ real enemy, and this must inevitably have muted his zeal for the war against Persia. There is, it must be conceded, no direct evidence that he had ceased to fear a Persian return. That he should choose to go in ostracism to Persia’s ally in Greece argues little; Argos was a convenient base for meddling in Peloponnesian affairs (Thuc. i 135.3). But, as many have seen, the very fact that accusations of medism were credited at Athens shows that Themistocles had been less than zealous for the Mηδικòς πόλϵμος. To infer the policies of Themistocles from the charges laid against him after his ostracism may seem to some a curious method, but such a method is frequently enough necessary in Greek history. The charges, for instance, against Demosthenes in the 330s of taking money from the Persians, or those made by Demosthenes in 343 against Aeschines of being in Macedonian pay, or those made against Timagoras in 366 of selling Athens’ interests to the Thebans, are not to be taken literally.11 Such allegations were frequently unverifiable when they were made and in Athens one was not obliged by exacting rules of evidence. The important question is always what in the policies of statesmen could make such an interpretation of their acts remotely credible, and the right answer seems to be again and again that behind such ‘medizing’, or ‘Philippizing’, or ‘Boeotianizing’, were policies of avoiding hostilities with Persia, or Macedon, or Thebes. So Themistocles’ medizing is a common enough sort of occurrence in Athenian politics. Indeed, there is a very similar case a few years earlier. At Marathon someone made, or was thought to have made, a shield signal to the Persians. No one at the time was shown to be (p.103) responsible; if he had been, he would have been dealt with. But rumour fastened on the Alcmeonids for whom Herodotus engaged in his long defence (vi 115, 121–31), and we are left to inquire why they in particular could be suspected of such treasonable traffic. The probable answer is that they had been lukewarm about the Ionian Revolt, regarding it as the hopeless venture that Herodotus was to Page 6 of 18

The Fall of Themistocles represent it, presumably in part under Alcmeonid influence.12 From a policy of leaving Asia to itself came suspicions of medism in the case as later in that of Themistocles. This picture of Themistocles in the 470s, as primarily concerned to challenge Sparta for the hegemony of the Greeks and confident that the Persians would not come again, is, as already remarked, far from novel. What is to be considered here is the circumstances in which Themistocles’ policy was discredited. In late 479, the Athenians, Θϵμιστοκλέους γνώμῃ (Thuc. i 90.3), refortified Athens despite Spartan wishes and Themistocles began to counsel them to be prepared πρòς ἅπαντας ἀνθίστασθαι (op. cit. 93.7). Early in 478, presumably,13 he clashed with Sparta at the meeting of the Delphic Amphictyony (Plut. Them. 20), and Sparta rewarded his hostile suspicions by turning to his political opponents. In the course of 478, the conduct of Pausanias alienated the allies who turned to Athens, and the Spartans were confronted with the important decision, whether to retire gracefully or to dispute Athens’ assumption of the hegemony (Thuc. i 95). In Thucydides, the Spartan retirement is presented in words which conceal debate: they retired, ‘fearing lest those who went abroad from Sparta should be corrupted, as they observed in the case of Pausanias, and wanting in fact to be rid of the Persian War, καì τοὺς Ἀθηναίους νομίζοντϵς ἱκανοὺς ἐξηγϵῖσθαι καì σϕίσιν ἐν τῷ τότϵ παρόντι ἐπιτηδϵίους’. Fortunately the debate recorded by Ephorus (Diod. xi 50), which presumably belongs to this occasion,14 makes clear that (p.104) there was a serious crisis and there was very nearly war against Athens ὑπὲρ τῆς κατὰ θάλατταν ἡγϵμονίας. The decision left Athens free to organize the Delian League (Thuc. i 96) in late 478 (Ath. Pol. 23.5). It was carried out not by Themistocles, but by his rival Aristides.15 The first blow was delivered. Themistocles had expected a struggle for the hegemony. Within a year he was proved wrong. Later came more alarming news, but before considering it, we must first deal briefly with chronology. Fortunately, this paper does not depend on any particular date for the battle of Eurymedon. No matter here whether or not one sympathizes with recent attempts to establish the lower date.16 But two points are relevant; first, that it was the siege of Naxos which Themistocles encountered on his flight across the Aegean, and, secondly, that the revolt and siege of Naxos belong to the campaigning year prior to that of the battle of Eurymedon. There can be no doubt that Thucydides wrote Nάξον at i 137.2. As often observed, the following άϕικνϵῖται ἐς ’Έϕϵσον almost demands it, and in any case Nepos appears to have followed Thucydides, and he wrote of Naxos (Them. 8.6, 9.1). But was Thucydides mistaken? Did Themistocles flee by way of Thasos and Cyme, as the reading of one manuscript of Plutarch’s Themistocles (at 25.2) has suggested to (p.105) many?17 There is no point in refighting here this battle. We all have our positions, and I have no new forces to deploy. I must simply profess that for me the authority of Thucydides is decisive. He may not have had precise information about what became of Themistocles once he was Page 7 of 18

The Fall of Themistocles inside the Persian Empire, but for the Greek details of the story he is far the most credible source.18 So in this chapter it is presumed that Themistocles fled in the year of the siege of Naxos. The other point is less clear and less important. The common presumption that Eurymedon fell in the year of Naxos has no firm argument to support it. If it is right that the battle was in 469, the range of possibility for the siege of Naxos is small. Eion was captured in 476/5 (Schol. Aesch. 2.31). We must allow for the capture of Skyros and the war against Carystus (Thuc. i 98.3). That would appear to confine the revolt of Naxos to the late 470s, and only those who are determined to exile Themistocles in 465 have great difficulty in accepting that the year 471/0, which is commonly agreed to be either the date of his ostracism or his exile,19 is the year of the latter. For better or for worse, the author of this chapter believes that Themistocles fled in 471/0 and that Eurymedon was fought in 469.20 But for (p.106) the chapter itself no more is necessary than that the siege of Naxos, which nearly saw the capture of Themistocles, fell very shortly before the battle of Eurymedon. It is a presumption. So much for chronology. As I have already argued, Themistocles was quickly proved wrong, or so it appeared, about Sparta. Later he was proved wrong, or so it appeared, about Persia. The Persian Empire was a very slow moving affair. For whatever reasons, expeditions took a long time to prepare. The most notable instance is, of course, the expedition of 480. According to Herodotus, the Greeks knew about the coming invasion πρò πολλοῦ (vii 138), and indeed the Persian preparations took four years (vii 20.1). The Greeks had ample forewarning, and when in 483/2 the mines of Laurium gave Themistocles the chance to build a large fleet (Ath. Pol. 22.7), the Persians were known to be preparing (Thuc. i 14). So for Xerxes’ invasion they had at least two years warning, possibly a good deal more. Nor did it need a Demaratus for more than the very early warning he was able to give (Hdt. vii 239). Preparations could not be concealed. The news of the naval preparations which led up to the battle of Cnidus in August 394 came in winter 397/6 (Xen. Hell. iii 4.1). The preparations for the invasion of Egypt in 351/0 occasioned a debate in Athens about Persian intentions in 354/3.21 It is a paradox, especially to those imbued with Greek notions of Persian power, that an empire of such great resources should labour so obviously in mounting an expedition, but labour it did, and Phoenicia could not contain the news.22 So when the King decided on the great expedition that came (p.107) to disaster on the Eurymedon, he in all probability decided a good two years in advance and the news of his preparations must have reached Greece well before the revolt of Naxos. Indeed that revolt, and its suppression, should be seen as preliminaries to the coming struggle: Naxos was preparing, or must have seemed to be preparing, to default at the moment when unity was essential; the Persians had once already shown themselves ready to exploit Naxian stasis in order to extend their power in the Aegean (Hdt. v 28f.); now the Hellenes must have feared a repetition. Not that the fears were necessarily very realistic. The first aim of the Page 8 of 18

The Fall of Themistocles combined land and sea force that was stopped at the Eurymedon would have been to subject Ionia, and, given the Persian taste for combined operations, it was unlikely that the Persian fleet would be cruising freely in the Aegean. But the danger of a resurgence of Persian naval power was there and the Greeks were right to fear. It was this fear, I suggest, that undid Themistocles. He had in no way trafficked with the Persians, but, having been less resolute than Cimon about the national crusade, he was vulnerable. Sparta saw her opportunity. Themistocles, whose residence in Argos had enabled him to frequent the parts of the Peloponnese where Spartan control was weakening, and who may indeed have had some influence in the synoecisms of Elis and Mantinea, had become more than a nuisance,23 and charges of complicity in the medism of Pausanias offered a means of ruining Themistocles as well. Documents, not for the only time in Spartan history,24 were found. In great fear of the coming conflict with Persia, the Athenian people were persuaded. Themistocles fled. Time would show that Themistocles was indeed τῶν μϵλλόντων ἐπì πλϵῖστον τοῦ γϵνησομένου ἄριστος ϵἰκαστής (Thuc. i 138.3). Ultimately the conflict with Sparta had to be resolved, and the conflict with Persia reach stalemate and compromise. But the 470s belonged to Cimon, amity with Sparta, and exaggerated fears of a new 480. His opponent fled and made what he could of his new bad name. Kράτιστος δὴ οὗτος αὐτοσχϵδιάζϵιν τὰ δέοντα, he fared not too ill. (p.108) It would be easy to stop here, but one cannot dissociate Themistocles and Pausanias. What of the medism of Pausanias? What did he propose to Xerxes, or what was he alleged to have proposed? And what of the friendship of Themistocles and Pausanias, on which stories of complicity in treason could draw credit? These awkward questions must be put. For two reasons the questions are awkward. First, as ever with Sparta, there is τῆς πολιτϵίας τò κρυπτόν, and answers may prove impossible. Secondly, Thucydides’ account of Pausanias and Themistocles is peculiarly open to question. Evidence of what became of Themistocles after he landed at Ephesus must have been very hard to test, and one reads with astonishment what purports to be the message of Themistocles to Artaxerxes (i 137.4). By no stretch of the imagination is it probable that a copy of such a letter ever reached Greece. It is much more likely that the text is a free composition, and indeed a free composition not uninfluenced by slander.25 For can one seriously entertain the idea of the King of Kings being told by a suppliant Greekling that he could do him great benefits but wanted to wait a year before saying what they were? He would not seem from Thucydides’ account to have been in hiding. Mϵτὰ τῶν κάτω Πϵρσῶν τινòς πορϵυθϵìς ἄνω ἐσπέμπϵι γράμματα … (i 137.3). That is, he was in Susa. If he expected a reply, he must have made his presence public. Yet, although the King wondered, ὡς λέγϵται, at what Themistocles had in mind, he did not satisfy his curiosity, but accepted a year’s delay. In that year Page 9 of 18

The Fall of Themistocles Themistocles learnt as much Old Persian as he could, and, armed with Persian manners as impeccable as possible, he promised to subject Greece, and did well for himself (i 138). No one can prove that all this did not happen exactly so, nor that the account did not come from Themistocles himself in his last years in Magnesia. But good sense suggests that someone’s imagination had been at work, and someone, at that, who imagined perhaps that Themistocles’ conversation with the king was so blackly treacherous that no intermediary, no interpreter could be trusted to hear the dark secrets. Thucydides has accepted, if not all he was told, at any rate a great deal (p.109) more than was consistent with his careful method. Not that the romantic last days of Themistocles are of great historical importance, but, when one turns to Pausanias, doubts cannot be stifled and much is at stake in our understanding of Sparta. Thucydides was far from uninformed about Sparta. He had been there (i 10). He had studied the inscription concerning Pausanias’ burial (i 134.4), and the precision of patronymics and of social rank in the history shows that he had access to much exact information about the state, which presumably he did not omit to visit in the freedom of his exile (v 26). His knowledge of the mysterious disappearance of the helots who thought too much of themselves (iv 80) argues something of that intimacy which enabled Xenophon to recount the conspiracy of Cinadon (Hell. iii 3.4f.). So, without going further into the matter here, it is clear that, when Thucydides talks about Sparta, he knows what he is talking about and his account of the end of Pausanias is not to be lightly discounted. None the less, there are disquieting features. First, the exchange of letters with Xerxes. Each letter is introduced by τάδϵ. So we are invited to believe that we are reading the authentic texts. But where could such texts have come from? Did Pausanias keep copies of his correspondence? And, if he kept the letter from Susa, is it likely that he kept a copy of his proposal to marry the Great King’s daughter, and to subject Sparta and the rest of Greece to Persia? Proof is not possible, but prudence prompts scepticism, of the sort which Herodotus showed on the subject of Pausanias’ marriage (v 32). It looks as if Thucydides has been less than usually critical of the Spartan version.26 Secondly, there is the story of the Argilian man (i 131).27 We are invited to believe that this man (p.110) observed a succession of messengers departing never to return, and, discovering that his own message carried a postscript requesting the death of the bearer, confronted Pausanias with some of the Ephors in hiding and reproached him in terms that made clear to his listeners that there had been a number of services to Pausanias in connection with the Great King; Pausanias admitted the truth of his reproaches, would not allow him to be angry πϵρì τοῦ παρόντος, but begged him to be on his way as quickly as possible καì μὴ τὰ πραττόμϵνα διακωλύϵιν (i 133), which was uncommonly cool. Now there are Thucydidean neo-fundamentalists to whom this story may seem credible. But how did it reach Thucydides? Not from Pausanias, just conceivably from the Argilian, but more probably from Spartiates, and we Page 10 of 18

The Fall of Themistocles know enough of governments which are concerned to foster τῆς πολιτϵίας τò κρυπτòν to suspend belief when they bolster charges of deviation with confirmatory details. It is true that it is all ὡς λέγϵται (i 132.5). Thucydides may himself have meant it to be treated as the Apocrypha. But elsewhere he eschews λόγοι and personal anecdotes, and one suspects that in this part of the first book we have a sample of the early Thucydides whose rigorous standards have yet fully to form themselves. His defenders may counter that the mature Thucydides let the story stand; if it is as vulnerable to criticism as is here suggested, he might be expected to see so for himself. That is true, and that is why we are left in no more than doubt about his account of Pausanias. But doubt there is. Of one thing we may be sure. If Pausanias really was negotiating with the helots as Thucydides so confidently asserts (i 132.4 καì ὖν δὲ οὕτως), any conceivable act of medism was far less serious in Spartan eyes. Greece would take care of Persia. The defence of the Spartan social order was the overriding concern of Sparta. Pausanias, the medizer with un-Spartan ways (Thuc. i 94.5, 130.1), could be tolerated, as it would appear, for no little time,28 Pausanias, the helotizer, (p. 111) not for an instant. Given this priority of evils at Sparta, one cannot avoid the suspicion that the whole story of the medism of Pausanias was a Spartan fabrication which gained credit from his well-known excesses in command of the Greeks, but which was primarily aimed at involving Themistocles in his ruin. If this suspicion were correct, Thucydides ’account would be almost entirely misleading, an uncomfortable consequence that few will seriously entertain. So we are turned back to speculate, what sort of plans Pausanias could have been engaged on (τὰ πρασσόμϵνα of Thuc. i 133), which could interest or involve the Great King. It has recently been proposed29 that the death of Pausanias preceded the exile of Themistocles by a considerable lapse of time, but neither does the account of Thucydides (i 135.2) give any support to this nor, if I have argued correctly about the fall of Themistocles, is there any need to explain why Pausanias was accused of medizing so long after his two excursions to the Hellespont. The report of Persian preparations for renewed offensive, which excited the fears exploited by the accusers of Themistocles, gave Pausanias reason to seek Persian help in his plans, or at any rate he could be credibly represented as seeking help. Xerxes was thought to be preparing to come again. Pausanias had large un-Spartiate ambitions (Thuc. i 132).30 His enemies could have suspected that he had much to hope for from the Persians. The Messenian Revolt of 490 had coincided with the Persian campaign to Marathon:31 presumably they had expected the Persians to win, and at the least Sparta to be unaided in dealing with the revolt. So Sparta had much to fear from the return of the Persians, (p. 112) as was shown when they preferred to have 35,000 helots with them at Plataea (Hdt. ix 10.1). Not that Pausanias is likely to have planned the liberation of the helots of Messenia. Messenian nationalism sought independence, not social reform. But he may have entertained plans for liberating helots of Laconia Page 11 of 18

The Fall of Themistocles ἵνα μοναρχῇ (Ar. Pol. 1307A3), and for their attainment he may have been prepared to seek Persian support. Or so it could be said. Non liquet. There is no end to speculation about Pausanias and perhaps little point in it, but whoever has read as far as this will perhaps tolerate one more straw. In the crisis for Spartan strategy produced by the disaster of Pylos, the limitation on the range of Spartan military operations was overcome by the revolutionary measure of Brasidas whereby helots were used for foreign service (Thuc. iv 80). Within a few years the institution of neodamodeis had come into being and begun to play an important part in the Spartan Empire.32 In what sense they were in the δᾶμος we cannot even guess, but presumably the name means that they were. They got perhaps what Thucydides (i 132.4) asserted Pausanias offered in his dealings ἐς τοὺς Eἵλωτας, to wit ἐλϵυθέρωσιν καì πολιτϵίαν, but this was when the number of Spartiates had disastrously declined. Earlier 2,000 helots had been deceived by Spartan offers of freedom into professing their aspirations and they paid with their lives (Thuc. iv 80). Such was earlier the Spartan fear of what they later had to accept. But the man who originated the idea of freeing helots had been Pausanias. He may have dreamed of the total overthrow of the Spartan system, a freak of the Agiad line. He may, on the other hand, have intended much less, viz. the first neodamodeis. Shocked and appalled, those who later murdered the 2,000 contrived Pausanias’ ruin, in which was involved Themistocles, whose presence in the Peloponnese gave comfort to the opponents of aristocracy outside the Spartan state. Is it inconceivable that so much was made by his opponents of so little, that Pausanias was a sensible man, not a monster? Thucydides does not enlarge on τὰ πρασσόμϵνα (i 133), does not discuss in what way exactly Pausanias was learnt ἐς τοὺς Eἵλωτας πράσσϵιν (i 132.4). He talks as if the helots were an organized, if clandestine, trade union, which from all we know they certainly were not. (p.113) There is ample room for speculation. The only hypothesis which I wish to press here is that it was the news of the Persian decision to renew the struggle which set the scene both for the exiling of Themistocles and for the ruin of Pausanias, whether for his hopes or merely for Spartan fears. One question remains. Why was it believed that Pausanias might have communicated to Themistocles treasonable plans? If the burden of the first part of this chapter is correct, their policies had much in common. When Pausanias sailed out ἰδίᾳ after his first recall and trial, he professed that he went ἐπì τòν Ἑλληνικòν πόλϵμον (Thuc. i 128.3) which by Thucydidean usage should mean ‘the war against the Hellenes’.33 That is, when after the advice of Hetoimaridas (Diod. xi 50) Sparta left Athens to the hegemony of the Greeks, Pausanias went out, not to fight Persia (for he was shortly alleged to be medizing again), but to fight for Ἑλληνικὴ ἀρχή. So he is the Spartan counterpart of Themistocles. But their policies should have made them opponents. How could they be thought to be in league? Of course, the events of 480 and 479 may have made them not only Page 12 of 18

The Fall of Themistocles partners but friends. Presumably they had encountered each other at the meetings at the Isthmus, even if they do not meet in the pages of Herodotus. But one would expect there to be more to it than that. By 478 Sparta had turned against Themistocles (Plut. Them. 20). The friendships of 480, like its signal honours (Hdt. viii 124) would have been forgotten. Why were they thought in the late 470s to be likely to be in communication? Perhaps the right answer, lame though it may appear, is simply that both had lacked zeal for the war against Persia, both were in eclipse in their own states, the one ostracized, the other discredited, and there was one remedy that both could share, or both be made to share, if the Persians ever came again. So the two great leaders of the Persian Wars fell, under the coming shadow of the Eurymedon campaign, but their accusers will always be less successful with posterity than they were with their contemporaries. Notes:

(1) The only other case of such an introduction in the whole work is at vi 88—καì ὖν γὰρ Nικόδρομος Kνοίθου καλϵόμϵνος ἐν τῇ Aἰγίνῃ ἀνὴρ δόκιμος—but we have no idea of Herodotus’ attitude towards him. For his introduction of other notable Athenians of the period, cf. vi 131.2 and 136 (Xanthippus), viii 17 (Clinias), viii 21 (Abronichus). Ed. Meyer, Forschungen 2, p. 223 noted the oddity of ἐς πρώτους νϵωστì παριών about a man who had been archon as early as 493/2 (the right date, cf. R. J. Lenardon, Historia 5, 1956, pp. 401f.). Probably Herodotus meant that the family of Themistocles had been obscure. (2) H. Bischoff, Der Warner bei Herodot (Marburg, 1932), pp. 8f., collected and discussed the instances of ‘das Beraten in schwierige Lagen’. What is remarkable about the advice of Mnesiphilus (on whom Themistocles was said to have modeled himself—Plut. Them. 2.6) is that Themistocles took it without acknowledgement. Cp. Macan ad loc. (3) Compare viii 108.3 with 109.2. (4) C. Hignett, Xerxes’ Invasion of Greece, pp. 403f. (5) Thuc. i 135.3 (ἐπιϕοιτῶν δὲ καì ἐς τὴν ἄλλην Πϵλοπόννησον) is tantalizingly brief, but, as all have agreed in seeing 471/0 as the year in which he either went to the Peloponnese in ostracism or fled into exile, and as that is the year in which the synoecism of Elis was set by Diodorus’ chronological source (Diod. xi 54), it is probably right to suppose Themistocles not uninterested in such important social changes. Cf. A. Andrewes, Phoenix 6, 1952, p. 4. (6) Ephorus may have been reasonably informed about the charge against Themistocles. At any rate, Plutarch, who had Stesimbrotus to guide him, accepted the same version (Them. 23). Nor is the Ephoran account to be rejected because it speaks of the Spartans demanding that Themistocles be tried Page 13 of 18

The Fall of Themistocles in the κοινòν συνέδριον (Diod. xi 55.4f.). There probably was such a synedrion, to judge by the case of Timocreon (Plut. Them. 21.7 συγκαταψηϕισαμένου τοῦ Θϵμιστοκλέους). The exile decreed by the Athenians and recorded by Craterus (F 11) may have followed Themistocles’ flight. The only suspect element in the Diodorus version is his account of an earlier trial in which Themistocles was acquitted (Diod. xi 54.5–55.7). The πρότϵραι κατηγορίαι of Plutarch’s account (Them. 23.4) appear to have been answered by letter, and not in person, which suggests that Themistocles was already in ostracism. So there is nothing in Plutarch to support Diodorus, and, while it is probable enough that Themistocles was on trial before his ostracism, the charge of medism seems unlikely. For, if the Spartans had been accusing Themistocles before his ostracism of receiving treacherous letters from Pausanias, they would at least have had the ϕανϵρòν σημϵῖον of Pausanias’ medism Thucydides says they lacked (i 132.1). Either Diodorus has misrepresented Ephorus’ account, or Ephorus was himself confused. (7) Cf. Ed. Meyer, G.d.A. iii, p. 511, and C. Hignett, Hist. Ath. Const., p. 190. (8) The Hetoimaridas debate (Diod. xi 50), which belongs to late 478 (v.i.), is followed by a comment on its effect on Athenian policy: it released the Athenians from the fear which had led them to be building more triremes. This confirms the dating of Themistocles’ naval law to 479/8. (9) Cf. R. Flacelière, R.É.A. 55, 1953, pp. 19f. (10) For the meaning of ἀρχή here, cf. J. de Romilly, Thucydides and Athenian Imperialism (English translation, 1963) pp. 59 and 119 n. 6. (11) For these cases cf. C.Q. N.S. 13, 1963, p. 204, and 11, 1961, pp. 83f; and Aesch. iii 238, etc. and C.Q. N.S. 19, 1969, pp. 176f (herein Ch. XIX, pp. 457f.). (12) Various explanations have been advanced for Herodotus’ antipathy to the Ionian Revolt, and no doubt there were various influences. But what is notable is that, having conceived the war of East and West as having its origins in the remotest past (cp. i 4.1, 5.1 and 3), he speaks of the ships sent by Athens at the start of the revolt as the ἀρχὴ κακῶν ‘Έλλησί τϵ καì βαρβαροίσι (v 97.3 and cf. viii 142.2) when the ‘evils’ of Ionia had on his own account begun long before. His viewpoint is thus in large measure Athenian isolationist. (13) Cf. R. Flacelière, R.É.A. 55, 1953. (14) The years under which Diodorus disposes his narrative are not significant. What does matter is whether the notice about the Hetoimaridas debate (xi 50) is separated from the narrative of Hellenic affairs of 478 (in ch. 47) by material that probably belonged to the same narrative in Ephorus and that could not have

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The Fall of Themistocles happened in 478. No such matter does so intervene; there are only Sicelica and chronographic notices in chs. 48 and 49. Ch. 50 can follow closely on ch. 47. (15) Cf.Hdt. viii 79.3, Plut. Them. 2.1–3.4, 9.5, 22.2–4, 24.6, 25.10; all of which passages, no matter how dubitable in detail, are based on the fact of a constant antipathy. (16) See in particular M. E. White, JHS 84, 1964, p. 140, who argues that, if Pausanias had died as early as the dating of Themistocles’ exile to 471/0 requires, he would probably not have had time to sire his three sons, the eldest of whom Pleistoanax was, she claims, under twenty at the battle of Tanagra. This argument is not cogent. On the one hand, there is no proof that, in describing Pleistoanax as νέος in 458, Thucydides necessarily meant that he was a minor; Alcibiades in 420 is described as ἔτι τότϵ ὢν νέος ὡς ἐν ἄλλῃ πόλϵι (v 43.2, and cf. vi 18.6 with 2.8 and 21.2), and it is by no means clear that the Spartans would cheerfully entrust the command of their army to a man as soon as he became of military age, even if on occasion Polemarchs could be very young (Hdt. viii 85.1); he might still be too young to command at twenty-five. On the other hand, there is plenty of time biologically speaking. Pausanias could have sired his youngest son the day before he made his fatal visit to meet the Argilian man and his eldest in 477. Nor is Professor White’s argument helped by the statement in Plutarch (Per. 22.2) that Kleandridas accompanied Pleistoanax in 446 as his ‘warden and adviser’ διὰ τὴν ἡλικίαν; Kleandridas went as Ephor (cf. Suidas s.v. Ἔϕορος), and Ephors always accompanied kings on campaign, let Plutarch adorn the fact as he will. (17) Recently and most notably to W. G. Forrest, C.Q. N.S. 10, 1960, pp. 221f., who argues that the reason why Themistocles fled into exile from Argos was that there had been a change at Argos and he could no longer count on those in power to shelter him. This presumed change is in any case a movable feast, but the explanation of his flight may well be that Argos, which could harbour without scruple or fear an Athenian ostracisé, might well hesitate to refuse a demand of the Hellenes (cf. n. 6); the city’s medizing might no longer be tolerated, if it sheltered an (allegedly) active collaborator. (18) The Thasos-Cyme version of Themistocles’ route into exile probably derived, as often surmised, from the local patriotism of Ephorus (cf. F.G.H. 70 F 1, F 97, F 100, F 236), a poor prop for chronology. Of course Themistocles may well have been said to have been in Cyme during the interval between his arrival in Asia and the accession of Artaxerxes. (19) Cf. Gomme, Historical Commentary on Thucydides, vol. I, p. 401. (20) Accepting the brilliant conjecture of ATL iii, p. 160, that the reason why in spring 468 all the generals were installed as judges in the theatre (Plut. Cim. 8.7–9) was that this was the first occasion after the Eurymedon when Cimon and Page 15 of 18

The Fall of Themistocles his colleagues were all together in public in Athens. It is true that, whereas the other instances, in that chapter, of exceptional honours for Cimon are explained, Plutarch gives no explanation of this honour and it might be that the whole affair sprang from the ϕιλονικία καì παράταξις τῶν θϵατῶν. But such a departure from custom suggests that the board of generals were especially popular at that moment, and some success which had involved them all (which would not presumably have been the case with the capture of Scyrus or the siege of Naxos) seems to be required. If the battle of Eurymedon was in 469 and the siege of Naxos 470, it is no surprise that the year 471/0 is that under which Diodorus puts the Themistocles story, and apparently the year according to Cicero for the flight (de Amic. 12.42). This is just one more matter in which the discovery of a full Craterus (cf. F 11) would silence debate: the sources of Cicero were less constricted than ours. (21) The date of the invasion of Egypt is derived from the date in Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Letter to Ammaeus, p. 726) which happens to be the date under which it is put in Diodorus (xvi 40). That Dem. 14 (of 354/3 acc. to Dion. Hal. l.c.), was part of the debate excited by news of Persian preparations is asserted by the Hypothesis to the speech, but that the preparations were for the expedition against Egypt is a guess, albeit a reasonable one. (22) The preparations for the invasion of Egypt in 373 took ‘several years’ (Diod. xv 41.2) and began certainly by mid-375 (Diod. xv 38.1). Hell. Oxy. 19.2 implies that preparations regularly took a longish time; the King was κατ’ ἀρχάς niggardly. The three years for the war against Egypt of Isoc. 4.140 probably covers two years of preparation and one of invasion: the strategic problem was to get into Egypt while the Nile was low; if the Persians had not won in the vital months, they had to retire to Phoenicia and begin again. For the lengthy preparations of the invasion of 342, cf. C.Q. N.S. 13, 1963, pp. 122f. Perhaps the recall of Cimon from ostracism in 452/1 was occasioned by news of new Persian preparations, against which he sailed in 450. Since trade between Greeks and Phoenicia went on, it was inevitable that the sort of news brought to Athens by a Syracusan in 397/6 (Xen. Hell. iii 4.1) always reached Greece. (23) Cf. Forrest, C.Q. N.S. 10, 1960, p. 229, and above, n. 5. (24) Cf. Diod. xiv 13.8. (25) Cf. M. A. Levi, Parola del Passato 7, 1952, p. 109. No great literary skill was needed to compose in Greek a letter from Xerxes. The formulae were not unfamiliar. Cf. Hdt. viii 85.3, iii 140.1, and Tod G.H.I.2 no. 12 (= Fornara 35). Disbelief in the authenticity of the letter is widespread. Cf. A. Lippold, Rh. Mus. N.F. 108, 1965, pp. 334f., and C. W. Fornara, Historia 15, 1966, pp. 262f.

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The Fall of Themistocles (26) There is not a formal clash. (Cf. Gomme, ad i 128.7.) In Thucydides Pausanias has the effrontery to propose himself for the hand of the King’s daughter and Xerxes omits reply. It is conceivable that Pausanias then married the daughter of the King’s cousin, or was rumoured to have done so, Herodotus being sceptical about the matter. But it seems more likely that Thucydides and Herodotus are reporting varying versions of the same affair, Thucydides accepting where Herodotus doubted (pace H. Schaefer, PW 18. 4, col. 2,577, who thinks that Thucydides was better informed). (27) When there is so much that is odd in the Pausanias story, it is pointless to seek to purge any of the oddities. What was Pausanias doing abroad ἄνϵυ Λακϵδαιμονίων (Thuc. i 128.3) when Spartiates were not allowed such independence (Isoc. 11. 18, Ar. Frag. 543), and what was he doing away from Sparta when he was still regent (Thuc. i 132.1), and how did he come to have a σκυτάλη when he was there ἰδίᾳ (Thuc. i 128.3 and 131.2), and was an eminent Spartiate able to send off messengers on private business in this carefully controlled state (Thuc. i 132.5)? So it is probably idle to ask what an Argilian was doing in Sparta, and for some time at that, having been Pausanias’ boyfriend. According to Gomme ad loc. the Argilian ‘was a slave, as can be seen from Pausanias’ promise not to punish him’, but in that case why did he run off to Taenarum risking the wrath to come and not quietly make his way to Argilos? If we amended Ἀργίλιος to Aἰγίλιος, some sense would enter the story, for there was a locality of Laconia called Aἴγιλα (Paus. iv 17.1). However, Nepos Paus. 4.1 has ‘Argilius’, and evidently drew his account from Thucydides (who presumably would not have been as precise about the origins of a perioec or a slave). (28) Some have taken refuge in the statement of Justin ix 1.3 (that Pausanias occupied Byzantium per septem annos) to bridge the gap between his return to the Hellespont in 477 and the fall of Themistocles. But, as J. Wolski, Eos 49, 1954, pp. 78f. pointed out, the Ephorus papyrus (F.G.H. 70, F 191) suggests that Pausanias was no longer in control of Byzantium when Cimon sailed out to the siege of Eion. (Pace Lippold, Rh. Mus. N.F. 108, 1965, pp. 334f., and Fornara, Historia 15, 1966, pp. 262f.) One may add that, if Pausanias had been so long in Byzantium, he would in all likelihood have used its strategic position to some purpose, and there is nothing to suggest that he did. Either Justin was misled or the text is corrupt. (29) Forrest, C.Q. N.S. 10, 1960, p. 237, who thinks that Pausanias probably died about 474/3. But what, on this hypothesis, was he doing between 477 and then? If Thucydides’ narrative conceals that gap, there is no great difficulty in supposing that the gap was a bit longer and that Pausanias died in 471. Cf. Lippold, Rh. Mus. N.F. 108, 1965, p. 328, n. 33. (30) Cf. Ar. Pol. 1307 A3f.

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The Fall of Themistocles (31) Plato Laws 692 D and 698 E provide the date for this revolt. There is no reason for placing it in 491. (32) References are collected by R. F. Willetts, C.P. 49, 1954, p. 27. (33) According to Wolski, Eos 49, 1954, pp. 88 f., Pausanias went with official support, barely ἰδίᾳ. But, despite the σκυτάλη (Thuc. i 130) which might argue public business (but which Pausanias may have carried as regent), this does too great violence to Thucydides. Gomme is not, however, convincing in arguing (ad i 128.3) that the Ἑλληνικòς πόλϵμος was the war against Persia.

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NOMOΦYΛAKIA and the Areopagus

Cyrene to Chaeronea: Selected Essays on Ancient Greek History George Cawkwell

Print publication date: 2011 Print ISBN-13: 9780199593286 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199593286.001.0001

NOMOΦYΛAKIA and the Areopagus George Cawkwell

DOI:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199593286.003.0007

Abstract and Keywords This chapter analyzes the account of the reforms of Ephialtes given in the Aristotelian Ath. Pol. (25). In particular, it assesses the phrase that it was ‘the additional functions’, the extra powers, of which the Areopagus was deprived by Ephialtes. It suggests that the phrase cropped up early in the fourth century to describe the new position of the Areopagus under the restored democracy, of which we are informed by the decree of Tisamenus quoted by Andocides. Keywords:   Ephialtes, Areopagus, extra powers, democracy, Tisamenus, Andocides

The account of the reforms of Ephialtes given in the Aristotelian Ath. Pol. (25) is as follows: For about seventeen years after the Persian Wars the constitution lasted unchanged with the members of the Areopagus pre-eminent, despite a gradual decline (καίπϵρ ὑποϕϵρομένη κατὰ μικρόν). With the increase of the mass of citizens (if that is the right way to understand the phrase αὐξανομένου τοῦ πλήθους), on becoming leader of the People, Ephialtes, the son of Sophonides, who was thought to be both uncorrupt and just in his attitude to the constitution, attacked the Council (sc. of the Areopagus). First, he brought down many individual Areopagites, by bringing lawsuits against them for their acts of administration. Then in the year when Conon was archon (i.e. 462/1) he had removed from them all the additional functions (τὰ ἐπίθϵτα) by means of which they guarded the constitution

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NOMOΦYΛAKIA and the Areopagus (δι’ ὧν ὖν ἡ τῆς πολιτϵίας ϕυλακή) and accorded some to the Council of the Five Hundred and some to the People and the Courts. This account hardly moves one to gratitude. From other sources we could learn enough to know in broad outline what Ephialtes did, viz. that he curtailed the powers and humbled the pride of the Areopagus (Ar. Pol. 1274a7, Plut. Mor. 812d, Diod. xi 77.6, Paus. i 29.15), taking from them most of their judicial functions (Plut. Cim. 15.2, Per. 9.5). Even the date, precisely given by the Ath. Pol., could be roughly established (Plut. Cim. 14, 15), adequately for most purposes. What, it might well be asked, have we got from the Ath. Pol. other than confusion? Confusion there certainly seems to be. The claim is made in an earlier chapter (23.1, 2) that the Areopagus gained in influence after the Persian Wars, because it had so notably well attended to the city’s affairs during them. Herodotus had nothing to say of any (p.115) contribution by the Areopagus. There is no reason to think that the Council which dealt so roughly with the man who was unwilling abruptly to reject the message from Mardonius (8.4) was the Areopagus, and not the Five Hundred, which always heard foreign embassies at the time when Herodotus was writing; if he had meant the Areopagus, he would surely have taken the trouble to make it clear. The notion that the Areopagus had done well during the Persian Wars was indeed current in Aristotle’s day and found a place in the theorising of his Politics (1304a17), but what exactly they were thought to have done is obscure. According to the Ath. Pol. the Council provided eight drachmas to each man who fought at Salamis, the Council be it noted and not the Areopagites individually, and while in our state of ignorance of Athenian finance at this period we cannot be certain that the Areopagus had no funds to dispense, it would be astounding if the reforms of Solon and of Clisthenes had not transferred such financial functions as the Areopagus had possessed to the Council, which was concerned with day to day administration. The story looks bogus. It was certainly ill represented in the tradition. Plutarch (Them. 10.6, 7) did no more than repeat the Ath. Pol.’s story without corroboration, and proceeded to give a story of Clidemus ascribing the credit for finding the money, literally so, to Themistocles. This all seems rubbish, propaganda perhaps, but not fact (cf. Rhodes ad Ath. Pol. 23), and the whole idea of an Areopagite ascendancy very improbable. The different boards of archons during the Persian Wars may have taken with them into the Areopagus the reputation of having acted well during the crisis, and so that Council itself may have enjoyed a period of considerable influence, but whatever the truth of that, it may be firmly enough asserted that their formal powers did not increase after 479. The Ath. Pol. itself denied that there was any formal decision which gave the Areopagus its preeminence in that period (23.1), and it would be indeed strange if for a season the long-manifested tendency to diminish the institutions of the aristocratic state had been reversed. Admittedly there was war against Persia and wars tend to require concentration rather than diffusion of power. But Page 2 of 18

NOMOΦYΛAKIA and the Areopagus Athens herself was in no pressing danger and there was no cause to attempt to turn back the tide. Yet the Ath. Pol. claims that it was ‘the additional functions’, the extra powers, τὰ ἐπíθϵτα of which the Areopagus was deprived by Ephialtes, and, on the face of it, it seems to be implied that these had been taken on in the period after the Persian Wars, which, as has just (p.116) been argued, is extremely unlikely. The phrase has therefore excited much speculation, the commonest view being that it reflects the account that Ephialtes and his supporters put about,1 viz. that their seemingly radical curtailment of the powers of the Areopagus was merely the removal of inessential accretions, and Wilamowitz2 pointed to the Eumenides where the foundation of the Areopagus by Athena is represented as no more than the setting up of a court to try capital cases. However, whatever Aeschylus thought, it is hard to believe that in 462 Athenians had such a keen sense of the origins of their institutions that they could describe to themselves what the Areopagus had lost as ‘the additional functions’. Whence then the phrase? It was maintained by Sealey3 that in the Demosthenic period the Areopagus was given back certain powers which since Ephialtes it had not possessed, that these were the so-called ‘additional powers’, τὰ ἐπίθϵτα. Quite apart from the question whether the Areopagus did receive additional powers in the 340s, a fragment of a speech of Lysias early in the fourth century (Sauppe fr. 178)4 shows that the phrase was then in currency and referred to matters of jurisdiction that were not traditional (πάτρια). Now whatever the origins of the Areopagus, all the powers of which it was deprived in 462 were ‘traditional’; they may not have been established by the founding fathers, but they had certainly been exercised by the fathers, and the fathers of the fathers, of the men of Ephialtes’ day, and the Athenians would not have tolerated a claim that any of these powers were ‘additional’. It may (p.117) therefore be suggested that the phrase cropped up early in the fourth century to describe the new position of the Areopagus under the restored democracy, of which we are informed by the decree of Tisamenus quoted by Andocides (i 84). ‘When the laws have been passed, let the Areopagus see to the laws, in order that the magistrates abide by the established laws.’ The plain meaning of this clause is that the Areopagus is to have a permanent role in safeguarding the constitution, and since that was expressly what the Ath. Pol. says was taken away in 462, it must only from 403/2 be ‘additional’. Some have tried to maintain that this role was only temporary, but both the text of the decree and Andocides’ preceding account of the restoration of democracy show that the preliminary and temporary phase was to be ended with the formal passing of the laws.5 So the Ath. Pol.’s phrase, ‘the additional functions’ (τὰ ἐπíθϵτα), may well have come into vogue in the first years of the fourth century when it was used by Lysias, but whatever the right explanation is, the phrase is no help to understanding what the Areopagus lost in 462/1.

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NOMOΦYΛAKIA and the Areopagus The chapter is also teasingly brief. Elsewhere, in his description of the overthrow of the democracy in 404 (35.2), the author spoke of ‘the laws of Ephialtes and Archestratus which concerned the Areopagites’ and in 27.1 he attributed ‘the taking away of some of the powers of the Areopagites’ to Pericles. Philochorus (F64b) recorded that a board of Nomophylakes, seven in number, was set up at the time when Ephialtes ‘left to the Areopagus capital cases alone’; ‘they compelled the magistrates to abide by the laws and sat in the Assembly and in the Council with the Proedri’. One could wish that chapter 25 had been less cryptic. Pericles is associated with Ephialtes in Aristotle’s Politics (1274a8), and his role is perhaps best understood as that of chief supporter who played a notable part in persuading the People to vote for the reforms.6 As to Archestratus, we are completely in the dark. He may be the man who moved the amendment concerning matters judicial to the Chalcis Decree of 446 (IG i3 40), but that is far from sure.7 Since his law was repealed in 404, it must have been in operation up till (p.118) then. So he cannot have been the author of the board of Nomophylakes, which must have been short-lived; it plays no part in the history of the fifth century at the very moments when it would have operated if it existed. Nor can he have been responsible for the ending of that board, for the purpose of the revolutionaries of 404, it is to be presumed, was to return to the Areopagus the full powers it had before Ephialtes attacked it, not to re-establish what must have belonged to a transitional stage between Ephialtes and the fully developed radical democracy. So we are reduced to pining that the author of the Ath. Pol. did not explain what Archestratus did and how it related to the work of Ephialtes. Philochorus’ notice of the board of Nomophylakes certainly raises problems, but it is not to be denied that it was set up and, it would seem, as part of Ephialtes’ reform, an attempt to bring under popular control the safe-guarding of the laws, formerly the business of the Areopagus.8 That it did not last long but was soon replaced by the institution of the graphē paranomōn, whereby it was left to vigilant individuals to challenge in the courts the legality of proposals,9 may argue moderation on the part of Ephialtes. But it may show no more than that the new board was quickly seen to be unnecessary and the reformers of 462/1 happily dispensed with it. Whether anyone had at that time proposed the radical alternative to Ephialtes’ solution there is no knowing, but even if Ephialtes was moderate in method, he may (p.119) well have been most radical in intention.10 The real question is how great was the task to which he addressed himself. Did Ephialtes merely complete a task already well on the way to completion, by pushing over a much enfeebled aristocratic council which lacked the authority and perhaps even the will to resist? Or did he take on the formidable task of destroying the solid bastion of the aristocratic state? Was he a woodman knocking down a rotten tree, or was he truly a giant-killer? That is the

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NOMOΦYΛAKIA and the Areopagus question, and now that the preliminary uncertainties of the Ath. Pol.’s account have been exposed if not removed, it is time to turn to it. It is commonly believed that the use of the lot in appointment of archons since 487/6 had, over a quarter of a century, filled the Areopagus with men of no great note or authority and in consequence the standing of the whole Council was much diminished, so that it came more and more to seem absurd that such a board should have so important a supervisory role in the working of the constitution.11 It has been held that the list of eponymous archons reflects the change in the quality of those annually joining the Areopagus; whereas before 487/6 there are to be found in the two decades after Clisthenes’ reform the names Hipparchus, Themistocles, Aristides, in the twenty-five years after 487/6 the only name of anyone prominent politically is Xanthippus in 479/8, the very year when the famous Xanthippus was a general and so could not have been the archon; so we have a picture of distinguished men as archons before 487/6 and undistinguished after. This, however, cannot stand, having been slashed to pieces by Badian.12 It is far from sure that the Aristides of 489/8 is Aristides the Just; in 493/2 Themistocles may not yet have been particularly eminent; Hipparchus is to us the shadow of a great name, who may have been ostracised for nothing more than his lineage. ‘In fact, it may safely be said that the reform made no recognisable difference to the quality of the men who held the eponymous archonship’ (p. 16). The list of eponymous archons in itself by (p. 120) no means justifies the theory of a decline in the importance and the authority of those joining the Areopagus year by year. There may of course have been a decline, but other arguments would have to be adduced to show it, and it must be firmly kept in mind that we have only the names of most of the eponymous archons between Clisthenes and Ephialtes and not a single name of any of the other eight from any given year. We are also so ill-provided with information about Athenian political life in this period that comparison of the men who entered the Areopagus before 487/6 with those after that date is really impossible. Before considering what effect the reform of 487/6 had on the Areopagus, one must ask what sort of men would have aspired to the archonship previously. The Areopagus in origin was, one presumes, a reverend council of elders, to be compared with the Senate of Rome and the Gerousia of Sparta, and since it consisted exclusively of those who had been elected to the archonship, one presumes that originally those elected were older men of experience and a reputation for wisdom. Was there an important change in the sixth century, whereby the Athenians took to electing younger men? Badian believes that there was such a change and he refers with approval to the views of F. J. Frost13 who argued that the real significance of the archonship, ‘which had once made it worth fighting over (Ath. Pol. 13.2), had been ruined by Pisistratid adlectio’, and who ‘would therefore regard the archonship as a proving-ground for young men of promise’. So, far from thinking there was a decline in authority of the men Page 5 of 18

NOMOΦYΛAKIA and the Areopagus entering the Areopagus after 487/6, Badian argued that a change had occurred two decades earlier. Certainly something changed with the archonship under the tyranny, according to Thucydides (vi 54.6) who remarked of the period of the tyrants ‘In general the city itself enjoyed the previously established laws except in so far as they always saw to it that there was one of themselves in the archonships’. But shadowy though our knowledge of the period is, it would hardly seem to be the case that the tyranny had made the archonship less sought after, to judge by Herodotus’ remark about what happened after the expulsion of the tyrants (v 66). ‘In the city two men were powerful, Clisthenes … and Isagoras … These men struggled against each other for power and (p.121) Clisthenes, getting the worse of it, takes the people into his following.’ An Isagoras was eponymous archon in 508/7 (Dion. Hal. AR i 74.6, v 1.1) when Clisthenes’ reforms were passed (Ath. Pol. 21.1). It seems less likely that in the very period when the Isagoras was wrangling with Clisthenes, another Isagoras was eponymous archon which would have been a very remarkable coincidence, than that the eponymous archon was Clisthenes’ opponent. So if as Isagoras struggled for power he saw fit to aspire to the archonship, it hardly looks as if the tyranny had changed his attitude to the office. Badian, however, agrees with this view of a change of attitude and poses a formal change in the method of appointment as part of the reforms of Clisthenes and sees in Herodotus’ description of the Athenian polemarch at Marathon as ‘the man chosen by lot to be polemarch of the Athenians’ (vi 109.2) a clue to the prevailing system, viz. that nine persons were elected by the people to be archons and were then assigned by lot to the different posts.14 The difficulty with this is that there is absolutely no hint anywhere in the evidence for Clisthenes, which is admittedly slight beyond the Ath. Pol., but in the Ath. Pol. full enough (Ch. 21). Badian’s plea for Herodotus’ mention of the lot not to be casually cast aside does seem right in method15 but there is a different solution possible, viz. that the reform he postulates for Clisthenes was in fact the reform behind the Ath. Pol.’s ascription of the lot to Solon (8.1). If that were right, the Ath. Pol.’s account of the reform was very misleading, making it seem no different from that of 487/6, but at least there would be something for the Ath. Pol. to misunderstand. Nor would such a reform be discrepant with what Aristotle said in the Politics (1273b40ff.) about Solon keeping election of archons.16 What happened under the tyranny is merely to be conjectured. The surest way for the tyrants to secure that ‘one of themselves was in the archonship’ was to see to it that there were only nine candidates, but there is (p.122) no knowing. In this (sole) respect the tyrants acted unconstitutionally.17 The fragmentary list of eponymous archons of the 520s (ML 6) proves nothing about the Solonian system: the accession of Hippias must have been a testing and exceptional time. The only obstacle in the way of supposing Page 6 of 18

NOMOΦYΛAKIA and the Areopagus that the system of appointment to the archonship attributed by Badian to Clisthenes was in fact the system inaugurated by Solon is posed by the archonship of Isagoras in 508/7.18 If the suggested system of assigning archonships by lot to the nine victors of the electoral contest happened to assign the eponymous archonship to Isagoras, that would have been mere coincidence, but, it will be asked, how could Clisthenes feel himself, in Herodotus’ word, ‘worsted’? If the rule against re-election already applied, Clisthenes, who had been archon in 525–4, did not himself aspire to office, but it might be imagined that the candidate he supported could also have become archon, and so Clisthenes would not have been ‘worsted’. But this may be much misconceived. Both Clisthenes and Isagoras had a body of supporters (στασιῶται), the latter’s numbering, according to Herodotus (v 72.1), three hundred, and perhaps the struggle in which Isagoras emerged superior was a struggle between the two groups of supporters to gain as many archonships as they could. If this was so, the fact that Isagoras became eponymous archon in 508/7 does not argue against making Solon responsible for the change which Badian attributes to Clisthenes, and, it must be emphasised, there is evidence of a sort for such a change by Solon and absolutely none whatsoever for Clisthenes. If the reform of 487/6 was not the first change in the method of appointing archons, it is here of considerable relevance who it was who made the change. If it was Clisthenes, effects of the sort devised by Badian for the reform of 487/6 but here still to be considered might be sought in the whole period from 508/7 onwards. But if it was Solon who introduced the lot for the assignment of archonships to those elected, it would seem far too early for any radical change in the (p.123) attitude of Athenians towards office and joining the Areopagus, the ancient aristocratic council; the new council, the Solonian Four Hundred, was no doubt to be accepted as a vulgar necessity; the Areopagus was, as it had been, the body to aspire to, and the archonship continued to be earnestly sought after both for itself and as the means of joining the most reverend elders. It is here proposed that it was Solon who made the change, that his system, formally speaking, continued until 487/6. But, it may be asked, if the tyrants rode roughshod over the Solonian system, was there induced a new attitude towards the archonship? In view of the fact that for the fifty years between the first attempt of Pisistratus and the expulsion of Hippias, in which there were 450 archons, we have the names of only thirteen eponymous archons and that, of those thirteen, only five are sufficiently well known to us to permit of any comment, and they belong to the exceptional period following the accession of Hippias, the question would seem almost pointless. Presumably Clisthenes and Miltiades were installed as archons eponymous in the years succeeding Hippias because of the importance of their families; their respective ages therefore are irrelevant. What is clear is that the eponymous archonship was deemed something important and desirable. Hippias himself chose to occupy it as soon as possible after Pisistratus’ death. So he Page 7 of 18

NOMOΦYΛAKIA and the Areopagus valued the office highly, and this series of eponymous archons preserved by merest chance gives no support for the view that the archonship was, or was becoming, ‘a proving-ground for young men of promise’. Insofar as the names of the period of the tyranny suggest anything, they suggest that the archonship was still highly esteemed and sought after. As long as that was so, it was likely to be competed for by the best, and not left to ambitious but unproved young men. Nor is there any proof that the archons after 510 were any different. It is not to be denied that of the eponymous archons known to us very few were sufficiently important to have votes cast against them in ostracism.19 Apart from the most serious candidates, whose names are amply represented, there is a very long list of people who are mere names to us and who appear on a very small number of ostraka. Of the eponymous archons of the two decades prior to 487/6 only the (p.124) names of Alcmeon (?507/6) and Diognetus (492/1) are found on sherds. So one might think that the office was generally occupied by people of no importance. However, this argument will not do.20 If it is right that the lot determined which of the nine posts fell to the elected nine, one would need a full list of archons before one would be entitled to say that archons as a class were not the sort of people interesting enough for anyone to want to see them ostracised. Furthermore, the finds of ostraka, large in number though they are, seem to concern a small number of ostracisms (or abortive ostracisms) and the absence of ostraka bearing the name of an eponymous archon is still less significant. Finally, much depends on how old men were when they became archons. If the archonship was normally attained when the recipient had, on average, no very long political life left, the period during which any ex-archon might excite a desire to see him ostracised would be very short. So a study of the list of those named on ostraka can give no guide to the status of the men who sought the archonship, and it must be remembered that, except for a few big names, Athenian politics in the late sixth and early fifth centuries is almost completely beyond our ken. It seems probable, however, that as long as nine persons were elected annually and so passed into the Council, of what Athena would be made by Aeschylus to describe as ‘the best of my citizens’ (Eum. 487), the office was competed for by the best rather than by unproved young men. One was eligible for the consulship at Rome at the age of 43. A Themistocles might well succeed in being elected archon at a younger age, but the great majority of archons are likely to have been nearer 50 than 40, if not older still. Thus the Areopagus would have been a Senatus, a Gerousia, composed of ‘the best’ of Athena’s citizens, as long as the nine archons were elected. Did the reform of 487/6 make any substantial difference in Athenian attitudes? If the nine archonships were now to be filled by lot not from nine elected persons but from a hundred, did not the office lose its appeal? Was the Areopagus, by the

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NOMOΦYΛAKIA and the Areopagus time that Ephialtes set about the work of demolition, filled with nonentities whose only distinction was that they belonged to it? The answer to this question depends, in large part, on the answer we give to another question, viz. were those successful in the (p.125) preliminary election (the so-called πρόκρισις), but unsuccessful in the lot, re-eligible? If it was necessary to find one hundred entirely fresh candidates a year, the supply of able aspirants to office would have been quickly exhausted and with it the credit of attaining archonship and Areopagus. Unfortunately there is no evidence on the point, but it certainly seems more probable that those unsuccessful once could stand again and again; one hundred new persons a year would, one would think, have been difficult to find from the restricted numbers of the first two property classes.21 It is to be presumed that service was voluntary; those appointed had to be approved by the Council and in court (Ath. Pol. 55.2), a procedure hardly compatible with compulsion. There are unlikely therefore to have been one hundred fresh aspirants a year, and repeated candidature must surely have been allowed. If this is correct, ‘the best’ of the citizens may have continued after 487/6 to aspire to the archonship and the reverend Council of the Areopagus that lay beyond.22 That we meet no one of the status of Themistocles as eponymous archon in the twenty-five years before Ephialtes may conceivably have been due in part to the rising importance of the generalship, but for the rest the quality of the men who sought the archonship and entered the Areopagus may not have been markedly different from those of the earlier period. Ephialtes was not attacking a half-dead survival. It was as authoritative as ever both corporately and individually, very much alive, fulfilling functions which had a large influence on the character of the city. That was why Ephialtes attacked. It has, however, been claimed by Ruschenbusch23 that, since before Isocrates in his Areopagiticus of the mid-350s no writer has anything to say of the reform of Ephialtes, the importance of the reform is the (p.126) product of fourthcentury historiography rather than a fact of history, and he supports his claim by rejecting the Ath. Pol.’s notice about the repeal of the laws of Ephialtes and Archestratus (35.2) as unhistorical. To deal with the latter point first, it must be stated that it is certain that the Thirty began by putting an end to the reign of the sycophants in the courts (Xen. Hell. ii 3.38). Since they had held sway because the law of Ephialtes had accorded to the popular courts much of the jurisdiction previously exercised by the Areopagus, it is wholly to be expected that the Thirty began by removing the laws that had given rise to the abuse. Nor is it surprising that having in theory reestablished the ancestral constitution and therein the place of the Areopagus, they proceeded in fact to institute a murderous and lawless regime, so that the Areopagus, restored, was promptly disregarded, a normal enough state of affairs Page 9 of 18

NOMOΦYΛAKIA and the Areopagus in revolutionary times, and so did not suffer from the discredit attaching to all those who, like the knights (Xen. Hell. iii 1.4), had collaborated. Hence the role accorded to the Areopagus by the Decree of Tisamenus (And. i 84); and Lysias could truthfully say that jurisdiction in murder cases had been restored to them (i 30); they had in theory never lost it but in fact had been disregarded and prevented. The evidence is all consistent. There is no good reason to treat the repeal of the laws of Ephialtes and Archestratus as an invention. Thus whatever one makes of the silence of writers, one can assert with confidence that the revolutionaries of the late fifth century saw the laws limiting the Areopagus as crucial; writers may not have made much of them but men in politics had them much in mind. So how significant is it that so little is made by writers of Ephialtes and his reform? To Ruschenbusch it is vastly so. ‘Supposing that the question about the position of the Areopagus were really to be considered the central problem of Athenian internal history (Innenpolitik) and the work of Ephialtes the turning-point in constitutional history, then we would have been bound to find at least a reference to it in Herodotus in the description of the Persian War or of the reform of Clisthenes, in the author of the pseudoXenophontic Ath. Pol. in his critique of the Athenian democracy, in Thucydides perhaps in his account of the constitution of 411, in Aristophanes, in Plato in the Gorgias at the least, and in Xenophon in his report of the Thirty or in the Memorabilia, unless they were completely blind to the chief problem of their time’ (p. 373). This is really absurd. There was no call whatsoever for Herodotus to discuss the history of the Areopagus in his account of (p.127) the Persian Wars; he only treats of Clisthenes in a digression to explain how Athens came to support the Ionian Revolt, confines himself to politics, and eschews constitutional matters. The Xenophontic Ath. Pol. was criticising democracy in his own day, not explaining how it had come to be as it was. The Areopagus had no part in 411 and Thucydides had no need to discuss it. Xenophon’s silences are too well known to need comment. As to Aristophanes, one is baffled about where Ruschenbusch is disappointed; a chorus of Areopagites ‘debagged’ by Ephialtes and Archestratus is a pleasing idea but there seems no reason why Aristophanes must have had it or anything like. Only the silence of Plato might give pause. Why does he omit Ephialtes from his list of names of prominent fifth-century Athenians in the Gorgias (503c, 515de, 516d, 519a, 526b)? Those he does mention, Themistocles, Cimon, Miltiades, Pericles, Aristides, were, however, all involved in one way or another with Athenian foreign policy and the creation of the empire. Miltiades in a sense began it all with his attack on Paros (Hdt. vi 132ff.). It is hard to see in what sense Cimon was responsible for arousing unimproving desires, but Plato certainly thought he was concerned with engrossing the city in ‘harbours, docks, walls, tribute and similar trash’ (519a). The people, however, turned against them all and they received the reward of their influence (516). So, of course, it might be claimed, did Aristides who is the only one to emerge with credit in Plato’s view (526b). But his ostracism came Page 10 of 18

NOMOΦYΛAKIA and the Areopagus before he manifested his justness towards the allies. So he was lauded by Plato for his virtue. Now it is clear that in this list of those against whom the people turned Ephialtes had no part and it is absurd to argue that his absence proves that to Plato he was either unknown or insignificant. The same argument might be applied to Clisthenes. Plato never mentioned him and apart from Herodotus, the Ath. Pol., Aristotle in the Politics and Isocrates (xvi 26) no one else in the fifth and fourth centuries did. It would therefore be interesting to know how Ruschenbusch regards this. Isocrates claims that Clisthenes’ introduction of democracy made the Athenians courageous enough to withstand the Persians. Herodotus followed a somewhat different line; it was the expulsion of the tyrants which had this effect (v 78); Clisthenes’ winning of power was all part of the consequences of the liberation. Now if perchance Herodotus had not engaged in his excursus to explain Athenian policy, would we have been informed that Clisthenes’ reform was of little significance in fact, that Isocrates’ account of its effects was the (p.128) fruit of historiographical imaginings, that probably Clitophon’s amendment in 411 (Ath. Pol. 29.3) was tongue in cheek, be it Clitophon’s cheek or the author of the Ath. Pol.’s, so that the silence of Plato (and Aristophanes et alii) proves it? Probably so. Further, it is worth noting what Plato has to say about Solon. He alludes to him many times, for Solon, as one of the received Seven Sages, as poet, as ancestor of Critias, naturally appealed to him, but he makes very little indeed of Solon’s laws. Beyond speaking of Solon as lawgiver, Plato manifests remarkably little concern with the laws.24 The silence of Plato is an unreliable source of illumination. It by no means shows that the reform of Ephialtes was not a watershed in Athens’ constitutional development. It has been argued above that the quality of those joining the Areopagus annually from 487/6 need not have been greatly different from those of earlier generations. The archonship may have ceased to be in itself attractive, but membership of the Areopagus, that lay beyond it, was probably very attractive indeed. Few men spurn to be regarded as reverend and wise in their judgement of the best interests of their fellow men. ‘The best’ of Athena’s citizens were doubtless no exception. Before Ephialtes, the functions of the Areopagus were venerable indeed. It is time to return to the Ath. Pol.’s account. There is one element there which is not to be found elsewhere. The author speaks of ‘the additional functions by means of which they guarded the constitution’ (25.3). What is he talking about? The notion of ‘guarding the laws’ (νομοϕυλακία) is largely, if not uniquely, Ath. Pol.’s contribution to the description of the Areopagus’ role. If one looks at the evidence as fully set out by Jacoby (in his Commentary on Androtion F3), only Plutarch in his Life of Solon (19.2) speaks of the Areopagus as ‘overseer of all and guardian of the laws’ (ἐπίσκοπον πάντων καὶ ϕύλακα τῶν νόμων), no such

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NOMOΦYΛAKIA and the Areopagus designation occurs in the lives of Cimon and Pericles where he formally describes the work of Ephialtes.25 What did guardianship of the laws entail? (p.129) Scholars have wrangled about what the powers transferred by Ephialtes were. A good recent statement is provided by B. R. I. Sealey,26 who concludes that Ephialtes changed the procedure for euthynai and for dokimasia of archons. ‘He was concerned about the way officials performed their tasks; the two procedures bearing on the performance of officials were dokimasia which tested their formal qualifications, and euthynai, where they were called to account for their shortcomings. To classify him among “radical democratic leaders” does not explain his work; he was a man seeking to remedy abuses of a perhaps extensive but certainly limited and specifiable kind.’ Now clearly if the Areopagus were to safeguard the laws, such supervision was highly probable in the primitive state; inevitably, some authority would have had to do it and in ancient Athens that authority was surely the Areopagus. But was that all there was to ‘the guardianship of the laws’? And did the reforms of Ephialtes constitute no very great change in the nature of the Athenian constitution? A very different view of ‘the guardianship of the laws’ is presented by the Ath. Pol. In the review of the archaic, pre-Draconian constitution, the author speaks of the Areopagus ‘punishing and fining without appeal (κυρίως) all those whose behaviour was disorderly (τοὺς ἀκοσμοῦντας)’ (3.6) and in his discussion of the Solonian constitution he stated ‘He assigned the Council of the Areopagus the task of safeguarding the laws, just as previously it was overseer of “the constitution” (ἐπίσκοπος τῆς πολιτϵίας), and it both kept close watch in general over the main and most important part of the state’s business and corrected those in error by virtue of its full power to fine and to punish …’ (8.4). Thus for the Ath. Pol. the Areopagus would seem to have had a sort of moral supervision of the state, a cura morum in Roman terms, and a similar view is presented by a fragment of Philochorus (F196), which runs ‘Phanodemus and Philochorus and several others said in their histories that in olden times the Areopagites would summon before them and punish the spendthrifts and those living beyond their means.’ The fullest expression of this view of the Areopagus’ function is, however, to be found in Isocrates’ Areopagiticus, in which Isocrates (p.130) advocates a return to the blessed days of the Areopagus’ ascendancy. It is quite clear both Clisthenes (§16) and the reform of 487/6 (§22), the heyday of the Delian League when relations with the allies were harmonious and the Persians hard pressed (§51f.). The role of the Areopagus then was to care for good order (ϵὐκοσμία §37, ϵνταξία §39). ‘For it was not the case that while in their education they had many in charge of them, yet when they were received into man’s estate, they were able to do whatever they liked, but they had even more supervision in their prime than when they were boys’ (§37), for the Areopagus saw to it that they had. And Isocrates is clearly not thinking of just the vetting of magistrates. ‘They Page 12 of 18

NOMOΦYΛAKIA and the Areopagus (i.e. the Athenians of that time) cared for all the citizens, and especially for the youth’ (§43), ‘they regarded each man’s way of life, and brought those misbehaving themselves (ἀκοσμοῦντας) before the Council [sc. of the Areopagus], which would give some a warning, threaten others, and punish others as was fit’ (§46). For in those times, he argues, there was not a multitude of precisely drafted laws, but excellence grew out of the customs of everyday life (§§39ff.). ‘It is not because of decrees that cities are well run, but because of their moral practices (ἤθη)’ (§41). That is, Isocrates is lauding the Areopagus of those times for its control of behaviour, its cura morum. Can the Ath. Pol., Philochorus, and Isocrates be right? Jacoby’s answer27 was forthright. ‘Isocrates draws a picture of the educational activity of the Areopagus which we may call idealising; at any rate it is definitely unhistorical and does not even touch upon the actual functions of the old Council.’ Forthright indeed, but is Jacoby right? On the next page of his Commentary he remarks that the Nomophylakia of the Areopagus ‘cannot have existed before written laws existed, i.e. before Dracon’. Here perhaps is the source of error. As Ostwald has so fully set out (Nomos and the Beginnings of the Athenian Democracy (Oxford, 1969), pp. 20–54), the word nomos has many connotations other than what we mean by a defined and written law; in particular the sense of timehonoured custom is common. Was Nomophylakia wider than the safeguarding of the written laws? Certainly the notion that it can only be conceived after Dracon is absurd. In the Sparta of Lycurgus, according to (p.131) Plutarch (Lyc. 13.1), there were no written laws, but the ‘laws’ of Lycurgus were a lively concept and were carefully safeguarded as the whole of Spartan history attests. So the Nomophylakia of the Areopagus need not stem from Dracon’s codification but, even more importantly, it may not have been concerned solely with laws but with a wide range of what the Greeks called nomos. There were, as Pericles remarked, the ‘unwritten laws’, the ἄγραϕοι νόμοι (Thuc. ii 37.3) which, if broken, ‘cause generally agreed disgrace’. Is it possible that the Nomophylakia of the Areopagus embraced these, that Isocrates, Philochorus, and the Ath. Pol. are not wrong, that what Ephialtes rid Athens of was the paternalism of the aristocratic state, a watershed indeed? At Sparta all the everyday practices, the ἐπιτηδϵύματα (cf. Thuc. ii 37.2), were spoken of as ‘the nomoi of Lycurgus’ (cf. [Xen.] Resp. Lac. 10.8, 5.1); nor does this necessarily mean that the Spartans fondly imagined that all their customs had been prescribed by the legislation of Lycurgus. In the fourteenth chapter of the Xenophontic Constitution of the Spartans the author speaks of the moral decline of the Spartiates in terms of the neglect of the nomoi of Lycurgus; but at Sparta laws were not neglected; what is referred to is a change in values, a matter of morals not of laws. However, nomos, as Demaratos remarked to Xerxes (Hdt. vii 104.4), held sway over the Spartans, and the ephors closely watched the conduct of Spartiates for breaches of the nomima (cf. Thuc. i 77.6, Hdt. i 65.5), paranomia (Thuc. i 132.2). Theophrastus recounted that the ephors fined Page 13 of 18

NOMOΦYΛAKIA and the Areopagus Archidamus for marrying a small woman, on the grounds that her offspring would not be king-sized, but kinglet (Plut. Ages. 2.6)—not necessarily a fanciful story, the supervision of the ephorate making no distinction between laws and customs. At Rome the censors exercised ‘control over behaviour and orderly conduct’ (morum disciplinaeque Romanae penes eam—sc. censuram—regimen, Livy iv 8). Citizens were censured only after a hearing which was commonly called a iudicium, but strictly was not (Cic. pro Cluentio 42.117): animadversio censoria was not concerned with laws. Livy (xxiii 23.4) described the process as a iudicium arbitriumque de fama ac moribus. If such things could happen in other aristocratic states, why is the evidence that it happened in Athens so lightly to be dismissed? Is the general opinion of the fourth century expressed by the Ath. Pol., (p.132) the Atthidographers, Isocrates, which is in no sense gainsaid by any evidence of the earlier period, ‘definitely unhistorical’?28 But, it may be objected, it would hardly seem to be Athenian for men to be liable for anything other than for breaches of clear laws. Whether this was so in the aristocratic state is precisely the point at issue, but it must be remarked that in the working of the procedure of eisangelia there seems to have been a great deal that was vague. Certainly the Areopagus could apply curious criteria of conduct, if we may trust the fragment of Hyperides’ speech Against Patrocles (ap. Ath. 566F)29 according to which a man was excluded from membership ‘for having breakfasted in a tavern’, but it is in the vagueness of the so-called nomos eisangeltikos that one perhaps sees a reflection of the earlier state of affairs. In the entry under ‘eisangelia’ in the Lexicon Cantabrigiense, in addition to the citation from Theophrastus of a number of grounds for prosecution, Caecilius, it is claimed, asserted that the procedure was used against ‘new and unwritten offences’ (καινῶν καì ἀγράϕων ἀδικημάτων),30 and Pollux in his Onomastikon vii 51f. had something of the same idea—‘eisangelia was appointed for unwritten offences against the People’. But it is Hyperides’ speech For Euxenippus which is most revealing. In his opening remarks (col. 1ff.) Hyperides claims that the operation of eisangelia has recently been extended to embrace cases of remarkable triviality and concerning individuals of no special note. Of course, it emerges that Euxenippus was thought to have Macedonian connections, and it was probably for that reason that he was attacked, but the implication of the speech is clear enough—the process of eisangelia is capable of considerable extension, and the notion of Caecilius seems to be confirmed. Thus in the working of this favoured procedure there was a remarkably imprecise and elastic element, which may reflect (p.133) the Nomophylakia of the days of what Plutarch termed ‘the aristocracy of the Clisthenic period’ (Plut. Cim. 15.3). If it is indeed true that the Areopagus once had what may be described as a cura morum, the work of Ephialtes may be truly described as crucial in the development of the democracy. Before 462/1 there was the paternalism of the Page 14 of 18

NOMOΦYΛAKIA and the Areopagus aristocratic state, the Areopagus watching over, like the gods in Homer, ‘the violence and the good behaviour of men’ (Od. xvii 487). After Ephialtes there was the open, permissive society of democratic Athens, in which, provided men obeyed the written laws, they were free to live their private lives as they would. Indeed this is the very point which Thucydides has Pericles make in his Funeral Oration. In that speech Thucydides contrasts the narrow, exclusive, effortful inferiority of Sparta with the tolerant, open, effortless superiority of Athens, of which he says (ii 37.2) ‘The freedom which we enjoy in our government extends also to our ordinary life. There, far from exercising a jealous surveillance over each other, we do not feel called upon to be angry with our neighbour for doing what he likes, or even to indulge in those injurious looks which cannot fail to be offensive, although they inflict no positive penalty.’ Here, I take it, Thucydides is obliquely referring to what Athens has rid herself of by the reforms of Ephialtes.31 That was in the fifth century. In the fourth, after the glorious freedom of the fifth had ended in disaster, more sober ideas prevailed. The Areopagus was accorded some sort of role in the safeguarding of the laws and as the century wore on its influence grew. Indeed by 336 it could be suspected of such antipathy to the democracy that a law was passed to prevent its sharing in any revolutionary movement (SEG xvii 26 and xviii 12 = RO 79). That was perhaps a somewhat propagandist assertion, but certainly in the last three decades before the Macedonians physically intervened in Athens the Areopagus was playing a part of which Ephialtes had sought to deprive it for ever. Notes:

(1) Cf. P. J. Rhodes ad 25.2. (2) Aristoteles und Athen (Berlin, 1893) ii 187. (3) CP lix (1964), p. 13. (4) Cf. Rhodes l.c. It is to be noted that there is no good reason to postulate an increase in the powers, as opposed to the exercise of powers, of the Areopagus in the Demosthenic period, as proposed by Busolt-Swoboda, Griechische Staatskunde ii 926 and Sealey art. cit. A decree was not a law, and the decree of Demosthenes referred to by Dinarchus (i 62) can only have required the Areopagus to exercise powers it already possessed. (D. M. MacDowell, The Law in Classical Athens [London, 1978], p. 190 states that the procedure of ἀπόϕασις ‘was introduced by a law which must have been made around the middle of the fourth century’. Similarly M. H. Hansen Eisangelia [Odense, 1975], pp. 18 and 39f., though he does not speak of a law.) But the decree of Demosthenes, as reported by Dinarchus, spoke of the Areopagus ‘using the traditional laws’, which suggests that they were called on to exercise powers which they were deemed to have long had, not a power recently conferred, just as IG ii2204 i 19 Page 15 of 18

NOMOΦYΛAKIA and the Areopagus presumed that the supervision of the sacred land was something that was within their powers. All such activities could be deemed to derive from the decree of Tisamenus with its vague implications. (5) Cf. D. M. MacDowell ad Andoc. i 84. (6) A. J. Podlecki, The Political Background of Aeschylean Tragedy (Ann Arbor, 1966), pp. 97f., suggested that Pericles was responsible for the establishment of the board of Nomophylakes, but Philochorus F64 b suggests that they were part and parcel of Ephialtes’ reforms. (7) Cf. Wilamowitz (n. 2) i 68 n. 40. (8) See Appendix to the original article, JHS 108 (1988), p. 12. (9) G. Grote, History of Greece iv 459 (1888 edition) assigned the γραϕὴ παρανόμων to Ephialtes without argument. C. Hignett, A History of the Athenian Constitution (Oxford, 1952), pp. 209–13, preferred a later date ‘when experience had shown the dangers of uncontrolled legislation’. He was followed by H. J. Wolff, SBHeid (1970), ii 15–22, who was inclined to attribute it to someone like Nicias; he takes the absence of allusion to such a procedure in the alleged conversation of Pericles and Alcibiades in Xenophon’s Memorabilia (i 2.40–6) as significant. But nothing in that conversation excludes the notion that there was a procedure to prevent the majority being induced to create confusion by ordering inconsistent things, and as to experience showing ‘the dangers of uncontrolled legislation’, the creation of a board of Nomophylakes in 462 (which Hignett rejects) argues that Ephialtes was well aware of such dangers. J. Martin, Chiron iv (1974), p. 31, follows Wolff and cites with approval the argument of W. R. Connor (New Politicians of Fifth-century Athens [Princeton, 1971], p. 125 and n. 66). In assessing the fact that the first recorded use of the γραϕὴ παρανόμων (Andoc. i 17) relates to 415, one must remember that the writing and hence the publication of speeches was a late innovation, if we may trust Ps.-Plut. Mor. 832d. One would not expect such information in Thucydides. If the procedure was introduced when the board of Nomophylakes was abolished, it is not greatly surprising that we do not hear of it earlier. (10) J. Martin (n. 9) p. 34 is sceptical about Ephialtes being a ‘convinced democrat’; ‘one would like to know why men like Pericles and Ephialtes, of whom the first clearly and the second probably belonged to the aristocracy, should have become democrat’! (11) Cf. H. T. Wade-Gery, Essays in Greek History (Oxford, 1958), p. 105 ‘From 487 onwards, the archons are nobodies: this has not seriously diluted the Areopagus by 480, but the process is cumulative: by 461 there were probably

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NOMOΦYΛAKIA and the Areopagus few if any elected archons still sitting in the Council: its hollow prestige is smashed by Ephialtes’. (12) Antichthon v (1971), pp. 1–34. (13) CSCA i (1968), 114f. (14) Cf. Rhodes ad Ath. Pol. 22.5. (15) Pace D. H. Kelly, Antichthon xii (1978), pp. 10ff. (16) Rhodes ad Ath. Pol. 8.2 pointed out that the role of the Areopagus may have been no more than δοκιμασία. The author may have had in mind even less, viz. that the elected men were assigned by the Areopagus to suitable archonships. There is no warrant for Rhodes’ speaking of ‘A.P.’s statement that previously appointments had been made by the Areopagus’ or ‘a surprisingly modern procedure by which candidates were summoned to an interview to determine which should be appointed’ (my italics). Cf. Forrest–Stockton art. cit. (17) Thuc. vi 54.6. There is no knowing when the rule against iteration (Ath. Pol. 62.3) was introduced. Cf. Forrest–Stockton art. cit. One may add that unless iteration was practised in the sixth century it is hard to see how the tyrants ‘always took care that one of themselves was always one of the archons (ἐν ταῖς ἀρχαῖς)’, or indeed why Hippias, the oldest son (Thuc. i 20) and an old man in 490 (Hdt vi 107, 108), indeed grown-up by 556 (Hdt. i 61.1), was not archon until 526/5. (18) The archonship of Damasias (Ath. Pol. 13.2) is not an obstacle. He may have obtained the eponymous archonship by chance, and then resolved to keep it. (19) Cf. R. Thomsen, The Origin of Ostracism (Copenhagen, 1972), pp. 68–108. (20) Cf. Kelly (n. 15), 7ff. (21) Cf. Badian’s discussion of the impossibility of finding 500 a year, as the text of Ath. Pol. 22.5 seems to require ([n. 12] 17ff.). But even 100 fresh aspirants a year would have been difficult. (22) Kelly (n. 15) 14 may indeed be right in supposing that the reform of 487/6 may have marked a lessening in the importance of the archonship itself, but it may not have meant a lessening in the quality of aspirants since membership of the Areopagus went with the office. Since promotion did not depend on tenure of the office of Prytany Secretary, the effect of the introduction of lot for it (Ath. Pol. 54.3) is of no relevance to what happened with the archonship. (23) Historia xv (1966), 369–76.

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NOMOΦYΛAKIA and the Areopagus (24) One of the Seven Sages, Tim. 20d, Prolog. 343a. Lawgiver, Rep. 599c, Phaedr. 278c, Symp. 209d. (25) Cim. 10.8, 15.2 f., Per. 7.8, 9.3–5. (Cicero, de Officiis i 75 is speaking of his own day. Cf. E. Rawson, Athenaeum NS lxiii [1985], 63). (26) ‘Ephialtes, Eisangelia, and the Council’, Classical Contributions. Studies in Honour of Malcolm Francis McGregor, eds G. S. Shrimpton and D. J. McCargar (Locust Valley, 1981), pp. 125–34. (27) Commentary on Androtion F3–4 p. 112. (28) It is vain to seek in the Eumenides illumination on this matter. Whether Aeschylus had approved or disapproved of the reforms of Ephialtes, he could hardly have spoiled his play by suggesting that the Areopagus was no longer what it had been and perhaps should still be. Nor would such precise political comment have seemed appropriate to tragedy (cf. C. W. Macleod, JHS cii [1982], 131 f.). The play is concerned only with a case of murder and it is the role of the Areopagus in such cases which is its sole concern (681–4); the wrong-doing which that Council is to prevent (690–2) is murder, ‘a wakeful guard for those who sleep’ (705–6) (cf. art. cit. 129). (29) Sauppe fr. 164. (30) Cf. Sealey (n. 26). The relevant entry in the Lexicon Cantabrigiense is printed in A. R. W. Harrison, The Law of Athens: Procedure (Oxford, 1971), p. 51 n. 1. (31) In ii 37.2 Thucydides is referring to private life. He goes on in §3 to speak of public life (τὰ δημόσια) where fear of ‘unwritten laws’ continues to operate.

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Thucydides’ Judgment of Periclean Strategy

Cyrene to Chaeronea: Selected Essays on Ancient Greek History George Cawkwell

Print publication date: 2011 Print ISBN-13: 9780199593286 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199593286.001.0001

Thucydides’ Judgment of Periclean Strategy George Cawkwell

DOI:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199593286.003.0008

Abstract and Keywords In a speech in which Thucydides put into the mouth of Pericles at the end of Book 1, successfully urging the Athenians not to submit to the Spartan demands, Pericles asserted his confidence that Athens could survive in war; and when Thucydides summed up Pericles' life he declared that this military estimate was sound. Was Thucydides right? The answer lies in consideration of Spartan strategy. This chapter shows that the war fully exposed the weakness of the Spartan position in 431 and that Pericles, and therefore Thucydides, judged well. Keywords:   Pericles, Thucydides, war, Spartan, strategy, Athens

In the speech which Thucydides put into the mouth of Pericles1 at the end of Book 1, successfully urging the Athenians not to submit to the Spartan demands, Pericles asserted his confidence that Athens could survive in war (1. 144. 1), and when Thucydides summed up Pericles’ life he declared that this military estimate was sound. ‘When the war began, he appears in this matter too to have realized in advance the power of the city … and after his death his foresight with regard to the war was recognized still further’ (2. 65. 5f.). But was Thucydides right? Was Pericles’ strategic estimate so justified by the war? There is no real question of what Pericles’ strategy was.2 Pericles himself set it out clearly enough (1. 143. 3–144. 1), and Thucydides reiterated it in the summing up (2. 65. 7). Nor has it ever been shown that it was plainly inept.3 Yet doubts remain. It was tried for so short a time that it cannot be thought to have been properly tested, and to commend it one is forced in some degree, like Thucydides, to argue the ineptitude of what replaced it. But perhaps all possible Page 1 of 16

Thucydides’ Judgment of Periclean Strategy Athenian strategies might in the long run have failed. In any case it is hard to believe that so great a war could have been satisfactorily fought to a conclusion on a purely defensive strategy. Frustration is more likely to prompt invention and resource than to compel submission. Pericles might, also, have been proved over-optimistic financially speaking: the large naval expeditions of 431 and 430 were perhaps too costly to be continued for a decade without the ‘forced contributions’ (p.135) (βίαιοι ϵἰσϕοραί) Pericles himself declared unsatisfactory for financing a war (1. 141. 4), and the increased dependence on costly imports at a time when a large capital reserve was being put into circulation as sailors’ pay would tend to cause inflation (and probably did, even though the plague, which Pericles could not have foreseen, reduced the populace so much that the full financial effect of his strategy was not felt).4 All in all, it is not immediately obvious that the strategy so briefly followed would have enabled Athens to ‘win through’. Why then was Thucydides so firm in recommending its author? The answer lies in consideration of Spartan strategy. The war fully exposed the weakness of the Spartan position in 431, and this chapter aims to make this clear and to show that Pericles, and therefore Thucydides, judged well.5 There is a plainly discernible difference in Sparta about the strategy of the Archidamian War. On the one hand, there was what may be labelled the ‘conventional’ strategy of ravaging and seeking so to bring on a decisive battle or to enforce submission. Hence the major invasions of 431 and 430,6 which, despite Archidamus’ warnings (p.136) (1. 81. 6), were expected to bring a quick decision (5. 14. 3, and cf. 1. 141. 5). On the other hand, from the outset there were plainly notions of what may be labelled the ‘adventurous’ strategy. The Corinthians were represented as declaring before the war, ‘You have other ways of fighting the war, viz. causing revolt amongst their allies, which is the most effective means of depriving them of the revenues their strength depends on, and fortifying strong-points to menace their land, as well as other measures, at present unforeseeable’ (1. 122. 1). Once war had been decided on, Sparta had it in mind to seek help from Persia and elsewhere, and to assemble a naval force of 500 ships7 (2. 7. 2, and cf. 1. 82. 1), which would have well outnumbered the Athenian navy (2. 13. 8). Until 425, the Spartans appear mainly to have stuck to the ‘conventional’,8 but the ‘adventurous’ clearly had some part. Persian aid was sought repeatedly (4. 50. 2), and, although in the Archidamian War nothing came of the appeals to Sicily and Italy for naval forces, Sparta made trial of the sea. In 429 Cnemus gathered a substantial enough fleet9 for the attack on Acarnania, and before the second sea-fight Phormio roundly declared to the Athenian sailors ‘The issue is of great importance to you: either you will destroy the hopes the Peloponnesians have of their fleet or you will make more real to the Athenians their fears about control of the sea’ (2. 89. 10). There followed shortly the (abortive) attack on the Piraeus (2. 93f.), and the next year at Olympia the Spartans put before the allies a proposal to send help to Mytilene in revolt (3. 8. Page 2 of 16

Thucydides’ Judgment of Periclean Strategy 1), the mysterious Meleas having been sent out even before the revolt began (3. 5. 2).10 Forty-two (p.137) ships were sent (3. 26. 1), a sizeable force, specially prepared (3. 16. 3), clear proof of intent to exploit those ‘other ways’ of war. There followed the intervention in Corcyra with a still larger fleet (3. 69. 1 and 2), and in the following year came the foundation of Heraclea in Trachis (3. 92), partly a bastion for Sparta’s allies in central Greece but partly a base for attacks on Euboea, all important to Athens in the Decelean War (8. 95. 2), and earlier not unimportant (2. 14. 1, and cf. Ar. Wasps 715f.).11 Thus ‘adventure’ played a part. Yet very little came of it before 425. Basically, Sparta lacked the naval power and the Spartiates to send abroad, and, until the capture of the men on Sphacteria, she had no will fully to exploit her other resources of manpower. No doubt prudent voices counselled caution, but above all the ‘conventional’ must have seemed sufficient. The Spartans had entered the war, as already remarked, confident of a quick decision (5. 14. 3), and in summer 430 Athens appealed for peace (2. 59. 2). Thucydides makes much of Pericles’ apologia, little of the Athenian appeal; he gives no hint of the terms Athens proposed or was prepared to accept. His brevity over such contemptible weakening should not blind us to the effect it must have had on Spartan conduct of the war.12 To Spartan eyes it must have seemed that the strategy of ravaging was beginning to bite, and that it continued to do so right down to 425. In that year the Spartans sought peace, ‘thinking that the Athenians previously (p.138) were desiring a truce and were prevented by Spartan opposition’.13 In this opinion the Spartans may have been somewhat mistaken: Athens might have been prepared to return to the Thirty Years’ Peace and no more. But for Spartan strategy the main point was clear. The strategy which had compelled some readiness to treat, would in due course compel more. There was no need seriously to think of fortification in Attica, a not entirely simple matter in any case. Annual invasion and devastation were doing their expected work. Pylos changed all that. From then on the ‘conventional’ strategy was denied them (4. 41. 1), and, to man the ‘adventurous’, Sparta at long last accepted the reform proposed perhaps first by the regent Pausanias14 and shortly afterwards begun and treacherously stopped, viz. the use of helots to fight Sparta’s wars (4. 80. 2f.). This was a radical change. Sparta could not risk sending far abroad more than a handful of Spartiates, but once she had decided to use her helots the ‘other ways’ of war were open. The northern campaign of Brasidas could begin. Thus the ‘adventurous’ strategy, unalloyed, took over from the largely ‘conventional’ early years, and its successes measured in revolts of Athens’ allies seemed to promise more. There was, however, clearly a difference about how to proceed. Brasidas intended to continue setting cities in revolt; after the capture of Amphipolis he called for reinforcements and began to build ships on the Strymon (4. 108. 6). In Sparta there were those who thought otherwise, who Page 3 of 16

Thucydides’ Judgment of Periclean Strategy wished to recover the prisoners of Sphacteria and end the war. The reinforcements were not promptly sent out (4. 108. 7 and cf. 132. 2); instead, the year’s truce was made in hopes of a full peace being concluded (4. 117. 1f.). This division of opinion showed after the Peace of Nicias. Clearidas, who had been picked to be harmost of Amphipolis (4. 132. 3), refused to hand over the city (5. 21. 2), loyal to Brasidas’ plan to use it as a base for further ‘adventures’, not as a diplomatic bargaining counter. In this difference of opinion, Brasidas’ opponents were surely in the right. The energy and dash of Brasidas were no lasting substitute for naval power. Until Athens had lost the best part of her fleet in Sicily and until Persia had begun to contribute money to pay for a (p.139) large Peloponnesian fleet, there was little real hope for the ‘other ways’ of war. The cities which had revolted when Brasidas appeared, had in due course to suffer the consequences of Sparta not being able to sustain them. Even the small force sent under Nicias (4. 129. 2) was sufficient to check Brasidas and set about the recovery of the lost cities. Sparta was right to use what she still had to secure peace. In 421 the ‘adventurous’ strategy had its limits. But was the debate purely strategic? Brasidas had been associated with much of the ‘adventurous’ before 425. In 429 he had been one of the three counsellors sent out to Cnemus to help him make a more effective bid for naval control of the Corinthian Gulf (2. 85. 1). The attack on the Piraeus was partly his (2. 93. 1). Counsellor again in 427, he took part in the intervention on Corcyra (3. 69. 2, 76), and in 425 he played a lively part in the attempt to land by ship on Pylos, a paradoxical situation as Thucydides remarked (4. 11. 4, 12. 3). He was indeed uncharacteristically ‘energetic’ (4. 81. 2 δραστήριος). The ‘adventurous’ strategy accorded well with his character. But was there more to it? Did differing strategies serve differing policies? The best starting-point for this inquiry is the peace negotiations of 425, which were an appalling betrayal of the lofty promise with which Sparta had begun the war. Sparta had promised to free Hellas. A proclamation had been issued to this effect (2. 8. 4, 4. 85. 1, and cf. 3. 32. 2). For Sparta to appeal for peace was a complete volte face. Earlier they had thought that to free Hellas they would quickly ‘destroy the Athenians’ (4. 85. 2). In 425 they ended their appeal with these very remarkable words: ‘And consider what advantages are likely to be found in this course. If you and we concert policy, the rest of the Greek world, being weaker, will, you may be sure, pay us the greatest honour’ (4. 20. 4). The spirit of these words is none other than that of the appeal of Trygaeus in the Peace (1082), ‘to make peace and share rule over Hellas’, as the course of the assembly in 425 made plain. When Cleon bade the Spartan ambassadors openly declare what they had in mind to propose, ‘they thought that, if they decided to make some concession under stress of the disaster, it was not possible to speak out in an assembly in case, after saying and failing to obtain it, they should be

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Thucydides’ Judgment of Periclean Strategy denounced before their allies’ (4. 22. 3). That is, what they had in mind was a betrayal of their allies’ cause and could not bear publication. Thus in 425 there were Spartans willing to go back on the proclamation of 431 and to do a deal with Athens, of the sort of which the (p.140) Peace of Nicias was, leaving Athens in control of her empire and Greece no freer than before, a ghastly confession that Greece could not be freed. Against all this Brasidas acted, and spoke. He began his speech to the Acanthians as follows: ‘I and my army have been sent out by the Lacedaemonians to give reality to the claim which we made in our proclamation at the beginning of the war, namely that we would fight the Athenians for the freedom of Hellas.’ He was the liberator, but not all supported him. Not only was he denied the prompt reinforcement he needed (4. 108. 7) but also he saw fit to give the Acanthians a very remarkable assurance: ‘I have come to free the Hellenes and I have obliged those in power at Sparta with the most solemn oaths to guarantee that any state I bring over to alliance will be left independent’ (4. 86. 1). Clearly he had not been able to trust people in Sparta to take his view of his mission, and the Acanthians too needed such reassurance, for Brasidas’ report of these oaths helped them to decide on revolt (4. 88. 1). Thus after 425 the ‘adventurous’ strategy was the instrument of a radical policy of liberating Hellas, against which those who would do a deal with Athens chose to contend. The difference of policies is similarly linked, perhaps, to the difference of strategies in the early years. If Hellas was to be liberated, the ‘adventurous’ strategy, as Archidamus had foreseen, would in all likelihood be forced upon Sparta (1. 80–2), but it is curious that the first real moves in this direction belong to 430. In that year Spartan ambassadors were caught on their way to the King (2. 67):15 Thucydides speaks of their purpose as if this was the first attempt to persuade Persia to help Sparta. Likewise with the fleet. Despite the grandiose plans of 432/1 (2. 7. 2) the first Peloponnesian fleet appears in 430, in the attack on Athens’ ally, Zacynthus. These matters may be by chance, but it is to be noted that Brasidas was eponymous ephor from autumn 431 to autumn 430 (Xen. Hell. 2. 3. 10). In view of the importance of the ephors in the making of policy at Sparta, it is reasonable enough to guess that his influence lies behind the ‘adventures’ of summer 430. It was also within his year of office that Athens appealed for peace (2. 59). The rejection is therefore not surprising. Brasidas perhaps demanded no less than what Sparta had begun the (p.141) war for, the end of the empire.16 When Athens would not talk sense, he resolved to stick at nothing to make her see it: the help of Persia would have to be sought, the fleet built up and used. His year as ephor ended too late for action in 430. In summer 429 he was out to help Cnemus (2. 85. 1). The ‘adventurous’ strategy, which alone could secure the radical end, was in play.

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Thucydides’ Judgment of Periclean Strategy The internal history of Sparta is dark indeed, and it may be argued that to see the strategic issue in political terms is to go far beyond the evidence. The case of Archidamus might prompt caution. In his speech before the war, he attacked the complacency of those who thought that the war would be quickly ended by the ‘conventional’ strategy. So, strategically speaking, he advocated the ‘adventurous’ and advised delay until it was possible (1. 80–5), but, politically speaking, he may have had in mind much less than the liberation of Hellas. At least he saw fit to issue one final appeal to Athens before he invaded Attica (2. 12. 1f.), and he could hardly have expected Athens to submit to the extreme demand of the liberators: presumably he would have been content with much less, the moderation rather than the end of Athenian Empire. So do strategies and policies necessarily accord? But all this was early in the war. It was the failure of 431 and 430 to produce more than an offer to negotiate that brought into the open a division endemic in Sparta ever since the Persian Wars.17 In the Persian Wars Sparta had held the hegemony of Greece, but the liberation of the islands and the Greek cities of the Persian Empire and the continuing war with Persia raised a serious dilemma for Sparta. On the one hand, the war had to be fought18 and, if Sparta did not choose to lead, Athens would, an unpalatable alternative; so (p.142) Sparta had to continue. On the other hand, Sparta was a land power and the war would be naval; she did not dare send large numbers of Spartiates far from the Peloponnese and hegemony might require them; so Sparta had to retire. The conduct of Pausanias enforced retirement, and after a debate in which those who wanted Sparta to contend for the hegemony were outvoted by those who, led by Hetoemaridas, were content that Athens should lead (1. 95. 7, Diod. 11. 50), Sparta settled back within the Peloponnese. But the dilemma remained and Sparta continued to divide on whether to oppose Athens or to treat her as partner. As long as Athens vigorously prosecuted the war with the willing support of the Delian league, Sparta was, or had to be, content. Certainly Pausanias’ second voyage to the Hellespont indicated some divisions in the state, for he went out to the Ἑλληνικòς πόλϵμος (1. 128. 3), by Thucydidean usage ‘war against Greeks’, and in some way on official business, for he bore the skytale (1. 131. 1), but he was recalled and suppressed, and comparatively easily.19 If he did indeed first propose to use the helot manpower as the instrument of large overseas policies (cf. 1. 132. 4), the plan and awakened helot ambitions came to nothing (4. 80. 3f). He no doubt had supporters among the Spartiates; he had his ‘enemies’ (1. 132. 1) and presumably his friends; one of the board of ephors in whose year he was killed sought with a nod to secure him sanctuary (1. 134. 1); but if he was hostile to Athens, there is no evidence that his hostility led him in his last years to propose action. With Thasos in 465 it was different. For the first time one of the Hellenes appealed to Sparta for protection against Athens and the issue could not be shirked. Sparta promised to invade Attica if Thasos were attacked (1. 101. 2). But the promise was secretly given, which suggests that it may have Page 6 of 16

Thucydides’ Judgment of Periclean Strategy been given not by the assembly but by the ephors, as to the Potidaeans in 432 (1. 58. 1); in the assembly the policy might have been opposed: for after the earthquake which set off the helot revolt and prevented the promised invasion Sparta saw fit to appeal to Athens for help (1. 102. 1) and the name of the son of the man who brought the appeal is suggestive of his sympathies. He was Periclidas (Plut. Cim. 16. 8, Ar. Lysis. 1138), father of the Athenaeus, who helped negotiate the truce of 423 (p.143) (4. 119. 2). Presumably his son’s name reflects Atticizing, as Cimon’s son, Lacedaemonius, reflects Laconizing (Plut. Cim. 16. 1). The appeal was made, one may guess, not because Sparta was in extremis, for the first shock was over and Ithome under siege (1. 102. 1), but because there was an influential body of opinion that favoured concord with Athens, and Cimon’s celebrated call to the Athenians to save Athens’ partner (Plut. Cim. 16. 10) succeeded because there were known to be Spartans who wanted partnership. Thus the division of the Archidamian War asserted itself in the 460s. It next appears at the time of the making of the Thirty Years’ Peace. In the invasion of Attica in 446 King Plistoanax, who in 421 was most eager for peace with Athens (5. 16. 1), withdrew and the Peace followed shortly after. What Sparta expected in 431, she doubtless had expected in 446, viz. the prompt submission of Athens: not only was Attica open for the first time since the outbreak of the First Peloponnesian War, but also Euboea was in revolt (1. 114. 1). So why did Plistoanax withdraw? Later he was charged with doing so for a bribe (2. 21. 1), and likewise one of the ephors who had accompanied him, Cleandridas (Plut. Per. 22. 3, Diod. 13. 106. 10, Suda s.vv. Ἔϕοροι and ϵἰς τò δέον). The charge only reflects the lack of good strategic reasons for withdrawal. They must have wanted not to crush Athens. And not only they: the Peace was made, even though Sparta could perfectly well have returned to the attack,20 less favourably than in spring 446, but no less than in 431; the assembly was not compelled to accept the decision of Plistoanax; there must have been ample support for his view of how to deal with Athens. The attacks on him and Cleandridas must have followed later, perhaps under the next ephors21 who may have sought, as happened in 421/420, to undo the (p.144) peace they had inherited. At any rate the attacks argue plainly enough the division in the state, between those who wished to crush, and those who wished to come to terms with, Athens. It need, therefore, cause no surprise if the same division is there in the Archidamian War, affecting policy and so strategy. It is found also in the period of the Decelean and Ionian War. One figure dominated the later years, Lysander. The final victory was his, and he received the most extravagant honours throughout the Greek world (Plut. Lys. 18). To secure the liberation of Hellas he had worked closely with Cyrus (Xen. Hell. 1. 5. 1ff., Diod. 13. 70, and cf. Xen. Oec. 4. 20ff.), for he had seen that without Persian money Sparta could not gain complete victory. He was the true heir of Brasidas, resolved to stop at nothing. Against him stood those who were Page 7 of 16

Thucydides’ Judgment of Periclean Strategy responsible for the appointment of Callicratidas, his successor as nauarch. He was not an especially prominent figure, as far as we know, but he interested Xenophon who recorded with Panhellenist zest the succession in command. When kept waiting at the court of Cyrus, Callicratidas departed in disgust saying ‘the Greeks are most wretched because they pay court to barbarians for money’ and adding ‘if I get home safely, I will do all in my power to reconcile the Athenians and the Spartans’ (Hell. 1. 6. 7).22 The price of reconciliation would be abandonment of the cause of liberating Hellas. Clearly there were others prepared to pay it, most notably Endius, son of Alcibiades, and heir to his father’s friendship with the family of Alcibiades of Athens (8. 6. 3), prominent in negotiations with Athens, first as one of the three envoys who ‘were thought to be well-disposed to the Athenians’ (5. 44. 3) sent to try to prevent the Athenian– Argive alliance of 421, later again one of three envoys sent to secure the ransom of captives (F. gr. Hist. 324 F 44), above all as chief of the embassy sent to secure peace after the battle of Cyzicus in 410 (Diod. 13. 52. 2). His speech on that occasion (if faithfully given by (p.145) Ephorus,23 from whom Diodorus chose to quote so notable an instance of Laconian brevity) was concerned to plead for a peace on the basis of each side keeping what it held at the moment. Since Athens still held much of the empire, this was to abandon a multitude of Greeks to their masters. One looks in vain in the speech for a hint of the proclamation of 431. He wants to do a deal. As already remarked, the politics of Sparta are dark. Few names can be added. Philocharidas who assisted in the making of the truce of 423 (4. 119) and of the Peace of Nicias (5. 19) seems to be a supporter of Endius (5. 44. 3, F. gr. Hist. 324 F 44). No more is heard of Athenaeus (4. 119. 2, 122. 1) after 423. No doubt like Plistoanax (5. 16. 1) he was content with the Peace of 421. One can only suspect the sympathies of King Pausanias, who later thwarted Lysander and let the Athenians off the hook in 403 (Xen. Hell. 2. 4. 29f., etc.), his allies being Endius, eponymous ephor in that year (ibid. 2. 3. 10), and Nauclidas, also ephor and opponent of Lysander (ibid. 2. 4. 36). But in a sense names are not necessary. For Endius to offer the terms of 410, there must have been ample support for a negotiated settlement, let Hellas like it or not. When Endius sought peace in 410, the Persians were still taking a very ambiguous attitude to the war. Until Cyrus came down with clear orders, armed with, as it were, maius imperium (Xen. Hell. 1. 4. 3, etc.), prudence must have suggested that total defeat of Athens was not likely. Very much more so was this the case before the Sicilian disaster and it is no surprise that Thucydides gives the Sicilian expedition a prominent place on the road to ruin (2. 65). Before it, Sparta could do no better than make a deal and a deal was essentially a disaster: for it would mean that the Greeks would have to face the fact that Sparta could not do what she had proclaimed, viz. liberate them. Not only that. If Sparta could not change the situation, she would have inevitably to suffer whatever it was she had feared from the growth of Athenian power (1. 23. 6). It may be debated what Page 8 of 16

Thucydides’ Judgment of Periclean Strategy exactly Sparta feared, but since hopes of Sparta presumably nourished in the allies of Athens the will to resist,24 once those hopes were dead the power that Sparta feared would be so much more fearful and so much more irresistible. (p.146) All this was seen by Pericles. Master of politics and of strategy, he saw that if Athens acted rightly, Sparta could do no more than make a deal—with catastrophic consequences. That was why Thucydides commended his strategy, and Thucydides was right.

Note A Discussion of the strategy of the Peloponnesian War depends on the view one takes of the ‘strategic’ parts of the speeches in Book 1 (esp. 80–3 Archidamus’, 121–2. 1 the second Corinthian, 141–3 Pericles’). Were they written ‘late’, in the knowledge of the events of the Decelean–Ionian War, or do they in some sense represent the sort of discussion that actually went on in 432/1? Certainly the speeches are artificially contrived: Pericles answers the Corinthians almost point by point; Archidamus (82. 4) and Pericles (143. 5) use the word ἀληπτότϵροι, not met in classical prose outside this book (being used at 1. 37. 5 by the Corinthians). But artificial contrivance does not prove that the speeches were written ‘late’. In view of Thucydides own profession (1. 22), the presumption must be all the other way; artifice could transmute the raw material ‘early’ as well as ‘late’. The onus probandi must lie with those who would discount the speeches as reflecting the ideas current in 432/1. The proof would have to consist in showing that the speeches allude to events of the later part of the war. First, the references to ἐπιτϵιχισμός and αὐτομολίαι (122. 1 and 142. 4) might be supposed to derive from the fortification of Decelea and the large numbers of slaves that deserted thereafter (7. 27. 5). But there were desertions before the Archidamian War began (1. 139. 2) and ἐπιτϵιχισμός was not only planned in 422/1 (5. 17. 2) and familiar in principle perhaps to the Old Oligarch ([Xen.] A.P. 2. 13) but also perhaps intended in the attack on Epidaurus in 430 (2. 56. 4)—an ἐπιτϵίχισμα against the Peloponnese, as Heraclea was declared to be against Euboea (3. 92. 4), that is, a base rather than the refuge Pylos turned out to be. The idea could well have been mooted in 432/1, long before the Decelean War. Again, the idea of ἀπόστασις συμμάχων (122. 1 and 81. 4) might seem more appropriate later. But Mytilene had actually proposed revolt before the war (3. 2. 1), and Archidamus and the Corinthians could well have thought of revolt spreading. Again, the optimism about equipping and training a fleet (82. 1, 121. 4, 142. 2f.) might be thought (p.147) to reflect later Spartan naval activity. But there were the highest hopes in 432/1 (2. 7. 2), far higher than the hard experience of the Ionian War could allow. The only serious point concerns the idea of luring away Athens’ mercenary sailors with higher pay (121. 3, 143. 1). This indeed happened in the Ionian War (Xen. Hell. 1. 5. 4f.) and, as far as we know, not earlier. If, however, nothing can be allowed to have been thought before it actually happened, the proposal to Page 9 of 16

Thucydides’ Judgment of Periclean Strategy borrow from Delphi and Olympia (ibid.) should, strictly taken, make very curious reading—for no such borrowing took place before the 360s and 350s! (Of course, Athens may have provided the idea by borrowing from Athena, which began as early as 440.) But the procedure is unsound. None of these ideas was unthinkable in 432/1. Indeed, it is to be noted that the Corinthians do not develop Archidamus’ suggestion of an appeal to Persia: their failure to do so is perhaps more of a pointer than the supposed anachronisms. All in all, proof of ‘lateness’ is lacking. It is a nicer question whether these speeches were written under the influence of events of the Archidamian War. De Ste Croix, The Origins of the Peloponnesian War, p. 209 argues that the Athenian failure before 425 to occupy Methana, a position of great usefulness for attacks on Epidaurus and Troezen (4. 45. 2), suggests that ἐπιτϵιχισμός was not seriously considered until Demosthenes occupied Pylos despite the scepticism of colleagues (4. 3. 3). The truth, however, may be that Pericles was not prepared to establish and maintain a fort other than one directly menacing Laconia; a city seized, like Epidaurus, was a different matter. Of course if, as I believe but cannot argue here, the Old Oligarch wrote early in the Archidamian War, the point may be settled; quite apart from that, it seems quite probable that the idea would be current. Naxian refugees had been settled in forts on Naxos in 499 (Hdt. 5. 34. 3), presumably not just for the view. By 427 the Samian exiles in Anaia were asserting themselves (3. 32. 2), and there is no reason to suppose that they would not as soon as possible raid Samos (cf. 4. 75) as well as organize hostilities against the Athenians (3. 19. 2). Surely exiles living in the Peloponnese before the war (cf. 8. 64. 4) were capable of thinking out means of hostile action against their own countrymen. Ἐπιτϵιχισμός was no great leap of the imagination. What Thucydides wrote for 432/1 could well have been thought in that year. (There is a slight query about the remark of Archidamus at 81. 6 expressing scepticism about quick decision in the war, whereas, when he spoke on the (p.148) borders of Attica in 431, he seemed to expect that Athens would come out and fight [2. 11. 6], and he would have thought that a general engagement would be decisive. But he may have meant no more than that the Athenians would try to attack those engaged in ravaging who were off their guard.) All in all, there is no reason to regard the speeches as unsafe evidence for what was thought about strategy in 432/1.

Note B Pericles (having planned an offensive war) lost his striking power, first because Potidaea revolted, next because of the Plague. Forced to the defensive, he left that as his testament. Thucydides was reluctant to face the fact of this failure, and accepted the testament, siding with the defeatist officer class against the revived offensive of Cleon (4. 27. 5, 28. 5, 65. 4, 73. 4; cf. 5. 7. 2). This is why Pericles’ huge effort against Epidaurus Page 10 of 16

Thucydides’ Judgment of Periclean Strategy (6. 31. 2; motive, cf. 5. 53) is recorded as a minor futility (2. 56. 4); why Phormion’s first campaign in Acarnania (2. 68. 7–9 of 432?) is left timeless; why we hear nothing of the purpose of the Megara decree; why, when that nearly bore fruit at last, Thucydides suggests that the capture of Megara was of no great moment (4. 73. 4; but cf. 72. 1). Thus Wade-Gery in Oxford Classical Dictionary, p. 1069. (He continues, ‘Such criticisms hardly detract much from his singular truthfulness’!) As far as I am aware, he never fully developed this view of Periclean strategy save in lectures, and it may seem mere shadow-boxing to set about an answer here, but, if he were right, our whole view of Pericles and of Thucydides would have to be radically altered and some sort of statement seems due. Much of the quoted passage seems extraneous. We cannot here go into the purpose of the Megara decree, or Cleon’s alleged strategy, nor defend Thucydides not dating Phormio’s campaign in a merely explanatory paragraph. But the ‘minor futility’ of the attack on Epidaurus is very relevant. First, it is worth remarking that one argument that might be used to support the thesis of an ‘offensive’ strategy is of no force. At the start of the war the Athenians reviewed the alliances with the islands covering the western side of Greece, πέριξ τὴν Πϵλοπόννησον καταπολϵμήσοντϵς (2. 7. 3). The word καταπολϵμϵῖν might be taken in the sense of the Latin debellare; it is used in Alcibiades’ speech at Sparta in a passage culminating in τοῦ ξύμπαντος ‘Eλληνικοῦ ἄρξϵιν (p.149) (6. 90. 3). So does it argue ‘offence’? But clearly it is not the equivalent of debellare; cf. 4. 86. 5 where it evidently means ‘carry on the war’, and 6. 16. 2 where it is used to describe the condition of Athens at the end of the Archidamian War. Again, 6. 90. 3 may echo 2. 7. 2, but the grandiose conceptions of Alcibiades prove nothing about Pericles. As to the expedition to Epidaurus, there is nothing very mysterious about its large size. If the purpose was merely to ravage, the more hands the better. In 431 the force sent out consisted of 1,000 hoplites, 400 archers, and 100 ships (2. 32. 2). Experience may well have suggested that larger forces were needed. When the force landed, patrols were needed to give advance warning of attacks, and cavalry was obviously better than men on foot, presumably, in 431, the archers; roads had to be blocked by hoplites, for otherwise ravaging parties were very vulnerable; for ravaging, the crews of as many ships as possible would have to be used. Further, a ravaging force may have divided so as to land on adjacent beaches and ravage as widely as possible in a short time, and the protecting troops with each division would be correspondingly reduced. So there was safety and effectiveness in numbers. When one adds that in 430 Pericles had either to take as many hoplites as possible or to leave them in the city to succumb to the plague (2. 57. 1) or the temptation of going out to fight, morale

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Thucydides’ Judgment of Periclean Strategy being not high in the weeks before the appeal for peace (2. 59), it is clear that the large numbers of 430 do not necessarily indicate some ‘offensive’ design. But what was the purpose of the operations round Epidaurus? Thucydides says nothing. Has he something to conceal? Wade-Gery cites as an explanation 5. 53, where Alcibiades and the Argives aim to take Epidaurus to shorten the route from Athens to Argos. But that was in 419, when the Argive–Spartan treaty had expired. So 5. 53 is not relevant to 430. Thucydides must have known the purpose of the expedition, if not from Pericles, from subordinate officers; Pericles was too good a general not to make his intention clear. It is unthinkable that Thucydides sought to mislead. His ‘singular truthfulness’ also makes it hard to believe that he deceived himself. That, however, has been believed in various matters. What is uncomfortable is that the theory makes Thucydides too stupid to see that there is a discrepancy between his narrative and the ‘testament’. If one can provide an explanation of his brevity here, which does not belittle his intelligence, it would be preferable. (p.150) The explanation is, of course, that Thucydides would not for a second have dreamed that there was anything to explain. Pericles’ strategy was radical in its abandonment of Attica. Archidamus could not believe that the Athenians would not fight (2. 11. 6). For the rest it was conventional. Ravaging was a normal way of fighting. If Epidaurus could be taken at a rush, so much the better. But there was nothing for a Greek to explain about Epidaurus just as at 2. 56. 6 there was nothing to explain about Prasiae. The Epidaurus expedition is not a problem. Finally, one must note that Pericles in 431 set out his strategy in his speech at 2. 13. 2. How do these words relate to the ‘testament’? One presumes that Thucydides made notes at the time of the speech. Are we to suppose that Pericles was seeking to exonerate himself in advance? Or have we another ‘late’ speech tainted with Thucydidean ‘double-think’? The truth is disappointing. There is no problem. Notes:

All references in this paper are to Thucydides, unless otherwise stated. (1) See Note A at end. (2) See Note B at end. (3) For E. Meyer, Geschichte des Altertums, iv, pp. 296ff., G. Busolt, Griechische Geschichte, iv. 2, pp. 901f. (‘grundsätzlich richtig’). H. Delbrück, Geschichte der Kriegskunst, pp. 121ff. J. Beloch was critical (Griechische Geschichte2, iii. 1, p. 300).

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Thucydides’ Judgment of Periclean Strategy (4) The raising of jury-pay (Schol. Ar. Wasps 88, 300) was perhaps to compensate for the rise in the cost of living. Sea-transport was expensive, especially in time of war (7. 28. 1), and the loss of cereals from Attica enforced costly replacement. But perhaps Pericles dealt with the problem. The δϵκάτη of the first Callias Decree (line 7) is, pace Meiggs-Lewis, p. 161, probably the δϵκάτη τῶν ἐκ τοῦ Πόντου πλϵόντων exacted at the Bosporus (Xen. Hell. 1. 1. 22; 4. 8. 27—Polybius 4. 44. 4 could only be taken to prove that it did not exist before 410 if we could be sure that such a tax earlier must have been mentioned in a literary source; given Thucydides’ lack of interest in finance, the probability is all the other way, that Polybius’ statement derives, perhaps indirectly, from Xenophon). But it would be very strange if the δῆμος were to levy a 10% tax on its food: so I suggest that 10% was paid at the Bosporus on the value of the cargo by ships not bound for Athens but that ships bound for Athens were by some method exempt; the tax thus served before the war to draw the necessary imports to Athens. During the war as the second Methone Decree shows (Meiggs–Lewis, no. 65 = Fornara 128, lines 34–41) the system was different. Save for privileged states like Methone, or Mytilene (as an autonomous ally) (3. 2. 2), all exports from Byzantium other than to Athens were banned, and the Hellespontophylakes, known only from this inscription but necessary whenever Athens was taxing the Pontic trade, were now required to seize any ship that broke the ban (ἀζέμιος in line 40, relating to the ship, not the captain, suggests this, ζημία being of course a ‘penalty’ not a ‘tax’). In this way, perhaps, Pericles adapted the system, to compensate for the loss of Attic cereal. (5) The subject has been fully treated only by Brunt, Phoenix 19 (1965), 255–80. I have not included in the notes references to parts of that article, but it will be clear that we overlap and that my debt is large. (6) Plut. Per. 33. 5 and Mor. 784E number the Peloponnesian army of 431 at 60,000, not an incredible figure if it included light-armed. Androtion (Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, 324) F 39, though corrupt, proves that there were at least 20,000. (See Jacoby, ad loc., on these figures.) Certainly the invasions were large. They involved two-thirds of the available forces (2. 10. 2; 47. 2); presumably Thucydides gave this information here, as for the force that sought to distract Athens in 428 (3. 15. 1), because they were notably large armies. (7) ‘An impossible number’ according to Gomme ad loc. But hopes were high in 431. Sybota had seen a fleet of 150 ships; Syracuse had voted a fleet of 100 (Diod. 12. 30. 1; under 439/8 but perhaps shortly before the war—hence the Leontine and Rhegian appeals of 433/2) and it was not yet clear that it would not be built (no large Syracusan naval force is encountered during the Archidamian War); financial help was to be sought from Persia (2. 7. 2 and 1. 82. 1), possibly naval help too.

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Thucydides’ Judgment of Periclean Strategy (8) Presumably the point of Archidamus’ attack on Plataea in 429 was to lure the Athenians out in defence of an ally, whom they could not be expected to desert (cf. 2. 73. 3). For the rest, Attica was invaded annually down to 425, save for 426, when earthquake warned invaders off (3. 89. 1). (9) 2. 86. 4 (seventy-seven ships). (10) Had Meleas been sent by the state? If so, the apologia the Mytilenaeans deemed necessary (3. 9–12) reads oddly. Also, how is one to explain his companion, Hermaeondas of Thebes? Perhaps this was a private mission, contrived by those who wished to get Sparta involved with ‘other ways’ of war. Meleas is designated by Thucydides Λάκων: only one other such designation occurs (8. 55. 2) and by it Thucydides means some special status, not Spartiate, nor perhaps πϵρίοικος (cf. 8. 6. 4; 22. 1), Λακϵδαιμόνιος being a general term used perhaps when Thucydides is not sure of a man’s class. So perhaps Meleas was, like the Argilian man (1. 132. 5), a sort of person who could be sent abroad on private business. (11) It is perhaps more likely that Thucydides inferred the reasons he gives (3. 92. 4) for the foundation from the way in which the city was used than that he had information from Sparta which would have betrayed the intention to go by land to the Thracian district of the Athenian Empire. But did anything happen in the way of naval attack on Euboea? Thucydides does not let on, but the celebrated fragment of Philochorus concerning an expedition to Euboea in 424/3 (F 130) may have been concerned with such Spartan activity. (12) He does not dwell on another important influence on Spartan opinion, viz. the incidence of the plague. Plagues were of divine origin (cf. 2. 54. 4; 2. 64. 2). Spartan feelings of guilt about the war (7. 18. 2) must have been much assuaged, and confidence in the rightness of their cause greatly increased, by the partial incidence of the plague (2. 54. 5). (13) The present tenses (ἐπιθυμεῖν and κωλύϵσθαι) are to be noted. (14) For this suggestion, see my article ‘The Fall of Themistocles’ in B. F. Harris (ed.), Auckland Classical Essays presented to E. M. Blaiklock (Oxford, 1970), p. 52 (herein, Ch. V, 110–11). (15) The date is late summer (2. 67), i.e. after the Athenian peace negotiations (2. 59), but during the ephorate of 431/430. (16) The formulae of diplomacy were not many—normally there was agreement either ἔχϵιν τὰ ἑαυτῶν ([Dem.] 7. 18) or ἔχϵιν ἃ ἔχουσι, as in 410 (Diod. 13. 52. 3). There could be variants such as ὅσα πολέμῳ χωρία ἔχουσιν ἑκάτϵροι ἀποδίδοσθαι—hence the curious instructions given to the commander at Plataea in 427 (3. 52. 2): in 425 it would seem that the Spartans wanted this formula but Page 14 of 16

Thucydides’ Judgment of Periclean Strategy Cleon demanded the places lost in the Thirty Years’ Peace ἃ οὐ πολέμῳ ἔλαβον. One can only guess what the Athenians offered in 430; perhaps they were ready to accept the demands of the embassy of 1. 139. 1. Perhaps Brasidas’ board of ephors replied with the demand of the final embassy of 1. 139. 3—τοὺς Ἕλληνας αὐτονόμους ἀϕιέναι. (17) For the following three paragraphs cf. G. E. M. de Ste Croix, The Origins of the Peloponnesian War (London and Ithaca, NY, 1972), chapter 5. (Whom he calls ‘hawks’, I call ‘liberators’!) (18) The Spartan attempt to withdraw the Greeks from Asia and settle them in Greece itself miscarried (Hdt. 9. 106). (19) Only ‘some’ of the ephors (1. 133. 1) overheard the conversation between Pausanias and the Argilian man. The whole story is improbable (cf. Cawkwell, ‘The Fall of Themistocles’ herein, Ch. V), perhaps a fabrication to silence Pausanias’ sympathizers. (20) If discussions began on the plain of Eleusis, there would be a long time needed for exchange of embassies, etc. Spartan kings had no power to make treaties. (21) Plistoanax was recalled in the nineteenth year of his exile (5. 16. 3), and it is commonly supposed that he returned shortly after Cleomenes in 427 led the invasion on behalf of the young Pausanias, son of Plistoanax (3. 26. 2), which puts the exile in 445. This may be right, but, since Plistoanax is not again mentioned by Thucydides until 421, his return and exile could well be later. (In 427 Cleomenes, as regent, led the invasion presumably because Archidamus, who had commanded the expeditions from 431 to 428, was ill [and dying]: Agis took over in 426 in place of his father.) So the hypothesis may be proposed, that Plistoanax was recalled in 425, when the Spartans were seeking peace, and was exiled in the ephorate of 444/443 when the consequences of the Thirty Years’ Peace were exposed in the ostracism of Thucydides, son of Melesias, who perhaps came to Sparta (Plut. Mor. 802C). Such accusations of bribery need have been made no more promptly at Sparta than at Athens. (Plut. Per. 22. 3 suggests that the prosecution followed hot upon his return from Attica, but that would have brought him back from exile before the invasion of 427.) Cleandridas went off in time to join in the founding of the colony to Thurii, if his name lies behind the corruption of Photius s.v. θουριομάντϵις. (22) Echoed by Teleutias (Xen. Hell. 5. 1. 17), in protest against the medizing of Antalcidas. (23) Ephorus may well have taken the text almost verbatim from the Hellenica Oxyrhynchia.

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Thucydides’ Judgment of Periclean Strategy (24) As with Mytilene before the war (3. 2. 1).

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The Peace between Athens and Persia

Cyrene to Chaeronea: Selected Essays on Ancient Greek History George Cawkwell

Print publication date: 2011 Print ISBN-13: 9780199593286 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199593286.001.0001

The Peace between Athens and Persia George Cawkwell

DOI:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199593286.003.0009

Abstract and Keywords This chapter considers Diodorus' account of the making of peace between Athens and Persia in 449. It asks: Was Diodorus correct? Was a peace between Athens and Persia concluded c.449 BC? Or was it all invented in the fourth century? It considers evidence for the Peace of Callias and argues that it was a deal struck on the basis of the status quo. For Persia it was better and cheaper than the mounting of major expeditions every decade. For Athens, and Pericles, it saved the costly annual naval sweeps and removed the chance that sometime a great naval victory for Persia might bring down the whole imperial edifice. Keywords:   Athens, Persia, peace, Diodorus, Cimon, Cyprus, Peace of Callias

After the death of Cimon in Cyprus circa 449 BC (Thuc. 1.112.4) there were no hostilities between Athenian forces and Persian until 412 when the satraps of the Aegean seaboard are found supporting Sparta, and if Diodorus (12.4) is to be trusted, this cessation of hostilities was due to the making of a peace in 449 between Athens and Persia. In recent times, however, it has been claimed that much other evidence is to be understood as proving that peace, albeit shortlived, had been made after the battle of Eurymedon or at least that it later came to be thought that peace had been made. This interpretation of the evidence has been contested, and to my mind, successfully contested, and I do not propose to cover the same ground here.1 For there is a clear indication that Athens did not make peace with Persia immediately after the battle of Eurymedon.

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The Peace between Athens and Persia In the late 460s there was a general diplomatic realignment in Greece. The Athenians, responding to Cimon’s call ‘not to see Greece lame or Athens deprived of her yoke-fellow’ (Plut. Cim. 16.10), had gone to save their ally, Sparta, at the time of the great earthquake (Thuc. 1.102.1), as indeed had other extra-Peloponnesian states, Aegina and Plataea being the two known to us (Thuc. 2.27.2; 3.54.5; (p.152) 3.64.3; 4.56.2). Then when the Spartans dismissed the Athenians from the siege of Ithome the Athenians ‘gave up the alliance that had been made with them against the Mede and became allies with the Argives, the Spartans’ enemies’ (Thuc. 1.102.4). If Thucydides is to be trusted, it is inconceivable that Athens could earlier have made peace with Persia even if it was a very short-lasting peace, without thereby renouncing her alliance against the Mede. The Hellenic League of 481 is a somewhat shadowy affair, but the contention of Brunt2 that it was similar in form to the Delian League which was established so shortly afterwards is highly probable. Just as joining that league involved swearing ‘to think the same party friend and enemy’ (ps.-Arist. Ath. Pol. 23.4), the usual formula of Greek leagues, so too in the Hellenic League the oaths would have bound participants to enmity against Persia, in Thucydides’ phrase ἐπì τῷ Mήδῳ (1.102.4; cf. 1.96.1). In both Leagues common action was called for against enemies other than the Persians (cf. 1.107.5 for the Delian League), but Persia was the real enemy as the Mytilenians were to make plain (Thuc. 3.10.3). Once Athens had made peace with Persia, she could not continue in the Hellenic League. That Athens made peace with Persia, no matter how briefly, before her renunciation of her membership of that League is not to be seriously considered. The chronology of the Pentecontaetia is almost all things to all men, but if one accepts Thucydides’ ordering of events as generally reliable, this diplomatic realignment comes not only after the Eurymedon but also after the revolt of Thasos, the earthquake, and the Helot revolt, events for which we are not without some outside chronological indications, and few will greatly demur at Gomme’s date of 462/1 BC for the alliance between Athens and Argos.3 There cannot, therefore, have been a peace with Persia before that date. It is commonly presumed, and to my mind rightly presumed, that the embassy sent by the Athenians to Artaxerxes in Susa which coincided with an Argive embassy concerning Argive relations with Persia (Hdt. 7.151) was itself concerned to discuss peace between Athens and Persia, that Herodotus’ vague phrase ‘on other business’ (ἑτέρου πρήγματος ϵἵνϵĸα) was an artful allusion to Athens’ trafficking with the Mede. But there has been much division over a suitable (p.153) context for such diplomacy. If Callias went to Susa once, he may well have gone on another occasion, even on several occasions. His descendant, Callias son of Hipponicus, boasted in 371 BC that he was on his third mission to negotiate peace between Athens and Sparta (Xen. Hell. 6.3.4); the family specialised in diplomacy. The role of our Callias may have resembled Page 2 of 19

The Peace between Athens and Persia that of Antalcidas who negotiated with the Persians on behalf of Sparta on several occasions. So if a peace was indeed made in 449 BC, Herodotus does not necessarily refer to that embassy.4 It is possible, as seems now not infrequently to be supposed, that the occasion in question was shortly after the accession of Artaxerxes in 465/4. Argos might well have wanted to secure the continuance of friendship with the Great King. But if Callias was there at that date, before Athens had left the Hellenic League, it is unlikely that he was seeking to negotiate a peace with Persia, nor, it may be added, is it likely that straight after the accession of the new King would the Argives be asking whether they were ‘considered enemies’. Such a question was, of course, highly appropriate after the King’s arch-friends, the Argives, had formed an alliance with the King’s archenemies, the Athenians, just as it is no surprise that after Athens had left ‘the alliance made against the Mede’ and had allied with the King’s arch-friends, she should begin to discuss with Persia the making of peace. Certainty, of course, is not possible, but 462/1 BC is a very satisfactory context for an embassy to Susa led by Callias. It produced no immediate result. If Athens made the first approach, her terms may have been too much for the King to swallow at that date, (p.154) but Athens would have shown that she was prepared for an alternative to war without end. Persia noted it and so did the Greeks, who saw the Athenians, in the phrase ascribed to the Mytilenian speaker by Thucydides (3.10.4), ‘giving up the hostility against the Mede’.5 Abortive negotiations at Susa were promptly followed by a campaign against Cyprus and support for the rebel King in Egypt (Thuc. 1.104), but at least the King knew where Athens stood and future negotiations could be handled by satraps with clear terms of reference. A mere rescript sufficed in 449 BC (Diod. 12.4.4), just as in 392 Antalcidas needed to go no further than to the court of Tiribazus (Xen. Hell. 4.8.12). There is, in short, no good case for a peace between Athens and Persia before Cimon’s last campaign, undertaken after he was recalled from ostracism, a campaign described by Thucydides (1.112) and by Diodorus (12.3 and 4). After that there was a cessation of hostilities. In 440, at the time of the revolt of Samos, a Samian, Stesagoras, led an embassy to solicit the aid of the Phoenician fleet (Thuc. 1.116.3 with Scholiast). Pericles took precautions, but the fleet did not appear. No satrap could have taken a decision to send a fleet if it was not in line with royal policy, and if there was no defined policy, he would have had to refer the matter to Susa, which could be quickly done. It is true that Pissouthnes, the satrap in Sardis, was said to have made an ‘alliance’ with ‘the most powerful of those in Samos’, who obtained seven hundred mercenaries from him, and hostages were lodged with him (Thuc. 1.115.4–5), but this hardly amounts to alliance in the formal sense, and in any case Pissouthnes was an independent-minded satrap, who would emerge in due course as an open rebel. There was no real attempt to save Samos in 440 BC; Persian forces did not

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The Peace between Athens and Persia engage with Athenian.6 So since hostilities ceased after 449, that is the obvious date to set the Peace, if a peace there was. (p.155) So one approaches the age-old question. Was Diodorus correct? Was a peace between Athens and Persia concluded c.449 BC? Or was it all invented in the fourth century?7 (If it was, there is no point in seeking a suitable historical context, for it could have been inserted at any moment that suited the inventor’s argument or humour.) The cessation of hostilities is very striking and one might be inclined to take it as clear proof that a peace had been made. Perhaps before the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War Persia might be supposed to have been disinclined to contest Athenian control of the Greek cities of Asia for fear of the Athenian navy, but after 431 BC that navy was much distracted, the Greek cities were unwalled (Thuc. 3.33.2), and there was nothing to prevent the Western satraps being required, as Tissaphernes would be in 412 BC (Thuc. 8.5.5), to assert Persian sovereignty over the whole of the Aegean sea-board. Time would show that the King’s claim to the Greek cities was the irreducible minimum in all the negotiations between 412 and 387/6 BC. What reason had he for not exploiting the new situation after 431 BC, if it was not that he had bound himself in a peace? The period after the death of Artaxerxes which included the usual accession troubles of a new King was no time for Persia to take on Athens and after the Peace of Nicias Athens was again free from the distraction of the war, but between 431 and 424 what was there to stop Persia?8 Not only did hostilities cease after 449, but the Athenians seem to have known that the war was over. The reason for saying this is not so much the Decree providing for the appointment of a priestess and the (p.156) building of a temple for Athena Nike (IG I3 35 = ML 44 = Fornara 93); the victory is presumably the victory over the Persians, but the date of the Decree is much debated; it was probably in the 440s, as Meiggs and Lewis argued, but since the temple was not begun until the 420s,9 a later date for the Decree remains possible; so it cannot be sure evidence that in the 440s the Athenians thought the war was over and that it was time for the celebration of the victory. The real indication is, to my mind, the so-called Congress Decree (Plut. Per. 17), by which Pericles summoned ‘all the Hellenes dwelling anywhere in Europe or Asia, cities great and small, to send to a congress in Athens those who would deliberate about the Hellenic shrines which the Barbarians burnt, and about the sacrifices which they owe after their prayers to the Gods on behalf of Hellas when they were fighting against the Barbarians, and about the sea, as to how all may sail it without fear and conduct the peace’. If this Decree is authentic, it was clearly drafted in the confident belief that the war was over.10 Yet in the period between Cimon’s last campaign and the start of the building of the Parthenon there could

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The Peace between Athens and Persia have been no confidence that the Persians would not mount another expedition unless there had been a formal agreement of peace. The arguments against the authenticity of the Congress Decree are, to my mind, not cogent, but if the reality of the Peace of Callias is to depend on acceptance of such disputed evidence, the prospect of convincing the scholarly world is distant indeed. Furthermore, Persian failure to exploit Athens’ distraction between 431 and 424 BC might have been due to deliberate policy on the part of the King. In the Ionian War it was to be Persian policy to stand apart and let Athens and Sparta wear each other down. Thucydides would have it thought that Alcibiades was responsible for advising Tissaphernes to follow such a policy (8.46). Tissaphernes may not have needed such advice, and he may not have been the first to be content to leave Athens and Sparta to do their worst to each other.11 That conceivably may have been the policy prevailing in the last seven years of Artaxerxes’ reign, and one cannot confidently urge the Persian failure to (p. 157) move against the Greek cities of Asia as a proof that there was a constraining peace. The most direct evidence for the Peace of Callias is provided by the fourthcentury sources. It is commonly and airily asserted that since in 380 Isocrates (4.120) was unfavourably contrasting the Peace of Antalcidas with ‘the treaty made in our time’ (or ‘under our empire’) the Peace of Callias must have been invented to show up the shameful peace made by Sparta.12 But this is a hardly credible motive. If the truth had been that for over sixty years Athenian naval power had kept the Persians out of Greek affairs and that they had only returned when Sparta took to collaborating with them in the Ionian War, why not tell the glorious truth? If Athens had not ‘medised’, why pretend that Athens had ‘medised’ but not as shamefully as Sparta? The invention theorists had better do better than that by way of finding a motive. Nor is the process of invention easily imagined. Did some wide-eyed politician propose, with winks to silence questioners, that ‘the treaty made in our time’ be republished, or did he get the secretary to read out a false document? It is too easily assumed that such things were easily done. But in any case there was one man in Athens who was not, one would suppose, so readily to be duped, viz. Isocrates himself, born in 436/5 BC (Plut. Mor. 836f ) and therefore free to attend the Assembly from 418/7. He may even have been present when the fateful decision was made to support the rebel satrap, Amorges, and the whole question of Athenian relations with Persia must at that time have been under discussion; but even if the young Isocrates was not present, it is hardly to be credited that he was not well aware of the issues. Such matters were no doubt constantly treated in the rhetorical training of his tutor, the Panhellenist Gorgias (Dion. Hal. Isoc. 1). Isocrates spent his whole life in the service of Panhellenism, constantly preaching the necessity and the practicability of a Hellenic crusade against Persia, and if there had been no Peace of Callias, why did he not, consistently with his thesis, take the line that would be taken by Callisthenes (Plut. Cim. 13),13 viz. that it was Athenian might, Page 5 of 19

The Peace between Athens and Persia not a peace treaty, that had kept the Persians out of the Greek world? How and why was Isocrates duped? He knew too (p.158) much and cared too much to have accepted ‘the treaty in our time’, if it was a fiction.14 Nor is that the only difficulty in the theory of an invention. The first mention of a fifth-century treaty with Persia is in Andocides’ oration On the Peace of 392/1 (29). If there was a treaty made with Darius II shortly after his accession,15 the allusion is to that treaty and the whole case of the sceptics is seriously damaged; for if Thucydides in the full narrative of Book 4 omitted that peace, his omission is so shocking that his omission of the Peace of Callias, though still amazing, is much weakened as proof that there was no such peace. But if there was no such peace with Darius,16 a very curious picture presents itself; for the Athenians must be supposed to have begun to invent a fifth-century treaty with Persia before the Peace of Antalcidas prompted the invention. It is true that the abortive peace of 392/1 BC was very much a dress-rehearsal for the peace of 387/6, but to start inventing a ‘peace in our time’ to discredit a shameful Spartan peace before that shameful peace was actually consummated is an unlikely process. The whole theory of an invention, both its motive and its process, is highly unsatisfactory. The fourth-century evidence is not so readily disposed of. But what of Thucydides’ silence on the matter? It is not just that he is silent about the making of a peace. If there was a peace made at the conclusion of Cimon’s last campaign, it should have been recorded in chapter 112 of Book 1, but even if there was no such peace, some explanation was due for the withdrawal after the double victory in Cyprus not only from Cyprus but also from Egypt. It is the same at the other end. Nothing is said about Athens’ decision to help the rebel Amorges. Whatever the reason for the resumption of hostilities between Athens and Persia, some account was due of when, how, and why Athens decided to support him. Instead the connection is (p.159) somewhat mysteriously presented in Book 8 (19.2, 28.2, 54.3) and it is Andocides (3.29) who enlightens us.17 Yet the debate over help for Amorges should greatly have interested Thucydides, raising the whole question of relations between the imperial power of the Aegean and the imperial power of Asia. Whether or not the Athenian decision broke a peace with Persia, the omission is startling and serious. In Thucydides the importance of Persia is much underplayed. It is not just that he omits the Peace of Callias: he omits so much else that his silence is not only puzzling but also scandalous. Opinion has divided on whether some sort of formal agreement is to be inferred from the final demand made by Alcibiades on behalf of Tissaphernes in the winter of 412/11 (8.56.4).18 One can well imagine that Alcibiades might be demanding that the Athenians should not contest the passage of the royal fleet along the King’s own coasts because previously no passage had been attempted for fear of the Athenian navy, but it is hard to see why he was demanding that Page 6 of 19

The Peace between Athens and Persia the King be allowed ‘to build ships’ if there was not some formal restraint on his doing so. Persian fleets were built in places far away from Athenian naval control. Surely here the truth was momentarily unveiled. But there is no denying that Thucydides is amazingly silent about the whole Persian dimension of Greek history, a silence going far beyond mere treaties, and the ugly fact must be swallowed. Gone, however, are the days when the doctrine of the infallibility of Thucydides held sway, and fewer and fewer scholars now hold that what Thucydides did not recount did not happen. So much for the silence of Thucydides. There is no need to spend time on claims that there were fourth-century writers who denied that there was a Peace of Callias. Callisthenes, it is now clear, did not deny that there was a peace (Plut. Cim. 13.4).19 He simply did not record it. Theopompus in a famous fragment (FGrH 115 F 154) discredited himself rather than the Peace; he declared it a fabrication because it was in Ionic lettering, as it would have been if it was republished when the Peace of Antalcidas was published. (p.160) What was said in the fourth century or not said in the fifth20 should not destroy confidence in Diodorus’ account. In 427 ‘Ionia was unwalled’ (Thuc. 3.33.2). How and why was that so? But whatever answer one makes to that question, the absence of walls in Ionia is a strong indication that the cities were covered by the Peace of Callias.21 For what else was stopping the Persians reasserting control? (p.161) But how and why were the cities of Ionia unwalled? Two explanations have been offered. The first is that of Wade-Gery, who postulated that a clause of the Peace required it.22 The second is that Athens required the cities to pull down their walls to discourage revolt and this is the explanation now generally proffered.23 A choice must, if possible, be made. Our whole understanding of the nature of the Peace and of the relations of Athens and Persia is much affected. In favour of the view that the Greeks of Asia had been required by Athens to pull down their walls for the sake of imperial discipline is the possibility that Athens regularly demanded the destruction of walls as part of the settlement of revolt in island states. Certainly Thasos seems to have been unwalled for fifty years (Thuc. 1.101.3, 8.64.3), and Samos was similarly treated (id. 1.117.3, 8.50.5). The walls of Mytilene were demolished at the end of the revolt (id. 3.50.1). Also, Athens may regularly have forbidden the building of new walls; the Chians were required to demolish ‘the new wall’ in 425 (id. 4.51) and the Mytilenians in 428 were building walls as part of their last-minute preparations for revolt (id. 3.2.2). How Cos and Camirus in Rhodes came to be unwalled (id. 8.41.2 and 44.2) is beyond conjecture, but they may be the instances of a general rule which happen to occur in the narrative. So one might suppose that there is one and the same explanation for the absence of walls in Asia and elsewhere. Page 7 of 19

The Peace between Athens and Persia However, there was a difference between island and mainland cities. Because of Athens’ control of the seas island cities could be safe enough from the attentions of exiles and dissidents, such as the Samians who established themselves at Anaea (Thuc. 4.75.1),24 or the Mytilenians at Antandros (id. 4.52.2f.). On the mainland, cities without walls would have been much more vulnerable, as indeed the cities of the Troad seemed likely to be when attacked by those same Mytilenian exiles (4.52.3). Plato remarked on the role of the Atticisers in the Empire (Epistle 7.332c) and none of them can have slept the more comfortably once the walls were down. Perhaps there was a good imperial case25 for depriving large cities of the means to defend (p.162) themselves, but what advantage was there for Athens in having Lampsacus (Thuc. 8.62.2), for example, or those small Aeolian cities on the mainland (id. 4.52.3) so easily entered by night and seized? And what of Myus, Priene, Lebedos, Teos, Clazomenae, Erythrae, the minor cities on Herodotus’ list (1.142)? Being without walls had been the condition of the Ionians under the Lydian Kings and at the approach of Cyrus in 544 they quickly put walls up (Hdt. 1.141.4), and it is to be presumed that when the Persians had captured them by siege (id. 1.162.2), they required their demolition. The proposal said to have been made by Harpagus during the siege of Phocaea implies the general rule. The wall of that city had been slowly and lavishly built (id. 1.163) and Harpagus declared that he would be content with the demolition of one redoubt and the dedication of a single house, a symbolic submission, but when later the Phocaeans who had left the city, returned and slaughtered the Persian garrison, they so planned and were able so to do probably because the walls had been demolished. Since walls could be quickly enough raised,26 those who joined in the Ionian Revolt would have restored them, a point too obvious for Herodotus to mention, and the Persians had the task of recapturing the cities. Vengeance was severe. Demolition of walls doubtless accompanied the conflagration.27 Thasos was required by Darius to demolish its walls (Hdt. 6.46), and one may presume that it was Persian practice. When Babylon was captured by Darius, he had both its gates and its walls removed (id. 3.159), and Deutero-Isaiah (45.1, 2) foresees the results of the coming of Cyrus in these words—‘Thus says the Lord to Cyrus his anointed, Cyrus whom he has taken by the hand to subdue nations before him and undo the might of kings, before whom gates shall be opened and no doors be shut: I will go before you and level the swelling hills; I will break down gates of bronze and hack through iron bars.’ Not, of course, that all cities of the Persian Empire were unwalled or at least (p.163) without gates. Such measures were for the punishment of rebels, a policy of open cities. The Ionians and Aeolians had, with the exception of Miletus, refused to cooperate with Cyrus and revolt from Lydia (Hdt. 1.141) and the loss of walls was one of the consequences. In this way, for most of the hundred years before the liberation of the Asiatic Greeks in 479/8 BC (id. 9.105), subjection to the power of the hinterland had been symbolised and secured by their having no walls. Page 8 of 19

The Peace between Athens and Persia It is nowhere stated but may safely be presumed that the revolt of 479/8 involved rebuilding of city walls. By 427 BC all the cities of ‘Ionia’, whatever Thucydides at that moment meant by that term, cities large and small, were unwalled. The hypothesis of Wade-Gery still seems to me stronger than the alternative.28 If he was correct, one can well understand why Callias, having negotiated the peace ‘that was on everyone’s lips’, was yet severely treated at the inquiry into his conduct of office (Dem. 19.273). Bribery was alleged, a routine and insignificant charge but essential if charges were to succeed (Hyperides 4.29f.). What was he thought to have improperly conceded? The clause about demolition of walls could have been so viewed. Why, it may be asked, does this clause concerning walls play no part in Diodorus/ Ephorus’ account of the Peace? ‘The Greek cities in Asia are all to be autonomous’ (12.4.5).29 That is all. Time, however, would show that autonomy was susceptible of conditions. In the Peace of Nicias, six cities in the Thracian district were to be ‘autonomous, paying the tribute of Aristides’ time’ (Thuc. 5.18.5). In 395 BC Tithraustes proposed to Agesilaus that ‘the cities in Asia should be autonomous and pay the King the ancient dasmos’ (Xen. Hell. 3.4.25). Earlier, in the terms proposed to and by Dercyllidas (id. 3.2.20) (p.164) ‘autonomy’ appears to be subject to conditions. So the assertion of 449 BC could well have been accompanied by the condition that the Greek cities should not be walled. There could even have been an assertion that Asia belonged to the King; with the assertion of autonomy that would have been a milder version from the Greek point of view than that of the treaty of 412/11 BC (Thuc. 8.58), where the King can ‘deliberate as he chooses about his own territory’, but even before that (id. 8.56.4) it was ‘his own territory’. There is no explicit notice because, until Sparta had done very much worse in 387/6 BC and abandoned all claim to the Greek cities of Asia, the Peace of Callias was a source of some shame. Callias was fined (Dem. 19.273) and Herodotus could play on the Athenian bad conscience (7.152).30 For the truth was that the Peace of Callias was not the proclamation of a glorious victory, but a deal struck on the basis of the status quo. For Persia it was better and cheaper than the mounting of major expeditions every decade. For Athens, and Pericles, it saved the costly annual naval sweeps and removed the chance that sometime a great naval victory for Persia might bring down the whole imperial edifice. From the deal of 449 BC, Persia steadily increased her influence, exploiting the great division of Greece. Whereas earlier the Great King had tried bribery to secure Spartan collaboration and failed (Thuc. 1.109.2), the Peloponnesian War set the Spartans seeking Persian help and Persia became ever more influential in Greek affairs. In a notable article, ‘The Congress Decree: Some Doubts and a Hypothesis’, Historia 18 (1969), 129–41, R. Seager moderately laid out ‘obscurities and incongruities which … hinder belief in the authenticity of the decree’. His Page 9 of 19

The Peace between Athens and Persia cautious statement has been widely accepted.1 It is the purpose of this note to argue that his objections are not as compelling as has been supposed. Seager first questions whether it is likely that the Greeks would have been summoned to deliberate about ‘the Hellenic holy places which the Barbarians burned’. According to Diodorus (11.29), before the battle of Plataea the Greeks swore not to restore temples that had been burnt and destroyed, and Lycurgus (In Leocr. 81) reproduces the text. Is it likely that they were being summoned to break their oath? The Persians certainly made a habit of burning and destroying temples.2 Herodotus specifically recorded the case of the temple of Apollo at Abae, but it is to be presumed that when the Persians burned the other eleven cities of Phocis (8.33), they did not spare their temples; that at Abae received special mention because it was ‘rich’. Just as at the end of the Ionian Revolt they had fired the temples of the Ionians along with their cities (Hdt. 6.32 and cf. 6.19.3), and in 490 BC they had done likewise at Naxos and at Eretria (6.96 and 101.3), so too in 480 those who did not conform received the same treatment;3 after Phocis, Thespiae, and Plataea (8.50.2), and above all Athens and Attica were not spared. The whole Acropolis was set ablaze, including the temple (8.53.2, 54); likewise the temple of Demeter at Eleusis (9.65.2) and, not mentioned by Herodotus, the temple of Hera on the road to Phalerum and in Phalerum the temple of Demeter (Paus. 10.35.2). In three of these places, according to Pausanias, the temples remained as the fire left them, memorials of Persian shame. But how widely was this the case? Herodotus would have it that the burnt temples were a burning issue in 479 BC (8.143.2, 144.2, 109.3) and represents Alexander of Macedon advising Mardonius to restore them (8.140α2). There is no (p.166) reason to doubt that the oath was sworn. Until Athens began on the Periclean building programme, no work was done, it would seem, on the Acropolis.4 But somehow the restriction of the oath in that case was overcome,5 and that may have been quite widely the case. It is notable that Isocrates, referring in 380 to such an oath (4.156), spoke only of ‘the Ionians’, though at what date they were free to swear it is unclear. The Greeks in general he quietly forgot. Had many of them released themselves, just as Athens certainly somehow did? It is not at all improbable that Pericles proposed a conference on the question whether the temples should remain in ruins for ever. After all, not only did the gods and heroes need their ‘houses’ (Hdt. 8.143.2), the Greeks too needed their temples. As to the sacrifices of which the Decree speaks, ‘the only festival known to have been vowed by the Greeks in connection with the Persian invasion [my italics] is the Eleutheria celebrated at Plataea’6 but the war with Persia went on for another generation and there may well have been sacrifices owed to the gods arising from prayers in this period. We do not know how the practice of each member state sending an ox and a panoply to the Panathenaea began. The Page 10 of 19

The Peace between Athens and Persia second Decree on the stele recording the Assessment Decree of 425 BC required it, but the emphatic position of the word ‘all’ at the end of the clause suggests that the practice was well established and the newly assessed states were being required to conform (ML 69 = Fornara 136, line 57).7 The obligation is alluded to in the Clinias Decree of the early 440s (ML 46 = Fornara 98, line 41)8 in a way that suggests recent innovation. In this way Athens may have been discharging obligations which had been assumed after 478 and which Pericles may have been concerned with in the Congress Decree. Other states may have had similar obligations of which we are uninformed. It is true that there is no formal clause in any treaty known to us concerning the checking of piracy before the Peace of Philocrates (ps.-Dem. 12.2). But there always had been piracy in the Aegean whenever there was no strong naval power to contain it.9 There is nothing in the least unlikely in Pericles fearing, or affecting to fear, the effect of the great diminution of naval activity that followed a cessation of naval hostilities against Persia. What he needed was a reason, or an excuse, for maintaining a strong naval presence in the Aegean. (p.167) It may also be true that the term for a peace favoured in epigraphic Greek in the fifth century was spondai, though apart from the treaty between the Athenians and the Argives, Mantineans and Eleans of 420 BC (Thuc. 5.47 = IG I3 83) and the spondai with which Heraclides was involved in 424/3 (IG I3 227 = ML 70 = Fornara 138), instances are lacking,10 while in Thucydides’ text of the year’s truce of 423 there is provision for deliberation concerning ‘the peace’ (4.118.14), that is, the Peace of Nicias in prospect. But not only do fifthcentury speakers in the pages of Thucydides refer readily to ‘the peace’ seemingly referring to either the Thirty Years’ Peace or some putative longterm settlement with Athens (cf. 1.120.2, 124.3 the Corinthians, 3.9.3 the Mytilenians, 3.54.3 the Plataeans), but also the last message of the Spartans in 432/1 BC is to be carefully noted (1.139.3). ‘The Spartans wish the peace to continue.’ It, therefore, seems absurd to say that the phrase of the Congress Decree ‘to conduct the Peace’ is inappropriate language for the 440s.11 Seager (1969: 138) also calls in question the phrase ‘to summon all Greeks who live anywhere in Europe or in Asia’, a distinction which he supposes may well derive from the period of Spartan hegemony in the opening decades of the fourth century. The concepts of Asia and Europe are, however, constantly present in the mind of Herodotus. At 7.184.5 he speaks of the army from Asia and goes on (in 7.185) to talk of the army from Europe which included ‘the Hellenes from Thrace and the off-shore islands’. So mention of ‘all Greeks who live anywhere in Europe or in Asia’ could hardly have struck him as strange. One may particularly note that at 6.33.1 he lists the Hellespontine cities that are ‘in Europe’. Thucydides too made the distinction (2.97.6), and one wonders by what term the Greek cities of Asia were alluded to in the Peace of Callias (and surely they must have been specifically mentioned) if not as in Agesilaus’ truce with Page 11 of 19

The Peace between Athens and Persia Tissaphernes in 396 BC and in the royal rescript of 387/6 (Xen. Hell. 3.4.5, 5.1.31). All in all, Seager’s doubtings do not make it incredible that Pericles should have proposed such a Decree. His purpose could well have been to maintain Athenian naval power on which Empire would depend and to inaugurate the building programme which would set the scene for Athens as the cultural centre of Hellas. He can have had no expectation that Sparta would play along or that the proposal would not founder in the Peloponnese, as it is said to have done (Plut. Per. 17.4). He was thus freed to be on with his grand designs. As to the date of the Decree, it seems to have been passed after the Peace was made and before the Periclean building programme began in 447/6 BC (p.168) (cf. IG I3 436). It has been argued,12 and probably justly, that there is no reason for supposing that the decision to build the Parthenon was the immediate consequence of the failure of the Greeks to respond to Pericles’ summons, that a considerable period of time may have elapsed between the two events. Walsh would have it that the Peace of Callias was made in 465/4 BC and so is emboldened to place the Congress Decree in 464/3, but as argued at the start of this chapter the Peace cannot be set before Athens left the Hellenic Alliance against Persia. In Diodorus 12.3 and 4 it was made at the end of the campaign in the course of which Cimon died, that is, c.449 BC. The Decree could have been passed straight after the conclusion of the Peace. Of the internal politics of Athens between then and the commencement of the Parthenon we know practically nothing, and there is no obstacle in the way of setting the Decree in that period. It is not possible, of course, to prove that the Decree is authentic or that Plutarch has not been deceived, but we can be fairly confident. He had declared that Pericles ‘left nothing in writing other than the decrees’ (Per. 8.7). It is a reasonable guess that he found them in Craterus’ Collection of Decrees, with which elsewhere he shows acquaintance (FGrH 342 FF 12, 13, 14).13 He certainly refers to Pericles’ decrees frequently in the Life (10.4, 20.2, 25.1, 30.2– 3, 37.3, as well as 17.1–3), and since the work of Craterus contained more than mere texts (cf. F 12 = Plut. Arist. 26.4), the whole of Plutarch’s chapter may well derive from him. Of course, Craterus in his turn may have been deceived but that may be said of practically anything written in the ancient world, and, until more persuasive arguments are adduced, there is no good reason for declaring that the Congress Decree is a fourth-century fabrication.14 (p.169) Bibliography Bibliography references: Badian, E. 1993. ‘The Peace of Callias’, in idem, From Plataea to Potidaea. Baltimore. 1–72. Page 12 of 19

The Peace between Athens and Persia Bosworth, A. B. 1971. ‘The Congress Decree: Another Hypothesis’, Historia 20: 600–16. —— 1990. ‘Plutarch, Callisthenes and the Peace of Callias’, JHS 110: 1–13. Brunt, P. A. 1993. ‘The Hellenic League against Persia’, in idem, Studies in Greek History and Thought. Oxford. 47–83. Davies, J. K. 1971. Athenian Propertied Families, 600–300 B.C. Oxford. Eddy, S. K. 1973. ‘The Cold War between Athens and Persia, ca. 448–412 B.C.’, CP 58: 241–58. Gomme, A. W. 1945. A Historical Commentary on Thucydides 1. Oxford. ——, A. Andrewes, and K. J. Dover. 1981. A Historical Commentary on Thucydides 5. Oxford. Hornblower, S. 1991. A Commentary on Thucydides. Oxford. Mattingly, H. B. 1961. ‘The Athenian Coinage Decree’, Historia 10: 148–88. Meiggs, R. 1972. The Athenian Empire. Oxford. Meister, K. 1982. Die Ungeschichtlichkeit des Kalliasfriedens und deren historische Folgen. Wiesbaden. Ormerod, H. A. 1924. Piracy in the Ancient World. Liverpool. Raaflaub, K. 1985. Entdeckung der Freiheit. Munich. Robertson, N. 1976. ‘False Documents at Athens’, Historical Reflections 3: 1–24. Seager, R. 1969. ‘The Congress Decree: Some Doubts and a Hypothesis’, Historia 18: 129–41. Stadter, P. A. 1989. A Commentary on Plutarch’s Pericles. Chapel Hill. Stockton, D. L. 1959. ‘The Peace of Callias’, Historia 8: 61–79. Stylianou, P. J. 1989. ‘The Untenability of Peace with Persia in the 460s B.C.’, MEΛETAI KAI YΠOMNHMATA 2. Leukosia. 339–71. Wade-Gery, H. T. 1958. ‘The Peace of Kallias’, in idem, Essays in Greek History. Oxford. 201–32. Walsh, J. 1981. ‘The Authenticity and the Dates of the Peace of Callias and the Congress Decree’, Chiron 11: 31–63.

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The Peace between Athens and Persia Westlake, H. D. 1989. ‘Athens and Amorges’, in idem, Studies in Thucydides and Greek History. Bristol. 103–12. Wycherley, R. E. 1978. The Stones of Athens. Princeton. Ziebarth, E. 1929. Beiträge zur Geschichte des Seeraubs und Seehandels im alten Griechenland. Hamburg. Notes:

(1) Meister (1982) argued that all the evidence pointed to a peace made after Eurymedon and that later events showed that there cannot in fact have been a peace. Badian (1993: 1–73) argued for two peaces of Callias. That article is so important to the whole of this article that I will not refer to it on particular points. Stylianou (1989) contested Meister’s and Badian’s interpretations, and I largely concur with him. The one piece of evidence, with his treatment of which I am uneasy, is the Suda s.v. Kαλλίας (353), a somewhat odd piece of Greek, about which Badian seems to me correct. However, in view of the argument advanced in the second paragraph of my article this lexicographical note can only show what a late scholar thought had happened; whence he derived his idea is (pace Badian) beyond conjecture. (1) Seager was followed by Bosworth (1971). In CAH V2 D. M. Lewis preferred not to use the Decree (125, n. 19). Walsh (1981) argued against Seager. See Stadter 1989: 202. (2) Brunt 1993: 64–72. (2) For Persian temple-burning outside the Greek world, cf. Hdt. 3.25.3 and 4.123.1. (3) Gomme 1945: 395. Cf. Badian 1993: 101. (3) The Phocians, for instance, withdrew to the mountains rather than submit to Persian rule (Hdt. 8.32.1). (4) There is, however, no evidence that Callias went to Susa in 449 BC. According to Diod. 12.4, the whole negotiation was handled by the Persian commanders in the Cyprus area, and one may compare the role of Tiribazus in 392 BC (Xen. Hell. 4.8.12–15). Only when a major change of policy was sought was it necessary to go to Susa, as it was for instance in 367 BC (ibid. 7.1.33–38). In 449 BC an earlier embassy could have done the necessary work for a royal rescript to suffice for the negotiations of Persian commanders and Greeks. It may be added that the fact that Pyrilampes had peacocks on show for more than three decades (Antiphon Fr. 57 Blass) does not prove that it was in 449 that he had been on an embassy to the Great King (Plato Chrm. 158a), an ‘attractive and economical hypothesis’ according to Davies 1971: 330; they could perfectly well Page 14 of 19

The Peace between Athens and Persia have been given by one of the Persians concerned with the Peace in 449; indeed one might find that hypothesis more attractive than to have Pyrilampes getting down the Royal Road with two of these splendid creatures. One may also note that there is not a word in Demosthenes’ remark (19.273) about the prosecution of Callias on his return from negotiating the Peace to suggest that he went to Susa. (The whole business of settling the Peace in 449 could have been concluded within six weeks of the receipt of the royal rescript by the Persian commanders.) (4) Wycherley 1978: 69 and 106. (5) The tense of ἀνιέντας, (Thuc. 3.10.4) is suitable for a period in which Athens, having begun talks about peace in 462/1 BC, engaged in the First Peloponnesian War, which, despite help for the Egyptian rebels, became her chief concern. Cf. Thuc. 1. 112.2 where Cimon’s last campaign is introduced with the remark that ‘the Athenians abstained from the war against the Greeks’. Cf. Stockton 1959: 66. But, of course, ἀνιέντας in no way excludes there being later a moment in time when Athens gave up her enmity and made peace. (5) Just as the decision to invade the Megarid twice a year (Plut. Per. 30.3) was superseded (Thuc. 2.31.3. and 4.66). (6) Eddy (1973: 249–251) makes too much of Pissouthnes’ part. He hardly ‘broke the treaty’. For the revolt of Pissouthnes, see Ctesias (FGrH 688) F15 53. Efforts have been made to argue that Diodorus’ account of Cimon’s last campaign is a confused account of an earlier campaign and to assign the Peace of Callias, whether actual or a later invention, to the aftermath of the Eurymedon campaign. Cf. principally, Badian 1993: 21, 25. Diodorus was wonderfully good at messing things up and his sins are too heinous to need listing. His method in Books 11–15 is, however, plain enough. Into a framework provided by a chronographic source, he fitted chunks of epitomised narrative from his main source, here Ephorus. There presumably was an account in Ephorus of Cimon’s last campaign just as there fairly certainly was the account of the Eurymedon campaign fragmentarily preserved on papyrus (POxy. 13.1610), but the two campaigns were distinguished by the different Persian commanders involved (cf. 11.60.5 and 61.3 with 12.3.2). So although each campaign involved both a land and a sea battle (Thuc. 1.100.1 and 112.4) and Ephorus may have confused details, he was quite clear about how the Peace of Callias was made and knew that it was made shortly after Cimon’s death. (6) Seager 131. (7) Meister (1982: 72) speaks of the Peace of Callias as ‘propagandistiche Konstruktion’ of Isocrates.

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The Peace between Athens and Persia (7) Mattingly (1961: 153) supposed that the amendment to this Assessment Decree originated the practice, but see commentary on ML 69. (8) Of course Persia had, as ever, its internal troubles, such as the revolt of the satrap of Syria, Megabyzus (Ctesias F14 40), but there is no reason to think that Artaxerxes was long or seriously distracted from major military endeavours. (8) For the wrangle over the date of this decree see commentary on ML 46. (9) Cf. D. M. Lewis in CAH V2 119. (9) Ormerod 1924 and Ziebarth 1929 remain the standard works. (10) See Appendix below, discussing Seager 1969. The brief discussion of Seager’s article in Meiggs 1972: 514 is inadequate. (10) The Truces for the Mysteries (IG I3 6 = Fornara 75) are hardly relevant. (11) It might be thought that Alcibiades would not have represented himself as urging such a policy if it had already been in place two decades earlier. But if it was applied in the early 420s, Greeks may not have properly appreciated the situation. (11) Seager’s doubts about the phrase ‘both small city and large’ (136) do not merit discussion. The members of the Delian league were ἰσόψηϕοι (Thuc. 3.11.4) and the phrase seems wholly apt. (12) Stockton (1959) does not question why the peace was ‘invented’. (12) By Walsh 1981: 49–52. (13) Cf. Bosworth 1990: 2–5, 13. (13) For Craterus, cf. Jacoby’s commentary on FGrH 342. The view of Robertson 1976: 22–23 is not widely shared. (14) Meister (1982) neglects to explain why Isocrates ‘invented’ the Peace. The contrast between Isoc. 4.120 and Lys. 2.55–57, on which he bases his claim that Isocrates invented the Peace, is hardly sufficient. Callisthenes may not have been the first to ignore the Peace and assert that Greek valour was responsible for Persian quiescence. Furthermore, when Isocrates called on the Athenians ‘to read side by side’ (παραναγιγνώσκϵιν) the Peace of Antalcidas and ‘the treaty in our time’, there must have been by 380 BC something for them to read. If Isocrates ‘invented’ the peace in our time, one would like to know how a readable version was produced.

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The Peace between Athens and Persia (14) It is therefore needless to probe the various hypotheses of fourth-century fabrication, but it is to be remarked that there is one relevant consideration generally neglected, viz. that twice a year heralds went out from Athens all over Greece proclaiming the Sacred Truce. They surface in the evidence specifically only in 367 BC (Tod, no. 137 = RO 35) and 346 (Aesch. 2.133), but they will have dated from the regulation of the Mysteries in the first half of the fifth century (IG I3 6 = Fornara 75) at the latest (cf. Pindar Isth. 2.23). The embassies sent ‘everywhere’ ‘save to the Red Sea’ by the Decree of Eubulus (Dem. 19.10, 304) were usual enough; those sent through the Empire in 448/7 BC (IG I3 34 = ML 46 = Fornara 98. 22–28) were less comprehensive. (15) Theopompus (FGrH 115) F 153. (16) As Stockton (1959: 68) argued. (17) For the date of the decision to help Amorges, see D.M. Lewis, CAH V2 464– 465. Westlake (1989) prefers to find Andocides guilty of fabrication rather than Thucydides at fault, in which preference others have not concurred. (18) Cf. Gomme, Andrewes, Dover 1981: 134–135. (19) Bosworth 1990: 13. (20) If Plutarch is not mistaken about the Congress Decree, it provides a fifthcentury reference to the Peace as Wade-Gery (1958: 227, n. 2) remarked. He was followed in his understanding of τὴν ϵἰρήνην ἄγϵιν by Seager (1969: 134–135), who remarked only one case (Dem. 18.43) where he did not think the phrase referred to a particular Peace. Bosworth (1971: 608–609) seized on this passage of Demosthenes to argue that the phrase in the Congress Decree meant only ‘to remain at peace’, and he also disputed Seager’s interpretation of Dem. 8.4f. On this he seems clearly wrong and even in regard to Dem. 18.43 he may have been victim of Demosthenes’ arts. The Peace of Philocrates had involved Athens’ allies as well (Dem. 19.159, Aesch. 3.74), ‘other Greeks’ if not ‘the other Greeks’ and it would have been easy for Demosthenes in 330 to claim that all the Greeks were in a similar position to Athens. Probably Seager is right. (If the Congress Decree is genuinely Persian, it is, of course, quite irrelevant whether it accords with Plutarch’s own usages, e.g. at Plut. Per. 23.2). Herodotus had no occasion to deal with Graeco-Persian relations after 479 BC, but, if there was a Peace of Callias, there are two passages which would have been full of meaning for those who had ears to hear. The first is his account of the Argive response to the Hellenic appeal of 481 BC (7.148–52), which contains not only the constantly cited ἑτέρου πρήγματος ϵἵνϵκα but also the constantly unremarked mysterious remark of 152.2—if it was ‘not by the Argives that basest things have been done’, who is Herodotus getting at? The climax of the passage which must be read as a whole is the report that ‘it was the Argives who Page 17 of 19

The Peace between Athens and Persia summoned the Persian against Greece’ (152.3). The dark allusion to Athenian medising is part of his careful attempt to excuse Argos; for if Argos medised in 480 BC, in a sense Athens medised in 449. The other Herodotean passage in which the topic of medising is much to the fore is 8.141–144. If there was a Peace of Callias, if Athens did indeed ‘make an agreement with the Barbarian’ (ὁμολογῆσαι τῷ βαρβάρῳ, 143.1), the whole passage would surely have made very curious reading. ‘Don’t you try to persuade us to make an agreement with the Barbarian. We will not be persuaded’ (143.2). If there was a Peace of Callias, the Athenians did later make an agreement, but Herodotus saves Athenian honour, their formal reply to Alexander (143.2), as to the Spartans, was that they ‘would never make an agreement with Xerxes’ (having made it with Artaxerxes). Nor would they ever ‘be willing to medise and enslave Hellas’ (144.1); the Persian offer of 480 BC was rejected and the Peace of Callias, it was to be argued, in no way enslaved Hellas. Of course, no one could infer from this whole passage that there was a peace, but if there was a peace it was artfully written. (21) If Thucydides meant by ‘Ionia’ strictly the cities of the Panionium, that should not be taken to mean that only those cities were unwalled. At Hdt. 9.106.2 ‘Ionia’ seems to be of wider signification, and at 8.86.4 Thucydides’ ‘Ionia and Hellespont’ seems to cover all the Greek cities of the western seaboard of Asia Minor. (22) Wade-Gery 1958: 219–20. (23) Meiggs 1972: 148–51 and Gomme, Andrewes, Dover 1981: ad Thuc. 8.14.3. (24) See Hornblower 1991: ad Thuc 3.19.2. (25) Brunt (1993: 129 and n. 54) suggests ‘that it was only fortifications on the seaward side that did not exist, leaving the cities without defence against the Athenian fleet’—a curious notion, for cities were generally built at some distance from the sea and when Long Walls covered the way down to the sea, it was matter for special report. The demolition of the wall on the Pallene side of Potidaea (Thuc. 1.56.2) was exceptional, possible only because that city sat astride the isthmus. (26) Messene was provided with a wall in 369 BC in eighty-five days according to Diodorus (15.67.1), amazingly in view of the huge blocks used. Jerusalem was walled in fifty-two days (Nehemiah 6:15). The walls of Athens were built in 479/8 in no great time evidently; otherwise Themistocles would not have got away with his delaying tactics (Thuc. 1.90.5–91.4). (27) Hdt. 5.117, 122, 123; 6.25, 31.

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The Peace between Athens and Persia (28) Pace Meiggs 1972: 150, the lines of Teleclides in Plut. Per. 16.2 could as well relate to action under the Peace of Callias as to an imperial decree. (29) Meister (1982: 70) asserted that this statement cannot be ‘historical’, partly because it did not surface before Ephorus c.345, whereas if it had been ‘historical’, it would have been mentioned by Isocrates, and partly because he was persuaded that the King never gave up his claim to tribute from the Greek cities of Asia (cf. 38–42). This latter point has been much disputed, but since autonomy and tribute payment are later shown not to be inconsistent, an autonomy clause is perfectly possible in 449 BC whether the King claimed the right to collect tribute or not. Isocrates and others may have omitted the clause because the purpose of the orators was to glory in Athens’ position and not to admit less glorious facts. Raaflaub (1985: 192) held that the Peace of Callias along with the autonomy clause was ‘more than questionable’, but he did show that the term ‘autonomous’ was established by about the middle of the fifth century (191f. and 204). Such a clause in 449 BC is, therefore, credible. Whether one chooses to believe, however, depends on one’s estimate of Ephorus. (30) See above, n. 20.

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The King’s Peace

Cyrene to Chaeronea: Selected Essays on Ancient Greek History George Cawkwell

Print publication date: 2011 Print ISBN-13: 9780199593286 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199593286.001.0001

The King’s Peace George Cawkwell

DOI:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199593286.003.0010

Abstract and Keywords This chapter analyzes Xenophon's treatment of the relations of Persia and the Greeks in Hellenica, focusing on his account of the King's Peace. It argues that not only were Xenophon's normal notices of the King's Peace and its renewals notoriously deficient, but it is also striking how little the King's Peace emerges in his discussion of Spartan policy. His silence is attributed to his loathing and contempt for trafficking with the hated Persian. Spartan power was not to be represented, as it truly was, as depending on the Great King's favour, and history had to be told as if the King's Peace was of no real importance. Keywords:   Xenophon, Hellenica, peace, Persia, Greeks, Spartan policy, King's Peace

Nothing about Xenophon’s Hellenica1 is more outrageous than his treatment of the relations of Persia and the Greeks. It was orthodoxy in the circle of Agesilaus that Theban medizing, barbarismos, had sabotaged the plans for a glorious anabasis (IV. ii. 3, V. ii. 35, III. v. 1f.) and recalled him to the defence of his city (by the very route, ironically, taken by King Xerxes in 480—IV. ii. 8—the wouldbe avenger in the footsteps of the would-be enslaver). Not until the Thebans woo and win the fickle favour of the King (VII. i. 33ff.), does anything like detail emerge. In the regrettable interlude, the less said the better. If the third speech of Andocides had not survived, there would have been some tangled theorizing about a note in Didymus (FGrH 328 F 149), especially as regards ‘the ambassadors who in Sparta consented’, but sober historical judgement would never have transgressed so far from the text of Xenophon as to postulate a Peace Congress in Sparta as well as in Sardis in 392. Likewise, the merest chance of epigraphic survival assures us that the oaths, which the ‘Athenians and the Page 1 of 20

The King’s Peace Spartans and the other Greeks’ swore in 387/6, ‘the King swore’ (G.H.I. 118 = RO 20, lines 10f.)—and so on. If we did not have the reflection of Ephorus in Diodorus, albeit a mirror cracked and blemished, we would be sadly astray in 375 and 371. When, however, the despicable Thebans become the King’s favoured power, disgraceful scenes unfold. ‘Pelopidas very much had things his own way with the Persian; he could say that the Thebans alone of the Greeks had fought on the King’s side at Plataea, that they had never afterwards campaigned against him, that the Spartans were at war with them because they would not (p.171) join Agesilaus … etc.’ (VII. i. 34). A Persian is found at Thebes reading out the contents of a Royal Rescript, after displaying the Royal seal (ibid. §39); at Sparta twenty years before, such details had been left to the imagination. The cause of Xenophon’s method in this matter is not for the moment under discussion, but rather the consequence, viz. our uncertainty about what precisely the King’s Peace said. There was a document, inscribed on stone pillars and displayed in the national shrines (Isoc. IV. 180, XII. 107). If ever a copy turns up, what can we expect to find? The measure of our uncertainty was provided by Wilcken, who produced a curious hypothesis which found little sympathy;2 that he could do so shows the state of the evidence. Some effort of the imagination is needed, and those who gravely disapprove of conjectures of what might have been the case need read no further. At the end one can be sure of very little. Conjectures, however, have been uttered, en passant, elsewhere. What may prove to be a chorus of disdain has begun.3 A formal confession may be welcome. There certainly were terms about which the representatives of the cities might debate and differ. Thanks to Xenophon, the full procedure on each occasion is unclear, but the events of 392/1, for which we do not depend entirely on Xenophon, are illuminating. After the failure of Tiribazus at Sardis (IV. viii. 12– 15), the King ‘sent down’ another Rescript which was discussed in a conference at Sparta (Philoch. F 149); there may be allusion to this Rescript in Andocides’ speech De pace, where he mentions (§15) the King’s refusal to consent to Athens recovering her colonies and cleruchies, but certainly the concession of Athens’ claim to Lemnos, Imbros, and Scyros (§§12,14) must have been made subsequently to the conference in Sardis, where the Athenians had protested on this very point (IV. viii. 15). After hearing the Rescript, the terms of the Peace, the συνθῆκαι, were discussed and tentatively agreed on, and then taken back by the representatives to their individual cities; a further conference was then to be held in forty days’ time at which the Peace was to be sealed (p.172) with oaths. All this emerges from Andocides’ speech, which formed part of the debate on a precisely drafted text (cf. §14 διαρρήδην γέγραπται, §§33 and 40 for the forty days, §34 for the oaths). This at least provokes thought. If the terms had been simply a statement of what the Rescript required, there would have been no need for discussion at Sparta; they could have been communicated directly to the cities for acceptance or rejection. Instead, Athenian ambassadors were sent Page 2 of 20

The King’s Peace with full powers to negotiate (§33 αὐτοκράτορϵς), and they were subsequently prosecuted for having assented to too much in the drafting of the terms (Philoch. loc. cit.).4 The whole story is suggestive of some complexity in the terms. At any rate it is clear that terms were negotiated. For 387/6 the position is as obscure as only Xenophon could make it. He does not even make explicit that the oath-swearing was at Sparta, and it is open to conjecture whether the cities’ representatives merely reported to their cities what the Rescript contained and then reassembled at Sparta, empowered to negotiate and swear to a formal Peace, or whether at Sardis the full document was drafted for the cities to approve and the conference at Sparta was merely concerned with oath-swearing.5 Perhaps the former is more likely, if we may trust the statement attributed to Callias in 372/1 (VI. iii. 4); on both (p.173) his previous visits to Sparta in connection with the ending of war (πϵρὶ πολέμου καταλύσϵως)6 he had ‘brought about peace’ (διϵπραξάμην … ϵἰρήνην), which is a phrase hardly suitable for mere oath-swearing.7 For 375, Xenophon’s six words (VI. ii. 1) do not allow any speculation whatsoever about what happened when the Royal Rescript was received (Philoch. F 151). If the Peace of 372/1 was a simple reaffirmation of the Peace of 375, a single conference at which both the Rescript was heard and the Peace was sworn may have sufficed, but in 367 when Thebes sought to force through such a procedure, the cities’ representatives jibbed, declaring that they had come to Thebes to hear the Royal Rescript, not to swear to a Peace (VII. i. 39). When in 366 the Peace of Thebes was concluded, the precise terms were settled and sworn to at, it would seem, the one conference (VII. iv. 10), but where we have to rely on Xenophon great uncertainty is inevitable. Fortunately the survival of Andocides’ De pace lifts the veil. Terms were negotiated and formulated in 392/1 and in subsequent peaces, whether procedure was compressed or not, similar debates and formulations occurred probably enough.8 None of this, however, helps to answer the question of what precisely was on the stone pillars recording the King’s Peace. One thing seems sure enough. It cannot have been merely the words of the Royal Rescript, which did not in themselves constitute a Peace, nor indicate anything about duration, nor discuss how disputes between signatories were to be settled, having confined itself to the question of what would happen to those who did not join (ὁπότϵροι (p.174) ταύτην τὴν ϵἰρήνην μὴ δέχονται …).9 Further in addition to the text, whatever it was, a list of participants seems very likely. When in 372/1 the Thebans had been ‘enrolled amongst the cities which had sworn’ and sought to have the entry on the list changed to ‘Boeotians’ (VI. iii. 19), a state of affairs similar to that of 387/6 seems to be implied when the status of the oath-swearers was at issue (V. 1. 32); whether they swore as Thebans or Boeotians, it would have been the same persons who swore, and it was essential that their status be spelled out on the record of the Peace to prevent cavil and debate in the future. It may be presumed that the procedure of the Second Athenian Confederacy as seen on Page 3 of 20

The King’s Peace the record of the Decree of Aristotle (G.H.I.123 = RO 22) was much the same as that of 387/6, and if a list of cities participating was made, presumably provision for making the list would have been included in the terms of the Peace. Similarly, one would expect that the method of administering the oaths would be prescribed, as was normal with Greek treaties, and that the role of the Spartan king attested both for 387/6 and for 372/1 was in accordance with procedure laid down in the terms of the Peace. But what were the main clauses? Were they simply what is found in Xenophon’s version of the Rescript? There is reason to suppose that that was not literally the case. In the Panathenaicus (§107) Isocrates professes to quote from the treaty the phrase ‘to treat as he [i.e. the King] wishes’ (διρρήδην γράψαντϵς χρῶσθαι τοῦθ’ ὅ τι ἂν αὐτὸς βούληται), a phrase which is reminiscent of Thucydides’ version of the third treaty of 411 (VIII. 58.2 καὶ πϵρὶ τῆς χώρας τῆς ἑαυτοῦ βουλϵυέτω βασιλϵὺς ὅπως βούλϵται) and which may be echoed in a speech of 352/1 (Dem. XXIII. 140). Again, it is not impossible that Philochorus (F 149) quoted from the terms proposed for the abortive Peace of 392/1 the clause which the Athenians objected to, τοὺ[ς τὴν ’A]σίαν οἰκοῦντ[ας] ῞Eλληνας ἐν βασιλέως οἴκ[ωι π]άντας ϵἶναι συννϵνϵμημένους. There are instances of this use of the word οἶκος in Herodotus, and it occurs in the letter which Thucydides would have it thought Themistocles sent to Xerxes—Θϵμιστοκλῆς ἥκω παρὰ σέ, ὃς κακὰ μὲν πλϵἶστα Ἑλλήνων ϵἴργασμαι τὸν ὑμέτϵρον οἶκον (I. 137. 4). So Philochorus’ phrase seems to be in accordance with Persian usage, and it is not easy to imagine whence he got it if (p.175) not from the text of the treaty proposed in 392/1.10 If so, it may well have been repeated in 387/6, but of course it is just possible that the clause may have come from the Rescript and not from the Peace terms. Whatever the truth about that, the Isocrates passage suffices to show that the text of the Peace was not literally that of the Rescript as we find it in Xenophon,11 and that the King’s right to the Greek cities of Asia was more fully prescribed than we could tell from Xenophon alone. What then of the clause concerning the autonomy of the cities of Greece? Did it require ‘autonomy’ tout simple? or was ‘autonomy’ defined more fully? Views have differed,12 but I much incline to the latter view. Certainly by 366/5 autonomy was more fully defined. In the Peace of Thebes the principal condition is stated by Xenophon (VII. iv. 10) to have been that each party to the Peace should ‘hold its own territory’ (ἔχϵιν τὴν ἑαυτῶν ἑκάστους). The Peace was a Common Peace,13 and doubtless contained an autonomy clause, but Xenophon chooses this version to point up the irony of what followed; the Phliasians complied and the Argives did not, which no doubt showed in his view the hollowness of the grounds for denying the Spartan claim to Messenia. That he did not previously allude to such a definition of autonomy is no proof that it was not so defined in the King’s Peace. In a celebrated and curious passage Isocrates (VIII. 16) demanded in 355 the restoration of ‘the treaty which was made with the King and the Spartans and which enjoined that the Greeks should be Page 4 of 20

The King’s Peace autonomous, that the garrisons depart from the cities to which they (p.176) did not belong, and that each state should have its own territory’ (καὶ τὴν αὑτῶν ἔχϵιν ἑκάστους). In view of the vehemence of his attack on the King’s Peace in the Panegyric, he can hardly be supposed to have been demanding the restoration of that Peace exactly as it had been in 387/6. It is much more likely that he is thinking of the Peace of 375, which was the triumph of his friend Timotheus (cf. XV. 109f.). But that triumph lay in the recognition of Athens’ recovery as reflected in the sharing of the hegemony, and it is not excluded that the autonomy clause Isocrates describes was that of the King’s Peace as well. Indeed, if he had thought that the clauses to which he alludes were peculiar to the renewal of the Peace in 375, one would expect him to have made himself clear. That the Peaces of 387/6 and 375 did substantially overlap, seems to emerge from Didymus’ comment on the Peace of 375 that it was ‘similar’ to the Peace of Antalcidas (Philoch. F 151 … ὅτι παραπλήσιον αὐτὴν τῆι τοῦ Λάκωνος Aνταλκίδου προσήκαντο). So it seems reasonable to relate to the King’s Peace itself what Isocrates says, and there is confirmation in the Panegyric (§177f.). There he complains that the King’s Peace lacks consistency; those who negotiated the Peace should have applied to all parties one of the three possible formulae14—viz. keeping one’s own territory, keeping what one has captured by force, or keeping what one happens to hold at the moment of making peace; in fact they had applied the second to the King, leaving him the cities of Asia over which the Persian empire had been but recently extended and which were by foundation Athenian, and ‘apportioned no position of honour’ (οὐδϵμίαν τιμὴν ἀπένϵιμαν) to Athens or Sparta—that is, Athens and Sparta were obliged by the principle of ‘keeping one’s own’. One may therefore dare to assert that the clause about autonomy in 387/6 was spelled out in at least this detail. But what of the rest of Isocrates’ statement, ‘that the garrisons depart from the cities to which they do not belong’ (VIII. 16—τὰς ϕρουρὰς ἐκ τῶν ἀλλοτρίων πόλϵων ἐξιέναι)? Was that too part of the definition of autonomy in the King’s Peace? Certainly in 372/1 there was a clause concerning the withdrawal of harmosts from the cities (VI. iii. 18), and, since harmosts would normally have had troops at their disposal, no doubt freedom from garrisons was also explicitly guaranteed. In fact, the notice of Diodorus of the Peace of 375 (p.177) (XV. 38. 1f), which is probably to be related to the Peace of 372/1, speaks of ‘autonomy and freedom from garrisons’ (πάσας τὰς πόλϵις αὐτονόμους καὶ ἀϕρουήτους ϵἶναι). Was this clause an innovation in 372/1 (or in 375) or does it go back to 387/6? There is one curiosity about it. Diodorus added to his record of the substance of the Peace a statement about the appointment of special officials to supervise the withdrawal of garrisons (ἐξαγωγϵῖς), and they may be the innovation of the 370s, not the clause about garrisons itself. Some of the argument of the previous paragraph is relevant here too—viz. that Iso-crates’ failure to make clear which Peace he was alluding to and Didymus’ idea of the similarity of the two Peaces argue for the clauses referred to by Isocrates being Page 5 of 20

The King’s Peace common to both. Nor do the arguments advanced against the hypothesis of a statement about garrisons in 387/6 have much force. The definition of freedom and autonomy given by Aristotle in his decree of 377 (lines 20–3) was suited to memories of Athenian imperialism and had to be made explicit in the invitation to membership; earlier (lines 10ff.), ‘free and autonomous’ sufficed, save that, as was appropriate in a decree renouncing claims on foreign possessions, he added ‘having all their land securely’ (τὴ[ν χώραν] ἔχοντας ἐμβϵβαίωι τὴ[ν ἑαυτῶν πᾶσαν … ).15 Similarly, in the Chios decree (G.H.I. 118 = RO 20, lines 20ff.) the proposer confined himself to the formulation ‘on the basis of freedom and autonomy’ followed by a general reference to the clauses of the King’s Peace. If ‘autonomy’ was as fully defined in the Peace as to include a statement about garrisons, the words of these decrees are easily explained. Of course, no decision is possible in such a matter. It would not be surprising if a statement about garrisons were included at the end of a war in which the Greek world had seen both sides maintaining large garrisons (cf. V. i. 29, 34), and it is to be noted that in the Ephoran version of Diodorus (XV. 5. 1) in accordance with the King’s Peace ‘all the cities rid themselves of the garrisons and got by agreement (καθ’ὁμολογίαν) their autonomy’. The autonomy clause may, therefore, have involved a guarantee about garrisons, and it cannot be safely asserted that it did not. These matters are not serious, and I have only laboured them because they raise the possibility that there was a great deal more to (p.178) the terms than Xenophon makes plain. It is time to turn to more contentious and more important issues. In the Peace of 372/1 a clause cited by Xenophon (VI. iii. 18) concerned the dissolution of armaments (τὰ στρατόπϵδα διαλύϵιν καὶ τὰ ναυτικὰ καὶ τὰ πϵζικά). It was this clause which occasioned the debate in the Spartan assembly shortly afterwards as to whether Cleombrotus and his army should be brought home to Sparta before Sparta set about dealing with the Thebans who had abstained from the Peace (VI. iv. 2), and so Xenophon chose to record it. But was it an innovation? It may, of course, have been in the Peace of 375 if the right explanation of the confusion of Diodorus (XV. 38) is that the Peace of 372/1 was substantially the same as that of 375. (It is also possible that Diodorus’ muddle in XV. 38 begins at §3 and that §2 faithfully represents what he found in Ephorus concerning the Peace of 375.) But what of 387/6? On that occasion Xenophon noted that the consequence of the Peace was the dissolution of armaments (V. i. 35). According to Sinclair,16 there was an ‘essential difference between demobilisation as a practical or implied consequence of making peace and a specific demobilisation used in a treaty’, and he considers that experience of events after the Peace of 375 made it desirable to have a specific demobilization clause in 372/1. What was so peculiar after the Peace of 375 he does not specify. According to Xenophon, two of the Athenian ambassadors at Sparta went straight from the peace conference to order Timotheus and his navy home (VI. ii. Page 6 of 20

The King’s Peace 2). As to the Spartan army in Phocis in 375, it is true that Xenophon neither recounts its return nor, if it did return, describes how Cleombrotus came to be in Phocis in 371, but it is to me, as to others,17 incredible that two-thirds of the Spartan army and a proportion of the forces of the Peloponnesian League (VI. i. 1) should have stayed out through the period of peace; if it went, it must have been recalled, another of those matters Xenophon omitted to mention. If, as seems more likely, Xenophon has misplaced the despatch of Cleombrotus, there was still too large a Spartan force out in 375 (Plut. Pel. XVII) to be left there during the Peace. So it is not clear that ‘a specific demobilisation clause’ was needed in 372/1 when it had not (p.179) been earlier. But the real question is this. Why did Xenophon make the comment about the King’s Peace (V. i. 35)? If the dissolution of armaments was just the practical consequence of the Peace, why does he mention it at all? In the following sentence he says ‘this was the first peace to be made after … ’. Why did he also have to say that armaments were dissolved? I continue to suspect that the right explanation is that there was indeed a ‘specific demobilisation clause’ in the King’s Peace, and that is the point of Isocrates’ complaint (IV. 115), that since the King’s Peace ‘pirates are in control of the sea, peltasts seize the cities’. But what precisely did it say? Armies, if not navies, can be almost as quickly reassembled as dissolved. One pointer I found in the mystery of the Piraeus Gates,18 but it has not found favour with Sinclair, who believes that the right explanation is simply that the gates were not installed during the Corinthian War.19 I find this astonishing. The Athenians began the rebuilding in 394.20 Eight years later the walls are complete, for we hear no word to the contrary. But, despite the alarms of Teleutias’ raid on the Piraeus and the expectation of trouble from forces based on Aegina (V. i. 1f. and 18ff.), the Athenians did not, we are asked to believe, put the finishing touch on the work and relieve the nightly watch of the guard. My explanation may be wrong. Sinclair’s is to me wildly improbable. It must again be pointed out that it was not the raid of Sphodrias that moved the Athenians to action, but the acquittal (V. iv. 34). Why the delay? Why indeed from the moment that Athens went to the assistance of the liberators of Thebes in mid-winter 379/8 did Athens not fear for her security? After all, Phoebidas had shown what could be expected. Yet nothing was done until word came that Sphodrias had been acquitted. Such indifference and negligence on the part of the Athenians, as Sinclair’s explanation postulates, would be inexplicable. My explanation21 is that a clause of the Peace required it, and I continue to find support for this in the correspondence between the accounts of Xenophon (V. iv. 34) and of Diodorus (XV. 29. 7); what Xenophon reports concretely, Diodorus recounts formally. For me the Athenian decision, which in Xenophon set the Athenians busy (p.180) with putting gates on the Piraeus, building ships, and giving military aid to the Boeotians, and which in Diodorus is reported as a formal decision that the Peace had been broken by the Spartans (λϵλύσθαι τὰς Page 7 of 20

The King’s Peace σπονδὰς ὑπὸ Λακϵδαιμονίων), is tantamount to a declaration that the King’s Peace was ended. The decision was not, as in the proposal made by the speaker of [Dem.] XVII (§30): ‘to go to war against those who had transgressed the Peace’ πολϵμϵῖν τοῖς παραβϵβηκόσιν but in the terms used by Thucydides to describe the ending of the Thirty Years’ Peace and the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War (1. 23. 6: λύσαντϵς τὰς σπονδὰς τὸν πόλϵμον κατέστησαν)22 or for that matter by Diodorus in describing the commencement of the Decelean War (XIII. 8. 8; cf. XVI. 77. 2). One is told, of course, that the decree was no more than a declaration that Sparta had broken the Peace, that the King’s Peace continued.23 That was not, however, how Diodorus understood what had happened. In 375 he reported the King as demanding of the Greeks not a return to an existing Peace, but the making of a Common Peace (XV. 38.1 κοινὴν ϵἰρήνην συνθέσθαι), and it is naïve to argue that, because Athens took pains in 377 in the Decree of Aristotle to exclude from membership of the Confederacy the Greek cities of Asia and to assert her intention to respect the principle of freedom and autonomy for all, she must be considered to have regarded the King’s Peace as still in force. It was in her interest in no way to arouse the King by giving him to fear that Athens intended to return to the policy she followed before 387/6. Persia had to be assured that the spirit of the King’s Peace flourished, though in the letter it was dead. Diodorus’ words mean what they say. ‘The Peace was dissolved’; the King may take note that the dissolution was ‘due to the Spartans’; but the declaration was plain—λϵλύσθαι τὰς σπονδάς. The Thebans later put the point clearly to the Plataeans (Paus. 9. 1. 5). (It should be unnecessary to add that the supplementation of Accame of lines 12–14 of the Decree of Aristotle which suggest that the King’s Peace was still in force in March 377 is not evidence; not only is the supplementation dubitable; even the readings of the marks on the stone are not certainly to be interpreted.) The consequence of the declaration that the Peace had been dissolved was that the Athenians put gates on the Piraeus and got on (p.181) with building ships, and in view of the specific dissolution of armaments, reported by Xenophon in 372/1 to provide the background to the debate that shortly followed in Sparta, it seems a not intolerable leap to suppose that the Peace had forbidden such actions. It is in no way surprising that Persia should have been especially interested in Athenian naval power. It had been the operations of the Athenian navy after 392 which had brought Persia and Sparta together, and the King had to be sure that Athens would not be able to resume her policy. A ban on shipbuilding was wholly in Persian interests, and the removal of the gates of the Piraeus would be a pledge that the Athenians could be seen to be abstaining from shipbuilding, a pledge of slight value but perhaps in accordance with Persian notions.24 In 392/1 Athens would have been free under the proposed Peace to have as many ships as she wished (Andoc. III. 12). After Thrasybulus and Agyrrhius sterner measures were necessary; Athens might keep whatever Page 8 of 20

The King’s Peace ships she had, but she could not build new ships, since for effective naval operations new ships were constantly necessary.25 One may, therefore, postulate a specific demobilization clause in 387/6, though one can hardly go much further. When in 367 the King included in his Rescript a demand that ‘the Athenians haul up their ships’ (VII. i. 36 ἀνέλκϵιν τὰς ναῦς) he was perhaps requiring a return to 387/6, but it is unlikely that the use of the ships was entirely forbidden. Under the Peace made at the end of the Peloponnesian War, Athens was permitted to keep twelve ships (II. ii. 20) and presumably to use them for peaceful purposes such as the transport of embassies.26 So too under the King’s Peace Athens, being allowed to retain her ancient cleruchies of Imbros, Lemnos, and Scyros, presumably used her ships to transport the annual magistrates (Ath. Pol. 62. 2).27 In any case she was free to contract alliances such as the Chian (G.H.I. 118 = RO 20) and to contemplate alliance with (p.182) Olynthus (V. ii. 15) until Sparta had decided on war. Perhaps the position was that once Sparta did so decide, signatories to the Peace could only use their forces as long as Sparta was not engaged—a position similar to that prevailing within the Peloponnesian League itself (V. iv. 37). Which brings us to the thorny question of whether there was a sanctions clause in the King’s Peace. There was a sanctions clause in 372/1 (VI. iii. 18), and a different one in the Peace after Leuctra (VI. v. 2). It would appear that there was also one in the Peace of 375. ‘The Lacedaemonians … made the peace on such terms (pacem iis legibus constituerunt) that the Athenians should be in command at sea (mari duces essent)’ (Nepos, Tim. 2. 2) and this is to be understood in terms of a sanctions clause; for the only reasonable explanation of Nepos’ statement is that he was reproducing from his source a reference to a sanctions clause. Now, while Philochorus’ comment (F 151) encourages one to think that the King’s Peace was ‘similar’ (παραπλήσιος) in this major respect, it is also clear that 375 saw an important change (Isoc. XV. 109) and it is open to belief that this was not the modification of a sanctions clause but its institution. The Royal Rescript of 387/6 contained no hint of any provision for dealing with breaches of the Peace, merely a threat that the King would join in coercing whichever side in the Corinthian War did not accept peace on his terms (V. i. 31 ὁπότϵροι δὲ ταύτην τὴν ϵἰρήνην μὴ δέχονται … κ. τ. λ..). So it is possible to present an account of the operation of the King’s Peace in which the King was content to leave the detailed application of the terms to Sparta who were thus able to ‘exploit a settlement that was not too precisely defined’.28 Thus it is argued that the Greek world, albeit well used to providing for the settlement of disputes by arbitration and for common action against aggressors, left these matters unprovided for in 387/6 partly because of ‘the novelty of a koine eirene’. Is this correct?

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The King’s Peace When Isocrates (IV. 175 and 121) described the King as ‘protector of the peace’ (ϕύλαξ τῆς ϵἰρήνης) and ‘master of the present state of affairs’ (τῶν παρόντων πραγμάτων) it is not clear that he was not merely describing the de facto position. But a representative of the King swore to the Peace as the Chios decree (G.H.I. 118 = RO 20) shows—just as in 372/1 Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Lysias 12), in all probability citing Philochorus,29 spoke of ‘the Athenians, the Spartans (p.183) and the King swearing to the peace’. More than that, it would appear that the oaths were made ‘to the King’. When the Thebans sought to force through a Peace in 367, the Corinthians objected that they had no need of ‘oaths for all made to the King’ (VII. i. 40 πρὸς βασιλέα κοινῶν ὅρκων) and that this was how the oaths of 387/6 were made is suggested by the description of the King’s Peace given in Arrian (Anab. II. i. 4), albeit with the name of the wrong King; the Mytilenaeans were bidden ‘to destroy their treaty with Alexander and be allies with Darius in accordance with the peace which was made in the time of Antalcidas with (πρός) King Darius’. Although Arrian is hardly to be relied on for exact use of technical terms, one of his sources conceived of the King being central to the King’s Peace, and it is to be noted that Pausanias (9. 1. 4) used the same phrase (ἐπὶ τῆς ϵἰρήνης ἢν πρὸς βασιλέα τῶν Πϵρσῶν γϵνέσθαι τοῖς ῞Eλλησιν ἔπραξϵν Ἀνταλκίδας).30 So the role of the King was somehow central in 387/6 just as it was to have been in 367. Did the King then have a military role? Isocrates (IV. 128) spoke of the Spartans ‘having made alliance for ever with the barbarians’ (πρὸς τοὺς βαρβάρους ϵἰς ἅπαντα τὸν χρόνον συμμαχίαν πϵποιημένους), and alliance meant for the Greeks, literally, joint military action. So royal military intervention must have been envisaged. But in all the cases of Spartan action known to us from the years succeeding the King’s Peace there is never any question of appeal to the King nor fear expressed of royal intervention. Sparta, in theory or in fact, was the active military power and no appeal was made against her. Insofar as royal military intervention was possible, it must have been as a last resort, and the normal method of enforcing the peace was by Spartan action. But was the Spartan role formalized? Xenophon spoke of the Spartans becoming ‘prostatai’ of the King’s Peace (V. i. 36).31 Did this statement reflect a sanctions clause giving the Spartans the task of (p.184) dealing with breaches of the Peace? The Acanthian appeal for the protection of their autonomy (V. ii. 12–19) might be interpreted consistently with either answer to this question. The case of Mantinea is more suggestive. When the Spartans attacked Mantinea, the Mantineans appealed to Athens for help, but the Athenians did not choose ‘to transgress the common treaty’ (Diod. XV. 5. 5). This was a curious view for anyone to take, if it was Sparta who was the transgressor. The Spartans even denied, according to Polybius (IV. 27. 6), that their action was unjust. There may, therefore, have been more of a legalistic wrangle about the action at Mantinea than meets the eye of the reader of Xenophon, but if indeed the Athenians

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The King’s Peace refused ‘to transgress the common treaty’ it may be that Sparta was formally empowered to act as she did. This is of course no more than a possible interpretation, but there is one aspect of the Spartan actions that needs to be considered. Xenophon presents the debate about the Acanthian appeal as taking place in the Peloponnesian League (V. ii. 11, 18), which is natural enough; if Sparta was to act, she needed the military power of the League effectively to do so, and Sparta’s enmities involved those who had sworn ‘to think the same persons friends and enemies’. Thus the action at Phlius, as that at Olynthus, was undertaken by the League (V. ii. 20ff. and iii. 25). Nor should one suppose that the League was not regularly involved, because Xenophon gives no hint of other than Spartan troops engaged against Mantinea; there certainly were Thebans involved (Paus. 9. 13. 1; Plut. Pel. 4), and there may well have been members of the Peloponnesian League. The trial of Ismenias was conducted by a court composed of representatives of the League (V. ii. 35). So a formal ‘protectorate’ may have been assigned to ‘Sparta and her allies’. But others, not members of the League, were on occasion involved, and they may give some backing to the hypothesis of a sanctions clause. In the Peace of 372/1 it was stated that ‘if anyone contravenes these terms, those who wish are to give aid to the cities being unjustly treated, but it is not required by the oaths that those who do not wish to do so should fight side by side with the wronged party’ (VI. iii. 18). This has been commonly regarded as an innovation to allow the Athenians to stand apart from the coming struggle.32 But is this (p.185) interpretation correct? The notion of ‘volunteers’ has become familiar (and odious) in the modern world. Was it there even in 387/6? When Agesipolis went out to Thrace in 381, ‘volunteers joined in the campaign from the allied cities, and Thessalian cavalrymen wishing to make themselves known to Agesipolis’ (V. iii. 9). He did not take a League army. All that Sparta formally sent was a board of thirty Spartiates; the rest were volunteers. So the financial contribution of Phlius (§10) was also voluntary (to be converted presumably on the formula of V. ii. 21). Was all this in accordance with a sanctions clause? If it were, it would illuminate what happened at Thebes in 382. The Thebans may have broken the King’s Peace doubly. Not only had they continued to negotiate an alliance with Olynthus after Sparta had declared war (V. ii. 34), but also a proclamation had been made that ‘no Theban was to join with Phoebidas in the campaign against the Olynthians’ (V. ii. 27). That perhaps was why Leontiades arrested Ismenias ‘on the grounds that he was causing a war’ (V. ii. 30 ὡς πολϵμοποιοῦντα), which was curious if the Olynthian alliance was not yet made (V. ii. 34) and all that the proclamation had secured was that no Theban would take part in the war. If the ‘volunteers’ clause of 372/1 was in a sanctions clause of 387/6, what happened with Phoe-bidas and Agesipolis acquires new meaning—as too with Teleutias. He took the full Peloponnesian army originally voted (V. ii. 20 and 37), but Thebes was not a member of the Page 11 of 20

The King’s Peace Peloponnesian League, for refusal to undertake her due part was not the charge made in 382 (cf. V. ii. 34). Thebes did, however, eagerly send ‘both hoplites and cavalry’ with Teleutias (V. ii. 37), again perhaps ‘volunteers’. (Her reasons were manifest, but Thebes was not a member of the Peloponnesian League after the occupation of the Cadmea, as far as we know, and had no place in the League call-up.)33 The hypothesis of a sanctions clause finally rests on one’s estimate of the probabilities. The King’s Peace involved not just the (p.186) contending parties in the Corinthian War, but all the Greeks.34 They knew too much not to expect that there would be disputes and breaches real or alleged. It seems, therefore, on the whole unlikely that the whole Greek world joined in a general peace without requiring some machinery for dealing with not only arbitration but also transgressions. That is, however, a matter of judgement. One can have little hope that such speculations—which go far beyond what is explicitly attested—will find general sympathy. In producing them, I protest against the presumption that it is safest to stick with Xenophon. There is no safety with Xenophon. He is, as we all know, a most unreliable guide, though perhaps the best comment on his silences is silence. But I cannot refrain from remarking on one zone of Xenophontic silence. Not only are his formal notices of the King’s Peace and its renewals notoriously deficient, but also it is striking how little the King’s Peace emerges in his discussion of Spartan policy. Whether Sparta had a formally prescribed role in enforcing the Peace or not, it is remarkable that the Acanthians are never made to argue, as they so reasonably could have done, that Olynthus was breaking the King’s Peace. There were two views of Olynthian policy. The Ephoran view represented in Diodorus (XV. 19) was that Olynthus was at war with Amyntas, and that the war was nothing to do with Sparta. The other view represented by Xenophon was that Olynthus was menacing the autonomy of her neighbours (V. ii. 13f.), which would have been a breach of the King’s Peace. But all the Acanthians are made to say is that they ‘wish to enjoy their ancestral constitutions and be citizens of their own city’, there is no express appeal to the Peace or to the oaths which sealed it. Likewise, when Timotheus landed the Zacynthian exiles on Zacynthus (VI. ii. 2), he acted either in breach of or in accordance with the renewed Peace, but Xenophon makes no comment. Likewise, in describing the position of Sparta on the eve of the Liberation of Thebes, the Argives are declared ‘to have been humbled because the intercalation of the months was no longer of use to them’ (V. iii. 27), which is a most curious way of indicating the curtailment of Argive power and ambition under the King’s Peace. He also slides past the negotiations that preluded the attack on Mantinea (V. ii. 1f.). One would have liked to know what the Spartan ambassadors (cf. Diod. (p.187) XV. 5. 4) said to the Mantineans and got in reply. Xenophon gives as background the (inaccurate) claim that the expiry ‘this year’ of the thirty-year Peace of 418/17 gave Sparta the freedom to act, and spares us discussion of whether she acted in breach or enforcement of Page 12 of 20

The King’s Peace the Peace. That there was a legal case is suggested, as already remarked, by the Athenian response to the Mantinean appeal (Diod. XV. 5. 5) and by the comment of Polybius (IV. 27. 6) to the effect that the Spartans maintained that they were not in the wrong. Of course, one does not have to look far into the past to realize that those who have the confidence to suppress their neighbours are generally not diffident in advancing legal justifications. Still, one would have liked to know exactly what the position of Mantinea under the King’s Peace was. Agesilaus used the Peace to break up the Boeotian Confederacy, as Xenophon explains (V. i. 32f.). He probably used it to break up the Chalcidian state, though Xenophon does not explain.35 When the Peace was made, he knew perfectly well about the complaints against Mantinea (V. ii. 2); he had himself in 390 chosen to pass the city in darkness to prevent his soldiers having to suffer the Mantineans’ delight at the disaster at Lechaeum. Why then did he not use the Peace to break up Mantinea in 386? What use did the Mantineans make of the fact that he did not, when it came to the order of 385? Xenophon does not say. Why such silence? One explanation presents itself. This is just another facet of the loathing and contempt Xenophon felt for trafficking with the hated Persian. Spartan power was not to be represented, as it truly was, as depending on the Great King’s favour, and history had to be told as if the King’s Peace was of no real importance. In CQ N.S. 23 (1973), p. 59 n. 1 (herein Ch. X, p. 209 n. 45), I raised the question of whether anything was said about exiles in the King’s Peace, and it may be convenient if I discuss it here more fully. The method of this chapter has been, generally, to enquire whether clauses of renewals of the King’s Peace were innovations or survivals. There is no clear evidence that there was an exiles clause in any of the renewals, though there is a suspicion of one in 375. In Xenophon’s account (VI. ii. 2ff.), two of the Athenian ambassadors to Sparta went directly thence to instruct Ti-motheus to sail home; on his way home he ‘landed the exiles of the Zacynthians on their land’; the Zacynthians from the city sent to Sparta and reported ‘what sort of things they had suffered at the hands of Ti-motheus’, and the prompt reaction of the Spartans was to ‘think the Athenians were in the wrong (ἀδικϵῖν)’ and to prepare a fleet, and so on. This evidence seems two-edged. Why did Timotheus land the exiles? The Peace required it. Why did the Zacynthians from the city protest to Sparta? The Peace did not require it, and it could be represented as a breach. Timotheus was greatly honoured for his services to Athens in 375 (Nepos, Tim. 2. 3). No trace survives in our sources of criticism of his action in Zacynthus, as it does, for instance, in the case of Chabrias after his victory at the battle of Naxos (Dem. XX. 146). Indeed, Isocrates declared in his encomium of Timotheus that he was the only general Isocrates could recall ‘who had never given the Page 13 of 20

The King’s Peace Greeks grounds for complaint against the city’, ‘constantly acting with rectitude and good sense’ (XV. 127f.). Unfortunately, encomia do not necessarily tell the complete truth, but on the face of it the explanation of Timotheus’ landing the Zacynthian exiles could well be that he was honouring one of the terms of the Peace. After all, it would have been the wildest folly to endanger the newly fashioned Peace by a palpable, if minor, breach of it. Why then did the Zacynthians protest to Sparta (VI. ii. 3), and the Spartans to Athens (Diod. XV. 45. 3)? It would seem from Diodorus’ (albeit muddled) account (XV. 45. 3 and 46. 3) that the exiles maintained themselves in a fort and did not return to the city of Zacynthus, and the dispute may have been over the propriety of Timotheus landing an armed band of exiles, not all of whom were perhaps free of the taint of blood-guilt, which would exclude them from the city even if the Peace had ordered the return of exiles. However, this seems a rather laboured explanation. (p.189) Timotheus might simply have claimed that the exiles had a right to live in their own land, a claim upheld by the Athenians and rejected by the Spartans. Indeed, if one could be confident that the confusions that fell on the Peloponnese as described by Diodorus (XV. 40) were rightly placed by him after the Peace of 375, it would be clear that there was in that Peace no exiles clause; the Corinthian exiles (§3) had clearly been brought into the city unbeknown to many Corinthians, that is, had not made a formal and authorized return. However, despite Diodorus’ explicit dissociation of chapter 40 from what immediately precedes it, one cannot feel great confidence that Diodorus has associated the chapter with the right Peace.1 So the position with regard to the Peace of 375 remains unclear, and the King’s Peace must be considered in isolation. What then of 387/6? One of the consequences of the Peace, according to Isocrates in the Panegyric (§116), is a great increase of internal strife, and ‘because of the frequency of the changes those who inhabit the cities live in a more depressed state (ἀθυμοτέρως) than those punished with exile (τῶν ταῖς ϕυγαῖς ἐζημιωμένων)’. Now there certainly were exiles after 386,2 to whom Isocrates could be referring, but why should peace have brought internal strife? Was it because the Peace had required the return of exiles? In the Hellenica (V. i. 34) it would seem that the return of the exiles to Corinth followed automatically on the withdrawal of the Argive garrison and the party guilty of the murders of 392—at any rate they were not recalled but, simply, received back (κατϵδέχοντο). Then in the Agesilaus (II. 21) Agesilaus is said to have ‘spoken against’ (ἀντϵῖπϵ) the Peace, until he compelled Corinth and Thebes to receive back home those of their citizens who were in exile because of the Spartans, which seems to refer to a period before the Peace was sworn, that is, whilst terms were being settled, not to the events at Corinth after the Peace had been sworn (V. i. 34). So there is, prima facie, a case for postulating an exiles clause in the King’s Peace.

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The King’s Peace There are two obstacles. The first, which is minor, concerns the notice in the ‘Atthidographer’ Istros (FGrH 334 F 32) concerning the exile of Xenophon, to the effect that the same man, Eubulus, moved both the decree of exile and the decree of recall. But if Istros really did know of a decree of someone called Eubulus concerning Xenophon’s recall (and was not merely recording a tradition that gave concrete expression to the well-known sympathy between Xenophon and the great Eubulus), it may have been a decree not of recall for an exile, but of invitation to the father of a gallant son, and Xenophon may have been long free to return but unwilling to do so; hence a decree which Istros misunderstood. The authority of Istros is so much in (p.190) question that the fragment, unsupported, is no great obstacle.3 The history of the Phliasian exiles, however, is a very great obstacle indeed. It is not clear when exactly the Phliasian exiles made their appeal to Sparta (V. ii. 8) for, although Xenophon may not necessarily mean that the appeal followed the settlement of Mantinea rather than occurred during the long-drawn intervention, it seems safe to suppose that the Phliasian exiles’ appeal did not precede the start of the Mantinean campaign (V. ii. 1 πρῶτον, Diod. XV. 5. 3), which was itself not until 385.4 So if the exiles took over a year to appeal to Sparta for their restoration, they cannot have been basing their appeal on an exiles clause in the King’s Peace. This may be decisive against the hypothesis of such a clause. However, exiles clause or not, there is a difficulty about these exiles. It seems clear from Xenophon’s ordering of the narrative that the restoration of the exiles to Phlius at the very latest preceded the despatch of Phoebidas to Olynthus, which was in midsummer 382, and that the appeal of the exiles for Spartan help in the settlement of legal claims followed the despatch of Agesipolis to Thrace (cf. V. iii. 10), which was ‘in May or June’ 381.5 So for at least ten months the exiles had tried to secure satisfactory settlement, which is a very long time in Greek politics and demands explanation. The only one that seems to me likely is in terms of Spartan politics. When Phoebidas went out to Thrace, he could be suspected of acting under Agesilaus’ orders (Plut. Ages. 24. 1); clearly he was very much Agesilaus’ man. The despatch of Agesipolis in 381 argues perhaps some loss of credit by Agesilaus, and it is possible that the exiles felt there was no use in appealing to Sparta when Agesilaus was for the moment under something of a cloud; when Agesipolis left the city, their hopes began to rise and they appealed, successfully, to their patron, Agesilaus (V. iii. 10ff.). (Xenophon’s introduction to the appeal obscures the fact that there was no change in 381 in the wrangle between the city of Phlius and the exiles; the real change was that the city’s patron was abroad and the exiles’ patron in a position unchecked to have his way.) Why then had the exiles not appealed to Sparta earlier when Agesipolis was still at home? Their case, as represented by Xenophon, seems reasonable enough; if the leading men of Phlius in the period before the King’s Peace had indeed been the chief beneficiaries of the confiscation of exiles’ Page 15 of 20

The King’s Peace property, independent arbitration of disputes was not a lot to ask. Was it only Agesilaus who could see the reasonableness of such a course? It may be that Agesipolis was prepared to support the leaders of the Phliasian democracy through thick and thin, but it seems more consistent with the reputation of one whose ‘virtue Hellas is one in (p.191) sounding forth (G.H.I. 120) to suppose that the exiles demand for independent arbitration was not as just as Xenophon would have us believe. Much of their property they would have recovered; the promise of arbitration had never been intended to involve independent outsiders (V. ii. 10), and the position adopted by the city vis-à-vis the exiles was not unjust.6 Agesipolis knew it. The exiles knew he knew it. Only when he had left Sparta and Agesilaus could again have his way, did the exiles make their appeal. But if the politics of Sparta explain the interval between the exiles’ return and their appeal to Sparta, perhaps they also explain the interval between the King’s Peace and the return. The circumstances in which the exiles had originally had to leave Phlius are unknown, but it is notable that Xenophon appears not to have thought it was for mere laconizing (cf. IV. iv. 15 τοὺς ϕάσκοννας ἐπὶ λακωνισμῷ, ϕϵύγϵιν) and, when the Spartans requested Phlius to allow them to return, they gave two grounds for the request, first that the exiles were pro-Spartan, secondly that they were in exile, although they were in no way in the wrong (V. ii. 9 ἀδικοῦντϵς οὐδὲν ϕϵύγοιϵν). The possibility, therefore, arises that they had originally been exiled in the belief that they were either ‘murderers or ‘accomplices to the murder in the phrase Xenophon applied to the Corinthians (V. i. 34). As such they could not return, exiles clause in the Peace or not, and so the Spartans accepted this, until Agesilaus exerted himself and secured their return. Thus the obstacle presented by the Phliasian exiles may be more apparent than real. But there is no way of knowing and, since there is no clear sign that there was an exiles clause in any of the renewals of the King’s Peace, I do not suppose that any such clause existed. However, one parting shot on the subject of exiles may be allowed. When the pro-Argos faction and the leaders of the demos at Mantinea surrendered, their opponents, the ‘best men’, could scarcely keep their hands off them (V. ii. 6), and one has the impression that they were in exile and fighting with the Spartan army. Yet Diodorus explains the Spartan attack on Mantinea in terms of exiles made after the King’s Peace (XV. 5. 1ff.). The passage does not seem to suit any of the cases known to us, but if it were the case that the Spartan attack on Mantinea grew out of the exile of the ‘best men’, either these ‘best men ’ were in Mantinea before 387/6 and had survived unscathed, or they had returned to Mantinea in the shadow of the King’s Peace. If there was an exiles clause, it could require that exiles be received home but, assuring autonomy, the Peace could not prevent exile afterwards. The matter might, however, permit of debate, and the Spartans claim legality (Polyb. IV. 27. 6).

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The King’s Peace Notes:

(1) All unexplained numerical references in this chapter are to the Hellenica (1) The introduction to ch. 40 may simply be intended to carry the reader back to the end of ch. 38. (2) U. Wilcken, ‘Über Entstehung und Zweck des Königsfriedens’, Abhandl. der Preuss. Akad. (Phil.-hist. Klasse) (1941), no. 15. Cf. V. Martin, ‘Sur une interpretation nouvelle de la “Paix du Roi” ’, MH 6 (1949), pp. 127–39. (2) Cf. IG ii2. 33, 37 and Aelius Aristides Panath. 172f. (= i. 283 Dind.). (3) D. M. Lewis, Sparta and Persia, p. 147 n. 80, and R. K. Sinclair, ‘The King’s Peace and the Employment of Military and Naval Forces 387–378’, Chiron 8 (1978), pp. 29–54, both in reference to ‘The Foundation of the Second Athenian Confederacy’, CQ N.S. 23 (1973), pp. 47–60, herein Ch. X. (3) There is a curious parallel in the case of Thucydides. Cf. Thuc. 5. 26. 5, Paus. 1. 25. 9, and Marcellinus Vita 32. (4) Ambassadors could be ‘fully empowered’ αὐτοκράτορϵς, but only within limits, stated or understood. Presumably this is what is behind Thuc. 5. 45; there were things which the Spartan ambassadors could negotiate and things which they could not or dare not, or which they were persuaded by Alcibiades to say that they could not or dare not. So too perhaps in 392 the ambassadors to Sparta dared not ‘sign away’ the cities of Asia on their own authority. In § §33 and 34 Andocides may either have been claiming a virtue the ambassadors did not possess—for there were many cities involved and others’ ambassadors may have insisted on the reference of the peace terms—or have been pretending that they had powers which they did not (cf. Andrewes in Gomme et al., HCT iv ad Thuc. 5. 45. 2). (4) K. J. Beloch, GrGes iii. 22, pp. 230ff. (5) There is a difficulty about Xenophon’s account of the swearing of the King’s Peace (V. i. 32). The Thebans knew perfectly well what the autonomy clause delineated at Sardis was and could swear cheerfully provided they swore as ‘Boeotians’, but Agesilaus refuses to accept their oaths, ‘unless they swear, ὥσπϵρ τὰ βασιλέως γράμματα ἔλϵγϵν, αὐτονόμους ϵἶναι καὶ μικρὰν καὶ μϵγάλην πόλιν’. The Theban ambassadors declared that ‘these were not their instructions’. What went wrong for the Thebans in 387/6 was not what they were required to swear but in what capacity; they cannot have not been told to swear to a Peace with the autonomy clause; they were not prepared for Agesilaus saying they must swear as ‘Thebans’ not as ‘Boeotians’. The resolution of the difficulty is, I suggest, that αὐτονόμους ϵἶναι καὶ μικρὰν καὶ μϵγάλην πόλιν is the object not of ὀμνύωσιν, but of ἒλϵγϵν, which may seem awkward Page 17 of 20

The King’s Peace linguistically but is nothing like as awkward to my mind as the notion that the Thebans were declining to swear to the autonomy clause. So one should understand Xenophon to mean ‘Agesilaus refused to accept the oaths unless they swore 〈large and small cities separately〉 just as the Royal Rescript required that each city, large and small alike, should be autonomous.’ Similarly at VI. iii. 19 I take ὦν to be the subject of ὤμοσαν and of ἀπϵγράψαντο — ‘he would change no name of those who first swore and enrolled themselves’. Again the point was not what the Thebans swore, but in what capacity. (5) Ibid. (6) Cf. CQ N.S. 26 (1976), p. 276 n. 25. (6) Although foreign arbitration between factions had had a long history (cf. Busolt-Swoboda. GS i. 375), the Phliasian exiles had no right to claim it if it had not been provided for in the decree of recall, as it was for instance at Tegea in 324 B.C. (G.H.I. 202 = RO 101, l. 24). (7) V. Martin, ‘Le traitement de l’histoire diplomatique dans la tradition litéraire du IVe siècle avant J-C’, MH 1 (1944), p. 23, took it that the Peace was fully drawn up in Susa by the King in collaboration with Antalcidas. His reason was that he supposed that ταύτην τὴν ϵἰρήνην in the Rescript (V. i. 31) must refer to something outside the Rescript and he supposed it to be ‘the peace which the King sends down’ (§30). I believe this is erroneous. By ‘this peace’ in the Rescript, Artaxerxes meant a peace on the basis of the two principles enunciated in the first two sentences of the Rescript. (8) The celebrated wrangle between Agesilaus and Epaminondas in 372/1 (Plut. Ages. 26) could have been part of the debate on precise terms. (9) D. M. Lewis, Sparta and Persia, p. 147, takes ὁπότϵροι to refer to the two sides in the Corinthian War. Martin, art. cit. in n. 7, p. 22 n. 14, less probably refers it to the two groups, island and mainland cities. (10) Lewis, Sparta and Persia, p. 146 n. 68 finds the phrase ‘tantalising in the extreme’. ‘It is alien to Greek diplomatic language, but I cannot translate it into Aramaic. Prolonged contemplation of Greek and Persian passages about “the King’s house” leave me still in doubt about the full implications.’ So I must fear (yet again) his disfavour. But at Hdt. 5. 31. 4 and 6. 9. 3, ‘the King’s house’ seems to be a phrase roughly equivalent to ‘the Persian Empire’, and at 4. 97. 6 ‘my house’ appears to mean ‘in my empire’, rather than ‘home in Susa’ or the like; other challenging passages are 7. 194. 2, 8. 102. 3, 9. 107. 1. Why is the phrase so frequent in Persian talk in Herodotus? So too in the letter in Thucydides. Themistocles had not damaged the royal house so much as the whole power of Persia, and presumably the phrase was used by Thucydides Page 18 of 20

The King’s Peace because he knew it would sound authentic. It is true that the uses of viθ in the Old Persian inscriptions (cf. R. G. Kent, Old Persian Grammar, p. 208) do not advance the case. Perhaps Biblical uses of ‘house’ could be used for support. (11) Xenophon professes to quote—ϵἶχϵ δὲ ὧδϵ (V. i. 30). (12) Martin, ‘Le traitement de l’histoire diplomatique’, p. 26; T. T. B. Ryder, Koine Eirene, pp. 122f. (13) To follow the view argued in CQ N.S. 11 (1961), pp. 80–6. (14) Cf. Thuc. 3. 52. 2. (15) Martin, ‘Le traitement de l’histoire diplomatique’, p. 26 supported his case with Justin’s description of the peace (VI. 6. 1), and he was probably right in suggesting that the phrase τὴν ἑαυτῶν ἔχοντϵς (Andoc. III. 19) was in the draft of the Peace in 392. (16) ‘The King’s Peace’, p. 36. (17) For the variety of opinions, see Accame, La lega ateniese, pp. 92ff. Accame, like Beloch, GG iii. I2, 156 n. 1, held that Xenophon’s notice of the despatch of Cleombrotus (VI. i. 1) was misplaced by Xenophon. (18) CQ N.S. 23 (1973), p. 54 (herein Ch. X, 202). (19) ‘The King’s Peace’, pp. 31ff. (20) Ibid., p. 32 n. 13 for the evidence. (21) See n. 18. (22) Cf. Thuc. 1. 78. 4, 1. 88. 4, 23. 1. (23) Sinclair, ‘The King’s Peace’, pp. 52f.; Lewis, Sparta and Persia, p. 147 n. 80. (24) Cf. the proposal of Harpagus in 546 for Phocaea (Hdt. 1. 164. 1). I suppose that Isocrates’ remark (IV. 120) about the King ‘all but establishing governors (ἐπιστάθμους) in the cities’ may have been directed in part at the stipulation concerning the Piraeus. (25) It is clear from Sinclair’s discussion of Athenian naval strength (pp. 49ff.) that there is no evidence that ships were built between 387/6 and 378. The institution of the new system of eisphora in 378 (Polyb. II. 62, Dem. XXII. 44) made possible a resolute building programme. (26) The affair of Demaenetus raised fears of Spartan reprisals, but the transport of the embassy of Hagnias was perhaps normal enough (Hell. Oxy. 6 and 7).

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The King’s Peace (27) Hence perhaps the ships of IG ii2. 30. (28) Sinclair, ‘The King’s Peace’, p. 37. (29) Cf. F. Jacoby. FGrH iii b l, p. 239. (30) Cf. the designation in Diod. XIV. 117. 8. (31) Lewis, Sparta and Persia, p. 147 n. 80 professes himself ‘wholly resistant’ to my revival of ‘the old view that the Spartans were actually named in a document as the προστάται of the Peace’. I do not follow his reasoning, but I should make clear that I am not claiming that the word προστάται was necessarily used in the Peace. That may well be Xenophon’s version (cf. Martin, MH 1 (1944), p. 24 n. 17) of a clause that contained such a phrase as ϵἰ δέ τις παρὰ ταῦτα ποιοίη, τοὺς Λακϵδαιμονίους βοηθϵῖν ταῖς ἀδικουμέναις πόλϵσι (cf. VI. iii. 18) or v.i. τοὺς Λακϵδαιμονίους καὶ τοὺς συμμάχους κ.τ.λ. (32) Cf. Ryder, Koine Eirene, p. 68. (33) According to Isocrates (XIV. 27), the Thebans ‘entered into the Spartan alliance when you were bringing (or “brought”) the war to a conclusion’. Whatever the correct reading, it ought to relate to the period immediately before the King’s Peace; after it, the Thebans could hardly be said to have abandoned the Athenians. Isocrates goes on to say that the Chians, Mytilenaeans, and Byzantians remained with us (συμπαρέμϵιναν), which in view of the Chian alliance of 384 supports the idea that he is speaking of the closing phases of the Corinthian War. Why then were there Thebans at Mantinea in 385 (v.s.)? Perhaps those who were sent were ‘volunteers’, including Epaminondas and Pelopidas eager for experience of war. (34) Cf. Martin, MH 1 (1944), pp. 25f. Aelius Aristides Panath. 172 (= i. 282 Dind.) suggests that Seuthes and Dionysius were parties to the Peace. (35) The things the Acanthians complained of were probably enough features of the Chalcidian state of 432, of which Sparta resumed recognition after the Peace of Nicias (Thuc. 5. 80. 2 and cf. 6. 7. 4). Cf. M. Zahrnt, Olynth und die Chalkidier, pp. 73ff. But the Chalcidians joined the Grand Alliance of the Corinthian War (Diod. XIV. 82. 3) and according to Isaeus 5. 46 ‘Olynthians’ fought—not to be rejected (pace Zahrnt p. 81 and n. 3) on the grounds of Xenophon’s failure to mention them. The likely moment for dissolution would seem therefore to be in 387/6.

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The Foundation of the Second Athenian Confederacy1

Cyrene to Chaeronea: Selected Essays on Ancient Greek History George Cawkwell

Print publication date: 2011 Print ISBN-13: 9780199593286 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199593286.001.0001

The Foundation of the Second Athenian Confederacy1 George Cawkwell

DOI:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199593286.003.0011

Abstract and Keywords This chapter examines Diodorus' account of the Second Athenian Confederacy. It argues that there were two distinct phases in the evolution of the Second Athenian Confederacy, which are marked off in Diodorus' narrative by an intrusion of Oriental history. The first was in the shadow of the King's Peace, the second, preluded by the affair of Sphodrias, began with the declaration that the Peace had been broken. Keywords:   Second Athenian Confederacy, Sphodrias, Diodorus, King's Peace

It is notorious that Xenophon omitted all notice of the foundation of the Second Athenian Confederacy, and alluded to Athens’ alliances in the 370s so sparingly that if the Hellenica was the only evidence for the period it would hardly be possible to infer the existence of the Confederacy. All that could be said would be that the raid of Sphodrias so embittered the Athenians (5. 4. 63) that they joined with the Thebans in resisting Sparta (5. 4. 34), finding in the course of the war the allies who mysteriously appeared in the account of the Peace of 372/1 (6.3.19) and who probably included the Corcyraeans (5.4. 66). By contrast, Diodorus (15. 28 and 29) was explicit, and the best modern account of the foundation, that of Accame,2 is rightly attentive. Yet the full import of Diodorus has not been seen, and it is the purpose of this article further to exploit his account.

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The Foundation of the Second Athenian Confederacy1 The order of events in Diodorus is as follows: 1. After the Spartans had failed in the attempt to restore their power in Thebes, the Athenians proceeded to found a league (28. 1–4). 2. The Spartans sent out conciliatory embassies and prepared for war, expecting that the Boeotian War would be a serious affair, συμμαχούντων τοῖς Θηβαίοις τῶν Ἀθηναίων καὶ τῶν ἄλλων Ἑλλήνων τῶν κοινωνούντων τοῦ συνϵδρίου (28. 4–5). (p.193) 3.3 Sphodrias attempted to seize the Piraeus, and was tried and acquitted (29. 5). 4. The Athenians declared in a decree that the Peace had been broken by the Spartans (29. 7). 5. They elected Timotheus, Chabrias, and Callistratus generals (29. 7). 6. They passed a decree providing for a naval force of 200 ships, and a land force of 20,000 hoplites, and 500 cavalry (29. 7). 7. Προσϵλάβοντο δὲ καὶ τοὺς Θηβαίους ἐπὶ τò κοινòν συνέδριον ἐπὶ τοῖς ἵσοις πᾶσιν (29. 7). 8. They passed a decree restoring the cleruchies (τὰς γϵνομένας κληρουχίας) to their former owners, and made a law that no Athenian should farm outside Attica (29. 8). 9. By this act of generosity they recovered the goodwill of the Greeks and strengthened their present position as hegemonic power (29. 8). A large extension of the league ensued (30. 1f.). Item 8 is evidently enough the decree of Aristotle (I.G. ii2. 43 = RO 22). Although the only remaining cleruchies were Lemnos, Imbros, and Scyros, which Athens continued to hold after 378/7,4 the decree of Aristotle by providing for the destruction of ‘unsuitable’ (ἀνϵπιτὴδϵιοι) stelai renounced implicitly all claim to the cleruchies the city had lost. So Diodorus’ use of κληρουχίαι was not wholly wide of the mark, although Isocrates’ term, ἐγκτήματα (14. 44), which occurs in the decree itself (1. 27), would have been more satisfactory. Nor should we hesitate before Diodorus’ mention of a law as well as a decree. The clause of the decree forbidding Athenians to farm outside Attica is introduced with a law-like definition of the date after which the clause shall be taken to apply. So Diodorus refers to the decree of Aristotle of February/March 377 surely enough. Such a reference is not in itself all that remarkable. The act of renunciation was so notable a change of attitude that it must have found a place in Ephorus’ or in anyone’s history of the time. Its importance here is that it makes the rest of Diodorus’ account the more respectable. (p.194) Diodorus’ source was at least sufficiently well informed to know that the league was founded well before March 377, that Thebes was a full member by that date, that Chios, Byzantium, Rhodes, and Mytilene, that is, four of the other five names cut by the hand that cut the decree, were members before the decree was passed. So what of the other information furnished by Diodorus? In particular, was the Confederacy founded before the raid of Sphodrias and before Athens declared that Sparta Page 2 of 19

The Foundation of the Second Athenian Confederacy1 had ruptured the King’s Peace? This is, in the present state of discussion, a crucial question, affecting judgement of Athenian policy. But there are other matters, questions of fact, which need to be reconsidered. We may begin by considering the question of when Thebes was admitted to full membership. In lines 72–5 of the decree of Aristotle provision is made for an embassy of three to go to Thebes ‘to persuade the Thebans of whatever good they can’. It has been supposed5 that this refers to the completion of the terms under which Thebes would participate in the Confederacy, and, if this were right, Diodorus’ assertion that Thebes was admitted before the decree of Aristotle to the Common Synod ‘on equal terms with all the rest’ (ἐπὶ τοῖς ἵσοις πᾶσιν)6 would be hardly acceptable; for it is very unlikely that the details of hegemony and symmachic obligations for the foundation members had not been fully worked out either before or during the military operations of summer 378, and if the precise position of Thebes was still uncertain in February 377 then she can hardly earlier have been made a member ἐπὶ τοῖς ἵσοις πᾶσιν. But this whole theory is misconceived. When Aristotle proposed that future members should join ‘on the same terms as the Chians, the Thebans, and the other allies’ (ll. 23–5), he was not necessarily pointing to two or more different kinds of membership. The prominence of ‘Thebans’ both here and in the listing of the members may well be propagandist. Nor is there a great problem in how to explain the vague business of the embassy.7 The decree may well have coincided with the startling developments in Boeotia which followed on the reverse to Spartan power and the death of Phoebidas in winter 378/7. (p.195) According to Xenophon (5. 4. 46), ‘as a result, the business of the Thebans was set alight again, and they campaigned against Thespiae and the other perioecic towns—however, the demos from them retired to Thebes…’ Behind these dark words may well lie an important advance in Theban efforts to re-establish a united Boeotian state,8 and the Athenian embassy may well have been sent to discourage excesses. Athens was seeking to establish her Confederacy on the basis of freedom and autonomy and, if Thebes showed signs of disregarding these in Boeotia, protest and warning were in place: let Thebans be ‘Thebans’ and not ‘Boeotians’. So there could have been business enough for the embassy without our having to posit that Thebes’ share in the Confederacy had not been fully worked out well before the decree of Aristotle. The real question is how much before. The maddeningly fragmentary inscription I.G. ii2. 40, the first lines of which probably concern the exchange of oaths with Thebes at its accession,9 is headed (in the Editio Minor) ‘Foedus cum Thebanis et Mytilenaeis’, which suggests that the accession of Thebes is wrongly placed by Diodorus; so many events intervene in his narrative between, on the one hand, Mytilene joining in the earliest days and assisting in the establishment of a Common Synod (28. 3f.), and, on the other, the accession of Thebes after the whole Sphodrias affair and the consequential decrees (29. 7) that, if the inscription does show that the two states joined at the same time, Diodorus’ Page 3 of 19

The Foundation of the Second Athenian Confederacy1 account must be sadly astray. The heading is, however, wildly misleading. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to suppose that the stele in any way concerned the accession of Mytilene to the Confederacy. The rider of Stephanus honours, besides five Athenians10 including a trierarch, two others, one of whom was Antimachos, probably of Chios,11 and (p.196) the other a Mytilenaean whose name is missing. Then follow mysterious directions about various stelai, and about dealing with discrepancies between them,12 but not a word suggests that the Mytilenaean has been negotiating the accession of Mytilene. So the inscription in no way leads us to question Diodorus’ ordering of events. The only hint it contains to the date of the Theban accession is in the honouring of the trierarch. It would be unlikely that he would be honoured in midwinter. Thebes probably joined in the sailing season of 378. But that does not get us very far.13 What is secure is that the slight evidence about the accession of Thebes gives no reason to doubt Diodorus. The case of Methymna is more troubling. Diodorus does not mention it by name, when he lists the foundation members (28. 3), but it was certainly one of the six names cut by the hand that cut the main text of the decree of Aristotle. In the view of Ehrenberg14 the Methymna decree (G.H.I. 122 = RO 23) was passed in the interval between the voting and the inscribing of the decree of Aristotle, so that the Secretary was able to have ‘Methymnaeans’ engraved at the same time as the names of the five states that had joined before the decree of Aristotle. In the view of Accame the Methymna decree was passed earlier. His reason for rejecting Ehrenberg is that it is hard to see why the Methymnaeans should be moved by the decree of Aristotle to such haste in seeking enrolment. This is a poor reason. The possibility, which Accame15 rejects as ‘poco probabile’, is all too (p.197) possible, viz. that the Methymnaeans may not have been moved by the promises of the decree of Aristotle at all16 but may simply have happened by chance to make their application at that date. None the less, Ehrenberg’s dating is to be rejected. The Methymna decree ordered the Secretary of the Council ἀναγράἀαι αὐτòς … ὥσπϵρ καὶ οἱ ἄλλοι σύμμαχοι ἀναγϵγραμμένοι ϵἰσίν, and this Ehrenberg took to refer to the stipulation of lines 69–72 of the decree of Aristotle (ϵἰς δὲ τὴν στήλ[η]ν ταύτην ἀναγράϕϵιν τῶν τϵ οὐσ[ῶ]ν πόλϵων συμμαχίδων τὰ ὀνόματα, καὶ ἥτις ἂν ἄλλη σύμμαχος γίγνηται) and claimed that where οἱ ἄλλοι were ἀναγϵγραμμένοι was in the original text of the decree of Aristotle which had been put in the archives. This will not do. The decree of Aristotle ordered that the Secretary of the Council should ϵἰς τὴν στήλην ταύτην ἀναγράϕϵιν: even if ἀναγράϕϵιν were the right word for the process envisaged by Ehrenberg, there is no reason to suppose that the five names (Chians, Mytilenaeans, Rhodians, Byzantians, and Thebans) were put on the copy in the archives; they were to be put ϵἰς τὴν στήλην ταύτην, the stele provided for in the previous lines, and the decree contained no instructions about listing the names anywhere else. So, when the Methymna decree refers to a listing of the other allies, the reference can only be either to the list on the decree of Aristotle or to some earlier list, and, since Methymna occurs third in the list on the decree of Aristotle, the Page 4 of 19

The Foundation of the Second Athenian Confederacy1 reference must be to an earlier list. In short, the Methymnaeans were admitted to the Confederacy before February 377. When exactly is unclear. The decree cannot be dated, although the Secretary’s name is partially preserved. It could be either 378/7 or 379/8. But the accession of Methymna can be related to the accessions of other allies. The Chian alliance was clearly the pattern for others, as the decree of Aristotle (l. 24) shows and, probably enough, the Byzantian alliance (G.H.I. 121 = Harding 34). Presumably it was the first alliance. Between it and the Methymnan alliance came a group of allies who swore an oath which was the one the Methymnaeans were later required to swear (cf. l. 13 of G.H.I. 122 = RO 23). How much later one cannot say, but perhaps one can infer something from the officers involved in the oath-swearing. The Methymnaeans were to swear to ‘the synedri of the allies’ as well as to the Athenian generals and hipparchs, but (p.198) the Byzantians perhaps had not done so; the decree is fragmentary, but, since five Athenians are listed at the end as having been appointed ambassadors, one may presume that it was they who were responsible for the oaths. Thus the Byzantian alliance belongs to an earlier phase than the Methymnaean, a phase of procedure more akin to that normal before the Confederacy was founded (cf. G.H.I. 118 = RO 20, ll. 33f.). With Methymna there is no need for an embassy. ‘Aesimus and the synedri on the ships’ can see to it.17 Everything, in short, is consistent with the Methymnaeans being those referred to by Diodorus (28. 3) as τῶν ἄλλων τινὲς νησιωτῶν. There are no others at any rate to whom he could have been referring. But it is possible that the phrase has no definite reference, but should be taken with the succeeding words in which there is a generalization about the increase of the Confederacy, and it would perhaps be odd for such a vague phrase to refer to one state. So it must remain uncertain whether Diodorus found anything in Ephorus about the accession of Methymna. What is clear and remarkable is the order he furnishes of the first four states joining. As has emerged from the above discussion, Chios and Byzantium seem, on the slender epigraphic evidence which we have, to have indeed been the first to join. Diodorus seems therefore correct and this is a proof of the reliability of his source (though how he obtained such information we can only conjecture). All in all, despite the uncertainty about Methymna, Diodorus’ account emerges from the examination of the evidence about dates of accession with considerable credit. Can Diodorus therefore be right in setting the foundation of the Confederacy before the raid of Sphodrias? It is the common verdict of modern times18 that he is wrong, but the reason for rejecting his order is never given. Perhaps it is presumed that the raid and acquittal of Sphodrias must have come first because such an order is necessary to explain why Athens formed the Confederacy. I wish to attack this unanimity. It was the foundation of the Confederacy that led to the raid of Sphodrias, and the explanation of the new departure in Athenian policy lies elsewhere.

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The Foundation of the Second Athenian Confederacy1 (p.199) Let us start with the elucidation of Diodorus’ record of the consequences of the acquittal of Sphodrias (29. 7). Obviously enough, his statement that the Athenians ‘admitted the Thebans to the Common Synod on equal terms with all the rest’ matches the statement in Xenophon (5. 4. 34) that after the acquittal of Sphodrias the Athenians τοῖς Bοιωτοῖς πάσῃ προθυμίᾳ ἐβοήθουν. Xenophon recorded the concrete and practical effects of the formal development explicitly recorded by Diodorus.19 I wish to argue that the same sort of relation holds between all three parts of Xenophon’s statement and Diodorus’ account, that, when the Athenians put gates on the Piraeus, and began to build ships as well as lend military aid to the Boeotians, they were putting into concrete and practical effect what is recorded in Diodorus as the formal denunciation of the King’s Peace. Of course, Xenophon’s mention of shipbuilding is readily related to Diodorus’ notice of a decree which included provision of a fleet, but the correspondence goes much deeper than that. The King’s Peace is a shadowy enough affair. Xenophon (5. 1. 31) recorded the Royal Rescript, but clearly the document posted in the national temples (Isoc. 4. 180, 12. 107) was a very different thing. When Isocrates in the Panegyric (120) invited his hearers to read side by side (παραναγνοίη) and compare the provisions of the Peace of Callias and the King’s Peace, he is not likely to have been thinking of a comparison of clauses of the sort which Ephorus ascribed to the Peace of Callias (Diod. 12. 4) with the generalities of the Rescript. The Rescript might have been said to show the King διοικῶν τὰ τῶν Ἑλλήνων, but hardly προστάττων ἃ χρὴ ποιϵῖν ἑκάστους (i.e. something more particular than generalities about autonomy), nor μόνον οὐκ ἐπιστάθμους ἐν ταῖς πόλϵσι καθιστάς.20 Elsewhere (12. 106) Isocrates refers to the wording of a clause (διαρρήδην γράψαντϵς) in a manner which seems to echo a clause of the third Spartan treaty of 411 (Thuc. 8. 58. 2), and it is reasonable to suppose that the King’s (p.200) Peace contained specific clauses just as the Spartan treaties did, even if it is hard for us to discern them.21 The later renewals of the King’s Peace contained such clauses anyhow. In the Peace of 372/1 there was a clause about withdrawing harmosts from the cities and requiring states to τὰ στρατόπϵδα διαλύϵιν καὶ τὰ ναυτικα καί τά πϵξικά (Xen. 6. 3. 18; cf. 6. 4. 2), and the Peaces of 366/5 and 362/1 presumably made explicit the independence of Messene.22 So it is not out of place to speculate, at the least, about what was in the King’s Peace itself. The thesis here advanced is that both the disbandment of military forces with serious consequent limitations on their employment and the removal of the gates of the Piraeus had been required by the King’s Peace. Although it is not directly attested for 387/6, it seems likely enough that the clause concerning armaments in 372/1, cited in the previous paragraph, repeated a similar clause of 387/6. Later peaces had a sanctions clause about action against an aggressor. In 372/1 action was left to the hegemon and any who chose to join in (Xen. 6. 3. 18). In 371/0 all participants were obliged to go to the defence of any city attacked Page 6 of 19

The Foundation of the Second Athenian Confederacy1 (ibid. 6. 5. 2). In 375 arrangements were made for the sharing of the hegemony, that is, in common action against aggressors.23 Similarly in 387/6 there must have been a sanctions clause.24 Although the Great King was somehow central to the Peace and clearly Isocrates (4. 121) was right to speak of him presiding over the affairs of Greece and hearing complaints by one state against another, indeed ϕύλαξ τῆς ϵἰρήνης (ibid. § 175), the Spartans were in fact, as Xenophon pronounced them (5. 1. 36), προστάται of the Peace, and it (p.201) was the Spartans to whom appeals for protection were directed. The Acanthian appeal of 382 (Xen. 5.2.11f.) makes this plain. The Spartan role in enforcing observance of the Peace must have been made explicit in 387/6. Attached to this sanctions clause was, I suggest, the stipulation that land and naval armaments should be dissolved. In the case of the navy, Athens faced with the demand ἀνέλκϵιν τὰς ναῦς (in the phrase of 367, Xen. 7.1. 36) simply ceased to build ships; hence the shipbuilding of 378 and subsequent years.25 The position with the army is less plain. Greek states did not have standing armies, and there was nothing to dissolve which could not be promptly re-assembled. Further, Athens did make alliances in this period, notably with Chios, and was said in 382 to be, like Thebes, contemplating alliance with Olynthus (Xen. 5. 2. 15); so she must have been in some ways at any rate free to take military action. I suggest, therefore, that the position was that under the King’s Peace states could only take hostile action against states not party to the Peace or against a participant of the Peace if Sparta called for action, and that once Sparta had called, states that were called were obliged to support her and abstain from counteraction.26 There was consequently a constraint on normal activity on (p.202) land and sea, and Isocrates had to complain that under the Peace καταποντισταὶ μὲν τὴν θάλατταν κατέχουσι, πϵλτασταὶ δὲ τὰς πóλϵιςκαταλαμβάνουσιν, ἀντὶ δὲ τοῦ πρòς ἑτέρους παρὶ τὴς χώρας πολϵμϵῖν ἐντòς τϵίχους οἱ πολῖται πρòς ἀλλήλους μάχονται… (4. 115f.). Hence until the Peace had been ruptured, Athens and other states could not at will ὁπλίτας καταλέξαι … ναῦς δὲ πληρῶσαι, and the decree to do so which Diodorus records (29. 7) was the consequence of the previous decree declaring the Peace dissolved.27 The Piraeus gates never cease to amaze the reader of Xenophon. Sphodrias set out to seize the Piraeus, ὅτι δὴ ἀπύλωτος νἦ (5. 4. 20). How could this be so? The Piraeus had been rewalled at the start of the Corinthian War. It simply cannot have been left without gates for eight years of war, and the gates must have been removed. But Greek cities did not construct gates which had to be removed for the convenience of traffic.28 Wheeled traffic had rather to adapt itself. So why were the gates removed? It must be noted that the Athenians did not put gates on the Piraeus directly after the attempt of Sphodrias, but waited until he had been tried and acquitted. Καὶ ἐκ τούτου οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι ἐπύλωσάν τϵ τòν Πϵιραιὰᾶ… (5. 4. 34). The only reasonable explanation that I can pose is that previously they had been forbidden, forbidden by the terms of the King’s Peace. Such a clause would not be so surprising in a Persian peace. Athenian naval Page 7 of 19

The Foundation of the Second Athenian Confederacy1 power was the real Greek threat to the King’s interests in Asia; the King might well have demanded that the ports be kept open to surveillance; elsewhere the Persians had required that cities should not be entirely closed.29 In any case, how else is the oddity of the Piraeus being without gates in 378 to be explained? (p.203) When, therefore, the Athenians put gates on the Piraeus, began to build ships, and set about helping the Boeotians πάσῃ προθυμίᾳ (Xen. 5. 4. 34), their actions presupposed that they had declared the King’s Peace null and void, which is precisely what Diodorus explicitly records them as decreeing (29. 7) before commissioning a large fleet and admitting Thebes to the Common Synod ἐπὶ τοῖς ἴσοις πᾶσιν. Of course it is possible that when Xenophon records the consequences of the acquittal of Sphodrias, which so precisely accord with the account of Diodorus, he had in mind also that at that moment the Athenians set about creating the Confederacy, but the impression Xenophon’s narrative makes is one of prompt reaction, and, if it were the case not merely that Thebes was admitted to the Synod at that moment but also that the Confederacy itself was brought into being, quite a long time for embassies and negotiations would have been required of which Xenophon’s narrative gives no hint. So one may with the more confidence proceed to consider whether Diodorus’ narrative is correct in founding the Confederacy before the Sphodrias affair. It is well known that Diodorus’ manner is to epitomize portions of Ephorus’ narrative and dispose them to fill out the account of years to which, chronologically speaking, the portions of narrative often do not belong. Since Ephorus wrote κατὰ γένος,30 these portions often overlap and the same event can be recorded more than once. In the part of the fifteenth book of Diodorus under discussion there are three overlapping narratives. Chapters 25 to 27 recount Theban affairs from the Liberation in midwinter 379/8 down to the Theban failure to take Thespiae in winter 378/7. Chapters 28 to 30 recount the history of the Second Athenian Confederacy from its foundation in 378 to its expansion in the summer campaign of Chabrias in 377. Chapters 31 to 35 recount the Spartan military offensive against Thebes from 378 to 375. The first and third narratives both recount (p.204) the Theban attack on Thespiae (27. 4 and 33. 5). The second and fourth both recount the Spartan reaction to the events of early 378. In 31. 1 the Spartans ὁρῶντϵς τὴν τῶν συμμάχων ὁρμὴν πρòς τὴν ἀπόστασιν ἀκατάσχϵτον οὖσαν, ἐπαύσαντο τῆς προϋπαρχούσης βαρύτητος καὶ ταῖς πόλϵσι ϕιλανθρώπως προσϵϕέροντο· τοιαύταις δ’ ὁμιλίαις καὶ ϵὐϵργϵσίαıς χρησάμϵνοι, ϵὐνουστέρους ἅπαντας τοὺς συμμάχους κατϵσκϵύασαν, and Diodorus proceeds to recount the military reformation of the Peloponnesian League. In 28. 4, after describing the organization of the Synod of the Confederacy, Diodorus proceeds: οἱ δὲ Λακϵδαıμόνıοı τὴν ὁρμὴν τῶν πολλῶν ὁρῶντϵς ἀκατάσχϵτον οὖσαν πρòς τὴν ἀπόστασιν, ὅμως πρϵσβϵίαıς καὶ λόγοις ϕιλανθρώποις, ἔτι δ’ ἐπαγγϵλίαις ϵὐϵργϵτıκαῖς ἐϕιλοτιμοῦντο δıορθοῦσθαı τὰς ἀλλοτριότητας τῶν ἀνθρώπων· ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ τῆς ϵἰς τòν πόλϵμον παρασκϵυῆς ἐποιοῦντο πολλὴν ϕροντίδα … It is evident that in two Page 8 of 19

The Foundation of the Second Athenian Confederacy1 portions of Ephorus Diodorus found an account of Spartan embassies sent out because of what is termed τὴν ἀπόστασιν (cf. 28. 3 πρῶτοι πρòς τὴν ἀπόστασιν) of the members of the new Confederacy, and it is highly probable that one of the embassies was the one we meet in Xenophon (5. 4. 22), which was in Athens at the very moment that Sphodrias made his attempt. In deciding why Sphodrias acted as he did, one must also ask why at the same moment there was an embassy from Sparta in Athens, and the answer which Diodorus suggests is that both Sphodrias and the Spartan ephors were reacting to the same event, viz. the foundation of the Second Athenian Confederacy. The embassy represented, perhaps, the policy of Agesilaus; at any rate one of the three ambassadors named by Xenophon, Etymocles (5. 4. 22), was a supporter of Agesilaus (5. 4. 32). The attempt of Sphodrias was the reaction in an emergency of an adherent of Cleombrotus.31 The one sought to dissuade, the other to prevent. This is why the Spartans, although Sphodrias plainly acted illegally (Xen. 5. 4. 32), actually commended Sphodrias for his action (Xen. 5. 4. 34 ἐπαινέσϵιαν). He had had good reason to act. I propose therefore that the lacuna in Xenophon in which we must place the foundation of the Second Athenian Confederacy is not in 5. 4. 34, but before 5. 4. 20. The effect of Sphodrias’ action was to (p.205) produce war between Athens and Sparta (cf. 5. 4. 20 ἐκπολϵμώσϵιϵ). Xenophon’s patron, Agesilaus, had hoped that the threat posed by the new Confederacy could be removed by diplomacy, but Sphodrias’ action was excusable and excused. As a result, Athens declared the King’s Peace ended, took Thebes into the Confederacy, and the war began in earnest. Thus for Xenophon it was τò Σϕοδρία ἔργον (5. 4. 63) which produced the war. If the Second Athenian Confederacy was not created after the raid of Sphodrias, why was it founded? The raid of Sphodrias is to be placed fairly early in 378. If he hoped to cover the distance of over 25 miles from the Boeotian border to the Piraeus, the nights must have still been long enough to make the surprise march conceivable. If the elections recorded in Diodorus (15. 29. 7) were the regular elections of the eighth prytany of 379/8, his raid must have been in March at the latest.32 On the other hand the Confederacy was, according to Diodorus (28. 1), founded after the Spartan expedition to restore their power in Thebes in the early days of 378.33 There is no reason to doubt Diodorus on this point. The alliances which Athens made with states between 386 and 378, notably those with Chios and Methymna (G.H.I. 118 = RO 20, and 122 = RO 23, l. 5),34 are to be sharply distinguished from the alliances of the Confederacy. The former were simply between two parties; the latter were between a state on the one hand and on the other Athens and her allies; the Methymna decree (G.H.I. 122 = RO 23, ll. 4ff.) makes this plain. So to explain (p.206) why Athens founded the Confederacy Page 9 of 19

The Foundation of the Second Athenian Confederacy1 one has to look to the development of Athenian policy between January and March of 378, the period immediately after the Liberation of Thebes.35 The evidence about Athens’ relations with Thebes at the time of the Liberation seems to be conflicting. Certainly the Thebans received aid in expelling the Spartans from the Cadmea, but, whereas Xenophon speaks as if only οἱ ἀπò τν ὁρίων were involved, rendering wholly unauthorized aid (5. 4. 10, 12), Diodorus, having alluded to Athenian help for the Liberators in their return,36 goes on to recount (i) an appeal from Thebes to the Athenians asking them πανδμϵὶ βοηθῆσαι καὶ πρò τῆς τῶν Λακϵδαıμονίων παρουσίας συνϵκπολϵμῆσαı τὴν Καδμϵίαν (15. 25. 4), (ii) an Athenian decree in answer παραχρῆμα δύναμιν ὡς πλϵίστην ἀποστϵῖλαι τὴν ἐλϵυθϵρώσουσαν τὰς Θήβας (26. 1), and (iii) the immediate dispatch of Demophon with five thousand hoplites and five hundred cavalry (26. 2). This Diodoran version is supported both by Aelius Aristides (Panathenaicus 173),37 who compared the expedition with that to Haliartus and spoke of the Athenians ‘going out μικροῦ δϵν ἅπαντϵς’, and by Dinarchus’ reference (1. 39) to a decree moved by Cephalus ἐξιέναι βοηθήσοντας Ἀθηναίους τοῖς κατϵιληϕόσι τῶν ϕυγάδων Θήβας, the following words making plain that the reference is to the events of midwinter 379/8 and not to the Athenian expedition of summer 378. Is this evidence of an official and large expedition to be rejected because Xenophon omits any mention of it? Certainly there have been many38 (p.207) who have rejected the Diodoran version and explained away the decree in Dinarchus as due to an invention of Ephorus, but since the discovery of the Hellenica Oxyrhynchia the attitude of students of the age of Xenophon has been gradually changing, and it is no longer legitimate in any matter to argue that what Xenophon omitted could not have happened or here to argue that, because Xenophon speaks only of οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι οἱ ἀπò τῶν ὁρίων and records only the prosecution of the two generals who were privy to the Liberators’ plans and so involved Athens in an awkward situation, there could have been no more than these two involved in the siege of the Cadmea nor at that time any decree of the sort that Diodorus and Dinarchus recount. The silences of Xenophon have ceased merely to amaze; they have become a scandal. There is, however, one detail in Xenophon’s account which perhaps breaks the silence which has held so many spellbound. When news of the Liberation reached Sparta, Cleombrotus was sent out with an army (5. 4. 14). Τὴν μὲν οὖν δι’ Ἐλϵυθϵρῶν ὁδòν Χαβρίας ἔχων Ἀθηναίων πϵλταστὰς ἐϕύλαττϵν·ὁ δὲ Κλϵόμβροτος ἀνέβαινϵ κατά τὴν ϵἰς Πλαταιὰς ϕέρουσαν.39 What was Chabrias doing? And why did Cleombrotus avoid the route he was guarding? Those who accept the account of Diodorus and Dinarchus have no difficulty: Chabrias was covering the direct route to Thebes to check the Spartans, as part of Athens’ formal help to the Thebans, an act for which, as far as (p.208) we know, he was not prosecuted. Those who deny the Diodoran account40 are less comfortably placed. If, as Grote41 supposed, Athens in alarm was merely covering her borders, Xenophon s comment about Chabrias blocking the road through Page 10 of 19

The Foundation of the Second Athenian Confederacy1 Eleutherae is oddly irrelevant. He should have recounted obstacles to Cleombrotus getting in to Attica, not to him getting out. So the detail about Chabrias ought to shake the repose of those who rely on the silence of Xenophon. The essential point, however, is that the silences of Xenophon can never prove that what he does not recount did not happen. It is therefore assumed in this chapter that Athens did follow up the unofficial help rendered by the two pro-Theban generals with a formal decree of help and the dispatch of an expedition. The real question about the expedition of Demophon is quite different. How did it affect Athens’ relations with Sparta? Diodorus does not say that the Athenians made an alliance with Thebes, nor indeed does any other evidence42 assert this, save Plutarch in his Pelopidas (14. 1), where it is said that after the expedition of Cleombrotus the Athenians τὴν συμμαχίαν ἀπϵίπαντο. Plutarch, however, was here not much concerned with Athenian participation in the Liberation, and was perhaps speaking loosely. There was no time in any case for the conclusion of a formal alliance, but, in addition, there was the difficult question of Athens ’ position in relation to the King’s Peace. Athens could perhaps assist the Thebans to regain their own citadel: the old polemarchs had installed the Spartans there (cf. Xen. 5. 4. 1 τοὺς τῶν πολιτῶν ϵἰσαγαγόντας ϵἰς τὴν ἀκρόπολιν αὐτούς); the new polemarchs required them to leave. Συμμαχία was a different matter and the Athenians marched out perhaps with no intention of fighting against Sparta, ἐξϵλθόντϵς μικροῦ δϵῖν ἅπαντϵς ὥσπϵρ πομπῆς ἀλλ’ οὐ κινδύνων μϵθέξϵιν μέλλοντϵς, observing τò τῆς αἰσχρᾶς ϵἰρήνης δίκαιον (Aristides, Panathenaicus 172 and 173). The soldiers of Cleombrotus returned to the Peloponnese ‘much at a loss to (p.209) know whether there was war or peace with Thebes, for, although he [i.e. Cleombrotus] led the army into the territory of the Thebans, he left having done as little damage as he could’ (Xen. 5. 4. 16). Just as Sparta had at that moment no intention of fighting the Thebans, but rather hoped to resolve the trouble within the framework of the King’s Peace, Athens had no intention of fighting Sparta. Not only was there no time for making an alliance (συμμαχία). There was no question of it. Athens, too, would continue to abide by the King’s Peace. Yet her position was far from secure, and when the newly liberated Thebes promptly sought to re-establish normal relations with Sparta,43 Athens had reason to pause. According to Isocrates (14. 29) the Thebans ϵὐθὺς ϵἰς Λακϵδαίμονα πρέσβϵις ἀπέστϵλλον, ἕτοιμοι δουλϵύϵιν ὄντϵς καὶ μηδὲν κινϵῖν τῶν πρότϵρον πρός αὐτοὺς ὡμολογημένων, and the Spartans replied by bidding them τοὺς τϵ ϕϵύγοντας καταδέχϵσθαι καὶ τοὺς αὐτόχϵιρας ἐξϵίργϵιν. This the Thebans would certainly never accept, but it is by no means clear that Sparta was not within the King’s Peace in its demand. There is no suggestion in Isocrates that the garrison in the Cadmea was to be restored, and the evidence about exiles, which is scanty, may reflect a clause in the King’s Peace concerning exiles.44 If it were perchance the (p.210) case that under the Peace states had Page 11 of 19

The Foundation of the Second Athenian Confederacy1 been required to receive back all exiles save murderers, Thebes could have legally been required to expel the Liberators and receive back those who had fled and Athens was in the delicate position of having supported the murderers and so committed a breach of the Peace. A Spartan expedition to deal with Thebes could well deal with Athens too. In such circumstances Athens was obliged to act not against those who had helped in the expulsion of the illegally installed garrison but against those who had helped the murderers (Xen. 5. 4. 19).45 Alternatively, if there was no such clause, Athens could well fear that, since Sparta would not accept the new state of affairs at Thebes, she would not pardon Athens for her part, and reprisals against Thebes could well be against Athens too; in which case the prosecution of the generals who had helped the murderers must have been a lame attempt to avoid Spartan vengeance. Certainly in the first three months of 378 Athens must have been in a very nervous state. The formation of the Confederacy within the King’ s Peace was therefore, as indeed Diodorus (15. 28. 2) asserts, defensive, an attempt to prepare herself against Spartan attack. As long as the Peace held, Athens was in theory safe, but the prospects of the Peace holding must have seemed slight. There were therefore two distinct phases in the evolution of the Second Athenian Confederacy, which are marked off in Diodorus (p.211) narrative by an intrusion of Oriental history (29. 1–4). The first was in the shadow of the King’s Peace, the second, preluded by the affair of Sphodrias, began with the declaration that the Peace had been broken.46 Notes:

(1) All Xenophon references are to the Hellenica unless otherwise stated. Wherever possible, references to inscriptions are given to Tod, Greek Historical Inscriptions II (= G.H.I.) and to P. J. Rhodes and R. Osborne, Greek Historical Inscriptions 404–323 BC (2003) (= RO) and/or = P. Harding, Translated Documents of Greece and Rome, v. 2. (2) La lega ateniese (1941), which is the starting-point for all discussion, and to which I am so heavily indebted that it would be pointless to keep referring to it in these notes. (3) 29.1–4 is concerned with the preparations for the Persian attack on Egypt, which happened in 374/3 (Diod. 15. 41f.). It is presumed by Kienitz, Die politische Geschichte Ägyptens, p. 86, that the events described in 29.1–4, viz. the recall of Chabrias from Egypt and the request for Iphicrates’ services, belong in 380/79, but they could belong to 375. (4) Cf. Ath. Pol. 62. 2. (5) Cf. A. P. Burnett, ‘Thebes and the Expansion of the Second Athenian Confederacy: I.G. ii2. 40 and I.G. ii2. 43’, Historia, xi (1962), pp. 1ff. Page 12 of 19

The Foundation of the Second Athenian Confederacy1 (6) Or ‘on terms of equality in all respects’ (Burnett, ‘Thebes and the Expansion’, p. 12). (7) I here develop the suggestion of Accame, op. cit., p. 69, rejected by Burnett. (8) Cf. my article on Epaminondas, C.Q., N.s. xxii (1972), p. 259 (herein Ch. XIV: p. 307). (9) A satisfactory explanation of the curious number of seventeen persons involved in the oath-swearing (line 1) has been offered by J. Buckler in Historia, xx (1971), pp. 507f., viz. that there were representatives of the five allied states, the ten generals, and the two hipparchs (cf. G.H.I. 121 = Harding 34, II. 9–10; and 122 = RO 23, ll. 14–16). (10) Burnett (‘Thebes and the Expansion’, p. 8) presumes that the Theopompus of line 7 was the well-known Theban of Plut. Pel. 8. 2, but the name was common at Athens and, since the inscription furnishes no notice of nationality for the five persons commended in lines 6–8 including a trierarch (who certainly was not a Theban), whereas it does designate the nationality of Antimachos and the Mytilenaean whose name is lost in ll. 10f., the embassy ἐς τòς συμμά]χος was very probably, pace Burnett, Athenian. (11) The man who later held a trireme (I.G. ii2. 1604, 1. 79). (12) Burnett (‘Thebes and the Expansion’, p. 7) argues that οἱ ἐς τóς συμμά] χος πρϵσβϵύσαντϵς ‘cannot be any other than the embassy which came seeking the treaty’, i.e. the Theban embassy which negotiated the Theban treaty recorded in the main body of the inscription. But, to me, such a description of an embassy from Thebes is wholly improbable. This is a very strange inscription in various ways, but one thing that seems reasonably clear is that the persons named in lines 6 and 7 are Athenian (cf. n. 3 above) and that they were the members of an Athenian embassy to the allies, which may or may not have concerned the accession of Thebes. Lines 12ff. are mysterious indeed, but it is hard to see how αὐτῶν in line 13 can refer to anyone other than Antimachos of Chios and the Mytilenaean mentioned just before. So the stelae would appear somehow to concern them personally, and Accame’s notion of honorific stelae may not be as wide of the mark as Burnett supposes. (13) It should be firmly stated that the contiguity of Diodorus’ notices about the accession of Thebes and the decree of Aristotle in no way requires us to connect the events. A similar conjunction is made in 15. 27. 4 between the Athenian return home in winter 379/8 and the Theban attack on Thespiae of winter 378/7. (14) Hermes, lxiv (1929), pp. 323ff. (15) Op. cit., p. 45 n. 2. Page 13 of 19

The Foundation of the Second Athenian Confederacy1 (16) As far as we know Methymna had been immune from cleruchies in the fifth century, cf. Thuc. 3. 50. 2, 7. 57. 5. (17) The sailing season of 378 is therefore strongly suggested. (18) Cf. Accame, op. cit., p. 31. Hammond, History of Greece, p. 485, puts the formation of the Confederacy in winter 378/7. Similarly Bengtson, Griechische Geschichte2, p. 266. (19) Another case of a similar sort is Xenophon’s account of the Grand Alliance of 395. For the formal notice of foundation we have to rely on Diodorus (14. 82). Xenophon’s account of the preliminaries to the battle of Nemea (4. 2. 10–13 and 18) shows the Synedrion of the Alliance in operation. Cf. Accame, Ricerche intorno alla guerra corinzia, pp. 53ff. (20) Forἐπίσταθμος cf. Isoc. 4. 162 (of Hecatomnus of Caria). It is not found in any other fourth-century work, and appears solely to represent a Persian official. Cf. Bekker, Anecd. 253οἱ ἄρχοντϵς καί σατράπαι οἱ κατέχοντϵς βασιλϵῖ τὰς ὑπηκόους πόλϵις, παρὰ τò ἐπί τοῖς σταθμοῖς ϵἶναι. σταθμοὶ δὲ αἱ καταγωγαί. (21) No one could dream from the literary references to the events of 387/6 that the King was in some way involved in the oaths. The Chios decree (G.H.I. 118 = RO 20, l. 11) shows that he was, and it emerges from the account of the abortive peace of 367 (Xen. 7. 1. 39f.) that there was question of πρòς βασιλέα κοινοὶ ὅρκοι, though it is not clear whether the Persian who was present was to receive them. Was the King similarly represented in 387/6 in Sparta? (22) Isocrates (8. 16) called in 355 for a return to the treaty that was made with the King and the Spartans. The reference is either to the King’s Peace or to one of the first two renewals. He does not specify which; presumably the clauses which he cites were common to all three. They include the withdrawal of garrisons, which, as a clause in 386, may have conditioned the form of Xenophon’s comment on Corinth (5. 1. 34)—οἱ δ' Kορίνθιοι οὐκ ἐξέπϵμπον τῆν τῶν Ἀργϵίων ϕρουράν. (23) Cf. F. Hampl, Die griechischen Staatsverträge, pp. 14ff. (24) Denied by Hampl, op. cit., pp. 11ff. But it is inconceivable that the Peace did not provide for action against those who did not keep peace. Cf. Momigliano, R.F. xii (1934), pp. 483f. (25) Athens had no more than 100 ships in the 370s. Cf. Polybius 2. 62. 6, Xen. 5. 4. 60f., Diod. 15. 34. 5, and Koehler, Ath. Mitt., vi (1881), pp. 28ff. (on I.G. ii2. 1604).

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The Foundation of the Second Athenian Confederacy1 (26) The peace terms offered in the abortive peace of 392/1 permitted Athens τριήρϵις … ναυπηγεῖσθαι καὶ τὰς οὔσας ἐπισκϵυάζειν καὶ κϵκτῆσθαι (Andoc. 3. 14). I am suggesting that the King’s Peace denied Athens these rights. For the status and significance of her treaties with Chios and Methymna, see p. 205. Athens contemplated alliance with Olynthus at first, when Olynthus was thought to be facing only the Macedonian king, who had not joined in the King’s Peace (cf. Aristides, Panathenaicus 172, which mentions Seuthes and Dionysius, but not Amyntas). But once it was no longer merely a matter of supporting Olynthus against an outsider, as the Ephoran version would have it (Diod. 15. 19), but Sparta and the Peloponnesian League had decided to prevent Olynthus infringing the autonomy of the surrounding Greek states, as the Acanthians had claimed (Xen. 5. 2. 11ff.), Athens had no more to do with Olynthus. Thebes was more stubborn and adhered to her original view of the troubles in the north, and a proclamation was made, presumably by Ismenias, that no Theban should join Phoebidas’ expedition against Olynthus (Xen. 5. 2. 27). So Phoebidas had good grounds for intervening though not for remaining in the Cadmea. Leontiades arrested Ismenias, ὡς πολϵμοποιοῦντα (§ 30), and Ismenias was tried by a large court of Spartans and Peloponnesian allies (§ 35). But the case of Thebes is not relevant to the proposed view of the King’s Peace, since the whole affair is to be understood within the framework of the Peloponnesian League, which was Sparta’s prime instrument for dealing with breaches of the King’s Peace. Hence Isocrates (14. 29) claimed that the Thebans might have joined the Spartans in an attack on Athens, i.e. as part of the Peloponnesian League. Whether Sparta could have required states not in the league to act against those infringing the King’s Peace is unsure. The Thebans in 379/8 expected μϵγάλην δύναμιν ἥξϵιν ἐκ τῆς Ἑλλάδος Λακϵδαιμονίοις (Diod. 15. 25. 4), but they may have been thinking merely of the league (cf. Diod. 15. 31. 2 for its extent in 378). (27) Diodorus speaks of 20,000 hoplites, an incredible number for Athens. (Cf. Polybius 2. 62. 6.) Either the figure is corrupt or Diodorus has exaggerated, a thing of which he is suspect elsewhere, or these figures were for the σύνταξις of the Confederacy. (Cf. Justin 9. 5 for similarly large figures for the League of Corinth.) (28) For gates of cities cf. F. E. Winter, Greek Fortifications (1971), chapters 8 and 10. (29) The cities of Ionia had been without walls under the Lydians, save for Miletus which they could not capture (Hdt. 1. 141. 4 and 22). Harpagus, in reducing Ionia, confronted by the difficulties of laying siege to the well-fortified Phocaea, professed that he would be content with the destruction of one προμαχϵών (Hdt. 1. 164. 1)—a compromise with the normal practice, shown in Darius’ treatment of Babylon (Hdt. 3. 159 τò τϵῖχος πϵριϵῖλϵ καὶ τὰς πύλας Page 15 of 19

The Foundation of the Second Athenian Confederacy1 πάσας ἀπέσπασϵ). The right explanation, to my mind (pace Brunt in Ancient Society and Institutions, p. 92 n. 54), of the fact that the cities of Ionia were without walls in the Archidamian War (Thuc. 3. 33. 2, etc.) was given by WadeGery, Essays in Greek History, p. 219, viz. that one of the clauses of the Peace of Callias had required it. Yet the Persians could be content with the destruction of gates alone. The writer of Isaiah 45: 1, 2 foresees that the coming of the Persians will mean the destruction of gates—‘… I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two-leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut… I will break in pieces the gates of brass and cut in sunder the bars of iron.’ (30) F.G.H. 70 T 11. (31) Xen. 5. 4. 25. (32) If we allow for the trial of Sphodrias a period of two to three weeks, he can well have made his attempt at about the date of the Dionysia when the plans to have a Synedrion and even τοὺς συνέδρους τοὺς ἐπὶ τῶν νϵῶν (G.H.I. 122 = RO 23, l. 17) were perhaps being advanced. (33) Λακϵδαιμονίων ἐπταικότων πϵρὶ τὰς Θήβας should be taken with both parts of the μὲν/δὲ sentence. (34) Isocrates’ celebrated phrase, Xῖοι μὲν καὶ Μυτιληναῖοι καὶ Bυζάντιοι συμπαρέμϵιναν (14. 28), refers probably not to alliances with Athens, but to their not joining the Peloponnesian League as Thebes did (cf. Paus. 9. 13. 1, Plut. Pel. 4); the following words of Isocrates strongly suggest this, and the Chios decree shows that Chios did not exactly συμπαραμένϵιν in 386, and the Methymna decree shows that, if Isocrates was listing Athens’ allies before the Liberation of Thebes, there was at least one other name for him to list. The real question about this mention of Chians, Mytilenaeans, and Byzantians is why there are so few names. Presumably these are the main allies of Athens in the Corinthian War that did not join the extended Peloponnesian League (for which cf. Diod. 15. 31. 2), but they are all naval powers and Sparta did not, after the King’s Peace, want a navy. (35) It is worth remarking that the archonship of Nausinicus is prominent in the history of the eisphora in the fourth century (cf. Dem. 22. 44) not because money was first needed for the Confederacy in 378/7, but because the law governing νομοθϵσία (cf. Dem. 24. 20ff.) meant that the new situation of 379/8 could only be provided for in the first prytany of 378/7. (36) 15. 25. 1συνϵπιλαβομένων Ἀθηναίων. (37) Cf. Oration 38, p. 486, ll. 3f. …παρῆμϵν πανδημϵί.

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The Foundation of the Second Athenian Confederacy1 (38) The most notable champion of Diodorus’ account has been W. Judeich, Rh. Mus., lxxvi (1921), pp. 174f. Grote’s rejection of Diodorus (History of Greece, viii, p. 86 n. 3 in the edition of 1888) was followed by E. v., Stern, Gesch. der Spartan. u. theban. Heg., p. 59 n. 1, Ed. Meyer, G.d.A. v., pp. 375f., K. J. Beloch, G.G. iii2. 1, p. 145, and, more recently, by A. P. Burnett, Historia, xi (1962), pp. 15f. Miss Burnett’s reasons for preferring to stick to Xenophon are all unsound. (a) ‘The rapid sequence of events at Thebes, between the first uprising and the defeat of the Spartan garrison, leaves no time for the sending and receiving of embassies.’ But the garrison was driven by starvation into surrender after it had despaired of help from Sparta (Diod. 15. 27. 1f.), and this suggests a long enough interval for appeals to Athens. (b) The Athenians ‘are said to have stood ready to march out to Boeotia πανδημϵί, at a time of the year when such a thing was unthinkable.’ Cleombrotus marched out. Why should it be unthinkable for Athens? (c) ‘The general whom Diodorus names as sent with the Athenian forces is Demophon, which seems to have been the name of the man chosen with Chabrias for the command against Agesilaus in the summer of 378 (see Schol. ad Aristides, Panath. 173, where Vater read Δημοϕῶντος for Δημάδου).’ That is, the scholiast must be made to agree with the theory. (d) ‘The force Demophon is said to have led out in midwinter is almost exactly that reported later as the army sent to Boeotia after the acquittal of Sphodrias.’ So was the force sent to Thermopylae in 352 (Diod. 16. 37. 3). Five thousand seems to be the regular figure for an expeditionary force. (e) ‘The Athenians are said to want to secure Theban support in their own struggle with Sparta (Diod. 15. 26. 1) although in December 379 the chief fact of Athenian foreign policy was the Spartan truce.’ If two generals were prepared to act in the conspiracy, they may have expected the δῆμος not to disapprove. Cf. the Athenian response to the Spartan order in 382 (Plut. Pel. 6). Miss Burnett concludes that ‘in the presence of contradictory testimony from Xenophon’ Diodorus is discredited. But Xenophon does not contradict. He merely omits, and all inferences based on his omissions are weak. (39) Xenophon does not plainly distinguish the peltasts of Cleombrotus from those of Chabrias, but it is clear enough that the peltasts who killed those guarding the route to Plataea belonged to Cleombrotus’ army. (40) Miss Burnett does not discuss how Chabrias came to be where he was. (41) Loc. cit. (cf. Meyer, G.d.A. v, p. 376). (42) Diodorus (15. 28. 5) remarked that Agesilaus prepared for war in 378, expecting that ‘the Boeotian War’ would last a long time, συμμαχούντων τοῖς Θηβαίοις τῶν Ἀθηναίων καὶ τῶν ἄλλων Ἑλλήνων τῶν κοινωνούντων τοῦ συνϵδρίου. This does not, pace Burnett, art. cit., p. 15, show that there was an alliance between Thebes and the Second Athenian Confederacy when war broke

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The Foundation of the Second Athenian Confederacy1 out in 378. The clause can have a conditional force. It is also to be noted that Isocrates 14. 29 does not say that Thebes made an alliance with Athens. (43) This is the main reason for not accepting literally Diodorus’ notice (15. 28. 1) about the creation of a ‘Boeotian’ κοινὴ συμμαχία in early 378. (44) The case for such a clause is not strong, but it is worth making. The return of the exiles to Corinth in 387/6 seems in Xenophon (5. 1. 34) to be part of the implementation of the peace (cf. the opening words of § 35), and in the Agesilaus (2. 21) he speaks as if compelling Corinth and Thebes to take back their exiles was part of the peace—ἐπϵιδὴ δὲ ϵἰρήνης ἐπιθυμήσαντϵς οἱ πολέμιοι ἐπρϵσβϵύοντο, Ἀγϵσίλαος ἀντϵῖπϵ τῆ ϵἰρήνῃ ἕως τοὺς διὰ Λακϵδαιμονίους ϕυγόντας Κορινθίων καὶ Θηβαίων ἠνάγκασϵ τὰς πόλϵις οἴκαδϵ καταδέξασθαι: i.e. he did not make peace until the Corinthians and the Thebans accepted a clause about exiles. The return of the Phliasian exiles might seem to belie this (Xen. 5. 2. 8). Although their return did not necessarily come after the settlement at Mantinea, it seems preferable to narrow the interval between their return and their complaining at Sparta (Xen. 5. 3. 10f.) that the Spartan terms (Xen. 5. 2. 10) were not being fully obeyed, i.e. to place their return not long before the Acanthian appeal of 382 (Xen. 5. 2. 11) and shorten the period of their dissatisfaction as much as possible. If they were restored in accordance with a clause of the King’s Peace, why the delay? They knew their rights. Why did they not appeal earlier? Further, the manner in which Xenophon describes their appeal to Sparta (5. 2. 8) suggests that they could not base their appeal on the King’s Peace. What need was there to convince the Spartans that they were worth restoring, if they could appeal to the Peace? However, Xenophon may here, after his fashion, be concerning himself with only part of the case; he has no words to explain how the ephors decided that the exiles had been exiled ἀδικοῦντϵς οὐδέν (§ 9); they may have been exiled as μϵταίτιοι, in the Phliasian view, for some act of violence and murder which was held to exclude them from benefiting under the Peace. So the case of Phlius may be misleading. Nor does the case of Xenophon himself cause difficulty. It is commonly stated that he was recalled in 369, but there is no evidence for that or that he was not free to return to Athens in 386—he never did return (Diog. Laert. 2. 56) and the decree alluded to by Istros (F.G.H. 334 F 32) may indicate nothing more than the sympathy between him and Eubulus. Again, if men were exiled after the Peace (I.G. ii2. 33, 37), whether for real or pretended breaches of the Peace, that argues nothing about whether there was a clause about recall in the Peace itself. It may be added that, if there were such a clause in 387/6, it may well have been repeated in renewals of the Peace. The long exile of Theopompus of Chios (F.G.H. 115 T 2) is not relevant. For all we know he could have been exiled ἐπὶ λακωνισμῷ in the 360s when Chios had to choose between Sparta and Thebes.

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The Foundation of the Second Athenian Confederacy1 To sum up, the hypothesis of a clause about recall of exiles in 387/6 does not seem clearly false. There may have been a longish history behind the clause of the League of Corinth of Dem. 17. 15. (45) Hence perhaps the severity of the penalties. Σϕαγϵῖς and οἱ μϵταίτιοι (Xen. 5. 1. 34) under the Peace deserved death, despite the fact that, by going out shortly after πανδημϵί, the Athenians might seem to have approved of assisting the Liberation. (46) A difficulty remains. In the decree of Aristotle of 377 lines 12–14 were erased, but enough remains of line 14 to show that probably there was an allusion to the Great King. Accame (La lega, pp. 49–52) supplemented the lines in such a way as to make them profess an intention to maintain the King’s Peace, and, if he were correct, the view that Athens denounced the Peace after the acquittal of Sphodrias could not stand. However, as his description of the traces makes clear and examination of the stone and of squeezes confirms, his readings are far from secure. In particular the seventh letter of βασιλϵύς is not legible, and the upright stroke immediately preceding may well have been a ρ. So the line may have read ὑπὲρ βασιλέως κατὰ τὰς συνθήκας, and the clause have been concerned not to assert an intention to maintain the Peace, but to condemn Sparta for acting on behalf of the King under the treaty in a manner improper to the hegemonic power. With the peace of 375 and the new arrangements for shared hegemony such a clause would have seemed out of date, and since the stele was to remain after 375 the place where the names of new members were to be inscribed, the clause was erased. Cf. Accame, ibid., p. 150 for a similar suggestion. (It may be added that the traces of line 12 are far too uncertain to permit secure supplement, and it would be better if editors would cease reproducing Accame’s text.)

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Notes on the Failure of the Second Athenian Confederacy

Cyrene to Chaeronea: Selected Essays on Ancient Greek History George Cawkwell

Print publication date: 2011 Print ISBN-13: 9780199593286 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199593286.001.0001

Notes on the Failure of the Second Athenian Confederacy George Cawkwell

DOI:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199593286.003.0012

Abstract and Keywords This chapter attempts to elucidate the question of why the Second Athenian Confederacy failed. It argues that the Social War was the real turning point and it is proper to see its conclusion as the failure of the Confederacy. Topics discussed cover the blütezeit of the Confederacy, 378–371; the continuation of the Confederacy after Leuktra; the synedrion; the growth of imperial institutions; and the outbreak of the Social War. Keywords:   Second Athenian Confederacy, Social War, Leuktra, synedrion, imperial institutions

In one sense the Second Athenian Confederacy1 did not fail. It was simply abolished in 338 by Philip in the Peace of Demades (Paus. i 25.3), but up till then it continued actively enough. In 346 we see the synedrion engaged in the deliberations on the Peace of Philokrates (Aisch. ii 60, 86; iii 69–70, 74); a Tenedian went on both the embassies to Philip, representing the allies (Aisch. ii 20, 97, 126); the Peace was made by Philip with Athens and her allies, that is, the Confederacy. In 346 Mytilene chose to resume membership (GHI 168 = Harding 83) and in 343 the synedroi were available in Athens to give evidence about the events of 346 (Aisch. ii 86). In the later 340s, as the 58th speech of the Demosthenic Corpus shows (cf. §§37–8, 53–6), the machinery of the Confederacy continued to work, and the impression gained from (p.213) the two surviving decrees which concern the Tenedians (GHI 175 = RO 72, and IG ii2 232) is of willing co-operation between allies and hegemon.

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Notes on the Failure of the Second Athenian Confederacy However, it seems plain enough that after the Social War the Confederacy was of very little importance. Syntaxeis continued to be paid, and collected by generals,2 but, for the rest, apart from the events of 346 the Confederacy is conspicuously absent. I do not refer to the absence of the allies from what we know of the military operations of this period. They are indeed absent from the various relief forces sent to Olynthos in 349/8 (Philoch. FF 49–51), just as they appear to be absent from the operations of 341 (Philoch. FF 159, 160) and for that matter from the attempt to save Euboia in 348 (cf. Plut. Phok. 12). Demosthenes in the First Philippic outlined plans for the conduct of the war for Amphipolis, in which the allies make no appearance whatsoever. But this is not important. Athens had plenty of ships; they were needed to get soldiers to the north, but the war was not really a naval war and, speaking generally, she used mercenaries; all she needed from the allies was money to pay them, which she got. Indeed, there is no evidence that Athens relied on allied military aid in the 360s.3 What is remarkable is the total omission of any reference to the Confederacy in the symbouleutic speeches of the period. One would have thought, for instance, that the attitude of the synedrion was relevant in the discussion of the Rhodian appeal in 351/0. Some had argued for just dealing, in accordance with the terms of the Peace made at the end of the Social War (Dem. xv 25–9). Demosthenes dismissed the argument, not by declaring that the allies favoured help for the Rhodian democrats, nor by arguing that to help the Rhodians would be congenial and useful to the Confederacy, but simply by denying that the ‘just’ argument had any force; the allies of the Confederacy did not come into it. Likewise in his passionate appeals of the late 340s when he was trying to arouse both his fellow-citizens and his fellow Greeks, one looks in vain for (p.214) any argument based on the attitude or usefulness of the Confederacy. The truth is that for almost two decades the Confederacy merely survived, of little importance in its own eyes or the Athenians’ or anyone else’s. It was not so before the Social War. When Epameinondas broached his plans for Theban naval hegemony (Diod. xv 78.4, 79.1–2), he declared that Thebes could be as Sparta was in the Persian Wars, possessing few ships herself but commanding a large allied naval force, and the appeals he directed to Rhodes, Chios, and Byzantium were presumably made to the cities which would provide the necessary ships.4 It is unclear how many these actually were in the 360s. The great days of Rhodian naval power were yet to come (cf. Polyb. iv 47.1 for the third century), and the only precise evidence for the fourth century is of small squadrons of ten ships only (Arr. Anab. ii 20, Diod. xix 77.2). Likewise for Chios precision is lacking. But in the Social War the Chians, Rhodians, and Byzantines ‘with their allies’ put out a combined fleet of one hundred ships (Diod. xvi 21.2) and presumably this was not their full strength. How much ‘the allies’, notably Mausolos, contributed is unknown; there is much uncertainty about the fleet of one hundred ships he is said to have had in the mid-360s (Xen. Ages. 2.26) and in any case they are unlikely to have survived the economies of Page 2 of 26

Notes on the Failure of the Second Athenian Confederacy Artaxerxes Ochus at the start of his reign (Schol. Dem. iv 19). So the fleet of one hundred ships that confronted Chares in 356 (Diod. loc. cit.) was probably very largely provided by the revolting members of the Confederacy, and represents faithfully enough the power which Epameinondas hoped to win over. Whether other members maintained fleets of any magnitude is uncertain.5 Epameinondas may have appealed only to those from whom he could expect a favourable reception. The Mytilenaians had shared in the war against Sparta (GHI 131 = RO 31), presumably on sea, and perhaps still had ships, even if Athens did not call on her to use them. There was at any rate still sufficient military potential in the Confederacy to make it a considerable force politically. The Social War was the (p.215) real turning point and it is proper to see its conclusion as the failure of the Confederacy. Why then did it fail? The evidence is scrappy, its significance often unclear, and no firm answer can be given. But points can be made and the area of uncertainty delimited. The following notes aim to elucidate, if not fully answer, the question why the Confederacy failed.

The BlÜTezeit of the Confederacy, 378-371 Until Leuktra, the Confederacy flourished, reaching its largest by 373, by voluntary, not compulsory, additions; and furthermore there is no sign that the compact of 378/7 was not honoured. That is the burden of this note. The history of the extension of the Confederacy is to be traced in the listing of the names on the stele recording the decree of Aristotle (GHI 123 = RO 22), but only incompletely, for there were recorded no more than 58 names whereas, if we may trust Diodoros, there were in all 75 members.6 When did the cities whose names are not recorded enter the Confederacy? If the names listed on the left side of the stele represent the adhesions of 373 as well as 375, almost inevitably one is forced to the conclusion that the Confederacy continued to grow after Leuktra, but if they represent only 375, the Confederacy may well have reached its largest by Leuktra. In either case the problem remains of why the missing names were not recorded. Since Accame’s full (and masterly) discussion, two important points have been made. The first concerns the entry ‘the demos of the Zakynthians which is in Nellos’, which is the last of the names on the left side but at a considerable interval below the one above it and exactly aligned with the first names recorded on the front face. It was supposed that this entry furnished a terminus ante quem for all the adhesions recorded on the left face, but its place suggests rather that it was put there on the stele because it would not fit into the space on the front provided by the original stone-cutter and before the cutting of (p.216) other names on the left face was even contemplated.7 The second point concerns the entry at the top of the left face. The casually accepted supplement of ‘the demos of the Kerkyraians’ has been shown to be impossible.8 There is Page 3 of 26

Notes on the Failure of the Second Athenian Confederacy simply insufficient space on the stone for the supplementation of —]ραίων to read [Kϵρκν]ραίων, and this must be abandoned. Coleman and Bradeen suggested that the right supplementation is [Θη] ραίων and it is hard to imagine what else it could have been. There is some reason to believe that Thera did at some moment become a member,9 and there is no other name known of the right length, which is remotely probable. But what has happened to Kerkyra, the acquisition of which by Timotheos is placed by Xenophon (Hell. v 4.64) in 375 before the battle of Alyzeia? Furthermore, a decree of the second prytany of 375/4 (say, August 375) authorised the addition of the names of the Kerkyraians, Akarnanians, and Kephallenians to ‘the common stele of the allies’ (GHI 126 = RO 24). The ‘Akarnanians’ and ‘Pronnoi of the Kephallenians’ are successive entries. What has happened to the Kerkyraians? It is hard to believe that they were simply omitted. The instructions of the Athenian demos were not lightly to be disregarded. It seems better to find a place on the stone for Kerkyra, and in view of the power and importance of that city one may suggest that a place was found on the front face of the stele, where the word Κϵρκυραῖοι was easily fitted in. Nor does this suggestion corrupt the argument from the position of the entry concerning Zakynthos, which was too large to be fitted into the space available on the front. The adhesion of the Zakynthian demos in Nellos can still be supposed to have been prior to the events of 375 which the left side reflects. But does the listing of names on the left side reflect the events of 375 only? Or does it contain names relating to 373 as well? The starting point of the discussion is still what it has been for ninety years10—viz. that all the names above the Zakynthian entry were cut by the same stone-cutter. As far as I know this has never been challenged, save on one minor point. Coleman and Bradeen asserted11 that the first entry ‘is in a different hand from the names (p.217) below it’; if this is correct, it supports their proposed restoration of Thera, which would in all likelihood have joined in the year of the battle of Naxos rather than in 375, if it joined at all in this period.12 But, for the rest, the start of the problem remains the same, until it is challenged by an expert epigraphist. All the names in question were cut by the same hand. Were they cut at much the same time? It has been freely presumed that in the listing of these names one may trace the progress of Athenian generals through the waters of the Aegean and the Ionian Sea.13 Since at the top of the left side there are a number of north Aegean cities (Abdera, Thasos, the Chalkidians of Thrace, Ainos, Samothrace, and Dikaiopolis14), then at the bottom another group which contains Elaious, Selymbria, Dion, Neapolis with Cycladic names interspersed, and a bit further up the two Lesbian cities of Antissa and Eresos, the theory has been held that the left side reflects two separate expeditions into Aegean waters, that of Chabrias in early 375 (Diod. xv 36) and that of Timotheos in 373 (Diod. xv Page 4 of 26

Notes on the Failure of the Second Athenian Confederacy 47.2).15 The presumption is unjustified. There must have been some voluntary accessions. If Accame is right in his denial that there was a city of Euboia named Arethousa (and certainly apart from a dubitable reference in Stephanus Byzantinus no such city in Euboia is ever so much as mentioned), and if the Arethousa known to us as inland in the Thracian region is the city named between Eretria and Karystos on the front face,16 it must have joined of its own accord, for no recorded or conceivable Athenian expedition is in the least likely to have penetrated that far from the coast. Again if the Ikians of line 84 did not join voluntarily, one would expect to find them in the group of names that contains their neighbours, the Peparethians and the Skiathians. One must remark too the fitfulness of the accessions from northern waters. If Perinthos and Maroneia were the fruits of some recruiting voyage, one would expect Selymbria, twenty miles (p.218) along the coast from the former, and Abdera, again twenty miles from the latter, to be recruited at the same moment, but Perinthos and Maroneia joined, it would seem, in 376 or earlier, and Selymbria and Abdera in 375 or later. The basis of the Confederacy, at least in its earliest phase, was voluntary (cf. lines 15–19 of the decree of Aristotle). The Euboian states joined ‘most eagerly’ and the expedition sent out under Chabrias in 377 was to protect allies already enrolled, not to coerce the recalcitrant (Diod. xv 30 and cf. GHI 124 = Harding 23. 10–13). Indeed the presence of Hestiaia amongst the names on the left side is suggestive. In 377 Chabrias ravaged the territory of Hes-tiaia, which was at that moment pro-Spartan in sympathy, and established a garrison at a nearby strong-point (Diod. xv 30), but no recorded expedition is linked with Hestiaia in 375 and it seems likely that the city acceded to the Confederacy of its own free choice. Thus the attempt closely to link the names listed on the left side with the two known expeditions of Chabrias in the northern Aegean should be abandoned. We may be confronted by a large number of voluntary accessions which sufficiently closely coincided in time to be engraved at much the same moment by the same stone-cutter’s chisel. Indeed it is somewhat more likely that the same hand cut this group of names at much the same time than in two different years. The groups of names on the front face were not assigned to the same stone-cutter, and good reason would have to be given for holding that there are two temporally distinct groups on the left side cut by the same hand. No good reason has, to my mind, been advanced. It is true that, if all the names belong to 375, the cities won over by Timotheos in 373 were not recorded, but the Athenians stopped recording at some time, which may as well have been after 375 as after 373. There is, after all, a satisfactory explanation of why so many cities should have joined in 375, and at much the same moment. The decree of alliance with Kerkyra, Akarnania, and Kephallenia (GHI 126 = RO 24) was passed in the second prytany of 375/4, that is, some time after the sixth day of Metageitnion. The festival of Peace, which seems to have celebrated Athens’ great triumph, coincided with the festival of the Synoikia which fell on the sixteenth of Page 5 of 26

Notes on the Failure of the Second Athenian Confederacy Hekatombaion (Schol. Ar. Pax 1019), and, if it is right to suppose that that day was chosen because the Peace was concluded at Sparta on that day or shortly before,17 the (p.219) two Athenian ambassadors who went directly from Sparta to recall Timotheos (Xen. Hell. vi 2.2) would have got him back to Athens in Metageitnion, bringing with him, just as he brought in 373 (Diod. xv 47.3), the ambassadors of the cities that wished to join the Confederacy. Shortly before, at the festival of the Panathenaia, held in the last days of Hekatombaion,18 the ambassadors of other cities wishing to join may have been present to seek admission when normal business resumed. The Peace of 375 was a renewal of the King’s Peace (Philoch. F 151), and a general summons to Sparta to hear the Royal Rescript was probably enough issued earlier in 375. Experience of how Sparta had conducted herself under the King’s Peace could well have suggested to a wide range of Greek cities that if the King’s Peace was to be renewed it would be well to join the Second Athenian Confederacy which had begun during that peace, and those who attended Sparta for the Peace but wished also to join the Confederacy could well have passed almost in a body to Athens. The news of Timotheos’ great victory at Alyzeia on the twelfth of Skirophorion, which played so decisive a part in securing Athens a position in the Peace which she had lacked in 387/6, would have done nothing to check their enthusiasm. If the Athenian fleet was to have free range of the Aegean, it would be even better sense to seek the protection of the provisions of the decree of Aristotle. Thus one can well understand how and why so many states should be applying at much the same moment for membership, and so engaging the chisel of the man who engraved the names of the left side. An argument of a sort in favour of some of the accessions falling in 373 has been derived from the erased name in line 111. If that name was indeed Jason, and if Jason did, shortly before spring 375, say what Polydamas of Pharsalos is represented by Xenophon (Hell. vi 1.10) as saying that Jason said, his decision within a few months to join the Confederacy would, it has been thought, be so unlikely as to make it probable that he joined in 373. This argument seems to me quite unsound, though both its premises are in my view correct. About the membership of Jason opinion has greatly divided.19 According to the latest utterance,20 ‘Woodhead [AJA lxi (1957) 367ff.] shows (p.220) conclusively that there is really no good reason for thinking that the restoration of Jason…can possibly be right’, ‘Jason was never a member’. But the names on the left side are not stoichedon, and occupy varying amounts of space per letter.21 Consideration of spaces ‘shows conclusively’ nothing, and there is a strong probability that Jason and Alketas, who were both allies according to Apollodorus (Dem. xlix 10), were allies of the same sort. So it remains probable enough that the name below Alketas and his son Neoptolemos was indeed Jason. Nor is the argument that Xenophon has misplaced the appeal of Polydamas persuasive. Polydamas, as Spartan proxenos (Xen. Hell. vi 1.4), was probably enough a familiar figure at Sparta and so known to Xenophon. It is notable that Page 6 of 26

Notes on the Failure of the Second Athenian Confederacy such Thessalian history of the 370s as gets into the Hellenica is Pharsalian or, rather, seen through Pharsalian eyes, which suggests that Polydamas and his family were the source of Xenophon’s information.22 So one would need good reason to argue that the Pharsalian appeal is misplaced. The argument is, in fact, rather the other way. Jason was an ally of Athens of some sort or other by 373 (Dem. loc. cit.), and the remark credited to Jason about not wanting alliance with Athens would be inexplicable in a speech of 372/1. Nor is much attention due to the claim made by Jason, as reported and endorsed by Polydamas, to the effect that the Dolopians and Alketas, ‘the subordinate commander in Epeiros’ (ὕπαρχος), were ‘subject to him’ (Xen. Hell. vi 1.7). Until Jason got control of Pharsalos and indeed was appointed tagos, his chances of ‘subjecting’ anyone across the Pindos range were slight. Perhaps Polydamas was concerned to paint the menace of Jason as vividly as he could. In any case the remark about Alketas is not an argument for putting the speech in 372/1 rather than in 375; whenever it was made, Jason had not yet become tagos (Xen. Hell. vi 1.18). Polydamas’ appeal, therefore, should be left where Xenophon put it, viz. in early 375. Whether at much the same time, as Xenophon would have us believe (Hell. vi 2.2), the Phokians also appealed to Sparta and Kleombrotos was sent out with two thirds of the league army, or not, is an entirely separate question, which can here be left out of account.23 (p.221) But if, as I have just argued, Jason was the name erased and Polydamas did in 375 report him as saying that, although the Athenians ‘would do anything’ to become his ally, he did not think he could ‘form a friendship’ with them, it by no means follows that his conversion to alliance, which in some form or other certainly did happen, could not have been quite swift. Jason was a man of big ideas (Xen. Hell. vi 4.31) and big talk (Isok. v 119), but he had a head for politics. He saw on the battlefield of Leuktra that it was to his advantage that the conflict should not be renewed and that Thebes and Sparta should continue to have each other to fear (Xen. Hell. vi 4.22–4). He could equally well have seen that if there was to be a renewal of the King’s Peace he had better join in it and, for extra security, the Second Athenian Confederacy as well. Thus there is no proper inference to be drawn from the erasure that would require some of the names on the left side of the decree of Aristotle to represent the fruits of Timotheos’ campaign of 373. The onus of proof is on those who would argue that the names cut by the same hand were cut at two different times. Until more cogent proof is forthcoming it should be conceded that in all likelihood no names were added to the stele of the decree of Aristotle after autumn 375. (p.222) Two questions therefore arise. First, when did the unrecorded accessions occur? Secondly, why did the Athenians cease to keep the stele up to date? Neither can, I fear, be surely answered.

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Notes on the Failure of the Second Athenian Confederacy About seventeen are missing from the stele (see above). They could well all have joined before Leuktra, just as some certainly did (Diod. xv 47.3). If so, they need not all have joined in 373; volunteers could well have come forward in 372; the peaceful period immediately after the Peace of 375 is perhaps unlikely. But the crucial question is whether there were members added after Leuktra. Accame24 confidently assumed that the places captured by Timotheos in the north Aegean in the 360s but not visited with cleruchies were incorporated in the Confederacy. The list of names of cities he captured in the 360s known to us are these: Samos, Krithote, Sestos, Poteidaia, Torone, Pydna, and Methone. (Prokonnesos is explicitly described as an ally of Athens ([Dem.] l 5), but the alliance may well have been made in the 370s, and there is nothing to connect Timotheos with its ‘capture’.) Of those on Accame’s list, although one cannot be sure, it seems hardly likely that any entered the Confederacy. Samos Philip allowed Athens to keep under the Peace of Demades (Diod. xviii 56), when he required the dissolution of the Confederacy; if she had been a member, her exceptional treatment deserved some remark, but there is none (cf. Paus. i 25.3). Krithote and Sestos, being in the Chersonese, were parts of what ‘the King and all the Greeks decided was yours’ (ὑμϵτέραν) (Dem. ix 16; cf. vii 40); allied status, rather than possession, seems improbable.25 The case of Poteidaia is more obscure, but neither of the decrees touching it gives the faintest hint of membership (GHI 146 = Harding 58, IG ii2 118). Torone was forced by siege to come to terms (Polyain. iii 10.15); of what sort, we can only conjecture. Of Pydna and Methone no more is known beyond the fact that they were captured (Din. i 14, etc.). But there is no hint anywhere that any of the cities were members of the Confederacy. Demosthenes, not necessarily nice about such matters, flatly declared that the Athenians ‘once held Pydna, Poteidaia, Methone and this (p. 223) whole surrounding area’ (iv 4), no more. Presumably alliances were made (Dem. iii 28 and Schol.), but they may have remained outside the Confederacy. It cannot be proved, unhappily, but, until positive evidence emerges to the contrary, one may posit that after Leuktra no additions were made to the Confederacy. Why then did the Athenians cease after autumn 375 to record the names of new members? Or rather, since that question cannot be more than very conjecturally answered, what is the significance of their ceasing? They certainly did not utterly cease to regard the stele, for they took the trouble to have a name erased and, if that name was indeed Jason, they did so after his visit to Athens as ally in 373 (Dem. xlix 10), perhaps when he died in 370 (Xen. Hell. vi 4.30–31).26 Nor does their leaving the entry ‘Thebans’ on the stone argue indifference. They may deliberately have left it as a way of showing that Athens did not recognise the existence of the Boiotian state. So the stele was not utterly forgotten after the 370s.27

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Notes on the Failure of the Second Athenian Confederacy The only answer one can give is that their neglecting to record the names of 373 does not necessarily mean that the Confederacy had become of secondary importance. It is an error to subject Athenian practices to the sort of scrutiny appropriate to a state with developed chancellery procedures. One has only to look at the great variety of form in the documents of the first Athenian Empire to see that the demos did not assert itself in consistent form, let alone in consistent policy. Much depended on the chance of who actually drafted a decree. Indeed in the very period here under discussion there is a striking instance. GHI 127 (= Harding 42) is a crucial document for understanding how the Second Athenian Confederacy worked, but its form is very odd. Kerkyra had been admitted to membership of the Confederacy by a decree, which ordered the name to be added to ‘the common stele’ (GHI 126 = RO 24. 14). Each city was to share in the synedrion ‘in accordance with the decrees of the allies’ (lines 22–4). What need then for a separate, undated document spelling out precisely what all this entailed? Yet, bafflingly, we have it and it is, as far as we know, unique. What was done for Kerkyra could have been done for the (p.224) cities acceding later, but the men responsible may simply have neglected to do what they had done for Kerkyra, viz. require that ‘the common stele’ bear the record. One may compare the variation of form between the Chalkis alliance of 377 (GHI 124 = Harding 38) and the decree of alliance with Kerkyra, Akarnania, and Kephallenia (GHI 126 = RO 24). The Chalkis decree ordered (line 15) one copy of the decree to be placed on the Acropolis, no more, and therefore what might seem a duplicate of it (IG ii2 155, as reread by Schweigert, Hesp. vii [1938] 626) cannot be so, and is like to be, as Schweigert opined, part of a decree about another Euboian state presented on the same day. Why did the Athenians not treat Kerkyra separately as they treated Chalkis separately? The answer is likely that those responsible simply happened not to do so. So it is not necessarily indicative of a great change in Athens’ attitude to the Confederacy that she ceased to record the names of new members. One may add that there is no evidence that Athens trampled on her principles before Leuktra. A fragmentary decree (IG ii2 98, republished most recently by Bengtson, Staatsverträge ii no. 267) strongly suggests that there were garrisons on Kephallenia in this period and ‘supervisors’ (ἐπιμϵληταί), but this does not prove what at first sight it might seem to. The decree of alliance with Kephallenia (GHI 126 = RO 24) spoke of ‘Kephallenians’ without qualification,28 but what was actually recorded on ‘the common stele’ was ‘Pronnoi of the Kephallenians’. Something had gone wrong. Timotheos had taken all the cities (Diod. xv 36.5), and when the decree of alliance was drafted it was presumed that all would accept membership of the Confederacy, but only one city in the event did. It was left to Iphikrates in 372 to ‘subject the cities in Kephallenia’, and some were still ‘recalcitrant’ shortly afterwards (Xen. Hell. vi 2.33, 38). There was need for garrisons and ‘supervisors’ (which were removed under the Peace of 372/1-ibid. vi 4.1). Their presence proves nothing about the Page 9 of 26

Notes on the Failure of the Second Athenian Confederacy Confederacy. One other negative point may be made. There is no justification for assigning to the peace conference of 375 the Hellenic decree recognising Athens’ right to take Amphipolis (Aisch. ii 32). In 374 Athens was free to commence the attempt, but she did not do so until 368 (see below). Not only so, but it would seem that after the Peace of 375 it was widely presumed among those who were available for hire (p.225) as rowers that there would be no work for them: when in 373 Timotheos was ordered to take out a fleet of sixty triremes, he could not completely man them in the Peiraieus (Xen. Hell. vi 2.12);29 if a war for Amphipolis was in prospect, there was every reason for these rowers to stay in Athens. Wherever this decree of the Hellenes is to be put, it is not before 371. Athens did not in the 370s begin to concentrate her energies and policies on the recovery of Amphipolis. Indeed in the late 370s the Confederacy was flourishing. It attained its largest membership. The synedrion was handling the business of the allies under the chairmanship of one of the synedroi.30 The allies were taking their share of the war, not just the Thebans (Dem. xlix 14, IG ii2 1607.49, 155) but also the Mytilenaians, who in 369/8 were praised because they ‘nobly and with the greatest enthusiasm shared in fighting the last war to the finish’ (GHI 131 = RO 31. 37). Contributions (syntaxeis) were being paid (Dem. xlix 49). States were still willing to come over to Athens of their own accord (Xen. Hell. vi 2.38). At the Peace before Leuktra each individual member swore the oaths (ibid. vi 3.19), and the motive alleged by Xenophon for the Athenian summons to the Peace after Leuktra suggests that vis-à-vis her allies in 371 Athens’ was a posture of great rectitude (ibid. vi 5.1). There are no signs of ‘failure’ in the 370s.

The Continuation of the Confederacy after Leuktra Athenian desire to recover her fifth century imperial power is a major theme of the fourth. The desire is clear, though the individuals most concerned can be only most tentatively conjectured. But this large topic is here not under discussion. Rather, the concern is with the reaction of members of the Confederacy to Athenian changes of policy. The Confederacy had been formed to force Sparta to respect the freedom of the Greeks. After Leuktra its raison d’être was gone. Sparta was not, nor was she likely in the foreseeable future to be, in a position (p.226) to menace the liberty of anyone outside the Peloponnese. Late in 370 there came a crisis. The Arcadians appealed to Athens for help against Sparta (Diod. xv 62.3, Dem. xvi 12). Rejected, they appealed to the Thebans who accepted the alliance, and shortly Epameinondas was marching into the Peloponnese at the head of a huge army, which included ‘Euboians from all the cities’ as well as Akarnanians (Xen. Hell. vi 5.23). Thebes had become the champion of Greek liberty, a role made the clearer when Athens actually made alliance with Sparta (ibid. vi 5.49), and some of the Confederacy were prepared to follow Thebes. But why did not all the

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Notes on the Failure of the Second Athenian Confederacy members abandon Athens’ leadership even if they were in no position, or disinclined, to follow the Thebans? No echo of any debate survives. But it is to be noted that decisions concerning peace and war were, in the formalities described by the document recording the Kerkyra alliance (GHI 127 = Harding 42), to be made by Athens only in accordance with the consent of the allied synedrion, that the synedrion certainly operated in this period (see below; cf. GHI 133 = RO 33. 11–13), that therefore it may well have been the case that the Arcadian alliance was turned down, and the Spartan alliance made, with the consent of a majority of the allies. Only states accessible to Theban help, however, could dare to abandon the league, and what the Akarnanians and Euboians did, others may well have wished to do. But, as may be inferred from the tone and terms of the Athenian decree replying to a Mytilenaian embassy in 368 (GHI 131 = RO 31; for date see below), in winter 370/69 there had been no mass protest against the new Athenian policy, and, before one discusses why the Confederacy declined, one had better ask why it endured, as it would seem, complacently enough. Why, indeed, did the members continue to pay syntaxeis to Athens? Or, rather, if the answer to that question is that Athens forced them to pay, on what pretext did Athens continue to exact? They had been introduced, probably after 373,31 to finance the common effort against Sparta. Now that that effort was a thing of the (p.227) past, what reason could Athens advance for continuing to exact them, if she was to avoid vexatious wrangling with the allied synedrion? The only answer that presents itself seems to be that from 371 syntaxeis were regarded as funding Athenian ships policing the Aegean. Such policing was indeed necessary.32 The piracy encountered in the later 350s and the 340s was often used by Philip or against Philip, but it is clear that there were a great number of pirates and that it was necessary to maintain ‘the guard by sea’, ‘the guard against the pirates’ ([Dem.] vii 14–15). In the period immediately preceding the foundation of the Confederacy, pirates had made merry (Isok. iv 115), and the Athenian navy was necessary. The navy list of 370/69 (IG ii2 1609; see below) attests considerable naval activity before the war for Amphipolis began, and one must imagine that in addition to the scantily attested naval operations of the 360s and 350s ‘the guard by sea’ was regularly maintained. When Leosthenes was blockading the harbour on Peparethos, he sent out appeals for help to Samos, Thasos, and the Hellespont (Polyain. vi 2.1); naval forces based on the two latter is no surprise, but that there were naval forces in Samos in 361 is surprising, and points to widespread routine patrolling.33 So regular protection against piracy was a considerable advantage. In addition, there were the more organised dangers to navigation presented by the marauding of an Alexander of Pherai or of a hostile neighbour like Kyzikos ([Dem.] l 5), or again by states which in time of corn shortage would interfere with other states’ supplies ([Dem.] l 20, 21). There was Page 11 of 26

Notes on the Failure of the Second Athenian Confederacy real advantage for a Tenos, a Prokonnesos, or a Maroneia in being able to seek the aid of the Athenian navy. The members of the Confederacy no doubt realised in 370 that they would have to go on paying if they were to be moderately secure. But there was a more important bond. The Confederacy was in large measure a union of democracies. In the list of the members on the decree of Aristotle two are specially designated ‘the demos (p.228) of…’ The document of alliance with Kerkyra is headed ‘Alliance of Kerkyraians and Athenians’, but the oaths exchanged make clear it is the two democracies which are exchanging guarantees (GHI 127= Harding 42). The chances of epigraphical survival shows us that there was democracy in Andros and Amorgos (GHI 152 = RO 51, 156 = RO 52).34 Since in the speech of Kallistratos at Sparta in 371, at least in the version of Xenophon (Hell. vi 3.14), every city was divided between supporters of Sparta and supporters of Athens, it is reasonable to suppose that the Confederacy was in large measure homogeneous in constitution. In the Politics (1307b19–24) Aristotle asserted a general rule concerning assimilation of constitutions, and he was not concerning himself only with the fifth century when he asserted that ‘the Athenians everywhere dissolved oligarchies’. Thus there were reasons for the Confederacy to cohere, and in addition the members had, as far as we can see, no great reason for discontent with Athens’ performance of her promises made at the inception of the Confederacy.

The Synedrion The working of the synedrion is an obscure subject.35 In the treaty of alliance between Athens and Kerkyra (GHI 127 = Harding 42), from which all discussion of the synedrion must proceed, there is a distinction made between procedure in the business of peace and war and procedure in ‘the other things’. In the former cases the Athenians and the Kerkyraians both bind themselves to act only in accordance with the joint decision of ‘the Athenians and the majority of the allies’. There is no obscurity about this.36 There have survived two (p.229) inscriptions which make plain the process whereby a decree of the allied synedrion is put before the Athenian demos with the Athenian council as intermediary (GHI 133 = RO 33, 144 = RO 41), and the two speeches of Aischines concerning the making of the Peace of Philok-rates fill in the detail (cf. esp. ii 60, 61, 85, 86, iii 69–75). As Accame rightly remarked,37 the process is the reverse of what happened in the Peloponnesian League as it is to be seen in the first book of Thucydides, where Sparta proposes and the league assembly disposes. All that is clear. But the procedure in respect of ‘the other matters’ is not. The attempt has been made to confine what evidence we have to the straitjacket of the procedure for making peace and war. By happy chance part of a decree of the allied synedrion survives (Accame 230 = RO 29). It is dated by an Attic Page 12 of 26

Notes on the Failure of the Second Athenian Confederacy archon and an Attic month. Then ‘under the chairmanship of the Theban, it was decided by the allies…’. The decree which follows appears to concern the settlement of the internal troubles of Paros, and to match perfectly the phrase in the Athenian decree above it, viz. ‘the settlement (διαλλαγαί) which the allies made for [or ‘with’—see below] the Parians’. Accame is persuaded that this decree of the allied synedrion had been ratified by the Athenian council and the Athenian assembly.38 In this way a most illuminating piece of evidence is plunged into darkness. The distinction between matters of peace and war and ‘the other things’ (τἆλλα) made in the Kerkyra alliance must be maintained. The Kerkyraians swear thus: ‘Concerning war and peace I will act according to whatever seems good to the Athenians and the majority of the allies (καθóτι κα Ἀθηναίοις καὶ τῶν συμμάχων δοκῆι), and I will do the other things in accordance with the decrees of the Athenians and their allies (κατὰ τὰ δόγματα τὰ Ἀθηναίων καὶ τῶν συμμάχων). What is behind this distinction? Was not ‘whatever seems good to the Athenians and the majority of the allies’ ‘a decree of the Athenians and their allies’? I propose that the point of the distinction is that ‘the other things’ were to be dealt with in accordance with the decrees, the decrees which in 378 prescribed the working of the Confederacy. One may find confirmation of this view in the Chalkis alliance of early 377 (GHI 124 = Harding 38), where the phrases of the decree of Aristotle spelling out what freedom and autonomy in the Confederacy meant (p.230) (‘not receiving a garrison from the Athenians, not paying tribute, not admitting an archon’) are followed by the words, ‘contrary to the decrees of the allies’. It is almost inconceivable that at that early date, not many weeks after the grand renunciation of the decree of Aristotle, circumstances were envisaged in which garrisons, tribute, archontes might be established in member states with the approval of the allies. What this phrase means in the Chalkis alliance is, I propose, ‘in contravention of the Decrees which have constituted the Confederacy’. Later, of course, this sense was not maintained. In a decree of 357/6 (GHI 156 = RO 52) provision was made for the garrison in Andros to be paid out of the syntaxeis ‘in accordance with the decrees of the allies’, which refers not to the decrees but to such decrees of the synedrion as that by which approval was given to a decree of the people of Arkesine in Amorgos (GHI 152 = RO 51. 25). But this was twenty years or so after the firmprincipled beginnings of the Confederacy, when members had been well aware of the decrees. Now we do not know what these constituting Decrees were. There may indeed have been quite varied procedures for different matters. In some cases, as in the Parian settlement the allies acted on their own, but in other cases the same procedure as for matters of peace and war may have been followed, or the reverse procedure, viz. Athens proposing to the allied synedrion, which may be the truth behind how Moirokles is said to have got his decree about the control Page 13 of 26

Notes on the Failure of the Second Athenian Confederacy of piracy passed (Dem. lviii 53–6).39 The presumption that there was a uniform method of procedure in the Confederacy is wholly unjustified. We have decrees of the Athenians ratifying proposals of the allies. We have decrees of the allies and the allies alone. The two groups represent the fundamental distinction drawn in the Kerkyra alliance. When so much is obscured in the original system, it is practically impossible to say that the Athenians neglected or rode roughshod over the formal procedure of the Confederacy. As to decisions of peace and war, the synedrion certainly continued to play its part as we see it doing in 368, 362/1, and 346 (GHI 133 = RO 33, 144 = RO 41, Aisch. ii 60, etc.), and silence is no proof that the allies have been forgotten. For instance, the decree of alliance between Athens and Thessaly of 361/0 (GHI 147 = RO 44) carries no statement of the kind found in the (p.231) alliance with Arcadia (and others) of the previous year (GHI 144 = RO 41) about an allied dogma being brought before the Athenian council, and so on, but since ‘all the allies of the Athenians are to be allies of the Thessalians’ (line 12) they were probably consulted. One has to be extremely cautious about inferring changes of policy at Athens from changes of form. A supreme instance is provided by the decree of alliance with Dionysios of Syracuse in 368/7, which makes absolutely no mention of the allies (GHI 136 = RO 34), but fortunately we have also the earlier decree of mid-368 which makes clear that when Dionysios made the first approach, the response of the Athenian demos was to refer the matter to the allied synedrion. The correct explanation of why the negotiations went ahead may well be that the synedrion signified their approval, and the absence of any mention of the Confederacy in the later document should not be taken to show that Athens was neglecting the allies. The decree begins with a reference to Dionysios’ ‘goodness towards the demos of the Athenians and the allies’, and despite the presumptions of epigraphists it is not clear that the synedroi did not share in the oaths.40 Those who are sceptical about such scepticism should consider what would have been said if lines 57–85 of the Iulis decree of 362 (GHI 142 = RO 39) had not survived. Those lines show that Athens’ allies shared in the making and swearing of the first settlement. Lines 17–19 speak only of ‘the oaths and the treaty which Chabrias made with the Keians and swore to’. Had it not been for the survival of the later part, we would no doubt have been told that by 362 Athens had virtually ceased to bother about the Confederacy and its formal procedures. Thus in decisions of matters of peace and war a somewhat negative judgement is to be made. There is no good reason for asserting that Athens ceased to heed the synedrion of the Confederacy. With regard to ‘the other things’, one is even less able to make any positive judgement. As I have already argued, we do not know what or how variable the procedures were. So it is absurd even to ask whether they were neglected. A superficial case can be made by comparing the dogma of the allies of 372 (Accame 230 = RO 29) with the Iulis decree of 362 (GHI 142 = RO 39); which Page 14 of 26

Notes on the Failure of the Second Athenian Confederacy might suggest that earlier the (p.232) allies settled revolts without the Athenians having any say, whereas by the late 360s Athens was intervening vigorously in such matters. But it is highly dubitable whether the allied dogma of 372 is the settlement of a revolt rather than of internal disturbances. It is described in the Athenian decree, which orders its publication as ‘the settlement (διαλλαγάς) which the allies made for the Parians’,41 and the dogma begins, not with any statement about Paros returning to loyalty and membership of the Confederacy, but with regulations concerning the maintenance of civil order. Thus it is quite wrong to speak of this allied dogma as proof that the allies were managing revolt on their own in the 370s. Indeed the Athenian decree, to which the dogma is appended, appears to concern the Parians alone, or, at any rate, the Parians especially, since in line 6 the reference to ‘colonists’ is probably to the Parians. If we had that full decree, more of a comparison with the Iulis decree might have been properly and profitably made. As things are, all one can assert is that we are in no position to assert that Athens neglected the formal procedures laid down in the early days of the Confederacy.

The Growth of Imperial Institutions It is a commonplace that Athens did not renege on her undertaking of 377 not to settle cleruchies in the territory of those who chose to be members of the Confederacy, and this is probably correct. We know for sure of only two cleruchies, those to Samos and Poteidaia, neither of which were members. Another cleruchy has been alleged on the strength of an entry in the navy-list for 370/69 (IG ii2 1609), but the fact that eleven triremes sailed out ‘during the cleruchic command’ (κληρουχαρχóντων) of two persons does not prove that this was a new cleruchy; probably annually from 387/6 on, ‘cleruchic commanders’ went out to Lemnos, Imbros, and Skyros with some ships, though only for 370/69 was the fact recorded on a bit of stone that has chanced to survive (cf. Arist. Ath. Pol. 62.2).42 So until more solid evidence turns up we will have to content ourselves with the two (p.233) cleruchies mentioned, though it must be remarked that it is only by chance of epigraphic survival that we know of the cleruchy to Poteidaia. The Samian cleruchy, as the first, raised a serious question of principle and was perhaps tensely debated (Arist. Rhet. 1384b32–5). The Poteidaian colony seems to have been by invitation of some sort (GHI 146 = Harding 58. 5, 10) and left no mark in our literary sources, and there may well have been others.43 But as yet, there is no reason to think that the promise of the decree of Aristotle was not kept. Other infringements of autonomy, however, there certainly were. There is considerable uncertainty about syntaxeis. We never hear precisely of such monies being brought to Athens, and there are a number of precise pieces of evidence of Athenian generals collecting in the course of operations.44 Indeed when Demosthenes asserted that the generals ‘with one or two ships take less money, those with a great force take more’ (viii 25), he may, while hitting at the rapacity of the generals, have given the clue to what the system was, viz. that Page 15 of 26

Notes on the Failure of the Second Athenian Confederacy commanders could draw their expenses on campaign from members, up to an assessed amount.45 In this way it could be claimed that, unlike the fifth-century empire, the Confederacy gathered money only for services rendered (Dem. loc. cit.).46 But the outcome was much the same. In the early 340s the collection was annual (Aisch. ii 71), and no doubt in the 350s and 360s, for Athens was continually at war. Reluctant states were threatened and pillaged by generals less scrupulous than a Timotheos or a Phokion (Isok. xv 123, Plut. Phok. 7, 11). Compulsion produced resentment (Isok. viii 29). As to those other imperial instruments forsworn at the foundation of the Confederacy, garrisons and governors (archontes), the evidence is slight. From late 362 ([Dem.] l 5) to the end of the Social War, the islands of the Aegean were in danger and needed the reinforcement of a garrison, and the two inscriptions we have reflecting the relations of (p.234) governors and member states suggest some cordiality (GHI 152 = RO 51, GHI 156 = RO 52). The garrison on Andros is dated to 357/6, but there is no firm indication of when Androtion was governor on Amorgos, though the ransoming of prisoners of war with which he is credited (GHI 152 = RO 51. 15) suggests the period of Alexander of Pherai’s depredations. Timarchos, the associate of Demosthenes, however, would appear to have been governor in Andros at some time in the 360s (Aisch. i 107).47 So the garrison and governor of 357/ 6 was perhaps not an innovation in the Social War, and, slight though the evidence is, it suggests that the reversion to fifth-century methods of control may have been quite widespread. Whether Athens sought to revive the full judicial system is quite unsure. Certainly part was revived (cf. GHI 142 = RO 39. 73–5, IG ii2 179), but of the notorious imperial control of ‘political’ cases there is no mention whatsoever.48 It may be confidently enough asserted that in the 360s the Confederacy was in no small measure converted into something resembling the earlier empire. Only cleruchies (and investment and property) in the territory of member states were avoided. Yet curiously the only good evidence we have about the outbreak of the Social War concerns not member states but Athens’ overseas possessions.

The Outbreak of the Social War In the speech On the Liberty of the Rhodians Demosthenes gave an account of the outbreak of the Social War thus (§3): ‘The Chians, the Byzantines, and the Rhodians accused us of plotting against themselves, and for this reason they joined against us in this last war. The man who took the leading part and persuaded them will be found to be Mausolos… ’ Later in the speech (§15) he reverts to the matter: ‘Having resented you getting back what belongs to you (τοῦ κομίσαθαι τὰ ὑμέτϵρ’ὑμῖν ϕθονήσαντϵς), they [sc. the Rhodians] have lost their own liberty.’ This is the sum total of the direct (p.235) evidence, save for the Hypothesis of Isokrates’ oration, On the Peace, which begins thus: ‘Chares was sent to enslave Amphipolis which was autonomous in that period and stood on its own since the Spartans were in a bad way after the Leuktra campaign and Page 16 of 26

Notes on the Failure of the Second Athenian Confederacy the Athenians were weak. Thinking that he would easily capture it some time or other, and wanting to recreate for the Athenians their former power, Chares made an attempt on the Chians and the Rhodians and the rest of the allies (ἐπϵχϵίρησϵ Χίοις καὶ τοῖς λοιποῖς συμμάχοıς). Thereupon they resisted and Chares was defeated… ’ Chares sailed into Athens during the Athenian expedition to liberate Euboia in summer 35749 and was despatched as a ‘fully empowered’ general to the Chersonese, where he engaged in negotiations with the Thracian kings which resulted in a treaty (Dem. xxiii 173). So the Hypothesis is simply wrong about Chares’ original mission. Secondly, the resistance of the Chians and the Rhodians to the ‘attempt’ of Chares appears to have been, in the writer’s mind, the battle of Chios, and he has failed to distinguish the opening of the war from its cause. Thirdly, there is hardly likely to be any solid information behind Chares’ alleged ‘attempt’, since, according to Demosthenes (xv 3), the Athenians were accused of hostile designs, not of a hostile act. So the Hypothesis is, historically speaking, worthless, and we are thrown back on the two statements of Demosthenes. ‘Getting back what belongs to you’ (τò κομίσασθαι τὰ ὑμέτϵρα) is at first sight a somewhat obscure phrase, but there is a reasonable presumption that Demosthenes was referring to the Athenian efforts to recover Amphipolis and the Chersonese. Elsewhere he speaks of ‘getting back Amphipolis’ or ‘getting back the Chersonese’ and on the three other occasions when he speaks of ‘getting back what belongs to you’ he appears to refer to Amphipolis, the Chersonese having been (p.236) recovered by 352.50 The other possibility, which cannot be ruled out, is that he is referring to what Isokrates (viii 6) described as ‘the possessions in the cities’ (τὰς κτήσϵις ἐν ταῖς πόλϵσι)—‘the war party lead us to expect both that we will get back the possessions in the cities and that we will recover our former power’. Certainly ‘the Chersonese, the colonies, the possessions (ἐγκτήματα), the monies on loan’ had been linked together by Andokides (iii 15) a generation earlier, as being what Athens desired to recover, and the forswearing of ‘possessions’ in the decree of Aristotle for the sake of making the Confederacy as large as possible (Isok. xiv 44) had clearly not rid the Athenians of their desire, as Isokrates (viii 6) shows. So it is not impossible that by ‘what belongs to you’ Demosthenes meant not just Amphipolis and the Chersonese but all of Athens’ fifth-century overseas assets, in which case all the members of the Confederacy could well have trembled and those with the naval power and the support of the Carian dynast have revolted. But this seems the less likely meaning. Demosthenes speaks of the allies ‘resenting’ (ϕθονήσαντϵς), which would be an odd choice of word if what Demosthenes meant by ‘what belongs to you’ was what he well knew the members of the Confederacy thought belonged to themselves. So I propose that

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Notes on the Failure of the Second Athenian Confederacy by the phrase ‘getting back what belongs to you’ Demosthenes was alluding to the Athenian efforts to recover Amphipolis and the Chersonese. The precise moment when the Athenians got a Congress of Hellenes to recognise Athens’ right to Amphipolis is unsure and there seems little point in reopening the debate. It is sure, however, that the operations began in early 368,51 and there is some reason to suppose that there was considerable disquiet among the members of the Confederacy. As already remarked, the first crisis of winter 370/69 had caused a number of defections (see above), but it is very curious that when the Mytilenaians, clearly puzzled by the change in Athenian policy towards the Spartans, sent an embassy to Athens to demand explanation, they sent it not in 369 but in 368. GHI 131 (= RO 31) is a decree of the Athenian demos of the seventh prytany of 368/7, that is, spring 367. It orders (lines 20–2) the republication of the decree passed in answer to the Mytilenaian embassy led (p.237) by one Hieroitas, and this republished decree is preserved at the foot of the stele. It was proposed by Kallistratos who had played a leading part in the affairs of the Confederacy and had also proposed the expedition to help Sparta in winter 370/69 (Dem. lix 27), and was clearly designed to reassure the Mytilenaians. It is not dated by more than the archon’s name, but it looks as if the two lots of Athenian ambassadors sent to Mytilene (lines 24, 31) had gone as a consequence of the Mytilenaian demand. If the diplomatic exchanges are not to be improbably spread out over two years, the decree of Kallistratos must be put in 368, and preferably as late in 369/8 as possible. Even then the delay in the completion of the exchanges is odd, or, rather, would be, had winter and the closed sailing season not intervened. Why then did the Mytilenaeans not make their protest in 369, when explanation was very much needed? It is a guess, but perhaps a tolerable one, that their real disquiet was caused not just by the reversal of policy towards Sparta but also by the spectacle of Athens again engaged in the struggle to get back that most precious imperial asset, Amphipolis. Syntaxeis continued to be collected, and the seas rendered safe, but at a time when, for all we know, Athens had ceased to expand the Confederacy and was setting out on the long (and ruinous) war for Amphipolis, it would not be clear to members what exactly they were or were not paying for, in a Confederacy that had lost its raison d’être, to a hegemon whose principles were no longer beyond question. The next disenchantment came with the decision to send a cleru-chy to Samos. That tense debate (see above) was shortly followed by Epameinondas’ persuading the Thebans to aspire to naval hegemony,52 and in the light of what happened in 357, his appeal to Rhodes, Chios, and Byzantium (Diod. xv 79.1) shows that the Confederacy was in his view ripe for dismemberment. His plans were frustrated by more urgent demands in Greece itself, but clearly given the opportunity there would be revolts. In 363/2 Keios had to be dealt with (GHI 142 Page 18 of 26

Notes on the Failure of the Second Athenian Confederacy = RO 39). In 361/0 there was trouble in Kerkyra, and Chares had to be sent to deal with it (Diod. xv 95.3), which he did with great ruthlessness and, it would seem, by overturning the constitution.53 (p.238) The crisis could not be long delayed. Athenian imperialism was becoming ever more menacing as Athens herself became even poorer. By the end of the Social War Athens was nearly bankrupt.54 The city’s revenues were down to the impossibly low total of 130 talents (Dem. x 37), and the economic life of the city was at a low ebb, as Isokrates’ De Pace and Xenophon’s De Vectigalibus show.55 Particularly significant is the fact that there were unoccupied dwellings and vacant building sites, a large proportion of the metic population having left the city. The mines were in large measure unworked. A measure of the crisis is the appearance of the De Vectigalibus which expounded, if with some naïvety, the radical idea that the way to regain prosperity was by peace. Such a state of affairs was not produced within the brief span of the Social War, possibly a matter of no more than twenty months, and one should appreciate that, when Isokrates blamed the economic condition of Athens on the war (viii 19), he was thinking not merely of the Social War but of the whole of Athens’ military effort since the war for Amphipolis began in 368. His argument is directed to secure not just the ratification of the Peace with the revolted allies of the Social War but the establishment of peace everywhere (16) which would, he considers, be more likely to get back Amphipolis and the Chersonese for Athens (22). He was opposing himself to the views of those ‘who summon you to the war’ (5), by which he could not mean the Social War which was virtually over as he wrote (cf. 16). He meant the war which had been in progress for over a decade and for which mercenaries were employed (44–6) at sorry cost to the city (cf. vii 9).56 Isokrates was blaming thirteen years of war for Athens’ impoverishment, and rightly. A city of the magnitude of Athens was not so impoverished within the brief span of the Social War. The doctrine was dear to the Athenian demagogues that the way to prosperity was to gain empire and live off its profits, principally tribute.57 Against such a view Isokrates directed his oration De Pace; the war policy had not worked, he argued, and it was time to (p.239) follow the example of prosperous but politically unambitious Megara (117). Similarly, Xenophon’s De Vectigalibus (1.1) argued against the view of ‘certain of Athens’ political leaders’ who declared that they were obliged to follow a less just policy with regard to ‘the cities’58 because of ‘the poverty of the mass of citizens’, and his aim is to suggest ways in which Athens could recover prosperity by exploiting her own resources in place of seeking to grab other people’s. Thus both these works show what was the prevailing mood of the 360s, and as the economic condition of Athens approached its nadir in 355, the pressure for the ‘unjust’ policy which would produce imperial profits may be supposed to have increased. The Samian Page 19 of 26

Notes on the Failure of the Second Athenian Confederacy cleruchy in 365 occasioned a tense debate. The heavy-handed intervention of Chares in Kerkyra in 361/0 was the matter of bitter denunciation by the members of the Confederacy (Diod. xv 95.3); Chares had assisted ‘the rich and the oligarchic’ in their uprising against the demos (Aen. Tact. 11. 13) and Athens’ allies had good reason to complain. The denunciations continued (cf. Isok. viii 125, 142), and so did Chares. Kerkyra, once useful in the war against Sparta, was now good for nothing but payment. Poverty required imperialism. In the late 360s the economic decline of Athens was heightened by a general shortage of corn throughout the Greek world. Our only precise information comes from Apollodoros’ speech about his trierarchy in 362/1 and 361/0, which deals only with the areas in which he operated, viz. the coast of Thrace and the Bosporus. It emerges that not only were Byzantium, Kalchedon, Kyzikos, Maroneia, and Stryme having difficulty in securing an adequate supply of corn but also in Attica itself in 361 the drought was so severe that the crops failed and the water supply as well (§61). So it must have been a time of especial hardship in Athens. In 357 things were either worse or at least as bad. In his speech Against Leptines which was delivered in 355/4, Demosthenes spoke of ‘a corn shortage throughout the human race the year before last’ (33), that is, in 357/6, and since it was normally by the autumn that the supplies were proven adequate or inadequate for the rest of the Attic year, the shortage was probably in 357. Whether it began in 357 or earlier is unclear. Demosthenes was recording the services of the Spartocid dynasty to Athens rather than the recent history of the corn supply. The years intervening (p.240) between the drought in Attica in 361 and the general shortage of 357 may all have been years of shortage, like the great corn shortage of 330 to 326 which was felt all over the Greek world.59 Such economic difficulties must have accelerated the general economic decline and spurred the imperialist war-party on to demanding action. The despatch of Chares in 361 and, it would seem, his immunity despite loud complaints, gave the allies grounds for fear. What he had done at Kerkyra he would do elsewhere, and when in summer 357 he was sent out to conduct the war for the Chersonese, the allies had only to fear for themselves if he succeeded there. Chares indeed became or was made into a bogey. According to Aristotle (Rhet. 1417a32), Isokrates’ speech De Pace was in large measure an attack on him.60 He is not named in it, but plainly enough alluded to (55); the slanders against the city, twice mentioned (125, 142) are presumably due to his work (cf. Diod. xv 95.3). The politician who used and defended him, Aristophon, was influential in this period.61 He proposed the decrees for the settlement of Keios in 362 (GHI 142 = RO 39), for the despatch of the fleet in the autumn of that year ([Dem.] l 6). Who was responsible for the sending of reinforcements for the cleruchy in Samos in 361/0 (Schol. Aisch. i 53) is unknown. But the purpose can be guessed. Athens was sinking, economically speaking. The bilge-water had to be drawn off.

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Notes on the Failure of the Second Athenian Confederacy The imperialists knew only one course, return to the glorious and profitable past (Isok. viii 36). In 357 the allies’ chance came. The Athenians were engaged in Euboia. With Philip’s seizure of Amphipolis, there were new complications in the war in the north (Diod. xvi 7.2, 8.2). Mausolos of Caria promised his support, and Byzantium and Rhodes, astride two of Athens’ corn-routes, persuaded Chios and made their bid for liberty. When it was all over, all that remained was, in Aischines’ phrase (ii 71), a few ‘wretched islanders’. Notes:

(1) Modern discussion starts from S. Accame, La lega ateniense (Rome, 1941) (hereafter Accame). In CQ xxiii (1973) 47–60 (herein Ch. X) I discussed the foundation of the Confederacy. The following abbreviations are used to refer to recent discussions relevant to this article (listed in chronological order). (1) Wood-head: A. G. Wood-head, ‘IG ii2 43 and Jason of Pherae’, AJA lxi (1957) 367– 73. (2) Sealey: B. R. I. Sealey, ‘IG ii2 1609 and the Transformation of the Second Athenian Sea-league’, Phoenix xi (1957) 95–111. (3) Burnett-Edmondson: A. P. Burnett and C. N. Edmondson, ‘The Chabrias Monument in the Athenian Agora’, Hesp. xxx (1961) 74–91. (4) Woodhead: A. G. Woodhead, ‘Chabrias, Timotheus and the Aegean Allies’, Phoenix xvi (1962) 258–66. (5) Cawkwell: G. L. Cawkwell, ‘Notes on the Peace of 375/4’, Historia xii (1963) 84–95. (6) Coleman-Bradeen: J. E. Coleman and D. W. Bradeen, ‘Thera on IG ii2 43’, Hesp. xxxvi (1967) 102–4. (7) Davies: J. K. Davies, ‘The Date of IG ii2 1609’, Historia xviii (1969) 309–33. (8) Cawkwell: G. L. Cawkwell, ‘The Date of IG ii2 1609 Again’, Historia xxii (1973) 759–61. (9) Griffith: G. T. Griffith, ‘Athens in the Fourth Century’, in Imperialism in the Ancient World, ed. P. D. A. Garnsey and C. R. Whittaker (Cambridge, 1978) 127–44. (2) Cf. Dem. viii 21, 24–6; Aisch. ii 71, iii 91, 100; GHI 168 (= Harding 83), 175 (= RO 72); IG ii2 207 (but see M. J. Osborne, BSA lxvi [1971] 297–321). (3) G. Busolt, Der zweite athenische Bund (Leipzig, 1874) 730ff. did not distinguish the periods before and after the Peace of 372/1. The only passage he cited relevant to the question of whether there were allied contingents in Athenian armies and navies is [Dem.] l 14, but the fact that rowers deserted to Thasian and Maroneian ships does not prove that they were serving with the fleet. We know that the rebel allies of 357 had ships (Diod. xvi 7), but there is nothing to suggest that any were serving with Chares in 357/6 (Dem. xxiii 173). (4) Cf. CQ xxii (1972), 270, 271 (herein Ch. XIV, 322–324). (5) For Thasian and Maroneian ships, [Dem.] l 14. The Maroneians needed help in conveying corn-ships (ibid. 20), which does not suggest they had many. For

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Notes on the Failure of the Second Athenian Confederacy allied naval contingents before 371, cf. Xen. Hell., vi 2.9, Diod. xv 47, Dem. xlix 14–16, 49, and IG ii2 1607. 49, 155. (6) At xv 28.3 (4 names), 27.7 (1), 30.2 (70)—added together, they equal the figure given by Aisch. ii 70 (in part of a wildly exaggerated statement). (7) Cf. (1) Woodhead 371 n. 15, (2) Sealey 105. (8) (6) Coleman-Bradeen. (9) Cf. IG ii2 179 fr. c lines 9–11. (10) Cf. E. Fabricius, RhM xlvi (1891) 589ff. (11) (6) Coleman-Bradeen 104. (12) ‘The demos of the Theraians’ was, presumably, placed on the left side before ‘the Kerkyraians’ was added to the front because there was not enough room on the front for a two-line entry. (13) Cf. e.g. (3) Burnett–Edmondson 83. (14) For location, cf. ATL i 482. (15) Cf. (4) Woodhead. (16) Accame 72f. For location of Arethousa, see N. G. L. Hammond, History of Macedonia (Oxford, 1972) i 196. It does not occur on the Athenian tribute lists, but in the fourth century it developed some outside contacts; cf. IG iv2 1 94, where it is represented in the list of thearodokoi at Epidauros. (17) Cf. (5) Cawkwell and J. Buckler, ‘Dating the Peace of 375/4 B.C.’, GRBS xii (1971) 353–61. (18) Cf. L. Deubner, Attische Feste (Berlin, 1932) 23. (19) For discussions see Accame 91–8, and (1) Woodhead. Also M. Sordi, La lega tessala (Rome, 1958) 172–7. (20) (9) Griffith 310 n. 34. (21) Cf. (5) Cawkwell 91 n. 60. (22) Cf. my Introduction to the 1979 edition of the Penguin translation of the Hellenica (A History of My Times) 26. (23) Cf. Sordi (n. 19) 170, 171. If the four Spartan divisions under Kleombrotos (Xen. Hell. vi 1.1) did indeed cross to Phokis in early 375, Xenophon must simply have missed out their recall and their despatch a second time, perhaps in 372. Page 22 of 26

Notes on the Failure of the Second Athenian Confederacy Quite apart from the often stressed point that it is very unlikely that two thirds of the Spartan army (together with a proportionate share of the Peloponnesian League) would have been abroad for four years, there is the equally strong point that such a garrison would probably enough have had to be recalled under the terms of the Peace of 375. Also one would have expected events of a different turn when Thebes struck against Plataia and Thespiai in 373. If Xenophon omitted the recall and the second dispatch, that is no more surprising than if he has misplaced the appeal. The real difficulty about accepting his placing of the despatch of Kleombrotos’ army in 375 lies in the account of the battle of Tegyra (Diod. xv 37) given in Plutarch’s Pelopidas 16, from which it emerges that there were two ‘divisions’ of the Spartan army on garrison duty in Orchomenos, that a replacement force came from Sparta while the original two divisions were in Lokris, that the allied contingent in the army of Kleombrotos according to Xenophon (Hell. vi 1.1) is not mentioned, nor is the name of Kleombrotos (cf. the recital of his ‘failures’ in Xen. Hell. vi 4.5). All in all, it now seems to me more likely that Xenophon has misplaced the Phokian appeal and that it was in fact made shortly before Leuktra. The Spartan reasons for not helping Polydamas effectively, as given by Xenophon (Hell. vi 1.17), do not require a larger foreign commitment than the two ‘divisions’ garrison in Orchomenos mentioned by Plutarch, and there is no good reason to suppose that the Phokian appeal and the appeal of Polydamas are so inextricably connected that one must suppose that, if Xenophon has misplaced the one, he has misplaced the other. (24) Accame 180, where the evidence for Timotheos’ captures will be found. (25) It must be admitted that IG ii2 126, which in both GHI 151 = RO 47 and ATL ii 104 is supplemented in lines 8 and 16 by τὴν σύνταξιν, might be used to prove that the cities of the Chersonese were in the Confederacy. But one might also supplement τὴν πρóσοδον (cf. Dem. xxiii 110)—or, more satisfactorily, τὰ καθήκοντα (with ἅπαντα in lines 7 and 8). I am not alone in my scepticism about the presently prevailing restoration. Cf. (9) Griffith 313 n. 35. (26) It is impossible to connect Nepos Tim. 4.2 with anything we know about either Jason or Timotheos, who sailed off to serve under the Great King in early 372 (Dem. xlix 25, 28, 60) not long after his trial. So one need not posit that hostile acts on Jason’s part led to the erasure. (27) As to the erasure of lines 11–13, we cannot conjecture when it was made since we do not know what was erased. (28) In 189 B.C. there was, it would appear, no κοινόν of Kephallenians (Livy xxxviii 28), and there is no reason to suppose that there was one in the fourth century. (29) This is striking proof of the great éclat of the Peace of 375.

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Notes on the Failure of the Second Athenian Confederacy (30) Decree in Accame 230 = RO 29. (31) The argument advanced in (5) Cawkwell 91–3 for the introduction of syntaxeis after the Peace of 375 lacked cogency, for it depended on the view that members contributed both money and ships, which cannot be proved. However, I adhere to the view that they were introduced after 375: it remains very unlikely that the early alliances would not have made more explicit the distinction between tribute and syntaxeis if they had been introduced early; also the references to Timotheos’ campaign of 375 suggest that he did not have money from the allies (Isok. xv 109, Xen. Hell. v 4.66, [Ar.] Oik. 1350a30). (32) For piracy in the fourth century, cf. E. Ziebarth, Beiträge zur Geschichte des Seeraubs und Seehandels im alten Griechenland (Hamburg, 1929) 13–19 (evidence quoted 102–4). Although Alexander of Pherai and Philip of Macedon did not have large fleets and so resorted to piratical raids, which Demosthenes does not neglect to remark, professional piracy went on, largely taken for granted by the orators. Cf. esp. Dem. xxiii 166, vii 2, 14–15, xii 2, 13, lviii 56, Aisch. ii 12, 72. Clearly despite the operation of the Athenian navy, the Aegean was a dangerous place. Cf. Accame 137. (33) [Dem.] 1 53 (cf. xvii 20) suggests that there may have been another base at Tenedos. (34) If ‘the people and council’ of line 20 of the decree in Accame 230 (= RO 29) are Parian, Paros is to be added. (35) Discussions prior to Accame—G. Busolt (n. 3) 689–92, and, e.g. V. Martin, La vie internationale (Paris, 1940) 253–67—did not have to consider the inscription first published by J. H. Oliver, AJA xl (1936) 461–4, and republished by Accame with fuller readings (230 = RO 29). (36) But, as Accame 114–15 noted, there is a curious variation between ‘the decrees of the allies’ in the Athenian oath and ‘the decrees of the Athenians and the allies’ in the Kerkyraian oath. Perhaps the full formula would have been for the Athenians an ‘inutile pleonasmo’. Perhaps the stone-cutter erred. (37) Accame 119. (38) Accame 231–5. (39) Cf. Accame 124. (40) If lines 23 and 27 can have one letter short, so can line 34 and instead of τοὺ[ς ταξιάρχους] we could read τοὺ[ς συμμάχους], or τοὺ[ς συνέδρους] (It seems unlikely that the aorist, rather than the familiar present ὅπλα ἐπιϕέρϵιν, was used in lines 23 and 27, pace D. M. Lewis, CQ xi [1961] 64 n. 1.)

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Notes on the Failure of the Second Athenian Confederacy (41) The translation is uncertain, but for the sense ‘with the Parians’ one would expect πρòς Παρίους, as e.g. Dem. ii 1. (42) Cf. (8) Cawkwell, pace (9) Griffith 312 n. 34. (43) However, the cleruchs sent to Methone by Accame (183) on the strength of D. M. Robinson TAPA lxix (1938) 58 belong to the fifth century (cf. SEG x no. 67). (44) Isok. xv 123; Plut. Phok. 7, 11; IG ii2 207, with [Dem.] l 53 and GHI 168 (= Harding 83); possibly GHI 156 (= RO 52) in the light of 152 = (RO 51). (45) GHI 175, if rightly supplemented in line 27f., shows that assessment was the work of the synedrion. The situation behind [Dem.] lviii 37, 38 is unclear; perhaps the Ainians made an agreement with Chares about the amount they should contribute because special circumstances prevented payment of the full amount assessed. (46) So Kallistratos (FGrH 115 F 98) was not being merely cynical in using a new name for the thing in some degree new. (47) In 106–12 Aischines treated of Timarchos’ career in offices chosen by lot. It is not provable, but it looks as if the treatment is in chronological order, for there seems no other explanation of the order. (48) Cf. Accame 138–42. (The inscription published by A. G. Woodhead in Hesp. xxvi [1957] 231 is of dubitable significance.) (49) For the dating of the outbreak of the Social War, cf. Class. et Med. xxii (1962) 34–40. Precise dating of the Euboian expedition is not beyond conjecture. At the time oaths were sworn to the Karystians by the council of 357/6, embassies to the Euboian states had only just been paid their expenses (GHI 153 = RO 48). So unless there was a considerable lapse of time between the expulsion of the Thebans and the re-entry of the Euboian cities into the Confederacy (which seems unlikely), the operations were over by the start of 357/6 or shortly after. For it must be noted that the naval expedition to Euboia (Aisch. iii 85) and the departure of Chares for the Hellespont during the Athenian operations (Dem. xxiii 173) which lasted fewer than thirty days (Aisch. iii 85) show that the Etesian winds had not begun. The Etesians blow fairly steadily from mid-June. So if one puts the Euboian expedition in the second to last or the last month of 358/7, one is, at the worst, probably not greatly in error. (50) Cf. xxiii 14, ii 28; xxiii 153, 156, 158, 161; viii 36, iv 7, both of which, in the context of the war with Philip, I take to refer to Amphipolis. (51) Cf. Beloch Gr. Ges. iii2. 2 246–7. (52) Cf. CQ xxii (1972) 271–3 (herein Ch. XIV 324–6). Page 25 of 26

Notes on the Failure of the Second Athenian Confederacy (53) The Ephoran version of Diodoros is the best evidence we have, but Aeneas Tacticus 11.13, which is garbled, reflects the constitutional change. Cf. Xen. Hell. v 4.64, where the seemingly gratuitous commendation of Timotheos’ conduct in western waters in 375 is, I suppose, a comment on Chares’ very different conduct in 361/0. (54) Cf. JHS lxxxiii (1963) 61–3 (herein Ch. XV 359–60). (55) Isok. viii 19–21, 46, 47, 69, 124, 128. Cf. Dem. xiii 27. (56) Cf. Dem. iii 28 with Schol. xiii 27, Aisch. ii 71. (57) Note esp. Thuc. vi 24.3. (Hell. Oxy. 6.3 and Ar. Eccl. 195–8 are the stock passages.) (58) ‘The cities’ is the fifth-century term for the subject cities of the empire. Cf. P. Gauthier, Un commentaire historique des Poroi de Xénophon (Geneva, 1976) 40. (59) Cf. GHI 196 = RO 96 and comm. (60) The title in Aristotle is the Symmachikos, which is the alternative title given for the speech in one manuscript. (61) Cf. Schol. Aisch. i 64, Din. iii 17 and Diod. xvi 21.4 for the connection, and (Dem.] 16 and GHI 142 for his prominence.

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Agesilaus and Sparta

Cyrene to Chaeronea: Selected Essays on Ancient Greek History George Cawkwell

Print publication date: 2011 Print ISBN-13: 9780199593286 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199593286.001.0001

Agesilaus and Sparta George Cawkwell

DOI:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199593286.003.0013

Abstract and Keywords This chapter explores the two strands in Agesilaus' policy: Panhellenism and what Xenophon terms φιλεταιρία, ‘support of supporters’. In both Agesilaus met constant and frequently effective opposition, but his policies did not damage Sparta. Keywords:   Agesilaus, Sparta, Panhellenism, Xenophon, support of supporters

In 404 Sparta stood supreme, militarily and politically master of Greece, in concord with Persia. By 362, the year at which Xenophon terminated his history on the sad note of ‘even greater confusion and uncertainty’, she was eclipsed militarily, never to win a great battle again; and so far from being master even of the Peloponnese that she would spend the rest of time struggling to recover her own ancestral domain of Messenia, no longer a world power, merely a local wrangler. The reasons for all this are of absorbing interest and prime importance for the history of Greece, but it is hard to resist the temptation to connect the change with the policies of Agesilaus whose reign virtually coincided with the period in question. He was king for forty-one years and over thirty of them well before the battle of Leuctra (Plut. Ages. 40), and he had influence in the state unequalled as far as we can tell by any other king. We are comparatively well informed about him and it is clear enough that, although he had his critics, he was never put on trial as many others, including his brother Agis (Thuc. 5.63) and his contemporary Pausanias (Paus. 3.5.2, Xen. Hell. 3.5.25), are known to have been.1 This was due no doubt, in part at least, to his tactful attention to the ephors and the members of the Gerousia. Plutarch (Ages. 4) records his studied deference; when the ephors summoned him, he would obey at the double, a droll Page 1 of 31

Agesilaus and Sparta spectacle perhaps in view of his lameness (Plut. Ages. 2, Xen. Hell. 3.3.3) but very satisfactory proof of the submissiveness required of Spartan kings; unlike Lysander (Plut. Lys. 18), he was chary of honours unsuitable for an Equal (Xen. Ages. 11.7, Plut. Ages. 2); his house and his manner of life were plain (Xen. Ages. 8.7f.). By (p.242) such means the man whom Theopompus (F 321) could describe as ‘by common consent the greatest and most illustrious of the Greeks of his time’, avoided trouble with the authorities (τὰ τέλη). Doubtless, too, he dealt tactfully with his rivals (cf. Xen. Hell. 5.3.20 and Cic. ad Q.F. 1.2.7). But was it only a matter of tact? Kings at Sparta were in essence only priests and hereditary generals (Ar. Pol. 1285a5ff.). The importance of Agesilaus over so many decades2 argues wide support among Spartiates as a whole and one is bound to ask whether the policies of the state were not essentially his policies and whether he was in effect the architect of Sparta’s ruin. Many have indeed thought so,3 and, if Agesilaus is cheerfully to be made responsible for all that Sparta did and did not do, the conclusion is plain enough, and very comforting to moralists. There is, however, an uncomfortable alternative and it is the theme of this chapter that there were always the two strands in Agesilaus’ policy, albeit inconsistent, Panhellenism and what Xenophon terms ϕιλϵταιρία, ‘support of supporters’, that in both he met constant and frequently effective opposition, and that his policies did not damage Sparta. The explanation of Sparta’s fall is to be found elsewhere. For Xenophon Agesilaus was, in retrospect, ‘a thoroughly good man’ (Ages. 1.1) —the judgement of a devoted admirer, who owed his reputation and prosperity largely to Agesilaus. When Xenophon first returned to the Greek world with the remnants of Cyrus’ army, he was held responsible for their lawless behaviour. The black reproach was made against him of ‘giving in to the men’, ‘a demagogue’, and at one stage he was in danger of death if Thibron got hold of him (Anab. 7.6.4, 43). Suspicion of condoning indiscipline lingered (cf. Hell. 3.1.8, and 2.7), but once Agesilaus came on the scene no more is heard of it. Xenophon served in Agesilaus’ army, probably enough in all the Asiatic campaigns, and certainly in the return to Greece, and fought (p.243) at Coronea.4 His reward was the estate at Scillus (Anab. 5.3.7) on which he lived for about twenty years, peculiarly well placed to enjoy his intimacy with the king and indeed to acquire that personal knowledge of Sparta and Spartiates which makes the Hellenica uniquely valuable. His sons were educated in Sparta on the suggestion of Agesilaus (Diog. Laert. 2.54, Plut. Ages. 20.2), and on visits to Sparta, for instance at the festival of the Gymnopaedia,5 he doubtless enjoyed his hospitality, saw for himself his domestic simplicity (Ages. 8.7), and met and heard the talk of the whole circle of Agesilaus’ friends, the real source of much of the Hellenica.6 Xenophon knew his hero well but his hero was also his benefactor and there was a debt of gratitude to be paid. Furthermore, what Xenophon wrote about Agesilaus he wrote long after the most controversial moments of the reign, indeed after the king’s death.7 Agesilaus died in 360/59.8 Page 2 of 31

Agesilaus and Sparta The lamentation, which is the Agesilaus, quickly followed (cf. Ages. 10.3) and the second part of the Hellenica, written in the course of the next six years, built on what the Agesilaus had begun. So the events of the 380s were almost a generation past when Xenophon, himself now ageing, (p.244) recorded them. Old men forget and time adds its gloss. Xenophon’s account of his benefactor needs careful handling. His habitual reserve fascinates and perplexes. For instance, the account of Agesilaus’ accession and the debate about the lame kingship was written by a man who must well have known that Lysander had planned, or was said to have planned, a radical change whereby the kings should be chosen either from all the Spartiates or from all the members of the royal houses regardless of seniority.9 Xenophon lets no hint of all this escape when he recounts (Hell. 3.3.1ff.) how Lysander secured the throne for the true son of Archidamus, just as he abstains from comment when Agesilaus in Asia puts Lysander in his place and discredits his influence (Hell. 3.4.7ff.). Again, one can only conjecture what Xenophon thought Agesilaus had in mind when he begged off the command against Mantinea for a reason equally valid for Agesipolis who undertook it (Hell. 5.2.3). Poker-faced reserve indeed, and there is obliqueness too. For instance, Phoebidas did what he did at Thebes because he was ‘neither reasonable nor really sensible’ (Hell. 5.2.28), which is Xenophon’s answer perhaps to a charge that Agesilaus put him up to it (cf. Diod. 15.20.2). Above all, there are total silences, as for instance concerning the precise relations of Agesilaus and Antalcidas or the Peace Congress before Leuctra (Plut. Ages. 25.5ff.), and one is left guessing the reason. Of course, apologia can break through. Agesilaus did not, he asserts (Ages. 2.7f.), take the risk of joining battle at Coronea with the numerically inferior forces,10 and, if he did take a risk in the second phase of the battle, his courage at any rate was beyond dispute (Ages. 2.12 = Hell. 4.3.19); there was no need to underline the strategic error (cf. Plut. Ages. 18). One suspects that Agesilaus had been criticized for his conduct of the battle, as, perhaps, he had been blamed for the burning of the temple of Poseidon in 390 which was, so suspiciously for Spartan superstition, followed the next day by the Pathos in Lechaeum; Agesilaus, with admirable resource and solicitude for his men, provided fire for the cooking of their supper, but ‘no one knew who was responsible for the burning of the temple’ (Hell. 4.5.4) and so Agesilaus was in no sense to be blamed for the Pathos. Again, things were said about Agesilaus’ fondness for boys (Hell. Oxy. 21.3); he certainly enjoyed the company (p.245) of the youthful Agesipolis and ‘boyish talk’ (Hell. 5.3.20, Ages. 8.2). Xenophon laboured to refute the charge; there were no improprieties, not even a kiss (Ages. 5.5ff.). The campaign against Phlius had been criticized and perhaps rightly, but Agesilaus’ motive at any rate was laudable (Ages. 2.21).11 Thus, apologia. But what of the silences? Did they seek oblivion for what Xenophon could not defend? Fortunately there is Plutarch, and although much of his Agesilaus plainly derives from Xenophon, there is much else (perhaps in no small measure from Page 3 of 31

Agesilaus and Sparta Theopompus, who is thrice cited12) which there is no reason to dismiss. Two passages, in particular, illuminate Xenophon’s method. The first concerns the occupation of the Cadmea. Xenophon, in his best moralizing vein, declared that the occupation was avenged by the gods at Leuctra (Hell. 5.4.1); the seizure he ascribed to the poor judgement of Phoebidas, not to Agesilaus, whose share was no more than to pose the criterion of whether Phoebidas had served the interests of the state (Hell. 5.2.28, 32)—a reasonable enough line, since Thebes in negotiating with Olynthus and refusing to allow Thebans to answer the Spartan call (Hell. 5.2.15, 27) was perhaps to be numbered amongst the transgressors of the Peace.13 But there was a clear distinction between seizing the Cadmea and continuing to occupy it.14 Plutarch (Ages. 23.11) makes clear what Xenophon does not, viz. that Agesilaus not only saved Phoebidas from, presumably, death15 but also persuaded the city to continue (p.246) to hold the Cadmea: the silence of Xenophon covers up what he later treated as the cause of divine retribution. The other passage concerns the prelude to Leuctra. In Xenophon the debate in the Spartan assembly is recorded in which one Prothous opposed immediate invasion of Boeotia, but ‘the assembly thought he was talking rubbish, for already, it seems, the Divine was leading them on’ (Hell. 6.4.2). Plutarch (Ages. 28.6) informs us that the opponent of Prothous was Agesilaus. If that is true, it is a tell-tale silence. Xenophon was not telling the whole truth about Agesilaus. Xenophon is a partial witness indeed. He found so much to admire and had so much to be grateful for, that he did not see or did not remember what to him, if not necessarily to us, must have been political failures. But there was more, one suspects, than mere admiration and gratitude. Between Xenophon and Agesilaus there appears to have been a complete concord of political outlook. On the one hand, Xenophon was the devoted Peloponnesian: although his exile was revoked (FGH 334 F 32), possibly as early as, or shortly after, the King’s Peace,16 he chose never to return permanently to Athens (Diog. Laert. 2.56), and the reason shines through the later books of the Hellenica, obsessed as they are with the Peloponnese—Xenophon had tasted at Scillus the good life of the landed aristocracy of the Peloponnese and ‘the Peloponnese’ had become for him an emotionally powerful concept, the cause for good men to serve (cf. Hell. 7.4.35 and 5.1). Agesilaus was, as is to be discussed, the real patron of ‘the Peloponnese’, which the tolerance of his opponents for democracies could only damage. So Xenophon’s allegiance was in this respect inevitable. So too in the other central issue, the cause of Panhellenism. In the course of decades the attitude of Xenophon towards Persia17 developed and the place of the Education of Cyrus and of the Anabasis needs to be considered, but it is clear enough from a famous passage in the Anabasis (3.2.24ff.) that Xenophon was yet another of the many Greeks caught up in this sentimental folly. In the Hellenica there is nothing explicit,18 but Panhellenism is to be presumed as the (p.247) explanation of the astounding silences about the role of Persia in the earlier Page 4 of 31

Agesilaus and Sparta Common Peaces. Some of Xenophon’s silences indicate no more than his range of interests but Spartan relations with Persia were central to his subject and the Persian role must have been of the greatest interest to him. So, like other of his silences such as over the foundation of Messene or the careers of leading Thebans, his silence here must denote bitter distaste and resentment. For a Panhellenist Greece should have been united against the Great King as an enemy, not under him as ally and arbiter, and one may imagine Xenophon at Olympia nodding whole-hearted approval of Panhellenist speeches like the Olympicus of Lysias and the Panegyric of Isocrates. But what of Agesilaus? Was he really at one with Xenophon in this matter too? Or did he nod approval as Panhellenists talked and smile to himself and think quite differently? Was he free from the sentimental folly of Panhellenism? To his discredit, he was tainted like the rest (as will shortly be argued), and Xenophon and he saw completely eye to eye here too. The truth is that Xenophon could not stand apart and take an independent view. His Agesilaus, both in theory and in practice, was a ‘thoroughly good’ man. Xenophon’s partiality is readily discernible and his Agesilaus is very different from the Agesilaus of modern historians. But in one respect Xenophon has had his way. He pronounced the occupation of the Cadmea a fatal error resulting in disaster, and this is curiously like the view prevalent today, that the Machtpolitik of Agesilaus proved, as it was bound to prove, disastrous. Against such moralizing history, this chapter is directed. The price of Persian help for Sparta in the Peloponnesian War had been a sort of medizing. Sparta had had to sign away the independence of the Greek cities of Asia; the Great King’s claim to them was the irreducible minimum of all the treaties he made with Greeks after the Peace of Callias. Although during the war there were, from the first, murmurs of discontent from individual Spartans (Thuc. 8.43.3, 52, and cf. 46.3)19 and Callicratidas, the Nauarch of 407/6, was forthright in his denunciation of the whole policy (1.6.7ff.),20 Persian aid was indispensable and the concord between Lysander and Cyrus had to be maintained—for the duration of the war. When, however, (p.248) after the failure of Cyrus’ revolt Tissaphernes returned to claim full control over Ionia and the Greeks of Asia appealed to Sparta as champion of Greek liberty, a new period began. Thibron was sent out to defend the Greek cities (3.1.3f., Anab. 7.6.1) and this policy continued unchecked until in the stalemate of the Corinthian War Antalcidas went in 392 to try negotiations for peace (4.8.12ff.). There was in this period of seven years, as far as we know, no discord in Sparta on the question of relations with Persia. The expedition of 397/6 was ordered simply because rumour of large-scale Persian preparations suggested that a greater effort was necessary to secure the same end (3.4.1ff.). The man who had been the protagonist of concord with Persia in the Peloponnesian War, Lysander, counselled Agesilaus to propose a large expedition. The proposal was accepted. Agesilaus was simply carrying on what had been begun. He may, of course, for Page 5 of 31

Agesilaus and Sparta all we know have had a hand in the dispatch of Thibron, but there is no reason to claim that in these years he had to overcome opposition to the policy of intervening on behalf of the Greek cities of Asia. One might be tempted to suspect some division of opinion about the aims of the expedition. Lysander persuaded Agesilaus to propose ‘a campaign against Asia’ (στρατϵύϵσθαι ϵἰς τὴν Ἀσίαν—3.4.2) meaning by Asia, perhaps, no less than ‘the Persian Empire’, and Agesilaus sought, by sacrificing at Aulis as Agamemnon had done (3.4.3), to give the campaign a grandiose significance, to open as it were a new chapter in the great conflict of East and West.21 In contrast with this, trumpeting the grant by the Spartans of a mere six months’ supplies (3.4.3) strikes a muted note, and one might wonder whether everyone at Sparta regarded the expedition in the same way as Agesilaus. Yet he himself on arriving in Asia behaved in a moderate fashion, clearly at first seeking no more than an accommodation with the Persians which would guarantee the autonomy of the Greek cities. His very first act was to make a truce with Tissaphernes, to see if diplomacy could secure this modest end (3.4.5), and in the following year he made a truce with Tithraustes while a new formula which left the Greeks autonomous but paying tribute to Persia was explored (3.4.25f.). This seemingly outrageous suggestion of Tithraustes was not brusquely repudiated. Agesilaus simply declared that he could not make such an agreement without the approval of the Spartan ‘authorities’. (p.249) So much for Aulis and the great conflict of East and West. Only when these negotiations came to nothing did larger designs emerge. The march up the Hermus of 395 had been directed merely against Phrygia,22 but he planned in spring 394 ‘to march up-country as far as he could’ (4.1.41; cf. Hell. Oxy. 22.4), the projected campaign so grandiosely described by Plutarch (Ages. 15.1).23 But even this Panhellenist flourish need not be regarded as the special contribution of Agesilaus. In the autumn of 395 he received instructions from Sparta to appoint as nauarch whomsoever he chose and to use the fleet in combined operations if he wished (3.4.27f.) to assist him in his design of ‘destroying the empire which formerly campaigned against Greece’ (Ages. 1.36). No answer to Tithraustes’ earlier proposal is explicitly recorded, but evidently this new power for Agesilaus was the consequence of its rejection.24 There was to be no compromise over the autonomy of the Greek cities and Agesilaus was to press on with a larger strategy that would compel the Great King to a soberer frame of mind. Such was the decision of the Spartan government. So there is no case for supposing that the expedition of 396–394 was the project of Agesilaus carried through against strong opposition at Sparta. We do not know that it was not opposed and Xenophon was not the person to tell us if it was. Yet it all seems a natural enough (p.250) development from the decision to send Thibron in 399, and, if the case for regarding Agesilaus as a Panhellenist rested solely on the events of these years, it would be weak indeed.

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Agesilaus and Sparta Nor are the Panhellenist utterances of his step-brother, Teleutias, much to the point. Certainly, on Aegina he voiced strong criticism of the policy of letting Persia be Sparta’s pay-master (5.1.14–17). He was speaking at the very moment when Antalcidas was ‘up’ with the king negotiating a new concordat with Persia (cf. 5.1.25), and Teleutias is made by Xenophon to echo the famous words of Callicratidas leaving the court of Cyrus in disgust (cf. 1.6.7 and 5.1.17).25 But all this was before the King’s Peace, and does nothing to prove that that event did not induce in Agesilaus a new and cynical view of relations with Persia. If Agesilaus is to be argued consistently Panhellenist, the case must be made for the period after 387/6. One should not be misled by Xenophon’s account of the oathswearing (Hell. 5.1.32ff.). Agesilaus was in charge of the oath-swearing as king, and his prominence in no way argues that the King’s Peace was especially of his seeking. To judge by the two treaties of 421 (Thuc. 5.19.2, 23.4, 24.1), the kings seem regularly to have been involved in the swearing of treaties, and although it is nowhere stated who administered the oaths at Sparta, it is likely enough to have been the kings, and since Agesipolis was still young (cf. Hell. 4.2.9) Agesilaus would naturally be prominent. He was bitter and severe towards the Thebans (διὰ τὴν πρòς Θηβαίους ἒχθραν §33), whose activities had checked his planned Anabasis, and he enforced the letter of the Peace against them, but that does not necessarily mean that he had sought the Peace in order to do so. He may have been making the best of what he considered a bad job.26 The first positive point to consider is the relationship of Agesilaus and Antalcidas. Those who view Agesilaus as the cynical advocate, as well as exploiter, of the King’s Peace are fond of citing from Plutarch (Ages. 23.4) the reported reply of Agesilaus to the charge that the Spartans were Medizing—‘Not so, the Medes are Laconizing’—as if this dictum clinched the matter, and the rest of the chapter is to be brushed aside.27 But is it? Agesilaus is said ‘to have had very little share of this disgrace [i.e. arising from the surrender to Persia of the (p.251) Greeks of Asia], for Antalcidas was opposed (ἐχϑρός) to him and made every effort to get the Peace, thinking that the war would advance Agesilaus and secure him very great power and renown’. The passage has been cheerfully rejected.28 Would Xenophon, it is asked, have omitted matter which could have exonerated his hero? But he did. He referred in the Agesilaus (8.3) to Agesilaus’ blunt rebuff to an offer of friendship by Artaxerxes; he did not include it in the Hellenica although he, unlike us, knew the precise occasion on which it was made.29 Nor did he directly concern himself with the internal politics of Sparta. For instance, he had Teleutias on Aegina criticizing the policy of seeking Persian aid (5.1.14ff.), but when he recorded the dispatch of Antalcidas in pursuit of that policy (5.1.6) he gave no hint of debate in Sparta itself. Divisions did emerge in the trial of Sphodrias (Hell. 5.4.25), as they had to if the acquittal was to be made at all intelligible, but generally he eschews such matters.30 Furthermore he wrote for his own age, not for us, in the presumption that his readers knew Page 7 of 31

Agesilaus and Sparta what he was talking about. If Agesilaus was well known as the opponent of Antalcidas, Xenophon may have felt no need to make the opposition explicit. Apologia could wait until it was necessary, in the sparing of Phoebidas, in the acquittal of Sphodrias. It argues nothing against the truth of Plutarch’s statement that Xenophon gives no confirmation. But, it is also claimed, Plutarch, or his source, made it all up, for no more reason than that Agesilaus had fought the Persians and Antalcidas made the peace, or that Antalcidas opposed Agesilaus’ policy of invading Boeotia as may be inferred from a dictum to which Plutarch was much attached.31 This, however, is not the only information Plutarch gives us about Antalcidas. (p.252) He furnishes the patronymic (Artax. 21.5), retails a story about his conduct as ephor in 370/69 which contrasted ill with that of Agesilaus (Ages. 32.1), describes his personal relations with the Great King on the various embassies to Persia32 and his suicide by starvation in Sparta (Artax. 22, Pel. 30.6), and records a number of his dicta (Ages. 26.3, 31.7f., Mor. 192 Bf., 217 C–E). Whence he derived all this information one can only guess, but he clearly was informed and one would need good reason for rejecting his statement about the opposition of Agesilaus to Antalcidas. There is no such good reason. Secondly, there is the evidence of Isocrates. In his letter to King Archidamus (§11), he said that Agesilaus was the only prominent figure in the world who had ‘all his life constantly desired to liberate the Greeks and make war against the Barbarians’. Isocrates was eighty when he wrote this (§16) and one might wonder whether by 356 memories of the 380s and 370s had not been obscured by Agesilaus’ excursions to Asia and Egypt (Xen. Ages. 2.25–31). There is, however, other Isocratean evidence. The letter of Speusippus to Philip is now generally accepted as genuine.33 It is to be dated to 343/2, and in one passage (§13) Speusippus talks about Isocrates’ letter to Philip, evidently the Fifth Oration of 346, as the final version of what had earlier been sent to Agesilaus. So too Isocrates. In his younger days he joined with Timotheus in sending to the Athenian people letters disparaging you Macedonians, and, now he’s an old man, as if he hated or envied you he has passed over the majority of your good points and sent off a speech to you personally which first of all he wrote for Agesilaus; later making small revisions he put it on offer to Dionysius, the tyrant of Sicily; then for the third time, putting bits in and taking bits out, he tried passing it off to Alexander, the Thessalian. Now, for the last time of asking, in his tightfisted way he has flung it at you. When was this letter sent34 to Agesilaus? ‘Dionysius, the tyrant of Sicily’ is presumably Dionysius I who died in 367. So it must be before (p.253) that date. But in any case an appeal to Agesilaus after Leuctra is inconceivable: Agesilaus had too much to occupy him and a Spartan king was no longer to be thought of as the man to lead the Greeks, Thebans included. On the other hand, the speech must be later than the Panegyric of 380 which twice mentions Agesilaus (§§144, Page 8 of 31

Agesilaus and Sparta 153) but could in no sense be said to be addressed to him. So it must have been at some time in the 370s, and, since Greece was at peace only between the Peace of 375 and the resumption of hostilities in 373, the probable enough setting for an appeal to Agesilaus is in 375/4,35 in the shadow of the peace which established concord between the leading land and naval powers of Greece, the necessary pre-condition of a crusade against Persia. Such precision, however, is not here important. The real point is that in the 370s Isocrates considered Agesilaus a suitable person to take charge of the Panhellenic campaign against Persia. If he had been responsible for the making of the King’s Peace, in view of all that Isocrates had to say about the Peace in the Panegyric, such an appeal would hardly have been made. So Isocrates in the 370s was taking the same view of Agesilaus that he was to take in 356—Agesilaus was consistently Panhellenist. Finally there is the evidence of Theopompus and Ephorus, or, rather, the Ephoran tradition in Diodorus. Isocrates in the Panegyric (§135) of 380 remarked that the Persian forces were Greek, and ‘the rebels are friendly disposed towards us Athenians and are handing themselves over (ἐνδιδόασιν) to the Spartans’, and this odd claim is supported by both Theopompus and Diodorus. According to Theopompus’ account in Book XII of the Philippica (F 103), shortly before the end of the Cyprian War Evagoras sent an embassy to Sparta. In Diodorus (15.9.3f.) the notice of the end of the Cyprian War is followed by the revolt of the Persian admiral, Glos, who appeals to Sparta for alliance. (Diodorus has the Spartans accept his offer, which is impossible, but this Diodoran flourish, paralleled elsewhere,36 should not discredit the whole story.) What grounds were there for these appeals? Of course, Evagoras was getting into desperate straits and might turn to anyone, however improbable. But what grounds (p.254) could Glos have for thinking that after the collapse of the Cyprian War there was any point whatsoever in appealing to Sparta, the Great King’s great friend? Sparta was faring very well under the King’s Peace. By 380 Mantinea had been dealt with, the discipline of Phlius begun, and the Peloponnese was in hand; Theban ambition had been checked and Olynthus was feeling the first of the lash; Sparta could feel no dissatisfaction with the progress towards a full restoration of the empire of 404 and following years. There had been no unanswered appeals to Persia. Sparta had no need of outside help. Yet the Great King’s enemies sought help at Sparta, and such appeal was not pronounced hopeless by Isocrates. One may conjecture that it was known that not all were of one mind at Sparta. But who was dissident? At least it will be conceded that no other candidate for this honour than Agesilaus can even be named. He alone is said to put up any opposition to the Peace, even if only temporarily (Xen. Ages. 2.21), to have been the opponent of Antalcidas, negotiator of the Peace (Plut. Ages. 23), to have spurned the letter of friendship sent by the Great King (Xen. Ages. 8.3), to have been appealed to by Isocrates (Speusippus, Letter to Philip

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Agesilaus and Sparta 13). Glos and his Oriental kind had some expectations. Who else can be named who would be expected to receive them with sympathy? The case is not as full as one could wish. Our knowledge of Spartan political wrangles is very superficial. Yet there is enough to justify the claim that Agesilaus did not renounce in the 380s and 370s his Panhellenist ideas of the 390s. Of course there was some development of views. The notion of a great crusade and a march ‘up-country’ in the course of which the Great King would be made to fight ‘for Asia’ (Xen. Ages. 1.8) was in this period quite unrealistic and, underneath, the Greeks probably knew it. Cyrus the Younger had come near to succeeding in his family quarrel, the success of single combat on the field of Cunaxa, but for the conflict of East and West there was needed something like the League of Corinth which could provide a much larger army than Agesilaus could have mustered for 394. Even if he had succeeded in crossing from Paphlagonia to Cilicia37 as he appears to have planned to do (Hell. Oxy. 22.4), little would have been accomplished. The defeat of Tissaphernes in 395 (Hell. Oxy. 12.1, Diod. 14.80.4) did not detach Lydia from loyalty, and hopes of a (p. 255) general Satraps’ Revolt (Hell. 4.1.41) caused by a Greek invasion were vain. Behind the large professions of Agesilaus38 lay clear enough recognition that all that could be gained was independence for the Greeks of Asia. Negotiations and military pressure were the means to this limited end. Agesilaus fought against and agreed with the Satraps and found the Great King’s loyal servants agreeable indeed (Hell. 3.4.26, 4.1.38). The events of the 360s changed all that: once Persia had abandoned Sparta as her ally in Greece as she did during the embassy of Pelopidas in 367 and assented to the independence of Messene (Hell. 7.1.36f.), concord with the servants of the Great King was impossible. Only rebels could be dealt with (Ages. 2.26ff.). The sentimental Panhellenist became, in Xenophon’s word, ‘the Persianhater’ (Ages. 7.7— μισοπέρσης). Xenophon himself went through a parallel development. Throughout the Education of Cyrus he curiously lauds the virtues of Cyrus and the Persian nobility, until in the last chapter (8.8) he turns on them savagely and denounces their degeneracy. The contrast is so striking that it has been generally accepted that the chapter, written after 362 (cf. §4f. and Diod. 15.92), was a late addition. So Xenophon too had a period when he regarded the Persian as a foe but an admirable foe.39 The Persian concord with Thebes, which threatened the good life of the Peloponnese, changed all that. Like Agesilaus, he ended in bitter hatred, μισοπέρσης. On that subject at least, they were in complete harmony. The early history of the Peloponnesian League, the instrument whereby Sparta controlled in large measure the Peloponnese, is disputed. The most satisfactory account would appear to be that which grounds the extension of Spartan influence in a policy of suppressing tyrannies and restoring exile aristocracies with which she entered into agreements of friendship and mutual defence. This Page 10 of 31

Agesilaus and Sparta certainly was the view held by Herodotus who made a Corinthian spokesman, on the occasion of a perverse Spartan proposal to restore the Athenian tyrant, Hippias, whom the Spartans themselves had expelled, declare that the natural order of heaven and earth, land, (p.256) and sea, was reversed when Spartans ‘put down governments of Peers (ἰσοκρατίαι) and prepared to restore tyrants to the cities’ (5.92). Herodotus may have been misinformed about the sixth century, or have imagined a general rule on the strength of a few instances, properly to be explained otherwise, but his words were at the least a reflection of the situation which he observed for himself in the fifth century, and which Thucydides (1.19) described in similar terms— ‘the Spartans exercised hegemony over their allies not by keeping them in tribute-paying status but through oligarchy, making sure that the allies ran their states in a way that suited the Spartans’.40 Sparta, the city of Equals (ὅμοιοι), was herself a government of Peers, living around a city without walls in villages (κατὰ κώμας), and her aim was to establish a similar order as far as possible elsewhere. After the Persians retired from Greece in 479, the Spartans even tried to persuade Athens not to have walls but to join with them in removing the walls of such states outside the Peloponnese as possessed them (Thuc. 1.90). What they recommended to Athens they had themselves widely secured within the Peloponnese. States which had walls by the time of entering into alliance with Sparta, such as perhaps Tegea and Orchomenus,41 were in this respect past redemption but many were still in the more primitive condition of having merely an acropolis, a walled refuge, and living in villages. Such for instance were Elis and Mantinea which, before their synoecism at a time when Sparta was unable to prevent it, consisted of a number of parishes (Diod. 11.54.1, Strabo 337), and the effect of Spartan policy was well seen in the history of Megalopolis which was founded, after the ending of Spartan control, by the Synoecism of a large number of small places (Paus. 8.27.3f., cf. Diod. 15.94.1) in an area well suited by geography to have contained a large city at a much earlier date. The ideal was landed aristocracy, without walled cities, but not defenceless. Just as Sparta kept herself inviolate from outside by her own (p.257) army (cf. Plut. Mor. 217 E) and internally by ingrained devotion to the Lycurgan constitution, so too the landed aristocracies were defended against attack from outside by the military power of Sparta and the League and from internal change by the guarantee of Spartan intervention. In return they made their contribution to the military strength of the League. It was a system of safety in return for service, as Xenophon’s remarks on the settlement of Mantinea imposed by the Spartans in 384 (Hell. 5.2.7) show. The city wall was destroyed and the Mantineans were made to live in four separate localities just as they used to live in the olden times. At first they resented it because they had to destroy the dwellings they had and build others. But when the people with the property lived nearer the estates which they had round the villages, enjoyed a system of aristocracy, and Page 11 of 31

Agesilaus and Sparta were rid of the troublesome demagogues, they were pleased with what had been done. The Spartans would send a call-up officer (ξϵναγός) for each village, and not just one for the whole, and the Mantineans shared in military service from the villages far more readily than when they were under democracy. The essence is there—no large population secured from external check by city walls to follow the dangerous lead of demagogues, but a landed aristocracy rendering military service in return for security from challenges to their position in society. By no means all members of the Peloponnesian League were in this happy condition. As already remarked, a good number had walls. But even there the Spartans maintained their influence, in Thucydides’ phrase (1.19), ‘through oligarchy’, and in general it may be asserted that the Peloponnesian League was the union of ‘the best men’, οἱ βέλτιστοι, as Xenophon in the accepted usage called them (cf. Hell. 5.2.6, 7.3.4, 7.4.26). A union of ‘the best men’ one may name it. If there is no more to be said of it, it seems to have been a squalid bargain, dominance in one’s own state in return for helping another state to general domination. But there is more to be said. Both parties to the bargain thought of it as service to an ideal. Throughout Greece, there were men who looked to Sparta as the nearest approach to the best form of society. We see them most clearly at Athens. Critias, who in prose and verse lauded everything Spartan42 and by extreme violence sought to reorder Athens on the Spartan model, could declare in his attack on (p.258) Theramenes (2.3.34), as if it was a generally accepted fact, that ‘the Spartan constitution is considered, I take it, to be the best (καλλίστη)’. Assent must have been fairly widespread at the time; the free society lauded by Pericles for its effortless superiority over the strenuous dullness of Sparta had come to disaster and men looked with admiration to Sparta’s ordered stability. Plato, like Aristophanes,43 jibed at those who imitated the mere externals of Spartan conduct, long hair, plain dress, and rough play (Protag. 342 B, C), but his Republic was basically Spartan in inspiration. He was an intellectual who should have known better. More straightforward and characteristic was Cimon, whose sympathy with Sparta was celebrated (Plut. Cim. 16) and of whom Stesimbrotus of Thasos declared that ‘he was quite free of Attic sharpness and clever-clever talk and had in his character much nobility and honesty, and the very cast of soul of the man was, rather, Peloponnesian’ (ibid. 4.5). At Athens such a man was the exception, but in the Peloponnese Sparta and the mirage spartiate formed a compulsive ideal. ‘The Laconizers in the cities’ (Plato, loc. cit.) of the Peloponnese, like Xenophon who settled there (Diog. Laert. 2.54), thought so highly of the Spartan way of life that they sent their sons to Sparta for a Spartan education.44 Indeed the number of outsiders among the so-called ‘wards’ (τρóϕιμοι) at any moment was probably quite large. At least they were numerous enough in 380 to make a contribution worth mention to the army of Agesipolis (5.3.9). They were also passable imitations of Spartiates; in 243 Agis Page 12 of 31

Agesilaus and Sparta proposed to enrol them as such (Plut. Agis 8.3). Scattered through the states of the Peloponnese, they formed the nucleus of Laconophiles, the nucleus and the inspiration, as is well illustrated by what happened during the siege of Phlius. This was a city of 5,000 citizens, but those who deserted to Agesilaus’ army numbered over 1,000, ‘in excellent physical condition, very well disciplined and well armed’, who easily fitted in to the system of syssitia and whose military bearing forced the critics of Agesilaus to admit that Sparta needed such soldiers to help them (5.3.16f.). There is no way of discovering how many of these 1,000 had been through the Spartan education system, but clearly there had been enough to leaven the rest. So the Spartiate ideal was spread through the states of the Peloponnesian League, and ‘the best men’ had their eyes fixed upon (p. 259) the mirage spartiate, as we can well see in the case of Xenophon himself, who, like Cimon, was a true ‘Peloponnesian’ at heart. He had had an Athenian education. He did not want it for his sons. Rather, he expressed a profound contempt for hair-splitting sophistry (Cyneg. 13 and cf. 12) and preferred the Spartan world where one did not teach the art of argument but trained men in virtue. A devoted convert, he was typical of ‘the best men’ of the Peloponnese, and it is through his history that we understand them, know a small number by name, and glimpse their influence. Their devotion to Sparta and Spartanism was of the essence of the League. ‘Guest-friendship’, as we see with Xenophon, meant friendship with leading Spartans, not just with Sparta, and probably most of them had their clients widespread through the Peloponnese. It is notable that ‘the best’ to whom Xenophon gives names and space are in a number of cases ‘guest-friends’ of the Eurypontids—Xenias of Elis (3.2.27) of Agis (Paus. 3.8.4), Podanemus of Phlius of Archidamus, and Procles of Phlius of Agesilaus (5.3.13)—and there are no names of ‘guest-friends’ of the Agiads, merely the suggestion of discreditable connections as at Mantinea (5.2.3). So one might be tempted to suppose that the Eurypontids were the patrons of the Peloponnesian League. But this would be error. Xenophon tends to name and give space to those who seem to him worth the honour,45 and the circle of Agesilaus is his circle. The foreign connections of the rival kings do not win his approval, and find no place in his history, but Agesilaus was not the only Spartan given to entertaining visitors (cf. Mem. 1.2.61) and no doubt the Agiads too had their clientele. Indeed ample volunteers from the allied states joined Agesipolis on his expedition to Thrace, even some Thessalians joined the expedition in the hope of becoming known to him (5.3.9), which implies a widespread connection. There is no difference between Agiads and Eurypontids as far as having a clientele is concerned. Where they differ is in the nature of the clientele—unless we are misled by what happened in the cases of Mantinea and Phlius. Xenophon remarked that Pausanias was assuredly on friendly terms with the leaders of the demos in Mantinea, and later reported that he intervened with his son to save sixty persons whom Xenophon described as ‘the pro-Argos (p.260) faction and the leaders of the demos’ (5.2.3 and 6). So Page 13 of 31

Agesilaus and Sparta Agiad connections with Mantinea were with the very people whose independence Sparta in 385 set out to curb. Similarly in the case of Phlius, which was a democracy46 in 380 (5.3.16) and before the King’s Peace. The factions of the two leading citizens who were ‘guest-friends’ of Eurypontid kings had been in exile and were clearly at odds with the leaders of democratic Phlius, who in turn readily supported Agesipolis’ expedition with money, perhaps because he was sympathetic to them, and when Agesilaus attacked the city sought to appeal over his head to Sparta, presumably because they hoped for better treatment from his opponents (Hell. 5.3.10–16, 23ff.). That is all the evidence that can be mustered for the Peloponnesian states, but it matches remarkably the conduct of Pausanias at Athens in 403, for which he was tried on his return to Sparta (Hell. 2.4.35, 3.5.25, Paus. 3.5.1f.). The charge was that he had let the Athenian demos off lightly, and in Xenophon’s view he was at least suspect of secret dealings with the leaders of the demos. Clearly enough, the Agiads too had their clientele in the allied states, but their preference appears not to have excluded men who could be described as ‘leaders of the people’, and this implies a strikingly different view of how Sparta could best maintain control of the Peloponnese. In the fifth century that had been done, as Thucydides (1.19) remarked, ‘through oligarchy’. The Agiads of the early fourth century seem to have envisaged another method, viz. tolerating democracies in the hope that they would not take the final step of separating themselves from Sparta. At first glance there was something to be said for such a view. It would be increasingly difficult to check the growth of cities, and unless Sparta came to terms with them the influence of popular leaders would inevitably work ever more strongly against compliance with Spartan wishes. Also, the alternative policy of allowing member states no independence was bound to mean bloodshed and oppression, much at variance with professions of autonomy and freedom. Could the violence of Agesilaus succeed? It is comforting to think not, but with reflection a hard truth becomes plain. From the point ofview of securing essential Spartan interests, Agesilaus was right. (p.261) The problem of how to contain the independence of states in the Peloponnesian League varied according to geographical location. Those near to Sparta itself required different treatment from those further away and nearer to states potentially hostile to the League, but it happens that in Mantinea and Phlius we have a case of each sort. In both the policy of Agesilaus was proved sound. Mantinea and Elis were the two great anomalies in the Spartan system in the fifth century. Both had been synoecized in the troubled period after the Persian Wars,47 and had been allowed to develop within the protection of walls48 into large cities and so to pursue, as democracies, independent policies. Both had Page 14 of 31

Agesilaus and Sparta deserted Sparta for Argos after the Peace of Nicias. Elis had dared to push her wrangle with Sparta over Lepreon to the point of excluding Spartans from competing at the Olympic Games and Agis from praying for victory in the war, had refused to pay her share of the expenses of the war against Athens, and, above all, had forcibly seized a number of perioecic towns.49 Mantinea, whose independence during the campaign of Olpae in 426 was remarked by Thucydides (3.107.4, 108.2), had in the course of the Archidamian War subjected part of Arcadia, which she had had to disgorge in the treaty of 418/17 (Thuc. 5.29.1, 33, 81.1), and during the Corinthian War, for a member of the Peloponnesian League, had gone to monstrous lengths: there was a group of politicians Xenophon described as ‘pro-Argos’ (Ἀργολίζοντϵς); corn, he declared, had been sent to that city; calls to military service had been either unheeded or reluctantly obeyed (5.2.2, 6);50 the city had been so openly out of sympathy with the (p.262) Spartan cause that Agesilaus had felt it worthwhile not to expose to Mantinean ridicule the remnants of the division afflicted at the Pathos in Lechaeum (4.5.18). So much for the policies of the sort of men who were in the clientele of Pausanias. Clearly, if the Peloponnesian League was to continue, Sparta could not tolerate such independence, and the Eurypontids’ opponents conceded the point. We are not informed about the attitude of Pausanias to the reduction of Elis, though there could hardly have been debate about whether to bring the city back into the League and the military action may not, as in Xenophon’s account, have concerned only Agis.51 The case of Mantinea, however, is plain enough. Whatever Agesilaus’ real motive for begging off the command (5.2.3), whether to put the odium on the other royal house or to make them play their part in what was generally agreed to be necessary, he certainly put the Agiad Agesipolis in the position of having to punish the very people who had been closely connected with his father, Pausanias. Agesipolis made no attempt to avoid the task, but carried it out thoroughly (Hell. 5.2.6f.). He spared the lives of the trouble-makers, but made a repetition of the trouble impossible. Until the discrediting of Spartan (p.263) military power at Leuctra, the Mantineans played their plan readily (5.2.7), just as there was no more trouble with Elis, now unwalled. The repressive policy had worked. For Spartan power, a broad girdle across the Peloponnese of so-called autonomy, which was in fact imposed landed aristocracy, was best. Phlius52 was different. She was sufficiently close to Argos to require walls and to maintain a sort of obedience to Sparta. In the Corinthian War, despite her democratic constitution and her suspicion of Sparta which led her to exile Spartan sympathizers (4.4.15, 5.3.13), she had not deserted the Spartan cause, even if she had been somewhat lukewarm in her support (4.4.15, 5.2.8), and it might be argued that she would have continued loyally enough if left to herself. This might have been the case, but it is undeniable that the severe policy of Agesilaus worked most effectively. Despite the great unrest in the Peloponnese after Leuctra in which Phliasian exiles expected to force their restoration,53 Page 15 of 31

Agesilaus and Sparta Phlius stood firm until the end of the Peloponnesian League in 366: others like Euphron of Sicyon (7.1.44) came to terms with the new order. Phlius endured attack by Argos and by Sicyon and earned the praises of Xenophon for her loyalty (7.2.1ff.). There could be no better demonstration of the effectiveness of the repressive policy within the Peloponnese. As Agesilaus obliged his critics at the siege of Phlius to confess that the Spartans needed such men to fight beside them, so too by his support for his Phliasian friends, Podanemus and Procles, and their supporters he secured that the city continued to fight. Corinth too remained loyal. The exiles restored through Agesilaus in 386 (Ages. 2.21) kept her firmly on Sparta’s side after Leuctra,54 thus providing Xenophon with a congenial home and Sparta with a strategically all-important headquarters for the war.55 Pasimelus, the devoted supporter of Sparta in 392, was still in power in the 360s (4.4.7, 7.3.2). Agesilaus’ policy of supporting friends (ϕιλϵταιρία) worked where tolerance for democracies had proved disastrous. But what of Sparta’s relations with states outside the Peloponnese? Did Agesilaus aim to use with them the same formula, unmodified by (p.264) considerations of their remoteness and magnitude? Was his policy towards the rising military power of Thebes ruinous for Sparta? It is certainly right to speak of Agesilaus’ policy, though it is only in the case of Thebes that differences clearly emerge. The case of Olynthus is unclear. Two views could be taken of the rise of Olynthian power. According to the one represented by Xenophon (5.2.11ff.) Sparta acted in defence of the independence of Acanthus and Apollonia; Amyntas, king of Macedonia, is merely alluded to in the Acanthian envoy’s speech. So the appeal was entirely within the framework of the King’s Peace, in which Amyntas had not been included.56 The other view is the Ephoran, represented in Diodorus (15.19.2f.), viz. that the central element in the Spartan attack on Olynthus was the alliance with Amyntas, which is only to be presumed from Xenophon’s account of the demands made on him by Teleutias (5.2.38), and there is some reason to take this view seriously. For both Thebes and Athens were said by the Acanthian envoy to be contemplating alliance with Olynthus (5.2.15), and this was only conceivable if the alliance was to be active against those not party to the King’s Peace.57 So Sparta chose to regard the Olynthian threat to other Greek cities in the area as more important than the defence of Greeks against outlandish Macedonians, and although we cannot be sure, it looks as if the moving spirit at Sparta was Agesilaus. The first three commanders,58 Phoebidas, Eudamidas, and Teleutias, were all (p.265) supporters of his, possibly all relatives.59 So, clearly enough, Agesilaus did seek to exercise power in northern Greece and bring a city as remote as Olynthus into the Spartan system. It is no surprise to find ‘the Olynthians and the Thraceward allies’ forming one of the ten divisions in the Spartan military reorganization recorded by Diodorus (15.31.2) as part of the Page 16 of 31

Agesilaus and Sparta preparations for Agesilaus’ campaign of 378, nor to find Olynthian cavalry in action against Thebes in 377 (5.4.54). But was all this disputed at Sparta? We simply do not know, though we may suspect. After the death of Teleutias, the Agiad king himself was sent out (5.3.9), perhaps merely to win his spurs as Agesilaus had done in Asia, also supervised by thirty Spartiates, but perhaps as part of a reaction against Agesilaus, his faction, and his methods generally. On the death of Agesipolis, the harmost sent out to Thrace was Polybiades (5.3.20),60 quite possibly son of the Nauclidas who as ephor in 404/3 was won over by Pausanias to a policy opposed to the ‘strong’ policy of Lysander (2.4.29, 36).61 The settlement for Olynthus, which was lenient enough for Demosthenes (19.264) later to describe it as on the Olynthians’ own terms, perhaps reflects Agiad ideas. Olynthus was starving and at the Spartans’ mercy (5.3.26), and the Olynthian envoys to Sparta had nothing to bid with. If Agesilaus had been in full control at that moment, he might still have had to accept that a ‘soft’ commander would have to carry out the decision, and ‘tough’ settlements like that of Phlius needed a ‘tough’ executor. But perhaps the ephors of 380/79 were not whole-hearted supporters of Agesilaus, for the Phliasians had sought to have ‘the authorities’ (τὰτέλη, a term which at the least involved the ephors—3.2.23) in Sparta rather than Agesilaus, dispose of their case (5.3.23). Agesilaus’ friends had got him his way over Phlius. Perhaps Olynthus was too much. But this is largely conjecture. The case of Olynthus is no real help. Over relations with Thebes the division at Sparta is plain. The Agiad Cleombrotus was suspected of Theban sympathies. He had (p.266) certainly prosecuted the war in a very ambiguous manner. In the invasion of Boeotia in winter 379/8 he had done as little damage as possible and his army was led home uncertain whether Sparta and Thebes were at war or not (5.4.16). In 376 he was readily deterred from invasion by difficulties which Agesilaus had twice easily overcome (5.4.59). The supporter (Plut. Ages. 24.4), whom he installed as harmost in Thespiae, Sphodrias, was thought by some to have been inspired by him to raid the Piraeus (Diod. 15.29.5), but by the Thebans according to others including Xenophon (5.4.20; cf. Plut. Ages. 24.6), which argues suspicion of a coincidence of views between Cleombrotus and the Theban leaders. On the eve of Leuctra he was even suspected of wishing to avoid a battle which was expected to finish Theban independence; his opponents said ‘Now certainly, the fellow will show whether he really cares for the Thebans as he is said to do’ (6.4.5). Agesilaus was unremittingly hostile to Thebes. His ‘enmity towards the Thebans’ (5.1.33) led him to apply the King’s Peace with special severity. The Theban envoys to Sparta in 387/6 had no expectation whatsoever that the Peace would be used to dissolve the Boeotian Confederacy (5.1.32). Presumably in 392/1 there had been no suggestion of this (cf. Andoc. 3.19) and the embassy so contumaciously treated by Agesilaus in 390 was ‘from the Boeotians’ (4.5.6, 9). So the dissolution of 386 would appear to be the special twist of Agesilaus. Again in 382 not only was he thought by some to have prompted Phoebidas to Page 17 of 31

Agesilaus and Sparta intervene in Thebes (cf. Diod. 15.20.2) but he actually persuaded the Spartans to retain the Cadmea (Plut. Ages. 23.11). Once war had broken out, despite earlier excuses of being too old for military service (5.4.16), he prosecuted it with vigour until his illness (5.4.58), and was accused of making the Boeotians good soldiers (Plut. Ages. 26.3, Mor. 190 F, etc.). In 371 he opposed the proposal of Prothous which would have forfeited the military advantage Sparta seemed to have (6.4.2, Plut. Ages. 28.6). He had isolated Boeotia from the Greeks in the Peace (6.3.19). Now the final solution was at hand. What is behind this division of policy? It is to be noted that Agesilaus took a lenient attitude towards Athens. His military efforts were concentrated on Boeotia. He left Attica untouched. His reaction to the foundation of the Second Athenian Confederacy seems to have been to have a cautionary embassy sent to Athens (5.4.22, cf. Diod. 15.28.4), to judge by the name of one of the ambassadors, Etymocles (5.4.22), who was one of his supporters (Plut. Ages. 25.8), in contrast (p.267) to the violent action of his opponent, Sphodrias. We are uninformed about his attitude to the restoration of the dual hegemony in the Peace of 375, but no anecdotes confront Agesilaus and Callistratus; Epaminondas is his special opponent. One might therefore suppose that Agesilaus was indifferent to the restoration of Athens as a naval power and as, potentially, an imperial power, and addressed himself solely to maintaining Spartan empire on land. But Sparta had been lenient to Athens. His hostility to Thebes seems to have derived from Theban policy in 395/4 which ruined his planned attack on Persia. When Ismenias was tried in 382, the charge against him was that ‘he favoured the barbarian, had become guest-friend to the Persian for no purpose advantageous to Greece, had taken a share of the money sent from the Great King, and along with Androclidas was chiefly to blame for the whole disturbed state of affairs in Greece’ (5.2.35). This was at a moment when Agesilaus seems to have been highly influential in Sparta, and perhaps reflects his attitude to Thebes and explains his bitter enmity. Cleombrotus on the other hand seemed to favour Thebes not because he approved of Theban illegality— after all, he did not hesitate to join battle in 371 (6.4.6) and in fact displayed skill and resolution in penetrating the Boeotian plain62—but because he put his faith in diplomacy and alliances. This was why in 379/8 he did not create a state of war (5.4.16) as long as there was a chance of securing a diplomatic settlement. The liberation of Thebes was promptly followed by an appeal by the new government to Sparta, ‘being ready to submit to Sparta and not to disturb any of the previous agreements with the Spartans’ (Isoc. 14.29). Cleombrotus did not mind who was in power if formal treaties could be allowed to operate. Polybius, who was well read in the historical literature of the fourth century,63 remarked (9.23.7) that ‘whatever was done through King Cleombrotus, entirely adhered to the policy of alliance, but whatever through Agesilaus, the opposite’, and this wholly accords with the general statement of Ephorus (in Diodorus 15.19.4) about the differing policies of Agesilaus and the Agiad Agesipolis. ‘Agesipolis Page 18 of 31

Agesilaus and Sparta was peaceful and just and indeed of outstanding intelligence, and declared that it was necessary to abide by the sworn agreements and not to enslave the Hellenes in contravention of the Common Peace… but Agesilaus was by nature interventionist δραστικóς and militaristic (p.268) ϕιλοπόλϵμος and clung to keeping power over the Greeks.’ The Agiad line was consistent. Pausanias had come to terms with the Athenian democrats (2.4.38) and tolerated the popular leaders of Mantinea (5.2.3). Agesipolis was lauded by his father on the memorial at Delphi (Tod, GHI 120); ‘Greece is united in sounding his virtue (ἀρϵτά)’. Hence the general wish to serve with him in the north (5.3.9f.). Cleombrotus was in the same tradition of respecting formal agreements. What Agesilaus would have wanted to do to Thebes had Sparta won the battle of Leuctra we can only guess. Certainly the Boeotian Confederacy would have been broken up and Plataea and Thespiae restored. Xenophon was at pains in the Agesilaus to deny that Agesilaus desired to destroy any Greek city and reduce its inhabitants to slavery (7.6). Perhaps he was fortunate that his hero did not get the chance with Thebes. But since he declared that Agesilaus’ real reason for excusing himself from the command against Thebes in 379/8 was that Agesilaus did not want to be accused of helping ‘the tyrants’ (5.4.13), perhaps his method would have been what it had been at Phlius (5.3.25), viz. to purge the city of ‘unsuitable’ citizens and to establish a ‘suitable’ constitution with the initial aid of a garrison, the ‘support of supporters’ (ϕιλϵταιρία) again. It cannot be proved, but perhaps his ideas on how to maintain domination were the same outside and inside the Peloponnese. Was Agesilaus’ policy outside the Peloponnese disastrous for Sparta? Certainly, if he did continue to desire a return to Asia, there was, as Isocrates remarked (5.87, Letter 9.12f.), a fundamental inconsistency between that desire and the policy of establishing ‘suitable’ persons in the cities of Greece. But since after 394 a Hellenic crusade against Persia was merely a pipe-dream, this did not matter. The real question is whether his policy within Greece was not, despite Isocrates’ approval, disastrous. Could the repression so effective within the Peloponnese have worked outside it, given the limitations of Spartan military resources? It might be argued that repression had already failed in the case of Athens before Agesilaus became king, and attempts to repeat it elsewhere would inevitably fail. It would be comforting to think so, but it would be wrong. The system established by Lysander at Athens was essentially that later employed by Agesilaus, viz. to install in power a favoured party, supported by a garrison, and to be ready to sustain it with the full military might of Sparta. What ruined things at Athens (p.269) was not the operation of this system but the failure to operate it. When Pausanias persuaded three of the ephors to his view (2.4.29ff.) and took out an army, he subverted Lysander’s plan (2.4.28) to bring the city to heel, and the accommodation with the leaders of the democratic insurgents left Page 19 of 31

Agesilaus and Sparta the party of Critias to their ruin. If Lysander had had his way, there would have been no independent Athens to answer the appeal of Thebes in 395. Precedent therefore strongly bade Agesilaus follow the course he took. But perhaps his end was misconceived? He had resolved to do all that he could to prevent Boeotia being united under a powerful Thebes and this he had accomplished in the application of the King’s Peace (see above, p. 266). Yet it might be argued that the limit of Theban ambition was the unification of Boeotia and, if Agesilaus had had the wisdom to permit as much, Thebes would never have conceived the aim of destroying Spartan power. Pagondas, the Theban Boeotarch, in his speech before the battle of Delium (Thuc. 4.92) had manifested no concern with anything more than the integrity of Boeotia. Surely Agesilaus was wrong to fear larger ambitions. But this case will not stand up to examination—on two counts. First, it was not clear that the opponents of the Laconophile Leontiades (Hell. Oxy. 17.1) were not bent on more than the unification of Boeotia. The Boeotians had come out of the Peloponnesian War very well. According to the Oxyrhynchus historian, the Thebans ‘had progressed a great deal towards complete prosperity’ (17.3f.), and one has only to compare Sparta’s expectations of Boeotia in 412 with those of her other allies (Thuc. 8.3.2) to see how much stronger economically she had become. Furthermore the Boeotian state was united (Hell. Oxy. 16.2ff.) and apart from Oropus, which she snatched in 402/1 (Diod. 14.17), there was no more to desire. Yet the second part of the war onwards saw some manifestations of Boeotian independence and discontent with Spartan hegemony. In 419, called to help Heraclea in Trachis to defend itself, the Boeotians took over the defence of the city which was perhaps justifiable but dismissed the Spartan governor which was not (Thuc. 5.52). Alone of Sparta’s allies, they demanded a tithe of the booty taken in the war (3.5.5, Plut. Lys. 27.4, Justin 5.10.12f.). Perhaps fears of Spartan encirclement64 prompted Ismenias to provide Thrasybulus with money for the return to Athens (p.270) (Justin 5.9.8) and the city to abstain from helping to suppress Athens in 403 and Elis shortly afterwards (2.4.30, 3.2.25, 3.5.5). But the city had received the Athenian exiles in 404 (2.4.1, Diod. 14.6) before Lysander’s activities in northern Greece could have begun to cause alarm, and the Boeotians secure in their united state must have seemed at Sparta unreasonably uncooperative. Above all, the events of 395 were a permanent warning. Sparta was engaged in Asia. There could be no question of immediate danger to Thebes. Yet Ismenias and Androclidas, if we may believe the version of the Oxyrhynchus historian (18.1) which is the same on this point as Xenophon’s (3.5.3), worked to begin a war in central Greece which would embroil Sparta and in the course of it the Boeotians invaded Phocis and tried to take Hyampolis (Hell. Oxy. 18.5), an important site strategically65 and close enough to the Boeotian border to raise doubts about whether had they taken it they would have been willing to let it go. What confidence could Sparta have that Boeotia had no ambitions to extend her power in central Greece? If Agesilaus judged in 386 that it would not be safe to Page 20 of 31

Agesilaus and Sparta leave Boeotia united for Ismenias, Androclidas, and their large faction (5.2.31) to exploit, he was not clearly wrong. But, secondly, even if he was wrong, even if Boeotia had no ambitions outside herself, the military potential of the state was such that Sparta could not allow her the opportunity militarily to stand together. Eleven thousand hoplites and 1,100 cavalry (Hell. Oxy. 16.4) was a very large army,66 probably the equal of either side in that ‘greatest of Greek battles’, First Mantinea (Thuc. 5.74). Great battles were rare in Greek warfare, but Boeotia had won two since 450, Coronea and Delium, and military self-confidence was high (cf. Xen. Mem. 3.5.4), as the mood of 395 showed (Andoc. 3.25). Indeed Thebes had already begun to innovate in the art of war; the twenty-five-deep formation at Delium (Thuc. 4.93.4) and possibly an early version of the Sacred Band (Diod. 12.70.1) were shadows of things to come, as was the professionalism of Coeratadas (Xen. Anab. 7.1.33). Thebes was militarily aware as well as strong and confident. It would have been the height of folly for Agesilaus not to seek to restrict this power. For one thing, Boeotia was for Sparta, which lacked naval resources, on the only route to the north and so threatened the effective control of all the north of Greece, as the events of 382 must have suggested to (p.271) Agesilaus. Boeotia was going on with alliance with Olynthus even after Sparta had decided to act against her (5.2.34), and, if Phoebidas had not acted, the army of Teleutias (5.2.20) could have been effectively denied passage. Again 395 was suggestive. Promises of Persian money had set the Corinthian War alight (Hell. Oxy. 18.1). Partnership between Persia and Boeotia was not inconceivable and prudence, if nothing else, must have bidden Agesilaus seek to keep Boeotia divided. Nor was it safe to put trust in alliances. Alliance there had been in 395 and, for Sparta’s interests, that was the blackest precedent. As long as the opponents of Leontiades were there, alliance or no alliance, Agesilaus could expect trouble. The Agiad principle would not work. Xenophon naïvely saw Leuctra as the retribution of heaven against those who had occupied the Cadmea (5.4.1). Moderns in similar humour tend to see the battle as the inevitable consequence of Spartan policy. The truth is somewhat different. The battle was indeed the consequence of Agesilaus’ policy and a glorious triumph it should have been. The situation on the eve of Leuctra, far from condemning Agesilaus, in a sense proved him right. Thebes stood unaided from outside. Jason was her ally (6.4.20f.) but preoccupied, or lukewarm; when he arrived on the battlefield he had no mind to finish Sparta off. For the rest Thebes had to rely on a Boeotia in which Orchomenus, through long years nourished in dissidence by Sparta, had no part (Diod. 15.57.1) and in which Thespiae and others were hardly reliable (Paus. 9.13.8). The Boeotians in fact numbered ‘not more than 6,000’ according to Diodorus (15.52.2) and ‘were appalled to see large numbers of the enemy forces’ (15.53.2); according to Plutarch (Pel. 20.1), Cleombrotus had 10,000 hoplites and 1,000 cavalry. So Spartan policy had secured that Thebes, unaided, had to face a numerically Page 21 of 31

Agesilaus and Sparta much superior Peloponnesian army, her own forces at a lower figure than they had been or were to be for a generation. The military giant of Greece was ready to crush the upstart. Agesilaus was proved right. Sparta should have won the battle of Leuctra. Why did she fail to do so? Certainly it was not a matter of overall inferiority of numbers. After the reorganization of the alliance (Diod. 15.31.2) Sparta could put into the field large armies despite the decline in the number of Spartiates; in 378 and 377 Agesilaus’ army in Boeotia numbered 18,000 (Diod. 15.32.1, 34.1), and the army of Cleombrotus (p.272) outnumbered the Boeotians in 371 (see above). But, it might be asked, were there not too few Spartiates? Had not the real fighting strength of the Peloponnesian army dangerously diminished? Certainly there were many fewer Spartiates on the battlefield of Leuctra than had fought at First Mantinea. Only four of the six divisions of the army were with Cleombrotus and these included only those up to fifty-five years of age, a total of 700 Spartiates in all (6.4.15, 17),67 whereas at Mantinea, if we trust, as we should, the figures of Thucydides, and if it is right to suppose that there was roughly the same proportion of Spartiates to non-Spartiates in the Spartan army as in the survivors of the force that crossed to Sphacteria in 425 (Thuc. 4.38.5), there must have been something like 1,750 engaged. Yet it is clear that Sparta did not hesitate to send Cleombrotus into Boeotia without the fullest number of Spartiates possible and no account of the battle suggests that this was a serious mistake. Although continual training made the Spartiates supremely formidable in combat, the supremacy of the army previously had been the supremacy of the whole. The Xenophontic Constitution of the Spartans of the 370s spoke with admiration of the army as a whole68 (cf. chs. 11 and 12), and there is the same implication to be drawn from the celebrated anecdote concerning the distinction made by Agesilaus between ‘the Lacedaemonians’ and the allies when he sorted out the real soldiers from the amateurs (Plut. Ages. 26.7ff.). The worth of the whole does not seem to have been estimated merely in terms of the number of Spartiates. Of course, it may be argued that it was an error to confront the Thebans with only four divisions. Agesilaus in 378 had taken five divisions into Boeotia and the company of Sciritae (Diod. 15.32.1). Four divisions might have been just not enough. But there is nothing to this effect in the sources other than Xenophon. Diodorus (15.55f.) (p.273) and Plutarch (Pel. 23) ascribe the victory to the intervention of the Sacred Band, whose force was concentrated by Epaminondas on Cleombrotus and the bodyguard of the so-called hippeis.69 Xenophon does suggest that the Spartans were overwhelmed by numbers: the Thebans were ‘not less than fifty deep’ and the royal bodyguard was ‘pushed back’ by ‘the mass’ (ὄχλος) of the Thebans (6.4.12, 14). But it is clear that he is talking merely of the battle around the king. The truth appears to be that it was the concentration of force, new in the experience of the Spartan army, which Page 22 of 31

Agesilaus and Sparta decided the battle, that it was not a matter of numbers but of the strategic genius of Epaminondas. Insofar as Agesilaus was responsible for the defeat, it was not in the decision to commit Cleombrotus’ army unreinforced any more than in the policy of opposing Boeotian reunification. The real failure was the failure to adapt the Spartan army to the military needs of the age, which could only have been done by opening command of the army to the ablest soldiers. The kings of the age of Agesilaus did well enough in fifth-century terms but for the fourth century they were not minded to experiment and adapt. Various reforms of the constitution seem to have been proposed,70 and in particular Lysander may have had in mind the reform of election to the kingship of the ablest,71 which would have been a step in the right direction, if only a (p.274) step since tenure would have continued to be for life. But Sparta could not make radical changes in its constitution even though Spartan society did change greatly; devotion to the laws of Lycurgus numbed the Spartan mind. Agesilaus was no exception. That was perhaps the king’s real defect, but if he had been otherwise minded his reign would have been probably tempestuous, but certainly very short. Notes:

(1) It is hard to take seriously the story of prosecution by ephors in Plut. Ages. 5.4, which seems to be on a par with the story from Theophrastus in 2.6. (2) Cf. the far larger number of apophthegmata of Agesilaus than of any other Greek in Plut. Mor. 208ff. (3) E.g. K. J. Beloch, GG III.21, 109. and most recently G. E. M. de Ste Croix, The Origins of the Peloponnesian War, 160–3. The main discussions of Agesilaus are E. Zierke, Agesilaus (Inaug.-diss., Frankfurt, 1936), R. E. Smith, ‘The Opposition to Agesilaus’ Foreign Policy’ Historia 2 (1953/4), 274ff. See now D. G. Rice, ‘Agesilaus, Agesipolis, and Spartan Politics 386–379 B.C.’ Historia 23 (1974), 164ff. and R. Seager, ‘The King’s Peace and the Balance of Power in Greece 386– 362 B.C.’ Athenaeum 52 (1974), 36ff. (4) Anab. 5.3.6 and Plut. Ages. 18.2 for Xenophon at Coronea. The vivid and detailed account of the Asiatic campaigns argues his participation. (5) For ξένοι at the Gymnopaedia, Xen. Mem. 1.2.61, Plut. Ages. 29.3. Perhaps Xenophon was present in 371 (cf. Hell. 6.4.16). (6) At the common meals there was much discussion of deeds of valour (Resp. Lac. 5.6). (7) Whether the second part of the Hellenica (i.e. 2.3.11 onwards) was written in sections at different dates has been much disputed. I hope to argue elsewhere for the unitarian and ‘late’ view. Page 23 of 31

Agesilaus and Sparta (8) His death is recorded by Diodorus 15.93.6 under 362/1, but that is of no consequence. According to Plutarch, he was king for forty-one years, ‘over thirty of them’ before Leuctra, and died at the age of eighty-four (Plut. Ages. 40.3). This would put his accession in 402/1. (Xen. Hell. 3.3.1 is imprecise, as elsewhere—cf. 5.2.2—and therefore also in his synchronism of the Elean War and the campaigns of Thibron and Dercyllidas at 3.2.21.) Agesilaus is not recorded as playing any part in the events of 361 (Diod. 15.94), though had he been present in Sparta he well have confronted Pammenes’ small force. So that is probably a year of his absence from Sparta, which he is unlikely to have extended longer than was necessary. If Agesilaus acceded in 402/1, the Elean War, which did not end until early in its third summer (Xen. Hell. 3.2.30) before operations recommenced, must have begun in 403—a possible enough date considering our uncertainties about that war. However, Kienitz, Die politische Geschichte Ägyptens, 175f., opted for winter 360/59 for the death of Agesilaus on the grounds that, although the reign of Tachos ended between 21 Nov. 361 and 20 Nov. 360, there is a long sequence of events to be accommodated, which require Agesilaus’ remaining in Egypt in 360. So if 361/60 is the last year of Tachos’ reign, 360/ 59 is the earliest possible for the death of Agesilaus. (9) Diod. 14.13, Plut. Lys. 24–6, 30. (10) Plut. Ages. 17.2 suggests that Agesilaus himself feared that his forces were inadequate. (11) Ταῦτα in Xen. Ages. 2.21 presumably refers not only to Agesilaus’ restoration of the Phliasian exiles but also to his compelling Corinth and Thebes to take back their exiles in the King’s Peace, but there is nothing about Theban exiles in Xenophon’s account of the Peace in Hell. 5.1.33f. and the return of the Corinthian exiles is in that passage only a consequence of the dissolution of the union with Argos. Perhaps Xenophon is alluding to Agesilaus’ insisting on a clause about exiles being included in the Peace. Cf. Cawkwell, CQ. N.S. 23 (1973), 59 (herein Ch. X, 209–10). If this is right, he was censured for this particular clause, not for the Peace itself which Xenophon says he opposed (ἀντϵῖπϵ) and for which, as will be argued, he was not in general responsible. (12) 10.10 (cf. 40.3), 31.4, 32.14. Xenophon is not explicitly cited, and, where Plutarch appears to be following him, he may be reproducing Theopompus, who used Xenophon freely (FGH 115 F 21)—cf. the detail about Diphridas at 17.1, which is not from Xenophon although the surrounding narrative appears to be. Plutarch refers to several other sources, and his life of Agesilaus seems to be in parts largely independent of Xenophon. (13) Cf. Cawkwell, CQ. N.S. 23 (1973), 53 (herein Ch. X, 201). (14) Xenophon obscures this distinction (Hell. 5.4.1) with κατασχóντϵς.

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Agesilaus and Sparta (15) Phoebidas was fined (Diod. 15.20.2, Plut. Pel. 6.1). (16) Cf. Cawkwell, art. cit., 59, n. 1 (herein, 209, n. 45). (17) Cf. Cawkwell, Introduction to Xenophon: The Persian Expedition (London, 1972), 23ff. (18) One may note, however, that Procles of Phlius who expounds dual hegemony (7.1.2) which was part of the doctrine, gets quite a lot of space in the Hellenica, and with Xenophon space generally means approbation, silence frequently disapprobation. Callicratidas’ and Teleutias’ sentiments get full expression (1.6.2–11. 5.1.13–17). (19) Cf. the remark of Lichas (Thuc. 8.84.5) presaging a change of policy when the war was won. (20) From this point onwards all references Hellenica unless otherwise stated. (21) Cf. Xen. Ages. 1.8, which appears to use ‘Asia’ to mean the Persian Empire (cf. Hdt. 1.4.4, Thuc. 8.58.2). (22) Cf. Hell. Oxy. 12.1, pace Xen. 3.4.20 ἐπὶ τὰ κράτιστα τῆς χώρας, which has a grandiose sound. (All references to Hell. Oxy. are to Bartoletti’s numbering.) (23) Cf. Pel. 30.3. Ephorus had the same notion (Diod. 15.31.3). Hell. Oxy. 22.4 which speaks of Agesilaus intending to march from Cappadocia to the southern coast, ‘to Cilicia and Phoenicia’, might be urged as evidence of more modest intentions (cf. Isoc. 4.144, where what Agesilaus is said to have nearly done may reflect what he hoped to accomplish in 394), but, if he included Phoenicia in his designs, his designs were indeed large. (24) 3.4.27 places the reception of the message conferring the right to appoint the nauarch during Agesilaus’ march north when he was near Kyme. Since Grenfell and Hunt’s commentary on the Hellenica Oxyrhynchia (in P. Oxy., vol. v) it has been presumed that the reference to the nauarch Chiricrates in Hell. Oxy. 22.4 argues that Pisander had not been appointed by winter 395/4, but this is not a necessary inference—ὃς ἐπιβάτης τῷ ναυάρχῳ Xϵιρικράτϵι may simply be explaining who the man was and how he came to be in the Hellespont; it does not necessarily prove that Chiricrates was still nauarch. So Xenophon may well be right in his dating of the message which may well have been joined to the answer rejecting Tithraustes’ proposal. It has been suggested to me that the point of the Spartan government letting Agesilaus appoint the nauarch was to secure more effectively the action against Caria which had been demanded of Dercylidas (3.2.12). But such action is

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Agesilaus and Sparta unlikely to have been required or expected of Agesilaus, since he proceeded with a quite different strategy. (25) Cf. Accame, Ricerche intorno alla guerra corinzia, 142. (26) For the opposition to the Peace alleged by Xen. Ages. 2.21, see above, note 11. (27) Most recently, de Ste Croix, Origins of the Peloponnesian War, 161. (28) R. E. Smith, Historia 2 (1953–4), 277, n. 6 gives the history of the rejection. E. Zierke, Agesilaos, 50f., is an honourable exception. (29) Cf. Plut. Ages. 23.10, where the form of Agesilaus’ reply suggests that the offer was made either at the making of a peace or at some later date. ‘The Persian with Callias’ is therefore probably the representative of the King who swore the oaths in Sparta (Tod, GHI 118 = RO 20, 12, and cf. 7.1.39 for a Persian in the same role later). So perhaps when Antalcidas returned to operations in 387 (5.1.25), Callias remained to await the outcome and accompanied the King’s representative to Sardis and then to Sparta. However, later negotiations of which we are not informed may have provided the occasion. Callias was in Asia with Agesilaus, perhaps as one of his thirty Spartiate counsellors (4.1.15, 3.4.2), but is not heard of elsewhere. (30) For instance, Ephorus referred to King Pausanias being expelled by the other royal house (FGH 70 F 118 ad fin.) but the notice of the trial and condemnation (3.5.25) gives no hint of this. (31) Ages. 26.3, Mor. 189 F, 213 F, 217 E, 227 C. (32) Plut. Artax. 22.6 suggests that Antalcidas went on his final embassy when Agesilaus was in Egypt in 361 (an interesting divergence of policy, the one wooing, the other opposing the King). (33) Cf. E. Bickermann and J. Sykutris, Speusipps Brief an König Philipp (Berichte über die Verhandlungen der Sächsischen Akademie, Philol.-hist. Klasse 80, 1928)). (34) It is to be noted that Speusippus used the imperfect in the cases of Agesilaus and Dionysius, the aorist of Alexander and Philip; there may have been a number of appeals to the former two. (35) Agesilaus had been on active service in 377 and an appeal two years later is conceivable even though he was by then seventy (cf. above, note 8), not that the practical consideration of the commander’s age would have much concerned Isocrates.

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Agesilaus and Sparta (36) Cf. 16.77.3. (37) Xenophon remarked on the seriousness of loss of the Paphlagonians (4.1.28), which really aborted the whole plan. (38) There was little novelty in Agesilaus’ plan. There had been talk of anabasis in Herodotus’ day. Cf. Hdt. 5.49f., and 6.84.2, projects hardly conceivable before the Persian Wars. (39) For the place of the Anabasis in Xenophon’s development, see Cawkwell, Introduction to Xenophon: The Persian Expedition (Penguin Classics 1972). (40) Cf. 1.76.2. and 144.2. (41) In view of the rivalry of Tegea and Mantinea in the fifth century (Thuc. 5.65.4, and cf. 4.134.1) one would expect Tegea to be as strong militarily as Mantinea and have walls, but the argument for a wall in the sixth century based on the city’s surviving Spartan attacks (cf. F. E. Winter, Greek Fortifications, 30, n. 60) is not very strong. Orchomenus had a wall in 418 BC (Thuc. 5.61.5); since when is unclear. Both fortifications may belong to Sparta’s time of troubles in the 470s and 460s. If Strabo 337 is to be taken as meaning that Tegea as well as Mantinea was synoecized under Argive influence, a fifth-century date for the fortification of Tegea is preferable. (42) Cf. Diels, VS 88 B 6ff. and 32ff. (43) Cf. Tigerstedt, The Legend of Sparta in Classical Antiquity, i.123ff. (44) Phocion did the same (Plut. Phoc. 20.4). (45) One may note that Xenophon withholds the name of the polemarch in command of the division destroyed at the Pathos in Lechaeum (4.5.11ff.), as too of the polemarch who performed so ineptly at the Isthmus in 369 (7.1.17). (46) Cf. R. P. Legon, ‘Phliasian Politics and Policy in the Early Fourth Century’ Historia 16 (1967), 324ff. (47) Diod. 11.54.1 and Strabo 8.3.2 for Elis. The case of Mantinea is more arguable. Cf. Andrewes on Thuc. 5.47. (48) Xen. Hell. 3.2.27 has been taken to mean that Elis had no walls in the late fifth century, but Diodorus’ account of the war contains mention of a siege (14.17.10f.) and Pausanias’ account of the settlement (3.8.5) includes destruction of the wall of the lower city (τò ἄστυ), and in Xenophon’s account Agis’ unwillingness to take the city (πόλις) which was unwalled is hard to reconcile both with his aim in the war and with his damaging buildings outside the ἄστυ (τὰ προάστια). The explanation is that by πόλις Xenophon means the Page 27 of 31

Agesilaus and Sparta Acropolis unwalled and by ancient custom inviolable, and that the ἄστυ, which he mentions in §26, was walled. Cf. the distinction of πόλις and ἀκρόπολις at 7.4.14f. (One should not forget that the text of 3.2.30 is amended, not necessarily correctly; Κυλλήνην of the manuscripts could be the object of ἀϕϵῖναι and the clause about the destruction of τò τϵῖχος refer to Elis itself.) (49) 3.2.21f., 30, Diod. 14.17.4f., Thuc. 5.31 and 49, Hdt. 4.148.4, Strabo 8.3.30. (50) It is characteristic of Xenophon to leave us uninformed about the events alluded to in 5.2.2. Down to (and including) 392 Argos escaped ravaging (cf. 4.4.1, Andoc. 3.27). In 391 Agesilaus ravaged ‘the whole of their land’ (4.4.19). So perhaps the corn was sent then, as well as in 388 (4.7.5). The refusal to join in campaign on the excuse of truce (ἐκϵχϵιρία) may relate to 388 when Agesipolis took the trouble to get divine approval for disregarding the proffered sacred truce, but Xenophon makes no mention of this in his fairly full account of that campaign (4.7.2–7) and the suspicion arises that when in 391 Agesilaus ravaged he too disregarded the proffered sacred truce but on his own initiative; hence the elaborate consultations of Agesipolis in 388, and the surprising brevity of Xenophon about the campaign of 391 (4.4.19)—a ‘cover-up’. The reluctance to serve perhaps relates in part to the Nemea campaign of 394; it is curious that the Spartans are said to have taken the Tegeans and the Mantineans north with them but neither is listed in the order of battle (4.2.13 and 16). (51) The almost total discrepancy between Xenophon’s account of the Elean War and the Ephoran version in Diodorus 14.17 cannot be satisfactorily explained. E. Meyer, Theopomps Hellenika 115f., may have been right to suppose that both accounts are correct as far as they go, although his argument is unsound, viz. that they cannot be synchronized since a law forbade both kings to be on campaign at the same time (cf. Hdt. 5.75.2, and the Phliasians’ presumption that they were safe from Agesilaus when Agesipolis went north 5.3.10). Pausanias had gone to Haliartus when Agesilaus was in Asia (and cf. Thuc. 5.75.1), and the law was designed to prevent divided command of the same expedition. So Pausanias and Agis can well have attacked Elis from different directions, and Xenophon has concentrated on what he heard from Agesilaus and omitted the important part played by Pausanias. At any rate such scepticism about Xenophon can be at least entertained. His account of Agesilaus’ campaign up the Hermus in 395 would be a parallel. However, there is much to be said for supposing that Diodorus has simply mixed up the names. Cf. the manuscripts at 14.17.4. (52) Cf. art. cit. above, note 46. (53) Diod. 15.40, generally conceded to go with the preceding two chapters and to be wrongly inserted by Diodorus under 375/4. (54) Cf. 7.1.40 and 7.2.2. Page 28 of 31

Agesilaus and Sparta (55) Xenophon is not explicit, but the words πϵριέπλϵυσαν ϵἰς Λακϵδαίμονα at 7.1.28 show that the allies were in council somewhere else, which presumably was Corinth. (56) The ‘outsiders’ included in the King’s Peace appear to be listed in Arist. Panath. 172 and Amyntas is not one. Cf. Cawkwell, CQ N.S. 23 (1973), 53, n. 3 (herein Ch. X, 201, n. 26). (57) Cf. art. cit. in note 56. (58) Diodorus’ ordering of the commanders differs from that of Xenophon. Diodorus (15.20.3) has Eudamidas replace Phoebidas, who is made to command the force of over 10,000 sent in response to Amyntas’ appeal (15.19.3); Xenophon has Eudamidas command the small force requested by the Acanthians (5.2.23) to be sent in advance of the large force (τò ϵἰς τοὺς μυρίους σύνταγμα) under the command of Teleutias (5.2.37), and he makes Phoebidas command, on the request of Eudamidas, a part of the advance force Eudamidas had had to leave behind (5.2.24). No doubt Diodorus epitomized carelessly in making Phoebidas take the 10,000; at 15.21.1 Teleutias is put in command of ‘a considerable force’ (the same phrase having been used at 15.19.3), and it is wholly unlikely that Ephorus had two large forces sent out against Olynthus in the space of a few months. But can Diodorus’ ordering of the commanders be right? Possibly. Xenophon does not say what happened to Phoebidas or who replaced him, but it is surprising that the advance force of 2,000, which was entirely from within the borders of Sparta (5.2.24), is split in two parts. I at any rate incline to accepting the Ephoran order. (59) Teleutias was a step-brother (4.4.19 with Plut. Ages. 21.1). Eudamidas, brother of Phoebidas (5.2.24), is the name of two later Eurypontid kings (cf. PW vi. 892). Of course the mother of Eudamidas I, the wife of Archidamos III, may have been the daughter of our Eudamidas, and imported the name to the Eurypontids. (60) Agesipolis went out in time to damage the corn crop and died in high summer (5.3.18f.). So Polybiades was sent out under the same board of ephors, and his appointment perhaps reflects their influence even if they did not have the power to nominate. (61) Cf. Athen. 550 D (prosecution of Nauclidas by Lysander for being overweight). (62) Cf. CQ N.S. 22 (1972), 263 (herein Ch. XIV, 312). (63) Cf. F. W. Walbank, Polybius (1972), 79, n. 72. (64) Cf. A. Andrewes, Phoenix 25 (1971), 217ff. for such fears in the prelude to the Corinthian War. Page 29 of 31

Agesilaus and Sparta (65) Cf. 6.4.27 and PW ix. 21. (66) Cf. N. G. L. Hammond, History of Greece, Appendix 6. (67) It is to be presumed that the force sent in 375 (6.1.1) had returned in that year after the Peace. (68) According to W. G. Forrest, A History of Sparta, 134, ‘there can be no doubt that Xenophon in the Lak. Pol. believes that he is writing about a purely Spartan army, not an army contaminated with perioikoi’. Ch.12.5 ἅπασι Λακϵδαιμονίοις argues otherwise: Λακϵδαιμόνιοι only occurs in the chapters concerning the army apart from the official title of the kings (15.9) and the reference to harmosts (14.2)—and it is well known that there were non-Spartiate harmosts; earlier, Σπαρτιᾶται is found. A further argument derives from 11.6. where the distinction between those who lead and those who follow is readily discernible: presumably he is talking about Spartiates and non-Spartiates, not just fitter and less-fit Spartiates. (69) In the army of the so-called morai (divisions) there were six of hoplites and six of cavalry (Xen. Resp. Lac. 11.4) and we meet a cavalry division at 3.3.10. There was also the so-called hippeis who formed the royal bodyguard in battle and fought on foot (Thuc. 5.72.4, Hdt. 8.124.3, Xen. Resp. Lac. 4.3). (70) Cf. V. Ehrenberg, PW iii A. 1407f. Aristotle, Pol. 1333b11ff. alludes to ‘those who wrote’ about the constitution. He may have had in mind partly such writers as Critias (see above, note 42) and Xenophon (Diog. Laert. 2.57), and such treatises as the Resp. Lac. preserved in the Xenophontic corpus, but there may have been a number of Spartans engaged in such theorizing when they were in exile. He mentions a Thibron who is probably (cf. PW vi A. 275) the man whom we meet in Xenophon’s Hellenica, and who was exiled for most of the 390s (3.1.8 and 4.8.17). He does not say here anything, as one would dearly wish he had, of the treatise of King Pausanias (Ephorus F 118), composed in exile (1333b34 seems to fit better Pausanias the Regent—cf. 1307a4). However, 1301b20 speaks of him trying to destroy the ephorate, and since there is nothing we know of his reign which would justify such a remark, Aristotle may be alluding to the argument of his treatise. Such speculation even by Spartiates would not be surprising, in an age when Spartan society was changing greatly with the new military role of the helotry and the institution of neodamodeis, the intrusion of coinage, albeit still denied to individuals, and the effect of experience outside Sparta in the service of empire. (71) The Ephoran version (Diod. 14.13, Plut. Lys. 30.4) envisaged the opening of the kingship to all Spartiates; another restricted it to certain families (Plut. Lys. 24–6). Xenophon kept a poker face (3.3.3). Nothing happened in Lysander’s lifetime; the reform was known about only from reports of a speech, allegedly composed for him and found in his house. But, if Lysander had never in fact had Page 30 of 31

Agesilaus and Sparta such a proposal in mind, someone had conceived it, even if only to shock Sparta and discredit Lysander.

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The Decline of Sparta

Cyrene to Chaeronea: Selected Essays on Ancient Greek History George Cawkwell

Print publication date: 2011 Print ISBN-13: 9780199593286 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199593286.001.0001

The Decline of Sparta George Cawkwell

DOI:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199593286.003.0014

Abstract and Keywords This chapter examines the decline of Spartan manpower and its effects. It argues that the decline of Sparta was due to its failure to keep pace with the rapid development of the art of war in the rest of the Greek world. When confronted by a wholly novel tactical situation, the Spartans fought with great bravery but were utterly out-generalled. New ways of war had undone them. The failure of Sparta is the analogue of the failure of Greece. It was not due to moral decline, mistakes of policy abroad, or internal corruption. In each case it was the triumph of military genius. Keywords:   Sparta, art of war, Greece, military policy, Spartan manpower

In CQ n.s. 26 (1976), 62–84 (herein Ch. XII) I argued that the defeat of Sparta in 371 BC was not due to the pursuit of unwise policies towards the other Greek states. Unwise policies there had been, Sparta being by no means superior to Athens in the formulation of foreign policy, but these did not affect the position on the eve of Leuctra when, with Thebes politically isolated, and with some of the Boeotians disaffected, Cleombrotus at the head of a numerically superior Spartan and allied army was poised for the destruction of Theban power; a triumph of policy it must have seemed. Sparta failed for military reasons. Her army was unequal to the military genius of Epaminondas. However, when one reads that at Leuctra in an army of 10,000 hoplites, according to Plutarch (Pel. 20. 1), there were no more than 700 Spartiates (Xen. Hell. 6. 4. 15), one is bound to consider whether the root cause of the defeat was not the shortage of Spartiates. According to Aristotle (Pol. 1270a33) the city Page 1 of 22

The Decline of Sparta ‘was destroyed because of shortage of manpower’ (ὀλιγανθρωπία), and many have found therein the real cause of Spartan failure. How far then was the failure of Sparta internal, the failure of her social system? It may be noted at the outset that Aristotle may not have meant what he is commonly supposed to have meant. ‘The city did not stand up to a single blow, but was destroyed because of shortage of manpower.’ Aristotle may have meant that the city lacked the reserves of manpower to make good her losses in the battle, not that the defeat itself was due to shortage of Spartiates, and he may not therefore have provided the perfect text for the oft-repeated sermon. Yet Busolt concluded his masterly article ‘Spartas Heer und Leuktra’ (Hermes 40 [1905], 387–449), with these words, ‘In consequence of the decline of the Lacedaemonian army… the disaster at Leuctra had become (p.276) inevitable’—a view many would echo.1 An investigation of the decline of Spartan manpower and its effects is necessary if the argument I put forward is to stand unqualified.

I. The Rate of Decline in the Number of Spartiates Five thousand Spartiates marched out to the battle of Plataea in 479 BC (Hdt. 9. 10). They were the neotês (ibid. 12), a term comparable to the Roman iuniores, and although we do not know what age-groups were involved and what proportion of the Spartiates were left behind as ‘homeguard’, Herodotus’ figure of 8,000 in all during the Persian Wars (7. 234. 2) is credible enough. By 371 BC there were no more than 1,000, a figure derived from Xenophon’s account of the battle (Hell. 6. 4. 15, 17 and cf. 6. 1. 1) and confirmed by Aristotle (Pol. 1270a31). The rate of decline is however debated. If Thucydides’ calculations for the Spartan army at First Mantinea in 418 BC (5. 68) were essentially correct, the total number of Spartiates at that date cannot have been much greater than 2,500 and possibly no more than 2,100;2 in which case Spartan power was rising at the very time that Spartiate numbers were falling dramatically. If, on the other hand, Thucydides was mistaken and the true number of Spartiates was more like 4,000 to 4,500, a completely different picture presents itself, viz. that Spartiate numbers declined only gradually in the fifth century and sufficed for victory in the Peloponnesian War and for the establishment of Spartan empire, but in the fourth there was a very dramatic decline indeed and one would be moved the more strongly to connect the failure of Sparta with this decline. (p.277) The reliability of Thucydides’ calculations has long been questioned, but it will be convenient here to address ourselves to the arguments developed by A. J. Toynbee.3 He postulated two distinct phases in the development of the Spartan army. The first was the army of Plataea, in which Spartiates and Perioeci were brigaded separately, each in five lochoi (‘companies’) commanded by lochagoi (‘company commanders’). The second was the army we meet in the pages of Xenophon, in which Spartiates and Perioeci fought side by side mixed up within the same units, an army of six morai (‘divisions’) commanded by Page 2 of 22

The Decline of Sparta polemarchs. Since it is clear from Thucydides’ account of the Spartan occupation of Sphacteria in 425 BC that at that time Spartiates and Perioeci were indeed mixed up, Toynbee argued that the great reform of the Spartan army had already happened and that when Thucydides based his calculations on the assumption that the lochos was the largest unit, he was in error: a proper calculation of two lochoi to the mora would have produced an army, and consequently a total of Spartiates in 418 BC, roughly twice as large. In support of this thesis, Toynbee supposed that when Thucydides spoke of seven lochoi (5. 68) there were in truth six morai and one unit of Brasideans and Neodamodeis (5. 67. 1), and that Thucydides betrayed his error by listing polemarchs in the chain of command (5. 66. 3) and failing to take into account their unit, the mora, when making his calculation. The theory is trebly false. There were polemarchs in the army of the Persian Wars (Hdt. 7. 173. 2), at which time their sole functions may have been regularly that of headquarters staff (cf. [Xen.] Lac. Pol. 13. 1) and occasionally that of command on expeditions inappropriate for a king (as in Hdt. loc. cit.).4 Thucydides may have been quite right not to provide for units for them. The presumption that Thucydides’ seven units must have included the Brasideans and Neodamodeis is ill grounded. When Thucydides described the order of battle (5. 67), he sharply distinguished the Sciritans and the Brasideans and Neodamodeis from the lochoi of ‘the Lacedaemonians themselves’, and it is extremely unlikely that when he made his calculations in the following chapter he would have been including as a lochos the force he had (p.278) shortly before so distinguished.5 He did explicitly exclude the Sciritans from his calculations, but this is not to imply that he included the Brasideans and Neodamodeis. The Sciritans were a regular and well-known lochos, and remained so (cf. Diod. 15. 32. 1). The Brasideans and Neodamodeis were a variable and incalculable force6 which no one would confuse with one of the regular units of the Spartan army, and Thucydides may have felt no need explicitly to exclude them. But the real weakness in Toynbee’s case is in his ready assumption that in the army of the lochoi Spartiates and Perioecs were separately brigaded, not mixed up in the manner described by Isocrates (12. 180). It is indeed true that in 479 BC the 5,000 Spartiates and 5,000 Perioecs marched out separately (Hdt. 9. 10. 1, 11. 3), for reasons only to be conjectured.7 But once the Spartan army was assembled in Boeotia there is in Herodotus’ account of the actual fighting no trace of separate brigading. In his account of the order of battle (ch. 28) he has ‘ten thousand of the Lacedaemonians’ on the right wing, and although ‘the Spartiates chose to station the Tegeans next to themselves’, he cannot mean that the non-Spartiates were on the extreme right with the Spartiates to their left, for in the preliminary operations Pausanias is said to have led ‘the Spartiates’ back ‘to the right wing’ (ch. 47). At no point in the engagement does Herodotus clearly distinguish ‘Spartiates’ and ‘Lacedaemonians’, as (p.279) a reading of chapters 53–63 will show.8 He speaks for instance in ch. 54. 2 of ‘Spartiates’ and Page 3 of 22

The Decline of Sparta three lines later of ‘the Lacedaemonians’; in ch. 56 Amompharetus is expected not to stand his ground with the Pitanate lochos when ‘the other Lacedaemonians’ were moving off; in the final stages ‘the Lacedaemonians and the Tegeates’ (ch. 61. 2) were isolated. Clearly what at one point he calls ‘the Laconian army’ (ch. 53.4) remained together. Yet there were no non-Spartiates killed (70. 5, 85. 1). Tegeates were killed. Spartiates were killed. Where are the Perioec dead? ‘Many of the Lacedaemonians’ were shot down (63. 1); no Perioecs were buried. Are we to suppose that the Perioecs, brigaded separately, shared in the battle, with Spartiates dying to the right of them and Tegeates to the left, but miraculously escaped fatal casualties themselves? The whole story is consistent not with separate brigading, but with the Perioecs being in the rear ranks. The Spartiates in front bore the brunt (61. 3) and turned back the Persian attacks (62. 3). As Busolt rightly observed, in the army of the morai ‘the strongest’, that is, the Spartiates, were always the ones who confronted the enemy ([Xen.] Lac. Pol. 11.8),9 though occasionally through the shortage of Spartiates Perioecs could find themselves in that distinguished position (Isoc. 12. 180). I submit that it was no different in the army of the lochoi, and that Toynbee’s criterion for deciding whether the Spartan army we meet in the pages of Thucydides was in fact the army of the morai is unsound. (p.280) More serious arguments have been advanced by Andrewes,10 who ‘with misgiving’ believes ‘that we should double Thucydides’ figures’. First, he argues that, whereas Thucydides stated that the Spartan array was greater than that of their opponents (5. 68. 1, 71. 2), the likely strength of the opposing forces was surely greater than that suggested by Thucydides’ calculations. Secondly, the Thucydidean numbers for Mantinea seem inconsistent with the figure of about 6,000 Lacedaemonian hoplites alleged by Xenophon for the battle of Nemea in 394 BC (Hell. 4. 2. 16). Thirdly, there are indications that in the first decades of the fourth century a mora, that is, a sixth of the army, was at full strength larger than a lochos as described by Thucydides; the mora which was destroyed by Iphicrates in 390 BC, without the Amyclaeans who properly belonged to it (Xen. Hell. 4. 5. 11f.), was 600 strong, even though it was unlikely to have been at full strength; Callisthenes, presumably describing events after 387/6, probably the Spartan operations in Boeotia in the 370s, gave the figure of 700 as the strength of the mora.11 How then is one to explain what is an increase in Spartan strength, if Thucydides’ calculations for 418 BC are correct? The second and third of these arguments are easily blunted. After 424 BC, when Brasidas took a non-Spartiate force to Thrace (Thuc. 4. 80), Sparta more and more used non-Spartiates for military purposes. Neodamodeis were probably never incorporated in the morai,12 to judge by their role on their last appearance in the evidence (Xen. Hell. 6. 5. 24), though there may have been enough of them at the battle of Nemea considerably to swell the total of the Spartan army, more of them indeed than moderns are prepared to allow. But there were two other sources of non-Spartiates in the morai which render inapposite comparison Page 4 of 22

The Decline of Sparta of the army of 418 BC with that of the early fourth century. First, the ‘Inferiors’ (Hypomeiones). It emerges from the story of the Conspiracy of Cinadon that they were ‘in the army’ (συντϵταγμένοι) (Xen. Hell. 3. 3. 7).13 It is to be presumed that as the number of Spartiates declined, the number of ‘Inferiors’ grew. The decline was certainly not due to infertility; quite apart from the consideration that the group was too large to suffer the demographic (p. 281) effects of inbreeding, we have a firm indication in the existence of a substantial class of nothoi (bastards) (Xen. Hell. 5. 3. 9) that infertility was not the trouble. The cause of the decline was presumably where Aristotle (Pol. 1270a15ff.) placed it, viz. in the system of land-tenure and the inequality of property; more and more Spartiates were unable to pay their share of the messes and had to drop out.14 The increase in the number of Inferiors did not necessarily equal the decrease in the number of Spartiates, but the Inferiors may have made an ever more considerable contribution to the strength of the morai. Of the growth of this class we can only conjecture, but it is to be noted that Herodotus knew only of Spartiates and Perioecs in the Spartan army (cf. 9. 10, 11), and the incorporation of the ‘Inferiors’ may well have been a postBrasidean development. If so, it stultifies comparison of army strengths in 418 BC and the 390s. The other source of non-Spartiates, the Perioecs, may well have been drawn on ever more heavily. Diodorus records early in the 370s (Diod. 15. 31) a rearrangement of the military forces of the Peloponnesian League. It may have been accompanied by a decision to call up more of the Perioecs, but probably no such decision was needed. They had very little in the way of rights (cf. Isoc. 12. 180f.), and Sparta could use them as freely as she wished. So neither of Andrewes’ second and third arguments is of great force. His first argument,15 however, is very serious. If the Spartan side at the battle of Mantinea was indeed greater than the opposite array, there must be something seriously awry with Thucydides’ calculations. Such an error would be of farreaching import. Thucydides appears to have known a great deal about Sparta. His exile gave him the chance to travel in the Peloponnese (5. 26. 5), and we see him at Sparta reflecting on the paradoxical contrast between the magnitude of Spartan power and influence and the puniness of the public buildings (1. 10. 2), just as we see him pondering the inscription at the tomb of Pausanias the Regent (1. 134. 4). His information is remarkably full. He has penetrated ‘the secrecy of the state’ (5. 68) sufficiently to know about the massacre of the Helots who deemed themselves worthy of liberation (4. 80. 3), though he appears not to (p. 282) know precisely when it happened.16 Impressively, he furnishes a large number of names and patronymics; for instance, he could give the names of all three commanders on Sphacteria and the order of seniority (4. 38. 1). A glance at the index to his History reveals a very ample knowledge of Spartan names and, more impressively, knowledge of social status (cf. 3. 5. 2, 8. 55. 2 for two men designated ‘Lacôn’, whatever he meant by that,17 no one else in the History being so designated; 8. 6. 4, 22. 1, a pair of Perioecs, again the only cases cited). Page 5 of 22

The Decline of Sparta It is notable that of the many Spartans he names only a certain number are described as’ Spartiate’, and most of the rest are simply’ Lacedaemonians’; this is more likely due to his knowing when he did not know than to mere fitfulness of method.18 His restraint argues that he knew what he was talking about. Especially on military matters he manifests caution; ‘it was difficult to ascertain the truth’ about Spartan casualties (5. 74. 2); only a hearsay figure is given. Evidently Thucydides had tried, but been dissatisfied. It is therefore very striking when he makes a firm statement about Herodotus’ ‘Pitanate lochos’—‘it never existed’ (1. 20. 3). He has been accused of pedantry,19 but he has evidently satisfied himself about the organisation of the army of the lochoi. It should indeed arouse ‘misgiving’ to suppose that his calculations for 418 BC are wrong by half. Only if there is no other way of explaining his statements about the superior size of the Spartan array should we have recourse to such a desperate hypothesis. And there is another way, viz. that Thucydides was alluding to the greater frontage of the Spartan array. ‘The army of the Lacedaemonians appeared greater’ (μϵῖζον ἐϕάνη—5. 68. 1). ‘The Spartans and the Tegeans overlapped the Athenians still more, in so far as they had the greater army’— namely, the army with the greater frontage (5. 71. 2). The Spartans were generally eight deep (5. 68. 3), until Leuctra their steady practice.20 But elsewhere different ideas (p.283) were coming in. The Thebans at Delium were 25 deep (Thuc. 4. 93), half their depth at Leuctra (Xen. Hell. 6. 4. 12). The Syracusans in 415 were drawn up 16 deep (Thuc. 6. 67). It would be no surprise if the Argives at Mantinea had adopted Theban ideas of depth.21 So there is a way of explaining Thucydides’ statements other than the desperate hypothesis of Thucydides’ making careless calculations, and without misgiving one can confidently accept his figures for the Spartan army in 418 BC.22 The decline of numbers of Spartiates was steady enough. In the sixty years since the Persian Wars they had dropped by between 69 and 73 per cent, in the fifty years since 418 by between 60 and 54 per cent, the larger drop in the earlier period doubtless reflecting the effect of the great earthquake of 465 BC.23 There was no dramatic drop in the fifty years before Leuctra, but despite the steady decline of the fifth century Sparta’s military prowess continued. Overwhelmed in the utterly unprecedented style of warfare encountered on Sphacteria and thus causing the Greeks to wonder whether Sparta was losing her dash (Thuc. 5. 75. 3), she showed at Mantinea that her courage was still supreme (ibid. 5. 72. 2).

II. Compensation for Declining Numbers After the dizzy excitement of 465 BC, the Helots, whom Aristotle declared (Pol. 1269a38) to be continually waiting for an opportunity to attack, never revolted again until the Thebans invaded Laconia in 369 BC. The Spartans, however, never ceased to fear a Helot uprising (cf. Thuc. 4. 80. 3), and not just in Messenia. The occupation of Pylos in 425 BC was quickly followed by the occupation of Cythera, and (p.284) Spartan fears of the effects seem to have been much the same in the two cases (ibid. 4. 55, 5. 15) just as in each case Page 6 of 22

The Decline of Sparta Helots, given the opportunity, took to deserting (ibid. 7. 26. 2).24 So why were there no revolts between 465 and 369, or indeed after 369? The number of Spartiates was steadily declining throughout the period, and therefore, one would expect, the chances of successful revolt steadily increasing. Nor does there seem to have been any lack of opportunity. After the disaster of 425 Sparta was suspected of having gone ‘soft’ (Thuc. 5. 75. 3; cf. 4. 40), and when the Spartan army had to march out in haste to the battle of Mantinea, a Helot revolt could have played a decisive part in the ruin of the state. Again, during the early days of the Corinthian War, the distractions of operations in Boeotia and round the Isthmus provided a suitable context. Why was there no revolt? The answer may simply be that the Helots were so afraid of reprisals that they would not move until Sparta had been defeated and a foreign army was in Laconia itself, the position in 369; in which case either Spartan fears of the Helots were exaggerated or Spartan repression had successfully cowed them. However, that is not the impression one receives from Xenophon’s account of the conspiracy of Cinadon (Hell. 3. 3. 4–11), which suggests that the Spartiates had very good reason to fear and that the Helots were very ready to play their part. Some further considerations seem to be called for to explain the long quiescence. All the evidence concerning the condition of the Helots suggests that they were treated with great severity and cruelty,25 and continued to be so treated long after the liberation of Messenia. Both Theopompus, writing in the second half of the fourth century (FGH 115 F 13), and Myron of Priene, probably in the third (FGH 106 F 2), appear to be describing the position in their own day. So there is no reason to distinguish Messenian from Laconian Helots as far as their treatment (p.285) is concerned. However, there is strong reason to make the distinction with regard to their attitude to Sparta. The Messenians, as far as we know, remained uncompromisingly intransigent, pining for their long-lost liberty. The Laconian Helots seem to have been curiously ambivalent. They were ready to desert in the Peloponnesian War (Thuc. 7. 26. 2) and could be counted on by Cinadon (Xen. Hell. 3. 3. 6). Spartiates at home in Sparta did not dare to leave their shields in a usable condition (Critias DK 88 B 37). The Laconian Helots had shown themselves at the time of the Great Earthquake as ready as the Messenians to make the most of Sparta’s disasters (Plut. Cim. 16; Diod. 11. 63f.), and the Spartiates never relaxed their guard or their severity. Yet in 369 an astonishing thing happened. Messenia was asserting its independence. Epaminondas, at the head of a huge army, had advanced into Laconia, for centuries inviolate, burning and pillaging—and the unwonted spectacle of smoke broke the Spartan women’s wonted restraint (Xen. Hell. 6. 5. 28). Some of the Perioecs joined the Thebans in their attack (ibid. §32). Dissidence showed itself amongst even the Spartiates (Plut. Ages. 32). The unwalled city was defended by what were and could be seen to be ‘really few’ Spartiates. It must have seemed to all the Helots of Laconia that proud Sparta was on the point of destruction, Page 7 of 22

The Decline of Sparta that their oppressors would shortly oppress no more. In these circumstances ‘the authorities saw fit to make a proclamation to the Helots that if any was willing to take up arms and join the ranks, he should receive solemn assurances that those who joined in the fight would be free’. It was said that over 6,000 responded (Xen. Hell. 6. 5. 28f.).26 This is indeed astonishing. What had these Helots to gain from Sparta which they would not gain from the Thebans? There seems only one explanation of such conduct. The mirage spartiate bedazzled all classes alike. The Perioecs, who could be relied on to fight side by side with Spartiates, were so loyal that the Athenians in the Peloponnesian War saw fit only to ravage Perioecic territory,27 not to expect revolt. The Helots too were sufficiently loyal to wish only for freedom within the Spartan system, not for (p.286) freedom from that system. It is notable that in the conspiracy of Cinadon, which embraced all classes of non-Spartiate, the aim of Cinadon was not necessarily radical. When asked what his intention had been, he replied that he wanted to be ‘inferior to no one’ in the state (Xen. Hell. 3. 3. 11), by which he may have meant no more than the status of ‘Equal’ (homoios). A revolution may have been planned very similar to that proposed by King Agis in 243 BC, viz. a vast increase of Spartiates (Plut. Agis 8)—a desire for social advancement, not for the eradication of the whole Spartiate order; what Agis sought, Cleomenes realised (Plut. Cleom. 11), promptly seeking to revivify the ancient system of education (the agogē). The Spartan way of life was the ideal, or so all classes conceived it, including even those Helots who were not imbued with Messenian nationalism. How had Sparta won the loyalty of the oppressed? A large part of the answer must lie in the offer of social advancement. Ancient writers could dwell on the stability and the endurance of the Spartan constitution and find the secret in the nice balancing of constitutional principles.28 More worthy of attention would have been the remarkable evolution of Spartan society. Herodotus appears to have known of only the threefold division of Spartiates, Perioecs, and Helots. By 400 the two classes of ‘Inferiors’ and ‘Neodamodeis’ have emerged (Xen. Hell. 3. 3. 6). In the third century Myron (F l) can name no less than five kinds of freed slave. When this differentiation of society began we can only guess, but the information Thucydides provides about the Neodamodeis suggests that the decision in 424 BC to allow Brasidas to use non-Spartiates in the service of the state (4. 80) was a major turning point. He first mentions them, and as a distinct class, in 421 BC (5. 34. 1), and in view of their constant use thereafter on military service it seems unlikely that such a class existed when Brasidas marched out with his 700 Helot hoplites. So the creation of a distinct class of Neodamodeis formalised what Brasidas had begun.29 What exactly their status was, in what sense they were, as (p.287) the name suggests, ‘newly put in the damos’, we can only conjecture, but whatever it was, clearly there was now a career open to military talent and the will to serve Sparta’s interests. It was not, strictly speaking, the first moment that the principle of promotion was applied. Page 8 of 22

The Decline of Sparta In 425 BC Helots who were ready to help break the blockade of Sphacteria were promised their freedom (Thuc. 4. 26. 5), and such promises may have been made and acted on, for all we know, at an earlier date. But that 424 BC was a turning point is clear from Thucydides’ contrast with what had happened earlier when 2,000 Helots had betrayed their uppishness by responding to a Spartan offer of freedom (4. 80), and it seems safe to assert that it was in the latter part of the Archidamian War that Sparta began a regular policy of social advancement for Helots.30 Nor was it confined to strictly military functions. The Thebans in their appeal to Athens in 395 BC are made by Xenophon (Hell. 3. 5. 12) to assert that the Spartans ‘think fit to appoint helots as harmosts’; presumably these were liberated Helots, but it is remarkable that men of Helot origin could be deemed trustworthy agents of Spartan policy.31 Sparta in the last two decades of the fifth century must have been becoming a very different place from what it had been. In 413 the Spartans ‘picked out the best of the Helots and the Neodamodeis’, 600 hoplites in all, and sent them to fight in Sicily (Thuc. 6. 19. 3). Presumably they shortly returned with experience of war and the confidence of victory, and lived within the state until they were next used. Evidently the Spartans did not too greatly fear to have such trained warriors in their midst. The very people once the most likely to join in revolt had been won over by the prospect of promotion and the enjoyment of their new status. Nor was it only Helots who shared in this change of policy. In the Ionian War we meet a Perioec in command of a squadron of thirteen ships (Thuc. 8. 22. 1). The Spartan commander sent out by the city with 700 hoplites to assist Cyrus in his revolt, Chirisophus, had as his (p.288) second-in-command Neon of Asine (Xen. Anab. 1. 4. 3, 5. 3. 4), who was presumably a Perioec, sent out on service. Other cases can be no more than suspected,32 but clearly the great extension of Spartan operations and Spartan influence had opened up prospects of honourable posts for many non-Spartiates. But the change for the Helots was the most important, for it must have enormously reduced the danger of Helot revolt, and therein must be found a large part of the explanation of Sparta’s freedom from Helot uprising in the seventy years before the Thebans liberated Messenia. All this, however, only indirectly affected the Messenians. If the Laconian Helots were bought off, any Helot revolt would be confined to Messenia, but that would hardly deter if Spartan military power was declining as fast as the number of Spartiates. There were, however, compensatory factors. The ‘Inferiors’ of whom we hear only in Xenophon’s account of the conspiracy of Cinadon must always have existed in some number. To be a Spartiate it was necessary both to have been through the agoge, the education system, and to make one’s contribution to the common messes, the syssitia, and it is likely that there had always been those who could not fulfil the latter condition and thus Page 9 of 22

The Decline of Sparta ceased to rate as Spartiates. Down to 425 BC, to judge by the fact that neither Herodotus nor Thucydides appears to conceive of others than Spartiates and Perioecs composing the army, those lost in this way to the numbers of Spartiates were lost to the army. But by the turn of the century these ‘Inferiors’ were, as already noted, ‘in the army’ (συντϵταγμένοι), and there was this compensation for the loss of numbers. As to when precisely they were incorporated, there is no way of knowing, but once Sparta had begun to use Neodamodeis and (p.289) Helots as hoplites, it is unlikely that the use of ‘Inferiors’ would be long delayed, especially considering that a good number, if not all, had probably been through the agoge, part of the class of so-called Mothakes. We have it on the authority of Phylarchus33 that ‘the Mothakes are fosterbrothers of the Lacedaemonians: for each of the sons of the citizens, adopting according to their means some a single one, some a pair, certain a greater number, make them their foster-brothers. So the Mothakes are free yet not Lacedaemonians, and they had a full share in the education.’ Some of the lexicographers’ notices34 might suggest that the Mothakes were slaves, but if Phylarchus is right in adding ‘They say that Lysander was one of them’, and Aelian (VH 12. 43) right in saying that Callicratidas, Gylippus, and Lysander were Mothakes, the lexicographers must be mistaken. There is no good reason to reject their evidence.35 Likewise when Phylarchus speaks of ‘Lacedaemonians’ he must mean Spartiates, for only the sons of Spartiates automatically went through the agoge. So from the Mothakes Sparta could draw an ample enough supply of men who could compensate in the army for the everdiminishing number of Spartiates. But were the ‘Inferiors’ Mothakes? Since the term ‘Inferiors’ occurs only once, one cannot be sure, but when one considers that the ‘Inferior’ Cinadon was given a scytale and was told to go and ‘order the most senior of the Hippagretae’ (who were Spartiates) (Xen. Hell. 3. 3. 9), it seems likely that the ‘Inferiors’ had been through the agoge as Mothakes. Both the Mothakes Gylippus and Lysander were sons of Spartiates but probably ‘Inferiors’ in status. Their subsequent careers showed they were not inferior in military skill. It is probable that they had been through the agoge, and in general it seems reasonable to suppose that ‘Inferiors’ were Mothakes and that (p.290) they were good military material—a partial compensation for the decline of Spartiates. But if the training of ‘Inferiors’ was a source of strength for Spartan military forces, so too were the other Mothakes, what Xenophon terms (Hell. 5. 3. 9) ‘foreigners of the so-called trophimoi’, a term which might be translated ‘fosterchildren’ and which appears to be the same as Phylarchus’ syntrophoi (‘fosterbrothers’), those from whom Agis in 243 BC proposed to recruit a large number of Spartiates (Plut. Agis 8. 3 ξένων ὅσοι τροϕῆς μϵτϵσχηκότϵς ἐλϵυθϵρίου).36 Three such are known to us, viz. the sons of Xenophon (Diogenes Laertius 2. 54) and the son of Phocion (Plut. Phoc. 20), but to judge by what is said of Phlius in 380 BC this class of persons was very numerous. Agesilaus was accused of Page 10 of 22

The Decline of Sparta embroiling the Spartans with a city of over 5,000 citizens ‘for the sake of a few men’. So he prescribed messes and training for all those who came over to the Spartan side, and there were found ‘more than a thousand men, in excellent physical condition, good at military drill and very good with their hoplite equipment’ (Xen. Hell. 5. 3. 16f.). Of course, it is not suggested that all these thousand had been to Sparta for the agoge; if as many as that had come from a single small city, the sons of Spartiates would have been swamped. But the story does suggest that enough Peloponnesians had imbibed the values of the agoge to export Spartan military excellence to their own cities. There is no way of knowing when this great diffusion of virtue began. The sons of ‘the best men’ of the Peloponnesian League may have been going to Sparta for a Spartan education for generations, but it is possible that the habit grew in reaction to the spread of sophistic influence.37 Certainly in the course of time the effect must have been cumulative, and it is likely that the decline in the numbers of Spartiates in the Spartan army itself was matched by some increase in the effectiveness of the Peloponnesian allies. There is therefore no great problem in explaining why the Helots, especially the Messenian Helots, refrained from revolt for almost a century after the Great Earthquake. Spartiate numbers steadily fell. Spartan power supported by the Peloponnesian League remained formidable. Only in the shadow of Theban defeat and the distraction of Theban invasion was Sparta unequal to Messenian nationalism.

(p.291) III. The Neglect of the Laws of Lycurgus Before going on to consider the condition of the Spartan army as a whole at the time of the battle of Leuctra, it would be well to treat of the Spartiates themselves. Had they become less formidable themselves? If anyone asked me whether I think the laws of Lycurgus still today remain unshaken, I could no longer assert this with confidence. For I am aware that the Spartans once preferred to associate with each other at home with moderate possessions rather than to be corrupted as imperial officials (ἁρμόζοντας ἐν ταῖς πóλϵσι) subject to flattery. I am also aware that previously they were afraid to be thought to possess gold; now there are some who even preen themselves on having acquired it. I know that previously the purpose of expelling foreigners from the state and not being allowed to go abroad was to stop the citizens copying foreigners and taking their fill of easy living; now, I know, those who are thought to be the most important have exerted themselves never to stop being imperial officials abroad … Thus the author of the Xenophontic Constitution of the Spartans (ch. 14),38 and the passage is freely quoted to support the idea that there was a slackening of Spartiate moral fibre.

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The Decline of Sparta Much has been made of the corrupting effects of the importation of wealth,39 but the matter should be viewed with scepticism. When at (p.292) the end of the Peloponnesian War Lysander sent home the money in his possession, it was proposed that this gold and silver coin should not be allowed to remain in the city and that the ancient iron spits should continue to be the only currency in the city. The matter was resolved by deciding to keep the gold and silver coin in the care of the state and to use it strictly for purposes of state but to retain for individual citizens the ancient currency. This is the account of Plutarch (Lys. 17), who proceeds to moralise on the demoralising effect on individuals of seeing the state value what they were expected to spurn.40 But the account of the debate is unsatisfactory. Sparta must always have held some money in a form acceptable to the rest of the Greeks. One can hardly imagine ambassadors going abroad with no means of paying their expenses or with a cart-load of useless spits. Further, since 424 BC at least, Sparta had made use of mercenaries of some sort (cf. Thuc. 4. 80. 5), who were not to be satisfied with payments in iron spits. So there can have been no great breach of principle in 404 BC. Whatever the alternative proposed, the decision was precisely that accepted by Plato in the Laws (742a, b) who saw that ‘Hellenic currency’ was necessary ‘for campaigns and foreign travel’ but omitted discussion of the disastrous effects on which Plutarch dilates, with considerable exaggeration.41 Love of money was an ancient Spartan disease to judge by the oracle delivered three centuries earlier (Plut. Mor. 239f.) and by the frequent charges of corruption made against eminent Spartans.42 ‘The love of money, and nothing else, will destroy Sparta’ ran the oracle (Aristotle, frag. 501), but it had been a long time about its work of destruction. One should therefore regard the statements about the great change in the early fourth century with great scepticism. The charge that service abroad as imperial officials had damaged the Spartan way of life at home is more difficult to assess. Startling allegations about the conduct abroad of Pausanias the Regent, who ‘could no longer live in the established manner’ (Thuc. 1. 130. 1), presumably reflect Spartan fears of what might become of a Spartiate removed from the careful supervision of the state. Brasidas, Thucydides seems to imply (4. 81. 3), was the virtuous exception. Clearchus (p.293) behaved with all too Spartan severity and, when recalled, refused to obey (Diod. 14. 12, Xen. Anab. 2. 6). But in general the supervision of the state was effective enough and a single scytale would recall the errant official. Xenophon noted that Dercyllidas was ‘always fond of being abroad’ (Hell. 4. 3. 2), but one suspects exaggeration in the author of The Constitution of Sparta. The ephors kept control and it seems unlikely that any Spartiate who wanted to be constantly abroad would have been able to get his way. Spartiates probably remained as formidable as ever on the field of battle. In the Corinthian War the Argives had shown a marked reluctance to face the Lacedaemonian shields, venturing against them when they thought from the Page 12 of 22

The Decline of Sparta sigma on the shields the Spartans had picked up that they were facing Sicyonians and quickly retiring when they discovered the truth (Xen. Hell. 4. 4. 10f.). There is no suggestion in either Diodorus’ account of the battle of Leuctra (15. 55 esp. §4) or Xenophon’s (Hell. 6. 4. 13f.) that the Spartiates did not fight with great courage or that the heroism of Cleonymus (Xen. Hell. 5. 4. 33) was unique. After the battle some of the Spartans were unwilling to make a truce and were only forced to do so by the reluctance of the allies (Xen. Hell. 6. 4. 14f.). Plutarch (Ages. 30. 2) does speak of ‘those who had been cowards in the battle, whom the Spartans term “quakers” (τρέσαντϵς)’, but ‘cowardice’ at Sparta was not cowardice in the sight of other men. The man who was unable to join in the battle at Thermopylae in 480 BC because he had an infection of the eyes and could not see was treated as a ‘quaker’ (Hdt. 7. 229–31). Not to die in a battle that was lost was deemed disgraceful (cf. Xen. Hell. 6.4. 16).43 At the Pathos at Lechaeum in 390 BC 250 out of 600 in the mora were killed, but Xenophon remarked that only those who were wounded and were ordered to be carried from the battlefield ‘were truly saved’ (Hell. 4. 5. 12, 17, 14): presumably the rest were treated as ‘quakers’. To survive a lost battle was held to be equivalent to fleeing from the enemy (cf. Hdt. 9. 53. 2, 55. 2); the survivors of Leuctra were therefore ‘quakers’. But this does not prove that they had not fought bravely or unworthily of the Spartan tradition at Leuctra. Only later did ‘prudence’ begin to show itself (cf. Xen. Hell. 7. 4. 25), an attitude against which the young Archidamus (p.294) was made by Isocrates to argue (in Oration 7); even so Archidamus can claim that devotion to the original ‘laws and practices’ of the state is as strong as ever (§61). The Spartiates themselves had not gone ‘soft’.

IV. The Defeat at Leuctra But what of the Spartan army as a whole? The Spartiates, who devoted their whole time to training for war, may have been as good as ever, but, it is thought, they were so few in number that the Spartan army as a whole must have been weaker and the disaster was for that reason inevitable. It is the argument of this section that it was not the shortage of Spartiates that made the result of the battle inevitable. The right explanation is to be found in the Theban development of the art of war. Of course, there can be no proof that if there had been more Spartiates on the field of battle, the result would or would not have been the same. At First Mantinea the Spartan army had been outmanoeuvred but had survived by courage (Thuc. 5. 72. 2). Courage, however, is not always sufficient, as the battle on Sphacteria had shown (Thuc. 4. 40). At Leuctra the Spartan army was utterly out-generalled. In considering the state of the Spartan military power in 371, the allies can be left out of account. It is indeed possible that the army of the Peloponnesian League as a whole was a more effective fighting force than it had been. The diffusion of Spartan methods and discipline through ‘the foreigners of the socalled trophimoi’ (Xen. Hell. 5. 3. 9), who were ‘a really splendid sight and not without experience of the city’s ideals’, continued to leaven the whole.44 The Page 13 of 22

The Decline of Sparta reform of the league in 378 BC (Diod. 15. 31. 1f.) had perhaps secured that the league armies were larger, or at any rate better organised.45 The system instituted in either 382 or 378, whereby members of the league could pay for the requisite number of troops instead of themselves (p.295) providing them,46 may in an age of ever-increasing professionalism have been an advantage. But all this was irrelevant to the battle of Leuctra; there were no members of the Peloponnesian League involved (cf. Xen. Hell. 6. 4. 18) and Epaminondas so contrived that none of Sparta’s other allies there present had any part in the actual fighting (cf. Paus. 9. 13. 12). It is the Spartan army itself that must be considered. Here a serious difficulty presents itself. We have no precise information on the amount of military training undergone by the non-Spartiates in the army. The Spartiates’ whole lives were devoted to war and they were enabled to this because they and they alone had the leisure afforded by others’ labour. But since non-Spartiates fought with them ‘mixed up’, the non-Spartiates must have had a great deal more military training than was usual elsewhere in the fifth century. For even if the Spartiates were vastly superior in physical fitness and in weapon training, for drill the whole army would have had to practise. The Greeks generally thought the Spartan drills very complicated ([Xen.] Resp. Lac. 11. 5, 8) and the author of The Constitution of the Spartans felt it necessary to explain them. The non-Spartiates in the army needed to be well practised in them, if confusion was to be avoided. The manoeuvre ordered by Agis at Mantinea during the advance into action (Thuc. 5. 71. 3, 72. 1) was only conceivable if all parts of his army were well trained in it. So the non-Spartiates must have been involved in regular and unusually frequent training. To some extent this must be true of weapons drill too. If Perioecs occasionally fought in the front rank as Isocrates asserts (12. 180), they must have been well enough trained in weapons drill if they were not to let the side down and expose those they fought beside to danger, but even when there were ample Spartiates to fill the front rank, it would have been necessary to have the non-Spartiates sufficiently drilled for critical moments. All members of the Spartan army were required by law to keep fit and train while on campaign ([Xen.] Resp. Lac. 12. 5), but fitness could not be maintained if what happened on campaign was exceptional. Indeed excellent physical condition is ascribed to various kinds of non-Spartiates (Xen. Hell. 5. 3. 9, 17, Plut. Agis 8. 3), and not just that, but a share of Spartan valour as well. (p. 296) Herodotus (7. 234. 2) speaks of the Perioecs as ‘good’ (ἀγαθοί): Xenophon (Hell. 5. 3. 9) says that the many Perioecs who volunteered for service under Agesipolis were ‘noble and good’, and that the trophimoi and bastard sons of the Spartiates were ‘not without experience of the city’s ideals’. All in all, it seems likely that the non-Spartiates had a considerable amount of training in both weapons drill and tactics, and more importantly had become to no small degree copies of Spartiate virtue. Spartiates and non-Spartiates seem to have looked

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The Decline of Sparta alike on the battlefield, purple-clad and long-haired.47 In the course of time there may not have been a very marked difference in their fighting. Time may have blurred the difference in fighting fitness and in valour between Spartiate and non-Spartiate. It had certainly blurred the difference between Sparta and the rest of the Greek world.48 The days had passed when others were mere ‘improvisers of military things’ and the Spartans alone ‘craftsmen of war’ ([Xen.] Resp. Lac. 13. 5). As Aristotle remarked (Pol. 1338b24–38), Spartan superiority had in the past derived from the fact that Spartans alone trained for war, whereas latterly others had matched their professionalism: ‘now they have rivals in their education; formerly they had none’. The days had passed when, as at First Mantinea, superior courage could make up for failures in command. In particular the Thebans under Epaminondas seem to have set about military training with Spartan zeal. His own concern is explicitly attested (Nepos, Epam. 2.4f.). He insisted that those who were to be hoplites had to train not just as athletes but as soldiers (Plut. Mor. 192c). Xenophon noted (Hell. 6. 5. 23) that the Thebans in Arcadia in winter 370/69 BC regularly trained (cf. Plut. Mor. 788a);49 the complicated tactic adopted at Leuctra argues that the army was uncommonly well trained from an earlier date. When he became Boeotarch, he warned his countrymen that he was bent on war, that Boeotia would be ‘the dancing-floor of war’ (Plut. Mor. 193d). Doubtless he took pains to train his ‘dancers’ well. As far as (p.297) training was concerned, at Leuctra the Spartans met their match. In describing the preparations for Leuctra Diodorus (15. 50. 5) wrote of the Thebans: ‘With constant exercise in the gymnasia, they were strong in body, and being by nature given to war, they were the inferiors in courage of no Greek people. The Spartans no longer had a monopoly of valour. The battle would be decided by what Thucydides (5. 72. 2) had termed ἐμπϵιρία. Xenophon’s remark (Hell. 4. 3. 16) about the uniqueness of the battle of Coronea could with justice have been repeated about any of the subsequent military engagements in the period he covered. The Pathos in Lechaeum of 390 BC, which was the most startling demonstration of the new importance of the lightarmed, was unique in the severity of the casualties inflicted by light-armed on hoplites. The operations in Boeotia in the 370s manifested new techniques in the defence of territory.50 The battle of Tegyra of 375 BC, admittedly a somewhat dark affair since Xenophon preferred not to mention it,51 involved a joint action of cavalry and the professional infantry of the Sacred Band, probably unprecedented. The truth is that the art of war was developing so fast that every battle was in some sense novel. Of particular relevance to Leuctra, however, was the battle of Nemea in 394 BC. In this action the right wings of both armies began by moving to the right (Xen. Hell. 4. 2. 18f.) with the aim of encircling their opponents. Encirclement was not new, but the deliberate attempt to prepare for it in the approach march certainly was. Furthermore Theban conceptions of depth prevailed on the Allied side. Before the battle it was agreed to draw up the army sixteen deep; when the Thebans’ turn to command came Page 15 of 22

The Decline of Sparta round, they made their army ‘thoroughly deep’ (Xen. Hell. 4. 2. 13, 18), which may mean that they adopted the formation of the battle of Delium (Thuc. 4. 93. 4). So when the Spartans came to Leuctra, they probably expected to face something similar. They therefore abandoned their ancient favoured depth of eight and formed up twelve deep (Xen. Hell. 6. 4. 12), and sought to move to their right (Plut. Pel. 23. 2). The Thebans did not act as expected. They concentrated themselves fifty deep (Xen. Hell. 6. 4. 12) on the left wing, an unheard-of thing, advanced to battle ‘obliquely’, that is, in such a way that the Thebans would engage the Spartans before contact was possible elsewhere, ensured protection (p.298) for the rest of the army by advancing while the cavalry action was still in progress, and finally prevented the Spartan encircling movement.52 How exactly the engagement went between the twelve-deep Spartans and the fifty-deep Thebans is a matter for speculation. Epaminondas hardly adopted such a depth to spare the men in the rear an active share in the battle, but one can only guess. But it is clear that the Spartans were confronted by a wholly novel tactical situation. They fought with great bravery but were utterly out-generalled. New ways of war had undone them.

V. The Failure of Sparta In the fifty years before Leuctra Spartan society changed remarkably, but the formal constitution of the state did not. In particular, the Kings remained the hereditary generals, and although they performed this function as adequately as their predecessors, they were not the men to experiment and innovate. At a time when the art of war was developing so rapidly in the rest of the Greek world, Spartan methods remained essentially the same. Hence the disaster of Leuctra. The failure of Sparta is the analogue of the failure of Greece. It was not due to moral decline. It was not due to mistakes of policy abroad or internal corruption. In each case it was the triumph of military genius. Epaminondas was too good for Sparta, just as Philip was to prove too good for Greece. Notes:

(1) Cf. most recently, P. A. Cartledge, Sparta and Lakonia (1979), 317. (2) If the proportion of Spartiates to non-Spartiates in the λòχοι at First Mantinea was the same as that amongst the captives from Sphacteria, i.e. 120 to 172 (Thuc. 4. 38. 5), there were about 1,472 Spartiates in the λóχοι, to which must be added the sixth sent home (Thuc. 5. 64. 3) and the 300 hippeis (ibid. ch. 72. 4) and certain officers etc., so that there were about 2,100 in all. If proportionately more Spartiates were killed on Sphacteria than non-Spartiates, and if the proportion of Spartiates to non-Spartiates had been in fact the same as in 479 BC, a figure approaching 2,500 results. Cf. Busolt, Hermes (1905), 403ff.

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The Decline of Sparta (3) Toynbee’s views were first stated in JHS 33 (1913), 246–75 and restated in Some Problems of Greek History (1969), 365–417. They conditioned Wade-Gery’s discussion in Essays in Greek History, 71ff. (4) Cf. Busolt, Hermes, 418. (5) A. Andrewes, A Historical Commentary on Thucydides iv, 112, like many others (e.g. W. G. Forrest, History of Sparta, 132), takes the contrary view. His presumption is that Thucydides’ calculation at 5. 68. 3 was intended to account for every Lacedaemonian on the field of battle, but he admits that the ‘few Lacedaemonians’ on the right wing (ch. 67. 1) were not included and debates whether the 300 hippeis of 72. 4 were included. Cf. Busolt–Swoboda, Griechische Staatskunde, 710. (6) 700 originally accompanied Brasidas (Thuc. 4. 80. 5). The number of the original Neodamodeis, first met at Thuc. 5. 34. 1, is beyond conjecture. If there were troops of this class in the force that Ischagoras was to take out in 423 (Thuc. 4. 132. 2) or in the force that went in 422 (Thuc. 5. 12. 1), they may have been quite numerous (cf. 5. 31. 4, 49. 1). But Thucydides probably had not the necessary information to calculate their number in 418 BC. (7) Herodotus would have it thought that the Spartans were waiting for the Isthmus wall to be more nearly completed (9. 7. 1), and the celebration of the Hyacinthia was only a pretext. But as Xen. Hell. 4. 5. 11 makes clear, if they had gone out earlier, the Amyclaeans would have returned. So the Spartans had to wait until the festival was ended to order out the army, which went out quickly and waited in Arcadia for the Perioecs, just as in 386 Agesilaus marched to Tegea and summoned the Perioecs thither (Xen. Hell. 5. 1. 33), at a time when it is sure that there was no separate brigading (pace Beloch, Klio 6 [1906], 63f., who rejects the evidence of Isoc. 12. 271). (8) In ch. 29 he speaks of the Σπαρτιατικὴ τάξις and then of οἱ Λακϵδαιμόνιοι. The word τάξις seems to be rather loosely used by Herodotus (cf. 6. 3. 3, 9. 31. 2, where it seems to be equivalent to ‘rank’), and here he uses the word as a means of marking the variation in the number of light-armed attached to the two types of Spartan hoplite. In his account of the battle itself there is no trace of different formations of Spartiates and non-Spartiates. (9) Busolt, Hermes, 423. For the practice of always having the best troops in the front, cf. Asclepiodotus 3. 5, 6, and 10. 14 (the Laconian counter-march). The famous single line at Dipaea (Isoc. 6. 99) should not be taken to mean that there was literally a single rank of Spartans facing the Arcadians; no matter how valorous the warriors, victory for such a formation would have been impossible in a hoplite battle. What Isocrates refers to presumably is that there were only enough Spartiates available to fill the front rank.

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The Decline of Sparta Fatal casualties on the field of battle were light and confined to those who withstood the first shock, but there may have been ample wounded amongst the non-Spartiates. (The cenotaph of the Aeginetans at Plataea about which Herodotus was scornful (9. 85. 3) may have been set up to commemorate men who later died of their wounds.) For the vulnerability of hoplites, cf. Xen. Anab. 3. 4. 30, 32. (10) Ad. Thuc. 5. 68. 3, written before the publication of Toynbee, Some Problems. (11) Plut. Pel. 17, Diod. 15. 32. 1. (12) Cf. Forrest, History of Sparta, 132. (13) For the term, cf. Wade-Gery, Essays, 83 n. 1. (14) Toynbee, Some Problems, frequently speaks of the ‘Inferiors’ as Spartiates; cf. 310, 343, 346 n. 2. Since, in the one passage where the term is used (Xen. Hell. 3. 3. 5ff.), they are plainly treated as not being Spartiates, it is hard to see why. (15) Also discussed by Toynbee, Some Problems, 400. (16) He makes clear that it is earlier than 424 BC (cf. καὶ τότϵ, 4. 80. 5), but is not precise. ’Εν τοῖς πολέμοις (§3) suggests the troubled period, 480–460 BC. (17) Cf. Bolte, PW III A. 2, cols. 1,283ff. (18) For instance in Book 8, Thucydides describes seven persons new to the History as Spartiate, in addition to the four he names as nauarchs; then four are described as ‘Lacedaemonian’, one as ‘Lacon’; ten lack any designation. Four Spartans receive patronymics, nineteen none. On two occasions he names two Spartans, one with patronymic, one without. (19) Cf. Wade-Gery, Essays, 76. (20) See the table in W. K. Pritchett, Ancient Greek Military Practices 1 (Berkeley, 1971; republished as The Greek State at War 1 [Berkeley, 1974]), 135. (21) Cf. their development of a corps d’élite (Thuc. 5. 67. 2, 81. 2; Diod. 12. 79. 4; Paus. 2. 20. 2). (22) Andrewes, Historical Commentary iv, 126, states that 5. 74. 1 ‘clearly demands that exceptional numbers of troops were engaged’, but Thucydides constantly (and curiously) resorts to superlatives and he may mean no more than that the battle was very great in the sense that it was of very great importance.

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The Decline of Sparta (23) Toynbee, Some Problems, 349f., unwisely follows L. Ziehen, ‘Das spartanische Bevölkerungsproblem’, Hermes 68 (1933), 231f., in taking Diodorus’ figure of 20,000 casualties (11. 63) literally, but clearly the earthquake had very serious demographic effects, to judge by Sparta’s reaction to events on Sphacteria (cf. also n. 9 for the shortage of Spartiates at the battle of Dipaea). (24) The Athenians built a fort in Laconia opposite Cythera in 413, which they had to abandon after the Sicilian disaster but which was intended as a haven for deserting Laconian Helots (Thuc. 7. 26. 2, 8. 4). Xenophon (Hell. 4. 8. 8) records the occupation of Cythera and the installation of an Athenian as harmost in 393 BC; the fact that Xenophon makes no mention of unrest and desertions on the mainland proves nothing. The only record of desertion in the Hellenica concerns Corcyra (6. 2. 15), but it was a fact of Greek life which Xenophon saw no reason to mention or else preferred not to mention. (25) Cartledge, Sparta and Lakonia, 347–56 has a useful collection of evidence. (26) Diodorus 15. 65. 6 alludes to the ‘recent freeing’ of the Helots and gives the figure of 1,000, but, if that is the figure he actually wrote and if it is correct, the argument is not basically affected. (27) Thuc. 2. 56. 6, 3. 16. 2, 4. 56. 2, 7. 18. 3, 26. 2. Cf. F. Hampl, ‘Die lakedämonischen Periöken’, Hermes 72 (1937), 24. (28) Thuc. 1. 18. Plato Laws 712d, Arist. Pol. 1294b14ff., Polyb. 6. 10. 6–11. (29) The various appearances of the Neodamodeis are listed by Toynbee, Some Problems, 380 n. 1. For fuller discussion, see V. Ehrenberg. PW XVI. 2, cols. 2,396–401. Cf. R. F. Willetts. ‘The Neodamodeis’, CPh 49 (1959), 27–32. It is to be noted that the one thousand Neodamodeis of Xen. Hell. 3. 1. 4 are referred to in Diod. 14. 36. 1 as πολῖται, and that Pausanias the Regent is said by Thucydides (1. 132. 4) to have offered the Helots ἐλϵυθέρωσίν τϵ…καὶ πολιτϵίαν. F. Hampl, art. cit. 26f., argues that the Neodamodeis were Helots promoted to the same status as Perioecs. (30) The class of freedman called δϵσποσιοναῦται mentioned by Myron F 1, to judge by the name, probably came into existence as Sparta concerned herself more with the sea, another instance of promotion to meet the needs of the Peloponnesian War. (31) The reading of one manuscript, τῶν Εἱλώτων ἑνὶ δουλϵύϵιν, at Isoc. 4. 111 is normally preferred and reference to Lysander is presumed (cf. J.-F. Bommelaer, Lysandre de Sparte [1981], 38); in which case it is notable that Isocrates finds such a role for a Helot conceivable. But the right reading may be ἐνίοις, and provide confirmation of the statement in the Theban speech quoted in the text. Page 19 of 22

The Decline of Sparta (32) There is no explicit evidence that Eteonicus was a Spartiate, save Pausanias 10. 9. 9f., which may be doubted; Pausanias may simply have presumed that the subordinates of Lysander at Aegospotami were both Spartiates, though §10 suggests that the inscriptions on the statues at Delphi described them simply as Λακϵδαιμόνιοι. Thucydides (8. 23) refrained from social designation. At Hell. 1. 1. 32 Xenophon describes him as ὁ Λάκων ἁρμοστής. If he was not a Spartiate, he had a very striking career, for which see Poralla, Prosopographie der Lak. 53. (Xenophon’s use of Λάκων is an uncertain guide. Chirisophus is Λάκων at Anab. 2. 1. 5, 6. 1. 32; Λακϵδαιμόνιος at Anab. 1. 4. 3—cf. Diod. 14. 27. 1; Anab. 4. 6. 14 makes it probable if not certain that he was a Spartiate.) Charminus and Polynicus (Anab. 7. 6. 1, 7, 39) may not have been Spartiates. Busolt, Gr. Ges. 3. 2. 1532 n., may not have been right to presume that Pasippidas (Xen. Hell. 1. 1. 32) was nauarch, which would require that he was Spartiate. (33) FGH 81 F 43. (34) Conveniently set out by D. Lotze on p. 426f. of his article ‘Μóθακϵς’, Historia 11 (1962). (35) Callicratidas and Lysander were certainly, as nauarchs, Spartiates. Gylippus probably (Thucydides never says as much, but it is probably Gylippus to whom he refers at 7. 58. 3, and not Ekkritos, the Spartiate commander of 7. 19. 3; cf. 6. 91. 4, 93. 2, 7. 2. 1). But that does not reflect on whether they were promoted μóθακϵς. Nothing is known of the youth of Callicratidas, but the discrediting of Gylippus’ father (Plut. Per. 22) may have downgraded the son, and Lysander is explicitly stated to have been ‘brought up in poverty’ (Plut. Lys. 2). J.-F. Bommelaer, op. cit. 36–8, for no good reason rejects the evidence of Phylarchus. (36) Cf. Ehrenberg, PW VII A. 1, cols. 675f. (37) Cf. the law of Critias (Xen. Mem. 1. 2. 31) and Xenophon’s criticism of sophistic education (Cyneg. 13). (38) F. R. Wüst, ‘Laconica’, Klio 37 (1959), 53–60, unconvincingly argued that the treatise belonged to the period of Cleomenes III, but I follow K. M. T. Chrimes, The Respublica Lacedaemoniorum Ascribed to Xenophon (1948), in rejecting Xenophon as the author. Ch. 14 appears to have been written in the 390s, to which the remark about those wanting to be continually abroad as harmosts seems more appropriate than later, and indeed in 395/4 BC, a year to which the statement that ‘now many are summoning each other to prevent them [sc. the Spartans] getting empire again (πάλιν)’ seems especially suitable, the danger in that year being that Sparta might set up decarchies again. It is most unlikely that at the very time that Xenophon was with admiring eyes serving under Agesilaus in Asia and before he had experience of Spartans in Sparta, he would have written such a chapter. (Cf. Chrimes, 24–8 for other strong arguments.) If Ch. 14, as it seems to be, is a (misplaced) postscript, the treatise must have been Page 20 of 22

The Decline of Sparta written at a time when it was even less likely that Xenophon was in a position to describe so fully the Spartan system. (The date of 387 suggested by E. Delebecque, Essai sur la vie de Xénophon, 194–9, is, to my mind, wholly unsatisfactory.) (39) E.g. by J.-F. Bommelaer, op. cit. 231. Contra, Cartledge, Sparta and Lakonia, 316. (40) Cf. Plut. Lyc. 30. (41) Cf. Posidonius ap. Ath. 6. 233f–234a (= FGH 87 F 48). (42) Hdt. 3. 148, 5. 51, 6. 72. 2; Thuc. 2. 21. 1, 5. 16. 3; Diod. 13. 106. 10; Ephorus (FGH 70) F 193. (43) Cf. Plut. Lyc. 21.2, Tyrtaeus 11. 14. The sole survivor of the Battle of the Champions, who had been left in victorious possession of the field, committed suicide, rather than return to Sparta alone (Hdt. 1. 82. 8). (44) The last clause of the first sentence of Xen. Hell. 5. 3. 9 is to be taken with all three categories. (45) Agesilaus in 378 BC, with five ‘divisions’ of the Spartans, had a larger army under his command than the presumably full force army of Nemea (Diod. 15. 32. 1, Xen. Hell. 4. 2. 16, though it should be noted that Xenophon omitted to count in the Tegeans who took part in the battle). (46) There is no formal conflict between Xen. Hell. 5. 2. 21ff. (of 382 BC) and Diod. 15. 31. 2 (of 378 BC), but Xenophon may have misremembered the date of the institution. (47) None of the bits of evidence about dress or hair distinguish between Spartiates and non-Spartiates; cf. Hdt. 1. 82. 8, [Xen.] Resp. Lac. 11. 3. Arist. frag. 499. Thucydides surprisingly was not exact about the number of Spartiates captured on Sphacteria (4. 38. 5) as he would have been if their dress and hair had been distinctive; he did not deal in round numbers for the total. There may have been some distinguishing marks, but not so obvious as hair and dress, to judge by [Xen.] Resp. Lac. 11. 6. (48) Cf. W. K. Pritchett, The Greek State at War II, ch. 11. (49) Cf. Xen. Hell. 7. 5. 19. (50) Note the use of trenches and palisades (Xen. Hell. 5. 4. 38). (51) Diod. 15. 37. 1 is the merest notice, Plut. Pel. 17 very imprecise. (52) Cf. CQ n.s. 22 (1972), 260–2 (herein Ch. XIV, 308–11). Page 21 of 22

The Decline of Sparta

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Epaminondas and Thebes

Cyrene to Chaeronea: Selected Essays on Ancient Greek History George Cawkwell

Print publication date: 2011 Print ISBN-13: 9780199593286 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199593286.001.0001

Epaminondas and Thebes George Cawkwell

DOI:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199593286.003.0015

Abstract and Keywords This chapter explores Epaminondas' policies as a statesman. Among these is his Peloponnesian policy which was sealed by the Peace of 366/5, under which the remaining members of the Peloponnesian league finally abandoned Sparta, and recognized the independence of Messenia and, presumably, the unification of Boeotia. It also argues that Epaminondas' actions must be judged not in relation to the inevitable limitations of Boeotian power but in relation to what they prevented. To have established the power of Boeotia and ended the Spartan domination of the Peloponnese was the most and the best that a Boeotian could have done. Keywords:   Epaminondas, Thebes, statesman, Sparta, Thebans, Boeotian, Peace of 366/5, Peloponnesians

EPAMINONDAS1 the soldier has been much admired. His two great battles rank as masterpieces of the military art. Epaminondas himself perhaps regarded them as his greatest achievements, to judge by his lastwords as reported by Diodorus (15. 87). He had been carried from the battlefield of Mantinea with a spear stuck in his chest. The doctors declared that when the spear was removed he would die. After hearing that his own shield was safe and that the Boeotians had won, he ordered that the spear be removed. One of his friends said to him ‘But you die without a son.’ He answered ‘I do, by God, but I leave two daughters, my victory of Leuctra and my victory of Mantinea’, and then he died. Nor were his ‘daughters’ unadmired. By remarkable chance the future Philip II of Macedon

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Epaminondas and Thebes was hostage at Thebes at the very time of Epaminondas’ pre-eminence and did not fail to learn, as Chaeronea was to show.2 Epaminondas the statesman has received less attention. The elegiacs inscribed beneath his statue at Thebes3 gave the Theban view of his main achievements. ‘By my counsels Sparta was shorn of her glory, and holy Messene at long last takes back her sons: by Theban arms has Megale Polis been crowned, and all Hellas rules itself in freedom.’ The last words were at least disputable, the rest true (p.300) enough, but what we need is an elucidation of those ‘counsels’. This task is not made easy by our sources, and frequently is in large measure omitted. So a new discussion may not seem otiose. Epaminondas by no means lacked admirers in antiquity. He was the inspiration of Timoleon, the liberator of Syracuse, as of Philopoemen, the enemy of Sparta.4 Plutarch matched his life with that of Scipio Africanus.5 To Cicero he was ‘princeps, meo iudicio, Graeciae’.6 The emperor Hadrian placed a new memorial beside the ancient Boeotian one at the place where he died and himself composed the epigram inscribed on it.7 Nor was it only posterity which admired. Timoleon’s opportunity to emulate him came sixteen years after his death, but his views must have been formed in Corinth in the 360s when Epaminondas was passing and repassing into the Peloponnese. Another young contemporary who was deeply impressed was Ephorus. When he wrote the obituary notice, he declared that Epaminondas surpassed, ‘in fairness and greatness of soul as well as in the intelligence and skill of a general’, not just his great contemporaries but also the great Greeks of preceding ages, Solon, Themistocles, Miltiades, Cimon, Myronides, and Pericles.8 Even Xenophon was moved tardily to tempered commendation.9 By contrast the evidence on which judgement of his policies is to be based is lamentably slight. Ephorus must have been fairly full on the 360s, and presumably did not neglect to treat of the internal history of Thebes, but the epitome of Diodorus contains very little on the subject. Plutarch’s Life of Epaminondas is lost and, although what is commonly thought to be an epitome of it is to be found in Pausanias (9. 13. 15),10 much of the revealing detail is lost and Pausanias is particularly brief on the last years of the life. The Life of Pelopidas and the Life of Agesilaus help in so far as the actions of Epaminondas brought him inextricably into contact with these two men, but (p.301) Plutarch’s method is to avoid duplicating narrative and so these Lives are no substitute for what we have lost in the Life of Epaminondas. Fortunately Nepos’ Life is one of the least brief and contains valuable material, and in various other places reflections of the fourth-century tradition can be seen, fortunately indeed, since it is one of the notable things about Xenophon, upon whom the chances of literary survival have forced us so much to depend, that he is astoundingly deficient in information about Epaminondas.

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Epaminondas and Thebes Epaminondas does not appear in the pages of Xenophon until his third invasion of the Peloponnese, in 366, when his treatment of the βέλτιστοι of Achaea contrasted favourably, in Xenophon’s view, with that of opponents in Thebes (Hell. 7. 1. 41–3). After this, Xenophon does describe fully enough Epaminondas’ part in the campaign of Mantinea and the events leading up to it (Hell. 7. 4. 40 and 5. 1ff.). Even he was not equal to suppressing the name of the Theban commander in that campaign. But for the rest we are faced with a formidable silence. Not only did he omit to name Epaminondas in connection with his masterpiece, the campaign of Leuctra, but also, more remarkably, his full account of the Peace Congress before Leuctra contains no hint of the famous scenes which set first Callistratus of Athens and then Agesilaus in conflict with Epaminondas.11 Perhaps Xenophon did not inquire into the Spartan defeat at Leuctra. He believed that the gods willed that disaster (Hell. 6. 4. 3, 8, 23). He accepted the Spartan version; Cleombrotus was to blame (Hell. 6. 4. 13; cf. Isoc. Archid. 9). He may have felt no urge to seek further. But the Peace Congress was a different matter. Xenophon was in all likelihood present at the festival of the Gymnopaedia which shortly followed the Congress and during which the news of the battle of Leuctra reached Sparta.12 His intimacy with Agesilaus could not have denied his ears the name and infamy of Epaminondas, and even if Xenophon was not in Sparta so shortly after the battle, it is inconceivable that the altercation of Agesilaus and Epaminondas did not echo through the Peloponnese and reach Xenophon in Scillus. His silence must have been deliberate—a challenging fact. In general, of course, Xenophon had no taste for recounting Theban achievements. In the whole of his history, which covered the time (p.302) of Theban greatness, he named only thirteen Thebans, seven of them in connection with the Liberation. Pelopidas received mention only in connection with the infamous negotiations with Artaxerxes in 367 (7. 1. 33f.). His name was avoided in the account of the Liberation, his triumph at Tegyra unnoticed, let alone his later share in the successes of Epaminondas.13 Gorgidas, creator of the Sacred Band, lauded by Ephorus as one of the architects of Theban power, remained unmentioned.14 Some of these silences may be explained by the restrictedness of Xenophon’s interests. He called his work Hellenica, but it would more properly, at any rate after 2. 3. 10, have been entitled Peloponnesiaca. It was no part of his intention to talk, or in studied manner not to talk, about Epaminondas’ naval plans or his diplomatic interventions in the Aegean. These were beyond his vision as indeed was the main preoccupation of Athenian policy in these years, viz. the recovery of Amphipolis and the Chersonese. Likewise the Theban intervention in Thessaly concerned him not one jot. It appeared merely by allusion in a debate on strategy in Corinth in 368 (7. 1. 28). In his history, as in his life, he preferred the Peloponnese. But there was much that happened within the Peloponnese which he did not recount and on which his silence must have been deliberate. Above all, he has nothing about that pious act, by which ‘holy Page 3 of 33

Epaminondas and Thebes Messene at long last takes back her sons’ and by which Epaminondas within a single winter’s campaign turned Sparta from a world power into a local wrangler.15 There is nothing to indicate that Messene has ceased to be a mere geographical expression. Likewise with Megalopolis. Megalopolitans appeared, in a single mention, supporting Epaminondas in 362 (7. 5. 5). Of the foundation of the city not a word.16 Beside these silences, it is not remarkable that he withheld the name of the man who marched into Laconia, so long inviolate. Plainly Xenophon hated the Thebans. Unprovoked by Sparta, they had broken up the pax Laconica (3. 5. 3). Corrupted by Persian gold, they had ruined the new anabasis (3. 5. 1, 5. 2. 35). Theban traffic with the barbarian had in the 390s deprived Greece of the fruits of Spartan (p.303) hegemony. In the 360s a new compact with Persia threatened the good life of the Peloponnese itself. It was all right for Euthycles of Sparta to journey to the King, but when Pelopidas was sent to counter his influence, it was a mark of Theban greed and ambition (7. 1. 33). ‘Those who really cared for the Peloponnese’ (7. 5. 1), ‘those whose counsels were in the best interests of the Peloponnese’ (7. 4. 35) could only revile the Thebes of Epaminondas. The bubble of Theban military pride had to be pricked. There was no need to dwell on Tegyra, or analyse success at Leuctra, let alone record petty, imagined triumphs in defence of Boeotia.17 The Thebans whose morale had see-sawed up and down on the battlefield of Haliartus (3. 5. 21) and who became eager for battle at Nemea when it was not their turn to face the Spartans and they could comfort themselves by disregarding what had been agreed about the depth of the line (4. 2. 18 and 13), these Thebans were the fireeaters who having preened themselves on the defeat of Sparta could not withstand the onslaught of a hundred men under Archidamus (7. 5. 12). Traitorous to Greece, contemptible despite success, the Thebans would gain no celebrity from Xenophon’s pen, and the man who led them into the Peloponnese would remain, as much as possible, unnamed. All of which tells us a great deal about Xenophon and very little about Epaminondas. Hence Epaminondas is one of the most illustrious of the Greeks, and one of the most obscure. To the best of our knowledge Epaminondas did not emerge as a statesman until 371. There is no good reason to deny that he had fought in the Theban contingent with the Spartan army that attacked Mantinea in 38518 and no doubt despite the lack of evidence he also served with the Theban armies in the defence of Boeotia in the 370s: he had taken an active part in the attack on the Cadmeia at the Liberation and there was no reason why he should have been exempt from regular service;19 indeed his military success in 371 strongly suggests such earlier experience. But if he had played a part in the affairs of state before 371, it seems likely that some echo would be found in Pausanias 9. 13 who passes directly from the campaign of (p.304) Mantinea to what is misleadingly described as the Peace of Antalcidas but is plainly the Peace of 372/1.20 The only evidence of earlier activity is the account in Diodorus (15. 38) of the clash of Epaminondas and Callistratus at the Peace of 375, but it is almost Page 4 of 33

Epaminondas and Thebes universally agreed that Diodorus’ account of that Peace was drawn from Ephorus’ account of the Peace of 372/1.21 Epaminondas came to the Boeotarchy at a moment most critical for Thebes. There was a double menace. To the north, in Phocis, was Cleombrotus with twothirds of the Spartan army and proportionate contingents of Sparta’s allies.22 We do not know when he had returned to this position, from which he had been recalled at the Peace of 375,23 but it is a reasonable presumption that he had done so at no great interval after the renewal of war in late 373, at some time in the course of 372. The Theban seizure of Plataea and intervention in Thespiae must have made the Phocians fear for themselves and, since it would seem that Sparta made no other move to resume hostilities against Thebes in 372, it is wholly credible that the force that was in position in Phocis in summer 371 had gone out in 372.24 The other menace to Thebes was diplomatic—a new appeal to Persia to require submission to Spartan hegemony in Greece. The question of whether the Great King was represented in the Peace of 372/1 has been much discussed.25 Some26 insist that (p.305) Xenophon’s account is so full that it is inconceivable that Persia could have been represented, an argument which should also lead them, one might suppose, to conclude that also the central part played by Epaminondas in the other sources is excluded by Xenophon’s silence; but no argument based on Xenophon’s silence is worth anything. Some27 would infer from a remark put by Xenophon into the mouth of Callistratus (6. 3. 12) that Antalcidas had gone to the King to appeal for financial aid and that no rescript had come from the King: in truth, if the remark is rightly taken in a literal sense, it would be consistent with Antalcidas remaining at Susa until it was known whether the Greeks had submitted to a rescript or not. The strong argument in favour of Persian participation in the Peace of 372/1 is that Dionysius of Halicarnassus28 in a notice which appears to derive from Philochorus29 asserts as much, and it may be remarked in support that those who are convinced that Xenophon could not have omitted in so full an account to notice a Persian share might well address themselves to one phrase in his narrative. Having given the three Athenian speeches, Xenophon went on: δοξάντων δὲ τούτων καλῶς εἰπϵῖν, ἐψηϕίσαντο καì οἱ Λακεδαιμόνιοι δέχεσθαι τὴν ϵἰρήνην. Δέχϵσθαι would be a curious word to use of the hegemonic power in a peace, but perfectly suited to Xenophon’s view of a peace which the Spartans as well as the Athenians (καì) ‘accepted’ from Persia. All in all, the case for Persian participation in 372/1 seems valid, and the present chapter proceeds on that assumption. Negotiations with Persia took time, and for Antalcidas’ embassy to have had effect with the King and resulted in a rescript, Sparta must have appealed to Persia in the course of 372. So when Epaminondas became Boeotarch at the turn of the Theban civil year, in mid-winter 372/1, he knew that 371 would either see Thebes tamely submit to Spartan demands in a renewed King’s Peace just as she Page 5 of 33

Epaminondas and Thebes had submitted in 375, or see the Theban hegemony of Boeotia accepted and the way open to a vast extension of Boeotian influence: and if Thebes had to return to the condition imposed by the Peace of 375, not only would (p.306) Plataea be re-established as a bastion of hostility not to be so easily surprised again, and Thespiae and Tanagra be restored to full inde-pendence,30 but also in all likelihood Theban nerve would fail. Thebes had begun the Corinthian War in the most daring manner. She could not have been confident that Thrasybulus would persuade Athens to join the revolt against Sparta; Lysander was in a position to bring against Thebes the full array of Sparta’s allies in Central Greece, and if the planned junction with Pausanias had not miscarried, 395 might have seen Thebes suffer the fate which she had willed for Athens in 404 and which Lysander, perhaps out of suspicions of Thebes, had prevented.31 Since attaining that peak of self-confidence Thebes had shown some infirmity of purpose. In the abortive peace negotiations of 392/1 she had been willing to come to terms with Sparta, and had remained suppliant for peace until 390, hard pressed by the attention of a single division of the Spartan army based on, and supported by, Thebes’ ancient rival Orchomenus.32 So much for the confident mood of 395. Nor had her performance since the King’s Peace been very satisfactory from the point of view of the Boeotian nationalists. Despite the bold defiance of 382, when the party of Ismenias and Androclidas had not only begun negotiating alliance with Olynthus but also, in defiance of Sparta’s decision that Olynthus was acting in breach of the King’s Peace, persisted to the point of forbidding any Theban to join the Spartan expedition,33 succeeding years had seen (p.307) less resolution. Promptly after the Liberation Thebes had prudently sought to reassure Sparta that she had no wish to disrupt the King’s Peace,34 but it was other than prudence which gave rise to the suspicion that Thebans had prompted Sphodrias to raid the Piraeus.35 The purpose of that raid was, as I hope to argue elsewhere (herein, Ch. X), to nip in the bud the newly formed Second Athenian Confederacy, potentially a serious challenge to Spartan domination and therefore much to be desired by Thebans who wished to see an end to the limitation of Theban political influence under the King’s Peace. There must have been faint-hearted or complacent Thebans to excite such suspicion. Then again in 375 moderation prevailed. At the end of winter 378/7 Thebes had taken a most important step towards the reunification of Boeotia under her hegemony (Xen. Hell. 5. 4. 42–6). The Spartan harmost in Thespiae, Phoebidas, had by his raids into Theban territory provoked a counter-attack on Thespian territory, in the course of which Phoebidas was killed and the Thespians penned up within their walls. ‘As a result the Theban business was once again set ablaze and they campaigned against Thespiae and the other surrounding cities. However the people from them withdrew to Thebes… ’(§46). ‘The Theban business’ (τὰ τῶν Θηβαίων) was, we may guess, the reunification of Boeotia, and it was concerning this that the embassy to Thebes ordered by the decree of

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Epaminondas and Thebes Aristotle in March 377 was to go and ‘persuade the Thebans of whatever good they can.’36 With a large number of Boeotians living in and around Thebes the appointment of Boeotarchs was a natural step to take. The bold attacks on the cities of Boeotia and then the attack on Phocis showed which way the Thebans were bent on following.37 In early 375 came the remarkable success of a Theban force against two divisions of the Spartan army at Tegyra.38 Boeotian nationalism must have been (p.308) riding high. Then came the lame submission of 375,39 a sorry anticlimax that could not be repeated without disaster to all hopes of a reunified Boeotia. If, after the aggressive acts of 373, Thebes were to submit yet again in 371, it could hardly be expected that Thebes would ever dare to stand by her demands and face the consequences. Epaminondas knew his countrymen. In the course of 371 he was, as we shall see, going to have to overcome weakness of will at two crucial moments. At the Peace Congress in Sparta the Thebans at first submitted to the Spartan terms and only tardily made their stand,40 and in the debates amongst the Boeotarchs twenty days later41 no fewer than three of the seven were in favour of retiring to Thebes and suffering siege by the Peloponnesians.42 Such faint-heartedness Epaminondas had every reason to expect. It would be his great contribution to Thebes that 375 would not be repeated. It is necessary briefly to digress and discuss the battle of Leuctra,43 which was fought twenty days after the Peace Congress in Sparta but (p.309) for which the Theban army must have been trained for a much longer period. There were four features of this battle which were, as far as we know, novel. First, the concentration of force on the Theban left flank.44 In itself the concentration of force was not new. The Thebans had been drawn up twenty-five deep at Delium in 424 (Thuc. 4. 93. 4), and at Nemea in 395, not content with the depth agreed on in the debate on strategy which had preceded the battle, the Thebans had made their line ‘really deep’ (Xen. Hell. 4. 2. 13, 18). Seeing that the agreed depth had been sixteen which was twice the normal depth of the Spartan army in the fifth century,45 the Thebans had been moving long before Leuctra to the concentration of force. What was new at Leuctra was that the concentration was on the left flank. Given the tendency of the Greek hoplite to edge to the right in the advance (Thuc. 5. 71. 1), there was obvious prudence in posting the strongest and most reliable troops on the right to check this drift to the right as much as possible rather than on the left where they would be most likely to suffer the ill effects of gaps appearing in the line. Epaminondas’ reversal at Leuctra is the mark of a revolutionary change in the conception of warfare. In previous battles the most formidable forces on each side had frequently not come into conflict with each other: the whole line engaged at the same moment and only in the rarest circumstances did the troops on the right of Page 7 of 33

Epaminondas and Thebes each line formally engage each other. That was partly why Xenophon saw the battle of Coronea as unique, at any rate in his own lifetime (Hell. 4. 3. 16): after the Spartans had routed the Argives, and the Thebans the Orchomenians, Agesilaus deliberately sought, when he had neither need in doing so nor advantage, to confront the Thebans, making the whole a sort of knock-out contest for the hegemony of Greece. But in 371 the conflict was centred on, and indeed confined to, the main antagonists. The second innovation closely served the same end. For the first time known to us a Greek general in a hoplite battle kept forces in reserve.46 Normally, when battle had been joined, there was nothing more for the general to do. But in 371 Epaminondas drew up part of (p.310) his forces, according to Xenophon (Hell. 6. 4. 12), ‘no less than fifty deep’. This can only mean that he was not committing all his forces at the start of the battle. Indeed the celebrated role of Pelopidas and the Sacred Band in the battle argues as much (Plut. Pel. 23. 2). Pelopidas was able to prevent the Spartans encircling the Boeotian left flank. Epaminondas must have been able to use them as the battle developed. His work as general did not end when battle began. Thirdly, both Diodorus (15. 55. 2) and Plutarch (Pel. 23. 1) speak of an ‘oblique formation’, though they do not seem to have the same conception of what this meant.47 Plutarch takes it to mean that Epaminondas did what might be described as a leftward diagonal march. Diodorus indicates that the oblique phalanx was the means whereby only the Boeotian left came into contact with the enemy, while the right flank followed Epaminondas’ orders to avoid engaging in the battle. Whatever truth there may be in Plutarch’s account, it is evident that the Diodoran picture of the two battle lines being far from parallel as they moved into contact is correct. The Boeotian right did not engage with the Peloponnesians (Plut. Pel. 23. 4), just as the right of the Macedonian army at Chaeronea sought to avoid the Greek left.48 Fourthly, there was the unusual role of the cavalry battle. In hoplite battles of the past, cavalry had operated on the flanks during the battle or had skirmished before the battle.49 But at Leuctra, it would seem, the Theban advance began while the cavalry were still in conflict. According to Diodorus (15. 55. 3), the Spartans made their phalanx ‘moon-shaped’, which is baffling. Nothing before or after in Spartan history prepares us for such innovation in 371. In Xenophon’s account (Hell. 6. 4. 13), which is written wholly from a Spartan point of (p.311) view, there is no hint of anything unusual in the formation adopted by Cleombrotus, although, if Xenophon had known of anything to explain the Spartan defeat, he might well have alluded to it. What Xenophon does say is most suggestive. He says that Cleombrotus began to advance before his army perceived that he was doing so and that the routed Spartan cavalry fell foul of the hoplite array while the Thebans were attacking.50 Considering the admirable training of the Spartan army in the transmission of orders, one can only suppose Page 8 of 33

Epaminondas and Thebes that Cleombrotus was forced to fight before he expected to do so, and that before the cavalry engagement was over Epaminondas began his advance with the left flank thrust forward and the right flank partly protected by the confusion caused by the cavalry battle, and that the Peloponnesian line bent moon-shaped round their straggling cavalry. If this explanation is right, the battle displayed for the first time in a major Greek battle that co-ordination of arms which was to be so remarkably developed by Philip and Alexander. Epaminondas timed his advance so well that only the Spartans were free to engage and were forced to do so against a superior concentration of force with enough in reserve to exploit success. No wonder Ephorus admired. Such a revolution in the art of war was not conceived in the twenty days between the exclusion of Thebes from the Peace and the battle; nor could the Theban army be trained to it in so short a period. Anyone who has had experience of foot-drill in an army and has taken part in large-scale reviews on parade will realize that without the flat unbroken surface of a parade-ground and without lines and flags to guide movement even the normal advance of a hoplite army must have required experience and practice. For the revolutionary and much more exacting changes of 371, new and intensive training must have been carried out. Indeed it is for the high training of the Theban army that Xenophon especially commended Epaminondas.51 (p.312) Epaminondas must therefore have begun to prepare for the great battle that would crown or debase his country as soon as he entered office. The decision to fight was no hastily conceived plan, consequent on a diplomatic reverse. He knew when he entered office that a new Common Peace was likely; that Thebes would in all likelihood have to stand, as she had nearly stood in 375, alone; that a large Spartan force would be strategically well placed to exploit her isolation. He resolved from the start to fight. Before passing from the battle of Leuctra, one may note that the Spartan view that Cleombrotus was to blame was wildly wrong. Conventional, conservative Spartan warfare, nonplussed in 425 by the novel terrain of Sphacteria, was nonplussed in 371 by the novel methods of genius. It was not Cleombrotus that failed at Leuctra, but Spartanism. Cleombrotus in fact did well to get to Leuctra at all. Epaminondas had stationed a force under Chaereas52 to prevent him leaving Phocis by other than the main highroad south into Boeotia between the Copaic Lake and the mountains west of Haliartus and Coronea, and Epaminondas was in position to fight his great battle where Peloponnesian superiority of numbers would be of less effect. Cleombrotus refused this course, and by appearing in the plain of Leuctra seven miles from Thebes struck terror into some Theban hearts. He had done well enough for a Spartan. It was his misfortune to confront a military genius.

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Epaminondas and Thebes (p.313) Was it Thebes’ good fortune that Epaminondas was in office in 371? The evidence about his age is of little value.53 He certainly was of military age by 38554 and so must have been thirty-two at least by late 372. But it is not clear whether his assumption of the Boeotarchy55 was the natural first step of a rising Theban, suo anno as it were, or the deliberate descent into the cave by a remote and mature sage. In the latter case his acts of 371 would be the more deliberate, but even in the former case there is something to be said for supposing that he entered office clearly aware of what the year would bring. There is one oddity about 371. After the re-creation of the Boeotarchy in March 377 it was the only year when Pelopidas was not Boeotarch.56 He died in the course of his thirteenth Boeotarchy in 364, and was never unseated by the opponents of Epaminondas even though they did unseat Epaminondas, with whom Pelopidas was to the best of our knowledge in constant harmony. Why was the man whom many Thebans in 372 must have regarded as the real hero of Thebes restored, the victor of Tegyra, out of the Boeotarchy for the only time in his career? He was not unemployed, however, in the decisive year. As commander of the Sacred Band, he had an all-important part to play in Epaminondas’ great battle. Perhaps it will not strain credulity too far to suggest that Pelopidas was not Boeotarch in 371 because the man whom he recognized as potentially his master in war wanted no one less than the victor of Tegyra to train the Sacred Band and lead it in the coming struggle. Three of the Boeotarchs of 371 proved fainthearted. Epaminondas presumably would not have wanted to depend so much on such men. There was more to 371, however, than war and preparations for war. There was diplomacy too, and the year that established Epaminondas as the greatest general of the age showed the Greeks that Thebes had a statesman of no mean stature. (p.314) The Peace Congress of 371 must have been, for Greeks, a glittering occasion. The greatest of the Spartans, indeed for Theopompus,57 the greatest man of the age, King Agesilaus, presided. Delegations from all over the Greek world were there and heard the leading Athenian orator of his time, Callistratus,58 plead for concord between the leading land and naval powers of Greece—a theme to which Xenophon was happy to accord space (Hell. 6. 3. 10– 17). But no less impressive for his eloquence was the man of whose presence Xenophon did not breathe a word. Indeed the Congress was little short of a personal triumph for Epaminondas. Nepos (Epam. 6. 4) concluded a discussion of Epaminondas as orator with these words. ‘Yet the greatest display of his eloquence was when he was at Sparta as ambassador before the battle of Leuctra. When the ambassadors of the whole Page 10 of 33

Epaminondas and Thebes alliance had met there, in the hearing of a most crowded assembly of the embassies he exposed and denounced the Spartans’ despotic power in such a manner that he severely shook their position by that speech no less than by the battle of Leuctra. For he then brought it about, as was afterwards apparent, that the Spartans were bereft of the support of their allies.’ This was no exaggeration. He spoke, according to Plutarch (Ages. 27. 4, 28), ‘not merely for Thebes but for all Greece in common’, and there followed a most famous altercation with Agesilaus. When Agesilaus asked him whether his ideas of justice and equality included independence from Thebes for the cities of Boeotia, Epaminondas ri-posted59 with a demand for the independence of the perioecic peoples of Laconia, a doubly remarkable reply. Not only was Epaminondas asserting that Thebes had no less right to control Boeotia than Sparta to control Laconia, but also by choosing to speak about the perioecic peoples rather than the helots of Messenia he was by implication proclaiming that Thebes would seek the refoundation and independence of Messene. Others had protested about Spartan power over other states. Epaminondas’ words portended the dissolution of the Spartan state itself. The hopes of the oppressed now turned to Thebes. It was no surprise that the first Theban force to invade the Peloponnese contained peoples who had but lately looked to Athens as the liberator (Xen. Hell. 6. 5. 23), and, when Athens through the (p.315) mouth of Callistratus was defending itself for saving Sparta from destruction by Thebes,60 Thebes was being widely regarded as the founder and defender of the liberty of the onceoppressed peoples of the Peloponnese. Had not Epaminondas told all Greece at the Peace Congress what to expect? There is however one aspect of this Congress which remains obscure. Epaminondas’ speech presumably belongs, just as the speeches recorded by Xenophon belong, to the discussion prior to the oath-swearing, and to judge by Plutarch’s account (Ages. 28. 1) the altercation with Agesilaus followed directly on the speech.61 The burden of it all was plain. Thebes was asserting before the assembled Greeks that she was hegemon of Boeotia, that there would be in future Boeotians so called, a single state amongst the states of Greece, and no longer Thebans or Thespians. Yet, according to Xenophon (Hell. 6. 3. 19), the Thebans were at first listed as having sworn as ‘Thebans’, and the name was erased when on the following day they demanded to be registered as ‘Boeotians’. How did this happen? Of course Agesilaus may have ordered ‘Thebans’ to be inscribed contrary to the expectation of the Theban embassy who, when they found out, demanded the change. But Xenophon gives no hint of this and the impression one gets from an admittedly far from straightforward passage62 is that the Thebans changed their minds. If so, did Epaminondas change his mind? He had proclaimed his political credo before Greece. Did his nerve fail, for the space of a day? We cannot know, but one may be pardoned for believing that the faint-heartedness was not his and that not his least service to the cause of Boeotian nationalism is wholly unattested, to wit his persuasion of Page 11 of 33

Epaminondas and Thebes his own fellow ambassadors. In Sparta, as twenty days later at Leuctra, he had Theban opposition to overcome before he could succeed. (p.316) The campaigning season after Leuctra was occupied with the consolidation of Boeotia.63 Thespiae had to be dealt with and Orchomenus subjected. After that, Phocis, so long a stronghold of Spartan power, had to be secured. There was in any case another reason for the Thebans not to follow up their victory. Jason of Pherae with grandiose words and grandiose plans64 threatened to dominate central Greece,65 and, until he had been killed, it was not safe to leave Boeotia unattended. When in winter 370/69 the Arcadians appealed unsuccessfully to Athens for protection against Sparta and turned to Thebes,66 a new period opened. When Athens rejected the Arcadians, the debate must have been nicely poised. Military and political experience must have advised caution: to be involved in the web of Peloponnesian politics might finally contribute little to stability and militarily provoke the Spartan lion, wounded but not yet maimed, to attacks which Athens would hardly be able to check. On the other hand, if Athens, hegemon of the Greek world since the Congress of Athens after Leuctra (Xen. Hell. 6. 5. 1), would not champion the dissident states of the Peloponnese, they would turn to the power which on the morrow of Leuctra had appealed to Athens to join in exacting vengeance in full from Sparta (Xen. Hell. 6. 4. 19). Demosthenes later (16. 12) pronounced the rejection of the Arcadians to be a major error. He had the advantage of hindsight. In 370/69 the right course was less clear. The debate at Thebes was different. There was no question of leaving the opportunity to others if Thebes did not take it herself. The only issue was whether she should actively intervene in the Peloponnese and keep Sparta on the defensive, or leave the Peloponnesians to work out the consequences of Leuctra for themselves. To us it is hard to suppose that statesmen could seriously entertain the latter alternative. Sparta had lost one battle, a loss of Spartiates and a loss of prestige. For the moment Athens had displaced her as hegemon of the Peace.67 The (p.317) Peloponnese was in turmoil.68 In Arcadia nationalism was at long last unfettered.69 But the real sources of Spartan power remained—the mastery of Messenia and Laconia, and the devotion of ‘the best men’ of the Peloponnese to the mirage spartiate. As long as a Stasippus had influence in Tegea,70 or a Euphron in Sicyon had no support if he deserted Sparta,71 the damage of Leuctra might be repaired. The army was still to be reckoned with. Agesilaus was at that moment in Arcadia (Xen. Hell. 6. 5. 15f.). Thebes had to intervene. Not until the economic basis of Spartan power had been broken by depriving her of the wealth of Messenia, and Messene and Megalopolis been established as bastions of democratic power where once aristocratic ‘autonomy’ had prevailed, would Sparta be confined to the defence of her Laconian lair. Even then constant vigilance and readiness to sustain Page 12 of 33

Epaminondas and Thebes alliances would be necessary. There was no alternative. Epaminondas saw this clearly (Paus. 9. 14. 4). Nonetheless there was division at Thebes, and Epaminondas had to overcome the opposition of Meneclidas72 and his party. That Meneclidas opposed him on the policy of intervening in the Peloponnese is nowhere explicitly attested, but it may be deduced from Nepos’ brief references to him. ‘Because he (Meneclidas) saw that Epaminondas was at his best in the conduct of war, he was accustomed to urge the Thebans to prefer peace to war so that the services of Epaminondas as commander should not be needed’ (Epam. 5. 2), and Nepos makes Epaminondas suitably reply ‘… if you wish to be the leading power (p.318) of Greece, you must take to the camp, not to the wrestling ground’ (ibid. 5. 4). A plea for peace at all costs was unlikely to have any appeal to the victors of Leuctra, and it is notable that neither in Plutarch’s Life of Pelopidas nor in Nepos’ is there any trace of Meneclidas’ attacking Pelopidas for his interventions in Thessaly which certainly and inevitably involved Thebes in war. The alleged demand for peace must have been a demand for Thebes to keep out of the Peloponnese. That is why Meneclidas prosecuted Epaminondas twice in 369.73 His first prosecution on a constitutional point was absurd. If the price of refounding Messene and of invading Laconia hitherto inviolate was a breach of the law, so much the worse for the law; and Epaminondas had not the slightest difficulty in justifying himself.74 The second prosecution had more point. The invasion of summer 36975 achieved remarkably little (Xen. Hell. 7. 1. 18f.). A few mercenaries from Dionysius had been able to discomfit the Theban force (ibid. 7. 1. 20f.), and resentment against Thebes was perhaps already plainly astir (ibid. 7. 1. 23f.). The gloomy predictions of Meneclidas must have seemed to be coming true; Thebes had been involved in the endless skirmishing of petty Peloponnesian powers. This time Meneclidas had a more satisfactory pretext. Epaminondas could be represented as lukewarm in his determination to damage Sparta, and Meneclidas was able to keep him out of the Boeotarchy for 368 (Diod. 15. 72), in which year there was no intervention in the Peloponnese. It is possible too that the party of Meneclidas tried to prevent the first expedition ever going out at all. There is a curious and tell-tale remark in Xenophon which shows the difficulties Epaminondas had to overcome. The Eleans on campaign with the Man-tineans and facing Agesilaus in Arcadia dissuaded battle ‘until the Thebans appear; and they said that they well knew that they would appear, for they had actually borrowed ten talents from them (the Eleans) for the expedition’ (Hell. 6. 5. 19). This is indeed curious. The Thebans had voted to help the Peloponnesians, but the Mantineans needed to be persuaded that the Thebans would be honouring their undertaking, and such was the will of the Thebans to seize the opportunity presented to them that trivial sums of money had to be scraped up to enable the expedition to depart. It is consistent with this niggardliness that Epaminondas is represented in Plutarch (p.319) (Mor. 193B, C) as having to borrow fifty drachmas for expenses on the campaign. Unable to Page 13 of 33

Epaminondas and Thebes kill the expedition outright, his opponents perhaps tried to starve it, and, though the details are unclear, they may have sought to replace Epaminondas and Pelopidas in their command.76 By removing the chief advocates of intervention, their opponents hoped to keep Thebes free of the Peloponnese. The real problem for Thebes was not whether she should intervene in the Peloponnese, but by what means she should exercise her influence there. Like Sparta, she would rely principally on military power but, unlike Sparta, she had no ready means of maintaining control over the policies of the Peloponnesian states. Sparta had ruled, as Thucydides remarked (1. 19), through oligarchy. By supporting the landed aristocracy and indeed guaranteeing it against the social changes which would follow on the growth of large urban populations behind impregnable walls, Sparta not only secured military support in return but also could count on policies which suited admirably her own purposes. Further, the men on whom she relied were men who looked to Sparta as the nearest approach to the ideal society, the inspiration of the good life. In this way her power was in very large measure coherent and hard to disrupt. The position of Thebes was far different and far less satisfactory. Inevitably there would have to be large cities and democracies to counter Spartan power, but there was no guarantee that they would behave as Thebes desired. No one admired Thebes away from the battlefield or looked to her as a spiritual home. If the Peloponnese was to be free, it would be free of Thebes as well as Sparta. Indeed the history of Mantinea before 385 was a portent. If under the shadow of Sparta petty imperialism could flourish,77 what would happen when that shadow was past? As far as we can discern it, Epaminondas’ method of maintaining Theban control was well suited to the Peloponnese. He did not seek to establish the inverse of the Spartan system by requiring every state that came under the Theban wing to become a democracy and getting rid of any citizens to whom democracy was uncongenial. He preferred to rely on mere treaties of alliance and the recognition by Peloponnesian statesmen that Sparta would never be allowed again to become a great power. When he incorporated Achaea into the (p.320) Theban alliance, he responded to the appeal of ‘the best men’ and secured that the most influential citizens were not exiled nor the constitution changed (Xen. Hell. 7. 1. 41f.). This is the only piece of evidence we have directly concerning the Peloponnese, but that Epaminondas regularly pursued this policy is suggested by what we know of his policy elsewhere. When Thebes in the year after Leuctra set about securing her hold over Boeotia, Epaminondas prevented the ‘enslavement’ of Orchomenus (Diod. 15. 57. 1) and when in 364 the richest citizens of Orchomenus were discovered to be involved in a plot to replace the Boeotian democracy with an aristocratic system, akin perhaps to the federal oligarchies of the period before the King’s Peace, the Orchomenians were sold into slavery and the city razed to the ground only because Epaminondas and his consort in power, Pelopidas, were absent from Thebes at the vital moment.78 A similar moderation was displayed over Phocis in 370, the year in which Page 14 of 33

Epaminondas and Thebes Epaminondas’ influence must have been at its greatest. Thebes had to secure the ‘friendship’ of the states of central Greece and of Phocis in particular, and proceeded to do so (Diod. 15. 57. 1). But the terms on which she did so are notable. Phocis was accorded a purely defensive alliance, and, when Epaminondas first intervened in the Peloponnese in winter 370/69, the Phocians went with him, as ‘subjects’ according to Xenophon, but in fact freely (Hell. 7. 5. 4, 6. 5. 23). Epaminondas, it would seem, saw advantage in underplaying Thebes’ power. In this he was opposed, to judge by the case of the Achaeans (Xen. Hell. 7. 1. 43). He was attacked on that occasion by both the Arcadians and his political rivals for his settlement, which was shortly reversed. Democracies were set up, and ‘the best men’ exiled. The sequel perhaps showed the good sense of Epaminondas. When these exiles recovered the cities, they ‘no longer took a middle course’.79 Epaminondas had perceived that there were sufficient numbers of men like (p.321) Euphron of Sicyon80 who would relax their zeal for Sparta when Sparta lost her power to support them, and that rigid uniformity would involve greater trouble than advantage for Thebes. The only real fear in the Peloponnese was that Peloponnesians should forget their fears of Sparta. The Peace of 366/5 set the seal on Epaminondas’ Peloponnesian policy. Under it the remaining members of the Peloponnesian league finally abandoned Sparta, and recognized the independence of Messenia and, presumably, the unification of Boeotia.81 But if it is correct that the Peace was a Common Peace which included Athens,82 the (p.322) gains were not all Theban; from now on Athens, released from her unhappy military efforts in the Peloponnese, was free to concentrate on what concerned her most—viz. the recovery of Amphipolis and the Chersonese, to both of which her right had been confirmed by the Peace.83 It is therefore surprising that under the year 364/3 Diodorus (15. 78. 4) recorded an important development of Theban policy. Epaminondas is found urging his countrymen to naval empire, and the Boeotians accordingly decreed that a fleet of one hundred ships and a corresponding number of docks should be built and the Rhodians, Chians, and Byzantians should be urged to support these designs. Epaminondas was then sent out with a fleet to these peoples. The Athenian general, Laches, was dispatched with a large force to prevent the Thebans, but retired in fear, and Epaminondas ‘made the cities friendly to the Thebans’ (ἰδίας τὰς πόλϵις τοῖς Θηβαίοις ἐποίησϵν). What lies behind this passage of Diodorus,84 and how is Epaminondas’ policy to be evaluated? There is some supporting evidence to make us think seriously of Diodorus’ account. Aeschines (2. 105) later declared that Epaminondas had said in an assembly that ‘the Thebans must transfer the Propylaea of the Athenian acropolis to the entrance to the Cadmea’, (p.323) and, since the Propylaea was the symbol of Athens’ fifth-century naval empire, the remark may well belong to Page 15 of 33

Epaminondas and Thebes the assembly Diodorus records, or, rather, to what was said of it in Athens. Isocrates (5. 53) said the Thebans sent out triremes to Byzantium, ‘with the intention of ruling both land and sea’, and the appeal of the Heracleans to Epaminondas, recorded by Justin (16. 4. 3–4), probably belongs to Epaminondas’ mission.85 By 362 Byzantium was plainly on bad terms with Athens86 and this may reflect the influence of Epaminondas. So the Ephoran tradition is perhaps echoed elsewhere in the evidence. But one must also note its limits. Diodorus says nothing to imply that the ships were ever built. Epaminondas went out with a force (μϵτὰ δυνάμϵως), but there had been a Boeotian navy of sorts since the fifth century87 and he may have used for his voyage the ships ready to hand.88 If as Diodorus asserts Laches retired in fear, this need not have been fear of the naval force of Epaminondas: presumably the large force at Laches’ command (στóλος ἀξιóλογος is Diodorus’ term) was made large enough to engage in battle and Athenians were still confident enough of their skill not to run away. Laches must rather have feared the political consequences of attacking Epaminondas’ force and so breaking the Peace. Again, no large force of Boeotian ships ever appears in the late 360s or the 350s, though in view of Theban enmity to Alexander of Pherae, who did have and use a (p.324) navy,89 there certainly were occasions for naval activity. So presumably there was no great increase in the Boeotian navy.90 Nor should Diodorus’ remark about Epaminondas making the cities of Rhodes, Chios, and Byzantium ‘attached’ (ἰδίας) to the Thebans (15. 79. 1) be taken to mean that they revolted from Athens. Rhodes and Chios did not revolt until 357, though Byzantium may have been in a somewhat different case.91 All in all, there was a grand design but it came to very little.92 What occasioned such a development? Are we to suppose that Epaminondas having established, as he thought, Boeotian power in central and southern Greece suddenly resolved to establish a naval empire, which would inevitably have meant naval war with Athens? Or was there some other explanation? After all, such a speech in time of peace as Diodorus (15. 78. 4) recounts was bound to cause great excitement in Greece, and the frank avowal of imperial designs would render them less likely to succeed. One may rule out from the start that Epaminondas entertained Panhellenist notions of attacking Persia of the sort entertained by Jason of Pherae.93 No hint of such a policy survives in the evidence,94 and, since the policy of concord with Persia chiefly concerned Pelopidas (Xen. Hell. 7. 1. 33ff.), it probably had the blessing of Epaminondas too. So his bluntness could not have been explained away in such terms. Why then was he so outspoken? Perhaps the right explanation is that the whole affair sprang from Athens’ cleruchy to Samos. The date of Epaminondas’ voyage is probably enough 364, the year when Orchomenus was destroyed in the absence of Epaminondas and Pelopidas,95 that is, the year after (p.325) the Samian cleruchy.96 The decision to send the cleruchy must have roused bitter apprehensions in Greece. It was the first occasion97 since the foundation of the Second Athenian Confederacy that Athens had had recourse to the most hated of Page 16 of 33

Epaminondas and Thebes the institutions of the fifth-century empire, and, although Samos was not a member of the Confederacy and there was no formal breach of the promises of the decree of Aristotle, it was an ominous precedent. In 357/6 the allies of the Social War, Chios, Rhodes, and Byzantium, joined in revolt because they thought that ‘Athens was plotting against them’, the Rhodians at least resenting the Athenians’ ‘recovering’ what was ‘their own’ (Dem. 15. 3, 15), and in 365 this must have seemed precisely what was happening in Samos and about to happen (p.326) elsewhere.98 When Cydias bade the Athenians in his speech about the cleruchy imagine that ‘the Hellenes were standing round them, actually looking on and not merely going to hear report of whatever they decreed’ (Ar. Rhet. 1384b32), he was presumably meaning that the debate could have serious consequences for Athens’ relations with the Hellenes, and, although there is no other evidence of its effect on Athens’ allies, it is a reasonable presumption that it did lead men to fear a return to empire. It would not be surprising if Epaminondas decided that the moment was right for Thebes to champion the liberty of the Greeks of the Aegean too. The Peace of 366/5 is a dark affair, but at least it is clear from Xenophon (7. 4. 10) that those who joined it merely swore to keep peace, and refused the Theban suggestion of alliance.99 This meant, in terms of the Common Peace, that there was no sanctions clause of the sort to be found in every Common Peace since that of 386, and it may be suggested that what Epaminondas aimed to do was to exploit the mood of disaffection amongst Athens’ allies and to provide what the recent Peace had failed to provide. The burden of his speech in the assembly was ‘to urge the Thebans to seek the sea-hegemony’ (ἀντέχϵσθαι τῆς κατά θάλατταν ἡγϵμονίας—Diod. 15. 78. 4), and, although the epitome of his speech suggests that he spoke of ‘sea empire’ (τὴν τῆς θαλάττης ἀρχήν), he appears to have been talking of Spartan naval command in the Persian Wars when there was no question of their having ‘sea empire’. Whatever his private intentions, publicly his purpose is likely to have been to create a defensive alliance,100 and the Samian cleruchy had provided the opportunity. As already remarked, there is no reason to suppose that Epaminondas’ initiative achieved its professed aims. Rhodes, Chios, and Byzantium may have been disposed favourably to Thebes, but no more. Should Epaminondas then bear the discredit for having tried to (p.327) light a damp squib? Thebes was not a naval power, and one might think that the failure of Epaminondas only made plain what from the outset he should have seen for himself. Yet that was not the view of Ephorus, who opined that Boeotia was well placed for the exercise of sea hegemony (F.G.H. 70 F119), and one must remember that within a few years the very states to which Epaminondas made overtures combined successfully against the naval power of Athens. The allies fought at Chios with 100 ships, and the Athenians sent out 120 for the Embata campaign.101 With such naval

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Epaminondas and Thebes strengths a Boeotian fleet of 100 could have made a decisive difference. Perhaps Epaminondas was not so wrong in his judgement. Why then did he not pursue the plan? The answer may well lie in the situation which confronted him on his return. Pelopidas had marched out on his final campaign shortly after 13 July 364, the date of the eclipse recorded by Diodorus (15. 80. 2), and two other Boeotarchs had to lead a full expedition to deal with Alexander of Pherae. At just the same period, at the Olympic Games the festering rivalries of the Peloponnese erupted in fighting (Xen. Hell. 7. 4. 28f.). The resistance to the policies of Arcadian lawlessness had begun. It required no great prescience in Thebes to see that the whole balance she had established in the Peloponnese would be soon disturbed. Finally, the wrangling at Delphi between the supporters of the Phocians and their opponents, which flared up in spring 363 (S.I.G.3 175), may have already begun,102 and Epaminondas may have begun to fear a Sacred War.103 All in all, it was no time to be embarking on ambitious plans for sea-hegemony. Thebes would clearly be stretched in defending the positions she already held. It is no surprise that nothing more is heard of the great naval expansion. It was the opinion of Ephorus104 that the Theban hegemony was due solely to the two great leaders; for the rest, Thebes was too lacking in culture to succeed: witness the failure of the state after the death of (p.328) Epaminondas. Similarly Polybius (6. 43). Were they correct? If they were, the greatness of Epaminondas is so much the greater. One may question whether Thebes lacked men to succeed Epaminondas. In particular, Pammenes, who appears to have been the trusted lieutenant of Epaminondas, and to have inherited the position of Epaminondas, was a man of some eminence.105 That he is little mentioned after 361 may be due more to the lull after 362 in the troubles of the Peloponnese than to his lack of distinction. Certainly Thebes did not lack men of nerve or force of character before or after Epaminondas; one has only to think of the men who began the Corinthian War and the men who revolted in 335. It is not clear that the failure of Thebes was due merely to lack of leaders. Nor can one fully share Ephorus’ conviction, very proper in a pupil of Isocrates, that the cause of Thebes’ decline was connected with the neglect of education and of rational converse with other men and the concentration on military virtue.106 Of course, in a sense this was an important element. Athens had been ‘the education of Hellas’, and Sparta, or, rather, le mirage spartiate, had been the inspiration of the good life in the Peloponnese. The proverbial Boeotian swine could never have attained a similar position in the regard of their allies. But military power should have had a longer reign than it did, and it did not crumble in the Peloponnese because it could not excite admiration, but because the Sacred War prevented it from fulfilling its promises. So Ephorus is not entirely satisfactory.

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Epaminondas and Thebes It is not profitable to guess what Epaminondas might have done had he lived. He might have moved in time to prevent the rise of Phocian power and so the Sacred War. The Theban influence in Thessaly and beyond did not matter. It was, thanks to the geography of Greece, a frill which could be abandoned without great regret or danger. Phocis, on the other hand, was integral to the mastery of central Greece. Boeotia could not be strong if Phocis was free and powerful. Epaminondas might have secured that it was neither. Or he (p.329) might not. In the long run, however, Thebes, like Sparta two centuries earlier, must have come up against the facts of geography and of her own resources in manpower and wealth. Land empire in Greece was not within the powers of any Greek state to maintain indefinitely. Epaminondas’ policies would in the long run have proved to have overstretched his country’s resources, and Ephorus would perhaps have done better to explain the decline of Thebes in such terms. Yet Epaminondas must be judged not in relation to these inevitable limitations of Boeotian power. In politics, as opposed to morals, men are always choosing between evils, and all policies have some consequences that are ill. His actions must rather be judged in relation to what they prevented. To have established the power of Boeotia and ended the Spartan domination of the Peloponnese was the most and the best that a Boeotian could have done.

The date of the restoration of the Boeotarchy The fourth-century Boeotian state cannot be considered fully established until in the late 370s the perioeic cities had been wrested from Spartan-supported independence, but the δῆμος, the sovereign body which passed decrees (e.g. S.I.G.3 179 and I.G. VII 2408) and which was certainly conducting business by 373 (Paus. 9. 2. 5), may well have come into existence in early 377, at the time when according to Xen. Hell. 5. 4. 46 the δῆμος from the perioeic cities moved to Thebes. It seems a reasonable guess that the Boeotarchy was restored at the same time. The evidence, however, points to 378, immediately after the Liberation. Plutarch in the Pelopidas (13. 1) has Pelopidas and two others elected Boeotarch the morning after the murder of Leontiades, while elsewhere (14. 2) he says of the period of the raid of Sphodrias, that is, early 378, ἔτυχϵ … ὁ Πϵλοπίδας μϵτὰ Γοργίδου βοιωταρχῶν. So that makes four Boeotarchs for 378, the number Thebes had had in the 390s (Hell. Oxy. 16. 3), and many have therefore cheerfully set the restoration of the Boeotarchy in 378. Beloch, however, rejected this (G.G. iii2 1, 145 n. 2) pointing to Isocrates 14. 29, which shows that the Thebans first tried to reassure the Spartans that they were ready μηδὲν κινεῖν τῶν πρότϵρον πρòς αὐτοὺς ὡμολογημένων, that is, that the King’s Peace, which had dissolved the Boeotian states, still stood. How could they make such a claim if they had already appointed Boeotarchs? One may add too that the morning after the murder of the polemarchs was no moment to engage in constitutional discussions. Boeotarchy meant Boeotia, and the Boeotia of the Page 19 of 33

Epaminondas and Thebes 370s and the 360s was not the Boeotia described in the Hellenica Oxyrhynchia (cf. Busolt-Swoboda, Gr. St. 1426ff.). All that would take time. What was needed immediately was merely magistrates, to act in place of the murdered polemarchs. Beloch, therefore, seems right in regarding Pelopidas, Melon, and Charon as polemarchs, and Gorgidas as hipparch (cf. Polyaenus 2. 5. 2). Bersanetti (op. cit. 49 n. 5), who accepted the restoration of the Boeotarchy in 378, argued (in appendix I 89ff.) that this was consistent with what we know of the Boeotarchies of Pelopidas. Diodorus (15. 81. 4) in his obituary notice of Pelopidas declared that ἀπò τῆς ϵἰς τὰς Θήβας καθóδου τῶν πολιτῶν μϵχρì τῆς ἑαυτοῦ τϵλϵυτῆς βοιωταρχῶν πάντα τòν χρóνον διϵτέλϵσϵ, and, while this cannot be literally true since the evidence is explicit that he was not (p.331) Boeotarch in 371 (Plut. Pel. 20. 3, 23. 6, Diod. 15. 81. 2), it prompts one to hesitate to declare that he could not have been in the office when he was on an embassy to Persia (Xen. Hell. 7. 1. 33ff.). In any case clearly Epaminondas was certainly Boeotarch in 371 when he was also ambassador to the Peace conference (see above), and it is far from clear that Pelopidas could not have been re-elected in absentia. Further, the arguments of Glotz (in ‘Un Carthaginois à Thèbes en 365 avant J.-C.’, Mélanges Jorga, Paris 1933) concerning S.I.G.3 179 are quite invalid: the list of seven Boeotarchs not including Pelopidas, which presumably does belong to the period of the Theban hegemony (cf. Köhler, Hermes xxiv [1889], 638), may well belong after Pelopidas’ death in 364, and indeed after that of Epaminondas in 362. So all of Bersanetti’s arguments against Beloch (G.G.2 iii. 2, 249ff.) are valid. Since, however, Pelopidas died during his thirteenth Boeotarchy (Plut. Pel. 34. 7), and was constantly in office (Diod. 15. 81. 4), 377 seems to be suitable for his first term. Only Bersanetti’s conviction that it was in 378 leads him to seek a vacant year. The view taken in the text is much more satisfactory, in that it provides a meaning for Xenophon’s dark but pregnant words about early 377 (Hell. 5. 4. 46) ἐκ δὲ τούτου πάλιν αὖ τὰ τῶν Θηβαίων ἀνϵζωπυρϵτῖο … This is the first step from Thebes under polemarchs to the Boeotia under Boeotarchs. What then of Diodorus’ account of 378? In 15. 25–7 (under 378/7) he gives an account of the liberation of Thebes which he carries down to the siege of Thespiae (of early 377). In chapters 28–30 (under 377/6) he recounts the formation and expansion of the Second Athenian Confederacy (of early 378) down to the campaigns of Chabrias (of 377). It would be comfortable for my theory if the opening words of chapter 28 immediately after the chrono-graphic note about magistrates could be taken as concluding the narrative of chapter 27. Ἐπì τούτων, Λακϵδαιμονίων ἐπταικότων πϵρì τὰς Θήβας, οἱ μὲν βοιωτοì θαρρήσαντϵς συνϵστράϕησαν, καì κοινὴν συμμαχίαν ποιησάμϵνοι, δύναμιν ἀξιόλογον συνϵστήσαντο … Ἀθηναῖοι δὲ… κ.τ.λ. It would be comfortable, but hardly in conformity with Diodorus’ practice of disposing chunks of Ephoran narrative. If he had meant this notice about Boeotia to conclude the narrative of the liberation, he would have put it in before the chronographic introduction to Page 20 of 33

Epaminondas and Thebes 377/6. So, in view of the argument of this appendix, either Ephorus was wrong or Diodorus has misrepresented him. I presume the latter to be the case. In 29. 6 Diodorus records quite correctly that it was the Thebans whom the Athenians προσϵλάβοντο ἐπì τò κοινòν συνέδριον ἐπì τοῖς ἴσοις πᾶσιν : the decree of Aristotle shows this (ll. 24, 79). The whole point was in the name. Once there were Bοιωτοί, there was, technically, no longer a state called Thebes, and Ephorus cannot have established Boeotia before he recorded the accession of Thebes to the Confederacy. Perhaps Diodorus has misinterpreted some proleptic remark of Ephorus.

The trials of Epaminondas The matter has been endlessly discussed, most recently by H. Beister, Untersuchungen zu der Zeit der thebanischen Hegemonie (Munich 1970), 75ff., where a full survey will be found of the varying opinions of scholars over the last hundred years. The text of this article presumes that there were two trials of Epaminondas, the first involving Epaminondas and Pelopidas and arising from the first invasion of the Peloponnese in winter 370/69, in which both were acquitted, and the second involving Epaminondas alone and arising from the second invasion of the Peloponnese, in which Epaminondas was found guilty and as a result the Boeotian people ‘in exasperation removed him from the Boeotarchy and sent him out without office with the rest of the army’, that is, the army sent to rescue Pelopidas and Ismenias arrested on an embassy by Alexander of Pherae (Diod. 15. 71. 2–72. 2). (This embassy was part of the second Theban intervention in the affairs of Thessaly.) This presumption of two trials needs no further discussion. It has been commonly assumed since Beloch (G.G.2 iii. 2, 239) that Epaminondas’ second invasion of the Peloponnese was in summer 369, which means that he was Boeotarch for at least the latter part of 369. But has this assumption been correct? Recently J. Wiseman in Klio li (1969), 177ff. has argued that we should return to the chronology of B. Niese in Hermes xxxix (1904), 84ff. which set the second invasion in 368 and would get rid of the problem how Epaminondas (and Pelopidas) came to be on trial and to be Boeotarch within the same year. Beister op. cit. 98 n. 3 dismissed Wiseman with a bibliography. Others may be less confident. I reject the Niese/Wiseman chronology principally for the following reasons: (a) At the beginning of Book vii Xenophon recorded the discussions in Athens about the hegemony of the alliance made in mid winter 370/69 (cf. 7. 1. 2 Ἐπϵίπϵρ … ἀγαθòν ὑμῖν ἔδοξϵν ϵἶναι Λακϵδαιμονίους ϕίλους ποιϵῖσθαι and in §1ἡ συμμαχία, i.e. an existing alliance). He introduced the account with the words τῷ δ’ ὑστέρῳ ἔτϵι, which have occasioned discussion. It is not clear whether Xenophon meant, more Thucydideo, ‘next campaigning season’, or, fairly improbably in an author so little Page 21 of 33

Epaminondas and Thebes concerned with official calendars, ‘next archon (p.333) year’. But it is not important. The real question is when the details concerning hegemony of the alliance would be likely to be made, and there can be only one answer, viz. as soon as possible. The war was on. Even if the Thebans did not shortly return to the Peloponnese, there were the Arcadians, the Argives, and the Eleans (Xen. Hell. 7. 1. 18) to be reckoned with. Strategically, it was essential to deny the Thebans access. It would be too late to set about arranging the defence once the attack had begun. So the only (historically) conceivable date for Hell. 7. 1. 1–14 is shortly after the Theban withdrawal in April/May 369. The first sentence of §15 recording the decision of the Spartans and Athenians (ἀμϕοτέρων αὐτῶν) and the allies to defend Oneion goes naturally with § 14. It is hard to believe that the largest part of a year supervenes before the second sentence, which deals with Epaminondas’ second invasion. (b) The decree of alliance of Athens with Dionysius of Syracuse is not evidence that Dionysius was still alive well into 367. As D. M. Lewis pointed out (B.S.A. xlix [1954], 37f.), the supplementation of the prescript is quite uncertain (cf. K. Stroheker, Dionysius, 235 n. 72 and 237 n. 83). The evidence for Dionysius’ death for all Niese’s rhetoric (art. cit. 98) is clear enough. He died shortly after making a truce with the Carthaginians for the winter (Diod. 15. 73. 5), and he died shortly after the Lenaean festival of January 367 (ibid. 74. 1f.). He must therefore have sent the two expeditions of Xen. Hell. 7. 1. 20f. and 28 in 369 and 368, the first of which involved the Syracusans in fighting Epaminondas. So Epaminondas was indeed Boeotarch in 369 shortly after his acquittal at the first trial. How he came to be so cannot be decided. In Plutarch (Pel. 24 and 25, Mor. 194, 540D–E, 817F), in Pausanias (9. 14. 5ff.), and in Aelian (V.H. 13. 42) Epaminondas held the Boeotarchy for four months past the expiry of his office. If this tradition is correct, he must have been reappointed Boeotarch after his acquittal. In Nepos (Epam. 7. 3ff.) in Appian (Syr. 212ff.) and in Cicero (Inv. 1. 55f.) he refused to hand over his command to his successors. If this tradition is correct, he could have been re-elected Boeo-tarch for 369 in absentia but replaced in his command in the Peloponnese: in which case he may have been tried as Boeotarch, or deprived of the Boeo-tarchy for the trial and reappointed after it. Our knowledge of the Boeotian constitution is not such as to say that either procedure was against the law. What is certain is that he was acquitted and was Boeotarch later in the same year. To labour the matter further is a waste of words. Notes:

(1) In addition to the general histories of Meyer and of Beloch, the following are the most important for the history of Epaminondas: L. Pomtow, Das Leben des Epaminondas, sein Charakter und seine Politik, Berlin 1870; E. von Stern, Page 22 of 33

Epaminondas and Thebes Geschichte der spartanischen und thebanischen Hegemonie vom Königsfrieden bis zur Schlacht bei Mantineia, Dorpat 1884; H. Swoboda, R.E. v (1905), col. 2,674f. s.v. Epameinondas; G. M. Bersanetti, ‘Pelopida’, Athenaeum xxvii (1949), 43ff.; P. Cloché, Thèbes de Béotie, Namur 1952; M. Fortina, Epaminonda, Turin 1958. (2) Cf. A. Aymard, R.E.A. lvi (1954), 15ff. (3) Paus. 9. 15. 6. (4) Plut. Tim. 36, Philop. 3. (5) Cf. L. Peper, De Plutarchi ‘Epaminonda’ (Jena 1912), 129ff., and K. Ziegler, R.E. xxi, col. 896. (6) Tusc. 1.2.41 and cf. De oratore 3. 34. 139. (7) Paus. 8. 11. 8. (8) Diod. 15. 88, in contrast with Theopompus, for whom Agesilaus was the greatest man of the age (F.G.H. 115 F 321, though of the 390s and so perhaps without comparison with Epaminondas). (9) Hell. 7. 5. 8f., 18f. (10) Cf. L. Peper, De Plutarchi ‘Epaminonda’, 16ff. (11) 5. 1. (12) Hell. 6. 4. 16. Xenophon writes as if he had witnessed the scene; note ὁρᾶν and ϵἶδϵς, which in Xenophon are significant. (13) Cf. Ephorus’ summary of his career in Diod. 15. 81. (14) Diod. 15. 39. 2, 50. 6; Plut. Pel. 18. The Hellenica alludes to the Sacred Band once only (7. 1. 19). (15) 7. 1. 27 is the first mention of Messene, in connection with the mission of Philiscus. (16) 6. 5. 6 alludes to the movement to found the Arcadian Federation. (17) Cf. Diod. 15. 34. 2. (18) Paus. 9. 13. 1, Plut. Pel. 4. Cf. Swoboda R.E. v, col. 2,678, for evidence of Epaminondas before 371.

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Epaminondas and Thebes (19) Nepos, Epam. 10. 3. Other details of this period are more questionable (Swoboda, R.E. v (1905), col. 2,679). Athen. 602a, in attributing to Epaminondas the formation of the Sacred Band, which was certainly the work of Gorgidas (see p. 302 n. 14), is typical. (20) The likely explanation of Pausanias’ phrase in 9. 13. 2 is that the peace of 372/1 was in large measure similar to that of 387/6 (cf. Didymus ad Dem. 10. 34, col. 7 ll. 62ff. on the peace of 375). (21) Cf. S. Lauffer, ‘Die Diodordublette xv. 38 = 50 über die Friedensschlüße zu Sparta’, Historia viii (1959), 315ff. (from much of which, however, I must dissent). (22) Xen. Hell. 6. 4. 2, 17 (for the four divisions). Cleombrotus’ army must have been much the same as that recalled at the Peace of 375 (6. 1. 1; for τῶν συμμάχων τὸ μέρος, cf. 4. 6. 3). The four divisions would have produced a Lacedaemonian contingent of perhaps 2,000, and Cleombrotus’ army outnumbered the Theban array of about 6,000 (Diod. 15. 52. 2, 53. 2; Plut. Pel. 20); so presumably ‘the due proportion of the allies’ were there. (23) Much confusion has been caused by Xenophon’s remarkable brevity on the Peace of 375 at 6. 2. 1. Cf. Accame, La lega, 91ff. Plut. Pel. 16 shows that there was a Spartan army in Orchomenus and Phocis in 375, and indeed implies that it was four divisions strong. So Xenophon’s account at 6. 1. 1 is wholly acceptable. Isocrates 15. 110 shows that they were withdrawn. (24) Phocis was menaced in 375 (Xen. Hell. 6. 1. 1) but not dealt with until after Leuctra (Diod. 15. 57. 1) and this also suggests that the Spartans were there in 372. Cf. Xen. Hell. 6. 3. 2. (25) Cf. Lauffer, ‘Die Diodordublette’, 322ff. (26) E.g. T. T. B. Ryder, Koine Eirene (1965), 127. (27) For survey of variant views see Lauffer, ‘Die Diodordublette’. (28) Lys. 12 (μϵτὰ γὰρ Ἀλκισθένην ἄρχοντα, ἐϕ’ οὗ τὴν ϵἰρήνην Ἀθηναῖοί τϵ καì Λακϵδαιμόνιοι καì βασιλϵὺς ὤμοσαν, ἀποδοὺς τὰ στρατϵύματα Ἰϕικράτης ἰδιώτης γίνϵται). (29) See Jacoby’s Commentary on Philochorus F152 and F151 (p. 522 ll. 14ff. and cf. p. 239 ll. 37ff.). Philochorus appears to have been Dionysius’ sole source for these annalistic notices. (30) For the surprise of Plataea, Paus. 9. 1. 5f. The condition of Thespiae in 372/1 is uncertain. Xenophon Hell. 6. 3. 1, 5 treats it as having suffered the same fate as Plataea, and Diod. 15. 46. 6 (under 374/3) records an assault on the city (…οἱ Page 24 of 33

Epaminondas and Thebes μὲν Θηβαῖοι τὰς Πλαταιὰς κατασκάψαντϵς καì Θϵσπιὰς ἀλλοτρίως πρòς αὐτοὺς διακϵιμένας ἐξϵπóρθησαν). Isocrates however in the Plataicus §9 (the dramatic date of which is shortly after the seizure of Plataea in 373) speaks of the Thespians and Tanagrans as being treated less severely than the Plataeans, and merely forced into syntely with Thebes, and Paus. 9. 13. 8 and 14. 2, 4 shows that the city still existed after Leuctra. Cf. Fortina, Epaminonda, 23 n. 33. Perhaps the true position was that Diodorus’ ἐξϵπóρθησαν did not fairly reflect Ephorus’ account of an attack on the city which ended in the Thespians agreeing συντϵλϵῖν ϵἰς Θήβας, thus making them in Xenophon’s phrase (6. 3. 1) ἀπóλιδας, and that Callias exaggerated (6. 3. 5) with τῇ Πλαταιῶν καì Θϵσπιῶν ἀναιρέσϵι. (31) Xen. Hell. 3. 5. 7–25. (32) Andoc. 3. 24f., 28 and Xen. Hell. 4. 5. 6, 9 for Boeotian attempts to come to terms between 392 and 390. Xen. Hell. 4. 3. 15, 5. 1. 29 for the Spartan division in Orchomenus. (33) Xen. Hell. 5. 2. 15, 27. (34) Isoc. 14. 29. (35) Xen. Hell. 5. 4. 20. (36) Tod, G.H.I. 123 (= RO 22) ll. 74, 75. This decree was in the seventh prytany of 378/7, the attack on Thespiae perhaps in the late autumn of 378 (Xen. Hell. 5. 4. 42 καρπόν). The movement of the Boeotian δῆμος to Thebes was before spring 377 (Xen. Hell. 5. 4. 47), and so must have occurred not long before the Decree of Aristotle. So if the Boeotarchy was re-established in early 377, it is understandable that Athens might protest. Her alliance was with Thebes (ll. 24 and 79 of the Decree), not Boeotia; the name was important. For the date of the restoration of the Boeotarchy, see Appendix I. (37) Xen. Hell. 6. 1. 1. (38) Plut. Pel. 16, Diod. 15. 37. (39) If we exempt the notice of Diodorus 15. 38, there is no evidence that Thebes did not readily submit to the Peace of 375 (cf. Lauffer, ‘Die Diodordublette’, 318f.). B. R. I. Sealey, Historia v (1956), 190ff., sought to interpret Isoc. 14. 37, which speaks of an Athenian decree to make the Thebans ἐκσπóνδους for their conduct over Oropus, as support for Diodorus’ account. He postulated that when the Peace of 375 was ‘presented to the Synedrion of the Athenian League, the Thebans claimed to swear on behalf of the whole Boeotian League; thereby they claimed to control Oropus, which the Athenians had recently won. So the Thebans were declared ἔκσπονδοι.’ Thus Sealey argues similarly to W. Judeich, Rh. Mus. lxxvi (1927), 182. But Diodorus is plainly not referring to the Athenian synedrion (Lauffer, ‘Die Diodordublette’, 320), and there is no reason to think Page 25 of 33

Epaminondas and Thebes that the Peace of 375 was ‘presented to the Synedrion of the Athenian League’; it was similar to the Peace of Antalcidas (Philochorus F151), which was sworn in Sparta (Xen. Hell. 5. 1. 32f.), and probably similar to the peace of 372/1 which was likewise sworn (Xen. Hell. 6. 3. 18f.). The troubles over Oropus must relate purely to the internal affairs of the Athenian Confederacy, and not necessarily after the Peace of 375. Nor is the phrase, ἐκσπóνδους ποιῆσαι appropriate only to the moment when a peace is being made, although it is often so used. Cf. Dem. 23. 91, 17. 16. (40) Xen. Hell. 6. 3. 19. (41) H. Beister, Untersuchungen zu der Zeit der thebanischen Hegemonie, Munich 1970, 13ff., carefully calculated that Plutarch’s interval of twenty days between the peace of 372/1 and the battle of Leuctra (Ages. 28. 5, Camillus 19. 2) is ample for the sequence of events. (42) Paus. 9. 13. 6f. (43) For Leuctra, cf. J. Wolter in Antike Schlachtfelder iv (Berlin 1926), 290–316, and J. K. Anderson, Military Theory and Practice in the Age of Xenophon, ch. x. For the topography, cf. W. K. Pritchett, Studies in Greek Topography Part 1 (University of California 1965), ch. iii, A. R. Burn, ‘Helicon in History’, B.S.A. xliv (1949), 313ff., and H. Beister, Untersuchungen, 13–59. (44) Xen. Hell. 6. 4. 12, Plut. Pel. 23. 1. (45) Cf. Thuc. 5. 68. 3. (46) There had been minor instances prior to this, but not in major encounters. Cf. Anderson, Military Theory and Practice, 179f., citing Thuc. 5. 9. 8, 6. 67. 1, and Xen. Anab. 6. 5. 9–11. (47) Cf. Anderson, Military Theory and Practice, 324 n. 60. Anderson imagines a conflict between Plutarch and Diodorus, the latter meaning that the left wing was thrust forward and so engaged the Spartan right before the Theban right could possibly engage, the former meaning that the whole line did an oblique march to the left as it advanced, the sort of march suddenly required of the Ten Thousand by Cyrus at Cunaxa. But Plutarch’s words (τοῦ Ἐπαμινώνδου τὴν ϕάλαγγα λοξὴν ἐπì τò ϵὐώνυμον ἕλκοντος) suggest that the move to the left was in addition to having the φάλαγξ λοξή. So Plutarch may well be using the term no differently from Diodorus (here at 15.55.2 and at 17.57.6 of Gaugamela) and the later military writers. Diodorus’ use here may well reproduce Ephorus. (48) Cf. N. G. L. Hammond, Klio xxxi (1938), 201ff. (49) Cf. Kromayer–Veith, Heerwesen und Kriegfuhrung (1928), 92. Xen. Hell. 3. 2. 16 is typical. Page 26 of 33

Epaminondas and Thebes (50) It may be remarked that Xenophon appears quite unaware of the plan of battle which Anderson (p. 216) accepts. (51) Hell. 7. 5. 19, 6. 5. 23. Cf. Plut. Mor. 193e. That hoplite armies generally had some sort of training in drill is likely rather than certain. Given the difficulties of advancing over ground broken up by trees, huts, and ditches, and also the infrequency of experience of full-scale battle, one might presume that occasional ‘parades’ would be necessary, although in the case of Athens the evidence is not very satisfactory. Pericles in the Funeral Oration (Thuc. 2. 39) contrasts the ἐπίπονος ἄσκησις of the Spartans with the relaxed life of the Athenians; but the Spartans were constantly training for war, and Pericles’ words do not exclude some sort of drill at Athens. Evidently individuals chose to keep themselves in training with arms drill (cf. Plato, Laches 178A, 181E), and indeed in Xen. Mem. 3. 12. 5 Socrates says that οὐκ ἀσκϵῖ δημοσίᾳ ἡ πóλις τὰ πρòς τòν πòλϵμον, but that was in a discussion of physical fitness, a different matter from orderly manoeuvring. There were regular reviews at Athens (cf. Isoc. 7. 82 ἐξϵτάσϵις, I.G. II2 500 l. 12, Ar. Ath. Pol. 31. 2, and cf. S.E.G. 14. 64), and it seems likely enough that they involved drill (cf. Hell. Oxy. 15. 1, where Conon held daily reviews in Rhodes to keep the troops from idleness, presumably more than merely presenting arms, and Xen. Anab. 1. 2. 14f. where ἐξέτασις involved a battle charge). Athens with her reliance on sea-power was probably not typical; other states may have been more assiduous. The ὁπλομάχοι of Greece, who regarded Spartan drills as very complicated (Xen. Lac. Pol. 11. 8), must have had parades at which to exercise their art. Men like Phalinus, who claimed to be ἐπιστήμων … τῶν ἀμϕì τάξϵις τϵ καì ὁπλομαχίαν, had hardly mastered their knowledge in a merely theoretical fashion. Anderson, Military Theory and Practice, ch. vi usefully discusses tactical training, but it would be helpful to have a full account of the practice of Greek states in time of peace. (52) Paus. 9. 13. 3. For discussions of where exactly Chaereas was stationed, see Beister, Untersuchungen, 39. (53) Cf. Swoboda, R.E. v (1905), col. 2,675. (54) Paus. 9. 13. 1. (55) It cannot be proved that Epaminondas was not Boeotarch before 371. Plut. Mor. 1129c is of little value and Ages. 27 refers perhaps only to experience in battle, but the epitome of the Plutarchian life in Pausanias (9. 13) passes directly to 371 and, if we exempt the notice of Diod. 15. 38, there is no other evidence concerning Epaminondas between the Liberation and the year of Leuctra. He may have been in office in 372, a quiet enough year, but 373 is unlikely, for he has no part in the evidence about the destruction of Plataea, to which he might well have been opposed (cf. Plut. Comp. Pel. et Marc. 1). (56) Cf. Appendix I. Page 27 of 33

Epaminondas and Thebes (57) F 321. (58) Cf. Nepos, Epam. 6. 1. (59) Cf. Paus. 9. 13. 2. (60) G.H.I. 131 = RO 31ii (decree of 369/8). (61) Paus. 9. 13. 2 suggests that the altercation was before the oath-swearing. (Note the future ἐάσουσɩν.) (62) One would never guess from Xenophon that Epaminondas and his fellow ambassadors are likely to have been in Sparta not as the Theban delegation but as the delegation representing the Boeotian δῆμος. So how they came to be listed as ‘Thebans’ is obscure. Attempts to gloss over the difficulty (e.g. Fortina, Epaminonda, 25) by supposing that the Thebans were listed as members of the Second Athenian Confederacy fail. They swore city by city according to Xenophon (Hell. 6. 3. 19). Why did the Thebans swear? For earlier discussions cf. von Stern, Geschichte, 125ff., and Swoboda, R.E. v (1905), col. 2,681. (63) Diod. 15. 57. 1, Paus. 9. 14. 4. (64) Xen. Hell. 6. 4. 29ff. and 6. 1. 10f; Isoc. 5. 119. (65) Diod. 15. 57. 2, 60. 1ff. (66) Diod. 15. 62. 3; Dem. 16. 12. (67) It has been much discussed whether Sparta was represented in the Peace Congress at Athens after Leuctra. Cf. M. Sordi, Riv. Fil. N.S. xxix (1951), 34–64, and Ryder, op. cit. 131f. The arguments are of varying worth, but the one drawn from the remarks of Cleiteles of Corinth in winter 370/69 (Xen. Hell. 6. 5. 37) seems to show that Sparta was included in 371/70. When Cleiteles spoke in 369, he spoke in support of the Spartans, and said that if Athens did not help Corinth, she would be acting παρὰ τοὺς ὅρκους, and it was the oaths of the peace of 371/70, not those of 372/1, which obliged participants to act against transgressors (Xen. Hell. 6. 5. 2 compared with 6. 3. 18). Cleiteles then went on to make it clear that he meant the oaths of 371/70—καì ταῦτα ὧν αὐτοὶ ἐπϵμϵλήθητϵ ὅρκων—and added ὅπως πᾶσιν ὑμῖν πάντϵς ἡμϵῖς ὀμόσαιμϵν, which makes clear that the Spartans were included in 371/70 for they were certainly in πάντϵς ἡμϵῖς. (Πάντϵς ἡμϵῖς cannot mean ‘all the Corinthians’, for only the magistrates had sworn in 371/70—Xen. Hell. 6. 5. 3.) (68) The disturbances of Diod. 15. 40 probably go with chapters 38 and 39, and belong to 371. (69) Xen. Hell. 6. 5. 6 (of 370). Page 28 of 33

Epaminondas and Thebes (70) Ibid. 6. 5. 7, 6. 4. 18. (71) Euphron was ready enough, when the time came, to change his loyalties (Xen. Hell. 7. 3. 2). But in 371/70 the attempt at revolution in Sicyon failed (Diod. 15. 40. 4) and Euphron and his ilk were still loyal to Sparta (Xen. Hell. 7. 1. 44). (72) Plut. Pel. 25 shows that it was Meneclidas who attacked Epaminondas after his victorious first Peloponnesian campaign. Nepos, Epam. 5 is the only other evidence for him. (73) See Appendix II. (74) Paus. 9. 14. 7, etc. (75) See Appendix II. (76) See Appendix II. (77) Cf. Thuc. 5. 29. 1 and 81. 1. (78) Diod. 15. 57. 1, under 364/3. Pausanias 9. 15. 3 dates the destruction of the city when Epaminondas was ceded command at the time of Pelopidas’ arrest (Diod. 15. 71), but Isoc. 6. 27 shows that probably it had not happened by 366. For the absence of Epaminondas and Pelopidas, cf. Paus. loc. cit. and Plut. Comp. Pel. et Marc. 1. If the destruction is rightly dated to 364/3 Pelopidas must have been absent on his final (and fatal) expedition to Thessaly, and Epaminondas presumably on his Aegean diplomacy (see below). (79) Οὐκέτι ἐμέσϵυον, ἀλλὰ προθύμως συνϵμάχουν τοῖς Λακϵδαιμονίοις … (80) Xen. Hell. 7. 1. 44. (81) Xen. Hell. 7. 4. 6–11 and Isocrates’ Archidamus. That the participants assented to the Theban demand, so long pressed, for the recognition of the Boeotian state is a presumption. Xenophon and the Isocratean Archidamus studiously prefer the term ‘Thebans’. In the Hellenica after recording the King’s Peace Xenophon uses ‘Boeotians’ of the federal army only (6. 5. 23, 51; 7. 4. 36, 5. 4). (82) Cf. my article ‘The Common Peace of 366/5’, C.Q. N.S. xi (1961), 80ff. which was opposed by Ryder, op. cit. 83 n. 1 and Appendix VII, where the only point needing further comment is the claim that I appear not to have regarded, or appreciated the significance of, ‘Timotheus’ re-election to the generalship in 366 and the new approach in the Peloponnese (the alliance with the Arcadians and the attempt to seize Corinth…)’ which ‘seem to show that the Athenians were pursuing a more chauvinistic and “tougher” policy, and were now less likely than before to accept the Theban terms’. As to Timotheus, he may well have been the Page 29 of 33

Epaminondas and Thebes general favoured by the βοιωτιάζοντϵς (cf. Historia xii [1963], 94), and, if he was not sent out to help Ariobarzanes ‘without breaking the treaty with the Great King’ (Dem. 15. 9) after the peace of 366/5, he may have been sent so that Persia might feel it prudent to assent to the modifications demanded by Athens for the Royal Rescript of 367 (cf. C.Q. loc. cit. 85). As to ‘the new approach in the Peloponnese’, Corinth, Athens’ ally, was a major obstacle to peace. Pasimelus, the celebrated Laconophile of the Corinthian War (Xen. Hell. 4. 4. 4, 7) was still in power (ibid. 7. 3. 2), and the city, headquarters of the war against Thebes (Xen. Hell. 7. 1. 28 for the meeting of allies there, as πϵριέπλϵυσαν suggests), was a congenial home for the equally Laconophile Xenophon (Diog. Laert. 2. 53, 56). Why then should the Athenians have feared that the city might not be σῴα τῷ δήμῳ τῶν Ἀθηναίων? The terms in which the Corinthians sought Sparta’s permission to join the Peace (Xen. Hell. 7. 4. 8) show that there was little inclination to traffic with Thebes, and Xenophon (ibid. 7. 4. 6) seems to suggest that the whole peace movement at Corinth followed on the recognition that without Athenian aid the city was defenceless. So Athens cannot have feared that the city would go over to Thebes. But did the Athenians really mean to seize Corinth? Hardly, for the Athenian hoplites were assembled within Corinth itself (ibid. 7. 4. 5), and the Corinthians cannot have feared seizure. It seems possible enough that the curious clause in the decree of Demotion was inspired by the changing Athenian attitude towards Thebes, by a fear that the Corinth of Pasimelus would prove, as earlier (ibid. 7. 1. 40), the stumbling-block for peace. As for the Arcadian alliance (ibid. 7. 4. 2), it certainly showed a very large change of attitude towards Sparta, and the opposition of ‘certain of the Athenians’ was overcome only when they realized that there was advantage to Sparta and Athens if the Arcadians did not need the Thebans as well as the Athenians. Xenophon does not dwell on the motives of those Athenians who positively wanted the alliance—motives that may have been, to use Ryder’s word, ‘chauvinistic’, or alternatively of a diplomatic sort; Arcadia would be assured of Athenian help against Sparta, and so would be the more able to join in a Common Peace, especially one that was not a συμμαχία (ibid. 7. 4. 10), i.e. had no sanctions clause. (I therefore must retract my statement on p. 85 of C.Q. N.S. xi [1961] that ‘Thebes occupied in the Peace precisely the position that Sparta had occupied in the King’s Peace of 387/6.’ Thebes lacked Sparta’s onetime hegemonic position.) This peace will always divide opinion, until new evidence appears. For the present, judgement depends largely on estimation of Xenophon (whose details may be a good deal more deceptive than Ryder supposes), but, as I continue to hold, not entirely. (83) Cf. my article discussed in the preceding note, pp. 80f., and also p. 85 for the suggestion that Ariobarzanes handed over Crithote and Sestos (Nepos, Tim. 1. 3) under the terms of the Common Peace. (For it is odd that a Persian satrap, whose hyparch could be said by Demosthenes [23. 142] to have held ‘the whole Page 30 of 33

Epaminondas and Thebes Hellespont’, should have handed over territory to an Athenian general. But Dem. 23. 202 perhaps implies some special services contributed by Timotheus, and Ariobarzanes may have been wavering in loyalty; hence the special instruction to Timotheus of Dem. 15. 9.) (84) Cf. F. Carrata Thomes, Egemonia beotica e potenza marittima nella politico di Epaminonda (Torino 1952), Fortina, Epaminonda, 77ff., and, most recently, J. Wiseman, Klio li (1969), 195f. (85) Justin’s words (auxilia a Timotheo, Atheniensium duce, mox ab Epaminonda Thebanorum petivere) suggest that the Heracleans appealed to the two duces actually at the Hellespont. (86) Accame, La lega ateniese, 179 n. 3, argues that Byzantium was in revolt from the Second Athenian Confederacy from the mid 360s and cites I.G. VII 2408 (a Boeotian proxeny decree for a Byzantian) which he dates 363. He then goes on to attach special significance to the expression of Diodorus 16. 7. 3 (Xίων καì Ῥοδίων καì Kῴων, ἔτι δὲ Bυζαντίων ἀποστάντων) of meaning that the Byzantians were in a different condition, i.e. they had been in revolt for some time previously. But the date of I.G. VII 2408 is quite unsure and could well belong in the 350s (see below) and Diodorus is rather given to such ἔτι δέ expressions (e.g. 15. 85. 2, 16. 19. 3, 16. 21. 1). The beaching of corn-ships (Dem. 50. 6, etc.) does not necessarily argue more than bad relations. Nepos, Tim. 1 (Olynthios el Byzantios bello subegit) is more substantial, if not literally correct (cf. Isoc. 15. 108–113, who has nothing to say on the subject—perhaps Nepos points to little more than that Timotheus was, according to Dem. 23. 149, ἐπ’ Ἀμϕίπολιν καì Xϵρρóνησον … στρατηγóς). (87) Cf. Carrata Thomes, op. cit. 13f. (88) It is to be noted that the ship-building decree of Diod. 15. 79. 1 at the same moment ordered the appeals to Rhodes, Chios, and Byzantium, presumably intending that both should be set in hand forthwith; i.e. there was apparently no question of Epaminondas waiting for ships to be built. (89) Cf. Dem. 51. 8, 50. 4, Polyaenus 6. 2. 1–2, Diod. 15. 95. 1ff. (90) It is hard to know what lies behind Plut. Philopoemen 14. 1f. Epaminondas was certainly not defeated in a sea-battle, or we should have heard of it. Perhaps there is not much more than that he was a bad sailor (cf. Paus. 8. 11. 10), but Plutarch concludes with the remark ἄπρακτον ἐκ τῆς Άσίας καì τῶν νήσων ἀπϵλθϵῖν ἑκουσίως. The Epaminondas is sadly missed on this topic. (91) See p. 323 n. 86 for Byzantium, and Diod. 11. 7. 3 for the revolt of 357. (92) Cf. Fortina, Epaminonda, 85 on the purpose of the expedition. Page 31 of 33

Epaminondas and Thebes (93) Xen. Hell. 6. 1. 12, Isoc. 5. 119. (94) Plut. Mor. 193c preserves a dictum of Epaminondas which might imply antipathy to Persia, but presumably the Great King would not be supposed to be offering large sums of money to Panhellenist politicians. (95) Diodorus (15. 78f.) places the expedition under 364/3, but that proves nothing. An argument of some value is that shortly after appealing unsuccessfully to Epaminondas for help the Heracleans turned to Clearchus (Justin 16. 4. 4), whose tyranny was assigned by Diodorus in a chronographic notice to 364/3 (15. 81. 4). This would be decisive enough if it were not that Diodorus has put one of the notices concerning the rulers of Heraclea in the wrong year. Clearchus after a twelve-year rule was succeeded by Timotheus (16. 36. 3, under 353/2) who in turn after a fifteen-year rule was succeeded by Dionysius (16. 88. 5, under 338/7) who died after a thirty-two year rule (20. 77. 1, under 306/5). If the consistent notices of the successors of Clearchus are correct, Diodorus should have put the notice about Clearchus under 365/4. (Beloch, G.G.2 iii. 2, pp. 94f. curiously prefers to date Clearchus’ accession from the voyage of Epaminondas. He also assigns Diod. 16. 88. 5 to 337/6.) So the argument is not entirely satisfactory, but prompts us to confine the voyage to 365/4 and 364/3. Pelopidas marched out on his fatal expedition just after 13 July 364 (Plut. Pel. 31), and, if the voyage of Epaminondas began not long before, both could have been absent for the destruction of Orchomenus (cf. p. 320 n. 78). I therefore opt for 364. The argument of G. Glotz (‘Un Carthaginois à Thèbes en 365 avant J.-C.’, Mélanges Jorga, Paris 1933), which sought to connect S.I.G.3 179 with the shipbuilding programme, is not cogent. There is no reason to connect these honours for Nobas the Carthaginian with the ship-building (which probably did not get very far anyhow). To judge by New Comedy and Aristotle’s Politics, Carthaginians were frequent enough in fourth-century Greece and Carthage a matter of interest (cf. Gsell, Histoire de l’Afrique du Nord iv. 152 n. 3). Nobas may well have had commercial dealings with Thebes. Nor must the inscription be dated before 362. It certainly enough belongs to the middle fourth century (Plut. Pel. 35 names two of the Boeotarchs the decree lists—cf. U. Koehler, Hermes xxiv [1889], 637f.), but a date in the early 350s is possible. (Indeed Epaminondas’ attempt as he lay dying to have Daïphantos and then Iolaïdas take command—Ael. V.H. 12. 3, Plut. Mor. 194c—suggests that they were both notable Boeotarchs in 362 and perhaps earlier. Neither name is in the list of S.I.G.3 179. The only year shortly after 362 certainly excluded is 361, when Pammenes held office—Diod. 15. 94.) (96) The only evidence for the date is Diod. 18. 18. 9. Page 32 of 33

Epaminondas and Thebes (97) B. R. I. Sealey, Phoenix xi (1957), 95ff. redated I.G. II21609 to 370/69 (rightly, as I hope to argue elsewhere, despite J. K. Davies, Historia xviii [1969], 308ff.), but the κληρουκάρχοντϵς of line 89 are not necessarily a sign that Athens had embarked on a radical change of policy as early as 369. The ancient cleruchy on Lemnos I.G. II2 30 survived the King’s Peace (Xen. Hell. 5. 1. 31), and magistrates were sent out to the island annually throughout the century (Ath. Pol. 62. 2 and 61. 6). (98) Demosthenes’ phrase (15. 15) is τοῦ κομίσασθαι… τὰ ὑμέτϵρ’ ὑμῖν ϕθονήσαντες. Κομίζϵσθαι is the word commonly used for recovering possessions (e.g. Dem. 23. 153, Isoc. 8. 6, 22). Τὰ ὑμέτϵρα are the assets of the fifth-century empire, the ἐγκτήματα of Andoc. 3. 15 and Isoc. 14. 44. (99) See above, p. 321 n. 82. (100) Admittedly the epitome of the speech in Diodorus 15. 78. 4 seems a frank profession of imperial ambition, but this may have been the Ephoran interpretation of Epaminondas’ intentions. (Cf. Isoc. 5. 53 ϵἰς Bυζάντιον δὲ τριήρϵις ἐξέπϵμπον ὡς καì γῆς καì θαλάττης ἄρξοντϵς.) But it is very unlikely that Epaminondas was in fact so imprudently blunt. (101) Cf. Beloch, G.G.2 iii. 1, 237f. Despite the very large number of ships in the Athenian navy, their fleets were never in the fourth century as huge as they were in the fifth. The largest number of ships at sea of which we hear was 170 in the Lamian War (Diod. 18. 15. 8). (102) Cf. H. Pomtow, Klio vi (1906), 94f. (103) Cf. Phocian independence in 362, in contrast with their compliance in 370/69 (Xen. Hell. 7. 5. 4 and 6. 5. 23). (104) F 119, Diod. 15. 79. 2, and 88. 4. (105) Polyaenus recorded five of his στρατηγήματα (5. 16. 1–5). Plut. Mor. 805E– F classed him with Aristides, Phocion, Lucullus, Cato, and Agesilaus, and declared that he rose to eminence under the patronage of Epaminondas, who used him (Paus. 8. 27. 2) to help the Arcadians establish Megalopolis. The young Philip was lodged as hostage with him (Plut. Pel. 26). For his military career after 362, cf. Diod. 15. 94. 2, 16. 34. 1f., and Dem. 23. 183. (106) F119 αἴτιον δὲ εἶναι τò λόγων καì ὁμιλίας τῆς πρὸς ἀνθρώπους ὀλιγωρῆσαι, μόνης δ’ ἐπιμϵληθῆναι τῆς κατὰ πόλϵμον ἀρϵτῆς.

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Eubulus

Cyrene to Chaeronea: Selected Essays on Ancient Greek History George Cawkwell

Print publication date: 2011 Print ISBN-13: 9780199593286 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199593286.001.0001

Eubulus George Cawkwell

DOI:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199593286.003.0016

Abstract and Keywords Eubulus was responsible for major changes in the financial administration of Athens and these were of far-reaching importance. There is only one development of Athenian policy that is directly and explicitly attributed to him, viz. the attempt to unite Greece against Philip in 347/6. This chapter considers whether he was of much importance as a politician in the wider sense. It argues that between the end of the Social War and 353/2, Eubulus established a Theoric Commission with a dominant interest in the working of the Athenian financial system, and supplied it with a fund of which a small amount was distributed to the People and the rest used for various public projects, but which could not be used for war before the law was changed. Keywords:   Eubulus, Athens, Greece, Social War, Philip, Theoric Commission, Athenian financial system

The politicians of Athens in the 350s and the 340s are a shadowy lot save for Demosthenes and Aeschines, neither of whom was an influential figure before 346: the latter had only just begun his political career by that year, and the former was constantly in opposition and singularly unsuccessful. For the great names, Diophantus of Sphettus, Aristophon, Hegesippus, and Eubulus, we have to rely almost entirely on scattered allusions in Demosthenes. No Hellenica survives to provide a framework of events: Diodorus xvi is principally Philippica and even omits entirely the most engaging political affair of the age, the making of the Peace of Philocrates. Except for the few fragments of Philochorus, without which we would be almost wholly without bearings, it is on what we can glean from his greatest opponent that we must rely for our understanding of Eubulus. Page 1 of 34

Eubulus Small wonder it is that the judgements of many modern historians have been strongly hostile to him.1 In this way great oratory may persuade posterity where it failed in its own age, and we must beware of judging Eubulus from the standpoint of Demosthenes. Clearly enough, Eubulus was responsible for major changes in the financial administration of the city and these were of far-reaching (p.335) importance, but some may doubt whether he was any more than a financier. After all, Plutarch summed him up thus (Mor. 812f.): πίστιν ἔχων ἐν τοῖς μάλιστα καὶ δύναμιν οὐδὲν τῶν Ἑλληνικῶν ἔπραξϵν οὐδ’ ἐπὶ στρατηγίαν ἦλθϵν, ἀλλ’ ἐπὶ τὰ χρήματα τάζας ἑαυτὸν ηὔζησϵ τὰς κοıνὰς προσόδους καὶ μϵγάλα τὴν πόλιν ἀπὸ τούτων ὠϕέλησϵν. There is, moreover, only one development of Athenian policy that is directly and explicitly attributed to him, viz. the attempt to unite Greece against Philip in 347/6.2 Was he then of much importance as a politician in the wider sense? Plutarch should not mislead us. There was no reason why Eubulus should have sought to be a general. In an age when warfare, like statecraft, was becoming ever more professional, the generalship was for professional soldiers like his fellow tribesman, Chares. Serious politicians did not need office to attain to great influence, and since Plutarch is simply concerned with office, his words are not inconsistent with Eubulus having been of the greatest importance as a maker of policy. The limits of his eminence are not sure. The fact that Cephisophon of Aphidna was ἐπὶ τὸ θϵωρικόν in 343/2 (IG ii2 223 C l. 5) does not show3 that Eubulus had lost control of the Theoric Fund. For one thing it is not clear that there was only one commissioner (indeed the limited evidence suggests a board)4 and even if Cephisophon was an opponent of Eubulus there may have been other commissioners who were not, but also there are no grounds for thinking that Cephisophon was an opponent; if his being general at Skiathos in 3405 and at Byzantium in 340/396 proved that he was ‘un homme de parti patriote’ and an opponent of Eubulus, by the same proof we would have to count as another opponent Phocion who was with Cephisophon at Byzantium.6 For what it is worth, the work on the Skeuotheke, which continued to 339/8, is attributed to Eubulus7 and perhaps his financial influence continued after he had ceased to govern policy. It is as crude in his case as it is plainly wrong in the (p.336) case of Callistratus to speak in such absolute terms as ‘la période d’Eubule’ and ‘la grande période de Demosthène’. At the trial of Aeschines in 343 he was still a figure of the first importance (Aesch. ii 184), and that was after the serious change in Athenian policy towards Philip which began in that year and was marked by the execution of Philocrates.8 As for his emergence as an important politician, we are equally unsure. The law regulating the use of τὰ πϵριóντα χρήματα τῆς διοικήσϵως appears to have been in operation in 353/2 if the speech On the Syntaxis belongs to that year,9 and since it is with Eubulus that Page 2 of 34

Eubulus this matter is associated he was probably responsible for the law.10 Similarly, in the same speech Demosthenes alludes scornfully (30) to the public works programme with which again Eubulus’ name is associated.11 So by 353/2 he had attained eminence as a financier and in this connection he is alluded to in the Leptines (137) of 355/4. But it is doubtful whether he was in general dominant as early as this.12 The evidence on which is based the assertion that it was Eubulus who made the peace at the end of the Social War is unsatisfactory: the passage in question of the scholiast on the Third Olynthiac13 probably refers to Eubulus’ conduct of affairs after the peace, not to the making of it. Indeed, it is probable that Diophantos, ἐκϵῖνος ὁ Σϕήττιος (Dem. xxxv 6), was the important figure, financially speaking, immediately after the Social War. He, like Eubulus, was concerned with the distribution of money from the Theoric Fund (Schol. Aesch. iii 24) and is mentioned in 355/4 (p.337) along with Eubulus as active in financial matters (Dem. xx 137), and it is clear from Demosthenes’ reference to him in 343 (Dem. xix 297) that he had earlier been as powerful as Aristophon and Callistratus. So Eubulus may not have risen to great political importance until some time had elapsed after the Social War and until the credit he had gained in the interim as a financier was extended to his counsels on policy. Diophantus indeed was still alive in 343 and had evidently been engaged in politics in 346 (Dem. xix 198), and it is hard to say when Eubulus became the more influential with the People. The general sent to Thermopylae in 352, Nausicles, was probably the man who supported Aeschines in 34314 and so presumably a supporter of Eubulus, but Diophantus moved the decree of triumph,15 and he as much as Eubulus, or even more, may have been responsible for Athens’ prompt help for Phocis.16 The evidence is too thin to say more. Eubulus was probably both the ally and the natural successor of Diophantus, for the latter was clearly on Aeschines’ side in 343,17 but we cannot be sure about what in the late 350s Eubulus was actually responsible for. That he became a figure of first importance is clear, if from nothing else, from the manner in which Demosthenes spoke of him in 343. Aeschines concluded his defence (184) by calling to his support Eὔβουλον μὲν ἐκ τῶν πολıτıκῶν καὶ σωϕρόνων ἀνδρῶν – – – – Φωκίωνα δ’ἐκ τῶν στρατηγῶν, ἅμα δὲ καὶ δικαιοσύνῃ δıϵνηνοχότα πάντων, ἐκ δὲ τῶν ϕίλων καὶ τῶν ἡλικιωτῶν τῶν ἐμαυτοῦ Nαυσικλέα but it was on Eubulus that Demosthenes had concentrated his attack (xix 288–97): he compared the power of Eubulus with that of Callistratus or Aristophon or Diophantus in earlier periods, and claimed (p.338) that such power was a menace to the city. Thus as late as 343 Eubulus was the mainstay of Demosthenes’ opponents and formidable. The same impression is derived from the references to him in the Midias (206, 207). It is Eubulus who is singled out as a politician, and the appeal of Midias to Eubulus in the assembly after the Dionysia 348 to which Demosthenes refers (206) suggests that Eubulus was of special importance. His record in the courts supports this. He attacked Aristophon, though this may have been a mere matter of finance,18 but also Page 3 of 34

Eubulus Aristophon’s favoured general, Chares (Ar. Rhet. 1376 A 10), and Cephisophon of Aphidna who was one of Chares’ supporters.19 In turn, Aristophon attacked Philonicus an adherent of Eubulus and made the trial an attack on Eubulus’ whole political record (Dem. xix 291). All in all, there is enough to suggest that he was a figure of the greatest importance, and it was no error when Theopompus included him in his survey of the Athenian demagogues.20 His power and influence are best attested in the period 349 to 346. All the leading figures connected with the Euboean expedition, Midias, Phocion, Hegesileos, are found linked with Eubulus and his supporters.21 Of course, Midias had a special importance in advocating the expedition by reason of his connection with Plutarch of Eretria (Dem. xxi 110), and the particular trouble between him and Demosthenes probably derived from Demosthenes’ opposition to the expedition,22 but no doubt the group was united in policy and Eubulus is the dominant figure. This is shown by the direct attack on him in the Third Olynthiac (21–9); the attack on those who are influential with the People culminates in a contemptuous reference to Eubulus’ programme of public works23 and in the Midias Demosthenes admits that (p.339) Eubulus is his enemy.24 The Eubulus group continued to be powerful in 348: Demosthenes did not dare to bring his charge against Midias to court and the case went unheard.25 In 346 Eubulus led the movement to unite the Hellenes against the threat of Philip intervening in Greece and this policy of uniting in a κοινὴ ϵἰρήνη, to which the Allied Synedrion continued to give their full support, was not a lame affair that came to nothing out of half-heartedness; but, rather, because the Phocian revolution made it certain that Philip could get into Greece, Eubulus’ policy was suddenly rendered impracticable and the way was open for the advocate of peace, Philocrates, supported by the defender of his proposal to negotiate for peace in 348, Demosthenes.26 Eubulus and Aeschines accordingly were less prominent in Elaphebolion 347/6 and the peace forced on Athens by Philip was the work of their opponents:27 Eubulus’ only recorded contribution was to join in counselling the people not to follow the few hotheads who hoped to defeat Philip aided by Thebes, south of Thermopylae.28 But the crisis of Scirophorion a few weeks later brought him to the fore again. When the second embassy to Philip returned on the thirteenth of that month, and reported that the peace had failed in its purpose and he was moving south against Phocis, the Council concurred in agreeing to go out to face Philip, but within three days, before the People had had an opportunity to ratify the Council’s decision, word came that Philip was in control of the (p.340) Gates. In the Assembly on the sixteenth only Demosthenes advocated the supreme folly of going out to fight for a Phocis virtually lost, and Aeschines’ moderation won the day.29 Perhaps to this assembly should be ascribed Eubulus’ decree protesting about Philip’s seizure of the Thracian forts, though this may belong later (Dem. xviii 70), and the speech in which he cursed Philip (Dem. xix 292). In 347/6 he made a start with one of his most important public works, the construction of the new Skeuotheke: at any Page 4 of 34

Eubulus rate the annual ten talents eisphora for metics that was used for it probably began in this year (IG ii2 505 ll. 12f.), perhaps shortly after the decision of Elaphebolion. It was a matter of military importance, and points to his political power in that year, and Aeschines in 343 stood trial for τὰ Eὐβούλου πολιτϵύματα.30 It would be exaggeration to claim that this evidence in itself shows that Eubulus occupied a Periclean position in Athens. It shows strictly no more than that Eubulus was one of the leaders of a successful political faction. Yet, when one balances up the frequency with which Eubulus appears in the speeches of Demosthenes with the comparative infrequency of all other politicians of the age and remembers that Theopompus saw fit to include Eubulus in his survey of Athenian demagogues in Book x of the Philippica (see n. 20), one is justified in regarding Eubulus as the leading politician of the decade before the trial of Aeschines. Good sense and knowledge of Athenian politics at other times should caution against making Eubulus wholly responsible for Athenian policy in that period. Even where names are denied us, we may suspect the presence of Aristophon amongst the backers of ‘ἡ νῦνι βοήθϵια’ of the First Philippic, that is, οἱ ‘ταχὺ’ καὶ ‘τήμϵρον’ ϵἰπόντϵς (14) or again amongst those who backed the prosecution of Philocrates in 348 for proposing to negotiate with Philip (see n. 25): we know he took the radical line in 346 of opposing peace.31 No doubt he was not silent in 349/8. None the less, it is legitimate to see in Eubulus the real successor of Callistratus and Diophantus and regard him and his group as in general responsible for Athenian policy in these years. (p.341) One thing was obvious. Theban power had to be contained, and there can have been little real disagreement about supporting Phocis in central Greece and Thebes’ opponents in the Peloponnese. But the war in the north was a grave embarrassment. This was no longer a matter of the vital interest of Athens in protecting her food supply: to judge by the Aristocrates (173) there were no further operations in the Hellespont after the treaty made with the Thracian kingdom in 357, until Chares seized Sestos in 353/2 and Cersobleptes ceded all the cities of the Chersonese save Cardia (Diod. xvi 34.3, 4). The reason for this inactivity may be guessed to have been that the treaty sufficed for Athens’ purposes and that Chares only intervened so bloodily in Sestos when Sestos by favouring Philip threatened both Cersobleptes and Athens; this explains, at any rate, why Cersobleptes conceded so much after Chares’ act of violence. So the Chersonese was forgotten, until Philip’s eastward expansion threatened it. With Amphipolis the position was far different. The continuous operations since 368 had accomplished precisely nothing beyond the extension of the war. For while a strong Macedon might tolerate an independent, if friendly, Amphipolis, its strategic importance, quite apart from its economic advantages, made a restoration of Athenian power intolerable for Macedon, and Olynthus was always ready to join in the defeat of Athenian ambitions. Thus in defence of a position militarily strong enough to defy the might of fifth-century Page 5 of 34

Eubulus Athens strong allies were close at hand to frustrate Athenian hopes in the fourth. The war, in short, had very little chance of a satisfactory conclusion. Nor did the city have any longer strategic value for Athens until in 352 Philip began to be a serious threat: the economic advantages of mines and forests were Athens’ sole concern, and these could be gained else-where.32 All rational considerations urged the abandonment of a foolish quest. The People, however, could entertain no such idea. The desire and hope of recovering the city had taken too deep root for anyone to propose abandoning it: the proof of this is that, after spending twenty-two years in fruitless conflict and being forced in 346 by fear of invasion to surrender their claim, in 344/3, when Philip offered to demonstrate his peaceful intentions towards Greece by (p.342) extending the Peace of Philocrates and making a Common Peace,33 Athens’ response was to renew her demand for Amphipolis ([Dem.] vii 24–5). No sane politician can possibly have believed in 344/3 that Philip would dream of ceding the city, but the People was persuaded by Hegesippus to make the demand. This implies nothing short of an obsession and, twelve years previously, it would have been political suicide to counsel the only sensible policy. The nearest alternative was to remain at war and expend the minimum of money and lives, let Demosthenes thunder as he would. If it was Eubulus who most strongly opposed the war for Amphipolis, or if his financial policy aimed at keeping Athens from squandering its resources on such a vain hope, his services to Athens were very great indeed. The quest for Amphipolis was only a special case of the predominant Amphipolis was only a special case of the predominant desire that possessed Athens in the fourth century to revive the glory and recover the assets of the empire of the fifth. It is clear from Isocrates’ On the Peace that there was a group at Athens that could be called a war party, οἱ παρακαλοῦντϵς ὑμᾶς ἐπὶ τὸν πόλϵμον, who - - προσδοκίαν ἐμποιοῦσιν ὡς καὶ τὰς κτήσϵις τὰς ἐν ταῖς πόλϵσιν κομιούμϵθα καὶ τὴν δύναμιν ἀναληψόμϵθα πάλιν ἣν πρότϵρον ἐτυγχάνομϵν ἔχοντϵς (5 and 6). The important words, practically speaking, are those concerning the recovery of possessions: this was what aroused the allies of the Social War, τοῦ κομίσασθαι τὰ ὑμέτϵρ’ ὑμῖν ϕθονήσαντϵς as Demosthenes (xv 15) says. The most notable possessions were of course Amphipolis and the Chersonese, but much more was meant. While formally continuing to respect the promises of the Decree of Aristotle,34 in practice the People deserted the principles of the Confederacy after 371 in the resumption of fifth-century possessions. The Samian cleruchy aroused debate, or at least protest, to judge by the remark preserved by Aristotle (Rhet. 1384 B 32) of an otherwise unknown figure, Cydias, but it is Isocrates’ treatise (p.343) which best illuminates Athenian policy in this decade. It was, according to Aristotle (Rhet. 1418 A 32), an attack on Chares, who had a reputation for violence (Diod. xv 95.3), but it is, in essence, a denunciation of the whole attempt to restore the empire. The failure of the Social War made possible, as well as necessary, a radical change of policy.

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Eubulus The mainspring of the later Athenian imperialism is clear enough. The mass of Athenians looked to empire for wealth since all believed that only empire could bring it. Until Xenophon’s Revenues, there is not a hint anywhere that the city’s prosperity really depended on trade. Cruder notions prevailed, that it was tribute that enriched the city and provided employment in its beautification and in the defence of the source of the profits. Given the opportunity, a Cleon would prefer to continue a costly war out of desire for τοῦ πλέονος (Thuc. iv 21), while the moderate Thrasybulus led Athens in the hopes of recovering the empire into a war supported by the poor and opposed by the rich.35 This was the practice of the πλϵονϵξία denounced by Socrates. The only debate was whether to rest content with τὰ παρόντα or have recourse to violence. Xenophon’s treatise was written, ἐπϵὶ τῶν Ἀθήνησι προϵστηκότων ἔλϵγόν τıνϵς ὡς γıγνώσκουσı μὲν τὸ δίκαιον oὐδϵνὸς ἧττον τῶν ἄλλων ἀνθρώπων, διὰ δὲ τὴν τοῦ πλήθους πϵνίαν ἀναγκάζϵσθαι ἔϕασαν ἀδıκώτϵροı ϵἶναı πϵρὶ τὰς πόλϵις (i 1). Isocrates himself seems more concerned with the injustice of the policy of war than with the profitableness of peace. Thus, although the policy of seeking prosperity in empire was in 355 for the time being discredited, no alternative that did not accommodate the People’s desire for profits was likely to endure: if peace was to succeed, it must prove not only profitable but tangibly so. Hence the ill-famed distributions of τὰ θϵωρικά which were probably indispensable if the Athenian People was to be saved from its own folly.36 The alternative which Eubulus and his supporters proposed to the imperialism denounced by Isocrates appears to have been the establishment of a Common Peace to manage Greek affairs and settle disputes. This was what Eubulus and Aeschines sought in 347/6 both before and during the negotiations for the Peace (see n. 26), and in 344/3, as in 354 (Dem. xiv 12), the threat of Persian (p.344) intervention was met with a proposal to unite the Hellenes.37 That these were not mere expedients to meet an external threat, but rather the approved policy in foreign affairs is suggested by the demand of Isocrates’ On the Peace for the establishment of a general peace.38 Φημὶ δ’ οὖν χρῆναι ποιϵῖσθαι τὴν ϵἰρήνην μὴ μόνον πρὸς Xίους καὶ ‛Pοδίους καὶ Bυζαντίους καὶ Kῴους ἀλλὰ πρὸς ἃπαντας ἀνθρώπους, καὶ χρῆσθαι ταῖς συνθήκαις μὴ ταύταις αἷς νῦν τινὲς γϵγράϕασιν, ἀλλὰ ταῖς γϵνομέναις μὲν πρὸς βασιλέα καὶ Λακϵδαιμονίους — — — κ.τ.λ. (16). Similarly Xenophon in the Revenues advocates the establishment of a Common Peace to deal with the Phocian seizure of Delphi. Eἰ καὶ ὅπως τὸ ἐν Δϵλϕοῖς ἱϵρὸν αὐτόνομον ὥσπϵρ πρόσθϵν γένοιτο ϕανϵροὶ ϵἴητ’ ἐπιμϵλούμϵνοι, μὴ συμπολϵμοῦντϵς ἀλλὰ πρϵσβϵύοντϵς ἀνὰ τὴν ‛Eλλάδα, ἐγώ μὲν οὐδὲν ἂν οἶμαι θαυμαστὸν ϵἶναι, ϵἰ καὶ πάντας τοὺς ‛Eλληνας ὁμογνώμονάς τϵ καὶ συνόρκους καὶ συμμάχους λάβοιτϵ ἐπ’ ἐκϵίνους, οἵτινϵς ἐκλιπόντων Φωκέων τὸ ἱϵρὸν καταλαμβάνϵιν πϵιρῷντο (v 9). So perhaps the Eubulus group believed that Athens, avoiding the pursuit of imperial aims, could meet any crisis at the head of the Hellenes united under a Common Peace.

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Eubulus If this was their belief, nothing could be, generally speaking, more naïve. The history of the Common Peaces since 387/6 could give little confidence that large states would always accept the majority decision even if majority decision were the best method of solving political problems. Yet, naïve as such a belief might be, the policy was the best possible for Athens in the age of Philip. The past 150 years had shown that the cities of Greece could be kept united only by force or by fear of force. The Persian domination had failed simply because it did not possess or apply the force it pretended to: hence the disillusioning succession of Common Peaces. But the fear of Macedon could act as effectively on the Greek states, given proper statesmanship, as the fear of Persia had acted in the early fifth century. Who was the proper statesman? I have argued elsewhere39 that Demosthenes’ policy in the Olynthian War, in so far as it can be discerned, was ill-conceived and likely to result in military disaster: the important point was that (p.345) Demosthenes wished Athens to deploy its full strength at the full stretch of unsatisfactory communications against an enemy of probably greater strength concentrated near his base; the result might have been a second Sicilian disaster. But politically too the policy of Demosthenes was ill-conceived. To Greece as to Athens the war against Philip was the war for Amphipolis,40 the war for the recovery of the principal asset of the fifth-century empire, and this had little appeal for the Greeks. Until Philip tried to enter Greece, Athens could not hope for unity. The words that Demosthenes used in 354 (xiv 12) might well have been used in 349/8: ἀλλ’ oὔπω μϵίζων ἔσθ’ ὁ ϕόβος τῶν πρὸς ὑμᾶς καὶ πρὸς ἀλλήλους ἐνíοις δıαϕορῶν. Only in defence of Greece would the Greek cities unite and thus Eubulus’ policy of meeting the threat of Philip by uniting the Greeks under Athens’ hegemony in defence of Greece itself was the only course with any chance of success. Certainly there is no justification for labelling such a policy pacifism. It is time to turn to Eubulus’ financial arrangements, for it is there that censure is severest. From Demosthenes onwards, the charge has been repeatedly made that Eubulus pandered to the selfish side of the Athenians and so corrupted their will to resist Philip. To this is occasionally added the taint of treachery, not the treachery which preferred the interests of Macedon to those of Athens and about which scholars have shown remarkable faith in Demosthenes’ truthfulness, but the treachery which preferred the comfort of a class to the freedom of its country. This might be briefly answered by pointing out that as far as the evidence permits of calculation the amounts normally distributed were small, fifteen talents according to A. H. M. Jones,41 less according to Kahrstedt:42 the debilitating effect of three to five drachmas a head per year is not likely to have been great.43 But this perhaps is to do the Theorikon less than justice. If Demades could (p.346) call it the ‘cement of the democracy’ (Plut., Mor. 1011 B), it may have been important, and many a reader of Demosthenes must have sympathised with the remark attributed to Gladstone44 that Athens perished because of its poor public finance’. Eubulus was largely responsible for the Page 8 of 34

Eubulus finances of Athens in the decisive years, and if Gladstone was right Eubulus, whether pacifist or not, must bear the blame due to his system. However, before judging, we must make clear as far as possible what the system was. There has been much discussion of the question of how Eubulus exercised control. Motzki45 was at pains to argue that Eubulus held the powers and office of the later attested Finance Minister, ὁ ἐπὶ τῇ διοικήσϵι, and, with the aid of Aristotle’s statement in the Constitution of Athens (43.1) that οἱ ἐπὶ τὸ θϵωρικόν were elected and held office ἐκ Παναθηναίων ϵἰς Παναθήναια, Motzki assigned him a quad-rennium of office from 354 to 350, when he was succeeded in the next four years by Aphobetus whose brother, Aeschines, later said of him καλῶς δὲ καὶ δικαίως τῶν ὑμϵτέρων προσόδων ἐπιμϵληθϵίς, ὅτϵ αὐτὸν ἐπὶ τὴν κοινὴν διοίκησιν ϵἵλϵσθϵ (Aesch. ii 149) and who was in turn succeeded by Cephisophon of Aphidna (IG ii2 223 C l. 5). The usage of inscriptions shows clearly that the phrase ἐκ Παναθηναίων ἐς Παναθήναια does not mean four years46 and the neat calculations of quadrennia should be banished for ever,47 but beyond that one cannot be sure. Whatever bearing it has on the position and powers of Lycurgus, the absence of ὁ ἐπὶ τῇ διοικήσϵι from Aristotle’s list of elective offices (AP 43.1) does not prove that this officer had not existed before the law of Hegemon which rearranged the various financial offices shortly before 335/4:48 Eubulus might have secured (p.347) for himself an extraordinary office. There is, however, little to support such a theory. The words, quoted above, that Aeschines used to refer to his brother’s financial activity are far from technical or official usage, and the allusion in the Aristocrates (209) to oἱ τὰ κινὰ δıοıκοῦντϵς seems to be to more than the one or two men who could have been ὁ ἐπὶ τῇ διοικήσϵι> if such an office had been created after 355. The evidence is hardly precise,49 but Eubulus seems to be associated with the Theoric Fund and it would be hard to see why the Theoric Commissioners should have developed such importance διὰ τὴν πρὸς Eὔβουλον γϵνομένην πίστιν, as Aeschines (iii 25) asserts, if Eubulus had not himself occupied the office. Further, if there had been some sort of Finance Minister, he would have managed the varied activities alleged for that Commission, who σχϵδὸν τὴν ὅλην διοίκησιν ϵἶχον τῆς πόλϵως.50 So Eubulus must simply have been one of oἱ ἐπὶ τὸ θϵωρικόν, a board elected for one year. How, then, could such limited tenure afford him the opportunity to establish his influence? It may be that one year sufficed for him to win respect and get his supporters elected to succeed him. It may be that before the law of Hegemon the office could be held repeatedly: Aristotle’s description of the 320s51 does not gainsay this, and it need not surprise us if in the difficult days after the Social War Eubulus constituted in the administration of the city the counterpart of Phocion, constantly general.52 But the truth may be rather more than either of these two answers.

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Eubulus The inception of the Theoric Fund has been much discussed and necessarily inconclusively. The evidence conflicts and no one solution (p.348) is likely to command universal esteem.53 But, even if there were Theoric distributions before Diophantus and Eubulus, it seems that Eubulus made some important change. In commenting on the word Θϵωρικά, Harpocration cited a remark of Philinus who appears to have been an orator in the time of Lycurgus: Φιλῖνος δὲ ἐν τῇ πρὸς Σοϕοκλέους καὶ Eὐριπίδου ϵἰκόνας πϵρὶ Eὐβούλου λέγων ϕησίν·‘ἐκλήθη δὲ θϵωρικόν, ὅτι τῶν Διονυσίων ὑπογύων ὄντων διένϵιμϵν Eὔβουλος ϵἰς τὴν θυσίαν, ἵνα πάντϵς ἑορτάζωσι καὶ τῆς θϵωρίας μηδϵὶς ἀπολϵίπηται δἰ ἀσθένϵιαν τῶν ἰδίων’. Here is an orator within a generation54 speaking as if the actions of Eubulus had given rise to (p.349) the very name, which, moreover, had never occurred in Aristophanes. So, whether Eubulus was the first to distribute money at the festivals or not, he was responsible for the name, and one wonders whether the whole Theoric Commission was his creation also.55 At some time in the fourth century the surplus moneys of the administration were used for war and the likely date for such a system to begin would be 378, if not earlier.56 From then down to the end of the Social War Athens was hardly ever at peace, and so if there was any money at all distributed it must have been provided for in the diataxis and is unlikely to have been large. If officials existed to distribute moneys they must have been very minor. Yet in Aristotle’s day, when the power of oἱ ἐπὶ τὸ θϵωρικόν had been lessened by the law of Hegemon, they were elected like the ταμίας τῶν στρατιωτικῶν and the ἐπıμϵλητὴς τῶν κρηνῶν and no one else in the civil administration (AP 43.1). Whence did they acquire this dignity? It seems reasonable to suppose that Eubulus was responsible and that the Theoric Commission as we meet it was his creation and to that in part Aeschines referred when he said (iii 25) διὰ τὴν πρὸς Eὔβουλον γϵνομένην πίστιν ὑμῖν oἱ ἐπὶ τὸ θϵωρικὸν κϵχϵıροτονημένοı ἦρχον — — — — κ.τ.λ. That is, the Theoric Commission was the instrument created by Eubulus for the financial administration of Athens. This is perhaps little more than a guess, but the ἐπıμϵλητὴς τῶν κρηνῶν is suggestive. It is curious that such a minor official was elected in the 320s (AP 43.1). He hardly appears in the evidence but it is striking that among the public works that Demosthenes scoffs at he twice mentions κρήναι (iii 29, xiii 30). Perhaps the elected Superintendent was also the creation of Eubulus.57 A further indication that the Commission was made an important public office by Eubulus may perhaps be in the strange demand made in Xenophon’s Revenues (v 1) for the establishment of ϵἰρηνοϕύλακϵς—πολὺ γὰρ ἂν καὶ αὕτη αἱρϵθϵῖσα ἡ ἀρχὴ προσϕıλϵστέραν καὶ oἰκϵıοτέραν ϵἰσαϕικνϵῖσθαι πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποıς ποıήσϵıϵ τὴν πόλιν, that is, a demand for officials concerned to (p.350) make the city more attractive to trade. Thiel58 explained these ϵἰρηνοϕύλακϵς thus: ‘Collegium, opinor, intelligitur quod controversias inter Athenienses aliasque civitates Graecas ortas componere studens bello occurrere conetur.’ But this falls flat since there is no reason to suppose that trade disputes were a serious menace to peace nor was arbitration of this sort unprovided for in Athens (AP 59.6, etc.). Another Page 10 of 34

Eubulus explanation may be suggested. There is only one other known instance of the word and that is in Aeschines (iii 159) where he says that Demosthenes, on his return to Athens from his excursion after Chaeronea to gather corn and money, παριὼν ἡμιθνὴς ἐπὶ τὸ βῆμα, ϵἰρηνοϕύλακα ὑμᾶς αὑτὸν ἐκέλϵυϵ χϵιροτονϵῖν·. Of course this may be mere sarcastic abuse, but it seems natural to connect it with the position Demosthenes held after Chaeronea. Of the two offices attributed to him, the post of τϵιχοποιός seems ruled out of consideration, for it was probably not elective (cp. AP 43.1) and Demosthenes’ work on the walls was hardly indicative of timidity towards the Macedonians nor does he in fact appear to have actually been τϵιχοποιός (Aesch. iii 28). I guess therefore that Aeschines referred to his election ἐπὶ τὸ θϵωρικόν for 337/6, and that he chose as a sneer the word used twenty years earlier by Xenophon in proposing a new office to make the most of the peace. Here perhaps as elsewhere in the Revenues what Xenophon proposed, Eubulus enacted. The effect of all this is to replace Motzki’s Finance Minister with a Theoric Commission which fulfilled a comparable function. The moneys handled appear to have been considerable. The amounts distributed, as I have already remarked, were normally not large, but there is no reason to suppose that the Commission controlled no more than it distributed.59 In 353/2, the probable date of the speech On the Syntaxis (see n. 9), which was delivered during a debate on the distribution of money (1), the surpluses60 were no doubt small (3) for the city was still picking up after the Social War, and likewise in 351 when Demosthenes wanted ninety-two talents for his standing force in the war for Amphipolis (Dem. iv 28f.), he probably had nothing to say about the Theoric Fund because it was hardly large enough to matter, but by 349 the position had changed sufficiently for (p.351) him to look to the Fund to finance the expedition to Olynthus (Dem. i 19 f., iii 10f.). Demosthenes was presumably not weakening his case by a piece of downright silliness. So by that year there had begun to be considerable amounts in the Theoric Fund. Consonant with this is the important role played by the Commission in public works. In the effort to prove that Demosthenes had rendered himself liable to ϵὔθυναı as a τϵıχοποıός, Aeschines (iii 25) may have gone further in his description of the Commission’s function than was justified; the ἀποδέκταı,61 for instance, and the ἐπιμϵληταὶ τῶν νϵωρίων62 continued to function. But what he said was, in general, true enough: the Theoric Commission clearly had a major part in matters quite unconnected with mere distributions of money.63 Harpocration, s.v. ‘Θϵωρικά,’ says ταῦτα— — — — — ὕστϵρον— — — κατϵτίθϵτο ϵἴς τϵ τὰς δημοσίας κατασκϵυὰς καὶ δıανομὰς τῶν πολıτῶν. Philochorus says that when in 339/8 the Athenians suspended work on the docks and the Skeuotheke, at the same time τὰ χρήματα ἐψηϕίσαντο πάντ’ ϵἶναι στρατιωτικά: that is, the Theoric Fund was to be used for war, having been used till then on the buildings (cp. Schol. Aesch. iii 24). (p.352) Indeed the varied activities of the Theoric Commission mentioned by Aeschines are probably demonstrated by Demosthenes’ acts when he was a Commissioner; at any rate Page 11 of 34

Eubulus his work on the walls was certainly not undertaken by him in the capacity of τϵιχοποιός.64 This evidence is of course imprecise, but it is sufficient to suggest that under Eubulus the Commission had wide responsibilities, that he financed his work on the battlements from the Theoric Fund65 just as Demosthenes was later to use ten talents ἐκ τῆς διοικήσϵως for work on the walls (Aesch. iii 31), that the Commissioners in some way were involved in the province of the ἐπιμϵληταὶ τῶν νϵωρίων (and it is no surprise to find that Eubulus had bought a quantity of wood for work in the yards [IG ii2 1627 l. 352, etc.] or that Dinarchus [i 96] could speak of triremes being built ἐπὶ Eὐβούλου), and that in addition to managing both important constructions, such as the docks and the Skeuotheke, and minor public works, such as the repair of roads, they exercised a general supervision over finance. If to such a Commission re-election were permitted, Eubulus could have directly controlled the whole financial administration of the city. If Eubulus created, or radically reorganised, the distribution of money after the Social War, where does Diophantus’ work of distribution belong? The scholiast to Aeschines iii 24 says … πολλὰ ἅμα χρήματα διϵνϵίμαντο ἐπὶ τῇ τοῦ θϵωρικοῦ προϕάσϵι, τὰ μὲν Διοϕάντου τὰ δὲ Eὐβούλου διανέμοντος and the relation of the two in finance as elsewhere needs to be considered. Kahrstedt, taking Justin vi 9.1 more precisely than it deserves, argued that the Theoric distribution began after Mantinea and if this were so Diophantus’ distributions might come before the Social War. But this would raise difficulties. For if there was a new Common Peace with Thebes in 362, there was war elsewhere as Demosthenes i and xxiii testify and presumably the surpluses were used for the war, not for distribution. More probably, Diophantus played his part after the Social War.66 The Theoric Fund and Commission were established in stages; Demosthenes (iii 11) speaks of laws. In the first stage, Eubulus might still be subordinate (p.353) in influence or equal and Diophantus might have played a part financially before he was eclipsed by his associate.67 The Theoric Commission presided in effect over the κοινὴ διοίκησις, as Aeschines (ii 149) termed it, using τὰ θϵωρικά as seemed best.68 It was essential that their moneys should be safe from rash and ill-considered decrees, and so Eubulus took steps to secure this. It is evident from the Olynthiacs that it was not possible in 349 to use Theoric moneys for war without repealing the laws concerning the Theoric Fund. In the first of these speeches (19) he said that either Theoric money should be used to finance help for Olynthus or there would have to be ϵἰσϕοραί but he shrank from moving a decree. ‘Tί οὖν’, ἄν τις ϵἴποı, ‘σὺ γράϕϵις ταῦτ’ ϵἶναι στρατιωτικά;’ μὰ Δί’ οὐκ ἔγωγϵ. Why not, unless he feared the law? In the Third (10f.), which, whenever precisely it was delivered, was certainly delivered before the Euboean expedition of February 348 and the celebrated decree of Apollodorus ([Dem.] lix 4),69 Demosthenes openly (σαϕῶς οὑτωσί) attacked the laws governing the Theoric Fund and demanded their repeal by those who had proposed them: that was the way to finance the Page 12 of 34

Eubulus expedition. These passages make clear that the laws establishing the Theoric Fund had precluded its use for war and the history of Apollodorus’ attempt bears this out. He did not propose directly that τὰ πϵριόντα χρήματα τῆς δıοıκήσϵως should be στρατιωτικά but called for a special vote (δıαχϵıροτονῆσαı70 τὸν δήμον ϵἴτϵ δοκϵῖ τὰ πϵριόντα χρήματα τῆς δıοıκήσϵως στρατιωτικὰ ϵἶναι ϵἴτϵ θϵωρικά). The decree was passed and the people voted as he desired (5). Yet, having gained the approval of the people in this way, (p.354) he was prosecuted under the γραϕὴ παρανόμων and fined. The speaker of [Dem.] lix would have it thought that Apollodorus was convicted on a mere technicality, viz. ὡς ὦϕλϵ τῷ δημοσίῳ ἐκ πέντϵ καὶ ϵἲκοσι ἐτῶν,71 and other irrelevancies, but this should not deceive us. Any prominent political figure convicted by an Athenian court could say this sort of thing, for any allegation or slander sufficed for an Athenian legal speech, and he could be unfairly convicted on the strength of it; but Apollodorus was probably not in this plight. For, even if he had been convicted on a mere technicality, no one else dared to follow up his attack on the laws, just as Demosthenes had not dared although he believed the ending of the laws was essential to Athens’ safety. The only satisfactory explanation is that Demosthenes dared not brave the law, but that in the critical days when Phocion’s army was in peril in Euboea Apollodorus did dare and had to pay for it.72 Furthermore, the speech On the Syntaxis shows that the law was in force by 353/2. It speaks of those who distribute and give away τὰ κοινά (1); the income of the city is being squandered ἐς οὐδέν δέον (4), presumably on ‘repairs to roads and wells and stucco walls and trash’ (30), when there should be adequate preparation πρὸς τὸν πόλϵμον (3).73 But never a word of direct proposal to stop it all. The law of Eubulus had curtailed the right to γράϕϵιν. There would be no need to make this explicit, if the subject had not been befogged over the last century by false theory. The confusion really arose because for so long the Euboean expedition was dated before the Olynthian War, and so Schaefer was led to accept the (p.355) account of the Scholiast on the First Olynthiac.74 Weil and Radüge set the date of the Euboean expedition aright,75 but the fantasy of the Scholiast lingers on. Here is in essence what he says (ad Dem. i 1 = Dindorf Vol. viii 32 and 33). 1. The Athenians, χρήματα ἔχοντϵς στρατιωτικά have lately (ἔναγκος) made them θϵωρικά. 2. Demosthenes wished ταῦτα μϵταβαλϵῖν ϵἰς στρατιωτικά, ἐπϵιδήπϵρ νῦν κατέλαβϵν ὁ πόλϵμος ὁ πρὸς Φίλιππον, but he approached the matter cautiously. 3. Digression on the history of Theoric distributions (a) Pericles ἔγραψϵ τὰ προσοδϵυόμϵνα χρήματα τῇ πόλϵι γϵνέσθαι πᾶσι θϵωρικὰ τοῖς πολίταις. Page 13 of 34

Eubulus (b)ϵἶτα ἐπιχϵιρήσαντος Ἀπολλοδώρου τινὸς πάλιν αὐτὰ ποιῆσαι στρατιωτικά, — — — — Eὔβουλος ἔγραψϵ νόμον τὸν κϵλϵύοντα θανάτῳ ζημιοῦσθαι ϵἴ τις ἐπιχϵιροίη μϵταποιϵῖν τὰ θϵωρικὰ στρατιωτικά. 4. Διὸ ὁσάκις ἐν τοῖς Φιλιππικοῖς μέμνηται αὐτῶν ὁ Δημοσθένης, συμβουλϵὺϵι μόνον ὥστϵ αὐτὸν λυθῆναι, οὐ μέντοι καὶ ἐγγράϕως λέγϵι, ὅπϵρ ὖν ἐπικίνδυνον. There are here three serious errors, serious, that is, for the Scholiast’s credit. (i) He thinks that the war against Philip has just (νῦν) begun. The war for Amphipolis, as Isocrates (To Philip 2) terms the war against Philip, began long before 349. If no other proof of hostilities existed, those recorded in Polyaenus iv 2.22 would suffice, but there is ample evidence that Athens considered herself at war after making peace with the allies in 3 55,76 and the only war in question is the war for Amphipolis which Philip held from 357 onwards. Nῦν indeed! (ii) He thinks that such a decree as he attributes to Pericles was possible in fifth-century Athens. Pericles may have moved a (p.356) decree about the surpluses as Callias did in the first Callias Decree (ἐς τὸ νϵόριον καὶ τὰ τϵίχϵ τοῖς πϵριõσι χρέσθαι χρέμασ[ιν]) but in the terms of the Scholiast never. Perhaps he was only writing loosely, but one suspects his grip of the subject. (iii) He thinks that the motion of Apollodorus preceded the Olynthiacs. (The reference to what Demosthenes said ἐν τοῖς Φιλιππικοῖς makes clear that the Olynthiacs were meant.) This is the very reverse of the truth77 and devastating for the Scholiast, because he thinks that the allusions of the Olynthiacs are to be understood by reference to a law passed after Apollodorus. So what value are we to give to the assertion that Eubulus got a law passed imposing the death penalty after Apollodorus’ decree? One suspects that the Scholiast knew very little of the subject beyond what he read, or rather misread, in Demosthenes. I submit that his evidence is worthless, but, if any would cling to it, they must rebut this dilemma. Either there was no law before Apollodorus in which case the cautious allusions of the Olynthiacs and of the speech On the Syntaxis require explanation, or there was one law which from 353 to 349/8 inhibited Demosthenes and another law which was passed in 348 merely increasing the penalty, that is, the law mentioned by the Scholiast, in which case this second law would be trivial. Until this dilemma is rebutted, the Scholiast should be treated as ill-informed and misleading, and this theory of a law in 348 should be renounced.

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Eubulus The root of the trouble, perhaps, for the Scholiast and his followers lies in a misleading remark made by the speaker of [Dem.] lix about the decree proposed by Apollodorus. The claim is made (4) that, when Apollodorus proposed that the People should decide by special vote whether the surpluses of the administration should be used for military purposes or for Theoric, the laws actually required that in time of war these surpluses should be used for the former (κϵλϵυόντων τῶν νόμων, ὅταν πόλϵμος ᾖ, τὰ πϵριόντα χρήματα τῆς δıοıκήσϵως στρατιωτικὰ ϵἶναι). For two reasons this claim simply cannot be taken as a plain statement of fact. First, there was war against Philip (p.357) from 357 onwards, and if the law had stood as the speaker claimed, there could have been no Theoric distributions at all in this period. Nor can it be claimed that the war in Euboea was a war within the definition of the law when the war in the north was not; for neither is there any ground in the evidence for such an hypothesis,78 nor did these alleged laws come into effect when the Euboean expedition began, for an appreciable period of time had elapsed before Apollodorus made his proposal.79 Athens was and had long been at war; so the speaker is seeking to mislead. Secondly, if the laws had ordered what is claimed, Demosthenes would have been perfectly free to propose what he in fact so circumspectly advocated but did not propose. The laws cannot have been in 349 what the speaker claimed. Yet some explanation of the speaker’s remark is due. He may have been simply lying, but that seems less probable than that there is some shadow of the truth in what he said. The explanation that suggests itself is that he was describing the state of the laws before the Theoric laws came into force. As I have argued elsewhere,80 it seems reasonable to suppose that there was from the inception of the Second Athenian Confederacy a Stratiotic Fund from which the war from 378 on was financed, and that this fund was partly supplied, to adapt our speaker’s words, by τὰ πϵριόντα χρήματα τῆς δıοıκήσϵως, ὅταν πόλϵμος ᾖ. If this is right, the laws of Eubulus superseded the financial system of Callistratus, but the speaker of [Dem.] lix, to deceive his jury, was referring to the laws before 355. He may have deceived his jury as he appears to have deceived the Scholiast. Historians should be less gullible. Another source of confusion about Eubulus’ laws is Philochorus’ account (F. 56a) of how the Theoric moneys came to be used for war. He recorded for 339/8: Λυσıμαχίδης Ἀχαρνϵύς. ἐπὶ τούτου τὰ μὲν ἔργα τὰ πϵρὶ τοὺς νϵωσοίκονς καὶ τὴν σκϵνοθήκην ἀνϵβάλοντο διὰ τὸν πόλϵμον τὸν πρός Φίλıππον, τὰ δὲ χρήματα ἐψηϕίσαντο πάντ’ ϵἶναι στρατιωτικά, Δημοσθένους γράϕαντος. One might think that, if Demosthenes could so propose and the People decree in 339/8, they could have done the same in 349. But this would be bad argument. (p.358) Between the rise of Demosthenes to power in 343 and the decree of 339/8, the Theoric laws may have been modified. Indeed, one might guess the moment. From 35 to 45 of the Fourth Philippic it seems that by 341 no change in the laws had yet been made or was contemplated. In 340/39 Philip declared war. Why was the change not made then? It is hardly likely that Athens was prosperous Page 15 of 34

Eubulus enough to begin the war and continue, as Pericles a century before had not felt able, to carry out the building programme and use the surpluses for other than military purposes. Since the change was delayed till 339/8, it may be suggested that the Theoric laws had not been changed by the time the war began, and that the revision of the laws in the first prytany of 339/8 was a necessary preliminary to Demosthenes’ decree. If Jacoby is right in maintaining81 that a citation from Philochorus which begins, as this does, ἐπὶ τούτου … is his first entry for the year, the decree of Demosthenes in 339 came soon after the start of the year, close upon, perhaps, the repeal of the relevant Theoric law.82 Yet, whatever is the truth of this, it should be clear that there is no difficulty in explaining why Demosthenes could do by decree in 339/8 what he could not ten years earlier. To sum up this part of the argument, I have argued in support of the view that between the end of the Social War and 353/2, the date of the speech On the Syntaxis, Eubulus established, perhaps by stages, a Theoric Commission with a dominant interest in the working of the Athenian financial system, and supplied it with a fund of which a small amount was distributed to the People and the rest used for various public projects, but which could not be used for war before the law was changed. It may be useful briefly to survey Eubulus’ achievement in the economic field, although there is little to add to previous discussions.83 There were two sides to Eubulus’ activity. First, he was concerned, as Xenophon was in the Revenues, to increase the income of the State and it is possible in general terms to follow the return of Athens’ finances to a well-balanced condition. Secondly, but not of secondary importance, was the increase in general prosperity whereby individuals were in a better position to meet the obligations (p.359) of trierarchies and other public services.84 This is not directly attested, but the increase of revenue is an index and must suffice. In 355 the annual revenue had dropped to a mere 130 talents as Demosthenes says in a passage that seems to relate to the end of the Social War,85 and, consonant with this, the evidence of the period of the Social War suggests that efforts were made to scrape up money from all possible sources.86 Isocrates’ On the Peace is eloquent (p.360) testimony to the impoverishment of the city87 and Xenophon’s Revenues is revealing both in general and in detail; for instance, it emerges (vi 1) that officials were not being paid and that there were many vacant houses and sites within the city itself (ii 6). By 346 the revenues had risen to 400 talents a year (Theopompus F. 166). The rate of progress can be seen, as I have already remarked, in the contrast between the financial proposals of Demosthenes in 351 and 349 (see n. 60). Since Demosthenes did not demand in 351 the use of the Theorika, the surpluses were presumably still small and indeed in the Aristocrates (209) he remarked that there was not a day’s travelling expensesἐν τῷ κοινῷ, but two years later he looked to the surpluses to finance the defence of Olynthus. Thus by 346 the Athenian economy had gone a Page 16 of 34

Eubulus long way towards recovery88 and only in 348 was there a temporary crisis, when Phocion’s citizen army in Euboea was held longer than had been expected. During this πόλϵμος δαπανηρός (Dem. v 5) it looked for a while as if the Theoric laws would have to be repealed and Apollodorus’ proposal was at first well received ([Dem.] lix 4, 5). But the war did not interrupt Athens’ steady recovery. The statement of the speaker of [Dem.] xlix that there was not enough pay for a jury in the latter part of 349/8 (17) is not to be taken too seriously: there always was a temporary shortage in the latter part of the year until the taxes due in the tenth prytany were paid (Dem. xxiv 98; AP 47.4). Only an invasion of Greece in 346 would have interrupted the process of recovery, and by that time prosperity was such that larger building work had been begun: no doubt more than the ten talent eisphora from the metics was devoted to the Docks and the Skeuotheke (IG ii2 505 1. 12). (p.361) After 346 things improved still more and Demosthenes frequently referred to the healthy state of the city’s finances, though of course he will not concede the credit to Eubulus. In 343 there were, he remarked (xix 89), and would be, διὰ τὴν ϵἰρήνην surpluses. In 341 on three occasions (viii 45, ix 40, x 37) he commented on the abundance of money due to ἡ τύχη καλῶς ποιοῦσα. Gone are the complaints of the earlier period. The Fourth Philippic is most suggestive: Demosthenes had no longer to denounce the Theoric Fund as an intolerable scandal that had to be abolished if the city was adequately to prepare for the war that had virtually begun. For long the remarks in this speech about the Theorica were taken as proof that the speech was not by Demosthenes: how could he have changed his mind in this way? But the truth is that he was less of a model of constancy to his contemporaries than to his latter-day admirers, and ἡ τύχη ποιοῦσα had changed his opinion along with the city’s finances. The much abused patching and plastering and λῆροι of Eubulus had turned out well. The methods by which Eubulus achieved all this are obscure, and almost all that is possible is to conjecture on the basis of the proposals of Xenophon’s Revenues.89 The right date for that work is immediately after the peace which concluded the Social War,90 and it has been generally recognised as a guide to the sort of measures instituted (p.362) by Eubulus.91 I have already suggested that Xenophon’s demand for a board of ϵἰρηνοϕύλακϵς (v 1) was met by the creation of the Theoric Commission, but it would be absurd to suppose that every proposal of Xenophon was acted on by the politician. Much of the treatise is fantastic. One leading idea seems to be that if the sources of revenue were fully developed it would be possible for every citizen to draw three obols a day,92 that is, in a year a matter of 500 talents for 20,000 citizens: no doubt Eubulus was more hard-headed, and there is no evidence that his distributions were ever more than a small bonus; if τροϕή was to be got, it would have to be by work on the building programme as in the days of Pericles. Nor is it likely that Eubulus shared Xenophon’s optimism about the unlimited resources of the mines (iv 1f.), even if he was unaware of the economic effects of flooding the market with Page 17 of 34

Eubulus silver. Nor could the proposal that the State should keep merchant ships for hire (iii 14) have much attracted anyone with practical experience of the difficulties of maintaining the fleet in good shape. All this was naive and deserved Boeckh’s strictures.93 There are in the work, however, three lines of thought sound in themselves and, as far as can be judged, followed by Eubulus. These are the increase of the total derived from the tax on metics, the encouragement of trade and traders, and capital investment to stimulate the economy. According to Isocrates (viii 21) at the end of the Social War Athens had been deserted by traders and aliens, both resident (μέτοıκοı) and visiting (ξένοι), and Xenophon (ii 1–7) made proposals for bringing the metics back. As far as we know, some of these proposals (the removal of certain ἀτιμίαι, the grant of the right to join the Knights, exemption from hoplite service) were not implemented but, since the proceeds of the μϵτοίκıον could be substantial,94 it is likely that (p.363) something was done, and a hint is to be found in Xenophon’s proposal (ii 7) that metics should be allowed the right to acquire the many vacant houses and sites in the city. For it is a fact that, whereas before the Social War the conferment of γῆς καὶ οἰκίας ἔγκτησις appears to have been very rare, after that war it is conferred, to judge by our epigraphic evidence, very freely indeed.95 This of course affected only privileged individuals, but suggests that Eubulus had taken Xenophon’s advice, in part, about how to attract metics. In the encouragement of trade Eubulus’ activity is well enough attested. He provided the trading facilities and hostels96 that Xenophon had demanded (iii 12 and 13)—a matter of no small importance. Also he may have been responsible for the institution of courts in which commercial disputes had to be settled within a month,97 in response to Xenophon’s demand for an acceleration of justice (iii 3). The raising of capital by forced loans for other than military purposes was not unknown to the fourth century. Xenophon’s idea (iii 7) was to provide the money necessary for his schemes by eisphora and his hopes were mainly concerned with the Attic silver mines.98 Eubulus probably was interested: he prosecuted Moerocles in connection with mining contracts (Dem. xix 293) and certainly after the Social War there was a new and considerable attempt to exploit the mines;99 by 341 Demosthenes could speak of them as a likely object for Philip to covet (viii 45). Indeed, it is not inconceivable that some slaves were bought for hiring as Xenophon (iv 13f.) proposed.100 There is, however, nothing to suggest that Eubulus went in for large (p.364) scale capital investment in the mines, and one may presume that he was suitably cautious. Yet the notion of capital investment he may well have developed. This he could have done, not by eisphora (for Demosthenes could hardly have been silent about such a procedure) but by direct borrowing. Lycurgus certainly did this101 and, since it was desirable to get the economy moving quicker than the revenues allowed, he may well have raised money to finance the construction of καταγώγια and Page 18 of 34

Eubulus πωλητήρια.102 The main source of capital, ἀϕορμή, was no doubt the surpluses of the administration, and that is why Demosthenes bade the Athenians ταῖς πϵρıουσίαıς ταῖς οἴκοı ταύταις ἀϕορμαῖς ἐπὶ τὰ ἔξω τῶν ἀγαθῶν χρῆσθαι (iii 33), but in the early years Eubulus may have begun to practise what Xenophon preached and Lycurgus subsequently carried out on so large a scale. So much for economic measures, but there was another side to Eubulus ’ work for which the Revenues is no help, viz. the strengthening of Athens’ military forces, to which Dinarchus (i 96) refers. Ποῖαι γὰρ τρıήρϵıς ϵἰσὶ κατϵσκϵυασμὲναı διὰ τοῦτον (i.e. Demosthenes), ὥσπϵρ ἐπὶ Eὑβούλου, τῇ πόλϵι; ἢ ποῖοı νϵώσοıκοı τούτον πολıτϵυομένου γϵγόνασι; πότϵ οὗτος ἤ διὰ ψηϕίσματος ἤ νόμου ἐπηνώρθωσϵ τὸ ἱππικόν; τίνα κατϵσκϵύασϵ δύναμιν τοıούτων καιρῶν παραγϵνομéνων μϵτὰ τὴν ἐν Xαιρωνϵίᾳ μάχην, ἤ πϵζὴν ἤ ναυτικήν. Little, however, can be said to amplify this. It is clear, of course, that Eubulus economic measures in themselves must have had important effects for Athens’ military power. At the end of the Social War there could not have been anything like the forty talents which were due under the μϵρıσμός to the Knights,103 and in fact Xenophon explicitly said that they were not receiving τὰ πάτρια (Revenues vi 1); as a result it was difficult to find as many as a thousand citizens to take on the expense (Hipparch. ix 3f.) and the hipparch had either to argue young men into doing their duty or to apply the coercion of the courts (ibid., (p.365) i 9f.). Once the State could be counted on to pay its share, no doubt the cavalry force improved. Likewise, as Xenophon had predicted (Revenues iv 51–2), military training, and guard and patrol duty in Attica must have become efficient, and in general the city ϵὐπολϵμωτέρα, ἐϕ’ ἑκάστοις τῶν ἔργων τῆς τροϕης ἀποδιδομένης. But presumably Dinarchus had more in mind than this. The building of the docks and the Skeuotheke is adequately attested,104 but what of triremes or reform of the cavalry or the assembly of large military and naval forces? As to triremes, Dinarchus may be simply referring to the large increase in the navy between the Social War and Chaeronea. At the beginning of 357/6 Athens possessed 283 ships (IG ii2 1611l. 9); there were probably few built in the Social War, to judge by Demosthenes’ speech against Androtion, but by 353/2 there were 349 (IG ii2 1613 l. 302) and by 330/29 there were 392 (quite apart from quadriremes; IG ii2 1627 l. 269) some of which were no doubt built after 338, but in view of Dinarchus’ remarks perhaps not many. Thus in the period of Eubulus’ power the fleet was substantially increased, and, although mere increase of numbers was unimportant (for a fleet of 300 was surely ample for any conceivable emergency), the regular provision of new ships was essential if the city was to have an adequate number of seaworthy vessels. The dominance of Eubulus did not bring neglect of the navy. Yet Eubulus may have been more directly involved. Lying in the old Skeuotheke in 330/29 was a quantity of shipbuilding timber remaining ‘from what Eubulus bought’ (IG ii2 1627 ll. 352– 4). Presumably, as remarked above, this happened as part of the control of the Page 19 of 34

Eubulus νϵωρίων ἀρχή by the Theoric Commission, to which Aeschines (iii 25) referred. It suggests that Eubulus was actively concerned with the increase of the fleet as well as with the reorganisation of the naval services in the Peiraeus. Of reform of the cavalry there is no mention beyond Dinarchus. The only proposal heard of in this period is that advocated by Xenophon in the Hipparchicus (ix 3f.), to the effect that one-fifth of the cavalry should be made up of mercenaries, and Xenophon’s aim in this was more easily to keep the cavalry at full strength. There is, however, no evidence to suggest that this was put into effect. Indeed Philochorus’ account of Athenian aid to Olynthus in 348 (F. 51) (p. 366) suggests that by that date, at any rate, no such change had occurred.105 Tradition was probably too strong for such a change. So the allusion of Dinarchus must remain obscure. There may not have been much to the matter. Still more vague and less credible is Dinarchus’ suggestion that Demosthenes compared unfavourably with Eubulus in the preparation of strong military forces. Memories, politically speaking, were no longer at Athens than elsewhere, and it looks as if Dinarchus has simply forgotten the great achievements of Demosthenes in the late 340s. However, there may be something behind it. In the 330s the Treasurer of the Stratiotic Fund is found providing money ϵἰς τὰς Nίκ[ας καὶ] τὰ π[ομ]πϵῖα (IG ii2 1493 ll. 11, 16, 20); so he was probably administering a fund which had a regular income from other than direct levies of eisphora. When did this fund begin to receive regular amounts under the μϵρισμός? Elsewhere106 I have proposed that the Fund and its Treasurer were instituted in 378 and, if that is correct, it may also be true that from its inception some money was regularly assigned to the Fund; in which case Eubulus may have increased the amount the Fund received under the μϵρισμός. Alternately, he may have instituted such regular income. One of these two alternatives seems likely enough, and perhaps it is to this that Dinarchus’ extravagant words refer.107 Finally, there is to be mentioned one matter on which Dinarchus is silent because he could not belittle Demosthenes’ work, viz. the repair of the walls and defences of Athens (Aesch. iii 27–31). As the Revenues (vi 1) shows, the walls, like the docks, in 355 needed attention, and Eubulus was certainly active in this respect.108 Indeed the law, which survives fragmentarily as IG ii2 244, ascribed generally to 337/6 but without cogent reason,109 may well belong to the period of Eubulus, (p.367) or, if this were unacceptable, the ‘earlier law mentioned in line 13 may so belong. To sum up, scanty and conjectural as all this is, it is reasonably clear that Eubulus did not confine himself to a mere increase of the revenues of the State. All departments of the State ’ s activity benefited financially, and he did not neglect to prepare for war.

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Eubulus How seriously, then, did the system of Eubulus prevent Athens properly resisting Philip? Obviously the Council and the People were unable suddenly to seize upon the surpluses of the administration. Emergencies had to be met, as they traditionally had been, by ϵἰσϕοραί. But there was nothing to prevent any Athenian citizen seeking to have Eubulus laws changed or repealed by the normal process of νομοθϵσία. Demosthenes advocated just that in the Third Olynthiac (10f.). Although he demanded that those who had gained popularity by the institution of the laws should themselves incur the odium of their repeal, it is clear that he could perfectly well have sought to effect the repeal himself. The truth must be that hardly anyone in Athens wanted to change Eubulus ’ system. The evil, if evil there was, lay in the will of the People, not in the system, for the system could be swept away as soon as the People wished. Why did the People not accept Demosthenes opinion? The Theoric distributions, small as they were, were dear to Athenians and important enough to be called ‘the cement of the democracy (Plut., Mor. 1011 B), and the customary condemnations of Eubulus suggest that the People was not really free to choose but was corrupted by a paltry bribe into disregarding its duty. Such contempt of the People is not justified, but even if it were the case that the People was bribed into complacency it by no means follows that Eubulus ‘bribed for ill purposes and with disastrous results. All depends on the view taken of the policy followed by Athens under his leadership between 352 and 346. Later Athens either had peace or followed Demosthenes in bringing on the final conflict, and earlier Philip did not appear a menace, while in 352 Eubulus was strenuous in keeping Philip out of Phocis and ready to defend the Chersonese, just as in 346 he led the resistance to Philip while resistance was practicable. It is on Athenian policy over the war in the north that he must be judged. There are two views. Either, as Demosthenes wished, Athens had to commit her full military and financial power to fighting near Macedon, or she had, as Eubulus wished, to fight in defence of Greece. If the main contentions (p.368) advanced in this chapter and elsewhere are correct, namely that the war for Amphipolis was a ruinous luxury and that Athens did all in defence of Olynthus that she could reasonably have attempted, the financial system of Eubulus did not damage Athens’ resistance to Philip. The key to the understanding of the relations of Greece and Macedon is to be found not in the realm of morals and moral decline but in strategy and military power. Two things, however, confuse historical judgment. The first is that Demosthenes’ opponents must be judged almost entirely on what he says about them. The second is that Philip won the battle of Chaeronea: the policy of meeting Philip in Greece ended in disaster. These two things combine to suggest that the whole policy was ill-judged at least, perhaps even traitorous, and it is easy to pass to classifying politicians as pro- and anti-Macedonian. This may be improving, but it is not history. The truth is that with the rise of the national Page 21 of 34

Eubulus state the balance of power in the Greek world altered radically, and no one city state could hope on its own and in its own interests to check effectively the domination of Greece. Eubulus’ policy of abandoning mere war of conquest and seeking collective security was the only chance of success and it failed not because it was ill-judged but because the new national state was led by a great general. Instead of denouncing the opponents of Demosthenes, historians would do better to concentrate on the military skill whereby Philip was able to penetrate into Greece in 339/8 when politically he was excluded. Eubulus’ policy might well have saved Greece if Philip had not proved himself master of war as well as of politics. Notes:

My thanks are due to Mr D. M. Lewis both for help in the preparation of this paper and for allowing me to see a draft of an article on the powers and position of Eubulus and Lycurgus, on which subject we hold similar but differing views. (1) Motzki, Eubulos von Probalinthos und seine Finanzpolitik (1903), esp. 70f., followed Schaefer, Demosthenes und seine Zeit i2 186, 200, and 212 in condemnation. Beloch was exceptional in his favourable estimate (cp. GG iii2.1 486 and Att. Pol. 176f.), but even he regarded the Theoric distributions as disastrous (cp. GG iii2.1 344), and in general I have no sympathy for Beloch’s attitude to Athenian policies in this period. (2) Dem. xix 10, and 303f., etc. I have discussed the dating of these embassies and their relation to the negotiations of 346 in RÉG lxxiii (1960) 416f. (3) Pace Glotz, Rev. Hist., clxx (1935) 385f. (4) Aesch. iii 25 and Ar. AP 43.1, supported perhaps by Dem. xxiii 209 (οἱ τὰ κοινὰ δıοıκοῦντϵς), outweigh IG ii2 223 C l. 5, and Aesch. iii 24 and ii 149, which are no more than consistent with the office not being collegial. (5) IG ii2 1623 l. 35 and 1629 l. 484. (6) IG ii2 1628 l. 438 and 1629 l. 959. (7) Din. i 96 and Aesch. iii 25. (8) Dem. xix 116, Hyp. iv 29, Aesch. ii 6. (9) Cp. 1f. Dionysius of Halicarnassus does not furnish a date for the speech. 32 and 33 suggest that it is prior to the expedition against Megara of 350/49 (Philoch. F. 155) and belongs to the period of dispute over the border territory, which had certainly begun by 352 (IG ii2 204, a decree of late 352, which alludes in l. 55 to an earlier decree). Further it is to be noted that the speech alludes to the destruction of the democracy at Rhodes (8), but gives no hint of the appeal for help made in 351, nor does it refer to the stirring events of 352 and later, Page 22 of 34

Eubulus which eclipsed such trifles as the dispute with Megara and the appeal from Phlius (32). Blass Att. Bered. iii2 I 398f. assigned the speech to 353/2 (without the aid of the fragment of Philochorus). There is no justification for identifying the speech alluded to in 9 with the First Philippic, as Croiset did (Démosthène, Harangues i—Budé edition, 72). (10) As was known or inferred by the Scholiast to Dem. i 1 (= Dind. viii 33 l. 12). (11) Cp. Din. i 96 and Scholiast to Dem. iii 29 (= Dind. viii 133 ll. 19 and 27). (12) Eubulus is now known to have been one of the nine archons in 370/69 (Hesperia xxix [1960] 25) but this does not add anything of importance. (13) Dind. viii 133 l. 8. Schaefer, Demosthenes, 187, accepts the Scholiast, but with hesitation. Cp. Sealey, JHS lxxv (1955) 75. (14) Diod. xvi 37.3 and Aesch. ii 184. Cp. CQ xii (1962) 140 n. 1 (herein Ch. XVI, 395 n. 127). (15) Dem. xix 86 with Schol. (16) The Melanopus who went to Mausolus as ambassador (Dem. xxiv 12, etc.) was a relative of Diophantus (Harpocration s.v. ‘Melanopus’). (17) Schaefer, Demosthenes, i 205 supposed that Eubulus was an opponent of Diophantus, on the grounds that Eubulus is unlikely to have approved of the expensive expedition to Thermopylae in 352 (cp. Dem. xix 84) and that Demosthenes proposed in 343 to call Diophantus to give evidence against Aeschines (Dem. xix 198). But it is to be noticed that Demosthenes says he will ‘compel’ Diophantus; i.e. he must have been disinclined to help the prosecution. As to Thermopylae, apart from the connexion with Nausicles, there is no evidence and it is mere caricature to suppose that Eubulus opposed all expense. Cp. Beloch GG iii2 1 486 (‘Wo ein wirkliches Lebens-interesse Athens in Frage stand, hat Eubulus nicht gezögert, die ganze Macht des Staates einzusetzen. … Nur die nutzlose Zersplitterung der Kräfte suchte Eubulos zu hindern.’) (18) Dem. xxi 218 (with Scholiast), xix 291. (19) Dem. xix 293, Aesch. ii 73. Eubulus appears to have had a reputation for his ready recourse to the courts; cp. Dem. xxi 207 (τοὺς ἂλλους ῥᾳδίως κρίνων). (20) FGH 115 FF. 99, 100. (The words τὰς προσόδους καταμισθοϕορῶν in the latter fragment I take to refer to the expenditure on public works. Cp. Plut., Per. 12 ὃλην ποιοῦσιν ἔμμισθον τήν πόλίν.) (21) For Midias see Dem. xxi 205–7, for Phocion Aesch. ii 184, for Hegesileos Dem. xix 290. Page 23 of 34

Eubulus (22) Dem. v 5. But their hostility was perhaps of longer standing; cp. Dem. xxi 29 (ἐκϵίνῳ πολϵμῶ). They finally settled their dispute of Dionysia 348 some time after autumn 347 (cp. Sealey RÉG lxviii [1955] 96f.) perhaps as a result of the temporary alliance of various groups in 346. (23) Cp. Scholiast ad loc. (Dind. viii 132 ll. 19 and 27). (24) 206 προσκέκρουκϵν ἐμοί. (25) See n. 22. Stephanus who prosecuted Apollodorus in 348 ([Dem.] lix 5) was probably a supporter of Eubulus (ibid., 48), but the attack on Philocrates in the same year (cp. RÉG lxxiii [1960] 417 n. 2) was not sponsored by the same group: Aesch. ii 12 shows that some other group was responsible—one might guess Aristophon. Indeed, if Eubulus had been responsible, Aeschines could hardly have forborne to use the attack on Philocrates to help his proof that he had not collaborated with him. Thus the acquittal of Philocrates was not a defeat for Eubulus. (26) This is the contention of my article ‘Aeschines and the Peace of Philocrates’ in RÉG lxxiii (1960) 416–38. (27) Philocrates framed the peace and the work of steering it through the Assembly was left to his defender of 348, Demosthenes, whose role as real patron of the Peace is seen in his decrees of 6 Elaphebolion (Aesch. ii 46, iii 36, Dem. xix 234 and xviii 28), and again of 8 Elaph. when he made the first proposal of alliance with Philip (Aesch. ii 61, 65, 109f.), as well as provided for special seats for the Macedonians at the festival (Aesch. ii 55 and 110). His guidance was vital on the 18th and 19th (Dem. xix 144, 321, Aesch. iii 71f.). It would be proper to call it the Peace of Demosthenes. (28) Dem. xix 291. Cp. article cited in n. 26, p. 437. (29) For the elucidation of the events of Skirophorion 347/6 see my article in RÉG lxxv (1962). (30) Aesch. ii 8. By 330 Demosthenes was claiming that he had no part in the proceedings of 346 and ascribing everything to Aeschines, Philocrates, Eubulus, and Cephisophon (Dem. xviii 21)! Cp. 23 of the same speech for another piece of fantasy. (31) Theopompus F. 166. (32) Silver by more careful mining in Attica, timber by importation from Pontus and the West (cp. Michell, Economics of Ancient Greece, 278f.). Throughout this period of Macedonian control of Amphipolis, the number of ships was large and the Athenian navy did not suffer for want of timber.

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Eubulus (33) For this interpretation of [Dem.] vii 30–2 see Wüst, Philip II von Makedonien und Griechenland, 69f. (34) Andoc. iii 15 points to the recovery of the Chersonese, the colonies, the possessions (τὰ ἐγκτήματα) and the debts’ as a leading motive for continuing the war in 392/1, and these were the things renounced in 377 by the Decree of Aristotle. Cp. Isoc. xiv 44 καὶ τῶν κτημάτων τῶν ὑμϵτέρων αὐτῶν ἀπέστητϵ, βουλόμϵνοι τὴν συμμαχίαν ὡς μϵγίστην ποιῆσαι. Presumably τροϕὴ ἀπὸ κοıνοῦ were chiefly cleruchies. The fifth-century boundary stone found at Cos (Inscriptions of Cos, 160 no. 148) suggests that the island had other reasons than the proximity of Mausolus for joining the allies in revolt in 357. (35) Xen., Hell. iii 5.10, Aristophanes, Eccl. 197, Hell. Oxy. 1. The result was the renewal of alliance between Sparta and Persia and the formation of the King’s Peace. (36) See n. 92 for Xenophon’s notions on διωβϵλία. (37) See n. 33 and Dem. xviii 136 for Aeschines’ support for Python’s proposal; and [Dem.] xii 6 and Philoch. F. 157 for the response to Persia. (38) Cp. Momigliano, Annali della R. Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa N.S. v (1936) 109f. for all this paragraph. (39) CQ xii (1962) (herein Ch. XVI). (40) Cp. Isoc. To Philip 2. (41) Athenian Democracy, 34. (42) Göttingische Gelehrte Anzeigen (Phil.-Hist. Klasse) (1929) 156f. (43) The evidence does not justify the view of Francotte (Musée Belge xvii [1913] 69f.) that the Theoric distributions were really the old τὸ πρῶτον μὲν ἱκανὸν διωβολία in a new guise, i.e. a form of dole. Aristotle (Pol. 1267 B 1f.) speaking about men’s insatiability said μόνον, ὃταν δ’ἤδη τοῦτ’ ᾖ πάτριον, ἀϵὶ δέονται τοῦ πλϵίονος ἓως ϵἰς ἂπϵιρον ἕλθωσιν [sic] τροϕή and presumably he was referring to Athens, but he may well have had in mind not developments under Eubulus but the later administration of the Theoric Fund in the 330s: Plut. Mor. 818 EF suggests that on occasion large amounts were to be expected in distribution and Hyper. v 26 may be an instance. Nor is there any reason to suppose that Xenophon’s extravagant ideas about ‘διωβϵλία’ (ὀβϵλοὶ · οὓς ὁ δῆμος καθήμϵνος μισθόϕορϵι in the Revenues (below, n. 92) were ever put into effect. There is no good evidence to connect the Theoric distributions with more than the festivals (see Kahrstedt, op. cit., n. 42). Etym. Mag. s.v. τὰ θϵωρικά) is hardly of much

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Eubulus value. The two-obol dole, to the best of our knowledge, happened only in the last years of the Peloponnesian War (Bus.-Swob., Gr. St. 899 n. 5 for the evidence). (44) Quoted by Andreades, History of Greek Public Finance, 207. (45) Op. cit., pp. 16f. (46) Cp. Ferguson, Hellenistic Athens, 474f. (47) Hammond, History of Greece (1959) 531f. is their latest appearance. (48) Cp. Beloch, op. cit., 484 n. 6 for the effect of the law of Hegemon. The law was passed before 335/4 (IG ii2 1628 l. 300); cp. Bus.-Swob., Gr. St., 1043 n. 1 and see n. 52. Hegemon was an opponent of Demosthenes (Dem. xviii 285) and presumably his law sought to curtail the power of the office in which Demosthenes was established in 337/6. (49) Eubulus is connected with καλῶς καὶ δικαίως ἐπϵμϵλήθη ὧν αὐτῶι ἡ βουλὴ προσ[έταζϵν] τῆς τϵ δıοıκήσϵως τῆι βονλῆι καὶ τῆς ϵὐκοσμίας μϵτὰ τῶν πρυτάνϵων and Theoric distributions in Schol. Aesch. iii 25, Theopompus F. 99, Schol. Dem. x 11 (Dind. 203 l. 21), and with the building programme in Schol. Dem. iii 29 (Dind. 133) and Din. i 96, which appears to have been the concern of the Theoric Commission (Aesch. iii 25, Philoch. F. 56a). (50) Aesch. iii 25. The Eudoxus honoured in IG ii2 223 B and C by the Council because he ἄρχϵιν δὲ τὰς μὲν κατὰ πόλϵμον ἀρχὰς ἔξϵστι πλϵονάκις, τῶν δ’ ἄλλων οὐδϵμίαν, πλὴν βονλϵῦσαι δίς was presumably an official concerned with the affairs of the Council alone. (51) AP 62.3 μὴ πλϵίω πέντϵ ἐτῶν διέπϵιν τὸν χϵιροτονηθέντα ἐπὶ τὰ δημόσια χρήματα. (52) Whether Lewis’s suggestion that the law alluded to by Plutarch (Mor. 841 C Γ) is the law of Hegemon (above, n. 48) is accepted or not, the fact that there was such a law suggests that re-election in some financial office had previously been permitted. (53) Jacoby, Commentary on Philochorus F. 33 follows Bus.-Swob., Gr. St., 899 and Schwahn RE v A. 2 col. 2233f. in treating the Theoric distributions as Periclean—a view mainly deriving not so much from the fact that Philochorus possibly discussed Theoric distributions in Book iii of his Atthis (for there are good grounds for amending this numeral to vi, i.e. δραχμὴ χαλαζῶσα’ (ἐπὶ Διοϕάντου—αrchon 395/4—τὸ θϵωρικὸν ἐγένϵτο δραχμή to F—cp. Jacoby, Commentary) as from Plutarch’s attribution (Per. 9) and the entry in Hesychius, s.v. ‘μισθοϕορία) implying that there had been Theoric distributions earlier. Kahrstedt (loc. cit. in n. 42) argues for their institution after 362, for which he cites Justin vi 9.2. I prefer the late date. The silence of Aristophanes in the Page 26 of 34

Eubulus Ecclesiazusae and the Plutus is strong in support of Kahrstedt, and the evidence for an early date is far from cogent; Plut., Per. 9 is rather general, the Scholiast to Aeschines iii 24 precise but of questionable authority, and the citation from Philochorus, whose full account would have resolved our doubts, is disquieting. For, when quoting this fragment, Harpocration also said that Agyrrhius began distributions; so either he had not read Philochorus carefully or Philochorus did not say that Pericles began the Theoricon. I prefer the latter. After all, the institution was of great interest to Aristotle’s generation and surely he would have mentioned it if Pericles had begun the distributions. Pericles was the first to provide pay for jurors (AP 27.3) and he provided money for all in the form of wages under the building programme as he said in answer to Thucydides, son of Melesias (Plut., Per. 12) and this was enough, perhaps, to excite an excursus from Philochorus on ἐπὶ Διοϕάντου and to mislead other less exact writers. As for Harpocration’s remark about Agyrrhius, it seems better to relate it to his introduction of pay for attendance at the Assembly (AP 41.3) to which the Ecclesiazusae refers so often than to the Theoricon, of which it has not a word. Athens did not have money for such luxuries in the Corinthian war, certainly not σıτοδϵία παρὰ πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποις, 395/ 4, and for this reason the explanation of the notice in Hesychius given by Beloch (Att. Pol. 180 n. 4) is probably the right one, viz. that it relates to the distributions made by Diophantus the Sphettian (cp. Schol. Aesch. iii 24). These are substantially the arguments set out by J. van Ooteghen in Études Classiques i (1932) 388, who also followed Kahrstedt in taking Justin vi 9.1f. as evidence that the distributions began after Mantinea. But from 362 to the law establishing the use of the surpluses for the Theoricon Athens was continually at war and money was probably not available for distributions. It seems therefore better to suppose that the whole institution began in 355 or soon after. But this view is not essential to the argument developed in the text. (54) For Philinus see RE xix 2 col. 2175f. (55) Even those who date the institution of the Theoricon to the fifth century do not necessarily suppose that the Commission pre-dates Eubulus. Cp. Schwahn, RE v A. 2 col. 2233f. (56) This is discussed in my article ‘Demosthenes and the Stratiotic Fund’ Mnemosyne (1962) 377ff. (57) In the drought of 361 wells dried up ([Dem.] 1. 61). In 357/6 there was a ἐπιμϵληταὶ τῶν νϵωρίων (Dem. xx 33), perhaps due to drought. The water supply of Athens may have needed special attention in 355. (58) In his commentary on this passage.

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Eubulus (59) Jones, op. cit., 33f. appears to assume this in belittling the importance of the Theoricon. (60) For a statement of how the surpluses arose see Francotte, Les finances, 151f. (61) They were functioning in 346 at any rate (IG ii2 212 l. 43). (62) IG ii2 1621 is a navy-list of the early 340s of the normal sort. IG ii2 1622 of 342/1 is exceptional in form and Mr D. M. Lewis argues that it was drawn up not by the ἐπιμϵληταί but by some other body and, along with other evidence, indicates that the ἐπιμϵληταὶ τῶν νϵωρίων had been temporarily superseded. Discussion of this view must wait until he has published it, but to my mind the onus of proof will be very much on those who claim that this is not a document of the ἐπιμϵληταὶ τῶν νϵωρίων for no matter how much the Theoric Commission interfered in the finances of the navy, the routine work of the docks had to go on and this probably required a board of officials concerned solely with it. That is, the Theoric Commission could only control, not supersede, and, until cogent arguments to the contrary appear, it is reasonable to suppose that the ἀντιγραϕϵύς continued to function in the late as in the early 340s. (63) The supersession of theἀντιγραϕϵύς has often been remarked. He is missing from IG ii2 223 C (of 343/2) where one would have expected to find him and Aesch. iii 25 says that before the law of Hegemon his functions were exercised by the Theoric Commission: presumably he was superseded. Cp. Bus.-Swob., Gr. St., 1043 n. 1. The occurrence of an antigrapheus in IG ii2 244 l. 23 does not argue against this view; the date of this inscription is often given as 337/6 but it may well belong to the 350s (below, n. 109). Nor is the value of Aeschines’ remark to be impugned by pointing out that he speaks as if the ἀντιγραϕϵύς did not exist in 330 when IG ii2 1700 l. 217 shows that he did exist in 335/4; for after the law of Hegemon the χϵıροτονητὸς τῇ πόλϵι κ.τ.λ though he existed, was not important and Aristotle has nothing to say about him in the Ath. Pol. (but see Jacoby ad Philoch. F. 198); he was just no longerχϵıροτονητὸς τῇ πόλϵι κ.τ.λ In this note I am especially indebted to Mr D. M. Lewis. (64) Aesch. iii 27f., esp. 28 where Aeschines tries to deal with the imagined objection of Demosthenes ὡς οὔτ’ ἔλαχϵ τϵιχοποιὸς οὔτ’ ἐχϵιροτονήθη ὑπτ’ τοῦ δήμου. (65) Schol. Dem. iii 29 (= Dind. viii 133). (66) Cp. Dem. xx 137 for both Diophantus and Eubulus busying themselves with finance at the same time.

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Eubulus (67) Some confirmation of this is to be found in Ar., Pol. 1267 B 18—ἀλλ’ ϵἴπϵρ δϵῖ δημοσίους ϵἶναι τοὺς τὰ κοıνὰ ἐργαζομένους, δϵῖ – – – ὡς Διόϕαντός ποτϵ κατϵσκϵύαζϵν ’Aθήνησι, τοῦτον ἔχϵιν τὸν τρόπον. When did he provide the city with these δημόσιοι τϵχνῖται? Xenophon in the Revenues makes no mention of them despite his advocacy of the idea of having them. So probably Diophantos did it after the treatise was written, perhaps even as a result of it. (68) Mr D. M. Lewis’s article will establish as a basis for future discussion of Lycurgus’ position that the man who was elected [ἐ]πὶ τὴν δι[οίκησιν τῶ]ν αὑτοιῦ ἄπασαν [ταμ] ίας in Hyper. v 28 was Demosthenes as Theoric Commissioner. (69) Cp. ‘The Defence of Olynthus’ CQ xii (1962) 130f. (herein Ch. XVI). Part iii following Kahrstedt, Forschungen, 61, on the dating of the Third Olynthic. (70) Decision by δıαχϵıροτονία on some minor matters was normal, and possible in major questions, e.g. IG ii2 28. (Cp. Bus.-Swob., Gr. St., 1000 n. 4.) So no inference can be drawn from its use in 348, though it may well have been that this somewhat unusual procedure stemmed from fear of the consequences under the laws governing the Theoric Fund. (71) These words came in the manuscripts in 9 where they are ‘alienissima’, and were inserted by Sauppe in 5 where the scribe of S has marked a lacuna in the middle of the paragraph. It seems to be the custom of most orators of the period to give corroborative detail. So towards the end of 5 some amplification of ψϵυδϵῖς μάρτυρας might be expected; in 9, even without the words moved by Sauppe, αἰτίαν ψϵυδῆ is fully amplified. Possibly the false accusation from 5 was written in the margin of 9 as a parallel, and got incorporated later. This note repeats in substance the opinion of Mr A. N. Bryan-Brown who concludes that ‘if a place has to be found for the vagabond clause, Sauppe has probably found the best, but that more than probability is not possible’. (72) Francotte, Les finances, 219f. long ago clearly, if briefly, stated the view, that it was the Theoric laws which checked Demosthenes. (73) What precisely was the subject of the debate to which this speech belonged? Not the institution of the restriction on the use of the surpluses, for that is presupposed in the speech, but presumably some enlargement of the sphere of influence of the Theoric Commission or the introduction of some law like IG ii2 244. (74) Op. cit., 208. Motzki, Eubulos von Probalinthos, 75 and Pickard-Cambridge, Demosthenes, 127 reject the Scholiast. (75) H. Weil, Revue de Philologie N.S. iii (1879) and E. Radüge, Zur Zeitbestimmung des euböischen und olynthischen Krieges (1908). Page 29 of 34

Eubulus (76) Xen. Revenues v 12 ἐπϵὶ δὲ ϵἰρήνη κατὰ θάλατταν γϵγένηται … i.e. war remains elsewhere; Dem. xxiv 95 τοῖς τοῦ πολέμου καιροῖς; Dem. xxiii 107–9; SIG3 196 l. 40; and above all the whole First Philippic. (77) Some have put the Third Olynthiac after Apollodorus’ motion (e.g. Pokorny, Studien, 118f.) but no one, to my knowledge, since Radüge, Zur Zeitbestimmung, set the chronology right, has attempted to post-date the First. (78) Is it conceivable in view of Athens’ bitter experience of what could happen as the result of military operations in the Hellespont that she should not regard a war that constantly threatened the Chersonese as not really a war? (79) For chronology of the Euboean War see ‘The Defence of Olynthus’ CQ xii (1962) 127f. (herein Ch. XVI, pp. 377f.) (80) ‘Demosthenes and the Stratiotic Fund’ Mnemosyne (1962) 377ff. (81) Commentary on Philoch. F. 157 p. 532. (82) For the procedure of νομοθϵσία see Hignett, History of the Athenian Constitution, 299f. (83) Cp. Motzki, Eubulos von Probalinthos, 79f. (84) Perhaps Demosthenes’ trierarchic law (Dem. xviii 102, etc.) reflects an increase in individual fortunes which had made reform of the law of Periander necessary. (85) x 37. There has been general concord in referring this passage to the end of the Social War but it may be worthwhile to set out the grounds for doing so since Didymus comments (8.49) ϵἴη ἂν οὗτος ὁ καıρός, ἐν ᾧι πϵρ[ὶ] Aἰγὸς ποταμοὺς ἡττηθέντϵς ἐτα[π]ϵινώθησαν καὶ ϵἰς βραχὺ ὁ δῆμος συνϵστάλη τῶν ὲξω[τ] ικῶν προ[σ]όδων πϵρικοπϵισῶν [.σ]αϕὲς δὲ τοῦτ[ο] ποıήσϵı followed by a gap twice as long which must have contained the grounds for his statement. My reasons for differing from Didymus are as follows: (a) A study of all instances of πάλαι in the genuine speeches of Demosthenes shows that it is unlikely that he would have used οὐ πάλαι to refer to the end of the Peloponnesian War. Indeed, he normally used πάλαι to refer to fairly recent events although he of course used it for events as early as 403 and twice for events still earlier. Οὐ πάλαι (where the two go closely together, as here in x 37) he used to mean ἐπ’ ἐμοῦ. Cp. iii 2 καὶ μαλ’ ἀκρıβῶς οἶδα· ἐπ’ ἐμοῦ γάρ, οὐ πάλαι γέγονϵν– –. At xv 2 οὐ πάλαι is used in 351 to refer to the Social War. There is one case where a longer period is involved, xxiv 138 οὐ πάλαι ἀλλ’ ἐπ’ Eὐάνδρου ἄρχοντος, i.e. in 353/2 or 382/1, but the point remains that by οὐ πάλαι he means in the lifetime of either himself or his audience. Cp. xviii 100 ἐξόδους καὶ πάλαι γϵγονυίας καὶ νῦν ἐϕ’ ἡμῶν αὐτῶν. In 341 comparatively few would be present in the assembly with lively memories of 405. Such a date for Demosthenes would be πάλαι, certainly not οὐ πάλαι, and Page 30 of 34

Eubulus more certainly still, not οὐ πάλαι with ἐποıοῦμϵν. (b) When Demosthenes alluded to events before his own lifetime, it was his custom, where he did not cite documentary evidence as at, e.g. xix 276, and xx 77, to avoid seeming to talk authoritatively about things beyond his direct knowledge by using phrases such as ‘I have heard’ or ‘you all know’, e.g. xx 11, 52, 68, 73. I have collected 15 examples. Sometimes he alludes directly to events before his lifetime—ix 23, xiii 21f., xviii 96, xix 191 and 263, xx 59 and 60 are the cases I have collected. With some of these, for various reasons, his apologetic manner would have been either unnecessary or inappropriate but the important point is that in none of them does he use the first person, as ἐποıοῦμϵν here. So the absence of his customary introduction together with the use of the first person combine to show that he is speaking of his own lifetime. (c) Τριήρϵις ἔπλϵον – – – πάντ’ ἐποıοῦμϵν τὰ δέοντα come suitably from the volunteer trierarch of 357 (Dem. xxi 161, etc.), but are quite inappropriate to the period after Aegospotami when Athens was first blockaded and then deprived of ships. I apologise for labouring what has seemed to many obvious, but teaching experience has shown that it is not always so. (86) For the decemviral commission to collect arrears of ϵἰσϕορά see Dem. xx 1, 42, 44, 48f.; xxiv 8, 11f., 160–75, 197. For similar activities by the ἐπιμϵληταὶ τῶν νϵωρίων see Dem. xxii 63. By the end of the Social War the State was virtually bankrupt (cp. Dem. xx 24, 115; xxiii 209) and the national festivals were in jeopardy—hence Aristophon’s commission (Dem. xxiv 11) and the law of Timocrates. (87) Cp. 19, etc. Agriculture and overseas trade were depressed, as were ταῖς ἄλλαις ἐργασίαις ἐπιχϵιροῦντϵς, αἳ νῦν διὰ τὸν πόλϵμον ἐκλϵλοίπασιν (20) and traders and aliens, resident and non-resident alike, had left the city (21). Most significant is Isocrates’ proposal to plant colonies in Thrace (24). In the Panegyricus his hope had been that the poverty of Greece could be cured by occupying part of the Persian Empire (166), and in the letter To Philip the same idea recurs (5) as in the Panathenaicus (14). That is, like other Panhellenists (cp. Xen. Anab. iii 2.25f.), he looked forward to the colonies of Alexander as the cure for Greece’s economic ills, but in 355 the condition of Athens was such that he for the moment was prepared to settle Thrace and yield to the Persian ultimatum. (88) There is no evidence of what the city’s revenue had been in the first half of the century but probably in 346 it was higher than it had been at any time since the prosperity of the fifth century. (89) For the relation of Xenophon and Eubulus the commonly cited fragment of Istros (FGH 334 F. 33), which says that Xenophon was exiled and recalled by decrees moved by the same Eubulus, is of no importance whatsoever: if it is Page 31 of 34

Eubulus correct, it cannot have been our Eubulus, for the early 390s is too early for him, and the common assumption that Xenophon was recalled about 370 is without foundation—a better case could perhaps be made out for 387/6. The real reasons for supposing that Xenophon and Eubulus were associated are first that the Revenues, like Isocrates’ On the Peace, with which it has strong affinities (cp. Momigliano, Annali, n. 38), provides a theoretical exposition of the advantages of the policy actually pursued by Eubulus, and secondly that the parallels between the proposals of Xenophon and the brief account of Dinarchus (i 96) are too strong to be mere chance (cp. Thiel, op. cit., xxiiif.). (90) In JHS lxxv (1955) 76 B. R. I. Sealey sought to revive the long unfashionable view that the Revenues is to be dated after the Peace of Philocrates. He based this on the statement in v 12 that ‘since there has been peace on sea, the city’s revenues have been increased’. But this is, strictly, heresy. The whole work is concerned with Athens’ impoverishment and how to overcome it and by 346 the city was no longer impoverished. Thus to dwell on the statement at v 12 is to exalt it at the expense of the whole. Thiel, op. cit., viiif. rightly and firmly placed the work at the end of the Social War. There is ϵἰρήνη κατὰ θάλατταν (i.e. with the allies)—and war elsewhere presumably (the North as well as the Sacred War, v 9)—but the peace is very recent (cp. ἐν τῷ νῦν πολέμῳ iv 40 and see Thiel, viii); it is not clear that the statement about the increase of revenues could not be made in 355, even if it suited 346 better—which to my mind it does not. (91) Schwahn, Rh. Mus., lxxx (1931) argued that Eubulus was actually the author, and was answered by Wilhelm, Wiener Studien lii (1934) 18f. Thiel’s demonstration that the work is Xenophontic (op. cit., xiiif.) stands. (92) He means to buy up to three times as many slaves as citizens (iv 17), from ϵἰσϕοραί (iii 7), for a return of 3 obols a day per citizen (iii 9 and 10)—so there would be ἱκανην πᾶσιν Ἀθηναίοις τροϕὴν ἀπὸ κοινοῦ (iv 33), an affluent society! Wilhelm, Wiener Studien lii (1934), denied that Xenophon had in mind direct distributions and that τροϕή would only come as payment for performance of duties; iii 9 and 10 prove him wrong. (93) Staatshaushaltung3 i 698f. (94) The tax was 12 dr. for men and 6 dr. for women who did not have husband or son at work (Pollux 3.55 μέτοικος ὁ τὸ μϵτοίκıον σντϵλῶν [τοῦτο δ’ ἦν] ιβ′ τῷ δημοσίῳ δραχμαὶ καὶ τῷ γραμματϵῖ τριώβολον and Harpocration, s.v. ‘μϵτοίκιον). Cp. Bus.-Swob., Gr. St., 984 n. 7. At the end of the century there were said to be 10,000 metics (Ath. vi 272c). (95) Early grants in IG i2 110.30, and ii2 53; grants later than the Social War IG ii2 130, 132, 206, 287, 342, 343, 351, 360, 373, etc.

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Eubulus (96) Din. i 96. SIG3 1216 is a mid-fourth-century lease of some buildings in the Piraeus and shows that something like an 8 per cent return was to be expected on money invested there (cp. Isaeus xi 42). For a collection of evidence on hostels see E. Ziebarth in Eἰς μνήμην Σπυρ. Λάμπρου (Athens, 1935) 343f. (97) [Dem.] vii 12, AP 59.5, Pollux 8.63, Harpocration s.v. αἳ τϵ ἐμπορικαί καὶ ἐρανικαί, Dem. xxxiii 23. (98) Not solely by any means (cp. Wilhelm, Wiener Studien lii (1934) 31f.), but the discussion of the mines played a large part in Xenophon’s treatise and his expectations were practically unlimited. (99) Cp. Hopper, BSA xlviii (1953) 251 and n. 376 for suggestion that the exemption mentioned in [Dem.] xiii 17–19 was due to Eubulus. (100) Ar., Pol. 1267 b 18 and see n. 67. (101) Plut., Mor. 852 B πολλὰ δὲ τῶν ἰδιωτῶν διὰ πίστϵως λαβὼν, καὶ προδανϵίσας καὶ ϵἰς τοὺς τῆς πόλϵως καιροὺς καὶ τοῦ δήμου τὰ πάντα ἑξακόσια καὶ πϵντήκοντα τάλαντα—(but for the numeral cp. 841 D). Cp. IG ii2 333 C ll. 7 and 9 προδϵδανϵισμένα. (102) Demosthenes’ charges that his opponents have become rich quickly may relate to profitable investment in State enterprises (iii 29, xxiii 209) although he may have no more in mind than Isocrates (viii 127) in slandering Eubulus’ predecessors. Perhaps Moerocles’ sly dig (Ar., Rhet. 1411 a 15) was directed at Eubulus and the profitableness of lending to the State (cp. Rhet. 1376 a 10). (103) Xen., Hipparch. i 19, Dem. xxiv 97. Also see Wilhelm, Wiener Studien lii (1934) 34 and 52 on fragments of Lysias, Against Theozotides in Hibeh Papyri i 49ff. n. 14. (104) Aesch. iii 25, IG ii2 505, Philoch. F. 56a. Xen. Revenues vi 1 anticipates the work. (105) Dem. xxi 132 makes a similar impression. (106) ‘Demosthenes and the Stratiotic Fund’ Mnemosyne (1962) 337ff. (107) I see no reason for believing that the ταμίας τῶν στρατιωτικῶν did not exist before Eubulus. See article cited in previous note. (108) Dem. iii 29 with Schol.; xiii 30; xxiii 208. (109) F. G. Maier, Griechische Mauerbauinschriften I Heidelberg (1959) 40 discusses the date and decides that ‘337/6 remains the most probable date’, but the only reason for putting it in that year is the known activity of Demosthenes (Aesch. iii 27–31). On the other hand, Eubulus did something about the walls and Page 33 of 34

Eubulus there is no reason epigraphic or historical why the inscription should not belong to his period. Cp. Aesch. i 80 for Timarchus’ speech about repair of walls in 347/6.

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The Defence of Olynthus

Cyrene to Chaeronea: Selected Essays on Ancient Greek History George Cawkwell

Print publication date: 2011 Print ISBN-13: 9780199593286 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199593286.001.0001

The Defence of Olynthus George Cawkwell

DOI:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199593286.003.0017

Abstract and Keywords Demosthenes prophesied that, unless Athens stopped Philip in the north, she would have to deal with him in Greece itself, and the events of 346 proved him right. Right in this much, he has been presumed right in general, and the policies of those he opposed have received only scant consideration before being dismissed as the selfish pursuit of peace by the rich, who were so blinded by their material interests that they could not see the real issues involved. This chapter questions, from a purely military standpoint, the soundness of Demosthenes' policy. It argues that in so far as Eubulus opposed Demosthenes' proposals for the conduct of the Olynthian war, Eubulus happened to be, strategically speaking, right. Keywords:   Demosthenes, Athens, Philip, Greece, Olynthian war, Eubulus

Demosthenes prophesied that, unless Athens stopped Philip in the north, she would have to deal with him in Greece itself, and the events of 346 proved him right.1 Right in this much, he has been presumed right in general, and the policies of those he opposed have received only scant consideration before being dismissed as the selfish pursuit of peace by the rich, who were so blinded by their material interests that they could not see the real issues involved.2 It is the purpose of this article to question, from a purely military standpoint, the soundness of Demosthenes’ policy. First, however, as always with Demosthenic questions, it is necessary to answer some questions of fact.

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The Defence of Olynthus (p.370) I. The First Philippic Ever since 1893, when Schwartz3 delivered his attack on the dating of the first Philippic by Dionysius of Halicarnassus,4 scholars have been divided on the question, and Schwartz has had a considerable following.5 His attack was twofold; first, a destructive criticism of Dionysius’ methods and limitations, and then an attempt to date the speech in 349 after Philip had begun the war which ended in the destruction of Olynthus. For convenience, whenever I have named a month of the Athenian calendar I have inserted in Roman numerals which month of the year it is. Whatever may be said of Dionysius’ dating, it should be clear that the speech does not belong where Schwartz sought to put it. First, Demosthenes alludes only once to Olynthus, and in a casual fashion at that (ταύτας ἀπò τῆς οἰκϵίας χώρας αὐτοῦ στρατϵίας ϵἰς Πύλας καὶ Xϵρρόνησον καὶ Ὄλυνθον καὶ ὅποι βούλϵται § 17). If the occasion of the speech had been Philip’s attack on Olynthus, surely that fact would have dominated the speech just as it dominates the Olynthiacs, and Demosthenes could not have treated it as just another incident. Indeed once Olynthus was attacked the city had every reason to seek Athenian alliance to which earlier it had professed itself not disinclined,6 but neither does the speech contain any hint of an appeal from Olynthus, nor, more seriously, does Demosthenes suggest that Athens should now send an embassy to make an alliance, although it is clear from the Olynthiacs that there was a strong body of opinion at Athens in favour of alliance before Olynthus offered it.7 The explanation must be that the war had not yet begun. Secondly, the emphasis (p. 371) of the speech is on preparation: the proposals are designed to enable Athens to act in time whenever a major crisis arises, and in the meantime to harry Philip with a small force which can admittedly do no more than make piratical raids (οὐκ ἔνι νῦν ἡμῖν πορίσασθαι δύναμιν τὴν ἐκϵίνῳ παραταξομένην ἀλλὰ λῃστϵύειν ἀνάγκη § 23). But if Philip had already attacked Olynthus, there was already a major crisis, and one far more serious than Methone, Pagasae, or Potidaea, calling not for preparation against possible future dangers, but action in the present. The whole nature of Demosthenes’ proposals shows that the attack on Olynthus had not yet begun. Thirdly, Demosthenes is very vague about how his standing light force is to act. Apart from the general commission to pillage just mentioned, there is nothing at all specific. Ποῖ οὖν προσορμιούμϵθ’; ἤρϵτό τις. ϵὑρήσϵι τὰ σαθρά, ὦ ἄνδρϵς Ἀθηναῖοι, τῶν ἐκϵίνου πραγμάτων αὐτòς ὁ πόλϵμος, ἂν ἐπιχϵιρῶμϵν (§ 44). After the war between Olynthus and Macedon had begun, such vagueness is inconceivable. The most important thing would have been the defence of Olynthus and the maintenance of its port, Mecyberna, and the next thing would have been the distraction of Philip by co-operating with Olynthian forces in attacking Macedonian territory. Demosthenes had sufficient strategic sense not to furnish silly answers to silly questions. The strategic situation he is discussing is not war between Olynthus and Philip. Finally, the attack on Olynthus in 349 was precisely what Athens had hoped for:8 it gave her Page 2 of 28

The Defence of Olynthus an ally of great value both in military power and as a base of operations and the news of that attack could hardly have produced despondency in Athens. Yet it is with an attack on a mood of despondency that Demosthenes begins his speech. Πρῶτον μὲν οὖν οὐκ ἀθυμητέον, ὦ ἄνδρϵς Ἀθηναῖοι, τοῖς παροῦσι πράγμασι, οὐδ’ ϵἰ πάνυ ϕαύλως ἔχϵιν δοκϵῖ.9 For these reasons Schwartz’s attribution of the speech to 349 should be abandoned. The attack on Olynthus, to which the speech alludes, cannot be that which began the war, and, despite all the words that have been spent on the silence of our sources, there must have been an earlier attack.10 (p.372) There is one point which Schwartz thought confirmed his dating and which must be reconsidered. In § 34 Demosthenes speaks of attacks on Lemnos and Imbros, and on shipping off the southern end of Euboea, and finally of a raid at Marathon as a result of which the Sacred Trireme was captured. These operations Schwartz referred to the very situation described by Aeschines (2. 72f.) and alluded to by the speaker in Demosthenes 59. 3; and from this latter passage he inferred that Aeschines was talking about events of 349/8. Thus he found confirmation for his date for the first Philippic. This argument rests on a misunderstanding of the passage in Demosthenes. The speaker there is contrasting the two alternatives before Athens at the time when she was debating whether to intervene πανδημϵί, as he claimed, in Euboea and Olynthus (§ 4): either she could gain victory, recover τὰ ὑμέτϵρα (i.e. Amphipolis, etc.), wholly defeat Philip, and become the greatest power in Greece, or she could be too late to save Olynthus, abandon her allies to destruction, gain the reputation of faithlessness, and run the risk of losing what remained of her possessions, Lemnos, Imbros, Scyros, and the Chersonese. Clearly the speaker means that the danger of losing these places was consequent on the failure to save Olynthus, and the natural interpretation is that, once Philip had dealt with Olynthus, he turned to other matters which touched Athens more directly. That is, he is speaking of the period between the fall of Olynthus and the Peace of Philocrates, the period which Aeschines was discussing.11 So, unless one is prepared to accept Dionysius’ ascription of the second half of the first Philippic to 347/6, there is no reason to identify the raids of § 34 of that speech with the dangers spoken of by Aeschines, and certainly under no conditions is there reason for referring them to 349/8. Indeed there is some positive evidence that they belong earlier. Both Philochorus12 and Androtion13 appear to have recounted the incident concerning the Sacred Trireme, and, although there is no (p.373) precise indication of date in the case of Philochorus, Androtion is of some help: he dealt with this incident in his sixth book, and the seventh covered 350/49 and possibly even 353/2. So this Marathon incident14 at least has nothing to do with the period to which Schwartz assigned it, and, if he could land at Marathon, he could certainly manage the other raids listed in § 34 in the earlier period. So Schwartz’s identification and dating of the events of § 34 is singularly

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The Defence of Olynthus unfounded and should neither detain us nor deter us from rejecting his date for the first Philippic.15 It is easy to reject Schwartz’s date, but to find the true date is at least difficult. One minor obstacle may be removed. Schwartz remarked:16 ‘I will leave to the supporters of the so-called tradition the unenviable task of giving a consistent account of how the speech On the Liberty of the Rhodians which is set by the tradition in the archonship of Theellus (351/0) can be later than the first Philippic.’ In the course of that speech, while belittling the menace of Persia, Demosthenes remarked ὁρῶ δ’ ὑμῶν ἐνίους Φιλίππου μὲν ὡς ἄρ’ οὐδϵνòς ἀξίου πολλάκις ὀλιγωροῦντας, βασιλέα δ’ ὡς ἰσχυρòν ἐχθρòν οἷς ἂν προέληται ϕοβουμένους (§ 24), and Schwartz implied that after the first Philippic, in which ‘the Macedonian appears for the first time as the national menace’ and which ‘opened the long series of classic attacks by the great orator who reached the height of his art and powers only when he had found his great opponent’,17 it is not possible that Demosthenes could refer to Philip in so casual a fashion. This is no real difficulty. Schwartz himself unwittingly supplies the answer in his next sentence: ‘Demosthenes was much too good an orator to adopt this tone against Philip, if he had not been sure that he (p.374) was echoing popular opinion.’ By the date of the Rhodian appeal in winter 351/018 fourteen months19 had passed without a new move by Philip, whereas the danger of Persia had begun to make itself felt once more. Not only had Artaxerxes, shortly before the campaign to Egypt, sent money to Thebes20 wherewith to continue the Sacred War, but the prospect of a Persian victory in Egypt was truly alarming. For if he restored his own house, the King, whose threat had ended the Social War to Athens’s disadvantage,21 and whose preparations three years earlier had caused great uneasiness in Athens,22 would be free to reassert himself as patron of a new King’s Peace. These were the real fears in winter 351/0 against which Demosthenes had to argue; a tirade against Philip would by no means have served his purpose. It is in any case naive to suppose that once Demosthenes had begun to attack Philip he could never relax. After all, after the first Philippic and the Olynthiacs he undertook the defence of Philocrates who was prosecuted for his proposal to negotiate with Philip for peace in mid 348,23 and presumably on that occasion he tempered his abuse. The politician who could in 346 propose a decree about special seats for the Macedonian embassy at the Dionysia24 knew how to trim the sails of his oratory before the winds of his own passion, if indeed they blew constantly. (p.375) Unless the dating of Dionysius for the first Philippic is accepted, no solution of the problem is likely to command universal assent; there is no overwhelming case against a date in 350. Yet there are grounds for associating the speech, as Focke suggested,25 with the expedition of Charidemus in October 351. The latest event mentioned in the speech that can be dated is Philip’s march to Heraeum Teichos in November 352,26 but some time has evidently elapsed since that crisis and Demosthenes is speaking at a time when there is no Page 4 of 28

The Defence of Olynthus question either of urgent aid to any particular danger-point27 or of alliance and when Athens seems to be doing very little about the war in the north. The lull between the decree of November 352 and the departure of Charidemus ten months later seems a suitable context for the speech. A force is, however, to be sent out (τῇ νυνὶ βοηθϵίᾳ § 14). Is this Charidemus’ expedition? He sailed out with ten triremes for which he had to find his own crews without the help of the state,28 and the demand for service in person is central to the speech. Although it cannot be proved, it seems reasonable to suppose that Demosthenes is attacking a proposal to send out a force with ‘empty’ ships. In §§ 43f. he says: καὶ τριήρϵις κϵνὰς καὶ τὰς παρὰ τοῦ δϵῖνος ἐλπίδας ἂν ἀποστϵίλητϵ, πάντ’ ἔχϵιν οἴϵσθϵ καλῶς; οὐκ ἐμβησόμϵθα; οὐκ ἔξιμϵν αὐτοὶ μέρϵι γέ τινι στρατιωτῶν οἰκϵίων νῦν, εἰ καὶ μὴ πρότϵρον; In § 45 he speaks of sending out στρατηγòν καὶ ψήϕισμα κϵνόν. That is, he is opposing the ψήφισμα κϵνόν which would send out a general but no citizens, and he has accordingly to defend himself against the charge of delaying the expedition. Such was the interpretation of Focke, and it seems reasonable if not sure. The speech concerns an expedition sent out when nothing much appeared to be happening, and this could well be the expedition of Charidemus. (p.376) If the speech is to be related to Charidemus’ expedition of 351/0, how does this affect the credit of Dionysius? He describes29 the speech as ἐν τῷ δήμῳ, πϵρὶ τῆς ἀποστολῆς τοῦ ξϵνικοῦ στρατϵύματος καὶ τῶν δέκα ϕυγαδικῶν30 τριηρν ϵἰς Mακϵδονίαν. Although this appears to refer to Demosthenes’ own proposals, it would also be a suitable description of Charidemus’ expedition and, in case Dionysius did know what he was talking about, it is to be noted that the relating of the speech to Charidemus does not conflict with Dionysius’ description. The difficulty is in the dating. Charidemus went out in the third month of 351/0,31 whereas Dionysius dates the speech in 352/1. Despite what has recently been said in defence of Dionysius’ date,32 few will feel sufficient confidence in the Dionysian datings to say that the speech cannot be concerned with the expedition of Charidemus and that the credit of Dionysius must prevail. Yet there is a way out of the difficulty. Demosthenes says that the Athenians actually sent Charidemus out in Boedromion (III)33 but it may be safely presumed that this was the date of departure and not necessarily of the decree. For the first part of the Attic year the Etesian winds effectively prevented ships sailing northwards; the length of time that they blew varied and the figures given by ancient sources range from twenty-three to sixty days, but the commonest is forty days.34 If Charidemus’ expedition was voted late in Scirophorion (XII) 352/1, he then had to find crews and he may well have been unable to leave Athens until the Etesians stopped blowing; if no new trouble had threatened in the meantime, there would be no great reason for haste.35 Thus the first Philippic might both have been delivered in 352/1 and have concerned the expedition of Charidemus. Whether (p.377) Dionysius (or his sources) could have gathered such precise information from the general histories, which Page 5 of 28

The Defence of Olynthus he professed to use,36 it is hard to say and his misdating of the second half of the speech is very suggestive. On the other hand, it should not be assumed that the general histories left him in as great ignorance as our own. For the present purpose it is not necessary either to salvage or to abandon Dionysius. What is reasonably clear is that the first Philippic was not concerned with the effort to save Olynthus, but was a criticism of the conduct of the longstanding war against Philip, and so the proposals it contains are to be judged in relation to that war.

II. Euboea 349/8 The history of the Athenian intervention in Euboea needs reconsideration. The view developed by Parke37 that there were two expeditions, the second of which was πανδημϵί, has found its way into some accounts of the period.38 As a result Athens is represented as having spent six months or more in fruitless operations, part of the time with all the strength she could send out, while the really important business of the defence of Olynthus was ruinously neglected. The Athenian part in the war in the north itself needs consideration, but it is necessary first to deal with Euboea. The principal source for the Athenian intervention in Euboea is Plutarch’s Life of Phocion, chapters 12–14. His account is as follows. When Plutarch of Eretria called on the Athenians to help him, Phocion was sent ἔχων δύναμιν οὐ πολλήν, since the Athenians expected that there would be ample support for him from the island itself. When he got there he found that this was not so and all he could do was to occupy a position at Tamynae where he held together the best part of his force; the rest slipped back to Athens. In due course he was attacked, Plutarch deserted him, and he was in a position of considerable danger, but when his troops broke out of their camp and (p.378) attacked, the enemy were routed. After this Phocion expelled Plutarch from Eretria, took possession of a fortress, Zaretra, and sailed home. His successor, Molossus, was less successful and was actually taken captive. Thus by this account there was only one expedition to Euboea during Phocion’s period of command. Parke, however, has argued for two expeditions. In his view three passages combine to show that Athens sent out a large force to relieve the small force under Phocion marooned at Tamynae. (a) Dem. 39. 16, where the speaker says that the defendant was left in Athens for the Choes, ὅτ’ ϵἰς Tαμύνας παρῆλθον οἱ ἄλλοι ‘The use of οἱ ἄλλοι’, according to Parke, ‘implies that this was an expedition of all the citizens’. (b) [Dem.] 59. 4, where in talking about the crisis in which Apollodorus brought forward his financial proposal the speaker says it happened μϵλλόντων στρατϵύϵσθαι ὑμῶν πανδημϵὶ ϵἴς τϵ Eὔβοιαν καὶ Ὄλυνθον. This shows that an expedition πανδημεί was under consideration. Page 6 of 28

The Defence of Olynthus (c) Dem. 21. 162, where speaking of the Athenian reaction to the news that Phocion was in danger Demosthenes says that the Council promptly decided to recommend to the People that all the remaining cavalry should go out (πάντας ἐξιέναι τοὺς ὑπολοίπους ἱππέας). Parke takes this to confirm that an expedition πανδημϵί actually took place. It is melancholy that a theory based on evidence so handled should find acceptance. Not one of the three passages justifies Parke’s use of it. First, Dem. 39. 16. The inference from οἱ ἄλλοι is weak; the speaker may mean no more than ‘the others who were called on to go’. It neither proves nor disproves. What is interesting in the passage is the word παρῆλθον. This is commonly used to describe the march of an army along a coast,39 and it is used by Aeschines,40 who distinguished himself in the campaign,41 to describe the advance of the infantry in Phocion’s force along the coast from where they landed to Tamynae. So this passage may well refer to the original expedition (and, incidentally, provide the date for it). Secondly, Dem. 21. 162. One has only to read the whole of §§ 162 and 163 to see that what the Council (p.379) proposed was never ratified by the People. When the meeting of the Assembly began, the situation was still felt to be serious as is seen from the action of Midias in volunteering to equip a trireme, but οὐκ ἐδόκϵι, προϊούσης τῆς ἐκκλησίας καὶ λόγων γιγνομένων, τῆς τῶν ἱππέων βοηθϵίας ἤδη δϵὶν, ἀλλ’ ἀνϵπϵπτώκϵι τὰ τῆς ἐξόδου. So how could the Council’s proposal show that there was a second expedition to Euboea? Thirdly, [Dem.] 59. 4. This does, indeed, show that an expedition πανδημϵί was under consideration in 349/8, but the passage as a whole also suggests that the expedition never went. In this passage, already discussed above, the speaker is seeking to show that Apollodorus was wrongly prosecuted and punished for his proposal concerning the use of the Theoric Fund; his method is to describe the situation at the time the proposal was made and to suggest that the collapse of Athenian plans to save Olynthus was due to the prosecution of Apollodorus. He says that (i) Athens was in the position where (a) she could either save Olynthus or come to disaster, δι’ ἀπορίαν χρημάτων καταλυθέντος τοῦ στρατοπέδου § 3, and (b) she was actually on the point of sending out a large expedition to Olynthus (μϵλλόντων στρατϵύϵσθαι ὑμῶν πανδημϵὶ εἴς τϵ Eὔβοιαν καὶ ’Όλυνθον) (ii) Apollodorus proposed the measure that would have financed the expedition (§ 4). We are left to infer that the reason for the breaking-up of the armament was the prosecution. Probably this was mere pleading and the expedition was abandoned for the good reason that it was no longer needed at Tamynae,42 but in any case it seems that one of the facts which the speaker was distorting was that this Page 7 of 28

The Defence of Olynthus expedition πανδημϵί never went out. That is, the passage confirms the very opposite of what Parke maintained. Of course it is clear that some of those from the original expedition who had been allowed to return to Athens when no hostile force at first appeared, like Midias and Demosthenes himself,43 were recalled by Phocion; there were notably the knights who had never gone (p.380) farther than Argura but who were needed to relieve those who were being sent on to Olynthus.44 But that was all, and the dating is quite plain.45 The expedition to help Plutarch went out, as Dem. 39. 16 shows, just before the festival of the Choes on 12 Anthesterion (VIII), the battle of Tamynae was fought about a month later shortly before the Dionysia46 (which began on 9 Elaphebolion [IX]), and presumably the cavalry that crossed from Chalcis to Olynthus went not long after the battle, perhaps late in Elaphebolion (IX). Despite the arguments of Pokorny,47 modern writers48 continue to treat the trouble in Euboea as a distraction for the Athenians arranged by Philip. This view is based on the statement in our manuscripts of Aeschines (3. 87) that Callias of Chalcis sent to Philip for help (παρὰ Φιλίππου δύναμιν μϵταπϵμψάμϵνος). This reading, as Pokorny pointed out, is doubtful. The scholiast on § 86 gives a short account of the trouble in Euboea and includes the statement that for his campaign against Plutarch Cleitarchus took παρὰ Φαλαίκου τοῦ Φωκέων τυράννου δύναμιν but has nothing whatever to say about Philip. Further, a few lines later Aeschines himself speaks of Callias’ brother transporting τοὺς Φωκικοὺς ξένους. On these grounds alone the case for changing Φιλίππου to Φαλαίκου is fairly strong, but, considered from a more general standpoint, it becomes very strong indeed. For it would be difficult to say why, if Philip had been involved in any way in the trouble in Euboea in 349/8, Demosthenes was both opposed to the expedition and proud of having been so,49 and still more difficult to understand why, in the charges and counter-charges with which the speeches of the period are filled, his policy is never attacked or defended. Nor do the passages which might be used to support the manuscript reading of Aeschines afford any real help. The letters of Philip to the Euboeans alluded to in the first Philippic50 belong to 351 or earlier, and hardly provide evidence of an appeal in 348. Again, the words with which Plutarch in his life of Phocion introduces his account of the war (παραδυομένου δὲ ϵἰς τὴν (p.381) Eὔβοιαν τοῦ Φιλίππου καὶ δύναμιν ἐκ Mακϵδονίας διαβιβάζοντος κτλ.) may be no more than a retrojection of later events.51 Certainly the references of Demosthenes to Philip’s intervention in Euboea52 give no hint of any Macedonian troops being there before 343 and Plutarch must be at least exaggerating. More probably he is merely borrowing from the later period a suitably dramatic background for Phocion’s expedition. The Euboeans certainly were in diplomatic communication in 348 with Philip, as the message they delivered to Athens in the middle of the year testifies,53 but this is far from proving that the movement against Plutarch of Eretria was initiated by Philip, or Page 8 of 28

The Defence of Olynthus that Philip was seriously involved in Euboea so early. All in all, it seems better to emend the text of Aeschines than to suppose that Demosthenes could pride himself on opposing an expedition against troops sent by Philip. Yet, even if Aeschines did write παρὰ Φιλίππου, there is little reason to think that he was telling the truth, and it will be assumed in what follows that the Euboean war was not part of the war against Philip but an isolated local struggle.

III. The Athenian Aid to Olynthus in 349/8 Under the archonship of Callimachus (349/8) Philochorus54 recorded the three Athenian expeditions to Olynthus. The first was of 2,000 peltasts, ‘the 30 triremes with Chares and the 8 ἃς συνϵπλήρωσαν’; the second was of 4,000 peltasts, 150 knights, and 18 triremes under the command of Charidemus, ‘the general at the Hellespont’; the third was of a further 17 triremes, 2,000 hoplites, and 300 knights with Chares in command of the whole force. These three expeditions can be dated fairly precisely. The first is the least satisfactory. Olynthus fell during the Macedonian Olympia55 (p.382) which were held shortly after the end of the third month of the Attic year,56 and Demosthenes57 says that all the Chalcidian cities were taken in a year. So this would mean that the war began early in 349/8, and since it is unlikely that Olynthus delayed appealing to Athens, the first expedition, which, as Philochorus58 shows, followed closely on the alliance, must have left Athens early in 349/8 also. This date is confirmed, if Jacoby59 is correct in his theory that of citations from Philochorus those that begin, like this one, with an archon’s name followed by ἐπὶ τούτου … concern the first entry in the Atthis for the year; the alliance and the first expedition would thus be the first events mentioned in 349/8. So if the first expedition of Chares is put in early Boedromion (III), that is, shortly after the Etesian winds, that will not be far wrong. The third expedition is presumably the one that was too late to save Olynthus. There were at any rate only three expeditions recorded in Philochorus60 and it is most unlikely that he omitted a further expedition. Olynthus fell shortly after Boedromion (III) 348/7 and it seems likely that the bad weather which delayed Chares61 was caused by the Etesian winds. So the final Olynthian appeal and the voting of this last expedition, both of which were put by Philochorus under 349/8, should be set as late in 349/8 as possible, that is, in Scirophorion (XII). As to the second expedition, that of Charidemus,62 the cavalry that went from Euboea to Olynthus63 about the (p.383) time of the Dionysia of 348 must have gone under him. So his expedition should be put in spring 348.64 The citations from Philochorus concerning the expeditions are suggestive. In the first there is a distinction between the thirty ships with Chares (τὰς μϵτὰ Xάρητος) and eight for which the Athenians helped to provide crews (ἃς συνϵπλήρωσαν).65 The latter are presumably the triremes which, Page 9 of 28

The Defence of Olynthus Demosthenes66 says, were equipped by volunteer trierarchs, but the former are spoken of as a force already in existence. One may infer that the response to the Olynthian appeal was to send the regular squadron in the north supplemented by what patriotic citizens cared to add. That was all that happened in autumn 349. As to the second force, that of spring 348, Charidemus is spoken of as τὸν ἐν Ἑλλησπόντωι στρατηγόν as if this was a regular appointment, and it may be suggested that the eighteen ships of his force were the ten he sailed out with in 351 together with the eight volunteered triremes that had sailed north the previous autumn. That is, once again the response to the Olynthian appeal was to use the force already out on active service. Of the third expedition Philochorus says that they sent out τριήρϵις ἐτέρας ἑπτακαίδϵκα. Why ἑτέρας? The word does not occur with reference to Charidemus’ ships, and the explanation is that apart from ἃς συνϵπλήρωσαν ὀκτώ these are the only ships Athens specially sent out during the war (and they were too late). They must have been added to the forces already operating, and the description of Chares as general τοῦ παντὸς στόλου suits this: he was to take command of both Charidemus’ ships and the reinforcements as well as having his own ships, τὰς μϵτὰ Xάρητος.67 Thus the city appears to have sent out very little special help to Olynthus. Nor was what was available constantly employed around Olynthus, if we may judge by the mysterious inscription, I.G. ii2. 207. This consists of four fragments of which the first, containing the (p.384) name of the archon for 349/8, is lost. The matters referred to in the second large fragment appear to be concerned with current affairs,68 and it is necessary to reckon with the decree in dealing with 349/8. It appears that in the month of Thargelion (XI) Chares, Charidemus, and Phocion were all in some way involved with Orontes, satrap of Mysia, and were drawing on the συντάξϵις of Lesbos for whatever they were doing. Nor is it likely that some minor affair like the purchase of corn for the fleet is in hand. For, while Chares and Charidemus might have been seeking provisions from Orontes, the presence of Phocion is suggestive. He had been in command in Euboea in Elaphebolion (IX) and must have been called away from that war for this business in the north-east.69 So the three generals must have been engaged on something which we do not know about but which was far removed from Olynthus. Athens and her generals appear to have done little to save Olynthus, but, before attempting explanations, it is important to consider what militarily speaking the situation of Olynthus was.70 The evidence is scanty but two points do emerge. First, the actual siege of the city did not begin until late in 349/8. In spring 348, when Charidemus arrived to help, the Olynthians joined with him in an attack on Pallene and Bottiaea and ravaged the land.71 This implies that the Macedonians controlled much of the territory of the Chalcidic League, but that Olynthus itself was still open. The siege began after the capture of Torone and Mecyberna (διὰ προδοσίας) had stopped easy access to the sea and the Olynthians had been Page 10 of 28

The Defence of Olynthus twice defeated in battle.72 Presumably these were the events that occasioned the last appeal to Athens, that of Scirophorion (XII) 349/8 ( (p.385) μὴ πϵριδϵῖν αὐτοὺς καταπολϵμηθέντας).73 Till then the city had been free and open. Secondly, the war was in two distinct phases as regards Philip’s expressed intentions. Before the final pressure on Olynthus, he was thought to be aiming at reducing the city to terms, not at destroying it.74 That is, Athens was led to fear that Olynthus might return to the position she was in before she made peace with Athens in 352, but no worse than that. In the earlier stage Philip picked off Chalcidic cities one by one75 but, serious as things were, perhaps there was no likelihood of a sudden collapse. The betrayal of Torone and Mecyberna transformed the situation.76 In this way, Philip, by good luck or by good generalship, grabbed the city before the Athenians could save it. It remains to date the third Olynthiac in relation to these events. About the first two speeches, which both clearly belong to the first appeal from Olynthus,77 there is no debate, but opinions have differed as to the third. Kahrstedt78 maintained that it must have been spoken before Athens intervened in Euboea; Pokorny79 denied this and argued for a date late in 349/8; and in considering Athens’ conduct of the war in the north it is important to determine which view is right. The main point urged by Pokorny for the late date is that the cautious manner in which Demosthenes made his proposal for the (p.386) change of the law about the Theoric Fund suggests that Apollodorus had already come to disaster in proposing the same change.80 This is not as strong as it might at first sight seem. In the first Olynthiac also Demosthenes touched on the Theoric Fund and with equal caution declined to initiate any change,81 and, if Pokorny’s point were valid for the third oration, it would be equally so for the first, to which it clearly cannot apply. It might happen to be true that Demosthenes used such words after Apollodorus was prosecuted, but they do not require the late dating of the speech.82 On the other hand, Kahrstedt’s argument about the complete silence of Demosthenes with regard to Euboea is of the greatest weight. Once Athens had sent a citizen army to Euboea, which operated to such poor effect, Demosthenes could hardly have maintained silence as to the contrast between what Athens was prepared to do for the worthless Plutarch and what she was doing to fight Philip in Chalcidice. In particular, one should attend to his detailed attack on Eubulus and his supporters in §§ 21 ff. In §§ 27 and 28 they are blamed for neglecting the war in the north and in § 29 he goes on to pour scorn on the public works which were an important part of their home policy, but of the intervention in Euboea, in which Eubulus’ supporters played so prominent a part, there is not a word. Is it really possible that Demosthenes kept silence because, as Pokorny argued,83 he did not want to exacerbate feelings? He had said enough, and that most directly, to give great offence. Why should he have foregone his most telling point? The only proper answer is that he was speaking before the troubles in Euboea had begun.

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The Defence of Olynthus This much has been widely accepted, but opinion has divided as to whether the third Olynthiac followed the two earlier speeches at a long enough interval for the situation to have changed considerably.84 In support it has been urged that Thessalian affairs are touched on in (p.387) the first two85 but not in the third. In itself this proves little; news from Thessaly within a short time could have rendered Demosthenes’ proposal of an embassy pointless. Nor does the supposed allusion to a victory of a force of mercenaries86 necessarily indicate that the first of Philochorus’ expeditions is in the field; mercenary forces had been fighting the war against Philip for years. Again it has been alleged that the third speech is markedly different in tone,87 but even in the first speech Demosthenes took the extreme view of what was at issue,88 and in any case it would not be surprising that, if Athens was proposing to answer the Olynthian appeal with no more than a mercenary force, Demosthenes should adopt a more gloomy tone as he contemplated the preparation of a mere eight ‘volunteer’ triremes.89 So nothing compels a considerably later date for the third speech, while there is positive evidence for associating it with the first Olynthian appeal. In § 6 he says νῦν δ’ ἑτέρου πολέμου καιρòς ἥκϵι τις, and in § 7 ἐκπολϵμσῶαι δϵῖν ᾠόμϵθα τοὺς ἀνθρώπους ἐκ παντòς τρόπου, καὶ ὃ πάντϵς ἐθρύλουν, πέπρακται νυνὶ τοῦθ’ ὁπωσδήποτϵ. These passages are closely akin to the first two speeches and appropriate only to the early stages of the Olynthian war.90 Thus there is a strong case for dating the third speech close to the other two.91 In any case, since the speech was delivered before the Euboean affair and since Demosthenes was recommending a full-scale citizen expedition, he presumably spoke within the navigating season of 349, and that is all that is necessary for the present discussion.92 The attempt of Focke (Demosthenesstudien, pp. 10f.) to date the attack on Γϵίρα in 350 (to which he supposes that Dem. 4. 17 refers) has nothing positive to recommend it. Cf. Momigliano, Filippo il Macedone, p. 112, n. 1. The notice about Γϵίρα is not inevitably linked with the notice about Pherae (probably a repetition of the notice at Diod. 16. 37. 3 and 38. l).

IV. The Alternative Strategies (p.388) In the war against Philip there were two strategic necessities for Athens. First, she had to keep Philip from breaking into Greece and co-operating with Thebes in an attack on Attica itself, and the second matter, of equal or even greater importance, was to protect her lifeline through the Hellespont and the Bosporus, clearly in constant danger through Macedonian expansion eastward.93 The war in the north was in itself far less important and it acquired interest for serious Athenian statesmen in so far as it became a possible means of preventing Philip from ruining Athens by attack or by starvation. Demosthenes saw all this clearly.94 The question to be discussed is whether the strategy he advocated was the best possible for attaining the two main aims.

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The Defence of Olynthus First, it must be confessed that it is not certain how Demosthenes thought Olynthus was to be defended. The precise proposals of the first Philippic were made with no thought of alliance with Olynthus but sought merely a more effective prosecution of the long struggle for Amphipolis. Nor is there any reason to suppose that the two later expeditions to save Olynthus satisfied Demosthenes any more than the first had done.95 He was very much in a minority in opposing (p.389) intervention in Euboea, by his own account the only dissentient voice,96 and it is unlikely that the man who had demanded an expedition παντὶ σθένϵι κατὰ τò δυνατόν97 approved of the raiding force of Charidemus or the final expedition of Chares. Indeed, although Demosthenes had been eminent in the courts in the 350s, he appears to have had practically no success whatever in initiating policy98 until under cover of having defended Philocrates in 348 he rose to eminence in 346 first as champion of the peace in concert with Philocrates and then as its and his embittered opponent. Until then he probably counted for very little, and the speeches of 349/8 survive because of his reputation as an orator, and not because of his power and influence as a statesman. Thus what Athens actually did is no guide to what Demosthenes demanded and his ideas on strategy in 349/8 must remain to some degree conjectural. There is, however, in the first Olynthiac, one statement that is sufficiently close to Demosthenes’ concrete proposals of 351 to suggest that the entry of Olynthus into the war did not seem to him to call for more than the prompt application of his earlier proposals. In §§ 17f. he says that two forces are necessary, one to ravage Macedonian territory, the other to save the cities of the Olynthians, and this recalls the two forces proposed in 351, the one of 10 ships, 2,000 foot, and 500 horse, the other of 50 ships manned by the Athenians themselves (αὐτος ἐμβσιν)99 The emphasis of 349/8 was still on citizen service, but he may have wished to send even larger numbers (ϵἰ γὰρ μὴ βοηθήσϵτϵ παντὶ σθένϵι κατὰ τò δυνατόν, θϵάσασθ’ ὃν (p.390) τρόπον ὑμϵς ἐστρατηγηκότϵς πάντ’ ἔσϵσθ’ ὑπὲρ Φιλίππου100). However, it is sure that he would not have wanted to do less than he had earlier proposed. The raiding force is hardly serious. It was too small to do much real damage and Philip would hardly abandon the assault on Olynthus to deal with it when he had sufficient numbers of infantry and cavalry to afford a reserve which could make raiding a dangerous and unprofitable occupation. For if Demosthenes was still, militarily speaking, in the fifth century, Philip was not, nor should it be assumed that the failure of Demosthenes’ opponents to agree with him on this point was due to other than common sense. However, the real point of difference in his proposals, viz. that large numbers of citizens should be sent to save the cities of the Chalcidic League, is most important and there are certain considerations which perhaps did not escape his opponents.

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The Defence of Olynthus First of all, how reliable were the Olynthians? The history of their relations with Athens gave little cause for confidence. They had defected from the Athenian Confederacy, presumably about the time that Athens persuaded the Hellenes and Amyntas to recognize her claim to Amphipolis,101 and faced by the threat of a resumption of power by Athens in the north of the Aegean they had struggled on until Philip came to their aid, his first act being to deprive the Athenians of Potidaea by which Olynthus was threatened.102 As Philip’s power grew the Olynthians were not able to agree whether Macedon was more formidable than Athens. The peace they made with Athens in defiance of the terms of their treaty with Philip103 indicated no more than a temporary success of the phil-Athenian party: even this may have been due not to agreement about Philip but rather to exhaustion by nearly two decades of naval war; unlike Philip, Olynthus shared fully in the trade of the Aegean.104 Shortly after the peace with Athens, perhaps not long after the ‘sudden campaign’ alluded to in the first Philippic (§ 17), the leader of the phil-Athenians, Apollonides, was exiled105 and it is notable that that speech gives no hint that Olynthus might be brought into alliance. By (p.391) the time that Philip attacked Olynthus in 349 the situation had changed again. The city was sheltering the pretender to the Macedonian throne,106 and there was a general demand in Athens that it should be drawn into the war.107 How far, then, could the Olynthians be trusted? If Athens committed a large number of her citizens to the defence of the Chalcidic cities, what guarantee was there that their very presence would not stimulate those who feared Athens so greatly to seek a fresh agreement with Philip and so to endanger a large proportion of the Athenian citizen body? And what, if in seeking such an agreement treachery played a part? Such questions must have occurred to Athens’s statesmen. Torone and Mecyberna fell, if Diodorus108 is to be trusted, by treachery, and the action of Lasthenes and Euthycrates, whatever it was, played a decisive part in the fall of Olynthus.109 Would these things not have happened if Athens had intervened in large numbers? In the first Olynthiac110 Demosthenes was at pains to say that Olynthus could be trusted to fight it out with Philip. The course of the next twelve months was to prove him too optimistic. Perhaps his opponents had clearer vision and harder political heads. Secondly, if there was a danger of arriving too late, there was a danger of committing large forces too early. The discussion of the course of operations above has shown that the early stages of Philip’s attack on Olynthus were in a sense non-committal; the siege of the city itself did not begin until it could be so quickly carried through that Athens could not possibly send adequate help in time. The truth is that the choice of a time for attack lay with Philip. His earlier ‘sudden campaign’111 had been followed by two or more years of waiting. Was Athens in 349 to commit a large force to Olynthus and keep it there summer and winter for a similar period until the attack came? If so, the cost would have been heavy.112 Five thousand men could not have been kept content in Olynthus for any length of time with the mere allowance for buying food that Demosthenes Page 14 of 28

The Defence of Olynthus had proposed in 351 for the small active force. Now it is true that Athens’s failure to provide adequately for her armies in the fourth century was (p.392) a serious factor in the decline of her power, and it may be true that Eubulus and his supporters were unduly concerned with saving money, but there certainly could be no question at this period of spending as much money as a long garrisoning of Chalcidic cities would require.113 Thirdly, if Athens committed herself heavily to the defence of Olynthus, it was by no means clear that Philip would be confined to Macedon. Geography was on his side; he could have been well on his way to the Chersonese before Athens could act. In 346 the Athenian ambassadors left Philip in Pella barely more than two weeks before the Dionysia began on 9 Elaphebolion (IX),114 but by the 24th day of that month Philip had wrested from Cersobleptes his kingdom, and captured the Holy Mount near the shores of the Propontis.115 Such lightning movement no doubt surprised all Athenians, but that Philip could and would move quickly must have been realized. To stop such an attack on the Chersonese, even as large a force as 5,000 hoplites in Olynthus would have been ineffective, for they would have been too few to invade Macedonia; presumably Philip no more committed all his forces in these years than Alexander did against Persia. So another large force was needed for the Chersonese. Yet if Athens was to rush out large bodies of citizens every time an attack was feared, her strength would be dissipated, even if not endangered, with serious consequences for Greece itself. What would happen if Philip again tried to force the Gates? All in all, there were strategic considerations which counselled against intervening with a large body of citizens to save Olynthus, and if Demosthenes’ opponents declined to take his advice, their attitude was not entirely unreasonable. Nor would it be just to suppose that the help sent by Athens was sent in cynical neglect of the city’s real interests. Indeed, but for treachery, Mecyberna might have been kept open and the second expedition of Chares might have saved Olynthus, if only temporarily. Statesmen are not necessarily at fault whenever their country’s forces are defeated. Basically the control of Olynthus was a difficult military problem, which a united and (p.393) powerful Macedon was likely to solve to its own satisfaction. Philip was able to operate on short lines of communication with the advantages of the seasons and with a specialized national army against the outmoded military conceptions of the citystate.116 In war chance always plays a part, but it is at least doubtful whether Demosthenes would have succeeded where others failed. He saw clearly the menace of Philip, but his powers as a strategist did not match his oratory. By contrast there is much to be said in favour of what Athens actually did do. First, when there was any question of Philip coming into Greece, energetic measures were taken. Not only in 352 did Athens send a substantial force to support the Phocians,117 but also in 347/6 Eubulus and Aeschines reacted with great vigour to the possibility of Philip intervening in the Sacred War118 and Page 15 of 28

The Defence of Olynthus Athens was prepared to send out a fleet of fifty ships and a large proportion of the citizen body;119 Philip might have been excluded by force of arms had not the shifting policy of Phocis forced the Athenians to seek peace.120 The expedition to Euboea was perhaps part of this policy. Philip had not yet intervened, but, if the island had fallen completely under the control of Athens’s enemies, the result might have been that either Philip or the Thebans could have used the island as a base (p.394) and the chances of stopping Philip at the Gates been considerably weakened. The strategic importance of Euboea was shown when the Macedonians fixed one of the fetters of Greece at Chalcis, and, despite Demosthenes’ dissent, the Athenians probably did right to intervene in 348. Although the campaign miscarried to some extent,121 it is to be noted that the island did not come under Philip or Thebes before the Peace of 346. Secondly, the Athenian attitude to Philip’s threatening advance to Heraeum Teichos in 352 was sensible enough despite the scorn of Demosthenes.122 As long as the Chersonese was directly threatened, the Athenians prepared to intervene with a large armament, but, when Philip was found to be unable to press on with his attack, the expedition was dropped, reasonably enough. What point would there have been in sending out a large proportion of the citizen body to meet an attack that might never develop, but leaving Athens less able to apply herself to the defence of the Gates? The fact that the Chersonese remained safe justified the policy adopted. Nor should we let Demosthenes mislead us with his lists of scandalous failures.123 How could Athens have saved Methone indefinitely against a strong Macedon? Even in the fifth century when the Macedonian kingdom was weak and the power of Athens enormous, the condition of Methone was highly insecure. To have committed large numbers of Athenians to the salvation of this city in the 350s would have been madness.124 And what was really to be done for Pagasae, the port of Pherae? All Thessaly had joined with Philip in destroying the Pheraean power, and if Athens had got large forces involved over such a trifle, disaster might have come upon her very much more quickly than it did. After all, the war for Amphipolis was an absurdity, both militarily and politically, which had to be maintained since public opinion at Athens would not suffer the only sensible solution, viz. to abandon the quest. After a decade of fruitless and debilitating struggle followed by the reverses of the Social War Athens was not likely to win and the sane alternative was adopted of virtually leaving the war to take care of itself. If chance took a hand with an assassination or treacherous betrayal of the city, all might be well, but the mistake was not made of becoming ruinously involved in the vain struggle. Chares appears to have been out almost constantly from 353 to 346 on (p.395) operations in the north125 and after the operations of Iphicrates, Timotheus, and lesser men like Timomachus had produced no real gain these activities of Chares were probably as much as any sensible man could justify. Ampler forces were sent to help the Olynthians and they might have saved the city had the port of

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The Defence of Olynthus Olynthus not been handed over to Philip; the objections to committing more were at least in part strategic. Although Eubulus is rather a shadowy figure, he and his supporters were probably responsible for Athenian policy between the Social War and the Peace of Philocrates. This is certain with regard to the Euboean expedition,126 and the direction of affairs in 347/6 was clearly the work of Eubulus and Aeschines. Possibly this is true of the expeditions of 352; the general who commanded at Thermopylae, Nausicles, may be the man who was later associated with Aeschines.127 There is less precise information about the war in the north, but we may still be fairly confident that Eubulus was ultimately (p.396) responsible. For, when Demosthenes was inveighing in the third Olynthiac128 against those who had influence over the δῆμος, he specially alludes to the public works programme which played a large part in Eubulus’ financial schemes,129 and goes on to attribute what he regards as lack of enterprise to the domination of those who control the city’s finances, clearly Eubulus and his group. So in the sense that Eubulus prevented the sending out of large forces of citizens by keeping a tight rein on the city’s finances, he was responsible for what was not done in the north. Why Eubulus followed this policy is largely a matter for conjecture. The one thing that is clear is that in early 346 he was prepared to make a serious attempt to unite Greece against Philip;130 there is no direct evidence of what he thought about the defence of Olynthus. He may have simply failed to perceive what Demosthenes perceived so clearly, viz. that Philip was a real danger to Greece. It is equally possible that he was aware of the danger of Philip,131 but was aware also of the strategic considerations that counselled against risking a second Sicilian disaster and neglecting Athens’ primary concerns. We do not know enough about him to say. The argument of this article is in brief this, that in so far as Eubulus opposed Demosthenes’ proposals for the conduct of the Olynthian war, whether for the right reason or the wrong, Eubulus happened to be, strategically speaking, right. Notes:

(1) 1. 25, 3. 8, 4. 50. (2) Schaefer, Demosthenes und seine Zeit, ii2, speaks of a ‘wretched peace-party and bribed orators’ (p. 51) and ‘der selbstsüchtigen Partei, welche unter Eubulus Leitung den Staat beherrschte’. Schwarz, ‘Demosthenes erste Philippika’ in Festschrift Theodor Mommsen, speaks of ‘die Partei des Besitzes und die Besitzenden’ (cf. pp. 13, 35, 39, 49) and of ‘die Friedenspartei’. Cf. Cloché, La politique extérieure, p. 219, and Jaeger, Demosthenes, p. 142 (‘the same rich politicians of the peace party’). The double accusation of pacificism for personal profit is almost communis opinio. The alleged pacificism is, by implication, called in question by this article. What is the ground for supposing that Eubulus and Page 17 of 28

The Defence of Olynthus his supporters were rich and the ‘patriots’ poor? Demosthenes likes to talk about the riches of his opponents (e.g. 3. 29) but we do not have their replies. Demosthenes was a rich man himself, and indeed most of οἱ πολιτευόμϵνοι must have been fairly well off. (3) Op. cit. (4) Ad Amm., pp. 725 and 736. (5) Amongst those who commit themselves Kahrstedt, Forschungen, p. 121, n. 211, Pokorny, Studien, pp. 125f., and Momigliano, Filippo il Macedone, pp. 110 and 112, n. 1, follow Schwartz. Pickard-Cambridge, Demosthenes, p. 184, Cloché, La politique extérieure, p. 203 (cf. Un fondateur d’empire, p. 111), and Jacoby, Commentary on Philochorus frag. 47, favour the early date. Jaeger, Demosthenes, pp. 120f., believes in the early date and a later (and so misleading) edition (cf. n. 10 below). Focke, Demosthenesstudien, pp. 21f., dates the speech in October 350. Sealey, R.É.G. lxviii (1955), pp. 77f., attempts a general defence of the accuracy of Dionysius’ dates for Demosthenes. (6) Dem. 23. 109. (7) 1. 7, 3. 7. (8) Ibid. (9) § 2. (10) Jaeger, Demosthenes, pp. 120f., admirably set out reasons for dissociating the speech from the attack on Olynthus in 349, but, believing that the reference to a sudden attack on Olynthus in § 17 must concern the events of 349, explained it as the insertion of a later edition. His promised special study (p. 238, n. 35) has never, as far as I know, appeared. If it is merely a question of choosing between the hypothesis of a later edition and that of an otherwise unattested attack on Olynthus, in view of the nature of the sources the latter is far preferable. (11) Cf. Justin 3. 8. 11f. who recounts the fall of Olynthus, then Philip’s activities in Thessaly and Thrace, and ends ‘et ne quod ius vel fas inviolatum praetermitteret, piraticam quoque exercere instituit’. It is also to be noted that the decree which Aeschines went on to describe in 2. 73 suits the period of Philip’s campaign against Cersobleptes in 346, when Chares was in command at the Hellespont (Aesch. 2. 90). (12) F.G.H. 328 F 47. (13) F.G.H. 324 F 24.

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The Defence of Olynthus (14) Although the landing at Marathon is cited last by Demosthenes in § 34 and prefaced by τὰ τϵλϵυταῖα it is not clear that it was the latest in time of the events mentioned. As Jacoby pointed out (Commentary on Androt. frag. 24), the order is perhaps deliberately geographical and τὰ τϵλϵυταῖα may simply denote ‘the crowning instance of Philip’s privateering’. What is clear from Androtion is that Philip was active with piratical raids earlier than the Olynthian War. (15) Schwartz, ‘Demosthenes erste Philippika’, p. 34, also related the reference in § 37 to the troubles in Euboea in 349/8. However, Philip does not appear to have been involved in these troubles (cf. section II of this chapter) and the letters cannot be dated. (16) Op. cit., p. 31. (17) Op. cit., p. 30. (18) The speech On the Liberty of the Rhodians is dated to 351/0 by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, ad Amm. p. 726, under which year Diodorus (16. 40) set the Persian attack on Egypt alluded to in § 11 of the speech. Since the date of the Persian attack must have been readily available in what Dionysius calls the κοιναὶ ἱστορίαι (ad Amm. pp. 724 and 740), 351/0 is commonly accepted as the date of the speech. Focke, Demosthenesstudien, pp. 18f., tried to upset this largely with regard to the dates of the dynasty of Caria (cf. §§ 11 and 27 of the speech), but see Kahrstedt, Forschungen, pp. 22f. (19) For date of Philip’s attack on Heraeum Teichos cf. Hammond, J.H.S. lvii (1937), p. 57. (20) Diod. 16. 40. 1. (21) Cf. Histoire grecque, iii. 200. (22) Demosthenes’ speech, On the Symmories, dated to 354/3 by Dionysius (ad Amm. pp. 724–5), dealt with the danger of Persian attack. Beloch’s rejection of this date (Gr. Gesch. iii. 2. 261) rests on his dating of Pammenes’ mission to 354 and is not justified (cf. Hammond, J.H.S. lvii (1937), pp. 58f.). The Persian preparations, the rumour of which occasioned Demosthenes’ speech, may well have been the first step towards invading Egypt. The Persian force which wrested from Sparta the supremacy of the sea at Cnidus in 394 was being collected in 397/6 (Xen. Hell. 3. 4. 1). (23) Aesch. 2. 14. (24) Aesch. 2. 55, and 110f. (25) Op. cit., pp. 21ff., esp. p. 25.

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The Defence of Olynthus (26) § 17. Cf. Dem. 3. 4f. The date is probable, if not certain. (27) Cf. § 1. Of course, Demosthenes would be speaking in relation to a προβούλϵυμα concerning ἡ νυνὶ βοήθϵια (§ 14), but what he means is that the situation has not been changed by some new development. (28) Presumably this is the meaning of κϵνάς in Dem. 3. 5. By the law of Periander trierarchs ceased to be responsible for finding their own crews (Dem. 21. 155), but the δῆμος must on occasion have provided no citizens ἐκ καταλόγου and thus left the general to find his own crews entirely. Cf. the contrast in Philochorus, F.G.H. 328 F 49, between the ships of Chares and ἃς συνϵπλήρωσαν. (29) Ad Amm., p. 725. (30) Three manuscripts have ϕυγαδικῶν and two γαδικῶν and the emendation of Boehneck, ταχικῶν, changed by Morell to ταχϵιῶν, has found general acceptance. (31) Dem. 3. 5. (32) Cf. Sealey, R.É.G. lxviii (1955), pp. 77f. (33) See n. 31 above. (34) Cf. P.–W. vi. 1. 714. Focke, Demosthenesstudien, p. 10, suggested that the date of Charidemus’ expedition was related to the Etesians. (35) The Great Mysteries ended on 22 Boedromion (Deubner, Att. Feste, p. 72), and the Etesians would have ceased earlier, but, if Philip had not acted under cover of the season, there would have no longer been need for haste. If the debate to which the first Philippic belongs was held not long before the Etesians, there was good reason for the haste of οἱ “ταχύ” καὶ “τήμϵρον” ϵἰπόντϵς (§ 14). It should be added, however, that Demosthenes’ allusion to the Etesians (§ 31) does not suggest that Philip may shortly exploit the seasons. (36) Ad Amm., pp. 724 and 740. (37) J.H.S. xlix (1929), pp. 246f. Parke follows Kahrstedt, Forschungen, pp. 56f., in postulating two expeditions, although he differs in detail. (38) E.g. Momigliano, Filippo il Macedone, p. 111, n. 1, and Cloché, Un fondateur d’Empire, pp. 131f. (39) Cf. Thuc. 8. 16, 22, 32, Xen. Hell. 2. 1. 18, 4. 5. 19. (40) 3. 86.

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The Defence of Olynthus (41) Aesch. 2. 169. (42) Schaefer, Demosthenes und seine Zeit, ii2. 82, is probably right in supposing that the news about Tamynae arrived in the course of theἐκκλησία. (43) Plut. Phoc. 12. 3, Dem. 31. 132, 133. (44) Dem. 21. 164 (cf. 132) and 197. (45) Cf. Beloch, Gr. Gesch. iii. 2. 278f. (46) So Demosthenes stayed to produce his chorus and was subsequently charged by Midias with desertion (Dem. 21. 110). (47) Op. cit., pp. 132f. (48) E.g. Pickard-Cambridge, Demosthenes, pp. 208f.; Beloch, Gr. Gesch. iii. 1. 495 n. 1, Histoire grecque, iii. 135; Cloché, op. cit., p. 135. (49) Dem. 5. 5. (50) Dem. 4. 37. (51) Beloch, loc. cit., regards Plutarch’s introduction here as decisive confirmation of the manuscripts’ reading in Aesch. 3. 87, but in view of the later connection of Cleitarchus and Philip (Dem. 9. 58, etc.) it is not surprising that Plutarch should write inaccurately. (52) 9. 57f., 19. 83, 87, 204. Cf. Schaefer, Demosthenes und seine Zeit, ii2. 81, n. 2, who rejects the possibility of Philip actually sending help but keeps the manuscript reading in Aesch. 3. 87, and dismisses Aeschines’ account as ‘lügenhaft’. (53) Aesch. 2. 12. (54) F.G.H. 328 F 49–51. (55) Diod. 16. 55, Dem. 19. 192 (Ὀλύμπι’ ἐποίϵι). (56) Cf. the narrative of Arrian, Anab. 1. 10 and 11. 1. For the Macedonian Olympia see P.–W. xviii. 1. 46. The usual view is that Olynthus fell during the Greek Olympia (cf. Beloch, Gr. Gesch. iii. 2. 280), but neither does this allow sufficient time for the events of Aesch. 2. 12f. nor is there any reason to suppose that the Greek Olympia were celebrated in Macedon also. Cf. R.É.G. lxxiii (1960), 417, n. 2. (57) 19. 266, presumably more or less correct if not exact. The fact that Diodorus (see n. 75) splits the war into two archon years does not affect the question of the accuracy of Demosthenes’ statement as to the duration of the war. Page 21 of 28

The Defence of Olynthus (58) F.G.H. 328 F 49 συμμαχίαν τϵ ἐποιήσαντο … καὶ βοήθϵιαν ἔπϵμψαν. (The lacuna of about eighteen letters does not affect the close connection between the making of alliance and the dispatch of the expedition.) (59) Cf. Commentary to Philochorus, p. 532, lines 9f. (60) Cf. Scholiast to Dem. 2. 1 (Dindorf, viii. 74, line 10), quoted by Jacoby, F.G.H. iii B, p. 113 (i.e. beneath F 49 and 50). (61) ‘Suidas’, s.v. Κάρανος: βοηθοὺς ἔπϵμψαν Ἀθηναῖοι ναῦς μ' καὶ Xάρητα στρατηγόν οὗ χϵιμῶνι ἀποληϕθέντος, προδόντων δὲ τὴν Ὄλυνθον Εὐθυκράτους καὶ Λασθένους, τὴν μὲν ἀνάστατον ἐποίησϵ (Φίλιππος).… (62) F.G.H. 328 F 50. (63) Dem. 21. 197. (64) Those who, like Kahrstedt, Forschungen, p. 61, place the third expedition in spring 348 do so because they suppose that Olynthus fell at the time of the Greek Olympia. For the whole question of the dating of the expeditions cf. Schaefer, Demosthenes und seine Zeit, ii2. 118f. (65) Cf. Schaefer, Demosthenes und seine Zeit, ii2. 76 n. 4. (66) 21. 161. (67) It is not clear whether Chares was in Athens to go with these reinforcements. The explanation commonly given of the haste with which he sought to render account of his conduct of the Olynthian War (Dion. Hal. ad Amm., p. 734, and Ar. Rhet. 1411a) is that he was hurrying to get off with the last expedition. Cf. Schaefer, Demosthenes und seine Zeit, ii2. 143. (68) Accame, La lega ateniese, p. 196, took the mention of syntaxeis in line 13 of fragment b (τῶν συντάξϵων τῶν ἐλ Λέσβωι) to refer to an earlier period, because Mytilene was not in the Athenian Confederacy in 349/8, but the phrase could well refer to the other cities of the island that remained in the Confederacy in that year, and although the inscription is too fragmentary to allow of certainty, the various matters touched on in fragment b appear to be concerned with operations in progress. Until fragment a is rediscovered, doubt will remain as to whether fragments b, c, and d really belong to it, but the considerations advanced in the editio minor of I.G. seem sufficient. (69) The troubles in Euboea continued almost until the Olympic truce of 348 (Aesch. 2. 12). Presumably the recall of Phocion (Plut. Phoc. 14. 1) was connected with the subject of I.G. ii2. 207. (70) Cf. Focke, Demosthenesstudien, p. 23, n. 38. Page 22 of 28

The Defence of Olynthus (71) Philochorus, frag. 50. (72) Diod. 16. 53. (73) Philochorus, frag. 51. (74) Cf. Dem. 1. 4… τὰς καταλλαγάς, ἃς ἂν ἐκενος ποιήσαιτ’ ἄσμϵνος πρòς Ὀλυνθίους. Also 9. 11, 8. 59, and 2. 1. (75) The account of Diodorus gives the attack on Olynthus in two stages. In 16. 52. 9 under 349/8 he records the destruction of Γϵίρα (probably a corruption of Σταγϵίρα) and the subjection of other places. In 16. 53 under 348/7 Philip μϵτὰ πολλῆς δυνάμϵως attacks and captures Torone, Mecyberna, and Olynthus. Thus Diodorus’ account is perhaps chronologically correct, is consistent with the situation in the first Olynthiac (cf. § 17, where the aim is said to be ‘to save the cities for the Olynthians’), confirms that Olynthus was not immediately besieged, and reflects the two stages of Philip’s expressed intentions. The attempt of Focke (Demosthenesstudien, pp. 10f.) to date the attack on Γϵίρα in 350 (to which he supposes that Dem. 4. 17 refers) has nothing positive to recommend it. Cf. Momigliano, Filippo il Macedone, p. 112, n. 1. The notice about Γϵίρα is not inevitably linked with the notice about Pherae (probably a repetition of the notice at Diod. 16. 37. 3 and 38. l). (76) It is not clear where the treachery of Lasthenes and Euthycrates (Dem. 9. 56 and 19. 265f.) fits in. One would expect that it belonged to the period of the two battles (Diod. 16. 53) before the siege began, but Diodorus says that it was the cause of the fall of the city. Perhaps the Greek sources grossly exaggerated or even misrepresented the act of Lasthenes and Euthycrates in surrendering. (77) Cf. 1. 2 and 2. 11. (78) Op. cit., p. 61. (79) Op. cit., pp. 119f. (80) Cf. Dem. 3. 10f. and [Dem.] 59. 3f. (81) § 19. “Τί οὖν;” ἄν τις ϵἴποι, “σὺ γράϕϵις ταῦτ’ ϵἶναι στρατιωτικά;” μὰ Δί’ οὐκ ἔγωγϵ. (82) Focke, Demosthenesstudien, pp. 27f., errs in the other direction in claiming that, because Demosthenes does not mention Apollodorus, the speech must have been before the latter’s proposal. (83) Op. cit., pp. 123f.

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The Defence of Olynthus (84) The arguments in favour of a long interval between the second and third Olynthiacs have been mustered by Pokorny, op. cit., pp. 119f. (85) 1. 21f., 2. 11. (86) § 35. (87) Cf. esp. §§ 1 and 9. (88) Cf. § 25. (89) This would also explain why in the third Olynthiac he has ceased to demand mere ϵἰσϕοραί: he now saw that only a regular war-fund would make possible an expedition of the sort he demanded, and that the difficulty of getting an ϵἰσϕορά voted was a brake on sustained major efforts against Philip. (90) Cf. Blass, Attische Beredsamkeit, iii. 1. 320. (91) Momigliano (Filippo il Macedone, p. 112, n. 1) is a supporter of this view. Its most extreme form is to be found in H. Erbse, Rh. Mus. xcix (1956), pp. 379f., who supposes that all three Olynthiacs were delivered at one and the same ἐκκλησία! This both argues an importance of Demosthenes which he probably did not possess, and is a strange notion of Athenian assemblies. (Are there any clear cases known where the same man made two set speeches on the one day on the one subject?) But Erbse’s analysis of the speeches effectively shows their close connection. (92) As noted above, the first appeal of Olynthus came very early in 349/8, and it was the first matter recorded in Philochorus for that year (cf. n. 59), but in view of uncertainty about the procedure of νομοθϵσία it would be unsafe to argue from Demosthenes’ demand for the appointment of nomothetai (§§ 10f.) that the third Olynthiac belongs in the first prytany of 349/8. (93) How important was the possession of the Chersonese for the safety of the Athenian corn supply? Athens had managed her supply despite the hostility of Byzantium since 364 (cf. Accame, La lega, p. 179, n. 3) and down to 352 the Chersonese was not entirely under her control. So it might be argued that the Chersonese was only of value to Philip if he could use his fleet, which in 349/8 was still much too weak. This is in some degree true, but ports were necessary; Sestos was a regular stopping place (cf. [Dem.] 50. 20 and Ar. Rhet. 1411a14, where Sestos is described as the corn-table—τηλία—of the Peiraeus) and indeed from 365 it was in Athens’s possession (Nep. Tim. i. 3). If Philip took Sestos and persuaded or obliged the Byzantines to act against Athenian ships at Hieron ([Dem.] 50. 17, Philochorus F 162—for its site, on the Asiatic side of the Bosporus, see P.–W. iii. 752), the corn supply would have been at least seriously affected.

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The Defence of Olynthus (94) Cf. 1. 25. (95) It is sometimes asserted that Dionysius of Halicarnassus related the three Olynthiac speeches to the three expeditions, but, though he may well have done so, this is not a necessary inference from the Letter to Ammaeus X (μϵτὰ γὰρ ἄρχοντα Καλλίμαχον, ἐϕ’ οὖ τὰς εἰς ’Όλυνθον βοηθϵίας ἀπέστϵιλαν Ἀθηναοι πϵισθέντϵς ὑπò Δημοσθένους ….). Cf. Sealey, R.É.G. lxviii (1955), p. 85. It is a more serious question whether Philochorus did so; for in the Scholiast’s introduction to the second Olynthiac (Dindorf, viii. 74, line 10) occur the words ἰστέον δὲ ὅτι ϕησὶν ὁ Φιλόχορος ὅτι τρϵς βοήθϵιαι ἐπέμϕθησαν, καθ’ ἑκαστον λόγον μις πϵμπομένης, ὡς τς πρώτης μὴ οὔσης ἱκανς. Did Philochorus record speeches of Demosthenes and assign them so precisely? It would be most surprising if he did and the words καθ’ ἔκαστον κτλ. may well be added by the Scholiast. In any case this is a matter affecting the credit of Philochorus, not the importance of Demosthenes. It is true that Demosthenes’ defence of Philocrates on trial for proposing to negotiate with Philip came early in 348/7 (i.e. before Olynthus fell, cf. Aesch. 2. 14 and R.É.G. lxxiii [1960], p. 417, n. 2) and the debate that led to the dispatch of the third expedition belonged to 349/8 (cf. Philochorus F 51); so it may have been the delay of this expedition that led him to despair, and we cannot be sure that he had not spoken in support of the last expedition. Yet in general it would seem that it was Eubulus and his supporters who were in power in 349 (v.i.) and it is notable that neither Aeschines (3. 54 and 58f.) nor Demosthenes (18. 17f.) in discussing the latter’s career has anything to say about Demosthenes’ political record before 346. The theory of Glotz (Rev. Hist. clxx [1932]) that Demosthenes succeeded in establishing a war-fund, τὰ στρατιωτικά, in 349/8 has been widely accepted, but it is extremely ill founded, as I hope to show elsewhere. Rather, the failure of Apollodorus ([Dem.] 59. 5) shows that Demosthenes and his supporters were not in a position of power in 348. (96) 5. 5. (97) 3. 6. (98) See n. 95 above. (99) 4. 16f. (100) 3. 6. (101) Accame, op. cit., p. 178. (102) Cf. P.-W. xviii. 328. (103) Dem. 23. 109, and § 2 of Libanius’ Hypothesis to Ol. 1.

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The Defence of Olynthus (104) Xen. Hell. 5. 2. 16. Cf. [Dem.] 35. 35. (105) Dem. 9. 56. (106) Justin. 8. 3. 10. (107) Dem. 3. 7. (108) 16. 53. (109) Dem. 8. 40, 9. 66, and Diod. 16. 53. 2. (110) § 5. (111) I.e. the attack mentioned in Dem. 4. 17. (112) The Potidaea campaign seriously affected Athens in the Archidamian war. Even if pay was only half what it had been then, Athens could hardly afford such large sums. (113) The small force of ten ships proposed in 351 was to cost 92 T a year (Dem. 4. 28); a larger force would have cost, perhaps, four times as much. Such expenditure would have assisted Philip in itself, for Athens could not keep it up indefinitely. (114) Cf. Cloché, Étude chronologique, etc., pp. 122f. (115) Aesch. 2. 90. (116) How far did Demosthenes understand the change in the conditions of warfare? From 9. 47 it is clear that he was aware, at least by 341, that warfare had become professional and specialized, but his own proposals in the First Philippic and elsewhere hardly suggest that he fully appreciated the change in both tactics and strategy. In the fifth century when Macedon was weak and Athens strong, it had proved hard to guarantee the security of the Macedonian sea-board (cf. S.E.G. x. 66 = A.T.L. D. 3; [Dem.] 7. 12 is not to be taken too seriously), and in the fourth, when the balance of power had so greatly shifted, the difficulties of fighting Philip close to his base at the farthest stretch of Athens’ communications were probably too great for Athens. (117) The Athenian success in stopping Philip in 352 was greater than has been generally realized. Diodorus 16. 37 records the Phocian recovery after the battle of the Crocus Field, including the assembly of a large allied force of which the 5,400 Athenians under Nausicles were barely more than half, but at the end of chapter 37 he leaves his narration of the Sacred War and returns to Philip. Chapter 38 recounts the check to Philip at Thermopylae κωλυσάντων τῶν Ἀθηναίων with no mention of the Spartans, etc. The reasonable explanation is that only the Athenians got there in time. This is confirmed by Dem. 19. 319 Page 26 of 28

The Defence of Olynthus where, in speaking of the check to Philip, Demosthenes says τότϵ τν ὄντων ἀνθρώπων ἁπάντων οὐδϵνός, οὔθ’ Ἕλληνος οὔτϵ βαρβάρου, Φωκϵσι βοηθήσαντος πλὴν ὑμν. Cf. Justin 8. 2. 8. That Athens saved Phocis so easily must have had a grave effect on the ideas of Athenian statesmen: Philip learnt his lesson. (118) Dem. 19. 9f. and 303f. Cf. R.É.G. lxxiii (1960), pp. 418f. (119) Aesch. 2. 133, Dem. 19. 52, 322. (120) Cf. art. cited in n. 118 above. (121) Plut. Phoc. 14. 1. (122) 3. 4f. (123) 4. 35, 1. 9. (124) Cf. p. 393, n. 116. (125) Theopompus, F.G.H. 115 F 249 (of 353 cf. Schaefer, Demosthenes und seine Zeit, i2. 443, n. 3); Polyaenus 4. 2. 22, Diod. 16. 34. 3 and 35. 5 (all of 352); Philochorus, F.G.H. 328 F 49 (of 349—‘the thirty ships under Chares’, i.e. he was already provided with a force); I.G. ii2. 207, line 12 (of early 348). One might guess that just as Charidemus was in 348 and probably earlier ὁ ἐν Ἑλλησπόντωι στρατηγός, Chares was throughout the period 353 to 348, and perhaps to 346 (cf. Aesch. 2. 73 and 90 but note I.G. ii2. 1620, line 19), the general in command of the war for Amphipolis, ὁ στρατηγòς ἐπ’ Ἀμφίπολιν (Aesch. 2. 27), and that the thirty ships of 349 were the size of fleet he normally had (in Polyaenus, loc. cit., he has only twenty ships). (126) Midias, who as ξένος καὶ ϕίλος of Plutarch of Eretria played a leading part in the dispatch of the expedition (Dem. 21. 110, 200), was a close associate of Eubulus (Dem. 21. 205–7). Phocion appears with Eubulus in support of Aeschines in 343 (Aesch. 2. 184). Hegesileos, who mysteriously ἐπεστραήγησεν in Euboea (Schol. Dem. 19. 290 = Dind. p. 443 l. 24) was a cousin of Eubulus (Dem. 19. 290). (127) For Nausicles, Diod. 16. 37. 3. There are several bearers of the name (cf. Pros. Att.), but there are two main candidates for the generalship of 352. First, Nausicles, son of Clearchos, who appears in the period after Chaeronea (I.G. ii2. 1496 col. ii l. 40f., 1628 l. 71, 1629 l. 707) and who is the associate of Demosthenes (Aesch. 3. 159, Plut. Dem. 21, Dem. 18. 114, Plut. Mor. 844f.). Secondly, the Nausicles who supported Aeschines in 343 (Aesch. 2. 184), presumably the man who had proposed Aeschines for the embassy in 346 (Aesch. 2. 18) and who was himself one of the ambassadors (§ 4 of 2nd Hyp. to

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The Defence of Olynthus Dem. 19). Since the former only appears after 338, the latter, the associate of Aeschines, called in 343 because he was an important man, is to be preferred. Confirmation of Eubulus’ connexion with the defence of Thermopylae is perhaps provided by Diophantus of Sphettus, who proposed the decree of thanksgiving in 352 (Dem. 19. 86 and schol.). He was an associate of Aeschines (Dem. 19. 198, where Demosthenes says he will compel him to give evidence against Aeschines) and also associated with the financial administration (Aesch. 3. 24 and 25 and schol.). (128) §§ 28–32. (129) Aesch. 3. 25, Dinarchus 1. 96, I.G. ii2. 505, 1668. (130) See p. 393, n. 118. (131) As Jaeger, op. cit., p. 108, insisted, the march of Philip to Heraeum Teichos made Demosthenes aware of the real danger. Considering that Athens was at war with Philip and that she depended so much on the safety of the corn supply, it would be surprising if Demosthenes was the only person to regard Philip seriously in 349/8.

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Athenian Naval Power in the Fourth Century

Cyrene to Chaeronea: Selected Essays on Ancient Greek History George Cawkwell

Print publication date: 2011 Print ISBN-13: 9780199593286 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199593286.001.0001

Athenian Naval Power in the Fourth Century George Cawkwell

DOI:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199593286.003.0018

Abstract and Keywords This chapter argues that, within the unavoidable limits of the Athenian city-state, the navy was as good as it could be; and the charge that it was the naval system that in a large measure led to Athens' ruin is false. It discusses the condition of the navy in the late 360s and the navy in the age of Philip of Macedon. Keywords:   Athens, Athenian navy, naval power, naval system, Philip of Macedon

The reader of Demosthenes can hardly avoid the impression that there was something sadly awry with the Athenian naval system in the two decades prior to Chaeronea. The war in the north Aegean was essentially a naval war, and Demosthenes frequently enough blamed Athens’ failure on her lack of preparation. ‘Why do you think, Athenians,… that all our expeditionary forces are too late for the critical moments?… In the business of the war and the preparation for it everything is in disorder, unreformed, undefined. So it is that some news arrives, we appoint trierarchs, we give them the opportunity legally to get others to act in their stead, we consider provision of money, then it is decided that the metics and those “living out” should go on the ships, then again you yourselves, then to allow substitutes, and during these delays (the cause for which we would have been sailing is lost before we have sailed). For we spend the time for action on preparations, but the critical moments for action do not last as long as our dilatoriness and cautious procedures’ (4. 35ff.). This was spoken in 351 and it is much the same a decade later (8. 10f.).

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Athenian Naval Power in the Fourth Century This impression is strongly reinforced by a first reading of Apollodorus’ speech Against Polycles ([Dem.] 50), which is our principal evidence for the state of the navy in the fourth century. There we are presented with a picture of a trierarch shirking his duty with the connivance of a general, a seemingly deplorable state of affairs.1 All this is illusory. Within the unavoidable limits of the Athenian city-state, the navy was as good as it could be and the charge that it (p.398) was the naval system that in large measure led to Athens’ ruin is false. Such is the thesis of this chapter.

I. The Condition of the Navy in the Late 360s The speech Against Polycles, delivered in the early 350s,2 concerns the seventeen-month trierarchy of Apollodorus which began in August 362, and it is necessary first to make clear that this was a period when Athens’ naval and military resources were exceptionally and unpredictably under stress. It was no part of Apollodorus’ concern to explain the general context of his trierarchy, and we must piece it together for ourselves. Athens’ war in the north Aegean began in 368 when Iphicrates commenced his campaign for the recovery of Amphipolis and was extended in 365 when Timotheus proceeded from the capture of Samos to the attempt to recover the Chersonese.3 How many ships were involved in these operations we can only guess. Timotheus had a fleet of thirty at Samos and appears to have used them for his operations round the Chersonese (Isoc. 15. 111f.). Presumably Iphicrates had a similar force operating at the other end of Thrace. However, since Iphicrates was recalled in 365 and Timotheus put in command of all the operations in the north (Dem. 23. 149), the naval force may not have remained as high as fifty or sixty ships. In the later 350s and early 340s a force of thirty ships seems to have been normal. In 349 Chares had thirty ships (Philoch. F 49). In 353 he waited at Neapolis with twenty ships to ambush the Macedonian naval force that had escorted Philip on his campaign against Abdera and Maronea (Polyaenus 4. 2. 22); Chares’ full force may have been larger.4 This was at a time when Athens was most hard pressed financially, and in the previous decade a larger number of ships may have been put at the commander’s disposal, but if we postulate a regular number of thirty we are not likely to be badly wrong. This (p.399) was not however the full extent of Athens’ naval commitment, to judge by the evidence of the navy list for 370/69 (I.G. II2 1609).5 That inscription gives details of 25 or more triremes of which certainly eleven had been despatched to a cleruchy (lines 88ff.) and two others had sailed out on unspecified business (lines 116ff.); the cleruchies concerned are probably those on Lemnos, Imbros, and Scyros to which Athens annually sent magistrates (Ath. Pol. 62. 2), and the ships were perhaps regular contingents stationed there. In any case some ships must have been engaged in protecting shipping, piracy being a constant menace, and so placed at strategic points. After the capture of Samos, the island Page 2 of 17

Athenian Naval Power in the Fourth Century was used as a naval base (cf. Polyaenus 6. 2. 1), and by 362/1 Tenedos was already perhaps similarly used (cf. [Dem.] 50. 53 and [Dem.] 17. 20). The ships guarding the Hellespont (cf. Polyaenus loc. cit.) may have been different from those in the force controlled by ‘the general for Amphipolis and the Chersonese’ (Dem. 23. 149), who needed to keep his ships together. All in all, it would not be surprising if the Athenians had forty or fifty ships a year out on active service in the 360s. (Nor should one forget the occasional minor crises, of which the Iulis inscription—Tod G.H.I. 142 (= RO 39)—provides a sample: it would appear that in the first half of 362 Athenian generals—cf. line 57—were engaged in settling troubles on the island of Keos.) The supply of rowing labour will have matched demand. Those who came in to the Peiraeus to seek employment in the Athenian navy would not wait around for an unforeseen crisis to occur. In 373 Timotheus had not been able fully to man in the Peiraeus the sixty ships assigned to him (Xen. Hell. 6. 2. 11) and had had to fill up by sailing round the islands; presumably after the Peace of 375 the pool of skilled labour had flowed home. When a crisis occurred, the Athenians had to take the exceptional measure of drafting citizens.6 In August 362 there was indeed a crisis, a four-fold crisis, described by Apollodorus in §§4–6 of the speech Against Polycles. First, Alexander of Pherae had seized Tenos, the start of a campaign of piratical (p.400) raids that culminated in the sea battle of 361 in which the Athenian general Leosthenes was defeated (Diod. 15.95, Dem. 51.8, Polyaenus 6.2. 1). Secondly, an embassy arrived from Miltocythes in revolt from Cotys, the Thracian king, with whom Athens was at war for the control of the Chersonese; he was appealing for help and offering to give back the Chersonese, a chance too good to be missed. Thirdly, the Proconnesians who were allies, presumably members of the Second Athenian Confederacy,7 were appealing for help against Cyzicus; the alliance required Athens to take action. Finally, there was the news that the Byzantines, Chalcedonians, and Cyzicenes being short of corn were forcing merchant ships to put in and sell their cargo;8 to protect the supply to the Peiraeus Athens had to act. This fourth element requires to be elucidated. It might be thought that Athens had been neglectful in not providing protection for the corn-fleet to make sure that the ships were not so molested. This would be gravely to misunderstand. If there was one matter the Athenians did not neglect, it was the corn supply, which was on the agenda of the main assembly every prytany (Arist. Ath. Pol. 43. 4).9 What happened in 362 is more likely to have been that when the news came that corn-ships bound for Athens were being forced by the Byzantines, the Cyzicenes, and the Chalcedonians to land and sell their cargoes, the Athenians received the first news of one of the periodic crises of general shortage of corn and reacted promptly, by providing for naval convoy of the corn-fleet.10 It was an

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Athenian Naval Power in the Fourth Century important (p.401) element in the unusual pressure on the city’s naval resources in that year. The year 362 was not a typical one, and our principal evidence, the speech Against Polycles, in which this fact is taken for granted but obscured from us, must be approached with caution. Nor was Apollodorus a typical trierarch. He certainly was a very rich man, even if his enemies as wildly exaggerated the extent of his fortune as he himself belittled it (cf. Dem. 36. 36ff. and [Dem.] 59. 7), and as certainly a very extravagant one (cf. Dem. 36. 8, 42, 44f. and 45. 76). Not only did he provide his own equipment for the ship, a common enough practice (cf. [Dem.] 47. 23, Dem. 51. 5), but he did so, on his own profession, most expensively ([Dem.] 50. 7); he reports a conversation in which Polycles jeered at gold-plated fittings (κόσμος χρυσόπαστος §34), and since it was hardly to Apollodorus’ advantage to dwell on the extravagance of his arrangements and so arouse sympathy for his opponent, we may accept that the ship was indeed extravagantly fitted out. Similarly with the crew. Apollodorus chose not to accept the citizens who had been drafted (§§6, 7) but to hire for himself the best rowers he could. In consequence he was especially affected by desertions (§§14–16, 23, 65) to more steadily paid employment abroad (§14) or simply to their families in the Peiraeus (§11). So the successor to Apollodorus would have been taking on an exceptionally costly trierarchy. One can sympathise with Polycles in his insistence on his rights. Indeed, it is in considering what Polycles claimed as his rights that one can see that the succession to Apollodorus was in another sense quite untypical. It is to be noted that the speech was delivered in a legal action aimed at the recovery of the expenses incurred by Apollodorus after his twelve-month trierarchy had concluded (§67)—a matter of (p.402) money and nothing more. Polycles was emphatic that he would not take over the trireme in the absence of his fellow syntrierarch (§37). The general Timomachus approved of Polycles’ conduct, for he would not even urge Polycles to take over the ship (§§38ff.); Apollodorus would have it believed partly that it suited Timomachus to keep in his fleet a trierarch who maintained his ship so well (§§43ff.), partly that he had a grudge against Apollodorus for refusing to carry the exiled Callistratus on his ship (§§46–52); but there is no hint either that Timomachus had broken the law or that he had been prosecuted for such a breach. Indeed, despite vague allusion to the severity of the law governing succession of trierarchs (§43) and even the wish expressed for the law to be read out to the court (§57),11 Apollodorus refrained from close argument on the basis of the text of the law. Instead he cited another case, where a man who arrived to succeed was content to take over in the absence of his syntrierarch (§§41f.); which in no way disproved Polycles’ contention that he was not obliged to take over on his own. The truth Page 4 of 17

Athenian Naval Power in the Fourth Century must be that Polycles did not break the law. That is why the case was concerned solely with the recovery of expenses. Such a law can have been maintained only if trierarchies normally began in the Peiraeus. Evidently the syntrierarch was obliged to serve for only six months (§§39, 68). If it had been at all common for boats to be taken over in mid-Aegean or at the Hellespont, there would have been constant confusion. Either syntrierarchs would have gone out in pairs and one of them would have made his way back to Athens to await his due six months or there would have been interminable wrangling and law-suits over equipment as well as over petty periods of ‘extra trierarchy’ (ἐπιτριηράρχημα), for succession on the exact day would often have been impossible. Under such stress the law would have cracked and needed amendment. It is only intelligible if in the vast majority of cases ships were taken over in the Peiraeus, where the requirement that both syntrierarchs had to be present could be easily satisfied; where trierarchs were abroad at the time when they were due to be relieved, the normal method was presumably to send out relieving ships (τριήρϵις διάδοχοι Thuc. 1. 110. 4).12 After all, getting (p.403) successors to their own ships would often have turned into a frustrating and comic chase after ships dispersed on various duties. But 362 and 361 were different. The fleet was under stress. There was a shortage of rowing labour in the Peiraeus. The successors had to be specially sent out to take over in mid-Aegean. It was all extraordinary, quite untypical. Our main evidence, the speech Against Polycles, requires careful handling. What, then, are we to judge of the condition of the Athenian navy in the late 360s? Are we to think that the typical trierarch was a shirker like Polycles? Was the navy’s effectiveness much reduced from what it had been in the great days of the fifth century, so dramatically portrayed by Thucydides at the moment of the departure for Sicily (6. 30ff.)? It is worth noting at the outset that the trierarchic system seems to have remained virtually unchanged between 415 and 362. As remarked above, it was probably exceptional for the city to conscript rowers in 362. Apollodorus preferred to take out an ‘empty’ ship (i.e. one for which he found the crew himself) and that may have been normal enough. We continue to hear of ‘empty’ ships (Dem. 3. 5, 4. 43) and of ships for which the city provided only part of the rowers (Philoch. F 49). The Corinthians had been made by Thucydides to assert that Athenian naval strength was mercenary (ὠνητή 1. 121. 3), and Pericles to riposte that though this was true, the city did have the manpower to man the fleet in an emergency (1. 143. 1). That was probably the case as long as Athenian naval power endured. The ‘empty’ ships of 415 (Thuc 6. 31. 3) were manned by the same method as the ‘empty’ ships of Charidemus in 351 or the fleet of Chares out on operations in 349, and as Apollodorus chose in 362. That part of the trierarch’s duty remained constant. Likewise, perhaps, the hiring of Page 5 of 17

Athenian Naval Power in the Fourth Century the petty officers (ὑπηρϵσία). Although in 415 the city ‘provided the best ὑπηρϵσίαι for the ships’ (Thuc. ibid.), that does not mean that a trierarch could not or did not find his own. Pericles had remarked that Athenians’ steersmen (κυβϵρνῆται) and other petty officers were citizens (Thuc. 1. 143), and Thucydides’ phrase about the city providing them in 415 may mean no more than that the best were drafted to the expedition, each of the trierarchs having still to find his own particular set. This may not be right. 415 may have been exceptional in this respect. But the speaker of Lysias 21 shows that in the Ionian War at any rate trierarchs found their own sets of petty officers (cf. §10), and in this respect things had probably not changed. Indeed the (p.404) whole of Thucydides’ discussion of the preparation of the fleet in 415 is entirely intelligible in the light of Apollodorus’ speech. The trier-archy was essentially what it had been. The only certain change is the institution of the syntrierarchy by the time of and presumably during the Ionian War (Lys. 32. 24),13 but this merely reflected the declining prosperity of Athenians after the Sicilian Expedition and made no serious change in the nature of the trierarchy. Another change that has been suggested involves the introduction of the lot for assigning ships to trierarchs.14 The evidence adduced is a passage of Aristophanes’ Knights (912–18),15 hardly to be pressed as literal truth, and it seems unlikely that in a city where the use of the lot was long established to frustrate knavish tricks and ambitions, generals were still as late as 425 exercising such power over individuals’ fortunes. This questionable reform apart, there is no reason to suppose that the naval system that flourished when the Empire flourished did not survive until the law of Periander. It seems to have satisfied the Athenians in the fifth century. Why should it be judged unsatisfactory in the fourth? The obvious difference between the two centuries is, of course, in the wealth of the city. According to Apollodorus (§10), in the seventeen months he held command of the ship he received full pay for the crew for only two; for the other fifteen he got only enough to provide ‘ration money’ (σιτηρέσιον). Demosthenes supposed that no more than ‘ ration money’ could be provided by the city for the standing force of ten ships he advocated in the First Philippic (§§22f., 28). So the state of affairs described by Apollodorus was probably typical enough for the period. The results were on the one hand that hired rowers sought more satisfactory employers (v.s.), on the other that generals had to find other paymasters and neglect the city’s interests.16 All this, however, was not a defect of the naval system, but the (p.405) failure of policy. If states pursue policies beyond their means, failure is due to those who make the policy, not the armed forces who try to execute it. The reluctance of Polycles to take over the ship is understandable enough. A considerable sum of money was at issue and it is to be noted that Polycles, by insisting on his legal rights, in no way hindered the effectiveness of the fleet; Apollodorus continued to serve, by his own account with distinction (§§43f.), and no harm resulted.17 But what of the other trierarchs? The speech gives the Page 6 of 17

Athenian Naval Power in the Fourth Century impression that Polycles was ‘compelled to go to the ship’ by decree of the Athenian people (§29), but if indeed Polycles had been the subject of a special decree, Apollodorus would have made a great deal more of it and of the circumstances in which it was passed. So it must have been a general instruction to the replacement trierarchs to go to their ships, and the reason can be readily guessed. In 361 the Aegean was far from safe.18 Both before and after the battle of Peparethos the danger presented by the ships of Alexander of Pherae must have made the Athenians very cautious about allowing out of the Peiraeus anything less than a considerable squadron.19 The trierarchs were not taken out to their ships until very late in the year, in December (§§29 and 23), by which time Alexander’s ships had probably withdrawn for the winter. There is, therefore, no reason to think that there was a general shirking of duty by Polycles’ fellow replacements. There is, however, one curious feature of the speech. Polycles had declared that he would not take over the ship in the absence of his fellow syntrierarch (§37). Apollodorus countered by citing a case in which a successor had indeed taken over and settled with his syntrierarch later (§§41f.). Was this the only case Apollodorus could cite? He certainly speaks as if it was. Why could he not muster a number of examples to strengthen his attempt to show up Polycles as a selfish shirker? It may have been that most of the replacements were full trierarchs. It is evident from the early navy lists that the syntrierarchy (p.406) was far from being universally the case;20 Apollodorus himself was sole trierarch,21 and the syntrierarch to whose case Apollodorus appealed may have been the exception. But that is unlikely, as is also the possibility that in other cases where syntrierarchs were taking over, they brought their fellow syntrierarchs with them to approve the terms of the transfer; only one of a pair could actually command at any time and the superfluous member would have had to return to Athens to await his six months. So why did Apollodorus have only the one case to cite? It is to be remarked that in this one case the absent syntrierarch, by name Phrasierides, never appeared and the takeover was effected by ‘those from Phrasierides’ (§42). The suspicion therefore arises that we have here an instance of a syntrierarch hiring out his duty and that the shortage of parallel cases for Apollodorus to cite is due to the prevalence of this custom. Apollodorus in his summary (§§57ff.) boasted that he made himself and his ship fully available to the general, ‘not only spending my property, but even risking my life by joining in the naval expedition’ (συνϵπιπλέων) (§59), as if there was something peculiarly virtuous in his doing so. That hiring out trierarchies was becoming common is in any case suggested by a passage in Demosthenes’ speech On the Crown of the Trierarchy where it is said that the Athenians held those who had hired out their trierarchies especially responsible for the loss of the battle of Peparethos in 361 (§8); there must have been a substantial enough number of such cases in that battle to make such an accusation credible. So we

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Athenian Naval Power in the Fourth Century may take it that by the late 360s the hiring out of trierarchic duties had become common. Is it to be taken as a sign of corruption and neglect? The senior professional of the Athenian naval system was the steersman, the κυβϵρνήτης. Trierarchs served their turn but being of the richest class of Athenians they did not necessarily have much knowledge or even experience of the sea. Trierarchs might be held to be particularly responsible, especially if they had commanded as generals (cf. Xen. Hell. 1. 7. 5), and so were competent to act in lieu of the generals, but it was the steersmen who had the real knowledge of the sea and whose advice was sought. At Syracuse it was a (p. 407) Corinthian steersman whose opinion was regarded, just as it was with the Athenian steersmen that Nicias concerted measures for frustrating Syracusan tactics (Thuc. 7. 39. 2, 62. 1). A steersman could have the reputation of being ‘the best in Greece’ (Lys. 21. 10), and the steersman of Lysander, Hermon, was honoured with a statue at Delphi as well as with the citizenship of Megara (Paus. 10. 9. 8f.). Nor is this surprising. The steersman had worked his way up from the rowing benches and acquired his seamanship by long experience (Ar. Knights 541–4). The title literally translated is ‘steersman’, but it is clear that others worked the steering paddles, and that the kybernetes was the commander, as Plato (Rep. 341C, D) declared him to be. It should cause no surprise therefore that when Alcibiades temporarily left the Athenian fleet, he left in command not the most senior or the most experienced of the trierarchs but his own steersman, Antiochus (Xen. Hell. 1. 5. 11). Indeed the true state of affairs is well illustrated by what happened in Apollodorus’ own ship. The Athenian general, Timomachus, sent orders to Apollodorus to assemble his crew; Callippus then came aboard and told the steersman to sail to Macedonia (Dem. 50. 46f.). The trierarch in short did not really matter, and it was only when word got about that Callippus was to transport the exile Callistratus to Thasos, an illegal act, that the steersman firmly declared that Apollodorus was the trierarch and provided his pay and that he would sail whither Apollodorus ordered (§48ff.); until the legal question was raised, the trierarch was of little importance in the running of the ship. The trierarch paid and anxiously regarded, the steersman had the knowledge and the experience. None the less it was not an entirely satisfactory situation. The fourth century is the age of the professional in all spheres of Athenian life and it is not surprising that a tribe of professional ‘trierarchs’ came into existence ready to be captains in the real sense. They are a shadowy lot, for the names recorded on the navy lists are the names of the citizens appointed by the generals, not necessarily of those who sailed on the ships. The only name we have is that of a metic of Egyptian origin (Dem. 21. 163). He may not have been typical. One would not be surprised to discover that the hired ‘trierarchs’ were Athenian citizens who had done their time as steersmen. If that was the case, the practice of hiring out trierarchies may have been no bad thing. Typically, the Athenians rounded on those who had hired out their duty in 361 (Dem. 51. 8), but the practice made Page 8 of 17

Athenian Naval Power in the Fourth Century sense and continued unstopped (ibid. 11), surviving the law of Periander (p. 408) (Dem. 21. 80, 163), even receiving the seal of approval thereby. It would be wrong therefore to see the practice as a degeneration of Athenian patriotic spirit rather than as a sensible development in tune with the general tendency of the age to prefer professionalism.22 The one area where confusion seems to have reigned was in the provision and maintenance of equipment (σκϵύη). There was an abundance of hulls but the amount of equipment held by the Naval Commissioners (ἐπιμϵληταὶ τῶν νϵωρíων) fell far short of the number of hulls. For instance, at the end of the navy list for 353/2 (I.G. II2 1613. 284–310) the total number of triremes is given as 349, for which there are full sets of oars for 291, and steering oars for 280odd, and this sort of deficiency can be instanced many times over. Furthermore, Naval Commissioners got away with owing money for over thirty years (cf. I.G. II2 1622. 405ff. for a debt deriving from 378/7, not paid until the late 340s, and passim for many other similar cases), and likewise trierarchs were recorded year by year as holding equipment they had not returned at the end of their trierarchy,23 at the least a very inefficient system. But things were not quite what they seemed. Many trierarchs had the prudence to do very much what Apollodorus did, viz. provide their own equipment (cf. Dem. 51. 5, 47. 23); if a rope snapped or a spar broke, not only might the trierarch’s own life be endangered but also he might be involved in a great deal of expense or a great deal of wrangling over how far he was responsible for the ensuing damage. Presumably the reason why the items of equipment owed to the dockyards were so various is that trierarchs varied greatly in the equipment they bought for themselves. For instance, in I.G. 1611. 286ff. there is the start of a list of triremes from the harbour of Munichia that were at sea when the list was drawn up; one ship is not recorded as having any public equipment, the next is recorded as having a great deal, the next only a pair of poles, and so on. All these ships would have had their full equipment, but a very great deal of it was held and cared for by individuals. So the Naval Commissioners probably held ample equipment for their normal needs. Only when there was a call for an unusually large number of ships would their (p.409) holdings prove insufficient, a situation which could be dealt with, as it was dealt with in 357/6, by a decree requiring all equipment, public and private, to be handed in (Dem. 47. 20, 44). The only real difficulty in such a situation was the provision of the more perishable items, sails and ropes. For these, supply no doubt matched demand, and a sudden heavy demand might create temporary shortages—but only temporary, for the Peiraeus catered for a huge number of merchant ships and a naval force of, say, another sixty ships could quickly enough have been supplied. For there was never any question of manning and despatching at any one time more than a quite small proportion of the hulls the city possessed. The largest naval force ever sent out by Athens after 480 was the force of 170 ships that fought and lost the battle of Amorgos in 322 (Diod. 18. 15. 8); the city then Page 9 of 17

Athenian Naval Power in the Fourth Century possessed over 400 ships. Similarly in the Social War 120 ships, a union of two squadrons of sixty, fought at Embata (Diod. 16. 21) at a time when the city possessed 283 ships (I.G. II2 1611. 9). So the slackness and inefficiency that seem to rule the administration of the city’s dockyards must be seen in proportion. Despite what seems like muddle, Athenian fleets were not underequipped or, for all we know, ill equipped. All in all, the appearances of Apollodorus’ speech are deceptive. Wages were indeed ill provided, but, as has been noticed, this was a defect of policy rather than of the naval system. For the rest the system was perfectly adequate for the calls made on it. The city’s corn was convoyed, and the various political opportunities not neglected. The battle of Peparethos was indeed lost (Dem. 51.8), but it was a very minor affair. Alexander saw his chance to attack when Leosthenes sent off a mere three ships (Polyaenus 6. 2. 1), and a mere five ships were captured (Diod. 15. 95). After 361, no more is heard of Alexander’s privateers. The battle was a very minor and a very temporary reverse. In the late 360s Athens still ruled the waves.

II. The Navy in the Age of Philip of Macedon If the naval system was gravely in need of reform, it is remarkable how limited in scope were the two reforms of which we are informed, (p.410) viz. the law of Periander of 357/6 and the law of Demosthenes of 339.24 Both were concerned, either first and foremost or solely, with establishing a more equitable sharing of the costs of running a trireme. By 357 Athens was approaching the nadir of her economic fortunes and the number of those rich enough to be able to pay for even a syntrierarchy was presumably greatly diminished. In such circumstances the law of Periander, which established a system of symmories to share in the costs previously borne entirely by the trierarchs, was a sensible solution. By 340/39 the prosperity of Athens was greatly restored and individuals were rich enough to bear the costs of more than a single trireme. Demosthenes’ law simply adjusted the system to this new state of affairs, his virtuous trumpeting being hardly justified. Thus both reforms were of the same inspiration as the introduction of the syntrierarchy in the late fifth century. Demosthenes’ reform was a straightforward variation of the system established by Periander, and made no change other than in the way the financial responsibility was shared. In Periander’s law, however, one might wonder whether changes of wider import were made. Certainly, in setting up symmoriai, Periander made formal the breach between paying and serving. Some members of the 1200 symmoritae were still liable for military service and, when they were appointed trierarchs, they had to serve although the funding of the triremes was no longer theirs alone; other members, who were too old or unfit and were exempt from military service, merely had to pay. (Isocrates is a notable instance of the second kind.25) In this way the practice of hiring out trierarchies, common enough in the late 360s (v.s.), was given legal recognition (Dem. 21.155). So Page 10 of 17

Athenian Naval Power in the Fourth Century much is sure enough. But were there other changes? Demosthenes, contrasting the period of his own first trierarchy with that following the law of Periander, indicates that there were changes both in the manning of ships and in the (p. 411) provision of equipment (21. 154f.); whereas he and his fellow trierarch had ‘paid all the expenses out of their own pockets and themselves got the ships manned’, Midias has exacted a talent from the syntely and hired out the trierarchy for the same amount, and ‘the city provides crews and gives equipment’ (σκϵύη δίδωσιν). Since before the law of Periander the city is found on occasion providing crews (Dem. 50. 6) and after the law on occasion providing unmanned ships (Dem. 3. 5,4. 43)26 and since it is clear that before the law the city did provide equipment for those who chose to use it and after the law the amount of public equipment used varied greatly from trireme to trireme, Demosthenes’ words are somewhat puzzling. Some indication of the scope of Periander’s law may be found, however, in Demosthenes’ proposals for reform in his speech On the Symmories (Or. 14). There, in addition to a new system of symmories (§§16–20), he makes a proposal (§§21f.) for the recovery of equipment from debtors, which calls to mind the statement in Speech 47 that the law of Periander obliged certain officials ‘to take over those owing equipment’ (§21). It is not clear in that passage which of the officials mentioned, viz. the Naval Commissioners, the trierarchs on the point of sailing out, and the Superintendents of the Symmories (ἐπιμϵληταί τῶν συμμορíων), were ‘obliged’ by the law. Perhaps all three were. But it looks as if Demosthenes in 354/3 was proposing some minor variation of the law of Periander with regard to the collection of overdue equipment, not a great change in the system. The navy lists make clear that individuals continued to draw and to owe equipment belonging to the state. (It is true that from 357/6 a different method of accounting seems to be in force. In the lists of the 370s, each trireme seems to have its own set of equipment, albeit frequently incomplete; in the lists of the 350s the equipment is pooled. But this change hardly betokens much. The early system must have produced chaos, and the system of the 350s was plain good sense. Nor did it necessarily have anything to do with the law of Periander. The lists of the late 360s are missing, and the change of accounting may have been made well before 357/6.) Whatever Demosthenes meant by his remark that ‘the city gives equipment’, it cannot have been a major change in the system. (p.412) Likewise with the provision of crews (Dem. 21. 155). The speech On the Symmories made proposals concerning the manning of ships (§§22–3). Whereas in 362 citizens were drafted for service in the navy by the Council and the Demarchs (Dem. 50. 6), in 354/3 Demosthenes proposed a system involving the taxiarchs,27 and again it seems likely that this is a variation on some change instituted by Periander. When the city had to conscript citizens as rowers, how was it to be done? Periander made one change. Demosthenes proposed another. Probably neither and certainly not Periander envisaged that the city would

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Athenian Naval Power in the Fourth Century always provide crews. After Periander’s law, as already remarked, there could be ‘empty ships’ voted. There was no great change of principle.28 Thus apart from the question of who paid, the law of Periander was a limp affair, which left the naval system essentially what it had been since the fifth century. Similarly, the proposals of the speech On the Symmories would have made remarkably little real difference. Demosthenes’ purpose was to secure that a naval force should be got together ‘in the best and quickest way possible’ (§14), to face a Persian invasion if it came (§§3–13). So for ordinary naval activity in the mid-350s he seems to have considered that there was no need of radical reform. Once Demosthenes had recognised the danger of Philip, as he did in 352/1, his criticism of Athens’ performance is sharply directed to her forces always being too late to save the day. His proposals concern the conduct of policy and not the reform of the naval system. In the First Philippic he demands both the preparation of a task force of fifty ships with horse transports and supply ships, which can be sent wherever trouble threatens, and the establishment of a small force of ten ships regularly engaged in operations against Philip (§§16–22). In the First Olynthiac (§17) the notion of a dual force is again raised. (p.413) The Athenians chose not to follow his policy, to my mind wisely, but it is worth considering whether a radical reform of the navy could have improved Athens’ performance against Philip. If a force of fifty ships manned by citizens were to be constantly ready, 8,500 citizens29 would have had to be constantly on call to row the ships and a further 500 as marines, as well as the citizens in the hyperesiai. If they were to be paid, even at the rate of half a drachma a day, and for only eight months of the year,30 the city would have taken on a large item of expenditure it was in no position to afford. If they were not to be paid, they would at any rate have had to be kept trained, and it would hardly have been practicable for such a large proportion of the citizen body to be constantly engaged in rowing practice. Athens would have had to become a sort of naval Sparta. In any case, fifty ships in the Peiraeus would have been of no great use. Demosthenes supposed that his naval preparations would rob Philip of the geographical advantage he derived from timing his attacks to coincide with the Etesian Winds (4. 31f.). But his ten raiding triremes would have been too small to prevent anything and so his fifty ships would have had to be at the ready in the north Aegean, at impossible cost and beyond the reach of the Demos’ decisions. The whole idea of a standing navy was absurd. Minor improvements could indeed have been made. The control of state equipment should have been more efficient, though it is far from clear that the navy would have been any the better for it. If trierarchies were to run for twelve months from the moment that the actual need for them arose, some system of forewarning would have been useful, as would earlier opportunity for the legal Page 12 of 17

Athenian Naval Power in the Fourth Century process of exchange (ἀντίδοσις). To what extent such matters delayed the despatch of fleets is quite uncertain. According to Aeschines (3. 85), the expedition to save Euboea in 357 got there within five days. The expedition which occupied Thermopylae in 35231 must have got there in very quick time. Those whom Demosthenes pictured in the First Philippic as demanding action ‘quickly’ and ‘today’ (§14) seem not to have envisaged great delay. Indeed one suspects that the indecision he describes at 4. 36f. as if it were regular derived from a single occasion, (p.414) perhaps in connection with the despatch of Charidemus (Dem. 3. 4); such changes of mind about who would serve are not likely to have occurred very often. In any case such delays would be the fault of policy, not of the naval system. On the whole there was little need for reform.32 From the restoration of the Athenian navy in 378 down to the disaster of the battle of Amorgos in 322, the Athenians kept control of the sea.33 The system was adequate to the demands made of it, though it must be admitted that the challenges were very minor. The Persians, the rumour of whose preparations had excited the speech On the Symmories, were not really a naval power. Apart from the fleet of Conon and Pharnabazus in the 390s and the fleet of Memnon in 334 and 333, the Persians did not operate independently of a land army; their ships were only the mobile wing of their armies. Likewise Philip declined to become involved with the sea. We hear of privateers and (p.415) petty raids.34 On one occasion, it is alleged by Polyaenus (4. 2. 21), an expedition into Thrace was accompanied by ‘many ships’, but if there is any truth in the story, that is the only occasion. Until he crossed to Asia, the Athenian navy was neither of use nor a menace. Once the Macedonians got control of the Phoenician naval bases in the Levant and could exploit Phoenician skill, the end for Athenian sea-power was in sight. Notes:

(1) Cf. Blass, Att. Bered. iii. 1, p. 527 (‘Der Mangel an Ordnung und Zucht im athenischen Seewesen wird uns jedenfalls durch diese Rede sehr grell gezeigt’). (2) Cf. Blass, ibid. (3) For the chronology cf. Beloch, Gr. Ges. iii. 2, pp. 245–7. (4) Diod. 16. 35. 5 speaks of Chares being offshore at the battle of the Crocus Field (352 BC) with ‘many triremes’. (5) For the dating cf. Historia 22 (1973), pp. 759–61. (6) For the meaning of the phrase κατλόγους ποιϵῖσθαι τῶν δημοτῶν cf. Dover ad Thuc. 6. 26. 2. It does not imply the registration for service of those previously unregistered, but means simply ‘to draft’. Cf. Lysias 9. 4, the case of a citizen, not long back from a campaign, conscripted again (κατϵλέγην στρατιώτης) and Lysias 14. 6. For drafting in an emergency cf. B. Jordan, The Page 13 of 17

Athenian Naval Power in the Fourth Century Athenian Navy in the Classical Period (vol. 13, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1975), p. 226. (7) [Dem.] 50. 4 is our only evidence. (8) References to forcing ships to put in (κατάγϵιν) are frequent. This was not necessarily a sign of hostility (cf. I.G. II2 360. 35ff., [Arist.] Oec. 1346b30). Cf. de Ste Croix, Origins of the Peloponnesian War, pp. 47 and 314. (9) Cf. Aristotle, Rhet. 1359b21–23. (10) Periods of widespread corn shortage were common. The best attested was that of 330–326, so profitably exploited by Cleomenes (cf. Dem. 56. 7, 34. 38f., 42. 20, 31, I.G. II2 360, Plut. Mor. 851b); its effects were felt through the whole of the Greek world, as Tod, G.H.I. 196 (= RO 96) shows, and it prompted Athens to seek its own secure supply from the Adriatic (G.H.I. 200 (= RO 100). 217ff.). The most famous was that in which Joseph exploited the seven lean years (Genesis 41: 53–7). Another (Acts 11: 28) probably produced the bread riots under Claudius (Tac. Ann. 12. 43). In 357/6 there was ‘a corn shortage throughout the human race’ (Dem. 20. 33). When did it begin? The probable explanation of these periods of corn shortage is drought (cf. Genesis 45: 6, with ‘neither ploughing nor harvest’, which I take to refer to Israel, not Egypt, where agriculture depended on inundation which could be ‘low’ but never fail totally), and in 361 there was severe enough drought in Attica for the wells to dry up and crops to fail ([Dem.] 50. 61). Corn-ships were being ‘beached’ in 362 and needing convoy in 361. Perhaps this was one of those periods, and lasted until 357/6. But whether this is true or not, the important point is that the news that ships were being ‘beached’ which reached Athens in later summer 362 was the first sign of general corn shortage. The grain harvest in the Crimea falls now in early July and in South Russia generally in the first half of that month (cf. M. Y. Nuttonson, Wheat–Climate Relationships etc., American Institute of Crop Ecology 1955 Figures 64 and 106ff., Tables 53 and 96ff.). One must allow time for threshing and transport (perhaps a fortnight) and the harvest date may not have been the same two and a quarter millennia ago, but all in all it seems likely that it would have been the first of the new season’s wheat in 362 which would have been liable for compulsory purchase in Byzantium in late Hecatombaion and early Metageitnion 362/1. There is at any rate no reason to think that Athens had been neglecting to safeguard its corn supply. In normal circumstances convoy was not necessary and at the first news of crisis the city acted. (11) Perhaps the law was part of the evidence read out after the speech (§68). (12) It is to be noted that the phrase does not occur in Xenophon or the orators, nor does it occur elsewhere in Thucydides. But such reliefs must have been commonplace. In the navy lists the only discernible instances of trierarch Page 14 of 17

Athenian Naval Power in the Fourth Century succeeding trierarch at sea are I.G. II2 1629 (G.H.I. 200 = RO 100). 776 and 941 (which repeats 1628. 421). (13) I.G. II2 1951 is (unnecessary) confirmation of a sort, for its date is very dubitable. Cf. Jordan, op. cit., pp. 71f. (14) Cf. Jordan, op. cit., p. 229 n. 63. (15) The Scholiast appears to have no independent knowledge. If the Themistocles Decree (ML 23 = Fornara 55) were genuine, it would tell against Jordan’s view (cf. 1. 26). (16) Cf. Dem. 2. 28, a general statement occasioned principally by the case of Chares in 356/5 (Diod. 16. 22. 1, Dem. 4. 24), as the mention of Sigeum and Lampsacus suggests (cf. Schol. Dem. 3. 31), and de Ste Croix, Class Struggle, pp. 293 and 607 n. 37. (17) Polycles may have been an exceptionally sticky customer. There is no knowing in what circumstances he had, at some earlier date, not taken over a ship at the end of a fellow syntrierarch’s six months (§68). (18) Cf. §28, where Apollodorus’ friends, confronting Polycles, allude to danger in transporting money. (19) Diodorus (15. 95) provides a date for the battle, 361/0. Alexander’s piracy had begun by September 362 ([Dem.] 50. 4). (20) Cf. e.g. I.G. II2 1605 (a trierarch in line 30, a pair of syntrierarchs in line 36). In I.G. II2 1609, of 19 clear cases, 4 are single trierarchs, the rest syntrierarchs. (However, in I.G. II2 1604, where only single trierarchs are named, it would be wrong to assume that none of them were syntrierarchs.) (21) Cf. Dem. 47. 22, 29; the plaintiff appears to have been a sole trierarch in 357/6. (22) The same view should perhaps be taken of the practice of commuting service for pay in the Peloponnesian League (Xen. Hell. 5. 2. 21–3). (23) Cf. J. K. Davies, ‘The Date of I.G. II2 1609’, Historia 18 (1969), pp. 311–18. A good instance of an outstanding debt is provided by I.G. II2 1611. 400ff. and 1622. 249ff., a gap of 14 years. (24) For the evidence see M. Brillant in Daremberg-Saglio, Dictionnaire des antiquités s.v. ‘trierarchia’ pp. 445–9, and H. Strasburger, R.E. VII A 1 cols. 108– 12.

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Athenian Naval Power in the Fourth Century (25) A. H. M. Jones, Athenian Democracy, p. 57 speaks of ‘the parsimonious orator’ being able at the age of 80 to boast of only three trierarchies, a marvellous instance of lack of public spirit. The remarks are inept. Isocrates, born in 436, may not have been rich enough to qualify for trierarchic service in the Corinthian War, and beyond military age soon after the start of war in 378. So he may never have been called on before the law of Periander and his boast (15. 145) may have been justified. Further, some scepticism about his wealth would not be out of place; cf. G. L. Cawkwell in Ancient Writers, l (New York, 1982), p. 315. (26) Philochorus F 49 states that in 349/8 the Athenians ‘completed the manning of eight ships’ (συνϵπλήρωσαν; for which word cf. Xen. Hell. 6. 2. 12). (27) For the evidence about taxiarchs cf. P. J. Rhodes ad Ath. Pol. 61.3 and BusoltSwoboda, G.S. 1128, 1185f., 1193. Their role in the fleet is mysterious (cf. Xen. Hell. 1. 6. 29, 35), but there is no reason to suppose that they had any part in the manning of ships. (28) Isaeus 7. 38 might suggest that trierarchs were guaranteed by the law of Periander a two-year interval before being again conscripted, but the orator may mean no more than that whereas in the late fifth-century service there were large fleets out almost continuously, by the middle of the fourth century there was comparatively a great deal less naval activity and so trierarchic service was required on average only every third year. However it is to be noted that a law prescribed a year’s interval between liturgies (Dem. 20. 8). (29) For the number of rowers in a ship cf. J. S. Morrison and R. T. Williams, Greek Oared Ships, p. 256. (30) Cf. Plut. Per. 11. 4. (31) Diod. 16. 37. 3 and 38. 2, Justin 8. 2. 8, Dem. 4. 17 and 19. 319. (32) According to Demosthenes (18. 107), his law of 340 (limited in scope though it was) secured the perfect functioning of the fleet. (33) The period of the Social War might seem to be an exception. In the later stages of the war the allies assembled a fleet of 100 ships with which they ravaged Lemnos, Imbros, and ‘many other of the islands subject to the Athenians’, and began an assault by land and sea on Samos (Diod. 16. 21); the inscription of the ninth prytany of 357/6 providing for a garrison on Andros (Tod, G.H.I. 156 = RO 52) is a reflection of this period. Clearly the fleet of sixty ships under Chares originally assigned to deal with the revolt (Diod. 16. 22. 1) had proved inadequate and a further fleet of 60 ships had to be sent out (ibid.). The two sea-battles of the war were minor affairs. The battle of Embata was abortive, being called off due to bad weather (Diod. 16. 21. 4, Polyaenus 3. 9. 29, Nepos Page 16 of 17

Athenian Naval Power in the Fourth Century Tim. 3. 3f.). The battle of Chios was hardly a major engagement. Chares launched a combined assault on Chios by land and sea. The naval operations in which Chabrias died occurred when the Athenians tried to force their way into the harbour of Chios; Chabrias’ ship alone succeeded in entering the harbour and was rammed; the crew swam to the other ships and were saved; he stayed on the sinking ship and was killed (Diod. 16. 7. 3f.; Nepos Chab. 4—Plut. Phoc. 6 gives a slightly different account). None of this suggests a major battle. If the Chians had had a fleet equal to defeating the Athenians in a full engagement, events would have been different and indeed Chares would have adopted a different strategy. According to N. S. R. Hornblower, Mausolus pp. 211–14, Mausolus, who was alleged by Xenophon, speaking of the late 360s, to have had a fleet of 100 ships (Ages. 2. 26), played an active part in these naval operations. Diodorus (16. 7. 3) says that the allied forces at Chios at the start of the war came in part from Mausolus, but if his contribution was naval, it is unlikely, in view of the nature of the battle, to have been large; but perhaps all he did was to send some mercenaries to help in the defence of the city. It must be remembered that the war ended when a rumour reached Greece that the Great King was preparing to intervene with 300 ships (Diod. 16. 22. 2), which hardly suggests that Persian forces were already playing a major role. It would seem that Athens feared she might lose control of the sea rather than that she had lost it. (34) Dem. 4. 34 and 22; Aesch. 2. 72; Androtion F 24; Justin 8. 3. 13.

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Orthodoxy and Hoplites

Cyrene to Chaeronea: Selected Essays on Ancient Greek History George Cawkwell

Print publication date: 2011 Print ISBN-13: 9780199593286 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199593286.001.0001

Orthodoxy and Hoplites George Cawkwell

DOI:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199593286.003.0019

Abstract and Keywords This chapter develops an account of hoplite battles. It describes hoplite fighting as a tiring business and, if battles did indeed last two or three hours, exhausting. The file-leaders were the strongest and bravest, and they bore the brunt of the fighting and suffered the most casualties. When they were killed or wounded their places were filled by the men immediately behind them, the men whose spears had helped to defend the file-leaders now themselves becoming the fileleaders and so ‘keeping the formations unbroken’. Keywords:   orthodoxy, hoplites, battles, hoplite warfare, fighting, file-leaders

In Philip of Macedon (1978) (pp. 150f.), as part of a general survey of the development of the art of war in Classical Greece, I briefly adumbrated a view of the nature of hoplite fighting. It was not the conventional one, of which the following statement of Adcock in The Greek and Macedonian Art of War (1957) p. 4 is fairly representative: The effectiveness of the phalanx depends in part on skill in fighting by those in the front rank, and in part on the physical and moral support of the lines behind them. The two opposing phalanxes meet each other with clash of shield on shield and blow of spear against spear. Their momentum is increased by the impetus of the charge that precedes their meeting. If the first clash is not decisive by the superior weight and thrust of the one phalanx over the other, the fighting goes on. The later ranks supply fighters as those before them fall. At last one side gains the upper hand.

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Orthodoxy and Hoplites Then the other phalanx breaks and takes to flight and the battle is won and lost. The continuity of the line while the fighting is going on is all-important, and every man in the line knows that his life depends on his neighbour’s fighting as steadily, as skilfully and as bravely as himself. No form of combat could so plainly exhibit the community solidarity that was of the essence of the Greek city-state. It was not the place for single-handed exploits, for the Epic aristeia of champions … Similarly, G. B. Grundy, Thucydides and the History of his Age i2 (1948), pp. 267f. The hoplite force relied on two qualities, solidity and weight. The men were placed very close together in the ranks, and that tendency which Thucydides notices, for each man to attempt to shelter his right side under the shield of the man next to him would promote the closeness of the order in the phalanx. The aim was to present to the enemy an (p.417) unbroken line of shields and breastplates. It would no doubt have been very difficult indeed to induce the Greek citizen soldier to adopt tactics involving a more open order, still more to lighten his defensive armour with a view to attaining greater freedom of movement … Under ordinary circumstances the hoplite force advanced into battle in a compact mass … When it came into contact with the enemy, it relied in the first instance on shock tactics, that is to say, on the weight put into the first onset and developed in the subsequent thrust. The principle was very much the same as that followed by the forwards in a scrummage at the Rugby game of football.1 If such views may be described as orthodox, there have been notable heretics.2 In 1942 a brief article3 entitled ‘The Myth of the Phalanx-scrimmage’ deserved more consideration than it appears to have received, and in 1985 P. Krentz4 argued that ‘hoplite battle consisted of a multiplicity of individual combats’, too late to influence Pritchett’s discussion of the Pitched Battle in Part IV of The Greek State at War, which presents a more orthodox picture. The starting point of this chapter is, however, the defence of orthodoxy by A. J. Holladay in ‘Hoplites and Heresies’, JHS 102 (1982), 94–7. ‘In the fullydeveloped hoplite line the soldiers were packed closely together, each man relying on his right-hand neighbour for protection because his own shield, on his left arm, could not adequately cover his right side’ (p. 94); the hoplite was not trained for, or suitably equipped for, fighting without the close protection of his right-hand neighbour; any changing of formation would be difficult to achieve in a co-ordinated fashion and would in any case invite disaster; hoplite armies always reacted to danger by forming ranks and this suggests they had no intention of breaking up into open (p.418) order. Holladay’s battles seem to begin with a shove and end with one; in between the hoplites stood getting as Page 2 of 20

Orthodoxy and Hoplites much as they could of themselves behind the shield of the man on their right using their weapons as far as the constricted space allowed; there was as little need as there was room for skill. So I must try again and more fully develop my ideas of hoplite battles. The first point to establish is that battles were not short in duration.5 Precise indications are few. Vegetius (3.9) declared that battles normally took ‘two or three hours’. Plutarch asserted in his Life of Aemilius Paulus (22.1) that the battle of Pydna, despite being so great, was very quickly decided, for the Romans began it at the ninth hour and had gained the victory within an hour; he clearly regarded that as exceptional. Generally, however, the historians contented themselves with the phrase ‘for a long time’, which some might be disposed to dismiss. But we know what the Greeks knew as a long battle. The battle of Himera lasted ‘from dawn to late evening’ (Hdt. 7.167); the fighting on Sphakteria went on ‘most of the day’ (Thuc. 4.35.3). According to Diodorus (11.83.1), the battle of Oenophyta lasted all day (διημέρϵυσαν ἐν τῇ μάχῃ), just as a battle outside the walls of Pelusium during the Persian invasion of Egypt in 351/0 is said to have done (16.46.9). Indeed, the Iliad (11.84ff.) shows what Greeks conceived of as a long battle. There is no reason to think of battles as quickly over. When Thucydides (5.73.4) remarked of the Spartans, that their battles were long and hard up to the point of turning the enemy, but that they did not pursue for long, he clearly was not thinking of conflicts of a few minutes’ duration. If one follows Vegetius in his two or three hours, one is probably not far wrong. The length of battles is important. If they lasted for a couple of hours, that is an improbably long time to be pushing, and, one may add, for a man to be fighting. Fifteen three-minute rounds with rests exhaust the fittest pugilists in the world, and those who have had experience of scrummaging and forward play generally in ‘the Rugby game of football’ must be sceptical about how long such intense efforts could have been maintained without the rests provided by ‘line-outs’, ‘half-time’, and ‘injury time’. But, in any case, the evidence shows that often at any rate the shove, the ὠθισμός, comes late in the (p.419) battle when the other side shows signs of exhaustion. The battle of Plataea is a good instance. The battle was fierce and long ‘until they came to shoving’ (Hdt. 9.62.2). If it is countered that only battles between hoplite armies should be considered, the battle of Anapus in 415 is plain enough in Thucydides’ account (6.70.1–3); when the trumpeters gave the signal to engage, the two sides advanced, and when hand-to-hand conflict had begun, they held out against each other for a long time; then and only then, it would seem, did the shoving take place; the Argives pushed back the left wing and then the Athenians pushed back their opponents, and the rest of the Syracusan army fled. It was the same at Delium in 424 (Thuc. 4.96). Although Thucydides says that those engaged were involved in ‘stubborn battle and in pushing of shields’ (καρτϵρᾷ μάχῃ καὶ ὠθισμῷ ἀσπίδων), which, as I explain below, is not to be taken as a hendiadys, he says that the Boeotian left wing was worsted in hand-to-hand conflict and fled to that part of their army Page 3 of 20

Orthodoxy and Hoplites which was still engaged in battle, that is, a matter of some considerable time, but the Thebans on the right wing ‘were mastering the Athenians and when they had pushed them a short distance were at first closely following’. Thus the Theban shoving came at a point well on in the battle. So too at the battle of Miletus in 412 (Thuc. 8.25) the Athenians ‘defeated the Peloponnesians first and pushed back the barbarians and the rest of the throng’ and when the Milesians, having been initially successful against the Argives, saw what was happening with the Athenians, the battle was over. At First Mantinea in 418 (Thuc. 5.72.3) the Mantineans and allies exploited the gap in the Spartan line to ‘cause destruction to the Spartans and, by an encircling movement, routed them and pushed them back to the transport’. So much for Thucydides. In Xenophon ‘shoving’ is not much mentioned, but in the battle near the Piraeus in 403 (Hell. 2.4.34) the ‘shoving’ came after the hand-to-hand conflict. Likewise at Leuctra (Hell. 6.4.14).6 Of course, armies would ‘shove’ whenever a shove was called for. In 425 the Athenians fought the Corinthians and with difficulty pushed them back, but they returned to the attack and the hand-to-hand conflict was renewed (Thuc. 4.43). Nor is it inconceivable that a battle could begin with shoving, as on occasion seems to have happened (p.420) in some sense with the Macedonian phalanx (Polyb. 18.30.4).7 In Xenophon’s account of the battle of Coronea, the secondphase conflict of the Spartans with the Thebans is vividly described thus: ‘when they had clashed their shields together, they were pushing, they were fighting, they were killing and dying’ (Hell. 4.3.19; cf. Ages. 2.12). Death ended the conflict, perhaps shoving came first, just as at one stage in the fighting at Olympia in 364 ‘they were fighting none the less and pushing towards the altar’ (Hell. 7.4.31), which may mean that the ‘pushing’ came early on,8 though one suspects that these vivid descriptions are not concerned with the exact order of events and that when Thucydides says of Delium that the conflict involved ‘stubborn battle and pushing of shields’ he is making a general summation of the action, which he proceeds to describe in detail (4.96).9 Yet there seems to me absolutely no warrant for Pritchett’s assertion10 that ‘the initial manoeuvre was the ōthismos, pushing the enemy back by shock tactics to break his formation’. I do not deny that this may on occasion have happened. That it regularly did seems to be quite unsupported by the descriptions of battles that we are given. Indeed as far as the supreme practitioners of hoplite warfare, the Spartans, were concerned, the idea of an initial shock seems to be excluded. Thucydides remarked (5.70) that whereas the Argives and their allies advanced to battle excitedly (ἐντόνως) and in rage, the Spartans advanced slowly. With them, as with others, the ōthismos regularly enough came late in the engagement. It is clear too that ‘the fighting’ (μάχη) is a concept distinct from ‘the shoving’ (ὠθισμός), and that when Thucydides, for instance, says καρτϵρᾷ μάχῃ καὶ ὠθισμῷ ἀσπίδων he does not mean that they fought by shoving. There are a Page 4 of 20

Orthodoxy and Hoplites great many cases of ‘fighting’ in Thucydides and Xenophon, but in comparatively very few is ‘shoving’ mentioned, while there is never any mention of ‘shoving’ without ‘fighting’. The two terms are not in any way co-extensive. (p.421) So what were hoplites doing in hand-to-hand fighting before they began shoving? They were, of course, using their weapons, but what did that involve? According to J. K. Anderson,11 the answer is that it did not involve much. Drawing attention to the beginning of Plato’s Laches, where the question is put whether a teacher of skill in the use of weapons is in fact of much use, Anderson declares that Nicias is somewhat unenthusiastic about the use of such lessons for war, while Laches is downright sceptical, remarking that the Spartans, who care about getting advantage in war and nothing else, have no use for such teachers and indeed the teachers themselves do not dare to set foot in Laconia. ‘Plato, like every Athenian of his class and time, understood the basic facts of hoplite warfare, and he and Thucydides bear one another out. Not only was the front rank too closely packed for individual skill to be of much account as the armies closed, but the following ranks, being made up of files whose duty was to follow their file-leader closely, would have been equally packed. There was certainly no room for front-rank men to fall back between the files (whether by mutual consent or not) after they had had enough.’ One notes that Nicias, who had after all no mean experience of hoplite warfare and possibly a great deal more than either Thucydides or Plato, actually said that ‘this instruction will be of some use in the actual battle whenever one must fight in formation along with many others’ (182a). So he at any rate thought that the so-called hoplomachoi had something to teach that was worth learning, and so too presumably did those others who paid for their sons’ instruction. If the Spartans spurned such professors, that may have been because Spartans could learn better from Spartans, not because they thought there was nothing to learn. As to what Anderson says about the compact formation, we shall shortly see. For the moment I shall discuss the evidence for how hoplites in formation fought. Xenophon (Mem. 3.12.5) remarked that at Athens there was no military training organised by the city (οὐκ ἀσκϵῖ δημοσίᾳ ἡ πόλις τὰ πρὸς τὸν πόλϵμον).12 This should not, however, lead one to think either that there was nothing to be trained for in the use of weapons or that no such training took place. Plato, who ‘like every Athenian of (p.422) his class and time, understood the basic facts of hoplite warfare’, at some length in the Laws (828e–834a) argued for a full and regular system of military training organised by the city, including the use of the services of experts in hoplomachia, the very people for whom his Laches had expressed contempt. Not only is physical fitness (cf. 796b–d) to be maintained for the sake of war (the sort of training one got at the hands of a ‘trainer’, a παιδοτρίβης—cf. Protag. 326c), with exercises taken armed (833c), but it is possible that there will be fatal casualties (830e–831a). The contests are to be between individuals, or pairs, or tens (833e). So in the Laws Plato thought that there was a good deal to be gained from the tuition of hoplomachoi like Page 5 of 20

Orthodoxy and Hoplites Euthydemus and Dionysodorus (Euthyd. 273c). There was certainly a good deal of skill possible in the use of the sword, as Plutarch (Tim. 28.1) remarked in his account of the battle of the Crimisus. Plato’s discussion certainly bears out what Xenophon says about the lack of the proper public provision of training (cf. Laws 831b), but it is not to be supposed that it was not sought and obtained by individuals. For one thing, dancing was in part military training.13 Athenaeus (628f.) records that Socrates said ‘in his poems, those who dance with the most grace are the best in war’, and Athenaeus, having remarked that ‘dancing was pretty much like a parade in arms and a display not just of discipline in general but also of concern for physical fitness’, comes in due course to Spartan dancing, their marching songs (ἐνόπλια) and especially the war-dance, the Pyrrhic, a discussion that those who think there was nothing much to do with one’s arms in a hoplite battle would do well to consider (Ath. 630d–631c).14 In particular one may note that an alternative name for the Pyrrhic was Cheironomia; that is, it was specially concerned with the movements of the hands and so of the weapons they bore. Indeed Plato in the Laws (815a) speaks of the Pyrrhic depicting ‘the motions executed to avoid blows and shots of all kinds (dodging, retreating, jumping into the air, crouching)’.15 All that, however, it may be said, is Sparta and the CloudCuckoo-Land of the Laws, but what of elsewhere? One notes that when ‘the Mantineans and some others of the Arcadians’ from the Ten Thousand danced, they did so in hoplite (p.423) equipment (Xen. Anab. 6.1.11), and in general the place of dancing in Greek life was such that we may be confident that most young men of the hoplite class got from dancing whatever was of use in it for soldiering. But, it will be argued, all this was useful only for when, as Nicias said in the Laches (182a), ‘the formations are broken up and one must at that time fight one against one’. That would cover the sort of action of Socrates at Potidaea (Symp. 220e), or the disordered combats of the night battle on the Epipolae (Thuc. 7.43). Plato (Laws 833e) does talk of training for battle in groups of up to ten, but that is of no consequence to those who are convinced that when hoplites were formed up for battle they had only a shield’s width in which to fight and whatever training they had had which was of use in single combat was there of very little use indeed. This conviction derives from what Thucydides (5.71) says of the advance of hoplite armies, that, as they advance, they tend to move to the right as each fileleader seeks the protection of his right-hand neighbour’s shield. So they advanced a mere shield’s breadth from nose to nose and that, it is assumed, is how they stood as they fought.

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Orthodoxy and Hoplites One thing is sure. No matter what formation was adopted in battle, for the advance only this was practicable. If an army had tried to advance in open order, there would either have been bunching or unwanted extension, even gaps. One tends to think of hoplite battles taking place on ground as unencumbered as the parade-grounds on which many of us have drilled. As Aristotle notes (Pol. 1303b13), crossing ditches, even really small ones, can tear phalanxes apart.16 No one mentions the effect on formation of trees, huts, boulders and all the petty obstacles of a plain, but they must have been very distracting. That is no doubt why the Spartans advanced slowly and in a rhythmical march (Thuc. 5.70), for only so could the file-leaders be kept in line and in position. But keeping one’s distance, staying in position could only be done if the file-leaders were closed up, each occupying in the advance no more than his shield’s width. That was the only way to get an army into position to confront the enemy, but whether it remained in this formation all the time is now to be discussed. (p.424) In some degree the hoplite phalanx was a flexible thing. In the discussion of tactics in the Xenophontic Constitution of the Spartans (ch. 11), the author declares that phalanxes become ‘thin and deeper’ (ἀραιαί τϵ καὶ βαθύτϵραι), and the only sense one can make of this is that from the compact front line every second man moves into a position behind the man on his right, and similarly with each man in the file behind him. The movement must, in short, have been very much that which used to be practised in the British Army and was described as ‘forming fours’. Now a ‘thin’ phalanx with more than a yard’s front interval was not practicable for a phalanx that was about to advance. So it is open to wonder whether such a ‘thinning’ could occur when the advance was concluded and just before the battle was ἐν χϵρσίν, that is, a matter of hand-to-hand conflict. But, whenever it happened, it is clear that a Spartan phalanx was in some degree flexible. Indeed the Spartan countermarch (ἐξϵλιγμός), which the author goes on to describe, makes it abundantly plain that a phalanx must be in open order for that movement to be effected. For in a Spartan countermarch the file reversed itself, so that those who had been in front before are still in front when the direction of the phalanx was reversed (the move being very much the same as that which most of us have witnessed military bands make), and that could only happen if there were gaps between files. Only one case of Spartan countermarching in the course of a battle is known to us, but it is illuminating. At the battle of Coronea in 394 the phalanx of Agesilaus, having routed the Argives, had to deal with the Thebans returning from routing their opponents. Agesilaus immediately made the phalanx countermarch (ϵὐθὺς ἐξϵλίξας τὴν ϕάλαγγα) and met the Thebans head on (Xen. Hell. 4.3.17f.).17 To do that the Spartan phalanx must first have been made ‘thin and deeper’ to let the file-leaders through to lead their files against the Boeotians. So it seems to me plain enough that phalanxes were flexible on the field of battle.

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Orthodoxy and Hoplites At this point it is suitable to discuss a very remarkable statement of Xenophon’s. At the review of the Ten Thousand at Tyriaeum, Cyrus ordered the Greeks to form up and stand ‘as was their custom for battle’ (ὡς νόμος αὐτοῖς ϵἰς μάχην οὕτω ταχθῆναι). ‘So they formed up four deep’ (Anab. 1.2.15). By the time he wrote those words Xenophon was well acquainted with Spartan military practice, and that (p.425) practice is plainly enough, in this period, to form up ‘eight deep’, as a glance at the table provided by Pritchett in his Ancient Greek Military Practices Part 1 (p. 135) will show.18 The Ten Thousand was essentially a Spartan army with a Spartan commander. What has happened to the regular depth of eight? It can hardly do to say with Pritchett that Cyrus, ‘by doubling the width of his phalanx, wishes to make the Greek force appear as large as possible’. If he had wanted that to impress the Cilician woman, he would not have had her inspect the army at close quarters (§16). Nor can he have prescribed this formation to impress his brother, the King, if there was to be a battle; his brother would know roughly how many Greeks Cyrus had and it was to Cyrus’ interest to have his troops in the formation most likely to give him the victory. In any case Xenophon says he ordered them to form up as was ‘their custom’. Perhaps the right explanation is that the Greeks of the Ten Thousand were not minded to fight as most other Greeks of their time. It is also possible that they formed up four deep for the advance which they shortly made (§17), but that they regularly, by ‘forming fours’, fought eight deep. I fear we can no longer postpone discussion of the Tacticians, whose writings do not fill one with gratitude or respect. Before I do so, however, I should explain that I find it very hard to conceive of a hoplite using his weapons at all effectively in the crowded space orthodoxy assigns him. It might seem that he could use his spear effectively enough: to strike at the vulnerable part of his opponent, that is, above the shield and below the helmet, he had to use his spear in the overhead manner familiar to us from a multitude of vases, and neither his own shield nor his neighbour’s would get in the way of that. Likewise, if he used his sword solely to cut rather than thrust, that too would be an overhead blow delivered from above the line of shields. However, in the use of weapons as in all games that involve the delivery and the avoidance of blows, it is footwork that is all-important. Hoplites may have been heavily armed, but they would surely duck and dodge in the way that Plato would have had them train (Laws 815a). One cannot do that, if one’s neighbour gets in the way. Likewise the delivery of blows would require some freedom of movement. Of course, they may have fought in a highly constricted (p.426) way and very ineffectively and longed for a chance for single combat where their real skills could be exploited, but if the evidence lends any encouragement to the view that hoplites fought, as opposed to advanced or followed up, in open order, one should take the possibility most seriously.

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Orthodoxy and Hoplites The Tacticians do indeed provide evidence of a sort. In the Tactica of Asclepiodotus, who seems to have written in the first century bc, it is stated in the section on ‘Intervals’ (ch. 4) ‘Those have been produced to meet the needs of warfare, i.e. the thinnest’ (or ‘the most open’) ‘in which the men are four cubits [i.e. 6 feet] apart both in ranks and in files, the most compact in which each man is a cubit’s distance from his neighbour in both senses, and the medium, also termed “compact formation” (πύκνωσιν), in which the men stand two cubits from each other in both senses’. Both Aelian (ch. 11), who wrote under Trajan, and Arrian (Tact. 11) give a similar account, following perhaps the same source as Asclepiodotus.19 Is it conceivable that in the hoplite armies of Classical Greece there were three such distinct formations, in Aelian’s terms open order, pyknōsis, and synaspismos? Two objections may be promptly dismissed. Holladay (p. 45) argued that there could be no variation of formation with hoplite armies because there was no means of co-ordinating such variation. ‘Who or what’, he asked, ‘would determine the moment at which the lines opened out and then closed up again? There was no referee with a whistle.’ There was however the trumpet (σάλπιγξ), and the trumpeter who was always present, so much to be taken for granted that he is only once mentioned by Thucydides in an account of a battle (6.69.1). Nor was the trumpet the only means of signalling. Thucydides notes that in the nightbattle on the Epipolae visual signals were not possible (7.44.4). So there was ‘a whistle’. The referee is more of a problem. ‘The Classical hoplite general … was usually in no position to survey the whole course of a battle’ to quote G. M. Paul,20 who points out that a large number of generals and independent commanders died in battles in Thucydides; men engaged in combat themselves can hardly be in charge of anything at that moment. (p.427) However, one may make too much of this. It is clear from Thucydides’ remark about the night-battle that normally signals were given, presumably by commanders. For instance, at the battle of Delium the Theban general, Pagondas, seems to have been in control of things (Thuc. 4.96.4), just as at a crucial moment in the battle of Mantinea Agis issued an order to the whole army (Thuc. 5.73.2). When Thucydides described the chain of command in the Spartan army (5.66. 3–4), he added that ‘orders are transmitted, should the need arise, by the same route’ and he concludes that ‘many people are responsible for what is being done’ (τὸ ἐπιμϵλὲς τοῦ δρωμένου πολλοῖς προσήκϵι). So there were not only ‘whistles’, but also ‘referees’ to blow them, if in some armies somewhat fitfully. The other objection is on the face of it more serious, namely, that since the shield was three feet wide or thereabouts any formation that accorded each hoplite a mere eighteen inches is inconceivable.21 Now it may well be true that in Classical Greek hoplite armies there was no such formation as the synaspismos, but the mere width of shields does not rule it out of consideration. No literary source explains, nor artistic representation illuminates what actually happened in the ōthismos but there is one clue. In talking of cavalry formations, Page 9 of 20

Orthodoxy and Hoplites Arrian (Tact. 16.13) remarked that infantry pushed with their shoulders and sides (κατὰ τοὺς ὤμους καὶ τὰς πλϵυρὰς αἱ ἐνϵρϵίσϵις γίγνονται τῶν πϵζῶν), which is hardly surprising, but which makes clear that the hoplite stood sideways on for the ōthismos and overlapping of shields far from being impossible may actually have been positively helpful. So it remains open what is to be made of the evidence of the Tacticians as to formations of the phalanx. Now it is clear enough that what they are describing is the Macedonian phalanx (cf. Aelian, Preface 6), although they always speak of ‘hoplites’ rather than ‘phalangites’, and some of their comments seem quite inappropriate to hoplite battle. For instance, they speak of the forming of close order, pyknōsis, by movement from left or right, in just the same way as Polybius describes for Cynoscephalae, where Philip ordered ‘the peltasts and the phalangites to double the depth and to close up (πυκνοῦν) to the right’ (18.24.8). Thus in Asclepiodotus (4.4) it is remarked that forming close order will produce a front only half as long (cf. Aelian 11.6), and Arrian (Tact. 11.3) talks of pyknōsis in (p.428) frontage and depth (κατὰ μῆκóς τϵ καὶ βάθος). Now this sort of shuffling to right or to left is inconceivable in a hoplite battle; in shortening the front it would expose one wing to certain encirclement and in any case it could not be done once the fighting had begun. So we cannot simply take sentences from the works of the Tacticians and apply them to hoplite warfare. Despite some confusion,22 the three formations of open order, pyknōsis, and synaspismos are to be found in Polybius. At 12.19.7 he speaks of six feet as the interval between two file-leaders ‘with the proper intervals for marching’ (ἐν τοῖς πορϵυτικοῖς διαοτήμασι). At 18.29.2 he speaks of three feet per man in the close formation for action (κατὰ τὰς ἐναγωνίονς πυκνώσϵις). It is true that Polybius does not use the term synaspismos, although uses of pyknōsis are common enough,23 and that his uses of the verb ‘to lock shields’ (συνασπίζϵιν)24 do not correspond with the Tacticians’ definition of synaspismos (Ael. 11.5, Asc. 4.3), which is for them a purely defensive formation.25 So it is something of a leap to assert that essentially what the Tacticians were describing was the Macedonian army and its manoeuvres, but it is hard to see what else they were talking about, and if it is correct that they all derive, directly or indirectly, from Posidonius (cf. Arr. Tact. 1.2), the likelihood is that it was the Macedonian way of warfare that was under review.26 One cannot (p.429) therefore use various statements made by the Tacticians as if they were necessarily applicable to the hoplite armies. Indeed, in the matter of formations, there is some reason to suspect that synaspismos as described in the Tacticians was an innovation due to Philip II of Macedon. In Diodorus’ account of the military reforms of Philip at the start of his reign (16.3), the source of which is probably the History of Ephorus, after referring to changes in military organisation and in arms he adds ‘And he [Philip] invented (ἐπϵνóησϵ) the close formation (πυκνóτητα) and equipment of the phalanx, imitating the synaspismos of the heroes at Troy, and he was the first to assemble the Macedonian phalanx.’ One has always been puzzled by what can Page 10 of 20

Orthodoxy and Hoplites be behind all this. The close formation of hoplite armies, whether for the whole battle or for the advance and the ōthismos, was certainly no invention of Philip,27 and although the word for locking shields occurs neither in Herodotus nor in Thucydides, it does in Xenophon’s Hellenica (7.4.23 and cf. 3.5.11) and in any case the fact must have been there in the ōthismos. What then was Diodorus, or, rather, Ephorus, referring to? Perhaps what Philip did was to invent the most compact formation described by the Tacticians as synaspismos, that defensive mass bristling with sarissas. So that part of the account of tactical formations, at least, may not be applied to Greek hoplite armies. Of what value then the rest? It has already been remarked that the version of pyknōsis which involved the closing up of file-leaders to right or to left can have had no place on the hoplite field of battle. But there is another form of pyknōsis referred to in the Tacticians. Aelian (29.1) and Arrian (Tact. 25) give virtually identical accounts of ‘doublingup’ (διπλασιασμós). One kind of ‘doubling-up’, it emerges, consists of doubling the number of men in the front rank while keeping the same length of front by ‘inserting (παρϵμβάλλοντϵς) within the gaps between the hoplites those from the second rank,28 and so the front of the phalanx (p.430) is made more dense (πυκνοῦται)’. ‘It is called parembolē (insertion) when those who are ranked behind move into the intervals between front-rankers and form a straight line’ (Aelian 31.1). As to the reverse procedure whereby the open order is attained from the compact, the only possible trace to be found in the Tacticians is in Onasander (10.2), where he refers to ‘the ordering which withdraws files for greater depth of the phalanx’ (if that is the right translation of the κατάταξις ἡ ἐπὶ βάθος ὑποστέλλουσα). Were these changes of formation purely Macedonian in origin, or did they derive from Greek hoplite armies? The answer to this question, it seems to me, must be that they probably did derive from hoplite armies. As has already been pointed out, the phalanx was certainly flexible, but it might be argued that such changes of formation would not have happened in face of the enemy or during the battle. The words used in Polybius and the Tacticians for forming up in close order, πύκνωσις and πυκνοῦν, never occur in that sense in Herodotus’, Thucydides’, or Xenophon’s descriptions of battles.29 The one use in the parts of Diodorus that probably stem from Ephorus (11.7.2) may well not be technical. The movements alluded to in the Xenophontic Constitution of the Spartans (11.6) whereby the depth of the phalanx is varied30 may have preceded the battle. However, there are two points that should give us pause. First, the hoplites of the Ten Thousand knew that they would face scythed chariots at Cunaxa. In the event (Xen. Anab. 1.8.10 and 20) the chariots were mostly diverted and had little effect. Some the Greeks did avoid by ‘standing apart’, just as the Macedonians did when they let the scythed chariots pass through them at Gaugamela (Arr. Anab. 3.13.6), and they must have had some sort of drills to do (p.431) so, if the confusion the Persians hoped to create was not in fact to happen. So here is evidence of tactical Page 11 of 20

Orthodoxy and Hoplites variation of a hoplite line on the field of battle. Secondly, Plato in the Republic (526d), in speaking of the usefulness of geometry in warfare, mentions ‘encampments, occupation of positions, concentrations (συναγωγαί) and extending (ἐκτάσϵις) of an army and whatever other formations armies adopt in the very course of battles and of marches (ὅσα δὴ ἄλλα σχηματίζουσι τὰ στρατóπϵδα ἐν αὐταῖς τϵ ταῖς μάχαις καὶ πορϵίαις).’ So in the age of hoplite battles armies could be thought of as changing formation during a battle, and if this is correct, it seems all too likely that the movements of the Macedonian army carried on from the hoplite armies. Variations of formation could be, and indeed were on occasion, made in the course of a battle, but this is far from disproving that normally hoplites fought as Thucydides made them advance, that is, as close as possible to each other to secure the partial protection of the shield of the man to the right. Contemplation of hoplites on vases and in reliefs should, however, give the orthodox furiously to think. I do not allude to the many scenes of individuals fighting individuals, conflicts in which different practices might well prevail, but to those scenes which represent rows of hoplites going into action. In most such scenes that I am aware of, the shield is held not across the body but is extended forwards and at an angle,31 as if the hoplite was using his shield to give ‘a straight left’. (Indeed if they did not use it in this way, their shields would have been unnecessarily wide.) In those few scenes where the shield is held directly in front,32 it is held well forward to leave the hoplite free to use his legs, but the Chigi vase is the typical scene, and in it hoplites, with spears held high ready to strike, all have their shields on their left and their left legs forward, the very posture necessary for effective use of the spear. Was this how the fighting in line was conducted? Of course, one will be told that rugby scrums are not like this and that this must be mere artistic licence or convention; Thucydides has told us how they sought the protection of (p.432) their neighbours’ shields. Against such fixity of belief, one can make little progress, but if one is to take seriously the archaeological evidence, it is plainly the case that hoplites did not fight as Thucydides made them advance. If this is correct, there is a consequent observation discomforting for orthodoxy. If the man on one’s right is fighting with left leg forward and with shield advanced to ward off his opponent’s spear, the closer one got to him the greater the danger of his opponent’s spear sliding off one’s neighbour’s shield and damaging oneself. Common prudence would require that there be some space between one and one’s neighbour. Such space would give the hoplite room to move and make good use of his weapons. Nor was there need to fear that he would be attacked on his open right side. He had the man behind him to defend him. There is a remarkable statement in Arrian (Tact. 12.3) which runs as follows: ‘those who stand behind (ἐπιστάτας) the file-leaders must be second to these in valour, for their spear reaches up to the enemy … ’. The version of Aelian, to which this is cognate (13.3), runs as follows: ‘one must pay attention Page 12 of 20

Orthodoxy and Hoplites by every means possible to the second rank as well, for the spear is also extended in front of these men (συνϵπϵκτϵίνϵται γὰρ τò δóρυ καὶ τούτων τῶν ἀνδρῶν) and being nearby in the array keeps watch (παρϵϕϵδρϵύϵι) and renders service (χρϵίαν παρϵχóμϵπνον)’. What is remarkable about this is that it simply cannot apply to the Macedonian phalanx which both writers proceed to discuss (Arr. Tact. 12.4, Aelian 14—passages which plainly derive ultimately from Polybius 18.29); there were five rows of sarissas extended before that phalanx. The spear (τò δóρυ) is the weapon of hoplites, and the Tacticians must here be talking about the files in a hoplite army. So with the second rank ‘keeping watch’ there was no danger of those in open order being got at on their unprotected side. On the other hand if the file-leaders fought as closely as Thucydides made them advance they would be doubly endangered, first from glancing blows, secondly from ill-timed assistance over their shoulders from an over-enthusiastic second-ranker. Open order does indeed seem to me ‘the natural one’, as Asclepiodotus (4.3) termed it. In open order there was room to employ to some extent those skills that Plato declared that dancing developed (Laws 815a), not of course as fully as when one was out on one’s own engaged in single combat, μονομαχία, but ‘avoiding all sorts of blows and missiles by nodding (p.433) and stepping back and leaping up and bending down’ was possible in the space.33 There is a curious passage in Plutarch’s Quaestiones Convivales (639f.): ‘The first task of those engaged in battle is to deliver and defend themselves against blows, and the second is, when they have already engaged and are involved in hand-to-hand conflict, to go in for pushings (ὠθισμοῖς) and overturning each other (πϵριτροπαῖς ἀλλήλων), by which means especially, they say, the Spartiates were brought low (καταβιβασθῆναι) at Leuctra by our men, who were skilled at wresting (παλαιστρικῶν ὄντων), and so in Aeschylus one of the warriors is called Brithys, hoplitopalas, the wrestling hoplite. Elsewhere one hears of training in gymnasia, but the Palaestra was quite different. In it took place wrestling and only wrestling. What were these ‘overturnings’ (πϵριτροπαί), managed by Boeotians trained in wrestling against the Spartiates, not ‘certain Spartiates’? Aeschylus’ warrior may have earned his fame for the sort of single combat depicted on scores of vases. But Plutarch’s remark can hardly be so understood. The only sense in which I can take it is that the Boeotians were adept in getting their opponents off balance; perhaps the left leg was advanced to the inside of the opponent’s left leg and with a well-timed shove with the shield, he could be pushed over. But what room can the orthodox provide for this sort of thing? One suspects therefore that there was a great deal more in hoplite warfare than is dreamed of in their philosophy, a great deal more for which space was needed. After all, for what sort of deeds were hoplites accorded the reward for valour (τὰ ἀριστϵῖα)?34 Herodotus was moved to give the names. Neither Thucydides35 nor Xenophon did, but it is clear from casual references that individuals, as well as units, regularly were singled out. Socrates should have received the honour Page 13 of 20

Orthodoxy and Hoplites according to Alcibiades for defending him when he had been wounded and bringing both him and his shield back to safety (Plato, Symposium 220d); we are not told what Alcibiades was claimed to have done to have himself received the honour. At Plataea Aristodemus, the Spartan who in Herodotus’ opinion really deserved it (9.71 and cf. 7.229–31) did not get it because he was thought to be indifferent whether he lived or died as (p.434) he ‘in rage was leaving the ranks and turned on a display of great deeds’. Sophanes the Athenian, who was honoured, seems to have been in the habit of conducting himself on the battlefield in a way that gave rise to a curious explanation of how it was that he could not be driven backwards (Hdt. 9.74), though we cannot be sure that that was how he behaved at Plataea. On another occasion he triumphed over the Argive who specialised in single combat (Hdt. 6.92.3, and 9.75). Since, for the rest, no hint is provided of the sort of deeds for which the aristeia were given, one might wonder whether they were the reward for the quite exceptional deed done by those who, literally, got out of line, what might be termed a Disorderly Conduct Medal. But if staying in line was all-important, it would hardly be the case that a general would incite his men to dashing out of line and so winning the aristeia at the risk of losing the battle; Iphicrates is recorded as promising a prize for valour to the man who was best in each part of his army—hoplites, cavalry, peltasts, and so on (Polyaenus 3.9.31); he can hardly have been encouraging them to do anything that would cause them to neglect their duty. But where, in the orthodox account of hoplite warfare, is there room for a hoplite to distinguish himself? His movements were restricted, we are told, and his deeds must have gone largely unobserved. If, of course, he was fighting in open order as I believe he was, or could be, for part of the battle, he could indeed distinguish himself. He was still in line (ἐν τάξϵι), fighting man beside man (ἀνὴρ παρ’ ἄνδρα, Eur. Hel. 1072, Arist. Wasps 1083), still dependent on his neighbours’ courage (Eur. HF 190–3), but he had enough room to do more than just make ineffectual jabs at his opponent.36 The matter of aristeia does, however, raise the wider question of whether the fighting was always in line, either in open order, as I believe is probable, or in the close order in which Thucydides and common sense make hoplite armies advance and the orthodox believe them to have remained all through the battle. There certainly was on occasion single combat. At the siege of Aegina in 491 the Argive pentathlete, Eurybates, who made a speciality of (ἐπασκέων) single combat, issued challenges and killed three Athenians and was himself killed by Sophanes (Hdt. 6.92.3). That was not part of a hoplite battle, but Sophanes would seem to have been a specialist (p.435) at this sort of thing in the midst of battle, to judge, as already remarked, by what was said of him (Hdt. 9.71). Likewise the Spartiate Aristodemus (see above). So painters of vases were not entirely delving into the past with their scenes of single combat. But how frequent was this sort of thing? It is clear that in the rare cases of authors speaking of ‘fighting in front’ (προμαχϵῖν) they do mean fighting out in front of Page 14 of 20

Orthodoxy and Hoplites the formal battle lines, but in no case is such fighting done by hoplites (Thuc. 6.69.2, Diod. 12.70.1, Xen. Cyr. 3.3.60). An inscription records the death of, one presumes, a hoplite ‘distinguishing himself among the promachoi’ (ἀριστϵύον ἐν προμάχοις),37 and a number of inscriptions record deaths ‘among the promachoi’, but it may well be that the word was used as a laudatory phrase for those who died in war, not to be taken literally.38 There is, however, one notice that should give one pause. In Xenophon’s account of the battle of Coronea in 394 bc, as the Thebans were bearing down on the army of Agesilaus and were only 100 yards away, ‘there ran out from the phalanx of Agesilaus to oppose them (ἀντϵξέδραμον) the men commanded by Herippidas and with them the Ionians and Aeolians and Hellespontians, and all these were amongst those who ran out together (τῶν συνϵκδραρóντων) and coming to within range of the spear39 (ϵἰς δóρυ) caused those opposite them to turn’ (Hell. 4.3.17). Xenophon was there and must have known what he was talking about, but what was he talking about? These men who ran out from Agesilaus’ phalanx were hoplites as his mention of a spear shows; in any case ‘the men commanded by Herippidas’ were the remnants of the Ten Thousand who were mainly hoplite;40 nor is it likely that a part of the Boeotian army was deterred by a surge of mere peltasts. On the orthodox view these men who did not maintain the compact, unbroken front should have lost the battle and Herippidas should not have been put in command of anyone ever again. But he was (cf. Hell. 4.8.11, and Plut. Pel. 13), and the Spartans were not defeated. The Spartan army could hardly be accused of indiscipline, nor of lack of training. When at the Pathos in Lechaeum the Polemarch ordered out those in the ten years from (p.436) their becoming liable to military service (τὰ δὲκα ἀϕ’ ἤβης) to attack Iphicrates’ peltasts, he was putting into effect perhaps a well-practised drill. A great deal more went on on hoplite battlefields, I suspect, than the orthodox dream of. Tyrtaeus wrote in the age of hoplite warfare and, to quote Greenhalgh,41 his fragments ‘give a perfect description of the hoplite shield and spear, and the close order of the phalanx formation’. ‘Yet in general spirit’ to turn to Snodgrass42 ‘the poems … leave much to be desired as exhortations to hoplites fighting in the phalanx. The presence of light-armed men with javelins and stones (ll. 35–8) is not incompatible with hoplite tactics; but when it is clear that the heavy-armed warrior has the choice of fighting bravely among the promachoi or else of skulking behind out of range of missiles and that the gymnetes (the light-armed) are apparently to take cover behind the hoplites’ shields, one may well ask what kind of phalanx this is. The address ἀλλά τις ἐγγὺς ἰὼν αὐτοσχϵδòν ἔγχϵϊ μακρῶι | ἢ ξίϕϵι οὐτάζων δήϊον ἄνδρ’ ἑλέτω (‘but let a man go near and for hand-to-hand conflict choose his foe striking him with long spear or with sword’) is most intelligible as an encouragement to individual daring.’ It would seem that Tyrtaeus’ hoplite could stand back while others went forward to their deaths (cf. 10.21f.), that the whole phalanx did not move to close combat at the same moment as our orthodoxy asserts, that individuals could like Page 15 of 20

Orthodoxy and Hoplites Aristodemus at Plataea (Hdt. 9.71.3) ‘in rage keep leaving the ranks’,43 that as he fought out there with spear or sword light-armed men could crouch on either side of him throwing rocks at the foe. Perhaps some of the alleged seven helots a hoplite at Plataea (Hdt. 9.28.2) found their death thus, and so received honoured burial (9.85.2). Certainly on Attic vases in the last third of the sixth century archers were depicted playing such a part.44 One hears, or sees, no more of this sort of thing in the late fifth century, but at least one suspects from Thucydides’ account of Mantinea that the whole Spartan phalanx did not simultaneously (p. 437) engage, for he tells us that a portion of the Argive line, attacked by the three hundred Spartiates who were the so-called Hippeis, did not dare to come to hand-to-hand fighting but immediately gave up and turned to flight, but he speaks (73.1) as if the battle on each flank was well advanced. So some time must have elapsed before there was any question of general mêlée for the centre of the Argive phalanx. The orthodox picture of what happened in a hoplite battle seems therefore simplistic. Just as a lot can go on in rugby scrums that neither spectators nor referee see, so in a hoplite battle a lot more went on perhaps than the orthodox imagine. One question remains. Once the file-leaders were engaged in hand-to-hand conflict, did those behind have no part? Hoplite fighting must have been a tiring business and, if battles did indeed last two or three hours, exhausting, and it is no surprise to read in Diodorus’ account of the battle of Thermopylae (11.8.2) that the Spartans were accustomed to fight in relays. The file-leaders were the strongest and bravest, not just in the Spartan army ([Xen.] Resp. Lac. 11.8) but generally (Xen. Mem. 3.1.8 and cf. Aelian 13 and Arr. Tact. 12), and they certainly bore the brunt of the fighting and suffered the most casualties (which is perhaps why there were no perioecic casualties at Plataea—Hdt. 9.70.5). When they were killed or wounded their places were filled by the men immediately behind them (Aelian 13.3), the men whose spears had helped to defend the file-leaders (Arr. Tact.12.3) now themselves becoming the file-leaders and so ‘keeping the formations unbroken’ (συνέχϵι τὴν τάξιν ἀρραγῆ—Aelian l.c.). So it is not clear what the most cowardly in the middle of the file had to fear. Yet fear they did and were kept on the battlefield by the threat of being killed by the file-closers if they turned and tried to run (Xen. Mem. 3.1.8, Cyrop. 6.3.27). Of course, there was always the danger of the formation breaking up and a general mêlée occurring, of the sort which the author of the Xenophontic Constitution of the Spartans envisages (11.7). So this chapter ends on an agnostic note. The only confidence one can have is that things were not so simple as the orthodox would have us believe. So this chapter ends on an agnostic note. The only confidence one can have is that things were not so simple as the orthodox would have us believe.

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Orthodoxy and Hoplites Notes:

(1) Kromayer-Veith, Heerwesen u.s.w. (Munich, 1928) i.84f.does not go in for the analogy of the scrummage, for which in German a word seems to be lacking. (2) A. W. Gomme, Essays in Greek History and Literature (Oxford, 1937), p. 135: ‘… in any case a Greek battle was not so simply “a matter of brawn, … a steady thrust with the whole weight of the file behind it—a literal shoving of the enemy off the ground on which he stood” (did the back rows push the man in front?), as Professor Woodhouse supposes. It was not a scrummage. The men all used their weapons, and had their right arms free’. (3) A. D. Fraser, Classical Weekly 36 No. 2 (12 Oct. 1942), 15f. (‘In England, where the accepted theory of phalanx-fighting seems to have arisen, there is, I think, a more or less clear mental association between the working of the phalanx and of the Rugby football scrimmage.’) (4) ‘The Nature of the Hoplite Battle’, Class. Ant. 4 (1985), 50–61. (5) The evidence is conveniently tabulated in W. K. Pritchett. The Greek State at War iv (Berkeley, 1985), 47–50. (6) Cf. the story concerning Iphicrates in Polyaenus 3.9.27. In Arist. Wasps 1085 the ‘shove’ comes at the end of the battle. (7) I confess to great puzzlement at this passage. Seeing that the sarissas of the second, third, fourth, and fifth ranks stuck out in front of the file-leaders, and the sarissa required two hands (Polyb. 18.29), I find it hard to believe that those ranks physically pushed the front rank. (8) I take ὠθουμένους at Xen. Hell. 7.1.31 to mean ‘pushing each other’, ‘jostling’. (9) It is also possible that by ὠθισμὸς ἀσπίδων at 4.96.2, Thucydides is referring to the use of the shield to get an opponent off balance (see below, p. 433). (10) W. K. Pritchett, GSW iv.92f. Holladay, art. cit. 97, speaks of ‘an instant attempt at ōthismos’. (11) ‘Hoplites and Heresies: a Note’, JHS 104 (1984), 152. (12) Suidas s.v. Λύκϵιον speaks of πρὸ τῶν ἐξόδων ἐξοπλίςϵις τινὲς ἐν τῷ Λυκϵίῳ… καì ἀποδϵίξϵις τῶν μᾶλλον πολϵμικῶν ἀνδρῶν, but this may refer to post-Xenophontic times. (13) Cf. J. Poursat, ‘Danse armée dans la céramique attique’, BCH 92 (1968), 550– 615. and W. K. Pritchett, GSW iv.61f., ii.216. (14) See also Lucian, De Saltatore 10. Page 17 of 20

Orthodoxy and Hoplites (15) Translation of T. J. Saunders in the Penguin translation. (16) To say nothing of mountain torrents which make advance impossible (Thuc. 4.96.2). (17) Cf. Xen. Cyrop. 8.5.15. (18) The only other mention of ‘four deep’ is in Diod. 13.72.6 (in which passage the figures do not square with the totals in §4; if the length of the line were not 8 but 18 stades, that would suit the number of hoplites). (19) References to Aelian are to the edition of H. Köchly in Köchly-Rüstow, Griechische Kriegsschriftsteller (Leipzig, 1855), 2.1, references to the Tactica of Arrian to the Teubner edition of A. G. Roos. (20) ‘Two Battles in Thucydides’, Echos du Monde Classique 31 n.s. 6 (1987), 307–12. (21) W. K. Pritchett, Ancient Greek Military Practices (Berkeley, 1971), i. 154. (22) Cf. Walbank’s note ad 2.69.9. (23) 18.7.8, 12.2 and 5, 13.3; 3.113.3. (24) 4.64.6; 12.21.3 and 7. (25) Presumably the phalangites stood sideways on when holding the sarissa, perhaps taking the weight of the long shaft by adopting very much the hold used in the British Army for a bayonet-fixed Lee Enfield rifle, i.e. with the right forearm placed along the shaft; in which case 18 inches would be ample in a defensive stance, for the rear four rows of sarissas would require no more space in the front. Indeed, the closer the sarissas, the more difficult it would have been to get at the file-leaders. Therefore I cannot side with Th. Steinwender, ‘Der polybianische Gefechtsabstand’, Hermes 44 (1909), 179–97. (The only scruple arises from where and how the phalangites’ shields were worn in such close formation [cf. G.T. Griffith, A History of Macedonia ii. (Oxford, 1979), 421 for the phalangites shield], indeed how a shield allegedly two feet in diameter [cf. W. K. Pritchett, Anc. Gk. Mil. Prac. i.146f.] was worn at any time when the sarissa was lowered for action. Griffith’s version seems more easily said than done—the Macedonian will have used his upper arms alone as support for his shield, his forearm thrust through elbow-thong?) It is to be noted, however, that both Arrian (Anabasis 5.17.7) and Plutarch (Flamininus 8.4–6) use the term synaspismos for a force in attack. (26) For the genealogy of the Tacticians, cf. P. A. Stadter, ‘The Ars Tactica of Arrian’, CP 73 (1978), 117f. Greek, as opposed to Macedonian, warfare is

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Orthodoxy and Hoplites allegedly under review (cf. Arr. Tact. 3.2, 4.5, 16.9, 19.5, 32.2 etc.). The meaning of Aelian, Preface 6 depends on whether one translates (καί) to mean ‘as well’. (27) Cf. Plut. Mor. 220a for a dictum allegedly of Demaratus. (28) Those of the second rank are termed ἐπιστάται. It is instructive to compare the account of Aelian 13.3 with Arrian in the parallel texts of Köchly-Rüstow. Aelian ascribes a supporting role in combat, and the role of substitute in case of death or wounding of the file-leader; Arrian goes further, adding something about their role in ōthismos (which can only apply when there is pyknosis κατὰ παραστάτην τϵ καì ἐπιστάτην) and having men from the second rank using their swords over the heads of the file-leaders, hardly welcome support even if the ἐπιστάτης was as close to the file-leader as he could possibly be. Whatever Arrian knew about warfare in the Roman army, his additions to his Greek original would hardly move one to volunteer for service under him. (29) Hdt. 9.18.1 is not in battle. (30) αἱ δὲ παραγωγαì ὥσπϵρ ὑπò κήρυκος ὑπò τοῦ ἐνωμοτάρχου λόγῳ δηλοῦνται ἀραιαί τϵ καì βαθύτϵραι αἱ ϕάλαγγϵς γίγνονται. It is not clear that changes in depth are due to παραγωγαί. To judge by what Thucydides (5.68.3) says of Mantinea, depth in the Spartan army depended to some extent on the decision of the λοχαγός, and the phalanx was essentially a series of λόχοι; if by παραγωγαί the author means the sort of movement described in Xen. Hell. 7.5.22, the second half of this sentence in Resp. Lac. refers to some other movement. (31) For instance, on the Chigi vase one can see the left edge of the shield behind the body of the hoplite whose spearside is fully displayed; so much for the man on his left trying to hide behind his neighbour’s shield. The Nereid Monument at Xanthus is similarly discouraging to the orthodox. (32) Cf. the mixture of methods on the Aryballos in Berlin, fig. 3 of H. L. Lorimer, ‘The Hoplite Phalanx’, BSA 42 (1947), 84, and cf. fig. 2 in W. A. P. Childs, The City Reliefs of Lycia (Princeton, 1978). (33) Epaminondas described the flat and open Boeotian land as ‘πολέμου ὀρχήστρα’ (Plut. Mor. 193e). (34) Cf. W. K. Pritchett, GSW ii, ch. 14 for this subject. (35) 2.25.2 suggests that he could have given names had he chosen to do so. (36) The story of the blinding vision of Epizēlos at Marathon (Hdt. 6.117.3) presupposes hoplites in line, but is not more suitable to compact than to open order. (37) W. Peek, Gr. Versinschriften (Berlin, 1955), i.321. Page 19 of 20

Orthodoxy and Hoplites (38) Cf. W. K. Pritchett, GSW iv.85–8. (39) Since Xenophon goes on to contrast the Argives who οὐκ ἐδέξαντο τοὺς πϵρì Ἀγησίλαον, he does not mean by ϵἰς δόρυ ‘within spear’s throw’, cf. Hipparch. 8.10. (40) Cf. Xen. Hell. 4.2.5. (41) Early Greek Warfare (Cambridge, 1973), p. 180 n. 37. (42) Early Greek Armour and Weapons (Edinburgh, 1964), pp. 181f. References to Tyrtaeus are in the edition of M. L. West, Iambi et Elegi Graeci, ii (Oxford, 1972). (43) The present tense of these participles is to be noted. (44) Cf. M. F. Vos, Scythian Archers in Archaic Attic Vase-painting (Groningen, 1963). Fig. 52 in Greenhalgh, E.G.W. is perhaps the best example. Cf. fig. 7 in H. L. Lorimer, ‘The Hoplite Phalanx’. These are both assigned an early date. Vos, Plate VII is late.

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The Crowning of Demosthenes1

Cyrene to Chaeronea: Selected Essays on Ancient Greek History George Cawkwell

Print publication date: 2011 Print ISBN-13: 9780199593286 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199593286.001.0001

The Crowning of Demosthenes1 George Cawkwell

DOI:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199593286.003.0020

Abstract and Keywords This chapter inquires into the judgement of Demosthenes about the affairs during the period of his full maturity, from the defeat of Chaeronea down to his triumph over Aeschines in 330. The speeches of that year provide insight on what sort of judge of politics Demosthenes was. It also considers Demosthenes' silence on his part in the Theban revolt of 335 as well as the silence of Aeschines on this subject. Keywords:   Demosthenes, affairs, Chaeronea, Aeschines, politics, speeches, Theban revolt

In the course of Demosthenes’ lifetime, indeed within a mere decade, the whole balance of power in the Greek world was destroyed. By 338 the city states were completely overshadowed by the national state of Macedon, and it is the concern of all students of Demosthenes to analyse this dramatic change. The task is not easy. The evidence is most unsatisfactory. None of the great historians of the age has survived in other than a few precious fragments, and in the absence of Ephorus, Anaximenes, Theopompus, and the Atthidographers the pale reflections of some of them in Book XVI of Diodorus are poor consolation. It is on the Athenian orators that we have to rely, the very men most concerned in the politics of Athens, in the act of glossing over and denying their own share in the disaster and of misrepresenting that of their opponents. Memories were no longer then than they are today. In 343 both Demosthenes and Aeschines in discussing the events of a mere three years past denied all responsibility for the making of the Peace of Philocrates; one, at least, was lying, confidently. The formal documents were, generally speaking, merely heard, and only in part at that, and the orators were well practised in exploiting such material. If Page 1 of 27

The Crowning of Demosthenes1 Aeschines and Demosthenes could lie so freely within three years of the events, what they had to say at a longer interval must be much more suspect. Exchanges of the law-courts inevitably present a picture of vice and corruption, and Greek historians have always to keep clear in mind (p.439) the great difference in kind of the evidence for the fourth century from that of the fifth. In passing from the historian of the Funeral Oration to, for instance, the charges and counter-charges of the two speeches on the False Embassy, one may be tempted to suppose that Athens had passed into a period of moral decline and that the Athenians upbraided by Demosthenes were not the men their ancestors had been. Again, to take another instance, the shocking state of affairs portrayed in the prosecution of Polycles seems a sad falling-off from the ϕιλοτιμία of the trierarchs on the eve of the Sicilian Expedition.2 But all this may be deceptive. It is the accident of literature, not a matter of morals, that we lack a Thucydides for the age of Demosthenes, and it is merely the accident of custom that no orations earlier than Antiphon were published.3 Barely an echo of, for instance, the assault made by the young Pericles on Cimon survives to sully his reputation, and without the speeches of Thucydides, son of Melesias, or the prosecution of Callias on his return from Susa, Pericles remains the Olympian. Of wrangles of trierarch against trierarch in the Peloponnesian War there is no sign, but we may be sure that they occurred: the system and the opportunities for a Polycles had been substantially the same. As one reads through the Demosthenic corpus, one is apt to forget all this and uncritically to accept that the Athenians had ceased to strive for their country and were content with the leadership of traitors and pacifists, and to explain the rise of Macedon by declaring that the Greeks had come to prefer comfort and narrow self-interest to liberty. A single speech from the age of Pericles in similar vein about decline from the virtue of the warriors of Marathon would have been most salutary for the study of the succeeding century. It is difficult to answer theorists of moral decline. No doubt there are periods in the life of a nation, as of an army, when morale is low, and it is possible that the fourth century was such a time for Athens. At least, it cannot be disproved. Equally, it cannot be proved. Demosthenes’ fervent denunciations of Athenian lassitude, which have been accepted by many as the key to Philip’s success, may have been wide of the mark. There may have been the soundest of political considerations governing the opposition of his opponents. We have, generally speaking, to guess what they were. If they were (p.440) wrong, their errors may have been errors of judgement, not failures of nerve. It is poor use of evidence to accept at their face value Demosthenes’ attributions of moral turpitude. Dinarchus could, later on, attack Demosthenes with similar opprobrious charges, which none of us would take literally. Why should Demosthenes receive so much credit with posterity? It certainly simplifies matters if one accepts the burden of his accusations, that he was hindered by

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The Crowning of Demosthenes1 traitors and pacifists. One can then neglect the question whether his proposals were practicable; for his opponents were ‘guilty men’. It is not my intention here to engage directly in the debate about the 340s. I may be permitted merely to reassert the view that the central fact of this age is military,4 not moral—viz. the huge preponderance in military potential of the Macedonian state over the power of any single Greek state. The preponderance was not in mere numbers. The ample supply of manpower was welded into an efficient whole by the military genius of Philip, and trained not just to manœuvre on the field of battle in such a way that the specialized arms found their most effective use, but also to cover distances at a rate unprecedented in Greek experience. A small Spartan force might arrive at Marathon on the third day, or, led by a Brasidas, dash across Thessaly, but no large Greek force ever attempted such a movement as, for instance, Alexander in 335 when he marched from Illyria to Thebes in thirteen days with his full army through mountainous terrain, a matter of about 250 miles as the crow flies.5 To meet such military power, so employed, Greece had to unite, and, no matter how high her morale, unless she did so, she was likely to perish. The real problem for Demosthenes as for his opponents was how to achieve unity, and for historians, if not for moralists, judgement of Demosthenes must rest on his use of opportunities to unite the Greeks. Here there is ample room for disagreement. For whatever one may say of his resolve, formed in Skirophorion 346,6 to renew the war as soon as possible regardless of the fact that the Macedonian garrison at Thermopylae seemed to secure access to Greece, the Macedonian (p.441) hold on the Gates was broken, a more or less equal force of Greeks faced Philip at Chaeronea and, no matter what other course Athens had taken, no matter who else had been in power, the result might well have been no different but much less glorious. Demosthenes is hardly to be held responsible for the final defeat, as he himself justly remarked.7 So it can be argued that Demosthenes did well enough. Did he judge the situation all that badly? My purpose here is to inquire into the judgement of Demosthenes about the affairs of a different period, the period of his full maturity, from the defeat of Chaeronea down to his triumph over Aeschines in 330. With the aid of the speeches of that year we may see more plainly what sort of judge of politics Demosthenes was. If in that period we find him, in the words of Ctesiphon’s decree,8 καὶ λέγων καὶ πράττων τὰ ἄριστα τῷ δήμῳ we can the more confidently accept his judgement of affairs in the 340s. If we find otherwise, some may be prompted to doubt. The speech On the Crown is difficult. It requires a ready familiarity with the history of the previous two decades without which the brilliance of Demosthenes’ apologia is dulled. The best instance is, of course, his account of Page 3 of 27

The Crowning of Demosthenes1 the making of the Peace of Philocrates. With admirable effrontery he can now declare that others were responsible for making the peace—Philocrates, ‘your associate, Aeschines, not mine, though you lie till you are black in the face—I gave him no support at any stage’—ἐγὼ οὐδὲν οὐδαμοῦ).9 The exchange of speeches of 343 makes as plain as day that this is simply not true. Indeed, according to the earlier speech of Aeschines, Demosthenes was closely connected with Philocrates as early as 348, and had in that year defended Philocrates and his proposal to negotiate with Philip, and in case the matter was forgotten Aeschines raised the matter again in his prosecution of Ctesiphon.10 Demosthenes omits to allude to it. In such a matter brevity was best. Ἐγὼ δ’ οὐδὲν οὐδαμοῦ). Likewise with the charge, admittedly petty, that Demosthenes had gone ahead with the peace in 346 without consulting the Hellenes.11 Demosthenes first denies that Aeschines has ever aired this before: we have the text of the Parapresbeia and know otherwise.12 As to the Hellenes, Demosthenes himself in 343 had charged Aeschines with making a (p.442) shameful speech ‘in the hearing of the envoys whom the Athenians sent for from the Hellenes’.13 Whatever the precise truth of that, the answer of Aeschines in 343 makes certain that there were some envoys from the Hellenes either present or expected. But that was 343. In 330 Demosthenes can be brief, or, rather, will not be otherwise. ‘At that time there was no embassy visiting any of the Greek states, but all the Greek states had long ago been sounded, and there is not an honest word in his whole story.’14 Thus with sure touch Demosthenes deals with the past, exploiting bad memory, disregarding uncomfortable facts, directing attention to higher things. The speech has become one of the supreme monuments of liberty. The latest work on Athenian oratory speaks of ‘the magnificent moral tone, intense, noble, sincere, transcendent’,15 and it is by reason of the magnificent moral tone that one hopes that the speech will never be entirely neglected in the education of the free. Moral edification and history can be kept separate. As historians let us turn to the facts. The speech has a context. When Aeschines and Demosthenes spoke, recent and dramatic events were very much in their audience’s thoughts, and the judgement given was presumably much affected by them. Aeschines divided his discussion of the career of Demosthenes into four καιροί, the fourth being τὸν νῦν παρόντα καιρόν, to which he devoted nine sections of his speech.16 Demosthenes dealt carefully with the first three καιροί; of the fourth καιρός he had very little indeed to say, a curious and striking silence, and it is to these events of which Aeschines says so much and Demosthenes so little that I wish to direct attention—an argument about silence. The attack of Aeschines is full of rancour and he remains a suspect guide. But in one respect our task is easier for 330 than it is for 343. After Chaeronea Demosthenes’ opponent ceased to play an active part in Athenian politics. His last public act was to go on the embassy to Philip immediately after the battle17 and he refrained from joining those who attacked Demosthenes in the courts in Page 4 of 27

The Crowning of Demosthenes1 that period—‘daily’ as Demosthenes would have it18—and his fitful appearances in the (p.443) 330s appear to have been concerned solely with the case of the honorific decree of Ctesiphon.19 So if rancour continued deeply felt, at least Aeschines had no longer to defend his own political acts. If he misrepresents the acts of Demosthenes in these years, it is not because he has to gain credit for his own. The curious history of the prosecution is well known. Ctesiphon’s proposal to crown Demosthenes in the theatre at the Great Dionysia came before the people in the course of 337/6,20 presumably shortly before the festival of Elaphebolion of that year. It had been approved by the Council,21 but when it came before the assembly it was promptly indicted by Aeschines by a γραϕὴ παρανόμων. The case was not proceeded with until six years later in the early weeks of the year 330/29,22 although by then the προβούλϵνμα would have long ago lapsed.23 Demosthenes curiously enough was content to let the decree lie under notice of indictment.24 This resumption of a case virtually dead has always caused surprise. An early reaction of scholars was to postulate a renewal in 331/0 of the προβούλϵυμα, but there is nothing in either speech to support this and enough to show plainly that the case is concerned with the decree of 337/6 and with that alone.25 It would appear that with γραϕαί where the state was considered to be the injured party there was no time limit within which a case had to be brought,26 and so there is nothing odd, from a formal standpoint, about the sixyear interval in this case. But why did Aeschines choose to reopen it at all? In view of the result, it has sometimes been thought that Demosthenes found legal means to oblige Aeschines to bring his action and face the consequences, but (p. 444) there is a passage in Demosthenes’ speech, which shows that it was Aeschines who took the initiative in 330.27 Talking of Aeschines’ retirement from politics, he remarked: ἔστι γάρ, ἔστιν ἡσυχία δικαία καὶ συμϕέρουσα τῇ πόλϵι, ἣν οί πολλοί τῶν πολιτῶν ὑμϵῖς ἁπλῶς ἄγϵτϵ. ἀλλ’ οὐ ταύτην οὗτος ἄγϵι τὴν ἡσυχίαν, πολλοῦ γϵ καὶ δϵῖ, ἀλλ’ ἀποστὰς ὅταν αὐτῷ δόξῃ τῆς πολιτϵίας (πολλάκις δὲ δοκϵῖ), ϕυλάττϵι πηνίκ’ ἔσϵσθϵ μϵστοὶ τοῦ συνϵχῶς λέγοντος ἢ παρὰ τῆς τύχης τι συμβέβηκϵν ἐναντίωμα ἢ ἄλλο τι δύσκολον γέγονϵν (πολλὰ δὲ τἀνθρώπινα). ϵἶτ’ ἐπὶ τούτω τῷ καιρῷ ῥήτωρ ἐξαίϕνης ἐκ τῆς ἡσυχίας ὥσπϵρ πνϵῦμ’ ἐϕάνη.… This passage at once seems to dispose of the notion that it was Demosthenes who brought on the case in 330, and invites speculation. What ἐναντίωμα παρὰ τῆς τύχης ἢ ἄλλο τι δύσκολον was there in 336 or 330? When were the Athenians μϵστοὶ τοῦ συνϵχῶς λέγοντος? Earlier another supporter of Demosthenes, Aristonicus, had moved a very similar decree, and Demosthenes had actually been crowned in the theatre without protest from Aeschines.28 What in the circumstances of 336 and 330 afforded scope for his rancour?

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The Crowning of Demosthenes1 The year 336 was an annus mirabilis—for some at least. Early in the year, ‘at the beginning of spring’ according to Justin,29 Parmenion, Amyntas, and Attalus led a Macedonian force into Asia to prepare a bridgehead for the great invasion: the fleet landed them in the satrapy of Lydia and they were shortly in action against Memnon near Magnesia.30 Earlier, probably in 337, though the precise dating is obscure,31 Philip had got himself voted by the League of Corinth (p.445) στρατηγὸς αὐτοκράτωρ but in itself this could be regarded as no more than another move of propaganda, masking Philip’s real aim of dominating Greece. Now with the news of the formal consultation of Delphi and the dispatch of Parmenion with orders ‘to free the Greek cities’32 all those in Greece who had shared the hopes of Isocrates for a national crusade saw at long last their dreams coming true. When, shortly after, Philip in his desire to commend himself to the Greeks summoned all his ξένοι from all over the Greek world to the celebrations in Aegae—celebrations which were to mark at once the marriage of his daughter and the opening of the onslaught on Persia—great numbers of Greeks assembled and Philip received a number of honorific crowns from both individuals and cities. Included was a crown from Athens, and at the end of the honorific decree read out by the herald came the words ‘if anyone plots against Philip the king and flees to Athens, he is to be handed over’.33 Here is a startling change from the day when Ctesiphon was confidently proposing a crown for Demosthenes ὅτι διατϵλϵῖ καὶ λέγων καὶ πράττων τὰ ἄριστα τῷ δήμῳ. For we may be sure that Demosthenes would never have proposed or supported that honorific decree for Philip.34 It seems reasonable to explain this change of opinion at Athens in terms of the flowering of Panhellenist hopes, for which Demosthenes could have no sympathy. Ever since the disaster of Chaeronea the whole effort of Demosthenes had been directed to securing the city (p.446) from the coming assault. To that end he had sought stocks of corn for the city and busied himself with the city’s defences, with walls and trenches.35 Indeed Ctesiphon’s decree began with praise for Demosthenes ὅτι τὰς τάϕρους τὰς πϵρὶ τά τϵίχη καλῶς ἐτάϕρϵυσϵ.36 This involved even the destruction of ταϕαὶ δημόσιαι. It was a period of intense activity for Demosthenes.37 He was attacked in the courts,38 and it was advisable for him to have an agent to move his decrees,39 but none the less it was to Demosthenes that the people looked. He was chosen to deliver the funeral oration at the Epitaphia in late October 338,40 at which time the aged Isocrates in despair committed suicide.41 It was a black time, with Philip present in person in Greece, a time of awful disillusionment for the Panhellenists, when Demosthenes’ gloomy predictions must have seemed all too likely to come true. His request to be appointed ϵἰρηνοϕύλαξ42 was perhaps a piece of grim irony. For it is hard to see what else is meant than a request to be appointed a Theoric Commissioner, which he certainly became for 337/6, and by using this curious word he may have meant ironically that as chief finance officer he would guard the city.43 Nor was the foundation of the League of Corinth any real reassurance. Page 6 of 27

The Crowning of Demosthenes1 The work of exile was concluded, the garrisons installed to fetter Greece; what matter the fine pretensions of the League Charter? Philip had his fit instrument of domination. The battle had been fought on the seventh day of the second Attic month.44 Nine and a half months later we find Demosthenes moving a decree to provide for regular work on the walls:45 the repairs of the period directly after the battle46 were now to be improved upon. For Philip was in Greece, the worst was to be expected, Demosthenes was on guard, poised, as it were, for Ctesiphon’s crown. Then all changed. Not long after Aeschines had blocked the crowning; Demosthenes’ position was completely undermined. The law of Eucrates menaced the Areopagus on which Demosthenes, oddly but certainly, had been (p.447) able to rely.47 The whole mood of the people towards Philip had changed. It seems reasonable to suppose that it was the opening of the Asiatic campaign that had, for the moment, discredited him. But the annus mirabilis was only half run. Early in the new archon year came the news of Philip’s death, which brought Demosthenes out of mourning for his daughter to proclaim his exultation and feverishly to exploit the new situation. An embassy was sent off, in secret, to Attalus in Asia, and, armed with a letter from Demosthenes, it succeeded in concerting plans for revolt. Meanwhile Demosthenes declared that Alexander would never venture outside Macedon.48 At any rate it could be expected that the Asiatic campaign would be postponed indefinitely, and with Demosthenes supreme again Aeschines had lost his chance. The supremacy was short-lived. News came that Alexander was on his way south, then that the Thessalians had decreed a campaign against Athens, soon after that the Amphictyons at Pylae had voted Alexander the ἡγϵμονία of the Hellenes. Demosthenes ran away from the embassy to Alexander in Boeotia.49 He must have been again (p.448) discredited. Yet too much had happened since Ctesiphon’s decree to encourage Aeschines to risk a prosecution against Demosthenes. Would the new king continue his father’s leniency towards the Athenians? No one could be sure, and Aeschines was content to leave the case untested. So much for the first act of the drama. Why the second act was so long delayed must remain something of a mystery. We know too little about conditions in Athens to say much. Yet perhaps something can be said. Presumably Aeschines was waiting for his chance to return to the attack, but until the campaign of Gaugamela the future remained very uncertain. In early 335 Alexander went fighting in the Danube basin and for the purpose used ships from Byzantium.50 Perhaps to this context we should assign Demosthenes’ speech opposing the Macedonian Alcimachus; on some occasion Demosthenes opposed a Macedonian request for ships, declaring that it was not clear that Alexander would not use the ships against Athens itself.51 Certainly Alexander must have been regarded with the greatest suspicion in this period,52 and the people were ready to accord Page 7 of 27

The Crowning of Demosthenes1 a hearing to Demosthenes. He had in the past predicted the worst. The worst may only have been postponed.53 It was no time for Aeschines to attack, and when the revolt of Thebes had ended in appalling disaster Demosthenes was secure. Nor did the opening of the campaign of 334 nor the panoplies from the Granicus,54 nor other similar acts, necessarily persuade anyone that Alexander was not shortly going to (p.449) attack the Athenians. Nor until he had left the Mediterranean seaboard were suspicions somewhat allayed. By then the situation for Aeschines’ rancorous purpose had begun to change radically. The second act of the drama could now perhaps commence. Within the archon year 331/0 came the news of Gaugamela, with the propagandist announcement that ‘all the tyrannies were destroyed’.55 This must have reached Athens towards the end of the Julian year 331,56 and by then Greece, or rather Athens, was confronted with the spectacle of the revolt of Agis, of which it is now necessary briefly to indicate the chronology. Since Niese,57 it has been fashionable to fasten on the explicit notice of Curtius Rufus58 that the battle of Megalopolis had been fought and lost before the battle of Gaugamela, and to find a sign of the outbreak of the revolt in Arrian’s notice59 that, when in spring 331 Alexander was in Tyre, he dispatched Amphoterus with a heavily reinforced fleet to support the loyal Peloponnesians because τὰ ἐν Πϵλοποννήσω … αὐτῷ νϵνϵωτϵρίσθαι ἀπήγγϵλτο. Thus the revolt is made to run from spring to autumn 331. I believe this chronology is wrong. Whatever date we ascribe to the outbreak of the revolt, it was not over, as Curtius asserts, by the time of the battle of Gaugamela but continued into 330. There are two pieces of evidence that point to this, both undervalued by Niese. The first is the notice of Justin60 to the effect that Alexander received the news of the end of Agis’ revolt after the death of Darius, which as we know from Arrian61 happened in the first month of the Attic year 330/29. According to Niese, Justin’s words are mere Übergangsformel, a way of introducing a digression on the revolt of Agis which Justin, like Curtius,62 found (p.450) in his source at this point. Even if this were true, it does not explain why the digression was made after the death of Darius, rather than after his defeat. The reasonable inference from Justin’s words is that the revolt had ended not long before.63 The second piece of evidence is from Aeschines.64 At the time of the prosecution of Ctesiphon the Spartans (whom the Synedrion of the League of Corinth had decided to send to Alexander for sentence) had not yet been dispatched on their way. If the battle of Megalopolis had been fought and lost by October 331, these Spartans would have been sent off long before the first month of the new Attic year, 330/29. Admittedly, some time must have elapsed since the end of the revolt, but there is no reason to think that the Synedrion did not meet promptly to deal with the guilty, or that, once the decision was taken to refer the case of Sparta to Alexander, there was a long delay in putting the

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The Crowning of Demosthenes1 decision into effect. So Aeschines, like Justin, argues for the continuance of the revolt well into 330.65 For the date of the outbreak of the revolt, we must turn to Diodorus,66 who gives the first part of his account after Gaugamela, introducing it in these words—ἐπὶ δὲ τούτων (i.e. the new archons) (p.451) ϵἰς τὴν Ἑλλάδα τῆς πϵρὶ Ἄρβηλα μάχης διαδοθϵίσης πολλαὶ τῶν πόλϵων ύϕορώμϵναι τὴν αὔξησιν τῆν Mακϵδόνων ἔγνωσαν, ἕως ἔτι τὰ Πϵρσῶν πράγματα διαμένϵι, τῆς ἐλϵυθϵρίας ἀντέχϵσθαι βοηθήσϵιν γὰρ αὐτοῖς Δαρϵῖον καὶ χρημάτων τϵ πλῆθος χορηγσϵιν πρὸς τὸ δύνασθαι ξϵνικὰς μϵγάλας δυνάμϵς. συνίστασθαι καῖ τòν Ἀλέξανδρον μὴ δυνήσϵσθαι διαιρϵῖν τὰς δυνάμϵις. ϵἰ δὲ πϵριόψονται τοὺς Πέρσας καταπολϵμηθέντας, μονωθήσϵσθαι τοὺς Ἕλληνας… If Diodorus meant that the revolt began after news of Gaugamela reached Greece in late 331, he was talking, as Badian notes,67 ‘complete nonsense: after “Arbela” the Persian cause was stone dead and Darius, a helpless fugitive, could not have sent money to Greece even if he had wanted to’. It is evident that Diodorus’ source thought that the revolt began before the defeat of Darius, and that the words τῆς πϵρὶ Ἀρβηλα μάχης διαδοθϵίσης either are an inept attempt to relate the events of one chapter to those of that preceding or are to be understood as a condensed version of some statement to the effect that the revolt began when word was brought that the decisive conflict was soon to be expected. Whichever is correct, it seems clear enough from Diodorus’ introduction that the revolt began before the battle of Gaugamela. The only serious question is how long before. For Badian ‘positive indications in Arrian make the date certain. In late spring (3. 6. 3) Alexander, in Phoenicia, hears of “rebellion” in Peloponnese.’ What Arrian says, however, might perfectly well apply to the petty disturbances of the Peace alluded to in [Dem.] XVII,68 and what Alexander did was very much more suited to the situation prior to the revolt of Agis. Once Agis had defeated Corragus69 and called on the Greeks to revolt, what was needed was no mere fleet off the Peloponnese, but a land force within it. But if it had been the case, as Badian claims, that Antipater was known to be preoccupied with the revolt of Memnon70 and so all that Alexander (p. 452) could do was to send a naval force, Alexander’s conduct would have been very strange indeed. Having sent the naval force which could effect little (and it is to be noted that it does not appear in Diodorus’ account either of the Macedonian reaction to the revolt or of the operations), Alexander would have been leaving Thrace in revolt and Greece aflame and calmly marching towards the heart of Iran, and his next act with regard to the war, of which we hear, was to send 3,000 talents to cover Antipater’s expenses late in 331 when he was at Susa71—a tardy subvention indeed. One might accept that Alexander could act with the indifference and foolhardiness which the Niese chronology ascribes to him, but it is hard to believe that Agis could have been so stupid or his allies so Page 9 of 27

The Crowning of Demosthenes1 bold. All hope of success for the revolt depended on Alexander’s not being able to go to Antipater’s aid. But if it were claimed that the revolt of Memnon tempted Agis into folly, that would have been no reason why Agis was able to find allies. All difficulties vanish if the truth lying behind the extravagant assertions of Aeschines72 and Dinarchus73 is that the revolt began when Alexander was already well on his way east from the Mediterranean seaboard. According to Aeschines, when Agis appealed to Athens for help, Ἀλέξανδρος ἔξω τῆς ἄρκτου καὶ τῆς οἰκονμένης ὀλίγον δϵῖν πάσης μϵθϵιστήκϵι. If Aeschines had said this within sixteen months of Alexander’s being in Phoenicia at the moment that Agis revolted, he would have absurdly blunted the point he was making against Demosthenes. At the very time that Alexander sent Amphoterus to the Peloponnese, he also favourably received an Athenian embassy.74 So, many would have known where exactly Alexander had been at the time that Agis appealed, if that appeal came in spring 331. Aeschines could lie no doubt, happily enough, but only when it suited his case. If Alexander had in fact been in a position to go to help Antipater when Agis’ appeal came to Athens, Aeschines should have said nothing about him. So the truth would seem to be that when the revolt began Alexander was already marching to Gaugamela—a point that did not elude Memnon. (p.453) In face of the explicit evidence of Curtius to the contrary, Niese may never lack his followers, but the chronology posed here, and consistent with all the other evidence,75 is that the revolt began in late summer 331 and continued well into 330. Curtius has erred. The final settlement was not long before Aeschines’ attack on Ctesiphon. If this chronology is correct, it is abundantly clear that those76 who have sought to explain the resurrection of the charge against Ctesiphon in terms of the collapse of the revolt of Agis are on the right lines. Where I differ from my predecessors is in the explanation I would furnish of why the failure of the revolt of Agis should, in Aeschines’ opinion, have rendered Demosthenes more vulnerable. To this question I will now turn. It is a remarkable fact that of the six crowded years between the citing of Ctesiphon’s law under the γραϕὴ παρανόμων in March 336 and the hearing of the case in August 330 Demosthenes has nothing precise to say—there are one or two very general remarks,77 but not a word about his many activities about which we happen to learn from other sources. In Aeschines’ treatment of Demosthenes’ career78 he touched on the defensive measures taken immediately after (p.454) Chaeronea. Demosthenes dealt with that.79 But not a comment about his part in the unrest in Greece on the death of Philip,80 or about his part in the debates occasioned by the revolt of Agis.81 Why did Demosthenes neglect to answer Aeschines about all this? It will barely suffice to reply that Demosthenes limited himself to events preceding the decree of Ctesiphon in 336. If it had been his intention to treat as irrelevant to the defence of Ctesiphon Page 10 of 27

The Crowning of Demosthenes1 more recent events, he would surely have made this clear. But he does no such thing. His speech is subtly woven together. Aeschines had pointed the way to a clear answer. He does not get it. Instead Demosthenes cunningly intersperses discussion of his acta with other matter, and the form of the Aeschinean attack is forgotten. The uncovered years escape notice. There is art behind this careful avoidance, and Demosthenes’ purpose must be sought. One topic on which Demosthenes was silent is particularly striking—namely his part in the Theban revolt of 335. Equally striking is the silence of Aeschines on this subject. He has the merest allusion to Demosthenes’ share. The Athenians, he says, gave a home to the Thebans, who were in exile διὰ τοῦτον.82 But that is all, when it would seem that there was much for him to comment on. Certainly Dinarchus had his say a few years later, though he does not greatly help in the elucidation of the facts.83 It seems clear that Demosthenes had some part in persuading Athens to support the revolt. Diodorus declares that the Athenians were persuaded by Demosthenes to pass a decree promising the Boeotians military support,84 and, according to Justin, Demosthenes brought a man before the assembly who declared that he had been wounded in a battle against the Triballi in which Alexander had been killed—the same rumour that undid the Thebans.85 There is also evidence that Demosthenes provided the Thebans with arms.86 So Demosthenes certainly played a prominent part at the outbreak of the revolt. Further, despite the deliberately confusing account of Dinarchus,87 it is plain that the Arcadians responded to the Theban appeal for help and came to the Isthmus, where they received both a message from Antipater on which they (p.455) declined to act—presumably a demand that they join the Macedonian attack on Thebes—and also an appeal for help from Thebes to which they decided not to respond:88 by then Alexander was known to be alive and could be expected south shortly.89 In these negotiations with the Arcadians Demosthenes played some part. According to Dinarchus,90 he refused to use the money he had received from Persia to bribe the Arcadian commander into continuing north. According to the document appended to the Plutarchean Lives of the Orators, Demosthenes checked the Peloponnesians going to Thebes to help Alexander.91 The truth is lost, but whatever in fact he did, he was held to blame in part for what Athens had done. Alexander’s special fury was directed against Charidemus whom he forced to flee into exile, but Demosthenes and the other popular leaders were sufficiently involved to need the diplomacy of Demades.92 In all this there was ample material for Aeschines. He alluded to the Arcadian expedition in another context,93 but he declined to use it in his attack on Demosthenes for his acts since 338. Presumably the whole subject of the destruction of Thebes was too dangerous and might recoil on the accuser; if Demosthenes had helped, or wanted to help, the Thebans, it could hardly stand to his discredit. So Aeschines contented himself with the merest allusion to his opponent’s share. But what of Demosthenes? How are we to explain his silence? Could he not easily enough have explained his part? He did not initiate the Page 11 of 27

The Crowning of Demosthenes1 revolt. The Thebans must have taken the step for themselves; such, at any rate, is the account of Diodorus, such the implication of Dinarchus, who would not have let slip any opportunity to attack Demosthenes. The revolt began, as Arrian shows,94 with the irruption into the city of exiles, who after 338 did not need a Demosthenes to prompt them. Demosthenes could easily have justified his gift of (p.456) arms.95 If it was Demosthenes who persuaded the Athenians to pass the decree, it was not Demosthenes who persuaded them not to send out the force, but to wait and see how things turned out.96 At any rate, no source as much as suggests it. So he had nothing to be ashamed of here. Nor in the affair of the Arcadians at the Isthmus, as far as we can guess, and to be named by Alexander as a wanted man was an honour which his accuser could not claim. Yet he is silent about it all. Aeschines’ sly reference was allowed to pass. One explanation that might be suggested is that Demosthenes was unwilling to talk frankly about 335 for fear of Macedonian reprisals. Aeschines in the course of his speech threw out the improbable charge that through the agency of his friend, or rather associate, Aristion of Plataea, Demosthenes had been negotiating with Alexander97—improbable, but none the less possible; the story found its way into the history of Marsyas of Pella, who followed the career of Alexander down to his return to Syria in spring 331.98 So it might be claimed that after this seeming rapprochement Demosthenes was unwilling to say too much.99 But this will not do. He was virtually on trial, and at a moment of his opponent’s choosing; Demosthenes had to do his best, whether it was reported to Alexander or not; anyhow the revolt of Thebes was past history, and Demosthenes had been held guilty and then pardoned. What had he to conceal about 335? Alexander had known all too well. Nor will it suffice to modify this and say that Demosthenes passed over his part in the events of 335 because, if he had dealt with that, he would have been drawn into discussion of more recent events which might compromise him anew with Macedon. From the Macedonian point of view Demosthenes had behaved himself wonderfully well in the year of Agis’ revolt. When Agis appealed to Athens, as to the rest of Greece, to support the revolt, ‘the Athenians’, to quote Diodorus, ‘who had been favoured beyond all other Greeks by Alexander, did not stir’.100 Not that there were wanting extremists to advocate joining the revolt— the 17th speech of the Demosthenic corpus is the clear (p.457) testimony of that—but Demosthenes supported the policy of keeping out,101 as I shall shortly discuss. So he could be in no great danger from the Macedonians if he spoke the truth about 335. The reason for his silence must lie nearer home. The explanation here proposed is this. Demosthenes could have answered Aeschines about 335, but about later events he could have had little but bad conscience. To attempt an apologia for what he had done and what he had not done, would have been to make clear that he was claiming the crown at the very moment when his country was disastrously isolated. The Persian Empire was Page 12 of 27

The Crowning of Demosthenes1 ended; the great revolt of Agis was over. No obstacle remained to Macedonian domination without end. With Thebes gone, and Sparta gone, and the heart of Greece crushed, what future in mid 330 could an Athenian see? And what had he, Demosthenes, done to aid the last great struggle? Nothing, and worse than nothing. He had seen to it that nothing was done. Aeschines102 had concluded his prosecution with an appeal to the jury not to neglect what Demosthenes passed over in silence, τὰ παραλϵιπόμϵνα. Tὰ παραλϵιπόμϵνα were to conceal the unpalatable truth. There is one topic in particular on which Demosthenes is resolutely silent. In the whole of the de Corona there is only one direct reference to the King of Persia, and that a reference to a period long past.103 Of the reigning King, Darius, and his connections with Greece, there is not the faintest hint. Not so Aeschines, who alluded six times in his speech to the moneys which he claimed Demosthenes had received from the Persians,104 and at one point the claim is made that Demosthenes received communications from the Great King.105 The charge of collusion with Persia is in fact the final taunt of the speech.106 Why was Demosthenes silent about it? Others were not. Not just his accusers in 324, Dinarchus107 and Hyperides,108 but historians.109 There was a case to answer, or a course to justify. The facts appear to have been these. Having rejected the offer of ϕιλία and (p.458) σνμμαχία made by Artaxerxes in 344,110 the Athenians not long after turned to Persia, perhaps in accordance with the advice of Demosthenes in the Fourth Philippic,111 and received from the King a curt refusal to furnish Athens with money.112 As Philip’s intention to attack Persia became clear, the mood changed113 and, probably in 336, Darius, acceding114 to the throne when Macedonian forces were already in Asia, began to take positive steps to encourage the Greeks to revolt.115 In accordance with long-established Persian policy, money was sent to Greece. According to Aeschines116 the Athenians declined to accept the 300 talents offered to them, and, according to Dinarchus,117 they directed the Areopagus to investigate whether any politician had taken any of this money. Since Aeschines and Dinarchus are here talking about public business, they may well be correct. Much more doubtful is the frequently repeated charge that Demosthenes received money. Practically every source asserts it,118 but accounts vary about the amount, and the date,119 and the Areopagus did not find anyone guilty. One would be justified in dismissing the whole story about Demosthenes’ share as mere law-court slander, if it were not that Plutarch in his Life claimed that Alexander found at Sardis documentary evidence both of communications between Demosthenes and the Persian generals and of payment of money.120 So whatever the precise truth, there is something to explain. The merest novitiate to Athenian history knows that accusations of bribery are an inevitable part of political abuse, and hardly deserve to be taken literally. Not of course that politicians did not receive δῶρα—the general presumption in Athens that they did was no doubt grounded on ample experience of venality in Page 13 of 27

The Crowning of Demosthenes1 high places. (p.459) Demosthenes may well have received money from Persia, some of which he spent on supplying arms to the Thebans in 335. But whether he did or not is not important. What is important is to ask, as always in such cases, why he was so accused. There can only be one answer, and that is that from the accession of Alexander onwards, Demosthenes was known to be looking to Persia. He was, in Aeschines’ phrase,121 ὁ μϵτὰ τῶν βαρβάρων ὁμολογῶν τοῖς ‘Έλλησιν ἀντιπράττϵιν. That must be why at the time of the campaign of Issus he went around, according to Aeschines, flaunting letters from Cilicia, and predicting that Alexander would be trampled down by the Persian cavalry.122 Co-operation with Persia was in the circumstances the only policy which offered any hope of liberation, and Aeschines’ mention of the dead of Marathon and Plataea was as absurd as it was ill judged. If the so-called Hellenes of the League of Corinth thought otherwise, no matter.123 But there were two modes of cooperation with Persia, the one represented by Demosthenes, the other by Agis. Demosthenes’ policy appears to have been to do nothing until Alexander was either checked or defeated by Darius. Early in 331 the embassy sustained by all the Paraloi went before Alexander and secured all they sought, including the release of Athenians taken at the Granicus:124 presumably Demosthenes supported the move; at least that much may be inferred from the stories of his rapprochement with Alexander.125 Alexander, reassured that his erstwhile opponents at Athens would not be willing to support Agis in the policy he had been following for the last two years, was happy to make concessions to Greek sentiment. Nor was his confidence misplaced. When later in the year the revolt of Agis flared up with the defeat of the Macedonian Corragus,126 Elis, Achaea, Arcadia all joined in, but Athens held firm. (p.460) Demosthenes opposed participation. Athens, he declared, was in no position to act. Such was his view of co-operation with Persia.127 The conduct of Agis has, by contrast, seemed to many foolhardy in the extreme.128 We know in fact very little about either his motives or his methods, and it is hard to evaluate his role in the Persian resurgence in the Aegean in 333 and 332. Certainly it all came to nothing and appears to have done little to shake the Greek states in their submission to the League of Corinth, which at the Isthmia of 332 by implication condemned him in expressing its loyalty to Alexander.129 But in one respect Agis was right. He saw as Alexander saw130 that naval power in the Aegean was vital to the cause of Greek freedom, and that, once Alexander had conquered the Phoenician naval bases, direct military co-operation with Persia would be impossible. While Demosthenes was smiling over the prospect of Issus,131 Agis was active,132 and, when the battle was lost, it was Agis who gathered up what he could of the remaining forces.133 As the Persian initiative petered out in the course of 332, Agis was left in isolation—not important enough to deter Alexander from his advance into Asia. When news came to him in spring 331 of disturbances in the Peloponnese,134 he had no reason to fear very much: the petty troubles described by the orator of the 17th Page 14 of 27

The Crowning of Demosthenes1 speech of the Demosthenic corpus could easily be contained by the Macedonians in Greece itself.135 To make doubly sure, he gave orders for the reinforcement of the Macedonian fleet in the Aegean.136 As he marched inland he could forget Agis. Demosthenes, on the other hand, had strong reason not to forget Agis or the events of the previous two years. It had been a pleasant (p.461) dream that Darius would destroy Alexander, and that the Greeks would again be free. But Issus should have shattered it. The result of leaving the struggle entirely to the Persians had been an immense increase in Macedonian power. The best that could be hoped for was an opportunity to liberate Greece while Alexander was engaged elsewhere. Refusal to take any risk might well end in eternal submission to Macedon. In the course of 331 the moment for decision came. The minor military success of Agis against the Macedonian Corragus came at a time when Alexander and the flower of the Macedonian army were already approaching the battlefield of Gaugamela. At the same moment Antipater, his regent, was engaged in dealing with disturbances in Thrace:137 he was bound to be delayed in restoring order in Europe. Agis had the nucleus of an army, the 8,000 survivors of Issus, but if he was destroyed there was no real hope of an uprising in Greece in Alexander’s lifetime. Only a disputed succession to the Macedonian throne would offer a real chance, and the King was so young in 331 that the revolt must have seemed the last chance for Greece. Athens possessed the all-important naval power. The response of Athens would determine the response of the rest of Greece. When Agis appealed for help, Demosthenes faced the most important decision of his career, either to urge his country to fight for liberty or merely to continue to hope for a Persian victory. Demosthenes chose the safe course. That is clear enough from what Aeschines138 and Dinarchus139 say. The reasons he gave for rejecting the appeal are obscure. Aeschines claimed to quote some of Demosthenes’ phrases, of the precise meaning of which we cannot be sure, but the general sense seems to be that Athens in Demosthenes’ view was not free to act. One must inquire what was to hinder her joining the revolt. First no doubt was fear for the corn-supply. Macedon controlled Egypt; Macedon controlled the Hellespont and the Bosporus; the great corn shortage of the early 320s may have already begun.140 But Athens had more ships in this period than ever (p.462) before—392 triremes and 18 quadriremes in 330/29141 and could have fought for mastery of the sea as she was to fight against much increased Macedonian power in the Lamian War. The risk of being starved into submission was great, but not such as to make it impossible for Athens to join the revolt. Secondly, there were the Macedonian garrisons in Corinth, Thebes, and Chalcis. But the importance of these to the Macedonians was merely to gain time for the army to arrive. If the army were merely Antipater’s, the garrisons could be swept aside or disregarded Page 15 of 27

The Crowning of Demosthenes1 as they were in the Lamian War. Thirdly, although details are denied us, we may presume that some Athenian forces were involved in Asia, if not in the army of Alexander, at least on lines of communication, and until they returned as they probably did at about the time of the prosecution of Ctesiphon, they were hostages for Athens’ good conduct.142 Perhaps, too, there were Athenian ships with the fleet of Amphoterus, which would find it difficult to escape, even if they could not be forced to fight. But neither military nor naval contingents are likely to have been large, and for the greater good they would have to be risked. It is, in short, hard to see what really prevented Athens from responding to Agis’ appeal. There would be opposition within the state, but it would have been the business of Demosthenes and his associates to fight it. Demosthenes misjudged the situation. At the end of 331/0 Sparta had ceased to count; Persia was in the power of the conqueror. It was (p.463) a suitable moment for Aeschines to attack. It is no wonder that Demosthenes maintained a careful silence about recent events. No doubt there are many who would counter in Demosthenes’ defence that, if his policy was in the outcome unsuccessful, he was able to retain the esteem of the Athenians to such an extent that Aeschines was roundly defeated and did not obtain the necessary one-fifth of the votes. I fear this is less of a defence of Demosthenes than the disclosure of a melancholy fact about Athens. Modern historians make much of the violent and tyrannous rule of Macedon over Greece after 338 and especially after 336. The only evidence for this view is in the speech, On the Treaty with Alexander, which as evidence is of the poorest.143 The truth is much worse. Macedon did not need to interfere. Enough of the Greeks were cowed. In that sense Chaeronea had been decisive. The policy of collaboration was readily accepted, and Demosthenes and Athens were no exception. From 335 on Athens remained safe for Alexander—not that he thought they regarded him as friend, but he knew that they would not risk destruction. Since 338 they had had three calls to arms. Three times they had finally not moved, and Alexander had no reason to regret that he had left Demosthenes and his fellow demagogues to their own devices. Their own devices turned out to be remarkably convenient for Macedon, and the Athenian people were happy to accept their avoidance of danger. Over four-fifths of the votes were cast in support of Demosthenes but at the same moment in condemnation of Athens. Demosthenes was right to say nothing about 336 to 330 in his reply. His chosen policy had ended in disaster. It was better to dwell on the struggles of the 340s, about which memories were inexact and where there was ample play for oratory. Modern students of Demosthenes also will turn to those years and continue the debate about (p.464) this decisive period. Could defeat by the Macedonians have been avoided? That is the central question. But when we address ourselves to this question, if we find that Demosthenes was not so clearly right as his fame Page 16 of 27

The Crowning of Demosthenes1 has made him, the conclusion need not shock us when we reflect on Demosthenes’ policy in those years about which the de Corona maintains so discreet a silence. Notes:

(1) A condensed version of this chapter was delivered to the conference of the Hellenic and Roman Societies at Cambridge in August 1965. The text is, in substance unchanged, but the part concerning the chronology of the revolt of Agis has been rewritten to answer the discussion of the matter by Professor Badian in a lecture to the Hellenic Society in November 1965 and now published in Hermes xcv (1967). (2) [Dem.] 50, Thuc. 6. 31. 3. (3) Plut. Mor. 832 d. (4) This is the view underlying the various articles I have written on the age of Demosthenes, especially those in C.Q. xii (1962) (herein Ch. XVI), and xiii (1963), and J.H.S. lxxxiii (1963) (herein Ch. XV). (5) Arr. Anab. 1. 7. 4f. (6) Despite Dem. 5, Demosthenes showed his attitude by his attack on Aeschines (Aesch. 2. 96). Cf. R.E.G. lxxv (1962), pp. 453f. for the possibility that Demosthenes still wanted on 16 Skirophorion an expedition to save Phocis. (7) 18. 193. (8) Aesch. 3. 49. (9) § 21. (10) Aesch. 2. 14 and 3. 62. (11) § 22. (12) Aesch. 2. 61, 62. (13) Dem. 19. 16. (14) § 23. (15) Kennedy, The Art of Persuasion in Ancient Greece, p. 235. (16) §§54f. and §§159–67. (17) Dem. 18. 282, Aesch. 3. 227. He also made public protest against the choice of Demosthenes to deliver the Funeral Oration in 338 (Dem. 18. 285).

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The Crowning of Demosthenes1 (18) Dem. 18. 249. (19) Aesch. 3. 216ff., 220. Drerup, Aus einer alten Advokatenrepublik, p. 142, inferred from Aesch. 3. 222 that Aeschines effected a reform of Demosthenes’ trierarchic law, but the passage need refer to no more than an attack on the law at the time it was proposed. (20) Aesch. 3. 219 (in Philip’s lifetime), and 27 (Demosthenes’ decree of Thargelion 338/7 providing for τϵιχοποιοί in 337/6). (21) Dem. 18. 9, 118. (22) Dion. Hal. Letter to Ammaeus 1. 12 and Theophrastus Char. 7 give the archon year, 330/9; Aesch. 3. 254 shows that the case was heard very shortly before the Pythia, which were celebrated in every third year of an Olympiad in a month of the Delphic year corresponding to Metageitnion at Athens (cf. Beloch G.G.2 1. 2, p. 143). (23) Cf. Dem. 23. 92. (24) ’Εᾶν ἐν ὑπωμοσίᾳ (Dem. 18. 103). (25) Cf. H. Reich, ‘Bemerkungen zum Prozess Ktesiphon’, Abhandl. W. von Christ, Munich, 1891, pp. 282f. (26) Cf. J. F. Charles, Statutes of Limitations at Athens, Chicago, 1938. (27) § 308. (28) Dem. 18. 83, 223. (29) 9. 5. 8. (30) Justin 9. 5, Diod. 16. 91, Trog. 9 prol. (praemissa classe cum ducibus), Polyaenus 5. 44 (operations against Memnon). (31) It is commonly supposed that Philip’s settlement of the affairs of individual Greek cities was completed over the winter of 338/7, that the League of Corinth was founded early in 337, at the assembly described by Justin 9.5, and that the meeting recounted in Diod. 16. 89 (for which cf. P. Oxy. i, no. 12, col. iii) at which Philip was appointed στρατηγὸς αὐτοκράτωρ was a later meeting, which could well be in early 336. But it is to be noted that none of our sources describes two sessions, and in Justin the invasion of Asia follows as a direct consequence of the session he describes. Nothing is known of Philip’s movements in 337. There seems no strong reason against supposing that there was only one session attended by Philip in 337, though the synod no doubt met at the Isthmia of 336 and at any previous national festivals after the formation of the League, as was laid down for the League of 302 (I.G. iv2. i. 68, i. 67) and as it was due to meet at Page 18 of 27

The Crowning of Demosthenes1 the Pythia of 330 (Aesch. 3. 254). So the League of Corinth may not have been founded until well on in 337, after Demosthenes’ decree appointing the τϵιχοποιοί (Aesch. 3. 27); Demosthenes may have acted in the shadow of the king’s presence. (32) Diod. 16. 91. (33) Diod. 16. 91. (34) I.G. ii2. 240, a proxeny decree for a Macedonian, moved by Demades in the tenth prytany of 337/6, is another sign of this change of mood. But one must be careful not to make too much of the change. I.G. ii2. 239, a decree in honour of an Alcimachus, passed in the sixth prytany at the same session of the ecclesia as that at which Demades moved the decree published by Schweigert in Hesperia ix, 1940, p. 325, may relate to the honours accorded to Alcimachus and Antipater of Macedon and attacked by Hyperides (Harpocration s.v. Ἀλκίμαχος); this interpretation of the inscription was adopted by Tod, G.H.I. no. 180. The name, Alcimachus, common enough at Athens (cf. P.A.), by no means necessarily belongs to a Macedonian (cf. I.G. ii2. 238, which mentions the son of an Amphoterus of Andros), but, if it is a Macedonian whom the Athenians were honouring in the sixth prytany of 337/6, the honours may well stem from the foundation of the League of Corinth (see p. 444, n. 31, above). None the less the contrast between the honours for Demosthenes proposed by Ctesiphon and those for Philip in the decree of Diod. 16. 91 is very startling. (35) Aesch. 3. 27, Plut. Mor. 851 a, b, Dem. 18. 248, Din. 1. 78. (36) Aesch. 3. 236. (37) Dem. 18. 248, Din. 1. 78. (38) Dem. 18. 249, 25. 37 (with Scholiast), Plut. Dem. 21, Mor. 845 f. (39) Aesch. 3. 159, Plut. ibid. (40) Dem. 18. 285f., Plut. ibid. (41) Cf. Mathieu, Les Idées politiques d’Isocrate, pp. 172f. (42) Aesch. 3. 159. (43) Cf. J.H.S. lxxxiii (1963), p. 56 (herein Ch. XV, pp. 350f.). (44) Plut. Cam. 19. (45) Aesch. 3. 27. (46) Dem. 18. 248. Page 19 of 27

The Crowning of Demosthenes1 (47) For the Law of Eucrates (S.E.G. xvii. 26 = RO 79) see Meritt, Hesperia xxi (1952), p. 355, Ostwald, T.A.P.A. lxxxvi (1955), pp. 125–8, and Sealey, A.J.P. lxxix (1958), pp. 71–3. The law was passed in the ninth prytany of 337/6, and so fell in the very period of reaction against Demosthenes. The appointment of the nomothetai probably belongs to the first prytany of the year (cf. Hignett, A History of the Athenian Constitution, pp. 299f.), but this particular law may well be a product of developments later in the year. For the curious co-operation between Demosthenes and the Areopagus cf. Sealey, A.J.P. lxxix (1958). The Law of Hegemon (Aesch. 3. 25), which destroyed the importance of Demosthenes’ position as Theoric Commissioner, may belong to 337/6. It is prior to 335/4, in which year the ἀντιγραϕϵύς is again found taking an important part (I.G. ii2. 223 c and 1700, l. 217; cf. Bus.-Swob. G.S., p. 1,043 n. 1 and Cawkwell, J.H.S. lxxxiii [1963], p. 57 [herein Ch. XV, p. 351] n. 63). Hegemon was an opponent of Demosthenes (Dem. 18. 285), and while his law was of wide-ranging effect in financial matters (cf. I.G. ii2. 1628, l. 300), it may have been directed at the position of Demosthenes in particular: the law referred to in Plut. Life of Lycurgus, Mor. 841 c, may be Hegemon’s (and D. M. Lewis may well be right in his—unpublished— suggestion that his name has dropped out between ϕθάσαι and νόμον); this law contained the curious provision μὴ πλϵίω πέντϵ ἐτῶν διέπϵιν τὸν χϵίροτονηθέντα ἐπὶ τὰ δημόσια χρήματα in which πέντϵ ἐτῶν may be a misrepresentation of πϵντϵτηρίς, and the provision prevented Lycurgus from holding financial office indefinitely, but it may have been directed at the control of finances by Demosthenes since 341/0 (cf. Cawkwell, C.Q. N.S. xiii [1963], p. 135). (48) Plut. Dem. 22. 2f., Aesch. 3. 77, 160, 219, Diod. 17. 3 and 5. 1. (49) Aesch. 3. 161, Plut. Dem. 23, Diod. 17. 4–5f. (50) Arr. Anab. 1. 3. 3. (51) Fr.Gr.Hist. 72 F 16. Plut. Mor. 847 C (στρατϵυομένῳ δ’ αὐτῷ ἐπὶ Πέρσας καὶ αἰτοῦντι ναυτικὸν παρ’ Ἀθηναίων ἀντϵῖπϵν, ἄδηλον ϵἰπών, ϵἰ οὐ κατὰ τῶν παρασχόντων χρήσϵται) suggests a date in or after 334, but Athens could not refuse a request in accordance with the decisions of the League of Corinth. So perhaps ἐπὶ Πέρσας is inaccurate. (52) Bellenger, Essays on the Coinage of Alexander the Great, p. 14, inclines to the view that the figure of Athena on the gold staters was inspired by Athenian sources. (Cf. Perlman, ‘The Coins of Philip II and Alexander the Great and their Pan-Hellenic Propaganda’, Num. Chron. N.S. v. [1965], pp. 63f.) Even if this were true, it would be far from arguing any cordiality in 336/5: Alexander may have

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The Crowning of Demosthenes1 sought to conciliate by such a borrowing, but it would be no evidence about the Athenian response to it. But the whole question of these coins is very open. (53) Plut. Mor. 1126 D (ὁ δὲ πϵμϕθϵὶς πρὸς Ἀλέξανδρον ὑπὸ τῶν ἐν Ἀσίᾳ κατοικούντων Ἐλλήνων, καὶ μάλιστα διακαύσας καὶ παροξύνας ἄψασθαι τοῦ πρὸς τοὺς βαρβάρους πολέμου, Δήλιος ὖν Ἐϕέσιος, ἑταῖρος Πλάτωνος fits into a period of uncertainty as to whether Alexander would follow up the attack begun by Attalus and Parmenion). (54) Arr. Anab. 1. 16. 7. (55) Plut. Alex. 34. 1. (56) Cf. Burn, J.H.S. lxxii (1952), p. 84 for the date of Gaugamela. The news must have reached Greece about two months later. (57) Geschichte der griech. und maked. Staaten i (1893), pp. 497ff. Cf. Beloch, G.G. iii2. ii (1923), pp. 317f., and followed by many, e.g. Ehrenberg P.W. iii A 2, col. 1419 (1929), Treves, Demostene e la liberta greca (1933), p. 101, Bengtson, G.G2. (1960), p. 346, and most recently Badian, art. cit., pp. 190f. Tarn, Alexander the Great i (1948), p. 52 puts the battle of Megalopolis ‘soon after Gaugamela’. (58) 6. 1. 21. (59) Arr. Anab. 3. 6. 3. (60) 12. 1. 4. (61) Anab. 3. 22. 2. (62) Curtius recounts the death of Darius in the last chapter of Book 5. The beginning of his account of Agis’ revolt in Book 6 is lost. For a retrospective digression introduced in a similar way to that of Justin, see 10. 1. 44. (63) Diodorus in Book XVII appears to have followed the same source as Curtius (cf. C. Bradford Welles, Diodorus Siculus VIII [Loeb], 1963, p. 12), and, while his disposition of the narrative of the revolt may be as fitful as much else in his history, it is notable that if he (and Curtius) found the account of the revolt in his source after the death of Darius (17. 62), he transposed its commencement to bring it into close connection with Gaugamela and put its conclusion after the death of Darius in chapter 75, and if he had found in his source a statement corresponding to that of Curtius 6. 1. 21, it is hard to see why he did not recount it all in the one place. His disposition of the material suggests that he knew that the revolt began before Gaugamela and was settled some considerable time afterwards. Curtius 5. 1. 1 suggests, however, that in their common source the

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The Crowning of Demosthenes1 revolt was not recounted (as it is in 6. 1) in a single narrative. Diodorus may accurately reflect the disposition of the revolt in their source. (64) 3. 133. (65) A further argument might be advanced from Arrian. After subduing the Mardi in 330, shortly after the death of Darius in Hekatombaion, Alexander returned to camp and found there four Spartans and Dropides, the Athenian, οἳ παρὰ βασιλέα Δαρϵῖον ἐπρέσβϵυον (Anab. 3. 24. 4). On Niese’s chronology, one can only remark that they had been a remarkably long time in not reaching Darius; on my view their arrival so late is not difficult to explain. Dropides might have left Athens during the waverings discussed below on p. 453, n. 75. (Arrian may be misleading here: Curtius 3. 13. 15 reports these ambassadors, with slight variations in spelling, as being captured after Issus; but probably Berve, Alexanderreich ii, s.v. Δρωπίδης is right in preferring Arrian.) (66) 17. 62. (67) Art. cit., p. 191. (68) In §§26f. the speaker discusses the most recent ‘outrage’. A Macedonian trireme had sailed into the Peiraeus and requested the building of μικρὰ πλοῖα. Perhaps the trireme came from the fleet of Amphoterus. We know, at any rate, of no other circumstances in which the Macedonians might request μικρὰ πλοῖα: it must have been for a naval force of more than one ship, if we may trust the use of the plural. The speech is a call to the Athenians to accede to Agis’ appeal for allies (cf. §30, and Cawkwell, Phoenix xv [1961], pp. 74f., where, however, I was still espousing Niese’s dating of the revolt). (69) Aesch. 3. 165. (70) Diod. 17. 62. 4. (71) Arr. Anab. 3. 16. 10. (72) 3. 165. The Scholiast comments ἐν ὑπϵρβολῇ. He does not say that the statement is wholly false. (73) 1. 34. (74) Arr. Anab. 3. 6. 2. (75) There is a story in Plut. Mor. 818 E about Demades curbing his countrymen, when they wanted to support the revolt, by telling them that they would be depriving themselves of the money he had provided for distribution at the Choes (in February). It is accepted as genuine by de Falco, Demade oratore2, p. 23 and rejected by Treves, Athenaeum N.S. xi (1933), p. 118. The setting, if not the Page 22 of 27

The Crowning of Demosthenes1 details, of the story may be correct: if the revolt did continue into 330, the serious wavering of opinion at Athens, which the story implies, is understandable after the collapse of hopes of Darius defeating Alexander, and may be echoed in the wavering of Demosthenes (Aesch. 3. 167 καὶ πάλίν ὅτϵ κύκλῳ πϵριδινῶν σϵαντὸν ἐπί τοῦ βήματος ἔλϵγϵς … κ.τ.λ.), which may be the point of Aesch. 3. 254. See p. 450, n. 65 for the Athenian ambassador, Dropides, sent to Darius: if they had been sent off before Gaugamela, presumably they would have turned back when they learned the result. The reinforcements, which reached Alexander at Ecbatana in May 330 (Curtius 5. 7. 12), came from Cilicia, and there is nothing to suggest that they were Macedonians (pace Beloch, G.G. iii2. 2, pp. 317f.). So the question of when and in what circumstances they were dispatched by Antipater does not arise. However Beloch, ibid., may be right in arguing that the reinforcements which reached Alexander in late 330 (Curtius 6. 6. 35), including 3,000 from Illyria sent by Antipater, must have left Europe early in 330. But this does not prove that the revolt of Agis was finished. Once Antipater saw that few states had joined Agis and indeed that he could rely on the support of the League of Corinth (Diod. 17. 63. 1), he could afford to let these forces go. (76) Notably Blass, Att. Bered. iii2 (1893), p. 419. Cf. Glotz-Cohen, Hist. Gr. iv2, p. 208, Martin-Budé, Eschine ii, p. 14. (77) §§253, 270. (78) §§159–67. (79) §§248ff. (80) Aesch. 3. 160. (81) Aesch. 3. 165f. (82) Aesch. 3. 156. (83) 1. 18f. (84) 17. 8. 6. (85) Justin 11. 2, Arr. Anab. 1. 7. 2. (86) Diod. 17. 8. 5, Plut. Dem. 23. 1. (87) 1. 18. (88) Arr. Anab. 1. 7. 4 and 10. 1, Diod. 17. 8. 6, Din. 1. 18. As Reichsverweser under Alexander (as under Philip; cf. Berve, Alexanderreich ii, p. 46) Antipater

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The Crowning of Demosthenes1 was in Macedon at the time of the revolt (cf. Arr. Anab. 1. 7. 6). A message by sea could quickly reach the Isthmus. (89) Diod. 17. 8. 6προσδοκίμου τοῦ βασιλέως ὄντος. (90) 1. 20. Cf. Aesch. 3. 240. (91) Mor. 851 B. (92) Diod. 17. 15, Arr. Anab. 1. 10. 6, Justin 11. 4. 12. (93) Aesch. 3. 240. (94) Anab. 1. 7. 1. (95) It is to be noted that Plut. Dem. 23 confuses the events of 336 and 335 (as does Justin 11. 2) but there is no difficulty in disentangling them. (96) Diod. 17. 8. 6. (97) §162. (98) Fr.Gr.Hist. 135 F 2. (99) Cf. Pickard-Cambridge, Demosthenes, p. 439 n. 1. (100) 17. 62. 7. For the favours cf. Arr. Anab. 3. 6. 2. (101) Aesch. 3. 165f. (102) §259. (103) §202. The references to ‘the barbarians’ in 253 and 270 are vaguely general. (104) §§156, 173, 209, 239, 250, 259. (105) §164. (106) §259. (107) 1. 10, 15, 18. (108) Against Demosthenes, cols. 17, 21, 25. (109) Diod. 17. 4. 7f., Justin 11. 2. 7. (110) Cf. Cawkwell, C.Q. N.s. xiii (1963), pp. 121ff (111) §33. Page 24 of 27

The Crowning of Demosthenes1 (112) Aesch. 3. 238. (113) Arr. Anab. 2. 14. 5, Diod. 16. 75, etc. (114) 336 is the probable date of Darius’ accession; cf. Swoboda, P. W. iv. 2, col. 2205. Diod. 17. 6. 2 synchronizes the accession with the death of Philip. The chronographers vary; Swoboda prefers John of Antioch frag. 38. (115) Arr. Anab. 2. 14. 5, Diod. 17. 9. 5. (116) 3. 239. (117) 1.10 (118) See p. 176 nn. 5–10, above, to which add Plut. Mor. 847 F. (119) Plut. Mor. 848 E puts the embassy of Ephialtes before Chaeronea, in which he is followed by Drerup, op. cit., pp. 145f., who cites the gift to Diopeithes (Ar. Rhet. 1386 a14). (120) 20. 4f. (121) 3.259. (122) 3. 164. Another passage ( §254) is sometimes misunderstood; see Ryder, Koine Eirene, p. 103 n. 6, who says that it ‘probably refers to the Spartans’. It almost certainly does not: the Spartans had already been dealt with by the Synedrion, nor had theπολιτϵύματα of Demosthenes supported them. The probable reference is to Demosthenes’ policy of co-operating with Persia against the League of ‘the Hellenes’ (cf. 259), which had been at war with Persia; henceδιαβέβληται ἡ πόλις … (123) See previous note. (124) Arr. Anab. 3. 6. 2. (125) Fr.Gr.Hist. 135 F 2, Aesch. 3. 162. (126) Aesch. 3. 165. For Corragus, see Berve, Alexanderreich, ii s.v. (127) Aesch., ibid., Din. 1. 35, Diod. 17. 62. 7. (128) For a defence of Agis, see now Badian, Hermes xcv (1967), pp. 170f. with whose general viewpoint this article is consonant. (I should add that the original versions of both papers were delivered in 1965 but were entirely independent of each other.) (129) Diod. 17. 48. 6, Curtius 4. 5. 11.

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The Crowning of Demosthenes1 (130) Arr. Anab. 2. 17 (Alexander’s speech on the necessity of securing Persian sea-bases). (131) Aesch. 3. 164. (132) Cf. Niese, op. cit., pp. 102ff. (133) Diod. 17. 48. 1f., Curtius 4. 1. 39. (134) Arr. Anab. 3. 6. 3. (135) It may be conjectured that Corragus was one ofΠϵλοποννησίων οί πλϵίους καὶ τῶν ἄλλων τινές. (136) Arr. Anab. 3. 6. 3. (137) Curtius 5. 1. 1 speaks of activity ‘in Illyriis ac Thraecia’, but what he refers to ‘in Illyriis’ is not clear. For Thrace Diod. 17. 62. 4f. (138) 3. 165. (139) 1. 34f. (Dinarchus, curiously, omits the Arcadians, Diod. 17. 62. 7 says that Πϵλοποννησίων οί πλϵίους καὶ τῶν ἄλλων τινές … joined the revolt). (140) Cf. Dem. 18. 89, Din. 1. 36 (τἀς τῶν πϵνήτων ἀπορίας). (141) I.G. ii2. 1627, ll. 266–78. The naval power available to Alexander in 331 was large. In the siege of Tyre he had employed 200 ships from eastern Mediterranean waters, principally Phoenicia and Cyprus (cf. Berve, Alexanderreich, i, pp. 161f.). From these forces he was able to dispatch the two ships to help Amphoterus in 331 (Arr. Anab. 3. 6. 3), who already had certainly sixty ships (Arr. Anab. 3. 2. 6), possibly 160 (Curtius 4. 5. 14 regarded by Berve loc. cit. as a mistake: 160 was the strength of the ‘Hellenic’ navy in 334—Arr. Anab. 1. 11.6, and 18. 4). But Alexander’s power was new, and the loyalty of the states uncertain. They could have no great interest in containing a revolt of Greece to the advantage of Alexander before the Persian power was finally put out of account by the battle of Gaugamela. On paper there was something approaching a balance of power, but the resolution of Athens would have prompted other Greeks to fight and at least some of Alexander’s forces to be lukewarm. Fighting would have been necessary, but victory not impossible. (142) The Athenian naval contingent in 334 was only 20 ships (Diod. 17. 22. 5) out of a total of 160 (see previous note), and this is so small as to suggest that the city had other obligations. Cf. Plut. Phoc. 16. 6 … καὶ τριήρϵις ἔδϵι παρέχϵιν… καὶ ίππϵῖς. We never hear of Athenian cavalry in Asia, but there were more soldiers from mainland Greece than the literary sources show: for instance, the Boeotian cavalry, attested epigraphically (Hicks and Hill, Greek Page 26 of 27

The Crowning of Demosthenes1 Inscriptions, no. 163) make no appearance in the battles (cf. Diod. 17. 57. 3f.). Presumably such forces were used on communications. (143) Pace Badian, J.H.S. lxxxi (1961), p. 28 and n. 87. It is to be noted that of the passages he cites in n. 88, there is no proof that the (dubitable) anecdote in Plut. Alex. 74. 2 concerns Greeks and not men from elsewhere in the large area administered by Antipater, while Justin 12. 14. 4f. refers to Alexander’s execution of satraps, not to any acts of Antipater. The only evidence known to me which might be used to support the common view is provided by theδιάγραμμα of Polyperchon (Diod. 18. 56) which contained a clause restoring to their cities τοὺς μϵταστάντας ἢ ϕνγόντας ὑπὸ τῶν ἡμϵτϵρων στρατηγῶν ἐκ τῶν πόλϵων ἀϕ’ ὧν χρόνων ’Αλέξανδρος ϵἰς τὴν ’Ασίαν διέβη. But this need be no more than a convenient starting-point to include the events of 331/0 as well as the Lamian War.

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Index

Cyrene to Chaeronea: Selected Essays on Ancient Greek History George Cawkwell

Print publication date: 2011 Print ISBN-13: 9780199593286 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199593286.001.0001

(p.465) Index Abdera 217–18, 398 abortion 19 Acanthus 54–5, 140, 186, 187 n. 35, 264 appeal for protection 184, 201 Acarnania/Akarnania 57, 136, 148, 216, 218, 224, 226 Accame, S. 192, 211 n., 222, 229 Achaea 29–30, 57, 64, 66 n. 38, 301, 319–20, 459 Acropolis 75, 165, 166, 224, 261 n. 48 Cylon’s attempt on 44 Pisistratus’ occupation of 35, 39–40 Adcock, Frank E. 416 Adimantus of Corinth 97 Adrastus 64 Aeaces 77 n. 8 Aeacus 28, 31 Aegina 49, 96, 179 Athens’ attack on 78 n. 11 Cleomenes and 76, 81, 85, 89 n., 93 and drought 29, 31 and medism of 85 and Peloponnesian League 59–60 siege of 434 and Sparta 151 Teleutias and 250, 251 Aelian 37 n. 13, 289, 437 on Boeotarchy of Epaminondas 333 on hoplite formations 426, 429–30, 432 Aelius Aristides 206 Aeolia 86–7, 162, 163, 435 Aeschines/Aischines vii–viii, 65, 229, 234 n. 47, 322, 339 & n. 25, 340, 346, 372, 458

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Index Demosthenes and 102, 337, 350, 351, 441–4, 446, 447, 448–9, 452, 453–4, 455, 456–7, 459, 461, 462–3 on Euboean expedition 378, 380–1, 395, 413 and Eubulus 349, 393, 395 and peace negotiations 343 reliability of 438 on revolt of Agis 450 on Theoric Commission 347, 349, 351–2, 353, 365 trial of 102, 336, 337, 340 Aeschylus 98–9, 116, 124, 132 n. 28, 433 Aetolian treaty 56, 65 n. 35, 69 n. 51 Agesilaus 56, 57, 93, 163, 167, 278 n. 7, 294 n. 45, 328 n. 105 and Agesipolis 190, 244–5 and Antalcidas 250–1 and appointment of nauarch 249 in Arcadia 317, 318 and Asia, campaign against 248 assessment of policy 268–9 and Athens 266–7 and Boeotia 271 characterization 241–2 and Coronea, battle of 244, 424, 435 Diodorus on 206 n. 38, 208 n. 42 Epaminondas and 173 n. 8, 301 and ephors 241, 265 Ephorus on 267–8 and exiles clause in 190–1, 245 n. 1 and King’s Peace 187, 189, 190–1, 245 n. 1 Lysander and 92 n. 39, 244 and oath-swearing at Sparta 172 n. 5 and Olynthus 264–5 and Panhellenism 247, 249–50, 253–5 at Peace Congress (371 BC), Sparta 314, 315 and Peloponnese 246 and Procles of Phlius 259 reign of 243 n. 8 relations with states outside Peloponnese 263–8 relations with states within Peloponnese 256–63 and Sparta 241–74, 290, 424 and Thebes 250, 265–7, 309 Theopompus on 241–2, 300 n. 8 Xenophon and 204–5, 291 n. 38, 242–7, 251, 268, 301 Agesipolis 190–1, 244, 250, 258, 259, 262, 268 Agesilaus and 244–5 death of 265 Ephorus on 267 Perioecs under 296 (p.466) and Phlius 260 and volunteers 185 Page 2 of 37

Index Agiads 112, 259–60, 265: see also Agesipolis Agis 143 n. 21, 241, 258, 286, 290, 461 Demosthenes and 461. 462 and Elean War 261 & n. 48, 262 at Mantinea 295, 427 revolt of 449–57, 459–60 and Xenias of Elis 259 Agyrrhius 181, 348 n. 53 Aischines, see Aeschines Akarnania, see Acarnania Alcaeus 49 Alcibiades 100, 104 n. 16, 148–9, 156, 159, 172 n. 4, 407, 433 and Pericles 118 Alcmeon 123–4 Alcmeonids/Alcmaeonids 42, 49, 83 charge of medism against Themistocles 98, 99 suspicions of treachery 102–3 Alexander of Macedon 165, 183, 392, 440, 447–9, 456, 463 and Cleomenes of Naucratis 28–9 and Demosthenes 458–9 military tactics 311 naval power 460, 462 n. 141 and revolt in Peloponnese 451–2, 453 n. 75 rumours of death of 454–5 Alexander of Pherae/Pherai 227 & n. 32, 323–4, 327, 332, 399–400, 405, 409 Alketas 220 Amorges 157, 158–9 Amorgos 228, 230, 234 Amorgos, battle of 409 Amphipolis 213, 224–5, 235, 236, 345, 355 Athens and 322, 341–2 attempt to recover 398 Amphoterus 449, 451 n. 68, 462 Amyntas of Macedonia 186, 264, 390, 444 Anaia 147 Anapus, battle of 419 Anatolia 27 Anaxandridas 60, 67, 89 Anchimolius 86 n. 31 Anderson, J. K. 310 n. 47, 421 Andocides/Andokides ix, 41, 117, 236 and Amorges 159 speech on King’s Peace 170, 171–2, 173 on treaty with Persia 158 Andrewes, A. 280–1, 283 n. 22 Androclidas 267, 270, 306 Andros 30, 97, 99, 228 garrison on 230, 234, 414 n. 33 Androtion 135 n. 6, 234, 372–3 Page 3 of 37

Index Angel, J. Lawrence 12 Antalcidas 144 n. 22, 153, 154, 305 Agesilaus and 250–1 Plutarch on 251–2 see also Peace of Antalcidas Antimachos 195 & n. 10, 196 n. 12 Antipater of Macedon 445 n. 34, 451, 452, 453 n. 75, 454–5, 461, 462, 463 n. Aphobetus 346, 347 Apollodorus 220 Against Polycles 9, 397, 398, 399–400, 401–4, 405–6 and Euboean expedition 354, 379 and Theoric Fund 353–4, 356–7, 360, 378, 379, 385–6 as trierarch 401, 407, 408, 409 Apollonia 21–2, 55 n. 3, 264 Apothetae 20 Appian 333 Arcadia 29, 261, 318, 320, 327, 328 n. 105, 333, 459 Athens, alliance with 230–1, 321 n. 82 and Athens, appeal for protection 226, 316 Cleomenes and 79, 80–1 dancing 422–3 nationalism in 317 and Sparta 80–1, 279 n. 9 Thebes, alliance with 226, 296, 454–5 Archestratus 117–18, 126, 127 Archidamian War 135–6, 143, 144, 147, 149, 202 n. 29, 261 Potidaea campaign 391 n. 112 and social advancement of helots 287 Archidamus 135, 140, 141, 143 n. 21, 146, 147–8, 150, 259, 293–4, 303 attack on Plataea 136 n. 8 fine for marrying small woman 131 Isocrates and 252, 321 and Persians 147 (p.467) Archilochus 50 archonship 119–23, 206 n. 35 tyrannies and 120–3 Areopagus 44, 446–7, 458 and Nomophylakia 114–33 election system 121, 122, 124–5 powers of 115–17 reforms 114, 115–16, 118–19, 122–3, 125–6, 127–8, 129, 133 Arethousa 217 Argos 22, 245 n. 11, 256 n. 41, 261–2, 435 n. 39 Argive–Spartan treaty 68, 149 Athens, alliance with 73, 144, 152, 167 attack on, by Peloponnesian League 59–60 Cleomenes and 93 and colonization 11, 32 and Common Peace 175 Page 4 of 37

Index in Corinthian War 293 and Coronea, battle of 309, 424 Eurybates 434–5 and King’s Peace 186, 189 at Mantinea 283, 436–7 and Persia 99, 102, 153, 160 n. 20 Phlius, attacks on 263 and Plataea, battle of 419 Sicyon and 64 tactics 283, 420 Themistocles and 105 n. 17, 107 Ariobarzanes 322 n. 83 Aristagoras of Miletus 62, 78, 82, 87–8 appeal to Athens 74 appeal to Cleomenes 89, 90 Aristides 96, 104, 119, 127 Aristodemus 433–4, 435, 436 Ariston 60, 67 Aristonicus 444 Aristophanes 126, 127, 128, 348 n. 53, 349 Knights 404 Aristophon 240, 337–8, 339 n. 25, 340, 359 n. 86 Aristotle 61, 89 n., 117, 121, 127, 273 n. 70, 346, 347 on Athens, financial administration of 345 n. 43 on drought 27–8, 30 n. 48 on food shortages 31 on hoplites 46–7, 423 on infanticide by exposure 19–20 on Isocrates 240, 342–3 on Leuctra, battle of 275 on migration 27 on Pausanias 92 on Peloponnesian League 66 n. 38 on Pisistratus 42 on population control 19–20 on Spartan army 276, 281, 283, 296 on tyranny 33–5, 38, 51, 53 Arrian 183, 449, 450 n. 65 on hoplite formations 426, 427–8, 429–30, 432 on revolt of Agis 449, 450 n. 65, 451, 455 Artaxerxes I: 100, 108, 152, 155 n. 8, 156, 160 n. 20 Artaxerxes II: 173 n. 7, 251, 302 Artaxerxes Ochus 214, 374, 457–8 Artemisium, battle of 86 n. 31, 95, 97 Asclepiodotus 426, 427, 432 Athena 39–40, 147 and Areopagus 116, 124, 128 on gold staters 448 n. 52 Athena Nike temple decree 155–6 Page 5 of 37

Index Athenaeus 142, 145, 422 Athenaion Politeia (Aristotelian ) 114–15, 117–18, 119, 120, 121, 125–6, 127–32 Pisistratus, supporters of 34, 36–7 and tyranny 38, 40 n. 23, 41 Athenaion Politeia (pseudo-Xenophontic) 126, 127 Athenian People as political force under Solon 45–6 and tyranny 33–53 Athens 22, 237 Aegina, attack on 78 n. 11 Agesilaus and 266–7 alliance dogma 231–2 alliances 181–2, 201: see also individual alliances and Amphipolis 322, 341–2 Arcadia, alliance with 230–1, 321 n. 82 and Arcadian appeal for protection 226, 316 Argives, alliance with 152 army, funding for 391–2 Boeotian campaign against 57, 58 Byzantine revolt against 325 cavalry forces 365–6 and Chersonese 322 Chios, alliance with 201, 205 Chios, revolt against 325 (p.468) and city walls, destruction of 161–2 and Cleomenes 29, 44, 82–3, 89 cleruchy sent to Samos 324–6 coinage 37 and colonization 11, 45 and Corinth 57, 321 n. 82 and corn shortages 29 Dionysios of Syracuse, alliance with 231 and drought 29 economic decline of 238–40 Euboea, intervention in 377–81 finances 115, 238–9, 345 n. 43, 358–61 financial administration, Eubulus and 334–5, 336, 345–50, 352–3, 395–6 imperialism of 342–3 infanticide by exposure 20 Isocrates on 252–3 Kerkyra, alliance with 228, 229 King’s Peace, conditions of 181–2 as leader of Greeks 88 Leontini, alliance with 70 Macedon and 341 Megara, war with 35 Methymna, alliance with 205 military forces 364, 364–6 naval forces 201, 365, 397–415, 461–2 Page 6 of 37

Index in age of Philip of Macedon 409–15 demands on 399–400 funding for 227, 410–11, 413 late 360s: 398–409 Naval Commissioners 408–9 organization of 406–8 reform of 409–14 steersmen 406–7 supply of equipment 408–9, 410–11 supply of manpower 399, 410–11, 412, 413 as threat 202 trierarchs 383, 402–4, 406, 407–8, 410–11 and Olynthus 201 & n. 26, 341, 381–7, 390–1 and Peace of 366/5: 321–2 and Persians 151–68, 457–8 and Philip, military strategy against 393–5 and Philip, policy towards 339–40 Piraeus Gates 179–81, 202–3 Scythian corps 41 and silver mines 363–4 and Sparta 55, 103–4, 141–2, 151–2, 204, 226 Thebes, alliance with 208 Thessaly, alliance with 70, 230–1 and Thirty Years’ Peace 54 see also Aeschines; Athenaion Politeia; Athenian People; Demosthenes; Eubulus; Second Athenian Confederacy; Themistocles Attalus 444, 447 autonomy Acanthus and 184 of allies 68, 140 conditional 163–4 infringements of 233 in King’s Peace 175–7 in Peace of Thebes 175 within Peloponnesian League 69 in Second Athenian Confederacy 229–30 Aziris 15 Badian, E. 86 n. 29 on Areopagus 119, 120, 121 on revolt of Agis 451–2 Battus, King of Cyrene 13 Beister, H. 308 n. 41 Beloch, K. J. 330, 334, 453 n. 75 Bersanetti, G. M. 330, 331 biblical references Acts of the Apostles 26, 27, 29, 400 n. 10 Genesis 19, 27, 400 n. 10 Isaiah 162, 202 n. 29 Second Book of Kings 27 Page 7 of 37

Index Boardman, John 23 Boeotarchy 307 n. 36, 318 of Epaminondas 304, 305, 313, 332, 333 restoration, date of 330–1 Boeotia 29, 306, 328, 330, 333 army 419, 433, 435, 462 n. 142 and Athens, aid from 179–80, 199, 203, 454 and Athens, campaign against 57, 58 and drought 26, 29 Epaminondas and 299, 300, 303, 314, 320, 329, 332, 433 n. 33 independence of 269–70 invasion of 246, 267 nationalism 307–8, 315 (p.469) navy 322, 323–4, 327 Olynthus, alliance with 271 Sparta and 269–71, 278, 280 success in battle 270 Thebes and 172 n. 5, 174, 195, 271, 305, 307–8, 314, 315 unification of 269, 307, 316, 321 see also Boeotarchy; Leuctra, battle of Boeotian Confederacy 187, 266, 268 Boeotian War 192, 208 n. 42 Bones of Orestes 60, 64, 67 Bones of Theseus 64 n. 32 Bones of Tisamenus 64 Bradeen, D. W. 216–17 Brasidas 91, 92, 112, 280, 286 influence of service abroad 292 and helots 79 n. 13 northern campaign 138–9, 140–1 Brasideans 277, 278 Braudel, F. 26 Brea 29 Busolt, G. 213 n. 3 on Leuctra, battle of 275–6 on Spartan army, organization of 279 Byzantian alliance 197–8 Byzantium 82, 110 n. 28, 135 n. 4, 240, 323 & n. 88, 324, 326, 448 Clearchus and 91 and corn supplies 239, 388 n. 93, 400 n. 10 naval forces 214 revolt against Athens 325 and Second Athenian Confederacy 194, 197–8, 237 and Social War 234 Cadmea 206, 209, 266, 322 occupation of 245–6, 247 siege of 207 Caecilius 132 Callias II: 251 n. 29, 306 n. 30 Page 8 of 37

Index embassy to Susa 153–4, 439 on King’s Peace 172–3 see also Peace of Callias Callias Decree 135 n. 4 Callias of Chalcis 380 Callias son of Hipponicus 153 Callicratidas 144, 246 n. 18, 247, 289 Callimachus 15, 381 Callisthenes 157, 158 n. 14, 159, 280 Callistratus/Kallistratos 193, 228, 232 n. 46, 237, 304, 305, 314–15, 402, 407 and Eubulus 337, 340, 357 Camirus, Rhodes 161 Camp, John McK. 25–6 Carthage 324 n. 95 cavalry forces 462 n. 142 Athens 365–6 at Leuctra, battle of 310–11 Cephalus 206–7 Cephisophon of Aphidna 335, 338, 340 n. 30, 346 Cersobleptes 341, 392 Chabrias 193, 207–8, 217, 218, 231, 414 n. 33 Chalcis/Chalkis 22, 24, 45, 187, 394, 462 colonization 17, 30 drought in 31 and oracles 25–6 Rhegium, foundation of 17 Chalcis/Chalkis alliance 229–30 Chalcis/Chalkis Decree 117, 224 Champions, Battle of the 59, 63, 294 n. Chares 233 n. 45, 235, 237, 240, 338, 343, 372 n. 11, 384, 392, 394–5 Kerkyra, intervention in 239 naval forces 214 n. 3, 381, 382, 383, 398, 403, 414 n. 33 Sestos, seizure of 341 and Social War 214 Charidemus 375–6, 381, 382–3, 384, 413–14, 455 Chersonese 222, 235–6, 342 & n. 34, 392 Athens and 322, 394, 400 Chares and 240, 341 corn supplies 388 n. 93 Miltiades and 42, 43 Timotheus and 398 Chigi vase 431 & n. 31 Chios 240, 322, 323 n. 88, 324, 326 alliances 181, 185 n., 197, 201, 205 and Athens 201, 325 city walls, absence of 161, 205 naval forces 214 and Second Athenian Confederacy 194, 197, 198, 237 and Social War 214, 234–5 Page 9 of 37

Index see also Theopompus Chios, battle of 235, 327, 414 n. 33 Chios decree 177, 200 n. 21, 205 n. 34 Chiricrates 249 n. 24 (p.470) Chirisophus 287–8 Cicero, Marcus Tullius 105 n. 20, 300, 333 Cimon 42, 101–2, 105 n. 20, 106 n. 22, 107, 127, 143, 151 and Bones of Theseus 64 n. 32 last campaign 154, 158, 168 murder of 43–4 and Sparta 258 Stesimbrotus on 85, 258 Cinadon 285, 289: see also Conspiracy of Cinadon city walls 366 absence of, as requirement of peace treaty 202 n. 29 destruction of 161–3, 257 Spartans and 256–7 Cleandridas/Kleandridas 104 n. 16, 143–4 Clearchus 91, 292–3, 324 n. 95 Clearidas 138 Cleiteles of Corinth 316 n. 67 Cleombrotus/Kleombrotos 76 n. 6, 178, 206 n. 38, 207, 208–9, 220, 265–6, 267, 268, 273, 304 at battle of Leuctra 271, 272, 275, 301, 304, 311, 312 Cleomenes/Kleomenes of Sparta 44, 60, 64, 68, 74–94, 143 n. 21, 286, 400 n. 10 and Aegina 81, 85 and Arcadia 80–1 Aristagoras’ appeal to 89, 90 assessments of 93–4 and Athenians 82–3, 89 death of 78–9, 81–2 Demaratus and 85 and Hippias 83 madness of 74, 75, 76–7, 81 opposition to medism 80–3 and Peloponnesian League 58, 59 and Persians 80–3 and Plataean request for alliance 86 revolt against 69 and Scythians 74–5 suicide of 76 n. 6, 81 Cleomenes of Naucratis 28–9 Cleonymus 293 cleruchies 32, 193 and Athenian naval forces 399 to Samos 232–3, 324–6 climatic disaster: and colonization 25–32 Clinias Decree 166 Clisthenes, tyrant of Sicyon 50, 64, 127 Page 10 of 37

Index Clisthenes, Athenian statesman 42, 66, 68, 82 and archonship 119–23 and democracy 34, 45–6, 74, 83, 94, 115, 126 Clitophon 128 Cnemus 136, 139, 141 Cnidus, battle of 106 Coeratadas 270 coinage, see currency Colaeus of Samos 49 Coleman, J. E. 216–17 colonization 11–32 Argos and 11, 32 Athens and 11, 45 Chalcis and 17, 30 climatic disaster and 25–32 Corinth and 21–2, 30–1 Cyrene 13–16 Delphic oracle and 13, 15–17, 23 drought as explanation for 15–16, 17, 25 food supplies and 17, 18–19 joint colonies 22 legends and 17 population explosion as explanation of 11–12, 18–22 and trade 22–4 Common Peace 175, 180, 246–7, 312, 321 n. 82, 326, 352 history of 343–4 Philip and 341–2 Congress Decree 156, 160 n. 20, 165–8 Conspiracy of Cinadon 280, 284, 286, 288 Constitution of the Athenians, see Athenaion Politeia Constitution of the Spartans (pseudo- Xenophon) 90, 91, 131, 272, 291, 293, 295 on hoplite tactics 243 n. 6, 424, 430, 437 contraception 19 Corcyra Kerkyra 22, 24, 30, 56, 137, 139, 192, 216, 217 n. 12, 218, 223–4, 237, 284 n. 24 alliance with Athens 226, 228, 229, 230 Chares’ intervention in 237, 239 Corinth 65 n. 37, 94, 136, 146, 147, 183, 403, 462 Athens and 57, 321 n. 82 and colonization 21–2, 30–1 currency 37 n. 12 (p.471) Demaratus and 69, 77, 85 exiles 189, 191, 209 n. 44, 245 n. 11, 263 and First Peloponnesian War 71 naval power 97 and Peloponnesian League 57, 59, 70 Samos, expedition to 86 n. 31 and Sparta 58, 59, 263 and trade 24 Page 11 of 37

Index tyrants 52–3 see also League of Corinth Corinthian War 56–8, 174 n. 9, 179, 182, 185 n. 33, 186, 187 n., 202, 205 n. 34, 248, 261, 269 n., 271, 284, 321 n. 82 Argives in 293 Phlius and 263 Thebes and 306 corn shortages 28–9, 227, 239–40, 461–2 protection for corn-fleet 400–1 corn supplies 27 Chersonese and 388 n. 93 protection of corn-fleet 28, 400–1 Coronea, battle of 244, 270, 424 Xenophon and 242–3, 297, 309, 420, 435 Cos 29, 161, 342 n. 34 cowardice 293 Craterus 98, 100 n. 6, 168 Crete 18, 22, 29 Critias 101, 257–8, 269 Croesus of Lydia 59, 60, 62, 67 Croton 30, 77 n. 8 Ctesiphon 441, 442–3, 445, 446, 453–4 Cumae 31 currency 273 n. 70, 291–2 Athens 37 figure of Athena on gold staters 448 n. 52 Curtius Rufus 449, 450 n. 63, 453 Cydias 326, 342 Cylon 39, 44–6, 47, 50, 51–2, 98 Cypselids 65 n. 37 Cypselus 52, 53 Cyrene, Libya foundation of 13–16 gifts of corn 29 Cyrus the Great 87, 92, 162–3 Cyrus the Younger 145, 247–8, 254, 254, 287, 424–5 and Lysander 144, 247 and Ten Thousand 310 Cythera 29, 294 n. 24 Daïphantos 324 n. 95 dancing: and military training 422–3 Darius II: 158, 162 Darius III: 458 de Ste Croix, Geoffrey 33, 147 De Vectigalibus, see Revenues (Xenophon) Decelean War 137, 144 Decree of Aristotle 174, 177, 180, 193, 194, 211 n., 218, 219, 227–8, 229–30, 233, 236, 307, 325, 331 inscriptions on stele 215, 221 Page 12 of 37

Index Methymna and 196–7 Decree of Demosthenes 116 n. 4, 358 Decree of Eubulus 168 n. 14 Decree of Tisamenus 116 n. 4, 117, 126 Delian League 64 n. 32, 91, 97, 104, 130, 142, 152, 167 n. 11 Delium, battle of 270, 283, 309, 419, 420, 427 Delphic Amphictyony 29, 101, 103 Delphic oracle 64, 77 n. 8 Cleomenes and 76, 93 and colonization 13, 15–17, 23 and foundation of Cyrene 13, 15–16 and tyranny of Miltiades the Elder 43 Demades 345–6, 453 n. 75, 455 Peace of Demades 212, 222 Demaratus 80 n. 16, 83–6 and Cleomenes 69, 76, 77, 83–6 and Corinth 69, 77, 85 and Persia 83–5 and Xerxes 84 demobilization 178–9, 181 democracy 116–17, 118, 119 n. 10, 227–8 Athenian 45 Clisthenes and 34, 45, 127 Ephialtes and 133 Pisistratus and 34, 35 Thebes and 319–20 Demophon 206 & n. 38, 208 Demosthenes vii–viii, 28–9, 102, 160 n. 20, 326 n. 98, 346 n. 48, 350, 357–8, 363, 366, 380–1, 382 and Aeschines 441–4, 446, 447, 448–9, 452, 453–4, 455, 456–7 and Amphipolis 342, 350 and Arcadians 316, 455 on Athenian finances 233, 349, 359, 360, 361, 364, 367 on Athens 342, 354, 378, 397, 438–40 on corn shortages 239 (p.472) crowning of 438–64 on Eubulus 336, 337–9, 340 First Olynthiac 355–6, 412–13 First Philippic 213, 370–7, 404, 412, 413–14 law of 339: 409–10, 411 linguistic style 359 n. 85 and Macedon 456 military strategy 393 n. 116 Olynthian War policy 344–5, 387–96 on Olynthus 265, 369, 370–1, 383 On the Crown 441, 457 On the Crown of the Trierarchy 406 On the Liberty of the Rhodians 373–4 On the Symmories 374 n. 22, 411, 412 Page 13 of 37

Index On the Treaty with Alexander 463 on Peace of Philocrates 441 and Persians 457–61 on piracy 227 n. 32 on Phocion 378 reliability of 438 on Second Athenian Confederacy 213–14, 222–3 silences of 213–14, 442, 454, 455–7, 463–4 on Social War 213, 234, 235–6 and Thebans 454, 455, 459 and Theoric Fund 350–1, 352, 353, 361, 385–6 as trierarch 410–11 and unification of Greeks 440–1 see also Decree of Demosthenes Demosthenic Corpus 212 Dercyllidas/Dercylidas 91 n., 163–4, 249 n. 24, 293 Dicaeus 76 Didymus 170, 176, 177, 359 n. 85 Dinarchus 116 n. 4, 352, 361 n. 89, 452, 454, 457, 458 on Athenian military forces 364, 365–6 decree moved by Cephalus 206–7 on Demosthenes 440, 455, 461 Diodorus 29, 105 n. 20, 144–5, 243 n. 8, 253, 263 n. 53, 327, 334, 393 n. 117, 405 n. 19, 414 n. 33, 456 on Agis, revolt of 450–1 & n. 63, 452 on battle, conduct of 310, 430, 437 on Boeotarchy 330–1 on Congress Decree 168 on Demosthenes 454, 455 on droughts 28 on Egypt, invasion of 106 n. 21, 374 n. 18 on Elean War 262 n. 51 on Epaminondas 299, 300, 304, 326 n. 100 on exiles landed on Zacynthus 188–9, 191 on hoplites 202 on King’s Peace 179–80, 199–200 on Leuctra, battle of 271, 272–3, 293, 297, 310 on Messene 162 n. 26 on oath not to rebuild temples 165 o Oenophyta, battle of 418 on Olynthus 186, 264, 265, 382 n. 57, 385 n. 75 on peace between Athens and Persia 151, 154 n. 6, 155, 162 n. 26, 163 and Peace of 372/1: 176–7, 178 Pelopidas’ obituary 330–1 on Peloponnesian League 204, 281 on Persia 88 on Philip II of Macedon’s military reforms 429 on Piraeus Gates 180 on Second Athenian Confederacy, foundation of 192–4, 195–6, 198, 203, 204, 205 Page 14 of 37

Index on Sparta 88, 103–4, 203–4, 264 n. 58 on Sphodrias, consequences of acquittal of 199 on Thebes 203–4, 206, 297, 322–4 on Themistocles 100 n. 6 Diognetus 123–4 Dionysius of Halicarnassus 17, 18, 106, 305, 336 n. 9, 388 n. 95 dating of Demosthenes’ first Philippic 370–7 infanticide by exposure 20 on King’s Peace 182–3 rape of Sabine women 21 Dionysius/Dionysios of Syracuse 53, 186 n., 231, 252, 318, 333 Diophantus of Sphettus 352–3, 395 n. 127 and Athens, financial affairs of 336–7 and Theoric Fund 336, 348 n. 53 Dorieus 75, 76, 77 n. 8 drought 25–32 as explanation for colonization 15–16, 17, 25 see also corn shortages (p.473) earthquakes 15, 283 Egypt 154, 243 n. 8, 374, 400 n. 10, 461 famine in 26–7, 28 invasion of 106, 193 n. 3, 418 Ehrenberg, V. 196–7 eisangelia 132 Elean War 243 n. 8, 262 n. 51 Eleutheria 166 Elis 100 n. 5, 107, 256, 261, 262, 263, 270, 459 Embata, battle of 327, 409, 414 n. 33 Endius 144–5 Epaminondas/Epameinondas 185 n., 214, 226, 237, 267, 275, 285, 295, 433 n. 33 and Agesilaus 173 n. 8, 301 as Boeotarch 304, 305, 313, 331, 333 death of 299 Heracleans’ appeal to 323, 324 n. 95 influence of 300 and Leuctra, battle of 273, 298 and Meneclidas 317–18 naval policy 322–4, 326–7 and Peace Congress (371 BC), Sparta 314–15 and Peloponnese, second invasion of 332–3 as statesman 303–4 and Thebes 299–329 trials of 332–3 Ephialtes 101, 127, 458 n. 119 and democracy 133 reforms of Areopagus 114, 115–16, 117, 118–19, 125–6, 128–9, 131, 133 ephors 104 n. 16, 131, 140 and Agesilaus 241, 265 Sparta 89 Page 15 of 37

Index Ephorus 52, 66 n. 38, 101, 103–4, 105 n. 17, 110 n. 28, 207, 249 n. 23, 251 n. 30, 302 on Agesilaus 267–8 on Agesipolis 267 on Boeotia 327, 331 Diodorus and 100, 144–5, 154 n. 6, 163, 170, 178, 193, 198, 203, 204, 253, 264 n. 58, 304, 306 n. 30, 310 n. 47, 429, 430 on Epaminondas 300 on Peace of 375: 178 on Peace of Callias 154 n. 6, 199 on Thebes 327–8, 331 Epidaurus 29, 57, 146, 148 expedition to 149, 150 Erbse, H. 387 n. 91 Eretria 22, 24, 30, 165 Erxadieis 56 Eteonicus 288 n. Etesian winds 9, 235 n., 376, 382, 413 Etymocles 204, 266 Euboea 97, 137, 143, 146, 360, 372, 384 Athenian intervention in 372, 377–81, 386, 388–9, 393–4 and colonization 22, 23–4, 30–1 expedition to 235, 338, 354–6, 357, 378–9, 380, 393, 35, 413 and Olynthus, defence of 377–81, 382–3 Philip’s intervention in 380–1 and Pithecusa 22, 23–4 and Second Athenian Confederacy 218 Eubulus 9, 209 n. 44, 334–68, 388 n. 95, 392, 393, 395–6 economic achievements 358–65 Demosthenes on 369 n. 2, 386, 396 and financial administration of Athens 334–5, 336, 345–50, 352–3, 395–6 importance as politician 335–6, 337–40 and peace negotiations 343 and strengthening of Athenian military forces 364–5 and Theoric Fund 347–9, 352–8 and trade, encouragement of 363–4 Xenophon, exile and recall of 189 Eucrates, law of 446–7 Eudamidas 264–5 Eupatridae 41 Euphron of Sicyon 263, 317 Eurybates 434–5 Eurybiades 97–8 Eurymedon, battle of 104, 105–7, 151, 154 n. 6 Eurypontids 259, 260 Evagoras 253 exiles: King’s Peace and 188–91, 209–10, 245 n. 11 famine 25, 26–7, 28, 29 festivals 166 First Mantinea 270, 272, 276, 280, 281, 283, 284, 294, 295, 419, 422–3 Page 16 of 37

Index (p.474) First Peloponnesian War 70–1, 73, 154 n. 5 Five Hundred, the 114, 115 Focke, F. 375, 385 n. 75, 386 n. 82 food shortages 25–9, 31 bad harvests 17, 25, 26 food supplies: colonization and 17, 18–19 Foundation Stele: foundation of Cyrene 14–15 Four Hundred, the 123 Fraser, A. D. 417 n. 3 freedom 177 in Second Athenian Confederacy 229–30 Frost, F. J. 120 garrisons 233–4 Gaugamela 430, 448 n. 52, 449, 450 n. 63, 462 n. 141 Gela 22 Glos 253–4 Glotz, Gustav 33, 331 Gomme, A. W. 417 n. 2 Gorgias 157 Gorgias (Plato) 126, 127 Gorgidas 302, 330 Graham, A. J. 11 graphē paranomōn 118 Greece relations with Macedon 367–8 unification of 339, 343–4, 345, 440–1 see also Argos; Athens; Corinth; Sparta; Thebes Greek navy: finance for 96, 97, 134–5 Grinnus, King of Thera 13 Grundy, G. B. 416–17 guest-friendship 259–60 Gylippus 91 n., 289 Hadrian 300 Hagnon the Athenian 92 Harbour of Calpe 24 Harpagus 162, 202 n. 29 Harpocration 348 & n. 53, 351 Hegemon 346 law of 346 n. 48, 347 n. 52, 349, 352 n. 63, 447 n. 47 hegemony King’s Peace and 200 Sparta and 86–90, 141–2 Hellenic League 71, 72–3, 84 n. 27, 88, 152 Hellenic war 88–9 Hellespont 72, 98, 227, 341, 388, 435, 461 Hellespontophylakes 135 n. 4 Helot Revolt 61, 79, 82, 142 helots 109, 110–12, 273 n. 70, 283–9, 290, 436 Archidamian War and social advancement of 287 Page 17 of 37

Index desertion by 283–4, 285 fighting for Sparta 55 n. 8, 138, 142, 285, 287, 288–9 massacre of 281–2 tactics 424–5 threat to Sparta 61–2, 79, 82, 283–4, 288 use in foreign service 111–12, 138, 142 Heraclea, Trachis 91, 146, 269 appeal to Clearchus 324 n. 95 appeal to Epaminondas 323, 324 n. 95 foundation of 16, 137 Herippidas 91, 435 Hermione 89 Herodotus 21, 71, 109, 153, 162, 164, 167, 174 on Alcmeonids 103 on appeals to Cleomenes 89–90 on archonship 122 on Areopagus 114–15, 120–1, 126–7 on Argives 160 n. 20 on Aristagoras 87 on Athens 83, 152 on Bones of Orestes 60, 64 on Cleomenes 74–8, 80–1, 82, 93 on Cyrene, foundation of 13–16 on Demaratus 83–4 on drought 26 on famine 29 on Helots 79 n. 13 on Hippias 69, 83 on migration of Etruscans from Lydia 27 on Miltiades the Elder 42–3 on olive trees 32 on Peloponnese 72 on Peloponnesian League 59–62, 64–5, 68 on Perioecs 288, 296 on Persia 80, 106, 152, 160 n. 20 on Salamis, battle of 97–9 on Sparta 65–7, 83, 86, 87, 255–6, 276, 286 on Spartan army 278–9, 281, 288, 433 (p.475) on Tegea 60–3 on temple-burning 165 on Themistocles 84, 96, 97, 98 on tyranny 34, 35, 36, 37–8, 39 n. 22, 40 n. 23, 45, 50–1, 52, 53, 65–7 Hesiod 14, 19 Hestiaia 218 Hetoemaridas/Hetoimaridas debate 88, 90, 101 n. 8, 103 n. 14, 113, 142 Hignett, Charles vii Hipparchus 38, 39, 40, 41, 119 Hippias 37–8, 39, 40 n. 25, 41, 42, 43 n., 50 and archonship 122, 123 Cleomenes and 83, 93 Page 18 of 37

Index expulsion of 59, 60 and Persians 83 restoration of 60, 65 & nn. 36 & 37, 66–7, 69, 83, 93, 255–6 Sparta and 58 Hippocrates 19 Holladay, A. J. 417–18, 426 Homeric warfare 46–7 hoplites 46–7, 51, 52 n. 54, 70, 101 battles, length of 418–19 formations 416–37 conduct of battles (shoving) 417–20 orthodox view of formation 416–18, 425 orthodox view of formation, objections to 425–37 Tacticians on 425–32 transmission of orders 426–7 and King’s Peace 202 military training 311 n. 51, 421–2 and plague 149 rewards for valour 433–4 and Thebes, liberation of 206 see also Leuctra, battle of Hyperides 132, 163, 445 n. 34, 457 Hypomeiones (Inferiors) 280–1, 286, 288–90 infanticide by exposure 19–20, 21 Inferiors (Hypomeiones) 280–1, 286, 288–90 Iolaïdas 324 n. 95 Ion 101–2 Ionia 15, 29, 72, 87–8, 107, 248, 435 absence of city walls 160–1, 162, 163, 202 n. 29 and colonization 21 Ionian Revolt 66 n. 39, 78, 103, 127, 162, 165–6 Ionian War 147, 157, 403–4 Perioecs in 287–8 Thucydides on 156 Iphicrates/Iphikrates 193 n. 3, 224, 280, 398, 434 Isagoras 44, 59, 68, 69, 77, 120–1 appeal to Cleomenes 89 & n. and archonship 122 Ismenias 201 n. 26, 267, 269–70 Isocrates/Isokrates 86 n. 31, 127–8, 131–2, 157–8, 163 n. 29, 166, 181 n. 24, 194, 205 n. 34, 268, 293–4, 355, 446 on Agesilaus 252–3 on Areopagus 129–30 on Athenian finances 238–9, 360 n. 87 on Chares 235, 240 demand for establishment of general peace 344 on droughts 28 on King’s Peace 174, 175–6, 177, 179, 182, 189, 199, 200–1 & n. 22, 202, 330 Panegyric 176, 189, 199, 253, 360 n. 87 Page 19 of 37

Index on Persian Wars 278 on restoration of empire 342–3 on Social War 235, 236, 238–9, 362 on Sparta 91, 183, 200–1 & n. 22, 254, 279 n. 9, 287 n. 31, 295, 304 n. 23 on Thebes 185 n., 201 n. 26, 208 n. 42, 209, 306 n. 30, 321, 323, 330 Timotheus, encomium of 188 To Philip 2: 355 and trierarchy 410 see also On the Peace (Isocrates) Istros 189–90, 209 n. 44, 361 n. 89 Jacoby, F. 130, 382 Jason of Pherae 219–21, 223, 271, 316 Jerusalem 162 n. 26 Jones, A. H. M. 345 Justin 110 n. 28, 177 n., 323, 348 n. 53, 352, 372 n. 11, 444 & n. 31, 449–50, 454, 456 n. 95, 463 n. Kahrstedt, U. 345, 348 n. 53, 352, 385, 386 Kallistratos, see Callistratus Keios 237, 240 Kephallenia 216, 218, 224 (p.476) Kerkyra, see Corcyra King’s Peace 55, 170–91, 253, 264, 325 n. 97, 343 n. 35, 374 Agesilaus and 266, 269 Andocides’ speech on 170, 171–2, 173 Argos and 186 armaments clauses 199–200, 201 Athens and 203, 205, 208, 211 n., 221 autonomy clause in 175–7 Callias on 172–3 consequences of 189 dissolution of 179–81 demobilization 178–9 exiles clause 188–91, 209–10, 245 n. 11 and hegemony 200 hoplites and 202 Isocrates on 174, 175–6, 177, 179, 182, 189, 199, 200–1 & n. 22, 202, 330 oath-swearing 172–4, 200 n. 21, 250 Peloponnesian League and breaches of 201 n. 26 Sparta and 172–4, 183–4, 186–7, 200–1, 219, 254 sanctions clause 182, 183–6, 201 terms of 171–2, 174–7 kingship: reforms to 273–4 Kleandridas, see Cleandridas Kleombrotos, see Cleombrotus Kleomenes, see Cleomenes of Sparta Krithote 222 Kyzikos 227, 239 Lacedaemonius 143 Laches 322, 323 Laches (Plato) 421, 422, 423 Page 20 of 37

Index Laconian Helots 284–5, 288 landed aristocracy 256–7, 319 Latacz, J. 47 Law of Eucrates 446–7 Law of Hegemon 346 n. 48, 347 n. 52, 349, 352 n. 63, 447 n. 47 Law of Periander 359 n. 84, 375 n. 28, 409–10, 411, 412 League of Corinth 209 n. 44, 444–5 & n. 34, 446, 448 n. 51, 450, 453 n. 75, 460 legends: and colonization 17 Leobotas 98 Leontiades 185, 201 n. 26, 269 Leontini 70 Leosthenes 227, 399–400, 409 Leotychidas 79 n. 15, 84, 88 Lesbos 29, 384 Leuctra/Leuktra, battle of 80 n. 16, 275–6, 283, 293, 301, 308–12 cavalry in 310–11 consequences of 316–20 defeat of Sparta at 271–3, 294–8, 312, 433 Diodorus on 293, 297, 310 Epaminondas and 295, 296, 299, 309 innovations in strategy 309–11 Jason and 221 Xenophon on 245, 271, 293, 301 Lewis, D. M. 65, 156, 175 n. 10 Livy (Titus Livius) 21, 131 Locri, Italy: foundation of 21 Lycurgus 34, 130–1, 165, 364, 447 n. 47 devotion to laws of 274 neglect of laws of 91–3, 291–4 Lydia 27, 86, 162, 163, 202 n. 29, 254, 444 Lygdamis 41 Lysander 92–3, 145, 248, 265, 268–9, 287 n. 31, 289, 292, 306 and campaign against Asia 248 and Cyrus 144, 247 reform of kingship 273–4 and Spartan succession 244 Lysias 80 n. 16, 116, 117, 126, 247, 403 Macedon 8, 310, 339 n. 27, 382 n. 56, 384, 388, 439, 440–1, 444, 461, 462, 463 and Athens 341, 367–8 battles, conduct of 419–20, 427, 428–9, 430, 431, 432 Chares and 398 Demosthenes on 350, 367, 373–4, 389, 447, 448, 456 naval forces 398, 415, 451–2 & n. 68, 460 relations with Greece 367–8 see also Alexander of Macedon; Amyntas of Macedon; Antipater of Macedon; Philip of Macedon Maeandrius/Maiandrios of Samos 62, 76, 77 n. 8, 82, 87, 89–90 Magnesia: foundation of 17 Mantinea 66 n. 38, 107, 185 n., 256, 259–60, 303 Page 21 of 37

Index (p.477) destruction of city walls 257 independence of 261–3 and King’s Peace 184, 186–7 Second Mantinea 299, 301, 318 settlement of 67 Sparta’s attack on 191 Thucydides on 436–7 see also First Mantinea Marathon 60, 88, 98, 102–3, 372–3 Maronea/Maroneia 28, 213 n. 3, 214 n. 5, 217–18, 239, 398 Marsyas of Pella 456 Mausolos of Caria 214, 234, 240, 414 n. 33 medical literature 19 medism Aegina and 85 Athens and 152, 160 n. 20 Cleomenes’ opposition to 80–3 Demosthenes and 458–9 Pausanias and 84, 99, 100 n. 6, 107, 108, 109–11 Themistocles: charges of 98, 99–102, 107 Megacles 34, 35–6, 47 Megalopolis 256, 302, 317, 328 n. 105, 449 Megara 29, 30, 35, 82, 148, 238–9, 407 Meiggs, R. 156 Meister, K. 163 n. 29 Melanippus 64 Meleas 136 Memnon of Rhodes 414, 444, 452 Meneclidas 317–18 mercenaries 292 Messene 162 n. 26, 200, 255, 302, 314, 317 Messenia 31, 60, 79 n. 14, 175, 321 Messenian Helots 62, 112, 284–5, 288, 290 Messenian Revolt 61, 62, 73, 111, 288 Methone 222, 233 n. 43, 394 Methone Decree 135 n. 4 Methymna 196–8, 205 Methymna decree 196–7, 205 n. 34 metics 238, 340, 360, 362–3, 397 Micythos 62–3 Midias 338, 339, 379, 380 n. 46, 395 n. 126, 411 Miletus 21, 24, 163, 202 n. 29 Miletus, battle of 419 military training Athens 421 dancing and 422–3 hoplites and 311 n. 51, 421–2 Sparta 290 Thebes 296–7 Page 22 of 37

Index Miltiades the Elder 42–3 Miltiades the Younger 43–4, 127 and archonship 123 trial of 42 Mnesiphilus 97 Moirokles 230 Mothakes 5 n. 19, 289–90 Motzki, Arthur 346 Myron of Priene 284, 286, 287 n. 30 Mytilene 40 n. 27, 47, 135 n. 4, 136, 146, 194 absence of city walls 161 embassy to Athens 236–7 and Second Athenian Confederacy 195–6, 212, 384 n. 68 naval forces 214 and Peloponnesian League 54 Nauclidas 145 Nausicles 337, 393 n. 117, 395 Nausinicus: archonship of 206 n. 35 naval expeditions 136–7 finance for 134–5, 138–9 naval forces 214, 227 Boeotia 323–4, 327 Greek 96–7, 101 see also under Athens Naxos 41, 147, 165 revolt and siege of 104, 105–6, 107 Nemea, battle of 199 n. 19, 262, 280, 294 n. 45, 297, 309 Neodamodeis 55, 112, 277, 278, 280, 286, 287, 288–9 Neon of Asine 287–8 Nepos 104, 109 n. 27, 182, 223 n. 26, 323 n. 86 on Epaminondas 301, 314, 333 on Meneclidas 317–18 Nicias 139, 407, 421, 423 Nicias, Peace of 55, 58, 145, 163, 167 Nicolaus of Damascus 52 Niese, B. 449 Nobas the Carthaginian 324 n. 95 olive trees 32 Olynthian War 344–5, 387, 396 (p.478) Olynthus 181–2, 254, 360, 381–3, 385 Agesilaus and 264–5 Athens and 201 & n. 26, 341, 350–1, 353, 365–6, 390–1 Boeotia and 271 Demosthenes and 370–1 Philip and 390–1 policy of 186 Sparta and 264–5 Thebes and 181–2, 185, 201 & n. 26, 245, 306 Page 23 of 37

Index Olynthus, defence of 369–96 Athenian aid to 381–7 Demosthenes’ strategies for 387–96 Euboea and 377–81 First Philippic 370–7 On the Peace (Isocrates) 158, 235, 342, 344, 359–60, 361 n. 89 On the Syntaxis speech 336, 350, 354, 356, 358 Onasander 430 oracles Ammon 77 n. 8, 93 Athenian attack on Aegina 78 n. 11 Chalcis and 25–6 Pelasgi and 17 Spartans and 90, 292 see also Delphic oracle Orchomenus/Orchomenos 220 n. 23, 256, 271, 304 n. 23, 306, 316, 320, 324 Oropus 269, 308 n. 39 ostracism: eponymous archons and 123–4 overpopulation: burial ground finds as evidence of 12 Pagondas 269, 427 Pallene, battle of 36, 47, 384 Pammenes 243 n. 8, 325 n. 95, 328 Panathenaea 166 Panhellenism 101, 157, 242, 446 Agesilaus and 247, 249–50, 253–5 Xenophon and 246–7 Parke, H. W. 378–9 Parmenion 444, 445 Parthenon 168 Pasimelus 263, 321 n. 82 Pasippidas 288 n. Pathos at Lechaeum 244, 259 n., 262, 293, 297, 435–6 Paul, G. M. 426 Pausanias 88–9, 91–2, 103, 104 n. 16, 107–13, 143 n. 21, 145, 165, 183, 261 n. 48, 262, 268, 269, 273 n. 70, 288 n. conduct abroad 292 correspondence with Xerxes 109–10 on droughts 28 and Elean War 262 n. 51 on Epaminondas 300, 303–4, 333 and helots 110–11, 112, 138, 142, 286 n. 29 medism of 84, 99, 100 n. 6, 107, 108, 109–11 and Persian Wars 142, 278 Themistocles and 99, 100, 107, 108–9, 112, 113 Thucydides on 91, 108–9, 110–11, 112, 286 n. 29 trial of 251 n. 30 Xenophon on 259–60 Peace Congress, Athens 316 Peace Congress (371 BC), Sparta 301, 308, 314–15 Page 24 of 37

Index Peace of 366/5: 321–2, 326 Peace of 372/1: 55 n. 3, 173, 176–7, 178, 184–5, 192, 200, 224, 304–5 Peace of 375: 176–7, 178, 182, 219, 220 n. 23, 267, 305–6, 308 n. 39 Peace of 392/1: 158, 174–5, 201 n. 26 Peace of Antalcidas 157, 158 & n. 14, 173 n. 7, 176, 183, 248, 254 Peace of Callias 151 n., 154 n. 6, 155 n. 7, 156, 157–60, 163, 164, 168, 199 and absence of walls 202 n. 29 Peace of Demades 212, 222 Peace of Nicias 55, 58, 145, 163 Peace of Philocrates/Philokrates 160, 212, 229, 341–2, 438, 441 Peace of Thebes 173, 175 Peiraeus, see Piraeus Pelasgi 17 Pelopidas ix, 170–1, 303, 318, 324, 327, 332 and Boeotarchy 313, 330–1 and Epaminondas 185 n., 302, 313, 319, 320 at Leuctra, battle of 310 Pelopidas (Plutarch) 208, 221, 300, 318 Peloponnese 56 n. 9, 58, 85–6, 189, 226, 255, 258–9, 328 Arcadia and 316 Cleomenes and 77, 82, 90 n. (p.479) and drought 28, 31 exiles in 147 invasions of 314–15, 301, 332–3 at Olympic Games 327 Sparta and 60, 63–4, 67, 68, 69, 86, 90, 258, 263 Thebes and 314–21, 327 Thucydides and 72, 260, 281 Xenophon on 246, 302–3 Peloponnesian League 54–73, 178, 182, 184, 220 n. 23, 255–63, 290, 321, 408 n. 22 Aegina and 59–60 Agesilaus and 256–63 Argos, attack on 59–60 army of 294–5 Assembly 68, 70 and Athens 55, 205 n. 34 and Attica, invasion of 70 autonomy within 69 Chalcis and 59 constitution 58–9, 65 Corinth and 57, 59 defensive alliances 67 and King’s Peace, breaches of 201 n. 26 military forces, organization of 281 oaths 58, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71 old oaths 58, 70, 71 reformation of 204 Sepeia campaign 59–60 Thebes and 185 Page 25 of 37

Index Peloponnesian War 71, 91, 154, 164, 276, 285, 345 n. 43 Pericles’ strategy 134–50 Sparta and 247, 248 Pentecontaetia/Pentekontaetia 63, 70, 152 Penthilidae 47 penuria mulierum 20–1 Peparethos, battle of 227, 406, 409 Perachora 37 Periander 52, 53 law of 357/6: 359 n. 84, 375 n. 28, 409–10, 411, 412 Pericles 118 n. 9, 127, 131, 154, 164, 348 n. 53, 355–6 Areopagus, curtailing of powers of 117 on autonomy of allies 68 citizenship law 20 and Congress Decree 156, 167, 168 Peloponnesian War strategy: Thucydides’ judgement of 134–50 speeches written by Thucydides 133, 146–8, 311 n. 51, 403, 439 and temple-burning 166 Periclidas 142–3 Perinthos 217–18 Perioecs 277, 278, 279, 281, 285, 295–6, 314, 437 in Ionian War 287–8 towns 57, 195, 261 Persia and Aegina 85 Athens and 151–68, 457–8 Cleomenes and 80–3 Cnidus, battle of 106 demand for submission of Greece 80, 82 & n. 21 Demaratus and 83–5 Demosthenes and 457–61 Egypt, invasion of 106 Greece, invasion of 106–7 Sparta and 88, 247–50 temple-burning 165 Xenophon on 170–1, 255 Persian Wars 98, 115, 141–2, 276–9 phalangites 427, 428 n. 25 Pheidon, King of Argos 50, 51 Philinus 348–9 Philip of Macedon 222 and Amphipolis 341–2 Athenian military strategy against 393–5 Athenian policy towards 339–40 Euboea, intervention in 380–1 and League of Corinth 444–5 military reforms 429 military strategy of 391–3 and Olynthus 390–1 Page 26 of 37

Index and piracy 227 n. 32 and Second Athenian Confederacy, abolition of 212 Speusippus’ letter to 252–3 Philocharidas 145 Philochorus 117, 118, 129, 137 n. 11, 305, 334, 348 n. 53, 388 n. 95, 411 n. on expeditions to Olynthus 365–6, 381–3, 387 n. 92 and Peace of 392/1, terms of 174–5 and Sacred Trireme incident 372–3 on Theoric Fund 351, 357–8 (p.480) Philocrates/Philokrates 336, 339 attack on 339 n. 25 Peace of Philocrates 160, 212, 229, 341–2, 438, 441 trial of 340, 374, 388 n. 95, 441 Philopoemen 300 Phlius 184, 185, 245, 254, 258, 259, 260, 261, 265, 268, 336 n. 9 and Agesipolis 260 and Corinthian War 263 exiles 190–1, 209 n. 44 Mothakes 290 and Sparta, loyalty to 263 Phocaea 13 n. 10, 162, 202 n. 29 Phocion 258 n. 44, 335, 377–8, 379, 384, 395 n. 126 and Euboean expedition 338, 354, 360, 380–1 Phocis/Phokis 57, 165, 178, 220, 270, 304, 312, 316, 320, 328, 339–40, 341, 367, 393 Phoebidas 185, 190, 201 n. 26, 244, 245, 264–5, 266, 271, 307 Phormio 136, 148 Phye 39 n. 22 Phylarchus 289 Pindar 15 piracy 166, 227, 230, 373 n. 14, 399–400 Piraeus/Peiraeus 363 n. 96388 n. 93, 451 n. 68 attacks on 136, 139, 193, 266, 307 Piraeus Gates 179–81, 199, 200, 202–3 see also Athens: naval forces Pisistratids 38–9, 42–4, 53, 65 n. 37: see also Pisistratus Pisistratus 19 n. 24, 35–8, 39–41, 43, 44, 45, 48 n. 43, 51, 52, 60 bodyguard 40–1 and democracy 34, 35 and hoplites 47 trial of 42 see also Pisistratids Pissouthnes 154 Pithecusa 22, 23–4 plague 26, 137 n. 12, 149 Plataea/Platea 13, 16, 17, 136 n. 7, 141 n. 16, 165, 166, 313 n. 55 cenotaph of Aeginetans 279 n. 9 and drought 29 n. Herodotus on 62, 79 n. 13 and Sparta 75, 77 n. 8, 86, 151 Page 27 of 37

Index Thebes and 170, 180, 304, 305–6 Plataea, battle of 88, 111–12, 170, 276, 277, 419, 433–4, 437 Plato 27, 62 n. 28, 126, 127, 407, 431 abortion 19 on city walls, absence of 161 colonization 17–18 ephors, election of 89 n. on Hellenic currency 292 infanticide by exposure 19–20 on military training 421–2, 423, 425, 432 on Pyrrhic war dance 422 on Solon 128 and Sparta 258 on tyranny 38 Pliny 27 Plistoanax/Pleistoanax 104 n. 16, 143–4 Plutarch 36 n. 8, 64 n. 32, 65 n. 37, 77 n. 8, 132–3, 208, 249, 458 on abortion 19 on Agesilaus 93, 243 n. 8, 245–6, 250, 251 on Antalcidas 251–2 on Areopagus 115, 128 on Athens 208 on battles, conduct of 418, 422, 428 n. 25, 433 on Boeotarchy, date of restoration of 330 colonization 30 on Congress Decree 160 n. 20, 168 on cowardice 293 on deposition of kings 81 n. 20 on Epaminondas 300–1, 314, 315, 318–19, 324 n. 90, 333 and ephors 241 on Euboea, Athenian intervention in 377–8, 380–1 on Eubulus 335 infanticide by exposure 20 on length of battles 418 on Leuctra, battle of 271, 272–3, 275, 310 on Meneclidas 318 on Orchomenos 220 n. 23 polyandry 20 on Sparta 130–1, 220 n. 23 on Sparta-Tegea treaty 61 on Thebes 208 on Themistocles 95, 100 & n. 6, 104–5 on wealth in Sparta 292 (p.481) Plutarch of Eretria 338, 377–8, 381 Podanemus of Phlius 259, 263 poetry 49–50 of Solon 44, 49 Pokorny, E. 380, 385–6 Pollux 132, 362 n. 94 Page 28 of 37

Index polyandry 20 Polybiades 265 Polybius 20, 21, 135 n. 4, 184, 187, 267, 328, 427, 428, 430, 432 Polycles 439 Apollodorus’ Against Polycles 397, 398, 399–400, 401–4, 405–6 Demosthenic corpus 28 Polycrates of Samos 47, 51, 59, 65 n. 37, 87 Polydamas of Pharsalos 219, 220–1 population control 19–20 population increase: and colonization 11–12, 18–22 Poroi, see Revenues (Xenophon) Posidippus 20 Poteidaia 222, 232–3 Procles of Phlius 246 n. 18, 259, 263 Prokonnesos 222 Pydna 222, 418 Pylos 112, 138, 139, 146 occupation of 147, 283 Pyrilampes 153 n. Pyrrhic war dance 422 Raaflaub, K. 163 n. 29 Revenues (Poroi/De Vectigalibus, Xenophon) 25 n. 38, 238–9, 343, 344, 349–50, 360, 364–5 on city walls, repairs to 366 dating of 361 Rhegium 17, 18, 24, 62 Rhodes 22, 161, 213, 311 n. 51, 323 n. 88, 324, 326, 336 n. 9 and drought 29 naval forces 214 revolt against Athens 325 and Second Athenian Confederacy 194, 214, 237, 240 and Social War 214, 234–5 Romulus 19, 20 Ruschenbusch, E. 125, 126 Rylands Papyrus 65 n. 37, 67 Sacred Band 270, 273, 297, 310, 313 formation of 302, 303 n. 19 Sacred Trireme incident 372–3 Sacred Truce 168 n. 14, 261 n. 50 Salamis, battle of 72, 85, 86 n. 31, 95, 97–9, 115 Samos 154, 222, 398, 414 n. 33 cleruchy 232–3, 237, 239, 240, 324–6, 342 exiles 87, 147 expedition to 86 n. 31 naval forces on 227, 399 Persian occupation of 77 n. 8 Sparta and 62, 87 walls, absence of 161 see also Maeandrius of Samos; Polycrates of samos Page 29 of 37

Index Sardis 49, 154, 171, 172, 251 n. 29, 458 Sauppe, Herman 354 n. 71 Schwartz, Eduard 370–3 Sciritans 277, 278 scythed chariots 430–1 Scythia Cleomenes and 74–5, 89 embassy to Sparta 74–5, 77–8 Scythian corps 41 Scythian Expedition 82 Seager, R. 165, 167 Sealey, B. R. I. 129, 308 n. 39 Second Athenian Confederacy 174, 307, 400 Agesilaus and 266 autonomy in 229–30 Blütezeit 215–25 Byzantium and 197–8, 323 n. 86 Chios and 197, 198 date of foundation of 198–205 Decree of Aristotle stele 215–22 failure of 212–40 foundation of 192–211, 331 freedom in 229–30 imperial institutions, growth of 232–4 Jason and 219–21 after Leuktra 225–8 Methymna and 196–8 reason for foundation of 205–6 Social War and 214–15, 234–40 Stratiotic Fund 357 synedrion 195, 204, 212, 213, 223, 225, 226, 228–32 Thebes and 194–6, 315 n. 62 Second Mantinea 299, 301, 318 Selymbria 82, 217–18 (p.482) Sepeia campaign 59–60, 77, 79 n. 13, 86 n. 31 Sestos 88, 222, 322 n. 83, 341, 388 n. 93 Sicilian expedition 145 Sicinnus 98–9 Sicyon/Sikyon 22, 29 n. 47, 32, 55 n. 8, 64, 65 n. 37, 263, 293: see also Clisthenes of Sicyon; Euphron of Sicyon silver mines 363–4 Simonides 91–2 Sinclair, R. K. 178 single combat 423, 434–5 Skudra 82 Snodgrass, A. M. 12, 436 Social War 213, 343, 365, 409, 414 n. 33 Byzantium and 234 Chios and 234–5 Page 30 of 37

Index combined fleet 214 Demosthenes on 213, 234, 235–6, 342, 359 economic conditions in Athens after 238–9 Eubulus and 336 outbreak of 234–40 Rhodes and 234–5 and Second Athenian Confederacy 214–15, 234–40 Solon 36, 52, 115, 128 and archonship 121, 122–3 Athenian People under 45–6 constitution of 68, 83, 129 Four Hundred 123 and hoplites 47 poetry of 44, 49 Sophanes the Athenian 434–5 Sostratus of Aegina 49 Sparta 91, 258 Aegina and 151 Agesilaus and 241–74 Apothetae 20 appeal for peace 55–6 Arcadia and 80–1 Argive–Spartan treaty 68 and Athens 55, 103–4, 141–2, 151–2, 204, 226 and Attica, invasion of 71 and Boeotia 269–71 city walls 256–7 at Corona, battle of 424 Corinth, loyalty to 263 and Croesus of Lydia 59, 60, 62 decline of 275–98 compensation for declining numbers 283–90 decline in number of Spartiates 276–83 defeat at Leuctra 294–8 neglect of laws of Lycurgus 291–4 Diodorus on 103–4, 203–4 Erxadieis, treaty with 56 as hegemon of Greek world 86–90, 141–2 helots, fighting for 138, 142, 285, 287 helot revolts 61–2, 79, 82, 283–4, 288 and Hippias 58 infanticide by exposure 20 iron spits 37 and King’s Peace 172–4, 183–4, 186–7, 200–1, 219, 254 after Leuktra 225–6 Mantinea, attack on 191 Messenia, attack on 31 mirage spartiate 258–9, 285, 328 and Olynthus 264–5 Page 31 of 37

Index oracles and 90, 292 and Persia 88, 247–50 and Persian Wars 141–2 Plataea and 75, 77 n. 8, 86, 151 relations with states outside Peloponnese 263–8 relations with states within Peloponnese 256–63 reputation of Spartans outside Peloponnese 90–3 and Samos 87 6th-century allies 54–73 social advancement in 286 and Tegea 60–3 Thebes and 209–10, 306–7 tyrannies, opposition to 65–7 wealth in 292 see also Agesilaus; Agesipolis; Cleombrotus; Cleomenes of Sparta; Leuctra, battle of; Pausanias Spartan army countermarches 424 at First Mantinea 276, 280, 294, 419 organization of army 276–81 training of 290, 295–6 Thucydides on 276–8, 280, 282–3 Speusippus 252–3 Sphacteria 272, 276 n. 2, 277, 283, 312 (p.483) Sphodrias 179, 192, 193, 198–9, 202, 204–5, 266–7, 307 raid of 205, 266, 339 trial of 251 Stephanus of Byzantium 21–2, 195, 217, 339 n. 25 Stesagoras 154 Stesimbrotus of Thasos 85, 100 n. 6, 258 Strabo 11 n. 2, 24, 25, 30, 31, 32, 256 n. 41 Stratiotic Fund 357, 366 Stryme 28, 239 Susa 108, 173 n. 7 Callias’ embassy to 152–4, 439 Sybaris 50, 66 n. 38, 77 n. 8 Syloson 77 n. 8 syntaxeis (αυντάξεις) 213, 225, 226–7, 230, 233, 237, 384 & n. 68 Syracuse 24, 30–2, 53, 55 n. 8, 136 n. 7, 283 Tacitus, Publius/Gaius Cornelius 26 Tanagra 29 n., 70, 71 n. 52, 104 n. 16, 305–6 taxes 135 n. 4 Tegea 191 n. 6, 256, 257 n. 41, 279 Sparta and 57 n. 14, 60–4, 278, 282 Xenophon on army of 294 n. 45 Tegyra, battle of 91 n. 36, 220 n. 23, 297, 302–3, 307, 313 Teleutias 144 n. 22, 179, 185–6, 246 n. 18, 250, 251, 264–5, 271 Ten Thousand 310 n. 47, 422–3, 424–5, 430, 435 Tenea 24, 31 Page 32 of 37

Index Tenedos 212–13, 227 n. 33, 399, 435 Thasos 104–5, 142, 152, 161, 162, 217, 227, 407 Theagenes of Megara 53 Thebes 170–1, 195 Agesilaus and 250, 265–7 Arcadia, alliance with 226, 454–5 Athens, alliance with 208 army 296–8 battle lines, organization of 283 and Corinthian War 306 and democracy 319–20 Demosthenes and 454, 455, 459 Diodorus on 203–4, 206, 297, 322–4 Epaminondas and 299–329 hegemony of 327–8, 331 liberation of 206–9, 307 naval policy 322–4, 326–7 Olynthus, alliance with 181–2, 185, 201 & n. 26, 306 Peace of Thebes 173, 175 and Peloponnesian League 185 and Second Athenian Confederacy 194–6 and Sparta 209–10, 306–7 Xenophon on 296, 301–3 see also Boeotia; Epaminondas; Leuctra, battle of Themistocles 38 n. 18, 45, 83–4, 85 and Areopagus 119 and Athenian finances 115 delaying tactics 162 n. 26 exile of 95, 100 n. 6, 105 n. 17, 107 fall of 95–113 flight of 104–5 and Greek navy 96–7, 101 medism, accusation of 98, 99–102, 107 origins 96 ostracism of 95, 99–100, 102 and Pausanias 108–9, 113 policies, discrediting of 103–4 Thucydides on 95–6, 97, 101, 104–5, 108–9, 110–11, 174, 175 n. 10 Theognis 50 Theophrastus 131, 132 Theopompus 93, 209 n. 44, 245, 253, 300 n. 8 on Agesilaus 241–2, 314 on Eubulus 338, 340 on helots 284 and Peace of Callias 159 Theoric Commission 347, 349, 350, 351–3, 354 n. 73, 358, 362, 365 Theoric Fund/Theorikon 335, 345–6, 350–1, 379 Demosthenes on 353, 361, 385–6 Diophantos and 336 Page 33 of 37

Index Eubulus and 347–9, 352–8 laws concerning 353–8 Thera 13–16, 22, 26, 29–31, 216–17 Theramenes 34, 257–8 Theseus: legends about 17 Thespiae 99, 165, 195, 196 n. 13, 204, 266, 268, 271, 304–7, 316, 331 Thessaly 50, 75, 81, 387, 394 alliance with Athens 70, 230–1 and drought 29 Theban intervention in 302, 318, 320 n. 78, 328, 332 (p.484) Thibron 56, 91 n., 243 n. 8, 248, 250, 273 n. 70 Thiel, K. 350 the Thirty 126 Thirty Years’ Peace 54, 58, 70, 138, 141 n. 16, 143–4, 167, 180 Thrasybulus of Athens 181, 269, 306, 343 Thrasybulus of Miletus 53 Thucydides 60, 126, 127, 167, 174, 175 n. 10, 180, 289 n. 35 on alliances 56 on Areopagus 133 on Athenian navy 402, 403–4 on Athens 103, 154, 158–9 on battle, conduct of 416, 418, 419, 420, 421, 423, 426–7, 430 n. 30, 431–2, 434, 436–7 on Brasidas 91, 292 on colonization 16, 30 on Delium, battle of 420 on drought 30, 31 on Hellenic war 88–9 on Heraclea, foundation of 16 on Hetoemaridas debate 90 on Hippias 83 on hoplites 423, 431–2, 434 on Ionia 160 n. 21, 163 on Ionian War 156 on Mantinea 261, 272, 430 n. 30, 436–7 on oligarchy 257, 260, 319 on Pausanias 91, 108–11, 112, 113 n. on Peloponnesian League 54, 58, 68, 70, 72, 229 on Pentekontaetia 70, 152 Periclean Peloponnesian War strategy, judgement of 134–50 Pericles’ speeches 146–8 on Persia 88, 154, 158–9 silences of 158–9 on Sparta 55, 62, 65, 66–7, 75, 88, 103, 256, 257, 281–3, 286–7, 297, 319 on Spartan army 57, 276–8, 280, 282–3, 288, 418 on Sphacteria 277, 296 n. 47 on Themistocles 95–6, 97, 99, 100, 101, 104–5, 108–9, 110–11 on tyranny 37–9, 40–1, 44–5, 47–9, 51, 65, 66–7, 120–1 Thucydides, son of Melesias 143 n. 21, 348 n. 53, 439 Page 34 of 37

Index Thurii 29, 143 n. 21 Timagoras 102 Timarchos 234 Timoleon 300 Timotheus/Timotheos 176, 179, 186, 188–9, 193, 216, 217, 218–19, 221–5, 226 n. 31, 233, 237 n. 53, 252, 321 n. 82, 322 n. 83, 323 n. 86, 324 n. 95, 395, 398, 400 and attempt to recover Chersonese 398 Tisamenus, Decree of 116 n. 4, 117, 126 Tissaphernes 155–6, 159, 168, 248–9, 255 Tithraustes 163, 248–9 Torone 222, 385, 391 Toynbee, J. A. 277–8 trade colonization and 22–4 Eubulus’ encouragement of 363–4 iron spits and 37 trierarchic system 375 n. 28, 383, 402–4, 407–8, 410–11, 412 n. 28 Troad 17, 161 tyrannies 38 and archonship 120–3 Athenian People and 33–53 Spartan opposition to 65–7 wealth and 49–51 see also individual tyrants Tyrtaeus 436 Vegetius 418 volunteers 185 Wade-Gery, H. T. 77 n. 8, 148, 161 walls, see city walls Walsh, J. 168 wealth effects of 291–2 and tyranny 49–51 Woodhead, A. G. 219–20 wrestling 433 Wrigley, E. A. 12 Xanthippus 98 n. 1, 119 Xenias of Elis 259 Xenophon viii–x, 54–5, 85, 144, 249 n. 24, 306 n. 30, 349–50, 362, 422 on Agesilaus 242–7, 250, 251, 268 on Athens 225, 239, 332–3, 360, 362, 364, 421 (p.485) on battles, conduct of 419, 429 on Boeotians 321 n. 81, 331 on Cadmea, occupation of 247 on cavalry 365 on city walls 366 on Coronea, battle of 297, 309, 420, 435 on conspiracy of Cinadon 109, 284, 288 and Corinth 209 n. 44, 263, 321 n. 82 Page 35 of 37

Index on cowardice 293 demand for establishment of general peace 344 on Demaratus 83–4 on desertion by helots 284 n. 24 on eisphora 363 on Elean War 262 n. 51 on Epaminondas 300, 301, 309–10, 311, 318, 320 exile and recall of 189, 209 n. 44, 361 n. 89 on guest-friendship 259 on Harbour of Calpe 24 on hoplites 280, 424–5, 429 on King’s Peace 171, 172, 173, 179, 199–200 on Leuctra, battle of 271, 273, 293, 301, 310–11 on Mantinea 67, 257, 261 on Mausolus 414 n. 33 on metics 362–3 military service of 242–3 on military strategy 309–11 on Mothakes 290 on Nemea, battle of 280 on Olynthus 186, 264 and Panhellenism 246–7, 255 on Pausanias 259–60 on Peace Congress (371 BC), Sparta 301, 314, 315 on Peace of 366/5: 326 on Peace of 372/1: 178, 305 on Peace of Thebes 175 and Peloponnese 246, 259 on Peloponnesian League 56–7, 72 on Perioecs 277, 296 on Persia 170–1, 255 on Phlius 263 on Piraeus Gates 179–80, 202 on Polydamus 220 on Second Athenian Confederacy 202, 203, 219, 220, 228 silences of 127, 186–7, 192, 206–8, 245–7, 251, 301–3 on Sparta 200, 241, 258–9, 264 on Spartiates 276, 277 on Sphodrias 199, 203, 204–5, 266 on Tegean army 294 n. 45 on Thebes 195, 199, 206, 287, 296, 301–3 see also King’s Peace; Revenues Xenophontic Constitution of the Spartans, see Constitution of the Spartans Xerxes 41 n. 30, 84 invasion preparations 106, 111 Pausanias and 109–10, 111 Themistocles and 84, 174 Zacynthus 140, 186, 187–9 Zeus Ombrios 25 Page 36 of 37

Index

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