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Contributors Roger Brock is Senior Lecturer in Classics, University of Leeds. Lisa Kallet is Cawkwell Fellow and Tutor in Ancient History, University College, Oxford. John H. Kroll is Emeritus Professor of Classics, University of Texas at Austin. Peter Liddel is Lecturer in Ancient History, University of Manchester. John Ma is Fellow and Tutor in Ancient History, Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Alfonso Moreno is Andrew and Randall Crawley Fellow and Tutor in Ancient History, Magdalen College, Oxford. Nikolaos Papazarkadas is Assistant Professor of Classics, University of California at Berkeley. Robert Parker is Wykeham Professor of Ancient History, University of Oxford. Kurt A. Raaflaub is David Herlihy University Professor and Professor of Classics and History, Brown University. Peter Thonemann is Forrest-Derow Fellow and Tutor in Ancient History, Wadham College, Oxford.
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Abbreviations Abbreviations are taken from Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth (eds), The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd edn (Oxford, 1996), xxix-liv, supplemented for collections of inscriptions by those in H.S. Liddell, R. Scott, H. Stuart Jones, R. McKenzie, A Greek-English Lexicon, 8th edn (Oxford, 1940), and especially those in its Revised Supplement, ed. P.G.W. Glare (Oxford, 1996). Note particularly or in addition: ATL = B.D. Meritt, H.T. Wade-Gery and M.F. McGregor, The Athenian Tribute Lists, 4 vols, 1939-53 (Cambridge MA) ML = R. Meiggs and D. Lewis, A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions (Oxford 1969; rev. edn 1988) RO = P.J. Rhodes and R. Osborne, Greek Historical Inscriptions 404-323 BC (Oxford 2003).
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Introduction Robert Parker Doubtless the most imposing monument that relates directly to the Athenian empire is the huge rectangular stele, more than eleven feet tall and more than three feet wide, on the four sides of which were recorded the quotas for Athena from the tribute for the years, probably, 454/3 to 439/8 – the first such quotas so recorded and almost certainly testimony to an important change in the administration of the empire. Originally it stood on the acropolis; reconstructed from more than one hundred and eighty fragments, it now dominates one of the main rooms in the epigraphic museum at Athens. The visitor who stands in front of it cannot always see the rationale for the placing of the fragments in the reconstruction. Some joins between pieces are clearly visible from the front. Others exist but cannot be seen because marble does not fracture into neat rectangular blocks, and joins at a deeper level are obscured by the plaster used to hold the whole together. Many fragments owe their place to scholarly reconstruction alone. The invisible iron clamps that provide the armature of the whole are deteriorating, and the monument needs to be entirely taken apart and put together again with titanium clamps. While that is being done, the full evidence for the existing reconstruction will, for the first time since 1927, be available once again to direct inspection and reinterpretation.1 The prospect is exciting, if daunting. But there are ways of reinterpreting the Athenian empire that do not require the physical disassemblage of major monuments, and it is as a contribution to that enterprise that this volume (based with expansions on a lecture series held in Oxford in spring 2007) is intended. The physical reconstruction of the first tribute lists in 1927 has a symbolic significance as inaugurating what many would see as the modern era in the study of the Athenian empire: it was part of the process that culminated in the publication of Athenian Tribute Lists (‘ATL’) from 1939 to 1953 and (29 years after his first article on the subject) of Meiggs’ still authoritative The Athenian Empire in 1972.2 But fragments of the tribute lists had been known since the 1830s and some other relevant inscriptions since the eighteenth century, while the main literary sources have always been with us. It therefore seemed relevant and interesting to recover a historiography of the Athenian empire prior to 1927 which would set the ‘modern era’ in perspective. The first essay in
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Robert Parker the volume tackles this task; the second assesses the ATL watershed and subsequent reactions to it. Peter Liddel shows how the earliest British historians of Greece in the eighteenth century tended to take the story of the Athenian empire as the story of a failure, an institution which went wrong and provided a sobering warning for contemporary colonial administrations (the parallel long remained a vivid one). Thucydides’ (on the surface at least) merely descriptive account of an alliance that mutated into an instrument of domination was read by Stanyan and later by Montagu as a decline and fall; even a writer more sympathetic to Athens, William Young, stressed the danger posed to the ethos of a free state by foreign conquest. The example played into the hands of the arch-conservative William Mitford, because the turn to oppression and rapaciousness could be blamed on the radical democracy. The liberal defenders of Athenian democracy in the nineteenth century had therefore to mount a defence, a challenge taken up cautiously by Bulwer Lytton and wholeheartedly by George Grote, who went so far as to declare the empire ‘a sight marvellous to behold … highly beneficial to the Greek world’. The battle lines were therefore drawn up, and most of the factors presented by the sources (cleruchies; transfer of court cases to Athenian courts; export of democracy; abolition of piracy) were already mustered, if very variously evaluated. Meanwhile the first fragments of the tribute lists were published (in 1835) and recognised for what they were (in 1842) by the Greek pioneers of Attic epigraphy, Pittakys and Rangavis. The young discipline professionalised itself with extraordinary speed in Germany through scholars such as Boeckh and Koehler, and the first edition of Corpus Inscriptionum Atticarum by Kirchoff in 1871 made an impressive array of epigraphic evidence easily available. Grote and Jowett for reasons of their own continued to insist on the primary importance of the literary sources, but most scholars turned eagerly to the stones and, as a Manchester exam question of 1882-3 proves, expected their students to do the same. Several arguments that have remained highly influential originate in this period: the great increase in the tribute assessment of 425/4 was discovered by Boeckh (and subsequently deployed by Grundy to make a point about Thucydides, who fails to mention it); Abbott in 1891 used the fluctuating returns in the tribute lists from 450-440 to argue for widespread disaffection in that period. On the whole the new evidence gave more ammunition to the empire’s critics than its defenders, but it could often be played two ways, and Alfred Zimmern could even attempt, in Liddel’s words, to ‘introduce epigraphy to a large-scale liberal interpretation of the Athenian empire’. The new documents, Liddel concludes, introduced a new level of detail but did not dislodge scholars from positions in which their political instincts placed them. This contestability of inscriptions is still with us: the ‘Phaselis decree’, for instance, is seen by some as a measure to simplify procedures for Phaselite traders in Athens, by others as a device to subject
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Introduction Phaselite defendants to biased Athenian jurisdiction;3 even the great tribute increase of 425/4 that was taken as so fatal to Grote’s defence of the empire has been reinterpreted in a way that would cause him much less pain.4 The Grotean tradition of evaluating the empire positively lived on in the USA for much of the twentieth century, as Lisa Kallet shows. Bonner combined it in 1923 with a modernising, free-market, commercialist vision of the benefits it brought to ruler and ruled alike. But influential voices such as de Romilly and Finley insisted that the empire was about power and status, not trade, and the question also posed by Finley about the economic implications of the empire is one to which scholarship is only now returning. Kallet then addresses the great culmination of American interest in the empire, Athenian Tribute Lists. If most of the inscriptional evidence had been discovered and published in the nineteenth century, why then is the modern era in the study of the Athenian empire felt to begin in the 1920s? Intensive study over three decades by the three authors of ATL and several scholars associated with them in various ways (West, Meiggs, Pritchett) subjected the texts to more concentrated and expert attention than they had ever received before; and ATL interwove its epigraphic conclusions with every available fragment of literary evidence to create what Kallet characterises as a ‘near-seamless picture of the Athenian empire’. The work was transformatory not in introducing a paradigm shift but simply in doing what had been done before much more skilfully and comprehensively. A problem was that many crucial inscriptions could not be dated; to resolve it, the team developed supposedly objective dating criteria, by letter forms, which remained widely accepted until the 1990s. Kallet notes a paradox: letter-form dating required certain inscriptions previously held to attest the odious demagoguery of the 420s to be relocated in the 440s; but the imputation of odiousness was not transferred from Cleon to Pericles (the influence of Thucydides was too strong), the explanation for severity being sought instead in the mid-century ‘crisis of the empire’ (a theme going back, as we have noted, to E. Abbott). The main challenge to the consensus about dating by letter-forms, from Harold Mattingly, was largely motivated by a desire to reload the odium onto Cleon, and it was left to Finley (1978) to insist that imperial policy had in many ways been ruthless and self-interested from the very start. Kallet, like Finley, criticises the over-personalised approach to Athenian policy-making; the inscriptions should not be used, she argues, to illustrate Thucydides’ judgements on individual politicians, nor fitted into his mono-directional model of ‘alliance to empire’. Each should be taken in its own terms, and if done so will reveal the flexibility with which the Athenian assembly responded to a constantly varying situation. Finley once accused scholars of reducing the study of the Athenian empire to a squabble over the dating of the three-barred sigma. But what is at issue is the historical location of many of the most important docu-
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Robert Parker ments that bear on the empire; and Finley was rightly charged by Meiggs with making a molehill out of a mountain.5 For some fifty years the general opinion was that all inscriptions displaying archaic letter-forms belonged before 446 (the year in which the tribute lists went over to the more modern form of sigma). Nikolaos Papazarkadas describes how that wideranging though never unchallenged consensus suddenly and unexpectedly collapsed in the early 1990s; even if the old doctrine has not been formally proved untenable, enough probable exceptions have been identified to leave it with few confident adherents. The Berlin wall is down, therefore, and we are free to locate every document in the historical context that best suits it. Papazarkadas shows how re-datings (in either direction) can transform not just our picture of Athens’ relations with particular areas of the Greek world (Magna Graecia; the Troad) but also, for instance, that of the role of slaves in naval warfare. As for the big story of Athens’ treatment of allied cities, two inscriptions are generally held to be immovably dated to the 450s and to 446 respectively (the Erythrae and Chalcis decrees), and to show that ‘whatever the dating of the Cleinias decree or the Coinage decree, it still appears that most of the essential tools of Athenian control were in use by 446’.6 But Papazarkadas probes tentatively with his crowbar to see if even these could not be shifted from their familiar place. His aim is not, however, to dissociate the good imperialist Pericles from his degenerate and oppressive successors. If ‘oppressive’ documents move down in time, they leave behind them not a golden age, but a vacuum. The empire was a phenomenon entirely new within the Greek world. Allied cities, required to pay tribute, never passed honorary decrees in favour of Athenians: to such an extent did the empire break the bounds of normal relations between Greek states.7 At its very foundation, the Delian League was ‘an entirely new departure in Greek alliances’. 8 The decision taken in 478 that the League should be funded not by ad hoc levies for individual campaigns but by a regular annual tribute was unprecedented. Thereafter the League developed very rapidly still further away from anything that the Greeks had known among themselves. Athens’ control of a subject, tribute-paying empire liable to legislation from the centre was quite different, Kurt Raaflaub shows in his chapter, from Sparta’s position as leader of an alliance or Corinth’s ‘colonial empire’ or any other Greek model, even those of the Sicilian tyrants. Creation of an extra-territorial empire had never been the aim of earlier Greek warfare. Unlike the British in J.R. Seeley’s famous formulation, the Athenians can scarcely have acquired their empire ‘in a fit of absence of mind’; the absence of mind, if such there was, was that of the Spartans who acquiesced in the loss of leadership in 478, and the allied cities who failed to resist Athenian domination in subsequent years. Raaflaub argues that the Athenians borrowed their ‘instruments of empire’, beginning with the very idea of annual tribute, from the enemy the League was formed to combat. A whole string of Athenian imperial institutions and practices find parallels not in
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Introduction Greece but to the East: the dispatch of overseers, and garrisons, to subject states; interference with constitutions; punitive deportation of rebellious subjects; settlement of citizens of the imperial power on land seized from subjects; more speculatively, a navy organised from the centre (to give just a selection of Raaflaub’s examples). Greeks of the governing class had had both the opportunity and the incentive, he points out, to observe and contemplate the operations of the Persian empire for more than half a century. In an eye-opening book of 1997 Meg Miller had already established the reality of ‘cultural receptivity’, particularly in the visual arts, between Athens and Persia in the fifth century. Politicians learnt from Persia (without advertising the fact, for obvious reasons) no less than did potters. A similar claim in a particular aspect is one of the central arguments of John Ma’s paper. He analyses a form of control, found both in the Achaemenid empire and in the Hellenistic kingdoms, which he designates ‘surrender and grant’: a people surrenders to the imperial power, which then gives back what it has received on terms defined by itself – perhaps merely the right to exist, perhaps in rare cases an autonomy which still depends on the good will of the ruling power. The procedure followed by the Athenians when dealing with allies who had revolted was essentially the same, and the right to dictate terms embedded in it was generalised and extended to the whole empire: ‘it seems good to the Athenian people’ became as generally binding as the ‘So speaks Cyrus’ of the Achaemenids and anticipated the ‘I think it right that …’ of the Hellenistic king. Faced as Raaflaub stresses with the problem of controlling an overseas empire, the Athenians borrowed ‘surrender and grant’, and passed it on to their Hellenistic successors. Ma then offers an illustrative case-study which is also a rare ‘bottom up’ glimpse of one of the places subjected to Athenian imperial control. An Athenian decree probably of the 430s thanks the ‘koinon of the Eteocarpathians’ (from the island of Carpathos, near Rhodes) for the gift of a cypress-tree for the temple of ‘Athena who rules Athens’; they are granted in return autonomy and retention of their own property, and there may be a reference to withdrawal of troops. A very Achaemenid scenario, therefore: a community sends a gift to the centre, perhaps in a situation of military crisis, and is rewarded with a privileged status (though one that later evidence suggests it failed to retain long). Ma accepts the recent suggestion that, despite their name (‘true Carpathians’), the mysterious koinon of the Eteocarpathians is in fact a new creation, a splinter community securing benefits for themselves, at the expense of their neighbours, in exchange for providing the Athenians ready access to valuable resources. They are ‘an invention of empire, imposed on the political geography of the island’, but also an illustration of how ‘local actors can achieve agency within a supra-local empire, by channelling the inevitably heavy touch of imperial control’. The converse of this is that they show how the ruling power could exploit local tensions, dividing and ruling; the
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Robert Parker theme of Athenian flexibility and responsiveness to local circumstances was also raised by Kallet. The Athenians also operate on a regional level by requiring the Coans, Cnidians and Rhodians to aid the Eteocarpathians in case of need. The consequence of all this for the student of the empire is the need for a ‘detailed, sympathetic human geography of the empire’ which would show up the complexity of the interaction between ‘local and supra local viewpoints’. How else, on a political level, did Athenian control of the empire work? The idea that one method was the export of democratic institutions is already found in several ancient sources (as was noted earlier, it was seized on with disgust by the anti-democrat William Mitford), but even the earliest such source notes that the principle was not applied consistently: in situations of civil strife, it emerges, the Athenians had occasionally attempted to side with ‘the best’, if always with unsatisfactory results.9 Moderns who discuss the issue seldom commit themselves on its precise scale. In the reassessment of 425/4, the Athenians sought to levy tribute from at least 380 sources: how many of these should we suppose to have been democracies, and, if democracies, how many imposed through Athenian intervention? Quite a limited number of conspicuous cases could have created the perception. Roger Brock’s contribution is an attempt to get as far beyond generalisation as the evidence allows. His first move is to stress that the situation changed during the Peloponnesian War period, when in so many states ‘the democratic leaders sought to bring in the Athenians and the oligarchs the Spartans’ (Thuc. 3.82.1); but none of the sources which speak of Athenian imposition of democracies is early enough not to have been influenced by that experience or other distorting factors which followed it (such as the Spartan imposition of narrow oligarchies). He goes on to note that, though democracies in allied states are certainly attested, few pre-war instances can be quoted where they demonstrably had their origin in Athenian intervention: Thasos, very probably, in 463, Erythrae in 453/2 (?), Samos in 440, Miletus by 434. But it is not certain even that democracies were imposed after the suppression of the revolts on Euboea in 446 and Samos in 439; and in many important cities oligarchies demonstrably survived into and well beyond the 440s. The presence of dynasts and tyrants in the tribute lists has always been manifest. Athenian foreign policy was pragmatic: even during a stasis they might side with oligarchs, and there were kings who were honorary citizens of Athens. To provoke an intervention in favour of democracy, one or more of several factors were required: opportunity (as most notably the suppression of a revolt); a favourable ‘cost benefit analysis’ (as with mineral-rich Thasos); security considerations (pre-empting a revolt). Such interventions undeniably occurred; but, Brock concludes, there was no consistently-pursued policy driven by ideological commitment. Peter Thonemann’s paper takes us away from this familiar Greek world with its seesawing between oligarchy and democracy. But, obedient to
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Introduction Ma’s exhortation, it very decidedly adopts a local viewpoint. It begins ‘high in the forested hills above the modern coastal resort of Kas, in Central Lycia’, and, as Thonemann reconstructs the process by which in the second half of the fifth century the house of Kheriga, dynast of Xanthos and Phellos, acquired control of a vast stretch of Western and Central Lycia, the reader may wonder how Athens will re-enter the picture. It had long been known that the defeat of an Athenian raiding force led by Melesander to Caria and Lycia in 430/29 (known from Thucydides) was mentioned also in the Lycian portion of the great trilingual stele set up by Kheriga in Xanthos c. 400 BC; the stele shows how far inland Melesander’s force had got, to Kyaneai in central Lycia. Thonemann adopts and expands a recent reinterpretation by D. Schürr of the following passage of the stele to show that it refers to the defeat of a further and much larger Athenian raiding expedition known from Thucydides, that of Lysicles in autumn 428; he suggests that the turacssi of the stele is an indigenous place-name interpreted by the Greeks as what they called Mt Thorax, by Magnesia on the Maeander, and gives the site of Lysicles’ defeat. (It had already been shown by Louis Robert that the battle must have occurred in that region.) What is more important, he makes it very likely that the operation against Lysicles was carried out on the instructions of a high Persian official based at Kaunos in Caria, and that it was led by Amorges son of Pissouthnes, later to be well known as an Athenian-supported rebel against Darius II but here leading a Carian and Anaiitan army against the Athenian raiders. The ‘cold war’ between Persia and Athens from the early 440s down to 423 or thereabouts was perhaps, he suggests, a good deal warmer than emerges from Thucydides’ narrative. Persia continued to matter to the Athenian empire, therefore, not just as a model but as a continuing source of pressure from the east, a successful rival for the allegiance of Lycian and Carian communities. Thonemann’s argument underlines the importance for the Greek historian of texts not written in Greek, and appropriately he ends with a Lycian perspective. Why does Kheriga commemorate two defeats over Athenian forces of which one was won by a rival Lycian dynast and the other occurred far outside Lycia with (as it seems) no Lycian involvement? Minor engagements though they were from an Athenian perspective, for a native of south-west Asia Minor they were crucial moments of resistance to the foreign aggressor, ‘the Lycian Marathon and Salamis’. Thucydides discusses the empire in terms of domination and politics, not economics. But he emphasises the vast financial superiority with which the imperial power entered the Peloponnesian War (2.13.3-5); and Aristophanes’ Bdelycleon treats the empire as a funnel which, but for the villainy of demagogues, would pour vast wealth into the pockets of ordinary Athenians (Wasps 656-718). We would do well, Kallet urges, to stop considering it as an empire, misleading term, at all, and view it instead as an economic zone. The economics of empire and the broader economic
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Robert Parker consequences of empire are central and perplexing themes which need to be tackled on a wide basis. The scarcity of monumental building in Ionia in the fifth century used to be taken as proof of impoverishment caused by Athenian domination; Robin Osborne (1999) has pointed out that, while temple building proves prosperity, the failure to build does not prove destitution, and has suggested that Ionia may in fact have been doing quite well. The archaeological record of most of the Greek world needs to be scrutinised with issues such as these in mind, to build on the foundations laid by Nixon and Price (1990) in a pioneering study.10 That task must be reserved for another volume. But Jack Kroll discusses here one central economic topic that has been much illuminated by recent research. From the late sixth century or a little thereafter Athens coined silver on a very large scale; and Athenian owls were the dollar of the fifth century, the ‘most sought-after trade specie of the Eastern Mediterranean world’, hugely represented in near eastern and Egyptian hoards. This monetary pre-eminence of Athens went back to the strike of silver ore at Laurion around 520-515 BC and thus predated the establishment of the empire; but a new and intensified phase that produced the voluminous standardised tetradrachms of the second half of the century perhaps began with the transfer of the league treasury to Athens in 454 and the recoining of silver that came to the city as tribute. Individuals too, Athenian and foreign, may have been able to bring in silver for (re)minting. It was doubtless in response to the sheer dominance of Attic coin that, as Thomas Figueira argued, many local mints ceased production; and the famous ‘standards decree’ passed (Kroll argues) not long before 414 BC which required allied cities to use Attic coins, weights and measures sought to impose as a binding norm what was already a widespread practice. The spread of Attic coin was market-driven, and individual traders and middlemen were to a large extent its agents. But state actions, such as the treasury transfer, and legislation also had a role. Public and private, commercial and political interweave inextricably, and the power of Athens’ coinage was a correlate to the power of her fleet (but lasted longer: the Egyptian preference for Athenian silver continued down to the time of Alexander). The most important form of economic exploitation of the empire, Alfonso Moreno insists with due emphasis, was the expropriation of foreign land. All attempts to downdate the onset of ‘harsh imperialism’ have to confront the fact that from c. 450 the Athenians revived the practice (which they had applied in Chalcis in 506 BC, and perhaps even earlier) of implanting settlers on a large scale (‘cleruchies’) on land carved out of the territories of conquered states, and not of enemies as at Chalcis but of rebellious allies. The cleruchy established on Lesbos in 427 brought in 100 talents annually, more than three times the highest level of tribute exacted from any individual state. Of all the abuses of the fifth century empire which the Athenians forswore when drafting the prospectus for its
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Introduction planned fourth-century successor, none received such emphasis as this. As for the mitigating factors standardly adduced (not that either would have been much consolation to the victims), Moreno disputes both. The cleruchies were not garrisons responsive to military needs; their public utility was rather (Euboea in particular) as a reliable source of imported grain. Nor were they a form of poor relief. On the contrary, he argues somewhat controversially, the portions of allied land assigned to each cleruch were large, and directly or indirectly the cleruchic system was responsible for the sometimes enormous overseas land holdings of rich Athenians attested both epigraphically and in literature. Previous inhabitants might be required to work the land for Attic masters in semi-servitude, if not expelled completely. Forms of exploitation rendered impossible in Attica itself by the reforms of Solon were cheerfully applied overseas by the dreaded ‘Attic neighbours’ of the proverb. Many further essays, manifestly, could have been included in this volume. Some topics we passed by because good recent work, on religion, for instance,11 or on the Athenian understanding of their empire as above all a matter of rule over islands,12 or on Thucydides’ presentation of the empire,13 was not to be repeated. Athens’ aspirations in southern Italy and Sicily are surely not irrelevant to the control she actually exercised elsewhere; that topic, we augur, will be revitalised with the imminent publication of Simon Hornblower’s commentary on the relevant books of Thucydides. We have not tried to locate Athenian rule within a general typology of imperialisms, for fear that the initial docketing as ‘empire’ might misdescribe the phenomenon.14 But Polly Low’s recent remarks on interventionism and empire have underlined the value of a comparative approach: the Athenians were not the only self-proclaimed ‘defenders of the weak’ known to history who sought by such interventions useful expansions of territory and influence.15 One tendency shared by many essays in this volume is a desire to differentiate, to insist that the Athenians sought local solutions to local problems, that chronologically too there is no simple progression to be traced from hegemony to empire. This is not, we trust, a bowing of the knee to post-modernism’s mistrust of master narratives. It is rather a recognition of the extraordinary situation of the Athenians when they found themselves, beyond all expectation and precedent, claiming leadership over hundreds of widely-dispersed communities. How could the thing be done, without existing institutional and bureaucratic structures?16 Inevitably there must have been much improvisation, many false starts, much changing opinion. Through Thucydides’ genius, nothing is more familiar to most students of Greek history than the empire. We need to recover a sense of its strangeness. Whether it deserves to be admired has always been controversial. But it certainly demands to be wondered at.
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Robert Parker Notes 1. On all this see Stroud (2006) 10-18. 2. On Meiggs’ work as originating in fact pre-war see Dover (1993) 367-8. 3. ML 31, on which contrast the views cited by ML and Fornara (1979). 4. See Kallet-Marx (1993) 164-70, and p. 62 n. 58 in this volume, on ML 69. 5. Meiggs (1966) 98, in response to TLS 7 April 1966. 6. Lewis (1992) 132-3. 7. See Low (2007) 233-48. 8. Ste. Croix (1972) 302. 9. [Xen.] Ath. Pol. 3.10-11. 10. A study by Ian Morris is promised from Blackwell Publishing. Erickson (2005) seeks to show the effect of Athenian policy on the Cretan economy. 11. Smarczyk (1990), important above all for the demonstration (58-153) that Athens’ religious policy was centripetal: allied states were encouraged/required to participate in Athenian festivals, but the precincts of Athenian gods in allied territory, ‘Athena who rules over Athens’ above all, were probably not sites of cult at all but the ancient equivalent of monastery estates, leased land earning rent for the cult of the relevant god in Athens; Constantakopoulou (2007) 38-58 and Kowalzig (2007) ch. 2, both arguing that Delos was a centre for islanders rather than for Ionians. 12. Constantakopoulou (2007) ch. 4, ‘Islands and Imperialism’. 13. Rood (1998) esp. 205-48. 14. See Kallet, pp. 56-7 below. 15. Low (2007) 199-210. 16. On written communication within the empire see Pébarthe (2006) 300-10.
Bibliography Constantakopoulou, C. (2007), The Dance of the Islands: Insularity, Networks, the Athenian Empire and the Aegean World (Oxford). Dover, K.J. (1993), ‘Russell Meiggs, 1902-1989’, Proceedings of the British Academy 80, 1991 Lectures and Memoirs, 361-70. Erickson, B. (2005), ‘Archaeology of Empire: Athens and Crete in the Fifth Century BC’, AJA 109: 619-63. Finley, M.I. (1978), ‘The Athenian Empire: A Balance Sheet’, in P.D.A. Garnsey and C.R. Whittaker (eds), Imperialism in the Ancient World (Cambridge); reprinted in his Economy and Society in Ancient Greece (Harmondsworth 1981), 41-61. Fornara, C.W. (1979), ‘The Phaselis Decreee’, Classical Quarterly 29: 49-52. Kallet-Marx, L. (1993), Money, Expense, and Naval Power in Thucydides’ History 1-5.24 (Berkeley). Kowalzig, B. (2007), Singing for the Gods (Oxford). Lewis, D. (1992), ‘The Empire Established’, in The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. V, The Fifth Century BC, 2nd edn (Cambridge). Low, P (2007), Interstate Relations in Classical Greece (Cambridge). Meiggs, R. (1966), ‘The Dating of Fifth-Century Inscriptions’, JHS 86: 86-98. Miller, M.C. (1997), Athens and Persia in the Fifth Century BC: A Study in Cultural Receptivity (Cambridge). Nixon, L. and Price, S. (1990), ‘The Size and Resources of Greek Cities’, in Price and Murray, O. (eds), The Greek City from Homer to Alexander (Oxford), 137-70.
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Introduction Osborne, R.G. (1999), ‘Archaeology and the Athenian Empire’, TAPA 129: 319-32. Pébarthe, C. (2006), Cité, démocratie et écriture: histoire de l’alphabétisation d’Athènes (Paris). Rood, T.C.B. (1998), Thucydides: Narrative and Explanation (Oxford). Smarczyk, B. (1990), Untersuchungen zur Religionspolitik und politischen Propaganda Athens im Delisch-Attischen Seebund (Munich). Ste. Croix, G.E.M. de (1972), The Origins of the Peloponnesian War (London). Stroud, R.S. (2006), The Athenian Empire on Stone. David M. Lewis Memorial Lecture Oxford 2006 (Athens).
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1
European Colonialist Perspectives on Athenian Power: Before and After the Epigraphic Explosion 1
Peter Liddel The past twenty-five years have seen a rapid expansion of research on the modern historiography of ancient Greece. Since the publication of Richard Jenkyns’ and Frank Turner’s landmark books, a great deal of work has been dedicated to assessing how and why the reputation of Classical Athens was transformed in nineteenth-century British scholarship.2 It is now widely accepted that the transformation from anathema to exemplum took place partly owing to the fact that democracy, in the second third of the nineteenth century, became an acceptable constitutional form, particularly among liberal British practitioners of Greek historiography.3 Modern analyses of the reputation of Athens have not yet, however, explored pre-twentieth-century views of fifth-century Athenian power in any depth. This paper will attempt to add a new dimension to the story of Athenian reputation: that of eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentiethcentury British, French and German attitudes to the Athenian empire as they arose in the narrative historiography of ancient Greece.4 By tracing the development of perceptions of this subject, I endeavour to make two main points: I shall illustrate the tendency to perceive Athenian power in terms of contemporary colonial realities and shall suggest that changes in perceptions of Athenian power have been inspired not always by the discovery of new evidence, but also by the intellectual milieu and colonialist and political perspectives of those who were engaged in the writing of history. The eighteenth century The survey begins in the eighteenth century, when a growing enthusiasm for narrative historiography combined with growing interest in Greek antiquity to inspire the publication of a number of histories of Greece.5 As this genre emerged, the theme of the rise and fall of the Athenian empire was a central one, for the theme of the succession of empires was an important one in eighteenth-century histories of antiquity.6 Some of the earliest verdicts on Athens were resoundingly negative, and fitted the
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Peter Liddel narrative into the model of history as the rise and fall of empires, morals and appropriate social structures. One such work was Temple Stanyan’s The Grecian History of 1707,7 which compared Athens negatively with Sparta.8 Stanyan claimed that while the establishment of the ‘Athenian Confederacy’ was a mark of her greatness, the levy of the tribute, the influx of money into Athens and the conversion of ‘Friends and Confederates, to a Condition little better than that of Tributaries and Vassals’ was the start of her ruin.9 As early as Stanyan, therefore, the Thucydidean theme of the transformation of Delian confederacy into Athenian empire made its mark. Oliver Goldsmith’s Grecian History of 1774, on the other hand, was influenced heavily by his reliance on Plutarch’s Lives and the moralising work of Rollin.10 It extended the period of the Persian Wars to the 440s and had very little to say about Athenian power as a historical unit, conceiving of them as self-styled ‘Protectors of Greece’.11 His lack of interest in Athenian power was no surprise: Goldsmith was more interested in the ways in which the Spartan constitution served as a model for emulation. But Goldsmith’s and Stanyan’s preference for Sparta was a way of thinking about Greek history that was falling out of fashion in the last third of the eighteenth century. The first writer to draw parallels between ancient Athenian and modern European imperialism in this era was the French Enlightenment thinker Montesquieu. In his pioneering study of political sociology, The Spirit of the Laws, first published in 1748, he considered how Greek cities managed their commercial interests. While he concluded that the Athenians did not engage in the opportunities offered to them by the resources of their mines or the multitude of their slaves, he described them as managers of a sea-empire; moreover, he suggested that pseudo-Xenophon’s description of Athens as an island was reminiscent of England.12 Comparison was also at the forefront of E. Montagu’s work of 1759, which warned against the possibility that the luxury, effeminacy and corruption that brought Athens down might afflict the liberty, happiness and existence of the British: Our liberty, our happiness, and our very existence as a people, depend upon our naval superiority supported by our military virtue and publick spirit. Nothing, humanly speaking, but luxury, effeminacy and corruption can ever deprive us of this envied superiority. What an accumulated load of guilt therefore must lye upon any future administration, who, to serve the ends of faction, should ever precipitate Britain from her present height down to the abject state of the Athenians, by encouraging these evils to blast all publick virtue in their unlimited progress.13
The insecurities of naval power suggested by Montagu’s unsettling diatribe were exacerbated in the late eighteenth century by events such as the American revolutionary war of 1776-83. British colonialist anxieties were reflected in contemporary Greek historiography, perhaps most
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1. European Colonialist Perspectives on Athenian Power clearly in the work of William Young. Young, a colonial governor,14 sugar plantation owner and Whig opponent of the abolition of the slave trade, won fame with his The Spirit of Athens of 1777.15 It is a surprisingly liberal work, and its praise for Athens as a ‘free republic’ takes its lead from the ideas of Montesquieu and German neo-humanism rather than from contemporary British historians. The 1786 edition of this work, entitled The History of Athens, cited Montesquieu and suggested that the story of Athens offered valuable warnings to the British, given his principle that: The tendencies of the state to accession of empire, and the obstacles to continuance of foreign influence and distant dominion … are no where more forcibly exemplified than in the History of Athens.16
Not a critic of empire per se, he offered criticism of Athenian policy, suggesting that in the rush to form an alliance to sustain the war against Persia, the Greeks had failed to consider properly what would be the most expedient organisation in a post-war situation.17 Moreover, he commented cuttingly on the dangers of mixing democracy and empire: Extensive conquests are destructive to the people whose form of government approaches to the free or democratic … among the principles of their decline is that instinctive activity, pushing on to acquisitions dangerous to, and corruptive of, the possessors.18
As the son of a colonial governor, plantation owner and a governor in waiting, Young’s account of Athens focussed on the benefits from empire for the commercial power and imperial ruler: dominion of the seas and connections of trade led to a growth in the number of ‘foreign excursions’ and guests: ‘national prejudices were thus broken in upon; the minds of men became more knowing and enlarged’.19 The republican upheavals in France and America in the last thirty years of the eighteenth century inspired anti-democratic sentiments among the aristocracies of Europe, and these are most clearly expressed in William Mitford’s History of Greece.20 By contrast to Young, Mitford was keen to distance the ancient example from modern reality. According to his brother, Lord Redesdale, he believed that the experience of the Greek states was quite foreign to the ‘extensive territory and free condition of the British islands’ and that the history of Greece illustrated the evils that arose from the tendency of Greek states to impose a tyranny of citizens over other citizens.21 As the most vehement opponent of democracy in its classical Athenian form, he portrayed the fifth-century Athenian exercise of power in largely negative terms. Mitford took the line that the Confederacy – as he calls it at its inception – was repressive from the start given that the Hellenotamiai were under the control of the Athenian people. The
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Peter Liddel allies, he suggested, were blinded to the potential consequences of empire by the ‘wisdom and equity’ of Aristides.22 For Mitford, the growing power of the democratic body corrupted the attempts of her leaders, or government, to organise a balanced imperial policy.23 Moreover, the new expenses induced by democratic payment led the Athenians to increase tribute and exert tighter control over its levy; by transferring the legislative, judicial and financial aspects of imperial control to the power of the demos, Athens became a ‘tyrant-city’, and her expansion became driven by the popular desire for conquest rather than calculation.24 While he identified the extraction of a growing amount of tribute and the shift of the treasury from Delos to Athens as central factors in the growing repressiveness of Athenian management of the organisation,25 what irritated Mitford most about the Athenian empire was her supposed habit (cf. Brock, this volume) of imposing democratic regimes in her subject states: Had Athens had a government so constituted as to be capable of a wise and steady administration, men were not wanting, qualified by abilities and by information, to direct the business of an empire. But, of all forms of government, democracy is not only the most capricious but the most selfish. The Athenians were jealous in the highest degree of communicating the rights of Athenian citizens; and the policy employed, however in the existing circumstances necessary, to hold such extensive and populous territories under subjection to one little state, consisting of less that thirty thousand families, was execrable. To coerce all by the force of its native military was impossible. The superiority of its navy gave some facility for the command of the islands. But the general policy for maintaining sovereignty was founded on that division into parties, almost universally pervading the Grecian commonwealths, to which we have so often had occasion to advert.26
Moreover, democracy, for Mitford, was a bad form of government because it was partisan and allowed the interests of those with power to override the interests of the wealthy. For instance, the distribution of Mytilenean territory to Athenian cleruchs in 427 BC, he suggested, was ‘according to the genius of democracy … calculated rather for private emolument than public advantage’.27 The workings of the empire were hampered also by the character of Greek political life, which, being made up of so many discordant parts, lacked a proper interest in the prosperity of all. Indeed, his interpretation of Pericles’ Congress decree was that it was a manifesto for Greek political unity, the rejection of which by the Greek states forced the Athenians to become more repressive in their control of their subjects.28 Like Young, Mitford had nothing bad to say about empire per se: his criticism was focussed on the democratic administration of empire and the failure of the Athenians to unite the Greek states into a commonwealth of common interests.
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1. European Colonialist Perspectives on Athenian Power Liberal Athenian imperialism The transformation of the Athenian reputation was set in motion by the time of Edward Bulwer Lytton’s Athens: Its Rise and Fall, the first instalment of which was published in 1837. Bulwer Lytton is better known as a novelist and MP, who was offered the throne of Greece on the abdication of King Otto in 1862.29 The third, lost, part of his work was discovered by Oswyn Murray in a Hertfordshire archive as recently as 2002, and showed that he had planned to extend praise to the Athenian democracy in the era of the Peloponnesian War.30 It is of no surprise therefore that his portrait of the Athenian empire, even in the sections of his work published while he was living, was rather different from that of Mitford. Bulwer Lytton’s analysis of the Athenian empire led to a rather chequered balance-sheet. He criticised the Athenians for subjecting themselves to what he saw as the independent and spiralling forces of power, which led them to become reliant on oppression and injustice.31 He noted also that Athenian cleruchies in the territory of Athens’ subject-cities were resented in the same way as the Irish resented British settlements,32 but at the same time he challenged Mitford’s claim that cleruchies were sent out only in the interests of the populist politicians or greedy common proprietors.33 Bulwer Lytton reversed Mitford’s formulation that democracy was the ruin of empire: empire was the ruin of democracy because the command that Athens obtained was disproportionate to her natural resources and tended to ‘rot away’ the spirit of her power while provoking hostility from her subjects.34 Though his interpretation of the nature of Athenian power reacted to that of Mitford, both judgements pivoted on the Athenians’ financial policy towards their empire. For Bulwer Lytton, while the transfer of judicial courts of the dependant allies to Athens was oppressive,35 the financial burden of the empire was light. He insisted that the amount demanded had been exaggerated in the literary sources, pointing to the small amounts of tribute mentioned (2000 and 1000 drachmai) on what he called ‘Chandler’s inscription’ (the earliest-known fragment of Athenian tribute lists which was later to become known as the Reassessment decree of 425-4 BC).36 He suggested that discontent was caused not by the amount of tribute but resentment at it being demanded, and drew on the parallel of Irish peasants paying taxes to the Protestant tithe-owners, claiming, ‘people will pay a pound for what they like, and grudge a farthing for what they hate’.37 Bulwer Lytton’s closing verdict on Athenian power was one of an apologist and supporter of imperialism: once Athens was in the clutches of empire, she would never surrender it: who, he asked, could ask England to surrender her colonies?38 Bulwer Lytton’s work was pioneering in its revisionary view of the Athenian empire, but also in the depth of its explicit comparison with contemporary English power. However, it was George Grote’s History of
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Peter Liddel Greece (1st edn, 2 vols, London 1846-56) that was to have most impact when it comes to the reputation of Athenian power.39 And certainly, Grote attempted a defence of Athenian power that was more comprehensive and more philosophical. It was philosophical in its enduring interest in the relationship between duties and liberty.40 He even suggested that the Athenian empire was an organisation better suited to the performance of duties and their coexistence with individual liberty than was the citycommunity culture of fifth-century Greece: he did, however, worry that the system of obligations set up at the opening of the Delian League may have infringed the Greek tendency towards political autonomy.41 Nevertheless, the Athenians performed a duty by keeping the alliance together, exacting from every member a regulated quota of men or money, and by keeping the Persians away.42 He explained the transformation of the Delian confederacy into an Athenian empire by reference to the failure of members to perform their duties in an appropriate fashion. The synod of the league at Delos failed in its object to protect the rights of members.43 It therefore became the duty of the Athenians to repress those members, who, like the Naxians, abandoned the league.44 Once the majority of members switched their payment from ships to money, the original feeling of equal rights and partnership in the confederacy was extinguished.45 This, he suggested, led to Athenian interventions in the internal government of their subjects. After the disintegration of the system of rights and duties, Athens gradually became tyrannical, though she had no predetermined plan to reach that stage.46 Such a conclusion pre-empted, and perhaps even inspired, J.R. Seeley’s famous view of British imperialism, enunciated in his 1883 work, The Expansion of England, asserting that the English had acquired their empire ‘in a fit of absence of mind’.47 Despite her behaviour at times of desperation,48 the Athenian empire, Grote concluded, was a remarkable achievement, ‘a sight marvellous to contemplate’, and the Athenians performed a ‘mighty task’ by holding together so many little states, and overcoming ‘that force of political repulsion instinctive in the Grecian mind’. It performed a service to the Greek states by keeping the Persian threat at bay, and improving the material condition of the maritime Greeks.49 His final verdict on the empire even suggested that it acted as a stimulus to the liberty of the Greek states, even if it demanded strict obedience from them: Nothing in the political history of Greece is so remarkable as the Athenian empire; taking it as it stood in its completeness … it is a sight marvellous to contemplate, and its working must be pronounced, in my judgement, to have been highly beneficial to the Grecian world. No Grecian state except Athens could have sufficed to organise such a system, or to hold, in partial, though regulated, continuous and specific communion, so many little states, each animated with that force of political repulsion instinctive of the Greek mind. … If in her imperial character she exacted obedience, she also fulfilled duties and ensured protection – to a degree incomparably greater than was ever
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1. European Colonialist Perspectives on Athenian Power realised by Sparta. And even if she had been ever so much disposed to cramp the free play of mind and purpose among her subjects – a disposition which is no way proved – the very circumstances of her own democracy, with its open antithesis of political parties, universal liberty of speech, and manifold individual energy, would do much to prevent the accomplishment of such an end, and would act as a stimulus to the dependent communities even without her own intention.50
Such comments serve as a philosophical elaboration of the Whig imperialism of Lord Macaulay’s speech to the House of Commons in 1833, which argues that the British, in arranging a code of laws for India, were responsible for introducing it to liberty.51 Indeed, Grote employed comparisons explicitly in order to reinforce the idea that the Athenian empire was a liberal organisation which behaved like a modern imperial state.52 He engaged with other theoretical constructions of liberal imperialism in his attempt to elucidate the nature of Athenian power: Grote used the model of the government of dependencies, a concept developed in the 1841 work of G.C. Lewis, a distinguished classicist and MP for Hereford.53 To Lewis, the British system of colonialism had gone further than the Athenians in developing a science of dependent government.54 This was a formulation which Grote reversed. He suggested that a reading of Lewis’ treatise illustrated the number of instances of misgovernment in modern times, which showed that Athens was ‘comparatively a creditable figure’.55 One example that Grote focused on in an extended footnote related to an action brought by a Minorquian, Antony Fabrigas, who presented a redress for grievances to General Mostyn, the British governor of the island, in 1773. The governor’s response was to arrest the complainant and exile him to Spain without any trial, on the grounds that he had complained ‘in a manner which [was] deemed improper’.56 At a later date, Fabrigas brought a case to the Court of Common Pleas against Mostyn, claiming that his expulsion amounted to a miscarriage of justice. The unsuccessful defence made by the counsel for Mostyn took the line that a dependency is governed not for its own interest but for that of the dominant state and that for the sake of Mediterranean trade, it was important to stamp out Spanish patriotism in Minorca. The jury gave a verdict for the plaintiff and awarded £3000 damages on the basis that Fabrigas was not attempting to stir up mutiny and sedition in the garrison. Grote’s interpretation of this trial and verdict was that it illustrated both ‘the illiberal and humiliating vein of sentiment which is apt to arise in the citizens of the supreme government towards the subordinate’, and also the protection which the English jury trial offered to citizens of the dependency against oppression. He suggested that the feelings of the law-courts at Athens were similarly directed to protecting the citizens of the subject-states. Revolt and resentment, for Grote, were a characteristic of empire, rather than ‘the product of peculiar cruelty and oppression on
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Peter Liddel the part of the Athenian democracy, as Mr Mitford and so many others have sought to prove’.57 The problem with Grote’s interpretation of Athenian power is that he was writing at one of those very rare periods of time when the data for Classical history were undergoing significant development. And his chief shortcoming, as a historian, was his failure to acknowledge the potential value of this evidence. The fifty-year period from 1830 to 1880 saw not only the discovery of a wealth of inscriptional evidence but also the development of new ways of publishing inscriptions and deploying them in the reconstruction of history.58 The German scholar Boeckh had raised the possibility that inscriptions might make a considerable contribution in the first edition of his Staatshaushaltung of 1817.59 It must be acknowledged, though, that the significance of epigraphical evidence to the historian of Athenian power would not have been obvious to anyone but the most scrupulous readers of Boeckh’s Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum (182877): the documents relevant to Athenian power were scattered and more fragmentary than they were in later epigraphical corpora.60 The era of epigraphical discovery After Ottoman rule in Athens came to an end in the early 1830s, there came to light a substantial number of previously unknown inscriptions on the Athenian acropolis. A number of them were first thought to be catalogues of members contributing to the imperial tribute; they were published for the first time in the 1835 work of the Greek archaeologist Kyriakos Pittakys.61 But it was the publication and interpretation of the fragments by Alexandros Rangavis in 1842 which elevated the level of available knowledge of what he called, in his French language publication, the ligue Athénienne.62 As well as publishing the 117 fragments of the tribute lists, he made a catalogue of member-states, listed the offices and terms relevant to the organisation, and suggested that the tribute fluctuated.63 He suggested that the amounts listed on the stones represented a 1/120th of the annual total, listing the amount paid for three days, but raised an alternative possibility slightly closer to the truth: that the figures represent a 1/100th quota that was given to Athena.64 While the Greek scholars were important in making epigraphical data available, and thereby revolutionising the level of detail in reconstructions of the administration of the Athenian empire, they did not devise re-interpretations of Athenian power that were as radical as those of Bulwer Lytton or Grote. Despite Rangavis’ enthusiasm for a putative Greek imperial future,65 he did not attempt to set up the ancient Athenian example as a model or counter-model. In fact, when a history of Greece was written in Greek by Konstantinos Paparrigopoulos,66 it was too general to exploit the details of the newly-discovered inscriptions. Moreover, Paparrigopoulos was more interested in Alexander the Great and Byzantium as
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1. European Colonialist Perspectives on Athenian Power manifestations of the perennial theme of Greek unity and nationhood than in the Athenian empire.67 I shall now turn to the question of how inscriptions were employed in historiography. The significance of epigraphical discoveries was worked out more fully than ever before in the first monograph to appear on the subject, U. Koehler’s Urkunden und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des delische-attischen Bundes of 1869. Koehler’s account of the Delian League was unrivalled in its exactitude, and suggested that the transformation (Verwandlung) of Hegemonie into Herrschaft took place in the late 460s in the aftermath of Eurymedon.68 Koehler used inscriptions to emphasise the size and extent of the confederacy and empire, showing the power that was made manifest and contained in the collection of a tribute. Most importantly, he reconstructed from fragments the Reassessment decree of 425 69 BC, and argued, by reference to that document and the quota lists, that the tribute was increased by a single legislative act to more than 1200 talents.70 In doing so, he supported the line of Boeckh and others that the tribute was raised drastically during the course of the Peloponnesian War. But this work did not lack a political angle: Koehler also suggested that the organisation might be viewed as a Bund, and reflected the desire of the Greek states for unity.71 The engagement of Greek power with the contemporary German unificatory agenda emerged more starkly in the contribution of the young Wilamowitz. The title of his birthday address for the King of Prussia and the German Emperor in 1877 can be translated ‘On the Greatness of the Athenian Empire’. In the published version of the work, he piled praise on the national unification achieved by the fifth-century Athenian Reich.72 He praised the Athenians for exporting their Industrieprodukte in das Barbarenland, for the duties performed by her citizens, for the promotion of Ionian racial identity, and suggested that national unity (Einheit) of Greece, which was the key to Greek greatness, necessitated the leadership of Athens.73 He even recommended Athens to the emperor as an active approach to ‘colonialpolitik’.74 It was a clear manifesto for the emerging Prussian control of Germany established by the birth of the German empire as recently as 1871. Like his predecessor Curtius, who slotted inscriptions into the revised edition of his Griechische Geschichte,75 he used Athenian epigraphy and archaeology of the fifth century to assess the extent and nature of Athenian power, and offered his readers an appendix on the Chalcis decree, discovered in June 1876. The fact that the new epigraphical evidence seemed to sit comfortably with the current trends of German scholarship was made particularly clear in one remarkable case of intuition. As David Lewis noted,76 it was in this address that Wilamowitz suggested, on the basis of a passage in Aristophanes’ Birds, that there was Athenian legislation enforcing, across the empire, a set of common coins, weights and measures.77 He appears not to have been aware of the fragment of the coinage decree which had been
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Peter Liddel copied at Smyrna and published by Baumeister in 1855.78 In 1894 another fragment of the coinage decree was found on Siphnos, and Wilhelm’s publication of the pair in IG XII 5 480 in 1903 showed Wilamowitz’s suggestion to be correct. This publication inspired numismatists like Weil and Gardner to scrutinise the numismatic record in the light of the documentary evidence.79 Gardner proposed, in his History of Ancient Coinage of 1918, that the enforcement of Athenian coinage illustrated the exertion of Athenian power which she imposed in the interests of her national pride and commercial advantage. He observed that not even the King of Persia tried to control the gold issues of coins within his dominions.80 While the appearance of the inscribed version of the coinage decree certainly added to the detail of the Athenian empire, and influenced the numismatists’ view of Athenian imperialism, it did serve to confirm Wilamowitz’s alreadyexisting hypothesis based on a literary reference: what we can observe is that the epigraphical evidence was serving to confirm what was already hypothesised rather than shaping interpretations of the empire. Before Wilamowitz’s hypothesis on the coinage decree, the publication of the first edition in 1873 of the Corpus Inscriptionum Atticarum by Adolf Kirchhoff had drawn together the decrees and accounts relevant to the Athenian empire for the first time. The effect of this publication on scholarly practice was revolutionary, as it was followed by a glut of articles dedicated to elucidating aspects of Athenian imperialism, and the subject became a common one for dissertations.81 The new body of epigraphical material triggered a range of new debates and inspired articles, dissertations and monographs, which made extensive use of epigraphy, disputing the extent and chronology of membership, nature of cleruchies, tribute and jurisdiction. In France, the earliest monograph on the subject was Guiraud’s (1883), a wide-ranging study of Athenian power. Epigraphic evidence was cited extensively: he referred to the inscribed decrees for Erythrae, Colophon and Chalcis to illustrate the ways in which the Athenians reinforced their political authority.82 He drew the conclusion that the intemperate democracy of the Athenians abused its power, spending tribute on the city and on public festivals, and undermined the Greek principles of autonomy by imposing democracies.83 This meant that Sparta became a liberator in the Peloponnesian War by offering an alternative to the forced unity and ‘les violences de la democratie’ of Athens. He pointed out that the tribute assessment and other aspects of imperial control were sanctioned entirely by the decree of the ecclesia.84 However, such an anti-democratic reading is absent from the most important Francophone history of Greece of this era, that of Duruy.85 He appeared to take the line of Grote, that the allies became more dependent and Athens the sovereign in gradual stages, and that the nature of Athenian power changed as a result of her subjects’ choices.86 He revised
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1. European Colonialist Perspectives on Athenian Power Guiraud’s employment of the epigraphical evidence to suggest that the decrees of Erythrae, Colophon and Chalcis showed that the Athenians cared about legality.87 What both these French historians observed was the depth of Athenian interference in the affairs of their colonies: a reflection of the close political relationship between France and its colonies.88 Epigraphy, despite the resistance of Jowett (whose hostility we shall encounter presently), certainly did have an impact on Anglophone literary scholarship at the end of the nineteenth century: but this appears to have happened more readily on the Western side of the Atlantic. One area where this was the case was on the interpretation of Thucydides 1.77.1,89 the comments of the Athenian delegates on their treatment of allies made at the debate in Sparta before the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War. What was primarily at stake was how to explain the Athenian claim that they put themselves at a disadvantage (elassoumenoi) in the mysterious dikai xymbolaiai pros tous xummachous. Grote suggested that the Athenian claim that ‘the allies were admitted to the benefit of the Athenian trial and Athenian laws’ was reasonable: he commented that ‘the arrangement was not all pure hardship to the allies – the liability to be prosecuted was accompanied with the privilege of prosecuting for injuries received’.90 Grote’s position was in 1880 challenged by Goodwin, who, in the first number of the American Journal of Philology, argued that dikai xymbolaiai pros tous xymmachous were suits relating to ‘xymbolaia’, which he conjectured were ‘business suits’ involving allied states, and suggested that the speaker was whitewashing the ‘one-sided and compulsory’ nature of Athenian imperial jurisdiction.91Athens’ behaviour was contrasted with the comparatively egalitarian arrangements with which the United States dealt with overseas jurisdiction.92 But the field was changed by the introduction of German-style examinations of the epigraphy. In a lecture given to the Johns Hopkins Philological Association, published in American Journal of Philology for 1884, C.D. Morris re-examined the passage, and in so doing, transmitted a model of German scholarship. He drew extensively on the hypothesis put forward in a dissertation of J.M. Stahl (Muenster 1881) which introduced the newly-assembled epigraphical evidence for the jurisdiction of the empire and for commercial treaties with the Athenians.93 His reasoning was based on the epigraphical evidence, which he took as suggesting that the regular arrangement was that suits arising out of commercial treaties were decided in the courts of the defendant’s city, while serious crimes were tried in Athens. However, suits which arose from crimes committed between citizens of an allied state, he suggested (on the basis of the recently-discovered Chalcis decree, ML 52), were tried in the first instance at the local courts, with the provision that there should be an appeal to Athens in cases where the sentences were death, exile or atimia. But in order to reconcile this with the claim of the pseudo-Xenophontic Constitution of Athens (which he dated to 425) that the Athenians compelled the allies
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Peter Liddel to come to Athens for court cases (1.16-18), Morris suggested that all but trivial matters were removed from the courts of the allies at some point between the 440s and 425 BC. Morris’ hypothesis, by introducing Stahl’s reading of the epigraphical evidence to Anglophone scholarship, was able to refine Grote’s liberal conclusions and to posit change in the nature of Athenian imperialism. What is striking is the fact that inscriptions were invoked to challenge Goodwin’s idea that the Athenian empire was repressive from its outset. It seems highly unlikely, however, that Grote would have agreed with the method of interpreting literary texts with the aid of inscriptions. At this point it is necessary, therefore, to return briefly to Grote: like Bulwer Lytton, he was aware of the fragment of the Reassessment decree, but asserted that ‘the stone is too damaged to give us much information’.94 This view was taken as part of a defence of his contentious position on the subject of the tribute which was, owing to epigraphical discoveries, to become untenable, but to which he was to cling in his later editions. The substance of this was to dispute the claim made in the oratorical sources and followed by Boeckh and other German scholars that the tribute was doubled to 1200 talents in the early years of the Peloponnesian War.95 Unaware of the Quota lists that had been known in Greece since the 1830s, in his early editions he doubted that it ever reached 1200 talents and suggested instead that there was a gradual increase which happened every fifth year.96 In a later edition, published after he had become aware of the magnitude of the epigraphical evidence, he clung on to this view defensively. But his comments amounted to an attack on the use of epigraphy in historical reconstruction: Had it been our good fortune to recover these Inscriptions complete, we should have acquired important and authentic information respecting the Athenian Tribute-system. But they are very imperfectly legible, and require at every step conjectural restoration as well as conjectural interpretation. To extract from them a consistent idea of the entire system, M. Boeckh has recourse to several hypotheses, which appear to me more ingenious than convincing.97
This was a reference to the second edition of Boeckh’s Staatshaushaltung of 1851 which dedicated some 380 pages to elucidation of the tribute lists,98 and elaborated or challenged some of Rangavis’ preliminary observations. Grote, on the other hand, appears to have missed the publication in 1842 of Rangavis. When he did become aware of the lists, Grote was unwilling to face the necessary revision of his defence of Athenian empire, or to admit that Thucydides omitted to mention such an increase in the amount of tribute. He had several interests at stake. He was dedicated to defending the ‘system of public economy’ designed by Pericles.99 He was also interested in protecting the reputation of the demagogues, hoping to steer clear of the claim of Plutarch (Aristides 24) that the demagogues gradually
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1. European Colonialist Perspectives on Athenian Power increased the tribute to 1300 talents in order to indulge the whims of the people.100 For Grote, good history was philosophical, and for the history of Athens, this meant an appropriate interpretation of Thucydides. He appears to have worried that the epigraphical evidence would disrupt his liberal interpretation of the Athenian empire. But it is possible that Grote was echoing a wider hostility among literary scholars to epigraphy, a debate which had its origins in the historical division between historiography and antiquarianism,101 but which appeared to be particularly entrenched in late nineteenth-century Britain.102 It was most clearly enunciated in the work of the Thucydidean scholar Benjamin Jowett, who believed that the value of studying Classical literature lay in its value as an intellectual training for a career in politics or civilian activity.103 In 1881, in an introductory essay to his translation of Thucydides, he criticised the application of inscriptions in extreme terms and with specific reference to the Athenian empire, and talked of the evil tendency of them to drive the historian to the habit of conjecture: The evil tendency of the study [of inscriptions] is that it encourages the habit of conjecture, which has already been one of the great corruptions of philology. There is a necessity for making too much out of a few letters or words, and thus appearing to obtain a result commensurate with the labour spent upon them. The slenderness of his materials leads the enquirer to snatch at the chance coincidences. A possible deduction from the inscriptions, such as the doubling of the Athenian tribute-money, or the transfer of the common treasury from Delos to Athens in the year 454 (resting only on the circumstance that in this year the quota lists begin), is repeated at second or third hand as a great historical discovery.104
He went on to criticise the shallowness of the epigrapher’s pleasures: To be busy on Greek soil, under the light of the blue heaven, amid the scenes of ancient glory, in reading inscriptions, or putting together fragments of stone or marble, has a charm of another kind than that which is to be found in the language of ancient authors.… Yet even to appreciate truly the value of such remains, it is to the higher study of the mind of Hellas and of her great men that we must return, finding some little pleasure by the way (like that of looking at an autograph) in deciphering the handwriting of her children amid the dust of her ruins.105
Jowett was in many ways clinging on to the view that the study of inscriptions was part of the inferior realm of antiquarianism; their study would contribute little to the maturation of a student’s mind. If they had any value, it was merely to confirm what the literary texts say.106 Even within Anglophone scholarship, this view was starting to recede: this was made clear in the historical commentaries contained in the first volume of The Collection of Greek Inscriptions in the British Museum published in
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Peter Liddel 1874 which announced the British Museum’s epigraphical collection to the world of scholarship.107 It contained a number of documents relevant to the history of the empire, and Hicks’ commentary on the Cleinias decree asserted that Koehler’s reconstruction of the 425 assessment list disproved Grote’s conclusions on the tribute: ‘This important change, which Grote held to be unhistorical, as resting upon no better authority than the Orators, and passed over in silence by Thukydides, has now been established beyond question by the irrefragable evidence of the tribute-lists themselves, which display to us the exact amounts paid by the various allies before and after the alteration.’108 Newton’s essay ‘Of Greek Inscriptions’, first published in the Contemporary Review of 1876, reiterated Koehler’s position on the tribute. He also complained that little had been done to make the texts of Greek inscriptions accessible to the student, and called for a popular work giving their classification.109 Newton’s thoughts were an attempt at formulating a methodology for the use of inscriptions: he suggested (in a paper entitled ‘On the Study of Archaeology’ of 1880), that it was the business of the archaeologist to prepare the literature of documents for the historian, and that whereas the value of the Bisitun inscription and Rosetta stone were obvious, fragmentary texts need more preparation.110 A catalyst for change came with the appearance in 1882 of E.L. Hicks’ Greek Historical Inscriptions, a selection of documents with English commentary, many of them relevant to Athens in the fifth century. The introduction to this book revealed the attractions of epigraphy as a discipline which combined material and literary interest, and allowed direct engagement with the ancient world: ‘we are here face to face with state documents which Perikles may have issued, and Thucydides may have read’.111 He also attacked Jowett for being so engrossed by the genius of Thucydides, and suggested that this was the lingering echo of a controversy between those literary scholars, who saw little value in archaeological study, and those who welcomed its contribution.112 The fact that inscriptions were really coming to the forefront of the history of Athenian power in at least one educational institution is suggested in the record of past examination papers. In John Owens College, the forerunner of the Victoria University of Manchester, questions on the Athenian empire had appeared in examinations since the 1850s, but in the early 1880s an examination was set on Athenian naval confederations.113 It is likely that Hicks’ collection would have been used in teaching given the content of question 2 in the first paper of 1882-3, which asked its candidates to ‘Give some account of the documentary evidence to be found in the so-called Tribute-lists, and indicate its value for the history of the first Attic naval Federation’. Inscriptions soon made an appearance in the Anglophone narrative of Greek history. E. Abbott’s Pericles and the Golden Age of Athens, an emphatically anti-Grote and anti-Periclean history, appeared in 1891. He
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1. European Colonialist Perspectives on Athenian Power suggested that the Athenian decrees on Chalcis, Histiaia and Erythrae illustrated Athens becoming a ‘tyrant city’, and maintained that the fluctuating number of contributors in the tribute lists between 450 and 440 suggested that there was widespread discontent in the alliance.114 This hypothesis of a mid-century crisis became central to certain prominent later twentieth-century studies of Athenian imperialism.115 The view that Grote was wrong about the tribute reassessment appears to have become widely held. The formulation of Gardner was more extreme: Grote rejected on the ground of the silence of Thucydides, the assertion of some ancient authorities that the tribute which the Athenians exacted from their allies was doubled towards the end of the Peloponnesian War. Nor could the question between Thucydides and the other writers have ever been settled but for the testimony of the inscriptions published by Koehler in his Urkunden zur Geschichte des Delisch-attischen Bundes, which proves beyond question that such a raising of the tribute did occur. And the new fact tells against Grote’s view of the character of the Athenian government.116
The history of Athens was now being studied and written by scholars who, in their engagement with non-Anglophone scholarship and non-literary evidence, were ‘professionals’ whose histories combined the traditions of political historiography and antiquarianism. Their product was a new form of historical narrative which reacted against the philosophical turn of Grote’s work and the text-based fixations of Oxford scholars like Jowett. The reaction to liberalism The epigraphical turn of British historians appears to have coincided with the move away from Grote’s liberal verdict, and a new tendency: to view Athens as an economically self-interested entity. Four years after Cornford had argued that the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War was forced by a commercial party in Piraeus,117 Grundy’s Thucydides of 1911 introduced the epigraphical evidence to support his economic analysis of Athenian imperialism. He held that tribute supported the Parthenon fund and democratic payment, and argued, by reference to the rider in the Brea decree,118 that the sending out of cleruchies and colonies was part of an economic master-plan to find work for those who had been thrown into economic turmoil by the Athenian investment of capital in slaves. He suggested, on the basis of the Methone decree, that the Athenians regulated the corn trade from the Black Sea area and exerted influence over the economies of other Greek cities.119 The significance of the economic factor, he suggested, was not realised by the ancient Greek historians and was ignored by Thucydides because they were not seen as appropriate material for the highest literary form of composition – a nod perhaps to P. Gardner’s observation that the biggest contribution of epigraphic evidence was in those fields where the ancient writers are silent.120 Such an
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Peter Liddel economic interpretation of imperialism was contemporary with, but perhaps a reaction to, the economically-minded liberal criticisms of empire which had arisen in the aftermath of the militarism and jingoism of the Boer War.121 What brings us back almost to a Mitfordian view was the contribution on the Athenian empire to the fifth volume of the Cambridge Ancient History of 1927 by E. Walker, suggesting that the transformation from confederacy to a bitterly-resented empire was the calculated intention of Pericles as a means of supporting radical democracy.122 Cary, in his essay on documentary sources for Greek history published in the same year, followed this line, suggesting that the documents of the Athenian empire marked the progress of Athenian despotism and restrictiveness.123 By contrast, the liberal Athenian empire of Bury’s History was largely without epigraphical reference, until Meiggs’ 1951 revised version.124 But it was not the case that the inclusion of epigraphical evidence dictated the interpretation of Athenian power. For Alfred Zimmern, Athens provided a historical paradigm for the reconciliation of great power with international co-operation.125 His chapter on ‘Citizenship’ was subtitled ‘Liberty, or the Rule of Empire’, and serves as a reminder that divergent views of empire coexisted in Anglophone circles in the early twentieth century. He viewed the Athenian empire as the ‘first great civilised attempt to form a state of many cities’, and echoed the views of Grote in perceiving the empire in terms of freedom and duties, taking the view that the Athenians were forced into imperial acquisition, that their empire was the ‘child of necessity’, and that the empire championed free trade and freedom from barbarians.126 He was therefore the first British scholar to introduce epigraphy to a large-scale liberal interpretation of the Athenian empire, drawing extensively on an edition of what was by that time Hill and Hicks’ Manual of Greek Inscriptions:127 his interpretation of the coinage decree, as a reflection of Greece’s readiness to adopt or imitate the ways of Athens, is particularly symptomatic of his interpretation: Athens had thus become recognized as a model State; and Greece was in the mood to adopt or imitate her ways in small things as well as in great. We can see this in the rapid spread of Athenian weights and measures and the Athenian coinage, or of systems arranged so as to work in with them. Athens was standardizing Greek coinage as she was unifying Greek law. She did not, of course, compel her allies to use only Attic money, or money coined on the Attic standard. But she naturally preferred that contributions should be paid in it; and there were indirect ways by which she could encourage it. It was only decent to pay Apollo, and later Athena, in the coinage they preferred to see.128
But Zimmern’s work bucked the trend, and his project had more far-reaching ambitions than the narrative interests of his contemporaries. By the early twentieth century, therefore, the British narrative of the Athenian empire was now epigraphically informed but, for the most part, was no
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1. European Colonialist Perspectives on Athenian Power longer dominated by liberal interpretations: a counter-revolution was complete, even if, as the example of Zimmern shows, a liberal discourse coexisted with the new conservativism.129 What was also clear is that the fruits of epigraphical scholarship made the history of Athenian power equally attractive to those analysts of contemporary imperialism who sought to refer to ancient Athens as a constructive or corrective example.130 Conclusion The first conclusion to draw is rather banal: that from at least the mid-eighteenth century to the early twentieth century, historians of Greece and commentators on empire in Western Europe were able to draw on the Athenian example as an imagined equivalent to contemporary nation-states in their attempts to make critical points about the past or the present. The points they made, and accordingly their interpretation of Athens, were contingent with their personal and national situations. The British historians saw the Athenian empire as a precursor to British sea power; some of them saw her as a harbinger of liberty; the Germans saw her as a model of unity; French opinion was divided but focussed on the close intervention of the Athenians in the affairs of their colonies. The second set of conclusions is more complicated and refers to the relation between the expansion of sources and the fluctuation of interpretation. (1) The paradigm shift inherent in Grote’s and Bulwer Lytton’s reconsideration of the Athenian empire was inspired not by the discovery of new evidence, but by the emergence of democracy as an acceptable political idea, the emergence of a liberal apology for colonialism, and the application of liberal and radical ideas to the writing of history: it was a revolution in political thought which inspired the first wave of change in British interpretations of Athenian power. (2) While Grote resisted epigraphy, apparently believing it would undermine his liberal conception of empire, I have noted that inscriptions were received less traumatically into the German tradition of scholarship because the dominant German paradigm concentrating on the unity and power of Athens appears to have been more hospitable to the details that epigraphy appeared to offer. (3) The emergence of an alternative to the liberal model coincided, and, to some degree, was inspired by a number of developments including the professionalisation of the writing of narrative Greek history, the introduction of epigraphical data to the picture, the shift away from political sociology, the economic turn, and a reaction to liberalism. (4) It would be wrong to say that inscriptions drove historians of Athenian power towards non-liberal interpretations. It was not in the nature of epigraphical evidence to oppose the liberal tradition of British
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Peter Liddel Greek history; it did, however, offer ammunition that was used by scholars who wanted to make points to distinguish themselves from Grote’s interpretation. (5) What the discovery, publication and reception of inscriptions into the scholarly discourse did was to add a new level of refinement and detail, insight into the bureaucracy of imperial Athens, her instruments of power, and their presentation: this revolution is most visible in the work of Rangavis or German scholarship postdating the second edition of the Staatshaushaltung. On another level, they provided ammunition for scholarly debate and a contribution to the continuing professionalisation of the discipline of ancient Greek historiography. They opened the way for the coexistence of a broader spectrum of approaches: a liberal interpretation, like that of Zimmern, which tended to emphasise the stated intentions of Athenian public decrees, coexisted with a conservative reading, like that of Abbott, which presented the epigraphical record as offering insight into the repressive modes of Athenian imperialism. Questions that historians have asked of the Athenian empire since the middle of the eighteenth century have tended to reflect contemporary colonialist anxieties. They have chiefly related to its origins, popularity, the ‘balance sheet’ of its advantages and disadvantages, its means of control, its economic basis, the place of religion, the notion of ‘crisis’, and whether in fact Athenian power constituted an empire at all. However, more recently, scholarship has begun to develop a distinctively cultural and postcolonialist turn, discussing in detail questions of demography, the discourses of imperial economics and diplomacy, and scholars have attempted to reconsider the role of political and religious identities in the construction of imperial ideologies; one study has reconsidered the Athenian empire from the perspective of her island subjects.131 It is likely that in the near future more will be said on the revised chronology of Athenian imperialism, patterns of euergetism within the empire, relations with the east and eastern forms of imperialism (cf. Raaflaub and Ma in this volume), the impact and reception of that power on the medium-term development of the Athenian polis and the infrastructure of her subject states, and on the long-term forms of association and networking in the fourth-century and Hellenistic Aegean. But these new angles to the subject will, in all likelihood, be opened up principally by the re-examination of old evidence rather than the discovery of new evidence: with the exception of the publication of the coinage decree in 1903, and the republication of the Athenian tribute lists from 1939, the epigraphical sources were not, in the twentieth century, transformed to the same extent as they were over the course of the nineteenth century. Where new evidence is brought into the modern scholarly discourse on the Athenian empire for the first time, it is likely that it will have been long known already to practitioners of disciplines whose material is not always well-integrated
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1. European Colonialist Perspectives on Athenian Power into the study of Athenian history (such as Lycian and near-eastern epigraphy [cf. Thonemann in this volume] or the archaeology of non-Attic Greece). One proposition that emerges from this study, therefore, is that it is not always discovery of new ancient evidence that encourages us to ask new questions or develop new hypotheses. New ideas and interpretations of historical phenomena often derive from the prioritisation of particular kinds of evidence, changes in modes of thought, and cross-fertilisation between different national traditions and across the genres of historiography, anthropology, sociology, literary criticism and material culture. If scholarship is on the cusp of another paradigm shift in the study of this subject, it is just as likely that this will be inspired by reinterpretation of the old evidence as by discovery of new evidence. Notes 1. I am grateful to Robert Parker for his invitation to the Oxford seminar series that gave rise to this paper and for his comments on written drafts. Versions were read at the University of Dublin Archaeological Society in October 2006 and the Epigraphy North seminar in Manchester in October 2007; I am grateful for the comments of all three audiences. 2. Turner (1981) and Jenkyns (1980) are the seminal studies of the British reception of classical culture. Demetriou (1999) is a comprehensive study of the reception of Athens in nineteenth-century British historiography. A wider analysis of the reception of Athens in Western political thought is Roberts (1994); the most recent study is Hansen (2005). 3. On the transformation of views of Athenian democracy, see Hansen (1992; 1994). Athens was praised by some, however, not just for its political cultures of democracy, equality and freedom, but also for its achievements in arts and philosophy: see Jenkyns (1980), Turner (1981) 15-76 and, on German neo-humanism, Hansen (2005) 14. 4. For some preliminary assessments of the historiography of Athenian imperialism, see Green (1972); Roberts (1994) 257-62; Demetriou (1999) 107-11; Harrison (2005); on the eighteenth-century view, see Ataç (2006). 5. On British eighteenth-century historiography of Greece see Roberts (1994) 175-207; Demetriou (1999) 33-46; Murray (2004) 5-7. 6. On the succession of empires as a theme in eighteenth-century Universal historiography, see Vlassopoulos (2007) 20-2. Ataç (2006) makes the case that British eighteenth-century historians were interested in empire, that they used Greek examples as a way of understanding the workings of empire, and that even Philolaconian historians thought that Athens provided a better model of a maritime, commercial and non-aggressive empire than did the Spartans. But Mitford and others appear to have used a negative view of the Athenian example in order to criticise contemporary French imperialism: see Roberts (1994) 257-8. 7. First edition: Stanyan (1707-39). 8. Philolaconism was common among eighteenth-century historians of Greece: see MacGregor Morris (2004); Murray (2007). 9. References are to the 1751 edition of Stanyan’s work: Stanyan (1751) 1.274, 276, 308, 328.
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Peter Liddel 10. Goldsmith (1774); Rollin (1730-8). For the idea that Goldsmith’s history was derivative from that of Rollin, see Kyrtatas (2002) 96; on the moralising aspects and its praise of the ‘mixed constitution’, see Demetriou (1999) 40, 57. 11. For the understanding that the Persian Wars continued into the 440s, see Goldsmith (1774) 1.184. Goldsmith noted that the leadership of Greece in the Persian Wars passed from Sparta to Athens (1.178), and that the Athenians enslaved their allies without the concurrence of the confederacy (1.182). He noted Pericles’ Congress decree (1.191), and appears to have conceived of it as the successful foundation of the Athenians’ claim to be ‘Protectors of Greece’. For Goldsmith’s optimistic views of the British empire, see Pagden (1995) 115-16. 12. Montesquieu (1758) 479, ‘Vous diriez que Xénophon a voulu parler de l’Angleterre’. Cf. Montesquieu (1988) 362. For Montesquieu’s views on Greece, see Loraux and Vidal-Naquet (1979); Mossé (1989); Roberts (1994) 184-7. For the theme of the British empire as an empire of the seas, see Armitage (2000) 100-24. 13. Montagu (1759) 370-1. 14. For the life of Young, see E.I. Carlyle, revised by R. Sheridan, Oxford DNB s.v. Young, Sir William, second baronet (1749-1815); on Young and his work, see Liddel (2008). 15. Full title: The Spirit of Athens, being a Political and Philosophical Investigation of the History of that Republic. The second and third editions (London, 1786 and 1804) used the title The History of Athens; Including a Commentary on the Principles, Policy, and Practice, of Republican Government; and on the Causes of Elevation and of Decline, which operate in every free and commercial state. 16. Young (1786) ix-x. 17. Young (1777) 110. 18. Young (1777) 116. 19. Young (1777) 132. For more on Young’s views on Athenian and British imperialism, see Liddel (2008). On the ways in which other eighteenth-century historians viewed Athens as a model of maritime, commercial and non-aggressive imperialism, see Ataç (2006). 20. I have used the third edition of 1795. 21. Redesdale’s biography was inserted as a preface to the 1835 edition of Mitford’s history: Redesdale (1835) xix-xxi, xxiv. 22. Mitford (1795) 2.347. 23. Mitford (1795) 2.400. 24. Mitford (1795) 2.397. Mitford compared the aggression of Athenian expansionism with his negative interpretation of French imperialism: see Roberts (1994) 257-8. 25. Similarly, John Gillies in his 1792-3 History of Greece also identified the tribute as a defining factor in the nature of the Athenian ‘empire’: see Gillies (1792-3) 2.209, 232, 234-5. But Gillies spent time praising the extent and power of the Athenian empire: see Gillies (1792-3) 2.178. He also maintained that there were discrepancies between the ways in which the Athenians attained and exercised their power: see Gillies (1792-3) 2.370; cf. Ataç (2006). 26. Mitford (1795) 2.427. 27. Mitford (1795) 3.192. 28. Mitford (1795) 2.428. 29. Murray (2004) 4. 30. See Murray (2004). 31. Bulwer Lytton (1837) 356, 459, 467. 32. Bulwer Lytton (1837) 471-3; cf. 566.
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1. European Colonialist Perspectives on Athenian Power 33. Bulwer Lytton (1837) 567n.20. 34. Bulwer Lytton (1837) 430. 35. Bulwer Lytton (1837) 460. 36. Bulwer Lytton was alluding to the fragment of the assessment list that followed ML 69, the Thoudippos decree. He referred to the edition of Chandler (1774) 2.53 (no. 23). It was published by Boeckh as CIG 143 in 1828. 37. Bulwer Lytton (1837) 460-1n.12. 38. Bulwer Lytton (1837) 541n.16: ‘A state can never voluntarily part with what it has once obtained. Who could ask England to surrender Ireland, or India or Canada? True, the relation between Athens and her allies was not precisely the same as that between England and her possessions; but in both the main distinction is identical, viz. sovereignty and subjection.’ 39. On Grote’s History, see now, above all, Demetriou (1999). 40. He thought that the Athenian democracy of the Periclean era relied on the readiness of its citizen body to zealously perform military and political duties: for elaboration of this argument and its relation to Grote’s idea of individual liberty, see Liddel (2006). 41. Grote (1906) 5.389. All references to Grote’s History, unless otherwise stated, are to the Everyman Library edition, with introduction by A.D. Lindsay, 12 vols, London and New York, 1906. 42. Grote (1906) 5.387; 6.52. 43. Grote (1906) 5.386. 44. Grote (1906) 8.251. The transfer of the treasury to Athens was necessary, he suggested, because the eager activity of the Athenians contrasted with the aversion to service of the allies (6.50; 8.251) and the ‘glaring inequalities of merit, capacity and power’ (5.391). 45. This vanished along with the ‘communion of danger as well as of glory, that had once bound them together’: Grote (1906) 5.388. 46. Grote (1906) 5.388; 8.251, 258. 47. Seeley (1971) 8 with Harrison (2005) 30. On Seeley see Wormell (1980). There is a possible link: in the reading lists that Seeley prepared for candidates preparing for the historical tripos at Cambridge, Grote’s History of Greece was one of four books consistently recommended: see Wormell (1980: 135). 48. Grote did not however make Athens altogether blameless: she was at fault for taking the alliance into her own hands, treating the allies purely as subjects, and not ‘seeking to attach them by any form of political incorporation or collective meeting and discussion’: Grote (1906) 6.51. The Melian and Scionian massacres were deemed ‘disgraceful to the humanity of Athens’: Grote (1906) 8.256. 49. Grote (1906) 8.257-8. 50. Grote (1906) 8.257-8. 51. T.B. Macaulay, ‘The Government of India: A Speech Delivered to the House of Commons on the 10th of July, 1833’: see Macaulay (2004) 4.90-119. Liberty had been a theme of imperial ideology for a long time: see Armitage (2000) 125-45. 52. Grote repeated an argument of Bulwer Lytton when he said that for the Athenians to surrender their empire there would have been ‘required a more self-denying public morality than has ever been practiced by any state, either ancient or modern’ (1906) 5.389. 53. G.C. Lewis (1841). Grote’s statement that Athens was ‘an imperial state exercising authority over subordinate governments’ was a clear reference to Lewis’ analysis (Grote 1906) 6.92.
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Peter Liddel 54. Lewis (1841) 9-10, 13, 61-3, 123. 55. Indeed, Grote suggested that the history of Ireland, the penal laws against the Catholics, and the 1776 declaration of independence by the American colonies point to the fact that English imperial power was no better than the Athenians in establishing a liberal system of dependent government: Grote (1906) 6.92n.1. 56. Grote (1906) 6.92-3n.1. 57. Grote’s view was that on the whole, the attitude of the allies was one of indifference and acquiescence, while revolts were mostly inspired by oligarchs who were unhappy with the democratic regimes imposed upon their cities: Grote (1906) 6.75, 8.258. 58. On the deployment of inscriptions in the writing of history in the late Renaissance, see Stenhouse (2005); on the introduction of, and resistance to, non-literary evidence in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, see Momigliano (1950). 59. 1st edn: Boeckh (1817); 2nd edn: Boeckh (1851); translated into English by Lewis (1828). 60. Documents relevant to the Athenian empire in Boeckh’s CIG: ML 31 Phaselis = CIG 86 (dated to the fourth century BC); ML 40 Erythrae = CIG add. 73b p. 890; IG I3 40 Athenian cleruchs in Hestiaia = CIG add. 73c p. 893; ML 46 Cleinias’ decree on the tribute payment = CIG 75 (fragment only); ML 69 Thoudippos’ reassessment = CIG 143 (fragment only); ML 48 Callias decree = CIG 76. 61. ‘A côté des Propylées sur différens fragmens qui faisaient une j’ai lu cette inscription, c’est un catalogue de la contribution que les villes donnaient annuellement aux Athéniens’ (Pittakys 1835) 410. On Pittakys, see Matthaiou and Malouchou (2001). A commentary on the process of publication and recognition can be found in the third edition of Boeckh’s Staatshaushaltung: Boeckh (1886) 2.335. 62. Rangavis (1842) 236-311. 63. Rangavis (1842) 309. 64. Rangavis (1842) 311. It was not discovered until 1866 that the lists detailed the 1/60th quota dedicated to Athena when a new fragment was discovered which stated that the aparchê was a mna per talent: Boeckh (1872) 149-52. 65. On Rangavis’ views of empire, see Gotsi (2006). 66. Paparrigopoulos (1860-74). 67. On Paparrigopoulos, Grote, and their interests in Alexander, see Demetriou (1999) 253; (2001). For some nineteenth-century conservative Greek historians of Greece, the Athenian empire was one of several precursors to the modern Greek nation state: see Demetriou (2000) and Ehaliotis (2000). 68. Koehler (1869) 101. 69. Koehler (1869) 64-78. 70. Koehler (1869) 153-204. 71. Koehler (1869) 110-11. 72. Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (1880) 2, 5. On Karl Ottfried Müller’s approving view of the Athenian empire, see Roberts (1994) 258. 73. Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (1880) 17, 22-7, 39-46. 74. Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (1880) 33. 75. Curtius (1857-67). It was translated into English by A. Ward (Curtius 1869-73). References to Athenian empire inscriptions in the translated version can be found at 2.486 (Brea decree), 2.580 (Parthenon accounts), 2.600 (tribute lists). The fifth (German) edition of 1886 was more heavily epigraphical. 76. Lewis (1997) 116. 77. Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (1880) 30 on Aristophanes Birds 1040-1. For recent discussion, see Kallet (2001) 218n.133.
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1. European Colonialist Perspectives on Athenian Power 78. Lewis (1997) 116. 79. Weil (1906; 1910); Gardner (1913). 80. Gardner (1918) 228, 285. 81. Monographs, dissertations and studies of aspects of Athenian power: Kirchoff (1873; 1876); Leo (1877); Fraenkel (1878); Fisher (1887); Noethe (1889); Dahms (1904). 82. Guiraud (1883) 17. 83. Guiraud (1883) 56-7. 84. Guiraud (1883) 137. 85. Duruy (1887-8). For an eighteenth-century French critic of Athenian imperialism, Volney, see Roberts (1994) 258. 86. Duruy (1887-8) 2.155. 87. Duruy (1887-8) 164. 88. On French colonialism, see Pagden (1995) 149-52; but for Mitford’s view of it, see above, n. 24. 89. On the ways in which the relevant passages at Thucydides 1.77.1 may be translated, see the long discussion of Gomme (1945) 236-44 and Hornblower (1991) 122-3. 90. Grote (1906) 6.87-9n.1 = (1851) 6.57-9n.1. 91. Goodwin (1880) 14. 92. Goodwin (1880) 7n.2. 93. Inscriptions cited: the treaty with Selymbria (CIA Suppl. 1, 61a); the Phaselis decree (still placed in the early fourth century: IG II 11); an inscription referring to the treatment of the Mytileneans after 427 (CIA Suppl. 1, 96); and the recently-discovered Chalcis decree (CIA Suppl. 1, 27a ). 94. Grote (1906) 6.54-6n.3 = (1851) 6.6-7n.3. 95. Grote (1906) 6.52-4 = (1851) 6.6-8. 96. Grote (1851) 6.8, 48. 97. Grote (1906) 6.53 98. Boeckh (1851) 369-747. 99. Grote (1906) 6.56. 100. On Grote’s defence of the demagogues, see Demetriou (1999) 100-7. 101. Momigliano (1950). 102. Thirlwall’s History of Greece was more hospitable to epigraphical evidence and German scholarship: see Liddel (2007) xxi. But Thirlwall’s work quickly lost ground to the work of Grote. 103. On the debate between Jowett, Pater and Pattison about the function of an Oxford Classical education, see Evangelista (2007) 72-4. 104. Jowett (1881) lxxvi. Faber (1957) 390 argues that the essay shows that he was abreast of current British and European scholarship. Murray, however, suggests (1997) 337 that the rich epigraphical catalogue was compiled by an assistant: this explains its combination of detail and dismissiveness. 105. Jowett (1881) lxxviii. 106. There had been a tradition of British epigraphy dating back to the eighteenth century: as Oliver (2000) 812 points out, Antony Askew, a physician and amateur philologist, recorded over 200 inscriptions in Athens in 1747. Some epigraphical collections had included a number of documents relevant to the history of the empire: the collection of Pococke (1752) included a fragment of the Cleinias decree on tribute payment (ML 46) at p. 52 no. 42; Chandler (1774) 2.53 no. 23 published the fragment of the Thoudippos decree (ML 69) known to Bulwer Lytton. Rose (1825) 252 published a fragment of the Cleinias decree (ML 46), and
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Peter Liddel stated that it had something to do with tribute and those who had not paid their tribute: ‘De tributo (phoroi) et iis qui tributum non solverant (opheilousi) agitur. Hos, ut videtur, publice ante Senatum accusandos esse statuitur.’ Rose published also a substantial text of the Callias decrees on public finance (ML 58: Rose (1825) 117-22). He also associated the fragments of the Erythrae decree: Rose (1825) 255. 107. Newton (1874-1916). 108. Hicks (1874: 16). The collection included several documents that were of relevance to the history of the Athenian empire: no. 3 was a fragment of a decree settling Erythrae (= IG I3 15, brought by Elgin, published already as CIG 73 and by Rose (1825) 255). The commentary on the inscription (Hicks (1874) 9) suggested that it established a constitution on democratic principles. It also included, at no. 4, the Hestiaia decree, brought to England by Percy Clinton, Viscount Strangeford, and purchased by the British Museum in 1864, and published as CIG 73c Add p. 893. 109. Newton (1880) 98, 109 suggested also that inscriptions illustrate the methodological care and vigilance exercised by the Athenians in the administration of their state finances. He reported that the recently-discovered Chalcis decree ‘tells us in explicit terms what were the conditions imposed by Athens on her tributaries in the most powerful period of her empire’. C.T. Newton seems to have been the foremost figure in British nineteenth-century epigraphy. His essays on Greek inscriptions of 1876 (Newton (1880)) were viewed by some as formulating an ideal system of classification and survey and were translated into French and German: see Gardner (1894-5). Newton’s 1880 work was even translated and published as a preface to Reinach’s Traité d’Épigraphie Grecque. In 1899 it was recognised by E.A. Gardner as the standard introduction to inscriptions despite its age: Gardner (1899) 289. 110. Newton (1880) 14-15. 111. Hicks (1882) x: ‘It is impossible to linger, for example, over those awkwardlooking numeral letters in the financial inscriptions of the Periklean time, without a peculiar sense of satisfaction. We are here face to face with state documents which Perikles may have issued, and Thucydides may have read.’ 112. Hicks (1882) xi. 113. This special paper, examined in academic years 1881-2 and 1882-3, was entitled ‘The two Attic Naval Confederations, their antecedents and results’. 114. Abbott (1891) 131-2. 115. For the ‘crisis of the forties’, see Meiggs (1972) 152-74. 116. Gardner (1892) 12. 117. Cornford (1907) 25-51. 118. Grundy (1911) 201n.2. 119. Grundy (1911) 189. 120. Grundy (1911) 191, 210; Gardner (1892) 12-13. 121. For the theory of imperialism as the export of surplus capital, see Hobson (1902); for the over-application of slave labour in ancient empires, see Murray (1900). 122. Walker (1927) 94, 96. 123. Cary (1927) 42-3. 124. Bury’s third edition cites the tribute lists and coinage decree as illustrations of allied discontent (Bury 1951) 365-6. 125. On Zimmern, see Low (2007) 7-17; Millett (2007) 189-90. On the pro-imperialist Round Table movement’s attempts to democratise imperial politics by reference to Zimmern’s Athens, see Morefield (2007).
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1. European Colonialist Perspectives on Athenian Power 126. Zimmern (1915) 183, 187, 191-4. 127. Hill and Hicks (1901). 128. Zimmern (1915) 190. For his liberal interpretations of the decrees for Erythrae and Chalcis, see Zimmern (1915) 188-9. 129. On the conservativism of late nineteenth- and early-twentieth century Classical scholars, see Turner (1981) 253. 130. Ockwell and Pollins (2000) 694 suggested that ‘policy-makers and teachers of colonial history would constantly return to the example of the Athenian Empire. … By others the Boer War was seen as Britain’s Sicilian Expedition’. However, the Roman example was adduced much more regularly and with closer accuracy: see for instance Cromer (1910); Bryce (1914); Lucas (1912). For modern analysis, see Brunt (1965); Murray (1997) 346-7; Pagden (1995) 11-28; Vasunia (2005); Hingley (2007) 137-48. In one of the few examples which compared Athens to contemporary Britain, J. Cramb, in a chapter entitled ‘Ancient and Modern Imperialism’, held the British empire to be distinct from the ‘masked despotism’ of Athens, though he suggested, with reference to the artistic achievements of fifth-century Athens, that British imperialism was bounded by a chivalrous duty to civilise the world: see Cramb (1900) 16-24, 148-9, 229-30. For other modern parallels between the Athenian and British empire: see Symonds (1991) 91-4. 131. Price and Nixon (1990); Kallet-Marx (1994); Low (2005); Osborne (1994); Parker (1996) ch. 8; Boedeker and Raaflaub (1998); Constantakopoulou (2007). For an explicitly comparative post-colonial approach to Athenian imperialism, see Rose (1999).
Bibliography Abbott, E. (1891), Pericles and the Golden Age of Athens (New York and London). Armitage, D. (2000), The Ideological Origins of the British Empire (Cambridge). Ataç, C. (2006), ‘Imperial Lessons from Athens and Sparta’, History of Political Thought 27: 642-60. Boeckh, A. (1817), Die Staatshaushaltung der Athener, 1st edn (Berlin). ——— (1851), Die Staatshaushaltung der Athener, 2nd edn (Berlin). ——— (1872), Gesammelte Kleine Schriften, edited by E. Bratuschek and P. Eichholtz, vol. 6 (Leipzig). ——— (1886), Die Staatshaushaltung der Athener, 3rd edn, edited by E. Fraenkel, 2 vols (Berlin). Boedeker, D. and Raaflaub, K. (eds) (1998), Democracy, Empire and the Arts in Fifth-Century Athens (Harvard). Brunt, P. (1965), ‘Reflections on British and Roman Imperialism’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 7: 267-88. Bryce, J. (1912), The Ancient Roman Empire and the British Empire in India; The Diffusion of Roman and English Law Throughout the World: Two Historical Studies (Oxford and London). Bulwer Lytton, E. (2004), Athens: Its Rise and Fall. With Views of the Literature, Philosophy, and Social Life of the Athenian People, Paris, 1837, bicentenary edn, edited by O. Murray (London). Bury, J. (1951), A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great. 3rd edn, revised by R. Meiggs (London). Cary, M. (1927), The Documentary Sources of Greek History (Oxford). Chandler, R. (1774), Inscriptiones Antiquae (Oxford).
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Peter Liddel Constantakopoulou, C. (2007), The Dance of the islands. Insularity, Networks, the Athenian Empire and the Aegean World (Oxford). Cornford, F. (1907), Thucydides Mythistoricus (London). Cramb, J. (1900), Reflections on the Origin and Destiny of Imperial Britain (London). Cromer, Earl of (Evelyn Baring) (1910), Ancient and Modern Imperialism (London). Curtius, E. (1857-67), Griechische Geschichte, 3 vols (Berlin). ——— (1869-73), History of Greece, 5 vols, translated into English by A. Ward (London). Dahms, R. (1904), De Atheniensium sociorum tributis quaestiones septem (Diss. Berlin). Demetriou, K. (1999), George Grote on Plato and Athenian Democracy: A Study in Classical Reception. Koinon, 2 (Frankfurt am Main). ——— (2000), ‘Paparrigopoulos, Konstantinos, 1815-91’, in G. Speake (ed.) Encyclopedia of Greece and the Hellenic Tradition (London and Chicago), vol. 2, 1250-2. ——— (2001), ‘Historians on Alexander the Great and Macedonian Imperialism’, Journal of Modern Greek Studies 19: 23-60. Duruy, V. (1887-8), Histoire des Grecs depuis les temps les plus reculés jusqu’à la réduction de la Grèce en province romaine, 3 vols (Paris). Ehaliotis, R. (2001), ‘Historiography, Modern’, in G. Speake (ed.) Encyclopedia of Greece and the Hellenic Tradition (London and Chicago), vol. 1, 765-8. Evangelista, S. (2007), ‘Walter Pater’s Teaching in Oxford: Classics and Aestheticism’, in C. Stray (ed.), Oxford Classics: Teaching and Learning 1800-2000 (London). Faber, J. (1957), Jowett: A Portrait with Background (London). Fischer, P. (1887), Questiones de Atheniensium sociis historicae (Diss. Berlin). Fraenkel, A. (1878), De Condicione, Jure, Jurisdictione Sociorum Atheniensium (Diss. Leipzig). Freeman, E. (1886), Greater Greece and Greater Britain (London). Gardner, E. (1894-5), ‘Sir Charles Newton’, ABSA 1: 67-77 ——— (1899) ‘Historic Greece’, in D. Hogarth (ed.), Authority and Archaeology (London), 254-95. Gardner, P. (1892), New Chapters in Ancient History: Historical Results of Recent Excavations in Greece and Asia Minor (London). ——— (1913), ‘Coinage of the Athenian Empire’, JHS 33: 147-88. Gillies, J. (1792-3) History of Greece, 4 vols (London). Goldsmith, O. (1774), The Grecian History, From the Earliest State to the Death of Alexander the Great, 2 vols (London). Gomme, A. (1945), A Historical Commentary on Thucydides, vol. 1 (Oxford). Goodwin, W. (1880), ‘ΔΙΚΑΙ ΑPΟ ΣΥΜΒΟΛΟΝ and ΔΙΚΑΙ ΣΥΜΒΟΛΑΙΑΙ’, AJPh 1: 4-16 Gotsi, G. (2006), ‘Empire and Exoticism in the Short Fiction of Alexandros Rizos Rangavis’, Journal of Modern Greek Studies 24: 23-55. Green, P. (1972), ‘Thucydides and the Lure of Empire’, in P. Green, The Shadow of the Parthenon. Studies in Ancient History and Literature (London), 75-93. Grote, G. (1851), A History of Greece, 2nd edn, vol. 6 (London). ——— (1906), A History of Greece, new edn with introduction by A. Lindsay, 12 vols (London and New York). Grundy, G. (1911), Thucydides and the History of His Age (Oxford).
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1. European Colonialist Perspectives on Athenian Power Guiraud, P. (1883), De la condition des alliés pendant la première confédération athénienne, Annales de la Faculté des Lettres de Bordeaux 5. Hansen, M. (1992), ‘The Tradition of the Athenian Democracy AD 1750-1990’, G&R 39: 14-30. ——— (1994), ‘The 2500th Anniversary of Cleisthenes’ Reforms and the Tradition of Athenian Democracy’, in S. Hornblower and R. Osborne (eds), Ritual, Finance, Politics: Democratic Accounts Presented to David Lewis (Oxford), 25-37. ——— (2005), The Tradition of Ancient Greek Democracy and its Importance for Modern Democracy (Copenhagen). Harrison, T. (2005), ‘Through British Eyes: The Athenian Empire and Modern Historiography’, in B. Goff (ed.), Classics and Colonialism (London), 25-37. Hicks, E. (ed.) (1874), The Collection of Greek Inscriptions in the British Museum, vol. 1: Attika (Oxford). ——— (1882), A Manual of Greek Historical Inscriptions (Oxford). Hill, G. and Hicks, E. (1901), A Manual of Greek Historical Inscriptions (Oxford). Hingley, R. (2007), ‘Francis John Haverfield (1860-1919): Oxford, Roman Archaeology and Edwardian Imperialism’, in C. Stray (ed.), Oxford Classics: Teaching and Learning 1800-2000 (London), 135-53. Hobson, J. (1902), Imperialism: A Study (London). Hornblower, S. (1991), A Commentary on Thucydides, vol. 1 (Oxford). Jenkyns, R. (1980), The Victorians and Ancient Greece (London). Jowett, B. (1881), ‘On the Inscriptions in the Age of Thucydides’, in his Thucydides, vol. 1 (Oxford), xi-cv. Kallet-Marx, L. (1994), Money, Expense, and Naval Power in Thucydides’ History 1-5.24 (Berkeley and London). Kallet, L. (2001), Money and the Corrosion of Power in Thucydides. The Sicilian Expedition and its Aftermath (Berkeley). Kirchhoff, A. (1873), ‘Ueber die Tributpflichtigkeit der attischen Kleruchen’, Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin, Abhandlungen, Phil.-histor. Kl., 1-35. ——— (1876), ‘Der delische Bund im erstem Dezennium seines Bestehens’, Hermes 11: 1-48. Koehler, U. (1869), Urkunden und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des delischeattischen Bundes (Berlin). Kyrtatas, D. (2002), Kataktèntaj thn arcaiÒthta. Istoriografik2j diadrom2j (Athens). Leo, F. (1877), Die Entstehung des delisch-attischen Bundes (Wiesbaden). Lewis, D. (1997), Selected Papers in Greek and Near Eastern History, ed. P. Rhodes (Cambridge). Lewis, G.C. (1828), The Public Economy of Athens (London). Lewis, G. (1841), The Government of Dependencies (London). Liddel, P. (2006), ‘Liberty and Obligations in Grote’s Athens’, Polis 23: 139-61. ——— (2007), ‘Introduction’, in P. Liddel (ed.), Bishop Thirlwall’s History of Greece (Exeter), ix-xxxii. ——— (2008), ‘William Young’s Spirit of Athens’, in J. Moore and I. MacGregor Morris (eds), Reinventing History: The Enlightenment Origins of Ancient History (London), 61-89. Loraux, N. and Vidal-Naquet, P. (1979), ‘La formation de l’Athènes bourgeoise’, in R.R. Bolgar (ed.), Classical Influences on Western Thought, 1650-1840 (Cambridge). Low, P. (2005), ‘Looking for the Language of Athenian Imperialism’, JHS 125: 93-111.
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Peter Liddel ——— (2007), Interstate Relations in Classical Greece: Morality and Power (Cambridge). Lucas, C. (1912), Greater Rome and Greater Britain (Oxford). Macaulay, T. (2004), The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, 4 vols (Kessinger, Montana). MacGregor Morris, I. (2004), ‘The Paradigm of Democracy: Sparta in Enlightenment Thought’, in T. Figueira (ed.) Spartan Society (Swansea), 339-62. Matthaiou, A.P. and Malouchou, G. (2000) (eds), C£rin tÁj +EllhnikÁj eÙkle8aj. Ke8mena Kuriakoà S. Pitt£kh, 1798-1863 (Athens). Meiggs, R., (1972), The Athenian Empire (Oxford). Millett, P. (2007), ‘Sir Alfred Zimmern’s Greek Commonwealth revisited’ in C. Stray (ed.) Oxford Classics (London), 168-202. Mitford, W. (1795), The History of Greece, 3rd edn, 8 vols (London). Momigliano, A. (1950), ‘Ancient History and the Antiquarian,’ Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 13: 285-315 (= Momigliano, A. (1955), Contributo alla storia degli studi classici (Rome), 67-106 = Momigliano, A. (1966), Studies in Historiography (London), 1-39). Montagu, E. (1759), Reflections on the Rise and Fall of Antient Republics: Adapted to the Present State of Great Britain (London). Montesquieu, C. (1758), Oeuvres complètes de Montesquieu, vol. 1, ed. A. Mason (Paris). ——— (1988), The Spirit of the Laws, translated by A. Cohler, B. Miller and H. Stone (Cambridge). Morefield, J. (2007), ‘“An Education to Greece”: The Round Table, Imperial Theory and the Uses of History’, History of Political Thought 28: 328-61. Morris, C. (1884), ‘The Jurisdiction of the Athenians over their Allies’, AJPh 5: 298-317. Mossé, C. (1989), L’Antiquité dans la Révolution française (Paris). Murray, G. (1900), ‘The Exploitation of Inferior Races in Ancient and Modern Times’, in F.W. Hirst, G. Murray and J.L. Hammond, Liberalism and the Empire: Three Essays: Imperialism and Finance; the Exploitation of Inferior Races in Ancient and Modern Times; Colonial and Foreign Policy (London). Murray, O. (1997) ‘The Beginnings of Greats: 1800-1872. II Ancient History’ in M. Brock and M. Curthoys, The History of the University of Oxford. NineteenthCentury Oxford Part I (Oxford), 520-43. ——— (2004) ‘Introduction. A Lost School of History: Ancient Greece in the Age of Reform’, in O. Murray (ed.), E. Bulwer Lytton, Athens: Its Rise and Fall. With Views of the Literature, Philosophy, and Social Life of the Athenian People (London), 1-34. ——— (2007), ‘British Sparta in the Age of Philhellenism’, in N. Birgalias, K. Buraselis, P. Cartledge (eds), The Contribution of Ancient Sparta to Political Thought and Practice (Athens), 345-88. Newton, C. (1874-1916), The Collection of Greek Inscriptions in the British Museum (Oxford). ——— (1880), Essays on Art and Archaeology (London). Noethe, H. (1889), Der Delische Bund. Seine Einrichtung und Verfassung (Magdeburg). Ockwell, A. and Pollins, H. (2000), ‘“Extension” in All its Forms’, in M. Brock and M. Curthoys, The History of the University of Oxford. Nineteenth-Century Oxford Part II (Oxford), 661-89.
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1. European Colonialist Perspectives on Athenian Power Oliver, G. (2000), ‘Inscriptions’, in G. Speake (ed.), Encyclopedia of Greece and the Hellenic Tradition (London and Chicago), vol. 1, 811-14. Osborne, R. (1994), ‘Democracy and Imperialism in the Panathenaic Procession: The Parthenon Frieze in its Context’, in W. Coulson et al. (eds), The Archaeology of Athens and Attica under the Democracy (Oxford), 143-50. Pagden, A. (1995), Lords of all the World: Ideologies of Empire in Spain, Britain and France c. 1500-c. 1800 (New Haven and London). Paparrigopoulos, P. (1860-74), Historia tou Hellenikou Ethnous, 5 vols (Athens). Parker, R. (1996), Athenian Religion: A History (Oxford). Pittakis, K. (1835), L’ancienne Athènes, ou, La description des antiquités d’Athènes et de ses environs (Athens). Pococke, R. (1752), Inscriptiones Antiquae (London). Price, S. and Nixon, L. (1990), ‘The Size and Resources of Greek Cities’, in O. Murray and S. Price (eds), The Greek City from Homer to Alexander (Oxford), 137-70. Rangavis, A. (as Rangabé, A.) (1842), Antiquités Helléniques ou Répertoire d’Inscriptions et d’autres antiquités découvertes depuis l’affranchissement de la Grèce, vol. 1 (Athens). Redesdale, Lord (J. Mitford) (1835), ‘Memoir of the Author’, in W. Mitford, A History of Greece Continued to the Death of Alexander the Great by R.A. Davenport (London), vol. 1, ix-lii. Roberts, J. (1994), Athens on Trial: The Antidemocratic Tradition in Western Thought (Princeton). Rollin, C. (1730-8), Histoire Ancienne, 6 vols (Paris). Rose, H. (1825), Inscriptiones Graecae Vetustissimae (Cambridge). Rose, P. (1999), ‘Theorizing Athenian Imperialism and the Athenian State’, in T. Falkner, N. Felson, D. Konstan (eds), Contextualizing Classics (Lanham) 19-39. Seeley, J. (1971), The Expansion of England, ed. J. Gross (Chicago and London). Stanyan, T. (1707-39), The Grecian History. From the Original of Greece, to the Death of Philip of Macedon, 2 vols (London). ——— (1751), The Grecian History. From the Original of Greece, to the Death of Philip of Macedon, 2 vols (London). Stenhouse, W. (2005), Reading Inscriptions and Writing Ancient History: Historical Scholarship in the Late Renaissance, BICS Supplement 86 (London). Symonds, R. (1991), Oxford and Empire: The Last Lost Cause? (Oxford). Tillyard, E. (1914), The Athenian Empire and the ‘Great Illusion’ (Cambridge). Turner, F. (1981), The Greek Heritage in Victorian Britain (New Haven and London). Vasunia, P. (2005), ‘Greater Rome and Greater Britain’, in B. Goff (ed.), Classics and Colonialism (London), 38-64. Vlassopoulos, C. (2007), Unthinking the Greek Polis: Ancient Greek History beyond Eurocentrism (Cambridge). Walker, E. (1927), ‘The Confederacy of Delos, 478-63 BC’, ‘Athens and the Greek Powers, 462-45 BC’, ‘Periclean Democracy’, in J. Bury, S. Cook and F. Adcock (eds), The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. V: Athens, 478-401 BC (Cambridge), 33-112. Weil, R. (1906), ‘Muenzmonopol Athens im ersten attischen Seebund’, ZfN 25: 52-62. ——— (1910), ‘Das Muenzrecht der SYMMACHOI im ersten Attischen Seebund’, ZfN 28: 351-64.
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Peter Liddel Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U. Von (1880), Von des attischen Reiches Herrlichkeit [published in Aus Kydathen, Reden und Vorträge 3] (Berlin). Wormell, D. (1980), Sir John Seeley and the Uses of History (Cambridge). Young, W. (1777), The Spirit of Athens, being a Political and Philosophical Investigation of the History of that Republic (London). ——— (1786), The History of Athens; Including a Commentary on the Principles, Policy, and Practice, of Republican Government; and on the Causes of Elevation and of Decline, which operate in every free and commercial state (London). Zimmern, A. (1915), The Greek Commonwealth, 2nd edn (Oxford).
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2
Democracy, Empire and Epigraphy in the Twentieth Century Lisa Kallet Introduction In twentieth-century scholarship, three interrelated strands of the study of the Athenian empire stand out. The first, especially prominent in North American scholarship, is a strikingly apologetic approach. While paradoxical in the light of negative appraisals of empire in the post-colonial world, such judgements seem linked implicitly to the notion that the Athenian contribution to western civilisation – the ‘glory of Greece’ kind of thinking – justifies a positive spin on Athens’ experiment in ruling others; assessments of Athens’ democracy and its relationship to the empire have played a significant role as well. The second strand is the replacement of interpretations of an economic and commercial function of the Athenian archê (‘rule’) by an insistence on power as the sole framework within which the empire should be understood. Responsible for the change were both attention to conceptions of power in Thucydides in particular and an anthropological approach to the ancient Greek economy spearheaded by M.I. Finley. (Recently, however, interest in examining economic activity within the empire and its broader Mediterranean context has revived dramatically.) The third strand, constituting the primary focus of this chapter, is the impact of the epigraphic explosion on twentieth-century scholarship, occasioned, specifically, by the republication of inscriptions pertaining to the empire in the magisterial Athenian Tribute Lists edited by B.D. Meritt, H.T. Wade-Gery and M.F. McGregor. Their work and other relevant epigraphical studies have enhanced interpretations and assessments already informed by literary evidence, such as the development of Athenian power during the Pentekontaetia and the roles of leaders like Pericles and Cleon; but they have also contributed immensely to understanding of the anatomy and mechanisms by means of which the Athenians came to control the Aegean and its rim. This chapter will survey these trends as well as considering the larger methodological problems posed by the integration of literary and epigraphic evidence, and the terminology of ‘empire’ specifically in the context of Athens’ archê.
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Lisa Kallet Interpreting the empire in the twentieth century In an essay published in 1988, the historian Chester Starr noted the modern liberal tendency to view empire and coercive institutions generally as abhorrent, yet paradoxically to regard the Athenian empire as an exception and indeed worthy of praise.1 While Starr arguably exaggerated scholarly unanimity, he has a point. The belief that the Athenian empire was a good thing, beneficial not simply to Athenians but also to the allies, has dominated scholarly interpretations during the twentieth century on both sides of the Atlantic; even when scholars note forms of exploitation and encroachments on autonomy, there usually comes a ‘but’ or ‘however’, followed by benefits to allies – from the Athenian perspective, of course.2 In the first third of the twentieth century positive interpretations were often linked to economic and commercial advantage, which can be seen as a continuation of the economic perspective privileged by scholars of the late nineteenth century (in praise or blame), one that revolves around a ‘balance sheet’ approach.3 R. Bonner’s study of the commercial nature of the empire, published in 1923, followed by his Sather lectures on Athenian democracy, which appeared in 1933, exemplify the approach. For Bonner, at its core the empire was an economic and commercial mechanism for the benefit of Athenians, rich and poor alike, driven by a ‘very definite commercial imperial policy’.4 Such a reconstruction was part of a broader academic trend. Across the Atlantic, the Thucydidean scholars F. Cornford and G.B. Grundy each sought to explain the causes of the Peloponnesian War in terms of a commercial rivalry between Athens and Corinth and an Athenian championing of a merchant ‘class’.5 One reviewer of Grundy’s examination lauded its contribution ‘to the study of Thucydides in bringing a long-needed emphasis on the economic factors in his History’.6 The framework of Bonner’s analysis of the Athenian empire was colonial (evidenced by, for example, the requirement of the allies to participate in the Great Panathenaea – the ‘All-Athens festival’); he saw in Athens’ economic interests vis à vis the empire a rough analogue to eighteenthcentury British attempts to centralise trade in England through navigation laws. Accordingly, in his view, the decree concerned specifically with the northern city of Methone presupposed a general law regulating trade within the empire in order to centralise it, ‘presumably by requiring surplus grain and essential raw materials to be marketed at Athens’.7 While the Athenians were self-interested and could be harsh toward their allies (as seen, for example, in the struggle with the island of Thasos in the 460s over resources), the allies were beneficiaries as well. Bonner cites in support Isocrates’ view that his fifth-century Athenian counterparts ‘rendered a great service to Greece by providing at the Piraeus a commodious and convenient harbor and mart’, 8 and by ridding the Aegean of piracy,9 a view typically cited on the benefit side of the balance ledger by scholars. But the analysis extended beyond the economic to considera-
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2. Democracy, Empire and Epigraphy in the Twentieth Century tion of the political advantages of association with Athens. Bonner viewed democracy as one of the benefits of empire to the allies; indeed far from being incompatible, democracy and empire could be seen as mutually beneficial to and nurturing for Athenians and non-Athenians alike. By keeping the Aegean ‘safe for democracy’, the Athenians could spread the form of government that ‘suited the Greek political temper the most’.10 Bonner’s perspective was consonant with a current belief in the superiority of Greek (i.e. Athenian) culture shared by scholars and laymen alike. Thus the imposition of power by Athens on its fellow Greeks was excusable from the standpoint of the larger civilising good. Pericles’ ‘Funeral Oration’, with its notion of Athens as the ‘school of Hellas’ – the cultural, artistic and intellectual centre of the Greek world – powerfully muted or distanced the sine qua non or at least the facilitating factor of the subordination and oppression of other Greeks (many of whom contributed to the ‘Athenian achievement’). This romantic, idealised view of Athenian democracy contrasts sharply with critiques on that side of the Atlantic lodged by the framers of the American constitution.11 To the present eye it seems virtually divorced from its fifth-century BC historical context (except through its nod to Pericles by way of Abraham Lincoln),12 but Bonner’s construction clearly served a useful ideological function in its elevation of the sovereignty of the people against totalitarianism; if Athenian democracy was admirable, then it seemed to follow that the empire should receive a favourable judgement as well. In 1913, W.S. Ferguson, in a chapter of his Greek Imperialism entitled ‘Athens: An Imperial Democracy’, pungently observed that ‘the empire stands approved by the fact that the sharpest accusation now made against the democracy is that it failed to make empire enduring’.13 The very notion of one polity imposing a form of government on another, however, was hardly unproblematic. Indeed the question of Athens’ export of democracy throughout its empire (see Brock in this volume) has formed part of a lively, often trenchant and polarised debate during the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. In an article published the same year as Bonner’s Sather lectures, H.G. Robertson argued against the existence of a uniform policy of spreading democracy, regarding cases that suggested otherwise as exceptions to normal practice. ‘Among the abuses of which the allies had cause to complain,’ he commented, ‘no universally compulsory establishment of democracy seems anywhere to be mentioned.’14 The word ‘abuse’ is conspicuous. For Bonner, the export of democracy was one of Athens’ noble acts; for Robertson, it denoted an abhorrent infringement of autonomy. The issue whether Athens imposed democracy on its allies became part of a wider intellectual and political debate tied to the larger geopolitical crises of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first; interference in another city’s autonomy was anathema in principle. Nonetheless positive
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Lisa Kallet appraisals of the empire continued to appear. Proponents of Athenian imperialism as ultimately beneficial to the larger Aegean community perhaps not coincidentally have tended to reject any universal democratic policy. Consider, for example, the viewpoint of McGregor, in the concluding chapter of a book on the empire, written some fifty years after Bonner’s study. ‘In our recapitulation we shall be wise to bear in mind the regrettable fact that since the Second World War the very words “empire” and “imperialism” have acquired unpleasant connotations. Under the impact of what he reads and hears the layman – especially the young layman – is inclined to view empire and imperialism with uncritical hostility. The historian’s duty, on the other hand, is to gather and analyse the evidence, dispassionately; only then will he express a judgement. The analysis may expose benefits conferred that should not be obscured by incidents that merit castigation.’15 Further on, addressing the ‘charge that has sometimes been made, that the Athenians imposed unwelcome constitutions on the cities,’ he stated flatly that ‘there is no evidence at all, even in the case of revolt. That only democracy was tolerated is demonstrably false.’16 A favourable assessment of Athens’ democracy and empire came from another intellectual direction. In a famous essay published in 1954, entitled ‘The Popularity of the Athenian Empire’, the Marxist historian G.E.M. de Ste. Croix argued that the demos (in the sense of non-elites) in the cities of the empire felt solidarity with the Athenian demos.17 His thesis was based on an analysis of Thucydides’ accounts of revolts; the historian could be used, in his view, to show that the demos in a city attempting to leave the empire either thwarted the attempt or at least showed a lack of support, indicating that disaffection and resistance came from elites alone. His article spawned a relatively short-lived cottage industry of rebuttals, but they raised broad questions of fundamental importance for understanding Greek culture, specifically concerning whether polis autonomy and freedom or interpolis identity of interests (whether ‘class’ or ‘party’, both anachronistic concepts) were valued more highly.18 While Thucydides has an Athenian speaker assert that the demos in the allied cities support the Athenians (as an argument for lenient treatment of the Mytileneans and other Lesbians following the suppression of their revolt in 427 BC) his narrative allowed for different interpretations. Did the Mytilenean demos help end the revolt in opposition to their oligarchic rulers out of loyalty to the Athenian demos? Did they value the independence of their community but were afraid, or hungry? In the absence of explicit statements explaining the reasons, how could one be sure?19 Perhaps the problem with all interpretations (by no means unique to these issues) was the underlying assumption of monolithic thinking and values, however one divides and defines groups. More important, we lack the voice of the allies except through occasional filters.20
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2. Democracy, Empire and Epigraphy in the Twentieth Century The political empire These broader interpretations concerning the nature of the relationship between the Athenians and member states in the archê, and democracy and empire, continued and shifted over time. What fell by the wayside by World War II was the argument of the underlying economic or commercial basis of Athens’ empire. Two reasons are paramount. First, ancient Greek literature attests amply to the pursuit of power in order to gain – besides power itself – honour and glory. In a highly influential treatment of the place of imperialism in Thucydides’ thought published in 1947, J. de Romilly dispensed with Grundy’s view in particular of the importance of economic factors in the understanding of Athens’ empire by arguing that the Athenians’ quest and use of power were motivated unequivocally by the desire for honour, glory and the reputation that would accrue to them as a result.21 Another attack came from Ste. Croix , who deflated the notion of Cornford, Grundy and others that the Peloponnesian War was fought over the commercial rivalry between Corinth and Athens.22 Among other reasons, Thucydides’ silence on such motives, especially given his emphasis on causes, was damning. But an equally powerful blow came from the side of economic anthropology and specifically the notion of the ‘embedded’ economy. Influenced by M. Weber but especially K. Polanyi,23 Finley categorically rejected the existence of the concept of ‘economy’ within the structure and organisation of the polis and by extension in its behaviour exercised abroad; economic behaviour and activity were applicable solely within the sphere of private initiative. Polis behaviour was ‘political’.24 Machtpolitik, not Handelspolitik, was the governing principle, a position Finley vigorously and thoroughly (if dogmatically) argued.25 In his influential discussion of the Athenian empire published in 1978, ‘The Athenian Empire: A Balance Sheet’, he put the issue concisely. ‘The problem can be stated in this way. Control of the Aegean was for Athens an instrument of power.’26 The argument that state power could only legitimately be understood as ‘political’ not only helped to eradicate any notion that the Athenian empire had an economic basis or function; it also became the authoritative lens through which to understand the Athenian empire and decisions of the citizenry pertaining to it. Thus, for example, the Standards decree, requiring the empire-wide use of Athenian coinage, weights and measures, had no economic function whatsoever. Rather it was a compelling example of the crushing political domination by Athens of its allies. While advancing the view that the Athenians exploited their power early on and ruthlessly, as seen for example in the case of Carystus, forced into the empire, and that of Naxos, compelled to remain in it under harsh terms, a conspicuous absence is discussion of the revolt of Thasos, put unambiguously by Thucydides (1.100) as a result of economic competition over emporia and mine-holding.
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Lisa Kallet Finley’s influence on thinking about the empire has been profound. Regardless of whether one subscribes to his rejection of a separate economic sphere and his understanding of all polis behaviour as political, his examination in ‘Balance-Sheet’ of the varieties of exploitation bringing often considerable economic benefit to private individuals, and his characterisation of a hard-nosed Athens ready to exploit and dominate peoples and regions at the earliest opportunity, are compelling analyses. Well beyond pay for rowers and other militarily based benefits, Athenians across the socio-economic strata derived considerable material gain from Athens’ exercise of power throughout the Aegean.27 Paradoxically, Finley’s interpretation of the empire as an instrument of power, not of economics, very effectively brings out its economic dimension. Finley recognised in the richness of the epigraphic evidence its potential to chart growth and development; but he denied the possibility of its application to a chronological narrative because so many of the documents were undated. Indeed, he viewed with impatience and disdain narratives that aimed to plot qualitative change – especially that in the service of Cleon-bashing.28 Change there was, but it was quantitative in nature. He had much fodder: the scholarly ink spilled on charting chronological development from ‘League’ to ‘Empire’ applying the fruits of epigraphic research in the twentieth century integrated with literary evidence, has been enormous; to that we shall now turn. Shifting the emphasis: epigraphical and textual reconstructions On the premise of the Athenians’ pursuit of power, the empire’s growth came to be regarded as inevitable. But this is too simple a formulation, for underlying it is an intricate web of factors, involving the dating of key inscriptions pertaining to the empire, the issue of permanence as implied by oath-taking at the alliance’s birth in 477, views about the motives and qualities of Athenian leaders, chiefly Pericles and Cleon, and unanticipated developments along the way to Athens’ increased power. What unites these strands is, in short, epigraphy, and Thucydides, and, more broadly, the relationship between epigraphic and literary evidence, and which has primacy. A central tenet of the majority of treatments of the Athenian empire and fifth-century Greek history as a whole is that gradually a League of autonomous members under Athens’ leadership that aimed at revenge against Persia and protection of Greeks ‘transformed’ into an empire, in which the Athenians ruled over subordinated Greeks, now deprived of freedom and autonomy (in varying degrees) and forced to obey the commands of the imperial city, including the payment of tribute, a blatant indicator and potent symbol of their reduced status.29 Literary evidence alone sufficed to make the general thesis of growth
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2. Democracy, Empire and Epigraphy in the Twentieth Century and change; Thucydides, for example, contrasts an early ‘hegemonic’ Athens with a later one, characterised by the forcible subordination of the allies, put in the context of the growth of Athenian power.30 In relating the rivalry between Pericles and Thucydides, son of Melesias, Plutarch implies a substantive change in the history of the archê in the transfer of the treasury and the misuse of tribute on building projects in Athens (Per. 12). Additionally, Thucydides and later, derivative, sources, argue for another qualitative change in the history of the empire and the democracy, that between Pericles, regarded (through readings of Thucydides) as a sagacious, moderate leader under whose guidance Athens became great (however that is defined) and Cleon, demonised by Thucydides, vilified by Aristophanes, as an exemplar of reprehensible demagogic leadership in the city, and wielding a brutal imperialistic hand outside.31 Epigraphic evidence stood to provide powerful confirmation of an alliance that had transformed from a hêgemonia to an archê. Yet the critical problem was and is that most inscriptions are internally undated – unpegged to any archon, or known event or the like. What emerged over the course of the twentieth century was the movement of inscriptions in epigraphic wind-shifts that ranged chronologically from the 440s to the 420s depending on whether historical context or epigraphic method had primacy. The impact of epigraphy: ATL and the birth of orthodoxy Scholarship on the Athenian empire after the middle of the twentieth century arguably had a different feel from earlier examinations, generated by the massive undertaking of the new, comprehensive publication of the fragments of tribute quota lists and of other inscriptions pertaining to the empire, including new finds, that culminated in the Athenian Tribute Lists (ATL).32 The magnitude and difficulty of the task of reading, analysing and associating hundreds of fragments of inscribed stone cannot be overstressed. This tended to make publications on the epigraphic contributions to historical reconstructions highly technical and specialised.33 The expertise required in turn led historians who were not hands-on epigraphists to rely upon those who were. The North American epigraphists, B.D. Meritt and M.F. McGregor, and the British historian, H.T. Wade-Gery, were mindful of the pitfalls of the enterprise.34 Between the first publication of the ATL I (1939) and vol. II (1949), familiarity with the stones and their reconstruction gave the latter volume an air of tacit confidence: it contained no such proper caveat as that expressed by Meritt in the first volume. Even more so, the confident authority exuded in vol. III, published in 1950, is impossible to miss. The result was a near-seamless picture of the Athenian empire with attention to its historical development from a small League of allies led by Athens
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Lisa Kallet culminating in the Athenian empire whose workings, administration, and character were now visible in the historical record. It is not surprising that ATL immediately became orthodoxy, though one need only look closely at its major achievement, the reconstruction of the tribute quota lists and the history of that reconstruction, to see the potentially contingent and problematic nature of this body of documentary evidence. The fragments of the inscribed record of dedications to Athena have been assembled into ‘lists’ with assigned dates and treated as a factual record of tribute payment (indirectly through the quota lists and assessment decrees).35 Most of the fragments have no headings (indicating what year they should be placed in, and the like), and only one piece of stone has a preserved archon date.36 A ‘list’ may turn out to have one tiny piece of stone with a couple of letters and no indication of its date.37 With this background, I would like to examine two reconstructions based on the integration of epigraphic and literary evidence to illustrate how they were put together to result in a narrative of change and transformation in the history of the archê. Transformation 1 (the ‘orthodoxy’): from league to empire in the mid-fifth century under Pericles Examination of the shape of letters and spelling suggested an objective basis for locating the inscriptions chronologically. Much came to rest on changes in the appearance of one letter, a sigma, which in inscriptions down to the mid-fifth century, had three ‘bars,’ or strokes, but later on, was inscribed with four. The latest three-barred sigma appeared on one inscription that epigraphists ‘agreed’ should be dated to 447/6, a treaty with the polis of Colophon in Ionia, thereby providing a terminus ante quem whereby inscriptions containing the earlier sigma had to be placed in or pre-447. The presence of such a sigma in one fragment of the Standards decree dictated its backslide from 414 to the 440s;38 the approach taken was to cluster others with similar ‘imperial tone’ to that time, which would make the middle of the century the time of the completed ‘transformation’. Using ATL (though by no means uncritically) R. Meiggs presented masterful syntheses. He saw inscriptions as providing critical substance to a period of history treated inadequately by Thucydides in his ‘Pentekontaetia’ and known chiefly from later sources. Eloquently summing up their value, he commented, ‘reconstruction is saved by a wealth of inscriptions which help to give depth, light, and shade’. But he also noted that ‘few of these documents are free from controversy, and the dating of some of the most important of them is likely to remain in dispute’.39 In an article published in 1943, ‘The Growth of the Athenian Empire’, Meiggs brought together epigraphic and literary evidence to show how the League transformed in nature. Some two decades later, in ‘The Crisis of Athenian Imperialism’, he solidified his interpretation through emphasising the
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2. Democracy, Empire and Epigraphy in the Twentieth Century value of epigraphic evidence in highlighting disaffection in the wake of a transformation; shortly thereafter a third article with the prosaic title, ‘The Dating of Fifth-Century Attic Inscriptions’,40 became the established statement on the chronology.41 Literary and epigraphic evidence seemed to marry remarkably well. For example, explaining a heated debate between Pericles and his rival Thucydides, son of Melesias, over the use of tribute on the building programme, Plutarch cites the removal of the league treasury to Athens. This neatly meshed with the commencement of the inscribed tribute quota lists, dated to 454/3.42 Another linkage of events and evidence clustering around mid-century, is rather trickier. Later authors claim that Athens and Persia made peace – the so-called Peace of Callias – which chimed with Plutarch’s account of a decree sent to all the Greeks by Pericles to discuss the rebuilding of sacred monuments destroyed in the Persian invasion of 480 (the ‘Congress decree’). Though it never happened (Per. 14), the Athenians rebuilt their temples anyway. The building accounts of the Parthenon confirmed the general chronology implied in Plutarch, and gave substance to the biographer’s anecdote about the dispute between the arch-rivals Pericles and Thucydides.43 The reconstruction of the quota lists yielded an intriguing discovery, namely, that in one year, either in 449/8 or 448/7, cities did not pay their dedication, and therefore, by inference, paid no tribute.44 The so-called ‘missing list’, however, fostered differing interpretations. Did Pericles remit tribute for a year as part of a panhellenic celebration and congress? Or did peace with Persia, in negating the justification of the Delian League, spark an empire-wide protest? Inscriptions recording settlements after revolts, and treaties or alliances made with poleis that seemed to reflect political disturbances, were lined up alongside literary evidence of disaffection and revolts resulting in a narrative of transformation and trouble as the Athenians held on to their power. For example, a decree issued to the citizens of the Euboean city Chalcis with terms of their return into the empire after a revolt, could be correlated with Thucydides’ mention of a Euboean revolt (ML 52; Thuc. 1.114; cf. Papazarkadas, this volume, p. 73). The total picture that emerged from fitting together all these pieces of the puzzle, epigraphic and literary – and seen as mutually reinforcing rather than circular – was far greater than the sum of its parts. A permanent empire had emerged, now visible to all. It must be recognised that this total, intricate picture is constructed heavily on undated documents and literary evidence of often-dubious reliability – a house of cards is not an entirely inaccurate formulation. But precisely for that reason it is good not to lose sight of the value of parts of the whole, and insightful to peer into the workshop of historical reconstruction. It is important to draw a distinction between the use of undated inscriptions in reconstructing a narrative, whether in conjunction with literary evidence or not, and the use of tribute quota fragments, specifi-
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Lisa Kallet cally those that contain or join with headings, or whose appearance and contents make them very likely if not certainly positioned correctly. Let us turn to two cases in point, one of which combines literary and epigraphic evidence, and the other using the quota lists alone. Their simplicity and transparency offer guidance in navigating the treacherous waters of reconstruction without despairing because of the complexity. Changes in the amount of quota a city paid invite explanation. Meiggs plausibly attributed quota reductions to the establishment of cleruchies in allies’ territory, an ample list of which Plutarch mentions, which seems to pertain to the mid-fifth century (Per. 11; cf. Diod. xi.88).45 Even if so, immediate obstacles to further interpretation present themselves. Ultimately unknown is whether a cleruchy was a punitive result of revolt, was otherwise forced on a community, or was arranged in exchange for a reduction in tribute. Methodologically valuable is to see what can be done with the tribute quota lists themselves, alone. Unusual entries are suggestive. Well known is the case of Miletus. The Milesians usually appear as a unit. Thus when ‘Milesians in Leros’ and ‘Milesians in Teichioussa’ show up, the unproblematic inference is that the city was in stasis; when an entry appears thereafter for ‘Milesians’ the equally unproblematic inference is that the community was reunited.46 However, the circumstances and details are unclear. A related approach is suggested by entries from the island of Ceos, close to Athens. Analysing amounts of quota paid, divided entries, positioning of entries on a fragment, and deductions about absenteeism based on mathematical probability, D.M. Lewis offered a reconstruction of revolt on the island, but also division within communities on the island: the island’s port (facing Attica) paid in its own name; but at the end of the list, an entry in the name of the whole island appears, suggesting that the Athenians brought the revolt to a close. Absenteeism from the lists during the mid-fifth century of cities known or assumed to have been members of the Delian League, followed by their appearance in 450, has also been explained with or without literary evidence. One explanation, advocated in the ATL, drew on Plutarch’s account (Cim. 11) of the Athenian general Cimon’s encouragement of allies to convert from contributing ships to being tributary members of the League.47 Lewis, incorporating into the issue the implications of new fragments of the first two (inscribed) years of tribute collection, explained the same development differently. Arguing against the likelihood that the absentees had converted from ship contributors to tribute payers, and employing statistical analysis to the lists of 454-450 to reject the possibility that a city’s absence from the quota record might be due to chance, he instead interpreted the data as reflecting widespread revolts, most of which were quelled by 450.48 This was a characteristically formidable analysis – though predicated of course on the accuracy of his statistics and an assumed accurate reconstruction of the fragments and membership of these cities in the
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2. Democracy, Empire and Epigraphy in the Twentieth Century League prior to 454. But motivations drawn from the inferred ‘events’ of revolt and internal stasis are considerably more problematic. Scholars have used epigraphic evidence to divide allies into ‘pro-’ and ‘anti-’ Athenian (for literary evidence, see the discussion above, p. 46). ‘Pro-’, however, as ‘loyal,’ in the context of such unequal political and economic relationships, is a decidedly murky and loaded categorisation. The epigraphic record will not illuminate what underlies a community’s behaviour.49 All that it speaks to is ultimate compliance. To return to the body of undated inscriptions, prior to the maturity of epigraphic dating methods, the reason for locating many of the decrees in question in the 420s had been the uncomfortable severity they implied, thought to bear the stamp of Cleon. What were the implications for the understanding of Pericles? In fact the narratives differ when the same evidence is brought to bear on different periods. There was clearly some discomfort that inscriptions that seemed to advertise a harsh, imperialistic Athens might have been the product of a period commonly regarded as embodying the ‘glory of Greece,’ and of its principal architect;50 this was, after all, the great ‘Age of Pericles’. The city’s wealth and power, at their pinnacle,51 were what made possible splendid temples like the Parthenon and the gold and ivory statue of Athena, the magnificent marble gateway, the Propylaea, and the artistic and intellectual achievements that made Athens the cultural centre of the Greek universe.52 Scholars write more in terms of a major reorganisation that took place in mid-century, as if Pericles has been airbrushed out of the historical events; or they view Pericles as responding to opposition, but no judgement terms are used that taint Pericles in the way that is done with Cleon.53 Where Pericles displays ‘realism,’ Cleon displays ‘brutality’.54 Meiggs’ interpretation of Pericles’ role in the empire at this period explains, if not excuses, it on the basis of immaturity. ‘The Perikles of these years is not the Perikles we meet in Thucydides. He is nearly twenty years younger, less cautious, more ambitious, with clear-cut ideas of empire to realise and a social and economic policy to fulfil. The organised opposition, led by the son of Melesias, sharpens the tone of debate and is reflected in the firm and threatening style of important decrees. It is interesting to reflect that many of the finest achievements of Athenian civilisation were produced against such a stormy background.’55 This mid-fifth-century reconstruction argues that a watershed in the history of the Athenian empire came in the late 450s and early 440s. The neat combining and integrating of all the epigraphic and literary testimony suggests a strong foundation; it seems even ironclad. Yet it obscures the problematic nature of both the literary and epigraphic evidence, both of which reveal an uncomfortably tenuous core. Plutarch’s anecdotes do not immediately invite confidence. The ‘Peace of Callias’ is even more problematic, since no fifth-century source mentions it; Thucydides’ silence is conspicuous. While the epigraphic arguments were reasonable enough,
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Lisa Kallet they were not conclusive. Let us turn now to examine an alternative reconstruction using much of the same epigraphic evidence, pushed instead to a later date. Transformation 2: the 420s, Cleon, and later The most vigorous and unrelenting gadfly of the epigraphic orthodoxy has been the British scholar H.B. Mattingly.56 He emphatically and repeatedly opposed the mid-fifth-century orthodoxy, by means of detailed epigraphic analyses (of dialect, orthography, letter-forms, word-endings, words and phrases), buttressed by literary sources, numismatic and archaeological evidence where relevant, all adding up to the same epigraphic conclusion: the three-barred sigma (and other letter-form and spelling ‘archaisms’) could have been used as late as the 420s. He argued that the kind of language and phrasing in many of the inscriptions also suggested a date no earlier than the 420s for most of them because of their strong tone, and the severity of punishments for offences in the empire (e.g. killing a proxenos of Athens).57 Underlying Mattingly’s arguments about the 420s is a two-fold conviction, first, that the Athenian empire was ‘moderate’ under the leadership of Pericles, and that therefore the inscriptions that appeared severe and harsh, were out of place (at least before the late 440s or 430s), and second that they unequivocally supported and confirmed what we know about Cleon and his fellow demagogues. One securely dated inscription of this period, a decree containing a reassessment of tribute in 425 that seemed to reflect an oppressive increase, was proposed by a man named Thoudippos, possibly the son-in-law of Cleon.58 This inscription, through tying Cleon to the increase, acted as a magnet for other documents. In short, Mattingly’s position with respect to the development of Athens’ power abroad generally, and the key individuals involved in that development, mirrored that of earlier scholars in the nineteenth and twentieth century prior to the accepted epigraphic chronology established by ATL and Meiggs. Mattingly’s arguments were in general not accepted by scholars; his view, for example, that some masons may have chosen to use older forms of inscribing letters, deliberately to archaise, seemed weak in relation to the (seemingly) more objective epigraphic grounds on which the orthodox epigraphic chronology rested. But he has won many adherents recently (to such an extent that his dating risks becoming the ‘new orthodoxy’), specifically due to a redating of an inscription with threebarred sigma from 458 to 418 (cf. Papazarkadas, this volume, p. 67). This has opened the epigraphic floodgates; those for whom the letter-form argument was a critical impediment to dating inscriptions with the older sigma post mid-440s could now confidently situate them to a later date. The literary testimony regarding Cleon could match the epigraphic, with no major impediment.
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2. Democracy, Empire and Epigraphy in the Twentieth Century The epigraphic travelling group, the tone of inscriptions, and the Pericles and Cleon fallacy There is some plausibility to the chronological anchors and reconstructions proposed by ATL et al. and Mattingly. But whether one chooses one or the other, neither can be considered as having factual status. Moreover, each reconstruction is premised on the clustering of the undated inscriptions in order to draw significant conclusions about a qualitative change in the relationship between the Athenians and their allies. The tendency to have a cluster of inscriptions that are implicitly treated as a coherent group or package whether they are located in the 440s or 420s creates a false sense of a democratic or imperial ‘programme’ at either time. The objection is not that a number of decrees could not have been passed around the same time and in response to a broad problem or historical development, but rather that each should be examined on its own terms;59 the ‘safety in numbers’ approach could be misleading. One should not feel obliged to choose between these two reconstructions. The possibility exists that the decrees were promulgated in a piecemeal fashion. Some might belong in the 420s, but that need not mean all. Some might belong in the 440s, but in that case not necessarily all. Some might have been passed outside these ranges. Another problem is that the reading of ‘tone’ in an inscription is highly subjective and in any case the division of inscriptions into earlier or later depending on whether they betray moderation or harshness does not necessarily follow; but even if it could be defended that a particular document had ‘harsher’ language than in others, to both its promulgators and recipients, a variety of circumstances is possible.60 Indeed it seems highly doubtful that such a neat progression as supposed from moderate to brutal has essential validity. The problem posed for scholars on the ATL/Meiggs dating scheme, namely, the implications for judging Pericles if ‘harsh’ decrees were issued during his heyday, shows the fragility of the assumption. These considerations about clustering and tone also relate to the third issue, namely, assuming the hand of Pericles or Cleon behind decisions of the assembly underlying the epigraphic record and using them as anchors for not only chronological placement but also interpretations of the epigraphic evidence. Not unlike the problem of attributing measures to famous individuals (think of Solon of Athens or Lycurgus of Sparta), the problem is pronounced in studies of fifth-century Athens. Thucydides’ Pericles is virtually a tyrant in sole charge of the city. His set speeches stand alone; he is paired with no other. (Moreover, his actions with respect to the war against Samos in 440 are in no way moderate.) Cleon is described as ‘most persuasive and violent’; but he is allowed one speech, and it fails in its aim. An otherwise unknown Athenian named Diodotos gave the successful counter-argument.61 This selectiveness and the par-
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Lisa Kallet ticular representations reflect Thucydides’ historiographical agenda; the historical realities of democratic decision-making and the empire were very different. Assembly meetings consisted of numerous proposals brought forward by many Athenians whose identities are unknown, but whom Thucydides makes a point of noting implicitly. Thus, for example, the formula ‘many came forward and among them Pericles’ (Thuc. 1.139) and the reference to Athenians sending envoys to Sparta at the time of the plague to make peace (Thuc. 2.59, clearly against Pericles’ advice), all show that in reality Pericles was not the only influential leader in town; the last example makes clear that he did not always get his way, if he spoke at all. The inscriptions are what attest to the reality of democratic practice. This is not to say that the decisions they reflect were necessarily effective, or even carried out, but they show democracy at work. Neither Pericles nor Cleon appears on any of these documents. Some might not find their absence decisive given that many extant decrees survive only in fragments that lack a proposer’s name; alternatively one could take Plutarch’s comment at face value that Pericles, wanting to be less conspicuously leading, got others to address the assembly with his proposals.62 Nevertheless, the sheer complexity of administrative and political arrangements that the Athenians made that pertain to their archê should be viewed in terms of a broader democratic, collective process.63 The above comments are not to suggest that literary evidence is inferior to epigraphic; rather one must be attuned to the broader aims of the literary source, whether a historical work, comedy, study of constitutions, biography, and the like. Sometimes the epigraphic and literary sources will mesh well; at other times they will pass each in the night; at other times still they will conflict, or be perceived as conflicting.64 Determining if, where, and how they can be integrated and with what result is one of the exciting – if at times frustrating – challenges before the historian. Conclusions The above discussion was intended to demonstrate by example some of the ways in which inscriptions have been used in historical reconstructions.65 At the heart of much reconstruction is the theme of ‘transformation’ from league to empire. One need not subscribe to the rigid objection that to say ‘transformation’ means that a change occurred overnight.66 Still, that is the implication when scholars refer to the ‘completion’ of empire marked by such and such an act or event, or a year.67 Others view the ‘change’ to empire in terms of ‘transition,’ or a period of ‘significant change.’68 Yet the issue is whether the term ‘empire’ is valid or useful at all, since it is a modern term to refer to entities very different from Athens; the problem is complicated by the fact that there is no one agreed-upon definition, nor can there be given the differences among modern ‘empires’. Substituting the term ‘hegemony’ does not necessarily help in the under-
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2. Democracy, Empire and Epigraphy in the Twentieth Century standing or characterisation of fifth-century Athens’ role in the larger Greek world, but the term has been ubiquitous in political science circles. Definitions and classifications have often taken a comparative approach as scholars assess differences and similarities between the USA in the twentieth century compared with Britain in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Athens compared with Britain, the USA with Rome, and many more combinations.69 The voluminous debates can give the impression of engaging more in an academic exercise in terminological distinctions than in understanding the behaviour of the individuals and groups in relationships of power. Their formalistic and even legalistic approach loses touch with realities. Finley rightly brings the discussion back to the ground when he comments that ‘it would have been small consolation to the Melians, as the Athenian soldiers and sailors fell upon them, to be informed that they were about to become the victims of a hegemonial, not an imperial, measure’.70 Yet terminology obviously cannot be divorced from meaning. To return to Starr’s observation, the largely positive view of the Athenian empire in the twentieth century, especially in the USA, has seemed lately to cause discomfort when set alongside the (increasing) general hostility to empire.71 The term ‘empire’ as meant today (in whatever of its many forms) is modern; yet ancient sources encourage thinking about both terminology and its meaning, and development. Thucydides uses both hêgemonia and archê in a context that implies substantive change over a period of time (1.95-9); inscriptions are sprinkled with a variety of words and phrases such as ‘alliance’, ‘cities over which the Athenians rule’, and the like; these too invite analysis of possible development. Arguably scholars have not sufficiently considered whether terms and phrases are meaningful in their differences or merely synonymous descriptors; in any case they fail to allow for scenarios other than a chronologically consistent development from ‘moderation’ to ‘hardness’.72 For example, it is not difficult to envision circumstances in which varying vocabulary might have been used synchronically, such as might depend on Athens’ relationship with particular cities, or the nature and character of the document.73 A final consideration is that the Athenians might well have decided it best to adjust official rhetoric as a result of changed circumstances, but not necessarily permanently.74 I have suggested that using even Thucydides’ hêgemonia to archê easily slides into an exercise of ‘what’ and ‘when’ and ‘how’ that is rife with problems.75 But I have dodged the positive question, how should we term Athens’ power? And how can or should we view its development and change? It is reasonable to use the term archê, and to translate it as ‘rule’ or ‘control’. The attempt to understand its workings and nature might most helpfully be undertaken through the approach of ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ rule. Such ways of thinking about the Athenian archê are no less vague than others, but they do steer a course away from ‘empire’ and its
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Lisa Kallet connotations. Regarding the archê solely as a political organism closes down debate and hinders generating different questions and approaches (and ones that can be aided significantly by epigraphic evidence). This is not to deny the importance of appreciating the ways in which the Athenians were exercising political control over allies, through the order to pay tribute, receive Athenian officials in allied towns, and come to Athens to plead certain cases; but the idea that this is the sole and correct way to understand Aegean history of the fifth century is worth questioning. To be sure, interest in the Athenian empire has been revitalised because of current global history. It has also been reinvigorated through greater interdisciplinarity and through considering it within a wider Mediterranean orbit. An especially fruitful direction is the exploration of economic behaviour, on the part of Athenians and others within (and outside of) their orbit. Historians of the empire have chiefly been political historians (or have worn that hat when writing about the history of the empire), though I noted above the importance of Finley’s discussion of the balance sheet of material benefits and profits. Scholars approaching the Aegean and Mediterranean world without that politically-oriented or Athenocentric framework have much to offer, but there has been very little cross-fertilisation. Categories of economic exploitation, collaboration, and exploration of ways in which Athens was attempting to create a unified economic (and colonial) sphere of activity, the ways in which poleis interacted economically in local contexts as well as with respect to Athens, and regional studies are all fruitful directions of inquiry. Shipwrecks and cargo, coins, understanding of land use, and of economic activity with extra-archê networks, can be combined with the wealth of epigraphy and other textual sources.76 Notes 1. Starr (1988), 115: ‘I do not know any serious, unwaveringly hostile verdict on Athenian imperialism.’ American assessments of Athenian democracy have been considerably more mixed; see the valuable treatment in Roberts (1994). 2. As Cawkwell notes (1997) 93, in a critique of Ste. Croix’s views on the ‘popularity’ of the Athenian empire (see below), what matters is ‘how Athens’ subjects perceived the Empire’. He follows the comment with the qualification, ‘as empires go, the Athenian Empire was a good empire’. 3. On the ‘balance sheet’ as a popular interpretive tool over time, and its range of uses, see Harrison (2008) 7-10. 4. Bonner (1923), (1933) (for the quote, 162). His views seem to have been influenced more by the then-recently discovered Athenaiôn Politeia, with its attention to the great increase in employment (ch. 24) created by the empire, than by inscriptions. 5. Bonner (1923); Cornford (1907); Grundy (1911). 6. Lang (1949) 566, reviewing the 2nd edn (1948) of his book. 7. Bonner (1933) 166. He also generalises from the decree that Athens normally
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2. Democracy, Empire and Epigraphy in the Twentieth Century ‘consult[ed] the commercial interests of her allies and subordinates’ (167). For the decree see ML 65. 8. Isoc. 4.42; Bonner (1933) 163-5. 9. Harrison (2005) 28, notes the problem of the label in the context of one’s perspective. ‘What might the allies have thought of the eradication of pirates? It is not mentioned in our sources, Meiggs adds, “but they are unlikely to have protested, for the suppression of piracy would have been popular in the Aegean”. That surely depends on whether as an ally you were yourself deemed a pirate.’ Cf. Harrison (2008) 10. Missing here is the perspective of the allies: in their eyes, Athenian maritime activity in the form of extortions of money through various means, including the ‘money-collecting ships’ to which Thucydides refers (Thuc. 2.69, 3.19, 4.50, 4.75), could easily have warranted the appellation; see KalletMarx (1993) 200-2, on Athenian ‘state piracy’. 10. Bonner (1933) 176. See also Walker (1925) 471-2 for a similar statement of a universal policy. 11. It hardly needs notice that the Athenian brand of democracy was emphatically not the model for the framers of the US Constitution – they looked to Sparta and Rome for models of proper constitutional government – nor was it the inspiration for any other democratic form of government in ancient or modern times. John Adams’ views on Athenian democracy and empire were particularly pointed and part of a wider vigorous discussion about Athens generally in the post-colonial period; see Roberts (1994) esp. 182-4. Cf. also the criticisms hurled by French scholars such as Guiraud, for which see Liddel in this volume, p. 22. 12. Bonner explicitly invokes Lincoln’s famous phrase in the Gettysburg address of 1866, ‘government of the people, by the people and for the people’ (1933, i); on the relationship between the Gettysburg address and Pericles’ Funeral Oration in Thucydides, see Wills (1992). A moral imperative including the idea of the importance of freedom in relation to Athens informs other early twentiethcentury American treatments of Athens’ imperial reach, e.g. Ferguson’s study of ancient imperialism (1913). 13. Ferguson (1913) 74. 14. Robertson (1933) 52. Nevertheless he did argue that in fact Athens used indirect means to encourage the widespread adoption of democracy by allies. 15. McGregor (1987)166-7; he also notes that ‘we should also grant that imperialism usually implies an element of exploitation, more or less benign’. 16. McGregor (1987) 169. 17. Ste. Croix (1954-5); cf. his reply to critics in Ste. Croix (1981) 603n.26. 18. See especially Bradeen (1960); Quinn (1964), (1969); de Romilly (1966); Pleket (1963) was a rare voice in favour, though only in the case of Thasos; in an important piece, Fornara (1977) brought epigraphic evidence concerned with the city of Chalcis into his criticism. 19. Sometimes Thucydides is explicit, for example, at Acanthus, where the residents, invited to revolt (or surrender) by the Spartan general Brasidas, did so partly because they liked what Brasidas said, and partly out of fear of losing their harvest (Thuc. 4.88). 20. See above n. 2. 21. De Romilly (1947). 22. Ste. Croix (1972) 214-20. 23. See the collected essays of Weber, translated, in Roth and Wittich (1968); for Polanyi, see Dalton (1968); for the development of Finley’s thought, see Shaw and Saller (1982) ix-xxvi; Scheidel and von Reden (2002); Tompkins (2008).
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Lisa Kallet 24. Significant also was Hasebroek’s (1928) examination of trade and politics that marginalised trade in relation to the polis, and put it exclusively in the hands of metics, non-citizens apart from, or in the margins of a community; the Piraeus was conceptualised to embody a so-called port of trade, a ‘world apart’; see von Reden (1995). 25. Finley (1973), (1982) 41-61 (a reprint of a chapter originally published in 1978); see also the bibliography of Finley’s voluminous output, much of it relevant to these issues, in Shaw and Saller (1982). 26. Finley (1982) 54. 27. Epigraphic evidence is central to this issue. In addition to Finley, see also Lewis (1966). 28. Finley (1982) 41, 44, 45; his criticisms of the approach were based not on any fondness for Cleon but rather on the important point that there is no reason to see Pericles as much different. 29. Objections to the terms and concept of ‘transformation’ have often been based on the implication that on one day Athens had a league (or hegemony), the next, an empire; see the criticisms of e.g. Finley (1982) 42, 43; McGregor (1987) 167. I shall return to this issue below. 30. In his section concerned with the transfer of leadership from Sparta to Athens, Thucydides writes that ‘the Athenians took over the hêgemonia’; he concludes this section signposting what will follow with the words, ‘here is how the Athenians’ archê developed’ (1.95-6), thus inviting, or demanding, recognition of development, if not a transformation. He follows this up with a concise analysis of the means and process by which the Athenians gradually increased in power (1.98-9). 31. Thuc. 2.65.7 (branded, implicitly, with other leaders after Pericles); negative portrayals of Cleon’s character, thoughts and deeds in 3.36.6; 4.21.3, 27-8; 5.7-10.9; AP 28.3 with Rhodes’ discussion (1981) ad loc.; Plut. Per. 39. 32. The title is somewhat unfortunate because it gives the non-specialist the idea that the chief corpus of inscriptions presented in the volumes are direct evidence of tribute, rather than the inscribed lists of the quota of tribute dedicated to Athena; see n. 35. 33. A quick skim through the collected papers of Mattingly (1996) provides an excellent representative example. The abundance of epigraphic citations and text in the original, detailed, learned discussions of letter forms, phrases, word endings and the like, all in the ultimate service of historical conclusions about the chronological development and nature of the Athenian empire, are not for the consumption of the Greekless reader, nor for the faint-hearted non-specialist reader of Greek. 34. ATL I (1939) i: ‘This book makes no pretense to being a final publication. In view of the many improvements made in the texts of the tribute lists during the last decade and a half, it would be pessimistic to suppose that further improvement will not be made. We hope that the present summary will serve to consolidate the position so far won and offer a firmer basis for whatever study may be undertaken in the future.’ 35. Meritt himself addressed the fundamental problem early on (1925) 247-8, though it was to be largely forgotten in subsequent scholarship: ‘In the first place it must be kept always in mind that the preserved quota lists record only the one-sixtieth part of the amount of tribute collected in the year which they represent. The quota lists, therefore, do not give a correct mathematical key to the
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2. Democracy, Empire and Epigraphy in the Twentieth Century amount of tribute a city was supposed to pay, unless that city actually paid its entire assessment.’ 36. Fortunately a good number do have headings, which indicate e.g. ‘in the first year of office in which the following cities paid the aparchê to the goddess of a mna from the talent’, and so on. The most precious piece of inscribed stone of the hundreds of extant fragments is one that not only gives the ordinal year (34th) of dedication, but an archon name (Aristion), giving a secure date not only to that fragment (421/0), but from the ordinal year also telling us when the lists began to be inscribed, 454/3. 37. See Kallet (2004) 474-5; that the quota lists sorely need restudy has been recognised for a long time; see e.g. Pritchett (1963) 23, n. 3; Stroud in SEG XLVII 73; see also Kallet (2004) 490-5 for a discussion of the problems and potential repositioning. 38. It had been dated to 414 on the basis of the allusion in Aristophanes’ Birds to ‘decrees, weights and measures’ (1041); see Liddel’s discussion of Wilamowitz’s argument for this date prior to the discovery of any fragments of the Standards decree, p. 21. 39. Meiggs (1963) 24. 40. Meiggs (1943), (1963), (1966). 41. The authoritative discussion of Rhodes (1982), as well as his survey of the empire (1985), are important, critical discussions in their own right. 42. For many, 454/3 has been the magic date of the transformation to real, acknowledged ‘empire;’ but note Pritchett’s (1969) valid caveat: the transfer of the treasury is not strictly attested as linked chronologically to the beginning of recording on stone the list of Athena’s dedicators. 43. Scholars who accept the debate about the building programme as genuine nevertheless disagree on whether the buildings were paid for mostly out of tribute, or from the accumulated dedications of tribute to Athena. Athena’s treasury contributed the greatest sums to the Parthenon, known from the building accounts; see the discussion in ML 59; Kallet (2005) 53-7. 44. The ‘missing list’ problem generated much controversy; an especially strong critic was Pritchett; see (1967) with references to his earlier discussions; see the response of Meritt (1972) with references to his earlier discussions; see also ML 39, p. 84. 45. Meiggs (1972) 120-4, 159-60. 46. Barron (1962); Meiggs (1972) 112-17. See also Gorman (2001). 47. ATL III, 267-8. 48. Lewis (1994), building on West (1930). 49. Interesting in this regard are also the varying rubrics in the quota lists that mark out cities as anomalies to regular practice, such as ‘these cities had themselves assessed’, ‘additional payment’, or entries like those mentioned here; see e.g. Lepper (1962); Eddy (1968). 50. ML 45, pp.114-15 have a useful, concise discussion. 51. Thucydides puts it at near 10,000 talents (2.13.3); for discussion of Athens’ imperial finances generally see Samons (2000). 52. These are especially the kinds of arguments used pre-mid-twentieth century on the basis of the ‘superiority of Athenian culture’ school as one finds in, e.g. Bonner (1933) and Walker (1925); see above, p. 45. 53. ATL III (1950). 54. McGregor (1987) 173; this conclusion comes from the distinction between a comment attributed to Pericles and one to Cleon in Thucydidean speeches:
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Lisa Kallet whereas Pericles wants his audience to recognise that the archê is ‘like a tyranny,’ Cleon states that the archê ‘is a tyranny’ (Thuc. 2.63.2; 3.37.2). Cf. Mattingly (1996) 104-5; he concedes that even the Pericles he staunchly defends as a moderate was capable of immoderate policies: ‘There can be no doubt that from 443 Perikles deliberately began transforming the Confederacy into an Empire and that towards the end he became as firm a realist as any. But there was always a diplomatic finesse about his policy which his successors for the most part conspicuously lacked.’ (Mattingly significantly weakened his view by using as his evidence a comment made by the Mytileneans at Olympia about the past in a Thucydidean speech, Thuc. 3.11.3.) 55. Meiggs (1963) 24. But note that the reference to ‘stormy background’ somewhat abstracts the picture. 56. Most of his important articles are collected in Mattingly (1996). 57. He drew attention to inscriptions referring to the change from referring to the ‘alliance’ (xummachis) to reference to the ‘cities over whom the Athenians rule (kratousi)’, as well as severe punishments; see Mattingly (1996) 103-4, 166-7; see also Meiggs (1972) 171 (arguing that the change ‘marks an open acknowledgement of empire’, but placing that development in the 440s); 172 on punishments of proxenoi. 58. Meritt and Wade-Gery (1936) 392, n. 36. The identification was made on the basis of the name of one of Thoudippos’ sons, Cleon. Note, however, that this is therefore an unusual instance of the husband choosing a name from his wife’s family line; see Davies (1971) 228. The ATL position that the assessment trebled the amount of tribute that had previously been assessed is almost universally accepted; see Meiggs (1972) 324-39, who, however, rightly notes that given the absence of any previous assessment – all previous assessments have been inferred from the lists – it is ultimately uncertain whether the increase was so great; see discussion also in ML 69. 59. See Rhodes (2008). 60. On the vocabulary of inscriptions concerned with the archê, see also Low (2005), who looks at them from the standpoint of diplomatic exchanges, but also notes the obvious point that the language of power does not speak necessarily to the realities of power. 61. The context is the debate over the fate of Mytilene (Thuc. 3.36-49). 62. Plut. Per. 7; Stadter (1989) ad loc. and on 8.7 are helpful. 63. See the excellent comments of Rhodes (2007) 32-3 on how much we should attribute to Pericles alone. 64. See the still useful discussion by Gomme (1945) 30-4, of the impact of inscriptions on the study of Thucydides; Walker (1925) 44, felt a sense of liberation in the means to criticise Thucydides through epigraphic evidence: ‘there are minds which cannot allow an appeal from the authority of Thucydides; there are others which are not content to answer the question by the aid of the simple formula, “Thucydides cannot be mistaken.” If once this formula is ruled out, it must be admitted that there are grave difficulties [in accepting certain statements].’ The best example of ‘conflict by omission’ is Thucydides’ non-mention of the tribute reassessment of 425; for discussion see Meiggs (1972) 324-39; Kallet-Marx (1993) 164-70. 65. Other highly significant contributions prompted or aided by epigraphic evidence over the last generation beyond the scope of this chapter should be noted, for example, the advances made in understanding the role of religion in the
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2. Democracy, Empire and Epigraphy in the Twentieth Century Athenians’ conceptualisation and exploitation of their archê; see e.g. Barron (1964), (1983); Smarczyk (1990); Parker (1994). 66. See above, n. 29. 67. E.g. Ste.-Croix (1961) 107, n. 2, using inscriptions with the ‘language of archê’. This is a common criterion, as is the use of a specific date such as 454/3; on one of Mattingly’s reconstructions, imperialism’s beginning date is 443 (1996) 103-4; in a later article, (1996) 168, he speaks of 441 as the date that ‘the drift set in towards “tyranny” ’. 68. E.g. Meiggs (1972) 152-3; cf. 171; Finley (1982) 42-3; McGregor (1987) 167-8. 69. The bibliography is vast; a sampling of a few influential approaches, with further bibliography includes Gallagher and Robinson (1953); Doyle (1986); Ferguson (2003), (2004); a concise, valuable discussion of definition is Ferguson (2003); on comparisons specifically between Athens and the USA, e.g. Lebow and Kelly (2001), who, however, oddly draw a distinction between hêgemonia and archê (in Thucydides) and then conflate them; Hanson (2005) (for which see the review of Taylor (2007)); on both see Harrison (2005), (2008). 70. Finley 1982, 42; his approach is ‘typological;’ for a list see (1982) 45. 71. Recall McGregor’s discomfiture that empire no longer had a positive connotation, quoted above, p. 46. 72. While there are significant differences in the degree to which scholars in more general studies of the empire have engaged in the nitty-gritty of epigraphic chronology as a gauge of the development of imperialism, variations in the ways of referring to Athens and its allies from inscription to inscription are uniformly used to indicate qualitative change, in a consistent, linear development of the Athenians from nice to nasty; this is illustrated well in the case even of Schuller (1974), whose examination of the empire has a more synoptic than chronological approach. 73. On the latter, see Low (2005). 74. An example of such temporary changes in attitude and behaviour dependent on circumstances, presumed in ATL, is a new attitude of moderation and generosity heralded by the Peace of Nicias in contrast to the harshness of the Cleonian period, but that failed to last. Their evidence was a temporarily sharp reduction in tribute (supported precariously by shifting down in time a reassessment with lowered quotas until after the Peace was concluded). But one can also detect a post-World War I Hooverite idealism in support of the post-war Athenian attitude in the remarks of West (1925). The Athenians would have been full of idealism and panhellenic goodwill, and would have acted with ‘justice toward long-suffering allies desirous of release from their war-time burdens’. This is accordingly a neat illustration of the interplay between historical reconstruction based on ancient evidence and the influence of contemporary experience on the handling as well as interpretation of that evidence. 75. An additional one is the attempt to determine over what period of time Thucydides sees a change occurring. For this the crucial passage is 1.99; cf. Diod. 11.70. 76. A small sample of fruitful approaches and areas: a Standards decree conference in Oxford 2004, which brought together numismatists, epigraphists, and historians (forthcoming publication); regional studies, most recently e.g. Erickson (2005), Constantakopoulou (2007); economic studies, Bresson, e.g. (2000); Pébarthe (1999); numismatic, see Kroll in this volume.
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Lisa Kallet Bibliography Barron, J.P. (1962), ‘Milesian Politics and Athenian Propaganda, c. 460-440 BC’, JHS 82: 1-6. ——— (1964), ‘Religious Propaganda of the Delian League’, JHS 84: 35-48. ——— (1983), ‘The Fifth-Century horoi of Aigina’, JHS 103: 1-12. Bonner, R.J. (1923), ‘The Commercial Policy of Imperial Athens’, CP 18: 193-201. ——— (1933), Aspects of Athenian Democracy (Berkeley). Bradeen, D.W. (1960), ‘The Popularity of the Athenian Empire’, Historia 9: 257-69. Bresson, A. (2000), La cité marchande (Bordeaux). Cawkwell, G. (1997), Thucydides and the Peloponnesian War (London). Constantakopoulou, C. (2007), The Dance of the Islands: Insularity, Networks, the Athenian Empire, and the Aegean World (Oxford). Cornford, F. (1907), Thucydides Mythistoricus (London) (1971 Philadelphia). Dalton, G. (1968) Primitive, Archaic and Modern Economies: Essays of Karl Polanyi (Boston). Davies, J.K. (1971), Athenian Propertied Families: 600-300 BC (Oxford). Doyle, M. (1986), Empires (Ithaca). Eddy, S.K. (1968), ‘Epiphora in the Tribute Lists’, AJP 89: 129-43. Erickson, B. (2005), ‘Archaeology of Empire: Athens and Crete in the Fifth Century BC’, AJA 109: 619-63. Ferguson, N. (2003), ‘Hegemony or Empire?’ Foreign Affairs: 1-6. ——— (2004), Empire: The Rise and Fall of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power (New York). Ferguson, W.S. (1913), Greek Imperialism (Boston and New York). Finley, M.I. (1973), The Athenian Economy (Berkeley). ——— (1982), ‘The Athenian Empire: A Balance Sheet’, in B. Shaw and R. Saller (eds), Economy and Society in Ancient Greece (New York), 41-61. Fornara, C.W. (1977), ‘IG I2 39 and the Popularity of the Athenian Empire’, California Studies in Classical Antiquity 10: 39-55. Gallagher, J. and Robinson, R. (1953), ‘The Imperialism of Free Trade’, Economic History Review 6: 1-15. Gomme, A.W. (1945), A Historical Commentary on Thucydides, vol. I (Oxford). Gorman, V.B. (2001), Miletos, the Ornament of Ionia: A History of the City to 400 BCE (Ann Arbor). Grundy, G.B. (1911), Thucydides and the History of his Age (London) (2nd edn, vols I-II, Oxford 1948). Hanson, V.D. (2005), A War Like No Other (New York). Harrison, T. (2005), ‘Through British Eyes: The Athenian Empire and Modern Historiography’, in B. Goff (ed.), Classics and Colonialism (London). ——— (2008), ‘Ancient and Modern Imperialism’, G&R 55: 1-22. Hasebroek, J. (1928), Staat und Handel im antiken Griechenland (Tübingen) (Trade and Politics in Ancient Greece, trans. L.M. Fraser and D.C. MacGregor, New York, 1933). Kallet, L. (2001), Money and the Corrosion of Power in Thucydides: the Sicilian Expedition and its Aftermath (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London). ——— (2004), ‘Epigraphic Geography: The Tribute Quota Fragments Assigned to 421/0-415/4 BC’, Hesperia 73: 465-96. ——— (2005), ‘Wealth, Power and Prestige: Athens at Home and Abroad’, in J. Neils (ed.), The Parthenon: From Antiquity to the Present (Cambridge and New York), 35-66.
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2. Democracy, Empire and Epigraphy in the Twentieth Century Kallet-Marx, L. (1993), Money, Expense and Naval Power in Thucydides’ History, 1-5.24 (Berkeley, Los Angeles and Oxford). Lang, M. (1949), Review of Grundy (2nd edn) in The American Historical Review 54: 565-7. Lebow, R.N. and Kelly, R. (2001), ‘Thucydides and Hegemony: Athens and the United States’, Review of International Studies 27: 593-609. Lepper, F.A. (1962), ‘Some Rubrics in the Athenian Quota-Lists’, JHS 82: 25-55. Lewis, D.M. (1966), ‘After the Profanation of the Mysteries’, in E. Badian (ed.), Studies in Ancient Societies Presented to Victor Ehrenberg on his 75th Birthday (Oxford), 177-91. ——— (1994), ‘The Athenian Tribute-quota Lists, 453-450 BC’, ABSA 89: 285-301. Low, P. (2005), ‘Looking for the Language of Athenian Imperialism’, JHS 125: 93-111. McGregor, M.F. (1987), The Athenians and their Empire (Vancouver). Mattingly, H.B. (1996), The Athenian Empire Restored, Epigraphical and Historical Studies (Ann Arbor). Meiggs, R. (1943), ‘The Growth of Athenian Imperialism’, JHS 63: 21-34. ——— (1963), ‘The Crisis of Athenian Imperialism’, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 67: 1-36. ——— (1966), ‘The Dating of Fifth-Century Attic Inscriptions’, JHS 86: 86-97. ——— (1972) The Athenian Empire (Oxford). Meritt, B.D. (1925), ‘Tribute Assessments of the Athenian Empire from 454 to 440 BC’, AJA 29: 247-71. ——— (1972), ‘Two New Fragments of the Tribute Lists’, Hesperia 41: 418-21. ——— and Wade-Gery, H.T. (1936), ‘Pylos and the Assessment of Tribute’, AJP 57: 377-94. Parker, R. ‘Athenian Religion Abroad’, in R. Osborne and S. Hornblower (eds), Ritual, Finance, Politics: Democratic Accounts Presented to David Lewis (Oxford 1994), 339-346. Pébarthe, C. (1999), ‘Thasos, l’empire d’Athènes et les emporia de Thrace’, ZPE 126: 131-54. Pleket, H.W. (1963), ‘Thasos and the Popularity of the Athenian Empire’, Historia 12: 70-7. Pritchett, W.K. (1963), ‘The Three-Barred Sigma at Kos’, BCH 87: 20-3. ——— (1967), ‘The Location of the Lapis Primus’, GRBS 8: 113-19. ——— (1969), ‘The Transfer of the Delian Treasury’, Historia 18: 17-21. Quinn, T.J. (1964), ‘Thucydides and the Unpopularity of the Athenian Empire’, Historia 13: 257-66. Reden, S. von (1995), ‘The Piraeus: A World Apart’, G&R 42: 24-37. Rhodes, P.J. (1981), A Commentary on the Aristotelian Athenaiôn Politeia (Oxford). ——— (1985), The Athenian Empire. Greece & Rome New Surveys in the Classics 17 (Oxford). ——— (1992), ‘The Delian League to 449 BC’, in Cambridge Ancient History, 2nd edn, vol. V (Cambridge), 34-61. ——— (2007), ‘Democracy and Empire’, in L.J. Samons II (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Pericles (Cambridge and New York), 24-45. ——— (2008), ‘After the Three-Bar Sigma Controversy: The History of Athenian Imperialism Reassessed’, CQ 57: 500-6. Roberts, J.T. (1994), Athens on Trial: The Anti-democratic Tradition in Western Thought (Princeton).
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Lisa Kallet Robertson, H.G. (1933), ‘Democracy and Oligarchy under the Empire’, CP 28: 50-3. Romilly, J. de (1947), Thucydide et l’imperialisme athénienne (Paris) (trans. P. Thody, Thucydides and Athenian Imperialism, 1963). ——— (1966), ‘Thucydides and the Cities of the Athenian Empire’, BICS 13:1-12. Roth, G. and Wittich, C. (eds) (1968), Max Weber, Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology (New York). Ste. Croix, G.E.M. de (1954-5), ‘The Character of the Athenian Empire’, Historia 3: 1-41. ——— (1961), ‘Notes on Jurisdiction in the Athenian Empire’, CQ 11: 94-112. ——— (1973), The Origins of the Peloponnesian War (London). ——— (1981), The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World: From the Archaic Age to the Arab Conquests (London). Samons, L.J. II (2000), Empire of the Owl: Athenian Imperial Finance, Historia Einzelschriften 142 (Stuttgart). Scheidel, W. and von Reden, S. (2002), The Ancient Economy. Edinburgh Readings on the Ancient World (New York). Schuller, W. (1974), Die Herrschaft der Athener im Ersten Attischen Seebund (Berlin). Smarczyk, B. (1990), Untersuchungen zur Religionspolitik und politischen Propaganda Athens im Delisch-Attischen Seebund (Munich). Stadter, P.A. (1989), A Commentary on Plutarch’s Pericles (Chapel Hill). Starr, C. (1987-88), ‘Athens and its Empire’, CJ 83: 114-123. Taylor, J. (2007), ‘Thucydides vs. Victor Davis Hanson: Bogus Scholarship in Support of a Failed Policy’ [online] http://www.antiwar.com/orig/jtaylor.php?articleid=11557 Tompkins, D. (2008), review of M. Nafissi, Ancient Athens and Modern Ideology, in History and Theory 47: 123-36. Walker, E.M. (1925), ‘The Confederacy of Delos, 478-463 BC’ and ‘Democracy in the Empire’, in J.B. Bury, S.A. Cook and F.E. Adcock (eds), The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. V (Cambridge), 33-66, 471-2. West, A.B. (1925), ‘Aristidean Tribute in the Assessment of 421 BC’, AJA 29: 135-51. ——— (1930), ‘The Tribute Lists and the Non-tributary Members of the Delian League’, American Historical Review 35: 267-75. Wills, G. (1992), Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words that Remade America (New York).
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3
Epigraphy and the Athenian Empire: Reshuffling the Chronological Cards 1
Nikolaos Papazarkadas Methodological problems, chronological questions and new(ish) answers The story, long and convoluted, is no doubt well-known, but a synopsis may not be out of place. It was the publication of the monumental Athenian Tribute Lists that arguably marked the single most important development in our understanding of the Athenian Empire.2 But informative as it was, the four-volume work by Meritt, Wade-Gery and McGregor contained the treacherous seed of what was going to be one of the most misleading obsessions that has ever haunted any period of Greek history: the threebar sigma lettering criterion. The authors of ATL assumed that no Athenian public document containing this letter form, as opposed to the more familiar sigma of the Ionic script, could postdate the year 446, when a three-bar sigma appeared for the last time in the long series of the aparchê-inscriptions (in IG I3 265).3 A similar argument was also made in relation to the tailed rho, but at least in that case sweeping pronouncement was withheld. The three-bar sigma criterion acquired an almost axiomatic validity; major works were shaped on this basis: from Meiggs’ The Athenian Empire to the authoritative corpus of pre-Euclidean Attic inscriptions, IG I3. It seemed that fifth-century Athenian history was entirely occupied by the three-bar sigma legionnaires. Not entirely: one lone scholar of indomitable spirit still held out against the invaders. Away from the prestigious academic centres of Loxbridge and the Ivy League, Mattingly fought for years a seemingly lost cause to show that the threebar sigma criterion was a severely flawed concept that gave unwarranted priority to technical assumptions of a disputable value rather than to plausible historical considerations.4 And then came the year 1990 and the publication in the Zeitschrift für Papylogie und Epigraphik of a short, but ground-breaking, article by Chambers, Gallucci and Spanos. Using photoenhancement and laser scanning techniques, this small interdisciplinary group forcefully argued that the name of the archon on the Egesta decree (ML 37 = IG I3 11), which contained both three-bar sigmas and tailed rhos, was Antiphon, the eponymous archon of 418/7, as had already been suggested more than once by Mattingly.5 Predictably the orthodox camp
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Nikolaos Papazarkadas refused to capitulate without a fight despite the scientific verdict.6 But the mirror had cracked and soon more corroborating evidence started to come to light.7 To cut a long story short, the beginning of the third millennium has seen a dramatic reversal. Mattingly’s views appear to be the new orthodoxy; however, this applies solely to his epigraphical observations, not necessarily to their possible historical ramifications, which remain to be investigated. The idea for this paper was first conceived in the form of some simple questions: what would, for instance, P.J. Rhodes’ and David Lewis’ chapters on the history of the Athenian hegemony look like in a future version of the Cambridge Ancient History? How up-to-date is Meiggs’ fundamental monograph on the Athenian Empire, and does it still do justice to its subject? More practical concerns soon arose: when we ask our students to consult the texts and accompanying commentary in Meiggs and Lewis’ paramount Greek Historical Inscriptions, are we sending them to the right place or are we misleadingly reproducing the same old erroneous doctrines? To provide a straightforward linear narrative of the Athenian empire is, for the time being, practically impossible. Most of the subtle arguments underlying the reconstruction below have long been presented either by Mattingly, or, ironically, by his opponents in their efforts to deconstruct Mattingly’s reasoning. Thus I must say from the start that my paper has no claim to absolute originality. For obvious reasons, the focus is on the most controversial fifth-century historical documents, especially those included in Meiggs and Lewis’ landmark collection. Despite the title of the paper, I have not only attempted to reshuffle the chronological cards, but also to add a couple of new ones to the deck of the Athenian empire. But before embarking on an epigraphical exploration, a concise list of dating criteria has to be offered. (1) Historical contextualisation should always take precedence over other considerations. (2) Grammatical observations can be good guidelines: similarity in diction, syntax, idioms and similia offer good comparison anchors. (3) Archon names appear in the prescripts of Attic decrees from 421/0 onwards. Clearly, something caused the Athenians to reorganise their bureaucratic protocol and one can think of nothing better than the Peace of Nicias.8 In 441/0 Athens became involved in a fierce military confrontation with one of her most significant allies, Samos.9 The punishment for the rebellious islanders was harsh: demolition of the city-walls, surrender of the fleet, payment of war-indemnities, confiscation and subsequent consecration of Samian land to Attic divinities. The last is amply attested in a series of boundary-stones in Attic script, some of which do have three-bar sigmas.10 Samos’ subjugation marked both calendrically and conceptually
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3. Epigraphy and the Athenian Empire the commencement of the 430s. Before the decade had come to an end, most of the Greek world would be entangled in a war destined to change the political map for ever. We know from Thucydides the four aitiai, the reasons that gave rise to Sparta’s fear of Athens’ increasing power and eventually led to war: incidents involving Corcyra, Poteidaia, Megara and Aigina. Epigraphically, the most famous document assigned to this period has so far been the first decree of Callias (ML 58). Cavanaugh recently made a strong case for another well-known text to be placed in the same period: on the basis of a detailed analysis of the Eleusinian nomenclature she concluded that the First-fruits decree (ML 73) should probably be placed in the mid 430s.11 In the Eleusinian text the Athenians still respect the authority of the Delphic oracle, which sanctions Athens’ decision to call on her allies to provide the first-fruits of their grain for the glorification of the Eleusinian sanctuary. Quite importantly, a similar polite request is made to all the Greek cities, though none is compelled to comply.12 Fortunately, there is no serious reason to dissociate the first decree of Callias from this period, although scholars still dispute the exact year: 434/3, or 433/2? It really makes little difference. On either date Athens was tidying up her finances in anticipation of the imminent war.13 The diplomatic exchanges between Athens and Sparta, famously immortalised in Thucydides’ first book, were simply a procrastination of the inevitable. But significantly, it seems that yet another of those three-bar sigma documents belongs to this period: IG I3 32, the Epistatai-decree, thus named because of the creation of the homonymous board with the aim of controlling the finances of the Eleusinian sanctuary. Therein, just as in Callias’ first decree, the Athenian polis appears resolved to transfer control of her sacred finances from local executives to the central administration.14 Once the Peloponnesians invaded Attica in 431, all hell broke loose. From the war front new material has now come to light: the pertinent piece of evidence is a hitherto unpublished funerary stele from the excavations for the new Athens metro.15 The stele contains an epigram and two seemingly separate lists of dead cavalrymen arranged, in good fifthcentury fashion, under tribal headings – the first (inscribed on the lower part of the monument) in Attic script, the other in Ionic. This concurrent existence of two different scripts is another good argument against expectations of an exceedingly rigid development of fifth-century Attic lettering. Now, the Attic-alphabet list enumerates 21 cavalrymen who, on the evidence of the heading, fell at Tanagra and Spartolos. According to the provisional interpretation offered by the excavator, the toponyms refer to the two well-known battles fought in 426 and 429 respectively.16 Yet it seems at least odd that casualties from two different encounters separated by three years would have been recorded together.17 Either, then, the new monument is an oddity – and there are indeed several irregular traits in it.18 Or, what I consider to be more likely, the two battles were fought in the same year (429 or 426), in which case either Tanagra or Spartolos will
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Nikolaos Papazarkadas refer to some hitherto unattested military operation.19 Two things, then, we have to keep in mind: first that the Athenian cavalrymen not only participated in the defence of Attica as part of the Periclean strategy, but that they also shed their blood in long-distance operations. Secondly that Thucydides could not, in fact he did not intend to, give us a full account of every single skirmish of the Peloponnesian War. This is not a criticism, only the realisation that there is a limit to what a historian, however meticulous, would choose to relate. Take for instance Thucydides’ scattered references to Athens’ operations in the Argolid. In 430 the Athenians ravaged the coastal area, targeting in particular Epidauros, Troizen, Halieis and Hermione – a seemingly un-Periclean venture instigated by Pericles himself.20 Now the 430s campaign was almost replicated in 425. I say almost, because one particular area was spared: Hermione.21 In what was probably his last piece of work, the late Michael Jameson convincingly showed why this was so: because of the immunity Hermione enjoyed by virtue of the alliance IG I3 31 (unmentioned by Thucydides), which has been traditionally dated to the 450s on account of its three-bar sigma, whereas now it has to be placed in the early 420s. A year later, in 424, Halieis followed the example of Hermione, by entering a similar alliance with Athens, recorded in IG I3 75.22 As it transpires, Thucydides’ silence may be disquieting, but not culpable. But what about instances where the historian does provide adequate information? Here, the unmistakable example is Thucydides 3.34. The year was 427 and the Athenian general Paches, alarmed by a Peloponnesian fleet under Alcidas, was operating in the eastern Aegean. Making the best of his presence there, Paches interfered in the territory of Colophon, which had been suffering from stasis since 430, and made a settlement favourable to the Athenians, who subsequently sent a colony.23 The story offers a formidable context for the Athenian decree concerning the Colophonians ML 47 (IG I3 37), a context that, needless to say, was promptly ruled out because of the three-bar sigmas.24 This is not the only ‘eastern’ document that has to be brought down to the Archidamian War. Consider the decree regulating Phaselis’ relations with Athens, the well-known IG I3 10. Few, if any, would question the importance of this document for our understanding of Athens’ treatment of her allies, judicial procedures etc. When the Phaselis decree was first discovered its Ionic lettering misled scholars into dating it to the fourth century, and it was only Wilhelm’s legendary genius that moved it back to its real fifth-century setting.25 Wilhelm might have failed, though, by insisting that the decree belonged to the middle of the fifth century. The date has barely been contested, no doubt because a plausible historical context could be found in the campaign at Eurymedon, when the Athenians brought the Phaselitans over to the Delian League. Jameson, however, aptly moved the decree to its rightful setting: the Archidamian War, or a date a bit earlier. The proposer
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3. Epigraphy and the Athenian Empire of ML 31 can be plausibly identified with the orator Leon of the Hermione treaty (IG I3 31). But, as we have already seen, the latter dates to the early 420s. Leon is also to be identified with one of the oath takers of the truce with the Peloponnesians in 422.26 One last feature seems to reinforce the low chronology. The script may be Ionic, but the language is certainly Attic. In line 5 the short dative plural Fashl8taij is indicative of a low date: such short forms are very rare before the 420s.27 We have then to stop thinking of the Phaselis decree as a source of information on the early history of the Athenian empire, or even of the nature of the Ephialtic reforms, as has so often been done in the past. The third ‘eastern’ decree that certainly belongs to the same turbulent stage of the Archidamian War is that concerning Miletos (IG I3 21). Amongst other things the decree stipulated the contribution of Milesian soldiers to Athens’ allied forces, trials of Milesians at Athens and so on.28 IG I3 21, with its three-bar sigma, is a prime example of the historical crimes committed in the name of the notorious lettering criterion. At least one unequivocal reference to the archon Euthynos, of 426/5, should have left no doubts about the date of the inscription. Yet the three-bar sigma criterion led epigraphists to go to such great lengths as to suggest that the archon list of Diodorus was flawed and that Euthynos was also the name of the archon in 450/49, which Diodorus – or his sources – had erroneously misspelt into the similarly sounding Euthydemos.29 As a matter of fact, we do have the indirect consequences of the Miletos decree in Thucydides’ account of the campaign in Corinth in 425: the Athenians, the historian tells us, were accompanied by their allies, prominent amongst which were the Milesians. Also noteworthy is the substantial contribution of the 2000 Milesian hoplites in the capture of Cythera in the following summer.30 The 425 and 424 campaigns are the first time we explicitly hear of Milesians participating in Athenian expeditions, and this is surely not coincidental.31 Last, a brief mention has to be made of a document that was recently published in the latest volume of Die Inschriften von Miletos:
[R]esolved b[y the boule and the assembly, Aka ] mantis was the pr[ytany, so and so - - - - - - - - - ] [wa]s the epistates, E[- - - - - - - - was the archon ] [Here is] what the syn[grapheis drafted; the Mile] [s]ians should ser[ve? row? - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ] etc.32
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Nikolaos Papazarkadas The German editors recognised it as the Milesian copy of a set of Athenian regulations concerning the Ionian city, although they did not go as far as to suggest that this is the Milesian counterpart of IG I3 21. Such an identification is undoubtedly difficult, albeit not impossible. There seems, however, to be some overlap between the decree’s provision for Milesian military (nautical?) service (ll. 4-5) and the similar provisions in IG I3 21. There are some other problems about the restored prescript of the decree, and it has now been reasonably suggested that a secretary, rather than the eponymous archon, should be envisaged in line 3.33 At the least the new Milesian document reminds us that unexpected epigraphical gems may often appear outside Athens. The allegedly imperialistic content of the regulations about the Milesians invites us to reassess a series of other seemingly ‘imperialistic’ decrees. One such document is the so-called Coinage decree, the most substantial part of which stipulated the obligatory use of the Attic silver coinage, but also of the Athenian standards and weights, by members of the Delian League (ML 45 = IG I3 1453). Fragments of the decree have been found in Aphytis, Cos, Syme, Siphnos, Olbia (?), Hamaxitos, and another one, nowadays lost, was seen in Smyrna in the mid-nineteenth century, although it certainly came from elsewhere.34 In 2004 the Coinage decree was the object of a highly specialised, albeit fruitful, Oxford conference that was called following the discovery of a new fragment at Aphytis.35 The verdict was unanimous: pace most previous opinions, the decree probably dates to the mid-420s at the earliest, though some would favour a later date much closer in time to the allusion to the decree to be found in Aristophanes’ Birds from 414.36 Here is the place to mention a recently published late fifth-century decree, the rather defective editio princeps of which was considerably improved by Gauthier in the Bulletin Épigraphique and Stroud in SEG.37 At first glance, the text in question is yet another inconspicuous proxeny-decree. Its importance, however, lies in the penultimate line, where one has to restore either some form of katall£ttw or of the cognate noun katallagˇ. The verb katall£ttw, ‘exchange money’, has unambiguous monetary connotations and has so far appeared only in the Coinage decree and the so-called Second Coinage decree (IG I3 90, l. 14). We might take a bold, but not unreasonable step: one could plausibly assume that the honorands are given the privilege of exchanging money at the same rate as Athenian citizens rather than as ordinary foreigners. If so, what we have here is the first reverberation of the otherwise elusive Coinage decree. But with it we have already entered the economic realm. The similar phraseology between the Coinage decree and Cleinias’ decree for the tightening of the tribute collection (ML 46) drags almost effortlessly the date of the latter. The reconstruction of Athens’ financial dealings is then as follows: in 426 it was decided to rationalise the tribute-collecting system. Individual collectors were to be appointed in
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3. Epigraphy and the Athenian Empire each city or each tributary territory. An amendment stipulated the election of epimelêtai for the supervision of possible judicial action taken against intransigent payers (ML 68). This was promptly followed by Thoudippos’ reassessment decree in 425/4 (ML 69). Athens’ optimism and arrogance following the unexpected capture of Pylos had reached unprecedented heights. The third part of the new financial policy, clearly the response to earlier inadequacies, was probably Cleinias’ decree. Traditionally dated to 447, ML 46 is part and parcel of Athens’ financial experimentations in the Archidamian War.38 There still remains a document that seems firmly fixed in its traditional chronological setting, namely ML 52 (IG I3 40), the famous decree concerning Athens’ relations with Chalcis. It is almost unanimously accepted that the Euboean revolt following Athens’ defeat at Coroneia and its subsequent crushing by Pericles offers a very satisfactory historical background.39 Oaths are exchanged between the two cities, with the Chalcidians being forced to remain loyal to Athens, to abstain from any machinations and to pay as much tribute as appropriate. An amendment contains Athens’ vague reply to a previous request: the situation of the hostages will remain as it is for the time being (ll. 47-9). Things appear to be so straightforward that attempts at downdating this text defy common sense. There is a fundamental problem, however. Once we start lowering the datings of other decrees, the Chalcis settlement suddenly becomes a one-off, an isolated case floating in an inscriptional vacuum. Mattingly thought that the decree could indeed be placed in the Archidamian War, and connected it to an expedition in Euboea allegedly reported by Philochorus.40 He also adduced a very compelling prosopographical argument. In Aristophanes’ Peace, produced in 421, Hierocles, a character in the play, is dubbed ‘the oracle-monger from (Euboean) Oreos’ (crhsmolÒgoj oØx ,Wreoà), and the temptation to connect him with the Hierocles who offers oracle-sanctioned sacrifices on behalf of the Athenians in ML 52 (ll. 64-6) is hard to resist. Interestingly, a year earlier, Eupolis had staged a comedy entitled Cities, in which he had mockingly referred to Hierocles as ‘the best lord of oracle chanters’.41 Clearly this was a period when Hierocles qua oracular expert was active enough to merit two derisive references by the two greatest comic playwrights.42 More recently Mattingly returned to ML 52 with further technical arguments – epigraphical parallels concerning phraseology and nomenclature, as well as prosopographical links.43 There have been two further arguments in support of this theory. First is IG I3 418, an Athenian list of sacred estates located at Euboea. Ever since Raubitschek’s editio princeps the inscription has been placed in the period between 430 and 410 on the basis of the lettering, and this dating has hitherto remained uncontested. Raubitschek saw the list in question as due to expropriation of properties following the Athenian expedition in Euboea recounted by Philochorus. The other piece of pertinent evidence is also Aristophanic: a joke in the
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Nikolaos Papazarkadas Knights makes the Chalcidians appear as prone to revolt.44 Now the Knights was produced in early 424. Does the chronological proximity give more credibility to Philochorus’ Athenian invasion in Euboea in the archontic year 424/3? It certainly could. The events of 446 can be instructive not as a context for the decree, but as a parallel for its context. Troubles and Athenian defeat in Boeotia led to widespread unrest and eventual revolt in neighbouring Euboea, in a way that might anticipate the events of 424/3 following Athens’ defeat at the battle of Delion. Admittedly, the major problem in downdating the Chalcis decree was, and continues to be, Thucydides’ silence. Could the great historian have possibly overlooked such a major event? After all, the overtly imperialistic overtones of the decree, most historians believe, suggest the response to a major upheaval. One cannot negate the impact of such obvious points as the Athenians’ sadistic refusal to resolve the hostages’ fate. What may strike one as particularly lenient, though, is the punishment clause at the end of the Chalcidian oath: ‘Whoever does not take the oath is to be deprived of his civic rights and his property shall be confiscated and the one tenth shall be the sacred property of Zeus Olympios.’ Now, we are not explicitly told who was to benefit from such a confiscation. We are told, however, that the tithe had to be paid into the sacred treasury of Zeus Olympios. But this is the sacred treasury of what was presumably the most important deity in Chalcis: according to the publication clause in lines 61-3, the Chalcidian stele containing the oath was to be erected in the shrine of Zeus Olympios. It appears then that the one-tenth of the property of the potential violator was to benefit not the sacred treasury of Athens, but that of Chalcis – not a very predatory resolution on behalf of the Athenians. It is a fair guess then that the fund to benefit from the 9/10 of such properties would have been the demosion, the public treasury, of Chalcis.45 At all events, it seems that Athens trusted at least one sacred establishment that was not under her direct control. Perhaps the whole notion of ‘a widespread Chalcidian revolt crushed by unforgiving Athens’ is seriously misleading. Perhaps one should pay fresh heed to the diallag2, the reconciliation mentioned in line 51, and think in terms of a Chalcidian stasis, with the victorious party supporting Athens.46 The active po2sosi, instead of the middle po2sontai, arguably portrays the Athenians as relatively impartial arbitrators, rather than as one of the parties involved. There is, however, not much point in isolating specific clauses that might strengthen the lower dating of the Chalcis decree: the process could go on for ever. We can only conclude that an Archidamian War context is not out of the question.47 In 422 the Athenians passed yet another of their numerous honorific decrees for a Siphnian benefactor called Polypeithes. Abundant prosopographical evidence establishes that the honorand’s family had a constant entrepreneurial presence in Athens over a period of two centuries, a striking reminder that honorific decrees, far from being superfluous formalities, often reflected very tangible links.48 In any case, few in the
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3. Epigraphy and the Athenian Empire assembly would have noticed the proposer, yet in less than a decade his name was to be on everybody’s lips, mostly for the wrong reasons. The arrogant young proposer was struggling to make an impact on Athenian political life, or so Thucydides informs us, but for the time being he had to content himself with this inconspicuous piece of external politics. His name was Alcibiades and the new decree is the earliest evidence for the flamboyant politician’s participation in Athens’ public domain.49 Incidentally the association of the secretary Archicles with the eponymous archon Alcaios, as attested in the Alcibiades decree, requires two proxeny decrees to be brought up to this year, whereas most scholars other than Mattingly placed them in the 410s.50 One of them acquires thereby an enlightening historical context. The proxeny of Callippos from the Thessalian city Gyrtone, which, one ought to note, was passed on a gnèmh strathgîn, a proposal by the generals,51 can now be very satisfactorily associated with the Thessalians’ blocking of the Peloponnesian expeditionary force led by Ramphias in 421 (Thuc. 5.13).52 There is little need to emphasise that the text that has featured most heavily in the discussion about the chronology of Athenian public documents is IG I3 11, Foedus Atheniensium cum Segestanis. Both the classificatory label and the Latin caption prove to be misnomers; not only because the number 11 places the text very early in the series of Athenian decrees – in the archonship of Habron, in 458/7 – but also because the text is not in fact an alliance, but an exchange of oaths between the Athenians and the Egestans.53 After a long-standing fierce debate the matter has now been settled to most scholars’ satisfaction, and few would refuse to place IG I3 11 in the archonship of Antiphon in 418/7.54 The picture that emerges concerning Athens’ action on the western front before the ill-fated Sicilian expedition is the following. In 433/2 envoys from Rhegion and Leontinoi arrived at Athens, exchanged oaths and signed two separate alliances in perpetuity (ML 63 and 64). I note that these were first-time alliances, not renewals of pre-existing ones. In the summer of 427 the Athenians were called by Leontinoi and their allies to help them in their war against Syracuse on the basis of their kinship and of an older alliance (Thuc. 3.86). We surely have to understand that the older alliance is that of 433/2. A contingent of 20 ships was readily dispatched under Laches. It now becomes all but certain that it was on that occasion that the Athenians concluded a treaty with the Egestans.55 In 418/7 oaths were exchanged between the two parties, clearly a renewal of the 420s alliance.56 At approximately the same time the Athenians made a treaty with another Elymian city, Halicyai, which they inscribed on the same stone as that of the oaths with the Egestans (IG I3 12). Clearly the Athenians were strengthening their network of alliances with Sicilian cities at least three years before their gigantic expedition of 415. The new reconstruction acquits Thucydides of the accusation that he failed to mention the alliance of 418/7. It also provides a more nuanced picture of what was going on
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Nikolaos Papazarkadas during the Peace of Nicias, by allowing for a longer spawning period for the Sicilian expedition. Epigraphically Athens’ western engagement per se has won nothing new, and in fact it may have been deprived of something if Kallet is right in her claim that the content of ML 78 – the fragmentary decrees that are thought to refer to the Sicilian Expedition – cannot be reconciled with Thucydides’ account, at least not with that of the assembly of 415.57 But the aftermath of Sicily is now reputed to have acquired a new crowning in the form of a recently published casualty list, arguably the most important new text concerning the Peloponnesian War. Discovered near the Erian Gate, the casualty list in question preserves two separate catalogues of names, all probably of the tribe Erechtheis.58 It is worth noting that whereas the lower catalogue has three-bar sigmas, the upper one does not. Although no titular designations are preserved, onomastic evidence, especially patently Boeotian names, has led the excavator to connect the list to the dead of the Sicilian expedition. Her interpretation is mainly based on Pausanias’ description of the DhmÒsion SÁma (the Public Cemetery). Such Boeotian names as Hieroitades, Melidoros, Cleimelos etc., the editor believes, belong to the Plataeans honoured along with the Athenian fallen soldiers after Sicily.59 It is hard to say whether this analysis is right. The editor’s tentative identification of Callistratos with the homonymous hipparch who died in Sicily is patently erroneous because the tribal affiliation is wrong.60 She seems, however, to be right in arguing that the new list belonged to the same monument as the funerary epigram IG I3 1163; but the latter is thought to have been inscribed either for the dead of the battle of Coroneia (446) or for those who fell at Delion (424). The whole question ought to be revisited.61 Less dramatic has been the impact of redatings on the last stage of the conflict between Athens and Sparta, the so-called Ionian War. Here belongs one of the lengthiest Athenian documents, the honorific naval catalogue IG I3 1032, that enumerates the crews of eight triremes. With its extensive entries of slave rowers the record in question had long been thought to refer to the battle of Arginousai, but Graham masterfully provided an earlier context, the naval expedition of the general Strombichides in the eastern Aegean in 412.62 If, as I believe, Graham is right, not only do we gain a unique glimpse into what was in effect the earliest Athenian attempt at securing the empire following the first desertions of 413/2, we can also correct a major misunderstanding concerning the manning of the Athenian fleet. Slaves, accompanying their masters, were employed en masse as rowers even before the battle of Arginousai.63 The thranitês leos, the bench-mob of Athenian drama, appears to be an ideological construction, at least as concerns its alleged civic exclusivity. Last but not least, the unpublished casualty list from the Athens Metro excavations mentioned above, or at least part of it, could also find a chronological fix in this period. Following the excavator’s provisional
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3. Epigraphy and the Athenian Empire remarks, we might accept that the list in Ionian script along with its accompanying epigram commemorate the successful Athenian invasion of the Megarid of 409/8.64 Once more, we must plead for a prompt full publication which will allow proper historical analysis. Greek scholars may be familiar with Sigeion either in a late Archaic context, or from historical accounts of the Ionian War. Nevertheless, it has long been thought that 451/0 was the year when Athens decided to honour the citizens of Sigeion for their goodwill, as well as to offer them protection against any possible wrongdoings perpetrated by people in the Continent (presumably Asia Minor). Revealingly, the crucial text is IG I3 17, or Agora XVI no. 1; in other words, it appears to be the earliest extant decree from the American excavations of the Athenian Agora. But the traditional restoration that has the archon An[tidotos] of 451/0 can be readily dismissed: an archontic formula has no place in the prescript of such an early Athenian decree. Predictably Mattingly opted for the archon An[tiphon] of 418/7. The fact that the Sigeion decree seems to have been cut by the same mason who carved the treaty with Hermione, from the early 420s, as I have already mentioned, seems to support Mattingly’s interpretation.65 But there is yet another late-fifth-century archon whose name can be supplemented in IG I3 17, namely An[tigenes] of 407/6. I hope to show elsewhere that the latter has to be preferred on epigraphical and historical grounds. The Sigeion decree then would be the by-product of the constant state of emergency Athens found herself in throughout the Ionian War. It is almost a world apart from the imperialistic mentality of the 420s, but a world visibly reflected in a series of lenient settlements found in other contemporary inscriptions.66 Political weakness and realism meant that late fifth-century Athens had been transformed into a very humble and grateful ruler indeed. Some provisional conclusions With this first conclusion, treatment of individual documents will have to stop. It was selective, and at places insufficient, given the self-evident space restrictions. For instance, no mention has been made of the Athenian Tribute Lists, the most important Attic inscriptions ever discovered, as Stroud branded them in his recent David Lewis Memorial Lecture at Oxford.67 At least I hope to have shown that, occasional new finds aside, the extant documents with no internal chronological indications need to be reviewed in their totality. I also hope to have made clear that such a review has the potential for a domino-effect, which is hardly surprising given that the system of chronological classification is of an interactive structure: once we rearrange a considerable number of parts of this structure others will have to follow. Consequently, the question that arises perforce is: how do the new chronological cards affect our understanding of the Athenian empire, if at all? To begin with, there is a rather unfortu-
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Nikolaos Papazarkadas nate side-effect: as it happens, the notorious Pentekontaetia becomes even less documented. To mention only some of the least controversial redatings, the Coinage, Miletos, and Egesta decrees tell us nothing whatsoever about the period preceding the Peloponnesian War. Sad as it is, we have to learn to live with an even more defective knowledge of pre-430s Athenian history. At least we still have Thucydides’ first book, Diodorus and Plutarch’s (problematic) accounts, and echoes of the Athenian political – some might even call it imperialistic – discourse in Attic drama. There is also some good epigraphical evidence, namely casualty lists, financial accounts, the early series of the Tribute Lists, and some other inscriptions that are firmly fixed in the pre-Peloponnesian War period. The most notable such example is the regulations concerning Erythrai (ML 40). One can hardly feel confident enough to pronounce on a text that has not been seen since Fauvel copied it more than two centuries ago. Instinctively, I regard it as rather unlikely that one single ‘imperialistic’ text was produced in the 450s, and I wonder whether the Erythrai decree could not be placed along with those concerning Colophon, Miletos and Phaselis near or in the Peloponnesian War. In his introduction to Mattingly’s Athenian Empire Restored, Chambers noted that the Athenian Standards decree in its low chronological setting advocated by Mattingly is ‘part of a policy of the strict administration of the Athenian Empire that probably began in the 420s, not in the 440s’.68 This is questionable, however. To use a cliché, the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The fact that very few ‘imperialistic’ documents predate the Peloponnesian War does not mean that before 431 Athens was a peace-loving benevolent polity that sought to promote democracy and protect liberties against the dark forces of oppression and backwardness.69 It is misleading to see any substantial difference between Periclean and Cleonian Athens. After all, in his last speech to the Athenian assembly, Pericles could blatantly and unequivocally state to his audience that ‘by this time your hegemony has become like a tyranny’.70 But if so, how are we to account for the evident increase in the number of decrees produced from the 420s onwards? My impression is that we have to look for a bipartite answer. Part of it may lie in the proliferation of the so-called epigraphical habit.71 The Athenians started recording increasingly larger numbers of their public resolutions on permanent material. Here the same old questions will arise: should we see the Athenian demagogues, the scorned successors of Pericles, behind this tendency? In other words, is the expanded epigraphical habit the outcome of the proliferation of radical democracy?72 Or, alternatively, did Athens’ new habit result from the parlous war conditions? Or even, did the two go hand in hand together? The other possibility, not incompatible with the possibilities I have just mentioned, is that the Athenians actually passed more decrees in this period. Here we can briefly focus on one specific category: it is my conviction that a fresh re-examination of all fifth-century Athenian decrees, an
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3. Epigraphy and the Athenian Empire undertaking I could not possibly carry out in these pages, will bring down the chronology of numerous proxeny decrees.73 To be fair, this exercise has already been undertaken by a German scholar whose work has been unjustifiably overlooked.74 Of course, proxeny was not a new institution. But, somehow I suspect that it underwent a dual, qualitative and quantitative, transformation in this period. Those enjoying the honour of being proxenoi and benefactors of Athens increased in number, but the overall status of such men probably dropped. No longer the old upper-class aristocrats, at least not in their majoriy, the new proxenoi were Athens’ henchmen, the people who secretively helped Athens administer an empire in constant turmoil.75 It was not an easy job, and many of them would have provoked the hatred of their less servile compatriots, as the abundant protection clauses preserved in proxeny decrees make clear. Of course this cannot be the end of the story. John Ma, for instance, has provocatively spoken of epigraphical snapshots.76 Is this then what inscriptions boil down to, mere snapshots? To an extent the answer will be in the affirmative. Still, these are snapshots that allow for a more nuanced picture of fifth-century history. And once we put the fragments together we can hopefully aim at providing a more reliable answer to the question what the postmodern, postcolonial, post-Cold-War, post-Iraq-War, and even neocon Athenian empire is about. Historiographically, the twentyfirst century Athenian empire has the potential to be an excitingly novel entity.77 Chronologically, however – and this is the paradoxical conclusion of this paper – it stands much closer to some nineteenth-century models than does its post-ATL predecessor. Notes 1. I wish to thank A. P. Matthaiou and R. Stroud not only for their help, but also because their recent work on the epigraphy of the Athenian empire was my main source of inspiration. I also owe gratitude to P.J. Rhodes for sharing with me his article ‘After the three-bar sigma controversy: the history of Athenian imperialism reassessed’ (Rhodes 2008) before publication. I am glad to say that, although our conclusions are not identical, they, more often than not, overlap. 2. ATL. 3. The authors of ATL were not the first to advocate this principle. Köhler (1867) 17 is an early example; for a fuller treatment see Rhodes (2008). The fame of their work, however, was such that it all but silenced any dissident voices. In his review of ATL, the great Marcus Tod saw it coming; Tod (1949) 106: ‘Before leaving this decree (i.e. the Coinage decree), may I appeal to the experts, and primarily the authors of this book, to reconsider its date before the weight of their authority gives unquestioned validity to their present view?’ Alas, Tod’s appeal was effectively ignored and the rest is, as they say, history. 4. His relevant contributions have been conveniently collected in Mattingly (1996). 5. Chambers, Galluci, Spanos (1990); cf. Chambers (1993). Previous advocates of the low chronology include, apart from Mattingly, Smart (1972), Wick (1975), and Cataldi (1984).
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Nikolaos Papazarkadas 6. In particular Henry (1992), (1998) and (2001), who still stands for the old cause with admirable and valiant spirit, adducing some admittedly cogent arguments. 7. See below, p. 75. The results of Chambers, Galluci, Spanos had sufficed to convince a few, e.g. Vickers (1996). Even (a previously cautious) Stroud (1999) 132 appeared receptive to the new redatings. See now Rhodes (2008), a self-confessed convert. 8. Mattingly (1974a) 90-3, 102; response by Henry (1979) (‘Archon dating is regular, but not mandatory, after 421 BC’); and now J. Morgan apud Henry (2001) 98-9. See also Sickinger (1999) 84-5. 9. Concise account in Shipley (1987) 113-20; for the chronological particulars see Fornara and Lewis (1979). 10. IG I3 1492-9. For the low, post 439, date of these three-bar-sigma horoi see Tod (1949) 106; Mattingly (1961) 149-50; Tsakos (1977) 76-8; Smarczyk (1990) 73-83; and now Gallo (2005) 250-2. 11. Cavanaugh (1996) 29-95, with copious secondary bibliography. 12. IG I3 78.30-6, esp. l. 33, 1>n bÒlontai (‘if they wish’). 13. 434/3 is the orthodox date. Samons (2000) 129-33 favours early 432, whereas Kallet (1989) thinks of the summer of 431. There are still some, however, who challenge the opinio communis; see, e.g., Kennelly (2003) (either before 437, or during the Peace of Nicias). And Humphreys (2004) 137-9, while accepting the traditional date, dissociates the decree from any security concerns. 14. See Cavanaugh (1996) 19-27. 15. What follows is based on the long preliminary report provided by Parlama (2000). Ho8de ,Aqena8on Hippej ¢p2qano[n] 1n Tan£grai ka< 1SpartÒlo[i] (‘the following Athenian cavalrymen died at Tanagra and at Spartolos’) is the text offered by the excavator. 16. Tanagra (Athenian victory): Thuc. 3.91.3-5, with Gomme (1956) 394; Diod. Sic. 12.65.3-4. Spartolos (Athenian defeat): Thuc. 2.79, with Fantasia (2003) 537-9. 17. Cf. Meiggs (1966) 86: ‘We know that war casualties were recorded by the state for each year’s fighting.’ The fact that the two battles would have been recorded in reverse chronological order is equally disconcerting. 18. Cf. Low (2002) 104. 19. I note that the chronological reconstruction offered by Badian apud Moreno (2007) 100-1n.114, though considerably different (Tanagra = Delion, Spartolos = unattested battle, both 424/3 BC), is based on similar premises, thus reinforcing my main argument. 20. Thuc. 2.56.5. As Westlake (1945) has long shown, such raids were actually central to Periclean strategy, but have often been overlooked because of Thucydides’ tacit disapproval of them. For a more nuanced view see Holladay (1978), esp. 400-3. 21. Thuc. 4.45.2. 22. Unsurprisingly, Mattingly (1961) 173, was the first to argue for the low chronology of IG I3 31, only to be dismissed by Meritt and Wade-Gery (1963) 103. Jameson (2000-3) 27-8 seems to have settled the issue for good. Amongst modern Thucydidean commentators, Hornblower (1996) 204 was impressed, but not won over by Mattingly, whereas Fantasia (2003) 451-2 now favours the reconstruction of events advocated here, independently from Jameson. 23. Thuc. 3.34.3: ‘(Paches) then gave Notion to the Kolophonians other than the Medising party. Later the Athenians sent founders and settled Notion under Athenian laws, collecting all the Kolophonians from the cities’ (translated by Rhodes (1994)). The Thucydidean ‘founders’ (o9kist£j) would arguably be the
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3. Epigraphy and the Athenian Empire same as the ‘founders’ (l. 40, o9kista8) of the inscription (Mattingly (1961) 175). This reconstruction is now accepted by Rubinstein in Hansen and Nielsen (2004) 1078 (s.v. Colophon). 24. On the traditional dating (summarized in ML 47), we should duplicate Athens’ colonial undertakings in the area of Colophon, certainly an uneconomical assumption (but see Rhodes (2007) 22, and Bolmarcich (2007) 32, both defending the high chronology). Pace Meiggs and Lewis, the decree does not prove that Colophon (as opposed to Notion) was in Athenian control. 25. Good synopsis in ML 31. 26. Jameson (2000-3); for Leon see Thuc. 5.19.2, with Hornblower (1996) 489. 27. Threatte (1996) 96-9. 28. Gorman (2001) 226 offers a good summary of the various interpretations, but herself remains agnostic. 29. It is a regrettably forgotten fact that the first editor to deal with the inscription, Koumanoudes (1876) 82-5, very reasonably assigned to it a date after 426/5. It was only with Kirchhoff in IG I Suppl. 22a that emendation of the archon list started. Regrettably, Oliver (1936) 182 took Kirchhoff’s chronology for granted, and others have followed suit. Wade-Gery and Meritt (1957) 183 is a clear case of methodological double-talk (they use the evidence of IG I3 21 as a proof that Diodorus was wrong, but of course this begs the question); see also Bradeen and McGregor (1973) 65. The latest adherent to the high chronology is Gorman (2001) 225-6. Matthaiou (2004) 120, and Stroud (2006) 17, now urge a return to Koumanoudes’ date. Last but not least, it has to be made clear that the archonship of Euthynos provides not the date of IG I3 21, but a terminus post quem. The restoration of an archontic formula in line 3 of the decree is far from certain: re-examination is badly needed. 30. Thuc. 4.42.1: ‘of the allies men joined them (i.e. the Athenians) from Miletos, Andros and Carystos’; IV.53.1: ‘The Athenians in the same summer campaigned against Cythera, with sixty ships, two thousand hoplites and a few cavalry, and taking from the allies Milesians and some others’; 54.1: ‘With ten ships and two thousand Milesian hoplites they captured the coastal city called Skandeia’ (translated by Rhodes 1998). Commenting on these passages Gomme (1956) 489 astutely observed: ‘Doubtless Ar. Eq. 361 is an allusion, obscure to us, to their (sc. the Milesians’) present activities’. I think that the connection can stand, but is indirect. The Aristophanic verse (¢ll, oÙ l£brakaj katafagën Milhs8oij klonˇseij) makes better sense in the context of IG I3 21, even though the allusion remains as obscure today as it was to Gomme. 31. The counter-argument of Meritt and Wade-Gery (1963) 101-2n.14 is irrelevant. 32. Inschriften von Milet VI 3, 1020. The stonecutter appears to have applied syllabification across lines; toÚtwi in line 7 is tempting. More interestingly, the sequence of letters KATO in line 6 could belong to some form of the verb katÒmnumi. If so, an oath is envisaged. But Matthaiou (2008), who also ponders some form of the verb katoik2w, may well be right. 33. See Thonemann (2007) 545 and, in more detail, Matthaiou (2008), both of whom restore l. 3 as E[….c.8…. 1gramm£teue]. This small point has implications for the date of the inscription. 34. The old fragments can be found in IG I3 1453, the copy from Hamaxitos in Mattingly (1993); new (second) fragment from Aphytis: Hatzopoulos (2000-3). 35. Hatzopoulos (2000-3), strengthening the low chronology and discounting many of the theories advocated by Figueira (1998).
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Nikolaos Papazarkadas 36. Ar. Av. 1040-1: crÁsqai Nefelokokkugi©j to√j aÙto√j m2troisi ka< staqmo√si ka< yhf8smasi kaq£per ,OlofÚxioi, with Dunbar (1995) 567-9. For
this very low chronology see Kallet (2001) 205-25 and Kroll in this volume, pp. 201-3. 37. Editio princeps: Inglese (2002) 231-2. As reported in SEG LII 43, the text will soon be fully published by Matthaiou. 38. 424 seems to be a reasonable date: see Mattingly (1961) 153; Mattingly (1970) 131-2; Samons (2000) 188-93. 39. In the latest major exploration of the decree Ostwald (2002) 136 affirms: ‘That the date of the decree is 446 BC is almost universally agreed.’ 40. S in Vespas 718: > per< t]n EÜboian dÚnatai ka< aÙt> sun®dein ta√j Didaskal8aij: p2rusi g>r 1p< ¥rcontoj ,Is£rcou 1str£teusan 1p, aÙtˇn, æj FilÒcoroj. ‘The events concerning Euboea can also be reconciled with the performance (of the Wasps); for it was in the previous year, in the archonship of Isarchos (424/3), that they (sc. the Athenians) campaigned against it (sc. Euboea), as Philochorus (attests)’. 41. Kassel and Austin F 231. For the date see Storey (2003) 216-17 (but Kyriakidi (2007) 20-1 prefers the year 420 BC). 42. Ar. Pax 1046-7; cf. Flower (2008) 62-3, who, however, prefers the high chronology for ML 52. 43. Mattingly (2002). 44. Ar. Knights 236-7: tout< t8 dr? tÕ CalkidikÕn potˇrion; oÙk 4sq, Ópwj oÙ Calkid2aj ¢f8staton. The ancient scholiasts were uncertain as to whether the Euboean Chalcis or Chalcidice is implied here. Sommerstein (1981) 155 thinks of the former, citing the evidence of the Chalcidian drinking-cups kept in the Parthenon (e.g. IG I3 299, ll. 50-1; 301, l. 23; 350, l. 81 etc.; cf. Harris (1995) 101). 45. Cf. the neat note by Balcer (1978) 72, who, however, did not draw the present inference. 46. The dominant yet unsatisfactory view (diallagˇ as a renewal of hostages) is that of Garlan (1965) 332-8, who, while providing ample testimonia for the use of diallagˇ as reconciliation, refused to endorse that interpretation, no doubt because he was exclusively thinking of a confrontation between two cities. But, ever since Dreher (1995) 113-31 has convincingly argued that the term diallaga8 (plural) in RO 29 can only refer to an interstate agreement mediated by the Second Athenian League (cf. Low (2007) 49), Garlan’s rejected premises received further support. It is noteworthy that Dreher (1995) 119 could only cite one example of the term diallagˇ designating an international arbitration, that of the Chalcis decree (on the authority of Garlan). 47. Just to bring some outside authority, Knoepfler (2001) 73n.285 now believes that the redating might fit better the developments in late fifth-century Eretrian history. 48. Editio princeps: Matthaiou 2000 (SEG L 45). 49. Criticism of Alcibiades’ young age: Thuc. 5.43; for the statesman himself see Hatzfeld 1940. 50. IG I3 91 and 92, with Mattingly 1974a, 91, who made the simple observation that the absence of an archontic formula from the prescripts of the two proxenies excluded any date post 421 (cf. p. 68 above). 51. That is, the context of IG I3 92 must have been military. The introductory formula is extremely unusual, but one might wish to consider Thuc. 2.12.2 (Ãn
g>r Perikl2ouj gnèmh prÒteron nenikhku√a kˇruka ka< presbe8an m] prosd2cesqai Lakedaimon8wn 1xestrateum2nwn), which certainly refers to a pro-
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3. Epigraphy and the Athenian Empire posal by Pericles qua general, although Thucydides’ penchant for the term gnèmh may be at play here. But then again Thuc. 4.122.6 uses the similar expression Kl2wnoj gnèmV peisq2ntej (persuaded by Cleon’s proposal) to describe a decree moved by Cleon, when the latter probably served as general (cf. Mattingly 1974c, 383-4). The topic merits further investigation. 52. For some subtleties underlying this passage see Gomme 1956, 657-8, and Hornblower 1996, 457-8. Gomme, in particular, played down the Thessalian involvement contra Steup. 53. Matthaiou (2004) 107. 54. For a thorough treatment of the text see now Matthaiou (2004) summarised in SEG LII 41. 55. Thuc. 6.6.2, as scrutinised by Matthaiou (2004) 113-17. 56. I note that the year of Antiphon fell ten years after the original alliance. But, perhaps more pertinently, it was also a Panathenaic year. When in 420 the Athenians made an alliance with Argos, Elis and Mantineia, the latter undertook to renew it via oaths to be taken ten days before the Great Panathenaia (i.e. every four years): Thuc. 5.47.10, with Gomme, Andrewes and Dover (1970) 61. Interestingly the first renewal of oaths on behalf of the three Peloponnesian cities would have taken place in the archonship of Antiphon. Could the Egestans have abided by a similar clause in the original alliance of 427/6 when they sent their own envoys to Athens in 418/7 with the aim of renewing the treaty? 57. Kallet (2001) 184-95. 58. Ed. pr: Tsirigoti-Drakotou (2000) = SEG LII 60. 59. Tsirigoti-Drakotou (2000) 94 and 98-100, citing Paus. 1.29.11-12: ‘After those who were killed at Corinth, we come across elegiac verses declaring that one and the same slab has been erected to those who died in Euboea and Chios, and to those who perished in the remote parts of the continent of Asia, or in Sicily. The names of the generals are inscribed with the exception of Nicias, and among the private soldiers are included the Plataeans along with the Athenians’ (translated by Jones 1918). But the passage is problematic, if not corrupt: see Pritchett (1998) 44-53; idem (1999) 59-60. 60. Tsirigoti-Drakotou (2000) 99, but the hipparch Callistratos, son of Empedos, mentioned by Paus. 7.16.5-6, was of the deme Oe and therefore of the tribe Oineis (see LGPN II, Kall8stratoj (94)), whereas the new Callistratos is listed under the tribe Erechtheis. 61. 446 is the date of IG I3 1163 given in the corpus. Delion: Mattingly (1963) 261-2; idem (1966) 176-7, 191-2. Griffith (1988) has argued that the epigram was composed by the Chian tragedian Ion. 62. See Graham (1992) and especially Graham (1998); an early date had already been argued for by Jordan (1975) 71-2. Laing (1965) was the first to establish that eight triremes were recorded in IG I3 1032, and the number fits well the information provided by Thuc. 8.15-16. 63. Ironically, this view was dominant in nineteenth-century German scholarship, but later, starting with Sargeant 1927, the opposite position (minimal use of slaves) prevailed (see, e.g., Amit (1965) 31-7). The thesis supported here has recently been defended by Hunt (2006) 25-9. 64. Parlama (2000) 399, citing Diod. Sic. XIII.65.1-2; one should add Hell. Ox. (Florence, Fr. A, col. 1) with Andrewes (1992) 486. However, Badian apud Moreno (2007) 100-1n.114 would place this Megarian skirmish in 424/3 BC. 65. Mattingly (1963) 270-1; idem (1974b) 349-51, 283-4; idem (2000) 132-9. Accepted now by Rhodes (2008).
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Nikolaos Papazarkadas 66. See Smarczyk (1986), esp. 5-34. 67. Stroud (2006) 10. On 26-32, the author cunningly treats another challenging (three-bar sigma) text omitted in the present study, namely the so-called accounts for the construction of the statue of Athena Promachos. On the numerous uncertainties surrounding the traditional interpretation of the Athenian Tribute Lists see Kallet (2004). 68. Chambers apud Mattingly (1996) x. 69. Athens and democracy: see Brock in this volume. 70. Thuc. 2.63.2: see now Meyer (2008) 23-4 with n. 53, for some earlier interpretations. 71. Cf. Hedrick (1999), who, however, submits that the number of published documents dwindled in the last quarter of the fifth century. His inferences may have to be reconsidered, if my main argument is sound. 72. Epigraphy and democracy: Pébarthe (2005), a subtle discussion. 73. See, for instance, the fragmentary honorific (proxeny?) decree IG I3 30. Disregarding the presence of three-bar sigmas, Morgan (2001) now urges the downdating of the decree from the 450s to the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, connecting it to an otherwise unattested operation when an Athenian expedition under Cimon’s son Lakedaimonios forced Thera into Athens’ alliance. And Mattingly (2007) 107-8 has now launched another of his fierce attacks on threebar-sigma documents, by lowering the date of IG I3 27 (proxeny of Delphians?) to c. 430. 74. Reiter (1991). Walbank (1978), who bases his reconstruction on the threebar sigma criterion, is certainly cited more often. 75. On that I disagree with Reiter (1991); some of the conclusions of Gerolymatos (1986) seem preferable. 76. In one of his interventions at the Oxford seminar that gave rise to the present volume. 77. Related issues are dealt with by Kallet in this volume.
Bibliography Amit, M. (1965), Athens and the Sea: A Study in Athenian Sea-Power (Bruxelles). Andrewes, A. (1992), ‘The Spartan Resurgence’, in Cambridge Ancient History, 2nd edn, vol. V (Cambridge), 464-98. Balcer, J. M. (1978), The Athenian Regulations for Chalkis. Studies in Athenian Imperial Law, Historia Einzelschriften 33. Bolmarcich, S. (2007), ‘Oaths in Greek International Relations’, in A.H. Sommerstein and J. Fletcher (eds), Horkos: The Oath in Greek Society (Exeter), 26-38. Bradeen, D.W. and McGregor, M.F. (1973), Studies in Fifth-Century Attic Epigraphy (Norman OK). Cataldi, S. (1984), La democrazia ateniese e gli alleati (Padova). Cavanaugh, M.B. (1996), Eleusis and Athens: Documents in Finance, Religion and Politics in the Fifth Century BC (Atlanta). Chambers, M., Galluci, R., Spanos, M. (1990), ‘Athens’ Alliance with Egesta in the Year of Antiphon’, ZPE 83: 38-60. Chambers, M. (1993), ‘The Archon’s Name in the Athens-Egesta Alliance (IG I3 11)’, ZPE 98: 171-4. Dreher, M. (1995), Hegemon und Symmachoi: Untersuchungen zum Zweiten Athenischen Seebund (Berlin and New York). Dunbar, N. (1995), Aristophanes: Birds (Oxford).
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3. Epigraphy and the Athenian Empire Fantasia, U. (2003), Tucidide: La Guerra del Peloponneso. Libro II (Pisa). Flower, M.A. (2008), The Seer in Ancient Greece (Berkeley and Los Angeles). Fornara, C.W. and Lewis, D.M. (1979), ‘On the Chronology of the Samian War’, JHS 99: 7-19. Gallo, L. (2005), ‘Samo e Atene’, in L. Breglia and M. Lupi (eds), Da Elea a Samo: Filosofi e politici di fronte all’impero ateniese (Napoli), 247-58. Garlan, Y. (1965), ‘Études d’histoire militaire et diplomatique’, BCH 89: 332-48. Gomme, A.W. (1956), A Historical Commentary on Thucydides. Volume III: Books IV-V 24 (Oxford). Gomme, A.W., Andrewes, A. and Dover, K.J. (1970), A Historical Commentary on Thucydides. Volume IV: Books V 25-VII (Oxford). Gorman, V.B. (2001), Miletos, the Ornament of Ionia: A History of the City to 400 BCE (Ann Arbor). Graham, A.J. (1992), ‘Thucydides 7.13.2 and the Crews of Athenian Trieremes’, TAPA 122: 257-70. ——— (1998), ‘Thucydides 7.13.2 and the Crews of Athenian Trieremes: An Addendum’, TAPA 128: 89-114. Griffith, J.G. (1988), ‘The Epigram for the Athenians who Fell at the Battle of Coronea’, in Griffith, Festinat Senex (Oxford), 24-30. Hansen, M.H. and Nielsen, T.H. (2004), An Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis (Oxford). Harris, D. (1905), The Treasures of the Parthenon and Erechtheion (Oxford). Hatzfeld, J. (1940), Alcibiade. Étude sur l’histoire d’Athènes à la fin de Ve siècle (Paris). Hatzopoulos, M. (2000-2003), ‘N2o ¢pÒtmhma ¢pÕ t]n -Afuti toà ¢ttikoà yhf8smatoj per< nom8smatoj staqmîn ka< m2trwn’, Horos 14-16: 31-43. Hedrick, C.W. (1999), ‘Democracy and the Athenian Epigraphical Habit’, Hesperia 68: 387-439. Henry, A.S. (1979), ‘Archon-Dating in Fifth Century Attic Decrees: The 421 Rule’, Chiron 9: 23-30. ——— (1992), ‘Through a Laser Beam Darkly: Space-age Technology and the Egesta Decree (IG I3 11)’, ZPE 91: 137-46. ——— (1995), ‘Pour encourager les autres: Athens and Egesta encore’, CQ 45: 237-40. ——— (1998), ‘The Sigma Enigma’, ZPE 120: 45-8. ——— (2001), ‘The Sigma Stigma’, ZPE 137: 93-105. Holladay, A.J. (1978), ‘Athenian Strategy in the Archidamian War’, Historia 27: 399-427. Hornblower, S. (1996), A Commentary on Thucydides. Volume II: Books IV-V.24 (Oxford). Hunt, P. (2006), ‘Arming Slaves and Helots in Classical Greece’, in C.L. Brown and P.D. Morgan (eds), Arming Slaves: From Classical Times to the Modern Age (New Haven and London), 14-39. Humphreys, S.C. (2004), The Strangeness of Gods: Historical Perspectives on the Interpretation of Athenian Religion (Oxford). Inglese, A. (2002), ‘Due iscrizioni ateniesi dal portico di Eumene’, PP 57: 231-6. Jameson, M. (2000-3), ‘Athens and Phaselis, IG I3 10 (EM 6918)’, Horos 14-16: 23-9. Jones, W.H.A. (1918), Pausanias. Description of Greece. Books I-II (Cambridge MA). Jordan, B. (1975), The Athenian Navy in the Classical Period: A Study of Athenian
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Nikolaos Papazarkadas Naval Administration and Military Organization in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries BC (Berkeley). Kallet, L. (1989), ‘The Kallias Decree, Thucydides, and the Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War’, CQ 39: 94-113. ——— (2001), Money and the Corrosion of Power in Thucydides: The Sicilian Expedition and its Aftermath (Berkeley and Los Angeles). ——— (2004), ‘Epigraphic Geography: The Tribute Quota Fragments Assigned to 421/0-415/4 BC’, Hesperia 73: 465-96. Kennelly, J.J. (2003), ‘Kallias A (IG I3 52A) and Thucydides 2.13.3’, in G.W. Bakewell and J.P. Sickinger (eds), Gestures: Essays in Ancient History, Literature, and Philosophy Presented to Alan L. Boegehold (Oxford), 284-6. Knoepfler, D. (2001), Eretria. Fouilles et recherches XI. Décrets érétriens de proxénie et de citoyenneté (Lausanne). Köhler, U. (1867), ‘Attische Inschriften’, Hermes 2: 16-36. Koumanoudes, S. (1876), ‘,Attika< 1pigrafa A/ Dieqnoàj Sifna_koà Sumpos8ou. TÒmoj A/. ,Arca√oi CrÒnoi (Athens), 239-48. ——— (2004), ‘Per< tÁj IG I3 11’, in A.P. Matthaiou and G.E. Malouchou (eds), ,Attika< 1pigrafa8. Praktik> sumpos8ou e9j mnˇmhn Adolf Wilhelm (Athens), 99-122. ——— (2008), ‘Inschriften von Milet VI 3, 1020: A Note’, ZPE 165 (2008), 84-6. Mattingly, H.B. (1961), ‘The Athenian Coinage Decree’, Historia 10: 148-88. ——— (1963), ‘The Growth of Athenian Imperialism’, Historia 12: 257-73. ——— (1966), ‘Athenian Imperialism and the Foundation of Brea’, CQ 16: 172-92. ——— (1974a), ‘Athens and Eleusis: Some New Ideas’, in D.W. Bradeen and M.F. McGregor (eds), FÒroj. Tribute to Benjamin Dean Meritt (Locust Valley), 90103. ——— (1974b), ‘The Protected Fund in the Athenian Coinage Decree (ATL D 14, par. 7f)’, AJP 95: 280-5. ——— (1974c), ‘The Language of Athenian Imperialism’, Epigraphica 56: 33-56. ——— (1993), ‘New Light on the Athenian Standards Decree (ATL II, D 14)’, Klio 75: 99-102. ——— (1996), The Athenian Empire Restored: Epigraphic and Historical Studies (Ann Arbor). ——— (2000), ‘The Athenian Treaties with Troizen and Hermione’, Historia 49: 131-40. ——— (2002), ‘The Athenian Decree for Chalkis (IG I3.40)’, CQ 52: 377-9. ——— (2007), ‘Two Fifth-Century Attic Epigraphic Texts Revisited’, ZPE 162: 107-10. Meiggs, R. (1966), ‘The Dating of Fifth-Century Attic Inscriptions’, JHS 86: 89-98. Meritt, B.D. and Wade-Gery, H.T. (1963), ‘The Dating of Documents to the Mid-Fifth Century – II’, JHS 83: 100-17.
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3. Epigraphy and the Athenian Empire Meyer, E.A. (2008), ‘Thucydides on Harmodios and Aristogeiton, Tyranny, and History’, CQ 58: 13-34. Moreno, A. (2007), Feeding the Democracy: The Athenian Grain Supply in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries BC (Oxford). Morgan, J.D. (2001), ‘IG I3 30: an unknown Qhra√oj and a known LakedaimÒnioj’, AJA 105: 200-1. Oliver, J.H. (1935), ‘The Athenian Decree Concerning Miletus in 450/49 BC’, TAPA 66: 177-98. Ostwald, M. (2002), ‘Athens and Chalkis: A Study in Imperial Control’, JHS 122: 134-43. Parlama, L. (2000), ‘Palaiologou Shaft: Marble Memorial Stele’, in L. Parlama and N. Stampolidis (eds), Athens: The City Beneath the City. Antiquities from the Metropolitan Railway Excavations (Athens), 396-9. Pébarthe, C. (2005), ‘Inscriptions et régime politique: le cas athénien’, in A. Bresson, A.-M. Cocula, C. Pébarthe (eds), L’écriture publique du pouvoir (Bordeaux), 169-82. Pritchett, W.K. (1998), Pausanias Periegetes (Amsterdam). ——— (1999), Pausanias Periegetes II (Amsterdam). Reiter, H.A. (1991), Athen und die Poleis des Delisch-Attischen Seebundes. Die Proxenoi und Euergetai des Attischen Demos in den Poleis des Delisch-Attischen Seebundes im Licht der attischen Proxenie- und Euergesiebeschlüsse des 5. Jahrhunderts v. Chr. (Regensburg). Rhodes, P.J. (1994), Thucydides: History III (Warminster). ——— (1998), Thucydides: History IV.1-V.24 (Warminster). ——— (2007), ‘Oaths in Political Life’, in A.H. Sommerstein and J. Fletcher (eds), Horkos: The Oath in Greek Society (Exeter), 11-25. ——— (2008), ‘After the Three-Bar Sigma Controversy: The History of Athenian Imperialism Reassessed’, CQ 51: 500-6. Samons II, L.J. (2000), Empire of the Owl: Athenian Imperial Finance, Historia Einzelschriften 142. Sargeant, R.L. (1927), ‘The Use of Slaves by the Athenians in Warfare’, CPh 22: 264-79. Shipley, G. (1987), A History of Samos, 800-188 BC (Oxford). Sickinger, J.P. (1999), Public Records and Archives in Classical Athens (Chapel Hill and London). Sommerstein, A.H. (1981), Aristophanes: Knights (Warminster). Smarczyk, B. (1986), Bündnerautonomie und athenische Seebundspolitik im Dekeleischen Krieg (Frankfurt am Main). Smart, J.D. (1972), ‘Athens and Egesta’, JHS 92: 128-46. Storey, I.C. (2003), Eupolis: Poet of Old Comedy (Oxford). Stroud, R.S. (1999), ‘The Progress of Attic Epigraphy to 400 BC in 1992-1997’, in XI Congresso Internazionale di Epigrafia Greca e Latina. Roma, 18-24 Settembre 1997. Atti I (Roma), 125-33. ——— (2006), The Athenian Empire on Stone. David M. Lewis Memorial Lecture – Oxford 2006 (Athens). Thonemann, P. (2007), ‘Inscriptions from Miletus’, CR 57: 544-6. Threatte, L. (1996), The Grammar of Attic Inscriptions, vol. II: Morphology (Berlin and New York). Tod, M. (1949), Review of the ATL II, JHS 69: 105-6. Tsakos, K. (1977), ‘ ,Epigraf5j S£mou’, ADeltion A 32: 70-9.
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Nikolaos Papazarkadas Tsirigoti-Drakotou (2000), ‘N2a stˇlh pesÒntwn apÒ to DhmÒsion Sˇma’, ADeltion 55 A: 87-122. Vickers, M. (1996), ‘Fifth Century Chronology and the Coinage Decree’, JHS 116: 171-4. Wade-Gery, H.T. and Meritt, B.D. (1957), ‘Athenian Resources in 449 and 431 BC’, Hesperia 26: 163-97. Walbank, M.B. (1978), Athenian Proxenies of the Fifth Century BC (Toronto). Westlake, H.D. (1945), ‘Seaborne Raids in Periclean Strategy’, CQ 39: 75-84. Wick, T.E. (1975), ‘A Note on the Date of the Athenian-Egestan Alliance’, JHS 95: 186-90.
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4
Learning from the Enemy: Athenian and Persian ‘Instruments of Empire’ Kurt A. Raaflaub Introduction1 In the winter of 425/4, Thucydides writes, Aristides …, one of the commanders of the Athenian ships which were sent out to collect money from the allies, captured at Eion, on the Strymon, a Persian called Artaphernes, who was on his way to Sparta from the King of Persia. He was taken to Athens, and there the Athenians had his dispatches translated from the Assyrian characters and read them. A number of subjects were mentioned, but the main point for the Spartans was this – that the King did not understand what they wanted, since the many ambassadors who had come to him all said different things: if, therefore, they had any definite proposals to make, they were to send him some delegates with this Persian. Afterwards, the Athenians sent Artaphernes back in a trireme to Ephesus and sent some ambassadors with him. There, however, they heard that Artaxerxes, the son of Xerxes, had just died …, and they returned home (4.50; see Lewis 1977: 2-3; Hornblower 1996: 207-9).
Artaphernes’ letter was probably written in Aramaic (Nylander 1968: 122n.16). If so, at least one person in Athens at that time was capable of translating an Aramaic letter into Greek. What about Sparta? The last thing we would expect is to find a Spartan fluent in Aramaic! But, as Artaphernes’ letter confirms, Sparta, like Athens, had long been used to diplomatic exchanges with the Persians (Miller 1997: ch. 5). In the late sixth century, when the Athenians sent ambassadors to conclude an alliance with Persia against Sparta (Hdt. 5.73), they might have hired interpreters in Ionia, and in the late 490s and 480s, when Persian envoys travelled through Greece demanding earth and water as tokens of submission to the King (Hdt. 6.48.2, 49.1; 7.32; Kuhrt 1988), they might equally have been accompanied by interpreters. We know of a Greek in the higher echelons of the Achaemenid administration in Persepolis (Rollinger 2006: 208-9). References in the Hebrew Bible (Esther 3:12: ‘to each province in its own script and to each people in its own language’) and in Darius’ great inscription at Behistun (‘Afterwards this inscription I sent off everywhere among the provinces’: Briant 2002: 507) as well as documents surviving from Egypt prove that Persian chanceries in the imperial and satrapal
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Kurt A. Raaflaub capitals were able to communicate with their subjects in their own languages. We should expect therefore that Persian letters were usually translated into Greek in one of the western headquarters before they were sent out (ibid. 508). Familiarity with Persian among Greeks is attested rarely and anecdotally: Themistocles and Histiaios, both having spent many years in the empire, are hardly representative (ibid.; Picard 1980: 201). In direct communication, therefore, or on embassies, the use of interpreters must have been common (Briant, 509). In Acharnians, performed at the Lenaea early in 425, Aristophanes mocks an Athenian embassy to Persia that has returned, after many years, accompanied by a Persian imperial official (the ‘King’s Eye’) and two eunuchs (Ach. 61-125; Chiasson 1984; for details Sommerstein 1980: 160-3). The King’s Eye’s name is Pseudartabas (91ff.; for the name, see Balcer 1977: 257), he quotes a line in Old Persian (Brandenstein 1964; Balcer 1983: 260), and he uses the Persian designation for Greeks, Iaonau for Yaunâ (104, 106; Sancisi-Weerdenburg 2001). Dikaiopolis’ reaction to this embassy suggests that it was not an altogether rare event. I cite these episodes because they raise the question of Greek familiarity with things Persian. More specifically, I wonder about how well the Athenians were informed about Persian principles of government and imperial administration between the time when they first established direct contact with the Persians and when they put in place their own methods of imperial control over their former allies whom they had turned into subjects. The question I want to pursue in this chapter is whether and to what extent they borrowed from the Persians their ‘instruments of empire’ (to use Russell Meiggs’ chapter title, 1972: 205). At first sight, the possibility that they did so may seem egregious, given what we surmise must have been Athenian sentiments toward the Persians after the destruction of their city and other sufferings inflicted upon them in 480 and 479. Several facts, however, make this possibility well worth exploring: numerous Greeks spent time in Persia and Greek-Persian interaction was intense in the fifth century; the Athenians, like all Greeks, lacked previous experience precisely in the area of empire building and imperial control, and the Athenians themselves were aware that at least in one area, that of the collection of tribute, they had continued Persian methods.2 Greek-Persian interaction The issue of Greek-Persian interaction in general and Athenian-Persian interaction in particular has received a great deal of attention in the last decade or two. Margaret Miller, Thomas Wiesehöfer, Robert Rollinger, and above all Heleen Sancisi-Weerdenburg and Pierre Briant as well as, from a different perspective, Jack Balcer, have all made great efforts to teach us that the traditional view of such relations is hopelessly Graecocentric
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4. Learning from the Enemy and outdated.3 The view from the West, unduly prominent because of the nature of the extant evidence, needs to be complemented, balanced, and corrected by that from the East (e.g. Picard 1980: 9-19; Balcer 1984). Wars and power politics apart, there was a great deal of interaction between the Greek and Persian cultural spheres, and the boundary in western Anatolia between the Persian and Athenian empires was fluid and porous. While we know only a few Persians who spent time in Greece, the list of Greeks who lived, worked, or travelled in the Persian empire and/or had contact with the Persian court is quite extensive, ranging from exiled leaders, diplomats, and generals to specialists like physicians, architects, shipwrights, stone masons, and sculptors, even if not all of these spent extended periods in Persia.4 Perhaps more importantly, economic, cultural, and social exchanges in Western Anatolia between Greeks in the coastal areas and Persians in the interior were intense (Picard 1980: 47; Briant 2002: 502), while elite families in the Greek poleis, above all those the Persian government placed as ‘tyrants’ in control of their communities, had regular contact with the satrap and occasionally with the King.5 According to Greek sources, some Greeks enjoyed the King’s confidence and played an important role at the court. Even if such reports probably are biased and exaggerated (Briant 2002: 347-52), and despite the difficulties caused by cultural differences (Picard 1980: 205-13), there can be no doubt that a substantial number of elite Greeks had opportunity to become familiar with Persian methods of imperial government and administration, and to share such knowledge with their fellow citizens at home. The Persian subjugation of Asia Minor did not end contacts with mainland Greece. By the time of the Persian Wars, the East Greeks had been under Persian rule for more than half a century. Athenian ships and soldiers helped launch the Ionian Revolt. I have no doubt that educated Athenians and politicians interested in such matters had ample opportunity to learn both what was plainly to be seen and what was more arcane, including the Persian methods of ruling their empire. The family of the Athenian Miltiades serves as a good example. Miltiades, member of an elite family that both competed and collaborated with the Peisistratids, held the archonship and was a member of the Areopagus Council in Athens, then became ‘tyrant’ in the Chersonese, inheriting an ancestral position (Hdt. 6.34-40), and was involved in Darius’ near-fatal Scythian expedition (ib.: 4.137). After the failure of the Ionian Revolt he returned to Athens (ib: 6.41), was elected stratêgos, and led the Athenian hoplites to victory at Marathon (Kinzl 1968). His eldest son, Metiochus, was captured by Phoenician ships and handed over to Darius who received him kindly and gave him property, presumably in western Anatolia, as well as a Persian wife (Hdt. 6.41.2-4). A younger son, Cimon, became one of the architects of the Athenian empire (Steinbrecher 1985; Samons, in preparation). His conquest in 476/5
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Kurt A. Raaflaub of Eion in Thrace, held by a Persian garrison, opened that area up for Athenian colonisation. The Athenians honoured him with the privilege of setting up three marble herms in the Agora that, although not mentioning his name, praised the supreme achievement of the men he had commanded (Plut. Cim. 7.4-8.1). He used the enormous booty from the double victory at the Eurymedon in the mid-460s, on the one hand, for public building projects and the beautification of the Agora and Academy (ibid.: 12-13; see below), on the other, for victory monuments at Delphi, including one replacing an earlier tropaion for the triumph of Marathon and Phidias’ famous group of thirteen statues that included Apollo and Athena, the ten eponymous heroes, and Miltiades (Miller 1997: 31-2, 39-40). By featuring Miltiades, this monument, even more than the ‘Painted Stoa’ in Athens, became virtually a dynastic statement of Cimon’s family: the difference from the Eion herms is most remarkable. Though much more cautious and circumspect than Pausanias, Themistocles and Miltiades himself, Cimon thus provides yet another example of how quickly ambitious Athenian leaders learned to use the opportunities offered by the confrontation with the Persians to advance their own interests, either by fighting them or collaborating with them, or both. That this required thorough knowledge and understanding of the enemy seems obvious. Warfare and formation of power in pre-Persian War Greece The archaic Greeks used three methods of forming and expanding power (Raaflaub 1990). One was to incorporate conquered lands into the victorious polis’ territory. This was the objective of many wars between neighbouring poleis from the late eighth century (Raaflaub 2004b: 67-74). Famously, as the result of perhaps a series of such wars, Messenia became part of the Lacedaemonian polis. The Spartan helots were believed to be the descendants of those early Messenians who had been enslaved after the conquest. However that may be, the helots were so firmly integrated into the Spartan state that even in the fifth century, at times of high tensions and wars between Athens and Sparta, Sparta’s claim that they were nothing but its own domestic concern was accepted by the other Greeks, including Athens (Luraghi 2002; Raaflaub 2003). The second method was hegemony in an alliance system, for which the ‘Peloponnesian League’, led by the strongest member, Sparta, offers the best example (Kagan 1969: 9-30; Ste. Croix 1972: 94-124, 333-42). A third method, applied especially by Corinth, was to keep colonies under closer control than was usually done. Despite certain elements of dependence, which caused Fritz Gschnitzer (1958) to categorise these Corinthian colonies as ‘abhängige Orte’ (dependent communities), in most cases there is no question about their essential independence and autonomy (Raaflaub 2004b: 78-9). Similar, perhaps even closer relations of dependence may
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4. Learning from the Enemy have existed between Syracuse and its colonies as well as other poleis in its sphere of influence (below). What we essentially do not find in archaic Greece is the rule of one polis over another polis or over territories not connected with its own territory, if under ‘rule’ we understand the permanent imposition on the ruled of the ruler’s will, in whatever form, and of obligations such as regular contributions in money or kind, including military forces. To be more specific, tribute payments or regular monetary contributions, officials charged with supervising the subjects, rules or outside decisions imposed on the subjects, measures that interfered with the domestic autonomy of subjects, or the confiscation of territory to maintain a garrison or colony serving the needs of the ruling polis – such features were unknown within the archaic Greek world. Conditions in the Peloponnesian League of the late sixth century are illuminating (Raaflaub 2004b: 122-6 with sources and bibliography): the allies kept their autonomy and participated in decisions about common actions, at least in the decades preceding the Persian Wars. If they were not consulted beforehand they were able to express their will forcefully during the campaign (as apparently happened during Cleomenes’ expedition to impose Isagoras as tyrant in Athens: Hdt. 5.74-75). They contributed their hoplite contingents when these were needed for a campaign but otherwise were free to use them for their own purposes. The sovereignty of the allies was thus restricted by their obligations toward the alliance and the hêgemôn, but only during common actions, and it was certainly not permanently suspended. Officials named xenagoi are attested only during the Peloponnesian War; they served as ‘military advisors’ or ‘liaison officers’ but had no power of political supervision or interference. True, Sparta had the reputation of having interfered in allied communities to prevent or overthrow tyrannies and impose or protect oligarchies (Thuc. 1.18-19, 144; Arist. Pol. 1307b22ff.) but, if this reputation is not a fifth-century retrojection (Bernhardt 1987), such intervention usually responded to the wishes of important and sizable parts of the citizen bodies involved and it was, at any rate, a positive reputation – even if, as Herodotus (1.68.6 with Raaflaub 2004b: 303n.65) and Thucydides (1.144.2) show, from the Athenian perspective at the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War it could be interpreted negatively. The ‘Hellenic League’ concluded in 481 to fight the Persians operated according to the same principles as the Peloponnesian League (Brunt 1993: ch. 3; Kienast 2003). All this has two consequences that are important in our present context. One is that Athens’ prospective allies, who in 478/7 accepted her hegemony in the Delian League, had no reason to be suspicious. The horizon of experiences and expectations available to them did not include the methods that Athens would develop and use in the near future to turn them into subjects and maintain tight control over them. This explains their willingness, astonishing from hindsight, to commit
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Kurt A. Raaflaub themselves in perpetuity by sinking iron weights in the ocean (Arist. Ath. Pol. 23.5). The other consequence is that the Athenians themselves indeed could not find in the arsenal of Greek experiences the models for the instruments of empire that they would need down the road. A couple of possible exceptions will be discussed in a moment. Of course, this does not necessarily mean that Athens was hugely popular, despite its undeniable merits in the victories over the Persians. If what Herodotus reports (8.3) about allied reactions to Athens’ quest for leadership during the Persian Wars is historically authentic, Sparta was way ahead in the popularity contest. And some of Athens’ neighbours (such as Chalcis and Thebes) had good reasons to hate her, not only because they had been defeated in 506 (which cost Chalcis some of its best land: Hdt. 5.74, 77) but also because Athens had been expanding its sphere of control quite vigorously in the years since Cleisthenes’ reforms (Figueira 1991: ch. 5; Fornara and Samons 1991: 102-3). But all this need not have affected the expectations of the prospective allies concerning the role and behavior of their future hêgemôn. Moreover, what mattered most at the time was Athens’ huge naval power, proven ability to use it effectively, and willingness to continue the war against Persia. Athenian instruments of empire Thus in the winter 478/7 was founded what we call the ‘Delian League’. For my present purposes it is not decisive whether the initiative came from the allies or from Athens. Both sides were vitally interested in this project, and it would be naïve to attribute entirely selfless motives to the new hêgemôn. Nor does it matter much what the new League’s exact purpose was (below) and to what extent it continued the existing Hellenic League (bibliography in Raaflaub 2004b: 318n.1). In some ways, it corresponded to earlier ones (mentioned above): for example, in its character as a hegemonial alliance whose members met to make decisions about common actions and campaigns, in its lack of regulations and limitations imposed upon the leader’s rights and privileges, and in its unlimited duration. In other ways it was different: its centre was not identical with the hêgemôn’s polis centre, and the allies committed themselves to make regular, predetermined contributions. Both these differences seem logical (Davies 1993: 47). The choice of Delos looks back to cultic amphictyonies (Smarczyk 1990: 464-82). In addition, the Delian cult of Apollo had the great advantage of balancing Sparta’s privileged relationship with Delphi. Regular contributions, especially in ships and money, fit the nature of the League as a naval alliance. Naval warfare was cost and personnel intensive; large funds were required for the construction and maintenance of ships, for paying the crews, and for financing campaigns that lasted weeks, months, even years.6 By contrast, traditional hoplite warfare was based on selfequipment, no pay for service, short duration, and intermittent wars
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4. Learning from the Enemy (Mitchell 1996). Still, as we shall see, especially the second choice (of regular contributions) was perhaps less obvious than it appears. Within less than two or at most three decades, this League was transformed into an Athenian empire. The date and process by which this happened are much debated. Extreme views include, on the one side (e.g. Meiggs 1972; Rhodes 1992), gradual transformation culminating in the aftermath of the Egyptian disaster and peace with Persia in the late 450s, on the other (e.g. Fornara and Samons 1991: ch. 3), rapid transformation concluded essentially around the mid- to late 460s, with the suppression of Naxos as the first clear indication and that of Thasos as confirmation of Athens’ imperial intention. Correspondingly, these views postulate a reactive leadership that needed time to realise the potential and advantages offered it by the League vs. a proactive leadership that very soon aimed at using the new organisation for Athens’ own purposes and deliberately advanced the League’s transformation into an empire. For my purposes, the result matters more than the process. Eventually, the Athenians relied mainly on the following instruments of empire.7 (1) Contributions in ships or money were based on an initial assessment, performed by Aristides and presumably accepted by the League’s synod. We do not know how many allies began by providing ships and crews. Most of these switched to contributing money (paying the tribute, phoros), either voluntarily or by losing their fleet after an unsuccessful revolt; the tribute was levied regularly and Athens insisted on full and timely payment. (2) In 454, at the latest, the League’s treasury was moved from Delos to Athens (Pritchett 1969; Schuller 1974: 169-77; Fornara and Samons 1991: 91-3). From then on the aparchê (the protector deity’s share) was no longer paid to Delian Apollo (which caused the construction of the new temple of Apollo to be discontinued: Meiggs 1972: 291-2; Shapiro 1996) but to Athenian Athena Polias, and the amounts were recorded epigraphically on the Acropolis (the famous tribute lists: ATL). (3) Also around that time (or perhaps later: Hornblower 1991: 146-7) meetings of the allied synod were discontinued and the Athenian assembly began making decisions that were binding for the League’s members, concerning individual actions or general rules (Koch 1991). (4) A habit that began before the Persian Wars (in the late sixth century with the settlement of Athenian citizens on land confiscated from Chalcis and on Salamis: Figueira 1991: 142-60), to establish colonies or cleruchies on land taken from defeated enemies, was continued in the first years of the League (with settlements at Eion, Scyros, Carystos) and went on with cleruchies on the territory of allies that were reconquered after a revolt (Naxos, Thasos, and many others; Brunt 1993: ch. 5). (5) If such cleruchies did not replace previous poleis (as happened, for example, at Melos: Thuc. 5.116) but were established next to existing
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Kurt A. Raaflaub allied poleis, they served as garrisons as well. Some garrisons were for strategic reasons placed in crucial locations. How frequent such garrisons were is unknown (Nease 1949). The cleruchs maintained their Athenian citizenship and continued to be liable to military service. Most of them probably came from the lower classes and may have risen to hoplite status (for a different view see Moreno, this volume). Antiphon (fr. 61 Blass/Thalheim, unfortunately without context) describes it as a deliberate policy ‘to make all the thetes hoplites’. Other evidence suggests that the cleruchs were given hoplite equipment. It is thus clear that their status improved but not what exactly this meant in terms of census classes. The number of citizens affected may over time have reached 10,000 (Jones 1957: 7, 167-77; Schmitz 1988: 105-11). Besides such state-organised land distributions, individual Athenians (probably mostly among the upper classes: Schmitz 1988: 92-105) acquired land on allied territory. This is attested impressively by the records of the auctions following the trials of the hermokopidai (ML 79; Fornara 1983: no. 147; Pritchett 1953/6, 1961; for the context: Furley 1996) and implied by the regulations of the Second Athenian League in the fourth century that explicitly prohibited such practices (RO 22 lines 25-46). (6) The garrison commanders (phrourarchoi) and other Athenian officials (archontes) or inspectors (episkopoi), stationed temporarily or permanently in allied poleis, functioned as supervisors and informers. Their number, according to the Ath. Pol. (24.3), eventually amounted to several hundred. (7) Proxenoi in allied cities (representatives, comparable to modern honorary consuls) had similar functions and were honoured and protected by specific individual and general laws. (8) In individual cases and perhaps more generally, the Athenians used suitable opportunities (especially after suppression of a revolt) to encourage or impose the establishment of a democratic constitution. The earliest attested case is Erythrae (in the late 450s) but this method may have begun earlier; whether it ever amounted to a general policy is contested (see Brock in this volume). (9) Certain categories of trials, resulting in serious punishment and/or involving Athenian citizens, were taken away from allied courts and transferred to Athenian courts. This required a general regulation, adopted by the Athenian assembly and binding on all allies. Other such general laws are attested (concerning the collection of tribute, the standards of coinage and measures, and the protection of proxenoi, among others) but their dates are much debated; if early dates are still acceptable, they begin in the 440s, but most are about two decades later (Mattingly 1996; Schuller 2002; Papazarkadas, this volume). (10) Regulations concerning allied contributions to Athenian festivals illuminate another dimension of imperial control: religious ties and the imposition on the allies/subjects of colony status, for which there was a
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4. Learning from the Enemy long-standing tradition (first visible in one of Solon’s poems) but which was exploited in new and unprecedented ways (below). (11) The most important and powerful instrument of empire, of course, was the fleet, unrivalled, ever-ready, and able to reach every corner of the empire in a short time (Strauss 1996; Hanson 2001). All this is well known. Here, as in my entire discussion, the details are less important than the principles. The system, as it evolved over time, seems logical, purposeful, and effective. We do not need to admire imperialism to recognise that the Athenian masterminds who devised this system did an impressive job. Yet, as noted above, few, if any, of these instruments of empire had any kind of precedent in the Greek world: they did not play any significant role in relations between archaic Greek poleis. Thesis and questions Hence my thesis is that, with few exceptions, the entire range of Athenian instruments of empire was derived from Persian models. This issue is related to but not identical with that of the Athenian succession to Persia as imperial power and collector of tribute from the East Greeks (e.g. Stadter 1992: 795-808) and fundamentally different from the question of how the Athenians’ own Persian War experience might have influenced their later thinking about war and strategies.8 Several questions need to be answered in order to provide support for my thesis. I list these here, although I will not be able to deal with all of them in this chapter. (1) What were the Persian imperial institutions and instruments of control that may have been imitated or appropriated by the Athenians? Are they similar enough to make borrowing plausible? Were the Greeks themselves aware of such borrowing? (2) What were the ‘conduits’ of such borrowing, who were the ‘carriers’ of the knowledge and information necessary for it? More broadly, to what extent were Persians aware of and knowledgeable about Greece, and Greeks about Persia? I have suggested some answers to these questions above but my opinion that at least some Greek leaders could be and probably were well informed about Persian methods of government and administration is not necessarily shared by others (e.g. Georges 1994: 48-58). (3) Is my thesis compatible with the widespread assumption that the Greeks in general and the Athenians in particular saw in the Persians mostly the hostile ‘other’, felt culturally superior, and thus were hardly likely to borrow from them or to imitate them, especially in areas that concerned politics and community? (4) If the Athenians borrowed these instruments of empire from the
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Kurt A. Raaflaub Persians, how did they adapt and transform them to serve their specific (Greek as opposed to Persian) conditions and purposes? (5) What difference does it make, ideologically and practically, that the ruler in this case was not an individual, let alone a divinely sanctioned, autocratic king, but a polis – and soon a democratic one to boot? (6) Can we identify other possible sources that may have influenced the Athenians? If so, are these more likely than the Persians to have served as models for the Athenian instruments of empire? Persian instruments of empire and Athenian adaptations If I claim, as I do, that the Athenians took over most of their instruments of empire from the Persians, I do not suggest that they did so slavishly and wholesale, but that the inspiration for such measures, the idea that this or that could be done at all, came from the outside. Of course, every measure then needed to be adapted to fit the specific conditions and needs it had to serve. Contribution of tribute: This is one of the cases where scholars have previously assumed Persian-Greek continuity, and the only one of which extant Greek testimonies show any awareness. As mentioned above, in earlier Greek alliances the allies contributed soldiers (and/or, especially in the case of the Hellenic League against Persia, ships) to allied campaigns when they were needed. In other words, such contributions were due only when a campaign had been decided upon and the specific needs had been determined, and these contributions were limited to the duration of the campaign. Monetary contributions were unprecedented. Thucydides’ Pericles (1.141-3) emphasises the lack of financial reserves as one of Sparta’s main weaknesses even at the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War, and a precious inscription, probably dating to around 427, illuminates Spartan efforts to correct this (Loomis 1992). True, the prospects of the continuing campaign against the Persians must have been uncertain. Nobody could, for example, know if and when the Great King might make another attempt to achieve his goals in Greece. Nor are we entirely clear about the purposes of the Delian League: the extant sources mention several motives (preparation for a counterattack, liberation of Greeks still under the Persian yoke, retaliation, booty), and various combinations of these may have been in play at various times (bibliography in Hornblower 1991: 144-5; Petzold 1993-4). Even so, I do not think it has so far been appreciated enough how extraordinary the decision was that the League made right at the beginning. It would have been possible to determine the allies’ contributions (in ships, manpower, and/or money) in advance and then to demand delivery of these contributions when the casus belli arose and a campaign had been decided upon.
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4. Learning from the Enemy This would have corresponded to traditional Greek patterns (and was what the Romans did), and it might have seemed perfectly sufficient even if campaigning was expected to continue over several years. Instead, the League decided to collect tribute annually, on the basis of a general assessment, irrespective of whether or not it was going to be active in that year. The underlying assumption must have been that campaigns would take place every year, or at least, that ships and crews would be active every year, and that reserves needed to be built up for long and especially costly campaigns. We may think that this made perfect sense, and it did, given the expenses involved in naval warfare, but the Hellenic League had not operated this way, and I suggest that it is not at all obvious that the Delian League could not have functioned according to the traditional method. After all, the massive expenses that are attested for some campaigns were caused not by wars against the Persians (which in fact brought in considerable amounts of booty) but by those serving Athenian imperial designs.9 To repeat, the allies’ commitment to contribute to fighting the Persians without limit in time is not the same as anticipating that this would need to be done continually, year after year – unless, of course, constant campaigning for whatever purposes was not only anticipated but in fact planned and intended (which would throw a peculiar light on Athens’ motives). At any rate, the Persian model of raising and storing tribute may have been too tempting to ignore. According to Herodotus (3.89-97), in 518 Darius organised 20 satrapies (archai), selected the satraps, and established a system of annual tribute collection in precious metal and kind that was based on a tax assessment (etaxato phorous, 89.1). Scholars continue to debate whether and to what extent Herodotus was well enough informed and can be trusted: was this really a reform involving massive administrative innovations, did Persian methods of collecting income from their empire move from ‘gift’ to ‘tribute’ at that time, and did the ‘tax districts’ mentioned by the historian correspond to the satrapies known from Persian inscriptions?10 For my present purposes all that matters is that from the early years of Darius’ reign, at the latest, the Persian imperial administration collected tribute from its subject peoples, and this tribute was based on a fixed assessment. The gold and silver collected in this way was stored in the Persian capitals. Herodotus writes: The method adopted by the Persian kings of storing their treasure is to melt the metal and pour it into earthenware jars; the jar is then chipped off, leaving the solid metal. When the money is wanted, the necessary amount is coined for the occasion (3.96.2; see comments by Asheri et al. 1990: 322-3).
We should remember here that the Athenians too stored the League’s tribute in cast lumps, only that these happened to take the shape of statuettes of Athena Nike (Oliver 1960: 138-40; on the Athenian treasuries: Samons 2000).
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Kurt A. Raaflaub After the suppression of the Ionian Revolt, Artaphernes modified the earlier assessment (without changing the total for the satrapy) by assessing each city’s agricultural potential: Artaphernes, governor of Sardis, sent for representatives from all the Ionian states … He had their territories surveyed and measured in parasangs … and settled the tax which each state was to pay at a figure which has remained unaltered down to the present day. The amount was, moreover, much the same as it had previously been (Hdt. 6.42).
Ending his Histories with the immediate aftermath of the Greek victories of 479, Herodotus does not report the foundation of the Delian League and Aristides’ assessment. According to Thucydides (1.96.2), The Athenians assessed the various contributions to be made for the war against Persia, and decided which states should furnish money and which states should send ships … At this time the officials known as ‘Hellenic Treasurers’ (Hellênotamiai) were first appointed by the Athenians. These officials received the phoros, which was the name given to the contributions in money (chrêmatôn phora). The original sum fixed for the tribute was 460 talents.
Diodorus (10.25.4) says that Artaphernes ‘apportioned the payment of tribute according to the ability of each city (kata dunamin)’ – that is, in proportion to the size and productivity of the territories. That agrarian revenue formed the base of the assessment is confirmed elsewhere (ps.Arist. Oec. 2.1.4; Briant 2002: 495). Plutarch gives more details: the Greeks had made certain contributions (apophora) to the war even earlier, ‘while the Spartans were in command’, but with the foundation of the Athenian alliance ‘they wanted each city to be assessed at a fair rate’. So Aristeides was asked ‘to survey the various territories and their revenues and then to fix their contributions according to each member’s worth (axia) and ability to pay (dunamis)’ (Arist. 24.1). Efforts to reconcile the sources have caused much debate. Some scholars think that Aristeides took over Artaphernes’ assessment for the cities to which it applied, others that his assessment was new in that it involved not only income from land but also other resources. Clearly, though, in order to be able to levy the first tribute so soon after the League’s foundation, Aristeides had to rely on previous figures where they existed and leave potential revisions for later. If so, he did adopt the pre-existing Persian assessment, which, at any rate, would have the advantage of being fair and even, while earlier contributions, collected under Spartan hegemony, had necessarily been haphazard and thus uneven.11 Herodotus’ allusion to the continuing validity of the Persian assessment cannot refer to the phoros (collected by the Delian League and Athens) itself, which changed several times between 479 and Herodotus’ writing.
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4. Learning from the Enemy According to Oswyn Murray it refers to the fact that the Persian king never formally yielded his claim to income from his Greek subjects, even when they were not under his control, and received at least some income from Greek poleis or individuals in western Anatolia; hence payment of the tribute was demanded immediately after the Persians regained control over the area in the Ionian War (Thuc. 8.5.5; Murray 1966: 142-8). Yet the word phoros would have made Herodotus’ audience or readers think of tribute paid to Athens, not Persia. Hence the reference must be to the very fact of annual tribute assessment that continued from Persians to Delian League to Athenian empire (Evans 1976; cf. ATL 3.234). Finally, Thucydides’ explanation that phoros, the word used for the League’s contributions, derived from the ‘bringing in, contribution’ (phora) of money, makes it likely that this was a new term, which in turn necessitates an earlier system in which contributions were called differently. I therefore agree with Murray: ‘Just as in the Second Athenian League the term suntaxis was used in order to avoid the connotations of the hated phoros, so in the first phoros itself was intended to differentiate the new contributions from the old tribute to Persia’ which, most likely, was called dasmos (1966: 149-54, quote 149-50). For all these reasons, despite much debate and uncertainty, it seems to me obvious that the architects of the Delian League adapted the Persian method of annual tribute collection, initially even using the existing assessments (Wallinga 1979; Briant 2002: 556). The method of storing the tribute in large cast units may equally imitate Persian practice, though the Athenians later co-opted it into the service of Athena as the protectress of the empire. And enough hints survive in the extant evidence to suggest that critical observers in the later fifth century were perfectly aware of this act of borrowing. Acquisition of land in allied territory: As mentioned above, the Athenians began early to confiscate land of defeated enemies or allies who had revolted and to settle large groups of their own citizens there in colonies or cleruchies. In addition, individual Athenians acquired land in allied territory. Overall, John Davies judges, ‘the Athenian presence in the Aegean amounts more and more to a tremendous land-grab, carried out and protected by Athenian naval power for the benefit of Athenian citizens of all classes’ (1993: 78). In archaic Greece a community could assign communally-owned land to a foreigner by communal decision and as a personal privilege. However it was done, it was an exemption from the general rule that only citizens were entitled to own land (Manville 1990: ch. 5). Acquisition of land in the territory of another polis was impossible without the permission of that polis’ citizens; so was the distribution of land in the territory of defeated but still independent poleis. If land was conquered it was incorporated into the conquering polis’ territory. The Romans started to confiscate land on a grand scale, but only during the
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Kurt A. Raaflaub conquest of Italy, beginning in the mid-fourth century (Salmon 1970). The earliest Greek cases I know of are Athenian and post-Cleisthenic: the cleruchy on land taken from the Hippobotai in Chalcis after the celebrated victory of 506 and the settlement of Athenian citizens on Salamis (above). Again Persia offers clear precedents: the Persian authorities confiscated large swathes of territory in the lands of conquered enemies; Lydia was heavily affected but also Greek poleis after the initial conquest and especially after the suppression of the Ionian Revolt. According to Herodotus, the Persian commanders threatened the rebellious poleis not only with enslavement and deportation but also with the confiscation of their land (6.9). After the conquest of Miletus, Most of the men were killed by the Persians …; the women and children were made slaves, and the temple at Didyma, both shrine and oracle, was plundered and burnt … The Persians themselves occupied the land in the immediate neighbourhood of the town, and the rest of the cultivated region which belonged to it, and made over the mountainous interior to the Carians of Pedasus … In this way Miletus was emptied of its inhabitants (6.19.3-20, 22).
Excavations confirm that the city was brutally destroyed (Gorman 2001: 143-4). Even if the extent of deportation and expropriation is perhaps exaggerated (Scott 2005 ad loc.), clearly a large amount of territory was confiscated. Such land was used for assignations to dignitaries of Persian and other origins. The latter included high-ranking Greek refugees, bestknown among them the Spartan king Demaratos and the Athenian Themistocles. Endowed with generous fiefdoms (often comprising several Greek poleis), they became the Great King’s loyal supporters and figured prominently in his strategy to conquer Greece and later to contain Athenian aggression (Picard 1980: ch. 2; Balcer 1984: ch. 7; Briant 2002: 559-63). Large numbers of Persians came on their own to settle in western Anatolia. The situation is described in some detail in Xenophon’s Cyropaedia (Briant 2002: 500-2 with references) but Herodotus confirms it for an earlier period (6.3-4 and below). Already by the time of the Ionian Revolt, the numbers of Persians living in Western Asia Minor was very substantial. The Persians were subject to the authority of the satrap; they were summoned for annual reviews and contributed to the military forces at his disposition. For example, the Persian force that at the beginning of the revolt pursued the invading Greeks from Sardis down to the coast and defeated them near Ephesus consisted of such Persians who had been summoned by the satrap who defended himself successfully on the acropolis of Sardis (Hdt. 5.100-2; Briant 2002: 153-4). As we saw, the Athenian cleruchs too, remaining Athenian citizens, were liable to military service. Those settled in the territory of Chalcis must have fought as hoplites at Marathon and Plataea (the numbers of Athenian hoplites given for those battles require their inclusion: Raaflaub
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4. Learning from the Enemy 2007: 128-31). That the first instances of Athenian cleruchies (Chalcis and Salamis) predate the Persian Wars does not argue against Athenian imitation of Persian methods: by 506 the Persians had been in Asia Minor for forty years! Garrisons: Some of the Athenian cleruchies served as garrisons; other garrisons were deliberately established in crucial places (especially to control recently subdued rebel poleis). The commander of such a garrison (phrourarchos) plays an important role in the regulations for Erythrae, probably dating to the late 450s, helping to set up the new (democratic?) council (boulê): ‘The allotment shall be carried out and the establishment of the Boule effected for the present by the Episkopoi and the Phrourarch, in future by the Boule and the Phrourarch’ (ML 40; Fornara 1983: 71, lines 12-14). Phrourarchs thus were among the officials who supported Athenian control over allied poleis (below). Since, to my knowledge, there are no pre-Persian War precedents for the use of garrisons in Greece, the Persians again are likely to have offered the model. Direct evidence from Persian Asia Minor is scarce but Herodotus (5.123) mentions a governor of Cyme (which served as naval base for the Persian fleet), and Briant considers it certain that garrisons were stationed not only in the provincial capitals but also at several points along the coast (2002: 497; see also Picard 1980: 43-6). Early actions of the Delian League against Persian bases in the Northern Aegean (Eion, Doriskos) seem to confirm this (Meiggs 1972: 68-9; Steinbrecher 1985: 37-8). In Briant’s opinion, which in this respect disagrees with standard views of the early expansion of the Delian League, these garrisons and continuing Persian naval power kept the League from expanding its membership and control more than marginally on the Anatolian mainland before the battle at the Eurymedon in 466/5 (2002: 554-9 against e.g. Meiggs 1972: ch. 5; on the date of the battle: Badian 1993: 100). Officials in the poleis of the empire: The role of the phrourarch in Erythrae brings up the issue of the Athenian officials serving in poleis all over the empire, some temporarily, some long-term: episkopoi, archontes, and phrourarchoi (overseers, governors, garrison-commanders).12 According to the Ath. Pol. (24.3), their number rose to 700; this number, echoing that of domestic officials mentioned just before, may be too high (Meiggs 1972: 215; Hansen 1980: 151; Rhodes 1981: 305). An episkopos is parodied in Aristophanes’ Birds (1020-55; Meiggs 1972: 583-7; Dunbar 1995 ad loc.). Sent by decree of the Athenian assembly, his official task obviously is to supervise the incorporation into the empire of the newly founded polis of Cloudcuckooland. But, it turns out, he is also an informer, and he can be paid off. Moreover, he presents himself as engaged in high-level negotiations with a Persian official and, when first seen, is called a Sardanapallos (the Greek name for Ashurbanipal). Perhaps ‘wearing rich Persian clothes
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Kurt A. Raaflaub received as a present’ (reminding us of the scene in Acharnians mentioned at the beginning: Dunbar 1995: 563), he thus comes with eastern associations (although these probably have more to do with current politics than the origins of the office). He immediately asks for the local proxenos. The proxenoi whom the Athenians supported and protected in the allied poleis (Meiggs 1972: 215-19; Walbank 1978; Marek 1984), of course, had a long prehistory that goes back all the way to the xenoi of the early archaic period (Gschnitzer 1973: 632) and were a panhellenic institution (ibid. 641-9). Their function too changed with the emergence of the empire, and they became part of Athens’ apparatus to control the subjects and gather information (Gerolymatos 1986). I can think of only one precedent in archaic Greece: the Corinthians provided their colonies with officials, but this arrangement originated with the foundation of these colonies by Corinth and on soil owned by Corinth, and was in the fifth century based on mutual agreement and advantage (Gschnitzer 1958: 124-36); at any rate, these appointees served in the role of local officials and not, as was the case in the Athenian empire, in that of imperial officials who were clearly superimposed upon local administrative structures. Jack Balcer (1977) argues plausibly that especially the office of episkopos was adapted from Persian antecedents. The Greeks were convinced that the Great King maintained a corps of specialised informers, the ‘King’s Eyes’, parodied in Acharnians (above), and the ‘King’s Ears’: agents in the service of the King, usually mobile, whose sole purpose it was to observe the functioning of the provincial administration and the behaviour of the Persian officials and to report back to the King (Pomeroy 1994: 242-3 with references). As Xenophon says (Oec. 4.6, 8), the King sends ‘men he trusts to inspect (episkopein)’. This corresponds closely to the function of Athenian episkopoi as portrayed in Birds. No Persian evidence so far confirms the existence of such a ‘secret service’. Sarah Pomeroy suggests that this may simply be due to the fact that official Persian documents would not mention their intelligence service (1994: 243). Alternatively, the system may have been less formally established, based on patronage and mutual obligations. As Xenophon explains (Cyr. 8.2.10-12), We are led to think that the offices called ‘the king’s eyes’ and ‘the king’s ears’ came into being through this system of gifts and honours. Cyrus’ munificence toward all who told him what it was well for him to know set countless people listening with all their ears and watching with all their eyes for news that might be of service to him. Thus there sprang up a host of ‘king’s eyes’ and ‘king’s ears,’ as they were called, known and reputed to be such … The king will listen to any man who asserts that he has heard or seen anything that needs attention. Hence the saying that the king has a thousand eyes and a thousand ears.
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4. Learning from the Enemy Importantly, in Persians, performed in 472, Aeschylus already alludes to Xerxes’ ‘Eye, trustworthy in all things’ (979). This reference antedates the introduction of the office of episkopos in the Athenian empire which Balcer (1977: 255) connects with the suppression of the first revolts of Naxos and Thasos in the 460s (for the dates, Badian 1993: 100-1). The King’s Eyes and Ears, however, were not the only sources providing the King with information. In addition, garrison commanders were directly appointed by him and reported to him, and apparently there were some kinds of secretariats in the satraps’ headquarters that also were directly responding to the King. Officials reported on each other (Xen. Oec. 4.10), and the general expectation was that the King knew everything (Briant 2002: 304, 343-4). The purpose of all this apparatus was largely the control of the Persian administration in the provinces but I do not doubt that it served also to keep an eye and ear on the subject populations. Imposition of the democratic constitution: That the Athenians used this as an instrument of empire, at least from the mid-century, seems to me unquestionable (and the ‘Old Oligarch’ takes it as such: ps.-Xen. Ath. Pol. 1.14), even if it remains uncertain whether it ever became a general principle (Meiggs 1972: 208-12; Schuller 1974: 82-98; 1979; Brock in this volume). For this too we have a precedent in a measure enacted by Mardonios after the Ionian Revolt. Herodotus presents this as support for the historicity of the ‘Constitutional Debate’ among the Persian nobles who had overthrown the ‘false Smerdis’ (3.80-2): ‘When he reached Ionia, he did something which will come as great marvel to those Greeks who cannot believe that Otanes declared to the seven conspirators that Persia should have a democratic government: he suppressed the tyrants in all the Ionian states and set up democratic institutions in their place’ (6.43). According to Diodorus Siculus (10.25.4), he ‘restored to the cities their laws’, but the attribution, in a clearly fictitious conversation with Hecataeus, here is to Artaphernes, not Mardonios. If this refers to the same measure, as most scholars think, it might mean that Mardonios, certainly with the King’s authorisation, continued Artaphernes’ policy (Scott 2005: 543). Did the Persians in fact do this kind of thing, and what exactly did it mean for the poleis affected? Pierre Briant points out rightly that there is no doubt that the Persians could have done it: they did not have ideological preconceptions about their subjects’ constitutional arrangements (2002: 496-7). Tyranny had proved unpopular among most Greek poleis; its abolition had been a signal measure marking the beginning of the Ionian Revolt (Hdt. 5.37.2). Since some of the deposed tyrants later recovered and kept their positions, Mardonios’ measure apparently was applied less generally than Herodotus implies, but there is no reason to assume that the latter or his source invented this story. The Persians had learned from their earlier mistakes and were less authoritarian, allowing Greek poleis
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Kurt A. Raaflaub to choose their own arrangements. ‘Perhaps what Herodotus wanted to say was quite simply that, at the end of the revolt, the Persians had not systematically reimposed the tyrants – nothing more; but this was quite enough in the eyes of a fifth-century Greek.’ The Persian leaders were pragmatic and used constitutional arrangements that served their interests! (Briant, ibid.). Herodotus obviously uses the word dêmokratia here not in a precise or specific sense; elsewhere the same arrangement is characterised by equality (isonomia, isêgoria, isokratia), and such equality at the time need not have been fully democratic (Scott 2005: 543-4 with references; see also Raaflaub 1996: 143-50; 2007). Whatever the precise realisation of this concept in each of the poleis involved – which may well have varied considerably (Scott, ibid.) – what matters for my argument is that the Persians had used constitutional manipulation as a means to stabilise their control over Greek cities; they had thus set an example that the Athenians were free to imitate. General laws: Artaphernes, who reassessed the tribute of the Greek poleis after the Ionian Revolt, also introduced a measure that, according to Herodotus, proved highly advantageous to them. He forced the Ionian poleis ‘to bind themselves by oath to settle their differences by arbitration, instead of raiding’ (6.42.1). Artaphernes would perceive that a range of quarrels where the parties were from different poleis, particularly frontier disputes and allegations of breach of trade contracts, was a potential cause of disruption. There were no existing [legal] procedures for such cases. It is clear … that, whether or not he indicated the sort of system he required, it was for the Ionian poleis themselves to set it up and operate it. … The comparables we have from later in the fifth century suggest either arbitration, or allowing men from one polis to sue in the courts of another (Scott 2005: 191-2; cf. 534-8).
Examining an epigraphically attested case of Persian arbitration in a land dispute between two Greek poleis (RO no. 16), Briant concludes that Herodotus had good information. In that case the satrap delegated authority to a set of ‘Ionian judges’ who heard envoys of the cities involved, travelled and investigated the issue, and then submitted their proposed resolution to the satrap who made his final decision. The power of decision thus ultimately resided with the satrap but the procedures that were used respected local authority and autonomy. Arbitration was imposed on the Greek poleis but the ultimate goal was not to interfere with their domestic affairs but to maintain order and stability in the province. Conversely, the cities’ autonomy was restricted in several ways: they lost the right to fight border wars with their neighbours (a right that was not categorically excluded either in the Peloponnesian or the Delian Leagues), their territorial boundaries were fixed once and for all and recorded in the satrapal archives at Sardis, and their recourse to arbitration no longer depended
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4. Learning from the Enemy on their own will but on imperial fiat, with the satrap supervising and enforcing the process and its results (Briant 2002: 494-6). All subjects were obliged to pay tribute and supply troops to the King’s or satrap’s wars. Whether or not they were formulated as such, these too were general rules imposed on all subjects. No such rules that were imposed from above are attested earlier in the Greek world; obligations that perhaps existed in the Peloponnesian League already in the late sixth century, to supply troops to common wars, to follow Sparta’s lead, and to have the same friends and enemies as the hêgemôn (Ste. Croix 1972: 298-9; see bibliography in Raaflaub 2004b: 320n.17), were based on treaties of alliance and subject to approval by the assembled allies prior to military action. Again, therefore, it is more likely the Persian example that inspired the Athenians’ decision to pass in their assembly regulations that were binding on all poleis of their empire – even if Athens did not hesitate to intervene through such laws in their subjects’ autonomy as well (above). In fact, it was precisely this threat to the former allies’ domestic autonomy that prompted the coining of a new term (autonomia) for such internal independence (Ostwald 1982; Raaflaub 2004b: 147-60). As said above, such ‘general laws’ concerned many aspects of the relations between Athens and the poleis of the empire, perhaps most noteworthy in the present context the judicial sphere.13 Display of tribute at the Dionysia: Among the ceremonies with strong imperial connotations that were performed at the beginning of the Great Dionysia (Goldhill 1990), one concerned the imperial tribute. The Athenians ‘passed a decree to divide the funds derived from the tributes of the allies into talents and to bring it onto the stage, when the theatre was full’ (Isoc. On Peace 82, trans. G. Norlin). We do not know how exactly this was done, but the assemblage of several hundreds of bags or baskets, each with thousands of coins, must have been an overwhelming sight, demonstrating to the citizens (and the whole world) the power of their imperial city (Smarczyk 1990: 155-65) – and that eventually in the shadow of the Parthenon, the monument par excellence to Athens’ imperial splendour (ibid.: 298-317). This seems an extraordinary measure that conjures up two associations. One is to the ‘epic’ custom, at the end of a war or raid, of bringing the loot ‘into the middle’ (es meson), the centre of the community, the agora, to be distributed fairly among the fighters (Detienne 1965; Nowag 1983). The other is to the display of imperial tribute offerings along the great staircase to the reception hall (Apadana) of Darius’ palace in Persepolis, depicted in relief sculptures featuring representatives of the subject nations carrying their gifts (Walser 1966; Ghirshman 1964: 147223 with figs 209-32). This in turn reminds us of the gifts the Athenian subject poleis were obliged to send to Athens at the occasion of major festivals: a cow and panoply at the Greater Panathenaea and first fruits of corn and barley to Eleusis (Smarczyk 1990; Parker 1996: 142-4).14
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Kurt A. Raaflaub The use of the fleet: In 499, at the beginning of the Ionian Revolt, the rebellious Greeks seized control of the Persian naval establishment, including 300 triremes (Wallinga 1984: 428-30). Five years later, at the decisive battle of Lade, they were confronted with a Persian fleet, operated by Phoenicians, that was vastly superior in numbers but not necessarily in fighting power. They lost, for various reasons: their united front had been undermined, their discipline was weak, and they had not managed to create a permanent support structure for this fleet (Hdt. 6.8-15). The Phoenician fleet then went on to subdue polis after polis, area after area (ibid.: 18-33). As wise men had supposedly recommended before the revolt, a centralised command structure and naval organisation would have been crucial to succeed against the Persians (Hdt. 6.36; cf. 1.170; Wallinga 1984: 431-6). The Ionian Revolt thus served as a powerful lesson for anybody who intended to take on the Persian empire. But there may have been much more to learn. H.T. Wallinga argues (1984: 402-25; 1987; 1993: ch. 5; see also Kienast 2003) that Darius and Xerxes in their attempts to conquer Greece did not rely on existing navies of east Greek poleis. In fact, most Greek poleis before the Persian Wars did not have communally owned fleets, let alone many of the costly and highly specialised triremes. Rather, beginning with Cambyses, the Persians had built up a potent naval organisation both in the Levant and the Aegean. It consisted of fleets of triremes that were built, maintained, and owned by the Persian administration, stationed in special war harbours, and rowed by crews that were drawn from the coastal subject populations but commanded and supervised by Persian officers and soldiers (Diod. 11.3.7). The Aegean fleet was created by Darius who also put the administrative and financial reforms in place to support it. If all this is correct there can be hardly any doubt that the naval apparatus the Athenians realised through the Delian League (Gabrielsen 1994) was very largely inspired by Persian precedents. This background also makes it more easily understandable, for example, why the Athenians did not insist on the continuing supply of ships by their allies but permitted them to switch to paying the less burdensome tribute, while they themselves maintained and operated the fleet (Thuc. 1.99; Plut. Cim. 11; Schuller 1974: 153-4). Not all the examples I have adduced are equally compelling. Some are earlier, some later. For example, general laws and the imposition of the democratic constitution date to the second half or even last third of the fifth century and thus to a later phase in the evolution of the Athenian empire. But this does not exclude Persian imitation, especially if Greek precedents are lacking. The accumulation of examples, even if from various periods, makes the case more plausible. In the next section I mention a few other examples of imperial measures or behaviours that the Athenians may have adopted from Persian models.
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4. Learning from the Enemy Other examples Destruction of cities and enslavement of defeated populations: I mentioned earlier the fate of Miletus at the end of the Ionian Revolt. In accordance with a previous announcement (Hdt. 6.9), mainland and island poleis were burnt and enslaved as they were reconquered by the Persians (6.31-3). The same happened to Naxos and Eretria at the beginning of the Marathon campaign of Datis and Artaphernes (6.96, 101). True, the Iliad describes the same cruel fate of conquered cities, whether or not this corresponds to contemporaneous reality (Raaflaub 1991: 224-5), but by the time of the Persian Wars this kind of behaviour by a victor in war had become almost extinct in mainland Greece. Scholars studying the fate of prisoners of war and the consequences of capitulations in the late archaic period have found extremely few examples. But in their campaigns after the Persian Wars and in their suppression of rebellious allies the Athenians adopted exactly the same measures.15 Remarkably, they did so from the very beginning, as Thucydides (1.98) attests in the cases of Eion (‘they captured this place and made slaves of the inhabitants’) and Scyros (‘they enslaved the inhabitants and colonised the island themselves’). These were ‘barbarians’ but Greeks eventually shared their fate (Rosivach 1999). In 416, to cite a well-known example, ‘the Melians surrendered unconditionally to the Athenians, who put to death all the men of military age whom they took, and sold the women and children as slaves’ (5.116). Although there is no doubt that the Greeks were ever-conscious of the ‘realities’ of epic and myth, I consider it much more likely that the Athenians of the post-Persian War period followed Persian rather than Homeric examples. Aeschylus’ Seven against Thebes, performed in 467, seems to combine awareness of both (Raaflaub 2004b: 65). Deportation, expulsion and resettlement: Deportation of defeated enemies and especially rebellious subjects was a common practice in the firstmillennium Assyrian and Babylonian empires (Oded 1979; Mayer 2004). Persia followed suit; the example of Miletus was mentioned above. In the Marathon campaign, Eretria was betrayed. ‘The Persians entered … and, in accordance with Darius’ orders, carried off all the inhabitants as slaves’ (Hdt. 6.101). The Persian generals brought these prisoners to Susa. Darius ‘settled them on some land of his, called Ardericca, in Cissia, about twenty-six miles from Susa’ (6.119; Grosso 1958). Many others suffered the same fate (Briant 2002: 505-6). In Greece, deportation remained an exception but expulsion of defeated citizens from their polis and land became increasingly common, creating the streams of refugees migrating through Greece in the later phases of the Peloponnesian War and the fourth century (Balogh 1943; Seibert 1979). For example, Aegina was forced into the Delian League in 456. In 431, shortly after the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War, ‘the Athenians expelled the Aeginetans with their wives and children from Aegina, accusing them of having been largely
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Kurt A. Raaflaub responsible for the war … The exiles from Aegina received from Sparta the town of Thyrea to live in, with land to cultivate’ (Thuc. 2.27). They were later expelled from there as well. Athens settled the island with its own cleruchs who were in turn expelled when Lysander restored the survivors to the island in 405 (Figueira 1991: pt. 1; 1993). In this case, the Spartans resettled allies expelled by Athens. This, too, became a method practised by both sides in the conflict (Demand 1990). I wonder whether the remarkable Spartan proposal in 479 to resettle the Greeks of Asia Minor on land taken from Greeks in the motherland who had collaborated with the Persians (Hdt. 9.106), which would have necessitated large-scale expropriations and expulsions, was inspired as well by the recent confrontation with Persian practices. Making cities defenceless: After victory over rebellious allies, the Athenians usually compelled the defeated to destroy their city walls (especially on the sea-side) and extradite their fleets (Schuller 1974: 12-13; Raaflaub 2004b: 136). The earliest attested case is Thasos in 463 (Thuc. 1.101). Herodotus reports the same treatment of (perhaps not accidentally) the same polis of Thasos on the part of the Persians: ‘On the strength of a tale put about by their neighbours that the people of Thasos were planning a revolt, Darius sent them an order to dismantle their defences and bring their fleet across to Abdera’ (6.46.1; cf. 48.1). They obeyed. Inscribing the aparchê on stelae: The decision to record and display the aparchê, Athena’s share of the tribute, on large stelae on the Acropolis, beginning with the treasury’s transfer from Delos to Athens (above), is also extraordinary, if not completely unprecedented, in the Greek sphere (Meiggs 1972: ch. 13; ATL). The records of the actual assessments and tribute deliveries have, with minimal exceptions, disappeared; apparently they were mostly written on perishable material. Fornara and Samons write: ‘Dedication of a quota to the city’s tutelary deity and the erection of a monumental block of marble on which to inscribe the names of tribute payers rather reminds one of oriental practice; in fact, it is precisely the kind of action we normally associate with the arrogance of despotism, whether Persian or Egyptian’ (1991: 112). However that may be, here the comparandum is not a pictorial representation but a monumental text listing tribute offerings. I am unaware of Persian parallels but they certainly were frequent in Mesopotamia (e.g. Pritchard 1969: 274ff.). Use of tribute for monumental buildings: Persian kings used the imperial tribute for military and other imperial expenses and for building monumental palaces that served not least the purpose of impressing foreign visitors and conveying a sense of grandeur, splendour, and power (Briant 2002: 165-71). Might this model have influenced the Athenian decision to use tribute money for the construction of the Parthenon and other build-
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4. Learning from the Enemy ings on the Acropolis?16 After all, the Parthenon was not least a memorial for the Persian victories and a celebration of Athens’ imperial greatness (below), and scholars have long suspected that the Periclean building programme was in several ways, both architecturally and artistically, influenced by conscious interaction with the building programmes in the Persian capitals (below). Interaction with Persian architecture: East Greek craftsmen and artists participated in the construction and decoration of Darius’ and other royal palaces in the Achaemenid capitals (Walser 1984: 23-4; Briant 2002: 172). Following upon earlier suggestions (e.g. Lawrence 1951), Margaret Cool Root (1985) has identified elements of ‘a programmatic relationship’ between these reliefs and the Parthenon Frieze (Jenkins 1994) which abounds in imperial connotations (Osborne 1994). Even if this view is to some extent speculative (Smarczyk 1990: 671-2 with bibliography) and others have pointed out Greek iconographic traditions underlying the Frieze’s conception (Kroll 1979), the Odeion built by Pericles in the 430s confirms that his architects consciously interacted with Persian imperial architecture (below). Werner Gauer’s interpretation of the Frieze allows for such interaction, postulating rather a deliberate contrast between the Frieze’s focus on the freedom and autonomy of the Greek polis and the emphasis placed on the King’s rule over subjected peoples in the ApadanaReliefs (1984: 227-28). Much obviously depends on how we interpret the Parthenon Frieze, and of this debate no end is in sight. Cimon’s parks in Athens: ‘Cimon was the first to beautify the city with the so-called “liberal” and elegant resorts, which were so extraordinarily popular a little later, by planting the Agora with plane trees and by converting the Academy from an arid and waterless spot into a wellwatered grove, which he provided with clear running-tracks and shady groves’ (Plut. Cim. 13.5, 7; cf. Mor. 818d; cf. Thompson 1963; Boersma 1970: 58; Kyle 1987: 73-4). True, the Greeks too had a tradition of ornamental gardens. The earliest description of such a garden occurs in Homer’s narrative of Odysseus’ approach to the palace of Alcinoös, king of the Phaeacians (Od. 7.112-32). This palace shows marked oriental characteristics (Cook 2004). From early on, it thus seems, Greeks associated luxurious parks with eastern culture.17 Scholars seem to agree, however, that such parks became more common in the Graeco-Roman world only after the ‘domestication of the Persian paradeisos in the fourth century’ and later (OCD3 624; Carroll-Spillecke 1989). Cimon’s parks in Athens would thus be an early example of this process. He had led the Athenian fleet in numerous campaigns against Persian forces and Persian-held places. His family had long held power in the Chersonese, and one brother lived in Persian territory (above). It is hardly a stretch to assume that he was thoroughly familiar with the life style of Persian nobles and officials.
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Kurt A. Raaflaub Hence it is perhaps indeed justified to feel reminded here of the paradeisoi which the Persian kings and satraps maintained near their capitals (Briant 2002: 232-4, 442-4 with sources) and which their Greek guests admired greatly. Tissaphernes’ paradise at Sardis was ‘the most beautiful of his parks, containing salubrious streams and meadows, where he had built pavilions and places of retirement royally and exquisitely adorned’ (Plut. Alc. 24.7). Xenophon describes his own estate near Olympia in similar terms (An. 5.3.7-13). With the last examples we have slightly moved away from imperial control to a related issue: the exploitation of imperial resources for cultural purposes. Like religion, though, culture, serving the purpose of demonstrating the ruler’s power, could be just another instrument of empire. For now, there remain two questions: that of Athenian willingness to imitate the Persians and that of other models which could possibly have influenced the Athenians. Athenian willingness to adopt Persian methods Would Athenian leaders have been willing to adopt Persian methods and imitate Persian models so soon after the Persian Wars, when their city was still lying in ruins and general sentiments toward the Persians could hardly have been friendly? We cannot but speculate here, of course, but the Athenians certainly would not have been the first and only people to learn eagerly from their enemies, especially in matters of war and empire.18 Aeschylus’ Persians suggests that Athenian attitudes toward the Persians could be respectful.19 Frequent borrowings from the Persians in the broader sphere of popular culture are vividly illustrated by Margaret Miller’s study of ‘Perserie’ in the fifth century (1997). Even many decades later, when feelings of superiority and contempt are well attested, Persian customs could be presented, however fictionally, as models to contemporary Greeks in Xenophon’s Cyropaedia (Tatum 1989). Moreover, this question is closely linked to that of the Athenians’ ulterior motives. The goals determined the means, the purposes justified the methods. If the Athenians thought, as they apparently did, that annual naval campaigns would serve their interests (as well as, at least initially, those of the League) it made sense to institute a system of regular, annual tribute collection, just as the Persians had done in Ionia. The Persians were in the habit of confiscating large swathes of land in the territory of defeated enemies, to assign portions of this land to their own citizens, and to allow others to acquire land there. This increased Persian presence in the provinces, had military and other advantages, and satisfied all kinds of other needs. Why not do the same if this advanced the interests of Athens and its citizens, weakened enemies, and strengthened Athens’ own position? Later, when the imperial impulse was firmly established, imitation of Persian methods would pose no problems anyway.
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4. Learning from the Enemy Whether and to what extent such borrowing was discussed, openly or behind closed doors, we do not know. I would expect that not much noise was made about it, and this may explain why our sources pass it over in silence. Possible other models Homeric precedents were mentioned a couple of times. Nobody will assume that the Athenians consciously strove to re-establish Homeric customs – even if familiarity with such customs might have helped to mitigate worries (for example, about the brutal treatment of conquered towns) or substitute a sense of Greek tradition for foreign imitation. Two other models appear more potent: the practices of Sicilian tyrants in the West and the relations between a metropolis and its colonies. Yet both are limited to a few aspects. In the late sixth century, Polycrates of Samos had built up a short-lived thalassocracy in the eastern Aegean. It was tyrants, too, who in Sicily in the last decades before the Persian Wars expanded the territory and sphere of control of their polis over exceptionally large areas and thereby created ‘proto-imperial’ power structures. The first, conquered by Hippocrates of Gela between 498 and 491, was short-lived and, although comprising a fair amount of territory and based on military might, was ‘not a centralized empire but rather something between a league and a true hegemony’ (Asheri 1988: 759-66 at 766; cf. Luraghi 1994: ch. 6). The second, put together by Hippocrates’ ‘successor,’ Gelon, after he took over Syracuse in 485, lasted longer, until the last Deinomenid was overthrown in 467/6 (Asheri 1988: 766-75; 1992: 149-54; Luraghi 1994: ch. 9). It is important for our purposes mostly for three reasons. One is that Gelon used the method of deportation and population exchange ruthlessly to increase the wealth and size of Syracuse, his new capital. The poleis of Camarina, Megara Hyblaea, and Euboea were seized, destroyed, and depopulated. In the first case all citizens, in the others the wealthy elite were deported to Syracuse, while the rest were sold into slavery; the land was annexed. In addition, half the citizens of Gela were forced to resettle in Syracuse (Asheri 1988: 769; Luraghi 1994: 288-304). In 476, Gelon’s successor, Hieron, engaged in similar policies of mass deportation and resettlement (Asheri 1992: 150; Luraghi 1994: 335-54). As mentioned above, these methods of ‘demographic manipulation’, well-known from West-Asian empires and practised by the Persians, were unprecedented in the Greek world. Yet the Sicilian tyrants’ objective was less the punishment of obstinate resistance or rebellion than the enhancement of their capital and power, and they primarily followed practices suggested by the experiences of colonisation (Luraghi 1994: 296-300). Whether they were also influenced by Persian practices remains unknown. The second fact important in our context is that Gelon, Hieron, and the tyrant of Acragas, Theron, installed their brothers and sons as tyrants in
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Kurt A. Raaflaub dependent poleis and maintained an intensive policy of intermarriage to bolster their power (Asheri 1992: 149-51; Luraghi 1994: 335). These methods, however, though resembling those of the Persian kings, had been practised much earlier by tyrants in the motherland (for example, those of Corinth or Athens; Berve 1967: 164-7). The third fact is that Hieron, probably imitating the Persian ‘King’s Eyes and Ears’ (above), made extensive use of spies and informers (male and female, called ‘information carriers’ [potagôgides] and ‘eavesdroppers’ [ôtakoustai]: Arist. Pol. 5.1313b11-16; Asheri 1992: 153).20 In sum, then, the parallels between the instruments of control used by Sicilian tyrants and Athenians are very limited. They do not challenge the overall assumption that the Athenians imitated the much more pervasive Persian model. What about the other model the Athenians employed: the influence of a mother city over her colonies (Graham 1983)? Athens’ ancient claim to be the mother city of the Ionians, its imposition of colony status on its allies, and its exploitation of privileges that resulted from it are securely attested and have been discussed in detail (Meiggs 1972: 293-8; Schuller 1974: 112-17; Smarczyk 1990: pt 2). They are visible especially in religious ties the Athenians imposed on the poleis in their empire: the spreading of Athenian cults in these poleis (Parker 1994) and the gifts the poleis were required to send to major Athenian festivals (above), as well as Athens’ role in the foundation of new colonies by these cities (Schuller 1974: 115-16). As pointed out earlier, Corinth maintained exceptionally close ties with some of its colonies (Gschnitzer 1958: 124-36). Some of them are called explicitly ‘poleis of the Corinthians’; in some cases the latter were able to command military aid from these colonies; they used Corinthian standards and coin types and, as is attested in one case but perhaps applies more generally, were administered by Corinthian officials. That this model influenced Athenian decisions, for example, concerning the use of officials and the unification of coinage in the empire is certainly not impossible. The exploitation of colonial practices by the Sicilian tyrants (above) offers a parallel that perhaps strengthens this assumption. Even so, the range of possible applications of this model in the Athenian empire was limited. It hardly obviates the much broader influence of the Persian model suggested in this chapter. The idea of empire Finally, it is even possible that the Athenians got the entire idea of empire, the ‘imperial impulse’, from the Persians. No direct evidence exists to support this possibility. Herodotus’ text suggests that there existed in Greece an undercurrent of contempt for the Ionians, their luxuriousness, softness and servility, from the time of the Persian Wars, both as a heritage of late sixth-century prejudices and as a result of the Ionians’ support of the Persian campaigns against Greece (e.g. 6.11-12). If so,
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4. Learning from the Enemy Athenian willingness to adopt Persian methods of warfare, control and imperial oppression, to use such methods against fellow-Greeks, and to do so soon after the great war of 480/79, would not need to surprise us at all. Yet here, as often, Herodotus may well have been influenced by attitudes that were prominent in his own time and are echoed in contemporaneous sources (e.g. Thuc. 6.82-3; see Will 1956). Certainly, lack of evidence does not invalidate the suggestion, but imitation of Persian models in practical matters is not identical with borrowing the underlying grand idea. Based on scattered comments in earlier scholarship, Margaret Miller writes: ‘In view of the Athenian readiness to draft Achaemenid symbols to suit local purposes, the suggestion that the Delian League and later the Athenian Empire were to some extent modelled on the Persian Empire gains greater credibility’ (1997: 257).21 This does not lead much beyond what this chapter has argued on a much broader scale. So it remains no more than a possibility that, borrowing the impulse for empire, the Athenians found it even easier to borrow individual instruments to realise this impulse. Conclusion: the sorcerer’s apprentice Let me conclude with an image that must have been familiar to the Athenians at the time. The carriers of the imperial tribute, about to display it in the theatre of Dionysus, walked by the Odeion built by Pericles in the 430s next to the theatre (Miller 1997: ch. 9). It was a hypostyle hall, reminiscent of and clearly imitating the great reception halls of Persian palaces. Again I quote Miller: The Odeion of Perikles shows that not only the individual Athenian but also the state could look to the East for meaningful symbols of rank and status. In producing the Odeion, the Athenians deliberately adopted a building type developed in Iran to convey a specific message of imperial majesty for the Persian kings; and they modified it slightly to make it buildable using Greek construction methods. Resonating against its Persian models, it is a proud statement of empire (1997: 241).
Such models, this chapter suggests, had been applied much earlier and in many different areas. Moreover, although the Athenians eagerly learned from the Persians how to rule and control their subjects, they unwittingly also acquired the bane of empire: like the ‘sorcerer’s apprentice’, once they called up the ghosts, they could no longer control them or get rid of them. The wild ride of imperial power on which they embarked with great enthusiasm, developed its own dynamics and eventually carried them beyond the limits of what they were able to handle. In his analysis of a sequence of increasingly flawed decisions passed in the Athenian assembly, and of their consequences, Thucydides has documented this most impressively (Raaflaub 2006). Shrewdly (and, from a narrow Greek perspective, quite wrongly)
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Kurt A. Raaflaub Herodotus intimates in his Histories that in this too the Athenians might imitate the Persians (Raaflaub 1987, 2002; Stadter 1992; Moles 1996). Notes 1. This is a much expanded and elaborated version of a paper that was offered at the Symposium Laureoticum organised by Apostolos Pierris at Sounion in July 2006 and at the meeting of the European Network for the Study of Ancient Greek History in Athens in April 2007, and will be published in the Symposium’s Acts, edited by Pierris (Raaflaub forthcoming). I am grateful for the latter’s invitation and generous hospitality and for useful comments offered by the participants in both events. Translations used (and often modified): de Sélincourt and Marincola for Herodotus, Warner for Thucydides (both Penguin). 2. In my perusal of relevant bibliography I have so far not found any indication that my topic has been dealt with beyond partial aspects: e.g. Balcer (1977); Wallinga (1989); Miller (1997). See also n. 21 below. Aperghis (forthcoming), with a similar title, is concerned with the Hellenistic period. 3. Sancisi-Weerdenburg (1993); Miller (1997); Wiesehöfer (2004), (2009) (and bibliography cited there); Rollinger (2006). Briant (2002) 1067-8 lists his earlier works; see 1061-2 for Balcer’s works; 1110-11 and esp. Henkelman and Kuhrt (2003) 1-7 for the publications of Sancisi-Weerdenburg. See further Briant’s immense bibliography in (2002) 1059-124 (to 1996) and his bibliographical surveys (1997), (2001), and www.achemenet.com. On Greek views of Persians, see also Hall (1989); Georges (1994). 4. Hofstetter (1978); Picard (1980) chs 3, 12; Balcer (1983) 260-2 with further bibliography; Walser (1984) ch. 5; Miller (1997) ch. 4; Raaflaub (2004a) 200-1; Rollinger (2006). On documentation in Persian sources, e.g. Sancisi-Weerdenburg (2001) 326; Steve (1974) 146, 155-7. 5. On the east Greek tyrants under Achaemenid rule, see Berve (1967) 89-122, 571-90 with sources; Graf (1985); Austin (1990); Luraghi (1998); Briant (2002) index s.v. ‘Greek tyrant’. 6. Wallinga (1982); Schmitz (1988) 16-57; Gabrielsen (1994); Morrison et al. (2000); for a summary, Raaflaub (1999) 141-6. 7. See Meiggs (1972) ch. 11; Schuller (1974); Schmitz (1988), all with sources and detailed discussion. More details will be provided in the next sections of this chapter. 8. For example, in developing the ‘Periclean’ strategy of Athens as an island (Thuc. 1.143.5; 2.62.2-3; ps.-Xen. Ath. Pol. 2.14-16): cf. Frisch (1942) 78; Starr (1979). On Pericles’ war strategy: e.g. Kagan (1974) ch. 1; Holladay (1978); Ober (1985); Spence (1990). 9. On Persian booty: e.g. Plut. Cim. 9, 13; Sealey (1966) (with Jackson 1969); Miller (1997) ch. 2. Expenses: for example, the nine-month siege of rebellious Samos in 440 cost 1,400 talents, more than the Parthenon with chryselephantine statue of Athena (Thuc. 1.117.3; IG I3 363; cf. Thuc. 2.70 on the siege of Potidaea). The 460 talents supposedly collected in the League’s first year – in money alone, apart from the value assigned to the provision of ships – would have financed, depending on the level of pay (between one half and one drachma per day and man), between 460 and 920 trireme months, that is, in the best case (which probably applied to the early decades of the League), approximately six months of 150 ships in action: Thuc. 1.96.2 with comments and bibliog. in Hornblower (1991) 145-6; Gabrielsen (1994) 110-14 on the crews’ pay. Wallinga (1987) 65, 71 suggests,
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4. Learning from the Enemy however, that not all triremes in a fleet were fully manned and that one third of a talent per ship and month is more realistic. This would still mean that ‘the Athenian peace-time patrols of sixty ships cost something like 160 talents for a season of eight months’ (Wallinga, 71). 10. Jacobs (1994) 93-7; (2003) considers Darius’ administrative reform an ‘historian’s myth’ and suggests that Herodotus should be abandoned as a source for this reform. Most scholars are much less negative in their evaluation of Herodotus’ testimony. See esp. Sancisi-Weerdenburg (1989); Balcer (1989); Descat (1989), (1997); Briant (1986), (2002) chs 10-11. 11. We think here of Themistocles’ collection (or extortion?) of money from various islands after the victory of Salamis and Xerxes’ departure from Greece (Hdt. 8.111-12). On the distortion of Themistocles’ portrait in Herodotus, see Blösel (2001), (2004). 12. Meiggs (1972) 212-15; Schuller (1974) 39-48; Balcer (1976); on the episkopoi: Balcer (1977); on the archontes: Leppin (1992). See also Starr (1974). 13. Ste. Croix (1961); Meiggs (1972) ch. 12; Schuller (1974) 48-54; Balcer (1978) ch. 7; Koch (1991). 14. That the gift of a phallus for the Dionysia, attested in individual cases, ever became an imperial rule is doubtful: Smarczyk (1990) 158-61; Parker (1996) 142n.80. 15. Ducrey (1968), (1986) ch. 9; Karavites (1982); Hanson (2001); see also Picard (1980) 29. 16. The extent to which this was done is debated but that it was done is hardly in doubt: Plut. Per. 12 with Stadter (1989) ad loc.; Meyer (1967) 148-51; KalletMarx (1989); Smarczyk (1990) 660-5; Samons (1993); Giovannini (1997). 17. Observing an unusual amount of linguistic anomalies and secondary features, J.B. Hainsworth, in Heubeck et al. (1988) 326, suspects ‘rhapsodic reworking’. 18. It suffices here to mention Sparta’s empire-building in the later phases of the Peloponnesian War (Cartledge 1987) or the Romans’ military borrowings from Etruscans, Samnites and Carthaginians (e.g. Saulnier 1980; Lazenby 1996). 19. Given that the poet needed to take the audience’s mood into consideration, Aeschylus’ particular presentation of the Persians’ experiences in the recent war must have met with some public empathy. 20. Luraghi (1994) 370n.416 mentions the possibility that this method, well attested for Dionysius the Elder many decades later, could have been wrongly retrojected to Hieron’s tyranny. 21. Miller mentions as sources for this suggestion Evans (1976) and Picard (1980). Evans thinks that Herodotus’ comments on Artaphernes’ and Mardonios’ actions after the Ionian Revolt foreshadow or look forward to later Athenian policy in the same area (347). That is, as he often does, Herodotus uses the description of events within the time frame of his Histories to anticipate later events and thereby to draw attention to the significance of his history of the past for the audiences of his present (Fornara 1971; Raaflaub 1987). This is not the same as claiming that the Athenians imitated the Persians. Picard investigates the influence of the ‘Persian factor’ on the formation of the Athenian alliance and its transformation into empire (1980: 181) but he is concerned less with the instruments of empire (which he considers only when discussing the issue of tribute: 187-8) than with the political and strategic impact of the Greek-Persian conflict as such (ch. 11); hence his conclusion: ‘il est évident que le facteur perse ne joue aucun rôle dans l’évolution de l’alliance’ (194).
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4. Learning from the Enemy Lawrence, A.W. (1951), ‘The Acropolis and Persepolis’, JHS 71: 111-19. Lazenby, J.F. (1996), The First Punic War (Stanford). Leppin, H. (1992), ‘Die archontes en tais polesi des Delisch-Attischen Seebundes’, Historia 41: 257-71. Lewis, D.M. (1977), Sparta and Persia (Leiden). Loomis, W.T. (1992), The Spartan War Fund: IG V 1,1 and a New Fragment (Stuttgart). Luraghi, N. (1994), Tirannidi arcaiche in Sicilia e Magna Grecia da Panezio di Leontini alla caduta dei Dinomenidi (Florence). ——— (1998), ‘Il Gran Re e i tiranni. Per una valutazione storica della tirannide in Asia Minore durante il regno dei primi Achemenidi’, Klio 80: 22-46. ——— (2002), ‘Helotic Slavery Reconsidered’, in A. Powell and S. Hodkinson (eds), Sparta: Beyond the Mirage (London), 229-50. Manville, P.B. (1990), The Origins of Citizenship in Ancient Athens (Princeton). Marek, C. (1984), Die Proxenie (Frankfurt/Main and New York). Mattingly, H.B. (1996), The Athenian Empire Restored: Epigraphic and Historical Studies (Ann Arbor). Mayer, W. (2004), ‘Gedanken zur Deportation im Alten Orient’, in C. Sigrist (ed.), Macht und Herrschaft (Münster), 215-32. Meiggs, R. (1972), The Athenian Empire (Oxford). Meyer, H.D. (1967), ‘Thukydides Melesiou und die oligarchische Opposition gegen Perikles’, Historia 16: 141-54. Miller, M.C. (1997), Athens and Persia in the Fifth Century BC: A Study in Cultural Receptivity (Cambridge). Mitchell, S. (1996), ‘Hoplite Warfare in Ancient Greece’, in A.B. Lloyd (ed.), Battle in Antiquity (London and Swansea), 87-105. Moles, J. (1996), ‘Herodotus Warns the Athenians’, Papers of the Leeds International Latin Seminar 9: 259-84. Morrison, J.S., Coates, J.F. and Rankov, N.B. (2000), The Athenian Trireme: The History and Reconstruction of an Ancient Greek Warship, 2nd edn (Cambridge). Murray, O. (1966), ‘Ho archaios dasmos’, Historia 15: 142-56. Nease, A.S. (1949), ‘Garrisons in the Athenian Empire’, Phoenix 3: 102-11. Nowag, W. (1983), Raub und Beute in der archaischen Zeit der Griechen (Frankfurt/Main). Nylander, C. (1968), ‘ASSYRIA GRAMMATA: Remarks on the 21st “Letter of Themistocles” ’, Opuscula Atheniensia 8: 119-36. Ober, J. (1985), ‘Thucydides, Pericles, and the Strategy of Defense’, in Eadie and Ober (1985) 171-88, repr. in Ober, The Athenian Revolution: Essays on Ancient Greek Democracy and Political Theory (Princeton 1996), 72-85. ——— and C. Hedrick (eds) (1996), Dêmokratia: A Conversation on Democracies, Ancient and Modern (Princeton). Oded, B. (1979), Mass Deportations and Deportees in the Neo-Assyrian Empire (Wiesbaden). Oliver, J.H. (1960), Demokratia, the Gods, and the Free World (Baltimore). Osborne, R. (1994), ‘Democracy and Imperialism in the Panathenaic Procession: The Parthenon Frieze in Its Context’, in W.D.E. Coulson et al. (eds), The Archaeology of Athens and Attica under the Democracy (Oxford), 143-50. Ostwald, M. (1982), Autonomia: Its Genesis and Early History (Chico CA). Parker, R. (1994), ‘Athenian Religion Abroad’, in Robin Osborne and Simon Hornblower (eds), Ritual, Finance, Politics: Athenian Democratic Accounts presented to David Lewis (Oxford), 339-46.
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Kurt A. Raaflaub ——— (1996), Athenian Religion: A History (Oxford). Petzold, K.E. (1993-4), ‘Die Gründung des Delisch-Attischen Seebundes: Element einer “imperialistischen” Politik Athens?’ Historia 42: 418-43, 43: 1-31, repr. in K.E. Petzold, Geschichtsdenken und Geschichtsschreibung: Kleine Schriften zur griechischen und römischen Geschichte (Stuttgart 1999), 300-56. Picard, O. (1980), Les Grecs devant la menace perse (Paris). Pomeroy, S.B. (1994), Xenophon, Oeconomicus: A Social and Historical Commentary (Oxford). Pritchard, J.B. (ed.) (1969), Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, 3rd edn with supplement (Princeton). Pritchett, W.K. (1953/6), ‘The Attic Stelai’, Hesperia 22: 225-99; 25: 178-317. ——— (1961), ‘Five New Fragments of the Attic Stelai’, Hesperia 30: 23-9. ——— (1969), ‘The Transfer of the Delian Treasury’, Historia 18: 17-21. Raaflaub, K. (1987), ‘Herodotus, Political Thought, and the Meaning of History’, in D. Boedeker and J. Peradotto (eds), Herodotus and the Invention of History, Arethusa 20: 221-48. ——— (1990), ‘Expansion und Machtbildung in frühen Polis-Systemen’, in W. Eder (ed.), Staat und Staatlichkeit in der frühen römischen Republik (Stuttgart), 511-45. ——— (1991), ‘Homer und die Geschichte des 8. Jh.s v. Chr’, in J. Latacz (ed.), Zweihundert Jahre Homer-Forschung. Rückblick und Ausblick (Stuttgart), 205-56. ——— (1996), ‘Equalities and Inequalities in Athenian Democracy’, in Ober and Hedrick (1996), 139-74. ——— (1999), ‘Archaic and Classical Greece’, in K. Raaflaub and N. Rosenstein (eds), War and Society in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds (Washington DC), 129-61. ——— (2002), ‘Herodot und Thukydides: Persischer Imperialismus im Lichte der athenischen Sizilienpolitik’, in Ehrhardt and Günther (2002), 11-40. ——— (2003), ‘Freedom for the Messenians? A Note on the Impact of Slavery and Helotage on the Greek Concept of Freedom’, in N. Luraghi and S.E. Alcock (eds), Helots and their Masters in Laconia and Messenia: Histories, Ideologies, Structures (Washington DC), 169-90. ——— (2004a), ‘Archaic Greek Aristocrats as Carriers of Cultural Interaction’, in Rollinger and Ulf (2004), 197-217. ——— (2004b), The Discovery of Freedom in Ancient Greece, 1st English edn, revised and updated from the German (Chicago). ——— (2006), ‘Thucydides on Democracy and Oligarchy’, in A. Rengakos and A. Tsakmakis (eds), Brill’s Companion to Thucydides (Leiden), 189-222. ——— (2007), ‘The Breakthrough of dêmokratia in Mid-Fifth-Century Athens’, in K. Raaflaub, J. Ober and R.W. Wallace, Origins of Democracy in Ancient Greece (Berkeley), 105-54. ——— (forthcoming), ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice: Athens and Persia after the Persian Wars’, in A. Pierris (ed.), Symposium Laureoticum. Rhodes, P.J. (1981), A Commentary on the Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia (Oxford). ——— (1992), ‘The Delian League to 449 BC’, Cambridge Ancient History, 2nd edn, vol. V (Cambridge), 34-61. Rollinger, R. (2006), ‘The Eastern Mediterranean and Beyond: The Relations between the Worlds of the “Greek” and “Non-Greek” Civilizations’, in K.H. Kinzl (ed.), A Companion to the Classical Greek World (Malden MA and Oxford), 197-226.
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4. Learning from the Enemy ———, and C. Ulf (eds) (2004), Commerce and Monetary Systems in the Ancient World: Means of Transmission and Cultural Interaction (Stuttgart). Root, M.C. (1985), ‘The Parthenon Frieze and the Apadana Reliefs at Persepolis: Reassessing a Programmatic Relationship’, AJA 89: 103-20. Rosivach, V. (1999), ‘Enslaving Barbaroi and the Athenian Ideology of Slavery’, Historia 48: 129-57. Ste. Croix, G.E.M. de (1961), ‘Notes on the Jurisdiction in the Athenian Empire I’, CQ n.s. 11: 94-112. ——— (1972), The Origins of the Peloponnesian War (Ithaca NY). Salmon, E. T. (1967), Samnium and the Samnites (Cambridge). ——— (1970), Roman Colonization under the Republic (Ithaca NY). Samons, Loren J. II (1993), ‘Athenian Finance and the Treasury of Athena’, Historia 42: 129-38. ——— (2000), Empire of the Owl: Athenian Imperial Finance (Stuttgart). ——— (in preparation), Kimon. Sancisi-Weerdenburg, H. (1989), ‘Gifts in the Persian Empire’, in Briant and Herrenschmidt (1989), 129-46. ——— (1993), ‘Political Concepts in Old-Persian Royal Inscriptions’, in K. Raaflaub and E. Müller-Luckner (eds), Anfänge politischen Denkens in der Antike. Die nahöstlichen Kulturen und die Griechen (Munich), 145-63. ——— (2001), ‘Yaunâ by the Sea and across the Sea’, in I. Malkin (ed.), Ancient Perceptions of Greek Ethnicity (Washington DC), 326-46. Saulnier, C. (1980), L’armée et la guerre dans le monde étrusco-romain (VIIIe-IVe s.) (Paris). Schmitz, W. (1988), Wirtschaftliche Prosperität, soziale Integration und die Seebundpolitik Athens (Munich). Schuller, W. (1974), Die Herrschaft der Athener im Ersten Attischen Seebund (Berlin). ——— (1979), ‘Zur Entstehung der griechischen Demokratie ausserhalb Athens’, in H. Sund and M. Timmermann (eds), Auf den Weg gebracht: Festschrift K.G. Kiesinger (Konstanz), 433-47. ——— (2002), ‘Folgen einer Umdatierung des Egesta-Dekrets (IG I3 11)’, in Ehrhardt and Günther (2002), 41-47. Scott, L. (2005), Historical Commentary on Herodotus Book 6 (Leiden). Sealey, R. (1966), ‘The Origin of the Delian League’, in Ancient Society and Institutions: Studies Presented to Victor Ehrenberg (Oxford), 233-55. Seibert, J. (1979), Die Flüchtlinge und Verbannten in der griechischen Geschichte von den Anfängen biz zur Unterwerfung durch die Römer, 2 vols (Darmstadt). Shapiro, H.A. (1996), ‘Athena, Apollo, and the Religious Propaganda of the Athenian Empire’, in P. Hellström and B. Alroth (eds), Religion and Power in the Ancient Greek World (Uppsala), 101-13. Smarczyk, B. (1990), Untersuchungen zur Religionspolitik und politischen Propaganda Athens im Delisch-Attischen Seebund (Munich). Sommerstein, A.H. (1980), Acharnians, ed. with trans. and notes (Warminster). Spence, I.G. (1990), ‘Perikles and the Defence of Attika during the Peloponnesian War’, JHS 110: 91-109. Stadter, P.A. (1989), A Commentary on Plutarch’s Pericles (Chapel Hill). ——— (1992), ‘Herodotus and the Athenian Arche’, ASNP ser. III.22: 781-809. Starr, C.G. (1974), Political Intelligence in Classical Greece. Mnemosyne Suppl. 31 (Leiden). ——— (1979), ‘Thucydides on Sea Power’, Mnemosyne 31: 343-50.
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Kurt A. Raaflaub Steinbrecher, M. (1985), Der delisch-attische Seebund und die athenisch-spartanischen Beziehungen in der kimonischen Ära (ca. 478/7-462/1) (Stuttgart). Steve, M.J. (1974), ‘Inscriptions des Achéménides à Suse (suite)’, Studia Iranica 3: 135-69. Strauss, B.S. (1996), ‘The Athenian Trireme, School of Democracy’, in Ober and Hedrick (1996), 313-25. Tatum, J. (1989), Xenophon’s Imperial Fiction: On the Education of Cyrus (Princeton). Thompson, D.P. (1963), Garden Lore of Ancient Athens, Excavations of the Athenian Agora, Picture Book 8 (Princeton). Walbank, M.B. (1978), Athenian Proxenies of the Fifth Century BC (Toronto and Sarasota). Wallinga, H.T. (1982), ‘The Trireme and its Crew’, in A.H.M. Kessels and J. den Boeft (eds), Actus: Studies in Honour of H.L.W. Nelson (Utrecht), 463-82. ——— (1984), ‘The Ionian Revolt’, Mnemosyne 37: 401-37. ——— (1987), ‘The Ancient Persian Navy and its Predecessors’, in H. SancisiWeerdenburg (ed.), Achaemenid History I: Sources, Structures and Synthesis (Leiden), 47-77. ——— (1989), ‘Persian Tribute and Delian Tribute’, in Briant and Herrenschmidt (1989), 173-81. ——— (1993), Ships and Sea-Power before the Great Persian War: The Ancestry of the Ancient Trireme (Leiden). Walser, G. (1966), Die Völkerschaften auf den Reliefs von Persepolis: Historische Studien über den sogenannten Tributzug an der Apadanatreppe (Berlin). ——— (1984), Hellas und Iran: Studien zu den griechisch-persischen Beziehungen vor Alexander (Darmstadt). Wiesehöfer, J. (2004), ‘Persien, der faszinierende Feind der Griechen: Güteraustausch und Kulturtransfer in achaimenidischer Zeit’, in Rollinger and Ulf (2004), 295-310. ——— (2009), ‘Greeks and Persians’, in K. Raaflaub and H. van Wees (eds), A Companion to Archaic Greece (Malden MA and Oxford). Will, E. (1956), Doriens et Ioniens. Essai sur la valeur du critère ethnique appliqué à l’étude de l’histoire et de la civilisation grecques (Paris).
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5
Empire, Statuses and Realities John Ma Looking at the Athenian empire from elsewhere The Athenian empire might be fruitfully approached from the viewpoint of two neighbouring fields, where much work has been carried out about the problems of imperial power: first, the ‘new Achaemenid history’; second, the study of Hellenistic kingdoms, and the problems of the administrative, ideological and discursive workings of imperial power on the ground. Raaflaub, in this volume, lays out parallels between Achaemenid and Athenian practice. Similar parallels could be proposed with Hellenistic practice, for instance as concerns governors, garrisons, taxation, and colonisation. More generally, the cardinal issue in the fifth century, the relation between power and liberty, between the ruling power and the local community, is also the central problem of Hellenistic history, the relation between the Hellenistic king and the local community, be it Greek city, or Egyptian priests, or Babylonian shrine. The Hellenistic and Achaemenid viewpoints might help contextualise the practice of Athenian imperialism, by providing parallels which illuminate its origins, genealogy, and workings, and generally point the way to interpret the Athenian archê as empire. Specifically, they help understand the workings of statuses within a supra-local imperial system.1 At the heart of the power of a king, be it the Great King or a Hellenistic king, lies ‘surrender-and-grant’, the act of taking over and giving back by royal pronouncement. Cyrus’ actions at Babylon, as proclaimed in the ‘Cyrus cylinder’, are an early example.2 The institution of ‘democracy’ to the Ionian cities after their revolt is a royal grant (Hdt. 6.34); after Salamis, the Athenians receive the offer of such a grant, in which royal discourse is mediated by Alexandros and Mardonios – ‘when Alexandros arrived in Athens, sent by Mardonios, he said the following things: “Athenians, Mardonios says the following things: ‘I have a message from the king, saying this: “I forgive all the faults of the Athenians towards me. Now, act thus, Mardonios: give them back their land, and let them chose themselves another land in addition, whichever they wish, being autonomous.” ’ ” ’ (Hdt. 8.140a 1-2). In this passage, the nature of autonomy as
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John Ma royal gift is clear; the status is conceptually the same as a royal gift of territory. At the minimum, the royal grant allowed the local community to continue to exist, both as a corporate body, and as a sum of individual property-holders: Antipatros, after the Lamian War, allowed the Athenians to have their city and their property (Diod. 18.18.4) – which does not mean the city was autonomous. Many cities existed within a Hellenistic kingdom as subordinate cities. Such cities paid tribute and indirect taxes; they could receive garrisons and governors; royal administrative acts and pronouncements were directly efficient within the cities; they would answer complaints before royal administrators sitting in judgment; they belonged to a centralised administrative system. Subordinate cities were self-governing, as a basic condition for their existence, but without being autonomous or independent.3 Cities could be granted privileges as part of the initial ‘surrender-andgrant’ transaction, or later, upon petition or as the result of negotiation during crises: exemption from garrisoning, from certain taxes, from tribute. Cities could be granted autonomia or freedom. Such a grant does not imply ‘limited freedom’ in the Hellenistic period any more than in the Classical period, but has the force of full independence: the word is used in 188 for e.g. Smyrna as well as Mylasa, the first a city which had freed itself from royal control, perhaps in the 230s, the second a city which had received freedom as a royal grant in 246 BC. In reality, autonomy granted by a king, as later by the Romans, was precarious: it could be revoked; the free city existed as an enclave within the kingdom;4 the very absoluteness of autonomy as status signified the king’s power to define and to grant, limiting the horizons of possibilities for any local community within his space. Together, the system of statuses, privileges and freedom created a system of differences and divisions, which manifested and sustained royal power. Royal power can also be defined by the tension between centralisation and pseudo-‘tolerance’. To the workings of central power belong such obvious features as the structures of control (garrisons, forts, governors) and administration (tax officials, financial overseers, secretaries, land registers and archives). In a dialectical relation with the workings of the supra-local state, the king must also negotiate with the local communities, whose forms must be ‘tolerated’, that is subsumed and co-opted, by the supralocal state. The king accepts local roles, assigned to him by the various communities he deals with; he guarantees local custom, in exchange for the acknowledgement of his authority. The Hellenistic kings’ relation with Greek cities can be viewed from this angle, as an act of ‘respect’ for local demands, as a result of petition from below and negotiation with local actors. Autonomy reflects power as negotiation; yet it may also simply function as repressive tolerance, by legitimising the supra-local power; it
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5. Empire, Statuses and Realities also is based on the ‘performative assumption’, the central tenet that the king’s fiat is the ultimate source of local status. Reading the Athenian empire: documents, statuses and autonomy At the most obvious level, the Athenian empire existed through imperial structures, military, administrative, judicial and symbolical: the Standards decree and the Kleinias decree, both to be dated to the 420s, exemplify the force, practical and ideological, of central institutions. The goal was the extraction of revenue and direct exploitation. The Athenian state also monopolised performative pronouncements: the decrees put before and passed by the Athenian assembly, have immediate legal force and superior authority in the cities (IG I3 14, regulations for Erythrai; 40, regulations for Chalcis; 65, decree for Apollonophanes of Colophon (427/6): no one can fine him without approval of Athens, aneu tô dêmô tôn Athenaiôn, making explicit the ‘performative assumption’). Hence the importance of the Athenian decree for the local community – as important as a source of legal status and a guarantor of privilege as the Hellenistic royal letter, the senatus consultum or the imperial rescript. The community in IG I3 29 has sent to [ask for a] d[ecree], if the restorations are correct; the whole transaction very much looks like the ‘giving back the laws’ moment in the dealings between Hellenistic king and local community. The concept, central to monarchical power, of ‘giving back’, can be seen at work in the dealings between Athens and cities which are subdued, after a revolt or as an act of conquest; this starts much earlier than the Peloponnesian War. The homologiai (‘agreements’) passed with Thasos, Aigina, Euboia and Samos represent the initial act of surrender by a community to the ruling power (Thuc. 1.101.3, 108.4, 114.3), comparable to the surrender of Mytilene to Paches (3.28.1) or Cythera to Nicias (4.54.2). The act is followed by a dispensation from Athens, in the form of a decision about local status, sometimes explicitly preserved in a decree; the decrees concerning Eretria and Chalcis (IG I3 39, 40) represent an example of this transaction. In the decree concerning Chalcis, the Athenians’ oath starts with ‘empedôsô’, I will confirm – the verb is reminiscent of phrases used by Hellenistic kings, for the confirmation of grants made by royal officers, or the renewal of local privileges (for instance, TAM 5.1396, same document RC 68; Amyzon 13; SEG 37.859). The Chalcis and Eretria decrees, in my view, should remain in 446,5 and confirm the picture in Thucydides: ‘surrender-and-grant’ was an important tool of Athenian power, in shaping the relations between Athenian empire and subject communities, well before the Peloponnesian War. Grants from the ruling power to the local community could also take place after violent capture. Nicias stormed Mende, but then, along with his colleagues, ‘ordered the Mendaians to carry on being a city as they had
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John Ma before’ (Thuc. 4.130.7) – I assume this is not, or not only, the reinstallation of a democratic regime, but the grant of the right of the city to exist, comparable to the Romans’ grant to Phocaea in 190 (Liv. 37.32.14, Polybius 21.45.7). Likewise, Alcibiades captured Selymbria, whose status was regulated by a very favourable Athenian decree (ML 87). Certain cities, in the Athenian empire, were granted autonomy, as part of the ‘surrender-and-grant’ transaction, or after petition, or for services. After the popular uprising in 412, the Samians were granted autonomy, according to Thucydides (8.21). The grant was confirmed in 405/4: the Samians were to be allowed to use their own laws, being autonomous; their status as an independent state is also shown by the regulation of legal disputes between Samians and Athenians by bilateral conventions, and not by unilateral, imperial pronouncements (IG I3 127). The text at least makes clear the full standing of autonomy, even when the result of a grant: autonomy meant, theoretically, freedom from garrisoning, from imperial taxation, from tribute (though a special case arose in 421, when the cities of the Chalcidice, strategically important yet recently freed by Brasidas, were declared autonomous in the peace of Nicias, yet continued to pay tribute: Thuc. 5.18.5). The Hellenistic parallels should help us understand that autonomy, as enjoyed by the Samians, is a privileged, rare status. There are several more documents that contain autonomy grants: IG I3 29, 66, 118, and 1454: the Athenian state grants communities autonomy and the full enjoyment of territory or rights. These constitute a small, but definite category, with a specific vocabulary: the adjective ‘autonomos’, but also a peculiar expression, having ‘one’s very own’, with the reflexive and redundant possessive sphetera autôn. The phrase expresses the fullness of the freedom thus granted. Autonomy meant full freedom; yet it was transformed into a franchise defined by the ruling power. In this respect, the Athenian empire functioned in a manner structurally similar to the monopoly of definitions wielded by the Achaemenid and the Hellenistic empires. How did the situation evolve from the alliance of unproblematically, unquestionably (if often freshly) independent states in 478 to the imperial state formation where subordination is the norm and autonomy a favoured exception, a state formation that is structurally and discursively analogous to the Achaemenid empire or a Hellenistic kingdom? Revolt (Thasos, Naxos) and conquest (Phaselis, Aigina) during the Pentakontaeteia offered the Athenian dêmos the possibility of one particular model of power, that of imperial-style surrender-and-grant. This particular model of power generalised itself, by the homeostatic temptations of domination. The horns of the dilemma, for many communities in the League, were to face the subordinating pressures of centralisation and uniformisation, or resist and be caught in the imperial logic of ‘surrender-and-grant’. There is a consistent pattern between the documents of the 440s and those of the
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5. Empire, Statuses and Realities 420s, and the recent vindication of many of Mattingly’s datings (see Papazarkadas, this volume) should not obscure this. ‘Surrender-and-grant’ put Athens, dispenser of imperial pronouncements, in the position of the Great King. This imperial position interacted with the democratic principle of popular sovereignty – namely, that the Athenian people’s will was performative both inside and outside the Athenian polis. The result was democratic solipsism; decisions concerning others are taken ‘as seems good to the Athenian demos’, a phrase which is structurally similar to the oiomai dein (‘I think it right’) the ‘bon vouloir’ of the Hellenistic king. Achaemenid kingship provided forms in which Athenian imperialism and radical democracy could combine. The Athenian empire played an important role in defining Greek political forms and a political language for ruling over local communities; the importance, military and cultural, of Athens, put issues of hegemony and local status at the centre of the Greek experience of high politics. In other words, the fifth-century Athenian experiment is also one of the components, via the debates of the fourth century, of the discourse of Hellenistic kingship. The Athenian empire at Carpathos One text deserves close attention.6 It comes from the island of Carpathos, in the Dodecanese. It was resolved by the council and the people, when the tribe … held the prytany, Teisias was secretary, Athenodoros was president, Ctesias proposed: to write up … of Carpathos and [his sons] and the [koin]on of the Eteocarpathians as benefactors of the [Athenians], since they gave the [cypres]s for the temple of [Athen]a who c[ares] for Athens, and to let the [koino]n of the Eteocarpathians be autonomous and ……… (enjoying) their very own (constitution? / territory?) … just like before …7 giving … let those of the (soldiers?) who took over …8 now evacuate it. If anyone … takes away or … (any of the privileges of the) Eteocarpath[ians …], let him owe fifty talents [to the Athenians], and a tithe [for the goddess]; let there be a lawsuit before the [thesmo]thetes; [if the] Eteoca[rpathians] need [something else], let the Co[ans and Cni]dians and Rhodians and who ever else of the … is able, in this matter,9 [help] to the extent of their power; to write these decisions up on a [stone] stele on the Acropolis and on Carpathos in the shrine of Apollo, where the cypre[ss] was cut; [?Hagesa]rchos10 of Lindos … the cypress … (face B does not allow for a continuous translation).
The document grants privileges to an individual and his descendants, and to the community of the Eteocarpathioi, in return for a particular gift to the Athenians, presumably the cypress tree which appears at the end of the document. This gift went to the temple of ‘Athena who cares for Athens’, i.e. Athena Polias.11 In addition to formal inscription as benefac-
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John Ma tors of the Athenians, the Eteocarpathioi are granted their freedom: the autonomy grant appears almost fully preserved, followed, perhaps, by further adjectives specifying the privileges. The emphatic third person plural possessive, characteristic of Athenian autonomy grants, appears. The text was published in Athens, on the Acropolis, and on the island, ‘in Carpathos in the shrine of Apollo where the cypress was cut’.12 When exactly was the decree passed? R. Meiggs suggested that the cypress was offered by the Eteocarpathioi for the Parthenon, perhaps as the main ridge-beam in the roof: if so, the decree dates before 438, when the temple was completed. D. Lewis, observing that the Eteocarpathioi only appear in the tribute-quota lists in 434/3 BC, places the autonomy grant after this date: the ‘temple of Athena who cares for the Athenians’ would be the Erechtheion.13 However, the Eteocarpathioi, in lists 21-23, 434/3 to 432/1, appear in a special (and still not well understood) category, the poleis autai phoron taxamenai’, ‘cities which imposed their own tribute’, probably designating self-assessment, and voluntary payment.14 The appearance of the Eteocarpathioi in this category probably reflects their autonomous status, so the grant took place before 434/3.15 The decree for the Eteocarpathioi is hence the earliest autonomy grant recorded, in fact the earliest documentary appearance of the word. The Eteocarpathioi are not present in the fully preserved lists 13-15, for 443/2 to 440/39: either the Eteocarpathioi already enjoyed autonomy and were exempt from tribute; or the Eteocarpathians did not yet exist as an independent community.16 The document provides evidence for the phenomenon of status definition within an imperial space. A fortified centre has been occupied militarily;17 this is not a regular garrison, but part of a local crisis. The withdrawal of this force is part of the instauration of a local status of autonomy; this is paralleled in Hellenistic documents, concerning the negotiation of local status in the aftermath of military occupation (Robert 1936 no. 52; IIasos 2). The local community approached the ruling power with a gift – and a petition; the Mytileneans, as portrayed by Thucydides, mention the necessity of flattering the people (3.11.7). But it also is reminiscent of the important institution of gifts to the Persian King as the occasion for royal indulgences and favours.18 The gift from a subordinate community is put to use in a building at the centre of power: this brings to mind Darius’ description of his palace at Susa, assembled and adorned with raw materials from across the empire.19 The expression ‘Athena who cares for Athens’ is not the one used by Athenians within Athens, but the way Athena Polias was designated within the empire. The formula is striking, in the Athenian decree for the Eteocarpathioi. It is possible that it reflects the way a subject community described the Athenian deity: a speech or even a written petition presented by the subject community has influenced the drafting of the decree in Athens.20 An autonomy grant, formally a grant by a ruling power, could
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5. Empire, Statuses and Realities result from petition from below, with the local community suggesting the terms of the grant: this was also the case for the community of IG I3 29, and the Mytileneans in IG I3 66. The Carpathos decree provides evidence for a process of negotiation paralleled in the Achaemenid, Hellenistic and Roman-era material.21 Such negotiation was conducted by individuals, well-connected members of local ruling groups: the individual honoured in IG I3 1454, alongside the Eteocarpathioi, must be one such case. Finally, the combination of autonomy and, as suggested above, ‘voluntary’ tribute payment has implications for the nature of autonomy in the Athenian empire: it implies exemption from tribute, as in the case of the larger islands (Samos, Lesbos, Chios), though the pressures and realities of empire had an impact on definitions and practice: Aigina, whatever its status, continued to pay tribute after 446; the Peace of Nicias tried to impose a category of ‘autonomy with tribute’; and the Eteocarpathians end up paying regular tribute by 427 – the uniformising tendencies of imperial institutions worked more powerfully than local privilege. The exact circumstances of the autonomy grant need examining in the context of Carpathos – in modern accounts of its human and physical geography.22 Carpathos, ‘a long, narrow, extremely mountainous island running north and south, with a backbone formed by a range of hills, that now rises into mountains, now sinks into cols … a long hog’s back rising out of the sea’,23 is divided in two halves by a central limestone massif24 – to the south lie the finest and best watered agricultural plains (the Aphiarti plain south of Arkassa; the plain of Pigadhia),25 and to the north, much rougher country stretching in limestone ridges to the northern tip of the island, where the shrine of Poseidon Porthmios was located, near the harbour of Tristomo, and on the channel separating Carpathos from Saros. Olymbos (Elymbos), famed for its tenacious adherence to traditional lore, occupies one such ridge, with a good agricultural plain further north, around the seasonal village of Avlonas.26 The human geography is shaped by local peculiarities, namely the exclusive inheritance rights of eldest children (into the twentieth century), and the consequent massive immigration of dispossessed younger sons and daughters, to find work in Ottoman Turkey (vilayet of Aydn) or Greece (Pentelic quarries), and later further, for instance in New Jersey.27 In spite of this, resources and traditional agriculture on windy, but well-watered, karstic Carpathos conformed to the Mediterranean model, with twists: wheat, barley, vines, olives; fields in plains and vales, cultivated terraces, but also orchards and gardens; goats, sheep, but also cows (part of the tribute to the Ottoman state was paid in butter).28 Timber, in the form of prickly juniper and Turkish pine (pinus brutia), was concentrated in the form of small woods within the central massif (the most sheltered place on the windswept island), and intensively exploited. Cypress, abundant on neighbouring Crete and Rhodes, is absent from modern Carpathos: the tree mentioned in the decree was probably an exceptional specimen,
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John Ma perhaps planted.29 Grain and timber could be plentiful enough for export: in 1883, after seven difficult weeks on the island, the Austrian botanist Th. Pichler left on a ship carrying ‘boards and wheat’ for Rhodes.30 The population in the late Ottoman period may have numbered around 7,500 inhabitants, which might be low in relation to what the island could support (c. 10,000?).31 The historical geography of the ancient island, in spite of uncertainties,32 can be sketched out. Two poleis shared the southern half: Arkasseia in the west (modern Arkasa), and Carpathos in the east (whose urban centre I would locate at Pigadhia, modern Carpathos, the capital of the island).33 Both of these communities appear consistently, as paying the modest tribute of 1000 dr. (first attested in 449 for Arkasseia, in 444 for Carpathos). The polis of Brykous occupied the northern half, just as the administrative district of modern Olymbos does. Brykous paid 500 dr. tribute, when it appears in the preserved portions of the quota-lists (447, 446). The modern village of Olymbos long was the single largest centre of population, more than matching the settlements at Arkasa and Aperi. To account for the difference between the tribute paid by Arkasseia and the polis Carpathos, and that paid by Brykous, I suggest that Arkasseia and the polis Carpathos controlled not just the agricultural plains in their vicinity, but also shared control of the central limestone massif. In the case of the polis Carpathos, this would mean control of the small but fertile and well-watered plain of Voladha and Aperi (separated from the plain of Pigadhia by the seasonal river Vrontis); in the case of Arkasseia, the area of Pyles, and, further north, the plain of Lefkos and the area of Mesochoria. How did the Eteocarpathian koinon fit? The find-spot of the inscription (Pinni) suggests that the shrine of Apollo, belonging to the koinon, was located on the southern side of the central mountains. The Eteocarpathioi would seem to have occupied the area of Voladha and the valley of Pinni above Voladha.34 However, the stone may have been brought from elsewhere; if so, the shrine of Apollo was not necessarily located at Pinni itself. The shrine might have occupied one of the summits west and north-west of Pinni: Manolakakis provides a lyrical description and specifically proposes, on top of Mt Dia, a site with cut-stone walls, where coins and small bronze votives were found.35 Another possibility might be the lieu-dit Apella, to the north-east of Voladha, with a spring, a forest, and a ruined church of St Luke; could the modern toponym be derived from the Doric form for Apollo (or his festival, Apellai)?36 Whatever the precise location of the shrine, the Eteocarpathioi probably controlled the highlands immediately to the north, namely the Lastos, with its valuable agricultural land, terraced gardens, pastures, beehives, and forests (Fig. 5.5).37 This would be a minimum for the territory of the Eteocarpathioi. However, when they pay ‘self-assessed’ tribute, in 434, the sum is 1000 dr., the same as paid by the two larger cities in the south. Even if the district of Aperi and Voladha is very fertile, and if the Eteocarpathioi exploited the
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5. Empire, Statuses and Realities central forests and the Lastos plateau, the figure seems high. I would suggest that the Eteocarpathioi regrouped the communities around the central mountains, notably in the plain of Lefkos.38 The territory of the Eteokarpathioi would have been detached from the territories of Carpathos, Arkasseia and Brykous. If this is correct, we should not interpret the name ‘Eteocarpathioi’ in terms of ‘real’ ethnicity based on the immigration to the island, for instance a ‘Cretan’ stratum of population opposed to an ‘Argive’ – as suggested by G. Reger, the ‘real Carpathians’ were constituted by imperial fiat; this new creation is designated by the word koinon (unique in the purview of subject communities provided by ATL), which shows that the Eteocarpathians are not a pre-existing polis.39 The Athenian decree is a form of charter for the new koinon: in other words, the Eteocarpathioi are an invention of empire, imposed on the political geography of the island. No wonder it disappears from the landscape after the fall of the Athenian empire. The name itself is an invention, meant to distinguish the new koinon from the polis Carpathos, and to grant authority to a privileged status by grounding it in a proclaimed, if invented, antiquity, constructed in collaboration by the supra-local empire and the local splinter community. The individual who led the negotiations is a ‘Carpathian’. He probably was a member of one of the communities on the south side of the central mountains, formerly belonging to Carpathos but freshly incorporated in the Eteocarpathian koinon: he may have travelled to Athens a Carpathian, but left an Eteocarpathian, a change in status and identity not yet registered in the Athenian decree.40 It is difficult to explain the Athenian intervention in terms of central policy, for instance as concessions after the Peace of Callias or the Samian revolt, though it is noticeable that Brykous, Casos and Syme are absent from the quota lists for the years 443-441, preceding the creation of the Eteocarpathian koinon; later, the small island of Saros, across the channel from the north of the island, starts paying tribute in the poleis autai … category, and perhaps was detached from Brykountian control, at the same time the Eteocarpathian koinon was created. The story of the Eteocarpathians fits in a largely irrecoverable local history. The ‘soldiers’ who appear in the decree as occupying, and being ordered out of, a settlement could be Athenians after an imperial intervention on the island; they could also be participants in a local conflict, for instance mercenaries hired by one of the cities to exercise control in the limestone massif. The tribute of Arkasseia and Carpathos was not reduced after the creation of the autonomous Eteocarpathians, which, on the reconstruction sketched out above, must have deprived the two poleis of territory and resources: did the Athenians leave the tribute at its previous level as a punitive measure? At any rate, the situation indicates that there was some room for increase in tribute, and hence raises questions about the burdensomeness of these small amounts (typical for the Carian districts and its islands).
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John Ma Yet Carpathos mattered to others than its inhabitants. The [Cni]dians, Coans and (yet un-synoikised) Rhodians, to whom the welfare of the Eteocarpathioi is entrusted, may have encouraged or shaped the events. The presence of one Rhodian, [Hagesa]rchos of Lindos (line A 38), somehow involved in the transaction, is suggestive of regional involvement in the interface between empire and local communities. In later periods, Carpathos was closely linked with the Dodecanese and the coast of Asia Minor.41 The bigger regional powers may have had local contacts and involvements, and hence their own interests in protecting an artificial grouping of the weaker Carpathian communities against the latter’s richer southern neighbours. The island also registered in the empire’s worldview. Its proximity to Crete may have been important in controlling privateering or trade; its harbours may have offered a stop on the way to Egypt.42 Furthermore, the island produced strategic goods: grain from the plateaux, timber, pitch (vital for the waterproofing of ship timbers); in 305 BC, Carpathian grain sustained both Demetrios and Rhodes during the great siege (20.93). The Athenian empire found its interest in the creation of a community controlling the island’s timber resources as well as its own agricultural territory, and enjoying a privileged status defined against the larger poleis and guaranteed by the supra-local power. Of course, pitch was as common throughout the Aegean as the resinous conifers that were bled or burnt to produce it; the island’s trees, (Turkish) pine, and juniper, are widely found elsewhere, and in any case not the best for trireme-grade timber (fir and mountain pine were preferred); Carpathian grain, at the scale of the fifth-century Aegean, was of local importance. But the Athenian empire may have worked through the control of multiple small sources of strategic goods, in parallel to the main sources.43 The test-case of Carpathos makes clear the way in which imperially fostered local segmentation diffuses the impact of empire at many levels. But the assertive identity politics of the name ‘real Carpathians’ imply local initiative, as do the details of petition, negotiation and gift. The story of the ‘Eteocarpathioi’ shows how certain local actors can achieve agency within a supra-local empire,44 by channelling the inevitably heavy touch of imperial control; in other words, by manipulating the central power’s perception of, and action upon, the local: a Greek parallel to the cases of Udjahorresnet or Ezra in the Persian empire.45 The Athenian empire from below The Carpathian test-case shows the Athenian empire redrawing a local map and the impact on local actors. This sort of action – in effect, the managing of tensions and centrifugal tendencies, in response to local initiative and in accordance with imperial agendas – is typical of supralocal empires.46 The Eteocarpathian case invites us to rethink an important
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5. Empire, Statuses and Realities phenomenon: strategically fostered local segmentation, so noticeable in the Athenian tribute lists and sometimes explicitly attested as part of Athenian policy, which in turn explains the phenomenon of synoikism as a means of resistance against imperial pressure;47 this phenomenon was not a simple case of imperial ‘divide and rule’ and local resistance, but turns out to be the resultant of multiple vectors, big and small. A similar case might be that of the Diakrês apo Chalkideôn, who appear in the mysterious category of ‘cities registered by private individuals to pay tribute’ in the assessment of 425 and in a subsequent quota list: F. Lepper suggested these were ‘backwoodsmen’, detached from Chalcis (‘the Eteokarpathioi … sound rather similar’).48 Similar measures of local segmentation may have been imposed on the territories of the three Rhodian cities, Iaysos, Lindos and and Camiros: under Athenian control, smaller communities on Rhodes are attested as paying tribute separately (Brikindarioi, Diakrioi, Oiiatai, Pedies).49 A decision by imperial fiat on Carpathos may be related to a change in the status of Saros, and certainly involved mid-range regional cities such as Cos and Rhodes: the delegation of enforcement and oversight to these actors may reflect the impossibility of the Athenian empire to concentrate resources everywhere, Rhodian interests in, or for, Carpathos, and the connectedness of the island-and-coast world which was the concrete setting for Athenian imperial activity. Similar cases of regional dynamics can be seen in much more dramatic circumstances: the local conflict ‘over Priene’, that lead to the Samian revolt (Thuc. 1.115.2), or the regional ripples before and after the Mytilenean revolt (Thuc. 3.2, 3.50.3). Finally, the Eteocarpathian test-case shows the existence of diverse statuses and privileges within the Athenian empire, as the result of processes of negotiation and bargaining. The cases of Methone and Aphytis are well known instances of this phenomenon: the Methonaians were granted the privilege of paying only 1/60th of their tribute assessment, i.e. the share offered to Athena; in addition, they were excluded from any general decree concerning debts or military service from the allies – unless it included a specific clause about Methone.50 * In the first part of this essay, I proposed various concepts inspired by Achaemenid and Hellenistic history: surrender-and-grant, monopoly of definitions, privileges and differences as expressions of power. In the second part I tried to embed these concepts in a specific regional context – this move is also inspired by approaches applied in Achaemenid and Hellenistic history, and tries to exemplify three possible approaches to the Athenian empire. Firstly, a detailed, sympathetic historical geography of the Athenian empire: the aim is not simply to map out cities from the tribute lists in an exercise in ‘Classical topography’, but to think about
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John Ma resources, landscapes, routes, with Fernand Braudel or Louis Robert as guides.51 Secondly, an awareness of the particularities of insular ecologies, economies and connections: the Athenian empire ‘took place’ in a complex, diverse world. How did empire impact on the life of the islands and their coasts?52 Thirdly, a willingness to look beyond the chronological limits of the short ‘Athenian century’, at parallels Achaemenid, Hellenistic, and Roman – but perhaps also the Ottoman vilayet of the Archipelago (Cezayiri Bahr-i Sefid), which included coastal districts of Asia Minor, for suggestive evidence on demography, trade, ecologies and economies, and taxation.53 The history of the Athenian empire lives within the tension between local and supra-local viewpoints. The combination of the two viewpoints lies at the heart of the historical study of empire.54 Appendix 1. The text of the Athenian decree for the Eteocarpathioi The document was copied in Voladha by Beaudouin, on half a stele seen in the house of a man named Saris, who had found it at Pinni. Hiller saw the stone again in the house of ‘Sophilla Sari’ (the inscribed surface had been treated with acid, to ‘improve’ its legibility): hence IG 12.1.977; M. Jameson, in 1954, met Giorgios Christodoulakis, the son of Sophilla Sari: the stone was now built into a house (he also met an old Voladhiote woman who stole a squeeze from Hiller, which recalls the Swiss botanist Barbey’s complaints about the theft of his blotting paper). M. Jameson saw Hiller’s squeezes, and judged on the basis of palaeography that the text dated around the 430s (he compared IG I3 59, 344, 449). The squeezes were also seen by D. Lewis, who used them as the basis for his text of the inscription as IG I3 1454. The translation presented above supplements Lewis’ text by a personal re-examination of Hiller’s squeezes (which I examined thanks to K. Hallof), notes by M. Jameson, and note by A. Wilhelm (forthcoming among his Nachlass). Appendix 2. Pigadhia Pigadhia is universally identified with Potidaion. The arguments are a reference in Ptolemy (5.2 Müller), mentioning Pose8dion = pÒlij on Carpathos, and the modern toponym Posín, which preceded Pigadhia (Ross 1845: 56-7). The identification needs to be challenged. There is no archaic coinage of Potidaion, and hence no evidence for an early polis of this name: Kahn (1957); nor is there any mention in the Athenian Quota Lists. The earliest evidence is an honorific decree of the Potidaieis, a ktoina (civic subdivision) of Hellenistic Rhodes, showing that they inhabit a Potidaion (a settlement with a shrine of Athena Lindia and civic buildings), are concerned for a peripolion, and belong to the deme of the Carpathiopolitai, which must have succeded the fifth-century Carpa-
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5. Empire, Statuses and Realities thioi (Maier 1959-61: no. 50, c. 153 BC). Peripolion designates a fortified secondary settlement (Schuler 1996: 45-6); Potidaion is presumably the peripolion referred to in the decree, and the centre of the ktoina – but was it necessarily the main urban site of the Carpathiopolitai? Parallels are inconclusive. The peripolion attested in documents of the Rhodian deme of Camiros, attested epigraphically (e.g. Tit. Cam. 110), might be the urban site of Camiros, or, alternatively, a fort in the territory. The peripolion in a decree of the Brykountioi (IG 12.1.1032) might be the urban site of Brykous, or, alternatively, a separate fortified settlement, since the doctor honoured in the decree is praised for visits to the peripolion: is he travelling from Rhodes to Brykous, or from Brykous to a
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Figs 5.1-5.3. IG I3 1454 (squeeze, Hiller von Gaertringen, courtesy of the Inscriptiones Graecae, Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften, and with thanks to K. Hallof). Photos by C. Crowther.
separate settlement? (If the latter, I suggest the area of Diaphani, on which see Melas 1985: 43-4.) A statue of Trajan was set up by ‘the deme of the Carpathiopolitai and the ktoina of the Potidaieis’ (IG 12.1.978): this establishes the coexistence of the two bodies, but not their geographical identity. The toponym Posín, ‘drink’ in dialect (Bent), might be synonymous to the later ‘Wells’ (Pigadhia; Migliorini (1937) 253 and fig. 1, with shadouf). Strictly, the toponym
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Fig. 5.4. Map of Carpathos (adapted from a map by M. Jameson).
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Fig. 5.5. The Lastos plateau ‘from Paliokastron, looking north towards Spoa, Giaphani etc.’ (M. Jameson, 1954? but also in Hope Simpson and Lazenby 1962, plate 44a). The cultivated plateau is in the foreground; beyond, the eastern face of the island.
Fig. 5.6. Cows being towed towards shore, Carpathos (M. Jameson, 1958?).
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John Ma applied to the plain north-west of Pigadhia: Michailidis-Nouaros (1934) 416-17 (the genitive, admittedly, is Poseidioú). Since there is no compelling reason to identify Pigadhia with Potidaion, I suggest that the Classical polis Carpathos, if it had an urban centre like the other poleis on the island, had its town at the most important settlement on its territory – the acropolis next to Pigadhia harbour, the best in the island. On this view, the urban centre of the Carpathioi later became the centre for the deme of the Carpathiopolitai, within the Hellenistic Rhodian state. I also propose to emend the text of Ptolemy. The use of the definite article in Pose8dion = pÒlij, ‘Poseidion, the city’, is unparalleled: I conjecture Pose8dion: = pÒlij: coordinates, ‘Poseidion: (coordinates). On Carpathos island, the city (i.e. a homonymous Carpathos): coordinates’. For the construction, e.g. 3.14, Tˇnou nˇsou = pÒlij, ‘On Tenos island, the city’. I further suggest that Potidaion was located south of Pigadhia, on the other side of the Patela/Vouveia peninsula, in the area of modern Laki or Aphiarti (see Melas 1985: 30-6, describing several fortified sites occupied in the Hellenistic period). Two other views may be mentioned. Segre (1933) 381-5, in interpreting the decree of c. 153, saw the peripolion as a fort, separate from ‘Potidaion’ (which he placed at Pigadhia); he proposed H. Kyriaki on the plateau south-east of Pigadhia; visited in 1954 by M. Jameson whose notes show he remained doubtful, probably correctly, seeing the scanty remains. Finally, Carpathos has sometimes been located at Kastro, near Aperi, north of Pigadhia (Hope Simpson and Lazenby 1962: 163-7, with earlier bibliography; Susini 1963-4: 231-2), because of the find-spot of the decree concerning the Eteocarpathioi, and the publication clause ‘in Carpathos’; but the latter clearly refers to the whole island, not to the polis Carpathos. The modern importance of Aperi, seat of the bishop and former capital of the island, and the appearance of the name ‘Scarpanto’ above a centrally placed town on Th. Dapper’s 1703 representation of the island are not compelling. Notes 1. Achaemenid history: Briant (1996); see also http://www.achemenet.com. Hellenistic kingdoms: e.g. Ma (2002), (2003) (with bibliography); Virgilio (2003); Capdetrey (2007). 2. Brosius (2000) no. 12. 3. Ma (2002) 153-60. 4. Ma (2002) 160-5, Robert and Robert (1989) 86-7 ; Reynolds (1982) no. 14. 5. For another view, see Papazarkadas in this volume. 6. The Carpathian test case has been treated by Anderson and Dix (1997a), (1997b); Alfieri Tonnini (1999); Anderson and Dix (2004); Low (2007) 218-20, 247-50. 7. I read [katha]per prin on Hiller’s squeeze, confirming a restoration by A. Wilhelm (see Appendix 1).
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5. Empire, Statuses and Realities 8. Usually understood as ‘who took over the [acropol]is’, but I am not sure this is what the inscription says: perhaps ‘now evacuate …SIS’ – a toponym? ([ek …]SEOS). 9. Usually understood as ‘help these v[illages]’, tauta ta ch[oria], a reading and a restoration which were first proposed by Foucart, the editor of the text. But I am not sure I can see the chi, nor do I see it at line B 58. 10. The name was read by M. Jameson on Hiller’s squeeze, here and on side B; I also believe I can see it. 11. Alfieri Tonnini (1999) interprets the temple of Athena as a temple of Athena built outside Athens, on Carpathos. But there is no evidence for such a temple: the evidence concerns estates of Athena Polias (owned abroad by the deity in Athens), not temples e.g. on Samos or Aigina. 12. ‘Carpathos’ here must designate the whole island, rather than the polis of Carpathos, since the shrine where the decree is inscribed belongs to the Eteocarpathians: ATL I 497; Hope Simpson and Lazenby (1962) 159n.34 (tentatively). 13. Meiggs (1982) 201; Lewis ad IG I3 1454; Anderson and Dix (1997b). 14. ATL I 455-6; Lepper (1962), on this and other special categories; Meiggs (1972) 250-2; Schuller (1981) on a related category, the cities ‘registered by private individuals’. The category may be a rag-bag of special cases (11 small communities), perhaps reflecting economic weakness; Migliorini (1937) 264: concessions to Carpathos because of poverty. ML 68 (special measures for post-revolt Samos, Thera) may be explained this way. 15. It is unlikely that the status of autonomy was granted afterwards: the Eteocarpathioi soon appear as regular tribute payers, in 428/7. Lepper (1962) also senses that the category must reflect privileges (a treaty?). 16. Lepper (1962) 42. Both Parthenon and Erechtheion are therefore possible as recipients of the cypress. 17. Possible fifth-century traces of fortification: Osborne (1999) 325. 18. Briant (1996) ch. 10. The ivory and gold flute-case offered by the Methymnaians at the time of the Mytilenean revolt might be a gift by that loyal community (IG I3 350, line 82, with HCT 2, 326). 19. Brosius (2000) no. 45. 20. Foucart (1888) 157, 159; Anderson and Dix (1997a) 132. 21. SEG 47.1745 (grant of polis status to Tyriaion); II Macc. 4.11 (privileges for the Jews); SEG 51.641 (polis status for Narykos); MAMA 7.305 (polis status for Orkistos). 22. Ross (1845) 61-78; Imhoof-Blumer (1874) 153-62; Beaudouin (1880); Bent (1885); Manolakakis (1896), extraordinary; Barbey et al. (1895), with useful notes from 1883 by the cabinet-maker and amateur botanist Thomas Pichler; Dawkins (1902-3); Migliorini (1937); Fraser and Bean (1954); Hope Simpson and Lazenby (1962); Susini (1963-4) 225-44, with extensive bibiography; Craik (1980); Melas (1985). I have not seen Hauttecoeur (1901), though note L. Robert’s criticisms of Hauttecoeur on Ikaria (OMS 1, 552); nor Michailidis-Nouaros’ 1939 map, mentioned on the flyleaf of Michailidis-Nouaros (1940); nor N. Moutsopoulos’ monograph, apparently 700 pages long (1975-7 [1978]), noted in Arch. Rep., ‘Archaeology in Greece 1979-80’, p. 53. The archaeology of the island has revealed much of interest for the Minoan, Myceanean and early Byzantine periods, but little on Classical and Hellenistic Carpathos; much modern work is concerned with laographia, folklore: e.g. Alexiadis (2001). I have never been to the island, but would like to; I have been lucky to consult M. Jameson’s notes, maps and glorious photographs, gathered during two trips (1954, two months’ stay, punctuated by
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John Ma illness at Olympos; 1958). Jameson wrote a monograph-length paper on Carpathos and the decree for the Eteocarpathians; a variety of circumstances, and dissatisfaction with an appendix about the nature of the ktoina, seem to have held him back from publication. 23. Dawkins (1902-3) 181. 24. Ross (1845) 51, calling the whole central mass Lastos (incorrectly), and observing how it separates the upper from the lower parts. On the plateau of Lastos, Barbey in Barbey et al (1896) 7, 20; Dawkins (1902-3) 185. 25. Pichler, in Barbey et al. (1895) 49. 26. Pichler, in Barbey et al. (1895) 47, 51; Forsyth Major, in Barbey et al. (1896) 57; Halstead and Jones (1989). 27. Vernier (1991). 28. Manolakakis (1896) 33; Barbey, in Barbey et al. (1895) 34 (80 okas of butter per year paid in tribute), 37; Migliorini (1937) 262-4, figs 14-20; Melas (1985) 23-5; Halstead and Jones (1989). Angelos Matthaiou has told me of travelling from Diaphani to Pigadhia in a caique ferrying a pregnant cow (1976); M. Jameson in 1958 photographed disembarked cattle and donkeys swimming ashore alongside rowboats (Fig. 5.6). 29. Pichler (timber reserved for shipbuilding) in Barbey et al. (1895) 47, 49; Theophrastos HP 4.5.2. No cypress in Barbey et al. (1895), Chilton (1994). Planted cypress: Rackham (2001) 36n.50. 30. Pichler in Barbey et al. (1895) 55; also 48 (warehouses for timber and grain at Pigadhia). 31. Manolakakis (1896) 140 (7515, plus 900 working abroad); Barbey in Barbey et al. (1895) 8 (8,000-9,000 inhabitants; widespread census avoidance). The population seems to have peaked at 9,500 in 1910 (Agapitidi 1987; Stephanopoli 1912: 147); Migliorini (1937) 252 gives 6,575; Kolodny (1974) 132, puts the population at 5,433; the actual population of the island is somewhat higher, though fluctuates seasonally. 32. The problems are the location of Carpathos and Potidaion (Appendix 2); the attribution of a ‘Nisyros’ to the island by Strabo (10.5.17), among its ‘four cities’, whereas ps.-Scylax (99.16) describes the island as tripolis, three-citied; the name and status of the probable settlement on the island of Esokastro, off Lefkos bay – Imhoof-Blumer (1874) 159, also della Seta (1924-5) 85. Hiller, in an unpublished letter to R. Dawkins of 13.11.1909 (now in the Taylorian Institute, Oxford: Arch. Z. Dawk. 1(3), pasted in Dawkins’ Carpathos notebook), proposes to identify it with ‘Nisyros’ (photograph of Esokastro in Thera 1, p. 371). See also P. Fraser in Fraser and Bean (1954) 141-3; Reger (2004): simplest is to assume that ‘Nisyros’ is a mistake of Strabo’s. On settlement in the Minoan and Mycenaean periods, Melas (1985). 33. On Pigadhia, Hope Simpson and Lazenby (1962) 159-61; Melas (1985); Melas (1991), non vidi. Usually identified with Potidaion; but see Appendix 2. 34. Manolakakis (1896) 31-3; Dawkins (1902-3) 185; Hope Simpson and Lazenby (1962) 163 (with notes on ancient remains at Pinni and at Aperi); Melas (1985). Pinni: Michailidis-Nouaros (1934) 463; Michailidis-Nouaros (1940) 134; Rackham (2001) 36n.50 (‘not a sheltered place’). 35. Manolakakis (1896) 33, 78; Michailidis-Nouaros (1940) 134, dubitative; Michailidis-Nouaros (1934) 462; Pichler in Barbey et al. (1895) 49 (no extended forests, but ‘dangerous and dark vales’, nearly impassable gorges). 36. Manolakakis (1896) 171 (spring called Apella, n. plur.); Michailidis-Nouaros (1934) 459 (‘hill and fields with spring’), where link with ancient Apell- names suggested; Michailidis-Nouaros (1940) 78-80 (forest between Myrtonas and Apella;
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5. Empire, Statuses and Realities spring); also Frangos (1957) 24 (‘Apella, wondrous forest of ship-building timber’, notes from 1947). The forest is now destroyed by fires. Modern guidebooks apply the toponym to a fine beach. Melas (1985) 40-1 discusses the ‘bay of Apela’. The accent on the first syllable makes it possible that the toponym derives from ampela, vines (though the recent Road Editions map accents on the final syllable). For another toponym that seems to preserve a Dorian form, Melas (1985) 32 (Damatria). 37. Hope-Simpson and Lazenby (1962) 163-4 (resources; fortified sites, Hellenistic and perhaps earlier); also Manolakakis (1896) 33; Pichler in Barbey at al. (1896) 47, 49, 52 (‘le plateau couvert de beaux champs de blé et de prés formant une vaste vallée’); Michailidis-Nouaros (1940) 38. 38. For resources, settlement (ancient and modern), and communications in the area, Ross (1845) 51; Manolakakis (1896) 35-6; Dawkins (1902-3) 186; Hope Simpson and Lazenby (1962-3) 165-7; Melas (1985). 39. Diod. 5. 54 (migration); Craik (1980) 50-1; Reger (2004). 40. Cf. the case of the (Palaio-)Skiathian honoured in the Athenian decree ML 90 (noted by Jameson in his unpublished article on Carpathos). 41. Michailidis-Nouaros (1940). Could the ‘Carpathian ships, large and spacious’ (Isidore of Seville, 14.6.24, of a type of ship) have been developed to carry sacrificial victims, bred on Carpathos, to shrines on Cos and Rhodes? 42. Crete: Erickson (2005). Egypt: Hdt. 3.45; Cod. Theod. 13.5.32 (Carpathian fleet, named alongside Alexandrian, AD 409). For strategic importance, see Melas (1985) 25; suggestive are the dedication of a Rhodian general at the shrine of Poseidon Porthmios (Syll. 586), and the extraordinary late Hellenistic relief representing a man in armour with a stylis (yard-arm) in his right hand and a stern ornament in his left (Laube 2006: 48-9, misidentifying the stylis as a spear). The relief is now apparently in the museum of Elymbos; I suspect this is not a funerary relief, though it was found, reused, in the necropolis of Brykous, but a dedication originally from the shrine of Poseidon Porthmios. 43. For timber, the Troad and Lycia may have played an important role: Thonemann in this volume. 44. See Anderson and Dix (2004) on the complexity and reciprocity of relations between rulers and ruled, in the case of the Eteocarpathioi. 45. Brosius (2000) no. 20; Briant (1996) 68-70, 600-4. 46. On apotaxis (separate tribute assessment of communities), ATL III 195-6, Lepper (1962), somewhat sceptical on any repressive function; Meiggs (1972) 241-2. For parallels, the tensions between the Cilician city of Nagidos and the Ptolemaic colony of Arsinoe, founded on Nagidian territory (SEG 39.1426; 52.1462); perhaps also the Kainai Komai (new villages), a Phrygian community granted autonomy by the Roman empire in the first century AD (Robert, OMS 7, 567n.53), and the Calleneis, the inhabitants of the Gulf of Callone, detached by the Roman empire from the territory of Mytilene (J. and L. Robert, BE 76, 595, p. 354) – both known from the Flavian-era conventus list for the province of Asia published by Chr. Habicht (1975). 47. Multiplication: J. and L. Robert, OMS 7, 318. Examples of separatism: Airai (attested as part of Teian territory in ML 30, but assessed separately by the Athenians); Dioshieron (near Colophon: IG I3 65, Robert and Robert (1989) 71-5); Thasos and its peraia: Meiggs (1972) 571. A parallel in the fourth-century Second Athenian Confederacy is provided by Ceos (IG II2 404 with Brun 1989 and 2004). Synoikism: Thuc. 1.58 (Chalcideis and synoikism of Olynthos); Mytilene: Thuc. 3.2-3; Rhodes: Hansen and Nielsen (2004) no. 1000.
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John Ma 48. Lepper (1962) 38-9; 41 discussing Kirchoff’s (unlikely) view that Amorgos started paying tribute in the poleis autai category after being detached from Samian control; see generally Hansen and Nielsen (2004) 650 no. 367 (the relation with the Diakrioi, 649-50 no. 366 is unclear). 49. References and discussion in Hansen and Nielsen (2004) 1198 no. 993-4, 1204-5 nos. 998-9. 50. ML 65, IG I3 62; Meiggs (1972) 240-1. 51. Price and Nixon (1990) is illuminating; see also P. Thonemann in this volume. 52. Constantakopoulou (2007). ‘When will someone collect the evidence about public building in the empire, or even ask the question about the internal effect of a change from ships to tribute?’ (Lewis 1977: 299; cf. Osborne 1999). 53. Stephanopoli (1912); Vatin and Veinstein (2004); Arikan (2002). 54. My thanks to Alain Bresson, Charles Crowther, Klaus Hallot, Renee Hirschon (for lending me books about Carpathos and sharing her first-hand Carpathiote knowledge), Paraskevi Martzavou, Angelos Matthaiou, Elias Mitropoulos (for help with Chalcidian matters), Gary Reger, and especially to Anthony Jameson, for letting me use his father Michael Jameson’s material on Carpathos – 50 years of careful scholarly notes, and constant thoughts.
Bibliography Agapitidis, S. (1987), ‘O plhqusmÒj thj Karp£qou’, Karpathiakai Meletai 4: 165-70. Alexiadis, M. (2001), Karpaqiakˇ laograf8a. /Oyeij tou la;koÚ politismoÚ. (Athens). Alfieri Tonini, T. (1999), ‘Il decreto ateniese per Carpato (IG I3 1454 A), Una proposta di interpretazione’, in Atti dell’ XI Congresso Internazionale di Epigrafia Greca e Latina, Roma, 18-24 settembre 1997, I (Rome), 157-63. Anderson, C. and Dix, T. (1997a), ‘Politics and State Religion in the Delian League: Athena and Apollo in the Eteocarpathian Decree’, ZPE 117: 129-32. ——— and ——— (1997b), ‘The Eteocarpathian Decree (IG I3 1454), and the Construction Date of the Erechtheion’, AJA 101: 373. ——— and ——— (2004), ‘Small States in the Athenian Empire: The Case of the Eteocarpathioi’, Syllecta Classica 15: 1-31. Arikan, Z. (2002), ‘La situation administrative, démographique, économique et sociale du vilayet des îles de l’Archipel ottoman dans la seconde moitié du XIXe siècle’, in E. Zachariadou (ed.), The Kapudan Pasha: His Office and his Domain (Rethymno), 223-39. Austin. M. (2006), The Hellenistic World from Alexander to the Roman Conquest, 2nd edn (Cambridge). Barbey, W., de Stefani, C., Forsyth Major (1895), Karpathos. Étude géologique, paléontologique et botanique (Lausanne). Beaudouin, M. (1880), ‘L’île de Karpathos’, BCH 4: 261-84. Bent, Th.J. (1885), ‘The Islands of Telos and Karpathos’, JHS 6: 233-42. Brun, P. (1989), ‘Kéos et ses cités au IVe siècle av. J.C.’, ZPE 76: 121-38. ——— (2004), ‘La datation de IG II2 404, décret athénien concernant les cités de Kéos’, ZPE 147: 72-8. Cahn, H. (1957), ‘Poseidion on Karpathos?’, NC ser. 6, vol. 17: 11-12. Capdetrey, L. (2007), Le pouvoir séleucide (Rennes). Chilton, L. (1994), Plant List for Karpathos (Retford).
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5. Empire, Statuses and Realities Constantakopoulou, C. (2007), The Dance of the Islands: Insularity, Networks, the Athenian Empire and the Aegean World (Oxford). Craik, E. (1980), The Dorian Aegean (London). Dawkins, R. (1902-3), ‘Notes from Karpathos’, BSA 9: 176-210. Della Setta, A. (1924-5), ‘R. Scuola Archeologica Italiana di Atene’, Bolletino d’Arte 1924-5: 77-93. Erickson, B. (2005), ‘Archaeology of Empire: Athens and Crete in the Fifth Century BC’, AJA 109: 619-63. Foucart, P.-F. (1888), ‘Décrets athéniens du IVe siècle’, BCH 12: 153-79. Frangos, A. (1957), K£rpaqoj (1957). Fraser, P. and Bean, G. (1954), The Rhodian Peraea and Islands (Oxford). Halstead, P. and Jones, G. (1989), ‘Agrarian Ecology in the Greek Islands: Time Stress, Scale and Risk’, JHS 109: 41-55. Hansen, M.H. and Nielsen, T.H. (eds) (2004) An Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis (Oxford). Hauttecoeur, H. (1901), ‘L’île de Karpathos’, Bulletin de la Société Royale Belge de Géographie 25: 237-88. Hope-Simpson, R. and Lazenby, J. (1962), ‘Notes from the Dodecanese’, BSA 57: 154-75. Imhoof-Blumer, F. (1874), ‘Beiträge zur Münzkunde und Geographie von AltGriechenland und Kleinasien’, ZfN 1: 93-162. Laube, I. (2006), Thorakophoroi. Gestalt und Semantik des Brustpanzers in der Darstellung des 4. bis 1 jhs v. Chr. (Rahden). Lewis, D.M. (1977), Review of W. Schuller, Die Herrschaft der Athener im ersten attischen Seebund, CR 27: 299-300. Low, P. (2007), Interstate Relations in Classical Greece: Morality and Power (Cambridge). Meiggs, R. (1982), Trees and Timber in the Ancient Mediterranean World (Oxford). Melas, E. (1985), The Islands of Karpathos, Saros and Kasos in the Neolithic and Bronze Age (Göteborg). ——— (1991), Pot8daion Karp£qou: ¢pÕ t]n pro_storik] 1poc] æj t]n Ûsterh ¢rcaiÒthta (New York). Michailidis-Nouaros, M. (1934), Laografik> sÚmmeikta Karp£qou, vol. 2 (Athens). ——— (1940), +Istor8a tÁj nˇsou Karp£qou (Athens). Migliorini, E. (1937), ‘Economia rurale ed insediamento nell’isola di Scarpanto’, Bolletino della R. Società Geografica Italiana ser. 7, vol. 2: 244-69. Moutsopoulos, N. (1975-7), ‘K£rpaqoj: shmeièseij ;stor8aj, topograf8aj ka< ¢rcaiolog8aj’, Epistimonike Epeteris tes Polutechnikes Scholes Panepistemiou Thessalonikes 7: 39-744. Osborne, R. (1999), ‘Archaeology and the Athenian Empire’, TAPA 129: 312-32. Rackham, O. (2001), Trees, Wood, and Timber in Greek History (Oxford). Reger, G, (1997), ‘Islands with One Polis versus Islands with Several Poleis’, in M. Hansen (ed.), The Polis as an Urban Centre and as a Political Community (Copenhagen), 450-92. ——— (2004), ‘Karpathos’, in Hansen and Nielsen (2004) 745-7. Reynolds, J. (1982), Aphrodisias and Rome (London). Robert, J. and Robert, L. (1989), Claros I. Décrets hellénistiques (Paris). Robert, L. (1936), Collection Froehner: Inscriptions grecques (Paris). Ross, L. (1845), Reisen auf den griechischen Inseln des ägäischen Meeres, vol. 3 (Stuttgart).
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John Ma Schuller, W. (1981), ‘Über die 9diîtai-Rubrik in den attischen Tributlisten’, ZPE 42: 141-51. Segre, M. (1933), ‘KrhtikÕj pÒlemoj’, Riv. Fil. 11: 365-92. ——— (1938), ‘Iscrizioni di Licia’, Clara Rhodos 9: 181-208. Stephanopoli, J. (1912), Les îles de l’Égée. Leurs privilèges (Athens). Susini, G. (1963-4), ‘Supplemento Epigrafico di Caso, Scarpanto, Saro, Calchi, Alinnia e Tilo’, ASAA n.s. 25-6: 203-93. Vatin, N. and Veinstein, G. (2004), Insularités Ottomanes (Paris). Vernier, B. (1991), La génèse sociale des sentiments. Ainés et cadets à Karpathos (Paris). Virgilio, B. (2003), Lancia, porpora, diadema. Il re e la regalità ellenistica, 2nd edn (Pisa).
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6
Did the Athenian Empire Promote Democracy? Roger Brock To anyone just embarking on the study of Greek history, it might seem odd even to pose the question, since the great majority of general accounts of Greece in the fifth century answer in the affirmative: ‘As a rule, Athens prescribed to her subjects the general form of their constitutions, and it need hardly be said that these constitutions were always democratic’; ‘in its later stages the Delian League seems to have promoted dêmokratia …; the subsequent Athenian Empire certainly did’; ‘In the fifth century the Athenian “empire” undoubtedly promoted the creation, or the strengthening, of democracy in many other Greek cities.’1 Sometimes, there is a degree of qualification: ‘Athens usually supported democracies abroad’; ‘the Athenians normally encouraged, and when provoked sometimes installed, democracies in the allied states’; ‘not everywhere, but certainly in several cities, she intervened to impose her own form of democracy’.2 As the student pursues his or her investigations, the reason for these qualifications becomes apparent, namely the nature of the evidence: this modern generalisation appears to rest largely on a clutch of ancient generalisations. When we seek for specific cases of Athenian intervention or initiative, they turn out to be thin on the ground, and one becomes aware on the other hand of a significant number of exceptions to a simple model of alignment between democratic Athens and democracy in the cities of the Athenian empire. Burn’s confident assumption that the regimes in allied poleis replicated the Athenian form of democracy also serves to highlight the flexibility of constitutional labels in ancient Greece: we need to bear in mind that dêmokratia did not mean the same thing everywhere or to everyone, and could be legitimately applied to a variety of constitutional schemes.3 This last theme in particular has received considerable scholarly attention in recent years,4 and it may therefore be useful to revisit the question of Athenian support for democracy in some detail. To begin with, let us look at the ancient sources which affirm that Athens did promote democracy. The first thing we notice is that the majority date from the fourth century, and so are at the least informed by hindsight from a period in which Athens’ imperial record was distinctly relevant to contemporary political developments. A trio of references in Isocrates illustrate this most clearly: in the Panegyricus (104-6) he speaks
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Roger Brock of the Athenians having promoted democracy – or rather, shared their own constitution with other states – because of their reservations about oligarchy: the phrase tais de dunasteiais polemountes (‘fighting against dynasteiai’, i.e. narrow, junta-like oligarchies) in 105 suggests that he has the Lysandrian dekarchies particularly in mind, and is therefore aiming to cast Sparta in an unfavourable light as potential hêgemôn of Greece by reference to her recent policy.5 That suspicion is confirmed in the Panathenaikos, where in chapter 54 he explicitly contrasts the way in which the Athenians’ forefathers persuaded their allies to adopt the constitution which they favoured with the Spartans’ imposition of narrow regimes of just ten men, quite unlike their own constitution; this is elaborated in chapter 68, where he represents the allies as paying tribute in order to preserve democracy and freedom and protect themselves from evils on the scale inflicted in the time of the Spartan dekarchies and dynasteia. Here, then, the assertion that Athens promoted democracy is deployed to undermine Spartan pretensions to hegemony. Isocrates’ other agenda surfaces in the De Pace (79), namely the disparagement of fifthcentury Athenian imperialism, and hence of any attempt to reinstate it; here he presents broadly the same policy as intolerable insolence on the Athenians’ part and provocation of the allies. We can align with this another exhibit sometimes produced in this debate, namely the provision for constitutional freedom in the charter of the Second Athenian Confederacy (RO no. 22.19-21): this is one of a number of Athenian undertakings in this document to refrain from practices unpopular with her allies which reveal it to be markedly influenced by the legacy and retrospective perception of the fifth-century empire – though in point of fact one would have thought that this particular provision more or less followed from the autonomy clause in the King’s Peace. The other frequently cited passage is Aristotle’s observation in the Politics (1307b22) that ‘the Athenians everywhere destroyed oligarchies, the Spartans democracies’. The existence of cases in which Athens tolerated oligarchies is sufficient to establish that this is at least an excessively sweeping generalisation, as the authors of ATL noted many years ago,6 but it is worth looking at the context in a little more detail. The observation comes at the end of chapter 7 of Book 5, which discusses the causes of factions in aristocracies. In full, the passage reads ‘all constitutions are overturned sometimes from within and sometimes from without, when an opposite constitution is either near by or far away yet possessed of power. This is what happened in the time of the Athenians and the Spartans. For the Athenians everywhere …’. David Keyt (1999: 125) argues persuasively that Aristotle is referring here to revolutions prompted by external powers initiated both from within and from without. Given the presumed date of Politics late in Aristotle’s life, it could be argued that he is referring in general terms to the kind of power-politics recently rendered obsolete by Philip’s victory at Chaironeia, just as in 1296a32-6 he observes, without naming names, that ‘those who
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6. Did the Athenian Empire Promote Democracy? came to exercise leadership among the Greek states installed democracies or oligarchies in them according to the constitution which each had at home, looking entirely to their own advantage, not to that of the states themselves’; after all, the role of Thebes as the external agency in the opening stasis of the Peloponnesian War proves that even in the fifth century Athens and Sparta did not have a monopoly of constitutional interference. Nevertheless, the most natural inference is that it reflects the experience of the later fifth century and, more specifically, that Aristotle is influenced by the analysis of the interaction between internal and external politics in Thucydides, above all in 3.82, even though that passage in fact deals only with changes of constitution initiated from within, by ‘the democratic leaders who sought to bring in Athens and the oligarchs who sought to bring in the Spartans’ (3.82.1), and it represents it from the reverse, internal perspective, influenced no doubt by its context in a discussion of stasis. Aristotle would seem to endorse Thucydides’ general analysis (no specific instances are adduced, here or elsewhere), while noting that the initiative for constitutional change might equally well come from outside. That brings us to general statements in fifth-century sources, of which there are two: Thucydides (obviously), and the pseudo-Xenophontic Constitution of the Athenians,7 whose author alleges that the Athenians ‘choose the worse people [i.e. the lower class] in cities affected by stasis, and do it deliberately … for in no city is the better element favourable to the demos, but in each city it is the worst part which is favourable to the demos, for like favours like. And so on this account the Athenians choose what suits them’ (3.10). This analysis is characteristic of his tendency to adopt a tidy schematisation of the nature of Athenian politics into democratic and oligarchic interest groups; however, when he talks of Athenian interference in allied affairs (1.14-15), it is at least partly in terms of favour or hostility to individuals,8 just as in the Seventh Letter Plato (if it is he) speaks of the Athenians having ‘friends in each of the cities’ (332bc). However, while the Old Oligarch dogmatically insists that Athens’ associates are ‘the worst people’, in practice the ‘democratic leaders’ will normally have been as much members of the elite as their opponents; indeed, Plato actually says nothing about the political alignment of Athens’ friends, and does not even mention Sparta. That might have something to do with his agenda, which in the context is the importance of loyal and trustworthy friends for good government: the point of contrast is the failure of Dionysius II to establish good government of this kind, and the other positive exemplum he cites alongside Athens is the relationship of Darius and the other members of the Seven.9 Nevertheless, this is not to deny the broad congruence of the Old Oligarch and Thucydides, whatever their intellectual disparity, in identifying a pattern of Athenian support for allied democracy. However, we should note that, on the dating normally assumed for the former, this relates to conditions in the Pelopon-
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Roger Brock nesian War, which radically altered the context and significance of this interaction. The Old Oligarch (3.10-11) speaks of the Athenians taking sides in stasis, and while of course that was hardly created by the war, it was hugely exacerbated by it: as Thucydides goes on to remark in 3.82.1, ‘in peace men had no excuse to summon them in and were not prepared to do so, but in a state of war when alliances were on offer which enabled the opposition to be harmed and yourself to make gains, occasions were readily at hand for those who wanted revolution’. The same perspective attaches to Thucydides’ verdict on Athenian failure in Sicily (7.55.2), which he attributes partly to their inability to win cities over either by the inducement of constitutional change or by force, and the role of stasis is perhaps implicit here also, since where there was stasis (or the potential for it) in a polis, Athens could appeal to would-be democratic leaders or to the demos, but where a polis was constitutionally stable, whether as oligarchy or democracy, and chose to resist Athens’ overtures, superior force was the only recourse.10 We need to acknowledge, therefore, that all the sources which make broad claims of Athenian support for allied democracy, even the earliest of them, are coloured by the experience of the Peloponnesian War, which had a transforming effect first on relations between great and small poleis, and then on the perception of Athenian democracy and imperialism. Hence we should be cautious not only by recognising the likelihood that they contain an element of over-simplification, but also in considering how far we can legitimately extrapolate their judgements to an earlier period in which conditions were different. It is certainly true that Thucydides demonstrates the existence of democracies friendly to Athens during the Peloponnesian War, typically in contexts of revolt and constitutional change, although that support for Athens does not in itself tell us anything about the origins of any given regime. So, for example, we see democracies in Chalcidice and nearby during Brasidas’ campaign at Acanthus, Mende, Torone and, in all probability, Amphipolis: particularly striking is the passage in which the Acanthians make their decision to defect from Athens by secret ballot (4.88). Likewise we infer the prior existence of democracies at Thasos, Carystos, Andros and Tenos (Thuc. 8.64.1, 65.1, 69.3) from the activities of Pisander and other leaders of the oligarchic revolution and the presence at Athens of allied supporters of the 400 recruited from those places after the establishment of oligarchies there. However, a little caution is in order here, since, as Phrynichus is made to observe in Thuc. 8.48.5, there was no necessary link between a change of constitution and a change of external alignment: hence Thasos actually revolted as a moderate oligarchy, as Thucydides notes with a certain degree of malicious amusement, observing that her case was not unique.11 Equally, he does not report any change of constitution following the secessions of democratic Acanthus and Amphipolis in the 420s, nor does there seem to be any evidence that
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6. Did the Athenian Empire Promote Democracy? the Ephesians abandoned their democracy when they revolted from Athens during the Ionian War; Miletus pretty certainly remained democratic until 405, though aligned with Sparta from 412 (Diod. Sic. 13.104.5, Plut. Lys. 8). Hence we cannot simply extrapolate a change to oligarchy when we observe a democracy in revolt from Athens, nor infer the prior existence of democracy in an oligarchy which is reported to have seceded from Athens, even if that will often have been the case. So for example the epigraphic evidence that strongly suggests that Eretria was oligarchic in 411 does not in itself tell us anything about her constitution in previous decades.12 All this is not to gainsay the general pattern to which Thucydides bears witness; on the other hand, as I have already said, it is much harder to identify specific instances in which these regimes come into being, especially from the period before the war. The earliest case for which there is some kind of evidence would seem to be Thasos. The perception attributed by Thucydides to the Thasian oligarchs that their polis was being ‘put straight’ (orthousthai: 8.64.5) in 411 could be read as signifying in their eyes the restoration of a proper oligarchic constitution after the shackles of Athens had been completely thrown off; in that case, it would make sense to assume that the implied ‘crookedness’ of the preceding democracy which had supplanted it dated back to the settlement after the suppression of revolt in 463. There then follow a clutch of examples in the troubled decade either side of 450, all of which are to some extent problematic. Probably the earliest is Erythrae, most frequently dated to 453/2.13 It is also for our purposes far and away the most clear-cut, since the decree which specifies the regulations to be imposed on Erythrae after the suppression of a revolt lays down certain constitutional principles, including a council which is chosen by sortition, and so clearly democratic; a clause forbidding immediate iteration in office is also reminiscent of Athenian procedures (see further below, p. 161). Matters are considerably murkier in the case of Miletus. We know from the Old Oligarch (3.11) that at some stage Athens supported oligarchs in stasis there, and the presence of officials called epimenioi in the so-called Molpoi decree (Milet 3 133) is usually taken to indicate that she was still oligarchic in 447/6, despite the implication of the first Tribute List of some kind of trouble in the later 50s, either because she had been that way since the restoration after the Ionian Revolt, or because a democracy established then had subsequently been overthrown, while a decree of 434/3 with an Athenian-style prescript (Herrmann (1970)) is taken to imply that she was democratic by that date. Since there are indications in the Tribute Lists of further serious trouble in the early 40s which had presumably been resolved by 443/2, when the tribute of Miletus stabilises at a lower level, this is the most likely context for Athenian intervention and the imposition of a democracy; although the earlier IG I3 21, conventionally dated to 450/49, describes a tightening of Athenian local control, it is usually seen
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Roger Brock as at least compatible with an oligarchic Miletus. However, if one follows those who have down-dated this decree to 426/5, then the Milesians may have managed the transition to democracy without any input from Athens – something we ought in any case to be willing to envisage in principle, just as cities could defect from her without constitutional change, as we have already seen.14 Matters are not a great deal clearer on Samos. The first stage is clear enough: Thucydides (1.115) reports the imposition in 440 of a democracy at the prompting of Samian would-be democrats. Since this intervention in the context of local fighting with Miletus implicitly favours the latter, that might be a further indication (though not a decisive one) that Miletus was herself democratic by now. On the other hand, it is not absolutely clear that this Samian democracy was reinstated in the settlement after a subsequent coup and revolt by Samian oligarchs had been suppressed: a putative Athenian oath to look after the interests of the Samian demos is suggestive, but falls short of cast-iron proof.15 The further difficulty is that in 411 Thucydides (8.21) reports an ‘uprising (epanastasis)’ of the Samian demos against the dunatoi, following which, after a putsch in which 200 of these were executed and 400 exiled, the demos ‘administered the city’ in a regime which excluded the aristocratic Geomoroi even from inter-marriage, as well as political rights. Later in 411, however, their leaders defected to the oligarchic cause and planned an attack on the demos, but were pre-empted with aid from the Athenian fleet (8.73). Prima facie, this suggests either that democracy was not restored in 439, or that at some subsequent stage there was an unreported oligarchic coup. Even if we accept that all these events are compatible with continuous democracy (though that is not how Thucydides seems to report them) we would have to envisage a democracy which left considerable space to the left of itself, and the fact that the Athenians granted autonomia to the new regime as being ‘now reliable’ (8.21) could be taken to imply significant constitutional change, rather than simply a turnover of personnel. We can at least place a more precise date on the next brace of cases, the settlements for Chalcis and Eretria after their revolts in 446; however, as Balcer (1978: 24) concedes, ‘no absolute evidence exists’ for the establishment of a democracy at Chalcis now. Neither two mentions in IG I3 40 of a boulê (62, 66-7) nor a reference to euthunai (71-2) is decisive: the latter ‘clearly means punishments in general rather than the examination of magistrates at the end of their year of office’,16 and a major role for the Council is surely just as compatible with oligarchy as with democracy. However, the expulsion of the Hippobotae reported by Plutarch (Per. 23.4) not only looks like retribution for oligarchic leaders of the revolt, but would also make sense as part of a democratising settlement. The evidence for Eretria is even scantier, amounting essentially to very close similarity between the preserved parts of the two decrees (IG I3 39 for Eretria) which, it is argued, implies more or less identical settlements. The one unambi-
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6. Did the Athenian Empire Promote Democracy? guous piece of evidence for democracy on Euboea at this time is the reference to use of the lot in the regulations for Hestiaia (IG I3 41.105), but here we are dealing with a cleruchy, which supplanted the Hestiaians after their expulsion en masse in retaliation for the murder of an Athenian crew (Thuc. 1.114, Diod. Sic. 12.22.2, Plut. Per. 23.4), so democratic institutions are what we would expect.17 This is a pretty thin haul for nearly half a century of foreign policy, albeit a poorly documented half-century. Indeed, the number of instances of Athenian tolerance of non-democratic regimes is considerably larger. For a start, it includes almost all the poleis I have just been discussing, including an oligarchic Samos to 441 and an oligarchic Miletus probably to a slightly earlier date; moreover, as we have seen, it is possible that Athens acquiesced in oligarchic coups beforehand at Miletus and afterwards at Samos. If Samos was oligarchic in early 411, it is all the more striking that the Athenians were sufficiently confident in her reliability to base their navy there, especially in a context of general instability.18 The Chalcidian oligarchy temporarily supplanted by Athenian cleruchs in 506 appears to have been reinstated when they were withdrawn in 490 and to have persisted until 446; the assumption that the cases of Chalcis and Eretria were parallel in 446 must likewise presume, in default of any evidence, that the latter was oligarchic, too. Other cases are rather more clear-cut: for example, the fact that Potidaea was still receiving annual magistrates from oligarchic Corinth in 433 (Thuc. 1.56.2) strongly implies that she was also oligarchic until that date, when Athens intervened. Likewise, the protection of Aegina’s autonomy in the peace of 44619 would seem to suggest that she retained her oligarchic constitution: if that is not the case, it is hard to understand why a democracy sponsored by the Athenians, especially at such short range, was capable of stirring up so much trouble in 432. After all, in the run-up to the war, the Athenians are quite canny in paying at least lip-service to the provisions of the Thirty Years’ Peace, while the wholesale expulsion of the Aeginetans in 431 (2.27) implies that Athens viewed the entire population as a security risk. Even clearer is the case of Mytilene: evidently the Mytilenean demos was not party to the revolt from Athens, since it moved to thwart it as soon as it was armed (3.27.2-3, a revealing deficiency in itself). Thucydides makes the Mytileneans say that they were allowed their autonomy as a fig-leaf for Athenian imperialism, since their freedom could be taken to imply that they were supporting Athenian policy willingly (3.11.3-4); the same would apply to the Chians, whom they identify as the only other allies not yet ‘enslaved’ by 427.20 A very similar assertion, perhaps influenced by the Mytilenean speech in Thucydides, is made by the author of the Ath. Pol. (24.2), who says that the Athenians ‘became more domineering in their treatment of the allies, apart from Chios, Lesbos and Samos: these they kept as guardians of the empire, accepting their existing constitutions and allowing them to retain the subjects over whom they ruled’; here the
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Roger Brock situation is generalised, or seen from a perspective before 440, when Samos ceased to be a ship-contributor. In point of fact, the constitution of Chios is quite difficult to pin down: the decision to revolt from Athens was taken by the boulê, which suggests oligarchy, but clearly the demos had some influence, and 9.3 might imply the existence of an assembly (though that in itself is perfectly compatible with oligarchy). The fact that Thucydides marks a transition to oligarchy in 8.38 implies that the previous regime, if oligarchic, was moderate, as does Thucydides’ approval for it in 8.24, which chiming as it does with his approval for the regime of the 5000, a moderate democracy, might tempt one to label Chios before 411 an Aristotelian ‘polity’.21 Something similar might be true of Chalcedon (Theopomp. fr. 62), while Heracleia Pontica (CPCInv. 715: cf. n. 4), Aeolian Cyme (CPCInv. 817) and Cnidos (CPC Inv. 903) are other possible but elusive cases of oligarchies among the allies. Even more striking in some ways is the proliferation of dynasts and tyrants among the contributors enumerated on the Tribute Lists: Paktyes and Pikres, Sambaktys, Tymnes and others.22 Many of these were certainly minor figures, though even here we should make a distinction between a lone individual like Sambaktys, or ‘the Carians whom Tymnes rules’, and poleis which are listed as ruled by a dynast as at Syangela, Cillareis or Cindye, or where it is the dynast who is listed, with an ethnic of the polis, as is the case at Idyma or, again, Syangela. In these latter cases, the polis ethnic is also attested; clearly, there was a difference which was in some way significant, but not to the point of completely concealing political realities. Even in the case of Halicarnassus, a substantial contributor, which is always listed by its ethnic, we should not, in the light of these precedents, assume that this implies that the tyranny had ended by the time the Tribute Lists begin: if, as is often argued, she was a founder member of the Delian League, then at the very least tribute payment had been compatible with the rule of the Lygdamids for a generation.23 There would seem to be other cases, outside Caria, of the listing of a contributor by its ethnic though ruled by a tyrant, at Lampsacus and, perhaps, Sigeion on the Troad, and at Gryneion and Myrina in Aiolis: the latter pair are places which Xenophon tells us had been assigned by the Great King to descendants of the renegade Spartan king Demaratos, and so were presumably formally tyrannies.24 In many such cases there is the possibility that they were paying both sides, but if anything that only underscores the unconventional nature of their relationship with Athens.25 It is clear, therefore, that the pattern of Athenian policy did not form any very uniform picture, and indeed, was not uniform even locally – for example, within Euboea – and that lack of uniformity in turn tends to suggest that Athenian policy towards the allies was not strongly driven by ideology. That suggestion is reinforced if we turn to look at Athenian foreign policy in a wider context. Naturally, we have to make a distinction between Athenian administration of the empire and her wider foreign
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6. Did the Athenian Empire Promote Democracy? policy, but it would be reasonable to anticipate that the two would be broadly congruent if ideology was a significant consideration in Athenian relations with other states as a whole. That, however, does not seem to be the case. The second example cited by pseudo-Xenophon of ill-advised Athenian support for oligarchs in stasis is their intervention in Boeotia, as part of the ultimately abortive pursuit of a ‘land empire’ (3.11); yet although unsuccessful, rather than collapsing ‘within a short time’, as pseudo-Xenophon alleges, this was actually a substantial commitment over a decade, and was terminated by local opposition, rather than being abandoned by Athens. Another plausible case of an important association with oligarchs is Corcyra, since it is certainly plausible to regard that island as oligarchic before 427.26 She first appears in Thucydides refusing to support the democratic exiles from her daughter city Epidamnus (1.24), and it is even more significant that the Corcyrean envoys seeking an alliance with Athens in 433 (1.32-6) make no appeal to Athenian sympathy for fellow democrats, an argument which they would surely have used had it been available (and which, even had they not, Thucydides would surely have aired editorially). When we come to the antecedents of the great stasis, Thucydides’ narrative (3.70-81) seems more or less entirely compatible with an oligarchic background: the mission of the Corcyrean prisoners-ofwar returned by Corinth is not constitutional change, but rather the detaching of the city from Athens, which they begin first by lobbying individuals, and then by prosecuting the Athenian proxenos Peithias within the existing administrative framework; he is described in 70.3 as leader of the demos,27 but the charge is ‘enslaving Corcyra to Athens’. Here, as in book 1, it appears that for the Corcyreans questions of foreign policy, and specifically their relationship with Corinth, bulk larger than any constitutional concerns. Acquitted, Peithias counter-prosecutes and convicts his enemies and, when they take to suppliancy to appeal against the penalty, he uses his position as a member of the boulê to have the sentence enforced, and proposes to follow this up by persuading the plêthos to adopt a full offensive and defensive alliance with Athens, though his intention to do this ‘while still a member of the boulê’ indicates that members served a limited term. It is likewise the boulê which is murderously attacked by the pro-Corinthians, who then enact a policy of neutrality: this involves calling together the Corcyreans, presumably in an assembly, but that body is ‘compelled to ratify the proposal’ (71.1).28 Even at this stage there is no indication of constitutional change, despite the major shift in foreign policy: the pro-Corinthians are simply described as hoi echontes ta pragmata (‘those in control of affairs’ 72.1) which need denote no more than practical control. Now, however, an element of ideological division appears when, following the arrival of a Corinthian trireme bearing Spartan envoys, the pro-Corinthians attack the demos (72.2), perhaps seeking to consolidate their own position, 29 and this leads to an anarchic situation of
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Roger Brock overt civil war. Although the Athenian commander Nicostratos intervenes and brokers a settlement (75), he seems concerned with cobbling together some kind of reconciliation, by bringing to trial ten principal ringleaders, and reinstating an alliance with Athens. The demos likewise are prepared to patch up their differences with the oligarchs in order to man a fleet against the Peloponnesians (80): the earlier desertion of two triremes to the Peloponnesians and fighting among the crews of others, even in the face of the enemy (77.2), makes clear the degree of confusion in ideology and loyalties still prevailing, even though over 400 of their principal opponents had already been interned (75.5). Only with the accusation of dêmou katalusis (‘overthrowing the demos/democracy’: 81.4) invoked by the victorious democrats against their enemies is there any suggestion of specifically constitutional differences, though there was no judicial process, and by now, as Thucydides makes clear, faction and personal enmity were more important. The Athenians for their part seem to have been principally concerned with maintaining and if possible consolidating the alliance and forestalling any defection to the Peloponnese, which is entirely in line with their having entered into alliance with an oligarchic Corcyra in 433. If the execration of Corcyrean duplicity in Hermippos fr. 63.10-11 (Kassel-Austin) dates from shortly after the stasis, as KasselAustin suggest, the Athenians were not especially enamoured of their newly democratic allies. Athenian foreign policy also increasingly came to involve dealings with monarchs, despite their ideological reservations on this score.30 Not only did this involve actual alliances with figures such as Sitalces, but the associated negotiations could entail creative revision of myth in the cause of kinship diplomacy, and even grants of citizenship, in this case to Sitalces’ son Sadokos (Thuc. 2.29), much to the amusement of Aristophanes (Ach. 145-7). Indeed, by 404 Athens had also bestowed citizenship on King Evagoras of Salamis and Tharyps of Molossia and probably on Alexander of Macedon.31 They could go even further: about 454 the Athenians attempted, with aid from (non-democratic) Boeotia and Phocis, to return to power the Thessalian dynast Orestes son of Echecratides (Thuc. 1.111.1). Presumably the assembly which approved the policy and the hoplites who attempted to implement it had been reassured with an Attic version of the formula ‘he’s a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch’ – as FDR is reputed to have said of Anastasio Somoza. By the same token, the case of Syracuse shows that the Athenians did not feel inhibited by ideology from going to war with a democracy. Indeed, Thucydides’ observations on Athens’ failure in the west point precisely to facing democratic opponents32 as one of the key factors, inasmuch as they were unable to use the lever of regime change. However, he does not seem to be saying that this was the only case in which Athens attacked democracies,33 since he identifies further significant similarities, namely size and military resources, in this case, and indeed in the fourth century
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6. Did the Athenian Empire Promote Democracy? Demosthenes (15.17) could claim that the Athenians knew well that they had fought many wars against democracies for a range of motives including territory and hegemony. Whatever the foreign policy of the Athenian empire was, then, it was far from consistently democratic, yet at the same time it involved a substantial amount of support for democracy. What, then, were the factors which influenced that support? The first, I think, was the capacity to interfere. The suppression of revolts obviously provided opportunity as well as motive for constitutional change, and accounts for a significant proportion of the cases mentioned earlier where we have actual evidence (though this may be partly due to a tendency for such evidence to be epigraphic). Scope for interference was likewise offered by Pericles’ exercise in gunboat diplomacy in the Black Sea c. 436 (Plut. Per. 20): here the opportunity was taken to plant settlers at Amisos (Theopomp. fr. 389) and Sinope, and there may also be a link to a democratic revolution which overthrew an oligarchy at Istros (Arist. Pol. 1305b1-12). An additional factor here was the presence of Athenian citizens as settlers: they will have given the populations of these communities a democratic flavour and will doubtless also have had a preference for being democratically ruled – all the more so to the extent that they were predominantly thetes. That factor was of course most strongly at work on Lemnos, Imbros and, presumably, Skyros,34 but apart from the Black Sea cases, we can also see it in play in the case of the foundations of Thurii and Amphipolis, neither of which had a majority Athenian population: we are explicitly told by Diodorus (12.11.3-4) that the former was founded as a democracy, the laws being the work either of Charondas or Protagoras. However, in the end neither proved a particularly durable democracy, so the formula clearly had its weaknesses. Although Athens doubtless inclined to intervene where she could, she did not always do so: the renewed stasis at Colophon-Notion seems to have gone unchecked for a couple of years (Thuc. 3.34), with intervention eventually precipitated by an appeal from the anti-Persian party to Paches.35 The attestation on the tribute lists of states which voluntarily enrolled themselves – the poleis autai phoron taxamenai (‘cities which imposed their own tribute’) and poleis has hoi idiôtai enegrapsan phoron pherein (‘cities enrolled by private citizens to pay tribute’) – also hints at areas where Athens might have fostered change, but did not, perhaps because she was aware that interest in her empire did not necessarily imply any desire for democracy. Nevertheless, the role of individual initiative was crucial: even if in all the cities the demos was favourable to Athens, as Diodotos says (Thuc. 3.47.2) – and he would say that, wouldn’t he – it seems that the Athenians rarely capitalised on that favour in the absence of an initiative from would-be friends.36 The failure to capitalise on all available support suggests a second likely factor, namely money. On the one hand, even if those behind the self-
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Roger Brock enrolment movements really were cheerleaders for democracy, the costs of any intervention required on their behalf were likely to outweigh any probable benefit. Conversely, it made sense not to disturb major states like Samos, Lesbos and Chios not – or not simply – for reasons of propaganda, but also because they supplied resources on which Athenian policy depended. The case of Thasos is an exception which confirms the general principle: intervention here was justified because Athens stood to gain direct control of a good proportion of those resources, and because she was able to induce the allies to assist her in successfully reducing Thasos when she revolted, after which the costs of the revolt could be recovered through an indemnity which she would still be in a position to pay – as was also the case for Samos a couple of decades later.37 This principle of course operated even more powerfully in the case of Athens’ independent allies: if Corcyra or the Odrysian Kingdom had something which Athens wanted, she had to take them as she found them. Such considerations lead me to the third factor, and perhaps the most significant: security. In the early years of the Delian League, security issues were principally concerned with the ongoing threat from Persia, a factor which was still evidently very significant around the middle of the century, when Erythrae was reduced after a revolt which had involved medising oligarchs treating with and then taking refuge with the enemy (IG I3 14.27); we can see also the language of democratic propaganda in the mention of ‘the tyrants’ in line 33. As the century wore on, however, Athens’ principal security concerns shifted first to internal security, with the rash of revolts which formed part of a general upsurge of unrest from the mid-fifties to the mid-forties; Persia was still lurking in the background, especially in the case of Samos,38 but the main focus was now internal, with loyalty and/or reliability the main issues. After this, or perhaps in parallel, there is a further shift in which Sparta is ever more the main concern. That brought constitutional matters to the fore, since not only was Sparta the ideological lodestar for oligarchic regimes, but she was perceived as having a tradition of intervention in favour of oligarchy, particularly against tyrannies.39 Thus denunciation of Athens as ‘the tyrant city’ could be perceived as embodying a real threat to act, if not directly against Athens, then at any rate in the case of her subject allies whom she was, on this account, ‘enslaving’. If Thucydides 1.19 is to be read au pied de la lettre, it was the Spartans who had the established policy of promoting constitutional change, not the Athenians, to whom the historian attributes only financial methods of control. Nevertheless, in an atmosphere of increasing polarisation between two constitutional options, tied to a choice between two hegemonies, if Sparta was threatening the promotion of oligarchy, Athenian security interests would dictate that she respond by consolidating and/or promoting democracy. The shift in the Athenian security agenda is well illustrated by the renewed stasis in Colophon-Notion just mentioned (above, p. 159): this remarkable episode
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6. Did the Athenian Empire Promote Democracy? is reported to have involved not one, but two bouts of Persian interference and two separate pro-Persian parties, one of them in control of Colophon and the other of the zone of Notion which they had partitioned off. In the early years of the Delian League, this would surely have provoked an immediate response; in the Archidamian War, assuming that the Athenians did not simply remain in ignorance – which is of course possible – it was two years before they responded, and then only when prompted from outside. Doubtless resources will have been strained, but that serves to emphasise priorities all the more clearly. As I have tried to make clear at intervals, I am not attempting to deny perversely that the Athenian empire promoted democracy at all: what I am suggesting is that it did not do so consistently, nor with a consistent ideological commitment. No doubt the Athenians found other democracies, their representatives and citizens, more congenial, and maybe they preferred them when they could, all other things being equal – the perception of a mutual sympathy between democracies was not limited to Athens;40 however, it seems clear to me that the dominant consideration was pragmatism. Indeed, we can see this even when they are indubitably promoting democracy, at Erythrae: not only is the council scaled down, from 500 to 120, but the Athenian limitation to two terms on the boulê in a lifetime, at least a decade apart, has been weakened to a ban on re-selection within four years (IG I3 14.8-12). An age limit of 30 appears, as do several mentions of sortition, but this is far from being a replication of Athenian democracy, as Lewis makes plain in considering the decree in his discussion of the diffusion of democratic institutions; instead, it is adapted appropriately to circumstances.41 Elsewhere, pragmatism meant not only accommodating to some strange associates for what they could offer, but the consolidation and perpetuation of some unexpected relationships: what did the average Athenian think of the Chians, as he prayed for blessings on their heads as well as on his own? There was more to it than obedience, surely?42 Finally, there were times when pragmatism entailed accepting that Athens’ interests were best served by leaving well alone. In the Peace of Nicias this meant agreeing to an autonomy clause for a clutch of Chalcidian poleis (Thuc. 5.18.5-6), which probably implies that they were acquiescing in constitutional diversity. As Athens’ position weakened, that became ever more the case: by 407, a promise of autonomy and constitutional freedom has become part of a markedly conciliatory settlement with Selymbria, since ironically, by now, insisting on regime change is only likely to undermine the pursuit of strategic objectives, and by 405, when Athens gives the same undertaking to the Samians, it is as an equal partner.43 At this point, the promotion of democracy is still feasible, but no longer clearly serves Athenian interests; if anything, these are better served by the fourth-century tactic of being seen to eschew it. In the twilight of the Athenian empire, perceptions have as much impact as
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Roger Brock power, and the democracy most advantageous for Athens is one which owes nothing to Athenian promotion.44 Notes 1. Bury and Meiggs (1975) 210; Ste. Croix (1981) 294; Powell (1988) 2. The absence of qualification tends to be characteristic of more general works: compare Cook (1961) 118; Bowra (1971) 87; Freeman (1996) 212; Buckley (1996) 303. There are however honourable exceptions: Grote (1869-70) V 293 was already dubious, on the basis of Thucydides’ account of Samos, that Athenian practice was uniform, and Starr (1974) 311 remarked on Athenian tolerance of non-democratic regimes provided they were loyal (cf. Laistner 1936: 13). Also already evident in Bury and Meiggs is the implicit assumption that Athens’ own democracy provided a motive for the promotion of the regime elsewhere (cf. Rhodes 1993: 39 on the issue: ‘Athens was self-consciously democratic’), which in Ste. Croix is supplemented by ideological conviction (contrast the equally ideological adverse verdicts of Mitford and Guiraud in an earlier era: Liddel in this volume, pp. 15-16, 22). Sowerby (1995) 47 goes so far as to suggest that the Delian League ‘was united by the need not only to combat an external threat but also perhaps to secure democratic constitutions against their oligarchic predecessors’, which may rest on an antithetical association of Persia, as well as Sparta, with opposition to democracy. 2. Hornblower in Boardman, Griffin and Murray (1986) 156; Rhodes (2006a) 182 (with 175); Burn (1948) 86; cf. Meiggs (1972) 208-9. 3. Brock and Hodkinson (2000) 12-21; the point is well made for democracy in the Athenian empire by Lewis (1997), esp. 56, and see also above, p. 161. 4. In particular from the activities of the Copenhagen Polis Centre and its energetic director M.H. Hansen: Hansen and Nielsen (2004) [hereafter cited for particular poleis as CPC Inv. with the entry number] is an invaluable repository of information on, among other things, the constitutional history of individual poleis which now makes possible a more nuanced approach to questions such as this. 5. Note that the antithesis between democracy in Ionia in the time of the Athenians and the subsequent dekarchies of Lysander is mentioned simply as factual background in Xenophon’s Hellenica (3.4.7). 6. ATL, vol. 3, 152. 7. The so-called ‘Old Oligarch’, a title which I adopt here as slightly less unwieldy and more personal. I also follow the conventional consensus for a date during the Peloponnesian War, and probably earlier rather than later (e.g. Forrest (1970)), since that maintains his position as the earliest of these general statements, and so keeps the same terminus post quem implicitly adopted by those who argue on his evidence for systematic Athenian promotion of democracy; it should be noted, however, that Hornblower (2000) mounts a plausible case for a date in the fourth century (but with a fifth-century ‘dramatic date’), in which case this will be another text influenced by hindsight and, particularly, as he argues, by Thucydides (esp. 371-5), which would suit my argument very well. 8. Whom he also sees as a target for judicial exploitation: 1.16-18. 9. Plato may therefore be making an implicit negative judgement on Lysander’s dekarchies, alongside the explicit condemnation of the Thirty at Athens (324d-5a). 10. On this passage see further above, p. 158. 11. And see above, p. 156, for Chios. 12. ML 82; see also Hornblower (2008) on 8.95.6 for the suggestion that Eretria
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6. Did the Athenian Empire Promote Democracy? had become oligarchic earlier than the Athenian naval defeat there, and so some months before Euboea openly revolted. Hornblower also infers from a verbal echo of events on Chios that Cameiros on Rhodes revolted as an oligarchy (8.44.1-2 ~ 9.3), though Lindos appears to have been democratic (CPC Inv. 997 [Nielsen and Gabrielsen]). 13. Though Lewis on IG I3 14 is agnostic, and it could be a bit earlier. 14. For the conventional view of the broad outlines see CPCInv. 854 (Rubinstein) and, in more detail, Gorman (2001) 216-36, though I have adjusted the dates based on Milesian epigraphy following Rhodes (2006b); for evidence of problems in the tribute lists, see Lewis (1994) esp. 295; Ostwald (1993) 61-2 is cautious on Milesian democracy. On recent challenges to conventional epigraphic dates, and the date of IG I3 21 in particular, see Papazarkadas in this volume, esp. pp. 71-2; in general, I tend to retain the higher dates, since if my argument works on those terms it is strengthened a fortiori by lower ones (cf. n. 7 above), but I try, as here, to note relevant implications. 15. Shipley (1987) 120-8, 292 is agnostic on the constitution between 439 and 412, but rightly argues that the leaders on both sides will have been ‘dunatoi’, and emphasises the importance of agendas internal to Samos; Hornblower (1991) on 1.117.3 and (2008) on 8.21 is also guarded, but inclines to democracy. However, Ostwald (1993) argues strongly for oligarchy, while observing that Athens set more store by loyalty than constitutional stamp (esp. 59-60); he also emphasises (52, 64) that the initiative for the epanastasis was Samian, not Athenian. Note that in the Athenian settlement of 439-8 (IG I3 48 [= ML 56].21-2) the key word ‘dêmos’ has to be restored, and ‘polis’, or even ‘boulê’ (which would suggest oligarchy), are also possible (n.b. Hornblower [1991] loc. cit.). 16. ML 52, commentary at 143. 17. For Eretria, see Balcer (1978) 24, 52-7. Papazarkadas in this volume, pp. 73-4, presents arguments for down-dating the Chalcis decree; given the literary evidence for significant intervention in Euboea in 446, it seems to me most economical to place these settlements here as a group. However, on the same principle I accept his later date for IG I3 37 (above, p. 159). 18. Given the perennial friction between Miletus and Samos, the fact that Miletus had already revolted (Thuc. 8.17) – and so also tacitly aligned herself with Persia – may have been a factor. 19. Thuc. 1.67.2, though some trace her autonomy back to 457: see Hornblower (1991) ad loc. 20. 3.10.5; compare the editorial comment on Athenian policy at 1.19, where mention only of Chios and Lesbos implies a perspective at or shortly before the outbreak of war. 21. For the boulê, see Thuc. 8.14.2 with SIG3 986; on the constitution as a whole, see now the careful comments of Hornblower (2008) on 9.3, 14.2, 24.4, and 38.3, who argues that the evidence is insufficient for certainty, but considers a formal oligarchy ‘considerably more likely than not’. 22. For dynasts on ATL, see CPCInv., p. 1360. 23. On Caria in this period, see Hornblower (1982) 25-34, and 26 on Halicarnassus in particular. Meiggs and Lewis are properly cautious on the dating implications of ML 32 (Commentary at p. 72); n.b. also Tod (1933) 38-9 on Lygdamis’ concern for constitutionality. 24. Lampsacus: CPCInv. 748; Thuc. 6.59.3; Sigeion: CPCInv. 791; Gryneion and Myrina: Xen. Hell. 3.1.6.
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Roger Brock 25. Murray (1966); Hornblower (1982) 25, 34, both noting the likelihood of action by individuals. 26. As do CPCInv. editorially at p. 1338, though Gehrke and Wirbelauer are a little evasive in the text (no. 123). 27. Though with the periphrasis tou dêmou proeistêkei (‘he led the demos’) rather than as prostatês tou dêmou (‘leader of the demos’) (70.3). 28. Compare 70.2, where ‘the Corcyreans’ hear Athenian and Corinthian envoys and vote to maintain the status quo; even if this was in an assembly (which is not at all clear from Thucydides’ wording), the existence of an assembly is not incompatible with the oligarchy which the leading role of the Council implies: compare the case of Chios (above, p. 156). 29. By this time, however, the leading pro-Athenians still alive were already in exile in Athens (70.6, 71.2). 30. On which see Braund (2000). 31. Osborne (1981-3) vol. 1, D3, vols. 3/4 T4, 6, PT124. 32. The plural is essentially a generalisation from Syracuse, though also influenced by Thucydides’ emphasis on the failure of political influence (so Hornblower (2008) on 7.55.2), though Diodorus 11.68.5 reports widespread Sicilian democracy in the 460s. 33. Though it is regularly treated as an isolated case by conservative American thinkers, for whom it is an embarrassing potential objection to their argument that democracies do not fight one another: see Robinson (2001) for the debate. 34. Against this traditional view, n.b. now Moreno (2007) 140-3 with 96-115 and in this volume. 35. Athens may now have intervened constitutionally: lines 49-51 of IG I3 37 can be restored as a promise by Colophonians not to overthrow democracy at Colophon. 36. As in the antecedents to the Delion campaign: Thuc. 4.76 with Hornblower (1996) ad loc.; cf. 6.95.2. 37. Financial concerns are also prominent in the high-profile case of Egesta: Thuc. 6.6.3, 46-7; the fragmentary ‘western Tribute List’ (IG I3 291) is suggestive here, too. 38. Besides Pissuthnes’ machinations, the sources reflect a real fear of Persian military intervention (Thuc. 1.115.4-5, 116.3; Plut. Per. 25.3-4, 26.1); cf. Hornblower (1982) 29-30 for his activity in Caria. 39. Even if that reputation may have been deliberately elaborated in the later fifth century (n.b. Hornblower [1991] on 1.18.1), Sparta had undeniably overthrown tyranny in Athens. 40. See Thuc. 5.29.1, 31.6, 44.1 for Argos in particular, and for the persistence of the idea, Dem. 15.4, 17-21. 41. Lewis (1997) 56-7; I share his view that the court of 27 jurors subject to a property qualification in IEryth. 2 (A13-22) is not incompatible with the Athenian settlement: n.b. the reference to sortition in B30-2. 42. ‘and for the Chians’: Ar. Birds 879-80 with Dunbar (1995) ad loc. The moderation of Chian oligarchy, if I am correct (above, p. 156), may have over-ridden ideological sensitivity; cf. Arist. Pol. 1319a14-19 for a property qualification at Aphytis which everyone could meet. Of course, few, if any, contemporary democracies will have met Athenian standards, but inasmuch as they associated their own regime with imperial control, that disparity might have suited them very well. 43. Selymbria: IG I3 118 = ML 87; Samos: IG I3 127 = ML 94, and Ostwald (1993) 65-6; cf. Papazardakas in this volume, p. 77, on the tone of IG I3 17, for Sigeion. 44. I am grateful to Robert Parker for the invitation to give the paper and for
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6. Did the Athenian Empire Promote Democracy? subsequent advice and encouragement, and to the audience in Oxford for helpful comments and suggestions. Simon Hornblower kindly read a draft of the revised version: I have benefited greatly from his critique, and also from advanced access to the text of the final volume of his Thucydides commentary, though the usual indemnity of course applies.
Bibliography Balcer, J.M. (1978), The Athenian Regulations for Chalkis, Historia Einzelschriften 33 (Wiesbaden). Bowra, C.M. (1971), Periclean Athens (London). Braund, D. (2000), ‘Friends and Foes: Monarchs and Monarchy in Fifth-century Athenian Democracy’, in Brock and Hodkinson (eds), 103-18. Brock, R. and Hodkinson, S. (eds) (2000), Alternatives to Athens (Oxford). Buckley, T. (1996), Aspects of Greek history 750-323 BC: A Source-based Approach (London). Burn, A.R. (1948), Pericles and Athens (London). Bury, J.B. and Meiggs, R. (1975), A History of Greece, 4th edn (London). Cook, R.M. (1961), The Greeks till Alexander (London). Dunbar, N. (1995) Aristophanes Birds (Oxford). Forrest, W.G. (1970), ‘The Date of the pseudo-Xenophontic Athenaion Politeia’, Klio 52: 107-16. Freeman, C. (1996), Egypt, Greece, and Rome: Civilizations of the Ancient Mediterranean (Oxford). Gorman, V. (2001), Miletos, the Ornament of Ionia (Ann Arbor). Grote, G. (1869-70), A History of Greece: From the Earliest Period to the Close of the Generation Contemporary with Alexander the Great, 10 vols (London). Hansen, M.H. and Nielsen, T.H. (2004), An Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis (Oxford). Herrmann, P. (1970), ‘Zu den Beziehungen zwischen Athen und Milet im 5. Jahrhundert’, Klio 52: 163-73. Hornblower, S. (1982), Mausolus (Oxford). ——— (1986), ‘Greece: The History of the Classical Period’, in J. Boardman, J. Griffin and O. Murray (eds), The Oxford History of the Classical World (Oxford), 142-76. ——— (1991), A Commentary on Thucydides volume I: Books I-III (Oxford). ——— (1996), A Commentary on Thucydides volume II: Books IV-V.24 (Oxford). ——— (2000), ‘The Old Oligarch (Pseudo-Xenophon’s Athenaion Politeia) and Thucydides. A Fourth-century Date for the Old Oligarch?’, in P. FlenstedJensen, T.H. Nielsen and L. Rubinstein (eds), Polis and Politics: Studies in Ancient Greek History (Copenhagen), 363-84. ——— (2008), A Commentary on Thucydides volume III: Books V.25-VIII (Oxford). Keyt, D. (1999), Aristotle Politics Books V and VI (Oxford). Laistner, M.W.L. (1936), A History of the Greek World from 479 to 323 BC (London). Lewis, D.M. (1994), ‘The Athenian Tribute-quota Lists, 453-450 BC’, ABSA 89: 285-301. ——— (1997), ‘Democratic Institutions and their Diffusion’, in Selected Papers in Greek and Near Eastern History, ed. P.J. Rhodes (Cambridge), 51-9. Meiggs, R. (1972), The Athenian Empire (Oxford). Moreno, A. (2007), Feeding the Democracy: The Athenian Grain Supply in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries BC (Oxford).
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Roger Brock Murray, O. (1966), ‘Ho archaios dasmos’, Historia 15: 142-56. Osborne, M.J. (1981-3), Naturalization at Athens, 4 vols (Brussels). Ostwald, M. (1993), ‘Stasis and autonomia in Samos: A Comment on an Ideological Fallacy’, SCI 12: 51-66. Powell, A. (1988), Athens and Sparta: Constructing Greek Political and Social History from 478 BC (London). Rhodes, P.J. (1993) The Athenian Empire, Greece and Rome New Surveys in the Classics 17, rev. edn (Oxford). ——— (2006a), A History of the Classical Greek World 478-323 BC (Oxford). ——— (2006b), ‘Milesian stephanephoroi: Applying Cavaignac Correctly’, ZPE 157: 116. Robinson, E. (2001), ‘Reading and Misreading the Ancient Evidence for Democratic Peace’, Journal of Peace Research 38: 593-608, 615-17. Shipley, G. (1987), A History of Samos 800-188 BC (Oxford). Sowerby, R. (1995), The Greeks: An Introduction to their Culture (London). Starr, C.G. (1974), A History of the Ancient World, 2nd edn (New York). Ste. Croix, G.E.M. de (1981), The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World (London). Tod, M.N. (1933), A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions to the End of the Fifth Century BC (Oxford).
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7 Lycia, Athens and Amorges* Peter Thonemann The rise of the house of Harpagos High in the forested hills above the modern coastal resort of Kaş in Central Lycia lie the ruins of the city of Wehñti, better known by its later Greek name, Phellos.1 One of the most important settlements of central Lycia in the fifth and fourth centuries BC, Phellos underwent a rapid decline in the Hellenistic era, when the main centre of population moved to the coastal site of Antiphellos. Consequently, Phellos presents a relatively undisturbed picture of Lycian urbanism in the Classical period.2 The urban centre of Classical Phellos, like Xanthos, consisted of a small fortified ‘acropolis’, apparently occupied by a single large palatial complex, with an agora at its foot, along the flanks of which were sited the city’s most impressive funerary monuments.3 Neither in Phellos nor in any of the other urban settlements of fifth- and fourthcentury Lycia do we find any trace of a theatre, a stoa, a bouleuterion, or monumental cult buildings. Classical Lycia was very visibly not a world of poleis. Instead, urban architecture and layout reflect one of the basic structural elements of indigenous Lycian society: the local dynast and his seat.4 Did an individual city like Phellos possess a distinctive civic identity? It is at least suggestive that until the second century BC, Lycians abroad generally referred to themselves not as ‘Xanthian’ or ‘Patarean’ (X£nqioj, PatareÚj) but as ‘Lycian from Xanthos’ (LÚkioj ¢pÕ X£nqou), or simply as ‘Lycian’ (LÚkioj).5 Taken at face value, this would imply that Lycians of the Classical period conceived of themselves first as Lycians, only second as inhabitants of a particular city. However, the point should not be pressed too far; most of the available material dates to the third century and later, and may reflect the development of Lycian federalism in the Hellenistic period. Bilingual Lycian-Greek epitaphs of the fourth century BC from Antiphellos and Tlos offer early instances of true Greek-style ethnics ('Antifell8thj, TlweÚj), as does the bilingual dedication of a Limyran at the Letöon (LimureÚj).6 The acme of Phellian prosperity, to judge from funerary monuments in and around the urban centre, was attained in the late fifth and early fourth century BC. Two funerary inscriptions of this period from Phellos and its vicinity declare themselves to have been set up ‘under the rule of 167
Peter Thonemann Harpagos’.7 Although neither text is closely datable, they certainly cannot be pushed back as far as the age of the Persian general Harpagos, responsible for the conquest of Lycia in the late 540s BC.8 Both texts should be assigned to the reign of another notable Harpagos, active in Central or Western Lycia in the mid-fifth century BC: the father of the West Lycian dynast Kheriga. The immediate family relations of Kheriga are known from the opening lines of his funerary monument at Xanthos, the great inscribed pillar known as the Xanthos stele. ebẽñni[: stta]l[ã: m=e]n=ad[ẽ: c]er[iga: ar]ppacuh: tid[eimi:] ce[zi]gah: [tuhes: k]u[pr]lle[h] cahba: a[(?)tli: ehbi: se etc. Kheriga, son of Harpagos, nephew (?) of Kheziga, grandson of Kuprlli, made this stele for ?himself and ...9 The Xanthos stele, the main subject of this paper, still stands in situ, in the north-east corner of the Roman agora at Xanthos.10 What survives is a colossal monolithic pillar, two and a half metres high, inscribed on all four faces; on this pillar rested Kheriga’s funerary chamber, surrounded by a frieze depicting his military victories; the whole monument seems to have been surmounted by a bronze statue of the dynast seated on a throne flanked by lions. The whole of Faces a and b, and the first part of Face c, are occupied by a prose text of 138 lines in the epichoric Lycian language, describing the career of Kheriga from the 430s to his death around 400 BC.11 There then follows a twelve-line verse inscription in Greek;12 finally, on the latter part of Face c and the whole of Face d, there is a verse text of 105 lines in a Lycian local dialect, conventionally known as Lycian B.13 The monument is not a true trilingual, since the texts do not precisely correspond to one another; nonetheless, there are sufficient points of contact between the three texts to make it clear that all three concern the same individual and the same events.14 The identification of Kheriga’s father Harpagos with the individual twice named as dynast at Phellos receives incidental support from other sources. The greater part of the coinage in the name of Kheriga was minted at Phellos.15 Furthermore, a certain Kheziga is prominently mentioned in a difficult and fragmentary text from Isinda near Phellos. The inscription seems to date around the end of the fifth century BC, and it has been plausibly suggested that this Kheziga may have been another member of Kheriga’s family, perhaps a grandson of Kheriga’s uncle Kheziga.16 With due caution, therefore, we have sufficient evidence to speak of a ‘Harpagid’ dynasty originating at Phellos. There is no reason to suppose that this family were descendants of the sixth168
7. Lycia, Athens and Amorges century Persian general Harpagos. Rather we are dealing with a native Lycian family which adopted Persian names; as we shall see, at least two members of the dynasty carried the Persian name Arbinas.17 The career of Kheriga seems to have extended from c. 440 (his earliest coinage at Phellos) to c. 400 BC (the date of the Xanthos stele). Harpagos’ floruit ought therefore to be placed in the mid-fifth century BC. Of Harpagos himself nothing more is known. The opening lines of the Xanthos stele further inform us that Kheriga was the grandson of Kuprlli, the greatest Lycian dynast of the early and mid-fifth century BC.18 Whether this was on the maternal or paternal side is not evident. Kheriga’s other grandfather seems to have carried the name Arbinas: later on Face a of the Xanthos stele, the monument is said to lie ‘opposite the sarcophagus of his grandfather Arbinas, and opposite his father’s tomb, and opposite the gods of the agora’.19 The prominence of both of Kheriga’s grandfathers is explicitly emphasised in the verse text in Lycian B on Faces c and d of the Xanthos stele, where there is a reference to ‘rule deriving from his grandfathers, on both the mother’s and the father’s side’.20 It is significant that Kheriga’s son was also named Arbinas.21 It is perhaps marginally more likely that the younger Arbinas was named after his great-grandfather in a paternal, rather than maternal line;22 if so, we should have a paternal succession Arbinas I – Harpagos – Kheriga – Arbinas II. Finally, a (younger?) brother of Kheriga, a certain Merehi, is also mentioned on the Xanthos stele, with his full genealogy, in a somewhat obscure context.23 We thus arrive at the following hypothetical stemma:24 Kheziga I / Koss8ka Arbinas I
Kuprlli / KÚbernij
Harpagos = ignota Upeni = KHERIGA
Kheziga II
Merehi
Arbinas II
ignotus Kheziga III
The extensive evidence provided by the Xanthos stele for the family connections of Kheriga reflects an important aspect of Lycian dynastic ideology. In the Greek epigram on the Xanthos stele, Kheriga is said to have ‘given a share in the kingship to his relatives’.25 This claim illuminates the nature of Harpagid hegemony over Central and Western Lycia. His rule was collaborative. Kheriga himself, the senior member of 169
Peter Thonemann the Harpagid family in the late fifth century (c. 440-400 BC), exercised direct control at Phellos, where most of his coinage was minted, Kandyba and Tymnessos.26 At Xanthos, where he minted a small coinage, and where, ultimately, his funerary monument was located, he is once named as the local ‘ruler’ on a funerary inscription.27 Relatives and dependents controlled neighbouring cities and districts. Arbinas, Kheriga’s son, was the tyrant of well-harboured Telemessos; his victory monuments stood at the Letöon, the extra-mural sanctuary of Xanthos.28 Kherẽi, probably a close relative of Kheriga, held the Xanthos valley; his main mint was at Xanthos itself, but coins in his name also appear at Pinara, Tlos, Telemessos, and (once only) at Phellos.29 Kheriga seems to have been the senior figure in a triumvirate, for which Xanthos played the role of ‘dynastic capital’. The process by which the house of Kheriga came to control this vast stretch of Western and Central Lycia is largely obscure; in particular, it is hard to judge how much territory was simply inherited from Kheriga’s father, Harpagos, and his maternal grandfather, the great mid-fifth-century dynast Kuprlli. Most probably, as the monuments of Kheriga and his son Arbinas suggest, the greater part of the realm was won by violent conquest. It was Kherẽi who crushed the armies of Tlos and brought that city under the rule of the Harpagid house.30 As we shall see, the conquest of Tlos is the only one of the campaigns of the dynasty which can be dated with any precision, to 429 or 428 BC. More dramatic were the conquests of Arbinas, the son of Kheriga, commemorated on his victory monuments at the Letöon. In the course of a month, the young Arbinas, 20 years of age, stormed the three great citadels of Xanthos, Pinara, and Telemessos. It has usually been supposed, without good reason, that these conquests took place after the death of Kheriga; that Arbinas, moreover, had to recover much of his patrimony by force, perhaps from Kherẽi himself.31 But Kheriga’s career was a long one (flor. c. 440-400 BC), and thus seems very likely to have overlapped with that of his son, especially since we know that the military exploits of Arbinas were performed when he was no more than 20 years old. On Arbinas’ victory monuments, emphasis is laid on the glory which his conquests reflect on his forebears in general, and his father in particular: ‘Slaying many, and bringing glory to his father, Arbinas was the sacker of many cities, and he left magnificent glory for himself and his forebears throughout all the land of Asia.’32 The natural assumption must be that Kheriga is still alive to enjoy all this. We have already seen that the geographical ‘overlap’ between the dynasts’ minting activities need not have any chronological significance. As we shall see, the conquest of Tlos by Kheriga’s general Kherẽi can be securely dated to 429 or 428 BC; it is likely enough that Arbinas’ conquest of Xanthos, Pinara, and Telemessos took place around this same time.33 If this reconstruction is correct, what emerges is a sudden 170
7. Lycia, Athens and Amorges and destructive conquest of the Xanthos valley and neighbouring regions, around 430 BC, by Kheriga and his two great generals, Kherẽi and Arbinas, resulting in thirty years of dominance over western Lycia. Athens, Lycia and the Persians Lycia was incorporated into the Delian League by Cimon in the lead-up to the Eurymedon campaign of (most probably) 466 BC, by persuasion or force.34 The most vigorous resistance came from the sole Greek city east of Lycia, Phaselis; no doubt the Phaselites were unwilling to lose their monopoly of the profitable maritime trade with Egypt, which they had possessed since the secession from Persia of the Ionian cities in 479 BC.35 The hekatostê lists at Athens record the extraction of tribute from Lycia and Telemessos in 452/1, 451/0, and 446/5; neither Lycia nor Telemessos reappear thereafter.36 It is striking that the Lycians are recorded as paying as an ethnic group rather than by the individual city. The entire ‘Lycian’ tribute was presumably paid en bloc: one may suspect the mediation of a single city or individual, possessing political hegemony over much or all of Lycia, with the exception of Telemessos. Xanthos and Kuprlli are the obvious candidates, but certainty is impossible.37 Phaselis, the sole Greek city east of Lycia, appears to have been a regular payer at least as late as 432/1, and is still listed as a contributor in the last of the tribute lists, in 415/4. The most easterly of the Carian cities, Kaunos, was a regular payer in the 440s and 430s, probably down as late as 430/429.38 In the reassessment list of 425/4 – which reflects Athenian aspiration rather than actual payments made that year – the Kaunians are hit with a massive tribute hike, from 3,000 drachmas to 10 talents. Kaunos reappears as a tribute-payer in 421/0, but the figure is not preserved.39 It has long been recognised that the tribute hike ought to attest Kaunian secession between 430 and 425 BC. A curious story in Ctesias has been adduced in this connection, concerning the Persian renegade Zopyros and a failed Athenian siege of Kaunos, probably to be dated to the early 420s BC.40 As we shall see, a Kaunian ‘revolt’ in the early years of the Archidamian war is independently attested on the Xanthos stele, a revolt with significant implications for the end of the Athenian empire in southern Asia Minor. Two Athenian campaigns of the early 420s BC attest some disorder in Athenian relations with the non-Greek states of southern Asia Minor. What makes these campaigns so important and interesting is that we have independent accounts of them from both the Athenian and the Anatolian perspective, with practically no chance of contamination between the two accounts. In the winter of 430/29 BC, according to Thucydides, the Athenians sent six ships to Caria and Lycia under the command of a certain Melesander. Their aims were, first, to collect silver (probably straightforward extortion, rather than regular tribute171
Peter Thonemann collection); and second, to protect the passage of merchant ships from Phaselis and Phoinike from Spartan piracy. Heading inland into Lycia, Melesander was killed and much of his army destroyed.41 What goods were the merchant ships from Phaselis and Phoinike carrying to Athens? One thinks, first of all, of the long-distance maritime trade with Egypt, which in 475 BC seems to have been entirely channeled through Phaselis; but that would not explain Melesander’s march into inland Lycia.42 We might prefer to approach the problem through the local Lycian economy. Phoinike is most probably to be identified with Phoinix (modern Finike), the mediaeval port of Limyra, and the last convenient landfall on the great merchant shipping route to Cyprus, the Levant, and Egypt from the west.43 This was the site of the great battle of AD 655 when the Byzantine fleet was destroyed by the Arab navy, opening up the Asia Minor coast and the Aegean to Arab piracy. More interesting from our perspective is the seaborne raid on Phoinix of AD 715, when an Arab fleet sailing from Alexandria established a bridgehead here, from which to plunder the Lycian coast. Rather wonderfully, this was a timber raid; the aim of the Alexandrian fleet was to cut and ship out cypress wood, a valuable commodity in unforested Egypt.44 This is among our earliest evidence for an economic relationship which grew in importance in the mediaeval period; by the thirteenth century at the latest, timber exports to Egypt constituted a major element of the economy of the Lycian and Cilician coastal regions.45 Parts of coastal Lycia are still today cloaked in thick pine and oak forests; in antiquity, the two main export-timbers were presumably cedar and cypress, both of which provide excellent timber for shipbuilding.46 As we have seen, Melesander’s mission was focused on eastern Lycia, Phaselis and Phoinike, the two export points for timber from the Tahtalı Dağı, the ancient Mount Olympos.47 Eastern Lycia might seem a long way for the Athenians to go to procure timber, but we have evidence from a slightly later period suggesting the import of highquality hard woods from this part of southern Asia Minor. In the accounts of the Eleusinian epistatai for 329/8 BC, our best source for Athenian timber imports in the Classical period, we find that four logs of cypress wood were imported through the intermediary of a Cnidian merchant at the extortionate cost of 50 dr. a piece.48 Cypress appears to have been one of the most expensive woods in late fourth-century Athens, second only to cedar, which may well also have been imported from this region. It seems likely, therefore, that at least one of the aims of Melesander’s mission was to protect a timber route.49 It is hard to be sure whether Athens paid for her Lycian timber or extorted it; Melesander’s disastrous march upcountry might well suggest the latter. A year and a half later, in the autumn of 428 BC, financially stretched by the siege of Mytilene, the Athenians sent out another, much larger 172
7. Lycia, Athens and Amorges money-collecting fleet to south-western Asia Minor, this time under the command of the sheep-monger Lysicles. Lysicles collected a certain amount of silver in coastal Caria, certainly including Iasos, before landing at Myus on the south side of the Maeander delta, and cutting inland. At a site by the name of Sandios Lophos, Lysicles was attacked by a joint force of Carians and inhabitants of Anaia, and both he and a great part of his army lost their lives.50 The hill Sandios Lophos, where this second Athenian force met with disaster, is nowhere else attested. Louis Robert showed long ago that it ought to lie on the north side of the Maeander flood plain between Priene and Magnesia. Robert noted the significence of the involvement of the Anaiitai, inhabitants of a small town in the Samian peraia on the north flank of Mt Mykale, occupied at this period by Samian exiles opposed to Athens. He made a precise proposal for the site of Sandios Lophos, at the village of Yürüklü, three miles north-east of Söke, on the main road over Mykale from Anaia.51 This is no more than a guess, but at any event Sandios Lophos should certainly lie somewhere on the southern foot of Mt Mykale, or, more precisely, at the foot of Mt Thorax, the eastern extension of the Mycale massif which terminates at the site of Magnesia on the Maeander. It is unclear what business Lysicles had in this district; perhaps he was exacting contributions from some of the smaller communities on the north side of the Maeander delta plain, who had paid regular tribute at the empire’s height.52 After the defeat of Lysicles in 428 BC, Thucydides tells us nothing about events in southern Asia Minor until the focus of his history turns east in the winter of 413/2 BC. By that point, Athenian policy in Asia Minor had already taken a catastrophic turn. Pissouthnes, son of Hystaspes and grandson of King Darius I, held the satrapy of Sardis in western Asia Minor.53 In the 430s and 420s BC, he seems to have been engaged in a kind of cold war against Athens in the eastern Aegean; it was Pissouthnes who funded the anti-democratic coup at Samos in 440 BC, and the Ionian exiles in Alcidas’ fleet in 427 BC claimed that if the Spartans supported revolt in Ionia, they could rely on Pissouthnes to provide assistance.54 There was some truth in that: in the same year Pissouthnes was providing military support to the pro-Persian faction at Notion.55 At some point between 423 and 414 BC, Pissouthnes turned against the new King, Darius II, and rose in rebellion, with the help of a Greek mercenary force under the Athenian Lycon. By the end of 413 BC at the latest, the insurrection of Pissouthnes had been crushed by the royal armies under the command of a certain Tissaphernes; his gold secured the treachery of Lycon’s mercenaries.56 But the eclipse of Pissouthnes was not the end of the revolt. In the fastnesses of Caria, Pissouthnes’ bastard son, Amorges, held out against Tissaphernes for almost another whole year. We find Tissaphernes fighting Amorges in Caria in the winter of 413/2 BC; it was not until autumn 412 BC that 173
Peter Thonemann Amorges was surprised by a Peloponnesian naval assault on Iasos and handed over to Tissaphernes.57 At some point in the preceding couple of years, the Athenians had taken the momentous step of supporting Amorges against Tissaphernes.58 In retrospect, this support for a rebel Persian general could be seen as the decisive event of the Peloponnesian War, since it brought Tissaphernes into the war on the Spartan side.59 The Xanthos stele Thucydides’ account of affairs in Asia Minor during the three decades between the revolt of Samos and the defeat of Amorges is selective to say the least. The defeats of Melesander and Lysicles appear without context or explanation; some modern scholars have suspected Persian involvement, but proof has hitherto been lacking.60 It is striking to find the Anaiitai involved in the battle with Lysicles in 428 BC –the Samian exiles at Anaia had earlier been backed by Pissouthnes in the course of the Samian revolt, and it is tempting to suppose that Pissouthnes is up to his old tricks again. Fortunately, we possess a completely independent account of Anatolian affairs in this period, as seen through the eyes of Kheriga, dynast of Phellos and Xanthos, writing probably around 400 BC. Of course, the author of the Xanthos stele did not set out to write a narrative history of the late fifth century; the text is essentially a funerary laudatio, a register of peoples conquered and battles won. But one passage of the Lycian text diverts from this pattern. This is the so-called ‘hãtahe-narrative’, at the end of Face a, an account of a series of military victories punctuated by the untranslatable word hãtahe, which seems to separate off one clause from another as a kind of refrain.61 Securely identified place-names and personal names are indicated to the right of the text (see opposite). A fixed chronological point is provided by the name Milasantrã in line 45, which has long been recognised as a transliteration of the Greek name Melesandros, the general of the Athenian fleet sent to Lycia in winter 430 BC.62 More difficult are the names ijaeusas = Iasos and humrccã = Amorges in lines 51-5. Naturally enough, this passage has usually been supposed to concern the defeat of Amorges at Iasos in autumn 412 BC.63 But major problems arise from this. We should have to assume that between lines 45 and 51 the narrative jumps almost twenty years, from 429 to 412 BC. Worse still, 64 lines later, at the end of Face b, the narrative has only reached as far as the treaty of Kaunos between Tissaphernes and the Spartans in early spring 411 BC. We should then have to suppose that the whole of Face b covers only the few months between the defeat of Amorges in autumn 412 BC and the treaty of Kaunos in spring 411 BC, a difficult hypothesis to say the least.
174
7. Lycia, Athens and Amorges TL 44 a41-55 [pr]ulija e[p]i=de: izredi: zẽm̃tija: ehbijedi: zagaba: nelede: hãtahe: ẽtri: tumine-
Zagaba (=Avşar?) Lower Tymnessos
hi: nelede: h[ã]tahe pttara: malijehi: hãt-
Patara
Malija (=Athena)
ahe: cbane: ese: trbbẽnimi: tebete: terñ se
Kyaneai
Trbbẽnimi
Melesandros
Kyaneai
45 milasãñtrã: pddẽne=ke: cbãnije: izredi ehbijedi: hãtahe: tlãñ nele: nele: tarbi-
Tlos
de: cerẽi: qastte terñ: tlahñ: erbbedi: h[ã]-
Kherẽi
tahe: medbijahe: ese: cerẽi: tebete: [t]er[ñ]
Kherẽi
se wacssepddimi: ẽti: zehi: hbãti: CII: un(?)[.]
Wacssepddimi
50 ñtepi: claina terñ hãtahe: ãka: herikle
Tloan
Heracles
se haclaza: pabrati: cbide: hri=cñtawa-
Kaunos
tahi: ese tabãna: terñ: ijãnã: ijaeusas
Ionian
Iasos
krzz[ã]nase: hãtahe: mukale: tewẽt[e]: sãma=
peninsula
Mykale facing Samos
ti: trbbetẽ: turacssi: zccãna terñ: es-
Turacssi
55 e: humrccã: tebãna terñ: hãtahe
Amorges
A solution to this problem has recently been proposed by Diether Schürr.64 In lines 53-4 we have a battle taking place at mukale: tewẽte: sãma=ti, ‘Mykale opposite Samos’, apparently resulting in the defeat of an ‘Ionian’ army. Schürr suggests that this battle is very likely to be the defeat of Lysicles’ Athenian and allied force in summer 428 BC, a battle which did indeed take place on Mt Mykale. This proposal is a highly attractive one, and, as we shall see, makes sense of the grammar of the passage for the first time. For the first time, too, it provides a coherent chronological structure for the Xanthos stele as a whole: the hãtahenarrative at the end of Face a would then cover only the short period from 430 to 428, leaving the whole of Face b for the late 420s and 410s. The consequence is that TL44 a51-5 do not concern the revolt of Amorges at all; we are dealing with events much earlier in Amorges’ career, hitherto unattested. The first part of the narrative, lines 44-6, offers a few additional details about Melesander’s disastrous march up-country in winter 430/429 BC: ‘At Kyaneai, Trbbẽnimi defeated the army and Melesander, and also in the territories of Kyaneai, by his own hand hãtahe.’ We learn that Melesander got as far inland as Kyaneai,65 in central Lycia, where his army was defeated by a certain Trbbẽnimi. This man is presumably an ancestor of an early fourth-century Trbbẽnimi who minted coins at Zẽmuri (Limyra), Wedrẽi (perhaps the later Rhodiapolis), and Zagaba (probably Avşar Tepesi).66 Geographically, this fits well with 175
Peter Thonemann Thucydides’ narrative. We have seen that one of the aims of Melesander’s mission was to secure the harbour of Phoinike, the port of Limyra. We now find that he was killed in the vicinity of Kyaneai by the elder Trbbẽnimi, certainly an East Lycian dynast, and most likely a native of Limyra,67 who may well also have had authority over Avşar Tepesi, in the near vicinity of Kyaneai. Why Melesander ended up this far inland is unclear, but it makes sense that he landed where he did and was killed by whom he was. More uncertainty persists in the interpretation of lines 46-50: ‘Kherẽi overpowered Tlos in every place (?), (and) destroyed the Tloan army in battle hãtahe. At Medbijahe (?), Kherẽi defeated the army and Wacssepddimi ... the army hãtahe, like Heracles.’ Here we have a campaign of Kherẽi against Tlos, which, as I have argued above, constituted part, perhaps the final part, of the original conquest of the Xanthos valley by the Phellian dynasty. The Tloan general was a certain Wacssepddimi, also attested on contemporary coinage of Tlos.68 Kherẽi defeated him in battle, apparently at a place called Medbijahe; in the course of this battle, Kherẽi did something ãka: herikle, ‘like Heracles’. The numeral CII must refer somehow to Kherẽi’s Heracleslike act, and it is tempting to read this as ‘12’, and understand these as metaphorical ‘labours of Kherẽi’.69 There is, I think, no particular reason to take the campaign against Wacssepddimi and Tlos as having anything to do with the defeats of Melesander and Lysicles recorded in the lines immediately preceding and following; Kherẽi’s victory may simply have happened to take place in the course of the intervening year and a half, in 429 or 428 BC.70 The final five lines of this passage, lines 51-5, are of particular interest. In line 51, we have a verb in the present third person singular, pabrati. The sense of the verb is uncertain; it has been taken as a verb of urging or ordering, on the basis of the following infinitive ese tabãna. If this is right, it is slightly surprising that there is no direct object of the verb (the person being ordered), and it is conceivable, as Craig Melchert suggests (per litt.), that the verb may rather have the sense ‘seek, try’.71 The subject of the clause is a haclaza (nom.), a term unattested elsewhere. However, words in -aza in Lycian tend to be indications of office or profession; furthermore, we have a close parallel for this word in the Xanthos trilingual, where Arñna: asaclazu (acc.) corresponds to the Greek X£nqou 1pimelhtˇn, a city-governor or garrison-commander appointed by the Hekatomnid satrap.72 Hence haclaza ought to mean something like ‘(city) governor or overseer’. cbide is a place name in the locative, describing where the haclaza’s action takes place; cbid-, as we learned from the Xanthos trilingual, is the indigenous name for the Carian city of Kaunos. hri=cñtawatahi is an adjective (also in the locative) formed from hri- (‘on top’) and cñtawata (‘rule, realm’), 176
7. Lycia, Athens and Amorges meaning ‘of the supreme rule’.73 Kaunos is thus designated as a major administrative centre. The crucial point is that the haclaza is evidently not a Lycian or Carian dynast, but a higher official based at Kaunos with regional authority extending, as we will see in a moment, as far as Iasos and Mt Mykale. The necessary conclusion seems to be that we are dealing with an Achaemenid regional governor of some kind. A parallel passage of the Lycian B verse text on Faces c and d of the Xanthos stele apparently provides the governor’s name: wizttasppazñ, the Persian name Hystaspes.74 The precise nature of Hystaspes’ office is not clear. The Arñna asaclazu of the Xanthos trilingual was certainly a satrapal appointee, but this officer’s sphere of authority seems to have been considerably more restricted than that of Hystaspes. It is conceivable that Hystaspes held the position in the Persian royal military administration known as karanos, a term apparently (though nothing could be more controversial) used to refer to a general with extraordinary military authority over a region not co-extensive with a satrapy.75 The question is perhaps best left open. Moving on, the infinitive ese tabãna, to conquer or defeat, is presumably dependent on pabrati. Then we have a terñ: ijãnã in the accusative, the thing which the haclaza is ordering/seeking to conquer, an Ionian army.76 The precise grammatical function of ijaeusas krzzãnase is unclear. It is just conceivable that ijaeusas is accusative plural of an ethnic, ‘the Iasians’, acting as the direct object of pabrati and the subject of the infinitive ese tabãna.77 But in that case the wordorder would be very difficult to explain: on the parallel of lines 44, 48, and 54-5, we should expect ijaeusas to have been placed between ese and tabãna, earlier in the line (see further below). It therefore seems more likely that ijaeusas is an ethnic adjective or a genitive: ‘on the Iasian peninsula/peninsula of Iasos’.78 hãtahe marks the end of the clause. Lines 51-3 may be translated: ‘And the haclaza seeks/gives the order (?), at Kaunos of the supreme rule, to conquer the Ionian army on the peninsula of Iasos hãtahe.’ Then comes the crucial clause. ‘At/on Mykale opposite Samos’ is clear. Then we have a verb trbbetẽ, past tense third person singular, with no subject stated, so the subject ought again to be the haclaza at Kaunos. The sense of the verb ought to be something like ‘cause to oppose’ or ‘send out in opposition’.79 This verb governs two infinitives, zccãna and ese ... tebãna, which basically mean to fight and to conquer.80 In both lines 54 and 55 the object of the infinitives is the terñ, the army, presumably the same Ionian army as that mentioned in line 52. turacssi (?acc.) and humrccã (acc.) can only be the direct objects of trbbetẽ, and hence are the subjects of the two infinitives zccãna and ese ... tebãna. The point deserves emphasis. Both at a44, ese: trbbẽnimi: tebete: terñ, and also at a48, ese: cerẽi: tebete: [t]er[ñ], the subject is located between 177
Peter Thonemann the preverb ese and the verb tebe-. In both these cases, too, the object directly follows the verb.81 Amorges, therefore, whose name is located between preverb and verb (ese: humrccã: tebãna), is not the conquered but the conquerer.82 The only reason to take humrccã as the object of the verb, in defiance of grammar, is the old interpretation of this passage as referring to the defeat of Amorges in 412 BC. With that interpretation rejected, it is clear that Amorges must be the general of the victorious army rather than the defeated one. The whole passage may be translated as follows: ‘On Mykale, which lies opposite Samos, he (i.e. the haclaza) commanded (?) Turacssi to fight the army (and) Amorges to conquer the army hãtahe.’ Before we turn to the rather startling historical implications of all this, one small puzzle remains. Who or what is turacssi in line 54, Amorges’ ally against the ‘Ionian army’ of Lysicles?83 This ought to be a place-name, the name of a city or people with whose assistance Amorges destroyed the Ionian army. Schürr suggested that this was the indigenous Carian name for Anaia, the town on the north side of Mt Mykale which is said by Thucydides to have fought with the Carians against Lysicles at the battle of Sandios Lophos.84 There is certainly no reason to doubt that the Anaiitai were involved in the campaign against Lysicles; as we have seen, the Samian exiles at Anaia had received the support of Pissouthnes, Amorges’ father, in the Samian revolt a decade earlier, and it would be no surprise to find these Samians fighting as part of a satrapal army against Athens. However, Schürr’s identification is supported by no positive evidence, and it is possible that the involvement of Samian oligarchs may have led Thucydides to lay undue emphasis on this Anaiitan contingent. A different identification may be proposed. The easternmost stretch of Mt Mykale, stretching from Yürüklü in the west to the city of Magnesia in the east, was known in antiquity as Mt Thorax.85 This is a slightly peculiar name for a mountain, and may well be interpretatio Graeca of an indigenous Carian name. I would like to suggest that turacssi in the Xanthos stele represents the Greek name Thorax. This may be a means of referring collectively to the Carian communities of the district; alternatively, and perhaps preferably, turacssi might be the indigenous Carian name for Magnesia on the Maeander. Magnesia was probably an ethnically mixed community.86 We know that the city was a major Persian administrative centre: Oroites, satrap of Lydia, was resident there when he had Polycrates of Samos killed, and Tissaphernes used it as one of his bases during the Ionian War.87 It would be perfectly in character for Magnesia, which had never been part of the Delian League, to have participated in the destruction of Lysicles’ army on Mt Thorax, as part of a largely Carian force under the command of the Persian Amorges. 178
7. Lycia, Athens and Amorges Conclusions If this interpretation of the hãtahe-narrative is along the right lines, the implications are of some historical interest. First, it has emerged that in 428 BC Kaunos was under the control of a Persian overseer of some kind, probably named Hystaspes, apparently charged with directing anti-Athenian operations in south-western Asia Minor. The dramatic hike in the Kaunian tribute-assessment of 425 BC, and the failed Athenian siege of Kaunos in the early 420s BC, emerge as reactions not to a mere Kaunian revolt, but to an active use of the town as a Persian administrative centre (cbide hri=cñtawatahi, ‘Kaunos of the supreme rule’) in this period. Furthermore, it was, we now learn, on the orders of this Persian overseer at Kaunos that a Carian and Anaiitan army was sent against Lysicles in 428 BC, under the command of Amorges, son of the satrap of Lydia. In his account of the defeat of Lysicles at the Sandios Lophos, Thucydides indicates the involvement of local Carian forces, alongside Samian exiles from Anaia. Thanks to a chance mention in the Xanthos stele, we can now add the cardinal fact that this was a satrapal army commanded by a Persian general, mobilised on the command of a Persian regional administrator. There is no reason to accuse Thucydides of deliberate misrepresentation. Later in Book 3, in the course of his description of stasis at Colophon, it is only in passing that he informs us that Colophon had been seized early in the Archidamian War by a certain Itamenes, surely a subordinate of Pissouthnes.88 This is simply not the sort of thing Thucydides usually chooses to tell us. Had he chosen to describe events along the Asiatic coast in the sort of detail he provides for the Peloponnese or north-western Greece, it might well be that the ‘cold war’ between Athens and Persia, from the early 440s BC to the peace of Epilykos in 423 BC (itself neglected by Thucydides), would start to seem significantly warmer than we tend to imagine. Second, the importance of Kaunos in the Achaemenid administrative geography of Asia Minor comes into focus.89 Kaunos’ large silver and bronze coinage in the fifth and fourth centuries BC amply attests the economic importance of the city in the Achaemenid period.90 In autumn 395 BC, we find a Greek by the name of Leonymos in command of a Greek and Carian infantry force at Kaunos; most probably Leonymos is a royal or satrapal garrison-commander.91 It is at least suggestive that the acropolis hill of Kaunos was in the late fourth century BC known as the Persikon.92 In the mid-fourth century BC Kaunos seems to have been the main naval base of the Hekatomnid satrapy of Caria.93 It now emerges that already in the early 420s BC, a certain Hystaspes was based here as haclaza, a military official with (to all appearances) an extraordinary command over the south-western coast of Asia Minor as far as Mykale. Kaunos remained the most important Persian administrative centre throughout the Ionian War. In lines b64-c3 of the 179
Peter Thonemann Xanthos stele, which describe an alliance between Tissaphernes and Sparta against Athens, the party on the Persian side is described as ‘Tissaphernes and the Persians at Kaunos’.94 This passage ought to refer to the third treaty between Tissaphernes and the Spartans, said by Thucydides to have been concluded at Kaunos in early spring 411 BC.95 Kheriga seems to have had a relatively minor role in these negotiations; it is unsurprising that Thucydides fails to mention his involvement. What is particularly interesting here is the designation of the Persian party as ‘the Persians at Kaunos’. At least from a Lycian perspective, Kaunos was the main Persian base in the war at this point. That Persian interest in the southern coast of Asia Minor was unusually intense at this point receives some support from a unique stater on the heavy West Lycian standard, depicting a rider on the obverse with the legend Arñna, Xanthos, and on the reverse the legend Zis[aprñ]na, Tissaphernes. The date of this issue is uncertain, but it could well have been minted as early as 412 or 411 BC, when Tissaphernes was based a few miles away at Kaunos.96 Tissaphernes’ own position in the early years of the Ionian War seems to have been closely comparable to that of Hystaspes, and one wonders whether his original sphere of authority could have been similarly defined. Thucydides’ enigmatic definition of Tissaphernes’ posting as strathgÕj tîn k£tw, ‘general of the coastal regions’, would well suit an extraordinary military post with authority over the southern and western Asia Minor seaboard.97 The curious geography of Tissaphernes’ movements in the Ionian War, roaming backwards and forwards along the coast in a most un-satrapal manner, would be more easily explicable if he were a haclaza ... cbide hri=cñtawatahi or similar, a kind of roving general over the Asiatic seaboard, what the Greeks would call a strathgÕj 1p< tÁj qal£sshj (‘general with responsibility for the sea’).98 Third, a new episode can be added to Amorges’ career, fifteen years before his earliest appearance in the literary sources. In 428 BC, we find him successfully commanding a Carian force, including levies from turacssi, Magnesia on the Maeander (or, more generally, the inhabitants of Mt Thorax), against an Athenian expeditionary army. This helps illuminate the geography of Amorges’ Carian revolt in 412 BC. Since at least 428 BC, Amorges had been acting as Persian general in Caria. Normally he would have been under the authority of his father Pissouthnes at Sardis; but in 428 BC, Hystaspes, director of antiAthenian operations from Kaunos, had the first claim on Amorges’ manpower and local knowledge. To all appearances, Hystaspes first attempted to mobilise the Iasians against Lysicles; when that failed, it was Amorges to whom he turned. Fourth, and most interesting of all. The primary aim of the Xanthos stele is to glorify the Harpagid house at Xanthos. Yet it was Trbbẽnimi 180
7. Lycia, Athens and Amorges of Limyra who was responsible for the defeat of Melesander in the Yavu highlands in 429 BC: to the best of our knowledge, the only instance on the stele of a victory attributed to a rival Lycian dynast. Still more striking, the battle of Mt Thorax in 428 BC took place far outside the boundaries of Lycia: to the best of our knowledge, the only event outside Lycia to be recorded on the Xanthos stele. There is no suggestion that any Lycians were involved in Amorges’ victory at Mt Thorax; his army was made up of Carians and Samian exiles.99 The fact that Kheriga feels the need to record these two Athenian defeats at all is an extraordinary reflection of the impact which they made in southwestern Asia Minor. There is no need to suppose that Thucydides has drastically understated their real strategic importance. What from the Athenian perspective may have been relatively minor engagements could well have had a wildly disproportionate significance in Lycian and Carian eyes. The victory of Alexander Nevsky over the Knights of the Livonian Order at Lake Peypus in AD 1242 was, from the Russian perspective, a triumphant, era-defining moment in Russian resistance to papal aggression; the only western source even to mention the battle presents it, more plausibly, as a minor skirmish in which only some 20 knights fell.100 Similarly, from the perspective of the Harpagid dynasty of Xanthos, these two successive victories over Athenian forces, at Kyaneai and Mt Thorax, were the major events of the late fifth century, the Lycian Marathon and Salamis; they simply could not be omitted. Even the tiny contribution made by Kheriga to the Ionian War, acting as go-between for Tissaphernes and the Spartans in 411 BC, was celebrated at extraordinary length on his funerary stele. For the Lycians, beating Athens mattered. We might go a step further. The Greek epigram of Kheriga on the Xanthos stele begins with the line ‘[1]x oá t' EÙrèphn ['A]s8aj d8ca pÒn[t]oj 4nem[e]n’, ‘ever since the ocean divided off Europe from Asia’. This line is a verbatim quotation from the victory monument set up by the Athenians after the great twin victories over the Persian land and sea armies at Cyprus in 449 BC.101 The idea is at first sight a curious one for Kheriga to choose to recall. As is well known, the oppositional division in the fifth and fourth centuries BC of the inhabited world into Europe and Asia is a thoroughly Greek conception, unknown to (for example) Persian geographical thought.102 In the Athenian epigram, the point is to emphasise the humbling of Asia as a whole at the hands of Europeans; all Asia groans under the blow of the defeat at Cyprus.103 Kheriga’s re-use of this line in the context of his own funerary-cumvictory monument is thus an act of remarkable cultural self-confidence. The quotation annexes the Greek conception of the separation of Europe and Asia, and turns it into an expression of Asiatic national identity.104 Similarly, in the victory epigrams of Arbinas, it is ‘all Asia’ which will celebrate the glory of his conquests.105 To the best of my knowledge, 181
Peter Thonemann Kheriga and Arbinas are the very first historical individuals deliberately and confidently to define themselves as ‘Asiatic’. After Alexander, the cities of Asia were all too eager to show that they were real, bona fide Greeks. But for Kheriga and Arbinas, c. 400 BC, things were very different. The coming of Athens to southern Asia Minor defined and hardened the Lycians’ self-awareness as not being part of Europe, not being Greek. Just as the Persian Wars of the early fifth century BC first taught the Greeks to define themselves as Greek, it was thanks to the Athenian Wars of the late fifth century BC that the Lycians first defined themselves as Asiatics. The transitory Lycian ‘counter-enlightenment’ under the Harpagid dynasty at Xanthos thus represents a crucial phase in the progress of Hellenisation in the East before Alexander.106 The family of Kheriga was, as we have seen, heavily Persianised. Yet, paradoxically, the fact that this episode of élite identification with Persia is known to us at all is largely thanks to the fact that Kheriga and Arbinas commissioned Greek poets to compose their inscriptions, at least in part, in the Greek language.107 In the Greek epigram on the Xanthos stele, Homer himself, the Greek poet par excellence, is turned to Lycian nationalist purposes: Kheriga’s collaborative mode of rule is implied to have a precedent in the mythical division of the Lycian monarchy in the age of Bellerophon.108 The medium in which Lycian resistance to Greek influence was expressed was itself Greek. The greatest of the monuments to the Harpagid dynasty was of course the Xanthos stele itself. Remarkably, the stele endured, scrupulously preserved by the antiquarians of Hellenistic and Roman Xanthos. In the first century AD, the new West Agora, the so-called Roman agora, was so constructed as wholly to respect the integrity of the fifth- and fourth-century BC dynastic monuments on its north and east flanks.109 It is interesting to speculate how much the Hellenised Xanthians of later generations understood of the narrative of the great days of the Athenian Wars in the early 420s BC, when Arbinas stormed three citadels in thirty days; when Kherẽi crushed the armies of Tlos in the Xanthos plain; when the Athenian pirate fleets were finally driven from the Lycian and Carian coast by Trbbẽnimi, Hystaspes and Amorges; the days when the Mede returned. Notes *The following special abbreviations are used: M = O. Mørkholm and G. Neumann, Die lykischen Münzlegenden (Göttingen 1978). N = G. Neumann, Neufunde lykischer Inschriften seit 1901 (Vienna 1979). TL = E. Kalinka, Tituli Asiae Minoris I: Tituli Lyciae lingua Lycia conscripti (Vienna 1901).
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7. Lycia, Athens and Amorges I am indebted to Craig Melchert and Simon Hornblower for extensive comments and criticism. Neither should be understood to endorse anything that follows. 1. Zimmermann (1992) 186-98; Zimmermann (2005). The indigenous name of Phellos is problematic. In Lycian the name appears to be wehñti (TL56; M108, M130), but Lyk. B plluwi (TL55.7) has also plausibly been taken as the ethnic of Phellos. It is possible that both names were current in the fifth and fourth centuries: see Schürr (1997) 130 (wehñti) and 134-7 (plluwi r pollÒj, pat2ra eÙkle8saj tÕn 0[au]to[à], poll> m5n ¥stea 4perse, kalÕn d5 kl2oj k[at>] p©[san] gÁn 'As8an 'Arb8naj 0autîi progÒnoij te l2loip[e] (RO 13A.i.11-13).
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Peter Thonemann 33. This has the result of invalidating the ingenious arguments of Robert, OMS VII 381-426, that Arbinas must have launched his campaign from Tlos; I should prefer to see him as starting from Phellos. Arbinas would then have been born around 449 BC, just as Kheriga was entering the prime of life. 34. Diod. Sic. 11.60.4. The date of the battle of the Eurymedon has been endlessly discussed: here I follow Badian (1993) 4-10. 35. Plut. Cim. 12.3-4. For the plausible hypothesis of a Phaselitan monopoly on trade between Asia Minor and Egypt between the battles of Mykale and Eurymedon, see Bresson (2000) 67-73, elaborating on Briant and Descat (1998). 36. IG I3 261 I.29-30; 262 V.22-23; 266 III.33-34. 37. Behrwald (2000) 15-18. The significance of IG I3 266 III.34, LÚkioi ka< sun[tel(ej)], is wholly uncertain: see Tietz (2003) 35-44 (very speculative). 38. The small neighbouring towns of Pasanda and Karbasyanda certainly paid in 430/29 (IG I3 281 I.28-29). The evidence for Kaunos’ tribute record is conveniently assembled by Marek (2006) 46-8. 39. Tribute hike: IG I3 71 II.98. 421/0: IG I3 285 A II.12. 40. Ctesias, FGrHist 688F14.45. For the date (probably between 431 and 425), Meiggs (1972) 436-7, endorsed by Badian (1993) 35-6; contra, Hornblower (1982) 28n.176 (440). 41. Thuc. 2.69. On the question of whether the verb ¢rgurologe√n signifies regular tribute-collection or straightforward extortion (probably always a fairly academic distinction in southern Asia Minor), see Kallet-Marx (1993) 136-7, 160-4. In favour of the latter, recall that Lycia had not paid tribute since 446/5. 42. Bresson (2000) 67-73. 43. The identification of Thucydides’ Phoinike with modern Finike is due to Dickinson (1979), who was the first to see that the passage could not refer to Phoenicia. Buschmann (1988) independently came to the same view, though he preferred to locate the site in western Lycia, at or near modern Kalkan. Zimmermann (1993) (cf. Ma, p. 228 below) restates the old view that Phoinike means Phoenicia; his arguments rest on the absence of fifth-century remains at the proposed sites and the absence of Classical attestations of the place-name in Lycia. Neither point is decisive. For mediaeval Phoinix, TIB 8: Lykien und Pamphylien, II 806-9. 44. Theophanes Confessor, p. 385 de Beer (cited already in this connection by Dickinson (1979)); see further Hellenkemper (1993); Foss (1994) 37-42; TIB 8: Lykien und Pamphylien, I 174-7. 45. Jacoby (2001) 113 (Antalya); 119-22 (Cilicia); for western Lycia, Tomaschek (1891) 42, and now above all TIB 8: Lykien und Pamphylien, I 1747. For flotation of wood from the Isaurian mountains to Silifke, whence it was to be shipped to Egypt, see TIB 5: Kilikien und Isaurien, 284, s.v. Kalykadnos. For export of ship-timber from the southern Asia Minor coast to Egypt in antiquity, see e.g. Strabo 14.5.3. Timber was already being carried from Asia Minor to Egypt in 475 BC: Briant and Descat (1998) 72. 46. For cypress in the region of Myra in the sixth century AD, see the Life of St Nicholas of Sion, chs 34-8, 102. 47. For modern exploitation of the timber of the Tahtalı Dağı, see Robert (1966) 40-4. 48. IG II2 1672.191, with Meiggs (1982) 433-40, at 437. 49. Although, as Simon Hornblower points out to me, Thucydides is elsewhere alert to the potential significance of timber resources in Asia Minor (4.52.3), and hence his silence here carries some weight.
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7. Lycia, Athens and Amorges 50. Thuc. 3.19. On the road to the Academy at Athens, Pausanias saw the tomb of ‘Melesander, who sailed up the Maeander into inland Caria’ (1.29.7): confusion of Melesander and Lysicles? For Iasos, see above, p. 177. 51. Robert, OMS III 1437-46. For Anaia and the Samian peraia, see Carusi (2003) 127-97, esp. 157-61. 52. E.g. Priene and the Maiandrioi, both regular payers in the 440s BC; neither site can be precisely located. 53. Thuc. 1.115.4. His father is probably the brother of Xerxes who commanded the Bactrian contingent in 480: Hdt. 7.64.2. 54. Samos: Thuc. 1.115.4-5, with Plut. Per. 25, unnecessarily downplayed by Lewis (1977) 59. Exiles: Thuc. 3.31. 55. Thuc. 3.34. Itamenes, probably a subordinate of Pissouthnes, had seized Colophon during an earlier outbreak of stasis in 430. For Pissouthnes’ ‘cold war’ against Athens, see Eddy (1973) 250, 254-5; contra, Badian (1993) 33-5. For Pissouthnes’ use of Greek mercenary troops, Seibt (1977) 39-45. 56. Ctesias, FGrHist 688F15.53. The date is probably towards the end of the period 423-414. Thuc. 8.108.4 does not constitute evidence that Tissaphernes was already in the west in 421: see Lewis (1977) 81n.198; Hornblower (1982) 31n.198; Debord (1999) 120-1. 57. Thuc. 8.5.5; 8.28.2-4. Amorges’ name recalls another Persian active in Caria at an earlier date: Hdt. 5.121 (Debord 1999: 80). 58. Thuc. 8.54.3; cf. Thuc. 8.19.2 (Amorges supports the Athenian blockade of Miletus in early summer 412). There is no particular reason to take the payments made by the Athenians in the spring of 414 to a general based at Ephesos (IG I3 370.79) as attesting support for Pissouthnes or Amorges at this date. 59. Andoc. 3.29; contra, Westlake (1977) who implausibly supposes that the Athenians did not back Amorges until Tissaphernes was already engaged in negotiations with Sparta. 60. Thus e.g. Eddy (1973) 254-5. 61. Melchert (2002) suggests that hãta- = the god Sanda; contra, Cau (2003) 55n.17. 62. The proposal of Thompson (1967) 105-6, to identify the Melesander of the Xanthos stele with an otherwise unattested Athenian general of 414/3 (IG I3 371.3: name or patronymic ending -ˇsandroj or -2sandroj), has not found support: Keen (1993) 75n.39; Tietz (2003) 54n.241. 63. The slaying of seven Arcadian hoplites mentioned in the Greek epigram on the Xanthos stele (ML 93) has long been referred to the defeat of Amorges, since we know that Pissouthnes had used Arcadian mercenaries in the early 420s (Thuc. 3.34.2): thus already Kalinka, TAM 1, p. 46; Seibt (1977) 48; Debord (1999) 210. But see below. 64. Schürr (1998) 151-5. 65. cbane = Kyaneai: Carruba (1980) 294. 66. For the mints of Trbbẽnimi, see Kolb and Tietz (2001) 388-95. Kolb and Tietz take the view that we are dealing with a single, long-lived figure (p. 381); Cau (2003) 62-3, more plausibly distinguishes an elder and a younger Trbbẽnimi. 67. For the name Trbbẽnimi at Limyra, see TL128: krustti: t[r]bb{:}ẽnemeh: tideri; TL135: .[u]wata: trbbẽnimeh: tideri. tideri = sun2ktrofoj, collacteus: Neumann (1993) 36-8. 68. Coinage: Schürr (2003b) 96n.10, correcting Carruba (1993) 12.
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Peter Thonemann 69. Thus, ingeniously, Melchert (2002) 250n.38. Schürr (2007) 33, returns to the old interpretation CII = ‘seven’, referring the phrase to the seven Arcadian hoplites of the Greek epigram (ML 93.10), probably also depicted on the frieze of the funerary chamber. The Arcadian hoplites would, in that case, be mercenaries of Wacssepddimi serving at Tlos in the early 420s. I cannot go into the argument in detail here: note only that if accepted, this would require attributing the Greek epigram on the Xanthos stele to Kherẽi, not Kheriga (as is assumed in this paper). I see no way of dating the slaying of the seven hoplites. For the interpretation of medbijahe as a toponym, see Schürr (2007) 35. 70. I am unpersuaded by the attempts of Schürr (1998) 155, and Keen (1998a) 132-3, to connect this campaign with the defeat of Melesander. 71. Melchert (2004) 47 (‘urge’). Present for past: compare perhaps Neumann (1984) 92-3 (not that close a parallel). Schürr (1998) 154, attractively suggests that the present may imply lack of success: ‘he sought unsuccessfully to ...’. 72. -aza: Laroche (1979) 98-100. 73. Laroche (1979) 104-6. 74. TL44 c48, as interpreted by Schürr (1998) 155-8. 75. On the karanos, Haebler (1982); Petit (1983); Petit (1990) 133-44; Keen (1998b). 76. The accusative singular terñ is difficult. It seems clear that the phrase tere tere means ‘everywhere, in every place’, so terñ ought really to be simply the Lycian acc. of ‘place’. But the hãtahe-narrative seems throughout (note especially a44-5, the Melesander narrative) to require the sense ‘army’. Schürr (2004) 201n.27 distinguishes two different words; thus also Cau (2003) 54n.4 and 57n.23. For the adjectival ethnic, compare terñ: tlahñ, ‘Tloan army’ (TL44 a47); cssadrapa: pa[rz]a, ‘Persian satrap’ (TL40d): Schürr (2004) 189. 77. Thus Schürr (1998) 153; his ingenious emendation of ijaeusas to ijausas, ‘Ialysians’, seems to me unlikely on geographical grounds. 78. krzzãnase is a Greek loan-word, cersÒnhsoj. The urban centre of Iasos proper does indeed lie on a peninsula, extending south-east from the modern hamlet of Kıyıkışlacık: for recent archaeological work at Iasos, see Benoit (2005). 79. Melchert (2004) 69; compare Cau (2003) 58n.26. 80. zcca-: Melchert (1993) 31-2; ese tebe-: Cau (1999-2000) 181n.8. For the clausal asyndeton, compare lines 46-7 above. 81. Thus also with the infinitives in a50, ñtepi: claina terñ, and a52, ese tabãna: terñ: ijãnã (where there is no subject stated). 82. Thus correctly Schürr (1998) 153. Quite apart from the question of wordorder, if the phrase meant ‘defeat Amorges (and) the army’, the lack of a connective would be hard to swallow: asyndeton in noun-phrases does not seem to be paralleled in Lycian. 83. The parallel verse narrative at TL44 c46-51 refers to a deity by the name of turacssali: natri (c47-8), surely identical to the 'ApÒllwn QurxeÚj whose oracle was located at Kyaneai (Paus. 7.21.13; Thomsen 1995). Neumann (1979) 263 observed that QurxeÚj is similar in form to Apollo’s epithet PatareÚj and hence ought to derive from a place name *QÚrxa; he suggests that Turacssi may have been the Lycian name of Kyaneai. For Eichner (1993) 143n.122, *Turacssa (sic) should be identified with Trysa, and QurxeÚj signifies ‘Apollo of Trysa’. This last suggestion may certainly be discounted, since it seems all but certain that Trysa is designated by the Lycian Trusñ (acc.: TL44 b15) and Lycian B Trujeli/Truijele (adj. ‘of Trysa’: TL44 c34, 59). The problem is that the events narrated in TL44 a53-55 and c46-51 cannot, on any hypothesis, have taken place anywhere near
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7. Lycia, Athens and Amorges Kyaneai. I have no solution to offer; Schürr (1998) 155-7, supposes that the victory on Mt Thorax is attributed in the verse text to the intervention of turacssali natri. Note finally, for what it’s worth, that we do have a secure Lycian parallel for a deity of one place possessing a sanctuary elsewhere: the shrine of the King of Kaunos at the Letöon. SEG 6, 190, a dedication of the Roman imperial period to Mhtr< Quraxhn[Í] at Phrygian Sebaste, is of very doubtful relevance. 84. Schürr (1998) 154. 85. Diod. Sic. 14.36; Strabo 14.1.39; I. Magnesia 17.46-9, with Ebert (1985): Q[èrh]koj skÒpelon kat> Manq8ou a9p) "2eqron. 86. Carian place-names on the territory of Magnesia: e.g. Kubisqih (I. Magnesia 116.40, with Robert (1963) 51-2); Wlasha (I. Magnesia 116.37); Kaduih (I. Magnesia 113.24); Tabarnij (I. Magnesia 215a40; 251). Note also the Carian personal name Mokoldhj (SEG 32, 1149). 87. Hdt. 3.122-5; Thuc. 8.50. For the Persian sympathies of Magnesia in the fifth century, see Nollé and Wenniger (1998-9). It is very suggestive that Magnesia is listed separately from the Aeolians and Ionians in Herodotus’ account of the first Persian tribute nome (3.90). Perhaps the Magnesians were thought to constitute an ethnic group apart (virtually nothing is known of Magnesian ethnic identity before the Hellenistic period); alternatively, the separate mention may simply reflect its role as the main Persian administrative centre in this region. 88. Thuc. 3.34. 89. Already noted by Briant (1996) 1001. 90. Attribution and catalogue: Konuk (1998) independently, Meier-Brügger (1998). The silver issues are on the reduced Aiginetic standard. 91. Hell. Oxy. 20.5; Hornblower (1982) 146-9. 92. Diod. Sic. 20.27; for the identification with the acropolis hill, see McNicoll (1997) 191-2. For the remains on this hill, including a short section of polygonal fortification wall which may date back to the Achaemenid period, see TIB 8: Lykien und Pamphylien, II 618-19. 93. Debord (1999) 384-5. 94. zisaprñna [- - widrñna]he: tideimi: se=parzza: cbide (c1-2). See Melchert (1993); Schürr (1998) 148-51. 95. Thuc 8.57-8: for the date (after 29 March 411), Lewis (1958) 392. This is plausibly regarded as the sole genuine treaty between Sparta and Tissaphernes by Cawkwell (1997) 135. 96. Hurter 1979. For the date, see Kolb and Tietz (2001) 379; Casabonne (2004) 171n.714. For a tentative attempt to bring this coin into relation with TL44 c13-15 (Tissaphernes and the Persians at Xanthos), see Schürr (2004) 187-93. 97. Thuc. 8.5.4. Compare the position of Cyrus the karanos in 407, ¥rxwn p£ntwn tîn 1p< qal£ttV (Xen. Hell. 1.4.3) or that of Harpagos in the 540s BC, 1p< tÁj qal£tthj strathgÒj (Diod. Sic. 9.35). Kallet (2001) 242n.51 simply considers Tissaphernes to be ‘a satrap’; see further Debord (1999) 121-3. The only evidence that Tissaphernes held satrapal office already in 412 is the dubious statement of Ctesias (FGrHist 688F15.53) that he took over the satrapy of Pissouthnes – quite possibly a retrojection from his status at a later date. 98. It is clear from the third treaty between Tissaphernes and Sparta in 411 that the king has decided to send a fleet west; on arrival at Aspendos in the early summer, this fleet comes under Tissaphernes’ authority (Thuc. 8.87). In
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Peter Thonemann fact the ships were diverted to Egypt before Tissaphernes could put them into action: Lewis (1958). 99. It is not clear how the mention of Kheriga in TL44 c50 relates to Amorges in the previous line. Note the unusual detail with which the battle is located: on Mykale, opposite Samos (a53-4). The ordinary reader of the Xanthos stele was not expected to be familiar with the site. 100. Fennell (1983) 103-6. I owe the parallel to Georgy Kantor. 101. Diod. Sic. 11.62.3; Page (1981) 266-8; for the historical context, Peek (1940), and especially Badian (1993) 64-6. The poem was famous: for an Athenian imitation, IG II2 1141 (376/5 BC). 102. Momigliano (1966); Seager and Tuplin (1980). For the later development in Greek thought from a bipartite to a tripartite division of the world, see Zimmermann (1999) 36-73. 103. m2ga d' 4stenen 'As8j Øp' aÙtîn plhge√s' ¢mfot2raij cers< kr£tei pol2mou (ll. 7-8). 104. Compare already Eichner (1993) 138-41. 105. RO 13A.i.12-13: kalÕn d5 kl2oj k[at>] p©[san] gÁn 'As8an 'Arb8naj 0autîi progÒnoij te l2loip[e]. 106. For the Hellenisation of Lycia in the fifth and fourth centuries, see now Kolb (2003). 107. Savalli (1998), responding to Herrenschmidt (1985). For the authors of the epigrams, see Bousquet (1992) 161-6. 108. See above, n. 25. 109. Demargne (1958) 81-2; des Courtils (2004).
Bibliography Badian, E. (1993), From Plataea to Potidaea: Studies in the History and Historiography of the Pentecontaetia (Baltimore). Behrwald, R. (2000), Der lykische Bund (Bonn). Benoit, R.P. (ed.) (2005), Iasos e la Caria. Nuovi studi e richerche (=PP 60: 81468). Boffo, L. (1983), ‘La conquista persiana delle città greche d’Asia Minore’, RAL ser. 8, 26: 1-70. Borchhardt, J., Eichner, H., Pesditschek, M. and Ruggendorfer, P. (1997-9), ‘Archäologisch-sprachwissenschaftliches Corpus der Denkmäler mit lykischer Schrift’, AnzWien 134/2: 11-96. Borchhardt, J. (1998), ‘Gedanken zur lykischen Gesellschaftsstruktur unter persischer und attischer Herrschaft’, in G. Arsebük et al. (eds), Light on Top of the Black Hill: Studies ... Halet Çambel (Istanbul), 155-69. ——— (2000), ‘Dynasten und Beamte in Lykien während der persischen und attischen Herrschaft’, in R. Dittmann et al. (eds), Variatio delectate: Iran und der Westen: Gedenkschrift für Peter Calmeyer (Münster), 73-140. ——— (2002), ‘Murãza aus der Dynastie der Harpagiden’, JÖAI 71: 21-38. Bousquet, J. (1992), ‘Les inscriptions gréco-lyciennes’, in H. Metzger, Fouilles de Xanthos: Tome IX (Paris), 147-203. Bresson, A. (2000), La cité marchande (Bordeaux). Briant, P. (1996), Histoire de l’empire Perse de Cyrus à Alexandre (Paris). Briant, P. and Descat, R. (1998), ‘Un registre douanier de la satrapie d’Égypte à l’époque achéménide’, in N. Grimal and B. Menu (eds), Le commerce en Égypte ancienne (Caire), 59-104. Bryce, T.R. (1982), ‘A Ruling Dynasty in Lycia’, Klio 64: 329-37.
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7. Lycia, Athens and Amorges Buschmann, K. (1988), ‘Die Expedition des Melesander nach Lykien 430/29 v. Chr.’, Epigraphica Anatolica 12: 1-8. Carruba, O. (1980), ‘Contributi al licio II’, SMEA 22: 275-95. ——— (1993), ‘Dynasten und Städte. Sprachliche und sonstige Bemerkungen zu den Namen auf den lykischen Münzen’, in J. Borchhardt and G. Dobesch, Akten des II. Internationalen Lykien-Symposions (Wien), I 11-25. Carusi, C. (2003), Isola e peree in Asia Minore (Pisa). Casabonne, O. (2004), La Cilicie à l’époque achéménide (Paris). Cau, N. (1997), ‘La classificazione delle monetazioni licie in età achemenide: storia e problemi’, Annali dell’ Istituto Italiano di Numismatica 44: 241-79. ——— (1999-2000), ‘L’uso delle formule di datazione nelle iscrizioni licie’, EVO 22-3: 179-88. ——— (2003), ‘Nota sulla Stele di Xanthos: TL 44b, 11-23 e 47-57’, Kadmos 42: 50-64. Cawkwell, G. (1997), Thucydides and the Peloponnesian War (London). Childs, W.A.P. (1979), ‘The Authorship of the Inscribed Pillar of Xanthos’, Anatolian Studies 29: 97-102. des Courtils, J. (2004), ‘Xanthos et la conservation du patrimoine culturel dans l’antiquité’, in T. Korkut (ed.), Anadolu’da Doğdu. 60 Yaşında Fahri Işık’a Armağan (Istanbul), 231-7. Debord, P. (1999), L’Asie Mineure au IVe siècle (412-323 a.C.) (Bordeaux). Demargne, P. (1958), Fouilles de Xanthos I. Les piliers funéraires (Paris). Dickinson, A.W. (1979), ‘A Note on Foin8kh in Thucydides 2.69.1’, CQ 29: 213-14. Domingo Gygax, M. and Tietz, W. (2005), ‘“He who of all mankind set up the most numerous trophies to Zeus”: The Inscribed Pillar of Xanthos Reconsidered’, Anatolian Studies 55: 89-98. Ebert, J. (1985), ‘Ein alter Name des Mäander (zu IG XIV 933 und I. Magn. 17)’, Philologus 129: 54-63. Eddy, S. K. (1973), ‘The Cold War between Athens and Persia, c. 448-412 BC’, CP 68: 241-58. Eichner, H. (1993), ‘Probleme von Vers und Metrum in epichorischer Dichtung Altkleinasiens’, in G. Dobesch and G. Rehrenbück (eds), Die epigraphische und altertumskundliche Erforschung Kleinasiens: Hundert Jahre Kleinasiatische Kommission der österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Wien), 97-169. ——— (2005), ‘Die philologische Evidenz’, in J. Borchhardt, H. Eichner and K. Schulz, Kerththi, oder der Versuch, eine antike Siedlung der Klassik in Zentrallykien zu identifizieren (Antalya), 19-37. ——— (2006), ‘Neues zum lykischen Text der Stele von Xanthos (TL 44)’, in III. Likya Sempozyumu 07-10 Kasım 2005 Antalya: Sempozyum Bildirileri (Antalya), I 231-8. Fennell, J. (1983), The Crisis of Medieval Russia 1200-1304 (London and New York). Foss, C. (1994), ‘The Lycian Coast in the Byzantine Age’, DOP 48: 1-52. Gusmani, R. (1993), ‘Das sogenannte Lykisch B’, in J. Borchhardt and G. Dobesch, Akten des II. Internationalen Lykien-Symposions (Vienna), I 27-30. Haebler, C. (1983), ‘k£ranoj. Eine sprachwissenschaftliche Betrachtung zu Xen. Hell. I 4, 3’, in J. Tischler (ed.), Serta Indogermanica ... Günter Neumann (Innsbruck), 81-90. Hellenkemper, H. (1993), ‘Lykien und die Araber’, in J. Borchhardt and G. Dobesch, Akten des II. Internationalen Lykien-Symposions (Vienna), I 99-106.
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Peter Thonemann Herrenschmidt, C. (1985), ‘Une lecture iranisante du poème de Symmachos dédié à Arbinas, dynaste de Xanthos’, Rev. Ét. Anc. 87 1/2: 125-36. Heubeck, A. (1979), ‘Lyk. cñtawata-’, in O. Carruba (ed.), Studia Mediterranea Piero Meriggi dicata (Pavia), I 247-59. Hornblower, S. (1982) Mausolus (Oxford). Hurter, S. (1979), ‘Der Tissaphernes-Fund’, in Essays ... Margaret Thompson (Wetteren), 97-108. ——— (2000-2), ‘A New Lycian Coin Type: Kherẽi, not Kuperlis’, Israel Numismatic Journal 14: 15-18. Jacoby, D. (2001), ‘The Supply of War Materials to Egypt in the Crusader Period’, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 25: 102-32. Kallet-Marx, L. (1993), Money, Expense, and Naval Power in Thucydides’ History 1-5.24 (California). Keen, A. (1993), ‘Gateway from the Aegean to the Mediterranean: The Strategic Value of Lycia down to the Fourth Century BC’, in J. Borchhardt and G. Dobesch, Akten des II. Internationalen Lykien-Symposions (Vienna) I 71-7. ——— (1998a), Dynastic Lycia: A Political History of the Lycians and their Relations with Foreign Powers c. 545-362 BC (Leiden). ——— (1998b), ‘Persian Karanoi and their Relationship to the Satrapal System’, in T.W. Hillard et al. (eds), Ancient History in a Modern University, vol. I: The Ancient Near East, Greece, and Rome (Macquarie), 88-95. Keen, A. and Hansen, M.H. (2004), ‘Lykia’, in M.H. Hansen and T.H. Nielsen (eds), An Inventory of Archaic and Classical Greek Poleis (Oxford), 1138-43. Kolb, F. (2003), ‘Aspekte der Akkulturation in Lykien in archaischer und klassischer Zeit’, in M. Giorgieri et al. (eds), Licia e Lidia prima dell’ellenizzazione (Rome), 207-37. Kolb, F. and Thomsen, A. (2004), ‘Forschungen zu Zentralorten und Chora auf dem Gebiet von Kyaneai (Zentrallykien): Methoden, Ergebnisse, Probleme’, in F. Kolb (ed.), Chora und Polis (Munich), 1-42. Kolb, F. and Tietz, W. (2001), ‘Zagaba: Münzprägung und politische Geographie in Zentrallykien’, Chiron 31: 347-415. Lewis, D. (1958), ‘The Phoenician Fleet in 411’, Historia 7: 392-7. Marek, Chr. (2006), Die Inschriften von Kaunos (Munich). Marksteiner, T. (2002), ‘Städtische Strukturen im vorhellenistischen Lykien’, in M.H. Hansen (ed.), A Comparative Study of Six City-State Cultures (Copenhagen), 57-72. McNicoll, A.W. (1997) Hellenistic Fortifications from the Aegean to the Euphrates (Oxford). Meier-Brügger, M. (1998), ‘Zu den Münzlegenden von Kaunos’, Kadmos 37: 426. Meiggs, R. (1972), The Athenian Empire (Oxford). ——— (1983), Trees and Timber in the Ancient Mediterranean World (Oxford). Melchert, H.C. (1993), ‘A New Interpretation of Lines C 3-9 of the Xanthos Stele’, in J. Borchhardt and G. Dobesch, Akten des II. Internationalen LykienSymposions (Vienna), I 31-4. ——— (2002), ‘The God Sanda in Lycia’, in P. Taracha (ed.), Silva Anatolica ... M. Popko (Warsaw), 241-51. ——— (2004), A Dictionary of the Lycian Language (Ann Arbor). Momigliano, A. (1966), ‘L’Europa come concetto politico presso Isocrate e gli Isocratei’, in Terzo contributo alla storia degli studi classici e del mondo antico (Rome), I 489-97.
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7. Lycia, Athens and Amorges Mørkholm, O. and Zahle, J. (1972), ‘The Coinage of Kuprlli\: A Numismatic and Archaeological Study’, Acta Archaeologica 43: 57-113. ——— (1976), ‘The Coinages of the Lycian Dynasts Kheriga, Kherẽi and Erbbina: A Numismatic and Archaeological Study’, ActaArch 47: 47-90. Neumann, G. (1979), ‘Namen und Epiklesen lykischer Götter’, in Florilegium Anatolicum, Mélanges ... Emmanuel Laroche (Paris), 259-71. ——— (1984), ‘Beiträge zum Lykischen VI’, Die Sprache 30: 89-95. ——— (1993), ‘Neue Erkenntnisse zur lykischen Sprache. Appositionen zu Personennamen’, in J. Borchhardt and G. Dobesch, Akten des II. Internationalen Lykien-Symposions (Vienna), I 35-8. ——— (2004), ‘Das Lykische und seine Verwandten’, Nachrichten der Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen I. Philologisch-historische Klasse, 2004/7: 223-41. Neumann, G. and Zimmermann, M. (2003), ‘Die lykischen Götter der Agora. Neulesung der griechisch-lykischen Bilingue TL 72a-b in Kyaneai’, in F. Kolb (ed.), Lykische Studien 6: Feldforschungen auf dem Gebiet der Polis Kyaneai in Zentrallykien. Bericht über die Ergebnisse der Kampagnen 1996 und 1997. Asia Minor Studien 48 (Bonn), 187-92. Nollé, J. and Wenninger, A. (1998-1999), ‘Themistokles und Archepolis: Eine griechische Dynastie im Perserreich und ihre Münzprägung’, Jahrbuch f. Numismatik und Geldgeschichte 48/49: 29-70. Page, D. (1981), Further Greek Epigrams (Cambridge). Peek, W. (1940), ‘Die Kämpfe am Eurymedon’, HSCP Suppl. 1: 97-120. Petit, T. (1983), ‘Étude d’une fonction militaire sous la dynastie perse achéménide’, LEC 51: 35-45. ——— (1990), Satrapes et satrapies dans l’empire achéménide de Cyrus le Grand à Xerxès Ier (Liège). Robert, L. (1963), Noms indigènes dans l’Asie Mineure gréco-romaine. Première partie (Paris). ——— (1966), Documents de l’Asie Mineure méridionale (Geneva). Savalli, I. (1988), ‘L’idéologie dynastique des poèmes grecs de Xanthos’, Antiquité Classique 57: 103-23. Schmidt, R. (1982), Iranisches Personennamenbuch V 4: Iranische Namen in den indogermanischen Sprachen Kleinasiens (Lykisch, Lydisch, Phrygisch) (Vienna). Schürr, D. (1997), ‘Nymphen von Phellos’, Kadmos 36: 127-40. ——— (1998), ‘Kaunos in lykischen Inschriften’, Kadmos 37: 143-62. ——— (2001a), ‘Bemerkungen zur Lesung und Verständnis einiger lykischer Inschriften’, Kadmos 40: 127-54. ——— (2001b), ‘Karische und lykische Sibilanten’, Indogermanische Forschungen 106: 94-121. ——— (2003a), ‘Zur Rekonstruktion altanatolischer Verse’, IF 108: 104-26. ——— (2003b), ‘Zur karischen Inschrift der Stele von Abusir’, Kadmos 42: 91103. ——— (2004), ‘“Handel” in den anatolischen Sprachen’, IF 109: 183-203. ——— (2005), ‘Das Picre-Poem in Antiphellos’, Kadmos 44: 95-164. ——— (2007), ‘Formen der Akkulturation in Lykien: Griechisch-lykische Sprachbeziehungen’, in Chr. Schuler (ed.), Griechische Epigraphik in Lykien: Eine Zwischenbilanz (Vienna), 27-40. Seager, R.J. and Tuplin, C.J. (1980), ‘The Freedom of the Greeks of Asia: On the Origin of a Concept and the Creation of a Slogan’, JHS 100: 141-54. Seibt, G.F. (1977), Griechische Söldner im Achaimenidenreich (Bonn).
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Peter Thonemann Seyer, M. (2004), ‘Ein bemerkenswerter Bau in Zentrallykien – Überlegungen zu den Grabmal des Ñqurigacã in Çindam’, JÖAI 73: 221-36. Thomsen, A. (1995), ‘Suburbane Heiligtümer bei Kyaneai’, in F. Kolb (ed.), Lykische Studien 2: Forschungen auf dem Gebiet der Polis Kyaneai in Zentrallykien. Bericht über die Kampagne 1991. Asia Minor Studien 18 (Bonn), 43-8. ——— (2002), Die lykische Dynastensiedlung auf dem Avşar Tepesi (Bonn). Thompson, W.E. (1967), ‘Two Athenian Strategoi’, Hesperia 36: 105-7. Tietz, W. (2003), Der Golf von Fethiye (Bonn). Tomaschek, W. (1891), Zur historischen Topographie von Kleinasien im Mittelalter (Vienna). Westlake, H.D. (1977), ‘Athens and Amorges’, Phoenix 31: 319-29. Wörrle, M. (1991), ‘Epigraphische Forschungen zur Geschichte Lykiens IV: Drei griechische Inschriften aus Limyra’, Chiron 21: 203-39. ——— (2004), ‘Ein toter Lykier in Pidasa’, in T. Korkut (ed.), Anadolu’da Doğdu. 60 Yaşında Fahri Işık’a Armağan (İstanbul), 791-5. Zahle, J. (1988), ‘Den lykiske by Tuminehi’, Nordisk Numismatisk Unions Medlemsblad 5 (August), 98-104. Zimmermann, K. (1999), Libyen. Das Land südlich des Mittelmeers im Weltbild der Griechen (Munich). Zimmermann, M. (1992), Untersuchungen zur historischen Landeskunde Zentrallykiens (Bonn). ——— (1993), ‘Noch einmal Thuk. II 69 und FOINIKH’, Hermes 121: 266-75. ——— (2005), ‘Eine Stadt und ihr kulturelles Erbe. Vorbericht über Feldforschungen im zentrallykischen Phellos 2002-2004’, MDAI(I) 55: 211-66.
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8
What about Coinage? John H. Kroll Inasmuch as the political, military, and economic might of Athenian imperialism was bound up with the amassing and expenditure of money in the form of coinage, it is only natural to ask what the study of coins has to contribute to knowledge of the Athenian archê. Two areas of numismatic investigation have a particular importance for the historian, one being the growth, scale, and circulation of Athens’ own silver coinage, the other the impact of the archê on the coinages of its many constituent members, a question that has been discussed traditionally with reference to the dating and interpretation of the Athenian decree concerning Coinage and Metrological Standards. During the past decade and a half there has been a significant amount of new work in these areas, enough certainly to justify this brief overview of the current state of numismatic evidence and its implications for a fuller understanding of the fifthcentury Athenian hegemony. The expanding volume of Athens’ silver coinage Athens’ famous owl tetradrachms originated with the discovery and initial exploitation of an extraordinarily rich vein of silver ore in the Laurion area of south-east Attica around 520-515 BC.1 For about three decades before then Athens had been minting a silver coinage for local use; it was of modest size, designed with personal types that changed with each issue, and was made, as metallurgical analyses have shown, chiefly of non-Attic silver that had come from a mixture of sources, presumably stocks of bullion that the state and private individuals had procured from time to time and happened to have on hand.2 With the great strike of native silver ore at Laurion, however, Athenian coinage took on a much greater significance and was immediately transformed. Apart from the exceptionally fine grade of this silver, its abundance was recognised to be substantial enough for the exporting of surpluses abroad. Accordingly, in place of the traditional didrachm, its heavier double, the tetradrachm, was introduced as the major denominational weight unit; and the coins were redesigned with permanent state types: after experimenting briefly with an obverse depicting the gorgoneion of Athena’s aegis, the mint settled on the more
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John H. Kroll explicitly Athenian types of Athena’s head on obverses and her owl, olive spray, and the ethnic AQE on reverses, types that seem to have been designed with distant markets in mind. Yet the most significant aspect of this early Athenian tetradrachm coinage was its scale. Study of the successive typological groups of the archaic owls has shown how, after moderate initial phases, the output of tetradrachms expanded until in the 490s and 480s they were being massproduced in staggering quantities.3 It has been roughly estimated that a major group of owls of this peak period must have been minted from over 250 obverse dies;4 if we assume that one die had a production life of 20,000 coins – a conservative estimate5 – this would give a total of more than five million tetradrachms, amounting to over 3,600 talents of coined silver. The one hundred talents of mining revenues which the Athenians voted in 483/2 to expend on the building of warships gives a comparable glimpse of the magnitude of silver extraction at that time.6 The mining was in the hands of private operators who leased their concessions from the state and who presumably, as in the fourth century, were taxed on the amount of metal they recovered. If the tax rate was the conventional one that applied to silver extraction in the fourth century,7 the one hundred talents of revenue available to the Athenians in 483/2 would represent a total recovery of 2,400 talents (62,208 metric tons) of silver, an amount that, when coined, would have produced 3.6 million tetradrachms. These figures are not out of line with the calculations that have been put forward for Athenian tetradrachm production in the third quarter of the fifth century, another period of peak minting activity. Moving forward into the period of the archê, Athens’ tetradrachm coinage after the Persian occupation of Attica in 480-79 also breaks down into typological/chronological groups whose approximate number of original dies (and hence scale of coin production) can be statistically estimated from the number of attested dies per extant coins. It is apparent from such analysis that after a surprisingly early resumption of coining right after 478, minting continued at an ever increasing level so that by the late 460s into the 450s the number of estimated tetradrachm dies had climbed well into the hundreds.8 Silver in the smaller denominations was being struck as well; and, in another indication of intense mining productivity, for a while in the early 460s the mint coined a substantial proportion of silver in a new, large denomination of decadrachms.9 Intended as a more convenient form for transporting and managing particularly large quantities of coined silver, probably chiefly as an export commodity, the decadrachms were soon discontinued, perhaps because of technical difficulties in their manufacture or because their size limited their general use as a flexible monetary medium. Production of Athens’ silver coinage reached its zenith in the second half of the fifth century, the time of the prolific ‘conventionalised’ or ‘standardised’ tetradrachms, the most familiar and frequently-illustrated of all ancient coins (see Fig. 8.1). Their mechanical, relatively rigid, and increas-
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8. What about Coinage?
Fig. 8.1. Part of a hoard of 1400 Athenian tetradrachms of ‘standardised’ type, dating from the last third of the fifth century BC. Found in the 1980s somewhere in Turkey or northern Greece. The coins have now been dispersed in trade.
ingly distorted rendering of the heads of Athena would seem to mirror progressively intensive mass-production. In his 1970 book, Athenian Coinage 480-449 BC, Chester Starr discussed two factors that might account for the shift to this monotonous and more voluminously minted coinage. One was the transfer of the treasury of the Athenians and their allies from Delos to Athens in 454/3, the other the Athenian decree on Coinage and Standards, which in Starr’s day was widely believed to date around 449. As he and many others deduced, either one or both of these occurrences might have been responsible for a massive programme of re-coining all non-Athenian silver that came into Athens’ possession. In the case of the Delian treasury monies, Athens would have had ample cause to re-mint these other coinages in order to make payments in her own currency, while the Coinage and Standards decree was understood to mandate the conversion of all local coinages of the Athenian archê into Athenian coin. Starr preferred to date the onset of the standardised coinage c. 449. But since subsequent hoard evidence has required a compression of his chronology for the preceding owls and there is no longer any good reason for clinging to a mid-fifth-century date for the Coinage and Standards decree, c. 454/3 would be the more probable terminus. However, recent metallurgical analysis of a random sample of 68 stand-
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John H. Kroll ardised tetradrachms has shown that while some non-Attic silver might very well have been employed in the production of this coinage, it did not occur in quantities that could by themselves account for the significant expansion of Athenian minting around the middle part of the century.10 According to Christophe Flament, the author and coordinator of this analytical study, 63 of the coins (93 per cent) were minted from silver that shows the diagnostically low percentages of gold and copper impurities and high percentages of lead that distinguish Laurion silver from silver that originated in other mining regions. Only five of the analysed tetradrachms were struck from silver that does not fit the Laurion profile. Although there are several possible explanations for their several metallurgical anomalies, the most probable is that the five coins, or at least some of them, were minted from non-Attic silver. Given the slightness of this evidence for the presence of non-Attic silver in the sampled standardised coinage as a whole, it seems that the immense scale of minting reflected in the coinage should be attributed to an intense growth of the mining industry in south-east Attica during the middle decades of the fifth century and a consequent rise in the massive yield of domestic silver. Although the study of the standardised tetradrachms is still in its infancy, Flament has made a start by reviewing the coinage in full, observing variants of design details, and grouping selected specimens into larger, chronological phases.11 In view of the relatively incoherent appearance of some of these groups, however, it seems that we cannot expect the structure of the coinage to become satisfactorily clear without a concerted study of the tetradrachms by dies and the discovery of new hoards. This is a tall order, but in an unpublished conference paper Andrew Meadows has given an indication of what can be done.12 Having examined 142 Athenian tetradrachms of standardised type in a large hoard of Greek silver coins that was found in north-west Iran in the 1930s, he reported that they could be dated before c. 440 BC, when, judging from the Phoenician coins in the deposit, the bulk of the hoard was formed. The 142 tetradrachms were struck from 133 obverse dies, figures that, when entered into the statistical formula for estimating a coinage’s original total of dies, give a result of between 1,000 and 1,800 obverse dies employed between the start of the standardised coinage and c. 440, a span that on Meadow’s reckoning falls between four and nineteen years.13 These wide variables allow for a possible use of as many as 450 dies or as few as 55 dies per annum, which at an assumed production life of 20,000 tetradrachms per die, would mean that Athens was annually minting between 6,053 talents (about nine million coins) and 733 talents (about one million). A realistic estimate should fall somewhere in between. As Meadows writes, ‘This is a stunning amount of coinage, even at the lowest end of the estimate.’ The important results of these calculations are to give a concrete sense of the tremendous scale of Athenian minting during the first decade or two
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8. What about Coinage? of the standardised owls and Meadow’s deduction that the consequent flood of Athenian tetradrachms circulating in the Aegean by around 440 would have had the effect of their becoming a common, international coinage throughout most of the region, very much as Thomas Figueira had argued from other indications in his book on coinage in the Athenian archê.14 Minting of the standardised coinage would have continued at peak levels until 413 when the Spartan fortification of Decelea fatally disrupted mining operations in Attica15 (although not of course any Athenian minting of silver that may have been obtained through the restriking of other coinages; see below). After the losses of the Sicilian disaster later in the year, Athens’ finances became strained to the limit as the war moved to the eastern Aegean, where a Spartan fleet backed by Persian money was operating and important allies, such as Chios, had begun to revolt, at the same time as the city’s ability to collect income from the archê was weakened. In 412 the Athenians voted to spend their last reserve of 1,000 talents of silver, and by 407/6 silver publicly available for naval operations had become so scarce that the Athenians turned to the two monetary expedients referred to in Aristophanes’ Frogs (lines 725-6), first the minting of a gold coinage out of the city’s gold reserves held in the form of dedications and then, in the following year, the minting of bronze coins with a silver veneer for domestic circulation, freeing up good silver coins for state expenditure on war.16 Athens’ defeat and loss of empire in 404 came shortly thereafter. The desperate state of Athens’ finances during the final decade of the archê should not, however, be allowed to obscure the fact that Athenian silver coinage was at that time still by far the most plentiful currency in circulation throughout the Aegean. In fact the best indications of its general commercial and official dominance are the notices about its use by Athens’ enemies: not only was Attic silver employed for paying the Persian-financed Spartan fleet (Thuc. 8.5.5, 29.1-2; Xen. HG 1.5-7), but the 470 talents that the victorious Spartan admiral Lysander had accumulated from military operations and ‘tribute’ (apparently from cities he liberated from Athenian control) and sent back to Sparta in 404 consisted, at least in large part, of bags filled with Athenian owls (Xen. HG 2.3.8, with Plut. Lys. 16). Local coinages and monetary consolidation In the most thorough, and recent, survey of coin production in the Athenian empire, Thomas Figueira has shown that as the output of Athenian coinage expanded enormously over the middle quarters of the fifth century, the number of allied poleis minting their own coinages gradually declined.17 Figueira’s tabulations speak for themselves. Of the approximately 282 allied poleis, over two-thirds were small communities that had
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John H. Kroll never coined. Fourteen other poleis, which had coined at some point before 478, had stopped doing so by or around that time, leaving about 79 poleis that coined during the archê. Of these, fourteen ceased minting by c. 465, another eleven by c. 445, another nine (all minting small coins) by c. 420. Counting minters from c. 430 to the end of the archê is complicated by a number of poleis striking small-denomination coinages whose chronologies cannot be pinned down. Some of these minor coinages may have been minted by cities that had revolted from the empire in the latter stages of the war or may even belong to the early fourth century. Still, even with a generous inclusion of these hard-to-date coinages, a fair estimate of the number of allied poleis that minted in the last twenty-five years of the archê, 430-404 BC, is in the vicinity of 25-35, of which all but sixteen minted silver coinages in denominations of a drachma or smaller, that is, coinages normally reserved for internal, domestic use. With the possible exception of Ephesus and Teos, the sixteen minters of higher-value coins in the later fifth century were city-states whose economies were characterised by some exceptional circumstance or initiative.18 These include two non-tributary members of the archê, Chios and Samos, with unusually large economies; six cities of the northern Aegean rim (Thasos, Abdera, Maroneia, Ainos, Acanthus, Mende) with access to Thracian silver mines and trading interests with the native populations of the Thracian and Eastern Macedonia hinterlands; two cities on the southern coast of Anatolia (Aspendos and Kelenderis) oriented to maritime trade with the Levant; and four cities (Cyzicus, Mytilene, Phocaea and Lampsacus) that, unlike the foregoing minters of silver, specialised in the minting of electrum coinages, which occupied a special niche as internationally-recognised trade currencies, essential in particular for commerce in the Propontis and the Black Sea. Figueira reasonably deduced that the gradual reduction in civic minting was a response to the vast and constantly increasing quantity of Athenian tetradrachm coinage in circulation. As poleis – in their major public obligations and receipts, like the annual payment of tribute and the collection of port taxes from foreign vessels – as well as merchants seeking efficiency and reduced exchange costs in commercial transactions would have found it practically desirable to deal in this abundant, common currency, the demand for Athenian silver would have continued to climb at the expense of local silver currencies and the motivation to provide them. If the demand could have been met only with Athenian tetradrachms, one can readily see why some cities would nevertheless want to mint a coinage in small denominations for internal use. Another group of coinages that Athenian tetradrachms could not have replaced involved most of the above-mentioned large-unit silver and electrum coinages that were tied to specific monetary traditions or established regional trading opportunities. Even so, the overarching trend during the course of the Athenian archê does appear to have been towards ever greater monetary
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8. What about Coinage? consolidation, with Athens providing ultimately, or as much as possible, all silver currency for ordinary external commercial and public transactions. These deductions obviously should have some bearing on the purpose and dating of the Athenian decree concerning Coinage, Weights and Measures. Inscribed in copies that were set up in all the cities of the archê, the decree survives in fragments from six different sites. Among various matters connected with minting and coinage, it specified that the following sentence was to be added to the oath sworn by the Athenian Council of 500: ‘If anyone strikes silver coinage in the cities and does not use Athenian coins or measures or weig[hts but foreign (i.e. non-Athenian) coin]s and measures and weights, [I shall punish an]d p[enalise him according to the earl]ier decree that Clearch[os proposed]’,19 making it clear that not only were the members of the archê required to use Athenian coins and metrological standards but that the independent minting of coins was forbidden. With the collapse of the epigraphical argument for dating the decree to the middle of the fifth century,20 there can no longer be any reason to doubt that the decree (whether a single enactment or in a few, successively modified versions, see n. 27 below) was promulgated relatively close in time to Aristophanes’ parody of it in the Birds (lines 1040f.), performed in the spring of 414. Two datings, each with different perspectives on the decree’s significance, are currently under discussion. For the past fifty years Harold Mattingly has tirelessly championed 425/4 on the grounds that by depriving the allied cities of the traditional prerogatives of autonomy the decree was fundamentally an ‘assertion of empire’, ‘a political and imperial manifesto’, whose harsh tone and invasiveness ideologically identifies it with the policies of Cleon in the mid-420s.21 Writing at a time when most scholarly opinion favoured a mid-fifth-century date for the decree, Mattingly argued that the later dating was also more defensible numismatically by suggesting that although the silver coinages minted by Abdera, Maroneia and other allied cities along the Thracian coast continued uninterruptedly down into the 430s, they might very well have come to an end in the mid-420s because of a presumed ban on minting.22 But did they? Since the later fifth-century chronologies of these coinages are neither so precise nor firmly anchored enough to independently substantiate a horizon of mint closings in the 420s, the minting of these coinages could just as well have continued on after 425. 23 The alternative dating, suggested by Eugène Cavaignac in 1953 and explored recently at some length by Lisa Kallet, would link the decree to the Athenians’ plans to replace the annual collection of tribute with a 5 per cent harbour tax (the eikostê) throughout the archê, a programme that was put into effect in 413.24 In this context standardisation of weights and measures and the use of a single silver currency would have been moti-
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John H. Kroll vated by the practical, administrative concerns of simplifying and expediting the collection of the tax, its turnover to Athenian authorities, and its oversight, all in the interest of efficiently securing the maximum tax revenue. Kallet observes that in this case Athens would have been ‘applying to the archê a system that every polis naturally applied within its borders, imposing taxes within its ports as a regular means of obtaining revenues for the city, and using its own money and metrological standards as a normal means of transaction and exchange within in its borders’. 25 The attractions of the reconstruction are undeniable. The consequent dating of the decree could hardly be closer in time to that of the Birds. The reconstruction logically accounts for the prominence of weights and measures in legislation that traditionally had been referred to and thought of simply or primarily as a ‘Coinage decree’. And being congruent with the long-term trend towards monetary consolidation detailed above, it gives a rationale for formalising or finalising by legislative action a monetary transformation that was already largely achieved. If voted during or shortly before 414, the decree would have barely taken effect when within two years Athens’ empire was shaken by a continuing wave of potential and actual revolts, encouraged and supported by the Spartan fleet. In such circumstances the application and any enforcement of the decree would almost certainly have become erratic, so one might not expect to find clear traces of its impact in numismatic chronologies of the period, even after future discoveries make the chronologies more dependable than they are at present. Nevertheless, the reference in Aristophanes’ Frogs (line 363), produced in 405, to a collector of the 5 per cent tax (eikostologos) on Aegina suggests that the Athenians continued to rely as best they could on the harbour tax for allied revenue down to the very end of the empire.26 To the extent that this tax on commerce and the use of Athenian standards and currency in this commerce were recognised as complementary, the employment of Attic coinage, weights and measures, i.e. the principle of the decree, would presumably have remained in effect among the many allies who remained loyal to Athens.27 But then most of the allies had probably been accustomed to using Athenian coins and metrological standards before their use was mandated. As for weights and measures, the best evidence for the spread of Athenian metrological units beyond the borders of Attica comes from metal balance weights from the Black Sea and the Sanctuary of Zeus at Olympia. In the later fifth century, bronze balance weights at Olympia, which were traditionally adjusted to the Aeginetan mina weight standard of the Peloponnesus, were joined by parallel sets of weights that employed the commercial mina standard of Athens, attesting to the recognition and use of Athenian weight values even outside of the archê.28Another nonAthenian trade weight employing the Athenian standard is a lead quarter-mina weight from the western coast of the Black Sea that was
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8. What about Coinage? stamped with the composite device of an Athenian owl over the tuna fish of Cyzicus, implying that Cyzicus had either adopted Attic weights or had integrated its own values with Athenian ones.29 While the possibility cannot be ruled out that this hybrid weight results from the commandand-control implementation of the Athenian decree, the publishers of the weight are probably right in seeing it rather as a product of a ‘complex and long process of metrological integration that occurred naturally as the Aegean world adopted to Athenian commercial hegemony’.30 Coinage in a political and commercial archê The notion that fifth-century Athenian coinage came to be struck not only from native Laurion silver but also from the re-coined silver of other states goes back to two sections of the Coinage and Standards decree, which, as conventionally interpreted, contained provisions for the re-coining of nonAthenian into Athenian coins. Fragmentarily preserved as they are, both sections mention ‘the mint’ and have been credibly interpreted (and consequently restored) as specifying procedures for bringing non-Athenian silver to the mint in Athens for conversion and exchange. Section 5, which makes reference to ‘the cities’, should thus pertain to the re-coining of silver coins held publicly by the allied states, while the last two sections, which definitely refer to ‘foreign silver’ (to xenikon argurion, the formal Athenian term for all non-Athenian silver coinage), are understood to relate to silver held by any private person, who was allowed to bring ‘his own’ silver to the Athenian mint for exchange ‘whenever he wants’.31 As discussed above, when the decree was widely believed to date to the middle of the fifth century, such a programme of mass re-minting was thought by Starr and others to account largely for the expanded volume and standardised appearance of Athenian coinage around that time. With a late dating for the decree, a different inference about Athenian minting would follow, namely, that no matter how completely the silver mining industry at Laurion was devastated after the establishment of the Spartan base at Decelea, Athens would still have been able to continue its minting of standardised tetradrachms after 413 so long as quantities of ‘foreign’ coins for restriking were available. As we have seen, however, a policy of restriking non-Athenian coins may not have been altogether new in the last quarter of the fifth century; Athens may have been restriking at least some foreign silver that had come into its possession possibly as early as the 450s. If that were so (and, as mentioned, testing of sample standardised tetradrachms does allow for this possibility), one is tempted to ask whether a procedure for restriking coins that were brought to the mint for exchange by private persons might not also have been in effect before, possibly long before, the voting of the decree in question.32 One suspects that there ought to have been some way for ‘foreign’ coins collected by money-changers (trapezitai) in Athens, for
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John H. Kroll example, to be exchanged for Athenian coinage and then re-coined at the mint.33 This would not be much different from an assumed arrangement between the mint and successful lessees of the mining concessions at Laurion, who, after taxes and expenses, retained a high portion of the silver they extracted and would normally have profited by getting most of it converted into negotiable money with the value-added Athena/owl types. Bringing their silver bullion to the mint, these private operators could presumably exchange it for or, upon payment of a minting fee, have it minted into coined owls. In this way, with the complementary involvement of the state mint, Athens’ silver industry effectively functioned as an ‘industry of money’.34 Necessarily speculative, such considerations remind us that Athenian coinage probably did not enter circulation through state payments and expenditures alone. Private sector distribution probably included large exchange turnovers through money-changers with access to newly-coined silver from the mint. Entrepreneurs in the mining industry with accumulations of newly-minted owls would have been another private source of this money, e.g. for merchants who needed it for maritime trade, since a huge commercial demand had developed for it. The chorus in Aristophanes’ Frogs (721-3) alludes to this demand in their praise of Athens’ traditional silver coinage with its reputation as ‘the finest of all coins … among Hellenes and barbaroi everywhere’. And in a passage that implicitly contrasts the purely local value of the coinages of most Greek cities with Athenian silver, Xenophon, writing about fifty years later, extols the latter as an unfailingly profitable item for merchants at Athens to export: ‘for wherever they sell it, everywhere they make more than they originally invested’ (Vect. 2.2). The great quantities of Athenian tetradrachms in Near Eastern and Egyptian hoards confirm that Xenophon was talking primarily not about silver bullion but about coined silver with its universally familiar types. Such hoards, which are in fact the main source of fifth-century Athenian tetradrachms in museum and private collections today, imply that the demand for these well-known coins outside the limits of the Athenian archê was probably stronger than it was nearer home in the Aegean basin.35 So strong was the demand in Egypt, an important supplier of grain to Greece, that from c. 475 down to the time of Alexander the Great, virtually the only silver coins from Aegean Greece to enter the country and its hoards were Athenian.36 Having no indigenous source of silver itself, Egypt had long provided a market for Aegean silver. That this demand was narrowed in the course of the fifth century to an exclusive preference for Athenian owl silver probably stems from the copious importation of this coinage beginning around 500, its reputation for good quality, and the self-generating dynamic that causes a specie of payment, once it becomes commonly accepted, to create for itself ever increasing levels of acceptance and demand at the expense of and even to the exclusion of other currencies. It
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8. What about Coinage? was a commercial dynamic that seems to have been operating in various degrees in favour of Athenian silver both within and beyond the archê, and explains how, during the second half of the fifth century, Athenian silver was assuming a role as the most sought-after trade specie of the Eastern Mediterranean world. When considering coinage in the context of the Athenian empire, one tends to think primarily of its political and military importance, as indeed the Athenians did themselves when they voted to go to war, or, to take another instance, when they were devising improved schemes for raising revenue from their allied cities. But this addresses the role of money from a fairly narrow public perspective and overlooks the more widespread use of it in the myriad of private transactions in Athens and throughout the archê that took place on a daily basis, transactions that were often quite sizable, such as the many involving whole shiploads of grain, wine, and other commodities in every major emporium. The demand for Athenian silver tetradrachms in Egypt and the Levant is worth reflecting on if for no other reason than that it was a demand created for reasons that had nothing to do with Athenian military and political power, although probably quite a bit to do with the commercial power of Athenian middlemen who could supply the coins and allied merchants who carried them. On the other hand, in a closed political system, state interests and private commercial interests are not so simply kept apart. The core triad of coinage, weights and measures named in the Athenian decree are commercial instruments to be sure but ones provided and legally controlled by local governments. The eikostê was a state tax on individuals’ pursuit of commercial profit. What then is so fascinating about this money is how as a common medium of value and exchange it unites all interests, those in the public, political sphere together with those in the world of private economy. This is probably how we should appreciate the importance of Athenian silver coinage in the Athenian archê, as the common monetary instrument whose production, dissemination and use were not activities that favoured political over commercial power, or vice versa, but means that simultaneously strengthened Athens’ wealth and supremacy in both domains. Notes 1. Picard (2001). 2. This Wappenmünzen coinage: Kraay (1976) pl. 9; its metal: Nicolet-Pierre (1985). 3. Archaic owls: Kraay (1976) pl. 10; Price and Waggoner (1975) pls14-19. 4. Price and Waggoner (1975) 62, reference to Group IV. 5. The diverse evidence for the working output of an obverse coin die is evaluated in a series of papers by F. de Callataÿ, who has repeatedly recommended the range of 20,000-40,000 coins with a preference at 30,000: Callataÿ (2006) 11, 44-8, 115-16.
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John H. Kroll 6. It is unclear how long the 100 talents had been accumulating before 483/2. The sources imply that the 100 talents of 483/2 were a recent windfall, and this may well be right since one does not expect large receipts of income to accrue in the treasury for many years without public notice or discussion. Plutarch (Them. 4.1) and Nepos (Them. 2.2) mention that the Athenians had been distributing earlier mining revenues among themselves on a regular basis. On the other hand, Arist. Ath. Pol. 22.7 attributes the 100 talents to the striking of an especially rich lode at Maroneia, and, like Herodotus (7.144), implies that in 483/2 the Athenians were contemplating a public distribution of mining income for the first time. 7. The fourth-century rate of 1/24th from registered mines is mentioned in the Suda’s definition of agraphou metallou dikê: the procedure for prosecuting anyone who mined silver without registering. 8. Tetradrachms: Starr (1970) passim; Kraay (1976) pl. 11.187, 189. Adjustments of Starr’s chronology following the appearance of the great decadrachm hoard: Kagan (1987). Summary and die estimates: Figueira (1998) 188. 9. Decadrachms: Starr (1970) pls 5-7; Kraay (1976) pl. 11.186. Metallurgical analyses showing that they were minted from Laurion silver (not from silver captured as war booty as Starr conjectured) and recognition that striking must have involved many more than the 17 currently attested obverse dies: NicoletPierre (1998). 10. Flament (2007b) 13-21. As valuable and carefully-constructed as this study is, one can only hope that it will be the first in a series of large-scale projects analysing Athenian fifth-century silver, especially as other non-destructive analytical techniques hold out the potential of refining Flament’s initial determinations. Ideally, a single group of coins should be subjected to two or more different types of testing (for which ibid. 9-12). 11. Flament (2007a) 57-120, pls 1-19. 12. Paper presented at the 2004 conference on the Athenian Currency and Standards decree in Oxford. Publication with the other conference papers is expected. Needless to say, I am most grateful to Dr. Meadows for his permission to précis his work freely before it appears in print. The Iranian hoard in question is Malayer c. 1934 (ICGH 1790). 13. 454 or 449 to 440 plus or minus five years. 14. Figueira (1998), especially chs 7: ‘The Attic Mint and Monetary Output’ and 18: ‘Monetary Integration’. 15. Thuc. 6.91.6, 7.27.5, with Xen. Vect. 25. 16. Emergency gold and bronze coinages: Kraay (1976) pl. 2.202-3; Flament (2007a) 118-20. 17. Figueira (1998), ch. 2: ‘Curtailment of Allied Minting’; (2003) 74-7. 18. Figueira (1998), chs 3-5: ‘Electrum Minting, Mints in Continuous Operation, The Mints of the Autonomous Allies’; (2003): 77-9. 19. As restored in the composite text published in ML no. 45, section 12. The recently-published fragment from Aphytis (Hatzopoulos 2002-3; Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum 51, no. 55) records the oath sentence differently: ‘[If anyone strikes] silver coinage in [the cities and(?)/or(?) uses coin]age other than that of the Athen[ians or weights and measures ot]her than those of the Athenians, I shall b[oth punish and penalise him].’ 20. Cf. Papazarkadas in this volume. By necessitating corrections in the chronologies of a number of key coinages in the third quarter of the century, the appearance of the ‘decadrachm hoard’ in 1984 had already dealt a serious blow to the possibility of reconciling a mid-fifth-century epigraphical date for the decree
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8. What about Coinage? with independent numismatic chronologies; see Price (1987) 47, and Schönhammer (1993). 21. Mattingly (1996) 51-2, 478. 22. Mattingly (1996) 308, 415-26, 491-5. Erxleben (1969-71) and, most recently, Hatzopoulos (2000-3) have followed Mattingly in preferring a date in the mid-420s. 23. Mattingly’s (2000) proposed chronology for the coins of Maroneia has them coming to an end exactly in 425; but other chronologies, based on other assumptions, that would have the coinage continuing after the 420s are, at the very least, equally plausible. Even if one could establish that one or more mints certainly closed in the 420s, ‘breaks in coinage’, as Mattingly (1996: 478) prudently cautioned in another context, ‘ – even prolonged breaks at major mints – may have other causes and were not necessarily dictated by Athens’. 24. Cavaignac (1953) 6-7. Kallet (2001) 205-25. The evidence for the eikostê at this time is Thuc. 7.28. 25. Kallet (2001) 217. 26. So Figueira (2005) 15-38, 48. Kallet (2001) 222-5 is more circumspect. 27. With the publication of the large new fragment of the decree from Aphytis (above, n. 19), the number of textual variants among the extant decree fragments has become substantial, thereby strengthening the argument (now forcefully advanced by Figueira 2006) that the surviving fragments come from more than one successively issued version of the decree. A pattern of revising and reissuing is not hard to imagine if the decree, or decrees, belongs to the volatile final ten years of the archê when through revolts and rejoinings membership of the alliance was constantly in flux and Athens was from time to time having to re-impose control. 28. Hitzl (1996) 96-115, 143-4, with Kroll (1998). 29. Meyer and Moreno (2004). 30. Meyer and Moreno (2004) 212, making reference also to metrological adjustments to or convertibility with Athenian standards in wine amphora capacities and units of linear measure. See especially Figueira (1998) ch. 11: ‘Metrological Consolidation’. 31. Affirmation of this interpretation: Kallet (2001) 212. 32. Indeed, it is worth considering that the two final sections of the composite decree that apparently detail the procedure for re-minting privately-held nonAthenian silver, might themselves have been an earlier statute that was added to the main body of the decree to clarify for the residents of certain allied cities a procedure that had long been in effect in Athens and was so well known there that it might have seemed gratuitous to include it in the original decree legislation. The two sections occur only in the Smyrna fragment of the decree. Since they were not inscribed below the main body of the decree that was set up at Aphytis, they appear to be a later addition. 33. Publication of the poorly-preserved Athenian law of 354/3 that pertains to the minting of coinage (1975 Agora inscription I 7495) by M. Richardson and J. Camp should shed some light on the collaboration of money-changers with the mint. The preliminary text that Richardson presented at the 1997 meeting of the American Philological Association in Chicago mentions, in the context of some mint activity, a law governing exchange by those who changed foreign silver in the Agora. 34. For the term and its application to the production of coinage at certain Hellenistic cities, including Athens: Bresson (2006) 59. Appropriately, the excellent technical account of the Laurion mining and smelting industry by T.E. Rihill (2001) is entitled ‘Making Money in Classical Athens’.
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John H. Kroll 35. Although most of the hoards date to the fourth century, their component of fifth-century Athenian tetradrachms can be huge. Cf. the 1947-48 Egyptian Tell el-Maskhouta hoard (IGCH 1649) with over 6,000 coins, nearly all fifth-century Athenian tetradrachms, and a recent hoard (yet to be mentioned in print) of c. 10,000 Athenian tetradrachms of fifth-century type from Northern Syria. For another eastern hoard, see n. 12 above. Other Egyptian hoards, Flament (2007a) 208-12. Equally strong evidence for the widespread circulation of Attic fifthcentury tetradrachms in the Near East comes from the large number of pseudoAthenian imitations manufactured in the Levant and Egypt; surveyed in Figueira (1998), ch. 20: ‘Imitations of Attic Coins’. 36. Papyrus documents from Egypt dating between 410 and c. 390 BC mention ‘staters of Greek silver’, which, weighing 17+ grams, are apparently Athenian tetradrachms (Kroll 2001: 14-6).
Bibliography Bresson, A. (2006), ‘The Athenian Mint in the Second Century BC and the Amphictionic Decree’, Annali (Instituto Italiano di Numismatica) 52: 45-77. Callataÿ, F. de (2006), Quantifications et numismatique antique, Choix d’articles (1984-2004) (Wetteren). Carradice, I. (ed.) (1987), Coinage and Administration in the Athenian Empire (Oxford). Cavaignac, E. (1953), ‘Le decret dit de Klearkhos’, Revue Numismatique, 5th ser. 15: 1-7. Erxleben, E. (1969-71), ‘Das Münzgesetz des delisch-attischen Seebundes’, Archiv für Papyrusforschung 19:91-139; 20:66-132; 21:145-62. Figueira, T. (1998), The Power of Money, Coinage and Politics in the Athenian Empire (Philadelphia). ——— (2003), ‘Economic Integration and Monetary Consolidation in the Athenian Arkhe’, in G. Urso (ed.), Moneta, Mercanti, Banchiere, I precedenti greci e romani dell’Euro (Pisa). Electronic publication at www.fondazionecanussio.org/atti2002.htm. ——— (2005), ‘The Imperial Commercial Tax and the Finances of the Athenian Hegemony’, Incidenza dell’ Antico 3: 83-133. ——— (2006), ‘Reconsidering the Athenian Coinage Decree’, Annali (Instituto Italiano di Numismatica) 52: 9-44. Flament, C. (2007a), Le monnayage en argent d’Athènes de l’époque archaïque à l’époque hellénistique (Louvain-le-Neuve). ——— (2007b), ‘L’argent des Chouettes’, Revue Belge de Numismatique 153: 9-30. Hatzopoulos, M. (2000-3), ‘N2o ¢pÒtmhma ¢pÕ t]n -Afuti toà ¢ttikoà yhf8smatoj per< nom8smatoj staqmîn ka< m2trwn’, Horos 14-16: 31-43. Hitzl, K. (1996), Die Gewichte griechischer Zeit aus Olympia (Olympische Forschungen 23) (Berlin and New York). IGCH = M. Thompson et al. (eds), An Inventory of Greek Coin Hoards (New York 1973). Kagan, J.B. (1987), ‘The Decadrachm Hoard: Chronology and Consequences’, in Carradice (ed.) (1987), 21-8. Kallet, L. (2001), Money and the Corrosion of Power in Thucydides: The Sicilian Expedition and its Aftermath (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London). Kraay, C.M. (1976), Archaic and Classical Greek Coins (London).
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8. What about Coinage? Kroll, J.H. (1998), Revue of Hitzl (1996), American Journal of Archaeology 102: 632-3. ——— (2001), ‘A Small Find of Silver Bullion from Egypt’, American Journal of Numismatics, 2nd ser., 13: 1-20. Mattingly, H.B. (1996), The Athenian Empire Restored, Epigraphical and Historical Studies (Ann Arbor). ——— (2000), ‘The Fifth-Century Tetradrachm Coinage of Maroneia’, Numismatic Chronicle 160: 261-3. Meyer, H.C. and Moreno, A. (2004), ‘A Greek Metrological Koine: A Lead Weight from the Western Black Sea Region in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford’, Oxford Journal of Archaeology 23: 209-16. Nicolet-Pierre, H. (1985), ‘Monnaies archaïques d’Athènes sous Pisistrate et les Pisistratides (c. 545-c. 510). II. Recherches sur la composition métallique des Wappenmünzen en collaboration avec Jean-Noël Barrandon et Jean-Yves Calvez’, Revue Numismatique, 6th ser., 27: 23-44. ——— (1998), ‘Autour du décadrachme athenien conservé à Paris’, in R. Ashton and S. Hurter (eds), Studies in Greek Numismatics in memory of Martin Jessop Price (London), 294-99. Picard, O. (2001), ‘Le découverte des gisements du Laurion et les débuts de la chouette’, Revue Belge de Numismatique 147: 1-10. Price, M. (1987), ‘The Coinages of the Northern Aegean’, in Carradice (ed.) (1987), 43-7. ——— and Waggoner, N. (1975), Archaic Greek Coinage, the Asyut Hoard (London). Rihll, T.E. (2001), ‘Making Money in Classical Athens’, in D.J. Mattingly and J. Salmon (eds), Economies Beyond Agriculture in the Classical World (London and New York), 115-42. Schönhammer, M. (1993), ‘Some Thoughts on the Athenian Coinage Decree’, in T. Hackens and G. Moucharte (eds), Proceedings of the XI International Numismatic Congress I (Louvain-la-Neuve), 187-91. Starr, C.G. (1970), Athenian Coinage 480-449 BC (Oxford).
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9
‘The Attic Neighbour’: The Cleruchy in the Athenian Empire 1
Alfonso Moreno ‘Imperialism is not a pleasant thing’ – nevertheless, in the view famously championed by Ste. Croix and still prevalent today, imperial Athens did not exploit its allies ‘in any extensive way.’2 However resented as a symbol of subjection it might have become among allies, the payment of tribute to Athens was usually neither intended nor in all likelihood even felt as economically punitive.3 Instead, tribute seems to have been demanded in careful proportion to – even in consideration of the long-term sustainability of – the economic resources of individual poleis, including not only agricultural production, but also pasturage, fishing, mineral wealth, and tax revenues.4 Furthermore, since the correct assessment of the local resources of the total of 248 states appearing at various times as tributaries of Athens was undoubtedly a complex process dependent on access to highly localised and potentially variable information, it is not entirely surprising that even the harshest-sounding of surviving Athenian decrees still gave each ally the right to appeal at Athens for more lenient treatment on economic grounds.5 Yet the mild (if not benign) image of Athenian imperialism yielded by focusing on this proportional and reasoned exaction of tribute can only be partial, even misleading. The monumental Quota Lists understandably draw our attention as preciously eloquent documents of Athenian imperial finances, but they do not paint anything close to a full picture of Athenian economic exploitation and allied discontent. A far more accurate and nearly contemporary appreciation of these twin phenomena is possible thanks to the decree of Aristoteles of spring 377 6 BC. This well-known document acts both as a prospectus of the Second Athenian League and as an invitation to potential new members. Quite different from a constitution, it is an informal outline of how non-Athenians were thought to remember – or to fear a resurgence of – fifth-century Athenian imperialism. The decree implicitly seeks to reassure new allies among the Greeks and barbarians that the perceived abuses of the Athenian leadership of the Delian League would not be repeated. Garrisons, governors and tribute are therefore for the future disavowed, but interestingly the mention of even such important elements of empire is only brief
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Alfonso Moreno and superficial (lines 22-3). By striking contrast, the abolition, both retrospective and prospective, of Athenian encroachment on the territories of its allies is given long and detailed treatment (lines 25-46). While the inscription very broadly prohibits the acquisition of ‘landed property … either private or public’ (t> 1gktˇmata … À ∏dia À dhmÒsia7) ‘whether through purchase or by taking as security or by any other means’ (mˇte priam2nwi mˇte Øpoqem2nwi mˇte ¥llwi trÒpwi8), the type of Athenian occupation that would have been of most concern to anyone in 377 is clear from the account of Diodorus (taken, almost certainly, from the contemporary Ephorus9): … and they also passed a decree (1yhf8santo) to restore the lands which had become cleruchies to their former owners, and established by law (nÒmon 4qento) that no Athenian should cultivate lands outside of Attica.10
Similarly, a few chapters earlier, among the causes of the Spartan ascendancy of the 380s that the Second Athenian League is said to have aimed to counteract, Diodorus (Ephorus) mentions the lingering ill-repute of the Athenians for making cleruchies out of the lands of their defeated enemies.11 The Ephoran account is clearly an abbreviated and generalised form of the two technical parts of the ban, the first (retrospectively annulling any existing property claim: reflected on lines 25-35 of the prospectus) embodied in a decree (yˇfisma), the second (prospectively prohibiting all such claims: reflected on lines 35-46) embodied in a law (nomÒj).12 As such it is actually correct: places that were not admitted to the new alliance (like Lemnos, Imbros and Scyros) legally remained cleruchies, or remained liable to be subjected to them later (like Samos and Potidaea).13 More importantly, the Ephoran account establishes what was too sensitive for official Athenian documents like the decree of Aristoteles, with their characteristic phraseological tact, to spell outright: the renunciation of encroachment on the land of the new allies was meant to apply principally to cleruchies. Therefore, if the decree of Aristoteles provides ‘comme une vision “en négatif” de la 1re Confédération athénienne’,14 it follows that the Athenian cleruchies were the most intensely and widely detested element of fifth-century Athenian imperialism. Without entering in significant detail into the considerable uncertainty that remains around its precise legal characteristics, the essential feature of the Athenian cleruchy always remained the dual liability to Athenian taxation and military service that came attached with the possession of the plot, or klêros.15 This unusual combination of private and public interests, no doubt emerging from the fact that cleruchies were lands captured by the state, and over which the state reserved some rights after their distribution to individual Athenians, would almost certainly have restricted the full alienability of the land. Again, the technical details are
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9. ‘The Attic Neighbour’ still obscure in detail, and need not detain us here, although it is suggestive of their fluidity that the language of the Aristoteles decree so closely connects cleruchic possession with a variety of other kinds of property interest, both public and private.16 If it is initially puzzling that modern accounts of Athenian imperialism ignore the full exploitative effect of the cleruchies, it becomes more understandable on the basic assumption that cleruchies were a means of providing land for the Athenian poor and usefully deploying them overseas in permanent garrisons.17 This notion not only removes the cleruchy to a position of relatively peripheral importance to the Athenian imperial economy, but it also coats it with the palatable dressing of democratic social justice. However, as I have argued elsewhere, the belief is without any foundation other than the opinion of Plutarch, which almost certainly retrojects a later view of Roman colonies.18 Against Plutarch we now have the evidence of two inscriptions yielding precisely the opposite conclusion. The first is the roster of 250 Council members from the fourth-century cleruchy on Samos in which, far from having their movements limited through garrison duty, cleruchs seem to enjoy complete freedom of movement, including of residence in Athens.19 The second is the Athenian Grain Tax Law of 374/3 in which, far from having dispatched their poor to Lemnos, Imbros, and Scyros, the Athenians are seen (on my interpretation) to have allocated these islands to a group of pentakosiomedimnoi, the highest Athenian income class, who are individually charged from 374/3 onwards to pay a large tax in kind of 500 medimnoi (over 14.25 metric tonnes) of grain per year.20 Both of these documents seem to cohere well with the circumstantial and prosopographical evidence of cleruchies: the Attic Stelai reveal a number of wealthy Athenians, at least some of whom must be cleruchs, with landed possessions on Euboea;21 similar cleruchs appear in the Chersonese and later on Samos.22 They probably included men of the social class of Charmides (cousin of the infamous oligarch Critias) and Ariston (father of Plato), or of one Eutherus, who (rather pitifully) complains to Socrates after the Peloponnesian War that the loss of his overseas possessions has reduced him to having to earn his living through manual labour.23 In addition, we now have the archaeological evidence from Vrachos, an Euboean fort securely dated to the period of the first Athenian cleruchy on Chalcis, which suggests the presence of up to 200 non-Athenian (i.e. mercenary) archers, rather than of Athenian garnisaires.24 This evidence (much of it new) tilts the balance in favour of the old hypothesis that cleruchs ‘sent out’ by Athens usually returned home to live as rentiers of their overseas possessions.25 It also begins to reveal a very different picture of the economic role of the Athenian cleruchies: far from a mechanism intended to help the Athenian poor, or to keep them in useful employment in military colonies, they were a direct source of profit to individual Athenians as well as (indirectly) to the state. The rich penta-
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Alfonso Moreno kosiomedimnos who could be asked to pay a sizeable yearly eisphora in grain to the dêmos was presumably allowed to keep a comparable amount (equivalent in value, very approximately, to something between 2,900 and 1,800 dr.) for private consumption and sale.26 Likewise, each of the 3,000 klêroi set up on Lesbos (the whole of the island except for Methymna) was allocated a uniform rent of 200 drachmas per year, but (except for the 300 sacred klêroi) also made their possessors liable to the usual requirements of taxation and military service (simplified by the fact that an income of 200 drachmas automatically qualified each recipient as a hoplite).27 This balance of private and public interests led men like Charmides jokingly to contrast his situation before and after the Peloponnesian War and the loss of the cleruchies: ‘Then I used to bring tribute to the dêmos, but now the state imposes a tax and supports me.’28 The overall benefit to Athens of this means of exploitation, though impossible to quantify with any precision, was huge. Tribute was ‘trivial’ by comparison, as Osborne rightly notes from the fact that the total yearly payment by the lessees of the 3,000 klêroi on Lesbos amounted to 100 talents, more than three times the highest tributes of 30 talents, assessed on Thasos and Aegina.29 Even more revealing is the fact that until 428 Mytilene had been contributing ten ships, probably the equivalent of ten talents, and that roughly three-quarters of Athens’ allies paid one talent or less in tribute.30 I have elsewhere argued that most of Athens’ substantial imports of grain in the fifth century, a yearly quantity in the vicinity of 1,300,000 medimnoi of wheat (whose total value may be roughly translated to 1,300 talents), were drawn from an empire of cleruchies, with Euboea as its crown-jewel.31 And it is startling to note that these figures involve only a part of agricultural resources, and should therefore be seen as a kind of minimum estimate.32 In short, total yearly tribute, whether it amounted to 460 talents (in 477) or 600 talents (in 432), must have paled by comparison with the Athenian exploitation of its cleruchies.33 More importantly, whereas tribute was (at least in theory) intended to fund the operation of an alliance, the benefits of such territorial encroachment flowed solely to an Athenian ‘master race’ (in Badian’s words).34 We therefore come to the dark side of this form of imperialism, and to its violent cost to non-Athenians. In some cases, as in Lesbos, a cleruchy entailed the complete expropriation of the land from its former owners, who then became mere hirelings (pel£tai), satisfying with their yearly rent of 200 drachmas the income requirements of their foreign landlords.35 The same passage of Thucydides specifies that this treatment was in lieu of tribute, and this fits the widespread (and probably correct) assumption that the imposition of a cleruchy on a part of the territory of an ally was accompanied by a partial waiver of tribute, as in the cases of Andros, Naxos, Carystos and the Thracian Chersonese in the mid-fifth century.36 But it could be far worse in other cases, where expropriation came with the removal of the original population. More than two decades after the
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9. ‘The Attic Neighbour’ Peloponnesian War (in 380) Greek opinion still evidently associated Athenian cleruchies with emptied landscapes and exiled locals, even if the depopulation of entire states (as if by some natural cause) could be manipulated by Isocrates into a cynical justification for the settlement of Athenians.37 But the mass exile of the Histiaeans in 446, and the genocide of the Melians in 416/15, even if exceptionally brutal, are well-attested examples of what seems to have been a policy of depopulating landscapes (so that, for example, in the case of Melos, the land is transferred from a population of c. 5,000 to 500 Athenian cleruchs), presumably in order to maximise the exploitation of a surplus produced by a labour force of slaves or local dependants.38 Samos from 365/4 fits the same pattern: the Athenians ‘expelled all the Samians’ (p£ntaj 1x2balon), no doubt a large population (calculated as 30,000-50,000 for 494 BC), and divided the land among three cleruch contingents, one numbering a mere 2,000.39 Curiously, this last episode seems to have made the phrase ,AttikÕj p£roikoj proverbial for the noxious neighbour.40 The proverb thus claimed that a predilection for encroachment on neighbouring lands, surrendered by force in 405 and solemnly disavowed in 377, was an incurable addiction, almost a part of the national character of the Athenians. As is usual with proverbs, a blunt truth lies behind this one. The Athenians could well regard the cleruchy as an ancestral institution, devised in the time of Solon and since then a companion to their city’s political and social prosperity. The earliest cleruchies after Salamis – Peisistratid Sigeion and Lampsacus, Philaid Chersonesus and Lemnos and Imbros – were quasiprivate outlets for the ambitions of the Athenian elite, where they could exploit serf-like populations in ways forbidden in Attica after the Solonian reforms, while increasing their resources for largesse and political influence back at home.41 Thus were established the peculiar characteristics of the Athenian cleruchy, which distinguish it sharply from the tradition of Greek apoikiai: the interaction (as seen above) of private and public interests that resulted in the state’s permanent claim on the income and manpower of its settlers; the tradition of dependence on Athens that resulted in a cleruchic landscape imagined as an actual extension of Attica (= cèra tîn ,Aqhna8wn), complete with a transplanted geography.42 Thus also was founded the relationship dynamic between cleruch and local population: as ZelnickAbramovitz has noted in an important article, the local man killed by Euthyphro’s father on the family’s klêros on Naxos is called a pel£thj, literally ‘neighbour’, but the same word used by Aristotle (alongside 0ktˇmoroj) to describe the status of the poor in pre-Solonian Attica, a condition amounting to slavery (doule8a) for themselves and their families, and famously entailing the payment of part of the produce of the land.43 Noting, on the other hand, that Hesychius equates the term klhroàcoj with despÒthj,44 Zelnick-Abramovitz identifies the relationship of cleruch and local as essentially one of vassalage, and thus persuasively suggests
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Alfonso Moreno that the widespread hatred felt by the Greeks was based on far more than economic exploitation: ‘the gravest injury was to the concept – real or imagined – of freedom, 1leuqer8a.’45 Perhaps paradoxically, these traditions existed – indeed flourished – under a democracy or underwent only superficial changes. Although the dependence on imported grain by the dêmos demanded an articulated ideology of public control, the cleruchic project always remained a public/private quid pro quo.46 There always remained, in particular, the guiding presence of the Athenian elite in the extension and exploitation of cleruchies and their resources. Just as the Philaidai had led the conquest of the Thracian Chersonesus, Lemnos, and Imbros before the Persian Wars, it was Cimon who led cleruchies to Eion and Scyros in the early years of the Delian League. It was Cimon also who recaptured the Thracian Chersonesus, previously lost to the Persians, an action in which he was later followed by Pericles and (in the fourth century) Timotheus. And to give a final example, it was a descendant of Cimon, a Miltiades of Lakiadai, who in spring 324 sailed to the Adriatic ‘in order that the dêmos may for all future time have their own commerce and transport in grain’.47 Even the daughter of this Miltiades, named Euthydice, came to play a role: through her marriage to Ophellas, the general of Ptolemy I and later tyrant of Cyrene, she involved the Athenians in her husband’s failed invasion of western Libya in 309: ‘they hoped to set up a cleruchy on the most fertile part of Libya and to plunder the wealth of Carthage.’48 Here Euthydice was following in the footsteps not only of her family, but also of Alcibiades, who had famously promised Carthage and the West to the Athenians in 415.49 If we can follow a fundamental continuity in the Athenian obsession with cleruchies from the Archaic period onwards, we have still to find its deeper origins. I have elsewhere suggested that seventh-century Sparta’s annexation of Messenia, the distribution of this large region in the form of klêroi, its farming by its former and thenceforth enslaved owners, and the contributions of its produce to the Spartiate common mess (sussit8a), all provide an important part of the context for understanding the Athenian cleruchy.50 Perhaps more important, however, was the perception that the Athenians could look to cleruchies to engineer solutions to recurrent crises.51 Thus may have been regarded the earliest growth of the cleruchy at Salamis and Sigeion in the Solonian period, and its contribution in easing the pressures on land and labour that afflicted Attica at the time. Later, at the time of the Cleisthenic revolution, the cleruchy became not only a democratic project, but also a solution to a military and political crisis. Ehrenberg’s suggestion that the Cleisthenic catchword isonomia was understood as ‘equality of distribution’ (from -n2mein) may not have sounded implausible to the 4,000 Athenians receiving klêroi on the land of defeated Chalcis in 506, at a time when Athens was under military threat on every side.52 Nor is it unlikely that the mechanism of distribution was
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9. ‘The Attic Neighbour’ from the start the lot (klêros), thus cementing a perceived affinity between this means of selection, the distributed parcels (klêroi), and the democracy itself.53 Later, at the height of the Athenian Empire, the cleruchy evidently provided a solution to the problem of food supply to an overpopulated capital. The control of Euboea by the dêmos seems to have become a kind of comic topos, with Pericles using geometry (a ‘democratic and useful scheme’) to partition the land,54 and allowing the demos to become ‘like a wild horse’ that ‘no longer dared to obey, but bit Euboea, and leapt on the islands’.55 The irony of this great democratic project was, as we have seen, that it required the systematic enslavement of non-Athenian Greeks. But after 404, when Athens’ problem became its very survival as a player in Greek politics, the Athenians once again looked to the cleruchy. The recognition in the King’s Peace of 387 of Lemnos, Imbros and Scyros as Athenian possessions was an undoubted success,56 and henceforth, these islands were to play an increasingly important role. It is probably no coincidence that Callistratus of Aphidna, who devised the tributary mechanism (sÚntaxij) of the Second Athenian League by c. 373, was the nephew of Agyrrhius of Collytus, the proposer of the Grain Tax Law of 374/3: their two projects surely went hand in hand.57 With a former tax in cash now changed by Agyrrhius to a much heavier tax in kind, Athens again looked to its cleruchies for resources, but likewise signalled to prospective members of the alliance that it would intensify its exploitation of its ancestral possessions (or of non-members of the League) rather than looking to the allies, a reassuring move. However well-intended (or ambitious), it is in hindsight plain to see in this plan a serious overestimate of Athens’ capacity to recover its power while relying mainly on its own resources. The promises of Callistratus and Agyrrhius were not easy ones to keep, and ended disastrously in the Social War, on the one hand, and in conflict with Alexander, ostensibly over the cleruchy on Samos, on the other. Can imperialism ever be a pleasant thing? To be sure, even the Athenian cleruchic project had its benefits, a few of which extended to non-Athenians. Most important of these was the peace and stability of the Aegean under the empire. Trade flourished under the protection and stimulus of Athenian power. The Athenian need to protect the city’s cleruchies through fortifications, especially maritime, is a phenomenon most extensively apparent on fifth-century Euboea, and one that would have contributed indirectly to the safety of all adjacent routes.58 The right of intermarriage (1pigam8a) that the Athenians granted to all Euboeans, may qualify as another potential benefit, and one that (if it had been more widely used) might have provided Athenians with a sustainable way of running and preserving the cleruchic project.59 But this instance of intermarriage remained only a small and exceptional breach of well-entrenched Greek attitudes towards citizenship, as well as of the Athenians’ perceived entitlement to the exclusive enjoyment of their power. In the end Athens’
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Alfonso Moreno cleruchic programme was so invidious, it simply became unsustainable. Just as the Spartans exploited this sentiment to present themselves as the liberators of Greece at the opening of the Peloponnesian War, Alexander did the same at Olympia, more than a century later, in promulgating the restoration of the Samian exiles and the abolition of the Athenian cleruchy.60 And so, within a few decades of each other, the Athenian cleruchy (and alongside it – not by coincidence – the democracy) went the way of Spartan Messenia. Notes 1. I am much indebted to the patience and help of the editors, especially Robert Parker, in the writing of this paper. 2. Ste. Croix (1972) 43-4. 3. See Meiggs (1972) 272: ‘The chief grievances of the allies in the period before the Peloponnesian War were not economic.’ 4. Nixon and Price (1990) 148-51; Osborne (2000) 89-91. 5. IG I3 71 (= ML 69), ll. 20-2 (as restored); see further Meiggs (1972) 240-1. 6. IG II2 43 (= RO 22). 7. IG II2 43, ll. 27-9; see also ll. 36-7. 8. IG II2 43, ll. 39-41. 9. FGrHist IIC (Komm. 64-105) 28. 10. Diod. Sic. 15.29.8: 1yhf8santo d5 ka< t>j genom2naj klhrouc8aj ¢pokatastÁsai to√j prÒteron kur8oij gegonÒsi, ka< nÒmon 4qento mhd2na tîn ,Aqhna8wn gewrge√n 1ktÕj tÁj ,AttikÁj. 11. Diod. Sic. 15.23.4: … ,Aqhna√oi d5 di> t>j tîn katapolemoum2nwn klhrouc8aj ºdÒxoun 1n to√j *Ellhsin. 12. On the distinction, see Hansen (1999) 162. 13. Badian (1995) 91; cf. RO 102: ‘Diodorus’ renunciation of all cleruchies is wrong.’ 14. Gauthier (1973) 170. See also Cargill (1981) 146: ‘Disavowal of ownership of real property in allied territories is the most thoroughly spelled-out promise of the decree of Aristoteles.’ 15. As set out since the sixth century in IG I3 1 (= ML 14), ll. 2-3 ([,Aq2ne]si telen ka< strat[eÚesq]ai), and apparently followed thereafter, most visibly (in the case of taxation) in the Grain Tax Law of 374/3; see Meiggs (1972) 121; Moreno (2007) 102. 16. See n. 6 above. Zelnick-Abramovitz (2004) 327-30 provides a useful, though inconclusive, survey of views; see also Moreno (2007) 89n.58, and 103n.125, taking issue with rigid interpretations. 17. See Ste. Croix (1972) 43: ‘Some thousands of individual Athenians, doubtless mainly poor ones, profited from colonies and cleruchies, in which they received parcels of land, or from which (like the Lesbian cleruchs in 427, Thuc. III 50.2) they drew regular rents’; Meiggs (1972) 260-1: ‘The thetes and to a lesser extent the zeugitai found new opportunities overseas. … Soon after the middle of the century the policy of settling poorer Athenians overseas was more widely extended in a series of cleruchies. … The cleruchs farming their lots could become potential hoplites and would at the same time act as garrisons of cities whose loyalty was unreliable.’ On cleruchs as garnisaires, see Hornblower (2002) and in OCD3 348; and especially Salomon (1997).
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9. ‘The Attic Neighbour’ 18. Moreno (2007) 93. Support for Plutarch’s idea has usually been found in the amendment to the decree establishing a cleruchy at Brea (IG I3 46.43-6 = ML 49.39-42), which excludes members of the two highest property classes from the allotment, but this seems far more like a peculiar afterthought to a decision that originally included no such restriction, than the expression of the norm. On the other hand, nothing in my argument requires a restriction in the allotment of lands to the poor: I simply assume (and, in any case, the large numbers of cleruchs attested require this) that all Athenian citizens (see n. 34 below) came to assume participation in the allotment of klêroi as a democratic right. In many cases receipt of land would have required a change of income class, as in the case of Anthemion the son of Diphilus from thete to knight, recorded by [Arist.] Ath. Pol. 7.4, with Rhodes, CAAP ad loc.; see further Moreno (2007) 143 and p. 216 above. 19. Hallof and Habicht (1995) 293-9. See an additional example of cleruchic mobility in Hdt. 6.100-1 with Moreno (2007) 93-4. 20. Moreno (2007) 102-15; the case was first made in Moreno (2003). 21. Moreno (2007) 89-91. 22. Moreno (2007) 92, 95. 23. The evidence is collected and discussed in Moreno (2007) 91-3; on Eutherus, see also Zelnick-Abramovitz (2004) 335: ‘Eutherus is the kind of man who is not accustomed to work, and certainly not as a hired labourer.’ 24. Sapouna-Sakellaraki et al. (2002) 87, 114-15; Moreno (2007) 101-2. 25. Brunt (1966) 72n.8; A.H.M. Jones (1957) 174-6. 26. Moreno (2007) 106, 113. 27. Thuc. 3.50 with Moreno (2007) 95. Units of the Athenian army or cavalry formed from cleruchs seem to have been designated by the name of the land whose rent qualified them for service, for example, ‘Histiaeans’, ‘Lemnians’, ‘Imbrians’, etc.: see Moreno (2007) 102-3. 28. Xen. Symp. 4.30-2. 29. Osborne (2000) 91. 30. Thuc. 3.3.4 with Nixon and Price (1990) 139: ‘it is likely that one trireme was the equivalent of a talent of tribute’; 143: ‘most of the contributors (71 per cent of 205 contributors in 441 BC) paid one talent or less’. 31. Moreno (2007) 10, 143. 32. See p. 211 above. 33. Thuc. 1.96.2; 2.13.3. 34. See Badian (1993) 19 with Hornblower (2002) 36: ‘Only Athenian citizens could profit by allotments of land as ‘cleruchs’ (literally ‘allotment-holders’) and it may be more than chance that the qualifications for Athenian citizenship are more closely defined at about this time (451): citizen descent was now required on both sides;’ and Moreno (2007) 300, connecting the scrutiny of the citizen registers (diayhfismÒj), mentioned in connection with the grain distribution of 445, with the distribution of klêroi on Euboea one year earlier. 35. Thuc. 3.50. On the use of the word pel£thj to denote these hirelings, see Zelnick-Abramovitz (2004) 336-42 and below. 36. See Meiggs (1972) 121-3, 530. 37. Isoc 4.107: t>j 1rhmoum2naj tîn pÒlewn (380 BC). 38. Likewise, Andros and Naxos, each a considerable island, are partly converted into cleruchies of 250 and 500 Athenians, respectively (Plut. Per. 11.5-6); the whole of the polis of Mytilene, occupied by at least 20,000 inhabitants, is subsumed into the 3,000 klêroi on Lesbos; see Moreno (2007) 317-18 for a full
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Alfonso Moreno discussion. On the issue of labour and surplus in the cleruchies, see Moreno (2007) 111-12, 316-17, 320-1. 39. Heraclides FHG II, 216 (= Arist. F 611.35 Rose); Strab. 14.1.18. The population is calculated by Shipley (1987) 12-15. 40. Duris FGrHist 76 F96; Craterus FGrHist 342 F21: KraterÕj d5 ¢pÕ tîn e9j
S£mon pemfq2ntwn ,Aqˇnhqen 1po8kwn t]n paroim8an e9rÁsqai: ,Attiko< g>r metapemfq2ntej e9j S£mon ka< 1ke√ katoikˇsantej to)j 1gcwr8ouj 1x2wsan.
The proverb appears also in Arist. Rhet. 1395a18. 41. Moreno (2007) 140-1. 42. Moreno (2007) 305-6. 43. Zelnick-Abramovitz (2004) 339, citing [Arist.] Ath. Pol. 2.2: Ãn g>r aÙtîn = polite8a to√j te ¥lloij Ñligarcik] p©si, ka< d] ka< 1doÚleuon o; p2nhtej to√j plous8oij ka< aÙto< ka< t> t2kna ka< a; guna√kej. ka< 1kaloànto
pel£tai ka< 0ktˇmoroi: kat> taÚthn g>r t]n m8sqwsin ºrg£zonto tîn plous8wn to)j ¢groÚj. That the man is a Naxian seems likely from the meaning of the word pel£thj as ‘neighbour’ or ‘the other’ in Plato (outside Euthyphro) and
previous literature: see Zelnick-Abramovitz (2004) 339-41. 44. Hsch. s.v. klhroàcoj. 45. Zelnick-Abramovitz (2004) 344n.52. 46. See e.g. the opening of the Grain Tax Law of 374/3: Ópwj .n tîi dˇmwi s√toj Ãi 1n tîi koinîi. Ar. Vesp. 715-18 provides an interesting glimpse of the conflict; for discussion of this and other examples, see Moreno (2007) 96-7, 303-8. 47. IG II2 1629 (= RO 100), ll. 217-20; on this Miltiades, who is referred to as an oikist (ll. 142, 161, 224), see Davies (1971), 309. 48. Diod. Sic. 20.40.6: 1lp8zontej tˇn te krat8sthn tÁj LibÚhj kataklhroucˇsein ka< tÕn 1n KarchdÒni diapr£sein ploàton. 49. Thuc. 6.15.2, 90.2, cf. 6.34.2. 50. Moreno (2007) 320. 51. See Moreno (2007) 314. 52. See Ehrenberg (1940) 293-301; discussed by Vlastos (1953) 346-7n.36. The alternative and today preferred meaning of ‘equality under the law’ is equally possible: the power of a good political catchword lies in its signifying different things to different people! 53. On the perceived connection between the lot and democracy see Headlam (1933) 12-17. 54. Ar. Nub. 202-5. 55. Plut. Per. 7.6; on these passages see Moreno (2007) 96-7. 56. Xen. Hell. 5.1.31. 57. Theopomp. FGrHist 115 F98; for the date see RO 101. 58. On the fortification of cleruchies, see Moreno (2007) 126-40. 59. Lys. 34.3. 60. Thuc. 2.8.4; Diod. Sic. 17.109.1.
Bibliography Badian, E. (1993), From Plataea to Potidaea: Studies in the History and Historiography of the Pentecontaetia (Baltimore). ——— (1995), ‘The Ghost of Empire: Reflections on Athenian Foreign Policy in the Fourth Century BC’, in W. Eder (ed.), Die athenische Demokratie im 4. Jahrhundert v. Chr.: Vollendung oder Verfall eines Verfassungsform? (Stuttgart), 79-106.
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9. ‘The Attic Neighbour’ Brunt, P.A. (1966), ‘Athenian Settlements Abroad in the Fifth Century BC’, in E. Badian (ed.), Ancient Society and Institutions: Studies Presented to Victor Ehrenberg on his 75th Birthday (Oxford), 71-92. Cargill, J. (1981), The Second Athenian League: Empire or Free Alliance? (Berkeley). Davies, J.K. (1971), Athenian Propertied Families (Oxford). Ehrenberg, V. (1940), ‘Isonomia’, in G. Wissowa, W. Kroll and K. Witte (eds), Paulys Real Encyclopädie der Klassischen Altertumswissenschaft Suppl. vol. VII (Stuttgart), cols 293-301. Gauthier, P. (1973), ‘A propos des clérouquies athéniennes du Ve siècle’, in M.I. Finley (ed.), Problèmes de la terre en Grèce ancienne (Paris/La Haye), 163-78. Hallof, K. and Habicht, C. (1995), ‘Buleuten und Beamte der athenischen Kleruchie in Samos’, AM 110: 273-304. Hansen, M.H. (1999), The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes, 2nd edn (Oxford). Headlam, J.W. (1933), Election by Lot at Athens, 2nd edn (Cambridge). Hornblower, S. (2002), The Greek World, 479-323 BC, 3rd edn (London). Jones, A.H.M. (1957), Athenian Democracy (Oxford). Meiggs, R. (1972), The Athenian Empire (Oxford). Moreno, A. (2003), ‘Athenian Bread-Baskets: The Grain-Tax Law of 374/3 BC Re-interpreted’, ZPE 145: 97-106. ——— (2007), Feeding the Democracy: The Athenian Grain Supply in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries BC (Oxford). Nixon, L. and Price, S. (1990), ‘The Size and Resources of Greek Cities’, in O. Murray and S. Price (eds), The Greek City from Homer to Alexander (Oxford), 137-70. Osborne, R. (2000), The Athenian Empire, LACTOR 1, 4th edn (London). Ste. Croix, G.E.M. de (1972), The Origins of the Peloponnesian War (London). Salomon, N. (1997), Le cleruchie di Atene: Caratteri e funzione (Pisa). Sapouna-Sakellaraki, E., Coulton, J.J. and Metzger, I.R. (2002), The Fort at Phylla, Vrachos: Excavations and Researches at a Late Archaic Fort in Central Euboea, BSA Suppl. vol. 33 (Athens). Shipley, G. (1987), A History of Samos, 800-188 BC (Oxford). Vlastos, G. (1953), ‘Isonomia’, AJP 74: 337-66. Zelnick-Abramovitz, R. (2004), ‘Settlers and Dispossessed in the Athenian Empire’, Mnemosyne 57: 325-45.
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Afterword: Whither the Athenian Empire? John Ma Snapshots Snapshot 1. A group of working men, with their tools: punches, hammers, anvils with dies set in them – the mint workers of fifth-century Athens, probably dêmosioi, public slaves owned by the democratic state. The date of this snapshot might be some time in the 440s: this year, the powerful arms of the mint workers will hammer out at least one million tetradrachms, and probably a lot more – big silver bits, each one worth enough to feed a family for a week. I wonder how this huge mass of money gets into circulation; what the lifecycle of a tetradrachm is, from argentiferous lead ore seam to coin to state payment to private consumption to taxation to tribute payment to the Athenian state again; what the monetary mass tells us about the economy of the Athenian-dominated Aegean; and whether any of the mint workers ever owned one of these coins they produced in such quantities. Snapshot 2. An aerial view of Melos in spring 415, after the massacre of the Melians: the island transformed into the ‘empty landscape’ of the cleruchy. Yet who works this landscape, who makes it pay for the Athenian landlords? Let us look at snapshot 3. Naxos, two men. One is the Athenian owner of a cleruchic estate. The other man I take to be the former owner of the land, who has had to eke out an embittered existence as a hired hand to the Athenian. He is now dead, his skin and dew-wet matted beard the colour of clay: a while earlier, in a fit of drunkenness, he killed one of the Athenian’s slaves, and the Athenian boss had him hogtied and thrown into a ditch, where he suffered a long-drawn, agonising death by exposure and exhaustion, while the Athenian awaited a response from the exêgêtês (a religious official) in Athens on how to treat him. Snapshot 4. A group of men, in the 420s: the proxenoi of Athens, pro-Athenian partisans living in a variety of communities subordinate to Athens. Their lives, and those of their families, are protected by decrees from Athens, with the threat of heavy penalties if they should be murdered. Are these the most hated men in the Aegean, during the Archidamian War? Who would want to be an Athenian proxenos? A Siphnian trader. One conclusion might be that the Athenian empire did not rest on fraternal, friendly democracies, but partisans and factions, on an ad hoc, pragmatic, or even cynical, basis, as Roger Brock shows.
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John Ma Snapshot 5. The City Dionysia in Athens. The carriers of imperial tribute – sacks of coins, or vessels, that will be piled up in the orchestra, each containing a talent so that the spectators can tally up the huge sums involved – walking by the Odeion of Pericles, a building in which the Athenians deliberately adopted a building type developed in Iran to convey Achaemenid majesty, and modified to make a proud statement of empire (to paraphrase Miller, quoted by Raaflaub in this volume). How explicit, how unconscious are allusions to Achaemenid practice and forms? How necessary is the Achaemenid intertext for the full force of Athenian practice to be felt? How aware of (how happy with) the Achaemenid resonances is the Athenian spectator? The visiting islanders or Asia Minor Greeks? The seaman from the Cyclades, the Ionian aristocrat? More snapshots, but we now flick through them, with a mental promise to return to them later. The highlanders of central Carpathos and their great cypress tree (and their Lindian friend who arranges for transport). The Argive suspected oligarchs, 300 in number, arrested in 416 by the Athenians and imprisoned in the islands – the Athenian gulag? – and later handed over to the Argive demos for execution (Thuc. 5.84.1, 6.61.3). None of these snapshots actually exists, of course: they are all historiographical constructs, and open to discussion about the basics. The incident on Naxos makes for a striking heart-of-darkness picture of exploitation and brutality, like something out of nineteenth- and twentieth-century colonialism. But the details are in fact disputed: the language of Plato, where Euthyphron describes the victim as ‘my pelatês’, makes the identity of the victim, and his background, unclear. Another snapshot bears rethinking. The tribute bearers in the orchestra of the Theatre of Dionysos make for a striking image of the nexus between cash, domination and spectacle. But the only source for this practice is Isocrates (8.82), who writes that the Athenians decreed ‘to bring into the orchestra, at the Dionysia, when the theatre was full, to perigignomenon ek tôn phorôn argurion, having divided it into talents’. The phrase, in Greek, is regularly taken to mean ‘the income accruing from the tribute’, but it might also mean ‘the surplus money from the tribute’,1 since the verb perigignomai mostly means ‘to be left over’. Could the phrase describe the leftover monies once the sixtieth has been dedicated to Athena?2 Another possibility would be that what was paraded was the leftover from the previous year’s tribute income, after that year’s actual expenditure, before this leftover was sent up to the Acropolis for safe keeping, and before the ‘fresh’ tribute income brought in for the current tribute ‘financial year’ starting with the Dionysia. If this is correct, the display was in effect part of a rendering of accounts by the Hellenotamiai, publicly showing the year’s balance before it was transferred to reserves (in some years, especially the years 447-431, the sums will have been plentiful; in wartime, the sums will have been non-existent): not so much a demonstration of imperial power, as an instance of institutional transparency, before
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Afterword: Whither the Athenian Empire? an audience of Athenians and allies. The function of the ceremony as Athenian insolence towards the allies would then be Isocrates’ interpretation, or distortion, of the actual fifth-century institutional practice. This suggestion is speculative (and perhaps unconvincing), but it serves two purposes. First, it illustrates the fragile nature of our knowledge about the Athenian empire – just as Papazarkadas does for the essential epigraphical sources. Second, it raises the possibility that what seem like ‘snapshots of empire’ might cover much more complicated realities; or even that there might be other possible ‘albums’ of imagined snapshots for the Athenian century. Reinterpreting the Athenian empire It used to be easy to talk about the Athenian empire: as Lisa Kallet explains, the groundwork, but also the story-line had been laid out coherently and shaped for us by the ATL, the surrounding scholarship, and Meiggs, decade by decade of the fifth century, with various points of high drama in the 450s, reconstructible from the epigraphical evidence (itself placed on technical grounds early, and hence palliating the telegraphic nature of Thucydides’ account). At least, that was the situation in the Anglo-Saxon world; it would be interesting to compare what pictures of the Athenian empire were elaborated and presented in the research and teaching, the articles and monographs, and the textbooks, of other scholarly traditions: the francophone, the Italian, the German and the modern Greek – how did local agendas and viewpoints modify, interpret or problematise the ‘ATL-Meiggs’ story-line? Were there different starting points, and is the dominance of ‘ATL-Meiggs’ a pure Anglo-Saxon obsession? The story (‘league to empire: when?’, ‘popularity of empire’, etc.), at least in this Anglo-Saxon context, is deeply embedded in the debates and the historiography of classics, and in fact part of the constitutive history of classics and ancient history, as Peter Liddel has shown. Currently, the pressure towards change comes from the dismantling of any technical argument for the high dating of much of the epigraphical material (the vindication of the ‘Mattingly version’? Lisa Kallet invites us to prudence as to the implications as to the nature of Athenian imperialism, and against any facile resurrection of ‘harsh Cleonic’ vs. ‘Periclean’ phases). Nikolaos Papazarkadas offers a new basic landscape: the last quarter of the fifth century is now terribly crowded, with a profusion of documentary texts, Thucydides, as well as tragedy and comedy; the effect, oddly, is to demonstrate (again) that even for this period, even Thucydides’ densely textured, at times hyperreal narrative is in fact highly selective: as Papazarkadas writes, the recently discovered casualty list (Metro excavations) mentioning cavalrymen killed at Tanagra and at Spartolos, shows that either in 429, Thucydides left out an engagement, involving cavalry, on the Boiotian-Attic border (the same year as the battle of Spartolos, reported
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John Ma by Thucydides), or that in 424 (the same year as the battle of Delion, on the territory of Tanagra, vividly described by Thucydides), the Athenians fought a (probably successful) battle near Spartolos, this time with cavalry, which had sorely been missed in 429 – yet both 429 and 424 are years for which Thucydides provides detailed and densely patterned narrative. In contrast, the crucial ‘early years’ – i.e. the almost five decades between the foundation of the Delian League and the outbreak of war – are more obscure and emptier than ever, without documents to show us imperial policy and patterns of behaviour. If Papazarkadas’ radical views are right, we are left for these crucial decades with Thucydides (especially 1.99, a chapter to stand in for a whole process), ATL, and the great numismatic heart of Athens pumping out million upon million of tetradrachms (as Jack Kroll memorably points out) – where to, to what purpose, with what impact? The impulse towards reinterpretation, or at least the framework within which we elaborate reinterpretation, must be based on something more than simply the modification of the sources. What Athenian empire will we write, what stories of the ‘short Athenian century’ (480-404), after the decade (or two, say 1989-2008) that has seen the emergence and failure of the ‘unipolar’ moment, supposedly to be marked by the long-term ‘full spectrum dominance’ of the American ‘hyper-power’ as part of a project for a New American Century? This sentence is an attempt at continuing into the twenty-first century Peter Liddel’s story of the embeddedness of the story of the Athenian empire in contemporary discourses, but it may seem uncautious: I do not know if soon it will seem eerily prescient, banal, or quaintly off target. Better, perhaps, to focus on the immediate scholarly challenge of how to write about the Athenian empire, once the basic ‘Anglo-Saxon’ framework has been knocked away. One way of doing this will be to try out new approaches, inspired by theoretical angles and rapprochements which have not been applied to the Athenian empire. Ian Morris’ forthcoming work will (I believe) draw on the theory of states and state formation; in the present volume, Kurt Raaflaub systematically works out an interpretation of the Athenian empire as a sub- or para-Achaemenid state formation, a small-scale (if intricate) imitation of the large and successful Persian empire (perhaps like the post-Achaemenid Macedonian and Thracian feudal conquest states of the fifth century, but in the context of a different social formation, the peer polity network of Greek poleis). Other approaches come to mind: the Athenian empire in its Mediterranean, longue durée context; ecology and micro-ecologies; network-theory, ‘connectivity’ – I tried to do something along these lines in my Carpathian essay; local history as a way of reversing the Atheno-centric perspective – as Peter Thonemann does in his chapter in the present volume. The issue, and the challenge, are that it is not clear what the underlying interpretation of the ‘ATL-Meiggs’ storyline was – apart from being just
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Afterword: Whither the Athenian Empire? that, a story-line. Nor is it clear how fundamentally different this storyline (of acquisition of power by gradual, but steady stages) was from the aggressively acquisitive Athenian empire presented by M. Finley, in his classic ‘balance sheet’. In other words, what exactly are we keen to replace? If we are to come up with new ways of talking about the Athenian empire, they will have to reflect the basic shifts and debates in Greek historiography of the last decade or so: about the nature of the polis; the balance between social realities, discourses, ideologies in shaping conduct; the place of the economy and exchanges; the place of middling ideologies and discourses, versus the realities of elite dominated social practice (Al Moreno’s essay remarkably emphasises the elite nature of Athenian imperial exploitation); the shifting workings of ethnicity and identity, rather than any simple structural polarity between Greek and Other; the extraordinary complexities, rather than coherences, of Classical Athens. But it may also be a question of returning to basics, to see if we can start to see new information about the period and this most Classical of subjects – by returning to the sources, especially literary, and reading them anew instead of through Meiggs or ‘Mattingly vs. ATL’; by trying to ask questions about the underlying world in which the Athenian empire took place (demography, geography, resources); by gathering the archaeological evidence, for instance in Crete, or in north-western Asia Minor, or in northern Greece, or in the islands, or even in areas not directly under Athenian influence (for instance Boiotia or the Peloponnese). Lisa Kallet’s essay ends with a call for the exploration of this type of material, and, even more importantly, for the realisation of how exciting this material is. Different patterns can already be seen to emerge regionally; how do they fit together? Beyond empire? I once sat an examination (in fact set and marked by Simon Hornblower), in which I chose to tackle the question ‘Was the Athenian empire really an empire?’ I answered with an enthusiastic, indeed indignant, ‘Of course!’, whereas I probably was expected (and wish I had given) a nuanced, documented ‘Perhaps not’. Yet I still believe in the usefulness of the concept of ‘empire’: coercion, centralisation, economic exploitation all characterise the Athenian archê. Imperial the awareness of power as spectacle, as seen in the fifth-century trireme simply called ‘Thea[ma]’, ‘A Sight to Behold’.3 Imperial, too, the violence and suffering inflicted by the Athenians: the Samians crucified after the revolt, clubbed on the head as the coup de grâce – in the agora of the Milesians, whose conflict with Samos caused the Samian revolt, and who are now spectactors as well as beneficiaries of imperial repression;4 the Melians massacred and enslaved; the proposed mutilation, or actual drowning, of enemy rowers5 – empires cannot exist without torture, atrocities and self-conscious, spectacular violence. The
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John Ma consciousness of violence as part of the Athenian empire permeates Xenophon’s account of the Athenians’ terror after Aigospotamoi, at the thought that they might be treated as they had treated so many others.6 The conscious application of violence also underlies the murderous reaction of the Athenians in 323 at the Samians streaming back to their island, after Alexander’s Exiles decree: some were arrested and brought to Athens for execution (thwarted only by the intervention of a Chalcidian friend) – the Athenians are consciously applying violence and terror, in 323, as if they were still living in the fifth century.7 Finally, the deep compassion and pity of Thucydides are also a reaction to the violence and misery unleashed not just by war, but also by the inhuman, vicious, high-stakes, strategic-scale warfare that was the Athenian specialty. However, is ‘unthinking empire’ the price to pay if we wish to find new ways of talking about the political, social and economic history of the Greek world in the fifth century BC?8 For instance, looking at the economic relations between the Aegean and the Near East does not seem to show any clear distinction between a Greek and a Barbarian world. The wellknown Aramaic papyrus containing customs-dues from an Egyptian harbour in the early fifth century shows exchange linking Egypt, Ionia, Phaselis (whence come traders with Greek names) and Phoenicia (the starting point for overland trade with Mesopotamia);9 the merchant ships ‘from Phaselis and Phoenicia’, attacked by Peloponnesian privateers (Thuc. 2.69), attest the same network in operation during the early years of the Peloponnesian War (also the context where Papazarkadas would like to place the decree in favour of the Phaselites). How very unlike the post-1922 division between Aegean and Anatolia, which saw immediate pauperisation of both areas – in the fifth century, do contacts and patterns of exchange ignore the presence of the political boundaries between the Persian empire and its local strategic rival, the Athenian empire? If so, what does this situation tell us about the nature of the political formations? Could there be a dimension of interaction and agency where the ‘Athenian empire’ was an irrelevance? Another possibility is that exchange was precisely encouraged, and energised (but how exactly?), by the existence of the political boundaries between the Achaemenid and the Athenian-dominated Aegean, by the complementary (and, to some, profitable) coexistence of two tributary state formations of different composition and operations. Another instance might be to try to rethink the relations between Athens and the allies/subjects. Dix and Anderson’s articles on Carpathos invite us to see complex dynamics, rather than simply centre-periphery, oppression and resistance/submission.10 The documents of the last decade of the fifth century seem to show a new conciliatory tone (see Papazarkadas in this volume, on the Athenian decree in favour of the Sigeians). But we do not know if this ‘tone’, or style, was not already present in the earlier, and now badly docu-
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Afterword: Whither the Athenian Empire? mented, years – the harsh tone of the 420s might be an aberration, and flexible give-and-take might have been one of the basic registers which the Athenian empire took, or could take. Religion may have offered one of these registers, rather than simply express and embody Athenian oppression (cow, panoply, estates …). During the aftermath of the Mytilenean revolt, the state triremes Paralos and Salaminia catch a glimpse of the Peloponnesian fleet ‘at Claros’ (Thuc. 3.33.1); the two Athenian ships ‘happened to be sailing out from Athens’. Where were they going? Since one of their functions was to ferry sacred embassies (notably to Delos), it is possible to wonder if it was on sacred business, a state visit to the shrine of Apollo Clarios (with, perhaps, offerings, hymns, sacrifices, viewing, attending a festival) – this sort of visit and contacts between Athens and the local shrines of the Aegean and Asia Minor seaboard might have played a role in constructing relations, as a set of religious and cultural gestures and states of consciousness, rather than simply as a de haut en bas of power and extraction (as in the well-documented instruments of control: ships, garrisons, officials, listed by Raaflaub in this volume).11 None of this should allow us to evacuate the dimension of power and violence – not simply as the overt violence of the ‘enslavement’ of Naxos or Thasos, but the detailed workings of organised control and exploitation. One case is that of the pro-Athenian factions and individuals, mentioned above. Their presence constituted a striking factor for discrimination and imbalance within the cities of the empire. One Apollonophanes of Colophon was praised by Athens for his behaviour towards the dêmos of Athens ‘and the soldiers’, no doubt the Athenian troops in the area during Paches’ operations in 427 (IG I3 65); he was rewarded with various privileges (protection by the stratêgoi, right of access to the boulê and the dêmos). Locally, this favoured partisan of Athens was given the duty of caring for the protection of ‘the fort of Dioshieron, in order that it be safe for the demos of the Athenians’. This appointment is remarkable for a number of reasons. A non-Athenian is put in charge of a locally important strategic point (a jutting fortified promontory, on the Ionian coast between Lebedos and Notion); an indication of Athenian trust, but also of the sort of local authority an Athenian partisan could wield (did Apollophanes command troops?). Furthermore, the fortified point is likely the urban centre of a polis, with an extensive and fertile territory, the Dioseritai (who pay tribute separately): the Athenian state, by fiat, hands it over to the supervision of one individual. Finally, this individual is granted ‘protected’ status, by exception from any judicial punishment through fines imposed by local communities, final decision resting with the Athenian dêmos. The strategic needs of Athens impose inequalities, discrimination, and, I imagine, possibilities for abuse on the part of the favoured individual, and frustration on the part of the communities which cannot pass judgement against, or impose punishment on, the
229
John Ma favoured ‘collaborator’. No wonder such men were protected against murder, by the threat of collective punishment – a one-talent fine (the same, incidentally, imposed in case of the murder of an Athenian, thus showing that the Athenians may have been hated, and were protected as members of a ‘dominant ethno-class’, to use the concept developed by Briant to analyse Achaemenid realities). Two remarks on Apollonophanes: first, even though the circumstances of his appointment were special (wartime, the apparition of Peloponnesian ships in the Eastern Aegean, stasis in Colophon, Persian military activity), what is striking is that the Athenian demos could behave this way in Ionia, with all that implies for the Athenian dêmos’ conception of its authority, and the disruption and resentment this caused; second, even if Apollophanes was not granted, as far as we can tell, any direct profit, monetary or in kind, from governing the fortified settlement of Dios Hieron, his appointment resembles the Achaemenid practice of appointing individuals as ‘barons’ or ‘dynasts’, answerable to the Achaemenid state for the control of areas. But we should look beyond the ‘collaborators’, and think about whole communities: the Athenian empire must have worked through whole dimensions of creating consent and acceptance, or at least the impression of inevitability, leading to collusion (again a theme which the Achaemenid parallel evokes). The repression of the Samian revolt, the massacre of the Melians, were carried out by Athenians, but also a significant proportion of allies: in the case of Melos, the figures are particularly striking.12 Why did the allies participate in this variant of the ‘prisoner’s dilemma’ and collude actively in their own subordination? It is worth wondering what the world looked like for a member of an allied/subject state; what the impact of ‘empire’ was on culture and identity at the local level (just as such questions can be asked for the Achaemenid empire, in the case of the Iranisation of local elites). We have too few voices from outside Athens: Ion of Chios, the Samothracian speakers in the speech written for them by Antiphon, Antiphon again for legal cases outside Athens. What was the ‘influence’ of Athens on local political culture, beyond the exact details of the imposition (or not) of democratic regimes? * This Afterword represents a ‘warming-down’ from the collection of essays; hence its impressionistic, personal tone, and its structure as a succession of long shots. Its purpose is simply to gesture at some ways forward, already sketched out in this volume: we should keep on talking about the ‘Athenian empire’, but also start from (and aim to develop) a much more complex understanding of what ‘empire’ is.13
230
Afterword: Whither the Athenian Empire? Notes 1. Tribute income: Meiggs (1972) 433-4, echoing earlier arguments by A. Raubitschek. Crucial to this interpretation is Arr. Anab. 7.17.4, but note that the verb is translated as ‘surplus income’ by P.A. Brunt in the Loeb edition. Smarczyk (1990) 162n. 28 (with earlier bibliography: the interpretation as ‘surplus’ already proposed by M. Fränkel and U. von Wilamowitz). 2. I owe this suggestion to Peter Rhodes; cf. IG 13 49.15-16. 3. IG I3 500 (the restoration is due to A. Wilhelm). 4. Plut. Pericles 28.2, with doubts about the source, Douris (also cf. 28.5: Pericles exulting over subjection of Samos, compared to capture of Troy). 5. Xen. Hell. 2.1.31-2. 6. Xen. Hell. 2.2.3. 7. IG 12.6.42. 8. The expression is inspired by Vlassopoulos’ Unthinking the Polis (2007). 9. See now Briant and Descat (1998). But see P. Thonemann, above, p. 172 (Phoenike rather than Phoenicia). 10. Dix and Anderson (2004), to which my chapter in the present volume is much indebted. 11. Thucydides does not say in fact that Claros was the destination of these ships, but the geographical indication is strange: the vale of Claros lies inland, and the Peloponnesian fleet can only have stopped at Notion. Did Thucydides reproduce the description of his informants, for instance someone on the Paralos and the Salaminia, who spoke of Claros because he was on his way there when Alcidas’ fleet was sighted? 12. Samian revolt: Thuc. 1.116.2, 1.117.2 (Athenian reinforcements are made up of 40 Athenian triremes, and 25 from Chios and Lesbos; later, 60 triremes from Athens, 30 from Chios and Lesbos). Melian expedition: Thuc. 5.84.1, 5.114.1 (30 Athenian triremes, 6 Chian, 2 Lesbian, 1,600 Athenian hoplites, 300 hundred archers, 20 horse archers, 1,500 allied hoplites; the circumvallation of Melos town is divided among the various contingents). 13. The inspiration here is Bagnall (1997).
Bibliography Anderson, C. and Dix, T. (2004), ‘Small States in the Athenian Empire: The Case of the Eteokarpathioi’, Syllecta Classica 15: 1-31. Bagnall, R. (1997), ‘Decolonizing Ptolemaic Egypt’, in P. Cartledge, P. Garnsey and E. Gruen (eds), Hellenistic Constructs (Berkeley), 225-41. Briant, P. and Descat, R. (1998), ‘Un registre douanier de la satrapie d’Égypte à l’époque achéménide’, in N. Grimal and B. Menu (eds), Le commerce en Égypte ancienne (Cairo), 59-104. Meiggs, R. (1972), The Athenian Empire (Oxford). Smarczyk, B. (1990), Untersuchungen zur Religionspolitik und politischen Propaganda Athens im Delisch-Attischen Seebund (Munich). Vlassopoulos, K. (2007), Unthinking the Polis: Ancient Greek History beyond Eurocentrism (Cambridge).
231
General Index Antipatros, 126 Antiphellos, 167, 183n.1, 184nn.13, 17 ethnic ,Antifell8thj 167, 183n.6 Antiphon (eponymous archon) 67, 75, 77, 83n.56 Antiphon (orator) 230 Aphytis, 72, 135, 164n.42, 206n.19, 207n.27, 207n.32 Apollo, 28 Apellai festival, 132 Clarios, 229 Delian, 94-5 PatareÚj, 188n.83 shrine at Carpathos, 130, 132 statue at Delphi, 92 temple at Delos, 95 QurxeÚj, 188n.83 Apollonophanes, 127, 229-30 apophora, see phoros Aramaic language, 89, 228 Arbinas I, 169-70, 184n.19 Arbinas II (Erbbina), 169-71, 181-2, 185nn.23, 31 as 'Arb8naj, 185nn.21, 32, 190n.105 arbitration, 74, 82n.46, 106-7, 158 Arcadian hoplites/mercenaries, 187n.63, 188n.69 archê, 43, 47, 49-50, 56-8, 60n.30, 62n.54, 63nn.65, 67, 69, 125, 195-7, 199-201, 205, 207n.27, 227; see also hêgemôn/ hêgemonia Archicles, 75 Archidamian War, 70-1, 73-4, 161, 171, 179, 223 archon dates, 49-50, 67-8, 77 Ardericca, 109 Arginousai, 76 Argolid, 70 Argos, 83n.56, 133, 164n.40, 224 Aristides, 16, 95, 100 Aristion, 61n.36
Abbot, E., 26-7, 30 Pericles and the Golden Age of Athens, 26 Abdera, 110, 200-1 Acanthus, 59n.19, 152, 200 Achaemenid Empire, see Persia Acragas, 113 Adams, J., 59n.11 Adriatic Sea, 216 Aegean Sea, 30, 43-5, 58, 70, 76, 103, 108, 113, 134, 172-3, 199, 203-4, 217, 223, 228-30 Arab piracy, 172 Aegina, 69, 109-10, 127-8, 143n.11, 155, 202, 214 Aeolis, 156, 189n.87 Aeschylus Persians, 112, 117n.19 Seven Against Thebes, 109 Agyrrhius of Collytus, 217 Aigospotamoi, 228 Ainos, 200 Airai, 145n.47 Alcaios, 75 Alcibiades, 75, 82n.49, 128, 216 Alcidas, 70, 173, 231n.11 Alcinoös, King of the Phaeacians, 111 Alexander the Great, 8, 20, 34n.67, 182, 204, 217-18, 228 Alexandros I, of Macedon, 125, 158 Amisos, 159 Amorges (humrccã), 7, 173-4, 17882, 187nn.57, 58, 59, 63, 188n.82, 190n.99 Amorgos, 146n.48 amphictyonies, 94 Amphipolis, 152, 159 Anaia, 173-4, 178-9, 187n.51 Anatolia, 91, 101, 103, 200, 228 Andros, 152, 214, 219n.38 Anglo-Saxon scholarship, 225-6 Antidotos, 77 Antigenes, 77
233
General Index ‘Attic neighbour’ (,AttikÕj p£roikoj), 9, 215 Attic script, 68-9 Attic Stelai, 213 cèra tîn ,Aqhna8wn, 215 civic obligations, 18 colonies, 96-7, 101, 114 Council, 201 Decelea, 199, 203 DhmÒsion SÁma, 76 diayhfismÒj, 219n.34 eisphora, 214 Ephialtic reforms, 71 Erechtheion, 143n.16 Erechtheis tribe, 76, 83n.60 Erian Gate, 76 exêgêtês, 223 generals/ stratêgoi, 75, 83n.59, 229 grain supply, 44, 69, 204-5, 21314, 216-17 Grain Tax Law, 213, 217, 218n.15 interaction with Persia, 97-8, 106-8, 112-16, 117n.21 isonomia, 216 judicial procedures, 19, 23-4, 70, 73, 96, 107 ‘land empire’, 157 Laurion silver mines, 8, 195, 198, 203-4, 206n.9 Metro excavations, 69, 76, 225 moderate democracy (of the 5000), 156 Oineis tribe, 83n.60 oligarchy (of the 400), 152 Painted Stoa, 82 Parthenon, 27, 34n.75, 53, 61n.43, 82n.44, 107, 111, 116n.9, 143n.16 Peloponnesian invasion, 69-70 pentakosiomedimnoi, 213-14 Pentelic quarries, 131 Persian occupation, 196 phrourarchs, 96, 103 Propylaea, 53 public slaves/ dêmosioi, 223 Second Athenian League, 82n.46, 96, 101, 145n.47, 150, 211-12, 217 theatre of Dionysus, 115, 224 thetes, 159, 218n.17, 219n.18
Ariston, 213 Aristophanes, 7, 49, 61n.38, 72-3 Acharnians 90, 104 Cloudcuckooland 103 Aristoteles, decree of, 211-13, 218n.14 Aristotle, 150-1, 215 Arsames (Arssãma), 183n.5 Artaphernes (Persian envoy to Sparta), 89 Artaphernes, 100, 105-6, 109, 117n.21 Artaxerxes, 89 Asia/'As8a, 181, 190nn.103, 105 national identity 181-2 Asia Minor, 7, 77, 91, 102-3, 110, 134, 136, 171, 173-4, 179-80, 185n.35, 186nn.41, 45, 49, 224, 227, 229 Ashurbanipal, 103 Askew, A., 35n.106 Aspendos, 189n.98, 200 Assyria characters, 89 empire, 109 Athena, 28, 101 aegis, 195 chryselephantine statue, 53,116n.9 Lindia, 136 Nike, 99 Polias, 95, 129-30, 143n.11 Promachos, 84n.67 recipient of tribute, 20, 34n.64, 50, 60n.32, 61n.42, 61n.43, 95, 224 statue at Delphi, 92 ‘who rules/ cares for Athens’, 5, 129-30 Athenian Tribute Lists (ATL), 1, 3, 43, 49-50, 52, 55, 67, 79, 133, 225, 227 Athens/Attica Academy, 92, 111, 187n.50 Acropolis, 20, 95, 110-11 agraphou metallou dikê, 206n.7 Agora, 77, 92, 111 Areopagus Council, 91 Attica, 52, 69-70, 195-6, 198-9, 202, 212, 215-16 Attic language, 71
234
General Index Cambridge University, historical tripos, 33n.47 Cambyses, 108 capital (surplus), 36n.121 Caria, 7, 102, 133, 156, 163n.23, 164n.38, 171, 173, 177-82, 187nn.50, 57 Pasanda and Karbasyanda, 186n.38 toponyms, see Magnesia Carpathos, 129-37, 143nn.12, 14, 145n.40, 224, 226, 228 agriculture, 131 Apella, 132, 144-5n.36 Aperi, 132, 142, 144n.34 Aphiarti, 131, 142 Arkassa/ Arkasseia, 131-3, 137 Avlonas, 131 Brykous, 132-3, 137, 145n.42 Carpathiopolitai, 136-8, 142 church of St Luke, 132 Damatria, 145n.36 Dia Mt., 132 Diaphani, 138, 144n.28 immigration to New Jersey, 131 Laki, 142 Lastos, 133, 144n.24 Lefkos bay, 132, 144n.32 Mesochoria, 132 Myrtonas, 144n.36 ‘Nisyros’, 144n.32 Olymbos (Elymbos), 131-2, 144n.22, 145n.42 Patela/ Vouveia peninsula, 142 Pigadhia, 131-2, 136, 138, 142, 144nn.28, 33 Pinni, 136, 144n.34 Potidaion, 136-8, 142, 144n.33 Pyles, 132 Saris family, 136 ships, 145n.41 tripolis, 144n.32 Tristomo, 131 Voladha, 132, 136 Vrontis river, 132 Carthage, 216 Cary, M., 28 Carystos, 47, 95, 152, 214 Casos, 133, 137 casualty lists, 69, 76 Cavaignac, E., 201 cavalry, 69-70, 81n.30, 219n.27
Thirty, regime of, 162n.9 thranitês leôs, 76 trireme Theama, 227 triremes Paralos and Salaminia, 229, 231n.11 ‘tyrant-city’, 15-16, 18, 27, 62n.54, 78 zeugitai, 218n.17 autonomia/autonomy, 22, 44-6, 48, 92-3, 106-7, 111, 125-8, 130-1, 133, 143n.15, 145n.46, 150, 154-5, 161, 163n.19, 200 sf2tera aÙtîn, 128, 130 Avşar Tepesi, 175-6 Tübingen survey, 183n.2 Babylon, 109, 125 Balcer, J., 90 Baumeister, 22 Bdelycleon, 7 Bellerophon, 182 Bible, 89 Black Sea, 27, 159, 200, 202 Boeckh, A., 2, 20, 24 Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum, 20 Staatshaushaltung der Athener, 20, 24, 30 Boeotia, 74, 157-8, 227 Boeotian onomastics, 76 Boer War, 28, 37n.130 Bonner, R.J., 2, 44-6 Sather lectures, 44-5 Brasidas, 59n.19, 128, 152 Braudel, F., 136 Brea, decree, 27, 34n.75, 219n.18 Briant, P., 90 British Museum, Collection of Greek Inscriptions, 25-6 Bulwer Lytton, E., 2, 17, 20, 24, 29, 35n.106 Bury, J.B., 28 Byzantine Empire, 20, 172 Callias, decrees on public finance, 36n.106, 69 Callias, Peace of, 51, 53, 133 Callippos, 75 Callistratos, 76, 83n.60 Callistratus of Aphidnai, 217 Camarina, 113
235
General Index Aeginetan standard, 189n.90, 202 bronze, 179, 199 decadrachms, 196, 206n.8, 206n.9, 206-7n.20 decree, 21-2, 28, 30, 36n.124, 47, 50, 61n.38, 72, 78, 79n.3, 96, 114, 127, 197, 201-2, 206-7n.20 didrachms, 195 electrum, 200 golden, 199 Hellenistic, 207n.34 hoards, 8, 197-8, 204, 208n.35 katallagˇ/ katall£ttw, 72 law of 354/3 on minting, 207n.33 ‘owls’, 8, 195-7, 199, 203-4, 205n.3 pseudo-Athenian, 208n.35 Second Coinage decree, 72 tetradrachms, 195-200, 205, 206n.8, 208nn.35, 36, 223, 226 trapezitai, 203-4 xenikon argurion, 203 Cold War, 79 Colophon, 50, 80-1n.23, 81n.24, 127, 159-61, 164n.35, 179, 187n.55, 229-30 decree, 22-3, 50, 70, 78 o9kista8, 80-1n.23 stasis, 70, 159-60, 179 Continent, 77, 83n.59; see also Asia Minor Copenhagen Polis Centre, 162 Corcyra, 69, 157-8, 160 boulê, 157, 164n.28 Corinth, 44, 47, 71, 83n.59, 92, 114, 155, 157, 164n.28 colonies, 92, 104, 114 Cornford, F., 27, 44, 47 Coroneia, 73, 76 Corpus Inscriptionum Atticarum, 2 Cos, 6, 72, 134-5, 145n.41 Crete, 131, 133-4, 145n.42, 227 Critias, 213 Ctesias, 171 Curtius, E., 21 Cyclades, 224 Cyme, 103, 156 Cyprus, 172, 181 Cyrene, 216 Cyrus, 104, 125 Cyrus the Younger, 189n.97 Cythera, 71, 127
Cavanaugh, M.B., 69 Ceos, 52, 145n.47 Chaironeia, 150 Chalcedon, 156 Chalcidice, 82n.44, 128, 145n.47, 152, 161 Chalcis, 8, 59n.18, 73-4, 82n.44, 945, 102-3, 154-5, 213, 216 boulê, 154 decree, 4, 21-3, 35n.93, 36n.109, 37n.128, 51, 73-4, 82n.46, 127, 163n.17 Diakres apo Chalkideon, 135 euthunai, 154 Hippobotai, 102, 154 stasis?, 74 Zeus Olympios, 74 Chambers, M., 67, 78 Chandler, R., 35n.106 Charmides, 213-14 Charondas, 159 Chersonese, 91, 111, 213-16 Chios, 83n.59, 131, 155-6, 160-1, 163nn.12, 20, 21, 164nn.28, 42, 199-200, 231n.12 as Aristotelian ‘polity’, 156 Cilicia, 172 Arsinoe (colony), 145n.46 Cillareis, 156 Cimon, 52, 84n.73, 91-2, 111, 171, 216 Cindye, 156 Cissia, 109 Claros, 229, 231n.11 Clearchos, 201 Cleimelos, 76 Cleinias, decree of, 35n.106, 72-3, 127 Cleisthenes, 94, 102, 216 Cleomenes, 93 Cleon, 3, 43, 48-9, 53-6, 60n.28, 612n.54, 62n.58, 78, 83n.51, 201, 225 cleruchy, 8-9, 16, 52, 95-6, 101-3, 155, 211-20, 223 klêros, 212, 214-15, 217, 219n.34 pel£thj, 214-15, 219n.35 Cnidos, 6, 134, 156, 172 coinage, 8, 136, 168-9, 176, 184n18, 185nn.27, 29, 187n.68, 189n.90, 195-208
236
General Index 91, 94, 98, 108, 116n.9, 136, 143n.14, 160, 164n.37, 172, 179, 183, 199-200, 211, 213, 216, 218n.3, 223-4, 227-8; see also coinage, trade Egesta, 164n.37 Athenian treaty with, 67, 75, 78, 83n.56 Egypt, 8, 89, 110, 125, 134, 145n.42, 171-2, 186n.35, 186n.45, 190n.98, 204-5, 208n.35, 208n.36, 228 Alexandria, 172 Tell el-Maskhouta, 208n.35 Eion, 89, 92, 95, 103, 109, 216 Eleusis, 69, 107, 172 epistatai, 69, 172 Elgin (Earl of), 36n.108 Elis, 83n.56 Elymians, 75 Empedos, 83n.60 Ephesus, 103, 153, 187n.58, 200 Ephorus, 212 Epidamnos, 157 Epidauros, 70 epigraphy, 2-3, 20-31, 35-6n.106, 36nn.108, 109, 111, 43-58, 6779, 163n.14, 225 criticism of, 24, 34n.58, 48 epigraphical habit, 78-9 in the Renaissance, 34n.58 three-bar sigma controversy, 50, 54, 67-71, 76, 80n.10, 84nn.67, 73, 74 Epilykos (Peace of), 179 episkopoi, 96, 103-5, 117n.12 epistatai, see Eleusis Eretria, 82n.47, 109, 127, 153-5, 162-3n.12, 163n.17 Erythrae, 6, 78, 96, 103, 153, 160 boulê by sortition, 153, 157 decree, 4, 22-3, 36nn.106, 108, 37n.128, 127 Eteocarpathioi (koinon of the Eteocarpathians), 5-6, 129-32, 135, 137, 143nn.12, 15, 144n.22, 145n.44 etymology/ semantics, 133-4 Evagoras, King of Salamis, 158 Euboea, 6, 8, 82n.40, 83n.59, 127, 155-6, 163n.12, 163n.17, 21314, 217, 219
Cyzikus, 200, 203 Dapper, T., 142 Darius I, 99, 107-11, 117n.10, 173 Scythian expedition, 91 Darius II, 7, 173 dasmos, 101 Datis, 109 Dawkins, R., 144n.32 Deinomenids, 113 Delian League, 4, 14, 18, 20-1, 51-2, 70, 72, 93-5, 98-101, 103, 106, 108-9, 112, 115, 116n.9, 156, 160-1, 162n.1, 171, 178, 211, 216, 226 transfer of treasury to Athens, 8, 25, 33n.44, 49, 61n.42, 110, 197 Delion, battle of, 74, 76, 80n.19, 83n.61, 164n.36 Delos, 18, 94, 110, 229 Delphi, 94 oracle, 69 proxenoi, 84n.73 victory monuments, 92 demagogues, 3, 7, 24, 35, 49, 54, 78 Demaratos, 102, 156 Demetrios the Besieger, 134 democracy/ dêmokratia, 2, 6, 15-17, 20, 22, 27-8, 31n.3, 33n.40, 34n.57, 43-7, 55-6, 58n.1, 59nn.11, 14, 78, 96, 98, 105-6, 108, 125, 128-9, 149-65, 213, 216-18, 219n.18, 220n.53, 223, 230 democracy (modern), 6, 13, 15-17, 29, 36n.125, 59n.11 diallagˇ, 74, 82n.46 Dikaiopolis, 90 Diodorus Siculus, 71, 78, 212, 218n.13 Diodotos, 55, 159 Dionysia, 107, 117n.14, 224 Dionysius the Elder, 117n.20 Dionysius II, 151 Dioshieron, 145n.47, 229 Dodecanese, 129, 134 Douris, 231n.4 drama, 76, 78 Duruy, V., 22 economy, 3, 7-8, 10n.10, 16-17, 24, 27-30, 36nn.109, 111, 43-4, 478, 53, 58, 63n.76, 69, 72-3, 78,
237
General Index History of Greece 17-18 Grundy, G.B., 27, 44, 47 Thucydides, 27 Guiraud, P., 22-3, 59n.11 Gryneion, 156, 163n.24 Gyrtone, 75
intermarriage (1pigam8a), 217 revolt, 51, 73-4 Vrachos fort, 213 Eupolis, 73 Europe/ EÙrèph, 181 Eurymedon campaign, 21, 70, 92, 103, 171, 186n.34 Eutherus, 213, 219n.23 Euthydemos, 71 Euthydice, 216 Euthynos, 71, 81n.29 Euthyphro, 215, 224
Habron, 75 Hagesarchos, 134 Halicarnassus, 156, 163n.23 Halicyai, 75 Halieis, 70 Hamaxitos, 72 Handelspolitik, 47 Harpagos (Median general), 168-9, 183n.8 1p< tÁj qal£tthj strathgÒj, 189n.97 Harpagos/Harpagids (Lycian dynast/y), 168-70, 176, 180-2, 184nn.13, 16, 19, 185nn.23, 24 haclaza, 176-7, 179-80 Hecataeus, 105 hêgemôn/ hêgemonia, 49, 57, 60n.30, 63n.69, 93-4, 107, 150, 159-60, 169, 203; see also archê Hekatomnids, 176, 179 Hellenic League, 93-4, 98-9 Hellenisation, 182, 190n.106 Hellenistic kings, 125-31, 135-6 o∏omai de√n, 129 hellênotamiai, 15, 100, 224 Heracleia Pontica, 156 Heracles, 176 Hermione, 70, 77 hermokopidai, 96 Herodotus, 99-101, 114-16, 117n.10, 117n.21 ‘Constitutional Debate’, 105 Hestiaia, 34n.60, 36n.108, 155, 215, 219n.27 Hicks, E., 26, 28 Greek Historical Inscriptions, 26 Hierocles, 73 Hieroitades, 76 Hieron, 113-14, 117n.20 Hill, G., Manual of Greek Inscriptions (with Hicks), 28 Hiller von Gaertringen, 136, 144n.32 Hippocrates of Gela, 113 Histiaios, 90
Fabrigas, A., 19 Fauvel, L., 78 Ferguson, W.S., 45 Figueira, T., 8, 199 Finley, M.I., 3, 43, 47-8, 57, 227 Flament, C., 198 France colonialism, 35n.88 Enlightenment, 14 historiographical school, 13, 22-3, 29, 35n.85, 59n.11 revolution, 15 Gardner, P., 22, 27 Gauthier, P., 72 Gela, 113 Gelon, 113 Germany Emperor 21 neo-humanism 15, 31n.3 scholarship 29-30, 35n.102 unification 21 gnèmh, 75, 82-3n.51 Goldsmith, O., 14, 31n.10 Goodwin, W., 23-24 Graham, A.J., 76 Great Britain, 14, 17-19 imperialism, 18-19 in Canada, 33n.38 England, 18 Hereford, 19 Hertfordshire, 17 in India, 19, 33n.38 in Ireland, 33n.38 Macaulay (Lord) in the House of Commons, 19 Minorca, 19 Greece (modern), 34n.67 Grote, G., 2-3, 17-20, 22-7, 29
238
General Index Jameson, M., 70, 136, 142, 1434n.22, 144n.28, 146n.54 Jenkyns, R., 13 Jews, 143n.21 Jowett, B., 2, 23-4, 26
historiography, 1-3, 7, 13-14, 21, 25-30, 31n.6, 32n.10, 34nn.58, 37n.130, 44-58, 67, 55-6, 79, 901, 125, 133, 135-6, 149, 162n.4, 173, 224-8 Homer, 182 Hornblower, S., 9, 186n.49, 227 hostages, 74 Hystaspes (wizttasppazñ), 173, 177, 179-80, 182
Kandyba, 170, 185n.26 katoik2w, 81n.32 katÒmnumi, 81n.32 Kaunos, 7, 171, 174, 176-7, 179-80, 186n.38, 189nn.83, 90 ‘King of Kaunos’, 189n.83 Persikon, 179, 189n.92 Kelenderis, 200 Kherẽi, 170, 176, 182, 185nn.24, 29, 31, 188n.69 Kheriga/ G2rgij, 7, 168-71, 174, 1802, 184n.16, 185nn.21, 23, 29, 186n.31, 188n.69, 190n.99 coinage issued by, 168-70 Kheziga/ Koss8ka, 168-9, 185n.23 Kirchoff, A., 2, 22 Corpus Inscriptionum Atticarum, 22 Koehler, U., 2, 21, 26 Kuprlli/ KÚbernij, 168-71, 184n.18, 184-5n.19, 185n.23 Kyaneai (cbane), 7, 175-6, 181, 187n.65, 188-9n.83
Iasos (ijaeusas) 173-4, 177, 180 krzzãnase (cersÒnhsoj) 188n.78 Ikaria, 143n.22 Iliad, 109 Imbros, 159, 212-13, 215, 217, 219n.27 imperialism ancient, 16-19, 22, 45-50, 59n.12, 63nn.67, 72, 77-8, 94-7, 125, 127-35, 155, 195, 201, 211, 214, 217, 225, 227-8; see also archê, hêgemôn/hêgemonia British, 18, 37n.130 French, 31n.6, 32n.24, 35n.88 German, 21 modern, 15, 17-18, 224-5 Ion of Chios, 83n.61, 230 Ionia, 8, 50, 89, 106, 112, 162n.5, 171, 173, 228 aristocrats, 224 ethnic identity, 21, 189n.87 Ionic script, 67, 69, 71, 772 Ionian Revolt, 91, 100, 102, 1056, 108-9, 117n.21, 125, 153 Ionian War, 76-7, 101, 153, 17881 judges, 106 vice (luxuriousness etc.), 114 Iraq War, 79 Ireland, 17, 34n.55 Isarchos, 82n.40 Isagoras, 93 Isauria, 186n.45 Isinda, 168, 184n.17 Isocrates, 215, 225 Istros, 159 Italy 9, 102 Itamenes, 179, 187n.55 Ivy League, 67
Lakedaimonios, 84n.73 Laches, 75 Lade, battle of, 108 Lamian War, 126 Lampsacus, 156, 163n.24, 200, 21516 land, 94, 100, 106, 109-10, 126, 132, 212-13, 219n.27, 223; see also cleruchy confiscation/ conquest, 92, 94-5, 101, 109-10, 112-13, 212, 21416 distribution, 96, 101, 125, 213, 215, 218n.17, 219n.18 private/ public, 212-13, 217 sacred, 68, 73, 214 laws (modern) navigation, 44 penal (anti-Catholic), 34n.55 Lemnos, 159, 212-13, 215-17, 219n.27
239
General Index Magnesia, 7, 173, 178, 180, 189n.87; see also Thorax Carian onomastics (Mokoldhj), 189n.86 Carian toponyms (Kubisqih, Wlasha, Kaduih, Tabarnij), 189n.86 Mantineia, 83n.56 Marathon, 7, 91-2, 102, 109, 181 Mardonios, 105, 117n.21, 125 Maroneia, 200-1, 207n.23 Marxism, 46 Matthaiou, A., 144n.28 Mattingly, H.B., 54-5, 67-8, 73, 75, 77, 201, 227 Athenian Empire Restored, 78 McGregor, M.F., 43, 46, 49, 67 Meadows, A., 198-9 Mediterranean Sea, 8, 43, 58, 205, 226 Megara, 69 Athenian invasion, 77, 83n.64 Megara Hyblaea, 113 Meiggs, R., 1, 3, 28, 50, 53, 67, 130, 225, 227 The Athenian Empire, 1, 67 Melchert, C., 176 Melesander (Milasantrã), 7, 171-2, 174-6, 181, 187n.50, 187n.62, 188n.76 Melesias, 49, 53 Melidoros, 76 Melos, 95, 223, 231n.12 massacre at, 33n.48, 109, 215, 227, 230 Mende, 127-8, 152, 200 Merehi, 169, 185nn.23, 29 Meritt, B., 43, 49, 67 Mesopotamia, 110, 228 Messenia, 92, 216 Messenian Wars, 92 Methone, 27, 44, 135 Methymna, 143n.16, 214 Metiochus, 91 Miletus, 6, 52, 71-2, 78, 102, 109, 153-5, 163nn.14, 18, 187n.58, 227 epimenioi, 153 Molpoi decree, 153 nautical service?, 72 2000 hoplites at Cythera, 71 Miller, M., 90
Lenaea, 90 Leon, 71, 81n.26 Leontinoi, 75 Leonymos, 179 Lepper, F., 135 Leros, 52 Lesbos, 8, 46, 131, 155, 160, 163n.20, 214, 218, 219n.38, 231n.12 Levant, 108, 172, 200, 205, 208n.35 Lewis, D.M., 21, 52, 68, 130, 161 Lewis, G.C., 19 Libya, 216 Limyra (Zẽmuri), 167, 175-6, 181, 184n.18, 187n.67 ethnic LimureÚj (Zemuris), 167, 183n.6 Lincoln A., 45 Gettysburg address, 59n.12 Livonian Order, Knights of, 181 Low, P., 9 Loxbridge, 67 Lycia, 7, 31, 145n.43, 167-9, 171-2, 174, 177, 180-2, 185n.22, 186nn.41, 45 ‘Asiatic’, 182 cñtawati, 183n.4 coinage, 180 Hellenisation, 190n.106 Kalkan, 186n.43 Kaş, 7, 167 LÚkioi ka< sun[tel(Áj)], 186n.37 LÚkioj, 183n.5 Lycian B (language), 168-9, 177, 184n.13, 188n.83 Myra, 186n.46 Mt. Olympos (Tahtalı Dağı), 172, 186n.47 Yavu highlands, 181, 183n.2 Lycon, 173 Lycurgus of Sparta, 55 Lydia, 102, 178 Lygdamis, 156, 163n.23 Lysander, 110, 150, 162n.5, 199 Lysicles (the sheep-monger), 7, 1736, 178-80, 187n.50 Macedonia, 200 Machtpolitik, 47 Maeander, 7, 173, 180, 187n.52 Magabata, 184n.17 Magna Graecia, 4
240
General Index Olympia, 62n.54, 112, 202, 218 sanctuary of Zeus, 202 Olynthos, 145n.47 Ophellas, 216 Oreos, 73 Orestes, son of Echecratides, 158 Orkistos, 143n.21 Oroites, 178 Osborne, R., 8, 214 Otanes, 105 Otto (King of Greece), 17 Ottoman Empire, 20, 131-2 tribute in the form of butter, 131, 144n.28 vilayet, 131, 136 Oxford University Classics at, 35n.103 David Lewis Memorial Lecture, 77 Taylorian Institute, 144n.32 2004 conference on Coinage and Standards decree, 72, 206n.12
‘Perserie’, 112 Miltiades, 91-2 Miltiades of Lakiadai, 216, 220n.47 Minorca, 19 Mitford, W., 6, 15-17, 19 History of Greece, 15 Miqrapata, 184n.17 Montagu, E., 2, 14 Montesquieu, C., 15, 32n.12 Spirit of the Laws, 14 Morris, C.D., 23-4 Mostyn (General), 19 Murray, O., 17, 101 Mykale, 173, 175, 177-9, 185n.35, 190n.99 Mylasa, 126 Myrina, 156, 163n.24 Mytilene, 16, 35n.93, 46, 62nn.54, 61, 127, 130-1, 135, 143n.18, 145n.47, 155, 172, 200, 214, 219n.38, 229 Callone Gulf/ Calleneis, 145n.46 Myus, 173
Paches, 70, 127, 159, 229 Paktyes, 156 Panathenaea, Great, 44, 83n.56, 107 Paparrigopoulos, K., 20-1 Patara, 167 Pausanias, 92 Pedasus, 102 Peisistratids, 91, 215 Peithias, 157 Peloponnesian League, 92-3, 106-7 Peloponnesian War, 6-7, 27, 44, 6971, 78, 93, 98, 109, 117n.18, 127, 151-2, 157-8, 162n.7, 174, 179, 213-15, 218, 228 Pentekontaetia, 43, 50, 128 Pericles, 3, 26, 36n.111, 43, 48-9, 51, 53, 55-6, 60n.28, 61-2n.54, 73, 78, 82-3n.51, 98, 216-17, 225 Congress decree, 16, 32n.11, 51 Funeral Oration, 45, 59n.12 Odeion, 111, 115, 224 public economy, 24 strategy, 70, 80n.20, 116n.8 ‘tyrant’, 55 peripolion, 136-7, 142 Persepolis, 89 Apadana, 107
Nagidos, 145n.46 Narykos, 143n.21 navy/ naval warfare, 14, 16, 26, 68, 70, 76, 83n.62, 89, 94-5, 97, 99, 101, 103, 108, 110-12, 11617n.9, 134, 145n.42, 154-5, 1578, 162-3n.12, 172-4, 179, 182, 184n.18, 185n.29, 189-90n.98, 199, 202, 219n.30, 228-30, 231n.11 Naxos, 18, 47, 95, 105, 109, 128, 214-15, 219n.38, 223-4, 229 Nevsky, Alexander (Saint), 181 Newton, C., 26, 36n.109 Nicias, 83n.59, 127 Peace of, 63n.74, 68, 76, 80n.13, 128, 131, 161 Nicostratos, 158 Notion, 81n.24, 159-61, 173, 229, 231n.11 Odrysian Kingdom, 160 Odysseus, 111 Olbia, 72 Old Oligarch, see pseudo-Xenophon oligarchy, 6, 34n.57, 46, 93, 150-60, 162n.1, 162-3n.12, 163nn.15, 21, 164nn.28, 42, 178, 213, 224
241
General Index Pilcher, T., 132, 143n.22 Pinara, 170 1k Pin£rwn (pilleñni), 183n.6 Piraeus, 44, 60n.24 commercial party of, 27 Pisander, 152 Pissouthnes, 7, 164n.38, 173-4, 17880, 187nn.55, 58, 63, 189n.97 Pittakys, K., 2, 20 Plataea, 83n.59 Plato, 213, 224 Plutarch, 49, 51-3, 56, 78, 213 Lives, 14 Polanyi, K., 47, 59n.23 Polycrates, 113, 178 Polypeithes, 74 Pose8dion, 136, 142 Poseidon Porthmios, 145n.42 Potidaea, 69, 116n.9, 155, 212 Priene, 135, 173, 187n.52 Propontis, 200 Protagoras, 159 proxeny, 54, 62n.57, 72, 75, 78-9, 96, 104, 157, 223 Pseudartabas, 90 pseudo-Xenophon, 14 Constitution of Athens, 23, 151 Ptolemy, 136, 142 Ptolemy I Soter, 216 Pylos, 73
Persia, 15, 18, 48, 51, 89-95, 97116, 125, 128, 135-6, 160, 162n.1, 163n.18, 164n.38, 171, 179-80, 189nn.87, 96, 199, 224, 228, 230 Apadana-Reliefs, 111 Behistun/ Bisitun inscription, 26, 89 Ezra, 134 Great King, 98, 101-2, 104-5, 107, 111, 125, 128, 130, 156 hoard from NW Iran, 198 Iranian names, 184n.17 karanos, 177, 188n.75, 189n.97 King’s Peace, 150 paradeisos, 111-12 Persianisation, 181-2 Persian Wars, 14, 32n.11, 91, 934, 97-8, 103, 108-9, 112-14, 182, 216 satrap/ satrapy, 91, 99, 105-7, 112, 173, 176-9, 188n.76, 189n.97 Susa, 109, 130 Udjahorresnet, 134 Peypus (lake), 181 Phaselis, 70, 128, 171-2, 186n.35, 228 decree, 2, 35n.93, 70-1, 78, 228 Phellos, 7, 167-9, 174, 176, 183nn.1, 3, 7, 184nn.13, 16, 17, 185nn.26, 29, 186n.31 Phidias, 92 Philaids, 215-16 Philip II, 150 Philochorus, 73, 82n.40 philolaconism, modern, 31n.6, 31n.8 Phocaea, 128, 200 Phocis, 158 Phoenicia, 186n.43, 228 Phoenician ships, 91, 108 Phoinike/ Phoinix (modern Finike), 172, 176, 186n.43 phoros, 95, 99-101, 130, 137, 59; see also tribute phrourarchoi, 96 Phrygia Kainai Komai, 145n.46 Sebaste, 189n.83 Phrynichus, 152 Pikres, 156
Ramphias, 75 Rangavé (Rangavis), A., 2, 20, 24, 30 Raubitschek, A., 73 Redesdale (Lord), 15 Reger, G., 133 Reinach, S., Traité d’epigraphie grecque, 36n.109 religion, 9, 10n.11, 30, 51, 53, 623n.65, 74, 94-7, 102, 112, 114, 125, 129-32, 143n.11, 167, 189n.83, 223, 229 revolts, 5-6, 34n.57, 46-7, 51-3, 59n.19, 73-4, 91, 95-6, 100-2, 105-6, 108-10, 113, 116n.9, 125, 127-8, 133, 135, 143n.18, 152-6, 159-60, 162-3n.12, 163n.18, 171, 173-5, 178-80, 199-200, 202, 207n.27, 227, 229-30, 231n.12 Rhegion, 75
242
General Index Scyros, 95, 109, 159, 212-13, 216-17 Seeley, J., 4, 18 The Expansion of England, 18 Selymbria 35n.93, 128, 161, 164n.43 Sicily, 9, 83n.59, 164n.32 Sicilian expedition, 37n.130, 75-6, 152, 199 tyrants, 113-14 Sigeion, 77, 156, 163n.24, 164n.43, 215-16, 228 Silifke, 186n.45 Sinope, 159 Siphnos, 22, 72, 74, 223 Sitalces, 158 Skiathos, 145n.40 slavery, 14, 27, 36n.121, 76, 83n.63, 102, 109, 113, 215-17 Smerdis, 105 Smyrna, 72, 126, 207n.32 Social War, 217 Socrates, 213 Solon, 9, 55, 97, 215-16 Somoza, A., 158 Spain, 19 Sparta, 14, 19, 22, 31n.6, 56, 60n.30, 69, 76, 89, 100, 107, 110, 117n.18, 150-1, 153, 157, 160, 162n.1, 164n.39, 173-4, 180-1, 187n.59, 189n.95, 18990n.98, 199, 202, 218 annexation of Messenia, 216, 218 dekarchies, 150, 162n.5, 162n.9 helots, 92 piracy, 172 suss8tia, 216 war-fund, 98 Spartolos, 69, 80nn.15, 16, 19, 2256 Stahl, J.M., 23-4 Standards decree, see Coinage decree Stanyan, T., 2, 14 Starr, C., 44, 57, 197, 203 stasis, 6, 52-3, 70, 74, 151-4, 157-8, 160, 230 dêmou katalusis, 158 Ste. Croix, G.E.M. de, 46-7, 58n.2, 211 Stroud, R., 72, 77 Strymon, 89 Syangela, 156
Rhodes, 6, 131-2, 134-7, 145n.41, 145n.42, 145n.47 Brikindarioi, 135 Cameiros, 135, 137, 163n.12 Carpathiopolitai, see Carpathos Diakrioi, 135, 146n.48 Ialysos, 135, 188n.77 ktoina, 136-8 Lindos, 134-5, 163n.12, 224 Oiiatai, 135 Pedies, 135 Rhodes, P.J., 68 Robert, L., 7, 136, 173 Robertson, H.G., 45 Rollin, C., 14, 32n.10 Rollinger, R., 90 Rome, 57, 99, 101-2, 126, 128, 145n.46 borrowings from Etruscans, Samnites, Carthaginians, 117n.18 colonies, 213 senatus consultum, 127 Romilly J. de, 47 Rosetta stone, 26 Round Table, 36n.125 royal power, 125-7 Russia, 181 Sadokos, 158 Salamis, 7, 95, 102-3, 117n.11, 181, 215-16 Sambaktys, 156 Samos, 6, 55, 113, 127-8, 131, 143nn.11, 14, 146n.48, 154-6, 160-1, 163n.18, 164n.43, 173-5, 177-9, 181, 187nn.51, 54, 190n.99, 200, 212-13, 215, 21718, 227-8, 230, 231nn.4, 12 cleruchic Council, 213 dunatoi, 154, 163n.15 epanastasis (of 411), 154, 163n.15 Geomoroi, 154 revolt, 68, 116n.9, 133, 135, 173 Sancisi-Weerdenburg, H., 90 Sandios Lophos, 173, 179 Sardanapallos, 103 Sardis, 100, 106, 112, 173, 180 Saros, 131, 133, 135, 137 Sather lectures, 44-5 Schürr, D., 7, 175, 178 Scione, massacre at, 33n.48
243
General Index Torone, 152 trade, 2, 8, 14-15, 22-3, 27-8, 31n.6, 32n.19, 43-4, 47, 58-9n.7, 60n.24, 106, 134, 136, 171-2, 186nn.35, 45, 200, 202-4, 217, 223, 228 eikostê/ eikostologos, 201-2, 205, 207n.24 emporion, 47 Trbbẽnimi, 175-6, 180, 182, 187nn.66, 67 tribute, 1-4, 48, 97-101, 126, 128, 131-3, 135-6, 143n.15, 146n.48, 150, 159, 171, 173, 178, 186n.36, 189n.87, 200-1, 211, 214, 224, 228-9, 231n.1 aparchê, 34n.64, 61n.36, 67, 95, 110 apotaxis, 145n.46 ¢rgurologe√n, 186n.41 Carpathos and environs, 137 collection, 72 display at Dionysia, 107, 224 epimelêtai, 73 exemption from, 135 lists, 1, 17, 20, 24-5, 27, 30, 34n.75, 36n.124, 60n.34, 77-8, 95, 110, 130, 135, 153, 156, 159, 163nn.14, 22, 164n.37, 211, 226 missing-list, 51, 61n.44 reassessment decree, 6, 17, 21-2, 24, 27, 33n.36, 50, 54, 62nn.58, 64, 73, 135, 171, 179 self-assessment, 130-2, 159 Troad, 4, 145n.42, 156 Troizen, 70 Turner, F., 13 Tymnes, 156 Tymnessos, 170, 185n.26 tyrants, 4, 6, 91, 93, 105-6, 113-14, 116n.5, 117n.20, 156, 160, 164n.39, 170, 216 Tyriaion, 143n.21
symbola, 23 Syme, R., 72, 133 syntaxis/ sÚntaxij, 101, 217 Syracuse, 93, 113, 158, 164n.32 Tanagra, 69, 80n.15, 80n.16, 80n.19, 225-6 Teichioussa, 52 Telemessos, 170-1 Tenos, 142, 152 Teos, 145n.47, 200 Tharyps, King of Molossia, 158 Thasos, 6, 44, 47, 59n.18, 95, 105, 110, 127-8, 145n.47, 152-3, 160, 200, 214, 229 Thebes, 94, 151 Themistocles, 90, 92, 102, 117n.11 Thera, 84n.73, 143n.14 Theron, 113 Thessaly, 75, 158 Thorax (turacssi), 7, 178, 180-1, 188-9n.83, 189n.85 Thoudippos, 54, 62n.58, 73 Thrace, 92, 200-1 Thucydides, 2-3, 7, 9, 24-7, 36n.111, 43-4, 46-50, 53, 55-7, 59nn.12, 19, 60n.30, 61n.51, 69-71, 74-5, 78, 101, 115, 127, 151, 155-6, 158, 162n.7, 171, 173-4, 176, 179, 181, 186n.43, 225-6, 228, 231n.11 Thucydides, son of Melesias, 49, 51, 53 Thurii, 159 Thyrea, 110 tideri (sun2ktrofoj, collacteus), 187n.67 timber (cedar, juniper etc.), 131, 186nn.45, 47 cypress, 129-31, 143n.16, 144n.29, 172, 186n.46, 224 pine, 131, 134, 172 Timotheus, 216 Tissaphernes (Zisaprñna), 112, 173-4, 178, 180-1, 187nn.56, 59, 189nn.95, 96, 97, 189-90n.98 strathgÕj tîn k£tw, 180 Tlos, 167, 170, 176, 182, 183n.6, 185n.29, 186n.31, 188n.69, 188n.76 ethnic TlweÚj (tlãñna), 167, 183n.6
United States of America Constitution, 45 conservativism, 164n.32 Declaration of Independence, 34n.55 Hooverite idealism, 63n.74 ‘hyper-power’, 226
244
General Index Harpy-monument, 184-5n.19 Letöon, 167, 170, 185nn.21, 23, 189n.83 Roman agora, 168, 182 theatre, 183n.3, 184-5n.19 X£nqou 1pimelhtˇj, 176 Xanthos stele, 168-9, 174-80, 182, 183n.9, 184n.19, 185n.29, 187nn.62, 63, 188n.69, 190n.99 ‘hãtahe-narrative’, 174-5, 179, 188n.76 xenagoi, 93 Xenophon, 156, 228 Cyropaedia, 102, 112 Xerxes, 89, 108, 117n.11, 187n.53 xymbolaia, 23 xymbolê, 23 xymmachis, 62n.56
Revolution, 14-15 scholarship, 43-50 Upeni, 169, 185n.21 Victoria University of Manchester history exam (of 1882-3), 2, 26, 36n.113 John Owens College, 26 Wacsepddimi, 176, 188n.69 Wade-Gery, H., 43, 49, 67 Walker, E., 28 Weber, M., 47, 59n.23 Wedrẽi (Rhodiapolis?), 175 Wehñti, see Phellos Weil, R., 22 Wiesehöfer, T., 90 Wilamowitz-Moellendorf, U., 21-2, 61n.38 Wilhelm, A., 22, 70, 136, 142n.7 World War I, 63n.74 World War II, 46-7
Young, W., 2, 15-16, 32n.14 Spirit of Athens, 15 Zagaba (Avşar Tepesi), 175-6, 183n.2 Zimmern, A., 2, 28-30 Zopyros, 171
Xanthos/ X£nqoj, 7, 167-71, 174, 176, 180-2, 184n.18, 185n.27, 189n.96
Index of Sources References to the pages and notes of this book are given in bold type. Politics 1296a32-6, 150-1; 1305b1-12, 159; 1307b22, 93, 150; 1313b11-16, 114; 1319a1419, 164n.42 Rhetoric 1395a18, 220n.40 ARISTOPHANES Acharnians 145-7, 158 Birds 879-80, 164n.42; 1020-55, 103-4; 1040-1, 21, 34n.77, 61n.38, 82n.36, 201-2 Clouds 202-5, 220n.54 Frogs 363, 202; 721-3, 204; 725-6, 199 Knights 236-7, 82n.44; 361, 81n.30 Peace 1046-7, 82n.42
Literary sources AESCHYLUS Persians 979, 105 ANDOCIDES On the Peace with Sparta 29, 187n.59 ANTIPHON (Blass/Thalheim) Fr. 61, 96 ARISTOTLE [Athenaion Politeia] 2.2, 220n.43; 7.4, 219n.18; 22.7, 206n.6; 23.5, 94; 24.2, 155; 24.3, 96; 28.3, 60n.31 [Oeconomica] 2.1.4, 100
245
Index of Sources 12, 117n.11; 8.140a1-2, 125; 9.106, 110 HESYCHIUS s.v. klhroàcoj, 220n.44 HOMER Iliad 6.193, 185n.25 Odyssey 7.112-32, 111 ISIDORE OF SEVILLE 14.6.24, 145n.41 ISOCRATES On Peace 79, 150; 82, 107, 224 Panathenaicus 54, 150 Panegyricus 42, 59; 104-6, 14950; 107, 219n.37 LIFE OF ST NICHOLAS OF SION chs 34-8; 102, 186n.46 LIVY 37.32.14, 128 LYSIAS Preserving the Ancestral Constitution 3, 220n.59 II MACCABEES 4.11, 143n.21 NEPOS Themistocles 2.2, 206n.6 PAUSANIAS 1.29.7, 187n.50; 1.29.11-12, 83n.59; 7.16.5-6, 83n.60; 7.21.13, 188n.83 PLATO Seventh Letter 332bc, 151; 342d5a, 162n.9 PLUTARCH Moralia 818d, 111 Alcibiades 24.7, 112 Aristides 24, 24-5; 24.1, 100 Cimon 7.4-8.1, 92; 9, 116n.9; 11, 52, 108; 12.3-4, 186n.35; 13, 116n.9; 13.5, 111; 13.7, 111 Lysander 8, 153; 16, 199 Pericles 7, 62n.62; 7.6, 220n.55; 11, 52; 11.5-6, 219n.38; 12, 49, 117n.16; 14, 51; 20, 159; 23.4, 154-5; 25, 187n.54; 25.3-4, 168n.38; 26.1, 168n.38; 28.2, 231n.4; 28.5, 231n.4; 39, 60n.31 Themistocles 4.1, 206n.6 POLYBIUS 21.45.7, 128 PS.-SCYLAX 99.16, 144n.32
Wasps 656-718, 7; 715-18, 220n.46 Scholia in Wasps 718, 82n.40 ARRIAN Anabasis 7.17.4, 231n.1 CRATERUS (FGrHist 342) F21, 220n.40 CTESIAS (FGrHist 688) F14.45, 186n.40; F15.53, 187n.56, 189n.97 DEMOSTHENES For the Liberty of the Rhodians 4, 164n.40; 17, 158-9; 17-21, 164n.40 DIODORUS SICULUS 5.54, 145n.39; 9.35, 183n.8, 189n.97; 10.25.4, 100, 105; 11.3.7, 108; 11.60.4, 186n.34; 11.62.3, 190n.101; 11.68.5, 164n.32; 11.70, 63n.75; 11.88, 52; 12.11.3-4, 159; 12.22.2, 155; 12.65.3-4, 80n.16; 13.65.12, 83n.64; 13.104.5, 153; 14.36, 189n.85; 15.23.4, 218n.11; 15.29.8, 218n.10; 17.109.1, 220n.60; 18.18.4, 126; 20.27, 189n.92; 20.40.6, 220n.48 DURIS (FGrHist 76) F96, 220n.40 EUPOLIS (Kassel-Austin, PCG) F231, 82n.41 HERACLIDES (FHG II) p. 216, 220n.39 HELLENICA OXYRHYNCHIA 4.1, 83n.64; 20.5, 189n.91 HERMIPPUS (Kassel-Austin, PCG) F 63, 158 HERODOTUS 1.68.6, 93; 1.170, 108; 1.171-7, 183n.8; 3.45, 145n.42; 3.80-2, 105; 3.89-97, 99;3.90, 187n.87; 3.122-5, 87n.87; 5.37.2, 105; 5.73, 89; 5.74-5, 93-4; 5.77, 94; 5.100-2, 102; 5.123, 103; 6.8-15, 108; 6.9, 109; 6.11-12, 114; 6.31-3, 109; 6.34, 125; 6.36, 108; 6.42, 100; 6.42.1, 106; 6.46.1, 110; 6.48.1, 110; 6.48.2, 89; 6.49.1, 89; 6.96, 109; 6.1001, 219n.19; 6.101, 109; 6.119, 109; 7.32, 89; 7.64.2, 187n.53; 7.144, 206n.6; 8.3, 94; 8.111-
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Index of Sources 4.42.1, 81n.30; 4.45.2, 80n.21; 4.50, 59n.9, 89; 4.52.3, 186n.49; 4.53.1, 81n.30; 4.54.1, 81n.30; 4.54.2, 127; 4.75, 59n.9; 4.76, 164n.36; 4.88, 59n.19, 152; 4.122.6, 83n.51; 5.7-10.9, 60n.31; 5.13, 75; 5.18.5, 128; 5.19.2, 81n.26; 5.29.1, 164n.40; 5.31.6, 164n.40; 5.43, 82n.49; 5.44.1, 164n.40; 5.47.10, 83n.56; 5.84.1, 224, 231n.12; 5.114.1, 231n.12; 5.116, 109; 6.6.2, 83n.55; 6.6.3, 164n.37; 6.15.2, 220n.49; 6.34.2, 220n.49; 6.467, 164n.37; 6.59.3, 163n.24; 6.61.3, 224; 6.82-3, 115; 6.90.2, 220n.49; 6.91.6, 206n.15; 6.95.2, 164n.36; 7.27.5, 206n.15; 7.28, 207n.24; 7.55.2, 152, 164n.32; 8.5.4, 189n.97; 8.5.5, 101, 187n.57; 8.9.3, 156, 163n.21; 8.14.2, 163n.21; 8.1516, 83n.62; 8.17, 163n.18; 8.19.2, 187n.58; 8.21, 128, 154, 163n.15; 8.24, 156, 163n.21; 8.28.2-4, 157n.57; 8.38, 156, 163n.21; 8.48.5, 152; 8.54.3, 187n.58; 8.57-8, 189n.95; 8.64.5, 153; 8.64-5.1, 152; 8.69.3, 152; 8.73, 154; 8.87, 189n.98; 8.95.6, 162n.12; 8.108.4, 187n.56 XENOPHON Anabasis 5.3.7-13, 112 [Athenaion Politeia] 1.14, 105; 1.14-15, 151; 1.16.8, 23; 2.1416, 116n.8; 3.10, 151; 3.10-11, 10, 152; 3.11, 153, 157 Cyropaedia 8.2.10-12, 104 Hellenica 1.4.3, 189n.97; 2.1.312, 231n.5; 2.2.3, 231n.6; 2.3.8, 199; 3.1.6, 163n.24; 3.4.7, 162n.5; 5.1.31, 220n.56 Oeconomicus 4.6, 104; 8, 104 Symposium 4.30-2, 219n.28 Ways and Means 2.2, 204; 25, 206n.15
STRABO 10.5.17, 144n.32; 14.1.18, 220n.39; 14.1.39, 189n.85; 14.5.3, 186n.45 THEOPOMPUS (FGrHist 115) F98, 220n.57; F389, 159 THEOPHANES CONFESSOR p. 385 de Beer, 186n.44 THUCYDIDES 1.18-19, 93; 1.18.1, 164n.39; 1.19, 160, 163n.20; 1.24, 157; 1.32.6, 157; 1.56.2, 155; 1.58, 145n.47; 1.67.2, 163n.19; 1.77.1 , 23, 35n.89; 1.95-1.96, 60n.30; 1.951.99, 57; 1.96.2 , 100, 116n.9; 1.98, 109; 1.98-1.99, 60n.30; 1.99, 63n.76, 108; 1.100, 47; 1.101, 110; 1.101.3, 127; 1.108.4, 127; 1.111.1, 158; 1.114, 51, 127, 155; 1.115.2, 135; 1.115.4, 187n.53; 1.115.45, 164n.38, 187n.54; 1.116.2, 231n.12; 1.116.3, 164n.38; 1.117.2, 231n.12; 1.117.3, 116n.9, 163n.15; 1.139, 56; 1.141-3, 98; 1.143.5, 116n.8; 1.144.2, 93; 2.8.4, 220n.60; 2.12.2, 82-3n.51; 2.13.3-5, 7; 2.27, 110, 155; 2.29, 158; 2.56.5, 80n.20; 2.59, 56; 2.62.23, 116n.8; 2.63.2, 62n.54, 84n.70; 2.65.7, 60n.31; 2.69, 59n.9, 186n.41, 228; 2.70, 116n.9; 2.79, 80n.16; 3.2, 135; 3.2-3, 145n.47; 3.3-4, 219n.30; 3.10.5, 163n.20; 3.11.3, 62n.54; 3.11.3-4, 155; 3.11.7, 130; 3.19, 59n.9, 187n.50; 3.27.2-3, 155; 3.28.1, 127; 3.31, 187n.54; 3.33.1, 229; 3.34, 80-1n.23, 159, 187n.55, 189. 88; 3.3649,62n.61; 3.36.6, 60n.31; 3.37.2, 62n.54; 3.47.2, 159; 3.50, 219n.27, 219n.35; 3.50.2, 218n.17; 3.50.3, 135; 3.70-81, 157; 3.70.2, 164n.28; 3.70.3, 157, 164n.27; 3.70.6, 164n.29; 3.71.1, 157; 3.72.1-2, 157, 164n.29; 3.75, 158; 3.77.2, 158; 3.80, 158; 3.81.4, 158; 3.82, 151; 3.82.1, 6; 3.91.3-5, 80n.16; 4.21.3, 60n.31; 4.27-28, 60n.31;
247
Index of Sources IG XII 5.480, 22 IG XII 6.42, 231n.7 I.Iasos 2, 130 I.Magnesia 17, 189n.85; 113, 189n.86; 116, 189n.86; 215, 189n.86; 251, 189n.86 MAMA 7.305, 143n.21 Milet I 3.133, 153 Milet VI 3.1020, 71-2, 81n.32, 81n.33 ML 14, 218n.15; 30, 145n.47; 31, 10, 34n.60, 71, 81n.25; 32, 63n.23; 37, 67; 39, 61n.44; 40, 34n.60, 103; 45, 61n.50, 206n.19; 46, 34n.60, 35n.106, 72-3; 47, 70, 81n.24; 48, 34n.60; 49, 219n.18; 52, 23, 51, 73, 163n.16; 56, 163n.15; 58, 36n.106, 69; 59, 61n.43; 63, 75; 64, 75; 65, 59n.7, 146n.50; 68, 73, 143n.14; 69, 10, 33n.36, 34n.60, 35n.106, 73, 218n.5; 73, 69; 78, 76; 79, 96; 82, 162n.12; 87, 128, 164n.43; 93, 183n.9, 184nn.12, 18, 19, 185n.25, 187n.63, 188n.69; 94, 164n.43 RC 68, 127 RO 13, 185n.21, 28, 32, 190n.105; 16, 106; 22, 96, 150, 218n.6; 29, 82n.46; 100, 220n.47; 101, 220n.57; 102, 218n.13 Robert Coll. Froehner 52, 130 TAM V 1396, 127 Tit. Cam.110, 137 SEG VI 190, 189n.83; XXXII 1149, 189n.86; XXXVII 859, 127; XXXIX 1426, 145n.46; XLVII 1745, 143n.21; XLVIII 96, 220n.46; L 45, 82n.48; LI 55, 206n.19, 207n.27; LI 641, 143n.21; LII 43, 82n.37; LII 60, 83nn.58, 59, 60; LII 1462, 145n.46 Syll.3 586, 145n.42; 986, 163n.21
Epigraphic sources Agora XVI 1, 77 Amyzon 13, 127 CEG 177, 183n.9 CIA Suppl. 1, 27a, 35n.93; 1, 61a, 35n.93; 1, 96, 35n.93 CIG 73, 36n.108; 73b Add. p.890, 34n.60; 73c Add. p.893, 34n.60, 36n.108; 76, 34n.60; 86, 34n.60; 143, 33n.36, 34n.60 I.Erythrai 2, 164n.41 IG I Suppl. 22a, 81n.29 IG II 11, 35n.93 IG I3.1, 218n.15; 10, 70; 11, 67, 75; 12, 75; 14, 127, 160-1, 163n.13; 15, 36n.108; 17, 77, 164n.43; 21, 71-2, 81n.29, 81n.30, 1534, 163n.14; 27, 84n.73; 29, 1278, 131; 30, 84n.73; 31, 70-1, 80n.22; 32, 69; 37, 70, 163n.17, 164n.35; 39, 127, 154; 40, 73-4, 127, 154; 41, 155; 46, 219n.18; 48, 163n.15; 62, 146n.50; 65, 27, 145n.47, 229; 66, 128, 131; 71, 186n.39, 218n.5; 75, 70; 78, 80n.12; 90, 72; 91, 82n.50; 92, 82nn.50, 51; 118, 128, 164n.43; 127, 128, 164n.43; 261, 186n.36; 262, 186n.36; 266, 186nn.36, 37; 281, 186n.38; 285, 186n.39; 291, 164n.37; 299, 82n.44; 301, 82n.44; 350, 82n.44, 143n.16; 363, 116n.9; 370, 187n.58; 371, 187n.62; 418, 73; 500, 231n.3; 1032, 76, 83n.62; 1163, 76, 83n.61; 1453, 81n.34; 1454, 128-4, 136-9, 142n.7, 143nn.8, 9, 13; 1492-9, 80n.10 IG II2 43, 218nn.6,7,8; 404, 145n.47; 1141, 190n.101; 1629, 220n.47; 1672, 186n.48 IG XII 1.1032, 137
248