Perikles and His Circle 0415067944, 9780415067942

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PERIKLES AND HIS CIRCLE

Anthony J. Podlecki

O Routledge m

Taylor & Francis Group

LONDON AND NEW YORK

To m y w ife

First published 1998 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, 0X14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Transferred to Digital Printing 2011 ©1998 Anthony J. Podlecki Typeset in Garamond by Routledge All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writingfrom the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication D ata

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library o f Congress Cataloging in Publication D ata

Podlecki, Anthony J. Perikles and his Circle / Anthony J. Podlecki. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Perikles, C.493-429B.C.E.—Friends and associates. 2. Statesmen—Greece—Athens—Bibliography. 3.Orators—Greece—Athens-Biography. 4. Greece—History—Athenian supremacy, 479-431B.C.E. 5. Athens (Greece)-Intellectual life. I. Title. DF228.P4P63 1998 938.504092-dc21 97-19131 ISBN 10: 0-415-06794-4 (hbk) ISBN 10: 0-415-67066-7 (pbk) ISBN 13: 978-0-415-06794-2 (hbk) ISBN 13: 978-0-415-67066-1 (pbk) Publisher’s Note The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original may be apparent.

CONTENTS

Introduction and acknowledgements Chronological table Abbreviations and short titles Map of the Aegean World

vii ix xi xiv—xv

1 FAMILY BACKGROUND: XANTHIPPOS AND AGARISTE

1

2 ENTRY INTO PUBLIC LIFE: AISCHYLOS (AND THEMISTOKLES)

11

3 EARLY INFLUENCES: DAMON AND ANAXAGORAS

17

4 A PERSONAL RIVALRY: KIMON

35

5 A POLITICAL ALLIANCE: EPHIALTES

46

6 THE OTHER GENERALS: LEOKRATES, MYRONIDES ANDTOLMIDES

55

7 AFTER THE PEACE

77

8 PHEIDIAS AND ASPASIA

101

9 WAR W ITH SAMOS

118

10 THOUKYDIDES; WAR W ITH SPARTA; FINAL YEARS

132

APPENDIX A: PERIKLES’ CITIZENSHIP LAW

159

APPENDIX B: PERIKLES’ COLLEAGUES IN THE GENERALSHIP

162

APPENDIX C: ATHENS’ FINANCES

165

APPENDIX D: PERIKLES AND THE COMIC POETS

169

APPENDIX E: A PORTRAIT OF PERIKLES?

177

Notes Bibliography Indexes

179 216 235 V

INTRODUCTION AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Having lectured almost annually on Perikles for two decades, I published in 1987 a short commentary on Ian Scott-Kilvert’s translation for Penguin of Plutarch’s Life of Perikles. It occurred to me then that students and others might find of interest and benefit an up-to-date account of the life and career of this enigmatic individual, and I accordingly began to collect mate­ rial for the present work. In the intervening period much has been published including a general study by Kagan (1991), a thorough commen­ tary on Plutarch’s Per. by Städter (1989) and a collection of essays on specific problems by Schubert (1994). It seems to me that there is still room for a study such as the present one, in which I have attempted to set out fully and critically what the sources, literary and archaeological, tell us about this great man and what modern scholarship has been able to make of this evidence. I have entitled it Perikles and his Circle to show that some (not by any means exclusive) emphasis is given to the individuals with whom he —for better or worse —came into contact. The book should also serve as a narrative account of Athenian history during his lifetime and especially under his leadership. Many individuals have helped me, either by reading all or part of the manuscript, or by answering specific questions, commenting on my theories, sending me studies of their own, etc. I name them here in globo, but each indi­ vidually will know how salutary he or she has been to me in this project and how grateful I am for the specific benefaction: R. Byers, P. Cartledge, K. Cavalier, F. van Gameren, L. Kallet-Marx, A. Keen, K. Kinzl, M. Miller, P. Millett, D. Mirhady, H.-F. Mueller, C. Planeaux, B. S. Ridgway, L. A. Robkin, D. Stenschke, I. Storey, A. Tronson, and R. Wallace. I hope that what remains after they tried to remove blemishes and offer suggestions for improvement will not displease them. I am especially grateful to my wife who suffered through numerous preliminary drafts and orally-delivered segments with patience, optimism, and good spirits, and it is to her that I dedicate the finished product. I also wish to acknowledge assistance from the University of British Columbia, the Killam Senior Fellowship Program, Clare Hall,

INTRODUCTION AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Cambridge, and University College, University of Toronto. I am grateful to them all for financial or other kinds of help. I append the customary disclaimer on the transcription of names. ‘Aischylos’, ‘Herodotos’, and (especially) ‘Thoukydides’ may look ugly, but it seemed to me worth at least trying for uniformity. ‘Athens’, ‘Thebes’, and ‘Corinth’ (among others) resisted my efforts (unlike ‘Kerkyra’ and ‘Karia’). Vancouver, Canada March 1997

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE

Perikles bom Perikles chorègos for Aischylos’ Persai (?)Perikles general with Ephialtes; Perikles prosecutes Kimon after Thasos campaign reform of Areopagos by Ephialtes and Perikles 462 Kimon ostracized; Athens concludes alliances with 461 Argos and Megara 460-454 Egyptian campaign the ‘First Peloponnesian War’ between Athens and 458-56 Sparta and her allies; building of ‘Long Walls’ between Athens and Peiraieus 454 (?) transfer of Delian League treasury to Athens Perikles’ expedition in the Corinthian Gulf and 453 Akarnania late 450s, early 440s disaffection among Athens’ allies in Ionia; despatch of cleruchies Kimon returns from ostracism; Perikles’ citizenship 451 law after 450 Perikles divorces his wife and co-habits with Aspasia; the younger Perikles born ‘Sacred War’ for control of Delphic shrine 449 or 448 Parthenon begun; (?) Perikles’ expedition to the 447 Chersonese 446 revolts of Euboia and Megara; Thirty Years’ Peace with Sparta colony to Thourioi; Thoukydides son of Melesias 444-43 ostracized; building of the Third (‘Middle’) Long Wall changes to musical contests at the Panathenaia; 442(?) Odeion built war with Samos 440-39 restrictions on Comedy (?) 440/39 to 437/6 493 BCE 472, spring 463

C.

IX

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE

437 435-32 late 430s 431, spring 430—29, winter 429, autumn

Athens’ colony to Amphipolis; (?) Perikies’ expedi­ tion to the Black Sea the Kerkyraian and Potidaian incidents; the Megarian Decree(s) prosecutions of Anaxagoras and Pheidias outbreak of war with Sparta Perikles removed from office, tried and acquitted; re­ elected general Perikles dies in the Great Plague

ABBREVIATIONS AND SHORT TITLES

ABV Aik Anth. Pal. Arisi. Ath. Pol. ATL

CAH CEG DK Ekkl. FGH Fornara

Gomme Hell. Hill, Sources2

IG

J.D. Beazley, Attic Black-figure Vase-painters (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956) Plutarch’s Life of Alkibiades Anthologia Palatina Plutarch’s Life of Aristeides Athènaidn Politela (The Constitution of the Athenians, ascribed to Aristotle) Benjamin D. Meritt, Η. T. Wade-Gery and Malcolm F. McGregor, The Athenian Tribute Lists voi. Ill (Princeton, NT: American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 1950) The Cambridge Ancient History (for CAH2 1992 see Bibliography) P. A. Hansen (ed.) Carmina Epigraphica Graeca saeculorum VIII—V. a. Chr. n. (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1983) Hermann Diels, Walther Kranz, Oie Fragmente der Vorsokratiker (6th edn, Berlin: Weidmann, 1951—2) Aristophanes’ Ekklesiazousai Felix Jacoby, Fragmente der griechischen Historiker (Berlin: Weidmann, 1926—; rev. edn, Leiden: Brill) Charles W. Fornara, Archaic Times to the End of the Peloponnesian War, 2nd edn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) A. W. Gomme et al., A Historical Commentary on Thucydides, 5 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1945—81) Xenophon’s Hellenika (History of Greece) G. F. Hill, Sources for Greek History Between the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars, new edn by R. Meiggs and A. Andrewes (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1951) Inscriptiones Graecae

IG I3 IG II2 Inst. Orat. Kim. KRS

Leurini LIMC Luc. Lys. Mem. ML

Mor. Nik. PCG Per. Pers. PMG P. Oxy. Prot. Radt RE Rhet. SEG Sol. Strut. Them. Thes. Tht.

Inscriptiones atticae Euclidis anno anteriores, editio tertia, D. M. Lewis et al. (eds) (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1981—) Inscriptiones atticae Euclidis anno posteriores, editio minor, J. Kirchner (ed.) (Berlin: G. Reimer 1913—) Quintilian’s Institutio Oratorica Plutarch’s Life of Kimon G. S. Kirk, J. E. Raven and M. Schofield, The Pre-Socratic Philosophers, 2nd edn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983) Aloisius Leurini, Ionis Chii testimonia et fragmenta (Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1992) Lexicon iconographicum mythologiae classicae (Zurich: Artemis, 1981—) Plutarch’s Life of Lucullus Aristophanes’ Lysistrata Xenophon’s Memorabilia of Sokrates Russell Meiggs and David Lewis, A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions to the End of the Fifth Century BC (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969 [revised edn 1988}) Plutarch’s Moralia Plutarch’s Life ofNikias Poetae Comici Graeci, R. Kassel and C. Austin (eds) (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1983—) Plutarch’s Life ofPerikles Aischylos’ The Persians Poetae Melici Graeci, D. L. Page (ed.) (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962) The Oxyrhynchus Papyri Plato’s Protagoras Stefan Radt, Tragicorum graecorum fragmenta, voi. 4, Sophocles (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1977) Pauly—Wissowa, Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertums­ wissenschaft Aristotle’s Rhetoric Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, H. W. Pleket, R. S. Stroud et al. (eds) (Leiden: A. W. Sijthoff, 1923—) Plutarch’s Life of Solon Strategemata (title of works by Julius Frontinus and Polyainos) Plutarch’s Life of Themistokles Plutarch’s Life of Theseus Plato’s Theaitetos

ABBREVIATIONS AND SHORT TITLES

Tod

Tusc. Disp. VH

Marcus N. Tod, A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions to the End of the Fifth Century BC, 2nd edn (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1946) Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations Aelian’s Varia Historia

xiu

XIV

XV

1 FAMILY BACKGROUND Xanthippos and Agariste

This was the problem which ceaselessly exercised all philosophers until the city-state passed away - that of the relation between a great intellectual personality and the community in which he lived. In Pericles, it found a happy solution for both the community and the individual. (Jaeger 1939:1. 286) At Chapter 3.1 of Perikles Plutarch introduces his subject formally as ‘of the tribe Akamantis and the deme Cholargos1 . . . descended on both sides from an outstanding family and ancestry’. The family’s wealth no doubt derived at least in part from agricultural land holdings (rural ‘estates’ belonging to Perikles are mentioned in passing by Thoukydides in his account of the preliminaries to the Peloponnesian invasion in spring 431 BCE). On his father’s side his grandfather was Ariphron I, about whom no reliable information is recorded. He does appear as a speaker in a late dialogue which is preserved in a third-century CE papyrus;2 the other speaker is the Athenian tyrant Peisistratos and the topic is government, more specifically the reign of Periandros, who ruled Corinth as ‘tyrant’ c. 625—585 BCE (Periandros is himself a character in a similar philosophical dialogue by Plutarch, Banquet of the Seven Sages). Since the setting is ficti­ tious, the association of names should not be taken as indicating that Ariphron I was a supporter of Peisistratos, but it is probably legitimate to argue that the writer of the dialogue had no evidence that he was one of Peisistratos’ opponents, either. The date of Xanthippos’ birth is unknown, and although he is not mentioned as having participated in the battle of Marathon, his presence in the tribal regiment of Akamantis seems likely, given that by 490 BCE he was already old enough to have fathered two sons: Perikles, who was born prob­ ably between 495 and 492,3 and an older brother Ariphron II, named according to traditional custom after his paternal grandfather. In the dialogue Protagoras Plato mentions this brother as co-guardian with Perikles of Alkibiades’ brother Kleinias IV. Plato has Sokrates remark that Perikles, being afraid that Kleinias would be ‘corrupted’ by association with Alkibiades, ‘took him away and placed him in the house of Ariphron to be 1

FAMILY BACKGROUND

educated. But before six months had elapsed Ariphron sent him back, not knowing what to do with him’ (Prot. 320 A, trans. Jowett—Ostwald). Plato is clearly being rather playful (as often), and it is difficult to know how much weight this kind of testimony will bear; it is probably safe to infer at least that Ariphron II was still alive at the date of the action depicted in the dialogue P rotagorasWe know, thanks to some recent discoveries, that Ariphron II was a candidate for ostracism, the system by which the Athenians might vote to remove one of their politicians for a ten-year period; if the voters were not motivated simply by personal aversion, this should mean that Perikles’ brother was a man of some political pretensions in his own right.5 This Ariphron named his son Hippokrates, a name of some significance (as we shall see below) because it was drawn from the family’s maternal line. Since this Hippokrates was a general in 426,6 he will have been bom no later than 456; he was killed at the battle of Delion in 424/3 (Thoukydides 4.101.2). Besides this brother Ariphron, we are told by Plutarch {Per. 36.7) that Perikles also had a sister, whose name is not preserved in any source —a fate typical of Greek women, even prominent ones like Perikles’ own wife; the only thing recorded about his sister is that she died in the Great Plague of 429, but whether she was older or younger than Perikles cannot be determined. Xanthippos first appears in the historical records as prosecutor of the younger Miltiades, a member of a distinguished Athenian family, the Philaidai, who had been chief archon in 524/3 and who had more recently gained repute for his services at Marathon (it was not Miltiades’ first brush with an Athenian law court, for a few years earlier, upon his return from the family’s ancestral holdings in the Chersonese, he was tried on a charge of ‘tyranny’ but acquitted).7 Riding on his popularity after the victory of 490 Miltiades got the Athenian Assembly’s approval for an expedition against the island of Paros, which turned into a dismal failure. Miltiades was wounded in the venture and returned home with his reputation in tatters and himself the subject of prosecution by his political enemies. The charge according to Herodotos (6.136) was ‘deception of the people’; he had presumably assured them that it would be an easy task to subdue the Parians and make them pay reparations for having joined the Persian fleet that had attacked Greece. The prosecutor Xanthippos demanded the death penalty. Where the trial was held is uncertain.8 Miltiades’ supporters pointed to his earlier record of service to Athens and their pleas were successful to the extent that the death penalty, which Xanthippos had originally proposed, was reduced to the enormous sum of 50 talents, which was paid by Miltiades’ son Kimon, for Miltiades himself had died in prison from an infection acquired during the siege.9 (Discussion can for the moment be deferred about the wealth of anecdotal material preserved to explain how Kimon managed to get together the requisite sum.)10 It is perhaps only on2 2

the basis of this trial that the later tradition paired the men as political adversaries, Xanthippos acting as ‘champion of the people’ and Miltiades as head of the aristocrats.11 Xanthippos’ name appears fourth in the series of annual ostracisms which commenced in 488/7 (Ath. Pol. 22). On this chronology he will have been ostracized in the spring of 484, and he is designated the ‘first’ of those ostra­ cized who was ‘not connected with the tyranny’, that is, apparently, not of the circle of those who had supported —or could plausibly be charged with having supported —the tyranny of Peisistratos and his sons in the latter half of the sixth century. The description of Xanthippos as being ‘removed’ from the sequence of tyrant-supporters itself creates some difficulties, for, as we shall see, the family into which Xanthippos had married, the Alkmeonidai, were later accused of an act of treachery at the time of Marathon: members of the family were alleged to have held up a polished shield at some late stage of the battle as a signal to the Persian fleet that it was a favourable time to sail around Cape Sounion and attack Athens itself. Since the exiled Athenian tyrant Hippias had accompanied the Persians to Marathon and reportedly advised them on the best place to encamp, a ‘pro-Persian’ action (whether factual or not) could also have been cast as one which was ‘pro-tyrant’.12 Among the huge numbers of ostraka that have been discovered in excava­ tions in the Athenian Agora and Kerameikos, less than 30 bearing Xanthippos’ name have so far been published,13 and one of them tells some­ thing of the motivation behind a vote against him: ‘this ostrakon says that Xanthippos son of Arriphron [a variant, perhaps, or simply a mis-spelling} does most wrong of all the accursed leaders’.14 This is a tantalizing charge, but nothing whatever is known about activities by Xanthippos which may have given substance to it, unless it is somehow connected with his marriage into the ‘accursed’ family of the Alkmeonidai, a topic to which we shall return. It is tempting, but perhaps ultimately fruitless, to speculate about which individual politician may have organized the series of the ostracisms in the decade between the battles of Marathon and Salamis. Themistokles’ name has been suggested and, although not all scholars concur, he still seems the likeliest candidate.15 The sources in any case put it almost beyond doubt that in the contest between him and Aristeides to deter­ mine Athens’ future role as a naval power, it was the success with which Themistokles marshalled public opinion in support of his own programme that resulted in Aristeides’ ostracism in 482.16 With a renewed Persian threat looming in the spring of 480, those who had been ostracized were given an official amnesty and recalled, probably also on Themistokles’ initiative (such at any rate was Plutarch’s view).17 Among those who returned to Athens to join in a national coalition against the invader was Xanthippos. Plutarch has a touching if probably fanciful story which he tells in connection with the evacuation of Athens in late spring or early

FAMILY BACKGROUND

summer of 480.18 When the inhabitants of the city were being evacuated by boat to the island of Salamis a dog belonging to Xanthippos ‘could not endure to be abandoned by his master, so he paddled out to sea, swam across the strait by the side of his master’s trireme, and staggered out on Salamis, only to faint and die straightaway’ (Plutarch says he was told the story in explanation of the name ‘Kynossema’, ‘Dog’s Tomb’, a headland on Salamis). The participation of Xanthippos in the naval engagements of 480 seems certain, but he is not named specifically in any of the accounts. After the victory at Salamis in September 480 the Persians, even though their fleet and the main body of their land army retreated to Asia, left behind a substantial infantry contingent —the conventional figure preserved in the sources is 300,000 men —under the command of Xerxes’ uncle and lieutenant Mardonios. When he invaded Attica for a second time in early summer 479, and the Athenians again had to evacuate their city, they sent an embassy to Sparta to complain about what was seen as Spartan ‘dilatori­ ness and negligence’ in refusing to send a land contingent to join the allied forces in central Greece. Herodotos gives an account of the embassy (9. 6—11), which is repeated by Plutarch (Arisi. 10.7—9), with some additional material from Idomeneus, a pupil of Epicurus, who shortly after 300 b c e wrote a work on demagogues.19 Herodotos makes the whole enterprise an anonymous undertaking of ‘the Athenians’, while Plutarch assigns it to the initiative of Aristeides, on what evidence is unclear; perhaps it was just inference on Plutarch’s part and an urge to flesh out details of his subject’s life. In passing, Plutarch comments that Idomeneus had said that Aristeides himself had gone to Sparta as ambassador, whereas ‘in the decree of Aristeides, he is not mentioned as ambassador, but Kimon, Xanthippos and Myronides’ (Arisi. 10.10). The combination of names presents some prob­ lems. If the Myronides named here is the same as the military commander of whose commands later in the century our sources have much to report20 (and he appears again in Plutarch’s narrative at Aristeides 20.1 as a general of the Athenian troops at the battle of Plataia later in the summer), he will have had a very long career. Some have found a difficulty, too, in the appearance of Xanthippos’ name in a list of ambassadors just at the time when he should have been preparing to discharge his duties as ‘senior’ Athenian admiral in the combined Greek fleet.21 I know of no evidence that an Athenian general was debarred from serving as an ambassador,22 and, indeed, given the pressing need felt by the Athenians to enlist Spartan participation, it would seem to have been appropriate to send one of Athens’ top military men. On the other hand, the way in which Plutarch introduces the information raises enough questions that it seems to me prudent to suspend judgment. If it can be trusted, this will not only have been Kimon’s first public undertaking,23 but it also brought him together with the man who had prosecuted his father a decade before. 4

FAMILY BACKGROUND

Mention might be made here of the scrap of information preserved by Diodoros (11.27.3) that when Themistokles aroused the anger of the Athenians by accepting from the Spartans honours which his countrymen deemed excessive, Herodotos (8.124) reports this as having occurred in the autumn or winter of 480/79, and see also Plutarch, Them. 17.3), they ‘removed him from the generalship and gave the office to Xanthippos’. Now the authority of Diodoros, even if backed, as is generally supposed, by Ephoros, is not weighty; perhaps this rests on nothing more than documen­ tary evidence that Xanthippos was elected general for 479/8 and Themistokles was not.2^ Xanthippos first appears in Herodotos’ narrative (8.131) as commander of the Athenian naval forces operating under the overall command of the Spartan king Leotychidas in the Aegean in spring and summer of 479· It was just in this period that a series of events occurred which led ultimately to the formation of a new grouping of Greek maritime states under Athens’ leadership, an association referred to in modern accounts as the ‘Delian Alliance’ (or ‘Confederacy’). While the allied fleet was at Aigina in the early spring (Herodotos 8.131 and 132) an apparently informal delegation of Chians arrived (Herodotos reports that they had just come from Sparta, where they had made an unsuccessful plea to the Spartans to ‘free Ionia’) and entreated the Greeks to sail to Ionia, presumably for the purpose of liber­ ating the Greek cities there, or at least defending their interests against possible Persian reprisals. The Greek fleet responded by escorting the Chians as far as Delos, but (according to Herodotos) refused to proceed further, both out of unfamiliarity with these waters and also, presumably, out of unwill­ ingness to provoke the Persian fleet. Herodotos then moves to other topics in his narrative but returns to these allied forces at Delos at 9-90 to report that another delegation, this time more official, arrived from the Samians with the promise that the Ionians would revolt ‘were they but to lay eyes’ on the Greek fleet — no doubt an exaggeration, but the upshot was that a compact was formed, ‘the Samians binding themselves by pledge and oaths to alliance with the Greeks’ (9.92). The last encounter with the Persians in Ionia occurred in the autumn of 479 off Mt Mykale to the north of Miletos. In Herodotos’ account of the battle Xanthippos is not specifically named, although he is mentioned by Diodoros, who reports that ‘a great slaughter followed as the troops of Leotychidas and Xanthippos pressed upon the beaten barbarians and pursued them as far as the camp’ (11.36.5). After the battle the Greeks burnt the Persian ships and the wall which had been built to protect them; considerable booty was also rounded up, according to Herodotos (9-106). The allied fleet then sailed to Samos, where deliberations took place about the future of the Ionians. The Peloponnesians —again, no names are given by Herodotos, but Leotychidas and Xanthippos must have represented their respective sides —were for dispossessing the cities in mainland Greece which

FAMILY BACKGROUND

had co-operated with the Persians25 and resettling the Ionians there. This plan was opposed by the Athenians who, Herodotos informs us, ‘were very unwilling that Ionia should be depopulated at all and, moreover, resented the Peloponnesians holding council about their colonists’.26 In the face of fairly intense opposition (Herodotos’ phrase) the Spartans yielded and, in the upshot, settled for receiving into the alliance Samos — no account is taken of the alliance concluded with them in the preceding summer —Chios and Lesbos, as well as ‘the other islanders who happened to be campaigning with the Greeks, who were bound “by trust and oaths to abide [that is, in the alliance} and not withdraw” ’. The arrangement, which Xanthippos must at least have approved and perhaps actively encouraged, anticipates the formal inauguration of the ‘Confederacy of Delos’ in the winter and spring of 478/7.27 The Greek fleet then sailed to Abydos on the Hellespont, and when it was discovered that the pontoon bridges by which Xerxes’ land army had crossed over to Europe had been broken up by a storm,28 Leotychidas and the Peloponnesian contingent sailed home. Xanthippos, however, announced that the Athenians would remain and attack the Thracian Chersonese,29 and they proceeded to lay siege to Sestos; his intention was probably to strengthen Athens’ position in the Hellespont, and especially to ensure Athenian control over the grain-trade from the Black Sea.30 Thoukydides, who alludes to this event in his own narrative, says that the Athenians were ‘aided by their allies from Ionia and the Hellespont, who had already revolted from the Persians’ (1.89.2). When the siege dragged on the Athenian soldiers grew weary and asked their generals to abandon the siege (Herodotos’ use of the plural here reminds us that Xanthippos may have had one or more colleagues), but they were rudely rebuffed and told that the force would remain until either Sestos should be taken, or the force were recalled by the Athenian assembly. In the course of this protracted siege there occurred an event which so impressed Herodotos that he mentions it twice (at 7.33 and 9-119—21): Artayktes, the Persian governor of Sestos, who had allegedly committed sacrilege by fornicating in the shrine of the Greek hero Protesilaos at Elaious (about 10 miles southwest of Sestos), as well as stealing the temple treasure, escaped during the siege but was subse­ quently captured and returned to Athenian custody. He offered Xanthippos a huge bribe of 200 talents for his freedom, but the Athenian commander, bowing to the insistence of the people of Elaious that ‘justice should be done’, had Artayktes crucified and his son stoned to death before his eyes. When Sestos was finally taken — it was by now late winter or very early spring 479/8 — the Athenians and their allies withdrew, the Athenians bringing with them the tackle of the bridges, which had been taken from Abydos by the Persian Oiobazos but subsequently recovered from him, as well as other ‘wealth’ (presumably the booty captured at Mykale), which they dedicated in their temples. It was probably Xanthippos’ successes at

6

FAMILY BACKGROUND

Mykale and Sestos that led to his inclusion in the catalogue of military figures with which the Rhodian poet Timokreon, a contemporary, began his anti-Themistoklean tirade: ‘If you praise Pausanias, or you Xanthippos, or you Leotychidas, I give my praises to Aristeides . . . ’31 After this Perikles’ father disappears from the historical accounts except for a weird story in Diodoros which he records under the archon-year 477/6 (11.41—2). Themistokles, feeling it was not in the public interest to reveal openly his plans for fortifying the Peiraieus as Athens’ harbour, asked the assembly to name two men with whom he could consult, and the people chose Aristeides and Xanthippos, ‘selecting them not only for their excel­ lence but also’, Diodoros adds, rather spoiling the story and arousing our suspicions, ‘because the people saw that the men were in active rivalry with Themistokles for glory and leadership, and were therefore opposed to him’. It all turned out as Themistokles had wished, however, for ‘when [Aristeides and Xanthippos] heard privately what he planned they assured the assembly that the plan was “important, to the city’s advantage, and feasible” ’. It is difficult to lend credence to the story, which sounds like a variation of the ‘secret’ proceedings which Thoukydides reports (1.91) by which Themistokles got Habronichos and Aristeides involved in his scheme to throw the Spartans off their guard so that Athens’ city wall could be refur­ bished and strengthened.32 Since Perikles’ father is not mentioned again in any of our sources, it seems likely that he died soon after, probably in one of the military campaigns of the fledgling ‘Delian Alliance’, in the mid-470s.33 Pausanias, writing c. 150 CE, reported (1.25.1) that he had seen on the Athenian Akropolis a statue of Xanthippos ‘who fought against the Persians at the naval battle of Mykale’; it stood near a statue of Anakreon, depicted in a tipsy posture, and there was another statue of Perikles, which stood ‘apart’. It is generally assumed that it was Perikles who, during his own years of lead­ ership, arranged for the erection of this monument honouring his father, but there is no reason why the statue should not have been put up before that (as the statue of Anakreon probably was), perhaps to commemorate the untimely death of this important figure of the Persian Wars who had taken the first steps in asserting Athens’ claims to leadership in the wider Greek world.34 On his mother’s side Perikles was descended from the Alkmeonidai, a family with a long and uneven political history. At some time well before 600 (probably 636 or 632), an unsuccessful attempt at tyranny had been made by an Athenian named Kylon. The attempt failed and the conspirators took refuge in a sanctuary on the Akropolis; an agreement appeared to have been reached with the magistrates, chief of whom was a Megakles who was prob­ ably a grandfather of the Megakles who, in about 570, became the son-in-law of Kleisthenes of Sikyon. All later accounts agree that the Kylonian conspirators thought they had been promised some kind of immu­ nity if they agreed to stand trial, but this agreement was violated and they

were summarily executed. From this episode there arose a ‘curse’ or defile­ ment attaching to the Alkmeonid family which, in spite of various attempts to dispel the taint and reconcile the feuding factions, made itself felt at various times in the family’s later history, particularly when it was to the advantage of their —or Athens’ —enemies to remind the people of the early Megakles’ outrageous and, it was alleged, sacrilegious behaviour. Agariste had been named after the daughter of the tyrant of Sikyon, Kleisthenes, about whom Herodotos purveys quite a lot of miscellaneous information, including a picturesque account of the elder Agariste’s wedding (6.126—30). Often with Herodotos it is difficult to extract the kernel of historical truth from the anecdotal and sometimes fantastical elements which encapsulate it, so we are not obliged to believe every detail in this engagingly told tale (it is clearly analogous to folk-stories that reflect the ‘testing motif’). Perhaps the bare historical minimum would be that Kleisthenes, who had gained notoriety by his involvement in international ventures such as the so-called ‘First Sacred War’ for control of Delphi (c. 595—85) and had reorganized or established civic cults to subserve his rule at Sikyon, let it be known that he would choose for his daughter a husband from the eligible scions of Greece’s leading families. The final contenders were two young Athenian nobles, a certain Hippokleides and Megakles the Alkmeonid, and, after a close contest, the latter won out. As a result of this marriage, Herodotos remarks elsewhere (6.131, the single mention of Perikles in Herodotos’ work, in fact the notice of his birth), ‘the Alkmeonids were acclaimed throughout Greece’. One of Megakles’ daughters (whose mother may or may not have been the above-mentioned Agariste) was married c. 560 or a few years thereafter to the Athenian tyrant Peisistratos in an unsuccessful attempt to reconcile her father’s political faction with that of the tyrant.35 The family’s fortunes under the tyranny were mixed. Herodotos reports (1.64.3) that when Peisistratos’ rule took firm root (about 546 b c e ), the Alkmeonids went into exile along with others of Peisistratos’ opponents, and it has often been assumed that they were absent from Athens from that date until just before 510, when the family reappear in Herodotos’ pages, this time manipulating the oracle at Delphi and manoeuvring to secure the overthrow of Peisistratos’ son Hippias. But the name ‘Kleisthenes’ appears in a fragmen­ tary archon-list under a year plausibly conjectured as 525/4, and this is almost certainly the son of Megakles and Agariste who, as Herodotos describes him at 6.131.2, ‘established the tribes and the democracy for the Athenians’. His tenure of the chief archonship in the 520s, just after the death of the elder Peisistratos, seems to indicate that the latter’s sons were consolidating their control by offering some degree of power-sharing to their former opponents.36 However that may be, the manoeuvring at Delphi alluded to above is a fact, and just as factual is the contribution made by 8

Kleisthenes and his supporters to the ultimate removal of Hippias and his family, with the help of Spartan armed intervention, in 510 BCE. In his brief sketch of Perikles’ lineage Herodotos notes that Kleisthenes the lawgiver was named after his maternal grandfather, Kleisthenes of Sikyon, that he had a brother, Hippokrates (Herodotos does not in this place refer to the unnamed sister who had married Peisistratos), and that it was this Hippokrates who fathered ‘another Megakles and another Agariste’, the latter becoming the wife of Xanthippos and so ultimately the mother of Perikles. Herodotos also reports —on whose authority we are not told —that a few days before he was born Perikles’ mother ‘dreamt that she would give birth to a lion’. I presume that this had a heraldic and so complimentary significance, although this has been doubted.37 The second victim in the series of ostracisms alluded to above was a certain Megakles, exiled in 486, whose name betrays his Alkmeonid connec­ tions. It is probable, even if not quite certain, that he was a brother of Agariste II and so Perikles’ maternal uncle. It is also quite likely that he was the Megakles for whom Pindar composed his short seventh 'Pythian Ode to celebrate a chariot victory at Delphi in the very year of his ostracism. Ί rejoice at the victory’, the poet says, ‘but I am grieved by the fact that noble acts are requited by envy — although they say that happiness abiding in bloom brings a man varying reactions’ (lines 14—18). In this poem Pindar refers to earlier athletic victories won by the family, including an Olympic victory which is probably that won in 592 by an Alkmeon who was the son of Megakles I and father of Megakles II; another Pythian victory by a member of the family before the present one being celebrated; and five Isthmian victories that antedated 486. This impressive record clearly attests the family’s prominence on the international scene. From the ostraka that have been excavated and published, we know that other family members were targets, although in no case can we be sure that the men were actually ostracized: Kallixenos son of Aristonymos, 265 known ostraka (one of them designates him ‘the traitor’)38 and Hippokrates son of Alkmeonides, 127 ostraka. The Xanthippos ostrakon already alluded to, with its reference to ‘accursed leaders’, seems to show that the blot on the family’s reputation could be resurrected at any time and was in fact ‘transferable’ (in this case from the family of Xanthippos’ wife, the Alkmeonidai, to Xanthippos himself). Herodotos also remarks in passing (5.70) that it was used by his opponents against the political reformer Kleisthenes. What is somewhat surprising, however, is its durability as a political threat. It would be diffi­ cult for us to believe that it continued to be an effective slur against members of the family down to the high enlightenment of the latter fifth century were it not for Thoukydides’ explicit testimony (1.126.2, 127.1) that in the series of demands and counter-demands made by both sides just before the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War the Spartans

FAMILY BACKGROUND

demanded that the Athenians drive out ‘the curse’, pretending to be trying to avenge the gods but really because they knew that Perikles son of Xanthippos was involved in it on his mother’s side and they thought that if he were expelled their interests at Athens would be more easily furthered. This must have been intended to make an impression on some segment, at least, of the Athenian populace, but the sources are silent on whether this was the only time in Perikles’ career that his connections with the Alkmeonidai were used to try to discredit him. Perikles, then, could boast that he was descended on his mother’s side from one of Athens’ leading families, and that his father had successfully led Athens’ forces during the Persian Wars. Insofar as an individual’s propensi­ ties can be said to be inherited, Perikles probably acquired from his father some talent as a general but, even more important, the determination to give Athens a leading role in interstate Greek politics; the son was also (as we shall see)39 to carry into his own career the animosity between Xanthippos and Miltiades. From his mother’s family Perikles learned that the demos was potentially a powerful force in Athenian politics, if one used it adroitly. The mixed political fortunes of the Alkmeonidai showed him that exploiting popular support while at the same time fending off attacks from competitors and opponents among the other leading families would take skill and verve. Political power had its considerable rewards, but it also posed risks, and what was required for success was a strategy of adaptability.

10

ENTRY INTO PUBLIC LIFE Aischylos (and Themistokles)

Perikles’ association with Aischylos in 472, the year in which the dramatist presented his tetralogy consisting of Phineus, The Persians, and Glaukos of Potniai, and a satyric drama about Prometheus, is unattested in any literary source and would have passed into total oblivion but for the accident of preservation of an inscription, IG II2 2318, a fragmentary record of poets and their choregoi (financial backers) who were victorious in various competi­ tions connected with the major Athenian dramatic festival, the City Dionysia. From line 10 of this inscription we learn that Aischylos’ choregos on this occasion was none other than Perikles —and this in fact constitutes the earliest recorded ‘public’ event of the statesman’s career. Many details are unclear about the process by which choregoi were selected; Ath. Pol. (56.3) simply says that naming the choregoi for the Dionysia to be held the following March was one of the first duties of an incoming archon upon taking up office at the beginning of the civil year in the preceding July. No ancient source tells us whether a choregos, once he had been chosen or had volunteered, had any say in the choice of which of the three competing poets he would sponsor. It seems unlikely, however, that the donor of a substantial sum of money2 would have had no connection whatever with the author whom he had chosen or been selected to support, and a circumstantial case can in fact be made for fairly close links between Themistokles and the dramatist Phrynichos.’ Can we go further and posit approval by Perikles of the content of The Persians? Although some scholars deny this,4 it seems most unlikely that there was a total separation between playwright and choregos. Pickard-Cambridge wrote, without expanding upon the matter, there is evidence to suggest that at least Phrynichos and Aeschylus were from time to time associated with choregoi, Themistocles and Pericles, with whom they may have been in political sympathy, and whose political aims their plays may have been partly designed to si^rv ^ ( 1988 :

90 )

At one level The Persians is about an individual’s overarching ambition to 11

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expand his inherited domains beyond what ‘the gods’ (or ‘fate’) allowed; in other words, it is a rather typical Greek tragedy in which a human being learns the price that must inevitably be paid for ‘thinking more than mortal thoughts’ (to adapt line 820 of the play). This is an important part of the drama’s overall meaning, but I intend to ignore this aspect and concentrate rather on a theme which is perhaps not obvious to the modern reader, but which must have been so to its original Athenian audience in 472. For, as many commentators have pointed out, it is also a hymn of victory, a riveting portrayal of how close the Greeks came to being subdued and absorbed by their Persian adversary. If Xerxes’ scheme had succeeded, an independent Greece would have been no more. The spearhead of the Greek victory was the will to resist which found its voice and its embodiment, so to speak, in the ability of the Athenians under their leader, Themistokles, to muster effective resistance to the invader. It is not overstating the case to say that the architect of the Greek victory at Salamis was Themistokles. Herodotos reports (7.144) that he introduced a bill to halt a planned distribution of wealth resulting from newly discovered silver in the state mines at Laureion, and to put these funds instead towards expansion of the Athenian fleet, and it is this achievement which (in my opinion) is being alluded to in the exchange between the Queen and the Chorus-leader earlier in the play (lines 233—8: the Queen has just been told in rather general terms where Athens is located): So far a city, then, my son desired to hunt and to destroy? chorus -leader All of Greece would then become the subject vassal of the King. queen W hat size of army must they have for them to bring this about? chorus -leader Large enough to work a multitude of troubles on the Medes.5 queen W hat do they possess besides their men? Is there sufficient wealth? chorus -leader Silver springs run through their soil, a treasure from the earth for them. queen

Besides this quite specific redirection of national wealth towards building up the fleet, our sources also ascribe to Themistokles the farsightedness to see the need of resolving the bickering and factionalism with which the Greek states were rife in the latter part of the decade between 490 and 480; only a unified effort would have any chance of succeeding against the expected invasion. Although Herodotos (whose portrayal of Themistokles is rather negative and carping) does not often name him in connection with this effort, the narrative in Books 7 and 8 makes clear that it required continuing, patient and sometimes ingenious efforts by the Athenians to bring about this essential unity (an exception to this unwillingness to give credit explicitly to Themistokles is Herodotos’ report that it was his more 12

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positive and hopeful interpretation of the second Delphic oracle that convinced the Athenians that resistance to the invaders by sea and at Salamis might prove successful). Plutarch names Themistokles as the guiding hand behind these efforts to achieve unity: ‘the greatest of all his achievements was his putting a stop to Hellenic wars, and reconciling Hellenic cities with one another, persuading them to postpone their mutual hatreds because of the foreign war’ {Them. 6.5, trans. Perrin), and he also assigns to Themistokles the credit for deferring to the demand made by the Spartans that the ‘hegemony’ (status as leader) of the combined Greek forces should be assigned to them: He surrendered his own command to Eurybiades [the Spartan admiral], and tried to mollify the Athenians with the promise that if they would show themselves brave men in the war, he would induce the Hellenes to yield a willing obedience to them thereafter [a possible foreshadowing here of the Delian League]. Wherefore he is thought to have been the man most instrumental in achieving the salvation of Hellas [Is this perhaps a correction of Herodotos’ statement (7.139.5) ‘to say that the Athenians were the saviours of Hellas is to hit the truth’?] and foremost in leading the Athenians up to the high repute of surpassing their foes in valour and their allies in magnanimity. CThem. 7.3—4, trans. Perrin) Themistokles was proverbial for a quality the Greeks called dolos, a tricki­ ness bordering on deceit. Herodotos delights in noting instances of this aspect of Themistokles’ behaviour, so much so that his account is overdrawn and suffers distortion. We thus read in Herodotos’ pages (on what evidence is not made clear) that Themistokles was bribed by the Euboians and in turn bribed the Spartan Eurybiades to remain at Artemision (8.4—5). He caused to be inscribed on the cliffs near Artemision messages intended to secure defection by the Ionian contingents, or at least their discreditation in Xerxes’ eyes (8.22),7 and of course, he sent the famous messages to Xerxes from Salamis, both before (8.76) and after the battle (8.110). Certainly the trick by which the Persian fleet was so disastrously lured into the straits at Salamis is given prominence in the messenger’s account in The Persians, where Aischylos comes as close to naming Themistokles as the conventions of the tragic stage allowed: The one that started the whole disaster, lady, was Some Curse or Evil Spirit which appeared from somewhere. For a man, a Greek, arrived from the Athenian camp And spoke to your son Xerxes words to this effect . . . (Pers. lines 353—6) It matters little whether such a message was actually sent (and at least one reputable historian, C. Hignett, has attempted to discredit the story);8 the 13

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account which the play gives at verses 357ff. agrees in substance with Herodotos’ version (8.75). The messenger’s narrative in Aischylos has the effect of putting Themistokles’ agency even more prominently to the fore, for the intermediaries whom Herodotos names on both sides, so to speak, Themistokles’ slave Sikinnos who carried the message and Xerxes’ lieu­ tenants who received it (8.75), are eliminated from the messenger’s report, making it an almost one-to-one undertaking by Themistokles to Xerxes. Beyond highlighting the immediate and direct influence of Themistokles on the venue and timing of the engagement, Aischylos also seems to be taking the opportunity to remind the audience of something Themistokles appears to have said at a critical moment before the battle. It occurs in the course of an exchange between messenger and Queen (lines 345—9: the messenger has said that if numbers were all that counted, the Persians should have emerged victorious): messenger

queen messenger

No, not by numbers, but some Spirit {Dairnon) crushed the host, Threw in an evil fate against us in the scales. The gods are keeping the Goddess Pallas’ city safe. What? The city of Athens still remains intact? As long as there are men, there is a staunch defence.

In Herodotos’ narrative of the war-councils held by the Greek commanders before the battle of Salamis, Adeimantos, the Corinthian general, tried to silence Themistokles with the sarcastic remark that, since the Persians were in control of Athens, he, as a city-less man, was not entitled to a vote. Thereupon Themistokles spoke long and bitterly against Adeimantos and the Corinthians, giving them plainly to understand that the Athenians had a city and country greater than theirs, as long as they had 200 ships full manned; for there were no Greeks that could beat them off. (8.61, trans. A. D. Godley, modified) This may sound to us like a cliché: ‘a city is made by its men’, but I am suggesting that in this, an early stage in its development, the riposte had a freshness and originality which were later lost. The scholiast on The Persians 349 (the passage just discussed) appositely cites the early Greek poet Alkaios (ft. 112.10 Lobel—Page) —and for all we know he may have coined the phrase —‘men are a city’s warlike wall’. But of even greater interest is the fact that it is echoed in one of Perikles’ speeches recorded by Thoukydides. It occurs at the end of Book 1 when Perikles is giving his countrymen reasons why they should be confident of their ability to win the war against Sparta which by now probably most Athenians thought inevitable. The Athenians should, he says, be willing to go so far as even relinquishing their land and houses to the enemy, provided they keep a firm 14

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grip on their naval superiority and the power which this gives them to defend their city: If we were islanders, who would be more impregnable? Indeed, we must now put ourselves in as similar a frame of mind to this as possible . . . and lament the loss not of houses and land, but of human bodies, for possessions do not acquire men, but men possessions. Indeed, if I thought I could persuade you, I would be urging you to go out and yourselves lay waste to your property, and show the Peloponnesians that you will not be subservient because of it. (1.143.5) It is quite possible that, whatever the origin of this sentiment, Themistokles used it (and was known to have used it) on the eve of Salamis, that Aischylos picked it up in the above passage in The Persians, and that it was ascribed once more to Perikles by Thoukydides, who, as we shall see, goes to some lengths to emphasize Perikles’ debt to Themistokles for his naval policy. What I am suggesting, then, is that the young Perikles —he was perhaps barely 20 at the time —was led to choose Aischylos’ play as a vehicle for bringing his name before the Athenian public in part at least because he was in sympathy with Themistokles. But this theory is open to an objection: why would Perikles, who was an Alkmeonid on his mother’s side, have supported a man against whom the Alkmeonids appear to have been carrying on a campaign of smear-tactics and vilification? The obvious answer is, because he disagreed with the position being taken by his mother’s kinsmen. That the Alkmeonids were Themistokles’ enemies is beyond doubt. At Them. 23.1 (also Mor. 605 E) Plutarch reports the name of the man who later (in 467?) accused Themistokles of treason as ‘Leobotes son of Alkmeon’; at Arisi. 25.10 and Mor. 805 C the name is given as ‘Alkmeon’, either another member of the family or, as Frost believes, ‘by a simple error of memory’.10 An ‘Alkmeonides’ is mentioned as among Themistokles’ accusers in the eighth of the so-called Themistokles’ Epistles (Cortassa and Culasso Gastaldi 1990: I. 67). To my knowledge, the sources do not mention by name any of those who agitated for his ostracism several years earlier, but it seems reasonable to assume that the Alkmeonids were against him then as later. We know the date of The Persians, but when exactly Themistokles was ostracized is unclear.11 It is possible that the ostracism occurred in 471/0, the year under which Diodoros (11.54—9) lumps many events of the last part of Themistokles’ career in Athens.12 If that is correct, The Persians was both a eulogy and a caution to the Athenians to think long about Themistokles’ services to his country before believing his detractors;15 it was a call that unfortunately went unheeded. If my argument holds any weight, it is to Perikles’ credit that he stood up to his mother’s family and took an independent line. Perhaps he was a renegade from his family’s anti-Themistokles stance, as the historian 15

Thoukydides would later be from his family in favour of Perikles. In Thoukydides’ view of the relationship between the two men, there was a direct line of descent from Themistokles’ naval (and proto-imperial) policies to Perikles’ scheme for Athenian supremacy. Themistokles ‘believed that if the Athenians became a maritime people it would greatly profit them for the acquisition of power; indeed, he was the first to dare to tell them that they must “hold fast to the sea” ’ (1.93-3f·), to which should be compared Perikles’ exhortations to the Athenians to ‘make themselves islanders’ (1.143.5). Noteworthy also is the Periklean spirit of Themistokles’ sharp retort to the Corinthian commander Adeimantos in defence of his naval strategy: ‘As long as we have two hundred ships fully manned we have a city and country greater than Corinth, and no Greeks could repel us if we decided to attack’ (Herodotos 8.61.2). It is possible, too, that, as some have argued, Themistokles’ political prescience afforded him a vision of a Greek world in which the chief obstacle to ultimate Athenian pre-eminence would be Sparta, not Persia, a position which would not have endeared him to Kimon, but which Perikles later made fundamental to his plans for Athens’ ascent to greatness. Rejected by the people he had saved from the Persian threat and with Sparta and Athens working (as only rarely) in concert, Themistokles turned to Persia almost by default. He fled his country, took refuge with King Xerxes’ son Artaxerxes, and died in his sinecure in Magnesia, a Greek city on the coast of Persian-dominated Asia Minor, sometime after 460, his reputa­ tion sullied but his soul —so Plutarch at least would have us believe —still staunchly Athenian. Thoukydides reports a rumour (‘they say’) that his rela­ tives brought his bones back to Attika and buried them secretly (a ‘tomb of Themistokles’ in Peiraieus was pointed out to later travellers), ‘for it was not possible to give him burial as one exiled for treason’ (1.138.6).14 It seems exceedingly unlikely that Perikles could have acknowledged publicly the debt which his own policies owed to his great but erratic predecessor.15

16

3 EARLY INFLUENCES Damon and Anaxagoras

In Chapter 4 of Perikles, where Plutarch is presenting what he considers to have been the significant formative influences on his subject, he reports that ‘the majority’ (presumably of the sources he consulted, or the testimonies he remembered) said that Perikles’ teacher of ta mousika —a term which had a wider extension than our ‘music’, and covered literary studies in general as well as the playing of a musical instrument, such as the lyre, and the compo­ sition of poetry1 — was Damon. Plutarch goes on to say that Aristotle disagreed with this, maintaining instead that Perikles was ‘thoroughly trained’ in music by Pythokleides. He then digresses slightly to the theme of ‘music as a cover for political theory’ in relation to Damon, a section to which we shall return. He next asserts (4.5) that Perikles also ‘listened to’ {diekouse) Zeno the Eleatic. Plutarch closes the chapter with a lengthy comment about the person whom he took to be the major intellectual influ­ ence on Perikles, Anaxagoras, who inculcated in him his celebrated philosophical ‘elevation’ and ‘weightiness’. Let us look at these names individually to see what grounds Plutarch may have had for his statements. First, Zeno. Most scholars believe that Plutarch’s assertion that Perikles ‘listened to’ him (that is, sat at his feet as a pupil) —and Plutarch is the only ancient authority to attest this —is totally without foundation, or possibly that Plutarch is somehow reflecting a tradition that arose from a famous visit to Athens (for the Great Panathenaia) by the 65-year-old Parmenides and the younger Zeno, an event mentioned by Plato {Parmenides 127 B). There is some evidence, however, for a longer stay, for Kallias son of Kalliades is reported to have paid the hefty sum of 100 minae to take instruction from Zeno; if there is any truth to this, it implies that Zeno was in Athens long enough to be able to be cultivated by aristocrats anxious to keep up with the latest intellectual trends. Next, Pythokleides. Many scholars question Plutarch’s reference to Aristotle as the source for the name ‘Pythokleides’ as one of Perikles’ teachers and point out that this information is contained in the dialogue First Alkibiades (118 C).3 Since Pythokleides is not mentioned in those17 17

EARLY INFLUENCES

works of Aristotle that have been preserved, it has often been assumed that Plutarch inadvertently substituted Aristotle’s name for Plato’s. In any case, in the dialogue Pythokleides is named along with Anaxagoras and Damon as among the many ‘wise men’ with whom Perikles was said to have consorted and upon whose wisdom he allegedly drew for his own political purposes. (A scholiast on this passage says Pythokleides taught Agathokles, who taught Lamprokles, who taught Damon, but this information cannot be verified.) Pythokleides’ name also occurs in a list of ‘sophists in disguise’ in Plato’s Protagoras (a passage to which we shall return in discussing Damon), where we also learn that he came from Keos. Beyond that nothing more is known about the man or his theories. How far back can the evidence for any of these influences on Perikles be traced? The earliest surviving source to make any reference to a ‘teacher’ of Perikles is the comic writer Plato (designated, to distinguish him from the philosopher, ‘Plato Comicus’), who was active after 425 BCE. An unnamed character in a play of his cited without title by Plutarch (Per. 4.4) addresses Damon and asks him for advice, ‘For you (so they say), Cheiron-like, reared {exethrepsas} Perikles’. Now if Damon was being represented by the centaur Cheiron, that might make Perikles his pupil Achilles, or one of the other heroes like Jason or Asklepios who, according to legend, came to Cheiron to learn the skills of medicine, music, gymnastics and other subjects. In the biographical tradition about Perikles, Damon, as we shall see, was cast as the ‘arch-sophist’ who tried somewhat underhandedly to hide his influence on Perikles under a mask of more innocent and acceptable musical expertise — the theme which in fact Plutarch is developing in this very chapter (4) of the Perikles —but perhaps in their original context Plato’s lines did not have a negative or sinister tinge. Cheiron was on the whole a sympathetic mytho­ logical figure who, according to one tradition, like Prometheus brought culture to humans, and who had a warm and easy relationship with his pupil Achilles.7 Since we lack the full context of the passage quoted by Plutarch, it is impossible to be certain what (if any) political Tendenz it carried. (We do know, on the other hand, that Kratinos’ similarly-titled Cheirones was highly critical of Perikles and his relationship with Aspasia.)8 After Plato Comicus, references to Perikles’ teachers — and usually the sources recycle the same small stock of names - begin to crop up in the mid-fourth century. The dialogue First Alkibiades, already referred to, opens with a bandying conversation between Sokrates and Alkibiades about politicians’ lack of sophia, ‘(true) wisdom’, and Perikles’ name comes up as a possible exception. Even so, Alkibiades remarks, Perikles shouldn’t be given personal credit for his wisdom, for he associated with ‘wise men’ such as Pythokleides and Anaxagoras, and ‘even at his age he consorts with Damon for this purpose’. The point that the author seems to be making is that in his youth Perikles learned from men like Pythokleides and Anaxagoras, and that even when he was fairly advanced in age (the dramatic date of the 18

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dialogue is c. 432) Perikles felt he had something to learn from associating with intellectuals. Isokrates in his Antidosis (15.235) of probably 353 b c e , refers to Perikles as ‘the pupil {mathetes} of two men, Anaxagoras . . . and Damon, who had a reputation as the man who had most practical wisdom [phronimotatos} of the citizens of his time’. By the time of the Ath. Pol. (c. 330) Perikles’ associa­ tion with Damon has taken a more sinister turn, and we have the added, rather unwelcome, complication that the sources give this individual the name ‘Damonides’, not ‘Damon’. The context of Ath. Pol. 27.4 (which Plutarch picks up at Per. 9) is the competition between Perikles and Kimon for popular favour,10 and the author has narrated various benefactions which helped Kimon win popularity: in the face of this public service, when Perikles found he was deficient in financial resources, he was advised by Damonides of Oe, who seems to have been the instigator [eisegetes] of many things for Perikles and therefore they later ostracized him, that since he was beaten in respect of his private means he should ‘give the masses what was theirs’, so Perikles arranged pay for jury-duty. It is worth pausing to note some implications of the passage and some inferences that can be drawn. First, there is, as Rhodes and others have pointed out, a parallel here with the alleged relationship, mentioned by both Herodotos and Plutarch, between Themistokles and Mnesiphilos, with the corollary that ‘probably, if not certainly, the purpose of the mention of (Damon) is malicious: the demagogue Pericles was not even capable of devising his own demagoguic manoeuvres’.12 A further implication is that the influence exercised by Damonides (or Damon) for better or worse came at a formative period in Perikles’ life, when he was, if not a young man, at least younger than the date suggested by the passage in First Alkibiades already cited. Furthermore, the reference to the introduction of jury-pay by Perikles is also part of a larger indictment most fully laid by Plato but which is echoed also by Plutarch, that Perikles was responsible for a whole host of ‘demagogic’ measures mostly involving payment for various forms of public service; thus, according to this (anti-democratic) schema, jury-pay and the man who inspired it, Damonides (or Damon), were simply the first step leading to the ultimate transformation of the Athenian masses from a condi­ tion of self-sufficiency to one of being a restless, idle and money-grubbing mob.15 If there is any truth at all to the story (and even if it is not true, whoever made it up must have considered it a plausible fiction) the incident ought to be placed relatively early in Perikles’ career, in a context of compe­ tition between Perikles and Kimon which culminated in the Ephialtic reforms and (at least so the Ath. Pol. implies) the introduction of jury-pay by Perikles, which might have been a separate but connected measure. The gist of the story in Ath. Pol. is reported by Plutarch in Chapter 9 of

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Perikies, where Plutarch specifies ‘Aristotle’ as his source. The manuscripts here follow Ath. Pol. in naming the man ‘Damonides’, but editors usually change the text to bring it into line with Per. 4 and our other sources, adding the words ‘Damon son of’ before ‘Damonides’. The report that he was ostracized because of his connection with Perikles occurs first at Ath. Pol. 27.4 and is repeated several times by Plutarch (Per. 4.3 already noted, as well as Arisi. 1.7 and Nik. 6.1), and in fact four ostraka have so far come to light bearing the inscription ‘Damon, son of Damonides’.14 Were there indeed two individuals with similar names (usually identified by modern authors who take this line as father and son) who both exercised musical/political influence on Perikles and were subsequently, and perhaps also because of it, ostracized? In my opinion a simpler, more economical explanation is more likely to be correct. Sandys maintained that the variants ‘appear to be two forms of name belonging to one person’ 15 and this seems easier to accept than the striking —indeed, almost incredible —coincidence of two men with similar names, both experts in music, and both getting involved with Perikles in such a way that led to a tradition (whether true or not) that one or both were ostracized. Before trying to discover what kind of influence this individual might have had on Perikles, let us look a little more closely at a passage in Plato’s Protagoras where Damon’s name does not actually occur, but I think it can be shown that Plato clearly had him in mind. The sophists claimed they could impart knowledge about a variety of subjects, including politics. This claim outraged Sokrates/Plato, who never tired of heaping scorn upon it. At the beginning of the dialogue Protagoras is discoursing on the profession to which he belongs, that of ‘sophist’, which, before it acquired the pejorative connotation which Plato invariably gives to it1^ and which it retains in current usage, meant simply ‘professional authority’, something like a modern ‘professor’ or ‘pundit’. Protagoras asserts that although the profes­ sion of ‘expert’ was an ancient one, in olden times, because of the animosity and envy it aroused those who practised it ‘veiled and disguised themselves under various names’ such as poet, priest or even gymnastic teacher (Prot. 316 D, trans. Jowett-Ostwald). In this category of sophist-under-anothername he places some contemporaries: the Athenian Agathokles,17 ‘who pretended to be a musician, but was really an eminent sophist’, Pythokleides of Keos, ‘and many others’, all of whom ‘adopted these arts as veils or disguises because they were afraid of the odium they would incur’ (316 E). Now although Damon is not specifically named in this context, it seems quite likely that Plato would have included him in this dubious company,18 for this is the way Plutarch categorizes Damon at Per. 4.2: ‘Damon seems to have been a consummate sophist, but to have taken refuge behind the name of music in order to conceal from the multitude his real power’ (trans. Perrin). As we saw, a more sinister variant of this existed in the tradition preserved at Ath. Pol. 27: Damon —or Damonides —acted

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as Perikles’ evil genius, transforming him (temporarily) from a highminded aristocrat to a popular-favour-seeking demagogue for the purposes of political gain. I turn now to Damon’s theories. The ancient sources leave no doubt that Damon was a very prominent and influential musician and music theorist, probably in the Pythagorean tradition, which analysed music in numerical terms and stressed the importance of harmony. Reconstructions of his theo­ ries by music historians and theoreticians have led to results that are at best rather sketchy.19 W hat makes attempts of this kind somewhat problematic is that we have very little idea of how the fifth-century ‘harmonies’ actually sounded, and later theoreticians like Aristoxenos and Aristides Quintilianus may often have simply used guesswork to fill in gaps in the earlier history of music (nothing of pre-Damonian musical theory survives).20 From the way Damon’s name comes up in a discussion of rhythms in Republic (400 B and following), he appears to have held that certain combinations of metrical feet were characterized by, and so could be used to ‘represent’, a variety of virtues and vices. Damon’s influence has been detected behind Sokrates’ pronounce­ ment a little later. W hat makes nurture in the arts particularly important, he tells Glaukon, is that ‘their rhythm and harmony permeate the inner part of the soul, bring graciousness to it, and make the strongest impression, making a man gracious if he has the right kind of upbringing; if he has not, the opposite is true’.21 Put briefly, Damon’s theory seems to have been that Life imitates Art, and consequently, it made a tremendous difference what kind of art the young in any society were exposed to, hence the importance of inculcating in the young the ‘right’ kind of musical training. According to Athenaios (14.628 C), ‘Damon and his school say that songs and dances are the result of the soul’s being in a kind of motion; those songs which are noble and beautiful produce noble and beautiful souls, whereas the contrary kind produce the contrary’ (tr. Gulick). Thus, a range of virtues could be instilled through proper musical education: courage and moderation,22 as well as —and this appears as a specific innovation of Damon’s —justice. Now this doctrine, ‘that music is connected with the soul’s motion’ (Anderson 1980: 174), was to have a particular appeal to Plato, who seems himself to have had Pythagorean leanings. For our purposes the following statement attributed to Damon by Plato’s Sokrates is of especial interest: ‘The styles of poetry and music are not changed anywhere without change in the most important laws of a city’.23 What Damon appears to have meant is that stan­ dards of civic decency stand in direct relation to the type of ‘musical’ (i.e. artistic and literary) education that a society provides for its citizens. As M. L. West rephrases the Damonian teaching, ‘A musical revolution always means a social revolution’ (1992: 246). The philosopher Philodemos (first century BCE) attributes to Damon a work entitled Areopagitikos (On the Areopagos); Philodemos also seems to have said that it was unclear whether the Areopagites whom Damon was 21

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addressing were real or fictitious. Since we cannot be sure of the treatise’s date, it is impossible to know whether there was any connection with the Areopagos reform of 462, with which (as we shall see) Perikles’ name is connected in some sources.24 Since 487/6 archons, who ex officio became Areopagites upon termination of their magistracy, were chosen by lot (Ath. Pol. 22.5), and in 457 members of Solon’s third property class, the zeugitai, became eligible for the office (26.2). Schachermeyr and others have supposed that Damon’s treatise protested against this watering-down of Athens’ oldest and most senior council. In order to remedy some of the social ills that had befallen Athens, the Areopagos needed to be ‘purified’ and in future drawn only from men who could show that they had been given a ‘proper’ (i.e. edifying) musical education. Yet when Damon still appealed to an Areopagos, he may have envi­ sioned a new college of real Areopagites —that is to say, of competent and qualified personalities —who should take charge of the education of citizens towards a genuine citizenship by way of music. Thus, what would have been at issue was a kind of ‘culture-senate’ that would bring together the worthiest and most knowledgeable Athenians. (Schachermeyr 1969: 202) It seems highly unlikely that Perikles really did introduce pay for service on the popular juries (whenever that occurred) at Damon’s behest, as Ath. Pol. would have it, but I think that what Perikles may have taken from his ‘master’ was an appreciation of the importance of music in education and public life. In this connection it is of possible significance that we will later find Perikles involved in certain changes in the musical contests at the festival of the Panathenaia.25 We must take up the matter of Damon’s dates. The fact that he is grouped with Perikles’ teachers suggests that his name was preserved among those whose theories had an influence on Perikles in his formative years. If there is anything to the implication in Ath. Pol. 27 that it was thanks to Damon’s advice that Perikles changed his tactics and became more ‘demo­ cratic’ and proletarian in his policies, this too suggests a date before the decisive confrontation between Perikles and Kimon in the later 460s. On the basis mainly of the surviving ostraka Damon’s ostracism (if it took place at all)26 probably occurred in the 440s, although some scholars believe he was not ostracized until later.27 It is possible that an association which began (say) in the 460s or even earlier lasted over the span of Perikles’ (and Damon’s) middle years, through an ostracism, and into the late 430s, when Perikles, ‘though such an age’, was still keeping up with the latest Damonian theory. In Plato’s dialogue Laches, whose dramatic date is the late 420s,28 Damon is introduced as a contemporary music-teacher and pupil of Agathokles (Laches 180 D), but A. E. Taylor observes that ‘Damon is supposed to be a very old man living in complete retirement’ (1928: 16). 22

His name comes up several times, as we saw, in Plato’s Republic and the general impression one gets from the way he is referred to is that he was still alive and available at least in principle to be consulted (see especially 400 B). The generally accepted ‘dramatic’ date of the dialogue is c. 410 BCE, but a case has recently been made that c. 429 is a likelier setting, and that would suit what can be reconstructed of Damon’s dates rather better.29 Possibly he is the ‘Damon’ referred to by Andokides (1 On the Mysteries 16) as the former husband of an Alkmeonid woman named — not surprisingly, in view of Damon’s connections with Perikles —Agariste. I turn now to Anaxagoras and his association with Perikles. Once again, his being grouped in the circle of Perikles’ teachers ought to mean that Perikles as a young man ‘listened to’ (i.e. was at least an informal pupil of) Anaxagoras. Anaxagoras’ chronology, especially that of his visit or visits to Athens, is much debated, but on one of the suggested schemes an association with Perikles in his (relative) youth would have been possible. The wealth of anec­ dotal material points as well to a continuing association down to Anaxagoras’ departure from Athens, which took place probably in the late 430s. Let us begin with an overview of Anaxagoras’ philosophical theories, to try to discover what made his ideas seem so revolutionary for their time. His birthplace was Klazomenai in Asia Minor and he was the last in a succession of Ionian thinkers that boasted men like Thales, Anaximandros and Anaximenes. For these early philosophers the basic philosophical problem was: what accounts for change in the physical world? How can we explain the information which our sense-experience gives us, that there are different things in the material universe, and that things appear to come into and go out of existence? Is it possible to discern some underlying principle which is the basic ‘stuff’? Parmenides and the Eleatic school (from Elea in southern Italy) ‘solved’ the problem by simply denying change: their basic tenet was, ‘What is cannot come to be from what is not’\ ‘Being is one and unchanging (hence, change is illusory)’. The Milesian school, in contrast, tried to find a single basic ‘building-block’ of nature out of which all things in some sense emerged or developed (hence, Thales posited water, Anaximandros the indef­ inite or unlimited, and so on). Anaxagoras’ approach was somewhat different: he attempted to meet Parmenides’ challenge head-on. Modern interpreters reconstruct Anaxagoras’ line of reasoning as follows: ‘plurality cannot come from an original unity: if there is to be plurality, it, like reality, must be ultimate’ (Kirk et al.: 1983: 351). ‘Anything that is found to exist in the world must have been there as such in the primordial mixture. Nothing is primary in relation to anything else’ (Teodorsson 1982: 70). Accordingly, the position which Anaxagoras had argued himself was that the basic ‘stuff’ is not, as his Milesian predecessors had held, some particular thing like water or even ‘the infinite’, but a universal mixture: ‘everything is in everything’ or ‘seeds of everything are in everything’, and this is true no matter how small the piece of the material substance. But our senses tell us23 23

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that there are different kinds of things in the universe: gold, wood, clouds. How can we account for this? Even though ‘everything contains everything’, it does not contain it in equal proportions. Anaxagoras conceived of material things as composed of Spermata, ‘seeds’, which themselves were aggregates of moirai, ‘shares’; a gold object was one composed of Spermata in which gold moirai predominated. A corollary of Anaxagoras’ theory was that everything is infinitely divis­ ible; there is no ‘smallest portion’ that won’t contain a portion of everything else. Otherwise, Parmenides would have been correct: there would be no change, or coming-to-be; ‘nothing comes into being nor perishes, but is rather compounded or dissolved from things that are. So they would be right to call coming into being “composition” and perishing “dissolution” ’ (fr. 17 DK, 469 KRS, their trans.). 1 Anaxagoras’ doctrine has sometimes been taken by historians of philosophy as to some degree an anticipation of Demokritos’ ‘atomism’. Thus Teodorsson (1982: 44): Aristotle conceived of [Anaxagoras’ Spermata} as particles of natural substances, comparable to the atoms of Leucippus and Democritus but each being a compound of all substances. These particles are thus differentiated from the atoms, which of course are pure, unmixed elemental particles. As well as this ‘atomic’ analysis (to use a modern phrase), Anaxagoras’ teaching also reached to the metaphysical sphere. He needed to explain what made things happen in the natural world, and thought he had found a satis­ factory principle of order and control; this was the cardinal tenet of his ‘cosmology’, and it was also the doctrine that brought him notoriety and, from some circles, ridicule. Anaxagoras held that the basic active principle of the undifferentiated primordial mass is Nous, ‘Mind’, which ‘imparts the first rotary motion to the original mixture’ (Raven 1954: 136). The primal importance of Nous in the hierarchy of existence can be seen from fr. 12 DK (fr.476 KRS, from whose translation I quote): All other things have a portion of everything, but Mind is infinite and self-ruled, and is mixed with nothing but is all alone by itself. . . . For it is the finest of all things and the purest, it has all knowledge about everything and the greatest power; and Mind controls all things, both the greater and the smaller, that have life. Mind controlled also the whole rotation [of the primordial undifferentiated material}, so that it began to rotate in the beginning. . . . And the things that are mingled and separated and divided off, all are known by Mind. And all things that were to be —those that were and those that are now and those that shall be —Mind arranged them all . . . Again, somewhat more cryptically, ‘In everything there is a portion of every­ thing except Mind, and there are some things in which there is Mind as

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well’ (fr.ll DK, 482 KRS; their trans.: 366). Anaxagoras thus elevates Nous into the ultimate creating and controlling principle of the universe, and this is the tenet for which he was remembered — indeed, became notorious; as Plato summarizes his doctrine in the Phaidon, ‘It is Mind that arranges all things in order and causes all things’ (97 C). According to Hussey (1972: 138), the Anaxagorean ‘Mind (Nous) is recognisably a descendant of the Milesian deities; it is all-powerful and omniscient, and orders the kosmos or kosmoi according to a plan’. Experts differ about the degree to which Anaxagoras conceived of Nous as a non-material substance; Raven takes the view that he did not, but that for Anaxagoras, Mind, being most rarefied and ‘ethereal’ (see the jokes in Aristophanes and elsewhere), was at the top of a kind of pyramid of corporeal reality. Nous too is corporeal, and owes its power over everything else to the fact that, while everything else . . . is mixed with everything else, it alone remains unmixed. Nous indeed, in the sense that it alone is conscious and purposive, is the only true agent in Anaxagoras’ universe. (Raven 1954: 136) We ought not to conclude that Anaxagoras’ philosophical interests were restricted to these somewhat ‘ethereal’ matters. From a glance at the rele­ vant section in volume 2 of Guthrie’s magisterial History of Greek Philosophy (1965: 266—338), it appears that he investigated a wide range of topics (Guthrie’s sub-headings): the problem of becoming; mind; theory of matter; the initial state: cosmogony; cosmology and astronomy; meteo­ rology; one world or more?; the origin and nature of living things; sensation; theory of knowledge. 2 In the cosmological sphere —and this is really a kind of derivative of his metaphysical doctrine concerning Nous — Anaxagoras held that the sun, moon and other heavenly bodies were not, as was widely supposed, in any sense ‘divine’ but simply ‘molten masses of metal’. And it was these teachings that were later to get him into trouble.55 I turn now to two central points in the present discussion: the degree of closeness of the relationship between Anaxagoras and Perikles, and the amount of influence (if any) of the philosopher on the statesman. As we saw when we looked at the evidence for links between Perikles and Damon, the dialogue First Alkibiades mentions Anaxagoras along with Pythokleides and Damon as being among the many ‘wise men’ with whom Perikles was said to have consorted, and this was repeated by Isokrates, who calls Perikles the pupil (mathetes) of both Anaxagoras and Damon (Antidosis 235). But it is especially in Plutarch, of all our sources, that Anaxagoras’ name looms large as an ‘exalted’ thinker who exercised a continuing, indeed, pervasive, influ­ ence on Perikles.55 W hat Perikles was believed to have acquired from Anaxagoras was: 25

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1 a general ‘high-mindedness’, and especially (la) the practical application of this to addressing the Assembly, ‘lofty rhetoric’; and 2 a propensity to look for natural rather than supernatural causes to explain unusual occurrences in the physical world, this being a particular aspect of (2a) a general imperviousness to superstition. Put somewhat differently, Plutarch paints a picture of a Perikles who is ‘elevated’ and ‘composed’, both of these qualities being due largely (in Plutarch’s estimation, at any rate) to the edifying influence of Anaxagoras. The elevation shows itself particularly in Perikles’ manner of addressing the people, but extends more generally to an attitude of mind. ‘Composure’ or imperturbability is, in Perikles, almost ataraxia, an impassivity in the face of political and personal attacks. This was a characteristic which (at least in the way in which Plutarch portrays him) Perikles manifested in his private life —he is thus habitually presented as a person who shunned crowds and even disliked going to dinner parties —but it was also a piece of political calculation: it prevented overexposure and added an air of mystery to him as a public figure. In keeping with this interpretation of his temperament, Perikles was said to prefer to use emissaries or agents, an uncomplimentary designation for whom the vernacular would be ‘stooges’.56 To illustrate this side of his subject, Plutarch quotes a witticism by Kritolaos, a successor of Aristotle and head of the Peripatetic School in the second century BCE: like the state galley Salaminia, Perikles ‘saved himself for great occasions’. 7 (Note, however, that Plutarch stitches —not altogether seamlessly — these stories on to a separate tradition that Perikles, at least in the earlier part of his career, was purposely ‘keeping a low profile’ through fear of ostracism.)58 Of all these related aspects of Perikles’ persona Plutarch gives abundant illustrations and examples, generally through anecdotes. They occur most often in direct proximity to remarks about Anaxagoras’ ‘teaching’. Some of this may be an elaboration by Plutarch himself, but he had also probably found some germs of the idea in the sources which he consulted. The ‘political/rhetorical’ part, I am convinced, started with a seed planted by Plato in the Pbaidros (I shall return to this), but from this maze of alleged ‘influences’ I take as a convenient starting-point the ‘imperviousness-to-superstition’ tales, which I suspect originated with a story told (with how much justifica­ tion we cannot say) of Perikles’ cool-headed and ‘down-to-earth’ behaviour at the time of an actual eclipse, that of 3 August 431, an event reported by Thoukydides (2.28) without, however, naming either Anaxagoras or Perikles. Cicero mentions the incident of the eclipse and comments, ‘Perikles is said to have communicated to his fellow-citizens the information he received from Anaxagoras, whose pupil he had been.’™ Towards the end of the Per., Plutarch gives essentially the same account of Perikles’ ‘control’, 26

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but does not name Anaxagoras: Perikles reportedly calmed the fears of his own helmsman —they had just gone aboard ship when the eclipse occurred — by holding up a cloak in front of the man’s face and saying that the only difference was that what screened the sun in the case of the eclipse was a -little bigger (Plutarch also, as commentators have noted, misdates the eclipse by a year, placing it in 430 rather than 431, its actual date).40 There was a variant of this story. Frontinus, after stating that Perikles was a pupil of Anaxagoras, remarks ‘when there was lightning and the Athenians were thrown into confusion, Perikles, since they were setting out to battle under his generalship, bashed together two rocks and struck fire from them, and said, “there, that’s lightning” ’.4l These stories illustrate what our sources considered to be the pragmatic value to Perikles of Anaxagoras’ theorizing about the natural world: he was able to put this scientific attitude to use in his management of Athens’ mili­ tary affairs. But there was another, what might be termed a moral or spiritual, side to this. In chapter 6 of Per. Plutarch tells a story to illustrate how, through Anaxagoras’ direct intervention, Perikles was able to rise above common beliefs that passed under the term deisidaimonia, ‘superstition’. A one-horned ram had been sent to him from his country estate; Lampon (to this soothsayer and his alleged involvement in the Thourioi foundation we shall return)42 interpreted this as portending that in the political contest with Thoukydides son of Melesias Perikles would ultimately gain domi­ nance. Anaxagoras’ approach was different: he had the skull dissected and proceeded to demonstrate that the brain had not filled its natural space, but had contracted into a point like an egg at that place in the cavity from which the horn grew. On that occasion, so the story goes —and at this point we begin to suspect that the whole thing is a fiction made up to illustrate the paradoxical outcome that follows — it was Anaxagoras who won the admiration of the onlookers, but not long after Lampon came into his own, for Thoukydides was overthrown and Perikles’ voice came to be the domi­ nating one in Athenian affairs 45 The point of the story is the reversal: the ‘naive’ Lampon outsmarts the sophisticated Anaxagoras. The influence of Anaxagoras is probably also to be detected behind the report, towards the end of Per., of a disparaging remark about the allegedly curative powers of an amulet brought to Perikles by a friend as he lay on his deathbed.44 It is possible that the ancient tradition ascribed another well-known trait of Perikles to the influence of Anaxagoras, namely, his ability to show super­ human patience and forbearance in the face of political opposition and personal bereavement. In Chapter 5 Plutarch records a story of Perikles enduring stoically and without complaint a whole day of insults, the haranguer even dogging him as he returned home; Perikles then calmly asked a servant to escort the detractor to his home. Clearly Plutarch thinks this illustrates the tough-minded composure which was a practical fruit of Anaxagoras’ teaching, but immediately after telling the story he quotes a 27

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contemporary witness, Ion of Chios, who put a somewhat different cast on the matter: ‘Perikles’ behaviour in company (bomilia) was vulgar and rather arrogant and in his boastfulness there was a large admixture of disdain and contempt of others’. 5 By contrast. Ion is reported by Plutarch to have been favourably impressed by Kimon’s contrasting ‘suppleness and smoothness and sophistication in his social dealings’.46 Plutarch closes the chapter with a reproof of Ion and a defence of Perikles’ semnotès or ‘dignity’.47 Various accounts are preserved of the way Perikles manfully bore the death of his two legitimate sons, Xanthippos and Paralos, in the plague that broke out in 430 and ravaged Athens for some time thereafter. Here, too, we may suspect that the tradition, if pressed, would have attributed this stal­ wart attitude to the influence of Anaxagoras’ teachings (although in one account, it is Protagoras’ name that is given as a witness to Perikles’ endurance).48 According to Plutarch, writing this time not in Per. but in the Moralia {Moral Essays), one reason suggested for Perikles’ title ‘Olympian’ was his ‘surpassing power of reasoning and of understanding’ 49 When he had news of his sons’ deaths Perikles reportedly (and Plutarch names Protagoras as his source) ‘bore their deaths without yielding to his sorrow; he placed the garland on his head as was the ancestral custom, garbed himself in white and, “beginning good counsel” [an allusion to Homer, Iliad 2.273], urged the Athenians to press on more urgently with the war’.50 The later account of Aelian simply rang a change on this theme: Perikles bore his sons’ deaths so manfully that his example persuaded all the Athenians to endure the deaths of their loved ones more cheerfully.51 Now a parallel example of stoical forbearance in the face of a similar personal loss is told also of Anaxagoras, and the source is again Plutarch, in the same essay, Consolation to Apollonios (and just before, in fact, the account of Perikles’ stoical acceptance of his bereavement and Protagoras’ comment, just noted): Anaxagoras was discussing physical theories with his friends, when news reached him of the death of his (?only) son; he ‘stopped a little and then said to those present, “I knew I had fathered a son who was mortal” ’. It is time now to turn to what I believe was the origin of a large part of this picture, at least as it specifically concerns Perikles’ rhetorical ability. In the dialogue Phaidros Sokrates and Phaidros are having a discussion about the ‘technique of rhetoric’, rhetorike tecbne. Phaidros asks Sokrates how this can be acquired, and Sokrates replies that some people are ‘rhetorical’ (i.e. find it easy to persuade others) by nature; to be truly outstanding, such an individual must round off his development with knowledge and practice. Sokrates then suggests that they take Perikles as an example, since he has ‘reached the highest perfection’ (teledtatos) in the art. Sokrates then continues,55 All great arts demand discussion and high speculation {adoleschias kai meteorologias) about nature; for this loftiness of mind {bypselonoun) and 28

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effectiveness in all directions seem somehow to come from such pursuits. This was in Perikles added to his great natural abilities; for it was, I think, his falling in with Anaxagoras,54 who was just such a man, that filled him with high thoughts (meteorologias emplestheisy5 and taught him the nature of mind and lack of mind [the text is here uncertain}, subjects about which Anaxagoras used chiefly to discourse,56 and from these speculations he (i.e. Perikles) drew and applied to the art of speaking what is of use to it. Plato’s use of such phrases as ‘high speculation’, ‘loftiness of mind’, ‘high thoughts’, ought to warn us that he is being satirical, or at least not entirely serious, in his estimate of what Anaxagoras contributed to Perikles’ mental make-up; we remember how Sokrates’ own teachings are (albeit, some believe, with unfair exaggeration) parodied by Aristophanes in Clouds?1 To Anaxagoras’ critics and, indeed, perhaps to the ordinary Athenian, the terms used by Plato would have suggested a lack of contact with reality, an ‘unworldliness’, which relegated his speculations to the realm of the imprac­ tical and ‘ethereal’. We know that to his contemporaries he was known as ‘Mind’ (‘Brains’, in now slightly old-fashioned slang). This ‘loftiness’ was also, in the eyes of some of his compatriots, a characteristic of Perikles’ general attitude to politics (at least, in Plutarch’s scheme, after he had settled down and could relax in his role), especially as this manifested itself in his speeches —substantially, Thoukydides’ picture. Was it not reasonable to assume, then, that Perikles became ‘high-minded’ from too much expo­ sure to the ‘lofty-minded’ teachings of Anaxagoras? Now all this may be true, but our confidence in its factuality is not increased after we have been able to trace its probable beginnings in a not-altogether-serious source like the Phaidros passage just considered. Plutarch reflects this view in several places, implicitly at Per. 4.6 (after discussion of his ‘teachers’ Damon, Pythokleides, Zeno of Elea): But the one who was most closely associated with him and especially clothed him with bulk (onkos) and high-spirit {phronema) which was weightier than any demagogy, and totally raised on high (;meteorisas) and elevated the esteem which his character commanded, was Anaxagoras . . . (Plutarch then goes on to give a thumb-nail sketch of Anaxagoras’ teachings about Nous and the constituents of the physical universe.) We encounter it again at Per. 5.1, where (as Ziegler notes) there are closer verbal parallels with the Phaidros passage. Plutarch’s comment, ‘because Perikles exceed­ ingly admired Anaxagaoras and was full (hypopimplamenos) of the so-called higher speculation {meteorologia') and elevated discourse {metarsioleschia)’, is obviously drawn from Plato’s phrase, noted above, meteorologias emplestheis. Plutarch mentions Plato by name at Per. 8.1—2, and manifestly draws on this

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passage from the Phaidros: Perikles, ‘tuning his oratory, like an instrument, in harmony with his way of life and the greatness of his conceptions (toi megethoi tou phronematos), often stretched Anaxagoras among the strings’ —or perhaps the somewhat ambiguous metaphor in pareneteine means ‘often fitted on Anaxagoras as a kind of auxiliary string’ —pouring on natural science as a dye to rhetoric. For, as the divine Plato says, ‘having acquired this highminded and completing quality (hupselonoun . . . telesiourgon) as an addition to his own natural ability (euphues), and having drawn from natural science what was beneficial for the craft (techne) of speaking, he far surpassed others’. The last part of the passage is, as Städter remarks (1989: 102), ‘a free quota­ tion’ of the Phaidros passage. Even though Plutarch’s is the most fully worked out picture of this alleged debt, he was not the first to ascribe Perikles’ ‘exalted’ rhetorical manner to Anaxagoras. In the Roman period the view that Perikles had been taught his oratorical skills by Anaxagoras was standard. Cicero writes in De oratore (3.34.138): Perikles learnt the art of speaking not from ‘some bawler giving lessons in vociferating against the clock’ [so the Loeb translator}, but, as we are told, it was the great Anaxagoras of Klazomenai, a man distinguished for his knowledge of the highest sciences; and so Perikles was pre-eminent in learning {doctrina), judgment {concilium), and eloquence, and was supreme both in politics and war at Athens for 40 years.59 And at Brutus 44 Cicero comments that Perikles was the first orator to use doctrina·. having been trained by Anaxagoras the natural philosopher, he found it easy to transfer that mental discipline from obscure and abstruse problems to the cases in the forum and before the people. . . . Athens therefore feared the force and fury of his speaking ability. 0 Quintilian, too, in his Training of an Orator {Institutio Oratoria), composed about 95 ce, ascribed Perikles’ rhetorical skill to Anaxagoras’ instruction. 1 As should be clear by now, little confidence can be put in the anecdotal tradition that connects Perikles and Anaxagoras as far as specific ‘doctrines’, or, for that matter, a general ‘high-mindedness’ (which Perikles’ enemies were quick to call aloofness) are concerned. What can, I think, be salvaged as a core of historical truth about their relationship is the fact that Perikles demonstrated by his behaviour, especially under pressure, that his outlook was ‘scientific’, that of a ‘rationalist’. It is this that lies at the base of the rather wry account of the one-horned ram (and Plutarch shows by his manner of telling it that he found it amusing). At a more private level, he may have found in Anaxagoras a model of stalwart endurance in the face of personal loss. The tradition, however, did not have the pupil always 30

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following along meekly in his master’s footsteps. At Per. l6.3ff. Plutarch is illustrating a rather unattractive side of his subject, a certain stinginess and exactitude, and he remarks (16.7) that this characteristic was ‘not in accord with the wisdom of Anaxagoras, since that philosopher actually abandoned his house and left his land to lie fallow for sheep-grazing, because of his keenness (enthousiasmos) and high-mindedness’. 2 What can we say with confidence about the degree to which Perikles was influenced by the philosophers or theoreticians whom our sources name as important for his development? We would be on safer ground if we could be sure when exactly they came into contact. Since the dates of both Damon and Anaxagoras elude us, we cannot say even whether he encountered and learnt from them during his formative years or (a conclusion to which some of our better evidence seems to point) only in later years. As to specific influ­ ences, the puckishness, not so say malice, of Plato and his school successfully muddied the waters of subsequent historical enquiry. One of Damon’s major tenets seems to have been that the type of music one listens to when young will have an impact on the ‘harmony’ of one’s internal make-up as well as the orderliness of the society of which one becomes a part; I like to believe that this attractive doctrine was taken over by Perikles and made his own. Anaxagoras, for his part, held firmly to the value of rational investigation and tried to find a reasonable explanation for phenomena that might on the surface appear strange, even bizarre. This too, I feel, would have endeared him to Perikles. Beyond that it seems rash to proceed, given the anecdotal and tendentious nature of most of our ‘evidence’. It does not seem to me prudent to believe that Perikles did not see the political capital to be gained from ‘giving the people their own’ (i.e. redistributing Athens’ imperial income) until Damon advised him to do so, nor that he acquired an attitude of intellectual superiority (nor, for that matter, an exalted oratorical style) from Anaxagoras. I think we can be fairly confident that both of these men formed part of Athens’ intellectual set, and that Perikles was on familiar terms with them as with other members of it; whether Pythokleides and Zeno ever were members of that circle I would hesitate to assert with any confidence. ADDENDUM : ANAXAGORAS’ DATES AND HIS TRIAL(S)63 The ancient evidence is a morass of anecdotal, incomplete and often conflicting testimonies.64 Basically one has to make a choice (and then, in fact, ‘emend’ or alter some of the data), and reconstruct either a ‘high’ or a ‘low’ chronology. On the ‘high’ dates, Anaxagoras was born at Klazomenai in Ionia about 500 bce and came to Athens in 480 (one source, Demetrios of Phaleron, cited by Diogenes Laertios 2.7, appears to synchronize this with the ‘crossing of Xerxes’ into Europe); he is alleged to have spent 30 years

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teaching philosophy at Athens, and the period might well be dated 480—50 (this would allow Perikles to have been his ‘pupil’ in some real sense, although 20 seems a bit young for Anaxagoras to have set himself up as a teacher). It is not clear what weight should be given to the story that he predicted the fall of a meteor at Aigospotamoi, an event dated by the Parian Marble to 468/7. Whether his departure from Athens was the result of a trial remains highly problematic. Some light may be shed by other, more indirect evidence. On one currently accepted theory of the development of Anaxagoras’ ideas,65 his ‘intellectual floruit’ is to be placed 470—60, before Empedokles. (His rela­ tionship with Zeno’s paradoxes that purported to prove infinite divisibility is unclear; I provisionally accept the view that Anaxagoras comes —philo­ sophically speaking — after Zeno and before Empedokles.)66 Thus Anaxagoras might well have been actively formulating and promulgating his ideas in the intellectual ferment of post-Persian War Athens. This would also help to explain why, as modern students of Sokrates repeatedly point out, there is no evidence for any direct philosophical influence by Anaxagoras on Sokrates. It might, however, be thought that as a hypotheti­ cally curious teenager Sokrates would have gone along to ‘hear’ Anaxagoras in the late 450s, when it appears that the older philosopher was giving oral expositions of his ideas and had not yet made any definitive statement of them in writing.67 The ‘oral’ nature of the way Anaxagoras’ views seem to have been disseminated was interestingly pointed out by Schofield (1980: 98) citing in particular fr. 6. It is clear that a written work by Anaxagoras was later available, and for the rather moderate sum of one drachma (Plato Apol. 26 D—E; at Phaidon 97 B—C Plato has Sokrates refer to someone reading aloud from a book by Anaxagoras). On the other hand, the picture that Plutarch gives strongly implies, even if it does not definitely prove, that Anaxagoras was active in Athens well beyond Perikles’ youth, and really throughout the middle and later part of his career; and certainly the account of his trial and Perikles’ alleged defence of him —possibly against charges brought by Kleon —is placed firmly in the run-up to the war, i.e. c.432 bce (this is the date commonly accepted in modern accounts). W ith this lowered scheme the difficulty of why Sokrates and Anaxagoras appear never to have met becomes acute. Whenever it was that Anaxagoras finally left Athens, and under whatever circumstances, independent evidence points to his having spent his last years in Lampsakos on the south coast of the Hellespont, opening a school of philosophy whose pupils were, after his death, given an annual holiday as an honour to the great man. Was Anaxagoras really put on trial for impiety? W hat must give us pause in accepting the historicity of such a trial is the way in which Diodoros (12.39.2) and Plutarch {Per. 32.2 and 5) — both, presumably, following Ephoros —interweave their accounts with the ‘troubles’ of Pheidias, which. 32

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as we shall see, are heavily anecdotal and probably fictitious.69 The theme being illustrated is that the pre-eminent position of Perikles, and the shared prominence of his close associates, aroused jealousy, pbtbonos, among ordi­ nary, less-gifted, Athenians, and that their enemies were just waiting for an opportune moment to attack through a perceived, or invented, chink in their collective armour. So in the case of Anaxagoras we are told by Plutarch (Diodoros is less specific) that a certain Diopeithes introduced a decree of condemnation of ‘those who did not believe in the [city’s] gods’.70 (Plutarch reports that a charge of impiety, asebeia, was laid against Aspasia, but this, as we shall see, was possibly a misunderstanding by Plutarch or his source of a scene in some comedy.) Another disquieting aspect is the great variety of conflicting accounts about exactly what happened. Four different versions are preserved by Diogenes Laertios (2.12—14): 1 Sotion, in a work called The Succession of Philosophers composed a little after 200 BCE, said Kleon prosecuted Anaxagoras for asebeia, impiety, because the philosopher taught that the sun was a mass of red-hot metal; he was defended by his pupil Perikles, condemned to pay a fine of 5 talents, and banished; 2 Satyros in Biot {Lives) said Thoukydides, the political opponent of Perikles, charged Anaxagoras not only with impiety but also with Medism; Anaxagoras himself was not present at the trial but was condemned to death in absentia (Diogenes then comments about his forbearance when news of the death of his sons was brought to him);71 3 Hermippos in Bioi said that when Anaxagoras was in prison and awaiting execution, Perikles went before the people and asked whether they had any fault to find against his (i.e. Perikles’) life, and when they said they hadn’t he pleaded Ί am Anaxagoras’ pupil; don’t be carried away by slan­ ders to execute the man, but listen to me and release him.’ Anaxagoras was in fact released, but couldn’t endure the disgrace and committed suicide; 4 Hieronymos in Book 2 of his work Miscellaneous Commentaries said that Perikles accompanied Anaxagoras to court but the latter was so weak and wasted with illness that he was acquitted not on the case but out of pity. At Per. 32.5, Plutarch gives what seems to be yet another account: ‘Perikles was so alarmed for Anaxagoras that he smuggled him out of the city’, which implies that the case didn’t come to trial, but several times elsewhere Plutarch writes as if Anaxagoras had actually been imprisoned.72 We cannot be sure of the degree of truth that may lie behind the report that Anaxagoras’ allegedly atheistic teachings led to his being ostracized from Athens; ‘he was later recalled because of Perikles’ rhetorical skill, for Perikles was a pupil of Anaxagoras’. A prudent position would be that if he was formally charged, the conflicting and contradictory sources do not allow any confidence about 33

when this occurred, whether he was actually convicted, and, if so, what his punishment was. The strongest evidence of an actual prosecution is the hint that a documentary source may lie behind Plutarch’s report of Diopeithes’ decree calling for eisangelia against atheists.74 I take it that the anecdotal tradition points to an intervention of some kind —not necessarily a formal speech, let alone an emotional plea on his behalf —in support of the philoso­ pher by his friend and patron Perikles. The upshot was that he left Athens, for we can be fairly certain that he ended his days in Lampsakos on the Hellespont, since, as we saw, a ‘school’ said to have been founded by him there continued on for a long time after this death.

34

4 A PERSONAL RIVALRY Kimon

Herodotos reports (6.136) that it was Miltiades’ son Kimon who paid his father’s 50-talent fine in the suit brought against him by Xanthippos after the battle of Marathon.1 Plutarch in reporting this incident at Kim. 4.4 uses the word meirakion, which suggests someone about or just under 20 years old, and so Kimon will have been born a little after 510 BCE. The later tradition recorded a profusion of detail, little of which appears to be based on anything more than gossip and speculation, of how Kimon raised the 50 talents. In one version —the most complete account is in Cornelius Nepos (who also reports that when Miltiades died in prison Kimon was incarcer­ ated in his place until such time as he might pay his father’s fine), but it clearly goes back to an earlier source, possibly Stesimbrotos —the sum was obtained through the marriage of Kimon’s half-sister Elpinike with one of the wealthiest men in Athens, Kallias, nicknamed ‘Lakkoploutos’, ‘Pitwealthy’, probably because his wealth came from mining. A somewhat different version, for which Ephoros appears to have been responsible, had it that Kimon himself married wealth and according to one source (Diodoros 10.32, perhaps also drawing on Ephoros [FGH 70 F 64]), he was acting on the advice of Themistokles. Although some details remain unclear, the story implies that the allegedly wealthy woman in question was none other than a member of the Alkmeonid family, a certain Isodike by name, who is mentioned by Plutarch. The story is probably without foundation, but it is clear that Kimon did, at some stage in his career, marry into the family of Perikles’ mother. What cannot be determined, however, is when this took place, nor who the woman in question was. There has been much specula­ tion about her exact placement in the Alkmeonid family: Plutarch simply calls her ‘daughter of Euryptolemos and granddaughter of Megakles’ (Kim. 16.1). About this Euryptolemos nothing further is known, although the name recurs in Perikles’ family.5 He was either the son or grandson of the Megakles who was Peisistratos’ rival and (for a time, at least) father-in-law (Herodotos 1.61). In discussing Kimon’s offspring at Kim. 16, Plutarch remarks that there was disagreement in the ancient authorities about the identity of the mother of Kimon’s sons, but he cites respectable evidence

A PERSONAL RIVALRY: KIMON

(Diodoros the Topographer, FGH 372 F 37) for the fact that three of his sons were born to Kimon by Isodike.6 Along with uncertainty over the date of the marriage, other interesting questions must go unanswered. Who initi­ ated the approach? Which family thought it had more to gain by such an alliance? It is worth emphasizing, however, that this marriage of Kimon into Perikles’ mother’s family must at least occasionally have put Perikles in an awkward position, since he will be seen as the vociferous opponent of a man who was also a ‘kinsman’. We may be inclined to disbelieve many, perhaps all, of the recorded details about how Kimon scraped together the money to discharge his father’s very large debt, but the basic fact remains of a rivalry (not to say animosity) that sprang up between the two individuals in the 480s and was carried on by their sons. Even though Kimon was older than Perikles by perhaps as much as 20 years, I believe that our sources are in the main trust­ worthy when they make him Perikles’ first serious political opponent. From archaeological evidence, namely, ostraka broken off from the same pot, which bear the names of Kimon and Themistokles, as well as of the Alkmeonid Megakles, it seems very likely that Kimon was himself a candi­ date for ostracism in the year in which Megakles was ostracized, 486 BCE In Chapter 5 of his Life of Kimon Plutarch tells one of those stories in which he so delights (because they illustrate what he takes to be a salient point of his subject’s character) of how magnanimously Kimon behaved on the eve of the battle of Salamis. Themistokles’ plan to evacuate Athens and risk every­ thing on a resistance to the Persians by sea had caused widespread apprehension, and strong opposition, at Athens. In order to unite public opinion behind the evacuation scheme, Kimon reportedly performed a gesture as theatrical as it was effective. He .7

was seen with his companions leading the way through the Kerameikos up to the Akropolis, his face lit up with confidence. In his hands he carried a horse’s bridle to dedicate to Athena since, in its hour of crisis, the city needed not the prowess of knights on horseback but men to fight on ships. Kimon dedicated his bridle, took down one of the shields which hung about the temple’s walls, offered prayers to the goddess, and made his way down to the sea. Many took heart from his example. {Kim. 5.2ff. trans. Blamire) No other ancient source preserves this story and, although we cannot be absolutely certain that it is fiction, the main point intended by whoever first reported it seems to have been moral rather than historical: the Athenian old guard, for all its preference for a traditional mode of fighting on horseback, could put its prejudices aside and act out of a self-effacing patriotism.8 Kimon became one of the most important figures in Athenian public life in the period after Salamis. At Arisi. 10.10 Plutarch appears to be quoting a 36

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documentary source for the names of the ambassadors sent by the Athenians to Sparta in the summer of 479 at the time of the Persians’ second invasion, under Mardonios, and Kimon’s name appears alongside those of Xanthippos and Myronides. Our sources also uniformly assign major credit to Kimon for prosecution of the war against Persia in the eastern Mediterranean in the aftermath of the victories at Plataia and Mykale. More than that: he (along with Aristeides) took the first steps in asserting Athenian pre-eminence in the anti-Persian alliance, although he was also careful to keep his close personal ties with Sparta intact; he went so far as to name one of his sons ‘Lakedaimonios’. Kimon and Aristeides also worked together to undermine Themistokles’ popularity. As we saw, the chronology of Themistokles’ down­ fall is cloudy,10 but it is clear that by the late 470s his position at Athens was being seriously threatened: ostracism was to be followed by condemna­ tion for treason in absentia, and it is highly significant that the Athenian, Epikrates by name, who arranged to have Themistokles’ wife and children leave Athens secretly and join him in exile, was later prosecuted by Kimon and condemned to death.11 Meanwhile the ‘Confederacy of Delos’ was achieving its first successes. ‘First’, says Thoukydides in his bare summary at 1.108, ‘they laid siege to and captured Eion on the Strymon, which the Persians held, and made slaves of the inhabitants, then they enslaved Skyros . . . ’. Possibly now, too, the Athenians attempted without success to establish a colony nearby at Ennea Hodoi. The Skyros episode is particularly interesting because it shows Kimon possibly taking a leaf from the book of his rival and enemy, Themistokles. Themistokles figures prominently in Herodotos’ account of the events immediately preceding the battle of Salamis, not least as the Athenian who ‘refused to take “No!” for an answer’ from the oracle at Delphi, and insisted on interpreting the rather pessimistic Delphic response in a way that should not prove disastrous for Athens.14 The Skyros affair shows Kimon claiming to be acting under instruction from, or at least in accordance with, an oracle, in ‘discovering’ on Skyros the bones of Athens’ early king, the heroic figure Theseus, who according to legend had been killed by his Skyrian host Lykomedes and was buried on the island. Kimon had these relics brought back to Athens with great ceremony and deposited in a newly-constructed shrine, the Theseion.15 No doubt the prestige of Athens in the eyes of her allies was greatly enhanced, and at the same time the Confederacy of Delos was provided with a new, Athenian, patron to share with Apollo the role of divine protector. Perhaps the high point of Kimon’s military career, and the apogee of the Confederacy’s successes against Persia under his leadership, was the spectac­ ular double victory, on both land and sea, at the Eurymedon river in Pamphylia.10 Around 200 enemy ships were captured or sunk, and great quantities of booty were secured, from the sale of which, according to Plutarch, various civic improvements were carried out, including (Kim. 13.5)

A PERSONAL RIVALRY: KIMON

a reinforcement of the south wall of the Akropolis, the planting of plane trees in the Agora, and the transformation of the Academy ‘from a parched and arid dustbowl into a well-watered grove’ (13.7, trans. Blamire). These improvements must have been very welcome to the Athenians and would have redounded to his own personal popularity — as no doubt they were intended to do. He appears to have had his eye on such opportunities to do such a double service, to his city and himself, since about 477 when, in the aftermath of the allied capture of Byzantion, the Athenians —through a bit of shrewdness, not to say duplicity, on Kimon’s part, if we accept the highly circumstantial account in Plutarch (Kim. 9) —were allotted possession of the Persian prisoners (as opposed to their personal effects, which the allies had chosen); these, when ransomed by their families, provided enough money for Kimon to equip the Athenian ships for four months with, according to Plutarch (Kim. 9.6), a not inconsiderable amount left over ‘for the city’. In a recent study Schmitt Pantel has argued that ‘political bribery’ was a topos, with Kimon and Perikles cast as competitors, who sought the where­ withal for their bids for popular support from different sources, Kimon from his ancestral wealth, Perikles ‘giving the people their own’.17 According to this view, the vast building programme undertaken by the Athenians in the 440s on Perikles’ instigation can be seen as, in a sense, a continuation of this competition, with Thoukydides Melesiou assuming a role similar to Kimon’s earlier one; this time, however, Perikles does not so much ‘out-bid’ the oppo­ sition as simply overwhelm him by the grandiosity of the buildings. There are, however, some problems in a too-easy acceptance of this picture with its stark but somewhat facile contrasts. We cannot be certain, for example, how much ancestral wealth Kimon really had. Ath. Pol. seems to have oversimplified considerably when at 27.3^4 it pits against Kimon’s ‘tyrannical substance’ Perikles’ financial ‘deficiency’, which he had to make up for by such ‘demagogic’ measures as jury-pay. Set against stories of Kimon’s affluence the report, already considered, of his having to marry off his sister Elpinike to get money for his father’s fine (of course it is possible that this was the source of Kimon’s fortune). And did Perikles have no inher­ ited wealth of his own? It is difficult to estimate even within broad limits what the total cost of these improvements may have been,18 nor can we be certain which of Kimon’s benefactions were paid for from his own pocket, which from public sources like booty and tribute-surplus. Plutarch reports the philosopher Gorgias as having commented that Kimon ‘acquired wealth in order to use it, and used it in order to gain honour’ (Kim. 10.5; DK 82 B 20). Gorgias’ use of the term ‘acquired’ suggests that it was not his own ancestral wealth that Kimon was spending, and there is a hint that his motives in spending it went beyond mere ‘honour’. Plutarch, in commenting on the liberality with which Kimon had his estates thrown open to all and sundry (another version had it that only his demesmen, the people of Lakiadai, were given this 38

A PERSONAL RIVALRY: KIMON

privilege),19 says ‘any of the poor who wished could enter and obtain suste­ nance without labour, and so be free to concentrate on bis duties to the state’ {Kim. 10.1 at end, trans. Blamire; my emphasis added). Did Plutarch find this somewhere or is he just surmising? The detail is not (so far as I have been able to discover) found in any other source. If there is any substance to it, it shows Kimon anticipating in a very significant way one of the fundamental purposes that many scholars ascribe to the Periklean ‘public works’ programme of the 440s and 430s. Even if the stories are exaggerated, they must contain a kernel of truth. In a comedy titled Archilocboi, produced after Kimon’s death c. 449, Kratinos has one of his characters refer to Kimon as ‘a man godlike and most hospitable’ (PCG iv, fr.l, line 2; cited by Plutarch at Kim. 10.4). The later tradition probably embellished the facts in order to exaggerate the rivalry between him and Perikles, and thus heighten the element of drama; the difficulty is to measure accurately the degree of embellishment and exaggeration. At Kim. 8.7ff Plutarch reports in some detail —and he is our only source for these events —an episode which can be dated to 468 BCE (the archonship of Apsephion). At the Great Dionysia held in that year the normal arrange­ ments for selecting judges from each tribe for the dramatic competitions were suspended and the board of generals, of which Kimon was the leading member, was given the signal honour (as Plutarch remarks) of being asked to serve in the extraordinary capacity of festival jurors. In the upshot they made the award (somewhat surprisingly, as Plutarch tells it) to the young Sophokles, whose debut performance this was,20 awarding him first prize over the more seasoned Aischylos.21 The episode has been held to show personal and perhaps also political affinities between Sophokles and Kimon, as well as the latter’s animosity towards Aischylos. Historians have also sometimes tried to use this occurrence to fix the chronology of Kimon’s military victories: generally, it has been seen as a ‘reward’ for his striking success at the Eurymedon. If this were correct, it would help to fix Eurymedon before 468, but others refuse to accept any link between the two events.22 Kimon’s operations in the Chersonese (modern Gallipoli), for which Plutarch is our only source {Kim. 14.1; cf. CAM2 1992: 46) are prob­ ably to be placed late in the campaigning season of 465. He attacked a Persian garrison there who were appealing for support to the Thracians of the interior and, though outnumbered, captured the Persian squadron of 13 ships; he then (in Plutarch’s overheated narrative) ‘drove out the Persians, gained mastery over the Thracians, and colonized the whole Chersonese for Athens’. If this contains even a grain of truth, it shows Kimon reasserting his family’s presence in the area and anticipating Perikles’ own later settle­ ment of cleruchs there.25 Next after Eurymedon (‘some time later’) Thoukydides reports that the island of Thasos, one of Athens’ largest and richest allies, revolted; she was 39

A PERSONAL RIVALRY: KIMON

finally brought to heel, but it was to be a costly affair both in terms of Athenian resources and Kimon’s personal prestige. We can say nothing with certainty about the motive for Thasos’ revolt beyond Thoukydides’ brief remark (1.100.2) that a disagreement had arisen ‘over the trading posts on the shore opposite Thasos, and the mine, which the Thasians controlled’. There were extremely large annual profits from these workings, as is known from a report by Herodotos (6.45—7), and it is possible that Athens had been putting the squeeze on Thasos for a greater share of these towards Confederacy expenses. The revolt began in late summer 465, and Kimon led the Athenian contingent sent to suppress it. The Athenians were successful in an initial battle at sea, and 33 enemy ships were captured. Thereupon the island was invested, but the siege dragged on, with the Thasians finally surrendering only in late 463 or early 462. About this same time, probably in the spring of 464, Athens attempted, with disastrous results, to found a colony nearby on the mainland at a place named Drabeskos, near the site of the later Amphipolis.24 Although the sources are silent about any participation by Kimon himself in this ill-fated venture, it cannot have redounded to his credit. The failure had further repercussions. Gomme suggested (I. 300) that ‘the Thracians won back all the mines’, that is, the mines on the mainland, for, as we shall see in a moment, Thoukydides appears to say that the mines on the island of Thasos itself were handed over to Athens as part of the settlement. Athens continued, however, her lively interest in this area which, if she could establish a foothold, would provide access to the raw materials, especially timber, of Thrace, as well as giving her outlets for her manufactured goods. It was not until 437/6 BCE that a permanent Athenian presence was established there, apparently as part of an overall policy by Perikles to firm up Athens’ control in the Northern Aegean and the Black Sea.25 When Thasos finally surrendered, rather harsh terms were meted out: she was compelled to dismantle her fortifications, hand over her ships and agree to pay both an immediate indemnity and tribute thereafter, as well as surrendering control of the mainland and the mine.26 In the upshot, Kimon was prosecuted on what seems an improbable charge, that of having taken bribes from King Alexander of Macedon to refrain from invading and annexing Macedonia. Perikles is named as one of the prosecutors. There are several puzzles surrounding this affair and some important questions remain unanswered, but Perikles’ own involvement seems beyond dispute. Ath. Pol. (27.1) says that the prosecution resulted from the euthyna, or regular scheduled audit that each official had to undergo upon termina­ tion of his mandate, and there seem to be no good grounds for doubting this, although some scholars have interpreted the evidence, especially the seriousness of the charge (in effect, treason) as implying a special proceeding, an eisangelia or bill of impeachment, perhaps involving as well an apocheirotonia, or extraordinary removal from office. Some details of the exact legal 40

procedure followed are vague. Plutarch talks as if the case were held before an ordinary jury-court, but in the view of many scholars the euthyna would have been held before the Areopagos. It seems to me best to accept the (apparent) implication that the trial, though it probably was occasioned by the mandated audit following Kimon’s Thasos campaign, was held before a popular jury-court, and that, if Kimon had been condemned, it would have been on a capital charge.28 Possibly some accusations made against Kimon at the time are reflected in a fragment of Theopompos (FGH 115 F 90), where Kimon is said to have been ‘most thievish and convicted more than once of yielding to shameful gain’ and of having passed on ‘the lesson of bribe-taking [dorodokia] to future Athenian generals’.29 It remains to try to determine Perikles’ exact role in the trial. Plutarch says that Kimon’s ‘enemies combined together against him’ {Kim. 14.3) and that Perikles ‘was one of the accusers, having been put forward by the people’ {Per. 10.6; at Kim. 14.5 he styles Perikles ‘the most violent of the accusers’). I take it that this means that somehow Perikles had himself appointed to the panel (the later statutory number of such panellists was ten) that supervised Kimon’s audit — or perhaps simply came before the auditors with allegations against Kimon —and, either in the course of the audit or as an immediate consequence of it, laid the extremely serious (if rather implausible) charge mentioned above, dereliction of duty in failing to invade Macedonia after the Thasos campaign. At this point in Plutarch’s narrative he introduces a suspicious detail on the authority of Stesimbrotos {FGH 107 F 5). Just before the trial was held, Kimon’s sister Elpinike was supposed to have appealed directly to Perikles and asked him to ‘go easy’ on her brother. In response Perikles chided her (though not over-harshly) and said, ‘Elpinike, you’re too old, too old to accomplish such matters.’50 In the actual trial, says Plutarch, Perikles ‘was most mild to Kimon and stood up only once in response to the charge, in just a perfunctory discharge of his duty’.51 Now in principle there is no reason why the detail of Elpinike’s appeal on behalf of her brother should affect our willingness to accept the historicity of the account, and various modern writers have taken it seri­ ously and speculated on the reasons for Perikles’ change of heart. What seems to me to count seriously against it is that it recurs again, in an almost identical form, in a totally different context, the manoeuvrings to have Kimon recalled early from ostracism (see below) and the alleged division of powers between himself and Perikles.52 If the supposition often made is correct, that Perikles was using the prosecution as a springboard to launch himself into public attention, and also, perhaps, as a First salvo in what was to be a successful campaign to turn Athenian politics in a new direction, why did he ‘go easy’ on Kimon when the matter came to trial? Of course it is possible that Stesimbrotos’ account is correct: Perikles yielded to an appeal to his kinder, gentler instincts from Kimon’s sister. But scholars who accept the substance of Stesimbrotos’ account while questioning the 41

A PERSONAL RIVALRY: KIMON

assigned reason, a personal appeal by Elpinike, have been tempted to look for other explanations for Perikles’ abrupt volte-face. Blamire in his note on Plutarch Kim. 14.5 comments that ‘the significance of Perikles’ behaviour in court is difficult to assess’. He gives a sampling of scholarly surmise but in the end accepts Kagan’s view that Perikles’ mildness can be explained as ‘the caution of a young, but clever, politician, content to create a favourable impression through his restraint, and anxious to avoid making enemies by pressing the charges in an action which he recognized was bound to result in Kimon’s acquittal’. 5 I find this very difficult to credit, for once we realize that the story of Perikles’ ‘mildness’ rests on no firmer foundation than the dubious anecdote in Stesimbrotos, the whole tissue of theorizing collapses. All we can say with any confidence is that Perikles decided to launch his public career by mounting an attack on a political rival, in effect questioning his confidence in the discharge of a public office (a typical manoeuvre in the rough-and-tumble of Athenian politics, and one which was later to be used against Perikles himself, with some success). Whether he did so entirely on his own initiative is unclear. Kagan believes that Perikles was pressed into service by those who remembered his father’s effec­ tive judicial attack on Kimon’s father, Miltiades. True or not, it seems likely that the men were continuing a family rivalry, but Xanthippos’ attack on his opponent succeeded, whereas the replay in the next generation failed. Perhaps Perikles overestimated the jurors’ willingness to believe what appears to us a grossly trumped-up charge, or it may be that Kimon’s repu­ tation was more resilient than his father’s had been. In any case, what looked to be an easy conviction turned into an acquittal —and an embar­ rassing political setback for Perikles. Kimon was re-elected general for 462/1 and there followed, in close sequence, his persuasion of the assembly to allow him to lead an army of 4,000 hoplites in response to Sparta’s appeal for help against the revolting Messenians at the time of the earthquake (the date at which it began is in dispute, but is in any case irrelevant for this part of Kimon’s career).54 He did this against the opposition of a would-be reformer named Ephialtes, according to Plutarch (Kim. 16. 8—10), who cites Ion of Chios for Kimon’s memorable plea ‘not to allow Greece to go lame or Athens be deprived of her yoke-mate’. (The whole episode seems to have imprinted itself on the minds of the Athenians, as is shown by the fact that it is mentioned in some detail in Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, produced in 414 BCE, lines 1137—44, whence the figure ‘4,000’ derives.) This proved to be a serious miscalcula­ tion on Kimon’s part; his enemies claimed in the aftermath that he had always been ‘too soft’ on Sparta. Plutarch reports (Kim. 16.8) the later oligarchic politician Kritias as remarking, in exactly what context it is unclear, that Kimon ‘put his country’s increment in second place to what benefited Sparta’. Certainly Athens’ involvement on this occasion proved to be a fiasco, as Thoukydides makes clear. Although the Spartans were hard42

A PERSONAL RIVALRY: KIMON

pressed and needed the Athenians’ experience in waging siege warfare to dislodge the rebels who had barricaded themselves in a mountain stronghold, they inexplicably sent the Athenian contingent home after only a brief interval (Thoukydides says they were afraid their own men would be infected by the Athenians’ ‘revolutionary’ tendencies, and this may be correct). Kimon returned to face his political opponents yet again, and this time —it was now spring 461 —it was he and not they who lost the contest that ensued. Charges were brought against him of being ‘pro-Spartan and anti-demos’ {Per. 9-5 where, Plutarch remarks almost wistfully, all Kimon’s splendid victories, whose spoils enriched and beautified the city so signally, availed nothing; also Kim. 15.3) as well as (apparently, although the evidence is largely anecdotal) less savoury imputations, such as love of drink and a sexual interest in his sister. Vainly he appears to have attempted to reverse Ephialtes’ reforms;55 as a riposte his enemies called for an ostracism and he was its ‘successful’ victim.56 There can be no doubt that foremost among his accusers stood Perikles, and that Kimon fell victim at least in part to the furore for democratic reform that was sweeping Athens. For this Perikles must bear some share of responsibility, exactly how much it is difficult to determine, as we shall see in the next chapter, where his alleged role in the ‘Ephialtic Revolution’ is discussed. Before we leave the topic of his relations with Kimon, however, it is necessary to consider the story, accepted as factual by many modern scholars, that Kimon was recalled from exile by special decree when only five years of the statutory exile for ostracism had elapsed, that is, in the aftermath of the Athenian defeat at Tanagra in Boiotia in 458 or 457 BCE Plutarch reports the ‘fact’ twice, at Per. 10. 1—6 and more succinctly at Kim. 17.8, on both occasions with a nod of approval to Perikles’ political acumen in detecting the shift in political mood at Athens and pragmatically ‘riding the tiger’. For this view of the matter Theopompos appears to have been responsible (FGH 115 F 88) and a majority of modern scholars accept it as fact. There are several reasons for rejecting the story. First, Plato has Sokrates ask in the Gorgias (516 D), ‘Did not the Athenians ostracize Kimon so that they might not hear his voice for ten years?’ Although this might be mere looseness of expression —the normal period of ostracism being 10 years, and Plato having forgotten, or ignoring, that Kimon was recalled early —Plato’s wording implies, if only slightly, that Kimon did in fact serve his full 10year term, returning to Athens only in 451 BCE. Second, although Plutarch discusses the recall {Kim. 17.8, Per. 10.4) in such a way as to suggest that he or his source saw an actual decree which Perikles allegedly moved, this does not guarantee that the decree was authentic; it could have been a documentary fraud. Third, the accounts which bring Kimon home early all say that this was done, usually as an aftermath of the Tanagra defeat, because the Athenians were anxious to conclude peace with Sparta and that Kimon in fact negoti-43 .5 7

43

A PERSONAL RIVALRY: KIMON

ated the peace (so, for example, specifically Theopompos: ‘when he {sc. Kimon] was present in the city he ended the war’). But apart from a fourmonth truce reported only by Diodoros (11.80.6: after Tanagra, no mention of Kimon), about which most modern scholars are dubious, the only peace or truce with Sparta for which there is firm authority is that recorded by Thoukydides at 1.112.1, and probably to be dated 451. 8 Fourth, in both places in which Plutarch mentions Perikles’ role in the alleged recall he goes out of his way to comment on the shrewdness, not to say political opportunism, on Perikles’ part, which this change of position exemplified: ‘He did not hesitate to gratify the multitude’ (Per. 10.4), and Plutarch ends the parallel account in Kimon by appending his own praise of the action (and noting, by implication, the way things had changed by Plutarch’s own day): ‘So statesmanlike was the conduct of disputes at that time, so disciplined was personal animosity . . . [that} even ambition [the word Plutarch uses is philotimia}, that most powerful of human emotions, gave way to the exigencies of state’ (Kim. 17.9, trans. Blamire). To me this reads like an example invented by whoever was the ultimate source of the story, to support a tendentious view of Perikles’ shiftiness, his ability to sense which way the political wind might be changing, and then adjust his policies to suit. Fabricated stories of this kind abound in the narratives about Themistokles (e.g. his alleged volte-face about whether or not to pursue Xerxes’ retreating army), and in Perikles’ own career this item is really of the same cloth as Damon’s alleged advice about how to counteract Kimon’s popularity. We should be wary about accepting ‘facts’ which too neatly fit a patently slanted perspective. Finally —and this seems to me the most serious indictment —Plutarch’s entire narrative is heavily anecdotal. First, there is Kimon’s dramatic appearance, mid-way through his ostracism, at the battle­ field of Tanagra with his fellow Oineid tribesmen, only to be rejected by the Athenians for his pro-Spartan leanings (Kim. 17.4—7; at Per. 10.1 it is ‘Perikles’ friends taking a united position’ who drive him away). Kimon calls upon ‘Euthippos of Anaphlystos and those others of his friends who were most suspected of harbouring Spartan sympathies to fight with resolu­ tion against the enemy and by their actions make plain their innocence for their fellow-citizens to see’ (Kim. 17.6, trans. Blamire). At Per. 10.2 there is a corresponding personal touch on Perikles’ side: ‘Perikles fought in this battle with greater courage than ever before and surpassed everyone in exposing himself to danger.’ In a story of this kind, the expected happens. Kimon’s friends (‘all 100 of them’, Kim. 17.7), ‘whom Perikles had accused of Lakonism’ (Per. 10.3) are all killed. The Athenians realize (too late!) how unfair their suspicions had been: Plutarch mentions their ‘great longing and remorse’ (Kim. 17.7). O f course Perikles is now (as we have seen) more than willing to gratify the people’s desires and move the decree of recall. Finally (and, in my opinion, fatally) Plutarch reports that: 44

A PERSONAL RIVALRY: KIMON

some writers maintain that Perikles did not propose the decree until a secret agreement had been reached between them with the help of Elpinike, Kimon’s sister. The terms, they say, were that Kimon should sail with an expedition to attempt to reduce the King’s territory, and take command abroad, while Perikles should have supreme authority at home. (Per. 10.5) This is exactly, in fact, what happens in Thoukydides’ account (1.112.1—2) about 451 BCE, where, however, the alleged ‘deal’ to divide spheres of authority is not mentioned. This was to be Kimon’s last campaign, for he died fighting with the fleet in Cyprus. Perikles discovered from his encounters with Kimon that he could not afford to underestimate the conservative opposition. But he also learnt that there were advantages to be gained from being seen as a benevolent patron, and the means to do this were within reach if the allies could be kept loyal and the imperial revenues maintained at a steady rate. The aristocrats for their part had misplayed the Sparta card. The grand alliance that had defeated the Persians was not likely to survive when the two leading partners were so naturally unsuited to each other. Indeed, it had probably become clear to Perikles that Athens would now not only have to do without her ‘yoke­ mate’; she would have to neutralize the power of the Peloponnesian League if Athens was to continue her progress to superiority in the Greek world, the role that Themistokles had envisaged for his city in 480, but was himself unable to help her achieve.

5 A POLITICAL ALLIANCE Ephialtes

In Chapter 25 of Ath. Pol. the author recounts a series of events which were to have momentous consequences for the constitutional history of Athens: The masses grew in power, Ephialtes son of Sophonides became head of the demos and, with his reputation for incorruptibility and justice in public matters, made an attack on the Areopagos Council. First, he removed many of the Areopagites by laying against them judicial charges for their management of affairs.1 Then in the archonship of Konon [462/1 bce] he took away all their additional powers2 through which they were ‘guard of the state’ and gave some to the Council of 500, others to the demos and the lawcourts. (Ath. Pol. 25.1-2) At 27.1 we read: ‘Perikles took some functions from the Areopagites’, and it is unclear whether the author intended this to be seen as part of the attacks he had narrated in Chapter 25, or as a separate phase; if the latter, we are given no indication of how much, if any, time elapsed between Ephialtes’ anti-Areopagos legislation and Perikles’. In the Politics Aristotle reports (1274 a 7—8) that ‘Ephialtes and Perikles curtailed the power of the Areopagos Council; Perikles also instituted the payment of juries’. There are two essentially separate but related questions: what did the Areopagos reform of 462/1 consist in? and what (if any) was Perikles’ part in it? Let us begin with the second. In a recent study of the development of the Athenian democracy between Kleisthenes and Perikles, Fornara and Samons maintain that the reforms were put through by Ephialtes only, and that Perikles’ role was invented after the event by propagandists who wished to portray him (falsely) as one who was already —at this relatively early stage of his career —a committed democratic reformer. True, some of our sources name only Ephialtes, and it is also clear that Ephialtes’ name was remembered, and perhaps appeared on the official documents which recorded the legislation, as principal mover, but Aristotle in the Politics passage just cited vouches for Perikles’ participation,5 and this is corrobo­ rated by other ancient authors, among them Plutarch himself. In refuting

A POLITICAL ALLIANCE: EPHIALTES

Idomeneus’ charge (FGH 338 F 8) that Perikles was responsible for the assassination of Ephialtes who, according to Ath. Pol. 25.4, was murdered ‘not long after’ the reforms, by Aristodikos of Tanagra, Plutarch gives as a reason for rejecting the story that Ephialtes was Perikles’ ‘friend and colleague in political policy’ (Per. 10.7). In addition, there was a persistent tradition, which Plutarch reflects, that Ephialtes was nothing more than a foil or ‘front man’ for Perikles, who used him, as he purportedly used others on various occasions, as an agent or cover, because Perikles himself wished to remain behind the scenes. Testimony of this kind rightly raises suspicions —as we saw above in Chapter 3, it reflects the view of Kritolaos and others that Perikles purposely remained aloof from the rough-andtumble of everyday politics and reserved himself for ‘great occasions’8 —but it seems to indicate some kind of collaboration between the two men. (It is only fair to point out, however, that Ath. Pol., in the context of the oligarchic revolution of 404 BCE, refers in passing to ‘the laws of Ephialtes and Archestratos about the Areopagites’ (35.2).) W hat made Ephialtes attractive to the reformers? First, he seems to have had a reputation among the ordinary people for scrupulous honesty, as is indicated by the reference in Ath. Pol. already cited to his ‘reputation for incorruptibility and justice in public matters’ (25.1). Plutarch links his name with Aristeides, as politicians —in the minority —who did not enrich them­ selves at the public expense (Kim. 10.8) and his name occurs several times in Aelian in lists of ‘poor because honest’ politicians.9 On the other hand the largesse attributed to him by Herakleides Lembos, that he ‘opened his estates to any who wished to pick fruit, and as a result provided meals to many’, may simply be a misquotation, since it has too many verbal echoes of benefactions attributed to Kimon to be entirely above suspicion.10 It also seems very unlikely that the garbled story of his collaboration with Themistokles at Ath. Pol. 25.2—4 (cf. also the Hypothesis to Isocrates 7, Areopagitikos) has any basis in fact, although some scholars have been prepared to credit it and infer an early phase of anti-Areopagos activity undertaken in co-operation with Ephialtes by Themistokles before his ostracism.11 We may pause here to note and try to account for a fleeting, odd testi­ mony which only Plutarch preserves (Kim. 13-4) as deriving from Kallisthenes (FGH 124 F 16): ‘Perikles with 50 ships and Ephialtes with only 30 sailed to the east of the Chelidonian Islands, and no Persian fleet came out to oppose them.’ Plutarch makes this remark in the context of his discussion of the controversial ‘Peace of Kallias’, and his reason for bringing in Kallisthenes’ name at all is that the fourth-century historian, who was Aristotle’s relative as well as pupil, and fell victim to Alexander’s anger, seems to have questioned the historicity of the Peace, maintaining that there was no formal treaty, but that the Persian King was so cowed by the Athenian and allied victory at the Eurymedon12 that he behaved as if the47 47

A POLITICAL ALLIANCE: EPHIALTES

boundaries allegedly set by the Peace were actually in effect. This Peace is a very contentious topic and full discussion of it must be deferred, but we must stop to consider Kallisthenes’ statement about the shared (or synchronous) generalship. What evidence had he for the assertion? If he is correct, when did it occur? Some have argued that Kallisthenes was referring to separate generalships of Ephialtes and Perikles, and that the generalship of Perikles took place much later, perhaps at the time of the war against Samos, c. 440.14 This seems unlikely. The natural sense of Kallisthenes’ words, if Plutarch has reported them correctly, is that the two men were generals together, but undertook separate missions. This must have been before 462/1, when Ephialtes was (allegedly) murdered.15 Moreover, it cannot have been very much before, since the impression given by our sources is that Perikles’ prosecution of Kimon in 463 was his political debut (Ath. Pol. in fact says, ‘he first got a reputation . . . being yet a young man’). Thirty was the minimum age for holding important offices, like the gener­ alship, at Athens and, depending on what year we posit as Perikles’ date of birth,1® he must have been elected general with Ephialtes either just when he reached the requisite age or not very long after. Since so much is unknown, or problematic, about this shadowy event, I am tempted to believe that Kallisthenes has been misreported, or was mistaken. If we turn now to the reforms of 462/1, we find the ancient sources almost totally mute about what they consisted in, and to fill this gap in the evidence scholars have put forward numerous, not always compatible, theo­ ries. First, it should be noted that the reformers did not remove from the Areopagos its competence to hear cases of voluntary homicide. Besides, there are clear statements in Ath. Pol. that in the fourth century the Areopagos adjudicated cases that dealt with alleged offences against the sacred olive trees, as well as incidents of attempted poisoning, wounding with intent to kill and arson (these latter perhaps accompanied by alleged homicidal intent).17 In general it can be said that the Areopagos retained ‘a general surveillance of religious matters and of public ceremonies’ and ‘a general oversight of ritual and a limited power of punishment for any abuse therein’.18 There are a number of judicial competencies which scholars have suggested had previously been held by the Areopagos, but were taken away by Ephialtes and assigned to other bodies: eisangelia (a charge of maladminis­ tration against a public official, or of serious crimes against the state on the part of any citizen); dokimasia (scrutiny of magistrates’ qualifications before entering office); euthyna (official audit of the performance of magistrates upon leaving office); nomophylakia (supervision of the laws and magistrates’ compliance with them). We must be clear about the fact that for none of these judicial processes does any evidence exist that would firmly link Ephialtes’ name with any change in the way it was handled; the problem is that, although evidence survives for how the machinery of government func-

A POLITICAL ALLIANCE: EPHIALTES

tioned in the later fourth century (chiefly Ath. Pol., together with scattered pieces of information in the orators), what the state of affairs was in the early constitution, and what (if any) changes might have taken place, and when, are all matters of surmise. To start with eisangelia, which has been a favourite candidate as a change wrought by Ephialtes.1!? We simply do not know which body handled these proceedings before 462; the two possibilities are the Areopagos (Rhodes) or Assembly (Hansen). In support of the view that in the early constitution it was the Areopagos that handled eisangelia historians point to Ath. Pol. 8.4, which mentions a ‘law about eisangelia' ascribed to Solon, according to which the Areopagos ‘tried those conspiring to overthrow the democracy’ (the wording has seemed anachronistic to some, who prefer ‘those conspiring to set up a tyranny’, a formulation found elsewhere). Thus, Rhodes contends that ‘The Areopagus tried charges of major offences against the state before the time of Solon, and was confirmed in its right to do so by Solon’s law on eisangelia. He also believes that this function was among the powers stripped from the Areopagos by Ephialtes. Hansen disagrees: ‘there is no reliable evidence that eisangeliai were brought before the council of the Areopagus’.21 At the time Ath. Pol. was written (c. 330 bce) the Council of the Boule undertook the dokimasia (vetting of credentials and eligibility for office) of the incoming Boule members and the nine archons (Ath. Pol. 45.3); in the case of the latter this appears to have been accompanied (55.2) by a second dokimasia, before a popular court, with minor officials, both elected and allotted, having to undergo a dokimasia only before a lawcourt.22 In the primitive ‘Solonian’ constitution, magistrates appear to have been appointed by the Areopagos and, since retiring archons automatically entered the Areopagos, it is generally believed that that body also undertook whatever investigation, formal or otherwise, was carried out into the eligibility of incoming magistrates. Rhodes and others maintain that this authority was taken away from it by Ephialtes. Ostwald also ascribed to Ephialtes as a ‘possibility’ the ‘mandatory double dokimasia [mentioned above} of archonselect, before Council and jury court’; he believes that Ephialtes may also have ‘extended at the same time the requirement of a dokimasia before a dikastèrion to all elected officials’ (1986: 46). As regards euthyna, the compulsory investigation of a magistrate’s accounts in the case of financial responsibility, and of his performance gener­ ally, upon his laying down of office, Sealey maintained vigorously that Ephialtes’ reform consisted principally (or even solely, as he at one point maintained) in removal of this function from the Areopagos and its transfer to the popular lawcourts. MacDowell remarks on the breadth and range of this regulation: ‘It applied not only to the arkhons and other magistrates, but to all who were appointed to perform public duties, including priests, ambassadors, trierarchs, members of the Boule, and members of the49 49

A POLITICAL ALLIANCE: EPHIALTES

Areopagos (but not jurors)’ (1978: 170). If the office had had any financial functions (and in most there would have been some receipts of monies, if only small amounts), the accounts were carefully gone over, especially with an eye to the possibility of bribery. If anything appeared shaky, the indi­ vidual was brought before a court; there, charges might be brought by a panel of synegoroi, or anyone who wished to was invited to lay an accusation. Those convicted were at risk of heavy financial penalties. The sources also speak of a panel of ten euthynoi, selected by lot by the Council of the Boule from its own members, one from each tribe, before whom could be brought charges of non-financial misconduct (‘either of neglect of duty or of positive misuse of power’, MacDowell 1978: 171). A condemnation by a defendant’s tribal euthynos led to a trial before an appropriate magistrate using normal judicial procedures; some evidence survives that verdicts by euthynoi in the fifth century might have been final.25 It is difficult to be sure how much of this elaborate machinery (if any) Ephialtes may have been responsible for; the possibility remains that it all came into place gradually, either somewhat (but not much)26 later, or even before; nor is there any firm indication at all in our sources that the euthyna had ever been within the purview of the Areopagos.27 Finally, ‘Guardianship of the Laws’, Nomophylakta, which is a very vexed topic. The citation from Atb. Pol. at the beginning of this chapter seems to equate the Areopagos’ ‘additional powers’ which were allegedly removed by Ephialtes with ‘guardianship of the constitution’, but earlier the treatise had made statements which, at their face value, seem to show that this was a very old role played by the Areopagos, which had been either entrusted or confirmed to it by Solon. Thus Ath. Pol. (3.6) records that from olden times the Areopagos had the ‘assigned task {taxis) of protective watchfulness {diatèrein) over the laws’, and that Solon ‘assigned (etaxen) the Council of Areopagites to guard the laws {nomophylakein), just as it had done previously, being watcher (episkopos) over the constitution’ (8.4). In the Life of Solon, in a discussion of whether Solon actually instituted the Areopagos, a view put forward by some of Plutarch’s (unnamed) sources but which he himself chal­ lenges, Plutarch asserts that Solon ‘established (ekathisen) the upper Council [i.e. the Areopagos] as watcher over (episkopos) and guard of all the laws’ {Sol. 19-2). None of our sources makes clear what exactly this ‘guardianship’ consisted in: it may have been a separate power or simply a way of collec­ tively referring to the sum of legislative powers by which the Areopagos made sure that magistrates upheld the laws. Whichever it was, that it was a bone of contention just at this period seems assured by the reference in Philochoros {FGH 328 F 64 b alpha) to a board o f ‘Nomophylakes’, seven in number, which was set up at the time of Ephialtes’ reforms; these, according to Philochoros, ‘compelled the magistrates to abide by the laws and sat in the Assembly and in the Council with the Proedri’.28 This notice has gener­ ally been dismissed, since there is no evidence of such a board until well into50 50

A POLITICAL ALLIANCE: EPHIALTES

the fourth century; alternatively, those (like Cawkwell) who accept the fact of the creation of the board around 462 believe that it was abolished, or at least passed out of existence, very soon thereafter. My own view, which I put forward as a possibility in 1966 and see no reason to withdraw, is that these Nomophylakes may have been the separate, Periklean, part of the reform programme.29 A suggestion was made many years ago by S. B. Smith,50 which, however, has not found favour in recent accounts of Ephialtes’ reforms, that the popular lawcourts or dikastèria were not in fact the creation of Solon (as was stated, for example, by Aristotle at Politics 1273 b 41—74 a 5 and as most scholars continue to believe)51 but that it was Ephialtes and Perikles who instituted the system of 6,000 dikasts\ a slight variation of this theory would be that Ephialtes substituted popular juries for the Areopagos as the venue for minor homicide cases (the Areopagos remaining the court for voluntary homicide, as it had been before 462) in place of the ephetai, the somewhat shadowy panel of 51 drawn annually from the Areopagos. In a somewhat similar vein, as Starr remarks, ‘since the days of Grote there has been a rather general consensus that Ephialtes may have been responsible for a further check on rash action in the assembly by the introduction of the grapheparanomòn, ‘writ of u n co n stitu tio n ally .2 The difficulty with this theory, as Starr himself and others have noted, is that the first recorded use of the grapheparanomon (in effect, a challenge to a newly introduced piece of legisla­ tion on grounds that it conflicted with legislation already existing) is in 415 BCE. Ephialtes has also been credited with various minor arrangements with the Council of the Boule and its workings, for example, the division into ten tribal committees, or ‘prytanies’, which took turns by lot in actually preparing the agenda for the Assembly meetings and responding to any sudden crises.55 There is an additional difficulty with trying to specify the particular legislative enactments attributable to Ephialtes that might account for his reputation as a radical democratic reformer: it is not clear how significant the powers were which were left to the Areopagos by Kleisthenes’ reforms of 508/7, or at least in the wake of the earlier ‘Kleisthenic Revolution’. The case for a substantial devolution of powers from the Areopagos around 500 BCE has been made most forcefully by Ostwald, who interprets the inscrip­ tion IG I 5 105 as implying that a law had been passed by the Athenian assembly early in the fifth century calling for the transfer to a popular court of jurisdiction of cases in which the defendant, if convicted, would have been liable to the death penalty or a substantial fine.54 If that is correct, why should we accept the view espoused by many moderns (following the lead of Ath. Pol.) that Ephialtes played a major role —with or without the help of Perikles - in ‘stripping’ the Areopagos of the bulk of its judicial powers? If most of these powers had already been taken away, what was there left for Ephialtes and his associates to do? Ostwald’s own view is that Ephialtes

A POLITICAL ALLIANCE: EPHIALTES

left untouched the right of the Assembly to recall and depose generals and that, in removing the Areopagus from any role in the euthyna, he may have made a regular euthyna of generals upon the expiration of their terms of office a mandatory institution to be conducted before the dèmos in its judicial capacity (>dikasterion) without the intervention of the euthynoi. He may also have given the demos in its political capacity (ekklesia) jurisdiction over generals whose euthynai made them liable to an eisangelia procedure.35 But this is really very little, in view of all the hoop-la surrounding the Ephialtic ‘revolution’ of 462, and the partisan feelings allegedly released which reached such a pitch that, according to popular gossip at least, Ephialtes himself was assassinated (see below). This is not the place to discuss the merits of Ostwald’s rather complex series of arguments, but if he is right, and the only thing which Ephialtes took away from the Areopagos was its ‘right of first hearing’ — its powers to adjudicate in more serious matters already having been taken away —it is hard to see the reason for the sensation apparently caused by the Ephialtic ‘revolution’ of 462. Another, much less pressing, matter must be addressed. Was the Areopagos in 462 really worth attacking? A change in the selection proce­ dures for Athenian archons —and hence, upon their retirement from office, Areopagites —is recorded by Ath. Pol. under the year 487/6: henceforth, they were ‘chosen by lot from those previously selected’.3® Some scholars main­ tain that because of this change the Areopagos would thereafter have steadily declined in prestige to the extent that by 462 it would have been composed of mere ‘nobodies’ and so hardly worth the vehemently aggressive tactics allegedly employed against them by Ephialtes.37 The short answer is: we know too little about the ‘prosopography’ of Athenian archons either before or after the 487 reform to be absolutely sure, but our sources imply that the Areopagos was taken to be a bastion of aristocratic pre-eminence and privi­ lege, even if —as seems likely —the picture given in Ath. Pol. (23.1, 25.1) of the Areopagos’ prestige having been enhanced as a result of the Persian Wars is without foundation; as Cawkwell and others have noted, archons were still drawn from the top two property-classes and continued thus until 457/6 (Ath. Pol. 26.2). Besides the actual reforms, Ephialtes is reported to have moved Solon’s axones and kyrbeis (the notice-boards on which Solon’s legislation was inscribed) from the Akropolis to the Council chamber and the Agora.38 This was perhaps not so much out of a desire to make them physically more accessible —as some scholars have maintained —for any Athenian could and did visit the Akropolis regularly, but as a grand manifesto of change. From the surviving inscriptions it appears that after Ephialtes the number of recorded Athenian decrees increases substantially, and this led Stockton to suggest that he ‘may also have been responsible for introducing a greater52 52

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publicity into the affairs of state’.59 Perhaps also the meeting-place of the Assembly on the Pnyx was created now for the first time; it served, with modifications, for the life of the democracy.40 The question has occasionally been raised whether the revolution of 462/1 was primarily internal, aiming at an overhaul of Athenian legislative processes and directed against the ‘conservative wing’ in Athenian politics, or external, principally intended to shift Athens’ foreign policy away from the co-operation with Sparta which had been in effect since the Persian Wars. Thus Ostwald suggested that Ephialtes primary purpose may well have been to outflank those who had been most effective in supporting Cimon’s now discredited {pro-Spartan} policy. . . . Cimon’s ostracism . . . suggests that the issue between him and Ephialtes revolved around Athenian policy towards Sparta and not around ideological principles concerning the structure of the Athenian state. 41 In my opinion this flies in the face of the obvious fact that the reformers chose as their target one of Athens’ oldest and most venerable institutions, and that the judicial powers of which it was deprived in 462 (whatever they may have been in fact) devolved mainly upon popular, i.e. democratic, bodies. Nor was it the way Plutarch saw it. In describing the effects of Ephialtes’ reforms (in Plutarch’s opinion, they were carried during Kimon’s absence in Sparta),42 Plutarch twice describes them by adopting from Plato a pejorative reference to ‘undiluted’ democracy 45 It should not come as a surprise that the reforms of 462 were opposed by the conservative rump even after Kimon’s ostracism. Whether or not Ephialtes was assassinated 44 the fact that the story found a ready audience shows how highly inflamed were passions on both sides. Further evidence that the unease and anger continued for a considerable period has been found in certain passages of Aischylos’ Eumenides, the third play in the Oresteia trilogy with which the poet won his last victory, at the Dionysia in spring 458 BCE. One passage in particular has been taken as indicating the poet’s prayer that the opposing sides might now at last come together and bury their differences. ‘Give approval’, the not-yet-transformed Furies sing in the Second Stasimon, ‘to a life that is neither anarchic nor ruled by a despot. God grants mastery always to the middle way. . . . Be moderate is my advice . . . ’ (lines 526ff., with a clear echo of the first part by Athena at 696f.)· It has been maintained that these and similar such exhortations in the play, as well as Athena’s repeated insistence on the permanence of the Areopagos, the court which in the action of the play she has just instituted to judge Orestes’ murder of his mother, are directed against those who would have wanted to go even further than Ephialtes had done and abolish the Areopagos altogether. ‘Fortunately for Athens, both extremes heeded Aeschylus’ thinly veiled warnings’ (Marr 1993: 18). 53

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If it is correct to see Perikles’ introduction of pay for jury-duty in a context of a broadening-out of access to the machinery of democracy the question must also be raised whether other payments for public service were introduced, possibly by Perikles and possibly at this time or not much later. Some scholars (notably Rhodes) believe that the bouleutic fee45 was intro­ duced soon after pay for service on the juries; Pritchett (1971: I2f.) links payments for jury-duty, Boule service and army service, and attributes them all to Perikles. This was also the view of Dodds, who suggested that Perikles at about the same time also introduced the stratiòtikos misthos, pay for service in the infantry and navy (pay for attendance at the assembly came only in the early years of the fourth century).46 If Perikles were responsible for most if not all of these payments, it would give substance to the charge made by Plato’s Sokrates at Gorgias 515 E that Perikles made the Athenians lazy, cowardly, mercenary and talkative, ‘since he was the first to establish payfor-service [misthopboria}'. (From Kallikles’ retort, ‘You have this from the battered-ear boys’, it appears that the charge originated in Athens’ Spartanizing aristocratic circles.)47 Plutarch, who was closely familiar with and greatly admiring of Plato’s works, seems to be echoing this charge when he writes, in the context of a run-up to the reforms of 462, that Perikles ‘soon bribed the masses with theorie fees and jury fees and other payments and benefactions’ (Per. 9-3; at Arist. 24.5, however, he seems to ascribe some of these ‘disbursements and theorika' to Perikles’ successors). ‘Theorie fees’ is, however, rather misleading, since this payment of two obols to poor citizens so that they could attend the city’s dramatic and other festivals was probably not instituted until considerably later.48 The date of most of these innovations is uncertain, even the introduction of jury-pay, with which Perikles is most closely associated. But in spirit they are all consonant with the underlying aims of the reformers in 462/1, namely, to make it possible for greater numbers of Athenians actually to participate in the running of the state and, conversely, to benefit from the ever-growing national wealth. This seems to have been a deeply held convic­ tion of Perikles, even though the time when he consolidated his power-base and had at his disposal the means to put his ideas fully into practice was still some way in the future.

54

6 THE OTHER GENERALS Leokrates, Myronides and Tolmides

Ephialtes’ reforms are not mentioned by Thoukydides, but the sequence in which he narrates events makes it clear (‘immediately after {Kimon and his forces} returned’ from their mission to help the Spartans) that, as part of the general upheaval which involved Kimon’s ostracism, the Athenians ‘abro­ gated the alliance which they had had with the Spartans because of the Persian threat, and became allies of the Argives, who were the Spartans’ enemies; and an alliance was sealed and oaths exchanged between both parties and the Thessalians’ (1.102.4). This was a momentous change in Athenian foreign relations, for which the ground had perhaps been prepared by Themistokles in the late 470s. Although the fruits of these alliances seem (so far as we are able to judge) not to have been very substantial, their significance lay mainly in the political message Athens was sending out to the rest of Greece: the old ‘special relationship’ with Sparta was finished; Athens had new — and powerful, as well as anti-Spartan — friends in the Peloponnese. Kimon’s enemies went out of their way to emphasize his proSpartan leanings: at Per. 9 5 , Perikles is reported as charging him with being ‘pro-Sparta and anti-demos’. In the late 460s it cannot have been a political advantage to have had even a hint of pro-Spartan leanings, let alone the fairly close connections the tradition attests for Kimon. The deep-seated feelings against Sparta (present just below the surface, if Herodotos can be believed, already in 480) were whipped up in the Assembly, and the Athenians’ sense of grievance must have been intense at the affront they had suffered when they had themselves responded so readily to the Spartans’ appeal for help. As a follow-up to the Argive alliance Athens also made an alliance with Megara, a city situated strategically to the northeast of the Isthmus of Corinth; Megara found she was getting the worse of a border-war with her larger neighbour, Corinth, and so seceded from the Peloponnesian League. This, as Thoukydides remarks, was taken by Corinth, Sparta’s strongest ally and supporter, as a provocative action and, in consequence, Athens and the Peloponnesians were soon to become embroiled in the so-called ‘First Peloponnesian War’. There followed very shortly (460 or 459) an attempted

revolt from the Persian Empire by a certain Inaros, styled by Thoukydides ‘king of Libya’ (1.104.1), who called on, and received, Athenian assistance: two hundred Athenian and allied ships, which Thoukydides says ‘happened to be campaigning against Cyprus’, were diverted to Egypt —and forthwith began an ambitious venture which unfortunately was to end in disaster six years later in 454 BCE. Among the more important events of the ‘First Peloponnesian War’ was a strike by Athens against Aigina, an important island power situated in the Saronic Gulf. Aigina had links of language and culture with Sparta, but her position, and her commercial predominance in the archaic period, made her an inevitable rival of Athens; Peri kies is reported to have remarked — on some unspecified occasion and for some unknown reason —that this ‘eyesore of the Peiraieus had to be removed’. After winning an initial naval engage­ ment and capturing 70 Aiginetan ships, the Athenians landed on the island and laid siege to it, a siege that lasted nine months and as a result of which the Aiginetans were required to take down their fortification walls, surrender their navy, and pay tribute thereafter — 30 talents annually, the largest amount recorded to that date. Both Thoukydides and Diodoros give the name of the Athenian commander in charge of these operations at Aigina, Leokrates son of Stroibos. ‘The Peloponnesians’ (whether or not Thoukydides in using this expression means to include the Spartans is unclear)6 attempted to relieve the siege by despatching 300 Corinthian and Epidaurian hoplites to Aigina; the Corinthians themselves, after occupying the heights of Geraneia to the north of Megara, descended into the Megarid as a diversionary tactic, ‘thinking’, as Thoukydides remarks, ‘that the Athenians would be unable to come to the aid of the Megarians’, their new allies, ‘since they had large numbers of troops both in Aigina and in Egypt’. In the event the expectation proved unfounded; the Athenians, without removing their force from Aigina, mustered their reserves of ‘oldest and youngest’, which marched to Megara under the command of Myronides. The battle which ensued proved to be so ‘evenly matched’ (to use Thoukydides’ word) that both sides set up trophies of victory, but when the Corinthians were setting up theirs, the Athenians stormed out from Megara and attacked them, managing to cut off and kill a substantial number as they tried to retreat; ‘and this was a great disaster for the Corinthians’, as Thoukydides drily comments (1.106.2). The two generals who can be credited with the success of this early phase of the war were not novices. Both Leokrates and Myronides are named by Plutarch as among the generals at Plataia in 479 (Arisi. 20.1), and Myronides as co-ambassador with Kimon and Xanthippos on a mission to Sparta earlier in that year (Arisi. 10.10);7 Leokrates’ name occurs also in a list that Plutarch gives at Per. 16.3 of memorable contemporaries that includes also Ephialtes, Myronides, Kimon, Tolmides and Thoukydides son of Melesias. 56

THE OTHER GENERALS

A second phase of hostilities is recorded by Thoukydides at 1.107—8, events probably to be dated spring—summer 457 BCE. A war had broken out in central Greece between the residents of Doris (reputed to be the true ‘metropolis’ of the Dorians of the Peloponnese) and the Phokians. When it appeared that the latter (whom Thoukydides will later describe as ‘always friendly to Athens’)9 were getting the upper hand the Spartans intervened in support of the Dorians, taking a very large force, 1,500 of their own and 10,000 allied troops, and forced the Phokians to give back what they had seized and to come to terms with the Dorians. Preparing to return home, however, the Spartans realized that their return voyage might be cut off by an Athenian naval squadron which had sailed around the Peloponnese; nor was a return overland across Geraneia any more feasible, since the Athenians were keeping troops there, too. ‘So they decided to wait in Boiotia to see which was the safest way to make the return crossing’ (Thoukydides 1.107.4, who adds, casually, that ‘some Athenians kept covertly urging the Spartans to do this, since they hoped to put an end to the democracy and to the building of the Long Walls’, those fortifications linking the upper city and Peiraieus, which had been only recently started). To meet the crisis the Athenians with all their forces, assisted by 1,000 Argives10 and others to a total of 14,000, made a concerted attack (at this point in his narrative, 1.107.6, Thoukydides mentions again as a motivating factor the suspected plot to overthrow the democracy at Athens). The result was a pitched battle near Tanagra in Boiotia ‘with much slaughter on both sides’, but which the Peloponnesians ultimately won. The way thus clear for their return, they proceeded south by way of Geraneia and the Isthmus of Corinth, but on the sixty-second day after the original battle11 the Athenians under Myronides — one late writer says Tolmides and Myronides, but it is not clear whether he had evidence for this12 — invaded Boiotia and won a decisive victory at Oinophyta. Thoukydides lists the gains that accrued to Athens: she got control over the territory of Boiotia15 and Phokis, dismantled Tanagra’s fortifications, and took as hostages 100 of the wealthiest Opountian (eastern) Lokrians, Phokis’ neighbour and inveterate enemy. Thoukydides’ fairly full narrative of these engagements at Tanagra and Oinophyta can be supplemented by a few details from other sources. As we saw in Chapter 4 above, a very full (but not necessarily historical) account was given by Plutarch at Kim. 17.4-7 and Per. 10.1-4 of the appearance of Kimon before the battle, and the extra efforts —and subsequent deaths —of his 100 supporters in the actual engagement. Nor do I think much confi­ dence can be placed in Plutarch’s report that, fired by his rivalry with the Kimonians, ‘Perikles seems to have fought in that battle most staunchly and to have been most outstanding of all, unstinting of his personal safety’ (Per. 10.2). (I doubt that we can even safely infer that Perikles himself fought in the battle, though that is likely; had he been general, he would have been identified as such in one of the surviving accounts.) Pausanias also records

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(5.10.4) a version of an epigram accompanying a dedication made at Olympia by the victors after Tanagra, as ‘a gift taken from the Argives, Athenians and Ionians’ (these are, presumably, Athens’ Ionian allies), and a fragmentary inscription of this dedication survives.14 The Athenians set up a memorial to their fallen Argive allies.15 Scholars have detected echoes of the events of 457 in certain poems of Pindar.16 Diodoros reports (11.82.5), presumably following Ephoros, that Myronides ‘cut up and destroyed all Boiotia’, by which he appears to mean that he disbanded the Boiotian League, and after the victory he divided the spoils among his troops so that they were all ‘abundantly embellished’. According to him Myronides’ victory could stand comparison with the victories of Marathon and Plataia (11.82.1) and, as a result, ‘Myronides became a rival of the outstanding generals before his time, Themistokles, Miltiades and Kimon’ (11.82.4; at 12.1.5 Myronides’ name occurs in a similar list, with Aristeides added); ‘because he accomplished great deeds in a short space of time, he won wide renown among the citizens’ (11.83.4). Gomme described Myronides as ‘one of the most famous of Athenian generals’ and cited an impressive list of historical and other literary sources to show that his name could be conjured up as emblematic of the courage and daring of Athenian generals in a bygone generation. ‘Yet’, as Gomme further remarks, ‘except for his two brilliant victories, in the Megarid and at Oinophyta, practically nothing is known of him.’17 Why should this be the case? A possible answer might be that there was a systematic, if perhaps unintentional, obliteration of the memory of his successes from the tradi­ tions concerning these years in deference to Perikles’ achievements. There are signs in our evidence of this actually having occurred in the case of the third of these competitors with Perikles for the lion’s share of glory in the historical records, Tolmides. In Thoukydides’ sequential record after the battle of Oinophyta come the completion of the Long Walls (1.108.3), the reduction of Aigina (108.4, noted above) and the following item: ‘the Athenians made a voyage round the Peloponnese with Tolmides son of Tolmaios as general; they burnt the Spartans’ dockyard, captured Chalkis, a Corinthian polis, and, after putting in to shore, defeated the Sikyonians in battle’ (108.5). A scholion on Aischines 2.75 provides a date, 456/5 (also in Diodoros 11.84.1) and reports that Tolmides ‘won a brilliant reputation, captured Boiai and Kythera . . . and burnt the Spartan dockyards’. Pausanias must be drawing on the same source, since he, too, reports Tolmides’ capture of Boiai and Kythera, and adds some details about the engagement at Sikyon: ‘they disembarked at Sikyon and, when, in the course of his ravaging of their territory the Sikyonians came out to give battle, he routed them and chased them back to their city’ (1.27.5). Except for the burning of the dock­ yard, a spectacular exploit which all our sources record and for which Tolmides perhaps took Themistokles as his example,18 Diodoros’ version (11.84.6—8) is different in several details. We are told, for example, that 58

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during his circumnavigation of the Peloponnese Tolmides attacked and captured the islands of Zakynthos and Kephallenia, and from there sailed to Naupaktos on the mainland, which he captured, according to Diodoros, ‘at the first assault’. There he settled some prominent Messenians whom the Spartans had allowed to go free under the truce which brought an end to the Helot revolt.19 After two chapters (1.109 and 110) in which he completes his narrative of the disaster in Egypt, Thoukydides returns to affairs in Greece proper with an account of an Athenian attempt, aided by Boiotians (at 108.3 the Athenians were said to have ‘taken control’ of Boiotia) and Phokians, ‘who had now become allies’,20 to restore an exiled Thessalian prince, Orestes of Pharsalos; in the event the expedition proved unsuccessful. No commander’s name is given by Thoukydides; according to Diodoros (11.83.3-4) it was Myronides, and this may be correct. Thoukydides’ narrative continues (111.2) with the first military undertaking that he specifically assigns to Perikles. ‘Not much later21 1,000 Athenians, going aboard ship at Pegai’ — the western harbour of Megara, which, as Thoukydides is careful to explain, ‘the Athenians now held’ (cf. 103.4) sailed along the coast to Sikyon, with Perikles son of Xanthippos as general. Disembarking, they defeated in battle the Sikyonians who came out to engage them (Thoukydides’ phrasing closely resembles that used by him to describe Tolmides’ encounter at 108.4], and they immediately took on as adherents the Achaians, and, sailing across the gulf, mounted an assault on Oiniadai in Akarnania; they did not, however, capture it, but returned home. Again, Thoukydides’ brief narrative is supplemented by later authors. Diodoros strangely breaks up the campaign into two: he gives a fuller account of the fighting at Sikyon to which Thoukydides refers only sketchily at 111.3. According to Diodoros, Perikles began by ravaging the territory around Sikyon; the Sikyonians responded by coming out ‘in full force’. In the ensuing battle the Athenians were victorious (so Thoukydides), and in the rout which followed Perikles slew many and pursued the rest, shutting them up in the city — and here Diodoros’ language resembles Pausanias’ description (1.27.5, see above) of Tolmides at Sikyon —and laying siege to it. Perikles had to abandon the siege when, according to Diodoros (11.88.2), the Spartans sent aid to the Sikyonians; he accordingly withdrew and sailed to Akarnania where he ‘overran the territory of Oiniadai’. Plutarch {Per. 19.2—3) has features that seem to combine Thoukydides’ and Diodoros’ (or Ephoros’) versions. Here the Corinthian Gulf expedition follows that to the Chersonese, while in Diodoros the order is reversed (in fact, some considerable time separated the two, since, on the generally accepted chronology, the Chersonese expedition did not take place until c. 447). According to Plutarch, 59

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Perikles earned great admiration and renown with men beyond [the borders of Attika, or perhaps Greece], having sailed around the Peloponnese, having put to sea with 100 triremes [50 at Diodoros 11.85.1] from Pegai in the Megarid. He not only ravaged much of the seacoast district, as Tolmides had done previously [my italics], but he advanced further inland from the coast with hoplites from the ships and hemmed in within their walls some of the enemy who were fearful at his approach, whereas at Nemea22 he routed the Sikyonians who had taken their stand against him and joined battle in force, and he set up a trophy. He then took on board soldiers from Achaia [so Thoukydides 1.111.3], which was friendly to them, and with the expedition sailed to the mainland opposite, and sailing past the Acheloios river he overran [and here Plutarch uses the word used by Diodoros at 11.88.2, katadramòn] and shut up \katekleisen, again, a word used by Diodoros, but of the routed Sikyonians] the people of Oiniadai inside their wall. He then ‘ravaged and did damage to the country’ —the failure to capture the city being passed over in silence23 —and set sail for home. Plutarch sums up the effect made by this expedition (or at least it was so alleged, by whoever was ultimately responsible for this eulogistic account): Perikles was ‘mani­ fested as a terror to the enemy, secure and efficacious to the citizens [the word Plutarch uses, drasterios, is reminiscent of Diodoros’ description of Myronides at 11.81.5, ‘clever and at the same time energetic’, synetos on hama kai drastikos]\ for no obstacle occurred, not even by chance, with respect to the men on the campaign’. The end of Tolmides’ story shows how unfairly his memory was treated, intentionally or by accident, by the historical tradition. In 447 or 446 the Athenians mounted an expedition to Boiotia, over which they had ‘gained control’ after Oinophyta 10 years before, for they had to deal with the problem created by ‘exiles’, that is, individuals or cliques opposed to the pro-Athenian policy being followed by their cities, who had gained control of Orchomenos, Chaironeia, and some other places. According to Thoukydides (1.113.1) Tolmides was put in charge of this expedition, which consisted of 1,000 Athenian hoplites together with allied contin­ gents. At first they were successful, capturing Chaironeia, enslaving its inhabitants and establishing a garrison there. On their march homeward, however, they were attacked by the ‘exiles’ (that is, their opponents) who were in command at Orchomenos and who were joined by Lokrians (from whom the Athenians had taken hostages in 457: Thoukydides 1.108.3), some Euboian exiles24 and ‘others who had similar [anti-Athenian] atti­ tudes’. The battle took place at Koroneia (south of Chaironeia), according to Thoukydides (later writers name other places: Lebadeia, Haliartos), and it was a decisive defeat for Athens and her allies; an unspecified number were slain, others taken prisoner and, in the upshot, in order to get these pris-

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oners back, Athens had to agree to evacuate all of Boiotia. ‘And so the Boiotian exiles were restored, and all the other [Boiotians] once again became autonomous’, is Thoukydides’ dry concluding comment (1.114.4). Later sources inform us that Tolmides himself was killed, along with Alkibiades’ father and Perikles’ kinsman, Kleinias. An inscription survives with an eight-line epigram eulogizing the bravery of the fallen and attributing their defeat to the malign interposition of some demigod.25 This part of what appears to have been a concerted plan by Athens to extend her influence in central Greece (to Sparta’s detriment, if possible) had been a dismal failure and (as we shall see) she was very shortly to rethink the entire policy. Diodoros’ brief account (12.6) adds nothing to Thoukydides’ except the fact of Tolmides’ death, while Plutarch —on whose authority, he does not say —makes Perikles strongly oppose Tolmides’ undertaking. He introduces his account with a prefatory eulogy of Perikles’ caution, asphaleia: ‘He neither undertook of his own accord a battle involving much uncertainty and peril, nor did he envy and imitate those who took great risks, enjoyed brilliant good fortune, and so were admired as great generals . . . ’ (Plutarch develops the theme by quoting Perikles’ ‘saying’ —not recorded elsewhere —that ‘as far as was up to him, they [the citizens] would remain immortal for all time’; compare the ‘saying’ reported by Plutarch at Per. 38.5, cited below). So when [Plutarch continues] Perikles saw that Tolmides, son of Tolmaios, all on account of his previous good fortune and of the exceeding great honour bestowed upon him for his wars, was getting ready, quite inopportunely, to make an invasion into Boiotia, and that he had persuaded the bravest and most ambitious men of military age to volunteer for the campaign —as many as a thousand of them, aside from the rest of his forces —he tried to restrain and dissuade Tolmides in the assembly, uttering that well-remembered saying, ‘if he were not persuaded by Perikles, he would not be wrong to wait for that wisest of Counsellors, Time’. (Per. 18.2, Perrin’s translation, slightly modified) W ith the inevitability of tragedy, Perikles’ foresight was confirmed. When news came of Tolmides’ defeat and death, as well as the loss of so many good citizens, ‘this [warning to Tolmides] redounded to Perikles’ great repute and favour, as a man both prudent and patriotic’ (18.3). In the Comparison (3.3) Plutarch restates the point: Perikles kept in check the other generals, who might, through bad planning, bring ill luck upon the city; only Tolmides escaped these Periklean restraints and ‘broke through by force and stumbled in Boiotia’. It seems clear that Plutarch or his source —Städter suggests Ephoros as the source for both Diodoros and Plutarch, with perhaps some unconscious shifting of motifs (for example, the ‘volunteers’, above) —has ‘written up’ the 61

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account in such a way as to portray Perikles in the best possible light, and Tolmides in the worst. The contrast between the two men’s attitudes is drawn so heavy-handedly that it seems contrived; to be noted particularly is the denigration by Perikles of Tolmides’ achievements as due to ‘good fortune’, eutychia, and his foolhardy attempt to match or outdo his ‘previous honours’ (18.2). Likewise the smug and self-congratulatory tone of Perikles’ remark concerning Time: fools like Tolmides rush in, where Perikles sagely waits. Finally, the implication of the whole account is that other comman­ ders in their vain pursuit of glory might put the soldiers’ lives at risk; when Perikles led, no one need be afraid. It is to this adulatory spirit that we must assign Plutarch’s comment on the Akarnania campaign, Per. 19-3 at end, cited above, and the remark he ascribes to Perikles that ‘no Athenian ever put on mourning because of him’ (Per. 38.4 and elsewhere), as well as the comment at Per. 27.1, Though Melissus arrayed his forces against him [at Samos in 440], he conquered and routed the enemy and at once walled their city in, prefer­ ring to get the upper hand and capture it at the price of money and time, rather than of the wounds and deadly perils of his fellow-citizens. (Per. 27.1, Perrin’s translation) There appear to have been no second thoughts or recriminations on the part of Tolmides’ fellow-citizens, however, who set up on a single pedestal on the Akropolis near Athena’s temple commemorative statues of this celebrated general and his personal seer, Theainetos, described by Pausanias (1.27.5, with a summary of Tolmides’ achievements, among them ‘cleruchies of Athenians to Euboia and Naxos’). 7 Pausanias’ assignment to Tolmides of ‘cleruchies’ affords an opportunity to examine this system, which was exploited by the Athenians at this period, of exporting pockets of their citizens as ‘pseudo-colonies’ to trouble-spots in their Empire.28 These were different from genuine or traditional colonies in that the cleruchs retained their Athenian citizenship and were (in theory, at least) subject to Athenian taxation and call-up in the Athenian army. They are usually interpreted as a form of public support, a way for Athens to dispense public wealth among her (presumably, less well-off) citizens. The ‘Perikles-eulogizing’ strain of the tradition, which, as we have seen, Plutarch often echoes —although, of course, he could often be critical of his subject and with regularity draws on hostile sources —assigns them to Perikles: ‘he sent expeditions of 1,000 cleruchs to the Chersonese [cf. Per. 19.1], 500 to Naxos, half that number to Andros, 1,000 to Thrace as co-residents with the Bisaltai, others to Italy when Sybaris was repopulated, which they named “Thourioi” ’ (Per.11. also 9-1: ‘others say he was the first to lead the demos to cleruchies and theorie payments and distribution of fees’). But Diodoros (11.88.3) and Pausanias (1.27.5, see above) assign Euboia and Naxos to Tolmides; and even if Plutarch is rhetorically exaggerating at Per. 19.1, the 62

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Chersonese cleruchy seems to have been remembered as Perikles’ own achievement —in Kimon and Miltiades territory.29 In some cases there is uncertainty of up to two or three years, but approx­ imate dates for these settlements can be reconstructed as follows: Andros 45 O30 Chersonese between 449 and 447/6, 1 if that is correct, it will be after Perikles’ involvement in the Sacred War (1.112.5; on this, see below), and perhaps at the very time that the Boiotian expedition was being planned; in other words, it might be an example of a ‘shared’ enterprise, as in 450 with Kimon. Naxos ‘450 summer’ (ATL III. 298); ‘before 448 or 447’ (Gomme I. 380); ‘before spring 447’ (Lewis in CAH2 128). Euboia has been dated to just before 446 because of the island’s revolt in that year, thought by some to have been brought on by Athens’ sending of the cleruchy, 2 but Hornblower is prepared to accept a date in 450 ‘or even a year or two earlier’. (The sequence Euboia—Naxos, listed in this order by both Diodoros and Pausanias, should probably be accepted; these were obviously led out before Tolmides’ death at Koroneia in 447.) Plutarch’s enthusiastic account of the Chersonese venture is as follows (Perrin’s translation): Of all his expeditions, that to the Chersonesus was held in most loving remembrance, since it proved the salvation of the Hellenes who dwelt there. Not only did he bring thither a thousand Athenian colonists {epoikous] and stock the cities anew with vigorous manhood, but he also belted the neck of the isthmus with defensive bulwarks from sea to sea, and so intercepted the incursions of the Thracians who swarmed about the Chersonesus, and shut out the perpetual and grievous war in which the country was all the time involved, in close touch as it was with neighbouring communities of barbarians, and full to overflowing of robber bands whose haunts were on or within its borders. Did Perikles initiate the policy of cleruchies (as Plutarch implies), and then share or collaborate with Tolmides? Or was it rather that this particular piece of imperialism Perikles learnt from Tolmides and then took it over as part of his own policy? Since some of Tolmides’ cleruchies will overlap with Perikles’ activities following Akarnania, there was sharing of some kind, perhaps similar to the (informal) agreement with Kimon to divide spheres of activity which Plutarch reports at Per. 10.5 (although the anecdotal setting involving Elpinike renders this highly suspect, as we saw in Chapter 4 above). The ‘cleruchy policy’, whoever was its author, had two aspects which bear

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closer examination: it was a way of redistributing Athens’ public wealth, which was accruing from the Empire, to those who needed and deserved it — in this respect, it fits in with the Periklean building programme and is perhaps to be seen as integrally connected with a law enacted in 451/0 on Perikles’ initiative, which restricted citizenship to those of Athenian parentage on both sides53 —and the cleruchies were also a very useful tech­ nique by which Athens could ‘tighten up’ control of her Empire. The year 454 marked the end of the disastrous Egyptian campaign (see Thoukydides 1.109—10). Unfortunately, the sources provide no solid indica­ tion where Perikles stood on this issue. Gomme (I. 307) was quite right to comment: ‘it was not known whether Perikles . . . opposed or supported it’. Some scholars34 have tried to squeeze an inference from a section in the Per. —a ‘timeless’ section in which Plutarch, who has just narrated the Black Sea venture of perhaps 437, praises Perikles’ caution in avoiding the more reck­ less undertakings advocated by his opponents: ‘Nor was he swept along with the tide when they fthe citizens] were eager, from a sense of their great power and good fortune, to lay hands again [antilambanesthai} on Egypt and molest the realms of the King which lay along the sea . . . ’. Perhaps the official or unofficial eulogists were eager to distance Perikles from the debacle. In 454 also an important change was introduced into the way the ‘Delian Confederation’ managed its financial arrangements.3° The treasury, which had previously been kept on the island of Delos, was now moved to the Athenian Akropolis, where it was kept, nominally separate from Athens’ state treasury, and from now on annual records were kept of the aparchai, ‘first offerings’ (in effect, a one-sixtieth token tax), which were henceforth to be paid into Athena’s own treasure from the tribute of the allies. Delian Apollo was, if not exactly supplanted, at least considerably upstaged by ‘Athena Queen of Athens’. The transfer is usually and probably correctly seen as a move by Athens to exert greater control over these imperial monies, perhaps as a reaction to assumed threats because of her perceived weakness after the failure in Egypt. No ancient author says unequivocally that Perikles proposed the transfer, though some modern accounts attribute it to him on the basis of one or two hints in the sources.37 It will be convenient to stop here and look at some evidence of a tight­ ening up of Athens’ control over her allies’ military, financial and in some cases judicial affairs, often (but not always) apparently in the wake of serious disaffection or outright revolt from the Delian ‘alliance’. Once again, we have no literary or epigraphic evidence that connects Perikles directly with any of these measures, but it seems to me highly unlikely that any of these events would have occurred over his strenuous disapproval. An inscription from the late 450s, probably copied by L.-E-S. Fauvel on the Akropolis (but the stone was subsequently lost), records regulations for Erythrai (IG I3 14; ML 40; Fornara 7 1).38 The first legible section records 64

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the obligation of the Erythraians to bring sitos (grain) to the Great Panathenaia. The inscription goes on to specify procedures for selection by allotment of a Boule, a Deliberative Council, of 120 men, this to be super­ vised by (presumably, Athenian) officials called episkopoi (overseers) and a phrourarchos (garrison commander). For our purposes the most interesting part of the decree begins at line 20: it calls for the newly installed Boule members to take an oath of loyalty to the plethos, the democratic assembly, of Erythrai and of the Athenians and their allies (these Athenian symmachoi are mentioned twice, at lines 22—3 and 24). In the exceedingly fragmentary closing section references to ‘the phrourarchos of the Athenians’ and a ‘garrison’ (phylake) have been discerned. What we seem to have here are provisions for the first installation of a democratic council on the Athenian model, and Athenian imperial officials are to supervise its installation and, thereafter, maintenance. Presumably they are also to keep a more general eye on Athens’ interests. As will be seen with increasing frequency in this type of imperial decree, there are clear indications of judicial interference, and this was to become a matter of contention between Athens and her allies. There are signs that about this time another trouble-spot for Athens was in the Northern Aegean, on the Hellespont. An inscription (IG P 17) records Athenian praise for Sigeion in 451/0, and a passing reference in Aischylos’ Eumenides (397ff.) has been taken as indicating that Athens had been having difficulties there as early as 458.40 The Ath. Pol. is our authority (26.3—4) for two legal measures introduced, in the careful archon-dates which the treatise gives, in, respectively, 453/2 and 451/0. The first, not specifically ascribed to Perikles, was the re-intro­ duction of 30 ‘deme-justices’, dikastai kata demons, which had been instituted under the tyrant Peisistratos at some indeterminable date {Ath. Pol. 16.5); presumably this system of ‘travelling’ (rural) justices (or ‘circuit judges’) had fallen into disuse and the intention now (whoever proposed the measure) was to make sure that Athenians residing in outlying districts — the territorial expanse of the polis was quite large —had the same access to the legal machinery as city-dwellers. Regarding the next innovation, restric­ tions in how Athenian citizenship was to be defined, there can be no doubt that this was introduced on Perikles’ own initiative, for it is recorded as such by Ath. Pol. (ibid.), and Perikles’ sponsorship is confirmed by later sources. His intention in introducing this measure has been much discussed,41 but it seems to me to be best understood as an attempt to define quite clearly — and so, of course, also to limit —those entitled to receive such financial bene­ fits as the Athenian state could offer; in other words, when it came to deciding who was to be eligible for the dikastikon (jury-pay), the bouleutikon (fee for Boule attendance) or to enlist for a cleruchy, how was the classifica­ tion ‘citizen’ to be determined? Also in 451 (probably) Kimon returned from ostracism and a five-year truce was concluded with Sparta.42 65

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There may be some doubt about Perikles’ exact position in the events of the late 450s (apart from the expedition to Akarnania and the restrictions on Athenian citizenship), but Plutarch vouches for his personal involvement in the so-called ‘Second Sacred War’ in 449 or 448. As we saw earlier in this chapter Athens appears to have been angling to make Phokis a secure ally in the 450s, and Thoukydides comments that, in the aftermath of the victory at Oinophyta, the Athenians ‘got control of the territory of Boiotia and Phokis’. 3 In Thoukydides’ brief notice of these renewed hostilities over control of Apollo’s shrine at Delphi (1.112.5) he does not mention Perikles by name. After this [Kimon’s death, the victory in Salamis of Cyprus, and the return of the Athenian expedition from there and from Egypt} the Spartans campaigned in the so-called ‘sacred’ war, and after gaining control of the shrine at Delphi, 4 they handed it over to the Delphians; and later again, after the Spartans had gone home, the Athenians sent out an army and, after gaining mastery, handed [the shrine} over to the Phokians. Plutarch, in his account of the war, lays credit for all of this at Perikles’ doorstep. He considered it a great achievement to hold the Lakedaimonians in check, and set himself in opposition to these in every way, as he showed, above all other things, by what he did in the Sacred War. The Lakedaimonians made an expedition to Delphi while the Phokians had possession of the sanctuary there, and restored it (apedoken) to the Delphians; but no sooner had the Lakedaimonians departed than Perikles made a counter expedition and reinstated the Phokians. And whereas the Lakedaimonians had had the ‘promanteia’, or right of consulting the oracle in behalf of others also, which the Delphians had bestowed upon them, carved upon the forehead of the bronze wolf in the sanctuary, [Perikles} secured from the Phokians this high privilege for the Athenians, and had it chiselled along the right side of the same wolf. {Per. 21.1—3, Perrin’s translation, modified) Besides showing strong support for Athens’ friends in Phokis, Perikles was perhaps trying for a public relations coup by manifesting interest in Apollo’s other major shrine, and possibly this represents a move to replace Delos by Delphi in Athenian religious propaganda, especially as removal of the League treasury from Delos would have constituted a de facto diminution in the prominence of that centre of Apollo’s worship. A discussion must now be undertaken of two events (perhaps ‘nonevents’) with which Perikles’ name has been connected: the ‘Congress Decree’ and the ‘Peace of Kallias’. I shall take them in reverse order and start

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with the ‘Peace’. The issue is simple: was a formal peace between the ‘Delian Alliance’ and the King of Persia concluded about this time? The main reason for thinking that this might be so is that Diodoros under the year 449/8 gives a full-scale narrative involving a plan by Kimon to force the Persians to terms of submission by overmastering Cyprus and thus humili­ ating the Cypriots’ Persian patrons, who (Kimon thought) being unable to come to the assistance of the Salaminians on Cyprus because Athens had mastery of the sea, would become despised for having abandoned their allies, and thus the whole war would be decided once all of Cyprus had been subdued by force [jc. by the Athenians). And this is exactly what happened . . . (12.4.2) In Plutarch’s narrative the consequence of Kimon’s last campaign is very different. Kimon dies during a siege of Kition on Cyprus’ south coast, although he bids his death be kept secret until the Athenians should return home, and after his death ‘no Greek general was to accomplish any further feat of arms’ (Kim. 19-3, Blamire’s translation), but, led now by ‘demagogues and warmongers’ rather than Kimon-like statesmen, they fell to squabbling and in-fighting among themselves, thus affording the Persian King a breathing-space (anapnoe) in which to recoup his losses. The late and rather unreliable compilation by ‘Aristodemos’ (perhaps fourth century ce) has substantially Diodoros’ sequence of events, except that here Kallias is elected general in place of the dead Kimon (FGH 104 F 1, 13.2), while in Diodoros Kallias is simply one of an unspecified number of ‘ambassadors with full authority’. If a peace was concluded its terms involved (with minor differences of detail in the sources) restrictions of movement on the Persian navy and land troops on the one hand —exact limits were given westwards of which the Persians agreed not to come —while Athens and her allies undertook ‘not to conduct military expeditions against the Persian King’s territory’. 5 The chief argument against the Peace of Kallias (and one which I person­ ally find quite compelling, if not decisive)46 is that Thoukydides does not mention it. Agreed, his narrative in the Pentekontaetia is not complete (as commentators continually point out),47 at times even perfunctory, but in this case his silence seems very difficult to explain, since he narrates in some detail Kimon’s last expedition as a consequence of which the Peace was alleged to have been concluded. Given the importance of this supposed peace both for the ‘external’ events of the period, and principally for the full picture that Thoukydides has undertaken to paint of Athens’ inexorable growth to world power (and the concomitant challenge to Sparta which explained, in the historian’s own view, why the war that is his primary topic broke out), his failure to mention it — it would have taken only a half-sentence after his notice of Kimon’s death at 1.112.4 and the subsequent withdrawal of the 67

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allied forces —is very difficult to explain. 8 In addition, the fourth-century ‘universal’ historian Theopompos came out strongly against the historicity of the Peace; he had seen a decree purporting to have been concluded between Athens and ‘King Dareios in regard to the Greeks’ (where modern editors almost universally alter Theopompos’ text to ‘King Artaxerxes’), but denounced it as a fabrication because the inscription was written in the Ionic alphabet, which had not been adopted as the official script at Athens until 403 BCE. Various suggestions have been made about what Theopompos actu­ ally saw, and what it may have been that caused him to doubt the genuineness of the treaty inscribed on the stone; the simplest explanation is that it was exactly what Theopompos claimed it to be, a forgery. Another reason for questioning the existence of a peace is that Plutarch places it in a totally different historical and chronological context, after the Eurymedon victory (Kim. 13.3—5). Not many modern authorities believe that a peace was actually concluded then. But this time-sequence is implied by Plato, Menexenos 241 D—242 A (before Tanagra) and Lykourgos Against Leokrates 72—3 (after Eurymedon). The Souda s.v. ‘Kallias’ (iii. 214 Adler) says Kallias ‘confirmed the terms of the treaty made in Kimon s time’ (Fornara’s translation, 95 L), and Souda s.v. ‘Kimon’ (iii. 1620 Adler) actu­ ally seems to attribute it to Kimon (‘he defined the boundaries for the barbarians’). Badian argued that an earlier, post-Eurymedon peace was later repudiated only to be re-negotiated in 449 (1987 [1993: Iff.}), and this would account in part at least for the strange story in Demosthenes (19 False Embassy 273; Fornara 95 C) that the Athenians were so angry with Kallias for having negotiated the Peace that they ‘almost put him to death and fined him 50 talents at his euthyna'. The usual view among ancients and moderns is that the embassy was a conspicuous success (Demosthenes 15 Freedom of the Rhodians 29, c. 351 b c e : a peace ‘praised by all’), and Kallias was honoured for the achievement. Evidence for the conclusion of a formal treaty has been sought in the Tribute Quota Lists, the allegedly ‘Missing List’, but uncertainty lingers about the date of the gap in the lists. The leading candidates are 448 and 446. If the earlier year turns out to be correct, it would help to confirm the existence of the Peace, since ex hypothesi the tribute was remitted or massive defaults occurred once it had become known that Persia had accepted the allies’ terms. If a list is missing and the date is 446, this would count neither for nor against the Peace.51 Those who question the existence of a peace have to face the facts: there was a consistent and coherent tradition, reflected especially in the fourthcentury orators Isokrates and Demosthenes, that a peace was actually concluded — although quite often the context in which it is quoted is a tendentious one, a contrast between this ‘triumphant treaty which Athens imposed on Persia’ (Thompson 1981: 167) and the ignominious ‘Peace of Antalkidas’ or ‘King’s Peace’ of 386 between Sparta and the Persians. These

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fourth-century authorities, however, could easily have been led into confu­ sion by a lack of clarity —reflected even in Thoukydides, but especially in Diodoros (presumably drawing on Ephoros as one of his sources) and Plutarch —in distinguishing among the ‘brilliance’, and the aftermaths, of Kimon’s various victories against the Persians.52 There is, for example, what strikes me as a suspicious circularity at Plutarch Kim. 12.2, in the run-up to the Eurymedon engagement: When he [Kimon} learned that the Kings generals with a great army and many ships were lying in wait in the vicinity of Pamphylia, and wishing to make the entire stretch of sea west of the Chelidonian Islands totally unsailable and not-to-be trodden by them (aploun kai anembaton} out offear, he weighed anchor and set sail from Knidos and Triopion with 300 triremes, the ships which in fact Themistokles . . . Then, sure enough, the Kyaneoi and Chelidonians figure in the peace terms which Plutarch records at Kim. 13.4, and he goes on to report Kallisthenes as having said that the barbarians had not agreed formally, but in fact observed these limits out offear after the defeat (FGH 124 F 16). Our ancient sources are singularly unclear about the dates and objectives of Kimon’s Cypriot campaigns, and thereby seem to have generated considerable confusion concerning what was alleged to have been the crowning achieve­ ment of one of them, a negotiated peace with Persia and (in contrast to the Peace of 386), on terms favourable to the Ionian Greeks. Kallias, whether or not he negotiated a peace with Persia, had a long and varied career. Born between 520 and 510 (Davies 1971: 256), his family was extremely wealthy and, as was remarked above in Chapter 4, he married Kimon’s sister, Elpinike (Plutarch Kim. 4.8).54 It is possible that he is the same Kallias who negotiated the Rhegion and Leontinoi treaties, if these were first made in the 450s.55 Modern writers make of him something of a ‘political turncoat’, who changed sides from the Kimonians to the Perikleans, but this charge holds only if one accepts that he negotiated the Peace, and that it was an integral part of Perikles’ programme. Most but not all identify him also as the Kallias who was a signatory of the Thirty Years’ Peace concluded between Athens and Sparta in 446/5 (Diodoros 12.7 gives the names of the Athenian ‘confirmers’, bebaiosanton, as merely Kallias and Chares). Regarding the ‘peace’, the solution I believe to be most prudent is a modified version of Kallisthenes’ verdict: there was no formal peace (after 449), but a tacit agreement which the Athenians might cast as ‘fear’ instilled by the League forces in their Persian opponents, and the Persians for their part congratulating themselves that they had ‘taught the enemy a lesson’ at Cyprus.56 Whether consequent upon a formal peace or coincident with this de facto cessation of hostilities, an ambitious building programme was begun by Athens in the early 440s. Our sources also —whether correctly or 69

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not remains to be considered - assign credit (or blame) for the undertaking specifically to Perikles. Closely connected with this building programme and, if historical, the immediate and probably necessary antecedent is the ‘Congress Decree’. Our only source is Plutarch, Per. 17: ‘When the Spartans were beginning to be annoyed at the growth of Athenian power, and because Perikles wished to rouse the demos to have still greater ambitions and think themselves up to undertaking great projects, Perikles had a decree formulated . . . The substance then follows: the ‘Greek cities throughout the world, in Europe as well as Asia, small cities and great’, are called on to send representatives to Athens to make plans for rebuilding the temples burnt by the Persians in 480 and 479 and discharge their sacrificial and other cultic obligations according to promises made at the time of the invasion, and detailed geographical arrangements are spelt out, as well as the requirement that there be four groups of five emissaries each, all men over the age of 50, to go to the various regions —the concreteness and specificity of these last clauses have been thought to lend credibility to the Decree as a whole. Alas, all this came to naught for, as Plutarch indicates at the end of the chapter (17.4), ‘Nothing was achieved, the cities did not come together, because, as it is said [Plutarch does not tell us by whom], the Spartans opposed the plan \hypenantiòthentòrì\ and the effort was challenged [Städters rendering of Plutarch’s phrase tes peiras elenchtheisès] first in the Peloponnese.’ Belief in this Panhellenic Congress is not so widespread as in the Peace of Kallias; I continue to have grave doubts about it, and I find support in the diffidence expressed by Lewis (CAH2 1992: 125 note 19, and 127).57 In my opinion, the whole episode was probably a fiction, contrived we know not when or by whom, precisely to cast Perikles in the ‘Panhellenic’ role just mentioned (we shall see a similar ‘Panhellenic’ colouring in our sources for Perikles’ role in the Thourioi venture of c. 444). 58 Intertwined in the narra­ tive of this abortive Congress, as is indicated by Plutarch’s reference to ‘the Greek shrines burnt by the barbarians and sacrifices . . . promised’, is the (in my opinion equally fictitious) ‘Oath of Plataia’, condemned by Theopompos as a falsification along with the Peace of Kallias (FGH 115 F 153)· Diodoros (11.29-3) has it that an oath was sworn by the allies gathered at the Isthmus of Corinth before the campaign of 479 b c e which contained among its clauses, ‘and I shall do nothing to rebuild the shrines burnt and destroyed [jc. by the Persians], but I shall let them alone and leave them as a memorial of the barbarians’ impiety for future generations’. (This non-reconstruction clause is contained also in a closely similar version cited by Lykourgos, Against Leokrates 81, where the last clause reads ‘shall allow them to be left as a memorial . . . ’, but not in a much longer and more elaborate one * i * # * \ SO preserved in a fourth-century inscription). There are some indications (the evidence is mainly epigraphic) that Athens was experiencing difficulties with recalcitrant allies in the early 440s ì

λ

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and that in one case (Kolophon in Asia Minor, the Ionian coast) a revolt had to be quelled. If the Kleinias Decree (IG H 34; ML 46; Fornara 98; Hornblower and Greenstock 1984: no. 85) really does belong to c. 448 as many (but not all) specialists believe, it can be inferred that Athens had been having trouble with ‘short’ tribute payments and also that some time previ­ ously Athens’ allies had been required to present a cow and panoply (ceremonial suit of armour) to be carried in procession at the Great Panathenaia.60 A system of tallies (symbola) is enjoined for tribute-paying states to indicate under seal the actual amounts paid, which are to be veri­ fied by agents sent out subsequently, who are also to demand full payment from those deemed to have defaulted; all these matters are to be presented to the Athenian people at an Assembly meeting immediately following the Great Dionysia in March. Cities failing to conform to the cow-and-panoply requirement are to be treated with the same severity as those defaulting on their tribute. In the fragmentary final section proviso is made for some appeal mechanism by tribute-payers. It is a pity that the date of this ‘important but controversial’ document (as Meiggs and Lewis term it) has not been settled (those proposing an early date argue that the Kleinias who was its mover was Alkibiades’ father who was killed at Koroneia in 447 or 446; the indications of letter-forms are inconclusive, allowing, according to Meiggs and Lewis (1969 [1988}: 121), a date in the 440s or 430s although, they claim, ‘epigraphically the twenties are too late’).61 It will be important when we come to discuss the ideology of the Panathenaia and Perikles’ connections with it to note that we have here solid, if undatable, evidence that Athens was prepared to turn this quintessential^ national festival into an Imperial occasion, as part of which the allies were legally required to perform an act overtly symbolic of their relationship to their patron city.62 The date of the decree for Kolophon (IG P 37; ML 47; Fornara 99; Hornblower and Greenstock 1984: no. 131) is also not quite certain; 447—6 is held to be its ‘probable’ date by Meiggs and Lewis, and others (the grounds are the non-appearance of Kolophon in the Tribute Quota Lists for the period 449—447, and her restoration thereafter at one-half the tribute that she paid in the preceding period). In the early, ‘very fragmentary’ section (Hornblower and Greenstock 1984), there is a reference to ‘the five . . . chosen’ in line 19, where the word oikistai, settlers, is plausibly restored on grounds of its recurrence in line 41, and what appears to be a synonym, [oiketjores, occurs in line 22. The decree is to be inscribed both in Athens and at Kolophon at the Kolophonians’ expense and in fact the surviving copy is in ‘a poor script strongly influenced by Ionic’ (ML p. 121). The specialists disagree whether or not a reference to ‘the allies’ is to be inserted in line 44 by analogy with the Erythrai decree of about five years earlier, where they are mentioned twice in lines 22—4, but this is perhaps less significant than the repeated harping on the ‘demos of the Athenians’ in

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lines 44, 45 (a likely restoration), and 47. Though extensively restored, lines 48ff. seem to involve an oath to maintain the (newly established) democracy at Kolophon. Points of minor interest include the apparent reference to ‘Athena guardian goddess of Athens’ in line 14 and the twice-mentioned ‘settlers’, who, if they are five in number as line 19 (restored) suggests, seem to be imperial officials of some kind. 3 Severe strains were put on the fabric of the Athenian Confederacy (as it had by now become) much closer to home, for in 446/5 two of Athens’ allies, who were also neighbours and, in their separate ways, indispensable to her economic well-being and control of her Empire, rebelled. The double revolt of Megara and Euboia was a serious challenge to Perikles’ policy, and set in motion a chain of events which ended with his adopting a more real­ istic attitude to the possibilities of retaining control of recalcitrant mainland ‘allies’ who would be generally out of reach of a trouble-shooting Athenian land force. Thoukydides’ account (1.114) is fairly full and, as elsewhere, some interesting details emerge in passing in other places in his narrative. First, Euboia revolted. Her size and position made her a crucial ‘possession’, which the Athenians relied on for the raising of livestock and for food gener­ ally, and there must have been many who looked on Euboia as an extension of Attika. An attempted revolt in c. 506 was put down with equal decisive­ ness (Herodotos 5.77) and Thoukydides remarks that when Euboia revolted in 411 during the Peloponnesian War, ‘there was greater panic in Athens than ever before’ (8.96.1). It was thus inconceivable that she could be outside the Athenian sphere of influence; but there were disaffected, i.e. anti-Athenian, presumably oligarchic parties there, as witness the presence of ‘Euboian exiles’ among those who attacked Tolmides’ army at Koroneia in 447 or 446 (Thoukydides 1.113.2) and, as Gomme points out (I. 340), Tolmides’ cleruchy (see earlier in this chapter) ‘will have meant the expropri­ ation of many of the larger landowners, who became voluntary or involuntary exiles’. When Perikles had just gone across there with an Athenian army it was reported to him that Megara had revolted as well (Megara, it will be remembered, had voluntarily become a member of the alliance c. 460, Thoukydides 1.103.4), that the Peloponnesians were on the verge of invading Attika, and that the Athenian garrison had been slain by the Megarians, except for those who had fled to Nisaia (Megaras harbour on the Saronic Gulf). Thoukydides also remarks that the Megarians had been abetted by reinforcements from the Peloponnesian cities Corinth, Sikyon and Epidauros. Thoukydides’ account from this point on stands in need of supplementa­ tion. Perikles ‘quickly brought the army from Euboia’ and the invading Peloponnesian army, having progressed into Attika and ravaged the country as far as Eleusis and the Thriasian plain, ‘did not advance any farther but returned home’. Plutarch (Per. 23.1—3) recounts the story of Perikles’ alleged bribe of the Spartan commanders, the young King Pleistoanax and

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Kleandridas, whom the Spartan authorities had sent to accompany him as ‘guardian and colleague’ (Thoukydides acknowledges in passing the tale of the bribe at 2.21.1 and again, very indirectly, at 5.16.1). Upon their return to Sparta Pleistoanax was sent into exile —as well as, perhaps, being fined — and Kleandridas fled to Thourioi (where he ‘commanded the Thourians successfully in their local wars’)64 and was condemned to death in absentia. The story of the alleged bribe became notorious. In Clouds of 423 BCE Aristophanes makes one of his characters refer to Perikles’ alleged retort when asked to account for a mysterious entry in the year’s expenditures (Plutarch gives the figure as 10 talents) —‘necessary expenses’ —and there were widely divergent traditions about how much was involved, and how often it was paid. Plutarch’s 10 talents become 20 in Ephoros (FGH 70 F 193; Fornara 104), where it is somewhat confusingly linked to a story about Perikles feeling anxious about having ‘spent on the war most of the accumu­ lated money on the Akropolis’. By the time of the Souda lexicon, the sum has grown to 50 talents (a ‘fifty-talent bribe’ seems to have been a conven­ tional figure: Aristophanes, Wasps 669 and cf. Women at the Thesmophoria 811). Ephoros is also reported as having said that when the Spartans learned of this they confiscated Kleandridas’ property and fined Pleistoanax 15 talents. Theophrastos — or, as Gomme suggests, perhaps Theopompos — made it an annual 10-talent present from Perikles to the Spartan authorities to ‘buy time’.65 This whole novelistic episode is generally dismissed by modern scholars, of whom Hornblower (1991a: 186) is representative: ‘In fact we can conjecture that [Pleistoanax] withdrew because some preliminary understanding had been reached’ (i.e. Perikles promised to negotiate what was to become the Thirty Years’ Peace).66 Some additional information about one phase of these operations can be gleaned from a grave-marker which survives, a memorial for a Megarian named Pythion (ML 51; Fornara 101). The 10-line epitaph (described by the epigraphist M. N. Tod as ‘curiously illiterate’) records the service rendered to three Athenian tribal regiments, commanded by one Andokides (probably the grandfather of the orator), who, when they were cut off by the Peloponnesians from rejoining the main army in Athens by the direct route, were led by the individual in question ‘from Pegai (Megara’s harbour on the Corinthian Gulf) through Boiotia’. Pythion claims also that he ‘slew seven men’ by ‘breaking seven spears in their bodies’, as well as somehow being involved in the capture of 2,000 men (or the reference to ‘two thousand pris­ oners’ may mean, as Meiggs takes it, that Pythion is claiming credit for having saved this number of Andokides’ soldiers from falling into the enemy’s hands). Pythion’s rather self-glorifying account, assuming that it is trustworthy, substantiates Diodoros’ statement (12.5) that when news of the revolt reached Athens, ‘the Athenians sent soldiers into the territory of the Megarians’; this appears to have been a quite separate movement from the manoeuvres of the main bulk of the army under Perikles, as described by 73

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Thoukydides.67 W ith the Peloponnesians gone home and the Megarian disturbance quelled, Perikles crossed back over to Euboia (with, Plutarch informs us, without naming his authority, 50 ships and 5,000 infantry) and ‘brought to heel the whole of it’ —and both Thoukydides and Plutarch use the same fairly strong word, katastrephomai. Thoukydides describes briefly as follows the settlement effected by the Athenians: ‘depopulating Hestiaia they themselves took possession of fits] territory; with the rest fof Euboia] they came to an agreement’ (1.114.3). Diodoros (12.22.2) says that after expelling the Hestiaians from their city, they sent their own (idiari) colony under Perikles as general, despatching 1,000 settlers and dividing the city and territory among cleruchs. Late sources report also confiscations and resettlements at Chalkis and Eretria, but this has been doubted on the grounds that Thoukydides’ account seems to imply that this occurred only at Hestiaia.69 We get some additional information on how Athens dealt with Euboia from two surviving decrees. What survives of the one for Eretria (IG P 39; Fornara 102) picks up at the end of a section of things guaranteed to the Eretrians if they comply with the terms. The Eretrians are to send oathcommissioners to Athens; responsibility for the swearing is to rest with the generals. The Eretrians are to swear ‘not to [rebel against the demos] of the Athenians’, and rebels are to be denounced to the Athenians. The stone breaks off in the middle of a clause relating to payment of tribute. Most commentators believe that the decree for Chalkis (IG I5 40; ML 52; Fornara 103) represents terms of the settlement following the 446/5 rebel­ lion.70 The oath of loyalty involves swearing fidelity to ‘the demos of the Athenians’, with no mention of the allies, as in previous similar documents (but note that the allies recur in the Samos settlement of 439/8). We learn later on that five Athenians are to be selected as ‘oath commissioners’ to go to Chalkis ‘immediately’ to administer the oath. Fulfilment of several items agreed to is left to the supervision of the Athenian generals (lines 20, 44 and 68). The Athenians undertake (lines 4—12) not to act arbitrarily against any Chalkidians charged with anti-Athenian activities. The Chalkidians for their part are to swear not to rebel, nor follow anyone else into rebellion, but rather to denounce traitors to Athens. Terms of future tribute-payments are to be worked out, with the Chalkidians apparently having right of appeal. The next part seems to be the Athenian response to an appeal by Chalkidians for some relief or improvement in terms of the original settle­ ment. There is a reference to Chalkidian hostages (lines 47ffi; Eretrian hostages are mentioned in the ‘Eretrian Catalogue’71 and hostages will later be taken by Perikles at Samos), but the Athenians assert their unwillingness to make any changes. Next comes a cryptic and much-discussed passage dealing with ‘foreigners’ living in Chalkis.72 Copies of the decree are to be set up in prominent places both in Athens and Chalkis, but at the Chalkidians’ expense. There is an interesting section dealing with religious74 74

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sanctions (lines 64 ff.; see Balcer 1978: 72—5): ‘sacrifices are to be offered on behalf of Euboia in accordance with the oracles’. To the original decree a rider is added, moved by a certain Archestratos:73 the usual judicial arrange­ ments are to apply to Chalkidian malfeasants, with the important proviso that when the penalty to which the accused person becomes liable upon conviction is exile, death, or loss of citizen rights —in other words, major criminal charges such as might be brought against Chalkidians in sympathy with Athens —the Chalkidian defendant, if condemned, can appeal to the citizens’ court at Athens, the Heliaia.74 The inscription ends with a state­ ment of the (Athenian) generals’ obligation to look after the protection, or ‘guarding’, of Euboia, ‘so that the interests of the Athenians may best be served’ (lines 76—9). The next generation remembered the firmness with which Perikles had quelled the rebellion. In a scene in Aristophanes’ Clouds a student in Sokrates’ Thinking-shop, showing Strepsiades a ‘chart of the whole world’, after pointing to Athens (Strepsiades harrumphs, ‘That can’t be Athens; I don’t see any sitting jurors’) moves on to Euboia which ‘stretches out a very long way off, to which Strepsiades remarks. O f course: it was stretched out by us and Perikles’ (an equivalent modern metaphor would be ‘flattened’ or ‘laid out’).75 Plutarch, after alluding to a passage in Plato’s Republic (8.562 C) where the Athenian demos is compared unflatteringly to an unruly (iexybrisanta) horse, cites two lines from an unnamed comic writer, ‘no longer endures to follow authority but snaps at Euboia and tramples on the islands’ {Per. 7.8; PCG viii, fr.700). In Thoukydides’ catalogue of events the revolts of Megara and Euboia are followed immediately by the signing of a Thirty Years’ Peace with Sparta, whose signatories included Andokides, the general in 446 and 440 (Andokides 3.6; ps.-Plutarch Mor. 834 B), Kallias (presumably ‘Lakkoploutos’) and Chares (Diodoros 12.7, at end; there was an odd tradi­ tion in the fourth century that the Peace was negotiated by Kimon, presumably because of his pro-Spartan leanings). Perikles’ name is conspicu­ ously absent. No ancient author presents a systematic listing of all the clauses, which have had to be pieced together from this chapter in Thoukydides (1.115.1) and scattered references elsewhere in his work.76 Athens agreed to give up Megara’s two ports, Nisaia and Pegai, as well as Trozen and Achaia (thus undoing the benefits of Tolmides’ and Perikles’ expeditions to the Corinthian Gulf); thereafter, each side was to keep what it possessed; neither side was to make an armed attack on the other, if (prob­ ably) the latter was prepared to go to arbitration; the list of allies on each side was to be published, and any state not listed could subsequently go to either side. Special arrangements appear to have been made concerning Argos: she was prohibited from joining Athens’ military alliance, because she had signed a Thirty-Year Truce with Sparta in 451/0, but Argos and Athens ‘could make friendly arrangements with one another on an unofficial 75

level, if they wished’, according to Pausanias (5.23.3^4), on the basis of a bronze stele at Olympia. Scholars disagree about whether the treaty contained a general clause guaranteeing the autonomy of the allies on both sides, or whether there was some specific clause relating to Aigina (as may be implied by some passages in Thoukydides: 1.67.2, 139-1 and 140.3); Aigina in any case remained a bone of contention.77 Was the Peace touted as a Victory’ for Athens?78 Probably, since even in against-the-wall situations of this kind there are no losers (at least to the constituents of the political leaders involved). There is disagreement among modern scholars whether, as Gomme has it, ‘by the treaty Sparta expressly recognized the position of Athens at the head of the Delian League’.79 Even if this were not the case, there was de facto recognition that both sides had spheres of influence, Sparta in the Peloponnese, Athens in the Aegean. And it is a policy which, as we shall see, would hold fast even under the strain put on it later by the revolt of Samos from the Delian Alliance and Corinth’s refusal to allow Sparta to intervene.80 Perikles had seen senior generals like Myronides and Tolmides trying to extend Athenian influence, and he himself started by trying to emulate and if possible outdo them. He had undertaken a major expedition to Akarnania and led a settlement to the Chersonese in the northeastern Aegean. When Kimon returned from ostracism, he was given a role in the assertion of Athens’ interests; his last initiative in Cyprus had been successful and the Persians were no longer a major threat. But Perikles realized how dangerous it was for Athens to overextend herself, as she had in Egypt. Furthermore Sparta’s attempt to exert control through the Delphic shrine showed that she was prepared to move outside the Peloponnese, if the opportunity presented itself. Even more worrying was the fact that Athens’ allies, especially on the Ionian coast, were showing an increasing tendency to act independently, and only the most stringent of threatened reprisals would keep them in line. The events of 446 taught Perikles a lesson: Athens’ energies must not be divided between keeping a grip on her maritime empire and acquiring more control over mainland states. This policy of ‘no expansion by land’ (with concomitant watchfulness for signs of disaffection among the maritime allies) was to become a cornerstone of Perikles’ imperial policy, one that he would return to with a tenacious regularity in the years to come.76

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7 AFTER THE PEACE

THE PANATHENAIA AND THE ODEION The Panathenaia was, without question, the Athenians’ most important public holiday. It was an eight-day festival held each year towards the end of the first Attic month, Hekatombaion (end of July), and every four years it was celebrated on a grander scale — the ‘Great Panathenaia’. All residents of Attika, citizens and metics alike, were given an opportunity to celebrate the birthday of their patron goddess Athena (the story portrayed on the east pedi­ ment of the Parthenon). The origins of the festival, which may originally have been called simply ‘Athenaia’ (‘in celebration of Athena’, similar to ‘Dionysia’, ‘in celebration of Dionysos’), probably go back to the city’s archaic past, but a formalization of some kind took place c. 566 b c e and no doubt further changes, which have left no trace in the record, occurred thereafter. As we shall see, our sources credit Perikles with an important modification to the festival, but what precisely this was remains unclear. There was a procession that involved all classes of citizens, female as well as male, and the resident aliens, or ‘metics’, who led along the ewes and cows that were to be sacrificed and distributed to the participants; the aristocratic Knights in their ceremonial regalia; officials and priests or priestesses of various kinds; competitors in the games that would later be held (among the more exciting events were the ‘apobatai’, who had to dismount from a chariot and run the final lap to the finish line, a torch race and a regatta) who would receive the celebrated Panathenaic amphoras filled with choice olive oil and depicting, along with Athena as patroness, the event in which the prize had been won. The procession wound through the Athenian agora from northwest to southeast along the ‘Panathenaic way’, then climbed the Akropolis hill and made its way to Athena’s oldest shrine, the ‘old temple’ (superseded in the latter part of the fifth century by the Erechtheion), where the ceremonial cloak or ‘peplos’ that had been brought part of the way as rigging on a wheeled model ship and whose manufacture and fine decoration had been entrusted to ‘working women’ from aristocratic families many months before, was draped about the goddess’ statue.

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Let us defer consideration of the problems raised by our evidence for Perikles’ involvement for a moment. Why might he have been interested in this festival in particular? For one thing, popular tradition had it that many of the great figures of Athens’ past had made some change in the festival. The legendary Theseus is said in some accounts to have been its founder, or to have been responsible for the change of name from ‘Athenaia’ to ‘Panathenaia’. Although the re-foundation date of 566 given above pre-dates the rule of the tyrant Peisistratos, he is generally thought to have enlarged the festival and enhanced its importance, and his son Hipparchos is reported as having laid down rules for the rhapsodes’ contests held as part of the festival. The epigraphic record of Athens’ intrusion into the affairs of her allies suggests that by mid-century they were being ‘up-graded’ to the status of (pseudo-)colonies and that as part of this upgrading they were to send a delegation to the Panathenaia with ceremonial offerings, grain or a suit of hoplite armour, and a cow to be sacrificed.3 If this is correct, it may all have been part of a plan by Perikles to go a step further than his predecessors who had exploited the nationalist possibilities of the festival: he would turn it into a potent instrument of international politics, the binding together of all Athens’ far-flung protectorates under the benevolent but watchful eye of the city’s divine patron. I turn now to the evidence of Perikles’ involvement. As part of a detailed account of the Periklean building programme that he gives at Per. 13.6fF., Plutarch puts special emphasis on the Music Hall or O deion’ and, in connection with it, changes to the Panathenaia for which he says Perikles was responsible: Eager for honour as he was (philotimoumenos), Perikles had a decree passed for the first time that a musical contest be held at the Panathenaia, and he arranged that he himself should be elected contest-organizer (atblothetes), as well as rules for those competing in aulos-playing, singing and kithara-playing. Continuously from that time spectators have viewed the music-competitions in the Odeion. (Per. 13.11) First, the Odeion. It had an extraordinary, pyramidal design apparently modelled on Xerxes’ tent that had been taken as booty after the battle of Salamis (or Plataia) and perhaps preserved as a memorial of victory over the Persians.5 Plutarch describes it as follows: ‘for its internal arrangement [it had] many seats and many columns, its roof steep and sloping downward with a single peak’. The whole design in any case was unusual enough for the comic writer Kratinos to have made one of his characters remark, ‘Look, here comes squill-headed Zeus [Perikles], wearing the Odeion on his head, since the ostrakon has passed him by . . . ’. Excavations have revealed a rect­ angular or square ground-plan, rather large (‘approximately 62.40 x 68.60 m .’, according to Travlos), the inside, in Wycherley’s words, ‘a forest of 78

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internal columns’, in an arrangement of 9 x 9 (Boersma) or 9 x 10 (Travlos). The vast number of columns became a talking-point; Holden (in his note on the Per. passage) usefully cites Theophrastos’ ‘Chatterbox’ {Characters 18), who asks, ‘How many columns has the Odeion?’7 Although it is not clear whether these columns were of wood (Boersma) or stone (Vitruvius), their large number ‘must have impaired visibility of the performance’ (Wycherley 1978: 216). The size and impressiveness of the building —involving as it did a very large space and a high sloping roof, with the attendant design prob­ lems that appear to have made necessary an unusually large number of supporting pillars — may suggest rather that what was uppermost in Perikles’ mind was the stunning effect that the building was to make on Athenians and visitors, rather than practicality. Besides being the site for at least some of the Panathenaiac musical competitions (if Plutarch’s testimony on this point be accepted), the Odeion was also used as a rehearsal hall for productions destined for the Theatre of Dionysos, as well as for ‘proagones’, which seem to have been ‘mini­ performances’, specimen passages from the dramas that were to be performed at the Great Dionysia, according to the scholiast on Vitruvius 5-9, choruses also trained there. Later evidence points to its use also as a lawcourr and (perhaps only occasionally) a grain-distribution point. Perikles probably held an official position in relation to the undertaking. Plutarch says ‘Perikles . . . supervising [epistatountos} this project as well’ (he has already mentioned the Parthenon and initiation-house at Eleusis in Chapter 13). If Plutarch is to be taken as asserting that Perikles held the official position of epistates, he will have been one of a panel of 10 who were annually elected (and so an important office, with major financial responsi­ bility; many lesser offices were filled by allotment), but I think it likelier that the term is to be understood in a non-technical way: Perikles will have assumed general oversight of this along with the other building projects.10 Unfortunately, it is uncertain when the building was completed. Boersma and others, on the basis of what they take to be a chronological sequence in Plutarch’s list of buildings at Per. 13.6ffi, conjecture that it was finished by the time of the Panathenaia of 442, and most authorities put the starting date not very long after 450, but these dates are far from secure. It is of not much more help that the passage in Kratinos’ Thracian Women, already mentioned, seems to imply that the building had only recently come into use, for the play’s date is itself in dispute. It is not clear exactly what changes Perikles made to the festival itself. Plutarch appears to be claiming at Per. 13.11 that this was the first occasion on which musical contests were held at the Panathenaia. But on the basis of some scattered but not (apparently) easily controverted ceramic and literary evidence it seems clear that musical competitions were being held at the Panathenaia already in the sixth and early fifth centuries.11 Why does Plutarch say, ‘Perikles . . . then for the first time . . . ? Clearly, it is possible

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that he was misled by his source, which really said —or perhaps, ought to have been saying — that Perikles made significant changes in the way the musical competitions were held (there were similar stories about Peisistratos and his rules for the rhapsodes’ recitations of Homer); behind Plutarch’s report that he ‘arranged that he himself should be elected athlothetes may lie a documentary source, for records of these competitions must have been kept, and the source Plutarch is drawing on —the way he writes does not suggest that he has consulted the records himself —may have found Perikles’ name entered for a certain year, with perhaps the additional notation of some change in the rules or procedures for the contests.12 It also needs to be pointed out that the Panathenaic athlothetai were elected tribally in panels of ten and for (apparently: so Ath. Pol. 60.1) a four-year tenure, i.e. from one ‘Great’ Panathenaia to the next. Attempts have been made to save Plutarch’s, or his source’s, reputation by positing a period in which the musical contests, instituted originally in the sixth century but then allowed to lapse, were reinstituted by Perikles, but it seems to me easier simply to fault Plutarch for misremembering, or misunderstanding, his source. What may originally have been reported was Perikles’ proposal that a grand new structure be built to house the various music competitions at the Panathenaia, and this was wrongly understood later as an original institution of these competitions. The fact is, we know very little about these arrange­ ments, either before or after Perikles’ alleged change. As reconstructed on the basis of inscriptional evidence and available days in the Athenian sacred calendar, the festival appears to have lasted eight days, from the 23rd to the 30th of the Attic month Hekatombaion, with the musical contests held on Day One. From what is preserved or can plausibly be restored on a fourthcentury BCE inscription (IG II2 2311, 1—22) we learn that there were boys’ kithara-playing and flute-singing competitions, and men’s contests in kithara-singing, kithara-playing, flute-singing and solo fluting, and prob­ ably also, according to Neils (1992: 15), rhapsodes’ competitions in the reciting of Homer; possibly dramatic performances were added at some now undeterminable stage (ibid., with 194, note 11). The most prestigious prizes were awarded to the kitharodes, adult males who sang to and accompanied themselves on the kithara (Shapiro 1992: 58). What exactly is being depicted on the sculptured Ionic frieze that ran around the portico of the Parthenon has been the subject of much recent debate. Many think it is a Panathenaic procession,14 possibly not in a real­ istic but a generalized rendering, since there is no peplos-bearing ship-cart, but this, too, has been called into question. Connelly (1993, 1996) gives it a mythological reading and interprets the scene as ‘the sacrifice of the daugh­ ters of Erechtheus attended by a ritual procession and the preparation for the ensuing battle between the armies of Erechtheus and Eumolpos, watched by the assembly of the gods’. At this point in the scholarly debate, a decision must remain open. 80

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The view has been gaining ground that there was no major re-building of the theatre in the second part of the fifth century15 and, if this is correct, Perikies’ Odeion was not part of a general theatre renovation, as has some­ times been maintained.16 The exact date of the Panathenaic change with which Plutarch credits him cannot be determined (my own personal prefer­ ence is for Great Panathenaic year 442, although 438 or 434 would not materially affect the issue), and it seems likely, although not capable of proof, that the Odeion construction was somehow connected with the change. A recent study17 sees in the building with its Persian analogues a grandiose ‘statement’ that Athens was henceforward to be considered a world-class imperialist power; its unusual oriental design, taken alongside the Parthenon frieze with its echoes of the procession of tribute-bearing subjects on the Persepolis apadana-frieze —these were insistent claims that Athens and her empire had to be given consideration as worthy competitors of older empires to the east. It is frustrating in the extreme that we cannot be sure of the date of this unusual and important building, especially since our sources associate it so closely and intimately with Perikles personally. T H O U K Y D ID ES MELESIOU A ND T H O U R IO I18 The western Greek city of Sybaris, founded c. 720 BCE by Achaians and people from Trozen, had extended her influence widely in the course of the sixth century, sending out several subsidiary colonies including Poseidonia/Paestum and earning a reputation for luxury throughout the Greek world. She fell to Kroton in 511/0 and, as Herodotos reports (6.21.1), ‘all the people of Miletos [with whom Sybaris had close ties), from youth upwards, shaved their heads and lamented profusely’. Various attempts at resettlement took place in the first half of the fifth century, none of them (apparently) with lasting success; we hear of further attacks by Kroton, appeals to Hieron the despot of Syracuse, alliances with Sybaris’ colonists at Paestum. Then the sequence occurred that was to culminate in the founda­ tion of Thourioi. Following the foundation of Sybaris III19 in 453 and a further destruction by Kroton, the surviving Sybarites in 446 appealed to the powerful states of the mainland, Sparta and Athens; the Spartans ignored their request, but Athens responded by manning 10 ships under the command of Lampon and Xenokritos, to found Sybaris IV (Diodoros 12.10.3-4; the coins that mark this stage have, according to Lewis, ‘a very Athenian Athena on their obverse’). In this expedition (apparently) Thoukydides son of Melesias, who was a formidable political opponent of Perikles and to whom we shall return, took part. The venture was not a success, and for this the local inhabitants were at least partially to blame. According to Aristotle (Politics 1303 a 32), ‘at Thourioi Sybarites quarrelled with those who had settled there with them, for they claimed to have the larger share in the country as being their own,81 81

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and were ejected’. Strabo (6.1.13, C 263) says the Sybarites ‘were destroyed by Athenians and other Greeks, who, although they came there to live with them (synoikesontes), conceived such a contempt for them that they not only slew them but removed the city to another place nearby and named it Thourioi’. The reason for the friction can be inferred from Diodoros, who reports that the original inhabitants insisted on preferential —i.e. preference being given to themselves over the newcomers —assignment of magistracies and land-apportionment, and that even the settlers’ wives were made to take second place in the religious rites. ‘Those who continued to live in the city’, Diodoros continues (12.11.3; he appears to be referring to the Athenians, since he has just said that ‘practically all the original Sybarites were put to death’) ‘quickly acquired great wealth’. Thoukydides son of Melesias either returned to Athens voluntarily or was recalled, and was then put on trial on a charge whose purport is unclear, ‘confusion of the court’; the case was brought by Xenokritos. (Andrewes suggested ‘that he went in the course of 445 to try to patch up the quarrel that ended in the expulsion of the original Sybarites, and that failure in this left him vulnerable to attack’ by his polit­ ical enemies.) Perhaps Thoukydides for his part attempted to prosecute the Athenian colonizers —Lampon and Xenokritos? — for violent or unlawful behaviour against the Sybarites, and had the tables turned on him; a trial of a certain Thoukydides is referred to in several passages of Aristophanes, but it is not clear that it is this Thoukydides, nor this exact occasion.20 In the mean time —the exact sequence is uncertain —Athens mounted a further, ‘Panhellenic’, colonizing expedition, which resulted in the foundation of Thourioi in 444/3 or 443/2, an event taken by most modern writers to coin­ cide with Thoukydides’ ostracism.21 It is not clear how many of the leftover details from Diodoros’ tangled account in 12.11.3ff. are to be assigned to this second foundation; for example, we hear of a pact of friendship being concluded with Kroton (and that Thourioi’s foreign relations remained unsettled is shown by references to battles fought by the Thourians under the generalship of Kleandridas).22 Xenokritos and Lampon appear to have taken part again, with three or seven others.25 It is also possible that the historian Herodotos was part of this initial colonizing venture (our only evidence for this is his identification as ‘Thourian’ in some manuscripts of his Histories). Protagoras and Hippodamos were among the luminaries, as well as some lesser lights like the brothers Euthydemos and Dionysodoros who figure as characters in Plato’s Euthydemos; the future Attic orator Lysias and his brothers also probably took part.24 A democracy was established, and the population divided among 10 tribes whose names, as Diodoros records them (12.11.3), all have a regional or ethnic designation. All was not peace and harmony, however, and when in 434 a dispute arose between the Athenians and the contingents from the Peloponnese over the question who should be considered the founders, Delphi judiciously refused to decide and designated Apollo instead (see 82

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Diodoros 12.35, although the constitutional upheavals reported by Aristotle at Politics 1307 a-b probably did not take place until later in the century).25 Athenian popularity in the colony seems never to have been very secure, and, although Thourioi was numbered among Athens’ allies against Syracuse in 415, Thoukydides hints that this occurred only under duress and with concomitant partisan strife.26 In spite of Wade-Gery s ingenious argument that Thourioi was originally a plan conceived by the ‘Panhellenic’ aristocrats with Thoukydides as their leader —a scheme which Perikles had to take over somewhat unwillingly and then try to outdo his rival in completing — the venture has more usually (and, in my opinion, correctly) been seen as a Periklean initiative from the beginning. Plutarch (at Per. 11.5) lists Thourioi among the (Periklean) settlements: ‘and others [the antecedent is “cleruchs”] to Italy, when Sybaris was being resettled, which they named “Thourioi” ’. There is also the matter of the relationship between Perikles and Lampon, one of the founders, a point to which we shall return. At Mor. 812 D Plutarch names Lampon among individuals used by Perikles as ‘front-men’ for enterprises which he wanted to avoid appearing directly responsible for: he ‘sent Lampon out as founder of Thourioi’, and at Per. 6.2—3 Plutarch recounts a story (glanced at briefly in our discussion of Anaxagoras)27 which, even if unhistorical, points to an assumed close relationship of Perikles with both Anaxagoras and Lampon.28 Athens’ (i.e. Perikles’) intentions and the Panhellenic nature of the colony are both much-debated topics. Ehrenberg detected ‘a considered and intelligent [and by this he meant “Atheno-centric”] policy in the political building-up of the new colony’ (1965: 306), and Andrewes (1978: 7—8) tried to sort out the historical significance of the various tribes listed at Diodoros 12.11.3. Was this part of a conscious policy of Athens trying to establish a foothold in Magna Graecia? Themistokles had named two of his daughters ‘Italia’ and ‘Sybaris’ and threatened, on the eve of the battle of Salamis, to leave Salamis and sail away with his men to Siris, ‘which was ours (i.e. Athenian) from of old and oracles tell that it will be colonized by us’.29 A clearer pattern might emerge if we could be sure of an early date for an alliance formed by Athens with the town of Egesta (Segesta) in western Sicily, of which a fragmentary record survives, 0 and if the decrees inscribed in 433/2 which record alliances made by Athens with South Italian Rhegion and Leontinoi in Sicily are, as Lewis contends and many scholars believe, ‘renewals of alliances made in the forties’.51 Those who accept the historicity of the ‘Congress Decree’ reported by Plutarch at Per. 1 7 —1 remain deeply sceptical52 — point also to the Panhellenic nature of the Thourian colony (always, of course, under Athens’ supervision and magisterium) as part of the same endeavour by Perikles to make Athens a front-runner in Greece in a kind of informal hegemony reflective of the Persian War period. For my part, however, I agree with Andrewes that an ideological Panhellenism,55 if 83

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it was in Perikles’ thoughts at all at the time, must have been far less important to him than simply mounting a grand enterprise in which Athens took the initiative and from which (perhaps) longer-range advan­ tages to her international interests were also envisioned. About the more basic question of a ‘window on the West’, we cannot be certain even that this was an innovation, much less that it was a peculiarly Periklean initia­ tive. Wade-Gery devised an intricate but improbable theory that Thourioi was originally Thoukydides’ scheme, but that he was out-manoeuvred by Perikles, and Ehrenberg (1965: 303 note 5) refers to Droysen’s view (which he says ‘it seems no longer necessary to refute’) ‘that those alliances [i.e. with Egesta, Leontinoi and Rhegion] were the work of Pericles’ radical opponents, and that Thurii was his own, much more moderate and states­ manlike, achievement’. There is also some uncertainty about Thoukydides Melesiou’s exact connection with Thourioi. Most scholars believe he went out with (or perhaps just after?) the expedition of 446, but the only evidence for this — and it does not inspire much confidence —is the apparent reference to him (if it is not to another Thoukydides) at Anon. Vit. Tbuc. 7 (translated at Fornara 108 C): ‘after he had gone to Sybaris, when he returned to Athens he was charged by Xenokritos and convicted of court-violation(?)’. Whether or not he went to Thourioi he was, as our sources make clear, an important politician, and one of Perikles’ most formidable political opponents. He was related by marriage to Kimon, perhaps his brother-in-law,35 as well as the heir of Kimon’s conservative ideology. Plutarch calls him ‘less of a soldier’ than Kimon, but ‘better versed in forensic business and an abler politician’ {Per. 11.1; Scott-Kilvert’s translation), but this may be nothing more than inference on Plutarch’s part from the transmitted tradition about the two men’s careers.36 The family was famous for its success in wrestling competi­ tions. Thoukydides’ father Melesias was on close terms with the panegyrist Pindar, who in fact alludes in several places to his fame as a wrestlingcoach37 and this is reflected in an anecdote retailed by Plutarch (he is discussing Perikles’ famed oratorical skill): A saying of Thoukydides, the son of Melesias, has come down to us, which was uttered in jest, but which bears witness to Perikles’ powers of persuasion. Thoukydides belonged to the aristocratic party and was a political opponent of [antepoliteusato] Perikles for many years. When Archidamos, the king of Sparta, asked him whether he [i.e. Thoukydides] or Perikles was the better wrestler, Thoukydides replied: ‘Whenever I throw him at wrestling, he beats me by arguing that he was never down, and he can even make the spectators believe it.’38 The tradition of excellence in wrestling continued on into the next genera­ tion, as can be seen from a reference in Plato from which various attempts have been made to extract additional biographical information about

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Thoukydides. At Menon 94 B—C we read that he had his sons Melesias and Stephanos educated in other matters but especially to be the best wrestlers in Greece. Sokrates says, [If virtue had been teachable} don’t you think he would have found someone to do this? After all, he had many friends both in Athens and the allies; he came from a great house; he had wide influence both in the city and in other Greek states. He would have found someone else to make his sons good if he himself didn’t have the time because of the attention he paid {epimeleian) to the city’s affairs. W hat does all this prove? Not much more, it seems to me, than that Thoukydides Melesiou was one of the ‘rich and famous’ and concerned himself with political life. Even the ‘international connections’ should not be pressed too hard, for it really just leads up to the somewhat tendentious point Sokrates is making that ‘he could have found someone somewhere to teach his sons to be statesmen (if there was anyone who knew how to do this)’ —it is part of the rather over-worked theme found in various places in Plato (and it is probably his thesis rather than an authentic teaching of Sokrates) that ‘statesmanship’, a skill which it appears that the sophists claimed they could teach along with others, was not really a body of specific precepts, a tecbne, that could be formulated and learned.40 Thoukydides was significant enough to have found a place, along with Themistokles and Perikles, in a political pamphlet written about 420 BCE by Stesimbrotos of Thasos (FGH 107 F 10a;41 but its content is unknown) and when the fourth-century historians of the Athenian Constitution recon­ structed (perhaps somewhat too schematically) the political skirmishing of the preceding century, they invariably cast Thoukydides as Perikles’ prin­ cipal opponent in the 440s. He is listed in the sequence of political sparring-partners at Ath. Pol. 28.2: ‘afterwards Ephialtes [led] the commons, Kimon the wealthy; then Perikles the commons, Thoukydides, a relation by marriage of Kimon, the others’. This schema of ‘diametric opposition’42 is reflected by Plutarch, who speaks of ‘two power-factions in the city, those of Thoukydides and Perikles’. The solidity and impermeability of the factions may be an exaggeration, but there is no good reason to doubt that this view of the two men, as political opponents to (generally speaking) the right and left of centre respectively, is essentially correct. Plutarch tells a rather odd story of Thoukydides not letting his supporters (‘the so-called party of the good and true’) sit wherever they liked at Assembly meetings — he did not want their political voice to be diluted against their liberal democrat opponents — but rather, ‘by separating and grouping them in a single body, he was able to concentrate their strength and make it an effective counterweight in the scale’ (Scott-Kilvert’s transla­ tion of Per. 11.2). It is hard to know how much credence, if any, should be put in this.43 For my part I tend to be rather sceptical, with Andrewes: ‘I

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doubt if it is worth while to try and extract a specific political manoeuvre from this rhetorical passage’ (1978: 2). On the other hand, I believe the general picture given by Plutarch in this section of the Life to be factual. Although his account is heavily sprinkled with anecdotes and bons mots, I take as historical fact that a political struggle was carried on in the 440s, nor do I see any reason to doubt Plutarch’s assertion that, when it came to the final showdown, Perikles secured his opponent’s removal through ostracism (Per. 14.3). Plutarch alleged that the issue being fought over between Perikles and his adversaries (the one most prominently named in Plutarch’s account being Thoukydides) was the vast expenditures involved in the building programme and, although some scholars have tried to deny it, it seems to me beyond reasonable doubt. The sums involved were enormous,44 and the opposition objected to such vast outlays, and in particular the sums allotted to the Propylaia, a totally secular structure and one without any very obvious practical use.45 I also believe that buried in Plutarch’s high-pitched account is a kernel of fact: Thoukydides and the other members of his party were constantly denouncing Perikles for squandering public money and letting the national revenue run to waste [at 12.2 he has an unnamed critic — perhaps also Thoukydides —object ‘we are gilding and beautifying our city, as if it were some vain woman decking herself out with costly stones and statues and temples worth millions of money’}, and so Perikles appealed to the people in the Assembly to declare whether in their opinion he had spent too much. ‘Far too much’, was their reply, whereupon Perikles retorted, ‘Very well then, do not let it be charged to the public account but to my own, and I will dedicate all the public buildings in my name.’ (Per. 14.1, Scot t-Kil vert’s translation, modified) Perhaps this rather arrogant-sounding offer to have the buildings ‘charged to his account’ was never made; if it was, it must have been in a moment of exasperation and never meant to be taken seriously, for substantial as they probably were, Perikles’ own private resources would never have sufficed to defray all the costs of the ‘thousand-talent temples’ (‘temples worth millions’ in the translation above). In any case, that some such offer may have been made is rendered plausible by an inscription, the so-called ‘Spring-house Decree’ (IG P 49, Fornara 117) which preserves the phrase (in a plausible restoration), ‘[ . . . but let praise be given to Perikles and Par}alos and Xanthippos and the sons. [They shall spend (on the work) the money] which [is] paid into the tribute of the Athenians’, and so on. The decree, which has been dated in the late 430s 47 concerns improvements to Athens’ public water supply by provision (apparently) of a new fountain- or spring-house. It seems that Perikles and his sons (the decree must pre-date their death in the 86

plague of 430/29) offered to defray the cost of the work at their own expense, and this was thereupon brought to the Assembly by a ‘probouleuma’ or agenda item; from the floor an amendment was proposed by a certain Nikomachos, that Perikles’ family were to be duly thanked, but that the work would be paid for from the public treasury. I see no reason to doubt, then, the substance of the controversy as Plutarch reports it. Even if it is only an inference by him or his source that Thoukydides Melesiou was Perikles’ most vociferous opponent on the issue, this seems reasonable in view of the strong and (as I believe) reliable tradi­ tion that Thoukydides inherited from his kinsman Kimon leadership of the conservative band of the Athenian political spectrum. Thoukydides and his supporters objected to the proposed building programme on grounds that it was misuse of allied money (see Per. 12.1 at end); after lengthy debate, Perikles’ position was upheld {Per. 14.2: ‘they raised an uproar [against Perikles’ opponents] and told him to draw freely on the public funds and spare no expense in his outlay’). This can only temporarily have silenced Thoukydides and his crew; the squabbling probably continued through much of the decade, with Thourioi a further point of contention. The impasse was finally broken with the ostracism of Thoukydides in spring 444 or 44348 and may be reflected in Kratinos’ comedy Thracian Women, in which, as we saw, someone referred to Perikles wearing the Odeion as an outlandish headpiece, and the concluding phrase, ‘since the ostrakon has passed him by’, appears to be an allusion to the ostracism of Thoukydides son of Melesias, since the term ‘ostrakon’ is ambiguous, denoting both ‘rooftile’ and the piece of pottery used to inscribe names in the course of ostracisms.49 Mention of the Odeion would be timely for, as we saw, Perikles’ name was intimately associated with this project. Another quota­ tion from the play (PCG iv, fr.76) may allude to an event which our sources date to 445/4. A scholion on Aristophanes, Wasps 718, which contains a miscellany of information and twice names the writer on Athenian history, Philochoros (c. 300 bce), reports the sending of a ‘gift’ of wheat by a certain Psammetichos of Egypt to the Athenian people, followed by (apparently) a scrutiny of the citizen rolls. Plutarch also appears to be referring to this sequence of events: ‘The King of Egypt sent a gift to the Athenian people, 40,000 medimnoi of grain, and so they had to distribute it amongst the citizens; many lawsuits were initiated against bastards as defined by Perikles’ own law . . . ’ (Per. 37.4). Plutarch’s account is in substantial agree­ ment with the information credited to Philochoros, except for minor discrepancies in the numbers: he gives a slightly different figure for those who successfully passed the scrutiny and his vague reference to a ‘king’ of Egypt does not square with the mention in the other account of a ‘Psammetichos’, since there is no known Egyptian king of that name at the appropriate time. The significance of this sequence of events has proved elusive.50 At the very least, if historical, it suggests a shortage of grain in 87

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Athens at the same time as the Thourioi project was being prepared; this was perhaps an additional motive behind the undertaking, and it would have made participation by ordinary Athenians that much more attractive. These were considerations with which Perikles had to concern himself while looking over his shoulder (so to speak) at critics like Thoukydides. Although no ancient writer records the fact, Thoukydides probably returned from ostracism when his 10-year period of exclusion was over, c. 433. There is a hint in the sources that he had spent time on Aigina - quite likely, in view of his father’s attested connections with Aiginetan athletes; possibly he was subsequently accused, informally if not formally, of finan­ cially exploiting the residents.51 Two passages in Aristophanes (Wasps 947—8 and Achamians 703—18, where Euathlos is mentioned as the prosecutor) refer to a prosecution against a Thoukydides who may be the son of Melesias. There is an implication that he had been dealt with unfairly, or been at a disadvantage in the course of the proceedings, but it is unknown what precisely lies behind the passage in Wasps, where we learn that Thoukydides was ‘suddenly struck with paralysis of the jaws’ in the course of his trial ( Wasps 948).52 The Anonymous Life of Thoukydides 6 gives details of a trial before the Areopagos in which Pyrilampes —perhaps the same as the wellknown peacock-fancier whose connection with Perikles made him an easy target for the comic dramatists55 —was prosecuted by Perikles for murdering someone in a love-affair; the case, however, was won by Thoukydides speaking for the defence. Diogenes Laertios (2.12) cites Satyros’ Lives for an accusation laid by Thoukydides against Anaxagoras, and the latter’s condem­ nation to death in absentia (as we saw, there were other, conflicting versions of Anaxagoras’ prosecution).54 Thoukydides is also reported by the Anonymous Life of Sophokles 1 to have been a colleague of Sophokles in the generalship. None of these episodes (if historical) can be dated with any confidence.55 I turn now to some individuals whose names are associated in our sources with the foundation of Thourioi; besides their importance as historical figures in their own right, they are of special interest as active members of Perikles’ circle. LAM PON56 As we have seen, Lampon at some point in the tradition got a reputation as one of Perikles’ agents or surrogates, someone whom Perikles employed for unpleasant or difficult tasks in which he did not want to get involved personally, or perhaps simply to prevent over-exposure. His place in the close circle of Perikles’ associates is suggested by the anecdote already mentioned about the one-horned ram which Plutarch tells at Per. 6.2—3.57 There is also a story —not necessarily historical —recounted by Aristotle to illustrate the use of cross-questioning in refutation: 88

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When Perikles interrogated Lampon about initiation into the sacred rites of the saviour goddess [Eleusinian Demeter} and Lampon replied that it was not possible for one who was not initiated to be told about them, Perikles asked him if he himself was acquainted with the rites, and when Lampon said ‘Yes’, Perikles further asked, ‘How can that be, seeing that you are not initiated?’58 Jacoby, comparing Nikias’ notorious reliance upon the soothsayer Stilbides, hypothesized that Lampon was Perikles’ ‘favourite’ (i.e. quasi-official) priest, and the suggestion seems reasonable.59 There is no evidence, however (as Jacoby further remarks), of how this relationship worked in practice. Did Lampon accompany Perikles on his campaigns? Did generals, in fact, have any influence over which priest was to be sent along on a particular expedi­ tion, or was this a matter decided by the Council or Assembly?60 We simply do not know. The sources name Lampon (along with Xenokritos) as having led both the first and the second expeditions to Thourioi; there may be some confusion or doubling here (Ehrenberg 1965: 299—300), but it is probable enough that Lampon accompanied the main venture, that of 444/3. Even so, his most important contribution was very likely not the physical leading out of the colonists, but something subtler and more useful, the ‘selling’ of Thourioi as a worthwhile state enterprise. There may be a clue to the role he played in a scholion on Aristophanes’ Clouds 332, that he was ‘much active in politics and kept always introducing oracles about Thourioi’. In the ‘Golden Race’ (Chrysoun Genos) of Eupolis (PCG v, fr.319) there was a reference to ‘Lampon the interpreter [exègètèsY, with the explanation given that ‘he kept inter­ preting oracles’. A foundation oracle for Thourioi is preserved by Diodoros (12.10.5): Apollo tells colonists to found a city in that place where they will live ‘drinking water in measure, eating bread without measure’. The bewil­ dered settlers fail to understand the oracle (a common motif in this kind of story) until they arrive at a spring which natives call ‘Medimnos’, a word which in Greek meant a ‘unit of measure of grain’. Thus, ‘the solution of the riddle, and consequently the foundation of the colony, depends on discov­ ering a Greek interpretation for a local name’. 1 (It is not clear what rational and human motives may have been behind the choice of this particular site for the settlement. The absence of a good harbour in the area — noted by Freeman 1941: 52 —makes it unlikely that it was primarily for the purpose of establishing trade links with western Greece, as has sometimes been suggested.)62 We admire what we consider rational about fifth-century Athens, and thus tend to lose sight of the important role played by oracles (and their ‘correct’ interpretation) in official undertakings. For his ‘correct’ (and salutary) reading of the Wooden-Wall oracle before the battle of Salamis, Themistokles was to earn the nickname ‘Pythios’. Another instruc­ tive example exactly at the time with which we are concerned has been

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preserved almost by chance with the telling phrase contained in the decree for settlement of the revolt of Euboia in 446/5: ‘to offer with [the priest} Hierokles for Euboia as soon as possible the sacrifices prescribed in the chresmoi [oracles} . . . ’. Our evidence for Lampon is selective, and mostly negative, but in his own day he must have been a conspicuous and influential figure at Athens. He was mentioned by Kratinos in Nemesis (PCG iv, ft. 125) and he figured prominently in Kratinos’ Drapetides, ‘Runaway Slave Women’, a play that appears to have had some contemporary political relevance not only because of the reference to Lampon but also because of the prominence in it of the figure of Theseus, who is sometimes thought to have been a dramatic ‘alterego’ for Perikles. Very little of it actually survives, so the overall plot-line, as well as the date (‘zwischen 450 und 443’, Schwarze 1971: 75) and even the significance of the title —generally seen as satirizing some group of male individuals as ‘runaway slave-women (naturally, the Thourioi-settlers have occurred to some commentators) — remain uncertain. Lampon’s alleged tendency to gormandize was satirically alluded to and his priestly profession was belittled with the phrase ‘vagabond axe-gatherer’, which may be a refer­ ence to the ceremonial axe used in sacrificing (PCG iv, fr.66). It is not clear what the implications are of another comic passage cited by Sommerstein: ‘In a comedy of uncertain authorship (CGFP 220.98—103) [Lampon} is called “son of Raven” and accused of receiving large political bribes from (allied?) states and spending them on his boy friends and on building (a grand house for himself?).’66 The comedians also made fun of Lampon for being excessively interested in food.67 A scholiast on Birds 521 (where Lampon is named), after mentioning the ‘colony to Sybaris’ (i.e. Thourioi), says ‘Lampon obtained dining-privileges in the Prytaneion’. Probably this privilege enjoyed by Lampon had nothing to do with —a connection which might otherwise have appeared plausible — the so-called ‘Prytaneion Decree’ (variously dated between 440 and 421), of which Perikles has been conjectured as the proposer, which enacted the provision of free meals in the Prytaneion for groups or individuals who were considered benefactors of the city, a certain category of priest (the stone is unfortunately mutilated at this point) as well as descendants of the ‘tyrannicides’, Harmodios and Aristogeiton.68 It is possible that the privilege of dining at public expense was awarded to him because of his contribution to the correct understanding of the Thourioi oracle, and that Perikles was behind it, but this is mere speculation.69 Another enigmatic document with which Lampon’s name is connected is the so-called ‘First-Fruits decree’ (IG I3 78, ML 73, Fornara 140) which has been conjecturally placed anywhere from 447 to 416. The decree provides for the annual offering of a token percentage of barley and wheat to the Eleusinian goddesses Demeter and Persephone by the Athenians as well as their allies, ‘and when it is collected they are to send it to Athens and the 90

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carriers are to deliver it to the priests’ at Eleusis.70 To be noted is an amend­ ment by Lampon at line 47 specifying details of how and where the decree is to be inscribed, as well as some other minor adjustments. His name occurs at the very end of the preserved text (lines 59ff): he is enjoined to bring before the Council on a certain date for transmittal to the Assembly a draft decree for the offering of first-fruits of olive oil (as well as the grain herein speci­ fied). On this Jacoby aptly comments, ‘The collective motion of Lampon proves the interest of the old and distinguished mantis [priest] in all affairs of cult . . . ’.71 Lampon remained active on the political scene into the 420s. Thoukydides (5.19.2 and 24.1) places his name first in the list of Athenian signatories to the peace treaties of spring 421 BCE. H IPPO D A M O S72 Hippodamos was Milesian by birth and achieved fame for his innovative design of city streets in square blocks, the grid plan which afterwards was to bear his name, ‘Hippodamian’ (Aristotle, Politics 1267 b 23 and 1330 b 24), a design which, however, was not totally original, for some early western colonies like Megara Hyblaia seem to have had grid plans. Presumably Hippodamos’ contribution was to give this kind of design a theoretical justi­ fication, so that from now on it had a cachet and became de rigueur in city planning. Hippodamos had a very long career, since he redesigned Miletos ‘soon after 480’ (Barker 1946: 68 n. 2) and is credited with remodelling Rhodes in 408/7 (Strabo 14.9 C 654; this, however, has been questioned). It may have been his success with Miletos that led to his being invited to Athens — possibly (although no ancient source says so) by Perikles —where he put his theories to work in designing Peiraieus. One source describes him as having been ‘accorded honour’ by the Athenians, and there is a strange account of his having turned over his house in Peiraieus to be public prop­ erty. According to Martin, II n’a pas construit d’édifìces, il n’a pas réalisé quelque oeuvre architecturale nouvelle, mais il a révélé aux Athéniens la valeur d’un plan urbain, clair, net, aux alignements réguliers, prévoyant l’emplacement de tous les organismes qui doivent répondre aux diverses fonctions du groupement: politiques, religieuses, commerciales, etc. (Martin 1974: 105—6) The succes d!estime of the Peiraieus project may in turn have led to an invi­ tation to go out to, and probably also design, Thourioi. Hippodamos’ connection with the colony is attested by Hesychios (s.v. Hippodamou nemesis), and Diodoros (12.10.6-7) without specifically mentioning Hippodamos describes a ‘grid-plan’ at Thourioi which is generally considered to be his devising. O f this, McCredie remarks (1971: 98): ‘the plan of Thourioi was 91

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not a simple grid but a more complex geometrical construction which involved at least two orders of division, one by avenues (plateiai) and the other by streets (stenòpoi)’. The conclusion of his careful study is worth repeating: ‘the essence of [Hippodamos’} system was not the grid-plan itself but rather a specific and complex version of it, derived from principles of geometrical and political theory and carefully fitted to the demands of func­ tion and site’.74 Hippodamos was in any case more than just a town planner. He is called metedrologos (not quite ‘star-gazer’), although none of his speculations in this field survive. Besides commenting on a few of his personal affectations in hairstyle and clothing Aristotle {Politics 1267 b 23ff.) gives a summary of some of his theories. Aristotle claims he was the first man who was not himself a politician to speak on the topic of the best constitution. His ideal city had a population of 10,000, divided into three classes: craftsmen, farmers and arms-bearing soldiers. The city’s land also was to be divided into three parts: sacred, to supply the customary offerings of the gods; common (