Rome, Polybius, and the East [online ed.] 9780199640904, 0199640904

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Rome, Polybius, and the East The late Peter Derow, Andrew Erskine, and Josephine Crawley Quinn

Print publication date: 2014 Print ISBN-13: 9780199640904 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199640904.001.0001

Title Pages (p.i) Rome, Polybius, and the East (p.ii) (p.iii) Rome, Polybius, and the East

(p.iv) Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © The estate of the late Peter Derow 2015 The moral rights of the authors have been asserted First Edition published in 2015 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the Page 1 of 2

 

Title Pages prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: 2014947264 ISBN 978–0–19–964090–4 Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

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Rome, Polybius, and the East The late Peter Derow, Andrew Erskine, and Josephine Crawley Quinn

Print publication date: 2014 Print ISBN-13: 9780199640904 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199640904.001.0001

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Previous Publication Details

Rome, Polybius, and the East The late Peter Derow, Andrew Erskine, and Josephine Crawley Quinn

Print publication date: 2014 Print ISBN-13: 9780199640904 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199640904.001.0001

(p.ix) Previous Publication Details The articles reprinted in this volume originally appeared in the following locations. The editor is grateful to the relevant authorities for permission to reproduce copyright material. Introduction: Josephine Crawley Quinn and Andrew Erskine, with Erich Gruen, T. D. Barnes, Graham Shipley and Peter Derow, and incorporating: (2009) ‘Why Ancient History?’, in A. Erskine (ed.), A Companion to Ancient History (Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World: Chichester: Wiley Blackwell), 3–5. Chapter 1. (2003), ‘The Arrival of Rome: from the Illyrian Wars to the Fall of Macedon’. In A. Erskine, ed. A Companion to the Hellenistic World. (Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World; Oxford: Blackwell), 51–70. Chapter 2. (1989), ‘Rome, the Fall of Macedon and the Sack of Corinth’, in Cambridge Ancient History, 2nd edn, viii: Rome and the Mediterranean to 133 BC, 290–323. Chapter 3. (1982), ‘Polybius (205?–125? b.c.)’, in T. J. Luce (ed.), Ancient Writers: Greece and Rome, i: Homer to Caesar (New York: Scribner), 525–39. Chapter 4. (1994), ‘Historical Explanation: Polybius and his Predecessors’, in S. Hornblower (ed.), Greek Historiography (Oxford: Clarendon Press), 73–90. Chapter 5. (1979), ‘Polybius, Rome, and the East’, Journal of Roman Studies, 69: 1–15. Chapter 6. (1973), ‘Kleemporos’, Phoenix, 27: 118–34.

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Previous Publication Details Chapter 7. (1970), ‘Polybios and the Embassy of Kallikrates’, in Essays presented to C. M. Bowra (Oxford: Alden Press/Wadham College Junior & Middle Common Rooms), 12–23. Chapter 8. (unpublished) ‘Polybius III, Rome and Carthage’. Chapter 9. (2007), ‘Imperium, Imperial Space and Empire’, in J. Santos Yanguas and E. Torregaray Pagola (eds), Laudes provinciarum: retórica y política en la representación del imperio romano. In memoriam Peter Derow (Revisiones de historia antigua, 5; Vitoria-Gasteiz: Universidad del Pais Vasco) 13–22. Chapter 10. (1973), ‘The Roman Calendar, 190–168 B.C.’, Phoenix, 27: 345–56. (p.x) Chapter 11. (1976), ‘The Roman Calendar, 218–191 B.C.’, Phoenix, 30: 265–81 227. Chapter 12. Derow, P. S., and Forrest, W. G. (1982), ‘An Inscription from Chios’, Annual of the British School at Athens, 77: 79–92, pl. 5. Chapter 13. (1991), ‘Pharos and Rome’, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, 88: 261–70, pl. 7. Chapter 14. Ma, J. T., Derow, P. S., and Meadows, A. R. (1995), ‘RC 38 (Amyzon) reconsidered’, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, 109: 71–80.

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Abbreviations

Rome, Polybius, and the East The late Peter Derow, Andrew Erskine, and Josephine Crawley Quinn

Print publication date: 2014 Print ISBN-13: 9780199640904 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199640904.001.0001

(p.xi) Abbreviations AAW Anzeiger der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien, Phil.-Hist. Klasse AE L'Année Épigraphique AEM Archäologisch-epigraphische Mitteilungen aus Österreich-Ungarn AJAH American Journal of Ancient History ANRW Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt Arch. Delt. Ἀρχαιολογικὸν Δελτίον BCH Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique BD R. Bagnall and P. Derow, The Hellenistic Period: Historical Sources in Translation. Oxford 2004 BSA Annual of the British School at Athens Bull. (épig.) Bulletin épigraphique in REG CAH Cambridge Ancient History CIG Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum. By A. Boeckh, J. Franz, E. Curtius, H. Rohl, and A. Kirchhoff. Berlin 1828–77 CIL Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum Page 1 of 5

 

Abbreviations Class. Ant. Classical Antiquity CP Classical Philology CQ Classical Quarterly Crawford, RRC M. H. Crawford, Roman Republican Coinage. Cambridge 1974 D–K H. Diels and W. Kranz, Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, 6th edn, 1952 EA Epigraphica Anatolica ESAR An Economic Survey of Ancient Rome, ed. T. Frank, 6 vols. Baltimore 1933–40 FD Fouilles de Delphes FGrHist F. Jacoby, Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, 1923– GIBM The Collection of Ancient Greek Inscriptions at the British Museum. By C. T. Newton, E. L. Hicks, G. Hirschfeld, and F. H. Marshall. Oxford 1874–1916 GRBS Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies (p.xii) Hesp. Hesperia, Journal of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens HSCP Harvard Studies in Classical Philology I.Delos Inscriptions de Délos. Paris 1926–50 I.Ephesos H. Wankel, R. Merkelbach, et al. Die Inschriften von Ephesos. Bonn 1979–81 I.Erythrai H. Engelmann and R. Merkelbach, Die Inschriften von Erythrai und Klazomenai. Bonn 1972–3 IG Inscriptiones Graecae, 1873– IGRR R. Cagnat, Inscriptiones Graecae ad res Romanas pertinentes. Paris 1906–27 I.Ilion Page 2 of 5

 

Abbreviations P. Frisch, Die Inschriften von Ilion. Bonn 1975 I.Kyme H. Engelmann, Inschriften von Kyme. Bonn 1976 I.Lindos Chr. Blinkenberg, Lindos II: Inscriptions, 2 vols. Copenhagen 1941. I.Magnesia O. Kern, Die Inschriften von Magnesia am Maeander. Berlin 1900 IOSPE B. Latyschev, Inscriptiones antiquae orae septentrionalis Ponti Euxini Graecae et Latinae. St Petersburg 1885–1901; vol. 1, 2nd edn, Inscriptiones Tyriae, Olbiae, Chersonesi Tauricae. St Petersburg 1916 I.Pergamon M. Fränkel, Die Inschriften von Pergamon. Berlin 1890 (vol. 1), 1895 (vol. 2) I.Priene F. Hiller von Gaertingen, Die Inschriften von Priene. Berlin 1906 ISE L. Moretti, Iscrizioni storiche ellenistiche. Florence 1967–76 JEA Journal of Egyptian Archaeology JHS Journal of Hellenic Studies JRS Journal of Roman Studies Laum, Stiftungen B. Laum, Stiftungen in der griechischen und römischen Antike: ein Beitrag zur Antiken Kulturgeschichte. Leipzig 1914. Maier, Gr. Mauerbauinschr. F. G. Maier, Griechische Mauerbauinschriften, 2 vols. Heidelberg 1959–61 Meisterhans, Grammatik K. Meisterhans, Grammatik der Attischen Inschriften (3rd edn by E. Schwyzer). Berlin 1900 Michel, Recueil C. Michel, Recueil d'inscriptions grecques, 1900–27 Moretti, ISE see ISE MRR T. R. S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic. New York 1951–2; Suppl. 1986 (p.xiii) OAth Opuscula Atheniensia OCD Oxford Classical Dictionary Page 3 of 5

 

Abbreviations OGIS W. Dittenberger, Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones Selectae. Leipzig 1903– 5 ÖJh Jahreshefte des Österreichischen Archäologischen Instituts in Wien OMS L. Robert, Opera Minora Selecta, 7 vols 1969–90 ORF2 M. Malcovati, Oratorum Romanorum Fragmenta, 2nd edn 1955; 4th edn 1967 ΠΑΕ Πρακτικά της εν Αθήναις Αρχαιολογικής Εταιρείας PBSR Papers of the British School at Rome RC see Welles, Royal Correspondence RE A. Pauly, G. Wissowa, and W. Kroll, Real-Encyclopädie d. klassischen Altertumswissenschaft 1983– REG Revue des études grecques. Paris Riv. Fil. Rivista di Filologia Robert, Et. anatol. L. Robert, Études anatoliennes. Recherches sur les inscriptions grecques de l'Asie mineure. Paris 1937 SEG Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum 1923– SGDI H. Collitz, Sammlung der griechischen Dialekt-Inschriften, I–IV. Göttingen 1884–1915 Sherk R. K. Sherk, Rome and the Greek East to the Death of Augustus, Translated Documents of Greece and Rome 4, Cambridge 1984 Sherk, Documents R. K. Sherk, Roman Documents from the Greek East. Baltimore 1969 SIG3 W. Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum. 3rd edn, Leipzig 1915–24 SV Die Staatsverträge des Altertums, vol. 3; von 338 bis 200 v.Chr., ed. H. H. Schmitt, Munich 1969 Syll.3 see SIG3 Page 4 of 5

 

Abbreviations TAPA Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association Welles, Royal Correspondence C. B. Welles, Royal Correspondence in the Hellenistic Period. New Haven 1934 YCS Yale Classical Studies ZPE Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik (p.xiv)

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Note from the Editors

Rome, Polybius, and the East The late Peter Derow, Andrew Erskine, and Josephine Crawley Quinn

Print publication date: 2014 Print ISBN-13: 9780199640904 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199640904.001.0001

(p.xv) Note from the Editors Editorial intervention has been of a very limited character. Spelling and punctuation have been checked for consistency within the articles themselves, but vary between articles (e.g. Polybius/Polybios). The individual chapter reference systems have been preserved throughout the volume, but a consolidated bibliography has also been included, that often gives fuller publication details than those given in the original articles. We have also included an editorial note (pp. 238–9) with Chapters 10 and 11 on the Roman calendar to reflect a correction that Peter Derow wished to make. In addition, the reader should be aware that Chapter 8 (‘Polybius, Rome and Carthage’) has not been previously published and the paper as presented here is largely as delivered, with supplements taken from the handout. Although tempted to expand the bibliography and references we decided in the end to stick to those originally supplied. The photograph on the frontispiece shows Peter Derow on the Cherwell with his daughter Catherine in the summer of 1967, the year he took Schools. We are very grateful to Tony Denny not only for providing us with it but also for taking it in the first place. (p.xvi)

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Introduction

Rome, Polybius, and the East The late Peter Derow, Andrew Erskine, and Josephine Crawley Quinn

Print publication date: 2014 Print ISBN-13: 9780199640904 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199640904.001.0001

Introduction Peter Derow Andrew Erskine Josephine Crawley Quinn

DOI:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199640904.003.0001

Abstract and Keywords This book brings together fourteen pieces written by Peter Derow (1944–2006), Hody Fellow and lecturer in Ancient History from 1977 to 2006 at Wadham College, University of Oxford. Derow tackles a wide range of subjects about ancient Rome, from the Roman expansion in the East to Polybius as an interpreter of Roman power, the Roman calendar, and epigraphy. Other topics include Polybius's interpretation of Rome, the treaties between Rome and Carthage, the first Illyrian War, the Achaean politician Callicrates, and the Roman conception of empire. Keywords:   epigraphy, Peter Derow, Rome, East, Polybius, Roman calendar, treaties, Carthage, Illyrian War, Callicrates

For many of his pupils and colleagues, Peter Derow was the ideal Oxford don: a sharp mind in shabby jeans, a formidable authority on, as he put it, ‘Greek History, especially Hellenistic, and Roman history, especially Republican’, who played in a blue-grass band and threw the best parties in town. He was devoted to his students, who came for their tutorials to a grand set of college rooms full of toys, books, records, pets, bottles, souvenirs, and a huge wall-map of Greece. As was pointed out in most of the tributes and obituaries that followed his untimely death,1 all this was only hazily visible through a curtain of cigarette smoke, from the precarious perspective of a pair of very low sofas which constantly threatened to pour their scholarly contents onto the carpet.

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Introduction Despite this carefully cultivated persona, based in part on that of his own muchloved Oxford tutor George Forrest, Peter also enjoyed playing the outsider. He was born on 11 April 1944 in Newport, Rhode Island, to a mother of Finnish and a father of Polish Jewish descent, and brought up in Boston. After an undergraduate degree at Amherst College, he came to Oxford with his young family in 1965 to study for a second BA in Classics, or in Oxford jargon ‘Literae Humaniores’, or in Oxford slang ‘Greats’. He then went back to the US in 1967, to the PhD programme at Princeton, before moving on to Toronto in 1969 to take up his first teaching appointment and, in time, renounce his US citizenship. He returned to Oxford in 1977 a proud Canadian, to take up a tutorial fellowship in Ancient History at his old college, Wadham, where he remained until his death from a heart attack in the front quad on 9 December 2006. (p.2) For those 29 years, he was firmly rooted in college, where his children, Catherine, Elizabeth, and Paul, were frequent visitors. When he travelled abroad, it was almost always by car, and more often for rest than work: there were annual trips to the Pyrenees as well as frequent visits too to the Alps. It was also for the pleasure of speaking foreign languages, which he did with an appetite unusual among British academics, an inspiration to those he taught. In English his accent was unplaceable, Irish if anything—a misapprehension he enjoyed—but his voice was unmistakeable, a low growl that took generations of students through the politics of the Roman Republic, the evils of Roman imperialism, the skills of billiards, and his extensive music collection, from opera to country. Many of those students went on to become ancient historians themselves, and a collection of essays given by his pupils at a conference at Wadham (held 2–4 April 2009, to celebrate what would have been Peter's 65th birthday), has recently been published by Christopher Smith and Liv Yarrow.2 Like that conference at Wadham, this introduction is a collaborative venture between several of Peter's friends, students, and colleagues to elucidate the importance of the scholarly contribution made by the papers republished here and explore the circumstances in which they were written. After our own summary of the contents of the volume, Erich Gruen assesses his scholarly contribution,3 Timothy Barnes discusses his time in Toronto,4 and Graham Shipley summarizes his long career at Oxford;5 both these latter contributions contain as much social history of institutions as biography of an individual, something of which we think Peter would have approved. Our introduction concludes with the last essay that Peter wrote before he died, on why ancient history matters.6 As well as Erich Gruen, Timothy Barnes, and, especially, Graham Shipley, who has been a constant source of support and practical assistance, we would like to thank Stephen Heyworth, John Ma, Jonathan Prag, Robert Hannah, Christopher Smith, and Liv Yarrow for helping us put this volume together.

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Introduction (p.3) The Contents of this Volume This collection is of fourteen of Peter's own essays on the Roman conquest of the Mediterranean, and on its most perceptive chronicler, the Greek historian and politician Polybius. Eleven are republications of single-authored essays; of the other three, one was co-written with his tutor, another with two of his students, and a third was delivered as a talk in Munich but never published. The book is divided into four sections: Narratives; Polybius and Roman Power; The Roman Calendar; Epigraphy. The collection opens with two survey articles outlining Peter's distinctive interpretation of the narrative of Roman expansion, tracing it eastwards from the very early stages in the third century through to 146 and the destruction of Corinth. These two chapters provide the historical and ideological context for the more specialist studies that follow. The section on Polybius and Roman power begins with two papers on Polybius, for Peter the most interesting and important of ancient historians. A general account of the life and works sets the scene for an essay which places Polybius within the Greek historical tradition and highlights what Peter saw as one of the essential features of Polybius’ approach to history, the need to find explanations, a recurring theme in the papers in this volume. And the thing most in need of explanation, both for Polybius and for Peter, was Roman imperialism, seen by both from outside and below, in all its structural, economic, and deliberate horror. The next paper, ‘Polybius, Rome and the East’, is perhaps the most influential article on Polybius to appear in the last fifty years. By presenting Polybius as a consistent and clear-sighted interpreter of Roman power, Peter offers a forceful challenge to a conception not only of Polybius but also of Roman expansion in the East that had held sway since it was first put forward by Maurice Holleaux in the 1920s. This section also includes several papers in which Peter tackles aspects of Polybius’ interpretation of Rome: the previously unpublished paper on the treaties between Rome and Carthage and their implications for our understanding of the way Polybius worked; a reinterpretation of the evidence for the First Illyrian War (‘Kleemporos’); a paper on the Achaean politician Callicrates, published in a festschrift for Maurice Bowra and famously hard to obtain (most copies in circulation seem to have stemmed from Peter himself); and an essay on the Roman conception of empire in the 190s, posthumously published as part of the proceedings of a conference in the Basque Country. (p.4) The third section consists of two fundamental articles on the Roman calendar between 218 and 168 BC. First published in the 1970s, they have informed much subsequent research and were rapidly taken up by Frank Walbank in the final volume of his monumental commentary on Polybius. Finally, the three papers on epigraphy, two of which are collaborative, each focus on a particular document. They are models of how to study an inscription, both Page 3 of 17

 

Introduction in their demonstration of the possibilities offered by epigraphy but also in their awareness of its limitations. In the paper on the Chios inscription the two editors (Derow and Forrest) even make convincing cases for two sharply divergent dates, each with their own set of implications for our understanding of Roman involvement in the East. Not all of Peter's published work could be included here, and we draw the reader's attention in particular to three pieces which can be found elsewhere. ‘Herodotus readings’, published in the Irish journal Classics Ireland,7 focuses on Herodotus’ thoughts on Athenian imperialism but shares much with the studies of Polybius and Roman imperialism included here: Peter was unimpressed by democracy for the few, in the ancient or modern worlds. And his reviews of two significant interpretations of Roman intervention in the East, those of J. Deininger8 and J.-L. Ferrary,9 are not only sensitive and judicious treatments of the work of other scholars but important articles in their own right, showing how for Peter scholarship was not an isolated pursuit but a matter of exchange and debate, something that he perfected in his role as an Oxford tutor. JCQ and AE

The Derow Doctrine The quantity of Peter Derow's scholarly output is not vast. That fact has been ascribed to his commitment and devotion to undergraduate teaching—which is unquestionably true. But it is also misleading if it (p.5) gives the impression that Peter's scholarly writings had little impact upon the field; the reverse is the case. Take his 1979 lead article in the Journal of Roman Studies, ‘Polybius, Rome, and the East’ (this volume, Ch. 5). If ever there was a piece that could be called a classic, that is surely it. Peter confronted the powerful and mightily influential interpretation of this subject by Maurice Holleaux, followed by and nuanced by Frank Walbank: the thesis that a fundamental contradiction exists between Polybius’ general view of Roman expansion as a conscious and deliberate plan and his detailed narrative which seemed to show only contingent circumstances and uncalculated acts. Holleaux preferred to cling to Polybius’ specific narratives—or what he took to be such—rejecting his general theory. Walbank sought at least to account for the inconsistency by Polybius’ misguided hindsight and belief in tyche as a guiding hand in the course of Roman expansionism. Peter's article, while respectful throughout of his great predecessors, gently removed the very foundation of their argument. He lucidly, elegantly, and cogently dissected the pivotal passages of Polybius in order to show that there was no contradiction at all and that the individual pieces fell neatly into place within the general theory. Peter, it must be said, found greater consistency in his beloved Polybius than I and some others have. But that article is a landmark in Polybian studies, and no one could ever think about the subject

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Introduction again without grappling with it. My students and I have grappled with it for a quarter of a century. But it stands intact. Peter could also deliver equally successful technical pieces on a smaller scale. I think, for example, of his painstaking studies on the Roman calendar or his sharp epigraphical commentaries, an area of real expertise for him, like those reprinted here on key inscriptions from Chios and Pharos from which he drew significant historical implications. Of even greater impact, however, are the two masterful surveys, one in the second edition of the Cambridge Ancient History, and one in the recent Blackwell Companion to the Hellenistic World (this volume, Chs. 2 and 1). Both of them treat the extension of Roman authority over the eastern Mediterranean. And they are exemplary instances of this genre. Peter provides not only a lucid account of events with a judicious selection of illuminating texts, based upon his admirably thorough command of Polybius and the relevant epigraphy, but he knits together the story into a coherent whole through his own vision, a thoughtful one and a comprehensive one. For Peter, the Romans were neither inveterate warmongers, greedy and insatiable imperialists, nor, on the other hand, were they dragged reluctantly, in piecemeal and unanticipated fashion, into the affairs of the East. Rather, they were consistent throughout in the belief that their power authorized the issuance of demands and in their indignation when those demands (p.6) were resisted or ignored. They were drawn by a determination to occupy the central position in the affairs of the Greek world. They were, as Peter put it, ‘the cops of the world’, quoting here, as only Peter would, Phil Ochs. Who else would put that in his bibliography? That is the Derow doctrine, adumbrated already in his 1979 JRS article, and set out with so clear a vision in his surveys. And it has had a potent effect upon all students of the subject since. Among countless wise statements that Peter made on this topic, the wisest of all, to my mind, comes in the Blackwell Companion, and it is one to which I, though I take a very different approach to the subject, thoroughly subscribe: ‘Roman policy consisted in the exercise of power [to decide things]; there was little need to manipulate people. By seeking the support or approval of Rome, people manipulated and weakened themselves, and thereby affirmed that power’ (p. 40 below). On that we concur, as I am most pleased and gratified to know. We shall miss Peter's wisdom, his wit, and his whimsy. He was a teacher of extraordinary gifts, and a scholar of insight and impact. ESG

Peter in Toronto Between Christmas 1968 and New Year's Day 1969 (28–30 December) the American Philological Association held its one hundredth annual meeting in Toronto. The 1960s were a time of apparently boundless expansion for North Page 5 of 17

 

Introduction American universities in every subject area, including Classics and Greek and Roman History, and Peter Derow was still enrolled on the doctoral programme at Princeton when he was hired by the University of Toronto. He soon completed his Princeton thesis, which had the title ‘Rome and the Greek world from the earliest contacts to the end of the First Illyrian War’: it was awarded the degree of Ph.D. during his first year of teaching in Toronto, being accepted in January 1970.10 Peter was appointed from 1 July 1969 as Assistant Professor of Classics at University College with a one-third cross-appointment to Scarborough (p.7) College, a satellite campus founded in 1963, more than ten miles from the main university campus and popularly known as ‘Scarberia’. I arrived in Toronto in August 1970 and quickly came to value Peter as a reliable and helpful colleague. The situation of the disciple of Classics within the University of Toronto was at this time a complicated one. The three undergraduate colleges on the main St George campus that had religious affiliations were originally independent foundations, but they had been federated with the University of Toronto one by one, each on slightly different terms, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. In 1969 the administrative structure of the University of Toronto was still that defined shortly after the last of these incorporations by the 1906 University of Toronto Act of the Ontario Provincial Legislature. (Under the British North America Act of 1867 of the British Parliament in Westminster, which was ‘patriated’ in 1982 as the Constitution of Canada, education is a provincial responsibility and subject to federal jurisdiction—unlike research, which no-one thought about in the 1860s.) Through the force of historical circumstances, therefore, some subjects at the University of Toronto were taught in and by separate college departments until 1975, while other subjects had always from their introduction been taught by university departments. Classics, like English, French, German, and Ethics, was a college subject, whereas Philosophy, Italian, History, Slavic languages, and virtually everything else were university subjects. But University College, unlike the three federated colleges, which were independent, was legally part of the University of Toronto and hence, unlike Trinity, Victoria, and St Michael's Colleges, was subject to the University's academic policies and standards. Moreover, when Scarborough and Erindale were founded in the early 1960s, the University departments (including the Department of Classics of University College) were given the right to make all academic appointments in them. So, when University College hired Peter in 1969, it could decide that Scarborough College must pay one-third of his salary for one-third of his services. When Peter arrived at the University of Toronto, it had no fewer than seven separate Departments of Classics: four undergraduate departments on the main campus and two on suburban sites, and the Graduate Department of Classics, which was an entirely separate entity with a different (though overlapping) Page 6 of 17

 

Introduction membership and under the jurisdiction of the School of Graduate Studies. Incidentally, in 1969 this was the only academic unit of the University of Toronto to be headed by a woman, Mary White of Trinity College—and it was the first academic unit in the University to have a woman as chair or director. In the years between 1969 and 1975 the separate departments were gradually unified, with the exception of Scarborough College, whose (p.8) faculty in Classics except Peter wanted the College to be independent or autonomous, though still associated with the University of Toronto, and seceded from Classics at the undergraduate level on the main St George campus. On 30 June 1973 Peter's cross-appointment to Scarborough College terminated; from 1 July 1973 he had a full-time tenured appointment in the Department of Classics at University College, which he served as Academic Secretary from 1971 until 1975. In this capacity, Peter conducted himself with quiet and amiable efficiency as we weathered the convulsions of the quarrelsome Combined Departments of Classics and the troubled period of the Intercollegiate Department. In 1974 external pressures produced an agreement between the four main undergraduate colleges on the St George campus to create unified university departments in all college subjects. The University of Toronto Department of Classics came into existence on 1 July 1975. Peter's research activities while he was in Toronto, a period of only eight years in all, loom large in his scholarly bibliography. In his appreciation reprinted above, Erich Gruen singles out, as anyone must, Peter's seminal article ‘Polybius, Rome and the East’. This article embodies what is to my mind an essentially American interpretation of Roman imperialism in that it assimilates the Romans to what Peter would have liked his native United States to be. As Peter himself acknowledged, the article was composed, delivered, and originally prepared for publication in Toronto. In the academic year 1974–5 John Wevers, the chairman of the Department of Near Eastern Studies in University College organized a joint faculty seminar with the Classics Department under the general title ‘Histories and Historians of the Ancient Near East’. The plan was to publish them together as a scholarly volume. But a financial subsidy from the Canadian Federation of the Humanities was needed, and it proved difficult to obtain one: every one of the four referees who were commissioned seriatim raised objections to a different chapter of the proposed book, so that four chapters needed to be revised or rewritten one after another. When Peter's paper was published in 1979, it had a fulsome expression of thanks to five persons, including Martin Frederiksen and Frank Walbank, and the Editorial Committee of the Journal of Roman Studies for criticism and advice given after 1975. However, unless my memory has deceived me, its central arguments are identical to those that Peter had deployed in February 1975 in Toronto.

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Introduction Erich Gruen also rightly praises Peter's ‘painstaking studies on the Roman calendar’. These two studies of the Roman calendar between 218 and 168 BC, the period covered in Livy, Books XXI–XLV, were published in Phoenix in 1973 and 1976 (this volume, Chs. 10 and 11). Like Peter's first article in Phoenix on Kleemporos (27 (1973), 118–34 this volume, Ch. 6), (p.9) these were not merely a product of his time in Toronto, but very specifically the result of his frequent discussions of the period with Graham Sumner, a tough-minded and accurate, if sometimes deliberately perverse, historian of the late Roman Republic and early Roman Empire, who taught in Toronto from 1964 until his death in 1982. Peter was lucky: he shared common ground and assumptions with Graham, who did not brook fundamental scholarly disagreements lightly. Another product of Peter's time in Toronto, despite its date of publication, is the volume of sources in translation, Greek Historical Documents: The Hellenistic Period, which he produced in cooperation with Roger Bagnall and which appeared in 1981 as no. 16 in the series Sources for Biblical Study sponsored by the Society of Biblical Literature (Chico, 1981). A revised and expanded version was issued by Blackwell as The Hellenistic Period. Historical Sources in Translation in 2004 in the series Blackwell Sources in Ancient History, but the original was finished while Peter was still in Toronto. The number of documents in the first edition was 146, the number in the second is 175: of the additional 29 documents, 12 are inscriptions, of which half had been published before 1975. A quick glance at a list of Peter's publications will show how large a proportion of his scholarly œuvre was actually written in Toronto. That I already knew before I ever sat down to prepare this essay. But as I began to write, there came unbidden into my mind the words of a hymn which I used to sing at school three times each year from the age of 7 to the age of 18. The hymn was written by Henry James Buckoll in 1843 and it begins: ‘Lord, dismiss us with thy blessing, / thanks for mercies past receive’. The lines relevant to Peter are in the third stanza: Let thy father-hand be shielding all who here shall meet no more; may their seed-time past be yielding year by year a richer store.

What I wish to suggest is that Peter's eight years in Toronto were the seed-time during which he accumulated the rich store of scholarly learning that not only laid the foundations, but also built most of the superstructure for his astonishing success as an Oxford tutor, above all after the death of Martin Frederiksen in 1980 as the tutor of choice for all undergraduates whatever their college who wished to read the first period of Roman History in Greats (‘Roman I’: from the First Punic War to the death of Caesar).11 TDB Page 8 of 17

 

Introduction (p.10) Back at Oxford When Peter Derow arrived back at Wadham College in autumn 1977 to take up the tutorial fellowship made vacant by George Forrest's appointment to the Wykeham chair, he cannot have been well known in Oxford, outside a limited circle. He had, of course, spent two years there in the mid-1960s studying ancient history and philosophy for Greats, and been taught by, among others, George Forrest and Martin Frederiksen.12 But Oxford undergraduates, unless they opted (as I did not) for ‘Roman I’, the Polybios period, were unlikely to have read his work. To some of us at Wadham the announcement in the Oxford University Gazette, in the first half of 1977, that an apparent outsider had been elected seemed surprising, particularly when rumours circulated that he had not been the first to be offered the post. Surprise was redoubled when we met Peter. My tutorial partner remarked how clever it was of the College to have reappointed George, so closely did Peter share features of speech, bearing, and dress with his former tutor; not to mention that his room contained, like George's, a billiard table (though halfsize), that he was another smoker (though Gauloises, later Camel, rather than Player's Navy Cut), and that he was equally generous with refreshments (though often Rioja and burgundy, not only Martini). Given Peter's precision about other things, however—a precision readily divined from his handwriting (Fig. 1)—it seems possible that the shambling exterior was a deliberate style, perhaps a statement of principle, doubtless a pedagogical tactic.13 Rhetorically he was anything but imprecise. Within a studiedly colloquial register (quite different from George's conscious vernacular), Peter could be fearsomely logical: the jocular murmur could hide a razor. (p.11) Despite his seeming 24-hour availability to students, one quickly learned that his life had a very private side. Although he moved into college permanently in 1978, he was invisible at times, which, one supposed, were for his family. In tutorials, Fig. 1. P. S. Derow April, 1971. his political views were to be inferred, rather than being stated directly in George's manner. I do not believe I ever heard him spell out a party political opinion. There were (rare) condemnatory asides; more often, his undoubtedly strong convictions were conveyed by murmured evaluation of one's own, no doubt inadequately theorized, opinions. One could confidently deduce an affinity for the Greek Left from, for example, his excited report of a Mikis Theodorakis

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Introduction concert, attended in London. Later he became publicly active in the Campaign for the Restitution of the Parthenon Marbles.14 Extra-collegial teaching duties in the early years were limited to a minimum of 16 university lectures a year, plus periodic stints of Greats examining.15 Things became more complicated later, with the introduction of new Honour Schools, and a reduction in full-time staffing in Ancient History. He chose to lecture chiefly in ‘Roman I’. So-called lectures—on topics unlikely to attract a mass audience, but which drew a lively mix of advanced undergraduates, research students, and occasionally faculty members16—were as informal and intimate as possible, more like seminars. Often they centred upon a key epigraphic text, circulated to those present as a photocopy and scrutinized in detail—even down to (p.12) restorations and disputed readings in the text—without ever losing sight of the big issues it might illuminate, especially with regard to Roman policy and Greek responses. In the first year, at least, Peter's tutorials, to students from Wadham and from other colleges, were usually for two students; later he preferred the one-to-one format, despite the consequence of a very full diary in term-time. Over the years he taught a wider historical range in tutorials than in lectures: chiefly ‘Greek I’ (archaic to the late fifth century) and of course ‘Roman I’; also ‘Roman II’ (Gracchi to Nero), rarely ‘Roman III’ (Principate);17 apparently never the second half of ‘Greek II ‘(the fourth century). The impact of his tutorials was inspiring, as they fostered open debate and confidence in discussion. They focused above all on the ancient evidence and avoided the intricacies of recent debate, while trying to unpick the often polarized ideological agendas (we did not yet call them that) of the high peaks of scholarship. Termly collections18 were gently annotated—but not graded—both translations and gobbet answers being sprinkled with precise citations of relevant ancient sources; essays embellished with detailed information in a tiny hand, summative comments gently pointing out shortcomings (‘Right. May be questioned, however, whether the answer is directly aimed at the constituent elements of the question as put’). As with his own politics—hardly separable from his views on antiquity—one did not hear the kind of epigrammatic salvo that George would sometimes let off (once describing Augustus as ‘the biggest shit of all time’). Peter, by contrast, let you suggest an interpretation and then, almost without you knowing it, made you see what a deep pit you had dug yourself into (‘Try to be precise about Crassus if at all possible’). Yet at all times he was the most sympathetic and natural teacher, drawing on his extraordinary depth of learning while conveying a sense of an exploration shared; listening carefully as well as explaining. Colleagues of the highest distinction describe him as far cleverer than they. Whether or not that is true, his brilliance was manifested most often in the kind of rhetorical strategies that were on display in tutorial teaching.

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Introduction Support for students was also extended through legendary hospitality. The zither which fellow students in the 1960s remember had been replaced by a guitar for excursions into blue-grass. In the era of the video cassette, films such as Spartacus and Z were the focus of revision sessions. Radical and liberal in outlook as he was, he favoured a (p.13) conservative approach to student assessment.19 He reportedly disapproved, for example, of the use of computers in calculating degree classes, and was a devotee of the now-defunct viva (from which he had benefited in 1967).20 As an examiner he is remembered as always knowing the latest scholarship, and as invariably looking for the positives in a student's work. Despite his conservative approach to teaching, at least in terms of content, he was not hostile to curriculum innovation per se. That Ancient History in ‘New Greats’ (from 1997) was not changed radically may have suited him, though he did venture into new areas: in that honour school, and in Ancient and Modern History, he undertook to teach Athenian Democracy with great success. Opinions are divided on whether he enjoyed sub-faculty administration; more nearly unanimous in praise of his contribution, both intellectual and social, as director of graduate studies in ancient history in the early 2000s. One task he took unusually seriously was the training of postgraduates to teach. Peter was not as visible on the wider scholarly stage as one might have expected, and neither, apparently, did he serve on national committees, other than that of the Marbles campaign, though in this he was not unique among Oxford classicists of his era. He seems to have found it hard to imagine why anyone would voluntarily leave Oxford for a post elsewhere. Although he assiduously attended Ancient History seminars, convened seminar series, and occasionally contributed papers,21 he did not usually go away for his sabbaticals. There was only a limited presence on the academic circuit, such as at conferences outside Oxford—the memorial event for George in Chios being one exception,22 a conference in Capri another. His paper on imperial space23 originated as a conference paper given under the auspices of the Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea, not far from his beloved September haunt in the Pyrenees, the locality in which his ashes would one day be scattered. He did from time to time speak at other universities, giving papers at, for example, Edinburgh, Munich,24 and Dublin.25 Often this would be in response to an invitation (p.14) from a former pupil. On one notable day in 1990 he brought several postgraduates to my own university for a day of papers on Roman warfare in the Leicester– Nottingham seminar series.26 He was in frequent contact with former pupils, as well as with colleagues elsewhere. Among these, Hellenistic specialists loomed large; Erich Gruen, for example, was invited to give a revision class to Peter's first cohort of finalists. The world of Classics has long lamented, rightly or wrongly, that no monograph emerged from Peter's typewriter, despite the sempiternal existence of an OUP contract for a book on his main interest, the Roman conquest of Greece. But it is not necessary to publish a book to have impact. Peter may have felt it was Page 11 of 17

 

Introduction difficult to say new things in a monograph on subjects on which he had already produced perfectly crafted papers, whose influence was considerable. Books should not be produced purely to satisfy research assessment exercises; they should be written by people who have a burning desire to say something. If Peter chose to make his primary impact in other ways, that was—in those days—his own business. It is also the case that Peter made an immense impression on ancient history through those he taught and influenced; several dozen undergraduates and postgraduates who came under his wing, not only from Wadham, have gone on to academic careers around the world (many reaching professorial rank). Peter undoubtedly paid his dues to his subject. Timothy Barnes has shown above how important to Peter's future work were his Toronto years. In his subsequent ‘Oxford II’ period his research continued to yield some of that ‘richer store’. The highlights of the first decade back in Wadham were the JRS 1979 paper and the collection of Hellenistic documents, both already alluded to by Barnes and both prepared before 1977. There were also an appraisal of Polybius in a volume on Greek literary sources27 and the publication of a Chian inscription with George Forrest.28 We should also count the highly influential Cambridge Ancient History chapter on the Roman takeover of Greece, though not published until 1989, as a product of the earlier 1980s.29 The second decade offers a swathe of shorter writings and four substantive papers, including the splendid chapter on Polybius and (p.15) historical explanation.30 The third decade saw significant new ventures, some of which will result in important publications. In these years, besides co-editing the Forrest memorial volume, Peter built on the work he had undertaken on Chios in 1979.31 His collaboration in the Inscriptiones Graecae project twice took him back to that island, and as well as preparing its Hellenistic corpus for publication he organized a symposium at Wadham on its epigraphy. One meticulous publication of a perplexing Chian inscription, seemingly of a unique kind, has already appeared in the Greek memorial volume to Forrest;32 and much else will follow. Not only Toronto, but also his ‘Oxford I’ period and the Princeton years,33 created the ‘seed-time’ (as Barnes puts it) for Peter's penetrating work on Hellenistic politics. In ‘Oxford II’, as well, he did not stand still, but developed new areas of expertise. The seed-bed was being enriched; and in time it will bear new fruit. DGJS

Why Ancient History? I think there is one very particular reason, and that is its relevance, by which I mean the way in which the study of ancient history can (and should) contribute to our understanding of the world around us and enhance our awareness of much that is going on in it. I think in the first instance, of course, of Polybius, who wrote of the expansion of Roman dominion in the Mediterranean world, of Page 12 of 17

 

Introduction what was effectively the establishment of a single power in a world where before there had been a number of centers of power. He was aware of the importance of this process, which was the theme of his work: (p.16) Is there any human being so low-minded or lazy as not to want to understand how, and being overcome by what sort of state in the space of not even 53 years, almost the whole world fell under a single dominion, that of the Romans—something which is not found to have happened before—and is anyone so little disposed to spectacles or to learning as to consider anything more important than this knowledge? (1.1.5–6) He did not stop there. Concerned as he was with the elucidation of this process, he reckoned that the elucidation of its effects, on both ruled and rulers, was at least as important: …and to the aforementioned actions one must add both an account of the policy of those in control—what it was after this and how they exercised their universal control, and also an account of the number and variety of the responses and opinions of the rest to and about the rulers. And beyond this one must also tell of the inclinations and pursuits which prevailed and took hold among the individual peoples in their private lives and in their public affairs, for it is evident that it will be clear from these things to those now living whether the dominion of the Romans is turning out to be something to be shunned or, rather, to be embraced, and to those of future generations whether their rule should be judged to have been worthy of praise and emulation or deserving of censure. (3.4.6–7) The relevance of what was going on in Polybius’ world to what is going on in that of today is inescapable, and there is, I think, no doubt that other analogous processes have unfolded in the course of human history. The important thing is always to ask about them, ‘How and why?’ Explanation requires understanding, and it is explanation that Polybius defined as the primary task of the historian. Explanation, and the pursuit of the understanding on which it must be based, should be the aim of all of us. This dual undertaking is certainly what doing ancient history is all about. And doing ancient history is all about evidence. The range of evidence—literary, documentary, archaeological, and more—is wide. The quantity is substantial, but it is not, of course, limitless. For some areas of inquiry it is relatively, sometimes decidedly, limited, and this can have the advantage of making ancient history particularly accessible. And the nature of the evidence is another advantage. Whether one is dealing with an historian, a document or a material artifact, one is always dealing with a form of human utterance, a representation, and these utterances, these representations are always in need of interpretation and of all kinds of contextualization before they can be knitted into the story the ancient historian wants to tell. The ancient historian must accordingly develop self-awareness and the capacity for selfPage 13 of 17

 

Introduction contextualization. If Plato was right to say that it is improper for a human being to live a life (p.17) which is unexamined, and if one may extend the purview of his remark from the confines of the individual life to include concern for the world in which that life is lived, then the study of ancient history is available as a most appropriate form of human endeavor. Polybius and his world are profoundly relevant to the world of today, but it will have become clear that the real relevance of ancient history is to be found in the fact that it is about people and the breadth of human experience. It is an aspect of this, to my mind an absolutely crucial one, to which Thucydides attributed the importance of his work: But as many as wish to see with clarity the things which have happened, and the similar and analogous things which are going, according to the human condition, to happen sometime again—it will be enough for them to judge this work to be useful. (1.22.4) History does not repeat itself, but people are people, and ancient history involves the study, within a chronological microcosm, of people's responses to circumstances, both political (at local and global levels) and other. It is a deeply humane kind of study, and, given the nature and range both of the evidence it uses and of the intellectual engagement and activity it requires, it is also fun. PSD (p.18) Notes:

(1) Obituaries appeared in The Independent, 21 Dec. 2006 (Thomas Harrison), The Guardian, 2 Feb. 2007 (Jonathan Williams), The Times, 9 Feb. 2007, and can be supplemented by the various vivid appreciations in Wadham College Gazette 2008, 96–111 and on the Wadham webpage: http://www.wadham.ox.ac.uk/ friends-alumni/news/peter-derow-memorial-addresses.html. See also Peter's Wikipedia page: . (2) Smith and Yarrow 2012. (3) The comments reproduced here are taken from the address that Erich Gruen delivered at the Memorial Event for Peter at the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford, on 28 April 2007, with his kind permission. The full version of his remarks on that occasion can be found online at: . (4) The original and much fuller version of these remarks was given as a paper at the Wadham conference in 2009; we are very grateful to Timothy Barnes for allowing us to extract those printed here.

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Introduction (5) This section was written especially for this volume, and we are very grateful to Graham Shipley for taking this on in addition to compiling the ‘Peter Derow bibliography’ printed at the end of the book. (6) This essay was originally published in A. Erskine (ed.), A Companion to Ancient History (Chichester, 2009), 3–5. (7) P. S. Derow, ‘Herodotus Readings’, Classics Ireland 2 (1995), 29–51 in a volume that he was very pleased to share with the singer Iggy Pop, a circumstance that may have led him to submit his paper with unaccustomed speed. The paper is most easily obtainable online at: (8) Review of J. Deininger, Der politische Widerstand gegen Rom in Griechenland, 217–86 v. Chr., in Phoenix 26 (1972), 303–11. (9) Review of J.-L. Ferrary, Philhellénisme et Impérialisme: aspects idéologiques de la conquête romaine du monde hellénistique, in Journal of Roman Studies 80 (1990), 197–200. (10) Derow's supervisor was John van Antwerp Fine, who taught Greek and Greek history in the Princeton Department of Classics from 1940 to 1972, though Peter himself, at least when I knew him in the first half of the 1970s, regarded James Luce, who had obtained his Ph.D. at Princeton and was still an assistant professor when Peter arrived there in 1967, as his intellectual mentor, his real ‘Doktorvater’. (11) I am most grateful to Graham Shipley and others for several important corrections and supplements to the version of this address which I delivered in Wadham on 3 April 2009. (12) Anglophone scholars tend to be less closely identified with the views of a single mentor than those from some more professorial academic environments; but it would be interesting to trace the influences of his teachers (undergraduate and postgraduate) upon Peter's thought. If I have foregrounded George Forrest in this note, it is because I knew him best of Peter's tutors, and never knew Martin Frederiksen personally. George's (and thus Peter's) debt to Peter Fraser would also repay inquiry (cf. Derow and Forrest 1982, 91 n. 126 ad fin.). (13) One thinks of the informality chosen—because it suited him—by another academic who is a native of the USA (Parini 2005, 69–81), as well as his emphasis on teaching as the adoption of a persona (3, 58–9) and as performance (112–13). His engaging book embodies some of the same pedagogic values as Peter's; partly coincidence, but it is interesting to note that Parini has had extended encounters with classics teachers at St Andrews and Oxford. (14) Now Marbles Reunited. Page 15 of 17

 

Introduction (15) ‘Greats’ is the colloquial term for the second part (terms 6 to 12) of the fouryear classics degree, the Honour School of Literae Humaniores. Most permanent teaching staff in Humanities hold college ‘tutorial fellowships’ and see students from their own college (and from others by reciprocal arrangement) in ones or twos, for an hour weekly; they may also hold a university lecturership under which they give centrally timetabled lectures or classes which students from all colleges may attend. (16) Oxford maintains the admirable tradition that any member of the University may attend any University lecture (but not college teaching). (17) He taught it in his first year at Wadham, at least; though we didn't get beyond Claudius. (18) Informal examinations after each vacation. (19) Unless a student chooses to write a dissertation, their degree is awarded and classified entirely on the basis of examination papers, set centrally for students from all colleges and marked by a single board, staff from different colleges taking it in turns to serve. (20) Vivas (viva voce or oral examinations) were held, after the written papers were marked, for candidates in a borderline between classes, to determine whether they could be raised to the higher class. (21) Notably Derow 1994 = Ch. 4 this volume; also a paper on Sicily and S. Italy (unpublished). (22) See Derow 2006. (23) Derow 2007 = Ch. 9 this volume. (24) See Ch. 8 below, previously unpublished. (25) Derow 1995. (26) These were the papers of Rich, Richardson, and Ziolkowski, published in Rich and Shipley 1993. (27) Derow 1982 = Ch. 3 this volume. (28) Derow and Forrest 1982 = Ch. 12 this volume. (29) Derow 1989 = Ch. 2 this volume. The preface to the CAH volume notes that ‘Some contributions were received as early as 1980, and the majority by 1984, when there was an opportunity for revision’ (Astin and Walbank 1989, xiii). (30) See n. 21. Page 16 of 17

 

Introduction (31) See Derow and Forrest 1982 = Ch. 12 this volume (date of visit at p. 269 n. 26). (32) Derow 2006, not reprinted here. (33) Here I must acknowledge responsibility for the short-lived factoid in the Wikipedia entry on Peter, which asserted that Bradford Welles supervised Peter's Ph.D. I inserted it on 10 Dec. 2006 while updating the article and did not remove it until 21 Feb. 2007, so that it unfortunately entered the public record in the three obituaries. It was a false memory encouraged by conversations with Peter about Welles, and probably by the reference in Bagnall and Derow 1981, xvi (repeated in Bagnall and Derow 2004, xviii), to Welles as ‘our teacher’; the book is also dedicated to Welles’ memory.

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The Arrival of Rome

Rome, Polybius, and the East The late Peter Derow, Andrew Erskine, and Josephine Crawley Quinn

Print publication date: 2014 Print ISBN-13: 9780199640904 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199640904.001.0001

The Arrival of Rome From the Illyrian Wars to the Fall of Macedon Peter Derow Andrew Erskine Josephine Crawley Quinn

DOI:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199640904.003.0002

Abstract and Keywords This chapter focuses on Rome's expansion in the East, based on the interpretation of Peter Derow (1944–2006), Hody Fellow and lecturer in Ancient History from 1977 to 2006 at Wadham College, University of Oxford. It begins with the Illyrian Wars before turning to Roman pre-eminence in the Adriatic and the fall of Macedon. Keywords:   expansion, East, Peter Derow, Illyrian Wars, Macedon, Adriatic, Rome

This story might begin in many places. For Polybios it all started with the First Illyrian War (229–28). On his account this was Rome's ‘first crossing with military force into Illyria and these parts of Europe, as well as the first diplomatic involvement with places in Greece’ (2.12.7). The second part of this statement is incorrect, or at least misleading, but about the first there is no question. This was indeed the first appearance of Roman arms and warships across the Adriatic, and this war and its aftermath created a situation that can rightly be said to have been the beginning of the process known as the Roman conquest of Greece. Over the next sixty years there followed a series of actions and reactions by Romans and by Greeks. At every stage a new situation was created as people responded to changing circumstances. But there was a kind of continuity, too, and after those two generations the fell sway of Rome had increased and been affirmed, to the point that there was nothing left but ‘to give Page 1 of 24

 

The Arrival of Rome heed to the Romans and obey them in their orders’ (Polyb. 3.4.3, writing of the time after the eradication of the Macedonian monarchy in 167). Players on both sides contributed to this outcome.

1. The Adriatic There had been Illyrians and there had been piracy in this sea long before the 230s. What there had not been was a strong Illyrian state such as emerged in this decade under the leadership of Agron, king of the Ardiaioi, continued after Agron's death at the end of the decade by (p.22) Queen Teuta, his wife. Piracy became more insistent, and, more important, Agron began to extend his political dominion southwards and to more Greek places. The Achaian and Aitolian Leagues were unable to stop him from gaining a foothold at Phoinike in Epeiros. To the north, the Greeks of Pharos were already under his control, but the Greeks of Issa still held out. For Polybios it was complaints about Illyrian piracy, lodged before the Senate by Italians, that prompted the Romans to send an embassy in 230 to Teuta. For Appian, whose account is to be given at least as much weight, it was a plea from the Greeks of Issa that elicited the Roman démarche. For both, it was the murder of a Roman ambassador that led to the Roman declaration of war. But there was more to it than this, for neither provides a satisfactory explanation of this level of Roman concern with Adriatic affairs. The answer lies on the western shores of the Adriatic and in a development of much longer standing than the rise of the Ardiaioi. After the battle of Sentinum in 295 Roman dominion in Italy was extended across the peninsula to the Adriatic. This was quickly confirmed by the foundation of colonies on the coast in the 280s: Sena Gallica, Hadria, and Castrum Novum. They were the beginning of a process that continued with the foundations of Ariminum (268), Firmum Picenum (264), and, finally, Brundisium (244). These were citizen and Latin colonies, and it was above all the sea that connected them to the wider world. It is against this backdrop of fifty years of Roman presence along the Adriatic coast that the events of the 230s must be seen and understood: by then Adriatic affairs were altogether relevant to Rome's dominion in Italy. And the importance of the northern Adriatic for Rome in the 230s was more than a little enhanced by the quest for territory and control in the Po Valley in which the Romans were then engaged. It made sense for Italians sailing in the Adriatic to appeal to Rome against the depredations of Illyrian pirates (Polyb. 2.8.2; one must wonder to what extent these were from the coastal colonies of Italy). It made sense for the Greeks of Issa to turn their attention in the same direction (App. Ill. 7). The Adriatic was visibly in part a Roman sea, and already a few years before this some Akarnanians had appealed to Rome (Just. 28.1–2; on the historicity, but relative inconsequentiality, of this, Dany 1999: 98–119). The Senate took cognizance. Roman ambassadors were sent to the Illyrian monarch in the company of the Page 2 of 24

 

The Arrival of Rome envoys from Issa. They were set upon by pirates, and one Roman, Coruncanius, and the Issaian Kleemporos were killed (whether before or after an interview with Queen Teuta is unclear; Appian's version, that there was no interview, seems preferable: Derow 1973a (this volume Ch. 6); cf. Errington 1989a: 86–8). (p.23) The result was war. Both consuls of 229 were sent across the Adriatic, with fleet and two consular armies (the usual expeditionary force at the time). The war was short. Both consuls triumphed, thereby establishing the world to the east of Italy as one where triumphs might be gained. Even more consequential for the history of Greece was the immediate aftermath of the war. In the course of it, a number of Greek cities and some inland tribes surrendered themselves to the Romans. Whether some or all of them became allies of Rome in some formal sense, or whether they entered into a vaguer kind of ‘friendship and alliance’ with the victors is disputed (for alliance, especially in the case of Pharos, see Derow 1991 (this volume, Ch. 13); BD 31, but also Eckstein 1999; further on formal relations of Rome and Greek states: Hammond and Walbank 1988: 601–10). Roman envoys were sent to the unsuccessful opponents of the Illyrians, the Achaian and Aitolian Leagues (in 228 by the consul who wintered in Greece), and also to Athens and to Corinth (in 227 by the Senate). They portrayed Rome's intervention as a service to Greeks, and report has it that the Romans (or perhaps just the Roman envoys?) were admitted to the Isthmian Games at Corinth and into citizenship and the Eleusinian Mysteries at Athens. The Romans had arrived. The ships and the soldiers left, but Roman interest in the area remained. During the next few years Roman pre-eminence in the Adriatic and on the shores of Illyria and north-western Greece was challenged by Demetrios of Pharos. Agron's erstwhile lieutenant, he had fallen afoul of Queen Teuta, signalled his availability to the Romans before they arrived and handed over to them Pharos and Kerkyra which he controlled. From the Romans he received no great reward for this (App. Ill. 8; Polybios’ assertion, 2.11, that they granted him much is surely a construction designed to demonstrate ingratitude on Demetrios’ part) and soon set about improving his situation. He allied himself with Antigonos Doson, with whom he fought at Sellasia (222), and made common cause with Istrian pirates in the north. By the end of the decade he had detached people and places from their Roman connection and was attacking cities Polybios describes as ‘subject to the Romans’ (3.16: whether officially allies or friends, this is how they were perceived, a perception explicitly shared by Philip V of Macedon: Polyb. 7.9.13). For some years the Romans did nothing about this. Indifference is not the explanation. As early as 226 they were deeply concerned about the Gauls in and around the Po Valley and the hostile reaction of the Gauls to Roman settlement in that area (Polyb. 2.13); this was not resolved until Marcellus’ great victory at Clastidium in 222. In 221 both consuls were sent against the Istrians, Demetrios’ Page 3 of 24

 

The Arrival of Rome partners (Eutrop. 3.7; cf. Dell 1970), and the consuls of 220 led an expedition ‘as far as the Alps’ (p.24) (Zonar. 8.20: which Alps, and whether this had to do with the sequelae of the Gallic conflict or with the Istrians, we do not know). Demetrios would be next, and so he was, in 219, when both consuls were again sent to Illyria. The inevitability of this must help to explain Demetrios’ otherwise bizarrely provocative conduct in 220: he was preparing for the inevitable Roman attack. He had to do so on his own: Doson had died, and the young Philip V who succeeded him was becoming embroiled in the Social War. This second Illyrian War was even shorter than the first. Both consuls triumphed. Illyria and the Adriatic had been disrupted and Roman authority challenged. The Romans set things back to rights at the earliest opportunity, when free of the more pressing task as was always their way. Demetrios fled to the young King Philip and took refuge at his court.

2. Macedon It is unlikely that the Romans had much interest in Macedon before this (despite Polyb. 3.16 and Holleaux 1928), but they were not unaware of Demetrios’ presence at Philip's court. In 217 an embassy was sent to Philip requesting the surrender of Demetrios (Livy 22.33.3). This was the first contact between the two states. Demetrios was not surrendered, and the Romans were of course not in a position to do anything about it: they were at war with Carthage and Hannibal was in Italy. For Philip, on the other hand, Rome's preoccupation provided opportunity, and his own preoccupation with the Social War came to an end with the Peace of Naupaktos in September 217. The idea that the opportunity perceived by Philip included thoughts of universal dominion derives only from Polybios’ exorbitant ascription to the king of Alexander-like aims (5.101–2; Philip was of course not related to Alexander, and Polybios’ romantic account of Philip's reception of the news of Trasimene raises all manner of difficulties, not least chronological: see Derow 1976: 276 (this volume, Ch. 11) n. 36) and Livy's even more exorbitant rendition of the alliance struck in 215 between Philip and Hannibal (23.33). Polybios gives us the document (7.9). Detailed provisions for military co-operation are absent. What we do have is the provision that the Romans were no longer ‘to be masters (kyrioi) of Kerkyra, Apollonia, Epidamnos, Pharos, Dimale, the Parthinoi or Atintania’ (7.9.13): Philip's aim was to remove Roman authority from the eastern shore of the Adriatic. He built ships in the winter of 217/6, but the Adriatic expedition of summer 216 was aborted. Then came the (p.25) alliance with Hannibal and, in 214, a seaborne attack on Orikos near Apollonia. But the Romans had learned of the link between Hannibal and Philip and, accordingly, of Philip's Adriatic designs. A fleet was sent to Orikos. Philip was forced to burn his ships and to retreat home overland. So had begun the so-called ‘First Macedonian War’. The conflict was not notable for battles between Roman and Macedonian forces, for it included none of these, and it was not in any sense

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The Arrival of Rome resolved by the Peace of Phoinike that brought it to a halt in 205. Its significance was otherwise. After abandoning any naval pretensions in the west, Philip operated by land, and he was successful, gaining control of the Adriatic port of Lissos in 213. This created a problem for the Romans. To commit a small fleet to the region was one thing, to commit a land army was something else again. An ally in Greece was needed, and one was found in the Aitolian League. To judge from Livy's account (25.23) it seems that the Romans had been angling for the support of the Aitolians for a time before the alliance was struck in 211. To judge from the Polybian record (9.37), it was the Aitolians who dragged the Romans into a Greek conflict. This likely reflects a difference of emphasis rather than of fact. The Aitolians were happy to take advantage of Philip's Roman concerns in order to re-open the questions of the Social War that the Peace of Naupaktos had not really resolved and to extend their own authority at the expense of Macedon; the Romans needed a land-based ally in their conflict with Philip. Each had their own reasons for making common cause with the other against Philip, and this is nowhere clearer than in the alliance itself, of which part is preserved on stone (SV III.536; trans. BD 33, Sherk 2; cf. Livy 26.24). What survives seems to begin with the statement that the Aitolians are to make war on Philip and his allies (the list of the latter may be filled in from Polyb. 9.38.5 and 11.5.4: Epeirotes, Achaians, Akarnanians, Boiotians, Thessalians, Euboians, Phokians, Lokrians). It continues: If the Romans take by force any of these peoples, let it be permitted, as far as concerns the demos (people) of the Romans, for the demos of the Aitolians to have these cities and lands; whatever (the) Romans take besides the city and land, let (the) Romans have. If Romans and Aitolians together take any of these cities, let it be permitted, as far as concerns the demos (of the Romans) for the Aitolians to have these cities and lands; whatever they take besides the city, let it belong to both together. If any of these cities go over to, or surrender to, the Romans or the Aitolians, [let it be permitted, as far as concerns the] demos of the Romans, for the Aitolians to take these people and the cities and the lands [into their] state… (p.26) Philip, and especially his allies, will be the object of a Roman–Aitolian war. The Aitolians will gain territory and booty. The Romans will gain from Philip's occupation with the war and indeed from booty as well: the profit from enslavement in particular must have been substantial. The new allies began their co-operation in Akarnania, taking cities and enslaving populations. That set the pattern for the conflict over the next few years, and Philip could only attempt heroically to defend his allies. It was the Social War all over again, only much more vicious. The difference was not lost on Greeks of the time. An Akarnanian envoy at Sparta in 210, endeavouring to dissuade the Spartans from joining the Page 5 of 24

 

The Arrival of Rome Romans and Aitolians, asks the Aitolian envoy ‘But who makes common cause with you at present or what kind of alliance do you invite them (i.e. the Spartans) to enter? Is it not an alliance with barbarians?’ (Polyb. 9.37.5–6) The contrast with previous Spartan resistance to the barbarians (in the form of the Persians) is explicitly drawn. After referring to more recent Aitolian history, the Akarnanian continues: How, when one knows of this, can one help viewing with suspicion the advance of the Romans and with detestation the unprincipled conduct of the Aetolians in venturing to make such treaties? Already they have robbed the Akarnanians of Oiniadai and Nasos, and it is but the other day that they together with the Romans seized on the unhappy city of Antikyra, selling its inhabitants into slavery. So the Romans are carrying off the women and children to suffer, of course, what those must suffer who fall into the hands of aliens (allophyloi), while the Aitolians divide the houses of the unfortunate people among themselves by lot. A fine alliance this for anyone to determine to join and specially for you Lakedaimonians, who, when you conquered the barbarians, decreed that the Thebans were to pay a tithe to the gods for having decided under compulsion, but alone among the Greeks, to remain neutral during the Persian invasion. (Polyb. 9.39.1–5, trans. paton) The Spartans were deaf to these pleas. They joined the new alliance, as did the Messenians around the same time. For both, the present Peloponnesian picture was, we may judge, the more important: the Achaian League was for them the greater threat. Another adherent was Attalos I of Pergamon. He already had connections with the Aitolian League, and he very soon became Rome's most influential ally in the East (a position assumed after his death in 197 by his son Eumenes). The war went on, and revulsion at the nature of its conduct grew apace. Nothing like this, with populations being enslaved, had been seen in Greece for a long time (cf. Tarn and Griffith 1952: 80–2), nor had such ‘barbarians’ and ‘aliens’. (p.27) The Social War had been widely seen in the Greek world as a dangerously internecine affair. A number of states, including Rhodes, Chios, Byzantion, and Ptolemaic Egypt tried to mediate a settlement of it (Polyb. 5.100). It had ended with the Aitolian Agelaos of Naupaktos warning of ‘the clouds in the west’ and the danger they posed for Greeks (Polyb. 5.104). This recrudescence of the Social War elicited more attempts at mediation from yet more people. The language of mediation is infused with hostility to the Romans. It is informed also by a kind of panhellenism and a related fear about the future. In an address to the Aitolians in 207 a Rhodian speaker refers to numerous attempts by Ptolemy, Rhodes, Chios, and Byzantion to bring an end to the war. He begs them ‘as if the whole of the islanders and all the Greeks who inhabit Asia Minor were present Page 6 of 24

 

The Arrival of Rome here and were entreating you to stop the war and decide for peace—for the matter concerns them as much as ourselves—to come to your senses and relent and agree to our request’ (Polyb. 11.4.6). He continues: You say that you are fighting with Philip for the sake of the Greeks, that they may be delivered and may refuse to obey his commands; but as a fact you are fighting for the enslavement and ruin of Greece. This is the story your treaty with the Romans tells, a treaty formerly existing merely in writing, but now seen to be carried out in actual fact. Previously the words of the treaty involved you in disgrace, but now when it is put in action this becomes evident to the eyes of all. Philip, then, is but the nominal pretext of the war; he is in no kind of danger; but as he has for allies most of the Peloponnesians, the Boiotians, the Phokians, the Lokrians, the Thessalians, and Epeirotes, you made the treaty against them all, the terms being that their persons and personal property should belong to the Romans and their cities and lands to the Aitolians. Did you capture a city yourselves you would not allow yourselves to outrage freeman or to burn their towns, which you regard as a cruel proceeding and barbarous; but you have made a treaty by which you have given up to the barbarians the rest of the Greeks to be exposed to atrocious outrage and violence. This was not formerly understood, but now the case of the people of Oreos and that of the unhappy Aiginetans have exposed you to all, Fortune having of set purpose as it were mounted your infatuation on the stage. Such was the beginning of this war, such are already its consequences, and what must we expect its end to be, if all falls out entirely as you wish? Surely the beginning of terrible disaster to all the Greeks. (6) For it is only too evident, I think, that the Romans if they get the war in Italy off their hands —and this will be very shortly, as Hannibal is now confined in quite a small district of Bruttium—will next throw themselves with their whole strength on Grecian lands on the pretext that they are helping the Aitolians against Philip, but really with the intention of conquering the whole country. Should the (p.28) Romans when they have subjected us, determine to treat us kindly, the credit and thanks will be theirs; but if they treat us ill it is they who will acquire the spoil of those they destroy and sovereignty over the survivors, and you will then call the gods to witness then neither any god will be still willing, nor any man still able to help you. (11.5–6.4; cf. already 10.25 for similar fear about the future) Evidence for this resurgent panhellenism is found not only in speeches reported by Polybios (on which, see above all, Walbank 1965, esp. 248–9). At precisely the same time as these sentiments were being uttered in Greece, something remarkable was occurring at Magnesia-on-the-Maeander (for the epigraphical dossier from which alone we know about this, Rigsby 1996: 179–279).

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The Arrival of Rome Some years before all this (in 221/20) the Magnesians, in response to an appearance of their patron deity, Artemis Leukophryene, had sought recognition for a panhellenic festival in her honour and recognition of their city as sacred and inviolable. The attempt failed for lack of support. They renewed it in 208/7. Envoys were dispatched all over the Greek world, and this time they met with resounding success. Favourable responses came from kings (Ptolemy IV, Attalos I, Antiochus III and his son, and, implied in one text, Philip V), from Leagues (Boiotian, Aitolian, Akarnanian, Epeirote, Phokian, and Achaian), and from dozens of Greek cities throughout the Mediterranean world (all of them, according to the Magnesian decree). How much this concatenation of panhellenic (and anti-barbarian: anti-Roman, that is) concern and sentiment affected the progress of the war in Greece must remain a matter of conjecture. But there was clearly something in the air. In 206, after concluding peace with Philip (see below) the Aitolians sponsored a wide-ranging appeal from the Dorians of Kytinion for assistance in rebuilding their city, damaged by earthquake in the early 220s and by years of warfare. Their appeal, known only from an inscription from Xanthos in Lykia, was elaborately couched in terms of shared hellenic ancestry (SEG 38.1476; cf. Hammond and Walbank 1988: 339; Erskine 2001: 164–5). In 207 and 206 the Romans contributed little support to their allies. Their great success at the River Metaurus in 207 meant that Hannibal was effectively stranded in the south of Italy, and they focused their attention on him. Attalos withdrew from the conflict to deal with incursions by King Prousias of Bithynia. In 206 Philip, no longer obliged to devote all his effort to the defence of his allies, forced the Aitolians to negotiate a peace. The Romans, recent inactivity notwithstanding, appear to have been willing to carry on the war. In 205 a sizeable force (p.29) was sent to Epidamnos. Philip came as far as the territory of Apollonia, but the Romans, having failed to draw the Aitolians back into the war, did not go out to meet him. Epeirote mediators had no trouble in persuading Philip to the negotiating table, and the Roman general, Sempronius, did not demur. Peace was agreed at Phoinike in Epeiros in 205. Atintania, attached to Rome since the first Illyrian war, was ceded to Philip, but there were no other territorial adjustments of any significance; the peace effectively reestablished the situation before the conflict (Livy 29.12). But if it made no concrete difference, the Peace of Phoinike redefined the political constellation of Greece in the most striking way. On the one side was Philip, to whom were added in the treaty Prousias, king of Bithynia, the Achaians, Boiotians, Thessalians, Akarnanians and Epeirotes. On the other side were now the Romans, to whom were added the Ilians, King Attalos, Pleuratos, Nabis, tyrant of Sparta, and the Eleians, Messenians and Athenians. Two things were clear. One, that there were now two sides in Greece: Philip and his allies on the one hand, the Romans and their allies on the other. Two, that the settlement Page 8 of 24

 

The Arrival of Rome was temporary. About this Livy is explicit: peace was voted at Rome ‘since, now that the war had shifted to Africa, they wished for the present to be relieved of all other wars’ (29.12.16; Derow 1979: 6–8 (this volume, Ch. 5, 138–42). Roman interests in general were not restricted in the same way. In 205/4 it was decided, in response to omens and the advice of the Sibylline books, to import the cult of the Magna Mater to Rome. A team of illustrious envoys was sent to Pessinous in northwestern Asia Minor to fetch the image of the deity. They were assisted in this by Attalos, and ‘five quinquiremes were assigned to the deputation so that in a manner worthy of the dignity of the Roman people it might approach lands where it was desirable that the Roman name should win for itself the highest respect’ (Livy 29.11; Erskine 2001: 205–18).

3. The Roman Conquest For Rome the next few years saw the final stages of the war with Hannibal, which ended with the victory of Scipio Africanus at Zama in North Africa in 202 and the peace imposed upon Carthage in 201, including a huge indemnity of 10,000 talents. This was to be paid over the next 50 years in yearly instalments of 200 talents and is better seen as an insistence by Rome upon the subordination of Carthage than as a (p.30) serious quest for imperial profit. With the end of that conflict the Romans were indeed relieved of all other serious conflicts (and this in a way they had not been for a very long time). Philip in the meanwhile turned his attention mostly towards the Aegean, where he found himself increasingly at odds with Rhodes and King Attalos. There was some contact between Macedon and Rome during this time. In 203 ‘allied cities from Greece’ are reported to have appealed to Rome against Macedonian depredations (Livy 30.26). The Romans took cognizance of this in a minor way. Also reported is a Macedonian contingent fighting alongside Hannibal at Zama, but the fact that these troops do not appear in Polybios’ account of the battle, on which that of Livy is otherwise clearly based, must indicate fabrication (Livy 30.33, Polyb. 15.11). Philip had no reason to provoke Rome, and there is no other reason to think that he did so. Certainly another conflict between Rome and Macedon began in 200, the socalled second Macedonian war. Polybios’ view, that there was only one war between Philip and the Romans, which began with Philip's alliance with Hannibal and ended with the battle of Kynoskephalai in 197, is worth taking very seriously (Polyb. 3.32; cf. Derow 1979: 10–11 (this volume, Ch. 5, 145–6); Polybios’ view finds an echo in Livy (31.1) and later, more strikingly, in Florus (1.23), whose ‘first Macedonian war’ embraces what are now conventionally known as the first and second). It would seem that for Polybios, as for Livy's Romans (see section 2 above on 29.12.16), the Peace of Phoinike was not seen as concluding the issue between Rome and Philip in any more than a very temporary way. Still, the conflict renewed in 200 was something quite different

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The Arrival of Rome than what had gone before: it is the circumstances and nature of this renewal that invite attention. In 201, when the Hannibalic war was finally ended, there arrived at Rome embassies from Attalos and the Rhodians and from the Aetolians (on the date of the Aitolian embassy, see Derow 1979: 7–8 (this volume, Ch. 5, 140–1). The latter complained of Philip's treatment of them and appealed to the Romans to renew the old conflict. Attalos and the Rhodians, who had been fighting Philip in the Aegean, sought Roman support in their conflict with Philip and against his expansionist campaigns. The Aitolian appeal was rejected. This cannot be taken to indicate any lack of willingness on the part of Rome to engage with Philip: it was at just this time that they did decide to engage. It must indicate something else, and evidently it indicates that the Romans had decided not to engage with Philip in the way that they had done before. They were not unaware of what had been said in Greece about them and their alliance with the Aitolians (on which section 2 above), and they were (p.31) about to define themselves to the Greeks in a wholly new way. The reports of Attalos and the Rhodians were taken on board, and an embassy was despatched. For what it shows about this redefinition and about the extent of Roman interest to the east, it is a most extraordinary embassy. The Roman envoys went to Athens, where they met with Attalos and the Rhodians in early spring 200, and where Attalos made clear to the people of Athens the hostility of the Romans (as well as his own and that of the Rhodians) towards Philip (Polyb. 16.25–6). Polybios goes on: At the time that the Roman legates were present in Athens Nikanor, Philip's general, overran Attika up to the Academy, upon which the Romans, after sending a herald to him in the first place, met him and asked him to inform Philip that the Romans ‘called upon’ that king to make war on no Greek states and also to give such compensation to Attalos for the injuries he had inflicted on him as a fair tribunal should pronounce to be just. If he acted so, they added, he might consider himself at peace with Rome, but if he refused to accede the consequences would be the reverse. Nikanor on hearing this departed. The Romans had conveyed the contents of this communication to the Epeirotes at Phoinike in sailing along that coast and to Amynander, going up to Athamania for that purpose. They had also apprised the Aitolians at Naupaktos and the Achaians at Aigion. After having made this statement to Philip through Nikanor they sailed away to meet Antiochos and Ptolemy for the purpose of arranging a settlement. (trans. Paton) Philip is presented with an ultimatum which takes the form of a Roman order. It is an ultimatum to which he could not possibly accede, at least not without acknowledging Roman dominion in place of his own. This is the first time that the syndrome of orders and obedience, which will characterize and indeed Page 10 of 24

 

The Arrival of Rome define Rome's imperium for some time to come, appears on the hellenic stage on this syndrome, Derow 1979: 5–6 (this volume, Ch. 5, 136–8). Whatever were the niceties of Roman fetial procedure at the outset of this war (on the basis of which the people voted for war against Philip ‘on account of arms borne against and injuries done to allies of the Roman people’, Livy 31.6), this ultimatum had nothing to do with them. It was a clear declaration of intent by Rome to occupy the central position in Greek affairs. And it was, of course, wonderful propaganda: a declaration that the Romans were no longer the ‘barbarians’ they had been not long before but instead the protectors of Greeks. Philip becomes the villain. As well as to Philip (to whom the ultimatum was delivered in person at Abydos later in 201: Polyb. 16.34; by that time Roman forces were landing in Greece), the message was conveyed to other Greeks, all of whom are allied or connected with (p.32) Philip. This group includes, pointedly, the Aitolian League: this is indeed the new Rome. And the new Rome has a very wide purview indeed. The Roman embassy was to travel also to Antiochos III and Ptolemy V, who were engaged in the Fifth Syrian War, to bring about a settlement between them. That the request for this intervention came from Ptolemy, who had helped the Romans during the Hannibalic war with a subvention of grain (Polyb. 9.11a) and who appears to have solicited Rome's help (Polyb. 15.25), is most likely. Certainly it was Antiochos who was winning the war against Ptolemy: the Roman démarche can only have been to the latter's benefit. This was the first contact between Rome and the Seleukid king. In Greece, the Roman war was initially entrusted to P. Sulpicius Galba, consul of 200. He had been consul in 211 and as proconsul had conducted most of the earlier war: the old Rome had not been entirely eclipsed. Little progress was made, and the Aitolians were received back on side. (On what (if any) formal terms the Aitolians renewed their Roman connection will remain a serious question.) He was succeeded by P. Villius Tappulus, consul of 199, who spent little time in Greece (and most of that dealing with a mutiny of Roman soldiers), before being succeeded by T. Quinctius Flamininus, consul of 198, who arrived in Greece early in his consular year. It was Flamininus (on whose background, Badian 1971), who completed the redefinition of Rome for the Greeks. His diplomatic achievements were many, the most significant amongst them being to secure the alliance of the Achaian League, prominent now under the leadership of Philopoimen. This was accomplished in 198 by the able diplomacy of his brother Lucius (who promised Corinth to the Achaians: see below p. 34), aided in no small way by the presence at Corinth of a Roman fleet trained on the northern Peloponnese. Even so, the Achaian decision to abandon Philip for Rome was a close run thing. The League was riven on the question of Rome, and it remained so for the rest of its life. The adherence of the Achaians enabled Flamininus to put himself at the head of a group of allies. Polybios’ account of a meeting between Flamininus and these allies (including Amynander of Athamania and representatives of King Attalos, Page 11 of 24

 

The Arrival of Rome the Achaians, Rhodians, Aitolians and Athenians) and Philip (accompanied by a Boiotian and an exiled Achaian opponent of the alliance with Rome) in the winter of 198/97 shows that the interests of Rome's allies were to be represented; it shows also how all essential decisions were to remain with Flamininus and Rome (Polyb. 18.1–12). On this occasion ambassadors from Philip and from Flamininus and the allies went to Rome, notionally with an eye to negotiating an end to the war. Philip's envoys were surprised by a (p.33) question about the king's continued occupation of the ‘fetters of Greece’ (Chalkis, Demetrias and the Acrocorinth; how they could not have been expecting this is another serious question). With this comes the first secure mention of the idea of the ‘freedom of the Greeks’ in this context. The idea went back a long way (cf. Gruen 1984: 132– 57). The chief contemporary exponent of liberation was Antiochos III (most notably during his sojourn in southwestern Asia Minor in 204–202, where he also sponsored an extensive, and successful, campaign by the Teians for recognition of their city as sacred and inviolable: known only from inscriptions, Rigsby 1996: 280–325). At Rome the negotiations foundered, as no doubt they were intended to do. Flamininus’ allies, both Roman and (perhaps unwitting) Greek, secured the continuation of the war and of Flamininus’ command. The war came to an end in 197 when Roman and Macedonian armies chanced upon one another at Kynoskephalai in Thessaly. A battle was fought on ground much better suited to the flexible Roman legion than to the Macedonian phalanx. Philip was defeated and obliged to sue for peace. There was uncertainty in Greece about the nature of the settlement that would come. In Boiotia a hint might have been seen in Flamininus’ connivance in the murder of the pro-Macedonian boiotarch Brachylles: the Roman was anxious to gain the adherence of the Boiotians ‘because he was looking ahead to Antiochos’ (Polyb. 18.43). For public consumption the ten Roman commissioners, dispatched to assist Flamininus in the settlement of Greece, brought with them a decree of the Senate about the peace with Philip. The main points were: All the rest of the Greeks in Asia and Europe were to be free and subject to their own laws; Philip was to surrender to the Romans before the Isthmian Games [summer 196] those Greeks subject to his rule and the cities in which he had garrisons; he was to leave free, withdrawing his garrisons from them, the towns of Euromos, Pedasa, Bargylia and Iasos, as well as Abydos, Thasos, Myrina and Perinthos; Flamininus was to write to Prousias in the terms of the Senate's decree about restoring the freedom of Kios…. [Philip was to pay the Romans] a thousand talents, half at once and the other half by instalments extending over ten years. (Polyb. 18.44, trans. Paton)

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The Arrival of Rome The most striking thing here is, of course, the extension of the Roman order to cover Asia Minor, where Antiochos was at the time affirming and seeking to increase his dominion (on this dominion and its nature, Ma 1999). In Greece there was widespread approbation. The Aitolians, however, angry at Flamininus’ refusal to give them credit for their part in the victory over Philip or proper reward for their participation in (p.34) the war, observed that the fetters of Greece were being taken over by the Romans and that what was happening was a change of masters for the Greeks and not liberation (Polyb. 18.45.6). There were those who believed them. There was also uncertainty on the Roman side about the fetters, and Flamininus needed his best diplomatic skills in dealing with the ten Roman commissioners: [He pointed out to them] that if they wished to gain unmixed renown amongst the Greeks and in general convince all that the Romans had originally crossed over not in their own interest but in that of the liberty of Greece, they must withdraw from every place and set free all the cities now garrisoned by Philip. The hesitation felt in the conference was due to the fact that, while a decision had been reached in Rome about all other questions, and the commissioners had definite instructions from the Senate on all other matters, the question of Chalkis, Corinth and Demetrias had been left to their discretion on account of Antiochos, in order that with an eye to circumstances they should take any course on which they determined….Flamininus persuaded his colleagues to set Corinth free at once, handing it over to the Achaians, as had originally been agreed, while he remained in occupation of the Acrocorinth, Demetrias and Chalkis. (Polyb. 18.45.9–12) The question was, evidently, one of how best to deal with Antiochos. For some (led, one imagines, by the senior commissioner, P. Sulpicius Galba) it was to maintain military strongholds in Greece. For Flamininus it was to gain the goodwill of as many Greeks as possible by doing the opposite. Flamininus carried the day. At the Isthmian Games in the summer of 196, the Roman herald proclaimed that the Greeks of Greece who had been under Philip's control (they were named) would be free, free from garrison and tribute, and governed by their own laws. (The list included the Corinthians, the Euboians and the Magnesians of northern Greece, in whose territories lay the three fetters, Acrocorinth, Chalkis and Demetrias, which, in the event, the Romans held garrisoned for another two years, thereby adding further fuel to the Aitolians claims, which Flamininus was still trying to defuse in 194: Sherk, Documents 33; trans. BD 36, Sherk 4). The crowd received the announcement with thunderous enthusiasm. After the games the Roman commissioners turned to deal with envoys from Antiochos. The message was clear and its tone even clearer: Page 13 of 24

 

The Arrival of Rome They ordered him, as regards the cities of Asia, to keep his hands off those which were autonomous and make war on none of them and to withdraw from those previously subject to Ptolemy and Philip which he had recently taken. At the same time they enjoined him not to cross to Europe with an (p.35) army, for none of the Greeks were any longer being attacked by anyone or the subjects of anyone, and they announced in general terms that some of their body would come to see Antiochos. (Polyb. 18.47, trans. Paton). The meeting happened at Lysimacheia on the European side of the Hellespont (once a Seleukid possession and now recently reoccupied) later in the summer of 196. The Roman demands were repeated. Antiochos had answers to them. About the autonomous cities of Asia, Antiochos’ reply was that ‘it was not proper for them to receive their liberty by order of the Romans, but by his own gracious favour’ (Polyb. 18.51), which reflects and reveals very nicely an essential difference between the natures of Hellenistic monarchy and Roman imperium. The Romans went a step further in their challenge to Antiochos’ dominion and invited representatives from Smyrna and Lampsakos to submit their disputes with Antiochos to them. Antiochos suggested the Rhodians as arbitrators, and with that the meeting ended, but not the question of Smyrna and Lampsakos. The Lampsakenes had themselves already been in contact with Rome by way of an embassy in the winter of 197/6 (for all this SIG3 591; trans. BD 35, Sherk 5). Referring to their kinship with Rome, through association with Athena Ilias (on the importance of Troy in dealings between Greeks and Rome, Erskine 2001), they had sought from the Senate to be included in the peace that was being made with Philip. Significantly, the Senate had granted this and promised to protect them. Also significantly, the Lampsakene envoys, on their way to Rome, had approached (and gained promises of protection from) Roman officers in Greece, including Lucius Flamininus, in charge of the fleet, and a quaestor: the Lampsakenes approached high-ranking Romans as they would have approached high ranking courtiers of a hellenistic king. The Lampsakenes may be forgiven for dealing in the only way they knew. What the Roman officials thought they were doing is another question; the tendency of Roman officials to behave in such a plenipotentiary way would only increase. Flamininus and the Roman army remained in Greece. A reason for doing so was found in the occupation of Argos by Nabis of Sparta (erstwhile ally of the Romans), against whom Flamininus led his allies in a war of liberation. The business was soon accomplished, and by 194 Flamininus was travelling about Greece arranging things. An indication of Roman intentions may be found in his organization of Thessaly, where power was put in the hands of the wealthy (Livy 34.51, not the only indication of such Roman preference). In 194 he finally vacated the fetters and led the victorious forces back to Rome for a magnificent triumph. Even before Flamininus’ return Scipio Africanus had been (p.36) Page 14 of 24

 

The Arrival of Rome elected to the consulship as war with Antiochos was envisaged at Rome (Livy 34.53). Contact between Antiochos and Rome was renewed in the winter of 194/93 when the king sent an embassy seeking friendship and alliance, and thereby normalization of relations (Livy 34.57–9). The response was uncompromising: either Antiochos stayed out of Europe or the Romans would extend their connections with cities in Asia Minor. Antiochos’ envoys had the power to agree to nothing of the kind. The matter was postponed and the Senate dispatched an embassy to Antiochos. On the same occasion, one of Antiochos’ envoys laid before the Senate the request of Teos for recognition of its city and territory as inviolable (this had been sought from Greek states a dozen years before: Rigsby 1996: 280–325). The Roman reply of 193 is preserved on stone. The Teian request is granted, but in a particularly and revealingly Roman way, both in the special relationship to the gods that is claimed and, above all, in the conditional reference to the future at the end: …And that we continue always to value most highly reverence towards the gods one might best reckon from the favour with which we have for these reasons met from the supernatural. We are convinced, moreover, that the special honour we show to the divine has become thoroughly clear to all from many other things as well. Wherefore, for these reasons and on account of our good-will towards you and on account of the esteemed ambassador, it is our decision that your city and land are to be sacred, as is even now the case, and inviolable and free from tribute at the hands of the demos of the Romans, and we shall try to increase both the honours to the god and our kindnesses to you, so long as you maintain your good-will towards us even after this. (Sherk, Documents 34; trans. BD 39, Sherk 8) As well as meeting with Antiochos, the Roman envoys toured widely. They returned to Rome in the spring of 192 and reported that there was ‘no sufficiently ripe cause for war’ against anyone except Nabis of Sparta (Livy 35.22), who had occupied coastal towns in Lakonia in contravention of the Roman settlement. A force was dispatched against Nabis. The absence of a sufficiently ripe cause for war against Antiochos did not prevent the Romans from preparing for war against him. Both consuls of 192 had been held in readiness for that. An army and fleet were made ready for one of the consuls to be elected for 191, and in the summer of 192 a force under the praetor Baebius (whose province had been changed from Spain) was sent to mainland Greece (see Livy 35 for Roman dispositions during 192).

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The Arrival of Rome In the autumn of 192 two things happened almost simultaneously. Well into October Antiochos sailed with a small force to Demetrias. The (p.37) Aitolians, whose manoeuvres against Rome and (increasingly) in favour of Antiochos had continued (Badian 1959), had prepared the way, and a mission led by Flamininus to shore up support for Rome in Greece had failed in general, and in particular at Demetrias, where the people believed they were to be handed over to Philip in return for his support of Rome against Antiochos. In early November Rome declared war against Antiochos. (This happened at the beginning of the Roman consular year 191, but the Roman calendar was then seriously out of joint with the solar year: Derow 1973b, 1976, with the small caveat noted at Walbank 1979: vi (this volume, Chs. 10 and 11)) . The Roman declaration had nothing to do with Antiochos’ crossing: no connection is made between the two in Livy, and the chronology tells decisively against. Two quite separate questions are, accordingly, raised. One: why Antiochos crossed into Greece when and as he did; two: why Rome declared war against him. The answer to the question about Rome is, in general, quite clear. Even before the end of the war against Philip the Romans had had Antiochos in their sights. The dealings between the two have been characterized as a kind of ‘cold war’ (Badian 1959). It was more a matter of the Romans making a series of demands, with Antiochos trying to find ways of responding to them: this was not unlike the situation with Philip a few years before, when the Romans ordered him to make war on no Greeks, and the outcome could scarcely have been different. In detail, a question does remain. In the spring of 192 the Romans had found ‘no sufficiently ripe reason for war’ against Antiochos. When did they find one, and what was it? The answer to this may be found in the offer, made by Antiochos after the war had begun, to withdraw from the cities of Lampsakos, Smyrna, and Alexandreia Troas, ‘from which the war took its beginnings’ (Polyb. 21.13). Exactly what lies behind this is beyond recovery, but the implication is clear. And we know that the Senate had undertaken to protect Lampsakos at the time of the Lampsakene embassy of 197/6 (see above p. 35). Nothing similar is known for sure about the other two cities, but it is known that the inhabitants of Smyrna in 195 dedicated a sanctuary to the deified City of Rome (Tac. Ann. 4.56), perhaps in search of good-will and benefit, perhaps as a gesture of thanks for something. Most striking of all might be the form of the Roman declaration of war against Antiochos (Livy 36.1). It contains no reference to wrongs done by Antiochos, whether to the Romans or to their allies, and in this respect it is unique amongst surviving Roman declarations of war. The people were asked simply whether they wished to declare war against Antiochos and those who followed him. This was a war for conquest outright, perhaps indeed the only one of its kind during this period. (p.38) Antiochos’ conduct late in 192 may be seen in general as a response to the determined pressure of Rome in the preceding years, expressed in a series of orders. In particular there were dealings (of which we have not the details) to do Page 16 of 24

 

The Arrival of Rome with Lampsakos, Smyrna and Alexandreia Troas, and a Roman force had entered mainland Greece in the summer. When the Aitolians invited Antiochos to Demetrias, the point had come where he had to respond. That he had not been planning this is indicated by the evident insufficiency of the force with which he crossed. This must indicate also that he hoped to find widespread antipathy towards Rome in Greece and correspondingly widespread support for himself. One of the most interesting things in the whole affair is that it seems at least part of his hope was by no means unfounded. Polybios reports that when the Achaians declared war on Antiochos four months before the Roman crossing into Greece in early spring 191—around the time of Antiochos’ crossing, that is— nearly all the other Greeks were alienated from the Romans (39.6). Even allowing for some exaggeration on Polybios’ part (but there is no evidence to suggest such), this is a strong statement. Apparently the enthusiasm so loudly voiced at the Isthmian Games in 196 had over the next four years largely evaporated in Greece. It is difficult, if not impossible, to trace this development in detail, but one must conclude in general that the freedom the Greeks believed they were getting was different from the freedom the Romans believed they were bestowing. That disaffection from Rome did not translate into support for Antiochos and his Aitolian allies is less of a surprise. In the case of Epeiros the reason is known. They would be the first to receive the Roman onslaught, and, as such they would not join unless substantial military protection were provided for them, and Antiochos, who had crossed with a small force, was in no position to do this (Polyb. 20.3). In some other places, for example in Boiotia and Thessaly (see above), one may imagine that those whom the Romans had helped into power were glad of their situation and accordingly desirous of maintaining the authority of their benefactors. The war itself was not a long affair. The Romans were quick off the mark. Their fleet was in the Aegean in time to intercept Antiochos’ transports early in 191. Antiochos himself was defeated in battle at Thermopylai by the army that arrived, also early in the year, under M’. Acilius Glabrio, consul of 191. He retreated to Asia Minor whither he was followed and then defeated again at Magnesia-by-Sipylos by the Romans under L. Cornelius Scipio (Africanus’ brother, consul of 190, who took the cognomen Asiaticus) in January 189. The Aitolians were reduced in 189 by M. Fulvius Nobilior, consul. They were obliged by treaty to swear to uphold the majesty and imperium of the Roman people (p. 39) and to pay an indemnity of 500 talents, sufficient to bankrupt them. Antiochos was obliged to cede all his territory to the west of the Tauros mountains and to pay an indemnity of 15,000 talents, 3000 at once with the rest to be paid in annual instalments: this was the most profitable war the Romans had ever fought, and the indemnity from Antiochos may reasonably be judged to have altered forever the nature of Rome's public economy. By the settlement known as the Peace of Apameia the Romans organized the Greek East as they saw fit. It had not been a war fought alongside allies, but those who had Page 17 of 24

 

The Arrival of Rome supported Rome were rewarded, most notably Eumenes of Pergamon and the Rhodians in Asia Minor. But all the rewards were precarious, wholly dependent upon continuing support of Rome's dominion. In the space of twelve years (200–188) the Romans had reduced the two greatest survivors of Alexander the Great's empire, the Macedonian and Seleukid kingdoms. In doing so they established in their place, throughout the Greek world, the dominion of Rome. For Polybios this was not established until 167 and the end of the Macedonian monarchy. He had his own reasons for choosing this date (cf. Walbank 1994), and there is a formal sense in which the dominion of Rome could not replace that of Macedon whilst the kingdom of Macedon still existed. But in practical terms, as the sequel shows, the point had effectively been reached where, as Polybios put it (3.4), there was nothing left but ‘to give heed to the Romans and obey them in their orders’. Roman supremacy is revealingly recognized by Eumenes. In granting a request made to him by the inhabitants of Tyriaion in rural southeastern Phrygia he wrote, not long after 188: ‘any (favour) bestowed on you by me at this moment would be durable, since I have full authority by virtue of having received it from the Romans who gained power both by war and by treaty’ (Jonnes and Ricl 1997). That Rome's authority was to be uniquely supreme was also the Roman view.

4. The Beginning of Roman Rule The post-Apameia era began as it was to continue for some time, with numerous embassies from the Greek world to Rome, as individuals and groups sought Roman support for their own purposes. Rome was, and was perceived as, the sole arbiter of affairs. They were the ‘cops of the world’ (Ochs 1966). Many were there in the spring of 187. More than ever before were there in the spring of 183, as the situation became ever clearer. Amongst the most enthusiastic were Eumenes, who came to (p.40) denounce Philip for taking possession of some Thracian cities, and a group of Spartans, who came to protest about Achaian treatment of Sparta (which had been brought into the Achaian League in 192). In both cases the Senate took cognizance of the complaints. In the case of Macedon, this was the beginning of a period of pressure by Rome upon Philip which resulted, according to Polybios, in the decision of that king to formulate plans of military resistance to Rome. This was, perhaps, not surprising. Rome's war against Philip had been ended when conflict with Antiochos was already envisaged and with that conflict in mind; as it drew nearer, concessions had been made to Philip to keep him on side. But the Romans were ever slow to forgive. At the same time, Eumenes had established himself as the most reliable king in the east. If the Roman decision to lend support in the case of the discontented group at Sparta is more surprising, it is also the more revealing. The Achaians had recently been the most reliable state in Greece, but in accepting the appeal from some Spartans, the Senate effectively condoned a breach in the constitution of the League: dealings with foreign states were the province of the League, and not of individual cities within it, let alone of groups Page 18 of 24

 

The Arrival of Rome of individuals within the cities. The effect, inevitably, was to foster dissension, and the possibility of fragmentation, within the Peloponnese and within the League. Whether the Romans intended to do this is another question. Probably not. The power of Rome to decide things had been won by war and by treaty, as Eumenes put it. Roman policy consisted in the exercise of that power; there was little need to manipulate people. By seeking the support or approval of Rome, people manipulated and weakened themselves and thereby affirmed that power. The Roman response to the Spartans’ démarche is perhaps the sort of thing Polybios had in mind when he said, writing of a later time and context but with reference to the period before 168, that ‘measures of this kind are very frequent among the Romans, by which they avail themselves with profound policy of the mistakes of others to augment and strengthen their own empire, under the guise of granting favours and benefiting those who commit the errors’ (31.10.7, trans. Shuckburgh; cf. Derow 1979: 14 (this volume, Ch. 5, 152) n. 39). This more (or less) cynical view also has its place in the interpretation of the years after Apameia. There were still in Achaia in the 180s those who believed (or hoped) that it was still possible to deal with the Romans on a basis of isologia, on the basis, that is, that genuine dialogue was possible, that the laws and institutions of the Achaians could carry weight against the force of Roman orders, that expressions of Roman power could be attenuated by reasoned argument. They were deceived in their belief (or hope). Whilst the question of Sparta was still unsettled, Messene revolted from (p.41) the Achaian League. The Achaians sought Roman support. Rome's temporizing response ‘made it entirely clear to everyone that so far from shirking and not caring about the less important items of foreign affairs, they were displeased if all matters were not referred to them and if everything was not done in accordance with their decision’ (Polyb. 23.17). In the end, the Achaians dealt successfully with both Sparta and Messene. An embassy was sent to Rome to report this. One of the Achaian envoys, Kallikrates of Leontion, told the Senate that in all the democratic states of Greece there were two groups, one which advocated adherence to Roman orders at the expense of local institutions and one which did not. The latter were more popular with the population at large; if the Romans wanted their orders obeyed, they must support those who promised obedience. Polybios reckoned that it was ‘now for the first time that the Senate adopted the aim of weakening those members of the several states who worked for the best, and of strengthening those who, rightly or wrongly, appealed to its authority’ (24.10). But this had been the Roman way for some time: Kallikrates was not responsible for a change in Roman policy, although he was responsible for denouncing Polybios as insufficiently pro-Roman after the war against Perseus and thereby securing the latter's deportation to Rome. Kallikrates himself, armed with Rome's approbation, returned to be elected to the chief magistracy of the Achaian League. Page 19 of 24

 

The Arrival of Rome It might have gone on that way for some time, with the combination of Roman orders and Rome's adherents gradually eroding Greek independence, but the situation was significantly altered in 179 with the death of Philip V and the accession of his son Perseus. Philip's other son, Demetrios, had fallen prey to the blandishments of Romans who wished to see him succeed to the Macedonian throne in preference to Perseus and victim at home to what was effectively a charge of treason; his father was obliged to order his execution. Perseus began his reign by renewing Macedon's alliance with Rome and by seeking favour in Greece at large. In the latter, which amounted to a resuscitation of the good name and repute of Macedon, he was remarkably successful. Alliances and connections were formed or renewed, with Prousias, with Seleukos, with Delphi and with Rhodes. Early in his reign, his half-sister married Prousias II, and he himself married Laodike, daughter of Seleukos IV; at Delphi, ‘liberated’ from Aitolian control by the Romans in 191 and since then the preserve of proRomans, he regained two Macedonian votes in the Delphic Amphiktyony; in return for a gift of timber, the Rhodians escorted Perseus’ Seleukid bride to Macedon. Rome noticed. In 178 an appeal from the Lykians against Rhodes met with favour at Rome. By the settlement of 188 the Lykians had been given over to the Rhodians; now (p.42) the Romans, apprised of the Rhodian escort and rapprochement with Perseus, decided that that had not been the case. Perseus himself did nothing hostile towards Rome. He did not need to: his growing influence and popularity amongst Greeks (he very nearly succeeded in normalizing relations with the Achaians, but Kallikrates persuaded them that that would be against the wishes of Rome and thereby carried the day) meant that he was an alternative focus for Greek political attention. The nature of Rome's dominion was such as not to allow any alternative focuses. In Greece and areas adjacent the growth of Perseus’ popularity and influence was matched by diminution in that of Eumenes, who had based his authority upon Roman supremacy. In 172 Eumenes went to Rome and denounced Perseus (whilst noting his success at winning support amongst the Greeks at the expense of Rome) at length. For the Romans that was enough, particularly in a time of unrest, which the 170s in Greece certainly were (problems of debt and the threat of civil war arising therefrom were especially rife in Aitolia, Thessaly and the north). Preparations for the war began, and an embassy went to Greece, led by Q. Marcius Philippus. Philippus tricked Perseus into accepting the possibility that peace with Rome was still possible (he prided himself upon this trickery on this return to Rome; most approved) and did what he could to disarm support for Perseus (notably in Boiotia, where he secured the dissolution of the Boiotian League). The possibility of peace was illusory. The consul entrusted with the war against Perseus reached Greece in 171 even earlier in the year than had been managed in 191. The Roman accusations against Perseus were inscribed at Delphi, presumably at the same time (SIG3 643; trans. Sherk 19; BD 44). These latter were effectively a repetition of the list of allegations that Eumenes had Page 20 of 24

 

The Arrival of Rome brought to Rome in 172. Amongst them was the accusation that Perseus was fomenting social revolutions (neoterismoi) in the states of Greece. Rome is defending an order of things. The freedom of the Greeks was no longer an issue, even in the propaganda. Nor were alliances. This was a Roman war, and the Romans chose to fight it without military allies: offers of assistance were declined. Early in the war Perseus defeated the Romans in a cavalry engagement. Though of no special military moment, it evoked a groundswell of support across Greece for the king (Polyb. 27.9–10: Polybios does his best to persuade that this did not betoken real affection for Perseus, or hostility to Rome, on the part of the rank and file; one may wonder if he intended his defence of the Greeks as much for a contemporary audience as for a more distant posterity). The early years of the war were marked more by the indiscipline and rapacity of the Romans, troops and generals alike, than by military success. Order was restored in 168 when (p.43) L. Aemilius Paullus (consul in 182 and now again) took command, and the inevitable triumph of Italian manpower came at the battle of Pydna in June 168. The Illyrian King Genthios, who had allied himself to Perseus, was defeated in the same year after a very short campaign. The military challenge to Rome's control was at an end. Unencumbered by obligations, the Romans proceeded to the settlement of Greece. Something is known of the arrangement of affairs in Achaia, Aitolia and Epeiros: During the year before the battle the Achaeans and Aetolians had been treated with circumspection and a measure of indulgence. During the year following it Roman ambassadors visited the Achaeans again. This time they informed them that one thousand individuals (among them Polybios), whose loyalty had become suspect, were to be deported to Italy. This list was drawn up by Callicrates and those of his party. This was harsh, but gentle when compared to the handling of Aetolia, where 550 leading men were murdered while Roman soldiers surrounded the council-chamber and others driven into exile (Livy 45.28.7). A fate even more special was reserved for Epirus, particularly for the Molossians, who had taken the side of Perseus during the war and from among whom had originated the plot to kidnap the consul Hostilius in 170. After the laxity of the earlier years of the war the Roman army had had discipline imposed upon it. The patience of the soldiers was rewarded when Aemilius Paullus led them home in 167. In accordance with a decree of the Senate seventy towns of Epirus (mostly Molossian) were given to them to plunder. One hundred and fifty thousand people were said to have been sold into slavery as a result of Paullus’ march to the sea (Polyb. 30.15)…. In these and the other states of mainland Greece the ascendancy of the pro-Romans was assured by

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The Arrival of Rome deportations, bloodbaths and fear. For the moment, however, the states remained intact. (Derow, this volume, Ch. 2, 76–7) The warring kingdoms were dismembered. Macedon was divided into four rigorously separate states and Illyria into three. In both cases these states were to pay to Rome as tribute half what had been paid as taxes to their kings. This was, on the one hand, the available alternative to an indemnity; it was also an enduring sign of subject status. So was Roman dominion in Greece insisted upon and re-established. Differently striking, and certainly portentous, was the Roman treatment of Rhodes and Eumenes. Rhodes had not supported Perseus in the war, or opposed Rome, but it was home to a significant pro-Macedonian faction. In 169 Q. Marcius Philippus tricked the Rhodians into thinking that Rome would welcome an attempt to mediate an end to the Macedonian war. The mediation came in June 168 and was, of course, far from welcome. Delos was declared a free port, a very damaging blow indeed to (p.44) the Rhodian economy which was so dependent upon harbour taxes. It might have been worse: there were those at Rome who wanted war against Rhodes. This was successfully opposed by, amongst others, Cato the Elder, who had a very clear notion of why the Rhodians had acted as they did and of what it was all about (his words preserved by Aulus Gellius 6.4.16): And I really think that the Rhodians did not wish us to end the war as we did, with a victory over king Perseus. But it was not the Rhodians alone who had that feeling, but I believe that many peoples and many nations agreed with them. And I am inclined to think that some of them did not wish us success, not in order that we might be disgraced, but because they feared that if there were no one of whom we stood in dread, we should do whatsoever we chose. I think, then, that it was with an eye to their own freedom that they held that opinion, in order not to be under our sole dominion and enslaved to us. Eumenes, who had done more than anyone to help Rome into the war against Perseus was rejected outright by the Romans as soon as it was over. When he arrived in Italy on his way to Rome to offer his congratulations, he was ordered to depart the country forthwith. It was said that he had sought to make common cause with Perseus against Rome. This seems scarcely credible. But, if it was not that, what was his crime? Perhaps there did not have to be one. With Macedon gone, Eumenes’ Pergamon was the most influential (and popular) Greek player left on the Greek stage: exactly what Eumenes had wanted, exactly what the Romans did not. Returning to Greece after his dismissal from Italy, Eumenes was met by a delegation from the Ionian League, who presented him with a very Page 22 of 24

 

The Arrival of Rome honorific decree indeed which praised him as ‘common benefactor of the Greeks’ and bestowed great and public honours upon him (known from Eumenes’ letter accepting the honours, OGIS 763; trans. BD 47): this was surely seen as unwelcome competition, whether or not it was intended as such (on the idea of Romans as common benefactors, Erskine 1994). Roman policy towards Pergamon in the years following continued in the same vein and did much to humble and destabilize that kingdom. Polybios remarks that ‘the harsher the conduct of the Romans to Eumenes the more attached to him did the Greeks become’ (31.6.6). A sure sign of things to come. Pergamon was bullied into trepid docility (see Welles, Royal Correspondence 61; BD 50; Sherk 29), but others would not be, not in Greece in 146, not in Asia in 88. (p.45)

Further Reading The first port of call for an extended narrative of this period is Cambridge Ancient History VIII (2nd edition, 1989; with references and extensive bibliography). The chapters by Holleaux in the first edition of volumes VII (1928) and VIII (1930) remain unsurpassed for elegance (the original French versions, even more elegant, may be found in Holleaux 1952 and 1957), even if the necessity to disagree frequently imposes itself. As indeed it does with Holleaux 1921, with which modern study of Roman expansion in the Greek world may be reckoned to have begun and which should still constitute essential reading. Two monumental monographs on the subject appeared in the 1980s, Gruen 1984 and Ferrary 1988. Both are essential reading (and contain full bibliographies). The former is deservedly the most influential book on the subject to have appeared since Holleaux 1921 and the one with which there is perhaps most disagreement in the preceding pages; the world around the historian changes. Prior to those, and reacted to by those but still rightly influential, are Badian 1958 and W. Harris 1979, who did so much to define basic questions still under discussion: as it has been put, with some risk of oversimplification, ‘Badian's Romans like clients / they're not very big on alliance / for Harris they're mean / and psychotically keen / on glory, on war, and on triumphs’. But at the base of it all lie above all the incomparable Polybios of Megalopolis, Livy of Patavium, and the evidence of inscriptions; the full incorporation of the last into the story has still some way to go. Most of the lines of narrative and interpretation, not separable things, in the preceding pages have been put forward or adumbrated in Derow 1970, 1973a, 1979, 1984, 1989, 1990, 1991 (apart from Derow 1984 and 1990 these are all included in this volume, Chs. 2, 5, 6, 7 and 13). In addition to the items cited in these pages, a few further suggestions for reading can be made: Briscoe 1973, 1981, Freeman 1893, de Ste. Croix 1981, Walbank 1944, and Dao 2002, the last a very recent and resonant reminder of the interest of this period of history, and of the importance of studying it, for the world of today. There are a number of less recent works in both categories; they exemplify precision and elegance of thought and expression and illustrate the importance of passion for

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The Arrival of Rome the writing of history. All the more modern books referred to contain hugely useful bibliographies amongst much else. (p.46)

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Rome, the Fall of Macedon and the Sack of Corinth

Rome, Polybius, and the East The late Peter Derow, Andrew Erskine, and Josephine Crawley Quinn

Print publication date: 2014 Print ISBN-13: 9780199640904 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199640904.001.0001

Rome, the Fall of Macedon and the Sack of Corinth Peter Derow Andrew Erskine Josephine Crawley Quinn

DOI:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199640904.003.0003

Abstract and Keywords This chapter examines the nature of the Roman settlement of Greece in 167 BC which abolished the kingdom of Macedonia by focusing on the defeat of Antiochus and the Peace of Apamea (188). It first looks at the alliance between Rome and Philip of Macedon in the war against Antiochus before turning to Perseus and his concerted effort to re-establish relations with the Achaean League. It then considers the fall of Macedon and the sack of Corinth, along with their impact on Greece. Keywords:   war, Greece, Antiochus, Peace of Apamea, Rome, Philip of Macedon, Perseus, Achaean League, Macedon, Corinth

I. Rome, Philip and the Greeks after Apamea It is only with the defeat of Antiochus and the Peace of Apamea (188) that the nature of the Roman settlement of Greece can begin to be discerned.1 Roman troops did not leave Greece for two years after the (p.48) Isthmian proclamation of 196, and it was two years after that that Antiochus sailed into Demetrias. Even in 196 the Aetolians had claimed that the Roman victory over Philip would bring the Greeks not liberation but only a change of master. This belief brought them to war. They lost and surrendered to the victors both their liberty and more money than their nation could afford. The Greeks had not believed their claim, and the Aetolians and their eastern ally were insufficient to

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Rome, the Fall of Macedon and the Sack of Corinth the task. In a sense their claim was wrong. The Greeks found in Rome a master such as Philip had never come near to being, stronger and more deleterious. Troubles began in Achaea and Boeotia very early on and, in both cases, have their roots in the 190s. In 192 Sparta had joined the Achaean League, not by unanimous agreement. Late in 189, with others in power, Sparta sought to secede. The Spartans invoked the Romans but received from them no clear support, and in spring 188 Philopoemen brought them back into the League.2 Some at Sparta, who disapproved of the Achaean settlement, complained to the Senate. This elicited a letter to the Achaeans from the consul of 187, M. Aemilius Lepidus, communicating the Roman judgement that the Spartan affair had not been correctly handled. No details were added, and the matter was not pressed. What is important is the fact that the Senate took cognizance of these Spartan démarches at all. Foreign affairs were properly the province of the League, not of individual cities.3 In accepting an embassy from Sparta or some disgruntled Spartans, the Senate implicitly condoned a breach in the laws of the Achaean League. At the time of the first Spartan appeal to Rome the issue had been correctly drawn: Diophanes of Megalopolis desired to entrust settlement of the dispute entirely to Rome whilst Lycortas, following the precepts of Philopoemen, maintained that the Achaeans should be allowed to carry on their own affairs in accordance with their own laws and that the Romans, authors of their liberty, should support them in this.4 The argument, in one form or another, went on for more than forty years. In Boeotia occurred an analogous business, with the added ingredient that the policy of an individual and influential Roman was at issue. Flamininus had for some time been seeking to bring about the return to Boeotia of the exiled Zeuxippus (in whose interest he had earlier (p.49) complied in the murder of Brachylles).5 The Senate was persuaded to instruct the Boeotians to restore Zeuxippus. The Boeotians, fearful of effecting a rupture in their friendly relations with Macedon, declined and sent an embassy to Rome, where Zeuxippus represented himself. The Senate wrote to the Aetolians and Achaeans, complaining about the Boeotians and bidding them to see to the restoration of Zeuxippus. The Achaeans, eschewing force, tried to persuade the Boeotians to obey. The latter promised but did not carry through. There the issue was dropped. On Polybius’ analysis, war would have broken out had the Senate then chosen to force the issue (XXII.4.16). Zeuxippus was not restored, but the Roman intervention was not without other effect. It tipped the balance (for the time at least) in favour of the wealthy in their conflict with the poor, and it showed Roman willingness to support their friends in internal disputes.6 The lines are visible here. There are Rome's friends, there are Macedon's friends; there are wealthy, there are poor. Two pairs, or is it one? Polybius does not say that the Senate aimed to support the wealthy; but that is the way it turned out.

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Rome, the Fall of Macedon and the Sack of Corinth The Spartans had shown the way, and it soon became clear that the Senate was interested in the affairs of Greece and was unlikely to turn a deaf ear to appeals or complaints laid before it. Philip of Macedon had joined Rome as an ally in the war against Antiochus, partly because it had been made clear that there was no other course for him to follow, and partly because he saw therein the possibility of tangible extension of his influence in the north.7 During the war he had taken control of towns in Thrace, Thessaly, Perrhaebia and Athamania. Clearly he felt entitled to do so. To just what extent he had been encouraged in this belief by the Roman generals in the field (as the Aetolians evidently had been early in the war against Philip) is not easy to say,8 but whatever the case, the reception of appeals at Rome left no doubt that he was mistaken. These came from the peoples directly involved and from King Eumenes of Pergamum. (p.50) In the Thracian cities at least there was factional strife, one side favouring (and being favoured by) Philip, the other Eumenes. The latter's supporters had appealed to him, and it was his envoys who laid their case before the Senate. Philip himself sent ambassadors to Rome to defend himself against his accusers. The scene was one that would repeat itself many times over, with these and other characters, and so was the Senate's response. After lengthy discussions in 185 a commission, led by Q. Caecilius Metellus, was sent to investigate ‘and to provide safe conduct to those who wished to state their case in person and to accuse the king’ (Polyb. XXII.6.5). The role played here by the king of Pergamum and the invited accusers looks back as well: to the meeting between the Romans and Antiochus at Lysimacheia in 196. The non-Thracian cases were heard at Tempe, with Metellus and the Roman envoys sitting as arbitrators between accusers and accused (Livy XXXIX.25.1). Philip was ordered to withdraw from all the cities in question: his kingdom was to be reduced to the ancient boundaries of Macedonia (Livy XXXIX.26.14). Metellus went on to Thessalonica where the question of the Thracian cities, above all Aenus and Maronea, was considered. Eumenes’ envoys said the cities should either be completely free or, if given to anyone, then to him. Philip's claim was that they belonged to him as prizes of an ally in the war. Here the Roman envoys could not decide: if the ten commissioners settling Asia had assigned them to Eumenes, then that would hold; if Philip had captured them in war then he should hold them as the prize of victory; if neither of these was true, decision should be reserved to the Senate, Philip in the meanwhile withdrawing his garrisons. Envoys from Philip and Eumenes, as well as the exiles from Aenus and Maronea, went to Rome and put before the Senate the same arguments they had put before Caecilius. The Senate evinced neither doubt nor hesitation. Not only was Philip to withdraw from the cities in Thessaly, Perrhaebia and Athamania, he was also to withdraw from Aenus and Maronea and in general to quit all forts, territories and cities on the coast of Thrace. Such scruples as Metellus and his colleagues had had were overridden, and Philip's loss was complete. A new commission, led by Appius Claudius,9 was despatched in 184 to check on Philip's compliance with Metellus’ Page 3 of 34

 

Rome, the Fall of Macedon and the Sack of Corinth directive and to convey the new orders formally. Philip heard of these first when his own envoys returned from Rome. The evacuation of Aenus and Maronea was begun straightaway and was accompanied by a massacre of Philip's (p.51) opponents at Maronea. Before Appius Claudius, he sought to blame this upon the factional split at Maronea, but the Senate's envoys would hear no defence. They left after condemning the king for his behaviour towards Maronea and, more significantly, for his ‘estrangement’ towards the Romans.10 There is little doubt that the massacre at Maronea was Philip's doing. There is equally little doubt that all the Roman decisions went against him not because of the justice of the opposing cases, but out of a desire to reduce the extent of his control and influence by ordering him to step back. So it had been with Carthage and Antiochus. So it had been with Philip himself a scant decade and a half before. Philip reacted strongly, but not openly. He wished to put himself in a position from which he could resist Roman orders. This required preparation and time. To gain it he sent to Rome as his advocate and defender his son Demetrius, who had won friends, favour and a kind of influence whilst serving as a hostage of his father's good behaviour during the war against Antiochus. This part of Philip's plan was to misfire disastrously. Such, at least, was Philip's ultimate aim according to Polybius, who saw Philip's desire to defend himself against such treatment by Rome as leading directly to preparations for war, a war conceived and discussed by the king in secret colloquy with his friends and advisers on the morrow of Appius Claudius’ visit.11 This war that Philip planned was, again on Polybius’ view (XXII.18.10), the war that Perseus undertook. It will be seen later that Rome's war against Perseus has its own explanation, but this does not affect anything Polybius says about Rome's treatment of Philip or about Philip's reaction to that treatment. For the moment, Philip achieved the respite he wanted, and in 183 a Roman embassy led by Q. Marcius Philippus saw the king withdraw from all his Thracian holdings. There had been further complaints, but they did not lead to further Roman orders. For this Demetrius was at least in part responsible. His success, however, owed itself far less to his diplomatic (p.52) ability than to the fact that Flamininus and others saw in him a congenial successor to the Macedonian throne, a role in which Demetrius was not unwilling to see himself cast. The young prince's part in bringing about an improvement in Roman–Macedonian relations was accordingly exaggerated and great favour shown him. The effect of this upon Perseus, the heir apparent, and upon Philip himself was inevitable. Demetrius returned to Macedon in 183, and his evident popularity at Rome brought him a kind of popularity at home. All this immediately aroused fears in Perseus about the succession and concern in Philip that Demetrius was thinking too much about his Roman connections. Suspicion, fuelled by Perseus, continued unabated, and in 180 Philip finally arranged the murder of what he was convinced was, actually or potentially, a dangerously disloyal son. That he was right about Demetrius seems clear.12 It is, however, hard to say whether there Page 4 of 34

 

Rome, the Fall of Macedon and the Sack of Corinth were those at Rome who believed that the succession of Demetrius (and supersession of Perseus) could actually be secured, or whether by showing such favour to him they sought to create dissension and the weakness to which this would give rise. Rome's handling of affairs in the Peloponnese during these years was less overbearing, but handling it none the less was, and not without similarity to what was being done in Macedon. All the Roman envoys to Philip visited the Achaeans also. The question of Sparta's position vis-à-vis the Achaean League appeared to have been left in the hands of the Achaeans after the caution administered through the consul Lepidus in the winter of 188/7. But in the summer of 185, Q. Caecilius, returning from his mission to Philip, arrived at Argos where the Nemean festival was being celebrated. Aristaenus, then general, called the magistrates of the League together, and Metellus castigated the Achaeans for their harsh treatment of the Spartans. How Metellus came to be there is a question of some importance. There is no record that his brief included anything other than Macedonian affairs. According to the account in Pausanias (VII.8.6, 9.1), he had been approached by some disaffected Spartans and persuaded by them to intervene. Polybius (XXII.10.14) reports the suspicion in Achaea that Aristaenus and Diophanes were responsible for his presence. The two accounts are not incompatible with one another. They (p.53) are, however, incompatible with the view that Metellus had been formally instructed to discuss the Spartan question with the Achaeans. In the event, Aristaenus did not defend the League's conduct, thereby indicating, as Polybius saw it (XXII.10.3), his agreement with Metellus. Diophanes went a step further and suggested to Metellus that the Achaeans were guilty of mismanagement not only in the case of Sparta but in that of Messene as well. Lycortas and Archon defended the status quo, and after discussion this view was adopted by the magistrates and communicated to Metellus. The latter, having sensed support, was not satisfied with this and requested that a meeting of the League assembly be summoned. He was asked to produce his instructions from the Senate on the matter, but had none, and his request was accordingly refused.13 Metellus, in turn, thoroughly vexed at having had nothing granted to him, refused to receive formally the reply of the magistrates and went back to Rome without one. He was followed there by a delegation from the Spartan dissidents, led by Areus and Alcibiades (former exiles who had been restored to Sparta by the Achaeans), and by one from the Achaean League, sent to offer a defence against Metellus’ hostile report. The Spartan question was referred to the embassy led by Ap. Claudius, to be dealt with after their visit to Macedonia and Thrace, and the Achaeans were in the meanwhile urged to treat Roman envoys with the same attention and respect accorded to Achaean envoys in Rome. The Achaeans forbore to say that this was what they had done.

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Rome, the Fall of Macedon and the Sack of Corinth At Cleitor in Arcadia in 184 Ap. Claudius sat as judge between the Achaean League and the dissident Spartans. Lycortas, as general, defended Achaean conduct eloquently (perhaps too eloquently in Livy's fine version of his speech at XXXIX.37.9–18) and pleaded the sanctity of the League's formal resolutions. Ap. Claudius ‘advised the Achaeans to come to terms while it was still possible to do so of their own (p.54) free will, lest presently they be forced to take the same action against their will and under compulsion’ (XXXIX.37.19). Lycortas then asked that the Romans change what they would have changed and not require the Achaeans to abrogate laws they had sworn to uphold. On this note the outstanding questions were referred to the Senate for decision. In the winter of 184/3 no fewer than four groups of contending Spartans appeared in Rome. The Senate appointed a commission of three to untangle the disputes and reach decisions agreeable to all. These were Flamininus, Q. Caecilius Metellus and Ap. Claudius. A large measure of agreement was reached between the Romans and the dissident Spartans, and seals were set to the decisions that Lycortas had asked the Romans to take. Achaean envoys had been sent to Rome at the time, not to participate in these discussions (in which, consistent with League policy, they indeed took no part), but to renew the League's alliance with Rome and to watch the outcome of the various Spartan demands. Flamininus invited them to sign the agreement that had been reached. They hesitated, for it involved the repeal of some Achaean sentences of exile and death. In the end they signed, pleased that it was specified that Sparta was to remain in the League. A great deal had been at stake. The Peloponnese was added to the Macedonian and Thracian itinerary of Q. Marcius Philippus and his embassy of 183 with, presumably, instructions to communicate formally the Senate's decisions to the Achaean League and to see to their implementation. In the meanwhile the discontent in Messene which Diophanes had brought to the attention of Q. Metellus was quickening. Amongst those who wished to detach Messene from the Achaean League was Deinocrates. In the winter of 184/3 he was in Rome seeking, by what means it is not clear, to bring about a change in the situation of Messene. When he learned that Flamininus, whom he had come to know well during the war against Nabis, had been appointed as an ambassador to King Prusias of Bithynia, he immediately reckoned that a Peloponnesian intervention by Flamininus would do best to guarantee his success. Flamininus attempted to oblige. He stopped at Naupactus on his journey east in 183 and wrote to the Achaean magistrates, ordering them to summon a meeting of the assembly. They replied by asking what precisely were his instructions on the matter. He had more sense than to press the attempt any further, and Deinocrates’ hopes were dashed. Yet the Messenians cannot but have inferred that there was sympathy for their cause at Rome, feeling against the Achaeans, and they would not have been mistaken.

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Rome, the Fall of Macedon and the Sack of Corinth Messene had probably seceded from the Achaean League by the time of Flamininus’ démarche, or it may be that the revolt began in earnest (p.55) after his failure. It was round the time of Q. Marcius Philippus’ arrival in the Peloponnese that the Achaeans formally declared war against Messene. Philippus’ behaviour in these circumstances is not known in any detail, but it can safely be inferred that he tried to persuade the Achaeans to refer the matter to Rome rather than deal with it themselves. That is certainly the direction of his message to the Senate at the conclusion of his embassy (Polyb. XXIII.9.8). At the time he reported, there was an Achaean embassy in Rome seeking Roman support against the rebels in accordance with the treaty of alliance that bound Rome and Achaea.14 Philippus favoured a different sort of policy; and his was adopted. Clear in its intent, it was not in the spirit (or even the letter) of the alliance. Philippus ‘had reported that as the Achaeans did not wish to refer anything to the Senate, but had a great opinion of themselves and were attempting to manage everything on their own, if the Senate paid no attention to their request for the moment and expressed their displeasure in moderate terms, Sparta and Messene would soon see eye to eye, upon which (he said) the Achaeans would be only too glad to come running for help to the Romans’ (Polyb. XXIII.9.8–11). Sparta, not yet fully settled, was kept that way. To the Spartan envoy in Rome the Senate replied, ‘as they wished the city to remain in suspense, that they had done all in their power for the Spartans, but at present they did not think that the matter concerned them’ (XXIII.9.11). To the Achaeans’ request that the terms of the alliance be observed the Senate answered ‘that not even if the people of Sparta, Corinth or Argos revolted from the League should the Achaeans be surprised if the Senate did not think it concerned them. And publicizing this reply, which was a sort of proclamation to those who wished to secede from the League that they could do so so far as the Romans were concerned, they continued to detain the envoys, waiting to see how the Achaeans would get on with Messene’ (XXIII.9.13–14). The Achaeans, contrary to the hopes of at least some Romans, got on well in their handling of the revolt. The war cost them Philopoemen, but Lycortas carried through to victory and in 182 Messene was restored to its original position in the League. Upon hearing of this, the Senate, ‘entirely ignoring their previous answer, gave another reply to the same (p.56) envoys, informing them that they had seen to it that no one should import arms and corn from Italy to Messene’ (Polyb. XXIII.17.3). No doubt the Senate had maintained the letter of the alliance while trying at the same time seriously to weaken the Achaeans. The implication of their conduct, however, is clear, and it was not lost on Polybius. ‘This’, he writes, ‘made it entirely clear to everyone that so far from shirking and not caring about the less important items of foreign affairs, they were displeased if all matters were not referred to them and if everything was not done in accordance with their decision’ (XXIII. 17.4). Philippus’ ploy achieved some success in that Sparta does seem to have seceded from the Achaean League Page 7 of 34

 

Rome, the Fall of Macedon and the Sack of Corinth while Messene was in revolt. There too, however, the Achaean cause prevailed, more peacefully by the look of it. Pro-Achaeans gained control and the Achaeans, taking Rome's expression of lack of interest seriously (or at least making use of it) admitted Sparta back into the League. An embassy from the Achaeans went to Rome to inform the Senate about Messene and Sparta. Those in Sparta who would have had things otherwise also sent envoys, as did the exiles who had not been taken back and whose part had been taken by Diophanes and some others. Once again official and unofficial legations were received alike. About Messene the Senate expressed no displeasure. The Spartan exiles, however, brought back with them a letter in which the Senate showed itself in favour of their restoration. The Achaean envoy who had been in Rome explained that the Senate had written on behalf of the exiles not out of genuine concern but because of the insistence of the exiles in presenting their case. It was decided to believe this, and no action was taken. There the matter might have stood, but when Hyperbatus became general (for 181/80), he raised the question of how the Senate's letter should be dealt with. Lycortas advised no action, arguing that the Romans would understand the importance of not violating laws and oaths. The opposite viewpoint was advocated by Hyperbatus and Callicrates. It was a strong line. They urged the Achaeans to obey the written order and not to reckon law, stele or anything else more important than this obedience. A majority evidently favoured the policy of Lycortas, and an embassy was sent to Rome to put his case before the Senate. The envoys were Callicrates, Lydiadas and the young Aratus. On Polybius’ account (and there is no other), Callicrates no sooner entered the Senate-house than he began to accuse his political opponents and give the Senate a lecture on Greek politics (XXIV.8.9–9.15). He explained that in all the democratic states there were two parties. One counselled adherence to the written requests of Rome at the expense of laws, stelai and everything else. The other maintained that these latter things ought not lightly to be violated. In Achaea the second group was (p.57) the more popular with the multitude. The partisans of Rome reaped contempt and slander from the mob, their opponents favour and support. But, he said, let the Senate give indication of their displeasure at this state of affairs and the men of politics will go over to their side and the mob will follow out of fear. Let the Senate fail to do this and the policy now more popular will become yet more so. The advice was easily summarized: if the Romans wanted their orders obeyed, they should see to it that they supported those who promised obedience. They should show their displeasure at such conduct as the recent Achaean leadership had undertaken in resisting Q. Philippus’ efforts to have the Messenian question referred to Rome (and insisting on dealing with it themselves) and in not restoring the former exiles. Callicrates was taken seriously, and ‘now for the first time the Senate adopted the aim of weakening those members of the several states who worked for the best, and of strengthening those who, rightly or wrongly, appealed to its Page 8 of 34

 

Rome, the Fall of Macedon and the Sack of Corinth authority’ (XXIV. 10.4). The consequence, Polybius judges, ‘was that gradually, as time went on, the Romans had plenty of flatterers but few true friends’. This is, in some measure, a tendentious judgement, but its validity in general is not in doubt.15 And there is no question at all about the determination of the Senate on this occasion to put its weight solidly behind Callicrates and his policy. ‘They actually went so far on the present occasion as to write not only to the Achaeans about the return of the exiles, bidding them to contribute to strengthening the position of these men, but also to the Aetolians, Epirotes, Athenians, Boeotians and Acarnanians, calling them all to witness for the purpose of crushing the Achaeans. Speaking of Callicrates alone, with no mention of the other envoys, they wrote in their official answer that there ought to be more men in the several states like Callicrates’ (XXIV.10.6–7). Now able to use the threat of Rome's displeasure against his opponents, Callicrates returned home. The exiles were restored, and Callicrates was elected to the strategia, ‘unaware that he had been the initiator of great evils for all the Greeks and most of all for the Achaeans’.16 This was not the first time that Rome had set about supporting those favourable to her in states she controlled or wished to control. She had been doing so for centuries. But it was the first time that it had been done (p.58) so openly as a matter of public policy, and the first time that being favourable to Rome was openly equated with absolute readiness to obey Rome's orders. This was indeed imperialism in a strict and very Roman sense.17 In Achaea from the time of the League's earliest dealings with Rome there had been a debate between those, like Philopoemen and Lycortas, who wished insofar as possible to deal with Rome on a basis of equality, and those, like Aristaenus and Diophanes, who believed that obedience to Roman orders must take precedence over everything.18 Callicrates’ mission in 180 and the Senate's response did not decide the question once and for all. It did give a great deal of momentum to the latter group. More important, it changed the nature of the debate by putting the threat of Roman displeasure as a weapon into the hands of those who styled themselves pro-Romans. The rules of politics were thereby altered, surely for ill. So it was for the Achaean League, and so, we may believe Polybius, it was for the other states of Greece. The year 180, then, marks a turning-point, but there is a question whether the ‘evils for all the Greeks and most of all for the Achaeans’ that followed would have done so, or done so with the same speed and acerbity, had there not been another turning-point at almost the same time. In 179 Philip V died, and Perseus succeeded to the throne of Macedon. Both personality and policy brought him early popularity. After renewing the Macedonian alliance with Rome at the very outset of his reign, he recalled under amnesty fugitive debtors and those who had been driven into exile by sentence of courts or for crimes against the throne. Publicity of a high order was given to these steps: lists of those thus to be welcomed back were posted at the sanctuaries of Apollo at Delos and Delphi and Page 9 of 34

 

Rome, the Fall of Macedon and the Sack of Corinth Itonian Athena in Thessaly. In Macedonia itself he remitted all royal debts and freed those who had been imprisoned for offences against the crown. Ellenokopein is Polybius’ word for his early policy (XXV.3.1): ‘to play the Greek’ or ‘to court the favour of the Greeks’? Something of both. The effect, certainly, and the aim possibly, was to turn Greek eyes towards himself. For those who wished not to look towards Rome, or not to have to look only there, there was to be another focus available. Evidence of both the direction of his policy and of its success comes from a decree of the Delphic amphictyony of summer 178. After the liberation of Delphi from Aetolian control by the Romans in (p.59) 191–188 the amphictyony was reconstituted as a distinctly pro-Roman body.19 But in 178 there are listed among the hieromnemones two ‘from King Perseus’ (SIG3 636): an achievement of note for the young king and clear indication of the rapidity with which the good repute and the influence of the kingdom of Macedon was being resuscitated. It indicates also the readiness of the Greeks to forget Philip's recent bloody doings in Thrace and his violence towards Athens and Rhodes at the end of the previous century. Philip's popularity had waned considerably after his early years on the throne, and with it that of Macedon. There was much to retrieve, and this Perseus managed with remarkable efficiency. One cannot but ask whether Roman policy in Greece, in the later 180s and as defined and enunciated in 180, made that easier. One must ask also how this Macedonian renaissance was remarked at Rome, and to this question at least there is a clear answer. Late in the summer of 178 there arrived at Rome an embassy from the Lycians which had been sent to complain to the Senate about the domineering behaviour of the Rhodians towards Lycia. The Rhodians believed that, and behaved as if, Lycia had been given over to them as a gift by the Roman settlement of Asia Minor in 188. The Lycians disagreed. Their embassy in 178 bore the desired fruit, as the Senate decided to inform the Rhodians that inspection of the records had revealed that the Lycians had been given to them not as a gift, but rather as friends and allies. So they claimed, but the claim was manifestly false.20 The reasons for this duplicity are not far to seek and were indeed recognized at the time. ‘The Romans seemed to be setting themselves up as arbiters in the matter of the Rhodians and the Lycians with the object of exhausting the stores and treasure of the Rhodians, having heard of their recent escorting of the bride of Perseus and of the refitting of their ships’ (Polyb. XXV. 4.7–8). The bride they had brought home to Perseus was the Seleucid princess Laodice, and in return they had received a great quantity of wood for shipbuilding. The Senate's decision about Lycia signalled Rome's displeasure with Rhodes, and with Perseus, whose diplomatic successes are thus seen to extend beyond Greece itself to the Aegean and the eastern Mediterranean. From the beginning of his reign Perseus attracted the notice and the concern of Rome, and he attracted supporters in the various states of Greece. The two things operated together. There were Rome's friends and their opponents in Page 10 of 34

 

Rome, the Fall of Macedon and the Sack of Corinth Greece, and there was coming into being a group (p.60) favouring closer, or at least improved, relations with Macedon. More and more the latter two categories converged and came to be identified (not necessarily the same thing), developments which took place against the background of increasing Roman suspicion of Perseus, evinced early on and fostered by more than a few of Rome's friends. In this is to be seen the reason for the pernicious exacerbation of the division portrayed by Callicrates, for in the atmosphere of growing hostility between the two powers failure to follow Rome implicitly became tantamount to treason. Perseus threatened to provide an alternative focus for Greek politics. In another world this might have led to constructive tension, but in that world it led instead to a situation in which one side must perish and fall prey to the one which sided with victory. Viewed from the other side, this same set of developments contains the most basic element of the explanation of Rome's war against Perseus. The reassertion of Macedon's position in Greece was quite simply incompatible with Roman supremacy there—with, that is, the supremacy of Roman orders and the closely related desire, displayed clearly by the Senate in the 180s, that all matters of contention should be referred to Rome. There could not be two arbiters. As Perseus became more and more an alternative focus, the possibility grew apace that there would be two. As had been the case with Antiochus from 197, Roman control of affairs was felt to be at risk. The answer would be the same. This time, however, the opposition was not concentrated in one people of Greece, as it had largely been with the Aetolians before, but was there (whether as genuine opposition to Rome and Roman control, or as opposition to Rome's friends, or as positive feeling towards Perseus and his kingdom) inside most, if not indeed all, of the states of Greece. Therein lies the reason for much that happened in the years after 180/79 and therein the tragedy.

II. Perseus It is as early as 175 that Livy can say ‘anxiety about the Macedonian war beset them’ (XLI.19.4). In the previous year embassies had arrived at Rome from the Dardani complaining of attacks by the Bastarnae and claiming that Perseus was behind these and in league with the Bastarnae. Something was clearly afoot (a Thessalian embassy confirmed the report) and had been since Philip V's death in 179, but in assessing the charges one must bear in mind the long-standing antipathy of the Dardanians towards Macedon and its kings (Livy XL.57.6). A legation, led by A. Postumius Albinus (cos. 180), was sent to investigate. This mission (p.61) returned to Rome in 175, along with a team of envoys from Perseus, who came to defend the king against the charge of inciting the Bastarnae. The Senate, significantly, left the question open. ‘They neither absolved Perseus of the charge nor pressed it’ (Livy XLI.19.6). They did, however, remember it later when it proved useful to do so. For the moment they warned him ‘to take the greatest care that he be seen to hold sacred his treaty with Rome’ (ibid.). The pace of activity on both sides soon accelerated. In 174 Page 11 of 34

 

Rome, the Fall of Macedon and the Sack of Corinth Roman envoys returned from Carthage and reported that the Carthaginian senate had received by night an embassy from Perseus. A team of very senior legates was sent to Macedon to conduct more investigations, C. Laelius (cos. 190), M. Valerius Messalla (cos. 188), and Sex. Digitius (pr. 194). The precise purpose of their mission is not stated. They returned to Rome early in 173 and announced that they had not been able to see the king, being given instead stories about his being ill or being away (both versions they reckoned to be lies). They were, however, in no doubt that preparations for war were being made and that Perseus would not long delay recourse to arms. A Macedonian war was openly anticipated, and prodigies were accordingly attended to. In fact, Perseus had been away from Macedon during part of 174. The Dolopians had been proving recalcitrant to Macedonian control, and there was a move there to refer some matters of dispute to the Senate instead of to the king of Macedon. Perseus acted quickly, arrived with an army and re-established firm Macedonian control. This claim of jurisdiction was consistent with the status of the Dolopians under Philip (at least for a time), but whether or not it was consistent with the Roman order to Philip in 185 that Macedon was to be confined within its ancient boundaries is quite another question. A measure of challenge to Rome must be seen in Perseus’ actions here. From Dolopia he proceeded with his army to the oracle at Delphi and thence homeward through Phthiotic Achaea and Thessaly. This was at once a show of force and a show of restraint and friendship. Initial alarm at his presence in central Greece was quieted when he made his passage in peace. As a mission of goodwill it was not without effect. About the same time, Perseus made a concerted effort to re-establish relations with the Achaean League. All dealings had been broken off during the war against Philip and had never been renewed. Support for this within the League came both from those who genuinely wished closer ties with Macedon and from those who, in a spirit of moderation, desired simply that normal relations should exist with Macedon as they existed with the other independent states of Greece. Callicrates argued that any move in this direction would be the same as an attack upon Achaea's alliance with Rome and accused his opponents of speaking (p.62) against Rome. The question was deferred, pending the arrival of a formal embassy from Perseus (whose approach so far had necessarily been by letter), but those ‘who feared that this would cause offence amongst the Romans’ (Livy XLI.24.20) saw to it that the embassy was not received. It soon became clear that their reading of the Senate's mind was correct. The middle and later 170s were years of ferment in a number of parts of Greece. By 174 a civil war had broken out in Aetolia. At the root of the conflict was debt, but little more is known. News of this had been brought to Rome by C. Laelius, who had led the embassy to Perseus in 174. The Senate's response was quick, and the size and composition of the embassy that went to Aetolia is indicative of Page 12 of 34

 

Rome, the Fall of Macedon and the Sack of Corinth the seriousness of the problem. It was led by C. Valerius Laevinus (cos. 176), grandson of the Laevinus who negotiated the Aetolian treaty of 211, and included Ap. Claudius, the ambassador of 184, and three others. They made little progress. More was achieved in the following year, when a commission led by M. Claudius Marcellus (probably the consul of 183) brought about a cessation of open hostilities. The same year saw Ap. Claudius back in Greece, this time in Thessaly and Perrhaebia where he had been sent in response to a report that the Thessalians were in arms. He calmed the situation by the abolition of illegal interest and the imposition of a schedule for the repayment of just debts. In Crete also, civil disturbances flared up and were temporarily quelled by the arrival of a Roman envoy, Q. Minucius, with ten ships. The arguments between the Lycians and the Rhodians continued with increasing intensity, and to judge from Livy's comment in that context (XLI.25.8) there was a great deal more going on besides. Why so much boiled over in so many places at just this time we do not know, but part of the answer (and much of the importance of it) lies in the fact that it did so against the backdrop of increasing hostility between Perseus and Rome. Power in Thessaly had been put in the hands of the well-to-do by Flamininus twenty years before,21 and it was the oppressive conduct of the creditors that lay behind the present difficulties there. The Aetolians had been hard put to pay the indemnity imposed upon them after their war with Rome, and, Polybius would add, their usual recourse to brigandage was not thereafter available to them. What can be safely said is that in none of these cases are the warring factions described as pro- or anti-Roman (or Macedonian), and that in no case is Perseus said to have been implicated in the troubles. That claim is made only later. The question of Perseus was not, however, beyond the brief of the (p.63) Roman ambassadors who went to Greece in these years. In 173 M. Marcellus went also to the Peloponnese, where, equipped with explicit instructions from the Senate (one assumes), he addressed a specially summoned meeting of the Achaean League. The message he bore was twofold: to praise the Achaeans for their rejection of Perseus’ overtures, and to make very clear the hostility which the Romans felt towards the Macedonian king. Whether Perseus’ activities in these years are to be construed as actually directed against Rome is at least a question. About the direction of Roman propaganda there is no room for doubt. Their line was firmly against Perseus, increasingly so, and their friends were expected to follow it. One of those who followed the Roman line with the most vigour—for it had long been his own—was Eumenes of Pergamum. Rewarded by the Romans at Apamea with control over much of western Asia Minor, he had been Philip's rival over the possession of the cities in Thrace. He was Perseus’ rival for goodwill and influence among the Greeks at large. His generosity in pursuit of this was in keeping with the open-handedness of his line,22 as he tried to bind both states and individuals to himself. He had some success, but more people favoured Page 13 of 34

 

Rome, the Fall of Macedon and the Sack of Corinth Perseus. Why? Livy (here probably reflecting Polybius) offers possible reasons (XLII.5.6): ‘whether because the states were predisposed, on account of the reputation and dignity of the Macedonian kings, to despise the origins of a kingdom newly formed, or because they were desirous of a change in their condition, or because they did not wish everything to become completely subject to the Romans’. One may doubt that there were many in the first category, but not that there were large numbers in the latter two groups. At Rome, by contrast, Eumenes was held in high esteem, and this mattered more. Events were moving faster. A five-man commission, led by the consular C. Valerius Laevinus, was despatched in 173 to observe Macedonian activities and then to proceed to Alexandria to renew Rome's friendship with Ptolemy VI, and early in the next consular year both the consuls of 172 tried to have Macedonia allocated as a province. At this juncture Eumenes came to Rome himself and sought to quicken the pace even more. So far the Senate had not levelled specific charges against Perseus. Eumenes brought with him a prepared list of charges (Livy XLII.11–13). His general contention was the same as Polybius’, namely that Philip had been planning a war and Perseus was about to execute it. His kingdom and his army were strong, his diplomacy preternaturally successful. (Eumenes, tactfully and insidiously, raised the (p.64) possibility that it was illwill towards the Romans that was winning so many over to the Macedonian cause.) He had married a daughter of Seleucus and given his sister in marriage to Prusias of Bithynia. He secured a formal alliance with the Boeotian confederacy and had very nearly succeeded in gaining access to Achaea. He had been appealed to by the Aetolians during their civil strife. Money, troops and weapons were his in unprecedented amounts. The most famous states of Greece and Asia were looking towards him increasingly by the day. Abrupolis, friend and ally of the Romans, had been driven from his kingdom. Outspoken pro-Romans, one in Illyria and two in Boeotia, had been murdered. Aid had been sent to the Byzantines, contrary to Perseus’ treaty with Rome. He had made war on the Dolopians. He had crossed through Doris and Thessaly with his army in order to aid the worse cause against the better in their civil war. He had caused confusion and turmoil in Thessaly and Perrhaebia by offering the hope of a cancellation of debts, the aim being to bring about the overthrow of the nobility through the agency of the debtors. And throughout all this Rome's inactivity had been read as acquiescence. Whether Eumenes described these events as he did because he saw them so or because he reckoned that such an account would be needed to produce the desired effect is not clear. Some of what he related appears here for the first time. Some does not, and it will be recalled that the earlier reports of events in Aetolia, Thessaly and Perrhaebia, as well as of Perseus’ march through central Greece, did not tell against Perseus at all. Eumenes’ interpretations, however, were both useful and timely. If they were not all believed at Rome, they were at least adopted as official Roman propaganda.23 Pretexts had been lacking. Sometime, probably not long, after Eumenes left Page 14 of 34

 

Rome, the Fall of Macedon and the Sack of Corinth Rome, the embassy led by C. Valerius Laevinus returned. Their report agreed with that of Eumenes, and they had more to tell. They brought with them one Rammius of Brundisium, with whom Roman envoys and generals had been accustomed to lodge when passing through, who alleged that Perseus had attempted to suborn him to poison his visitors. Also came Praxo of Delphi. Eumenes, after leaving Rome, had travelled to Delphi, where, it was claimed, an attempt was made to assassinate him. Praxo had given lodging to the alleged assassins, and (p.65) Perseus was said to have been behind the plot. All that was enough to go on. No time was lost in declaring Perseus a hostis. The conduct of the war was to be entrusted to the consuls of 171, but preparations were begun immediately. Diplomatic preparations for the war were also set in train, with embassies sent to the states and kingdoms of Greece and Asia. Their aim was both to secure support for the coming war and to see what inroads Perseus had managed to make against Roman domination. Of those thus investigated only the Rhodians were seriously suspect in their loyalty. Dealt with more directly was King Genthius of Illyria, who was reported by the ever-loyal Issaeans to be joining in Perseus’ preparations for war against the Romans and attacking their own territory. The Senate despatched ambassadors to complain to Genthius about his actions and, no doubt, to bid him watch his step. What effect this had in driving Genthius into Perseus’ camp in fact one can only guess. By this time (into the summer of 172) preparations were well under way. A fleet of fifty ships was being assembled along with two legions of allied infantry and cavalry. A. Atilius Serranus (pr. 173) was to collect the force at Brundisium and send it across to Apollonia. The army, with which Cn. Sicinius (pr. 172) was to cross to Greece and hold the fort pending the arrival of one of the consuls of 171, was ordered to assemble at Brundisium on the Ides of February (Roman, i.e. 28 October 172 B.C.). All this proceeded as directed, and when the consular elections were held on 18 February (Roman, i.e. 2 November 172 B.C.), the forces under Sicinius must have been on their way to Apollonia. The consuls of 171 entered office on the Ides of March (i.e. 27 November 172 B.C.), and the war that had already been set in motion was duly declared by the centuriate assembly.24 Rome's efficiency in preparations and in getting a serious force across the Adriatic before the onset of winter was notable and an improvement even on their advance action in 192. But it was not altogether enough. Perseus’ activity was at least as efficient, and the Roman embassy sent to Greece under the leadership of Q. Marcius Philippus to secure support for Rome found the Macedonian preparations to be in advance of their own.25 Philippus and his team were ruthlessly effective in dealing with what confronted them, both tactically and politically. (p.66)

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Rome, the Fall of Macedon and the Sack of Corinth At Corcyra the envoys decided which of the Greek states each of them would approach; virtually every one was to be visited. Before they set off on their several missions a letter arrived from Perseus enquiring, understandably, what reason the Romans had for sending troops into Greece or for garrisoning cities. No written answer was given, but the king's messenger was told that the Romans were acting for the protection of the cities themselves. While two of the legates went to Cephallenia and the western Peloponnese and a third to King Genthius, Q. Marcius and A. Atilius (pr. 192 and 173) set off on the most important part of the exercise, travelling first through Epirus, Acarnania and Thessaly. The pro-Romans were most in evidence, and their ascendancy was further fostered. After a friendly meeting with the Thessalians, the Roman envoys met Perseus himself. Philippus read out the charges—a list very close to that brought to Rome by Eumenes and publicized by the Romans themselves at Delphi. Perseus defended himself, without much hope that his words would have any effect. Philippus suggested that Perseus send an embassy to the Senate, offering the hope of settlement. Perseus took the bait. Philippus appeared to assent grudgingly to the truce26 this would require. He had in fact achieved his aim with remarkable ease: ‘the request for a truce was clearly essential and Marcius was eager for it and was seeking for nothing else at the conference’ (Livy XLII.43.2). His success was made easy by Perseus’ desire to avoid war with Rome and (apparently) his belief that negotiation with Rome was possible. His conduct here gives perhaps the best indication that throughout the decade the aim of all his activity, both military and diplomatic, had been to make Macedon such that the Romans would be ‘more cautious about giving unjust and severe orders to the Macedonians’, as Polybius (XXVII.8.3) puts it in an analogous context in the next year. To Philippus and the Romans Perseus’ willingness to treat gave the time that was needed. His tactical initiative was blunted. Philippus went immediately to Boeotia, assisted the Boeotians in repenting of their federal alliance with Perseus, and, as he had hoped, persuaded them to abandon their federation altogether. The pro-Romans in Thebes and elsewhere agreed to go to Rome and to surrender their cities individually to the faith of the Roman people. Perseus was thereby deprived of an important ally, and (p.67) Philippus achieved in Boeotia what he had been unable to achieve in Achaea a dozen years before. The Achaeans themselves were approached next and approached just as were all the others, without any mark of favour to recognize their previous loyalty. This occasioned resentment (Livy XLII.37.8), but it cannot have occasioned much surprise. The Achaean magistrates agreed to despatch a thousand troops to garrison Chalcis for the Romans. Philippus and his team repaired to Rome, pleased chiefly with the duping of Perseus—‘with the time consumed by the truce the war would be waged on even terms’ (Livy XLII.47.3)—and with the dismemberment of the Boeotian League. Most of the Senate approved, but there were those, ‘older men and mindful of Page 16 of 34

 

Rome, the Fall of Macedon and the Sack of Corinth old custom’, who ‘said they did not recognize Roman ways in the conduct of that embassy’.27 All the same, when Perseus’ envoys arrived they were ordered to leave Rome within thirty days after a perfunctory hearing in the Senate. The issue here was, of course, one of means and not one of ends. There was no question that something had to be done about Perseus and no question about what that was. Yet it remains an indication that new attitudes were developing at Rome, new feelings about how people who were (or might be) hostile to Rome, or who simply were not Romans, might be treated. This is seen here. It is seen in the infringement upon the rights of Rome's Latin allies administered through one of the consuls of 177 (Livy XLI.9.9). It is seen in the conduct of M. Popillius Laenas in Liguria in 173 and 172, where the inability of the Senate to control a consul (and his friends) augured trouble to come (Livy XLII.7–10, 21–22). It is there in the high-handed treatment by M. Popillius’ colleague as consul in 173, L. Postumius Albinus, of Rome's allies at Praeneste (Livy XLII.1.7–12), and essentially the same thing may be judged to be at issue in the attempt by one of the censors of 169 (supported, it seems, by much of the Senate) to disenfranchise freedmen at Rome (Livy XLV.15.1–7). Roman conduct during the war against Perseus and immediately after it tells the same story. The war in Macedonia fell to P. Licinius Crassus, who crossed to Apollonia and took over the area and the troops held by Cn. Sicinius. C. Cassius Longinus, Licinius’ colleague, was unwilling to be outdone. He set off with his army and the intention of entering the Greek theatre by land from the north-west. Reports from Aquileia of his presence there and the direction of his march alerted the Senate to what was afoot, and (p.68) he was eventually restrained. Licinius, in the meanwhile, advanced through Epirus into Thessaly and was drawn into a cavalry engagement at Callicinus. The Macedonian horse prevailed, with two immediate results. Perseus sued for peace, hoping that this taste of Macedonian bravery might make the Romans ‘more cautious about delivering harsh and unjust orders to the Macedonians’ (Polyb. XXVII.8.3). He would have done better to lose the battle, for defeat, as ever, rendered the Romans intransigent, and angry. They were not altogether without Romanae artes, and peace then would have left Perseus and his kingdom intact. The other immediate result of Rome's defeat in the field came when the news of it spread about Greece: ‘the attachment of the many to Perseus, theretofore for the most part concealed, burst forth like fire’ (Polyb. XXVII.9.1). Polybius apologizes for this (XXVII.9–10), likening it to the thoughtless reaction of a crowd at an athletic contest to an underdog, and reckons that a word reminding people of what evils they had received at the hands of Macedon and what goods at the hands of Rome would have put an end to their sentimentality. This may be doubted: there were pro-Romans about the place to remind them of the beneficence of Rome. The question to be asked about Polybius’ comment is what he means by ‘the many’. Is the word being used neutrally: ‘a great many people felt sympathy for Perseus’? Or is it being used, as is usually the case, Page 17 of 34

 

Rome, the Fall of Macedon and the Sack of Corinth pejoratively, the reference being to ‘the mob’, and implying that it was above all the lower classes who were tending towards Perseus, glad of the discomfiture of Rome and of the ‘friends’ of the Romans in the various states? It is, of course, the same ‘many’ who were said by Callicrates in 180 to be favourable to the nationalists and hostile to those who supported Rome as he did himself. The question is quite the same as that about the poor and wealthy of Boeotia early in the 180s. The answer is also the same. In a word, leading men—Polybius’ politeuomenoi, Livy's principes, all of them men of substance—were divided on these issues. The sympathy of the majority of the population, which is to say the lower classes, was, as Callicrates said, with the nationalists. Rome was for the pro-Romans and for small and reliable governments, for the wealthy, that is. Democracies were tolerated as long as they were reliable, but it must ever be remembered that when the choice of government lay with Rome, as in Thessaly after the war against Philip and as in most of Greece after the war against the Achaeans, it was not democracy that was chosen. Nor did ‘the many’ ever take the lead. The real question is whom did they follow. The answers—Brachylles, Philopoemen, Lycortas, later Andriscus even, Diaeus and Critolaus, amongst others—are consistent in their implication. (p.69) Licinius’ defeat at Callicinus was less important in its military consequences. In this respect it was matched by the success he achieved at Phalanna before going into winter quarters. Somewhat more tangible success was gained in the opening year of the war by the praetor C. Lucretius Gallus. He captured the recalcitrant town of Haliartus in Boeotia, enslaved its population, and after that received the surrender of Thisbe, where the pro-Romans were put into power and had their position confirmed by decree of the Senate.28 But what distinguished the commands of both Licinius and Lucretius was the rapacity and cruelty with which they conducted the campaign in Greece. In 170 Licinius was succeeded by the consul A. Hostilius Mancinus and Lucretius by the praetor L. Hortensius. The consul achieved nothing, the praetor notoriety. He put into Thracian Abdera and immediately demanded 100,000 denarii and 50,000 modii of corn. The Abderitans sought time to consult the consul and the Senate, whereupon Hortensius turned upon the city, executed the leading citizens and sold the rest into slavery. Abderitan emissaries reported this to the Senate, which sent envoys to restore the Abderitans to freedom and to inform the consul and the erring praetor that the war against Abdera had not been justly undertaken. Similar, if on the whole less striking, reports came in with increasing frequency. Few dared actually to complain: they rather decided to inform the Senate of the behaviour and exactions of the Roman commanders and to hope for the best. From outside the Greek theatre such messages were received from peoples whose territory had been traversed, and mishandled, by C. Cassius in his private journey to the war in 171. The plaintiffs were invited to deliver accusations in Cassius’ presence. Whether they would have done this is not known, as Cassius Page 18 of 34

 

Rome, the Fall of Macedon and the Sack of Corinth was taken on, and thus away from this threat, by the consul Hostilius as a military tribune. From Greece itself came envoys from Athens. Their entire fleet and army had been put at the disposal of Licinius and Lucretius. This offer had been declined, but these commanders had requisitioned 100,000 modii of corn. From Chalcis came reports of plundering and enslavement by Lucretius and year-round billeting of sailors reckless of their conduct by Hortensius. The Senate pleaded ignorance, expressed regret, and wrote to Hortensius with instructions to set things right. Two tribunes instituted a prosecution against Lucretius. He was condemned unanimously. It all added up to two years of warfare without any success (p.70) worth mentioning and with support in Greece being seriously eroded by the behaviour of Roman commanders. Measures were taken. The Greek allies were informed that only requests for assistance accompanied by a senatus consultum should be honoured. A commission of two was sent to investigate the lack of success in Macedonia. The consular elections were arranged for January (Roman, i.e. 19 September–17 October 170 B.C.), and all senators were recalled to Rome and required to stay within a mile of the capital. Q. Marcius Philippus was elected to the consulship with Cn. Servilius Caepio. The commission returned at the end of February (Roman, i.e. mid-November 169 B.C.) and reported concern amongst the allies and a general laxity of discipline within the Roman army. When their report was discussed upon the entry of the new consuls into office, reinforcements of Roman and Latin troops were agreed and the decision was taken that the new legions formed should have their military tribunes elected by the people and not appointed by the consuls. Macedonia fell to Q. Marcius Philippus, as must have been intended. He had had experience in Greece, which his predecessors in the command had not, and it would appear that the primary aim in entrusting the province to him was more diplomatic than military. That had been the nature of his experience there, and his previous consulship (in 186 B.C.) had been spent not on the battlefield but in dealing with what was seen as evidence of serious disaffection in Italy, the ‘Bacchanalian conspiracy’.29 Diplomacy was certainly the order for the winter. On instructions from the Senate Hostilius sent envoys to the Achaeans, Aetolians and Acarnanians. The envoys were C. Popillius Laenas (cos. 172) and Cn. Octavius. The purpose was twofold. In the Peloponnese they attempted to persuade people of the ‘gentleness and kindness’ of the Senate (Polyb. XXVIII. 3.3), particularly, it seems, by reporting the Senate's decision that orders for material support by Roman generals must be accompanied by senatus consulta. They also made it clear that they knew who had been forthcoming in their support for Rome and who, on the other hand, had been withdrawing from public affairs. The latter, they said, evoked Rome's displeasure as much as did Rome's enemies. Polybius, not uninvolved, comments: ‘In consequence they created a general state of anxiety and doubt as to how one ought to act or to speak so as to make oneself agreeable under the present circumstances. It was Page 19 of 34

 

Rome, the Fall of Macedon and the Sack of Corinth said that, when the Achaean assembly met, Popillius and his colleagues had decided to accuse Lycortas, Archon and Polybius before (p.71) it and to prove that they were estranged from Rome's policy and were keeping quiet at present, not because they were naturally disposed to do so, but because they were watching the progress of events and waiting for a favourable opportunity to act’ (Polyb. XXVIII.3.6–8). But lack of plausible pretext for this prevented them from so acting, and the Achaeans were given no more than a brief and cordial message. It was time for moderation; that was clear enough. In Aetolia the message was one of encouragement and kindness but included a request that the Aetolians give hostages to the Romans. This was supported by the pro-Roman Lyciscus, but opposed by others with the backing of the ‘mob’. Another notorious pro-Roman was stoned in the assembly by the angry people. Popillius delivered a brief rebuke for this but said nothing further about hostages, and left Aetolia full of mutual suspicion and utter disorder. The proRomans in Acarnania took the initiative of asking for the installation of Roman garrisons: many, they said, were falling away towards Perseus and Macedonia. This was opposed, and the pro-Romans were accused of blackening their rivals and seeking the garrisons in order to establish their own absolute domination. The Roman envoys, ‘seeing that the idea of garrisons was displeasing to the “mob” and wishing to act in accordance with the policy of the Senate’ (Polyb. XXVIII.5.6), decided against the garrisons and, with a word of thanks and encouragement, departed. The need for moderation was clear everywhere. The polarization of the 170s was well on the way to becoming complete, and the moderates in all the states needed to be shown that they, as well as the strident pro-Romans, could look forward with hope to a Roman victory. Such sensibilities had for the moment to be looked after; recriminations and accusations could wait upon the victory. The diplomacy of the consul was true to character. With the Achaeans he dealt with apparent generosity. They had thought it expedient to offer him full military support, but the offer, presented by Polybius in person, was declined. The Romans were not going to put themselves under any such obligations. The consul also sought, according to Polybius, to prevent the Achaeans from acceding to the request of Ap. Claudius Centho, then operating in Epirus, for five thousand troops. Polybius professes uncertainty as to whether Philippus wished to spare the Achaeans the expense of this (more than 120 talents) or to keep Centho idle (XXVIII.13.8). As the request was not accompanied by the required senatus consultum Polybius was able to have the matter referred to the consul without divulging anything of Philippus’ message. Doubtless it was not intended by Philippus, but Polybius’ conduct of this affair ‘furnished those who wished to accuse him to Appius with a good pretext (p.72) in having thus put a stop to his plan of procuring assistance’ (XXVIII.13.14). In dealing with the Rhodians Philippus achieved a great success. Strife between pro-Romans and pro-Macedonians was possibly keener there than anywhere else. In 169 the Page 20 of 34

 

Rome, the Fall of Macedon and the Sack of Corinth Rhodians sent friendly and, it was hoped, disarming embassies to the Senate and to the consul. Both were received kindly, as the circumstances clearly demanded. Philippus added in a private way a suggestion that the Rhodians should adopt the role of mediators in Rome's war with Perseus. This advice was read by the anti-Romans at Rhodes as a sign of Roman weakness. This was a mistake. It was also taken seriously and led to an attempt by the Rhodians at such mediation. This was a disastrous mistake. Polybius inclines towards the view that Philippus was seeking to make the Rhodians act in such a way as ‘to give the Romans a plausible pretext for treating them in any way they saw fit’.30 Hindsight, he admits, but that is the way it turned out. Philippus’ prosecution of the war itself was also more energetic and more successful than that of either of his predecessors. From a position in Perrhaebia between Azorus and Doliche south and west of the Olympus massif he determined to force an entry into Macedonia. The more obvious routes were held by Perseus’ garrisons, but Philippus found another over the eastern shoulder of Olympus not far from the Macedonian garrison by Lake Ascuris. The descent over steep and pathless ground to the plain between Leibethrum and Heracleum was not easy, and once there the consul could, on Livy's reckoning (XLIV.6.4–17), have been stranded. But Perseus, either in panic (so Livy, ibid.) or realizing that a Roman army could now be supplied and reinforced by sea in Macedon, abandoned most of his southerly positions, including Tempe and Dium. Philippus proceeded to occupy Dium and began a drive towards the north, but lack of supplies forced him back.31 The year ended with the opposing armies separated only by the River Elpeus and southern Macedonia open to the Romans by both land and sea. In western Greece as well the situation had by this time altered perceptibly. A rift within Epirus had been growing, with the Thesprotian Charops taking an increasingly strident pro-Roman line and forcing his chief opponent, the Molossian Cephalus, steadily from a position of (p.73) neutrality towards outright alliance with Perseus.32 In 170 two Molossians masterminded a plot to seize the consul Hostilius, a clear attempt to commit Epirus to the Macedonian cause. The plot failed, but in the course of 169 the rift became complete. Epirus split, the Molossians openly supporting Perseus and the Chaonians and Thesprotians Rome. It was to deal with this situation that Appius Claudius Centho had sought Achaean help. If the Molossians were not by themselves a serious threat, the Illyrian king Genthius was, or might have been. Perseus had been trying to entice him into open alliance, but Genthius held out for money which Perseus was unwilling to let him have. An Illyrian campaign by Perseus in the winter of 170/69 had failed to bring Genthius into the war, but by the latter part of 169 the two had come to terms. In the light of Roman success on the Macedonian front in 169, the importance to Perseus of Genthius’ adherence is easy to see. The motivation of Genthius, suspect indeed in Roman eyes but so far not openly disloyal, is much less obvious. Against the inadequate forces of Page 21 of 34

 

Rome, the Fall of Macedon and the Sack of Corinth Claudius Centho late in the year he was not in serious danger, but the winter of 169/8 could be counted upon to produce new plans and preparations at Rome. The consuls elected for 168 were L. Aemilius Paullus (cos. 182) and C. Licinius Crassus. Lots were cast for provinces soon after the election, and Macedonia fell to Paullus. Envoys were immediately despatched to Greece to ascertain the situations of the Roman armies in Macedonia and Illyria. They returned to Rome shortly after the new consuls entered office on the Ides of March (Roman, i.e. 4 January 168), and the arrangements for the coming campaign were decided on the basis of their report. Aemilius Paullus would take substantial reinforcements to Macedonia, and the praetor Cn. Octavius would leave with him to take command of a strengthened Aegean fleet. In response to the changed situation in Illyria it was decided to send the praetor L. Anicius Gallus (previously allotted the peregrine jurisdiction), again with reinforcements, to succeed Ap. Claudius Centho in the command against Genthius. The Latin Games were held early to facilitate early departure by the new commanders.33 They arrived in their provinces at the beginning of spring. Most of the details of the Illyrian campaign are lost, but there is no doubt that it was brief. Ap. Claudius Centho began operations early, and (p.74) Anicius Gallus came up from Apollonia to take over command at the Genusus. Within a month of this the war was over. After defeats on sea and land Genthius shut himself up in Scodra where he soon surrendered. ‘The war was unique in that its conclusion was reported at Rome before its beginning’ (Livy XLIV.32.5). The Macedonian campaign did not last much longer. Over the winter Perseus had strengthened his position on the Elpeus and sent strong garrisons to Petra and Pythium to prevent himself from being taken in the rear by a force coming round Olympus. Paullus decided against a direct assault across the Elpeus and opted instead for a clandestine attempt on Pythium that would start off disguised as a naval move against the coastal areas of Macedon. Cn. Octavius was ordered to bring the fleet and supplies up to Heracleum, and on 17 June a picked force led by P. Cornelius Scipio Nasica marched there from the Elpeus. Provisioned by the fleet, which then sailed north, he set off inland under cover of night and after three nights’ marches reached Pythium. An attack in the early morning of 20 June drove the Macedonian garrison out. Perseus was thus forced to abandon the Elpeus and fell back towards Pydna to a position between the Aeson (modern Pelikas) and Leucus (modern Mavroneri) rivers. On 21 June Paullus and the rest of the army joined up with Nasica's force but elected to postpone battle. The Romans fortified their camp across the Leucus from the Macedonians. That night the moon went into portentous eclipse, and on the next day occurred the battle of Pydna. It began as a skirmish across the Leucus but soon turned into a rout. Twenty thousand Macedonians are said to have been killed; six thousand who had fled to Pydna were captured there and another five thousand taken prisoner along the way (Livy XLIV.42.7).34 Perseus retreated to Page 22 of 34

 

Rome, the Fall of Macedon and the Sack of Corinth his capital at Pella. He had the presence of mind to burn the royal records but time for no more than that before he fled from there, ultimately to Samothrace where he surrendered. With that the war was over. With that the need for moderation was over, and the axe fell. In the twelve months after Pydna Greece was very much altered. During the year before the battle the Achaeans and Aetolians had been treated with circumspection and a measure of indulgence. During the year following it Roman ambassadors visited the Achaeans again. This time they informed them that one thousand individuals (among them Polybius), whose loyalty had become suspect, were to be deported to Italy. This list was drawn up by Callicrates and those of his party. This (p.75) was harsh, but gentle when compared to the handling of Aetolia, where 550 leading men were murdered while Roman soldiers surrounded the council-chamber and others driven into exile (Livy XLV. 28.7). A fate even more special was reserved for Epirus, particularly for the Molossians, who had taken the side of Perseus in the war and from among whom had originated the plot to kidnap the consul Hostilius in 170. After the laxity of the earlier years of the war the Roman army had had discipline imposed upon it. The patience of the soldiers was rewarded when Aemilius Paullus led them home in 167. In accordance with a decree of the Senate seventy towns of Epirus (mostly Molossian) were given them to plunder. One hundred and fifty thousand people were said to have been sold into slavery as a result of Paullus’ march to the sea (Polyb. XXX.15). The domination of the Epirote Charops, who had learned his Latin in Rome and had learned the force of Rome's displeasure as a political weapon earlier and better than most, was more than assured. In these and the other states of mainland Greece the ascendancy of the proRomans was assured by deportations, bloodbaths and fear. For the moment, however, the states remained intact. The kingdoms of Illyria and Macedon were eradicated. The policy was decided at Rome and implemented in Illyria by Anicius Gallus with the aid of a senatorial commission of five and in Macedon by Aemilius Paullus and a commission of ten. The Illyrians were to be free and without Roman garrison and their land divided into three parts. The first of these was the region of Pista, the second comprised all the Labeatae, the third the Agravonitae and the areas round Rhizon and Olcinium. How these divisions were to function is not specified, but it may be permissible to draw an analogy with the Macedonian republics created at the same time. Except for some (as the Issaeans) who had taken the Roman side from the beginning or who defected to Rome during the war, all were to pay to Rome as tribute half the taxes they had paid to the king. This tribute, which the Macedonian republics also paid, must be seen in part as a replacement for the indemnity that the kings would have paid, had they remained. At the same time, it cannot but suggest something of a continuing subject status for those who paid it. The Macedonians were

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Rome, the Fall of Macedon and the Sack of Corinth similarly to be free and to render to Rome half the taxes that had gone to Perseus. Four republics were established from Perseus’ kingdom. The first, with its capital at Amphipolis, comprised mainly the areas between the Rivers Strymon and Nessus, with some additions to the east of the Nessus (but excluding Aenus, Maronea and Abdera) and to the west of the Strymon (Basaltica with Heraclea Sintice). The second had Thessalonica as its capital and ran (with the aforementioned exceptions) from the Strymon to the Axius, taking in eastern Paeonia and all Chalcidice. The third was (p.76) based upon Pella and stretched from the Axius to the Peneus, incorporating Edessa, Beroea and western Paeonia. The fourth took in the wilder region across Mt Bora to the borders of Epirus and Illyria; its capital is given by Livy as Pelagonia (XLV.29.9). The four republics were to be firmly separate entities. Intermarriage across boundaries was not permitted, and ownership of land and buildings in more than one of the parts was prohibited. Only the Dardanians were allowed to import salt. The third district was disarmed, but the other three were permitted to maintain armed garrisons on their barbarian frontiers. No Macedonian timber was to be cut by anyone for ships, and while the iron and copper mines continued in operation, those of gold and silver were closed.35 Politically, the four republics were to govern themselves separately, each with its own body of elected representatives, or synedroi; their constitutional arrangements were laid down by Aemilius Paullus.36 A province, but not quite. One may see here an attempt on the part of Rome to avoid taking over direct control while establishing a system that would make indirect control as easy as possible. The arrangement sought to ensure reliability and certainly guaranteed weakness. In less than twenty years the pretender Andriscus would show how fragile a conception it was and, perhaps, how little it was wanted by the Macedonians themselves. Reprisals came to Rhodes, too. The attempt at mediation that Q. Marcius Philippus had elicited led almost to a declaration of war against the hapless Rhodians and all the way to the creation of Delos as a free port very much more attractive therefore than Rhodes for Aegean traffic. The state as a whole suffered in time. The leading anti-Romans there were mostly left to find their own deaths. Even Eumenes of Pergamum fell under ‘baleful suspicion’, and by 164 a Roman embassy in Asia Minor was openly inviting accusations against the king of Pergamum, placing him thus in the position formerly occupied by Antiochus III in 196 and Philip V in 185. The futures of Eumenes and Rhodes are part of another story37 but serve to indicate that Rome's will (p.77) to imperium went on very much as before. Still, the victory over Perseus did mark the achievement of an objective, as is indicated by the Senate's dealings with the Odrysian king Cotys in 166. He sent an embassy to Rome to ask that his son, sent as a hostage to Perseus and captured along with the children of that monarch by the Romans, be returned to him, and also to explain his co-operation Page 24 of 34

 

Rome, the Fall of Macedon and the Sack of Corinth with Perseus. ‘The Romans, thinking that they had attained their purpose now that the war against Perseus had ended in their favour, and that it served no purpose to prolong their difference with Cotys, allowed him to take back his son’ (Polyb. XXX.17.2). There were times when there was point in maintaining such differences, but now was not one of them. Things were, for once, in order, and a far-ranging ambassadorial tour of Greece and the east in 165, led by Ti. Sempronius Gracchus (cos. 177, 163; cens. 169), brought back favourable reports about everyone.

III. The End of Greek Freedom With the loss of Livy's continuous narrative after 167 B.C. and the increasingly fragmentary state of Polybius’ Histories, it becomes impossible to construct an account that can be full enough to be wholly satisfying. How far the indications that there are may be extrapolated and how far silence is to be construed as evidence of anything are questions that can only be borne in mind as one proceeds. Even about the Achaean League evidence is patchy, particularly before 147. On five occasions between 165 and 150 the Achaeans are known to have sent embassies to Rome seeking the return of the detainees or at least that they should have the charges and suspicions against them put to the test of a proper trial. On the first four of these occasions the Senate declined, reckoning that Roman interests were best served by maintaining Callicrates and his friends in power, and that the continued detention of the Achaeans, on charges still open, best served this aim. They relented in 150 and allowed those still alive (fewer than 300) to return, to be buried at home instead of in Italy, as Cato put it.38 The atmosphere in Achaea (p.78) was throughout these years one of tension tinged with the bitterness and hatred felt towards Callicrates by the majority. That the situation was the same elsewhere is the view of Polybius, and there is no evidence pointing in any other direction. The work of Callicrates in Achaea was being done in Aetolia by Lyciscus, in Boeotia by Mnasippus, in Acarnania by Chremas, in Epirus by Charops. Polybius saw the deaths of the last four, in quick succession in the early 150s, as ‘a sort of purification of Greece’ (XXXII.5.3), followed by improvement of relations in the states concerned. Whether a backlash of any magnitude also followed their deaths one can only guess, but the extent of hostility towards the Romans in Greece a decade or so later suggests something of the kind. At the same time the Senate retained its desire to be informed of all that was going on, and other embassies besides that of Gracchus in 165 made tours of inspection in Greece and the east. The Senate's desire was recognized, and disputes, of more or less local kinds, continued to be referred to Rome. The Senate might decide about these itself, send an embassy to investigate, or refer the matter to other Greeks for arbitration. In 164 a territorial dispute had arisen between Sparta and Megalopolis, and the decision on this was entrusted to the embassy led by C. Sulpicius Galus, which was to observe the state of affairs in Greece generally on its way to Asia Minor. The Page 25 of 34

 

Rome, the Fall of Macedon and the Sack of Corinth details of his activity in Greece, known only from Pausanias (VII.11.1–3), reveal much. In the territorial dispute he declined to decide and entrusted the decision instead to Callicrates. While in Greece he was approached by some Aetolians from Pleuron who wished to detach their city from the Achaean League. He allowed them to send an embassy of their own to Rome. The Senate authorized their secession and sent additional instructions to Galus, bidding him sever as many cities from the League as he might be able. There is bias and error in some parts of Pausanias’ narrative of these years but also a strong basis of fact. If his account here is anything like correct, it emerges that the Romans were not content to have their friends in power and that they were desiring to reduce the Achaean League more than fifteen years before this requirement was officially imposed. If there was tension within the states of Greece during these years, at least peace mostly prevailed. The first exception came in the Adriatic, where in 156 Rome fought a brief war against the Dalmatians. Polybius’ account of the outbreak of this war is of more than passing interest. In response to complaints, chiefly from Issa, about Dalmatian piracy, the Senate sent an embassy to the Dalmatians. The ambassadors were not properly received and reported as well that violence would have been done to them had they not made an early and quiet departure. The Senate heard of this in a mood of great indignation at the awkwardness (p.79) and disobedience of the Dalmatians. ‘But their chief motive for action was that for several reasons they thought the time a suitable one for making war on the Dalmatians. For to begin with they had never once set foot in those parts of Illyria since they had expelled Demetrius of Pharos, and next they did not at all wish the men of Italy to be utterly undone by the long peace, it now being twelve years since the war with Perseus and their campaigns in Macedonia. They therefore resolved by undertaking a war against the Dalmatians both to recreate, as it were, the spirit and zeal of their own troops and by striking terror into the Illyrians to compel them to obey their orders. These, then, were the reasons why the Romans went to war against the Dalmatians, but to the world at large they gave out that they had decided on war owing to the insult to their ambassadors’ (XXXII.13.4–9).39 Obedience was still the thing and the readiness to enforce it evidently greater than it had been before. Serious trouble lay a few years ahead. The surviving Achaean detainees returned to find what must have been a painfully and alarmingly familiar situation in the Peloponnese. Sparta was at odds with the rest of the Achaean League, and while secessionist feelings were on the increase in Sparta suppressionist ones were growing apace within the League at large. In winter of 150/49 embassies went to Rome from both. The Achaean mission was led by Callicrates who died on the way. The Senate declined to judge the matter just then and promised to send an embassy to arbitrate. How this dispute would have played itself out had it been allowed to do so on its own can only be guessed, but Roman determination in Page 26 of 34

 

Rome, the Fall of Macedon and the Sack of Corinth forcing her will upon the Dalmatians must suggest the answer. It was, however, not allowed to, for once again, as in 180/79, an event in Macedonia coincided influentially with the affairs of the Peloponnese, this time fatally. In the north a pretender to the Macedonian throne had arisen, or ‘fallen from the sky’ as Polybius put it (XXXVI.10.2). Andriscus easily overcame the slight resistance offered by the Macedonian republics and quickly amassed a large following there. In 149 a Roman army was sent under the command of the praetor P. Iuventius Thalna. He met Andriscus in the field and lost the battle and his life. More forces were sent in 148 under the praetor Q. Caecilius Metellus, a man not without connections in the area.40 By the end of the year he had defeated and captured Andriscus and restored quiet in Macedonia. Having done this he remained there ominously with his army. (p.80) During these two years the Senate refrained from sending its embassy to the Peloponnese, a delay which can occasion no surprise. It was always the Roman way to deal with one thing at a time in so far as possible, and that was very much the way of these years of Andriscus, Carthage and the Achaeans. As the Senate delayed, the Achaeans, under the highly popular leadership of Diaeus and Critolaus, carried on in dealing with Sparta, as others before them had once carried on in dealing with Messenia. They did not heed advice from Metellus to wait for word from Rome and had brought the dispute within sight of settlement when the Roman envoys, led by L. Aurelius Orestes (cos. 157), arrived in the summer of 147. Whether the Senate's message would have been the same had the rising in Macedon not intervened cannot be known. Evidence of unrest and hostility towards Rome in Greece cannot have been without effect, and it was now clear, as it had not been in 149, what an Achaea without Callicrates would look like. In the event, the message was both clear and harsh. Orestes summoned the magistrates of the League cities and Diaeus the federal general and informed them that the Senate had decided that neither Sparta nor yet Corinth were to belong to the League and that Argos, Heraclea-by-Oeta and Arcadian Orchomenus were also to be detached. Orestes (and no doubt the Senate) had clearly been unwilling to communicate this directly to an Achaean assembly, but the Achaeans he had summoned rushed from the meeting and did this themselves. There was a furious reaction, and rage was vented upon everything that looked like a Spartan. Violence was nearly done to the Romans’ place of lodging where some Spartans had sought refuge. Upon hearing of this the Senate despatched another embassy, led by Sex. Iulius Caesar (cos. 157). They attempted mollification, but the orders for the removal of the aforementioned cities stood. The Romans did not wish completely to destroy the League, and obedience was still possible. It sounds like an ultimatum and may indeed have been one in fact. Caesar arranged a meeting at Tegea between Spartan and Achaean representatives, but Critolaus prevented anything from being accomplished, pleading that no decisions could be taken before the Achaean assembly next met, in six months’ time. Caesar and his colleagues Page 27 of 34

 

Rome, the Fall of Macedon and the Sack of Corinth departed, and with this formal communication between Rome and the Achaean League was at an end. When the Romans declared war, sometime early in 146, the reason alleged was the treatment of L. Aurelius Orestes and his fellowambassadors at Corinth. The winter of 147/6 was spent by the Achaeans in preparation for a war against Sparta with every likelihood that this would mean war with Rome. Support throughout the Achaean cities was great, and there was (p.81) support elsewhere in Greece.41 For the Achaeans it was a simple question: adherence to Roman orders and substantial reduction of the League or war. They chose to defend their confederacy. Others elsewhere had come to see clearly the direction that Roman policy and Roman rule were taking. In the spring of 146 the assembly of the Achaean League met at Corinth. Polybius comments disparagingly on the predominance there of manual labourers and artisans (XXXVIII.12.5). Evidently feelings for democracy and nationalism were especially strong amongst these, but there were very few dissenters. War was declared, ‘nominally against Sparta but in reality against Rome’ (Polyb. XXXVIII.13.6). An embassy from Metellus arrived fortuitously at the time of this meeting, offering the Achaeans a last chance to acquiesce peacefully to Rome's orders. He must have known by then that L. Mummius, consul of 146, was on his way to Greece with an army and that the fleet lately at Carthage was to be sent there.42 Metellus wished to add the credit for settling this affair to that already gained for his handling of Macedonia. It did not matter how the settlement was achieved: when he sent his envoys to offer the hope of peace he was already starting his march south. The Achaean army under Critolaus went to lay siege to the rebellious Heraclea, whether because they thought they had the leisure to deal with this secession or out of some hope that action there might make it possible to block Metellus’ passage at Thermopylae. There was time for neither, and Critolaus was killed and his army defeated at Scarpheia in Locris. Advancing Achaean reinforcements were soon after cut to pieces by Metellus as he swept towards the Isthmus. There Mummius took over command and routed the remaining Achaean forces under Diaeus. ‘Corinth opened its gates, most of its inhabitants fled, the remainder suffered the rigour of a Roman sack.’43 More was to come. The Senate decreed that Corinth was to be burnt and everything in it sold or carried off to Rome. A senatorial commission of ten was despatched to assist L. Mummius in the settlement of Greece. Macedonia became a Roman province, henceforth to receive a Roman governor. His brief would include southern Greece, not for a long time a separate province itself. In Greece confederacies were dissolved and democracy ceased to be the normal form of government, although some mitigation of these penalties (p.82) occurred before too long.44 Greece had been much altered in the aftermath of the Roman victory of 168. Following the

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Rome, the Fall of Macedon and the Sack of Corinth victory of 146 the alteration was more extensive, more complete, and it was permanent. Notes:

(1) Far and away the most important sources for the relations between Rome and Greece from 188 to 146 are Polybius and Livy. The chronological arrangement of the relevant books of Polybius (which have mostly to do with Greece and the east) is as follows: Book XXII (188/7–185/4); XXIII (184/3–183/2); XXIV (182/1– 181/80); XXV (180/79–177/6); XXVII (172/1–171/70); XXVIII (170/69); XXIX (169/8); XXX (168/7–165/4); XXXI (164/3–161/60); XXXII (160/59–157/6); XXXIII (156/5–153/2); XXXV (152/1–151/50); XXXVI (150/49–149/8); XXXVIII (147/6); XXXIX (146/5–145/4). For the internal economy of these books see Walbank 1957–79, III.56–61. The Livian evidence is to be found in books XXXIX–XLV, especially in the following sections: XXXIX.23.5–29.3 (185), 33–37 (184), 46.6– 50.11, 53 (183); XL.2.6–16.3 (182), 20.1–24.8 (181–180), 54–58 (180–179); XLI. 19.4–11 (175), 22.2–25.8 (174); XLII.2.1–3, 4.5–6.4 (173), 10.11, 11.1–18.6, 19, 25–27 (172), 29–67 (171); XLIII. 1 (171), 4–6.10, 7–8, 9.4–11.12 (170), 18–23 (169); XLIV.1–16.7 (169), 18.1–5, 20–46 (168); XLV1–3; (168), 4.2–10.15, 17.34 (167). The Periochae of books XLVI–LII contain some bits and pieces relevant to the years 167–146. For the history of the Achaean League from 167 to 146 the independent account in Pausanias (VII. 11–16) assumes an importance of its own, despite obvious difficulties. The narrative here follows Polybius and Livy (preferring the former) very closely, and running references will not normally be given along the way, save in cases of specific details (such as quotation) or controversy. Reference to Walbank 1957–79, III will for the most part go without saying; it must be consulted for points of interpretation of Polybius, for notices of other relevant evidence and for bibliography. A good deal of the important epigraphical evidence is collected in Sherk, Documents, and the two volumes of Moretti, ISE; virtually all of the most important texts will be found in SIG3. A number of the basic ones are translated in Bagnall and Derow 1981 and Austin 1981. For the activities of Roman officials (including magistrates and ambassadors) the evidence is assembled under the year in question in MRR. For the state of the Roman calendar from 188 to 168 (always ahead of the seasonal year, but by a decreasing amount in the later years) and for a table of calendar equivalents see this volume, Ch. 10. The equivalents there (and here) may be assumed to be correct to within a day or two: cf. Walbank 1957–79, III.vi. (2) For the background: Livy XXXV.37.1–2 (cf. Plut. Philop. 15.2; Paus. VIII. 50.10f.), 38.30–33. (3) Freeman 1893, 202–5; Larsen 1968, 238–9. (4) Livy XXXVIII.32.7–9.

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Rome, the Fall of Macedon and the Sack of Corinth (5) Brachylles’ murder (197/6) and Flamininus’ role in it: Polyb. XVIII.43.5–12. See Polyb. XX.4–7 on the continuing troubles in Boeotia down to 192/1. (6) Polyb. XXII.3.3 for the εὔποροι, and the καχέκται who outnumbered them; cf. XX.6.2–3; also XX.7.3 for the alienation of ‘the many’ from Rome attributed to the murder of Brachylles. On the connection between Roman conduct and class conflict in Greece throughout this period see above all de Ste. Croix 1981, ch. 5.iii and Appendix 4 (esp. 523–9) with notes (659–60). (7) Errington 1989, 6. (8) That he did receive some such encouragement is beyond doubt: cf. Livy XXXIX.23.10 and Walbank 1957–79, III.104 (on XXI.11.9). (9) Probably, but not certainly, the consul of 185, Ap. Claudius Ap.f. P.n. Pulcher, but possibly Ap. Claudius Nero, praetor 195; cf. Walbank 1957–79, III on XXII. 11.4. (10) Ἡ πρὸς τοὺς Ῥωμαίους ἀλλοτριότης, Polyb. XXII. 14.6; cf. XXIII.8.2. This is the first appearance of this uncomfortably open-ended charge. Wielded by Romans to begin with, it will be taken over by Rome's friends in the Greek states for use against their political rivals: the Epirote Charops, after Rome's defeat of Perseus, can sentence his opponents to death on the charge of ‘thinking otherwise than the Romans’ (ἀλλότρια φρονοῦντες Ῥωμαίων, Polyb. XXXII.6.2). Cf. Sherk, Documents 43 (SIG3 684), and 16 for an appearance of the notion in a more formal context (letter of Q. Fabius Maximus to Dyme, probably of 115 B.C.). (11) Polyb. XXII.14.7–12. That Polybius’ aetiology of the war against Perseus took this line is indicated by the run of the narrative implied in the ‘table of contents’ of book XXII at XXII.1.5 (cf. Derow 1979, 12 (this volume, Ch. 5, 149) n. 36), as well as by the language of, especially, XXII.14.8–10 which is very much that of III.6.7. (12) In Livy's account (XL.54–56) Philip realized shortly before his own death that Demetrius had been wrongly condemned and determined that Perseus should not succeed him. This is not credible, however genuine Philip's remorse may have been: see Walbank 1940, 238–53, esp. 252–3. On Demetrius (ibid.): ‘Vain and ambitious, he had lent himself to clumsy manoeuvring by Flamininus and his circle, and had himself to thank for his untimely end; Philip could not afford to let him live on as a Roman pretender.’ (13) Polyb. XXII.10.11–12: ‘They refused to summon the assembly, for the laws did not allow it unless someone brought a written communication from the Senate concerning the business for which it desired the assembly to be summoned.’ This is made more precise by the Achaean envoys at Rome later in Page 30 of 34

 

Rome, the Fall of Macedon and the Sack of Corinth the same year (XXII.12.6): ‘For it is the law of the Achaeans not to call together the many [μὴ συγκαλεῖν τοὺς πολλούς, i.e., not to summon a synkletos], unless a resolution about alliance or war needs to be considered or unless someone brings a letter from the Senate.’ This (and the converse provision that questions of alliance and war were reserved for specially summoned meetings, synkletoi) represents second-century Achaean practice. How early it became so is not known, but the element involving the Senate seems likely to date from the time of the League's alliance with Rome (on which see next note). On Achaean synkletoi and syndodoi (regular meetings of federal council and assembly, of which there were most likely four a year) see Walbank 1957–79, III.406–14. (14) The treaty was concluded between 197 (Polyb. XVIII.42.6–8) and 184 (Livy XXXIX.37.9–10), and the best case yet put forward, Badian 1952, is for a date between November 192 and spring 191; cf. Walbank 1957–79, III on XXIII.4.12 and XXXIX.3.8. The form of the Achaean request in 183 (‘that no one from Italy should import either arms or corn’ (μήϑ᾽ ὅπλα μήτε σῖτον) into Messenia) implies that the treaty was of what appears to have been a standard form, the best example of which is the alliance between Rome and Maronea, probably of the 160s; for the text see Triantafyllos 1973 (1977), pl. 418; cf. Derow 1984; 234. (15) See this volume, Ch. 7, but note that the connection between Callicrates’ démarche at Rome and Perseus’ accession to the Macedonian throne needs very much to be borne in mind; cf. below, pp. 59–60. Other views of Callicrates have been taken: cf. Walbank 1957–79, III on XXIV.10.8. (16) Polyb. XXIV. 10.8, 14–15. The generalship was most likely that for 180/79 (and not 179/8), but see Walbank 1957–79, III on XXIV.10.14. (17) For Roman orders, and their obedience by others, as the basic element in Polybius’ conception (an informed and correct one, I believe) of Roman imperialism (i.e., the expansion of Roman imperium), see Derow 1979, esp. 4–6 (this volume Ch. 5, esp. 135–8). (18) For Lycortas and Diophanes cf. above, pp. 52–4; for Philopoemen and Aristaenus see esp. Polyb. XXIV.11–13. (19) On the reconstituted amphictyony cf. Giovannini 1970. (20) Compare Polyb. XXV.4.5 (the decision in 178) with Polyb. XXI.46.8, XXII.5.4 (the disposition made by the Roman commissioners in 188). (21) Livy XXXIV.51.6 (194 B.C.), and see Errington 1989, 6. (22) See Robert 1937, 84–7.

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Rome, the Fall of Macedon and the Sack of Corinth (23) Sherk, Documents 40 (SIG3 643), is (almost certainly) an official Roman communication to the Delphic Amphictyony, belonging presumably to the eve of Rome's war against Perseus. Not enough survives to permit anything like complete restoration, but the charges against Perseus that it clearly does contain are strikingly similar to those brought by Eumenes in Livy's account (XLII.11–13), and cf. below, p. 68, on Q. Marcius Philippus’ meeting with Perseus in the winter of 172/1. (24) The chronology of, and a certain amount else surrounding, the immediate background of Rome's declaration of war against Perseus does not always emerge with complete clarity from Livy and Polybius. See Rich 1976, 88–99, and, especially on points of chronology and the narrative in Livy, book XLII, Warrior 1981. (25) This embassy left Rome as Cn. Sicinius prepared to cross to Apollonia, thus probably at some point in November 172, and returned to Rome in January/ February 171: see Warrior 1981, 12–13; cf. Walbank 1957–79, III.290–1 (but the date for Philippus’ departure given there is somewhat too early). (26) Indutiae in Livy (XLII.43.2), ἀνοχαί in Polybius (XXVII.5.7), which must imply (against Walbank 1957–79: ad loc.) that by the time Philippus met Perseus the war had been declared at Rome; cf. Warrior 1981, 13 with notes. The embassy left Rome no long time (if indeed at all?) before the declaration. (27) Livy XLII.47.4; cf. Diod. Sic. XXX.7.1 (indicating a Polybian original for the report). On the ‘nova sapientia’ here complained about and its implications for Roman policy during these years see Briscoe 1964. (28) Sherk, Documents 2 (SIG3 646) with commentary; see ibid. 3 for the similar and contemporary situation at Boeotian Coronea (and n.b. Livy XLIII.4.11 and the treatment by Robert cited by Sherk). (29) See CAH, 2nd edn, viii, pp. 186 and 227. (30) Polyb. XXVIII. 17.8. That Philippus was counselling mediation in Rome's war with Perseus and not in the Syrian war between Antiochus IV and Ptolemy VI is required by Polybius’ remarks in XXVIII.17.7–9: see Walbank 1957–79, III, on XXVIII.17.4. (31) For a brief discussion, with essential bibliography, of Philippus’ entry into Macedonia see Walbank 1957–79, III.341–2. (32) On Charops and Cephalus see Walbank 1957–79, III on XXVII.15; cf. also Polyb. XXX.7.2.

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Rome, the Fall of Macedon and the Sack of Corinth (33) At XLIV.19.4 Livy reports that the Latin Games were to be held pr. id. Apr. (i.e. 2 February 168) and at XLIV.22.16 that they took place pr. kal. Apr. (i.e. 20 January 168). Whether Ides or Kalends is correct must be an open question, but the slightly later date seems on balance more likely. (34) For discussion of Paullus’ campaign (including Nasica's march) and the battle itself, along with essential bibliography, see Walbank 1957–79, III.378–90. (35) On Livy's account the aim was to deny the publicani a field of operation: see XLV. 18.4, ‘they (the mines) could not be run without the publicani, and whenever there was a publicanus either the rights of the people was a nonentity or the freedom of the allies destroyed’; cf. Hill 1952, 90; Badian 1968, 18. It may be relevant that there had been trouble between Senate and publicani during the censorship of 184, 179 and 169. At the same time, it may be that the Senate felt unsure that these mines could be operated without the maintenance of some kind of military presence. Whatever the reason for closing them in 167, they were re-opened without incident in 158 (Cassiodorus, Chron., under 158 B.C.). (36) On the Macedonian and Illyrian republics cf. Larsen 1968, 295–300, and Larsen in ESAR IV.298–9, 300. (37) The embassy was led by C. Sulpicius Galus (cos. 166); for the invitation to traducers of Eumenes: Polyb. XXXI.6.1–2. The ‘baleful suspicion’ (ὑποψία μοχϑηρά) appears in a letter of Attalus III of Pergamum of 156 B.C. (Welles, Royal Correspondence 61.14) which contains also an appreciation of Rome's foreign policy very like that expressed by Polybius in XXIII.17.3 (for which see above, pp. 57–9). (38) Earlier attempts: Polyb. XXX.30.1, 32.1–12 (164); XXXII.2.14–17 (159); XXXIII.1.3–8 (155); XXXIII.14 (154/3). Their release in 150 and Cato's quip: Plut. Cat. Maj. 9, also printed as Polyb. XXXV.6; cf. Walbank 1957–79, III ad loc. (39) Preferring the manuscripts at 13.6 (ἀπόλλυσϑαι) to Reiske's misogynistic emendation (ἀποθηλύνεσϑαι). (40) The connection goes back at least as far as the ambassador of 185. (41) For the evidence of the widespread popular support for the war see above all Fuks 1970. (42) See Paus. VII.15.1–2 and cf. Polyb. XXXVIII.12.1; on the likelihood of a lacuna before the latter, cf. Walbank 1957–79, III ad loc. On the fleet see Polyb. XXXVIII.16.3. (43) Benecke, CAH1 VIII.304.

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Rome, the Fall of Macedon and the Sack of Corinth (44) Paus. VII.16.9–10; cf. Larsen in ESAR iv.306–11, and, on Achaea in and after 146, cf. Schwertfeger 1974, 18–78.

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Polybius

Rome, Polybius, and the East The late Peter Derow, Andrew Erskine, and Josephine Crawley Quinn

Print publication date: 2014 Print ISBN-13: 9780199640904 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199640904.001.0001

Polybius (205?–125? B.C.) Peter Derow Andrew Erskine Josephine Crawley Quinn

DOI:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199640904.003.0004

Abstract and Keywords This chapter presents a general account of the life and works of Polybius before placing him within the Greek historical tradition. It considers Polybius's historical account of the process whereby the Mediterranean world came to be conquered by Rome and how its several peoples (including the Romans) fared during the time of Roman rule. It also looks at Polybius's enumeration of Timaeus's defects as a historian, which reflects what he thought history ought to be and do. Finally, it assesses Polybius's role in the Roman settlement of Greece following the Achaean war. Keywords:   history, Polybius, Mediterranean, Rome, Timaeus, Greece, Achaean war

Polybius begins with the assumption that there can be no one of any worth who would not wish to know ‘how, and by a state with what sort of constitution, almost the whole of the known world was conquered and fell under the single rule of the Romans in a space of not quite fifty-three years’ (Histories 1.1.5). The time in question runs from the 140th Olympiad (220–219 B.C.) to the Roman settlement of Greece in 167 B.C. that abolished the kingdom of Macedonia. This last event marked for him the final point in the expansion of Roman rule. What he saw in the years following led him to extend his work, both in time and in depth. Conquest (or defeat) was not the end pure and simple. There were lessons to be learned from the behavior of conquerors and conquered (or, rulers Page 1 of 21

 

Polybius and ruled, as they were then) alike. Hence, the decision to continue past 167 B.C. and to give an account of the subsequent policy of the conquerors and their method of universal rule, as well as of the various opinions and appreciations of the rulers entertained by others. And I must also describe what were the prevailing and dominant tendencies and ambitions of the various peoples in their public and private life. (3.4.6) The ultimate reason for this decision: For it is evident that contemporaries will be able to see from these things whether the dominion of the Romans is an evil or, on the contrary, a good, and future generations whether their rule should be considered to be worthy of praise and emulation or rather of censure. (3.4.7) In this Polybius sees ‘the usefulness’ of his Histories (3.4.8), and he is surely right. The approach is new and important. Judgment about empire is to be based upon evidence about its effect upon rulers and ruled. It is for the historian to provide this evidence. The material will (p.86) come from the years down to the time of ‘troubled confusion and movement’ (3.4.12), which began in the 150s B.C. and continued to the destruction of Carthage and Corinth in 146 B.C. and the immediate aftermath. This he treats as a separate period: ‘About the time of trouble, owing to the importance of the actions and the unexpected character of the events, and chiefly because I not only witnessed most of them but even directed some, I was induced to write, making as it were a new beginning’ (3.4.13). The reasons he gives for these enlargements of his work and his theme should be taken at face value. When did he take the decisions to add these two dimensions, and how far had he written when he did so? The events of 146 B.C. clearly prompted the final extension. How long before this (if at all) he decided to treat the period of Roman rule per se is bound to remain a matter of debate, but it is most likely a separate question. By 146 B.C., at any rate, he had probably written the first fifteen books, down to the end of the Hannibalic war. Birth and subsequent fortune placed Polybius exceptionally well for his task. His father, Lycortas of Megalopolis, was a leading figure in the Achaean League, especially in the 180s B.C., and, along with Philopoemen, one of the architects of the doomed Achaean attempt to treat with Rome on a basis of equality during those years. Polybius himself was to have gone on an Achaean embassy to Alexandria in 181–180. (The mission did not happen owing to the death of Ptolemy V just then.) Polybius was in his twenties at the time. In 170–169, during the Roman war against Perseus, he held the second-highest magistracy of the Achaean League, the hipparchy. In 167, he was one of the thousand Achaeans deported to Italy after the Roman victory over Perseus at Pydna in the previous year. The following sixteen years he spent mostly in Rome and in the Page 2 of 21

 

Polybius company of L. Paullus' grandsons, Q. Fabius Maximus Aemilianus and P. Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus. His friendship with the latter was particularly close. After his captivity ended in 151 he traveled extensively but the connection with Scipio and, more important, that with Rome, endured. He was with Scipio when Carthage was burned and razed, and perhaps with him later at Numantia; and he helped in no small way to usher in the Roman settlement imposed upon Greece after the Achaean war. He is said to have died after falling from a horse at the age of eighty-two. It is not impossible. As finally conceived and written by Polybius, the Histories ran to forty books. The narrative proper begins in book 3 with the start of the 140th Olympiad (220– 219 B.C.) and the outbreak of the Hannibalic war, and extends to a total of thirty-four books. Books 1 and 2 look back from the starting point and provide what Polybius saw as a necessary background: (p.87) As neither the former power nor the early history of Rome and Carthage is familiar to most Greeks, I thought it necessary to prefix this book and the next to the actual History, in order that no one after becoming engrossed in the narrative proper may find himself at a loss, and ask by what counsel and trusting to what power and resources the Romans embarked on that enterprise which has made them rulers over land and sea in our part of the world; but that from these books and the preliminary sketch in them it may be clear to readers that they had quite adequate grounds for conceiving the aim of universal rule and dominion and adequate means for achieving their purpose. (1.3.8–10) Book 3 itself follows the Hannibalic war down to the battle of Cannae (216 B.C.). Books 4 and 5 treat separately of the contemporary history of Greece and Asia to just beyond the Peace of Naupactus (217 B.C.), which at once brought an end to the Social War in Greece and marked the entwining of the theretofore separate histories of west and east (see below). There follows at this point book 6, Polybius' account of the Roman constitution (including Roman military arrangements), so instrumental in facilitating Rome's recovery from disaster and in enabling the Romans to form and to carry out their project of universal domination. Books 7–11 contain the decade after Cannae (216–215 B.C. to 207– 206 B.C.), the period of Philip V of Macedon's involvement in Rome's war with Carthage. Book 12 comprises Polybius' treatment of the Sicilian historian Timaeus of Tauromenium, an extended series of more or less violent attacks upon Timaeus and corresponding statements by Polybius about who ought to write history and how he ought to go about doing it. Continuous narrative of the next fifty-four years (206–205 B.C. to 153–152 B.C.) occupies twenty-one more books. This is the period of the Roman conquest and of Roman rule in a more or less stable world. Book 34 is devoted to geography and provides a break before the account of the time of trouble (152–151 B.C. to 146–145 B.C., books 35 to

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Polybius 39). Book 40 seems to have contained a kind of chronological summary and index of the whole work. By no means all of it is extant. Books 1–5 remain intact. After that it is a matter of excerpts and quotations by other writers. The ‘Excerpta Antiqua’ are a continuous abridgement of books 1–18 and provide the majority of what remains of books 6 to 18. With book 7 the slightly later ‘Constantinian excerpts’ (a collection of excerpts, under various headings and from many Greek historians along with Polybius, made for the emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus in the tenth century A.D.) begin to be important. Some Polybius is preserved under the titles (themselves not completely preserved) ‘de virtutibus et vitiis’ (124 excerpts from books 2–39, about 130 pages); ‘de sententiis’ (166 excerpts (p. 88) from books 1–39, some 120 pages); ‘de legationibus gentium ad Romanos’ (119 excerpts from books 18–36, about 135 pages); ‘de legationibus Romanorum ad gentes’ (35 excerpts from books 1–38, about 45 pages); ‘de insidiis’ (one three-page excerpt from book 15). By contrast with the ‘Excerpta Antiqua’, these excerpts (which are of widely varying length) do not constitute any sort of abridgement but are kept as quite separate passages, and the excerptor's hand can often be detected in awkward, and sometimes quite misleading, attempts to provide summary contexts at the beginning of an excerpt. Within each set, the passages have been copied out in the order in which the excerptor found them in the text before him, but the arrangement of the lot into one continuous set (there are some overlaps but not many)— representing part of the text of books 7 to 18 and virtually the whole of it after that—is a different matter. The task may now be said to be about complete. The arrangement put forward by F. W. Walbank (Historical Commentary, vol. 3, pp. 1–62) makes almost all the adjustments that need to be made to T. BuettnerWobst's text for the Teubner edition, which itself was a great improvement in this respect upon the earlier text of F. Hultsch. In all of this it must be remembered that each of the excerptors was looking for, and copying out, only certain kinds of passages, and it must be added that they certainly did not register all the passages relevant to their themes. From five books there are no excerpts at all (17, 19, 26, 37, 40), and these must be assumed to have been lost before the excerpts were made. A few quotations from 19, 26, and 37 are found in other authors; 17 and 40 have perished without trace. The geographical book 34 was most referred to, especially by the ancient geographer Strabo, and some twenty-five pages of citation or paraphrase from it have been assembled. What has made it possible not only to reconstruct the skeleton of the Histories but also to replace accurately what of the flesh has survived is precisely the careful and consistent arrangement of the work that Polybius reckoned would enable readers of the whole to come to terms with it. Previous writers had arranged disparate material by subject matter or had adopted a chronological framework based upon the Olympiad. Polybius, having to fashion into a single story events spread over three-quarters of a century and the whole of the Page 4 of 21

 

Polybius Mediterranean world, combined the two in an original and perfectly fitting way. Vertically, the arrangement is by Olympiads, each Olympiad containing four years that could be numbered (compare, for example, 23.1.1, beginning the account of the 149th Olympiad: ‘In the 149th Olympiad…’ and 23.9.1, beginning the account of the next year: ‘In the second year…’). Polybius' Olympiad years are not meant to be rigid or formally correct, running from midsummer to midsummer, but are cut to fit the course of (p.89) events. They generally begin and end in the autumn, with the close of the campaigning season, but this rough limit could be, and was, stopped short of or run over if the events being narrated required. Within the year he offers more precision by reference to the various stages of spring, summer, and winter, which are to be taken as based quite precisely upon astronomical phenomena. Thus, for Polybius, the beginning of spring is closely associated with the vernal equinox, that of summer with the heliacal rising of the Pleiades (about 20 May then), that of winter with their cosmical setting (about 7 November). The most common arrangement was for a single book to contain half an Olympiad, two years. This is the way with fourteen books: 7–11 (Olympiad 141.1–143.2); 13 (Olympiad 143.3–4); 16–18 (Olympiad 144.3–145.4); 23 (Olympiad 149.1–2); 24 (Olympiad 149.3–4); 27 (Olympiad 152.1–2); 35 (Olympiad 157.1–2); 36 (Olympiad 157.3–4). But this arrangement also was varied to suit the importance of the events and the amount of material available. Thus, eight books contain the events of a single year: 14 (Olympiad 144.1); 15 (Olympiad 144.2); 20 (Olympiad 147.1); 28 (Olympiad 152.3); 29 (Olympiad 152.4); 37–39 (Olympiad 158.1, 2, 3). Apart from the special case of books 3–5, eight contain the events of an entire Olympiad: 19 (Olympiad 146); 22 (Olympiad 148); 25 (Olympiad 150); 26 (Olympiad 151); 30–33 (Olympiad 153, 154, 155, 156). Only book 21 contains the events of three years (Olympiad 147.2–4), and no book begins other than at the beginning of an Olympiad year. Horizontally, the guide is provided by Polybius' adoption of a geographical framework. Within each year, there is a fixed progression from west to east: first, the events in Italy (with Sicily, Spain, and Africa), then Greece and Macedonia, then Asia, then Egypt. Demands of subject matter could occasion departure from this schedule; such departure required announcement and explanation (15.24a and 25.19; 32.11.2), and so at least once did its maintenance (38.5). The framework could give rise to oddities, such as reporting the arrival of an embassy at Rome before its dispatch from Rhodes, as happens in book 28, and upon which Polybius himself comments: I have already reported in the section dealing with Italian affairs their speech to the Senate and the answer they received from it; and how after the kindest possible reception they returned. As regards this matter it serves some purpose to remind my readers frequently, as indeed I attempt to do, that I am often compelled to report the interviews and proceedings of embassies before announcing the circumstances of their appointment and dispatch. For as, in narrating in their proper order the events of each Page 5 of 21

 

Polybius year, I attempt to comprise under a separate heading the events that happened (p.90) among each people in that year, it is evident that this must sometimes occur in my work. (28.16.9–11) To judge from his remark here, this problem must have arisen often, and, given the fragmentary state of the later books, it is a point to bear in mind. But such occasional oddities are, as Polybius recognized, a small price to pay for keeping the parallel status of events spread over a wide area in constant focus. It is not a history of Rome that he was writing, but an account, first, of the process whereby the Mediterranean world came to be conquered by Rome and, then, how its several peoples (including the Romans) fared during the time of Roman rule. The Italian section of each year necessarily precedes the others, but, equally necessarily, it does not stand alone. In this respect, the arrangement of the narrative reflects Polybius' conception of the essential unity of his subject. This unity, the interconnection of events east and west, had a fixed beginning, the peace conference at Naupactus in the late summer of 217 B.C. It was this time and this conference that first connected the affairs of Greece, of Italy, and of Africa with one another. From this point both Philip and the leading statesmen in Greece ceased to make wars, truces and treaties with one another in the light of events in Greece alone, but fixed their attention upon the issues in Italy. And very soon the same thing happened with the islanders and the inhabitants of Asia Minor. Those who were displeased with Philip, and some of the opponents of King Attalus of Pergamum no longer turned towards the south and east, to Antiochus and Ptolemy, but henceforward looked to the west, some sending embassies to Carthage and some to Rome. Likewise the Romans sent embassies to the Greeks, since they were disturbed by the audacious nature of Philip's policy and wished to guard themselves against an attack by him now that they were in difficulties. (5.105.4–8) Polybius thus reckons to have shown ‘how and why Greek affairs became involved with those of Italy and Africa’ (5.105.9) and in the remainder of book 5 takes his narrative of Greek history down to Hannibal's victory at Cannae. Prior to this unification a different approach had been required: But in order that my narrative may be easy to follow and lucid, I think it most essential as regards this Olympiad (the 140th) not to interweave the events with one another, but to keep them as separate and distinct as possible until upon reaching the next and following Olympiads I can begin to narrate the events year by year and in parallel. (5.31.4–5)

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Polybius The events of Greece and the east are accordingly narrated quite separately in books 4 and 5, but all are located within their Olympiad year (p.91) and are, moreover, kept within sight of one another by the occasional synchronizing of important points in the history of Greece, Asia, and the west (compare 5.31.3). It is a question whether the turning point was as complete or as radical as Polybius portrays it, whether Agelaus' ‘clouds from the west’ speech (5.104) so altered men's thinking in the course of a day, whether the news of the Roman defeat at Lake Trasimene and what Demetrius of Pharos whispered about Italy in Philip's ear (5.101) so changed the direction of that king's policy. The last is hardly defensible even on chronological grounds, and the embassies to Rome and Carthage of which Polybius speaks are met only much later, if at all. But Philip did begin to treat with Hannibal on the morrow of Cannae, and the Romans did respond. This linked the affairs of Rome and the west with the already intertwined ones of Greece, Asia, and Egypt. One might wish to see an inextricable connection between Italian and Greek events going back to the first Illyrian war (or indeed a good deal further). Polybius might in turn have argued that only in 217–216 B.C. did the royal house of Macedon become directly involved with Roman affairs. There is, at least, no question that from 216–215 B.C. and the beginning of book 7 the story is a single one and Polybius' synoptic approach is admirably suited to its telling. In the course of Polybius' enumeration of Timaeus' defects as a historian we learn something of what he thought a historian ought to be and do. Plato said that human affairs would go well when philosophers became kings or kings took up the study of philosophy. So, for Polybius, history will be well written either when ‘men of affairs’ write history (in a serious and concentrated way) or when those who would write it regard training in actual affairs as an indispensable basis from which to proceed (12.28.1–4). Such background is necessary, but by no means sufficient. ‘Pragmatic’ history (the account of these ‘actual affairs’ that maintains, as will be seen, its focus upon the need for explanation) has three parts (12.25e.1). The first involves ‘the diligent study of memoirs and documents and the collation of the material in them’; the second, ‘the survey of cities, locales, rivers, harbors, and in general all the special features of land and sea and the distances from one place to another’; the third concerns ‘political actions’. It is clear that what Polybius has in mind is contemporary, or what might better be called ‘accessible’ history. This he reckons to be the only kind that can be written with confidence, and it is certainly what he sees himself doing in his narrative proper. He considers his chosen starting point appropriate both because it was about then that the memoirs of the Achaean statesman Aratus finished and (p.92) because the period following upon this and included in my History coincides with my own and the preceding generation, so that I have been present at some of the events and have the evidence of eyewitnesses for others. It seemed to me indeed that if I comprised events of an earlier Page 7 of 21

 

Polybius date, repeating mere hearsay evidence, I should be safe neither in my judgments nor in my assertions. (4.2.2–3) Thus books 1 and 2 are background, preparatory material attached ‘before the History’ (1.3.8), and not part of the history itself. Thus also the third part of pragmatic history becomes its distinguishing and most essential element. Inquiries from books require only leisure and access to a library or a city rich in documents. ‘Personal inquiry [the critical examination of witnesses], on the contrary, requires great hardship and expense, but it is of great importance and is the greatest part of history’ (12.27.6). Polybius knew the value of homework; he had read extensively both inside and outside his own period (as the range of the discussion in book 12 and stray references throughout the history show), and he was no stranger to the use of documents (see especially 3.22–26 on the early treaties between Rome and Carthage). But for him, only direct personal acquaintance or painstaking questioning of those who have it can provide the historian with the requisite knowledge of the actual affairs, the events or actions that are the basis of his account. These include not only what the characters did but also what they said; speeches are reckoned as much political actions as deeds. In 12.25b the immediate emphasis is upon speeches, but he is evidently talking about facts of both kinds: The peculiar function of history is to discover, in the first place, the words actually spoken, whatever they were, and next to ascertain the reason why what was done or spoken led to failure or success. For the mere statement of a fact may interest us; but when the reason is added, the study of history becomes fruitful. For it is the mental transference of similar circumstances to our own times that gives us the means of forming presentiments about what is going to happen, and enables us at certain times to take precautions and at others by reproducing former conditions to face with more confidence the difficulties that menace us. But a writer who passes over in silence the speeches made and the reason for what actually happened and in their place introduces false rhetorical exercises and discursive speeches destroys the peculiar characteristic of history. Here, of course, as indeed in so much else, he is with Thucydides in seeing the need to make what was said the subject of the same kind of rigorous inquiry as what was done. Yet he also goes beyond Thucydides in his insistence that it is the element of explanation that gives historical (p.93) work its value. Accuracy and clarity are necessary, but not sufficient. To these must be added the reason for what happened. The importance Polybius attaches to this element is explicit here but could have been guessed from the care and emphasis with which he explains his view of historical causation early in book 3. After taking to task those who fail to

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Polybius distinguish between the beginning of something and the reason for it, he states his own position: I maintain that the beginnings of anything are the first attempts and actions of those who have already taken decisions, but that the reasons are what lead up to the decisions and judgments; I refer here to ideas and states of mind and reckonings about these and the things through which we come to take decisions and form projects. (3.6.7) A more precise statement on the subject will not be found among ancient writers, but the principle behind it is not novel. For Polybius, as for Thucydides and Herodotus alike, to explain why something happened is to explain why someone did something. To explain the outbreak of a war is to explain why someone made the first move in it. Such explanations are inevitably always personal at base, and founded upon judgment as to essentially individual motives. So for Croesus deciding to invade Cappadocia, so for Darius and then Xerxes deciding to launch campaigns against Greece. So, more subtly, for the Spartans initiating the Peloponnesian War. The basically individual motive, fear, is there, but the fear is occasioned by Athenian growth. Polybius maintains the Thucydidean subtlety—the focus on the effect of someone's action upon someone else—and includes in the causal nexus all that leads to decisions to act. It is worth stressing that it is exactly this subtlety that makes it clear that neither writer can be seen as attempting to assign responsibility for, say, the start of a war, at least not when (as seems always to be the case) actions of each side are involved in the chain of explanation. Polybius' account of the outbreak of the Hannibalic war illustrates his principles. For some, Hannibal's attack on Saguntum and his crossing of the Ebro River were the reasons for the war. Polybius reckons these events, correctly, as its beginnings (3.6.1–3). The reasons are further to seek. First (in chronological order), the wrath of Hamilcar Barca, arising from the fact that, undefeated, he had had to yield to circumstances; second and most important, the seizure by the Romans of Sardinia and concurrent increase of the indemnity at a time when the Carthaginians were powerless to resist; third, the success of the Carthaginians in Spain and the confidence it inspired in them (3.9.6–10.6). All of these factors operated upon the Carthaginians in general, and upon Hannibal in particular. The first act in the war (the beginning) was on their side, (p.94) but, for Polybius, there is no value in knowing that, without the addition of the explanation of why they acted as they did. So, if one posits the destruction as the reason for the war, it must be granted that the Carthaginians began the war unjustly, both in view of the treaty of Lutatius, according to which the allies of each were to have security from attack by the other, and also in view of the agreement with Hasdrubal, according to which the Carthaginians were not to cross the Page 9 of 21

 

Polybius Ebro River for purpose of war. But if [one posits as the reason for the war] the seizure of Sardinia and the accompanying money, it must certainly be agreed that the Carthaginians fought the Hannibalic war with good reason: for, after yielding to circumstances, they defended themselves when they could against those who harmed them. (3.30.3–4) It is only for the Hannibalic war that Polybius' explanation of the reasons survives, but from it one can see how the system worked. It was a great war of conquest for the Romans, but they did not start it. That said, Roman actions must, on Polybius' account, be seen as instrumental in bringing it about. In those cases where Polybius' explanation is not preserved, the same approach should be used. The chief reason for the war between the Romans and Antiochus III is the anger of the Aetolians (3.7.1–2; compare 3.3.4). But this arises from their feeling of having been slighted by the Romans in many respects having to do with the end of the war against Philip (3.7.2), and it is (or will have been) this process that is important in the explanation. Similarly, Philip V is seen as having planned the war against Rome that Perseus undertook as his executor (22.18.10). What matters is how and why he came to this decision, and there is enough left of book 22 to show that the process was essentially a reaction against Roman behavior toward him (see 22.13–14 and 18, with 22.1.5), in much the same way as the Carthaginians are reckoned by Polybius as having reacted to Roman behavior toward them. Something will be said below about the Dalmatian war of 156 B.C., but there is a point to be made here about the ‘second’ Macedonian war. There is, notoriously, no trace of a discussion of the reasons for this war. Indeed, had there been such a discussion, it would have been referred to at 3.3.2, but there Polybius looks forward to relating ‘the naval battles of Attalus and the Rhodians against Philip, also the war of the Romans and Philip: how it was fought, who were the persons engaged, and what its end was’. There was no separate treatment of its reasons. There was no need for one, for the war against Philip ‘took its origins from the war against Hannibal’ (3.32.7). Evidently, there was for Polybius only one war with Philip. Rome's conflict with him was seen as a single affair beginning with Philip's intervention in the Hannibalic war. (p.95) The reasons and the explanations are, then, of paramount importance throughout. Like Herodotus before him, Polybius was alive to coincidences and capable of being struck by them. And like Herodotus he was not unwilling, in connection with them, to see something suprahuman at work in the universe; for Polybius it takes the form of Fortune, Tyche (compare, for example, 1.4, 29.19, 38.18). But Polybius was even more reluctant to attribute any kind of agency to the supernatural, and expressly so. He devotes a chapter (17) of book 36 to the question of what sort of events do not admit of rational explanation. Very few are like this. And with the exception of the Macedonian support for the pretender Andriscus in 149–148 B.C., inspired by ‘a kind of heaven-sent

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Polybius madness’ (36.17.15; compare 28.9.4 for the notion), none of the events with which Polybius concerns himself falls into this category. At the beginning of the history Polybius' question was ‘how, and by a state with what sort of constitution, almost the whole of the known world was conquered and fell under the single rule of the Romans’. A good part of the answer to the question ‘How?’ lay in Polybius' treatments of the outbreaks of the wars of conquest, the Hannibalic war, and the wars with Philip, Antiochus, and Perseus. Another factor informs most of the period, namely what Polybius saw as Rome's desire for world rule, Rome's ‘universal aim’ (see 1.3.6 and 3.2.6 for this expression). It was not there from the beginning, but developed. In quite the same way that success led to a widening of Roman aims in the first war with Carthage (1.20.1–3) and in the struggles against the Gauls in the 220s B.C. (2.31.8), success against Carthage in the Hannibalic war led to an ultimate widening. ‘Thus and then [with the victory over Carthage] for the first time were the Romans emboldened to reach out their hands for the rest and to cross with forces into Greece and the regions of Asia’ (1.3.6). What this ‘universal aim’ led to was ‘universal rule and dominion’ (1.3.10). This was what the Romans sought, and it receives definition in Polybius' account in terms of its practical content. A summary statement in the introduction to book 3 provides the key: The fifty-three-year period came to an end with these events [that is, in 168–167 B.C.], and the increase and extension of the Romans' dominion was completed. And it seemed to be agreed universally as a matter of strict necessity that what remained was to harken to the Romans and to obey their orders. (3.4.2–3) Orders on the one side and on the other obedience. Rome's universal dominion meant that everyone must in practice obey Roman orders. The ‘universal aim’ of Romans is accordingly their intention to bring this state of affairs about. This is the story told by their actions. In 200 B.C., (p.96) Philip V is required to obey Roman orders or face war with them (16.27.2–3; 16.34.4). Orders are given to Antiochus at Lysimachia in 196 (18.47.1, and so on), and the list goes on and on, taking in the great—Philip again, and Perseus—and the less great—for example, the Boeotian and Achaean Leagues—alike. The Dalmatian war of 156 is indicative. On the outbreak of that war Polybius, in Rome when it was declared, offers the following comment: Therefore they planned, by initiating a war against the aforementioned people [the Dalmatians] both to renew, as it were, the drive and zeal of their own masses, and, by terrifying the Illyrians, to compel them to obey their orders. These, then, were the reasons on account of which the Romans made war on the Dalmatians; to the outside world they proclaimed

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Polybius that they had decided to go to war on account of the insult to the ambassadors. (32.13.8–9) Polybius' remarks here also point us in the direction of another aspect of his answer to the question ‘How?’ particularly as that appears in 3.3.9. There, after a summary of the main events of the Roman conquest of the east, he states that ‘all the above events will enable us to perceive how the Romans managed individual affairs in making the whole world subject to themselves’. The Dalmatian war occurs after the completion of the extension of Roman rule, but the idea of putting about a special version of things for the consumption of the ‘outside world’ is of wider applicability and can be generalized. And it is what Polybius says of the decision to make war on Carthage for the last time that requires one thus to generalize: This decision had long ago been ratified in their individual minds, but they were looking for a suitable occasion and a pretext that would seem respectable to the outside world. The Romans were wont to pay much attention to this matter. And in doing so they displayed very good sense, for, as Demetrius [of Phalerum] says, if the inception of a war seems just, it renders victories greater and ill successes less dangerous, but if it seems to be dishonorable or base, it has the opposite effect. So on this occasion too they differed with one another about the opinion of the outside world and almost abandoned the war. (36.2) The Carthaginians, of course, behaved conveniently in the end. Number 99 among the fragments of Polybius is of uncertain attribution. If the words are his, they join the above passages in offering a nice comment on the practical side of the ‘just’ (or ‘defensive’) war: For the Romans took no ordinary forethought not to appear to be the initiators of unjust actions and not to appear to be attacking those around (p.97) them when they took on wars, but always to seem to be acting in self-defense and to enter upon wars out of necessity. All this bears upon one aspect of Roman management of individual affairs. Another one, by no means unrelated, is illuminated by Polybius' comment on Rome's handling of the Egyptian question in the 160s B.C. The aim: to keep the place weak; the method: to keep the contending parties at odds with one another; the device: to assent to whichever of the opposing claims suited themselves in their aim. Polybius again generalizes in his comment: Measures of this kind are frequent among the Romans. Using the ignorance of those around them they extend and solidify their own rule in a practical way, at the same time doing a favor and appearing to confer a benefit upon those who are in the wrong. (31.10.7)

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Polybius The reference in this to the ‘extension’ of Roman rule, a process complete by 167 B.C., guarantees its applicability to the period of conquest. Even if we detect a wry smile as he thought of how the Romans over the years gratified Spartan or Messenian claims against the Achaean League, no criticism is evident here. The emphasis is upon the ‘practical’—‘pragmatic’ is the word. Throughout, Roman actions are carefully fitted to the general aim. This is how they handled individual affairs, and this is how they made the whole world subject to themselves, subject, that is, to Roman orders. At least it is as much as remains in what is left of the text of Polybius about how they did it. Along with the question ‘How?’ went another: ‘With what sort of constitution?’ For Polybius this was not a separate question. The constitution is intimately bound up not only with recovery after Cannae, but with the conquest itself, as his announcement that he will devote an entire book to it indicates: Halting the narrative at this point [namely, at the end of book 5] we shall draw up our account of the Roman constitution, as a direct sequel to which we shall point out that the singular nature of the constitution contributed not only very greatly to their reacquisition of mastery over the Italians and Sicilians, and to their attainment of rule over the Spaniards and Gauls, but also, finally, to their forming the conception of their universal aim when they defeated the Carthaginians in the war. (3.2.6) There is both a political and a military (6.19–42) dimension to the constitution and its contribution. The focus here will be upon the former. Book 6 combines the theoretical and the practical. Polybius begins with a general account of how constitutions develop and change that contains two elements. The first is the theory of anacyclosis—the cycle of (p.98) constitutions, as it were—that provides the overall pattern. Along with this theory goes the biological principle of the orderly process of birth, acme, and decay, which applies to the individual stages within the pattern. Polybius recognizes three basic forms of constitution: kingship, aristocracy, and democracy, each of which is reckoned as having a perverted form: tyranny, oligarchy, and ochlocracy, or mob rule. To these three ‘good’ and three ‘bad’ types a seventh is added, neither good nor bad, a kind of primitive monarchy, or rule by one man, that is seen as the first form of what can be called political organization in any nascent human society. Thus, in the beginning there is chaos until ‘the man who excels in bodily strength and courage’ comes necessarily to rule over the rest (6.5.7). As notions of what is base and what is noble, and of justice, grow up, and as the ruler is seen to throw the weight of his authority on the side of what is noble and therefore advantageous, the people yield obedience to him no longer because they fear his force but rather because their judgment approves him; and they join in maintaining his rule even if he is quite enfeebled by age, and they join in defending him with Page 13 of 21

 

Polybius unanimous spirit and battling against those who conspire to overthrow his rule. Thus by insensible degrees the monarch becomes king, ferocity and force having yielded supremacy to reason. (6.6.11–12) Kingship is the first ‘constitution’ proper. It has arisen because the people have consented to be ruled, in this case by one man. This element of consent, of the people granting the authority to someone to rule over them (or withdrawing this consent), is basic to all that follows. Eventually the successors of the king, bred to power, come to cherish it for its own sake and for what it permits them. This is tyranny. Hatred, resentment, and conspiracies spring up among the people. The leaders are the ‘best men’, and the people join with them in overthrowing the tyrant and then entrust the rule to these best men. This is aristocracy. But the descendants of these best men, knowing only power and nothing of the misfortunes that brought it to them, go the way of the king's descendants, and aristocracy becomes the collective tyranny known as oligarchy. The people respond by killing or banishing the oligarchs, but there is now nowhere else for them to turn. ‘The only hope still surviving unimpaired is in themselves, and to this they resort, making the state a democracy instead of an oligarchy and taking to themselves the responsibility for the conduct of affairs’ (6.9.3). But power without knowledge of how or why it came to be held corrupts no less in this case. When a new generation arises and the democracy falls into the hands of the grandchildren of its founders, they have become so accustomed to freedom (p.99) and equality that they no longer value them, and begin to aim at preeminence; and it is chiefly those of great wealth who fall into this error. (6.9.5) Their lust for power and reputation is pursued by bribing the people and thereby creating among them ‘an appetite for gifts and the habit of receiving them’ (6.9.7). Democracy gives way to force and the rule of violence. Slaughter, banishments, and redistributions of land ensue, until the people ‘descend back into a state of savagery and find once more a master and monarch’ (6.9.9). This is the anacyclosis, the cycle according to which constitutional changes happen. Each of the individual forms of government is born, has its acme, and decays according to the biological principle. The progress from one kind of constitution to the next is always in the same order or pattern, and it is to this process, a cyclical one in the end, that the name anacyclosis is given. The anacyclosis itself has no birth, acme, or decay; these notions are appropriate only to the individual stages of the process. The ideas of three (or six) types of constitution and of the biological principle are, of course, not new. Not so the combination of these (and the primitive monarchy) with the apparently novel anacyclosis into a single and coherent theory of constitutional development. This is Polybius' own.

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Polybius Knowledge of the process is important in two respects. It will enable one to judge where a state is in its development and to predict how (if not when) it will change. It also makes one realize that the best constitution will not be simple and uniform but will have united in it all the good and distinctive features of the [three] best governments, so that none of the individual elements should grow unduly and be perverted into its allied evil, but that, the force of each being neutralized by that of the others, none of them should prevail and outbalance another but that the constitution should remain for long in a state of equilibrium like a welltrimmed boat. (6.10.6–7) This is the kind of constitution that Lycurgus in his knowledge and prescience gave to Sparta. The Romans arrived at the same result ‘not by any process of reasoning, but by the discipline of many struggles and troubles, and always choosing the best in the light of the experience gained from misfortunes’ (6.10.14). Polybius saw Rome as having reached the ideal in a thoroughly natural way (6.9.13: natural, too, the inevitable decline), a constitution in which the three elements existed side by side, in a state of balance, exercising checks upon one another (compare 6.18.7). The ideal is achieved by tension and balance, not mixture, and indeed Polybius never speaks of the Roman constitution (or any other) as ‘mixed’. (p.100) How the Roman constitution, with its checks and balances, looked in practice is the subject of chapters 11–18 of book 6. The description is tied to the time of Cannae but must be seen as reflecting rather the time when Polybius was in Rome half a century later. It is always worth remembering that he is here describing, and speaking in terms of, Rome's constitutional machinery. To the purpose thus limited, magistracies and assemblies are relevant, things such as clientela or nobilitas are not. Kingship is found in the consuls, aristocracy in the Senate, democracy in the popular assemblies and the tribunate. He describes the competencies of the respective elements and the ways in which they could check one another in fairly brief compass and in a manner that tends somewhat toward overschematization. At issue here is a desire to portray these elements of the state in terms of specific functions and powers (exousiai). The requirements of writing for a Greek audience may be seen to lie behind this method. It works well enough for some things, such as the power of the consuls in the field or the role of the assembly in elections and trials, less well for others. Thus, in 6.17 the demos seems to consist of public contractors and those involved in their works; they were important, and their constitutional place was in the democratic element, the assembly, but they do not add up to the demos. There are problems of this kind in the descriptive section, and it is not (nor was it intended to be; see 6.11.3–8) a complete account. The problems do not vitiate the picture, and there is enough in the text to make Polybius' point about the presence of, and relations

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Polybius among, the three basic constitutional components in the Roman state as it then was. How it came to be that way is another question. The development was natural, Polybius says. The section he devoted to the account and explanation of this development is now lost. One can only guess at what it contained. In the beginning there were kings. After a time, a tyrant naturally arose (Tarquinius Superbus). He was put down by a conspiracy led by nobles, and aristocracy took hold (domination by patricians and the Senate). But the element of kingship was not rooted out altogether; it was kept on in a collegiate form (compare Sparta) in the consulship. Eventually, aristocracy degenerated, as it must, into oligarchy (perhaps with the decemvirate), and the people took power back to themselves. But not all the elements of aristocracy were abolished; they kept on the Senate, now effectively under the control of the people through electoral and judicial assemblies. The result of this or some such process would be a constitution that was essentially a democracy but that incorporated in its institutions independent elements of kingship and aristocracy. However the ‘archaeology’ in book 6 ran, it must have come to such a conclusion, for Polybius did see the Roman constitution as essentially a (p.101) democracy. His statements about its inevitable decline in 6.57 require this interpretation. First, the description of that decline is almost identical to his earlier account of the transition from democracy to ochlocracy (6.9.4 ff., and see above); second, it is precisely into ochlocracy that Polybius says the Roman constitution will decline. Rome had then come to have not a mixed constitution but a democracy held in check by the institutionalization of the lessons of its past, all developing naturally and in accordance with the anacyclosis. The prediction of the eventual decline and the course it would follow is in its detail remarkable. Of more direct concern here is the fact that he saw its first signs appearing before his eyes: When a state has weathered many great perils and subsequently attains to supremacy and undisputed mastery, it is evident that under the influence of long-established prosperity life will become more extravagant and men more fierce in their rivalry for office and other objects than they ought to be. As these defects go on increasing, the beginning of the change for the worse will be due to the love of office and the disgrace entailed by obscurity, as well as to extravagance and purse-proud display. (6.57.5) And later, in 161–160 B.C.: It was just at this period that this present kind of behavior [extravagance and love of luxury] shone forth, as it were, first of all because they thought that now after the fall of the Macedonian kingdom their universal dominion was undisputed, and next because after the riches of Macedonia had been

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Polybius transported to Rome there was a great display of wealth both in public and private. (31.25.6) The similarity is more than striking, and the two passages were clearly written at much the same time. The context of the second is Polybius' praise of his young friend and protégé, Scipio Aemilianus, for, among much else, his temperance in the face of rampant luxury and his lack of concern for ‘the disgrace entailed by obscurity’. It was, as Polybius knew, not with the mechanics of the constitution that the real trouble would come, but when the people behind it, and their ‘customs and laws’, changed for the worse. This view is implicit even in the account of the anacyclosis. It is explicit in 6.47 (especially paragraph 4). With the Romans this kind of change began in some degree when they started to embark upon overseas wars (18.35), but it is after the acquisition of universal rule that the ‘change for the worse’ sets in seriously. Polybius had promised ‘to describe what were the prevailing and dominant tendencies and ambitions of the various peoples in their public and private life’ (3.4.6) after the final establishment of Roman rule down (p.102) to the time of trouble and disorder. We have, in the above, at least some part of that promise fulfilled as far as it concerns the Romans. This fulfilment came in the part of the work that extends from the middle of book 30 to book 33. Here would also have come the account, promised at the same time, of ‘the subsequent policy of the conquerors and their method of universal rule’. The two, of course, go together. Most of what he wrote on this subject is lost, but some fragments survive. In the Peloponnesus the atmosphere was one of ‘unconcealed anger and hatred’ against Callicrates and those like him (30.29.1), who wished to persuade the Romans to support those who put Rome's wishes and orders above all else. The Senate proceeded with the object of ‘shutting people's mouths and making them obedient to the party of Callicrates in Achaea, and to those in the other states who were thought to be the friends of Rome’ (30.32.8). The policy of Callicrates had borne bitter enough fruit since it won the day at Rome in 180 B.C. (see 24.8– 10). Even stronger support from Rome now evoked even more brutal manifestations of it by its practitioners in Greece. The doings of Charops in Epirus are only the best known (32.5–6). The death within a short period of a number of these men was marked by Polybius as ‘a sort of purification of Greece’ (32.5.3; compare 30.13.4 for their prominence in the aftermath of Pydna). The long-standing Roman desire that nothing should be done without Rome's knowledge and approval (see especially 23.17) was securely catered to in these years by Callicrates and the others (compare 33.16.7). Kings could behave in an analogous fashion. After Pydna, Prusias of Bithynia, who had previously appeared before Roman envoys in a freedman suit, groveled unsurpassedly before the Senate; and ‘showing himself to be utterly contemptible, he received a kind answer for this very reason’ (32.18). Page 17 of 21

 

Polybius Callicrates, Charops, Prusias, and the rest are a response to, and a reflection of, Roman policy. Some aspects of ‘the policy of the conquerors’ after 168–167 B.C. were noted earlier in another context. In addition to these and the indications just mentioned, one or two others may be cited. In 167–166 B.C. the Thracian king Cotys sought to explain his agreement with Perseus and to obtain the release of his son, who had fallen into Roman hands. ‘The Romans, thinking that they had achieved their aim, the war against Perseus having gone as they planned, and that their difference with Cotys no longer had any point, allowed him to take back his son’ (30.17.2). Similar is the Roman response, in 160–159 B.C., to an embassy from Demetrius, who had established himself on the Seleucid throne after his escape from Rome. He sent to Rome the self-confessed murderer (and his accomplice) of the Roman envoy, Cnaeus Octavius. The gesture was not welcomed. (p.103) For the Senate, as it seems to me, supposing that it would seem to the people that the murder had been avenged if they took over and punished the guilty ones, scarcely received them, but kept the charge open, in order to have the power to make use of the accusations when they wished.  (32.3.11–12) The account offers an explanation, but no judgment. So it is in all the cases cited here and above, except insofar as Roman behavior was reckoned ‘pragmatic’. These do not add up to all the surviving illustrations of Roman policy and of the state of affairs in the various places during the period of Roman rule, but there are not a great many more, and none of them is of very different tenor. True to his promise, Polybius gave us the evidence, and the excerptors have preserved enough of the text for us to see what the evidence looked like. Judge he did not. Judgment in its different forms was for those on the spot and for future generations, including our own. The account in the last four books (35–39) is insulated from what goes before by the geographical excursus in book 34, a work made possible by Polybius' own travels and observations. It marks the end of the long and continuous narrative of the Roman conquest and the description of Roman rule (books 13 to 33 in an unbroken run); what follows is the time of trouble par excellence, including especially the culmination (but not the beginning, which belongs in book 33) of the chaotic Celtiberian war, the last war with Carthage, and the Achaean war. Polybius saw the history of these years as a new and different undertaking. And during this time some Greeks saw a new and different policy adopted by the Romans. Roman treatment of Carthage prompted a variety of comments on Roman policy that are reported by Polybius in 36.9 (some of ‘the various opinions and appreciations of the rulers entertained by others’: 3.4.6). Some felt that lust for power was overtaking the Romans as it had overtaken Athens and Sparta before, and that instead of making war against people until they were compelled to obedience, they now set about exterminating them altogether; Page 18 of 21

 

Polybius others defended or attacked them in other ways. It is extremely tempting to treat some of the opinions expressed in 36.9 as Polybius' own, but it would be equally hazardous to do so. Certainly, the ascription of any of them to him is not susceptible of proof. The Spanish and Carthaginian narrative, though by no means complete, is apparently straightforward. The Achaean narrative is also quite incomplete, but what there is does raise a problem that cannot be left unmentioned. To all appearances, Rome's decision to deal harshly with the Achaeans was taken in 149 B.C. and communicated only in 147 B.C. by the embassy of L. Aurelius Orestes, after the war against the pretender in Macedonia was won. Orestes' embassy required the Achaeans to detach certain cities from their league. The envoys received a violent response. The order was (p.104) repeated, with blandishments, by Sextus Julius Caesar later that year. The Achaeans, led by Critolaus, temporized. Shortly after, in the beginning of 146 B.C., the Romans declared war on the Achaeans, alleging the violence offered to Orestes and his fellow ambassadors as the reason. Polybius must have known all this. Yet his account of the Achaean assembly at Corinth in the spring of 146 B.C. (38.12) seems at first sight to tell a different story. There the Achaeans, under the influence of Diaeus and Critolaus (whom, along with their adherents, Polybius characterizes throughout as madmen and as finally responsible for the disastrous war), are portrayed as bringing the war upon themselves, in complete ignorance of the Roman declaration. Something is amiss. Possibly Polybius, in a passage now lost, explained how Critolaus and company concealed the Roman declaration of war from their people. But the account in 38.12 does not make it sound as if he did. The other possibility is that all the Achaeans were genuinely unaware that war had been declared against them and of the staggeringly duplicitous conduct on the part of Rome that this would entail. If so, then it must emerge that Polybius has concealed this fact and this conduct from his readers. He did not hesitate to notice when Roman policy took this kind of turn elsewhere (see above on the Dalmatian war [32.13] and the last war with Carthage [36.2]), but he chose not to do so here. Why? By portraying the Greeks as entirely responsible for their own disaster (and compare 38.1 and 3, not least 3.8) and the state of affairs that preceded and led up to it in an irredeemably negative light, he shows, by implication at least, the Roman settlement that followed (in which he was involved and of which he was, in part, an architect) to have been pure blessing. Responsible they were, but misguided. The real blame lies with Critolaus, Diaeus, and the few other statesmen who led the Achaeans and other Greeks into the abyss and were the true authors of their folly. If the blame can be thus fixed upon these few, the many may be forgiven. And Polybius' concern was for his fellow Greeks at large: ‘In times of danger it is true that those who are Greek should help the Greeks in every way—by active support, by cloaking faults, and by trying to appease the anger of the rulers—as I myself actually did at the time of the events’ (38.4.7). Did he in fact go further than this in his Page 19 of 21

 

Polybius account of the events? If it was indeed such as to fix the blame upon these few and did not speak of Roman conduct, there will have arisen from it no cause for the forgiven many to censure the Romans or their settlement, or indeed to do anything but welcome it. ‘Had we not perished so soon we would never have been saved’ (38.18.12). The object is not to exculpate the Romans. Polybius wished to tell his countrymen what he thought it best for them to know. Perhaps this is how ‘he succeeded after a certain time in making men welcome the (p. 105) constitution that was given them’ (39.5). ‘But’, the statement in 38.4 continues, ‘the record of the events meant for posterity is to be kept free from any taint of falsehood.’ The problem remains, but, in the light of this statement, it may after all require a different solution. The sympathetic author of 39.5 reported that, in response to Polybius' role in the Roman settlement that followed the Achaean war, ‘each city took every means to confer the highest honors on him during his life and after his death’. We know from inscriptions that he spoke the truth. This would have delighted Polybius at least as much as would the knowledge that among the writers of Greece and Rome his achievement as a historian is unparalleled. Selected Bibliography Texts

Polybe. Histoires. Texte établi et traduit par Paul Pédech et al. Paris 1969–. Collection Budé. A new text, in progress and appearing one book at a time, with a long way to go. Polybii Historiae. Recensuit apparatu critico instruxit Fridericus Hultsch. 2nd edn of vols 1 and 2. Berlin, 1870–1892. Polybii Historiae. Editionem a Ludovico Dindorfio curatam retractavit Theodorus Buettner-Wobst. 2nd edn of vol. 1. Leipzig, 1889–1905; and since reprinted. Bibliotheca Teubneriana. This is the standard text. Polybii Megalopolitani quidquid superest recensuit, digessit, emendatiore interpretatione, varietate lectionis, adnotationibus, indicibus illustravit Iohannes Schweighaeuser. Leipzig, 1789–1795. Polybius. The Histories. London, 1922–1927; and since reprinted. Loeb Classical Library. With an English translation by W. R. Paton. The text is based upon the Teubner edition of Buettner-Wobst. [Editorial note: Paton's Loeb edition was revised by F.W. Walbank and C. Habicht, 2010–12] Translations

See also above. The best translation is easily Schweighaeuser's Latin version. There are two complete English translations, those of Paton in the Loeb Classical Library (above) and Shuckburgh. Of the two Shuckburgh's is, on balance, the Page 20 of 21

 

Polybius more accurate, but it is based upon the text of Hultsch, whose arrangement of the excerpts is often wrong. A new English version, complete, accurate, and based upon a sound and correctly ordered text, is needed. (p.106) The Histories of Polybius. Translated by Evelyn S. Shuckburgh. London, 1889; since reprinted (for example: Bloomington, Ind., 1962, with a new introduction by F. W. Walbank). Polybius. The Histories. Newly translated by Mortimer Chambers, edited and abridged with an introduction by E. Badian. The Great Histories. New York, 1966. Polybius. The Rise of the Roman Empire. Translated by Ian Scott-Kilvert, selected with an introduction by F. W. Walbank. Penguin Classics. Harmondsworth, 1979. Polybius on Roman Imperialism. The Histories of Polybius translated from the text of F. Hultsch by Evelyn S. Shuckburgh, M.A. Abridged with an introduction by Alvin H. Bernstein. South Bend, Ind., 1980. Commentary

Walbank, F. W., A Historical Commentary on Polybius. 3 volumes. Oxford, 1957, 1967, 1979. Not only are they essential for the study of Polybius, these volumes constitute a masterpiece. General Works and Special Studies

Derow, P. S. ‘Polybius, Rome and the East’, reprinted this volume, Ch. 5. Mauersberger, Arno. Polybios-Lexikon. Berlin 1956–. In progress. Moore, J. M. The Manuscript Tradition of Polybius. Cambridge, 1965. Walbank, F. W. Polybius. Berkeley, Calif., 1972. Sather Classical Lectures, vol. 42. This book and the Commentary are the starting point, after the text itself, for the study of Polybius. Both contain extensive bibliographies and references to books and articles.

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Historical Explanation

Rome, Polybius, and the East The late Peter Derow, Andrew Erskine, and Josephine Crawley Quinn

Print publication date: 2014 Print ISBN-13: 9780199640904 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199640904.001.0001

Historical Explanation Polybius and his Predecessors1 Peter Derow Andrew Erskine Josephine Crawley Quinn

DOI:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199640904.003.0005

Abstract and Keywords This chapter focuses on one of the essential features of Polybius's approach to history: the need to find explanations. It begins with an overview of Greek historiography, focusing on the work of Herodotus and Thucydides as well as Hecataeus, before turning to Polybius. In particular, it examines Polybius's interpretation of the war between Antiochus and the Romans. Finally, it describes Greece under Rome's dominion. Keywords:   history, Polybius, historiography, Herodotus, Thucydides, Hecataeus, war, Antiochus, Greece, Rome

The title of this paper is not intended to imply that developments in Greek historiography are best studied back to front. But I do feel obliged to take a gentle ramble through some of Herodotus and Thucydides en route to Polybius. Without this it would be hard to see how much changed along the way and, in what may be the most essential respects, how little. (p.108) That said, the story must begin with Hecataeus. He was the first to identify, if I may put it so, the past as a field of critical study. The past in this case is what the ridiculous tales of the Greeks are about, and it is the truth of what happened that he seeks.

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Historical Explanation Ἑκαταῖος Μιλήσιος ὧδε μυθεῖται.τάδε γράφω, ὥς μοι δοκεῖ ἀληθέα εἶναι. οἱ γὰρ Ἑλλήνων λόγοι πολλοί τε καὶ γελοῖοι, ὡς ἐμοὶ φαίνονται, εἰσίν. Hecataeus the Milesian speaks so: I write the things that follow as they seem to me to be true. For the stories of the Greeks are both many and, as they appear to me, ridiculous.  (FGrHist 1 F 1) The nature of his critical method soon becomes clear. ὁ δὲ Αἴγυπτος αὐτὸς μὲν οὐκ ἦλθεν εἰς Ἄργος, παῖδες δέ, 〈ἐόντες〉, ὡς μὲν Ἡσίοδος ἐποίησε, πεντήκοντα, ὡς ἐγω δέ, οὐδὲ εἴκοσι. Aegyptus did not himself go to Argos, but his sons did—fifty of them in Hesiod's story, but as I reckon not even twenty.  (FGrHist 1 F 19) He objects to the idea that fifty sons of Aegyptus came to Argos, apparently on the grounds that fifty was simply too many, and suggests something more moderate, less than twenty. He had analogous difficulties with the tales of Cerberus at the gates of the underworld, and again he has an answer. ἀλλὰ Ἑκαταῖος μὲν Μιλήσιος λόγον εὗρεν εἰκότα, ὄφιν φήσας ἐπὶ Ταινάρῳ τραφῆναι δεινόν, κληθῆναι δὲ Ἄιδου κύνα, ὅτι ἔδει τὸν δηχθέντα τεθνάναι παραυτίκα ὑπὸ τοῦ ἰοῦ. καὶ τοῦτον ἔφη τὸν ὄφιν ὑπὸ Ἡρακλέους ἀχθῆναι παρ᾽ Εὐρυσθέα. Hecataeus the Milesian has found a likely account, saying that a terrible serpent grew up at Taenarum, and that it was called the dog of Hades because anyone bitten by it was killed immediately by the venom. And it was this serpent, he says, that was brought by Heracles to Eurystheus. (FGrHist 1 F 27) It wasn't an impossible dog at Taenarum, but a particularly poisonous serpent. This was something that reason and nature could countenance, and reason and nature were the twin criteria of his rigorously rationalizing method. In the same passage he may be thought to reveal the limits of his aims, for having reasonably got rid of the impossible dog, he leaves us with Heracles presenting a snake to Eurystheus. The process has begun, but it needed Herodotus to define the field of inquiry as he defined it and to ask the question that he asked before it could continue productively. He does both these things in the proem. (p.109)

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Historical Explanation Ἡροδότου Ἁλικαρνασσέος ἱστορίης ἀπόδεξις ἥδε, ὡς μήτε τὰ γενόμενα ἐξ ἀνθρώπων τῷ χρόνῳ ἐξίτηλα γένηται, μήτε ἔργα μεγάλα τε καὶ θωμαστά, τὰ μὲν Ἕλλησι, τὰ δὲ βαρβάροισι ἀποδεχθέντα, ἀκλεᾶ γένηται, τά τε ἄλλα καὶ δι᾽ ἣν αἰτίην ἐπολέμησαν ἀλλήλοισι. Herodotus of Halicarnassus here sets forth the result of his inquiry, that the doings of men might not be forgotten with time, and that great and wonderful works and deeds—wrought by both Greeks and barbarians— might not be uncelebrated, and together with all this the reason why they warred with one another. The field is τὰ γενόμενα ἐξ ἀνθρώπων, what people have done, human history; and the question is ‘why?’, δι᾽ ἣν αἰτίην, ‘for what reason?’ Here at the beginning, it is ‘why did the Greeks and barbarians war with one another?’; but the question recurs in various contexts throughout Herodotus and was evidently an essential element of his inquiry. It would seem to be an essential part of any decent historical inquiry, although we have to wait for Polybius to insist upon this explicitly. In general, Herodotus' answers to the question ‘why?’ might seem to operate at two levels, of which one would appear to involve some kind of notion of ‘fate’. I would rather not insist on that precise English word, for I do not think that Herodotus had a Greek one to match it (ἡ πεπρωμένη in 1. 91. 3 approaches but is perhaps too verbal quite to get there). What I have in mind are the statements with ἔδει or χρῆν or the like.2 The words χρῆν γὰρ Κανδαύλῃ γενέσθαι κακῶς mean that Candaules ‘had to’ or ‘was bound to’ come to an evil end, just as the words at 5. 33. 2 mean that it was not on the cards for the Naxians to be destroyed by this expeditionary force (another one still to come would achieve what this one did not), and those at 5. 92δ. I that it had to happen that misfortunes for Corinth would come from the offspring of Eetion. Some form of inevitability and, not least, of predetermination is at issue here, as I think becomes clear in the sequence of dreams early in book 7 and particularly in the words of the dream that visited Artabanus, clad in Xerxes' night-dress and asleep in the royal bed. Σὺ δὴ εἶς ὁ ἀποσπεύδων Ξέρξην στρατεύεσθαι ἐπὶ τὴν Ἑλλάδα ὡς δὴ κηδόμενος αὐτοῦ; ἀλλ᾽ οὔτε ἐς τὸ μετέπειτα οὔτε ἐς τὸ παραυτίκα νῦν καταπροίξεαι ἀποτρέπων τὸ χρεὸν γενέσθαι, Ξέρξην δὲ τὰ δεῖ ἀνηκουστέοντα παθεῖν, αὐτῷ ἐκείνῳ δεδήλωται. (p.110) Is it you then who would discourage Xerxes from marching against Greece with your claim to be concerned for him? Not for the future nor for the present will you get away with seeking to avert what must happen. What Xerxes must suffer if he disobeys has been shown to him directly. (7. 17. 2) Page 3 of 19

 

Historical Explanation Or in the story of the dream that came to Croesus and ‘revealed to him the truth of the evils that were going to happen in connection with his son’ (ὄνειρος, ὅς οἱ τὴν ἀληθείην ἔφαινε τῶν μελλόντων γενέσθαι κακῶν κατὰ τὸν παῖδα, 1. 34). For Herodotus the future was predetermined and therefore knowable, or knowable and therefore predetermined; either will do. This is not surprising, for such must be part of the mind-set of one who believes in true prophecy, whether through the medium of oracles, dreams, seers, or even through an individual like Croesus who returned from his glimpse of death with preternatural knowledge. Plainly, there could be no greater aid to planning one's actions than knowing what the future holds, but of course nobody took proper notice when they were told. Cassandra ruled OK. Now, predetermination—some version of fate, or thereabouts—may be a fact, but it is not an explanation, and Herodotus knew this. The explanation of human affairs has to be done at the human level. The Persian expedition against Greece was, as we have seen, in the category of τὸ χρεὸν γενέσθαι, what had to happen, but it came about, in Herodotus, for very human reasons indeed. Recall the scene in 3. 134. Darius and Atossa are in bed one evening, having a discussion about conquering. She suggests that a king so young, rich, and powerful as he ought to be extending Persian dominions. It's interesting you should say that, he replies, for I have in mind to conquer the Scythians. Very well, she says, but why not leave the Scythian campaign for later. For now, won't you please put on a campaign against Greece for me. I've asked round and I should like to have some Laconian and Argive and Attic and Corinthian handmaidens. All right, says Darius, but we had better send some spies first. And off goes Doctor Democedes, exactly as planned. And there are the beginnings of the Persian attack upon Greece. Darius does in the end deal first with the Scythians. ‘He wanted to take vengeance upon them because they had begun the injustice (ὑπῆρξαν ἀδικίης) by initially invading Median territory and defeating in battle those who came to oppose them’ (4. 1. 1). He came to want similar vengeance upon the Athenians for their action during the Ionian revolt, and he was still wanting τιμωρήσασθαι ᾽Αθηναίους when he died (7. 4). Xerxes felt the same, and as well as wishing to bring retribution upon the Athenians he, like Darius, wanted to acquire additional territory for the Persians (7. 8α. 2–β. 1). Desire for revenge and desire to have more—call it greed—are (p.111) pretty basic in human psychology. So they are in Herodotus' aetiology because that is wholly rooted in human psychology. Basic they are to most of Herodotus' explanations, but he is of course capable of more subtlety, as he shows in his twin explanations of Croesus' attack upon Cappadocia. (1) Κροῖσος δὲ ἐπὶ δύο ἔτεα ἐν πένθεϊ μεγάλῳ κατῆστο τοῦ παιδὸς ἐστερημένος. μετὰ δὲ ἡ Ἀστυάγεος τοῦ Κυαξάρεω ἡγεμονίη καταιρεθεῖσα ὑπὸ Κύρου τοῦ Καμβύσεω καὶ τὰ τῶν Περσέων πρήγματα αὐξανόμενα Page 4 of 19

 

Historical Explanation πένθεος μὲν Κροῖσον ἀπέπαυσε, ἐνέβησε δὲ ἐς φροντίδα, εἴ κως δύναιτο, πρὶν μεγάλους γενέσθαι τοὺς Πέρσας, καταλαβεῖν αὐτῶν αὐξανομένην τὴν δύναμιν. Croesus, reft of his son, spent two years in great grief. Then the destruction of the rule of Astyages son of Cyaxares by Cyrus son of Cambyses and the increase of the Persian state stopped Croesus from his grief, and he began to consider whether he might be able to put a stop to the power of the Persians while it was still growing and before they became great. (1. 46. 1) (2) Ἑστρατεύετο δὲ ὁ Κροῖσος ἐπὶ τὴν Καππαδοκίην τῶνδε εἵνεκα, καὶ γῆς ἱμέρῳ προσκτήσασθαι πρὸς τὴν ἑωυτοῦ μοῖραν βουλόμενος, καὶ μάλιστα τῷ χρηστηρίῳ πίσυνος ἐὼν καὶ τείσασθαι θέλων ὑπὲρ Ἀστυάγεος Κῦρον. Croesus led his army against Cappadocia for these reasons: because he wished to add to his own portion out of a desire for land, and especially because he was relying upon the oracle, and because he wished to take vengeance upon Cyrus on behalf of Astyages. (1. 73. 1) The explanation of 1. 73 provides the motives of greed and vengeance, but 1. 46 provides something else, namely the element of calculated response to circumstances. It is an interesting notion, being worried by the growth of someone else's power, and it recalls another passage in Herodotus. In 5. 90 Cleomenes returns from Athens to Sparta with oracles foretelling the injury the Spartans are to suffer at the hands of the Athenians. He continues (5. 91): When the Lacedaemonians got these oracles and saw that the Athenians were gaining in power and not at all ready to be their subordinates, and when they took cognizance that the Attic race, in its freedom, would be the equal of themselves but, if controlled by a despotism, would be weak and disposed to subjection—when they understood all this, they sent for Hippias, the son of Pisistratus, from Sigeum on the Hellespont. (The oracles, by the way, which foretold inter alia that the Spartans along with the other Dorians would be driven from the Peloponnesus by the Medes and the Athenians, were recalled again twenty-five years (p.112) on: 8. 141.) And both passages bear a measure of resemblance to a reasonably well-known passage of Thucydides (viz. 1. 23. 6, on which see further below). But that, for the moment at least, is by the way. Before leaving Herodotus one must ask how he answered the question at the beginning: why did they war with one another? At 1. 5 the humour of the first four chapters comes decidedly to an end.

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Historical Explanation ἐγὼ δὲ ερὶ μὲν τούτων οὐκ ἔρχομαι ἐρέων ὡς οὓτως ἢ ἂλλως κως ταῦτα ἐγένετο, τὸν δὲ οἶδα αὐτὸς πρῶτον ὑπάρξαντα ἀδίκων ἒργων ἐς τοὺς Ἕλληνας, τοῦτον σημήνας προβήσομαι ἐς τὸ πρόσω τοῦ λόγου, ὁμοίως σμικρὰ καὶ μεγάλα ἄστεα ἀνθρώπων ἐπεξιών. (4) τὰ γὰρ τὸ πάλαι μεγάλα ἦν, τὰ πολλὰ αὐτῶν σμικρὰ γέγονε, τὰ δὲ ἐπ᾽ ἐμεῦ ἦν μεγάλα, πρότερον ἦν σμικρά. τὴν ἀνθρωπηίην ὦν ἐπιστάμενος εὐδαιμονίην οὐδαμὰ ἐν τὠυτῷ μένουσαν ἐπιμνή-σομαι ἀμφοτέρων ὁμοίως. About these things I am not going to say that they happened in this or in some other way, but I myself know who was the first to begin unjust acts against the Greeks and having signalled him I shall proceed with my account, treating alike of the small and the great cities of men. (4) For of the cities that were great in former times most are become small, and those that were great in my time were small before. Knowing therefore that human good fortune never stays in the same place I shall make mention of both alike. (1.5. 3–4) ‘I myself know who was the first to begin unjust deeds against the Greeks….’ That seems to do it. And on that two observations. First, Herodotus' insistence here at the beginning and throughout his work upon the idea of vengeance and upon wrongs and the righting of wrongs (and remember that greed involves transgression) suggests to me that he subscribed to what might be called the conflict, or retributive, theory of world order and justice that had been developed particularly by Anaximander and, with typically paradoxical formulation, Heraclitus. ἐξ ὧν δὲ ἡ γένεσίς ἐστι τοῖς οὖσι, καὶ τὴν φθορὰν εἰς ταῦτα γίνεσθαι “κατὰ τὸ χρεών. διδόναι γὰρ αὐτὰ δίκην καὶ τίσιν ἀλλήλοις τῆς ἀδικίας κατὰ τὴν τοῦ χρόνου τάξιν,” ποιητικωτέροις οὕτως ὀνόμασιν αὐτὰ λέγων. And the source of coming-to-be for existing things is that into which destruction, too, happens ‘according to necessity; for they pay penalty and retribution to each other for their injustice according to the assessment of Time’, as he describes it in these rather poetical terms. (Anaximander, D–K 12A9) εἰδέναι δὲ χρὴ τὸν πόλεμον ἐόντα ξυνόν, καὶ δίκην ἔριν, καὶ γινόμενα πάντα κατ' ἒριν καὶ χρεών. (p.113) It is necessary to know that war is common and right is strife and that all things happen by strife and necessity.  (Heraclitus, D–K 22B80; cf. also B53)

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Historical Explanation Further, I think it can safely be said that, for Herodotus, the explanation of why something happened reduces to the explanation of why someone did something, and that this is achieved by the imputation of what are fundamentally personal motives. I say ‘imputation’ because I do not suppose that Herodotus knew what transpired in bed between Atossa and Darius or what was in the minds of Xerxes or Croesus or most, if not all, of the other people, let alone peoples, about whom he wrote. Nor does he seem to see this as a problem. But it is time to move on in the direction of Polybius. For Thucydides, predetermination is not an issue. He is resolutely anchored in the realm of humanity, and so alive to human suffering that it is in terms of it that he calculates the magnitude of his war. It is, moreover, his conviction that people will always respond similarly to similar circumstances that enables him to claim timeless value for his work. At least, this is what I take him to be saying in 1. 22. 4. καὶ ἐς μὲν ἀκρόασιν ἴσως τὸ μὴ μυθώδες αὐτῶν ἀτερπέστερον φανεῖται. ὅσοι δὲ βούλονται τῶν τε γενομένων τὸ σαφὲς σκοπεῖν καὶ τῶν μελλόντων ποτὲ αὖθις κατὰ τὸ ἀνθρώπινον τοιούτων καὶ παραπλησίων ἔσεσθαι, ὠφέλιμα κρίνειν αὐτὰ ἀρκούντως ἓξει. κτῆμά τε ἐς αἰεὶ μᾶλλον ἢ ἀγώνισμα ἐς τὸ παραχρῆμα ἀκούειν σύγκειται. It may be that the unromantic character of my work will not make for pleasant hearing. But it will be enough if it is judged useful by those who wish to have a clear and accurate picture of what happened and of the similar and analogous things that will, given the condition of humanity, happen again at some point in the future: it is intended as something that will retain its value for all time, and not as a competitive utterance for the moment. And this is also why he so insists upon the importance of τὸ σαφές there, the importance of clear and accurate description. He has just written of the great pains he has gone to in arriving at as accurate (ἀκρίβεια is the word in 1. 22. 1 and 2) a portrayal as possible of what was said and done. Words and deeds, ὅσα μὲν λόγῳ εἶπον and τὰ δ᾽ ἔργα τῶν πραχθέντων, are equally historical facts, and the same kind of care must be taken with both. He has left us in no doubt in chapters 20 and 21 that errors and misconceptions are abroad, and both there and elsewhere he is ready to offer correction. In all this the emphasis is most firmly and explicitly upon accuracy of narrative and care with facts. He is, of course, also concerned with (p.114) explanation, but I think to a much lesser extent. He addresses the matter of his own war in 1. 23. ‘The Athenians and Peloponnesians began it when they broke the thirty years' treaty they made after the capture of Euboea. As to why they broke the treaty, I have given first an account of the claims of either side and their Page 7 of 19

 

Historical Explanation differences, in order that no one should ever have to inquire from what (ἐξ ὅτου) so great a war came about for the Greeks.’ (1. 23. 4–5) This refers to the businesses of Corcyra and Potidea and promises a definitive account of the circumstances and the dealings between Athenians and Peloponnesians out of which the war arose. And he goes on, famously, in 1. 23. 6 to say that he considers the truest explanation, although the least often heard, to be that the Athenians by growing great and causing fear amongst the Lacedaemonians forced them to go to war (τὴν μὲν γὰρ ἀληθεστάτην πρόφασιν, ἀφανεστάτην δὲ λόγῳ, τοὺς ᾽Αθηναίους ἡγοῦμαι μεγάλους γιγνομένους καὶ φόβον παρέχοντας τοῖς Λακεδαιμονίοις ἀναγκάσαι ἐς τὸ πολεμεῖν). Different things are at issue here. But to my mind we are not looking at a contrast between proximate or superficial causes on the one hand and an underlying cause on the other. Rather, there is on the one hand the context or set of circumstances out of which came the war (the ἐξ ὅτου, as it were), and on the other the historian's explanation (Thucydides' judgement, that is) of why it came about—two very different kinds of thing. But that is still not quite right as it stands. Thucydides' explanation is not of anything so general as why the war came about. It is an explanation of why the Spartans began it, why they acted as they did and broke the treaty. (That both Thucydides and they saw it this way is clear from 1. 118. 2 and 7. 18. 2, respectively.) The explanation has two parts. One involves a response to circumstances, of the kind ascribed by Herodotus to his Croesus and even to his Lacedaemonians. (Thucydides 1. 118. 2 is in kind really very much like Herodotus 1. 46 and 5. 91.) The other is, if anything, even more Herodotean: the imputation (at the national level) of a fundamentally personal human motive, in this case fear. Not Herodotean is the length and care to which Thucydides goes to describe the circumstances which so affected the Lacedaemonians and to which they responded as they did. He does this in chapters 89–118 of book 1. Rather, what he does is to describe what might be called the public facts of the growth of Athenian power and dominion and to attach to these from time to time very much less public, in fact worryingly private and frankly teleoscopic, things about the Spartans. The trouble begins when the Athenians want to rebuild their walls. (p.115) Perceiving what was going to happen (τὸ μέλλον), the Spartans sent an embassy to Athens. They would themselves have preferred to see neither Athens nor any other city in possession of a wall; though here they acted principally under pressure from their allies, who were alarmed at the strength of their navy, which they had not had before, and at the daring they had displayed in the war against the Medes. They asked that they not only refrain from building walls for themselves but also that they join with Page 8 of 19

 

Historical Explanation them in pulling down any walls that survived of cities outside the Peloponnesus. In doing so they did not reveal the real intention of their advice or their suspicion of the Athenians. (1. 90. 1–2) But Themistocles' trickery triumphed; the walls achieved defensible height unbeknown to the Lacedaemonians. And their response? The Spartans when they heard this did not reveal their anger to the Athenians (they had after all not sent the embassy with the expressed purpose of prevention but rather to look like advice for the public good, and they were at that juncture on the best of terms with them on account of the spirit they had shown against the Mede). Yet, frustrated of their wish, they were secretly vexed (ἀδήλως ἤχθοντο). (1. 92) No more is heard on this score for several chapters. Not until 1. 101. Thasos is being besieged by the Athenians, and the Thasians call upon the Spartans to help them by launching an invasion of Attica. Their response? The Spartans undertook so to help them, unbeknown to the Athenians; and they were going to do so, but they were prevented by the occurrence of the earthquake, at which the Helots, and of the perioikoi the Thouriatai and Aithaieis, withdrew in rebellion to mount Ithome. (1. 101. 2) But for a seismological accident war would have begun then, on Thucydides' account. And it could have begun that early, on Thucydides' account, because the explanation for it has been there from the beginning, in the form of private feelings imputed to the Lacedaemonians—concealed suspicion, unrevealed anger—and a measure of Peloponnesian fear. The story, of course, continues consistently, through the incident at mount Ithome when the difference, the διαφορά, first came out into the open (1. 102. 3), to the other differences and claims from which the war itself arose. This is interpretative narrative of high order indeed, although one might object that the narrative is informed by an interpretation that is supplied at the beginning and reasserted throughout. However compelling the interpretation is—and I think it very compelling—it is not analysis. I hope it is clear that I do not by any of this mean to say that Thucydides was Herodotus, or a more closely focused, intense, and streamlined version of him. For Thucydides was capable of analytical (p.116) explanation in a way that Herodotus was not, or chose not to reveal. They both speak of Athens' rise to power and dominion, but they do it in very different ways. Partly, no doubt, because this phenomenon bore differently upon their purposes, but not only for that reason. For Herodotus, this rise of Athens was, along with its consequences for the rest of the Greeks, something foreordained. I have already mentioned the oracles that Cleomenes brought back to Sparta from the acropolis at Athens. And we can further recall the reply of Hippias to Socles, the Corinthian, who did Page 9 of 19

 

Historical Explanation most to dissuade the Peloponnesians from the Spartan project of restoring the Athenian tyrant: That is what Socles said, the delegate from Corinth. Hippias answered him, invoking the very same gods against him: ‘Verily,’ he said, ‘the Corinthians more than any other people will yet long for the Pisistratids when the appointed days are accomplished and they are sorely vexed by the Athenians.’ That was the answer of Hippias, for he knew the oracles more accurately than any other man. (5. 93) In keeping with this is the Cyrus-like behaviour of the children of the Athenian women on Lemnos: These women had children in great numbers, and they taught the children the Attic speech and Athenian ways. Their children would have nothing to do with the children born of the Pelasgian women, and, if one of them was struck by a Pelasgian child, all the others came to his assistance and so succoured one another. And the Athenian children absolutely claimed to rule the others and were far more authoritative. The Pelasgians took note of this and considered. In their consideration a strange and terrible thought overcame them: if these Attic-born children even now were making such a distinction, by coming to the help of their fellows against the more lawfully born, and were trying outright to rule them, what would they do when they grew up? So they determined to kill the children of the Attic women. (6. 138. 2–4) But in Herodotus there is never in the end any mileage in seeking to avert τὸ χρεὸν γενέθαι. These Attic-born children did not grow up, but others did, and Lemnos later fell to the Athenians and was ruled by them. At the more usual level of human action, he gives us Aristagoras successfully playing upon Athenian greed and desire for self-aggrandizement in order to secure support in his Ionian venture (5. 97). Miltiades after Marathon does much the same: He asked the Athenians for seventy ships and an army and money, without saying against what country these would be used—only that they would grow rich if they followed him. For he would lead them to a country where (p.117) they might easily win an abundance of gold. With these claims he asked for the ships. The Athenians were excited by his words and gave them to him. (6. 132)

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Historical Explanation Later on Themistocles emerges as the greediest person in the book (οὐ γὰρ ἐπαύετο πλεονεκτέων is Herodotus' comment at 8. 112. 1), and it is with him that collective and individual Athenian greed merge in 8. 111–12 and the Andrian Dialogue. Against this background, and maintaining the imputed motivation, Herodotus looks ahead to the events of 478/7: There had been talk at the beginning, before ever they sent to Sicily about the alliance, that one ought to trust the fleet to the Athenians. When the allies objected, the Athenians gave way; they thought that what mattered most was the survival of Greece and knew very well that if there was a dispute about the leadership, Greece would perish—and that thought was correct, for strife within the nation is as much a greater evil than a united war effort as war itself is more evil than peace. So because the Athenians knew this, they put up no resistance, but yielded, but only so long as they had urgent need of the others, as they later proved. For as soon as they had driven out the Persian and were fighting for his territory rather than their own, the Athenians stripped the Lacedaemonians of their primacy (though nominally this was because of the arrogance of Pausanias). (8. 3) Of this last episode Thucydides in 1. 95 gives a very clear and remarkably neutral account of what actually happened. It is enough on its own to reveal Herodotus' unfriendly bias. The assumption by Athens of confederate hegemony develops straightforwardly from the circumstances that precede it. And Thucydides' account of the growth of Athenian dominion over other Greeks is equally clear and neutral. He speaks in 1. 99 about the allies of Athens who rebelled from time to time: Of all the causes of defection, that connected with arrears of tribute and vessels, and with failure of service, was the chief; for the Athenians were very severe and exacting, and made themselves offensive by applying the screw of necessity to men who were not used to and in fact not disposed for any continuous labour. In some other respects the Athenians were not the old popular rulers they had been at the start; and if they had more than their fair share of service, it was correspondingly easy for them to reduce any who tried to leave the confederacy. For this the allies had themselves to blame; the wish to get off service making most of them arrange to pay their share of the expense in money instead of in ships, and so to avoid having to leave their homes. Thus while Athens was increasing her navy with the funds which they contributed, a revolt always found them without resources or experience for war. (p.118) Taken as a statement about the developing dynamic imbalance between the Athenians and their allies, about the relationship between neat power and dominion, κράτος and ἀρχή, this is about as good as you can get. Later on Thucydides lends his perception to the Athenians at Melos, who say Page 11 of 19

 

Historical Explanation that they believe it of the gods and know it of men that as a matter of necessity they exercise dominion wherever they have power (οὗ ἂν κρατῃ̑ ἄρχειν, 5. 105. 2). Not ‘that they rule wherever they can’. That would make it a statement about some human need to seek dominion, which would be something quite else; but that is not what the words mean. Explanation can happen by analysis of circumstances and without imputation of motive, and that is a serious advance. Well then, what about Polybius? Two simple observations to begin with. Polybius started writing his history some two and a half centuries after Thucydides breaks off, and Polybius was a pro. One thing this passage of time means is that Polybius was a historian writing for people who were accustomed to read histories, to use the word in a general sense. He had to know and to talk about many of his predecessors, and he did so. His bibliography, as it were, lists some dozens of authors, which is pretty good for the ancient world. He was aware of his place in a historiographical tradition, and very and explicitly aware of the obligation that he as a historian had to his readers. This is perhaps clearest in a passage towards the end of the work. συγγραφέα δὲ κοινῶν πράξεων οὐδ᾽ ὅλως ἀποδεκτέον τὸν ἄλλο τι περὶ πλείονος ποιούμενον τῆς ἀληθείας. (6) ὅσῳ γὰρ εἰς πλείους διατείνει καὶ ἐπὶ πλείω χρόνον ἡ 〈διὰ〉 τῶν ὑπομνημάτων παράδοσις τῶν πρὸς καιρὸν λεγομένων, τοσούτῳ χρὴ μᾶλλον καὶ τὸν γράφοντα περὶ πλείστου ποιεῖσθαι τὴν ἀλήθειαν καὶ τοὺς ἀκούοντας ἀποδέχεσθαι τὴν τοιαύτην αἵρεσιν. (7) κατὰ μὲν τοὺς τῶν περιστάσεων καιροὺς καθήκει βοηθεῖν τοὺς Ἕλληνας ὄντας τοῖς Ἕλλησι κατὰ πάντα τρόπον, τὰ μὲν ἀμύνοντας, τὰ δὲ περιστέλλοντας, τὰ δὲ παραιτουμένους τὴν τῶν κρατούντων ὁργήν. ὅπερ ἡμεῖς ἐπ᾽ αὐτῶν τῶν πραγμάτων ἐποίησαμεν ἀληθινῶς. (8) τὴν 〈δ᾽〉 ὑπὲρ τῶν γεγονότων τοῖς ἐπιγινομένοις διὰ τῶν ὑπομνημάτων παράδοσιν ἁμιγῆ παντὸς ψεύδους ἀπολείπεσθαι χάριν τοῦ μὴ ταῖς ἀκοαῖς τέρπεσθαι κατὰ τὸ παρὸν τοὺς ἀναγινώσκοντας, ἀλλὰ ταῖς ψυχαῖς διορθοῦσθαι πρὸς τὸ μὴ πλεονάκις ἐν τοῖς αὐτοῖς διασφάλλεσθαι. But a writer of public history above all deserves no indulgence whatever, who regards anything of superior importance to truth. (6) For in proportion as written history reaches larger numbers, and survives for longer time, than words spoken to suit an occasion, both the writer ought to be still more particular about truth, and his readers [lit.: listeners] ought to admit his authority only so far as he adheres to this principle. (7) At the actual hour of danger it is only right that Greeks should help Greeks in every possible way, (p.119) by protecting them, veiling their errors or deprecating the wrath of the sovereign people,—and this I genuinely did for my part at the actual time: (8) but it is also right, in regard to the record of events to be transmitted to posterity, to leave them unmixed with Page 12 of 19

 

Historical Explanation any falsehood: so that readers should not be merely gratified for the moment by a pleasant tale, but should receive in their souls a lesson which will prevent a repetition of similar errors in the future. (38. 4. 5 ff.) What he says is clearly reminiscent of Thucydides, especially when he warns his readers against the dangers of tales that are pleasant to hear but tinged with patriotic falsehood. Truth is an absolutely necessary consideration, and for Polybius as for Thucydides this applies to the accurate reporting of what was said as well as what was done. 12. 25b is good on this. ὅτι τῆς ἱστορίας ἰδίωμα τοῦτ᾽ ἐστὶ τὸ πρῶτον μὲν αὐτοὺς τοῦς κατ᾽ ἀλήθειαν εἰρημένους, οἷοί ποτ᾽ ἂν ὦσι, γνῶναι λόγους, δεύτερον τὴν αἰτίαν πυνθάνεσθαι, παρ᾽ ἣν ἢ διέπεσεν ἢ κατωρθώθη τὸ πραχθὲν ἢ ῥηθέν. (2) ἐπεὶ ψιλῶς λεγόμενον αὐτὸ τὸ γεγονὸς ψυχαγωγεὶ μέν, ὠφελεῖ δ᾽ οὐδέν. Προστεθείσης δὲ τῆς αἰτίας ἔγκαρπος ἡ τῆς ἱστορίας γίνεται χρῆσις. (3) ἐκ γὰρ τῶν ὁμοίων ἐπὶ τοὺς οἰκείους μεταφερομένων καιρὸυς ἀφορμαὶ γίνονται καὶ προλήψεις εἰς τὸ προϊδέσθαι τὸ μέλλον, καὶ ποτὲ μὲν εὐλαβηθῆναι, ποτὲ δὲ μιμούμενον τὰ προγεγονότα θαρραλεώτερον ἐγχειρεῖν τοῖς ἐπιφερομένοις. (4) ὁ δὲ καὶ τοὺς ῥηθέντας λόγους καὶ τὴν αἰτίαν παρασιωπῶν, ψευδῆ δ᾽ ἀντὶ τούτων ἐπιχειρήματα καὶ διεξοδικοὺς λέγων λόγους, ἀναιρεῖ τὸ τῆς ἱστορίας ἴδιον. The special province of history is first of all to ascertain the words actually spoken, whatever they may have been, and then to inquire after the reason why something that was said or done either failed or succeeded. (2) The simple report of what happened touches the fancy, but it is without use. When, however, the reason is added, the study of history becomes fruitful. (3) For it is the drawing of analogies between similar circumstances and our own that gives us the means of forming presentiments about what the future holds, and enables us at some times to act with caution and at others, by imitating what happened previously, to deal more boldly with what confronts us. (4) But a writer who passes over in silence the words that were spoken and the reason for what happened and gives us instead rhetorical exercises and discursive speeches destroys the peculiar virtue of history. But truth is not a sufficient consideration. This emerges clearly from 12. 25b. 2  ff., as it does from 11. 19a in a complementary way. τί γὰρ ὄφελός ἐστι τοῖς ἀναγινώσκουσι διεξιέναι πολέμους καὶ μάχας καὶ πόλεων ἐξανδραποδισμοὺς καὶ πολιορκίας, εἰ μὴ τὰς αἰτίας ἐπιγνώσονται, παρ᾽ ἃς ἐν ἑκάστοις οἱ μὲν κατώρθωσαν, οἱ δ᾽ ἐσφάλησαν; (2) τὰ γὰρ τέλη τῶν πράξεων ψυχαγωγεῖ μόνον τοὺς ἀκούοντας, αἱ δὲ πρόσθεν διαλήψεις τῶν ἐπιβαλλομένων ἐξεταζόμεναι δεόντως ὠφελοῦσι τοὺς φιλομαθοῦντας.

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Historical Explanation (3) μάλιστα δὲ πάντων ὁ κατὰ μέρος χειρισμὸς ἑκάστων (p.120) ἐπιδεικνύμενος ἐπανορθοῖ τοὺς συνεφιστάνοντας. What benefit is it to readers to describe wars and battles and the stormings and enslavements of cities, if they are to know nothing of the reasons for which some succeeded and others failed on particular occasions? (2) The results of actions merely touch the fancy; it is the proper investigation of the previous judgements of those responsible that is of benefit to students. (3) And it is above all the exposition of the detailed management of individual episodes that improves the understanding of attentive readers. It is even more necessary for the historian constantly to address the question why? Why did something happen, why did a certain action or policy or plan succeed or fail, and so on. Related is the emphasis in 11. 19a. 3 on the question how? The insistence upon establishing accurately the who, what, where, and when he shares with Thucydides—for Polybius ἀλήθεια, for Thucydides ἀκρίβεια conducing to τὸ σαφές. But the explicit insistence upon the paramount importance of the how and above all the why is Polybius' own; it is new and, for some while at least thereafter, unique. Polybius has defined the historian's task as explanation. That this task will inform the whole work is apparent early on. In book 1, chapter 1 he asks, ‘could anyone be so indifferent or idle as not to wish to understand how, and by what kind of state, almost the whole of the known world was overpowered and fell under the single dominion of the Romans in a space of not quite fifty-three years, something that never happened before?’ A fair question, about this, the Polybian, pentekontaetea. The answer to the question ‘how and by what sort of state…’ occupied some twenty-six and a half of the forty books of his history. As part of the larger task he asks the question ‘why?’ about episode upon episode, not least about the wars that led to Rome's dominion. Realizing, as we have seen, the importance of that question, he formulated a method for answering it. Another first for Polybius. In the context of the start of the war with Hannibal he feels it necessary, not unreasonably, to distinguish the beginning, or first action, of a war (or anything else) from the reason or reasons for that first action. This leads to the methodological pronouncement of 3. 6. 7: ἐγῶ δὲ παντὸς ἀρχὰς μὲν εἶναί φημι τὰς πρώτας ἐπιβολὰς καὶ πράξεις τῶν ἤδη κεκριμένων, αἰτίας δὲ τὰς προκαθηγουμένας τῶν κρίσεων καὶ διαλήψεων. λέγω δ᾽ ἐπινοίας καὶ διαθέσεις καὶ τοὺς περὶ ταῦτα συλλογισμοὺς καὶ δι᾽ ὧν ἐπὶ τὸ κρῖναί τι καὶ προθέσθαι παραγινόμεθα.

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Historical Explanation I maintain that the beginnings of anything are the first attempts and actions of those who have already taken decisions, but that the reasons are what (p.121) lead up to the decisions and judgements; I refer here to ideas and states of mind and reckonings to do with these and the things through which we come to take decisions and to form projects. Beginnings are actions. Actions are preceded by decisions to act. And decisions to act are processes involving various elements. A proper explanation must delineate these processes and identify the various elements. A tall order, it must be said, if a good one. He goes on in the next chapter to offer a specimen explanation of Rome's war with Antiochus. καὶ μὴν τοῦ κατ᾽ Ἀντίοχον καὶῬωμαίους [sc. πολέμου] δῆλον ὡς αἰτίαν μὲν τὴν Αἰτωλῶν ὀργὴν θετέον. (2) ἐκεῖνοι γὰρ δόξαντες ὑπὸῬωμαίων ὠλιγωρη-σθαι κατὰ πολλὰ περὶτὴνἔκβασιντ ὴν ἐκ τοῦ Φιλίππου πολέμου, καθάπερ ἐπάνω προεῖπον, οὐ μόνον Ἀντίοχον ἐπεσπάσαντο, πᾶν δὲ καὶ πρᾶξαι καὶ παθεῖν ὑπέστησαν διᾶ τὴν ἐπιγενομένην ὀργὴν ἐκ τῶν προειρημένων καιρῶν. (3) πρόφασιν δ᾽ ἠγητέον τὴν τῶν Ἑλλήνων ἐλευθέρωσιν, ἣν ἐκεῖνοι περι-πορευόμενοι μετ᾽ Ἀντιόχου τὰς πόλεις ἀλόγως καὶ ψευδῶς κατήγγελον, ἀρχὴν δὲ τοῦ πολέμου τὸν Ἀντιόχου κατάπλουν εἰς Δημητριάδα. And it is clear that the reason for the war between Antiochus and the Romans must be taken to be the anger of the Aetolians. (2) Considering themselves to have been slighted by the Romans in many matters to do with the conclusion of the war with Philip, as I indicated earlier, they not only dragged in Antiochus but were ready to do and to suffer anything because of the anger that developed from the aforementioned circumstances. (3) As pretext one must reckon the liberation of the Greeks, which the Aetolians went round the cities with Antiochus proclaiming, without regard to reason or to truth, and as beginning the entry of Antiochus into the harbour at Demetrias. (3. 7. 1–3) The landing of Antiochus at Demetrias was not the reason for the war; it was the beginning and thereby the proper focus of explanation. (I do not think he is right about the war with Antiochus, but I have no quarrel at all with the method.) The example he gives suggests a risk of the method leading to schematism, to a too rigorous separation of αἰτία, πρόφασις, and ἀρχή. At the same time it reveals its inherent flexibility. The account of the reasons can involve circumstances and people's response to them, actions and reactions. It is this above all that shows Polybius' concern was with explanation and not with the assignment of responsibility, or blame. The method does not work for the latter, as emerges even better from his account of the outbreak of the Hannibalic war. The most important reason for that conflict (the μεγίστη αἰτία: 3. 10. 4, and compare the notorious 3. 30) was the Roman seizure of Sardinia and (p.122) the imposition Page 15 of 19

 

Historical Explanation of additional reparation a few years after the first Punic war, things which angered the Carthaginians. But it was still the Carthaginians who began, or performed the first actions of, the war itself, and that not at all unreasonably as Polybius has it. Where, on this kind of reckoning, would responsibility reside? Yet there is, or may be, a problem inherent in the method. For what it means that Polybius is explaining is nothing so general as why a war broke out, but more precisely why whoever began it began it. In the case of the Hannibalic war it was Polybius' Carthaginians, just as in the case of the Peloponnesian war it was Thucydides' Lacedaemonians. Herodotus, of course, is just the same, in a still less complex way. A risk of one-sidedness, then, in the focus of the explanation. In a sense this is inevitable, at least in the case of wars, which are after all a collection of actions, and one of them has got to be the first. It is inevitable also in a more profound sense, if we agree with Polybius that the historian's task is to explain why people did things. The risk can, of course, be avoided, or at least minimized, by making proper use of the flexibility that we have seen also to be inherent in the method. And this Polybius can be seen to do pretty well where we have his aetiologies intact, which is too little of the time. Had more of books 22–5 survived, I reckon that we would have to spend less time trying to understand his explanation of the third Macedonian war, and the role therein of Philip V. I sometimes think I see what he means, but sometimes it looks downright silly. Like his predecessors, Polybius includes basic human motives in his explanations, itself inevitable if we are to be dealing with people. We have met the anger (ὀργή) of the Aetolians in connection with the Antiochus war and the anger of the Carthaginians engendered by the Roman seizure of Sardinia. There is also the wrath of Hamilcar Barca, as his θυμός is often called, which figures in Polybius' account of the start of the Hannibalic war. But Polybius, I think, is more careful about these. The ascription of motive comes much more from the description and analysis of circumstances than from imputation. Polybius, that is, explains why Hamilcar Barca was upset after the end of the first Punic war in 241, why the Carthaginians a few years later joined him in his anger, why the behaviour of Flamininus and the Romans in 197 and after made the Aetolians cross, and in the latter part of book 18 we see some cross Aetolians in action. This is different from Thucydides. We sort of know (from 1. 118) what Lacedaemonian fear was about in the late 430s, but not what it was about in 465 or why they would have begun war then. And Polybius is specially careful about the biggest motive, or intention, of them all, the aim of universal dominion he ascribes to the Romans, ἡ τῶν ὅλων ἐπιβολή. No further expatiation on that theme (p.123) here. A look at book 1, chapter 3 (one of a number of passages of its kind) will begin to exemplify:

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Historical Explanation I therefore concluded that it was necessary to prefix this and the next book to my history. I was anxious that no one, when fairly embarked upon my actual narrative, should feel at a loss, and have to ask what were the designs entertained by the Romans, or the forces and means at their disposal, that they entered upon these undertakings, which did in fact lead to their becoming masters of land and sea everywhere in our part of the world. I wished, on the contrary, that these books of mine, and the prefatory sketch which they contained, might make it clear that the resources they started with justified their original idea, and sufficiently explained their final success in grasping universal empire and dominion. The breadth of what Polybius looked for in his explanations is indicated nicely, and with similar reference, in 3. 2, where he announces book 6, on the Roman πολιτεία: At this point I shall pause in my narrative to introduce a disquisition upon the Roman Constitution, in which I shall show that its peculiar character contributed largely to their success, not only in reducing all Italy to their authority, and in acquiring supremacy over the Iberians and Gauls besides, but also at last, after their conquest of Carthage, to their conceiving the idea of universal dominion. And we will do well to remember that the ‘πολιτεία’ of book 6 is about more than ‘constitution’ commonly connotes: it comprises Roman military, religious, and political institutions. It is probably as well to insist that for Polybius human behaviour requires human explanation, and this is what he manages to provide, save once. Even better to let Polybius insist upon this himself, for insist upon it he does, as he does so engagingly upon so much else. Those things of which it is impossible for a mere man to ascertain the causes, such as a continuous fall of rains and unreasonable wet, or, on the contrary, droughts and frosts, one may reasonably impute to God and Fortune [ὁ θεός and ἡ τύχη], in default of any other explanation; and from them come destruction of fruits, as well as long-continued epidemics, and other similar things, of which it is not easy to find the cause….But those things, of which it is possible to find the origin and cause of their occurrence, I do not think we should refer to the gods. I mean such a thing as the following. In our time all Greece was visited by a dearth of children and generally a decay of population, owing to which the cities were denuded of inhabitants, and a failure of productiveness resulted, though there were no long-continued wars or serious pestilences among us. If, then, anyone had advised our sending to ask the gods in regard to this, what we (p.124) were to do or say in order to become more numerous Page 17 of 19

 

Historical Explanation and better fill our cities,—would he not have seemed a futile person, when the cause was manifest and the cure in our own hands? For this evil grew upon us rapidly, and without attracting attention, by our men becoming perverted to a passion for show and money and the pleasures of an idle life, and accordingly either not marrying at all, or if they did marry, refusing to rear the children that were born, or at most one or two out of a great number, for the sake of leaving them well off or bringing them up in extravagant luxury. For when there are only one or two sons, it is evident that, if war or pestilence carries off one, the houses must be left heirless: and like swarms of bees, little by little the cities become sparsely inhabited and weak. On this subject there is no need to ask the gods how we are to be relieved from such a curse: for any one in the world will tell you that it is by the men themselves if possible changing their objects of ambition; or, if that cannot be done, by passing laws for the preservation of infants. On this subject there is no need of seers or prodigies. And the same holds good of all similar things. (36. 17) Plus ça change… And with this depressing picture of Polybius' Greece under Rome's dominion I conclude. Notes:

(1) These ‘predecessors’ of Polybius are, as will emerge very quickly, Herodotus and Thucydides, with a brief but necessary glance at Hecataeus. There were, of course, others, and amongst them some whose attitudes towards historical explanation might be discussed with profit. But none of these lends himself to a discussion of anything like the depth or security that is possible with Herodotus and Thucydides. Many potentially promising candidates are impeded partly by fragmentary preservation and even more by the fact that what we have of them comes to us refracted through other minds and intentions. This last is of particular concern when matters of thought and language are so centrally at issue. For reasons such as these this version retains the agenda and dramatis personae of the original. In other respects, too, it remains essentially the same, save for the incorporation into the text of passages that seemed (and seem) to me importantly illustrative. In these, Greek is retained when at least some of the words require to be focused upon. The translations provided are mostly based upon Kirk and Raven (for Anaximander and Heraclitus), Grene (for Herodotus), Crawley (for Thucydides), and Shuckburgh and Paton (for Polybius, see the bibliography at the end of Ch. 3): see General Bibliography for full references. Treatments of these authors are limitless, citations of these treatments here the opposite. With some of what is said about Herodotus compare Donald Lateiner, The Historical Method of Herodotus (Phoenix suppl. 23; Toronto, 1989), chapters 6 and 9; my direction is different and more limited, my analysis different, too, I think, and more simple. On the sections of Thucydides book 1 at issue see Simon Page 18 of 19

 

Historical Explanation Hornblower, A Commentary on Thucydides, i (Oxford, 1991), not only for citation of (especially recent) work but also for his own observations. Some of what is said about Polybius refers more or less obliquely to my ‘Polybius, Rome and the East’, JRS 69 (1979), 1–15 (this volume, Ch. 5), and on Polybius there is above all Frank Walbank (Historical Commentary on Polybius, 3 vols (Oxford, 1957–79) and Polybius (Berkeley, 1972) ). If my debt to his work and to him were thought to be visible here, I should be pleased. (2) 1. 8. 2 χρῆν γὰρ Κανδαύλῃ γενέσθαι κακῶς; 5. 33. 2 οὐ γὰρ ἔδεε τούτῳ τῷ στόλῳ Ναξίους ἀπολέσθαι; 5. 92δ. 1 ἔδει δὲ ἐκ τοῦ Ἠετίωνος γόνου Κορίνθῳ κακὰ ἀναβλαστεῖν (and cf. 4. 79. 1, 6. 64, 6. 135. 3, 9. 109.2).

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Polybius, Rome, and the East*

Rome, Polybius, and the East The late Peter Derow, Andrew Erskine, and Josephine Crawley Quinn

Print publication date: 2014 Print ISBN-13: 9780199640904 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199640904.001.0001

Polybius, Rome, and the East* Peter Derow Andrew Erskine Josephine Crawley Quinn

DOI:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199640904.003.0006

Abstract and Keywords This chapter examines Polybius's interpretation of Rome's power and Roman expansion in the East. More specifically, it considers the inconsistency between Polybius's general statements about Rome's eastern expansion and his detailed analyses of the causes of wars by citing F. W. Walbank's analysis of the apparent contradiction between Polybius and Maurice Holleaux. The chapter argues that Polybius was actually consistent in the way he thought about his subject. Keywords:   expansion, Rome, East, Polybius, wars, F. W. Walbank, Maurice Holleaux

I Sixteen years ago, in an article entitled ‘Polybius and Rome's eastern policy’, F. W. Walbank raised and examined aspects of what seemed to be an absolutely central flaw in the fabric of Polybius' account of Roman expansion in the Greek world.1 The situation that he saw both then and a decade later in his Sather Lectures on Polybius2 may be put briefly, and I hope fairly, as follows. Polybius believed that Rome's eastern expansion came as the conscious execution by Rome of a consciously adopted plan. Such a view, however, is altogether at odds with the interpretation worked out by Maurice Holleaux3 on the basis of Polybius' own narrative (and its survivals in Livy). This state of affairs could come about because of a fundamental contradiction between Polybius' general statements and his own detailed narrative. This contradiction, in fact, manifests itself throughout Polybius' work, particularly in the form of inconsistency (p. 126) between his general statements about Rome's expansion and his detailed Page 1 of 25

 

Polybius, Rome, and the East* analyses of the causes of wars. Walbank confronted Polybius' contradiction squarely and offered an explanation of how Polybius came to be misled in his general view, in the course of which Fortune (τύχη) is cast as seductress, aided by Polybius' hindsight of 168 and after, and by his assumption that it was the normal tendency of imperial states to expand. It was Polybius' view of the purpose of Fortune (and not the detailed evidence) that begot in his mind the purpose of the Romans, and as a result he ‘has committed himself to an interpretation of Roman policy which is inconsistent with the detailed narrative which his honesty and sincerity have led him to write’.4 What follows here seeks to continue (or to re-open, as the case may be) the discussion that Walbank began, for it seems to me that the contradiction between Polybius and Holleaux is of a quite different order from that suggested and, far more important, that the contradiction or inconsistency between Polybius and himself is not there at all. Put in another way, the aim is to make it clear that the refutation of Polybius' general view about Roman expansion in the East must be (and, therefore, always has been) based upon either more or less than Polybius himself provides. This inquiry is accordingly to be regarded as an attempt to establish Polybius' views on this expansion of Roman power in the East and to show that he was consistent in the way he thought about his subject. To determine whether his general view and the detailed discussions and analyses that give support and expression to it are, in fact, correct must be another and different kind of undertaking. Details, Polybian and otherwise, only touched upon or wholly omitted here will be essential there, but if Polybius is seen to be consistent, the presumption will have to be that he is the best interpreter of his own evidence. The contradiction between Polybius and Holleaux is the less worrying of the two and may be examined first. The position more easily stated is that of Holleaux, which Walbank has accurately summed up as follows: ‘Put briefly, Holleaux's thesis is that down to 200 B.C. the Romans, as a result of long indifference to the Greek world, had no eastern policy; they intervened in Greece in the two Illyrian wars and the first Macedonian war through a succession of accidents, and disengaged themselves on each occasion as quickly as possible.’5 This is rounded out a few pages later: ‘The sequence of events recorded in Polybius and the Polybian parts of Livy confirms Holleaux's thesis that the Romans left Greece after (p.127) Phoenice without any intention of returning and that the Second Macedonian War represents a remarkable volte-face in their eastern policy.’6 Holleaux's interpretation of the outbreak of the second Macedonian war,7 though adjusted from time to time, has enjoyed a notable success. While its validity will not be directly at issue here, it will nevertheless become imperative to ask whether it (in any of its forms) can really be said to be based upon Polybius (see below, section iii).

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Polybius, Rome, and the East* At this point, however, one must look more closely at the view of Polybius that is here at issue and to which Holleaux's thesis is (at least in part) opposed. Considered first will be the question as to when the Romans came to conceive of their universal aim (ἡ τῶν ὅλων ἐπιβολή), and then (in section ii) the content of this notion will be defined. Two passages of Polybius are primarily involved here, 1. 3. 6 and 3. 2. 6.8 In the first of them the universal aim is introduced: For having defeated the Carthaginians in the aforementioned war (i.e., the Hannibalic war) and believing that they had accomplished the greatest and most important step towards their universal aim (πρὸς τὴν τῶν ὅλῶν ἐπιβολήν), thus and then for the first time were the Romans emboldened to reach out their hands for the rest and to cross with forces into Greece and the regions of Asia. It reappears, in a somewhat varied form, in Polybius' announcement of his intent to provide a special account of the Roman constitution (3. 2. 6): Halting the narrative at this point (viz., at the end of Book 5) we shall draw up our account of the Roman constitution, as a direct sequel to which we shall point out that the singular nature of the constitution contributed very greatly not only to their reacquisition of mastery (δυναστεία) over the Italians and Sicilians, and to their attainment of rule (ἀρχή) over the Spaniards and Gauls, but also, finally, to their forming the conception of their universal aim when they defeated the Carthaginians in the war (ἀλλὰ τὸ τελευταῖον καὶ πρὸς τὸ κρατήσαντας τῷ πολέμῳ Καρχηδονίων ἔννοιαν σχεῖν τῆς τῶν ὅλων ἐπιβολῆς). These two statements may seem at first sight to be at odds with one another, the second suggesting that the Romans came to conceive of their (p.128) universal aim only after their victory in the second Punic war, the first that they viewed this victory as a step towards the accomplishment of this aim. This could be seen as an inconsistency, but it is by no means necessary to see it as such. When taken together, the two passages conspire to say that at the time of the victory over Carthage the Romans realized that they had accomplished what was in fact the greatest and most important step in the direction of world rule, that the decision to reach for the whole arose both with and out of the victory over Carthage. The Romans chose to proceed along the road, as it were, when they realized they were already a fair way towards its end. This may seem odd, but it is not inconsistent. And it certainly is the way Polybius thought, for it corresponds exactly to his expressed views about three earlier stages in the expansion of Rome's power, all of which indicate that, for Polybius, it was success, or one signal success in particular, that helped to stimulate the Romans to broaden their aims. At 1. 20. 1–3, it is with the success at Agrigentum that the Page 3 of 25

 

Polybius, Rome, and the East* Romans decide to go for the whole of Sicily.9 At 2. 31. 8, the same thing happens with regard to Gaul in 225/4—even the wording is very close to 1. 20. 1–3. Similar again, with an earlier point of reference, is 1. 6. 6: ‘When they had already defeated the Gauls of Italy in many battles, then for the first time they set out after the rest of Italy.’ This leads directly back to 1. 3. 6: ‘Then for the first time they were emboldened to reach out their hands for the rest.’ But in 1. 3. 6 there is an additional element: the universal aim (ἡ τῶν ὅλων ἐπιβολή). Roman expansion has been going on before; it is only at this point, after so much had already been won, that Polybius believed the project of establishing universal rule was conceived. In 1. 6. 6 it was ‘the rest of Italy’. In 1. 3. 6 it is simply ‘the rest’, but the process of expanding aims is essentially the same. On the basis of certain passages in Books 1, 9, and 15 it has been argued that Polybius believed Rome's universal aim to predate the victory over Carthage in the second Punic war. At issue are 1. 3. 7, 9. 10. 11, 15. 9. 5 (cf. 9. 2), and 15. 10. 2.10 None of these passages seems to me to support such a contention. The context of 9. 10. 11 is the earliest, and it should be dealt with first. In a narrative section now lost Polybius described how the Romans, after the successful completion of the siege of Syracuse in 211, removed to Rome quantities of statues and other works of art. He then sets about discussing whether such behaviour is right or (p.129) not, beneficial or otherwise (cf. 9. 10. 3). After distinguishing between this sort of booty and the more ordinary gold and silver, he goes on (9. 10. 11): Perhaps it makes some sense for (the victors) to collect the gold and silver for themselves, for it is not possible to contend for general control (ἀντιποιήσασθαι τῶν καθόλου πραγμάτων) except by bringing weakness upon others and garnering the corresponding power for oneself. But that which goes beyond this (paintings and the like), he says, were better left behind. The point here is a straightforward one. Throughout this section Polybius is speaking generally. This generality is of two kinds. At one level it applies to anyone seeking mastery (13: οὐ μὴν ἀλλὰ ταῦτα μὲν εἰρήσθω μοι χάριν τῶν μεταλαμβανόντων ἀεὶ τὰς δυναστείας). At another it applies to the Romans, but not only to their actions at Syracuse (note esp. 3: πλείων γε μὴν εἰς τὸ μὴ δεόντως σφίσι πεπράχθαι μηδ᾽ ἀκμὴν νῦν πράττεσθαι τοῦτο τοὔργον). The time at issue is thus from Syracuse to the present.11 That the Romans were dealing directly in τὰ καθόλου πράγματα for most of this period is true, but it is not to be inferred that Polybius saw them doing so at the beginning of it.12 At 1. 3. 7 Polybius describes Rome and Carthage (at the time of the second Punic war) as the states disputing for universal rule (ἡ τῶν ὅλων ἀρχή). Taken by itself this could mean that both sides entered and fought the war with universal rule as their aim. That it does not carry this implication is clear in general from Polybius' discussion of the outbreak of that war (where desire for universal rule Page 4 of 25

 

Polybius, Rome, and the East* is never mentioned) and in particular from the amplification of this statement found at 15. 9. 5, a passage indicating that 1. 3. 7 is not a statement about the aims and intentions of the belligerents at all: For the victors in the battle were going to be masters not only of Libya and Europe, but of all the parts of the world now known. This is a statement of fact and no more: world rule was going to accrue to the victor in the battle (Polybius reminds us that this is indeed what happened); world rule was effectively the prize at stake. (p.130) 15. 10. 2 does go somewhat beyond this, but the significance of the extension is other than it has been thought to be: He bade them…to keep it before their eyes that by overcoming their enemies they would not only be securely masters of affairs in Libya, but they would also gain for themselves and their fatherland the undisputed leadership and sovereignty over the rest of the world. Two points about this passage must be recognized immediately. First, it is the first time that world rule appears as a Roman aim in an historical context (cf. above on 9. 10. 11); this is moments before the battle of Zama. Second, this aim is not presented as a disembodied view ascribed to Rome, or Romans, in general; the statement is given as Scipio's and as his alone. From this one cannot but infer that, according to Polybius, the notion of world rule was in Scipio's mind at the time of the battle of Zama: he realized what Polybius had already said was in fact at stake. 1. 3. 6 and 3. 2. 6 show, as argued above, that only with the victory over Carthage did the aim become a general one, did ἡ τῶν ὅλων ἐπιβολή emerge. As far as one can tell from what is left of Polybius' text, he believed the idea of universal rule appeared first in the mind of Scipio just prior to the battle that sealed the defeat of Carthage;13 then, once the victory had been achieved and its importance and implications recognized, the aim of world rule was conceived in the minds of the victors: ἔννοιαν σχεῖν τῆς τῶν ὅλων ἐπιβολῆς (3. 2. 6). Following upon the conception of this project the Romans began to carry it out (that is to say the rest of it), ‘to reach out their hands for the rest and to cross with forces into Greece and the regions of Asia’ (1. 3. 6). Indeed, it may be as well to remark that, on any interpretation of the genesis of their aim, it is only after the victory over Carthage that the Romans put it into operation in Greece and the East: τότε πρῶτον in 1. 3. 6 is decisive. This means that, according to Polybius, the first Roman venture in the East that manifests the universal aim is the (p.131) second Macedonian war. This war he evidently saw as consciously undertaken by Romans consciously aiming at world control. In this he is at odds with Holleaux and indeed with all the most influential treatments of the second Macedonian war since Holleaux. The disagreement is Page 5 of 25

 

Polybius, Rome, and the East* fundamental, but it must be emphasized that the contradiction between Polybius and Holleaux referred to earlier reduces to this disagreement and to this disagreement alone. Some consideration of the years leading up to the second Macedonian war will be necessary (section iii, below), but for the moment attention must be turned to the content of Rome's universal aim.

II A good deal has been said above about what Polybius calls ἡ τῶν ὅλων ἐπιβολή. At the same time the notion has, as will not have escaped notice, been left rather vague: ‘universal aim’ or ‘quest for world, or universal, dominion’ are expressions that tell us too little (or, perhaps, too much). One must be more precise about this notion, for there can be no possibility of understanding Polybius' view of Rome's eastern expansion without first knowing just what it was he believed the Romans both sought and achieved. It seems to me that this question of the content of Rome's universal aim can be answered quite specifically, and it is particularly important to do this, as Polybius' general view has been taken to connote ‘aggressive Roman imperialism’14 and to be such as to suggest that the Romans in Polybius should be found actually beginning wars. The definition of Rome's aim according to Polybius may best proceed in steps. We have seen that ἡ τῶν ὅλων ἐπιβολή was introduced by Polybius in 1. 3. 6. Later in the same chapter we are told that what the Romans sought and obtained was ἡ τῶν ὅλων ἀρχὴ καὶ δυναστεία—universal rule and dominion, and from this it follows that with the inception of their universal aim the Romans began consciously to seek universal rule. What, then, does ‘universal rule’ mean for Polybius' Romans? It refers, simply, to that situation in which everybody was subject to the Romans; Polybius' aim was to show ‘by what management of individual affairs the Romans rendered the entire inhabited world subject to themselves’ (πῶς ἓκαστα χειρίσαντες Ῥωμαῖοι πᾶσαν ἐποιήσαντο τὴν οἰκουμένην ὑπήκοον αὐτοῖς: 3. 3. 9). ‘Subject to’ has a variety of meanings, but there is only one that can apply here, as is clear from the next chapter of Book 3 (3. 4. 2–3): The fifty-three-year period came to an end with these events (i.e., in 168/7), and the increase and extension of the Romans' dominion was completed. It seemed, moreover, to be universally agreed as a matter of strict necessity that what remained was to hearken to the Romans and to obey their orders (Ῥωμαίων ἀκούειν καὶ τούτοις πειθαρχεῖν ὑπὲρ τῶν παραγγελλομένων). (p.132) On the one side there are orders and on the other obedience. Rome's possession of ἡ τῶν ὅλων ἀρχὴ καὶ δυναστεία means that everyone must in practice obey Roman orders, and ἡ τῶν ὅλων ἐπιβολή accordingly refers to Rome's intention to bring this state of affairs about. As long as obedience was

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Polybius, Rome, and the East* not universal the process went on; with the destruction of the Macedonian monarchy in 168/7 there ceased to be any serious question. As has already been seen, the first manifestation of Rome's universal aim came in connexion with the second Macedonian war. With the content of that aim now determined, it should be possible to see exactly what this means. In the spring of 200 B.C. a Roman embassy in Athens met Philip's commander Nicanor and bade him report to the king (16. 27. 2–3): …that the Romans call upon the king to make war against none of the Greeks, and to answer for the wrongs done to Attalus before a fair tribunal; and that it would be possible for him to live at peace with the Romans if he did these things, but if he did not wish to obey (πείθεσθαι), they said, the opposite would ensue. Later that year a slightly different set of ‘requests’ was conveyed to Philip himself at Abydos, but the basic message was the same: ‘that he could have peace if he acted thus, but if he did not wish to obey (πειθαρχεῖν), a war against the Romans would be ready to hand’ (16. 34. 4). There can be no thought here of Rome seeking amends in connexion with a more or less specific situation, as happens in Polybius' account of the first Illyrian war. Explicitly at issue is the general question of obedience to Roman orders,15 and this is the first time in Polybius that this has been the case. And such is exactly what should have been expected, for this is the first occasion on which Rome's universal aim has been involved. From this point on the orders/obedience (or failure to obey) syndrome16 permeates Rome's dealings with the Hellenistic world, and (p.133) Polybius' history of the years after 200 B.C. is in a real sense an account of the responses of various kings and other people to Roman orders. There will be occasion below to notice some instances of this syndrome, but it may be worthwhile here to look briefly at these and to note some others as well, if only to make it quite clear that this is the essential element in Rome's eastern ‘expansion’ and that in this regard Rome treated everybody the same way. After Philip, the Romans went on to deal with Antiochus, and their approach to him in 196 was quite the same as to Philip in 200. Roman ambassadors ordered (διακελευόμενοι) him to stay clear of certain Greek cities, and to withdraw from others that he was holding (18. 47. 1), and they forbade him to cross into Europe (προηγόρευον μὴ διαβαίνειν: 18. 47. 2). The same attitude is evinced later at Lysimacheia (18. 50. 5: ἠξίου…διεμαρτύρετο; 50. 7: παρῄνει), and whenever there are negotiations once the war has started (cf. 21. 14. 4, 14. 9, 15. 13, etc.). As a sidelight, one may recall here the statement mentioned earlier (21. 4. 5; above, n. 13) to the effect that Scipio knew that the aim was not really to subdue the Aetolians but to defeat Antiochus and thereby gain power over Asia Page 7 of 25

 

Polybius, Rome, and the East* (κρατῆσαι τῆς ᾽Ασίας). What is involved in κρατῆσαι is expressed in terms of orders and obedience in 36. 9. 6: Previously they (the Romans) made war against everyone to the point where they gained power (κρατῆσαι) and their opponents conceded that they must obey them and do what they were told (πείθεσθαί σϕισι καὶ ποιεῖν τὸ παραγγελλόμενον). In the years immediately following the war against Antiochus, a number of people had to deal with Roman instructions as to what they should do and how behave. Directly affected were the Boeotians (22. 4) and the Achaeans (24. 8–13 passim; cf. 22. 3. 3 and esp. 23. 17. 4), and on (p.134) one occasion the Romans wrote to the Achaeans and Aetolians, commanding (κελεύοντες) them to see to the restoration of a certain Boeotian exile (22. 4. 9). But the most striking case of the 180s is that of the unfortunate Philip V of Macedon. Various Roman orders to him are referred to at 22. 1. 3 and 14. 1, 23. 2. 6 and 8. 2 (and cf. 22. 6. 5 for the invitation of accusations against him, that lead to orders, and 13.2 for the effect of the orders on the size of his realm). The Roman resolve is made clear when Philip is told (23. 3. 3) that the Senate will no longer be able to bear or endure being disobeyed (παρακουομένη) on these matters. In view of this sort of treatment it should come as no surprise that Philip decided to prepare for war against Rome, and it is worth noting that the issue of Roman orders was still a live one for Perseus in 171: he hoped then to render the Romans more cautious about issuing harsh and unjust commands to the Macedonians (27. 8. 3). It will be seen below (p. 147) how the Romans wanted to compel the Illyrians to obey their requests (πείθεσθαι τοῖς ὑπ᾽ αὐτῶν παραγγελλομένοις: Pol. 32. 13. 8): this came about because of the Senate's annoyance at the disobedience (ἀπείθεια) and awkwardness of the Dalmatians (32. 13. 4). Earlier, Eumenes had run foul of Rome because of his failure to obey (πειθαρχεῖν) the decrees of the Senate (30. 30. 3),17 and later it is Prusias' disobedience (ἀπείθεια) that gets him into trouble (33. 12. 8). Such examples could be multiplied (as a glance at the passages cited in n. 16 indicates), but it should by now be clear that what the Romans sought, on Polybius' account, was to be obeyed by everyone with whom they dealt, and that they were prepared to threaten and even to go to war to ensure this obedience.

III That Holleaux and Polybius are at odds would not be problematical were it not for the fact that Holleaux is believed to have built his interpretation firmly upon the basis of ‘the sequence of events recorded in Polybius and the Polybian parts of Livy’ (cf. above, pp. 126–7). If this were indeed the case, we should be confronted with the situation envisaged above: (p.135) Polybius' general view refuted on the basis of his own detailed narrative. But here a basic question must be asked: can it be said that Holleaux's view of the outbreak of the second Page 8 of 25

 

Polybius, Rome, and the East* Macedonian war is based solely or primarily upon Polybius and the Polybian parts of Livy, that Polybius and the Polybian parts of Livy confirm Holleaux's thesis (and not, therefore, Polybius' own)? The answer is no. Of Polybius' account of the years at issue (205–200) there survives very little indeed, either directly or in Livy's narrative, and what does remain of what is or may be Polybian became evidence for Holleaux only after certain adjustments. It is, in a sense, not the Polybian evidence as it stands that produced Holleaux's view, but Holleaux's view that dictated what is to be considered the Polybian evidence. This emerges most clearly if one looks closely at the cases of the Peace of Phoenice and the Aetolian appeal, both of which are central elements in Holleaux's reconstruction of the years from the Peace of Phoenice in 205 to the outbreak of war in 200. His treatment of the Peace of Phoenice (Rome, la Grèce, esp. 276–80) is necessarily based upon Livy 29. 12, which his references in this context designate as ‘Liv.(P.).’ In an earlier discussion, this same chapter of Livy was reckoned to be basically Polybian but to have been retouched by Livy on the basis of an annalistic tradition (258, n. 4). At issue there was the clause giving the adscripti to the treaty (Livy 29. 12. 14; see in general Rome, la Grèce, 258– 71; cf. 54 n. 1, 56 n. 2), which Holleaux reckoned to be vitiated by the introduction of annalistic inventions. On this he may or may not have been right. What matters more is the point of method that arises: if the chapter is admitted to be part Polybian and part annalistic, how is one to decide which parts are which, when the corresponding narrative of Polybius is irretrievably lost? This question poses itself acutely in relation to 29. 12. 16, where Livy records the ratification of the treaty at Rome and the reason behind the ratification: ‘iusseruntque omnes tribus, quia verso in Africam bello omnibus aliis in praesentia levari bellis volebant’. (‘And all the tribes ordered it, because, with the war transferred to Africa, they wished to be relieved of all other wars for the moment.’) The treaty was of course ratified at Rome, but the notion that the Romans reckoned the settlement with Philip a temporary one from the start does not square with Holleaux's thesis (see esp. Rome, 284–9). As a result of this (and for no other reason that I can see) 29. 12. 16, when it is evidence for the vote on the treaty, is cited as ‘Livy (P.)’ (Rome, 280, n. 2); but when the reason for the peace is at issue (i.e., ‘quia…volebant’), the ascription is to annalists (284, n. 1). The aim in this is simply to brand the offending quia-clause as unreliable, which is surely not a sound way of proceeding. The ascription of this clause to (p.136) Roman annalists is, moreover, at least a little curious. Their aim (insofar as they can be said to have had a single aim) was to show that the war that broke out in 200 was prompted and justified by injuries done by Philip to Roman allies.18 To emphasize, as is done in 29. 12. 16, that the Peace of Phoenice was regarded at Rome as a temporizing postponement of hostilities against Philip, does not tend at all in the same direction. Most important, the statement in question cannot be said to conflict with anything that can with good reason be attributed to Polybius; if anything, the opposite seems more likely to be true.19 Page 9 of 25

 

Polybius, Rome, and the East* A part, then, of Livy 29. 12. 16 was rejected by Holleaux because it stood at odds with his view of Roman conduct in the years between the wars. This view, in turn, rests heavily upon his treatment of the Aetolian appeal (Rome, 293–7). According to Holleaux, Polybius related that in 202, probably but not certainly after the battle of Zama, the Aetolians appealed to Rome for help against Philip but were rudely rebuffed; this rebuff is taken as an indication that the Romans had at the time no intention at all of renewing their involvement in Greece.20 The Roman rejection does a kind of double duty for Holleaux. (1) It shows (according to him) the Romans undesirous of involvement in Greece; (2) this in turn is taken to mean that it cannot have come when Appian (Mac. 4. 2) has it, in 201 after the Rhodian embassy: at this point (on Holleaux's thesis) the Romans began again to think seriously about the East. One cannot but detect an element of circularity here. The implication of the Roman (p.137) rejection comes first (no interest in the East); then the incident is moved back to a time when it can carry this implication (202); then the implication is taken as informative about the Romans in 202. This is not acceptable. There is only one date for the Aetolian appeal that has any authority at all, and that is Appian's: latish in 201, after the Rhodian embassy. There is nothing in this section of Appian to suggest that the appeal does not belong where he puts it. The only reason for moving it is that it will not bear a certain interpretation unless it is put somewhere else: ‘Si les Aitoliens étaient venus à Rome à l'époque indiquée (i.e., Appian's date), le Sénat les auraient reçus à bras ouverts’ (Rome, 293, n. 1; cf. 295). If, however, one approaches the evidence as it is without preconceptions, the following situation is encountered: late in 201 (when a renewal of hostilities with Philip was on any view very much in prospect, if not indeed being prepared for), the Senate rejected, emphatically and rudely, an appeal from the Aetolians to renew their alliance and to help them against Philip. This poses a question, but it is a question that must be answered instead of evaded: why would the Romans have done this at such a time, especially as they later went on to obtain the alliance of the same Aetolians in the fight against Philip? First of all, it is to be noted that when the Romans do speak of alliance to the Aetolians, they make it very clear that the Aetolians are lucky to have the chance to join them: their choice lies between winning with Rome and perishing with Philip (Livy 31. 31. 20). This looks like an ultimatum; it is at least clear who is to be master here. Secondly, it must be emphasized that it is not until this time, spring 199, that the Romans approached the Aetolians on the subject of alliance. The Roman embassy that visited the Aetolians in spring 200 (Pol. 16. 27. 4) paid identical visits to the Epirots, to Amynander in Athamania, and to the Achaeans (ibid.) and informed all alike of Rome's intention to defend the Greeks against Philip's aggressions. Here the Aetolians are pointedly treated as just one among Philip's friends and allies in Greece.21 Alliances were not sought on this occasion, and the Roman approach to the Aetolians, when it was made, was not, as has been seen, a friendly one. Evidently, then, the Romans were doing their Page 10 of 25

 

Polybius, Rome, and the East* very best to show themselves not very fond of their erstwhile allies. Nor are the reasons for this behaviour hard to discern. Most important and most simply, the Romans were clearly anxious to appear as the friends of the Greeks in this war against Philip, (p.138) and there should be no need to labour the point that their previous association with the Aetolians had gained them nothing but the distrust and hatred of a good many Greeks. More specifically, this hatred had led to dire predictions of a particular tenor: that the Romans, when quit of the Hannibalic War, would return to Greece in full force on the pretext of aiding the Aetolians and that Philip's allies, which is to say most of the Greeks, would then suffer even more.22 In the second war with Philip the Romans wanted Greek allies (followers?); there were no ready ones in Greece itself save the Aetolians, but to start with these meant forgoing virtually all others and indeed pushing the rest into Philip's camp. Roman recognition of loudly voiced Greek feeling led directly to the reassuring visits to Philip's allies in the spring of 200 and in particular to Rome's treatment of the Aetolians—from the rejected appeal in 201, through the implicit statement that the Aetolians were Philip's allies and not Rome's in 200, to the arrogant invitation to the Aetolians to seek renewal of their alliance with Rome in the spring of 199. In all of this the Romans are consistent, even calculating, and it is an element of this consistency that the rejection of the Aetolian appeal must be seen as stemming from the decision to renew the war with Philip. Consistent also is the foregoing account with the evidence we have and particularly with all indications that can be accounted Polybian. At all events, it should be clear at least that Holleaux's account of Rome and Greece in the years immediately preceding the second Macedonian war cannot be said to be based upon, or to be confirmed by, Polybius. Holleaux's view, then, remains at odds with that of Polybius, but this opposition is no longer problematical, for it is certainly not the case that Holleaux is to be preferred as being closer to the Polybian facts. There is rather every reason to think, as should not be surprising, that Polybius was the better master of his own evidence. Holleaux was justifiably sceptical of the views of many of his predecessors and contemporaries, but so concerned was he to demolish ‘the extravagant theories, once fashionable, of Roman interventions in Eastern politics and Roman treaties of “friendship” or “alliance” with Greek monarchs and republics’23 that (it may be suggested) he reacted too strongly, and in the process the baby (in this case Polybius) went out with the bath water.

(p.139) IV There remains the other difficulty alluded to at the outset of section 1, involving the matter of direct inconsistency between Polybius' general view and his own detailed narrative. To return to Walbank's formulation of the problem: on the one hand there is Rome's universal aim; on the other, ‘when he is analysing the detailed causes of the wars in which the Romans were involved, he makes it Page 11 of 25

 

Polybius, Rome, and the East* clear that the Second Punic War was the responsibility of the Carthaginians and the Third Macedonian War that of Philip.’24 (The outbreak of the second Punic war predates, to be sure, the inception of the universal aim, but the problem here is not with this kind of detail.) On this view Polybius is alleged to maintain both that Rome was aiming at universal rule and that her antagonists were the ones responsible for the wars that led to their conquest by Rome. This does perhaps sound odd, but—again the basic question—is it true? With the first part of the allegation there can be no quarrel, but can it be said that Polybius does thus assign responsibility for the various wars? The answer must, I think, be that he does not deal in terms of responsibility at all, or at least not in any direct way. He did not, in other words, spend his time treating of Kriegsschuldfragen. This emerges from the kind of system of causal explanation that he worked with, on which we have his own clear statement at 3. 6. 7: ἐγὼ δὲ παντὸς ἀρχὰς μὲν εἶναί ϕημι τὰς πρώτας ἐπιβολὰς καὶ πράξεις τῶν ἤδη κεκριμένων, αἰτίας δὲ τὰς προκαθηγουμένας τῶν κρίσεων καὶ διαλήψεων .λέγω δ᾽ ἐπινοίας καὶ διαθέσεις καὶ τοὺς περὶ ταῦτα συλλογισμοὺς καὶ δι᾽ ὧν ἐπὶ τὸ κρῖναί τι καὶ προθέσθαι παραγινόμεθα. I maintain that the beginnings (ἀρχαί) of anything are the first attempts and actions of those who have already taken decisions, but that the reasons (αἰτίαι) are what lead up to the decisions and judgments; I refer here to ideas and states of mind and reckonings about these and the things through which we come to take decisions and form projects. This takes as its starting point the beginning (ἀρχή), which in a war is the first overt act of hostility by one of the belligerents. It requires, therefore, that the causes, or rather the reasons (αἰτίαι), be sought on that side: what needs explaining on this kind of analysis is why, for example, the Carthaginians and Perseus opened hostilities. About Polybius' formulation two things need to be noted at the start. First, nothing is said about responsibility. Second, what matters are the αἰτίαι; for Polybius they (p.140) provide the ultimate answer as to why something happened. From this it must follow that if we are to question Polybius about responsibility at all, we shall have to seek the answers in his accounts of αἰτίαι. At this point it will be useful to examine the case of the second Punic war. Besides being one of the chief instances referred to by Walbank, it provides a complete discussion of ἀρχή versus αἰτίαι (the only one that survives intact) and is therefore likely to offer a good indication of how Polybius' system works in practice, both in general and on the question as to how one should go about inferring responsibility from a Polybian causal explanation. The ἀρχή of the second Punic war lies with Carthage, and the αἰτίαι are first, the wrath of Hamilcar Barca, second and greatest the Roman seizure of Page 12 of 25

 

Polybius, Rome, and the East* Sardinia, and third the euphoria produced in the Carthaginians by their successes in Spain.25 (First, second and third, it should be noted here, serve to indicate chronological order.26) If one is to inquire as to responsibility, the answer must be found in this statement of αἰτίαι. The most important of them is the second, the μεγίστη αἰτία, the Roman seizure of Sardinia in 238 B.C.27 This apparently had the most to do with the start of the war, and this in turn must lead ineluctably to the conclusion that, on Polybius' account, the Romans were most responsible for the war. One can afford here to be even more positive, for on this one occasion Polybius does address himself to the question of responsibility (prompted to do so by the legalizing discussions going on around him during his stay in Rome: see 3. 29. 1). In 3. 30. 3–4 we have the following: Therefore, if one posits the destruction of Saguntum as the reason (αἰτία) for the war, it must be granted that the Carthaginians began the war unjustly, both in view of the treaty of Lutatius, according to which the allies of each were to have security from attack by the other, and also in view of the agreement with Hasdrubal, according to which the Carthaginians were not to cross the Ebro river for purpose of war. But if (one posits as the reason for the war) the seizure of Sardinia and the accompanying money, it must certainly be agreed that the Carthaginians fought the Hannibalic war with good reason: for, after yielding to circumstances, they defended themselves when they could against those who harmed them. (p.141) Saguntum or Sardinia? By chapter 30 of Book 3 we know exactly where Polybius stood on that question (see esp. 3. 6. 2–3). And from this we can see that, for Polybius, responsibility was a matter that went well beyond the question of who made the first move. At all points, then, one must ask not only who started it, but also—and this especially—what made them decide to do it. This means, however, that in order to begin asking Polybius about responsibility, one must have to hand his full discussion of the αἰτίαι of whatever war is at issue. And this immediately poses a problem in dealing with the wars most relevant to this paper, namely those fought in the East between 200 and 167, the period of the accomplishment of Rome's universal aim. These are the second and third Macedonian wars and the war against Antiochus, and for none of them do we have complete Polybius' treatment of ἀρχή and αἰτίαι. Yet there are some indications along the way, and these must be examined to see whether or not they point in the same direction as what has just been observed about his discussion of the outbreak of the second Punic war. The order will be chronological. First Philip, then Antiochus, and then Perseus. Each of these three cases has something odd about it, but to my mind the oddest is the case of the second Macedonian war. Not only is there no surviving discussion of its ἀρχή and αἰτίαι, but there is nothing that can count as a fragment of that discussion or even as an announcement by Polybius that there Page 13 of 25

 

Polybius, Rome, and the East* was going to be such a discussion. Some have apparently seen such an announcement in 3. 3. 2, at least to judge from their translations. The passage reads as follows: ἐξηγησάμενοι δὲ τὰς Ἀττάλου καὶ Ῥοδίων ναυμαχίας πρὸς Φίλιππον, ἔτι δὲ τὸν Ῥωμαίων καὶ Φιλίππου πόλεμον, ὡς ἐπράχθη καὶ διὰ τίνων καὶ τί τὸ τέλος ἔσχεν… It is, of course, the διὰ τίνων that has caused trouble here, at least to some English translators. Paton in the Loeb gives ‘the war between the Romans and Philip, its course, its reason, and its result’; and more recently Chambers: ‘the war between the Romans and Philip—how it was conducted, why it was fought, and how it ended.’ Why this should have happened I do not know, but διά with the genitive has not to do with reason but with instrument or agency. Nor is the error universal. Schweighäuser, predictably, did not go wrong; in his translation the clause comes out: ‘quemadmodum illud (sc. bellum) fuit gestum quibus ducibus, quo exitu.’ Shuckburgh's ‘the persons engaged’ does even better. Pédech28 (p.142) recognized that ‘la notion d'agent’ was at issue here, and de Foucault in the Budé edition of Book 3 takes his cue from Schweighäuser with ‘avec quels chefs’. All of which is to say that, if Polybius did treat the second Macedonian war in terms of ἀρχή and αἰτίαι, his treatment has perished without a trace.29 The extent of what we have is his statement that the war against Philip took its origins (ἀϕορμαί) from the war against Hannibal (3. 32. 7). Except insofar as it establishes a connexion between Punic war and Macedonian war this does not take us very far. Unless, perhaps, it indicates that for Polybius the Roman ventures against Philip were not so separate as the modern notions of ‘first’ and ‘second’ Macedonian wars would imply.30 The oddity in the matter of the war against Antiochus has at least to do with what is in Polybius rather than with what is not. The war is against Antiochus (who made the first move), but the αἰτία (or the chief αἰτία, for Polybius envisages more than one at 3. 3. 4) is the anger of the Aetolians. If, however, one bears in mind Polybius' statement about the relation of ἀρχή and αἰτίαι at 3. 6. 7, this is not really problematical. He gives a summary account at 3. 7. 1–2, and it is there primarily that one must look when asking the question about responsibility: And indeed it is clear that the reason (αἰτία) for (the war of) Antiochus and the Romans must be reckoned to be the anger of the Aetolians. For they, believing they had been slighted in many respects having to do with the end of the war against Philip, as I have stated above (in 3. 3. 3), not only dragged in Antiochus but were ready to do or to suffer anything owing to the anger that arose out of the aforementioned circumstances.

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Polybius, Rome, and the East* One should proceed in two steps here, as was the case with the second Punic war. The stated αἰτία is the anger of the Aetolians. From this clear assertion one goes on to ask why it was that they were angry. Polybius' statement on this score is, perhaps, not quite so transparent. They were angry because they believed themselves to have been slighted in a (p.143) number of respects relating to the outcome of the war against Philip. In particular, as we know from Book 18 (see esp. chs. 38–9), they felt that the Romans had unfairly refused to give them certain cities to which they (the Aetolians) believed they had a right. The Aetolian anger, then, arose from the manner in which (to their mind, at least) the Romans were treating them. Were they, however, entitled to act in the way they did, in the way that Polybius believed the Carthaginians were entitled to react to the Roman seizure of Sardinia? If they were, then the responsibility for the war rests ultimately, on Polybius' account, with the Roman conduct towards the Aetolians after Cynoscephalae. If not, then with the (misguided) Aetolian view of Rome's conduct then. It is precisely at this point that the incompleteness of Polybius' text becomes a serious problem. There is no question that Polybius' generally hostile portrayal of the Aetolians would not square readily with the view that he thought their anger to be justified. On the other hand, it does look as if his treatment of these Aetolians in the narrative of the years after 197 is not as unreservedly hostile as in what had gone before, and he does not, in particular, attack their anger as unjustified.31 What is important for the present purpose and what is clear is that it is, at the least, by no means obvious from what remains of Polybius (either directly or in Livy) that the Aetolians had not been badly done by. If there is a single crux here, it is 18. 38, where Phaeneas the Aetolian raises a two-part protest: (1) owing to the fact of their co-operation with Rome in the present war (καθότι συνεπολέμησαν νῦν) the Aetolians should recover the cities previously in their league; (2) by the alliance of 211 the Aetolians should receive the cities captured in war, after the Romans had helped themselves to everything moveable. To this Flamininus replied that Phaeneas was in error ‘on both counts’: (1) the original treaty (of 211) had not been in force since the Aetolians had abandoned the Romans and made their own peace with Philip (in 206/5); (2) even if it were still in force, its terms had got nothing to do with such cities as had surrendered themselves to the Romans. Whether Flamininus' version of the terms of the treaty of 211 is accurate or not,32 the fact is that his two-part reply has to do only (p.144) with Phaeneas' second point; the first is not touched upon directly and is only implicitly denied any validity. On reflection, the whole business becomes extraordinary. On what terms did the Aetolians ally themselves with the Romans in this war against Philip?33 The impression one gets is that they thought they knew and were astonished (and angry) when Flamininus informed them that in fact they did not. How this situation could have come about cannot be firmly established, but it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the Aetolians, when they joined the Romans in 199, were either told or allowed to believe something that was not true. Or again,

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Polybius, Rome, and the East* they might have been told something that was true in 199 but that ceased to be true on the morrow of Cynoscephalae. Whatever the answer here, it remains the case that the origins of the war with Antiochus have to do with Roman actions and aims, for it does, on balance, seem more likely that the anger of the Aetolians was a reaction to what the Romans actually did (and not to a misguided Aetolian view of what they were doing).34 And specifically on the question of Roman aims here, it will do to recall what Polybius says of Scipio at 21. 4. 5 : that he knew ‘the end of the war and of the whole project (τῆς ὅλης ἐπιβολῆς) lay not in the subjugation of the Aetolian league, but in gaining power over Asia by defeating Antiochus’. Still better possibilities are offered in the case of the war against Perseus. Here, as was remarked above, the difficulty for Polybius' general view was seen to lie in the fact that he made Philip responsible for the war. On this occasion it may be possible to see in more detail how Polybius' account worked. It is on 22. 18. 10 that the statement as to Philip's responsibility is based: We maintain that Philip, the son of Demetrius, planned (διανοηθῆναι) to wage the final war against the Romans and had all the preparations ready for this project (ἐπιβολή), and that, after he had died, Perseus became the actual executor of the deeds. (p.145) Philip planned the war. That is clearly stated.35 But here again we must try to follow Polybius' causal chain back to its beginning. What, that is, led Philip to form this project? The answer is mostly there in Book 22, and in this connexion the important chapters in the narrative are 13–14 and 18. Chapter 18, part of which is quoted above, clearly belongs to Polybius' discussion of the αἰτίαι of the third Macedonian war. Chapters 13–14 (esp. 14. 7 f.) equally clearly contain part of Polybius' discussion of what led Philip to form his plan of war against Rome (note esp. 14. 8: ἐπινοούμενα; 14. 10: τὸ προτεθέν; 14. 11: ταῦτα δὲ διανοηθείς; 14. 12: χάριν τῆς προκειμένης ἐπιβολῆς; with these last two in particular cf. 18. 10, quoted above). This requires that chapters 13–14 and chapter 18 be seen as together forming a part of Polybius' treatment of the αἰτίαι of the war against Perseus.36 The question here posed—what led Philip to form his project?—must accordingly be answered on the basis of chapters 13–14, and these chapters require that the answer take a certain direction. Philip's plan is a reaction to Roman behaviour towards him, and in particular to the orders he is receiving from Rome (13. 1, from the Senate; 14. 1, from the Roman ambassador, Ap. Claudius Pulcher). Even more particularly, it is his reaction to the Romans' decision about him (22. 14. 6): Appius and his colleagues, having condemned Philip both for his outrage towards the Maroneans and for his estrangement towards the Romans, departed holding views of this kind (cf. 14. 7 for Philip's reaction to this). Page 16 of 25

 

Polybius, Rome, and the East* (p.146) The process is basically the same as in the case of Carthaginian reaction to the seizure of Sardinia.37 Rome's orders on the present occasion (and the preceding ones like it) may be of a different status from Rome's seizure of Sardinia, but it was the orders nonetheless that were influential in leading Philip to plan as he did. The question as to who was responsible is a complex one, but at least it cannot be answered simply by saying that Philip conceived the project of a war with Rome. Indeed, if anything has emerged from the preceding discussion, it is (I hope) that Polybius' discussions of reasons are not essentially aimed at answering questions of responsibility. They are constructed with the intention of explaining why someone did something, or, more strictly, what the factors were that led someone to decide to do something. It should also have emerged that, if we are to inquire of Polybius as to responsibility, we must do so by way of ascertaining what these factors were. Once this is realized, and once this procedure is adopted, then the notion of a conflict between Polybius' general statement about Rome's universal aim and his detailed analyses of the reasons behind wars loses all support. Where we can approach the αἰτίαι we find that Roman actions are among the motivating factors, if they are not indeed the chief ones. But, to repeat, it is with reference to these factors that Polybius seeks to explain what happened, not to answer questions about war-guilt.

V It may now be useful to turn briefly to an implication of the theory that the general view of Polybius is contradicted by his detailed treatment of the outbreaks of wars. This (now untenable) thesis suggests that if the Romans had been aiming at universal dominion, then they should have started the wars. Some further passages should be adduced here to show that Polybius at least believed the Romans capable of a great deal more subtlety than this. In 167/6 the Thracian king Cotys sent an embassy to Rome to ask for the return of his son (who, a hostage with Perseus, had been captured by the Romans along with Perseus' children) and to justify his own co-operation with the Macedonian King. The Romans agreed to the return (p.147) of his son, and on this Polybius has the following (30. 17. 2; the contrast with Livy 45. 42. 6 ff. is illuminating): The Romans, thinking that they had attained their object, the war against Perseus having gone as they planned, and that their difference with Cotys no longer had any point, allowed him to take back his son… The implication is that in other circumstances there might have been a point in maintaining this ‘difference’, and such is effectively what was done in an analogous case eight years later. In 160/59 Demetrius, who had recently established himself on the Seleucid throne after his escape from Rome, sent ambassadors to the Senate, who brought with them a certain Leptines, the murderer of Cn. Octavius, one of the Roman envoys who had been sent out in Page 17 of 25

 

Polybius, Rome, and the East* 163 as part of a commission to disarm Syria. Along with Leptines was sent his accomplice, the anti-Roman scholar Isocrates. The Senate in 160/59, not fully trusting Demetrius, elected not to deal with these two despite the frequent assertions of Leptines that he had done the deed. Polybius' view of the reasoning behind this is as follows (32. 3. 11–12): For the Senate, as it seems to me, supposing that it would seem to people38 that the murder had been avenged if they took over and punished the guilty ones, scarcely received them, but kept the charge open, in order to have the power to make use of the accusations when they wished. It thus remained possible to attribute the murder to Demetrius, and it need hardly be said that any war begun on account of the murder of an ambassador would be seen to have been begun justly. Ambassadors were involved in the Roman decision to go to war against the Dalmatians in 156, but in a significantly revealing way, as Polybius makes clear (32. 13. 8–9): Therefore they planned, by initiating a war against the aforementioned people (the Dalmatians), both to renew, as it were, the drive and zeal of their own masses, and, by terrifying the Illyrians, to compel them to obey their orders. These, then, were the reasons (αἰτίαι) for which the Romans made war on the Dalmatians; to the outside world (τοῖς ἐκτός) they proclaimed that they had decided to go to war on account of the insult to the ambassadors. (p.148) Had we not this clear statement there might have been some temptation to think that the Dalmatians' treatment of the Roman ambassadors had, on Polybius' account, some real connexion with the Roman decision to go to war. This should be a warning. A similar situation, involving identical concern for the opinion of the outside world, was seen by Polybius just prior to the outbreak of the last ‘war’ against Carthage (36. 2): This decision had long ago been ratified in their individual minds, but they were looking for a suitable occasion and a pretext that would seem respectable to the world outside (πρὸς τοὺς ἐκτός). The Romans were wont to pay much attention to this matter. And in doing so they displayed very good sense, for, as Demetrius (of Phalerum) says, if the inception of a war seems just, it renders victories greater and ill-successes less dangerous, but if it seems to be dishonourable or base, it has the opposite effect. So on this occasion too they differed with one another about the opinion of the

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Polybius, Rome, and the East* outside world (περὶ τῆς τῶν ἐκτὸς διαλήψεως) and almost abandoned the war. This is not unlike the situation with the Dalmatians in 156. It goes further, however, in adding the element of generality,39 and this should be enough to make us realize that the Romans in Polybius will not be found going out and beginning wars in any obvious fashion. On the contrary, he saw them as being on the lookout for suitable occasions and handsome pretexts, once they had decided that a war was what was needed. It would appear, then, that the fact that the Romans do not begin (i.e., perform the ἀρχή of) a war, tells us nothing about Roman intentions or aims at the time. It may even be that Polybius believed the Romans took care to see that other people began the wars. This notion, which is consistent with everything said thus far and particularly with the last few (p. 149) passages quoted, is found in a fragment (99 Büttner-Wobst) uncertainly attributed to Polybius: οἱ γὰρ Ῥωμαῖοι οὐ τὴν τυχοῦσαν πρόνοιαν ἐποιοῦντο τοῦ μὴ κατάρχοντες ϕαίνεσθαι χειρῶν ἀδίκων μηδ᾽ ἀναιρούμενοι τοὺς πολέμους τὰς χεῖρας ἐπιβάλλειν τοῖς πέλας, ἀλλ᾽ ἀεὶ δοκεῖν ἀμυνόμενοι καὶ κατ᾽ ἀνάγκην ἐμβαίνειν εἰς τοὺς πολέμους. For the Romans took no ordinary forethought not to appear to be the initiators of unjust actions and not to appear to be attacking those around them when they took on wars, but always to seem to be acting in selfdefense and to enter upon wars out of necessity. This fragment, which in its language and phraseology is certainly Polybian (albeit not uniquely so), has been seen as deriving from the narrative from which the above-quoted 36. 2 survives.40 It fits there admirably and is also consistent with the other passages quoted in this section. Beyond this it cannot be proved to be Polybian, but it is, at all events, in accordance with all that has been said here about Polybius' views on the reasons behind Rome's wars. And if it is true, then the Romans succeeded admirably, leading not a few to believe that the wars which extended their power were in some sense defensive. (p.150) Notes:

(*) The original version of this paper was delivered as part of a colloquium on historians and historiography of the ancient Near East held at the University of Toronto in 1975, and I remain grateful for helpful comments received from colleagues then, especially T. D. Barnes, J. M. Rist, and G. V. Sumner. Much by way of constructive criticism and advice has been given me since by M. W. Frederiksen, of Worcester College, Oxford, by the Editorial Committee of this Journal in general and by Professor Walbank in particular, and I have gained from some particularly perceptive points raised by Donald Baronowski, of the University of Toronto, and Lucy Grieve and Philip Kay, of Wadham College, Page 19 of 25

 

Polybius, Rome, and the East* Oxford. To all these at once my thanks and my apologies for having left it less good than their help might have made it. (1) JRS 53 (1963), 1–13. (2) F. W. Walbank, Polybius (1972), esp. ch. 6; see also ch. 1 of Polybe (Entretiens Hardt XX (1974) ). (3) Primarily in Rome, la Grèce et les monarchies hellénistiques au IIIe siècle avant J.-C. (1921). (4) op. cit. (n. 1), 11. (5) ibid. 1. (6) ibid. 5. (7) Rome, la Grèce, chs 7 and 8. See also his chapters in CAH VIII (for the original of which: ch. 14 of Études d'épigraphie et d'histoire grecques V (1957) ). (8) In JRS (53) 1963, 6 Walbank argued that Pol. 1. 63. 9 indicated that the project was conceived in 241, but this position was abandoned (rightly) in Polybius (161 and n. 38) under the influence of K.-E. Petzold, Studien zur Methode des Polybios und zu ihrer historischen Auswertung (1969), 175 and n. 4. On the interpretation of Pol. 9. 10, see below, p. 3. (9) cf. 2. 20. 10: the first Punic war as a struggle ὑπὲρ τῆς Σικελιωτῶν ἀρχῆς. Such it became, according to Polybius, only with the Roman success at Agrigentum. (10) See JRS 53 (1963), 6, 9, and Walbank, A Historical Commentary on Polybius II (1967) ad Pol. 9. 10. 11. (11) The reference is, int. al., to 167 and the removal of treasures after the victory over Perseus: see Walbank, Commentary, ad 9. 10. 3. (12) It may be noted that a different sort of problem does reside here. Along with Polybius' reference to the Roman decision to remove the statues etc. (9. 10. 2) and Livy's account of what Marcellus brought back (26. 21. 7 f.), there is the latter's report that a quaestor had been sent to take charge of pecunia regia (25. 31. 8); but in 210 there is no money in the treasury at Rome (Livy 26. 35. 2). (13) It is perhaps not without significance that Scipio has appeared in this connexion: cf. Pol. 21. 4. 5 (quoted below, p. 144). (14) Walbank, op. cit. (n. 1), 8.

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Polybius, Rome, and the East* (15) It is the presence here of this element of obedience that distinguishes the present case from the otherwise not wholly dissimilar one (an ‘ally’ was involved) of Rome's dealings with and ultimatum to Carthage just before the second Punic war (compare, with Pol. 16. 27 and 34, particularly 3. 15, esp. § 5, and 3. 20. 6–8). (16) The expressions involved are varied, especially in the matter of orders and ordering. The words used most frequently in contexts involving Rome's eastern dealings are as follows: (1) ἐπιτάττω (with ἐπιταττόμενον, ἐπίταγμα, ἐπιταγή): cf. 18. 9. 5, 38. 2; 20. 10. 16; 21. 4. 14, 5. 3, 6. 1, 14. 9, 15. 13, 24. 13; 22. 11. 3, 14. 1; 24. 11. 7, 13. 2, 13. 3; 29. 27. 13; 30. 23. 3; 31. 1. 10; 32. 2. 7; 33. 9. 3. (2) παραγγελλόμενον, παραγγελθέν: cf. 21. 33. 3; 24. 9. 1, 9. 10, 12. 4, 13. 6; 28. 13. 4; 32. 13. 8; 36. 4. 7, 5. 4, 5. 6, 6. 3, 6. 6, 9. 6. (3) προστάττω (and προσταττόμενον, πρόσταγμα, προσταχθέν: cf. 20. 10. 14; 21. 15. 13; 22. 1. 5, 15. 3; 23. 2. 6; 24. 11. 4; 27. 8. 3; 29. 27. 9; 30. 31. 8; 33. 12. 4; 36. 5. 5, 9. 8. (4) παρακαλέω (and παρακαλούμενον): cf. 16. 27. 2, 34. 3; 18. 9. 2, 9. 7, 37. 4; 20. 10. 6; 22. 4. 12, 10. 3; 24. 8. 3, 11. 6, 15. 1; 29. 27. 6, 27.9. (5) κελεύω (and κελευόμενον): cf. 18. 1. 3; 22. 4. 9; 23. 5. 17; 24. 13. 4, 15. 9; 36. 6. 5. These all seem to be quite interchangeable (see esp. 24. 8–13 and 36. 4–6), and all are at sometime or another obeyed (along with, on occasion, γραϕόμενα (cf. 24. 8. 4, 8. 6), λεγόμενα (cf. 22. 4. 10) and ἀποκρίσεις (cf. 30. 23. 2) ). The chief expressions for obeying are πειθαρχεῖν and, less frequently, πείθεσθαι: cf. 16. 27. 3, 34. 3; 18. 9. 2; 22. 4. 10, 8. 4, 8. 6, 9. 1, 9. 9, 9. 14, 12. 14; 29. 27. 3; 30. 13. 9, 23. 2, 30. 3, 31. 8; 32. 13. 8; 36. 5. 6, 9. 6, 9. 7, 11. 3; also, on occasion, ὑπακούω, συνυπακούω (cf. 24. 9. 9, 11. 7, 12. 4). The verbs are mostly followed by one of the aforementioned nouns. Not infrequently, obedience is signalled simply by some form of ποιεῖν τὸ παραγγελλόμενον (cf. 18. 9. 7, 37. 4; 22. 4. 12; 24. 13. 6; 36. 6. 6, 9. 6), τὸ παρακαλούμενον (cf. 22. 4. 12; 29. 27. 6), or τὸ προσταχθέν (cf. 23. 2. 6, etc.). These lists, while not complete, will at least give a fair indication of the frequency with which these notions occur in Polybius' account of Rome's relations with the Hellenistic world from 200 B.C. onwards. (17) On Rome and Eumenes, see the letter of Attalus II to the priest Attis of about 156 B.C., C. B. Welles, Royal Correspondence in the Hellenistic Period (1934), no. 61. It shows a very acute (and Polybian: see also 23. 17. 4) appreciation of Roman ‘foreign policy’ in general and of Rome's attitude towards Eumenes II in particular. (18) See esp. the reason stated in the Roman war proposal: ‘ob iniurias armaque illata sociis populi Romani’; cf. also the complaints against Philip lodged at Rome by the ‘legati sociarum urbium ex Graecia’ (in 203/2: Livy 30. 26. 2; cf. 30. 42. 8– 10). The same notion seems to be present in 31. 1. 9, where the Romans are ‘infensos Philippo…ob infidam adversus Aetolos aliosque regionis eiusdem socios pacem’, but this section is most curious both for the mention of the Aetolians in this way, as well as for the statements in 1. 8 about the chronology and cause of Page 21 of 25

 

Polybius, Rome, and the East* the previous war with Philip which do not agree at all with Livy's account in the previous decade. On 31. 1 see J. Briscoe, A Commentary on Livy, Books 31–33 (1973), 52–5. Briscoe does not explain how Livy in 31. 1 came to connect the beginning of the war with the Aetolians, but it may be recalled that in a speech in Polybius the ἀρχὴ τοῦ πολέμου is associated with the treaty between Rome and the Aetolians (11. 5. 9); also that the Roman ambassador in Livy 31. 31. 18 (most likely a Polybian section) says to the Aetolians ‘nos pro vobis bellum suscepimus adversus Philippum’ (cf. 31. 29. 5 and Briscoe, Commentary, ad locc.). (19) Particularly worth noting is Polybius' statement that the second war against Philip took its ἀϕορμαί from the war against Hannibal (3. 32. 7). One might also compare Appian, Mac. 3. 2. (20) The Aetolian appeal is referred to in what there is no reason to believe is not a Polybian section of Livy (31. 29. 4); for a select bibliography on it see Briscoe, Commentary, ad loc. Briscoe himself leaves the appeal in 201 (before the Rhodian and Pergamene embassies) but holds basically to Holleaux's interpretation of the Roman rejection. (21) And not, it seems, without reason: cf. Dio 17, Fr. 57. 59 (on 206): (ὁ Φίλιππος) τοὺς δὲ Αἰτωλοὺς ἀπὸ τῆς συμμαχίας τῆς τῶν Ῥωμαίων ρ[…]τινι ἀποσπάσας ϕίλους ἐποιήσατο; and Livy 31. 28. 6 (spring 199): ‘ad Aetolos mittit (Philippus) legatos, ne gens inquieta adventu Romanorum fidem mutaret’. (22) For anti-Roman sentiment during the first Macedonian war, see Pol. 9. 37– 39; 10.25; 11.4–6; for the prediction, 11. 6. 2–3. (23) E. Badian, Foreign Clientelae (1958), 44. (24) op. cit. (n. 1), 11. The same view is expressed by A. Momigliano, Alien Wisdom (1975), 28. (25) Pol. 3. 9. 6–10. 6. (26) This follows from the fact that the numbering reflects chronological order both here and in the Alexander example in 3. 6. 10–11; this seems to me to have been missed by Walbank, Polybius, 158. (27) Bearing this in mind, I cannot agree with the assertion of Momigliano, Alien Wisdom, 28: ‘Even the arbitrary occupation of Sardinia by the Romans, though freely admitted to be unjust (3. 28. 2), is not directly connected with the origins of the second Punic war’. (28) P. Pédech, La méthode historique de Polybe (1964), 37.

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Polybius, Rome, and the East* (29) Pédech treats of the αἰτίαι, προϕάσεις and ἀρχή of the second Macedonian war at some length (Méthode, 113–23), but without any foundation. He finds the ἀρχή in the crossing of the Roman consul P. Sulpicius Galba into Greece, but there is no reason to believe that this was the ἀρχή and not, say, one of Philip's attacks on Athens. More seriously, the beginning of his discussion reveals a basic misunderstanding of how Polybius' causal system worked. ‘Le problème des αἰτίαι se ramène, suivant la théorie, à la description des mobiles qui ont guidé l'action des belligérents’ (i.e., Romans, Rhodians, Attalus, and Philip; p. 113). As has been seen here, the αἰτίαι are what lead to the ἀρχή, the action of just one of the belligerents. On Pédech's misunderstanding, cf. Walbank, Polybius, 158 with n. 12. (30) It may be noted that the numbering has not always been the same. In Florus there are two Macedonian wars, of which the second is the one against Perseus, the first comprising Rome's conflict(s) with Philip (1. 23, 28). Cf. E. Bickerman, CP 40 (1945), 137 n. 1. (31) This view of Polybius on the Aetolians is argued to good effect by K. S. Sacks, ‘Polybius' other view of Aetolia’, JHS 95 (1975), 92–106 (p. 93 for the specific point; it should, perhaps, be asked whether some criticism might be implicit in δόξαντες at 3. 7. 2). I do not, however, see the connexion between Sacks' main argument and the ‘dichotomy’, assented to by him (106), between Polybius the ‘reporter’ and Polybius the ‘editor’. (32) This question has been discussed often and at length, but it cannot be resolved, as the stone bearing the only surviving copy of the treaty is broken before the end of the text (for text, evidence and bibliography see H. H. Schmitt, Die Staatsverträge des Altertums 3 (1969), no. 536; for bibliography on the Polybian side especially, D. Musti, ANRW 1.2, 1146 ff.). It is, of course, possible that the distinction adduced by Flamininus did form part of the treaty, but it is also worth noting that Livy's version of the agreement (26. 24. 9–13) contains no reference to such a provision; cf. Briscoe, Commentary, ad 33. 13. 9–12 (he rightly emphasizes Flamininus' failure to respond to Phaeneas' first point). (33) On the Aetolians rejoining Rome there is only the following: (1) In spring 199 the Roman ambassadors say to the Aetolians ‘et vobis restituendi vos in amicitiam societatemque nostram fortuna oblata est’ (Livy 31. 31. 20); (2) the Aetolians do not rejoin on the spot, but later in the year we learn that they have done so (Livy 31. 41. 1: ‘hae causae Damocritum Aetolosque restituerant Romanis’). (34) Support for this must be seen in Polybius' statement that the war against Antiochus took its origins from the war against Philip (as that war did from the one against Hannibal): 3. 32. 7, a passage rightly stressed by Sacks, op. cit. (n. 31), 93. Page 23 of 25

 

Polybius, Rome, and the East* (35) What is not stated is that ‘la vraie cause (αἰτία) de la guerre, c'est la pensée de Philippe’ (Pédech, Méthode, 125). Nor could it have been stated, for αἰτίαι in Polybius are not in any vague way what we think, but things that lead us to decide to act in a certain way (Pol. 3. 6. 7). Note also 22. 1. 5, where αἰτίαι are referred to in the plural. (36) The argument here does not require that chs 13–14 (overlapping excerpts from the Exc. de legationibus gentium and the Exc. de legationibus Romanorum) and ch. 18 (from the Exc. de sententiis) be put directly together in the text of Polybius; the relation between them is clear enough without having to do that. What is essential is that this relation between the section on Philip's actions at Maroneia (with the Roman intervention) and that on the αἰτίαι of the third Macedonian war be recognized and appreciated. The sequence is guaranteed by 22. 1. 5 (from the ‘table of contents’ to the book given in the excerpts de legationibus gentium): Ἡ γενομένη σϕαγὴ διὰ Φιλίππου τοῦ βασιλέως ἐν Μαρωνείᾳ. παρουσία πρεσβευτῶν ἐκ Ῥώμης καὶ τὰ προσταχθέντα διὰ τούτων. αἰτίαι δι᾽ ἃς ἐγένετο Ῥωμαίοις πρὸς Περσέα πόλεμος. This notice is sufficient to refute any suggestion on the basis of correspondence with Livy that ch. 18 should precede chs 13–14 (with chs 13–14 cf. Livy 39. 34. 1 ff., with ch. 18 cf. Livy 39. 23. 5 f.); in any event, while the correspondence between Livy 39. 34 and Pol. 22. 13–14 is quite direct, that between Livy 39. 23 and Pol. 22. 18 is by no means so. For my part, I believe the best answer is, in fact, the juxtaposition of chs 13–14 and 18. This would involve placing ch. 18 after ch. 14 and before ch. 15, and all that this would require is transferring chs 16–17 to the previous Olympiad year (from 185/4 B.C. to 186/5 B.C.). To this transference there is no obstacle whatever, and the earlier date accords at least as well with the mention of Ptolemy's age in 22. 17. 7. (37) With 3. 30. 4 (cf. above, p. 140) compare especially 22. 14. 8: καθόλου μὲν οὖν πρόθυμος ἠ ̑ν εἰς τὸ κατὰ πάντα τρόπον ἀμύνεσθαι καὶ μετελθεῖν αὐτούς. (38) τοῖς πολλοῖς, which should perhaps be taken strictly as meaning ‘the many’ (at Rome). From this it would follow that handsome pretexts were sometimes required to convince the people of Rome of the justice and necessity of senatorial decisions. That many at Rome could indeed need such convincing emerges from, inter alia, the difficulty over the vote on the war against Philip in 200 (Livy 31. 6. 3 ff.). (39) That Polybius is indeed generalizing about the Romans here is a point worth insisting upon, for he has been taken, on the basis of a passage in Book 31, as indicating that such behaviour was a new departure for the Romans in the 160s (see Walbank, Polybius, 170 and cf. Entretiens Hardt xx, 12). The passage is 31. 10. 7: πολὺ γὰρ ἤδη τοῦτο τὸ γένος ἐστὶ τῶν διαβουλίων παρὰ Ῥωμαίοις, ἐν οἷς διὰ τῆς τῶν πέλας ἄγνοιας αὔξουσι καὶ κατασκευάζονται τὴν ἰδίαν ἀρχὴν πραγματικῶς, ἅμα χαριζόμενοι καὶ δοκοῦντες εὐεργετεῖν τοὐς ἁμαρτάνοντας. Page 24 of 25

 

Polybius, Rome, and the East* The beginning of the statement is at issue, and Walbank renders it ‘Many Roman decisions are now of this kind’ (cf. Paton in the Loeb translation: ‘For many decisions of the Romans are now of this kind’). This would indicate a departure, but it is not what Polybius is saying; for this use of ἤδη see A. Mauersberger, Polybios-Lexikon 1.3 (1966), col. 1108. Again, Schweighäuser's rendition is correct (‘Multum enim Romani hoc genere consiliorum utuntur’), and Shuckburgh also has it right with ‘Measures of this class are very frequent among the Romans’ (See the bibliography at the end of Ch. 3). Another firm indication that Polybius is speaking of the period before 168 as well as of that after is the presence of αὔξουσι: the αὔξησις of Roman domination was complete by 168 (Pol. 3. 4. 2). (40) The text of the fragment as it stands has been reconstructed (see the notes in Büttner-Wobst, on his fr. 99, and in Hultsch, on his fr. 157: see the entries in the bibliography at the end of Ch. 3) from four entries in the Suda, of which the relevant parts are as follows: (s.v. ἀμυνόμενοι) οἱ δὲ Ῥωμαῖοι ἔθος εἷχον μὴ ἄρχοντες ϕαίνεσθαι χειρῶν ἀδίκων, ἀλλ᾽ ἀεὶ δοκεῖν ἀμυνόμενοι κατ᾽ ἀνάγκην ἐμβαίνειν εἰς τοὺς πολέμους, (s.v. ἀναιρεθείς, ἀναιρεῖσθαι) οὐ τὴν τυχοῦσαν πρόνοιαν ἐποιοῦντο Ῥωμαῖοι τοῦ μὴ κατάρχοντας ϕαίνεσθαι μηδ᾽ ἀναιρούμενοι τοὺς πολέμους, (s.v. έμβαίνειν) οἱ γὰρ Ῥωμαῖοι πρόνοιαν ἐποιοῦντο τοῦ μηδέποτε πρότεροι τὰς χεῖρας ἐπιβάλλειν τοῖς πέλας, μηδ᾽ ἄρχοντας ϕαίνεσθαι χειρῶν ἀδίκων, ἀλλ᾽ ἀεὶ δοκεῖν ἀμυνόμενοι ἐμβαίνειν εἰς τοὺς πολέμους (s.v. πέλας) πλὴν πρόνοιαν ἀεὶ ἐποίουν Ῥωμαῖοι μή ποτε πρότεροι τὰς χεῖρας ἐπιβάλλειν τοῖς πέλας μηδ᾽ ἄρχοντες ϕαίνεσθαι χειρῶν ἀδίκων. For the rapprochement with 36. 2, cf. H. Nissen, Rhein. Mus. 26 (1871), 275.

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Kleemporos

Rome, Polybius, and the East The late Peter Derow, Andrew Erskine, and Josephine Crawley Quinn

Print publication date: 2014 Print ISBN-13: 9780199640904 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199640904.001.0001

Kleemporos Peter Derow Andrew Erskine Josephine Crawley Quinn

DOI:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199640904.003.0007

Abstract and Keywords This chapter examines contradicting accounts of Appian and Polybius about the first Illyrian War. More specifically, it looks at the points where Appian and Polybius differed, including their interpretation of events surrounding the Illyrian king Agron and his wife Teuta, the Roman embassy and the Issaian envoy named Kleemporos, and the appeal to Rome by the Greeks of Issa. It also considers the question of Appian's relation to ‘the annalists’ . Keywords:   annalists, Appian, Polybius, Illyrian War, Agron, Teuta, Roman embassy, Kleemporos, Rome, Issa

Of the ancient accounts of the first Illyrian war two are worthy of serious consideration, those of Appian and Polybius.1 The others are valuable for the light they may throw upon these two.2 It must be emphasised at the outset that Appian and Polybius not only differ here but contradict one another on a number of points. In Polybius, the Illyrian king Agron died by the end of 231 (or so Polybius has been taken to imply) and was (p.152) succeeded by his wife Teuta sometime before the dispatch of the Roman embassy in 230.3 In Appian's version, Agron was still on the throne when the Issaian embassy to Rome was dispatched; it was after this and before the Roman expedition that he died.4 He was succeeded, according to Appian, by his small son Pinnes, for whom Teuta, wife of Agron and stepmother of Pinnes, acted as regent.5 In Polybius, the Roman embassy was brought about by the complaints of Italian merchants about the activity of Illyrian pirates, particularly after the brutal treatment of some Page 1 of 19

 

Kleemporos Italian traders at the time of the Illyrian attack upon Phoinike (230) and the corresponding increase of protests to the Senate.6 In Appian, the immediate occasion of the embassy was the appeal to Rome by the Greeks of Issa, who were somehow threatened by King Agron.7 Similarly, while Polybius states that the Roman envoys were sent to investigate the Italian complaints, Appian has them sent, along with the Issaian ambassadors to Rome, in order to discover what were Agron's complaints against Issa. Next, and perhaps most important, in Polybius the brothers Coruncanius have an interview with Queen Teuta that is described in some detail. According to Appian, the Roman ambassadors did not arrive at their destination but were set upon beforehand by some Illyrian lemboi, at which time occurred the murders of two ambassadors, one Roman and one Issaian. Briefly, Appian has an appeal of which there is not a word in Polybius, and Polybius has an interview which on Appian's account not only did not take place but could not have done so.8 Both agree that the murder of the Roman ambassador led directly to the (p.153) Roman declaration of war. At issue here is the question as to which version of the events leading up to this is to be preferred. Most who have dealt with the outbreak of the first Illyrian war have based their accounts upon Polybius and have rejected, in varying degrees of detail, the version in Appian.9 A notable exception is De Sanctis. He saw no reason to reject the appeal from Issa (Appian), but alongside it he accepted the interview of the brothers Coruncanius with Queen Teuta (Polybius). In view of the contradictions outlined above, and especially the last of them, a collocation of this sort does not seem possible.10 (p.154) Appian's account may be criticised as being overly brief,11 but few would attempt to deny that the version in Polybius presents difficulties of its own. It was suggested earlier that there may, in fact, be no real chronological imprecision in Polybius, but his unawareness of Pinnes remains to indicate a loose grasp of Illyrian affairs. Of a different order is the strain put upon our credulity by the description of the encounter of the Roman envoys with the Illyrian queen. The contrast between righteous Romans and impetuous barbarian queen is drawn so strikingly that the whole scene threatens to defy belief altogether, and it is no surprise that those who have questioned Polybius' account have focussed upon this aspect of it.12 It is not easy to know how much weight should be given to the charge of incredibility. Yet there is force in Walbank's observation: ‘Certainly the retort of the younger Coruncanius…has the appearance of a post eventum invention…’, and Walbank is also right to insist that Polybius' account here must be read as a whole.13 Any difficulties that are raised by the story of the interview must be compounded severalfold (p. 155) by the fact that Polybius requires his readers to believe that the Illyrians dispatched by Teuta were supposed to stop the returning Roman ship and kill just the one Roman ambassador, the free-speaker.14 Such action on the part of Teuta seems more than a little contrived for narrative effect; besides serving to Page 2 of 19

 

Kleemporos make her personally responsible for what on Appian's account is an unfortunate accident, the picture of adventure at sea that this calls forth is indeed an amazing one. The question about Polybius may also be approached in a more general way. To insist that he is on the whole a good and conscientious historian is one thing. To claim a priori that he is preferable on the first Illyrian war is something quite else. It is first of all to lose sight of his own remarks at 4.2.2–3, where he explains that his account of events before 220 is, in his mind, on a footing different from (and less good than) that of his history after that date. It is also to forget that his report of the second Illyrian war, which suppresses entirely the rôle of one of the consuls of 219, is undeniably deficient.15 The task of assessing the relative value of the two accounts would be easier were it possible to know with certainty who their respective sources were. This whole question has been obscured by the fact that the conflict between the two has been framed as a conflict between Polybius on the one hand and ‘the annalists’ or ‘the annalistic version’ on the other, coupled with the equation between ‘annalistic’ and ‘unreliable’ (perhaps even ‘fabricated’) and the assumption that Polybius is, at the least, preferable to anything annalistic.16 This type of analysis, when (p.156) it involves such sharp distinctions and implications as these, is unlikely to be helpful,17 and in the present case it is, as will be seen, particularly inappropriate. Two sets of questions arise here, one dealing with Polybius, the other with Appian and ‘the annalists’ (late, later, or whatever) with whom he has been linked. If certainty is available in neither case, there is still room for some more or less positive statements about the sources of Polybius' account. 2.2–6 and 9–10 do not involve the Romans and would seem to be founded upon an earlier Greek account that was unfriendly toward the Aitolians.18 This last and the mention of Margos at 10.5 suggest an Achaian source and particularly Aratos' Memoirs.19 The report of the Roman embassy (2.8) is clearly of Roman origin and is probably derived, as most have thought, from Fabius Pictor.20 If this is the case, it may be useful to recall what Polybius has to say about Fabius elsewhere. In dealing with the first Punic war Polybius was glad to have before him the differing versions of Fabius and Philinos. Neither, he felt, was an intentional liar, but each was nonetheless led into error by his bias for one side or the other (1.14–15). In his discussion of the outbreak of the second Punic war Polybius was a good deal more severe with Fabius. To such of his readers as might chance upon the books of Fabius he issued there a strong warning that goes well beyond the good-natured reproach in Book 1 and that gives a good indication of how, in Polybius' view, Fabius, although a senator and a contemporary of the events, sometimes wrote history (3.9.1–5). There is no very obvious reason why, if Fabius was weak on outbreaks in 264 and 218, he should have been any better in between. Nor is it at all clear why Polybius' account, if it is in fact the Fabian version, should exercise any special claim upon our credence, and (p.157) this

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Kleemporos quite independently of the fact that some central elements of the story are far from admitting of easy belief. As to the identity of Appian's source or sources anything approaching certainty or even likelihood is unattainable. Safe to say only that it is not the same as Polybius', that if Polybius probably followed Fabius Pictor Appian with equal probability did not.21 The question of Appian's relation to ‘the annalists’, however, does admit of more comment. One would expect to find Roman tradition reflected in later Latin writers, and indeed something of the kind does seem to emerge from those of them who treat of the first Illyrian war in any detail, namely Florus and Orosius.22 They both speak of murdered Roman ambassadors (in the plural), and in both (Orosius especially) the war has grown into a savage and wide-ranging affair. Neither exaggeration is shared by Appian. Florus is by far the most colourful (as well as the most lengthy), and it is he alone of the Latin writers who preserves the story of the interview. None of their accounts has much in common with that of Appian, although Florus makes a good deal of the fact, as does Polybius, that a woman was involved. None of the Latin writers has so much as a word about an embassy from Issa. A comparison of the relevant accounts would therefore seem to suggest that there is no good reason to connect Appian here with the Roman annalists. On present evidence it were more reasonable to trace the annalistic version reflected in Florus back through Livy to Fabius Pictor. It evidently suffered from accretion as time went on, but it is of this tradition, in its early stages to be sure, that Polybius will have partaken. His account has far more in common with anything that might for concrete reasons be ascribed to annalists than does (p.158) Appian's.23 The fact that the latter has an appeal from Issa ought never to have suggested that he is giving a pro-Roman ‘annalistic’ story or to have been taken to imply fabrication or anything like it. Historical invocations of Roman aid are plentiful enough. There cannot be much question that Thourioi and the Mamertines before and Saguntum soon after the first Illyrian war did appeal to Rome, and Appian does not, in any case, claim that Rome went to war on behalf of Issa.24 That Issa plays an important part in Appian's account is undeniable. This ought not, however, to be seen as a difficulty but rather as a reasonable part of a reasonable picture. One recalls that a colony on Issa had been founded by Syracuse.25 In 230 Rome and Hieron's Syracuse were on thoroughly good terms with one another, and the adventurous might suggest that this had something to do with the fact that the Issaians appealed to Rome. More concrete evidence of connexions between Issa and Italy is to be found in the early existence of an active trade route between Issa and southern Italy. This would, moreover, seem to involve Issa alone of the Illyrian islands.26 The Issaians were also active in the commerce with the Dalmatian hinterland to the north and east.27 Possibly of interest in this connexion are some coin hoards from (p.159) Yugoslavia, particularly one found at Mazin (about 45 miles northeast of Zadar) in 1896, which contains a substantial amount of early Roman bronze.28 The hoards were Page 4 of 19

 

Kleemporos buried late, perhaps early in the first century B.C., and consist of bronze that was valued more because it was bronze than because it was Rome's (or anyone else's) coinage.29 Yet the Mazin hoard does contain aes rude that belongs beyond doubt to the early and middle third century. That the bronze was exported for its value as metal and not as state coinage seems clear, but there does remain the question as to just when it crossed the Adriatic. It may all have crossed long after the period here under consideration, and the fact that it appears alongside coins of the late second century might seem to suggest this.30 On the other hand, it has been suggested of some of the Roman bars from Mazin that they were exported as metal not long after being made in the early to middle third century.31 Tending in the same direction is the view that there was in early operation a system of trade whereby products from the hinterland of Dalmatia were sold to merchants at the harbours through the agency of the Liburnians who inhabited the area.32 Supporting this, perhaps, is the likelihood that a period during which transient merchants traded at coastal depots went before the development of regular settlements such as the one at Narona.33 Liburnian pirates are reported to have been causing trouble round 300 B.C. (Livy 10.2.4), and if this is right there must have been something about for them to bother. It does not, on (p.160) the whole, seem possible to answer with much confidence the question as to where this early Roman bronze lay from the time it ceased to be in active circulation to the time when it was buried in Yugoslavia. Nor is it known who carried it across or what they received in exchange for it.34 Whatever the answers to these questions, the area was evidently one in which the traders of Issa were themselves active. From such early indications as there are it is at least clear that the rôle of Issa in Appian's account poses no historical problems, and one may note at the same time Issa's later rôle as loyal and active ally of Rome from early in the second Macedonian war onward.35 One might at this stage be inclined to say that while Polybius' version offers at least one obstacle to belief (the interview and Teuta's murder plot taken together), that of Appian does not. One last but far from unimportant point about the latter's account remains to be made. Both Appian and Polybius name the murdered Roman ambassador, Coruncanius. Appian alone names the Issaian envoy who suffered the same fate, Kleemporos. The detail is a nice one, especially as the name is rare.36 Known to me are four Kleemporoi, of whom two are not Illyrian (a physician mentioned by the elder Pliny and a third-century B.C. Athenian) and two are.37 Both the Illyrians, as it happens, are Issaian ambassadors involved with Rome, the one in Appian and the other in an inscription of 56 B.C. found at Salona, that deals with an embassy to Julius Caesar on the subject of Romano-Issaian relations. The ambassadors there are named as follows (lines 6–9): πρεσβε[υ]|σάντων 8± Π̣αμϕίλου τοῦ Π[αμ]|ϕίλου υἱοῦ καὶ Κλεεμ[πόρ]ου τοῦ Τιμα[σίω]|νος υἱοῦ 〈καὶ〉 Φιλοξένου [τοῦ] Διονυσίου.38 The appearance here of the (p.161) name Kleemporos (no other restoration is possible) is worthy of note. In the original publication of the whole Page 5 of 19

 

Kleemporos inscription Kubitschek remarked the identity of names here and in Appian but chose to draw no conclusions therefrom; since then the epigraphical Kleemporos has not been the subject of special comment.39 Yet the appearance of this later namesake provides what seems to me to be very strong evidence for the existence of Appian's Issaian ambassador. Any attempt to explain away Appian's Kleemporos will likely require such excessive subtlety as to be altogether unacceptable.40 Appian's report is thus recommended both by its details and by the fact that it is more plausible than that of Polybius. An embassy from the Greeks of Issa provided the immediate occasion for the Roman embassy of 230, and the murder at sea of one of these ambassadors led directly to the Roman declaration of war. It is still, however, worth asking what, if any, rôle is to be assigned to the Italian traders mentioned by Polybius and their complaints to the Senate. There is no reason to deny that such traders may have fared ill at the hands of Illyrian pirates or that they voiced their displeasure at Rome. Appian's account does not rule this out in the same way that it necessarily excludes the tale of the interview, and the treaty at the end of the war, common to Appian and Polybius, may suggest that piracy was involved in one way or another.41 Indeed piracy and Italian complaints may have been in the air at much the same time as the appeal from Issa, for on the chronology suggested earlier the Issaian embassy and the Phoinike episode will not have been separated by a great deal of time, the former belonging perhaps to June 230 and the latter to August or so.42 It is, however, necessary to reject the view that the Italian complaints were exclusively, primarily, or even largely responsible for the Roman decision to send the embassy. This discussion cannot reasonably be concluded without at least some attempt to explain why Polybius wrote the account he did, for it now (p.162) appears that what he has given us is not as true to the facts as it might have been. The most economical answer to this question is that proposed by Gelzer, according to whom Polybius was wholly dependent upon Fabius Pictor, who made no mention of the embassy from Issa, concerned as he was to refute the notion that the Romans meddled in affairs that did not concern them.43 To this perhaps not wholly satisfying answer more positive considerations may be added. Polybius characterised the Lissos clause of the treaty with Teuta as ὃ μάλιστα πρὸς τοὺς Ἕλληνας διέτεινε, which Hammond has described as ‘a piece of Roman “philhellenic” propaganda which was anachronistic in 228’.44 Such concern for ‘the Greeks’ was vigorously displayed by the Romans from at least 200 on (Pol. 16.27.2 for the earliest secure manifestation of this policy; cf. 16.34.3). If, as seems likely but is by no means sure, Fabius was writing just about 200,45 one might have expected to find him explaining to Greek readers of his Greek annals that this concern for the Greeks had been behind the first military intervention of Rome in the Greek world. Such a line would be especially appropriate at a time when the Romans, having earned a reputation for savage treatment of Page 6 of 19

 

Kleemporos Greeks during the first Macedonian war, were searching for Greek allies on the eve of the renewal of their conflict with Philip. A fair bit of explaining needed to be done. It seems, moreover, highly unlikely that Fabius would have wanted to make much of a Greek appeal to Rome for help that brought the appellants no help at all during an almost year-long siege. Even if these considerations about Fabius are right, a question about Polybius remains, for one has still to explain why he followed Fabius so readily and, apparently, uncritically.46 It is possible that Polybius sought no (p.163) further information after reading Fabius' account, but to acquit him of the charge of having merely retailed his predecessor's story is to lay him open to the more serious one of dishonesty, for if he did know of the Issaian embassy he has suppressed something that is clearly significant. At this juncture one begins to enter the realm of speculation, but there does seem to be available an explanation capable of providing at least a partial answer to either of these charges. It is a variation on what is in fact an old hypothesis about the sources of Polybius' history of the first Illyrian war. Some time ago Bauer suggested that Polybius' account of the Roman embassy (2.8) was based not upon Fabius but upon the report rendered by the Roman ambassadors who visited the Achaians, among others, in 228.47 One must avoid any sort of schematism here. There are not the grounds to begin to assert that 2.11–12 are from Fabius while 2.8 is from the ambassadors' report, nor is such an analysis even very likely. Rehearsal of a fictitious interview can have formed no part of the diplomatic explanations of 228. Yet the fact remains that there were ambassadors who did say something, and it would not be altogether surprising if some of the Achaian politicians of the time (e.g., Aratos) took note of their remarks (if they were not officially recorded) and if Polybius himself later acquired some notion of what had transpired at the meeting. He certainly suggests as much when he states of the Roman ambassadors in 228: πρῶτον μὲν ἀπελογίσαντο τὰς αἰτίας τοῦ πολέμου καὶ τῆς διαβάσεως, ἐξῆς δὲ τούτοις τὰ πεπραγμένα διεξῆλθον καὶ τὰς συνθήκας παρανέγνωσαν ἃς ἐπεποίηντο πρὸς τοὺς ᾽Ιλλυριούς (2.12.4). A fanciful reconstruction of part of their ‘apology’ might run as follows: ‘The Illyrian pirates were a menace to all who would sail the Adriatic in peace. This you know from your own experience and from that of your fellow Greeks, while we ourselves have received from our friends and allies in Italy not a few complaints about pirate attacks. Moreover, as you have no doubt heard, one of our own ambassadors, while sailing upon a purely diplomatic mission, was foully murdered by these barbarians. To such provocation we could not but respond with force. You will see from (p.164) the treaty that we are about to read that a desire to protect your interests, as well as our own and those of our allies, has influenced our conduct.’ (They may even have gone so far as to suggest that the diplomatic mission in question was on the subject of piracy.) No mention of Issa of course, but to bring that in might have been felt to be superfluous, an unnecessary complication. One would scarcely have expected them to insist that the ambassador perished in the course of a mission of meddling, even less to make it clear that Issa, having appealed to Page 7 of 19

 

Kleemporos Rome for help, had in fact gone almost a year without that help. If Polybius had before him Fabius' history and such a report as this of what the Romans said in 228, he may well have felt no need to look further: he will have had the account written by a Roman senator plus a contemporary document. If he had heard something of the Issaian embassy, he perhaps reckoned that the combination of Fabius and the document rendered any mention of it unnecessary. After all, the two confirmed one another, and it was in any case the murder of the ambassador, about which there was no question, that had led the Romans to declare war. Indeed, speculation aside, a fully detailed account with thorough discussion of αἰτίαι vs ἀρχαί, and such matters, was not to be expected here, for this is precisely what Polybius had promised not to provide (1.13.6–7):48 Τὸ μὲν γὰρ ἐξαριθμεῖσθαι τὰ κατὰ μέρος ὑπὲρ τῶν προειρημένων πράξεων [including the first Illyrian war: 13.4] οὐδὲν οὔθ᾽ ἡμῖν ἀναγκαῖον οὔτε τοῖς ἀκούουσι χρήσιμον, οὐ γὰρ ἱστορεῖν ὑπὲρ αὐτῶν προτιθέμεθα, μνησθῆναι δὲ κεϕαλαιωδῶς προαιρούμεθα χάριν τῆς προκατασκευῆς τῶν μελλουσῶν ὑϕ᾽ ἡμῶν ἱστορεῖσθαι πράξεων. Yet Polybius did consider the first Illyrian war an important episode in the history of Roman expansion, and it is therefore essential to have a clear notion of what he thought made it worthy of special attention. His statement on this head occurs at 2.2.2: ἅπερ οὐ παρέργως ἀλλὰ μετ᾽ ἐπιστάσεως θεωρητέον τοῖς βουλομένοις ἀληθίνως τήν τε πρόθεσιν τὴν ἡμετέραν συνθεάσασθαι καὶ τὴν αὔξησιν καὶ κατασκευὴν τῆς Ῥωμαίων δυνατείας. The war thus finds its significance as an illustration of something that was spelled out in an earlier passage (1.63.9):49 (p.165) ἐξ ὧν δῆλον τὸ προτεθὲν ἡμῖν ἐξ ἀρχῆς, ὡς οὐ τύχῃ Ῥωμαῖοι, καθάπερ ἔνιοι δοκοῦσιν τῶν Ἑλλήνων, οὐδ᾽ αὐτομάτως, ἀλλὰ καὶ λίαν εἰκότως, ἐν τοιούτοις καὶ τηλικούτοις πράγμασιν [scil. the first Punic war] ἐνασκήσαντες οὐ μόνον ἐπεβάλοντο τῇ τῶν ὅλων ἡγεμονίᾳ καὶ δυναστείᾳ τολμήρως, ἀλλὰ καὶ καθίκοντο τῆς προθέσεως. The special importance of the first Illyrian war for Polybius had not to do with its origins, but above all with what it shows about the military capability and effectiveness of the Romans. These qualities are well illustrated by 2.11–12, quite independently of anything that goes before. It is also possible that some aspects in particular of Fabius' account made it attractive to Polybius. He was likely not averse to its insistence upon the κάλλιστον ἔθος of the Romans, for in another context he attributed much the same thing to them himself (24.10.11–12). There is, moreover, the figure of Teuta, whose shortsightedness seems to be emphasised as a thing to be avoided. Page 8 of 19

 

Kleemporos In this respect, as much as if not more than in any other, she stands in sharp contrast to the Romans.50 In yet another way I suspect that Fabius' portrayal of Teuta was very much to Polybius' taste. It was as a result of her unthinking conduct that the Romans entered the war and ‘these parts of Europe’: the responsibility for what is described as an insane provocation lay entirely with her. Polybius does not enter upon a full discussion of αἰτίαι vs ἀρχαί, nor, as has been seen, was such to be expected. His statement at 2.2.3, however, is a limited step in this direction: ἔγνωσαν δὲ διαβαίνειν διά τινας τοιαύτας αἰτίας. With 3.6.7 in mind, one must infer from this that the Roman crossing was regarded by Polybius as the ἀρχή of the war. What follows, then, contains an account of the factors that led to their decision, that is, the αἰτίαι. A precise delineation of these αἰτίαι is not promised (cf. διά τινας τοιαύτας αἰτίας), but, whatever they involve, there is no question that Teuta and her actions play a leading rôle among them. On Polybius' account, Teuta is responsible for the war insofar as she and her actions may be seen as factors involved in motivating the Roman decision to send for the first time forces εἰς τὴν ᾽Ιλλυρίδα καὶ ταῦτα τὰ μέρη τῆς Εὐρώπης.51

(p.166) Chronological Note There is disagreement as to the date of Agron's death between Appian and Polybius as he is usually read. The purpose of this note is to suggest another reading of Polybius' chronology. If it is right, then the two authors may be seen to agree with one another, at least as far as concerns the date of Agron's demise. Polybius places Agron's death after (not too long after but not necessarily immediately after either) the Illyrian success at Medeon and the Aitolian elections mentioned at 2.2.8 and 2.3.1. According to Pol. 4.37.2, Aitolian elections took place right after the autumnal equinox, and this requires that Agron's death be placed sometime round October/November. The next chronological peg, and the first seasonal notice so far, is the beginning of spring 229 (2.9.1). Since a fair amount of military and naval activity took place between these two points, Polybius' narrative is taken to require that they do not fall in successive years. There can, however, be no certain answer to the question of how much time did intervene, for Polybius offers no indication as to when any intervening year(s) began (one had most expected this at 2.4.8–9) or ended. To assume an interval of one year (thus putting Agron's death in latish 231) is the most economical way to take account of the combination of an undated October/ November plus spring 229 (so De Sanctis 285 [293] n. 73; cf. Walbank, Commentary 1. 154, 156). So far the standard interpretation, which sees a degree of unclarity in Polybius' own chronology. The Aitolian elections are a central part of this view, and one may be a little concerned that they also play a central part in a long anti-Aitolian story. In the latter context it must be recognised that they raise something of a problem. The elections occur at the time of Aitolian siege of Medeon, and it is Page 9 of 19

 

Kleemporos precisely on election eve and day that the Illyrian force arrives (2.3.1–2). What became of the elections? They were regularly held at Thermon (cf. Walbank, (p. 167) Commentary 1. 154), but there is no hint that any or many of the Aitolians left Medeon to go thither and no hint that the Illyrian victory was won over a reduced Aitolian contingent. J. A. O. Larsen has asserted that the Aitolians were ready to dispense with the trip to Thermon and to hold the elections there at Medeon (TAPA 83 (1952) 9–10, 30). Federal armies in the field could be specially empowered by a full assembly to make legislative decisions (cf. Pol. 4.7.5 for the Achaians), but there are no indications that elections were treated in this way. Even if the Aitolians were conducting the siege πανδημεί (Pol. 2.2.7) and even if voter and soldier seem to have been ‘practically identical’ (Larsen, TAPA 83.30) in time of war, such practice will have effectively disenfranchised a fair number of people. The coincidental election serves the story nicely, but it sits there awkwardly from an historical point of view. It may be that it was wrongly imported into this context (this would remove the difficulty about the conduct of the election). Alternatively, it may be that, while belonging to the context, it fell earlier in the year, perhaps at the Panaitolika in the spring: the earliest evidence for the September date (Pol. 4.37.2) refers to 220/219, and one may recall that shortly after that the Achaians moved their elections from May to an autumn date. In either case (i.e., if the elections do not belong or if they do belong but are to be dated to the spring), it would then be possible to take Polybius' own chronology in 2.2–12 at face value, with 2.9.1 indicating the first new spring (229) and 2.12.3 the second (228). The events of 2.2–8 would thus all belong in 230, among them the death of Agron, which could be happily placed in about July of that year, a date which suits Appian's account as well. Cf. above, nn. 6, 7. (p.168) Notes:

(1) Appian, Illyr. 7.17–22; Polyb. 2.2–8. Rome's third-century dealings with Illyria have been examined most recently by K.-E. Petzold in an article that does much to bring out the value of Appian's account of the Illyrian wars (‘Rom und Illyrien’, Historia 20 (1971) 199–223), but his discussion of the outbreak of the first war is brief (pp. 217–220) and leaves much unsaid. The same is true of N. G. L. Hammond, ‘Illyris, Rome, and Macedon in 229–205 B.C.’, JRS 58 (1968) 1–21. The latest detailed treatment of the background of the first war is that of G. Walser (‘Die Ursachen des ersten römisch-illyrischen Krieges’, Historia 2 (1953– 1954) 308–318), who argued to good advantage in support of Appian and against Polybius. It seems to me, and I hope it will become clear from the present discussion, that the case for believing Appian can and must be made a great deal stronger. In the notes below the aforementioned works will be referred to in abbreviated form, as will the following: E. Badian, ‘Notes on Roman policy in Illyria’, in his Studies in Greek and Roman History (Oxford 1964) 1–33 (orig. PBSR 1952); G. De Sanctis, Storia dei Romani 3.12 (Florence 1967; page numbers given in parentheses are those of the first edition); M. Holleaux, Rome, Page 10 of 19

 

Kleemporos la Grèce et les monarchies hellénistiques au IIIe siècle avant J.-C. (Paris 1921); F. W. Walbank, A Historical Commentary on Polybius 1 (Oxford 1957); J. J. Wilkes, Dalmatia (London 1969); G. Zippel, Die römische Herrschaft in Illyrien bis auf Augustus (Leipzig 1877). Thanks here are due to M. W. Frederiksen of Worcester College, Oxford, to G. V. Sumner of University College, Toronto, to E. Badian of Harvard University, and to J. V. A. Fine and T. J. Luce of Princeton University. A version of part of this paper was read at the annual meeting of the Classical Association of Canada in St. John's, Newfoundland, in 1971, and I am grateful, too, for all comments received there. (2) For the Latin sources, see below, 157–8. The version in Dio, at least that part of it which deals with the events leading up to the war (12, fr. 49.1–5; cf. Zon. 8.19.3–4), is no more than a conflation of what appears in Appian and Polybius, with some unhappy additions. The result is a blend unlike and inferior to both the chief ingredients. (3) The Roman embassy, as indicated by Appian and, most clearly, by Polybius, belongs to the year immediately preceding the Roman campaign, which was fought in calendar and consular 229. For the date see M. Holleaux, Etudes d'épigraphie et d'histoire grecques 4 (Paris 1952) 1–25 (orig. REG 1930), the decisive rejection of Beloch's chronology (followed by Walser, without mention of this article by Holleaux), which put the campaign in 228. (4) On the date of Agron's death, see the chronological note below, 166–7, where a different interpretation of Polybius' chronology is proposed. The decision on this chronological question does not materially affect the assessment of the relative value of the two accounts. (5) Polybius fails to indicate that Teuta acted as regent on behalf of Pinnes (cf. Walbank, Commentary 1. 156). Of Pinnes Polybius shows, in fact, no knowledge whatever. (6) The Phoinike incident is to be dated to August/September 230 on the chronology suggested below 166–7), to mid-summer 230 on the standard view (cf. Walbank, Commentary 1. 156–158). (7) If, as suggested below (166–7), Agron died around July 230, his threat against Issa may belong to June of that year or even a little later (Agron did not himself participate in the Medeon campaign). Appian's narrative requires only that he was alive when the Issaian envoys left for Rome. The Roman embassy will thus have set off in, perhaps, July/August.

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Kleemporos (8) The belief of Zippel (48), that Appian's report that the envoys were murdered on their way to Illyria originated in a misreading by Appian of his source, does not square with the presence of the Issaian envoy, and is to be rejected. (9) So, for example, B. Niese, Geschichte der griechischen und makedonischen Staaten seit der Schlacht bei Chäronea 2 (Gotha 1899) 281 with n. 5; K. J. Beloch, Griechische Geschichte 4.1 (Berlin–Leipzig 1925) 664 with n. 1; E. Badian, SGRH 1, n. 3; cf. Walbank, Commentary 1. 153. A fundamental argument in support of the primacy of Polybius is of course that of Holleaux (Rome, la Grèce, 23, n. 6, and 98, n. 2), whose statement of the case seems to me to betray a weakness characteristic of the position he adopts. He treats the accounts of Appian and Dio as being effectively the same (see esp. 23, n. 6; at 98, n. 2 ad fin. Appian is not even mentioned), and yet the internal difficulties catalogued in order to discredit that version (98, n. 2) are found only in Dio. Difficulties they are, but they are not in Appian and have nothing to do with his quite separate report. The appeal from Issa itself, ascribed thus without distinction to Appian and Dio, is rejected (23, n. 6) (a) because Polybius states that Issa was not received into the Roman trust until the end of the expedition in 229 (Holleaux' ‘non seulement [Polybe] est muet sur la démarche qu'auraient faite à Rome les Isséens’ is presumably not intended as an argument bearing any weight by itself), and (b) because Issa, although under siege for some time (almost a full year, Polybius seems to imply: 2.8.5, 11.11) was the last place to be relieved by the Romans. The first of these rests upon the assumption that by their appeal the Issaians quite surrendered themselves and their fate to the Senate, which is neither stated in nor a necessary inference from Appian's story. It assumes also that the Issaians were sufficiently versed in the complexities of Roman practice to have empowered their envoys at the time of their dispatch to perform a deditio in fidem. This is a dangerous assumption. In 191 the Aitolian ambassadors were so unclear as to the meaning of this gesture that, having made it and discovered its force, they had then to unmake it and (with Roman permission) refer the decision to the assembled League (Polyb. 20.9–10.12; Livy 36.27–28). If, as seems quite likely, the Roman and Issaian ambassadors in Appian were on their way to Issa to certify this step (as well as to enable the Romans to learn more about the situation), then the deditio cannot have been effected, for the ambassadors never got there. It would, then, have been after their relief that the Issaians actually entered the Roman trust, something like a year after the original (and for Issa not very helpful) appeal for aid. The second reason depends upon another assumption (or misunderstanding), namely that Appian maintains that the war was undertaken primarily on behalf of the inhabitants of Issa. He does not. Perhaps more seriously, Holleaux' second reason also discounts the fact that the decision of the consul Fulvius to begin at Corcyra seems to have been prompted, not long before his crossing, by the arrival of Demetrios' promises (Polyb. 2.11.2–4; cf. Appian, Ill. 7.19). The Roman

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Kleemporos campaign proceeded thence northward until, with the relief of Issa, it ended. Once Corcyra was offered, Issa could, and evidently did, wait. (10) De Sanctis 286–287 (295–296). Petzold (220) reckons Appian's version of the death of the ambassadors more likely than that in Polybius, and Walser (311) rejects Polybius' account of the interview as improbable. If Appian's account is to be followed, probability ceases to be an issue: the interview cannot have taken place. (11) This is most evident in his exceedingly compressed account of the campaign itself. The four lines which he devotes to the military activity after Corcyra (contrast Polyb. 2.11.6–16, in terms of length and detail) should probably not be taken as anything more than the briefest of summaries and should accordingly not be taken as being chronologically precise. I do not, for example, suppose that he meant in 7.20 that the Atintanoi defected to Rome after the relief of Issa (according to Polyb. 2.11.8–12 their defection came between the reliefs of Epidamnos and Issa) but suspect rather that Issa and Epidamnos are given together because they were both sieges. By the same token I doubt that the wording should be pressed to the point of requiring Appian to be saying that Issa was relieved before Epidamnos. In fact, the double mention of Epidamnos at the end of 7.19 may raise a different sort of problem: οἱ δ᾽ ἐπὶ ταύταις ᾽Επίδαμνον ἐς φιλίαν ὑπηγάγοντο, καὶ τοῖς ᾽Ισσίοις καὶ ᾽Επιδαμνίοις πολιορκουμένοις ὑπὸ ᾽Ιλλυριῶν ἐς ἐπικουρίαν ἔπλεον. In Polybius (2.11.8) the Romans took in Apollonia (did not relieve it from a siege) before they sailed to the relief of Epidamnos. Later on Appian states (8.22) that the Romans freed Corcyra and Apollonia. The latter city appears here in Appian out of the blue, which makes it look as if it has somehow fallen out of the preceding account. I would suggest as a possibility that it was Apollonia that the Romans ἐς ϕιλίαν ὑπηγάγοντο (7.19; this describes what the Romans in Polybius did to Apollonia; how they could have done it to Epidamnos before going there is far from clear), and that ᾽Επίδαμνον is there by mistake (perhaps the error of a copyist whose eye had caught, instead of ᾽Απολλωνίαν, the start of ᾽Επιδαμνίοις eight words ahead). Whatever be thought of this, the case of Apollonia may serve further to indicate that Appian's brief account of the campaign should not be pressed too hard (note also that the fact that in Appian the Romans freed Apollonia must mean that this city has been wrongly omitted from or has fallen out of the list of places and people claimed as subject to Rome in 7.21). (12) The best statement is that of A. Bauer, ‘Die Anfänge österreichischer Geschichte’, AEM 18 (1895) 128–150 at p. 144; cf. Petzold and Walser, locc. citt. (above, note 10). (13) Commentary 1.159.

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Kleemporos (14) 2.8.12. Polybius, to be sure, does not state explicitly that only the one Roman was murdered, but his account at 2.8.12–13 certainly suggests that Teuta's Illyrians did what they were told. Moreover, multiple murdered ambassadors are found only in later accounts that are characterised by various and extensive exaggeration (cf. Dio 12, fr. 49.3 and see below, 157–8). In a somewhat different category is Pliny, who purports to name (HN 34.24) two Romans killed by Queen Teuta: P. Iunius and Ti. Coruncanius. The former is mentioned in no other account. The latter is misnamed, at least to judge from Polybius, who calls the Coruncanii Lucius and Gaius. These Coruncanii may have been Ti.f., sons of the consul of 280 who died about 243 (the suggestion in Polybius that one of them, ὁ νεώτερος, was in fact a youngish man does not make this especially likely) or of an homonymous son of his (this could well make them too young). On the other hand, the names in Polybius (only he and Pliny give praenomina here) may be wrong (he or a copyist of his did bungle the praenomen of L. Postumius, cos. 229: 2.11.1; cf. Walbank, Commentary 1.161). On balance, it seems more likely that Pliny has produced a wrongly named Coruncanius. As for Iunius, neither Appian nor Livy (on whom see below, n. 22) nor, I think, Polybius allow another Roman victim, and it seems best to believe that Pliny has gone astray here, too, just as he does a few lines later in the same section when he attributes to Cn. Octavius the famous diplomatic coup de bâton of C. Popillius Laenas. (15) 3.16.7, 18–19; cf. Walbank, Commentary 1.325. (16) The same effect is achieved by setting ‘earlier annalists’ off against ‘later annalists.’ Thus Beloch (loc. cit. (above, n. 9)) saw Polybius' account as derived from ‘the oldest annalists,’ and probably Fabius Pictor, and all the other versions dependent upon ‘later annalists.’ Similarly, Niese, (loc. cit. (above, n. 9)) set Polybius apart from the rest (from Appian and Dio in particular), whose reports he took to have been founded upon ‘die jüngere römische Erzählung’. Cf. also Holleaux, Rome, la Grèce, 23 n. 6. Walbank describes Appian as ‘well-informed on Illyria, but contaminated by annalistic inventions’ (Commentary 1.153; so Badian, SGRH 1, n. 3; neither discusses this in detail). (17) The validity of this kind of emotive use of the term ‘annalistic’ has been justly and effectively questioned by J. P. V. D. Balsdon, JRS 44 (1954) 30–42; cf. eund., CQ n.s. 3 (1953) 158–164, esp. 162–164. (18) Cf. Walbank, Commentary 1.153. (19) Cf. M. Gelzer, Kleine Schriften 3 (Wiesbaden 1964) 205 (orig. Gnomon 1957). (20) Cf. Walbank, loc. cit. (above, n. 18). On Fabius–Polybius here, see especially Gelzer, Kl. Schr. 3.66–71 (orig. Hermes 1933). On the possible use by Polybius of the report rendered in Greece by the Roman ambassadors in 228, see below, 163–164. It should be noted that the break between 2.7 and 2.8 is a sharp one, Page 14 of 19

 

Kleemporos reflecting an abrupt change in the viewpoint of the narrative from Greek to Roman. From 2.8 to 2.9 the change is the other way and no less marked. Polybius has here joined two quite separate strands. (21) As to the range of previous historians consulted by Appian, the Illyrika may perhaps be compared with the Makedonika (I have not read J. Dobias, Studie k Appianovĕ knize Illyrské (Prague 1930) ). For that work P. Meloni (Il valore storico e le fonti del libro macedonico di Appiano (Rome 1955) ) argued that Appian used, besides Polybius and an annalist, a Greek historian of the middle (roughly) of the second century B.C. Gelzer, reviewing Meloni, preferred to believe that Appian worked not directly from this contemporary (or nearly contemporary) Greek source but by way of a later compilation (Kl. Schr. 3.280– 285 (orig. Bibl. Orientalis 1957)), but Meloni seems on balance to have the better case (cf. J. P. V. D. Balsdon, JRS 46 (1956) 199–201). Certainly such Greek sources were about and were used later, as Pausanias 7.7–16 shows (on Pausanias' source here, Greek but not Polybius, see C. Wachsmuth, Leipziger Studien 10 (1887) 269–298); the similarity between Appian Mak. 2 and Paus. 7.8.9 is appropriately noted by Balsdon (loc. cit.). Appian had access to, and seems not to have been averse to using, good information not found in Polybius or Livy. (Cf. also below, n. 23.) (22) Florus 1.21; Orosius 4.13.1–2. Eutropius records the war at 3.2 but has nothing on the embassy. The single sentence in the periocha of Livy 20 is quite non-committal: bellum Illyriis propter unum ex legatis, qui ad eos missi erant, occisum indictum, subactique in deditionem venerunt. (23) It is possible that there were other versions of the story preserved in the annalistic tradition, but of such of these as there may have been it must be said that we are quite without evidence. It is therefore equally possible that Appian's account derives from such a branch, long withered away without a trace, of the annalistic tradition. The point I should wish to stress here is that Appian's account looks quite unlike any of the surviving accounts that may with any confidence be reckoned as derived in some way from the Roman annalists. (On Dio, cf. above, n. 2.) (24) For the suggestion that Appian says they did, see Holleaux, Rome, la Grèce 23, n. 6; Hammond, JRS 1968, 5, n. 16; cf. above, n. 9. Against taking the Issaian appeal as an indication of annalistic invention, see Petzold 218. (25) There has been some question as to whether the colony founded by Dionysios was at Issa or Lissos. In Diodorus' report of the foundation the mss vary between λίσον (15.13.4) and λίσσῃ, λίση (15.14.2). The only other evidence for the settlement states outright that there was a Syracusan colony on Issa (Skymnos, Peripl. 413 f. (as in C. Müller, Geographici Graeci Minores (Paris 1882))). Holleaux was sure that Issa, and not Lissos, was the place (CAH 7.826 Page 15 of 19

 

Kleemporos (= Etudes 4.80) n. 1; similarly De Sanctis 286 (295)), but others have opted for Lissos (cf. M. Fluss, RE Suppl. 5 (1931), s.v. Issa, 346–347 and, most recently, Wilkes, Dalmatia 9–10, who, however, only just opts for Lissos and admits that Issa may even be more likely) or have doubted that a full resolution is possible (cf. R. L. Beaumont, JHS 56 (1936) 202–203). The literary evidence seems to me to require that Issa be taken as the site of Dionysios' foundation, and there is corroboration of this in the fact that the fourth-century coinage of Issa was under clear and strong Syracusan influence (see J. Brunšmid, Die Inschriften und Münzen der griechischen Städte Dalmatiens (Vienna 1898) 38). (26) Fluss, RE Suppl. 5. 347–348; cf. Petzold 219 and esp. Walser 316. (27) K. Patsch, Die Lika in römischer Zeit (Vienna 1900) 27. Also active there were Pharos and, especially, Corcyra and Epidamnos. (28) The Mazin hoard is no. 142 in M. H. Crawford, Roman Republican Coin Hoards (London 1969); cf. S. P. Noe, A Bibliography of Greek Coin Hoards2 (New York 1937) no. 666. The Roman bronze therein dates from the beginning of the third century to about the middle of the second (compare Crawford's Tables I and III with the contents of the hoard, no. 142). Roman bronze of the early years of the denarius system appears in two other Yugoslavian hoards, both found further inland, one at Gračac in 1925 (no. 145 in Crawford) and the other in 1887 at Vrankamen Berg (near Bosnanska Krupa; no. 146 in Crawford; cf. Noe, op. cit., no. 1169). (29) The question about bronze in the area where these hoards were found is whether it was destined for use in a bronze foundry or kept for its value as bullion: see R. Thomsen, Early Roman Coinage 3 (Copenhagen 1961) 210; cf. 3. 203, 416. On this question as it relates to the Vrankamen find in particular, see C. Truhelka, Wissenschaftliche Mittheilungen aus Bosnien und der Hercegovina 1 (1893) 185. (30) This indication would be more compelling if the bronze was in fact headed for a foundry, substantially less so if it formed instead a cache of valuable bullion. See n. 29 for the choices: no decision seems possible. (31) So A. Blanchet, Revue Numismatique 4e sér., 5 (1901) 292, based upon the conclusions of M. Bahrfeldt (Der Münzfund von Mazin). (32) See H. Willers, Num. Zeitschr. 36 (1904) 5, n. 5. (33) For the Roman settlement at Narona, an established one by the middle of the second century B.C., see J. Hatzfeld, Les trafiquants italiens dans l'orient hellénique (Paris 1919) 22; cf., briefly, Wilkes, Dalmatia 35. Further to the south, in about 263, the Aitolians granted proxeny to a Roman who comes out as Λευκίωι Λευκίου ᾽Ολκαίω[ι]: IG 92. 1, 17 A, line 51. Page 16 of 19

 

Kleemporos (34) Amber has been suggested (by J. Brunšmid: see Blanchet, op. cit. (above, n. 31) 291) but is no more than a possibility. (35) On this see especially Zippel 92–93. (36) Elsewhere also Appian shows a predilection for giving detail in the form of a name. One of the few details in his rather summary (perhaps because fragmentary) account of the treaty between Philip and Hannibal (Mak. 1.2–3) is the name of Philip's envoy, Xenophanes; for Xenophanes see Polyb. 7.9.1 and Livy 23.33.6, 34.5. (37) Pliny HN 22.90, 34.159; Syll.3 486.6 for the Athenian. Both Illyrians and the doctor are in H. Krahe, Lexikon altillyrischer Personennamen (Heidelberg 1929) s.n. ‘Cleemporos.’ The Athenian is not there, and others, if any there be, I have not found. (38) For this inscription see now R. K. Sherk, Roman Documents from the Greek East (Baltimore 1969) 139–142, no. 24 (‘Senatus consultum de Issaeis?’). The text given here is from Sherk's composite (p. 140), save that he prints for the gap in line 7 the restoration proposed by Rendić-Miočević, ΤΡΑΓϒΡΙ[ΝΩΝ] (Rendić-Miočević did not actually dot the iota, but Sherk does; it should be dotted at least). This is a possibility (Tragurion being a colony of Issa on the mainland), but from such photographs as have been published it is by no means clear that these letters and traces are there, and the restoration seems rather long for the amount of space involved. (39) W. Kubitschek, ‘Eine Inschrift aus Salona,’ Jahrbuch für Altertumskunde 1 (1907) 78–85 (p. 83 on the names). For subsequent treatments, see the bibliography given by Sherk (op. cit. (above, note 38) 139; the document is discussed briefly by Wilkes, Dalmatia 38–39, cf. 220; cf. also J. and L. Robert, Bulletin épigraphique 1953, no. 122). (40) Those who urge fabrication might assume, for example, that his source was a member of Caesar's staff in 56 or perhaps someone with an interest in Dalmatian epigraphy. It should be noted that Appian does not seem to have known of the later embassy, although he does record one of about the same time from the Liburnians to Caesar (Ill. 12). (41) For the treaty: Appian Ill. 7.21; Polyb. 2.12.3. Both report the Lissos clause (assuming that ἡσσὸν in Appian is correctly emended to Λίσσον; in 7.17, etc. ἡσσός is clearly Issa: cf. apparatus in the Viereck-Roos Teubner edition; the names of these two places were frequently confused: cf. above, n. 25). (42) See above, nn. 6, 7.

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Kleemporos (43) Kl. Schr. 3.67–68: ‘Es ist klar, dass Fabius gerade dieses erste Eingreifen in die hellenische Welt mit grosser Sorgfalt behandelte und mit aller Entschiedenheit den Vorwurf bekämpfte, dass sich die Römer in Verhältnisse einmischten, die sie nichts angingen’ (68). (44) JRS 1968, 7, n. 24. (45) Fabius' history was likely published before 193/2 (see G. V. Sumner, Latomus 31 (1972) 470–471), but one does not know how much before. For the suggestion that it belongs to the years following soon after the defeat of Hannibal, see E. Badian in Latin Historians (ed. T. A. Dorey, London 1966) 4; cf. 3 and A. Momigliano, Terzo Contributo alla storia degli studi classici e del mondo antico 1 (Rome 1966) 65 (orig. Rend. Accad. Lincei 1960). (46) In what follows it will be clear that I am myself inclined to believe, for the reasons just given, that the appeal from Issa played no independent part in Fabius' account. I should, however, wish to allow the possibility that it did figure there in a very minor way, perhaps as a brief appendage to the complaints about Illyrian piracy, one to which was allotted no separate importance at all. If this were the case, the considerations here offered about Polybius would serve to explain why he has taken the suppression of Issa one step further (see esp. 164); and cf. perhaps Polyb. 2.8.3: τότε καὶ πλειόνων ἐπελθόντων ἐπὶ τὴν σύγκλητον). Since Fabius is quite lost, one must, strictly, allow the possibility that his account did make a good deal of Issa and that Polybius has altogether changed this. Against this are the arguments just advanced in the text and what was said earlier about the surviving Roman tradition of the first war (above, 156–7), and Polyb. 1.13.6–7 (for which see below) is far from suggesting that Polybius did anything of the kind; but I doubt that anything said here could explain wholesale rewriting by Polybius, if such, unlikely though it seems, is what he did. (47) A. Bauer, op. cit. (above, n. 12) 137, 143; followed by P. Bung, Q. Fabius Pictor (Diss. Cologne 1950) 184–186, 188–189. The view has not, on the whole, been warmly received (cf. Walbank, Commentary 1.153), but this is at least partly because both Bauer and Bung were far too schematic in their application of it (cf. text). (48) On this passage and its importance for Books 1 and 2, see K.-E. Petzold, Studien zur Methode des Polybios und zu ihrer historischen Auswertung (Munich 1969) 20–24. (49) On Polybius' πρόθεσις in this and related passages (including 2.2.2), see especially Petzold, op. cit. (above, n. 48) 56 n. 5. (50) On the subject of the queen, Hammond has recently stated with some plausibility that ‘the annalists were at pains to show Teuta totally at fault’ (JRS 1968, 6, n. 22). This applies especially to Florus and Polybius, as well as to Dio, Page 18 of 19

 

Kleemporos whose fantastic picture of the Illyrian queen is based upon what he found not in Appian but in Polybius. Appian's Teuta does not even enter the story until after the Romans have declared war, and then all she does is to preside over the end of the conflict, maintaining (apparently not unsuccessfully) that Agron, not she, had been at the root of the trouble. (51) The general point involved here is an important one. When wars and their αἰτίαι are at issue, Polybius' primary purpose is not to assign blame or responsibility but to explain the various factors that led someone to take a certain action (this action being the ἀρχή, the first event of the war in question). Questions about responsibility, if they are to be asked of Polybius, must be answered with reference to his accounts of αἰτίαι. That this is the case emerges clearly from his account of the outbreak of the second Punic war. On this occasion alone he specifically poses the question: τούτων δὴ τοιούτων ὑπαρχόντων, λοιπὸν διευκρινῆσαι καὶ σκέψασθαι περὶ τοῦ κατ᾽ ᾽Αννίβαν πολέμου ποτέροις αὐτῶν τὴν αἰτίαν ἀναθετέον (3.28.5). His decision is taken at 3.30.4–5: if the destruction of Saguntum is reckoned as the αἰτία, then it must be admitted that the Carthaginians began the war unjustly; εἰ δὲ τὴν Σαρδόνος ἀϕαίρεσιν καὶ τὰ συν ταύτῃ χρήματα, πάντως ὁμολογητέον εὐλόγως πεπολεμηκέναι τὸν κατ᾽ ᾽Αννίβαν πόλεμον τοὺς Καρχηδονίους. καιρῷ γὰρ πεισθέντες ἠμύνοντο σὺν καιρῷ τοὺς βλάψαντας. On Polybius' account, the fall of Saguntum was an ἀρχή of the war (3.6.2–3), but the seizure of Sardinia by the Romans the μεγίστη αἰτία (3.10.3–4; note that πρώτη, δευτέρη, τρίτη applied to the αἰτίαι serve only to indicate chronological sequence: cf. 3.6.10–11). In the same sense Illyrian actions (and thus Illyrians, especially Teuta) are, on Polybius' account, responsible for the first Illyrian war. I hope soon to discuss this issue at length, particularly in regard to Rome's eastern wars, as it bears directly upon what has been seen as an underlying contradiction in Polybius' account of Rome's eastern expansion (on this contradiction, see F. W. Walbank, Polybius (Berkeley 1973) 157–166, esp. 159, 163, and JRS 53 (1963) 1–13, esp. 11–12).

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Polybios and the Embassy of Kallikrates

Rome, Polybius, and the East The late Peter Derow, Andrew Erskine, and Josephine Crawley Quinn

Print publication date: 2014 Print ISBN-13: 9780199640904 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199640904.001.0001

Polybios and the Embassy of Kallikrates Peter Derow Andrew Erskine Josephine Crawley Quinn

DOI:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199640904.003.0008

Abstract and Keywords This chapter examines Polybius's account of the embassy of Kallikrates of Leontion, ambassador from the Achaian League to Rome. More specifically, it considers Polybius's argument that Kallikrates's embassy did not provide any real benefit for Rome and was the cause of the great misfortunes for all the Greeks. In 180 BC, Kallikrates advised the Roman Senate to intervene in local politics in the democratic states of Greece, a move for which he has been labelled a traitor to the Achaian League and to the spirit of Greek independence. This chapter suggests that the benefits Kallikrates is supposed to have produced for the Greeks are to a large extent nonexistent, hence supporting Polybius's claim that Kallikrates' embassy was a most regrettable occurrence. Keywords:   embassy, Kallikrates of Leontion, Achaian League, Rome, Senate, local politics, democratic states, Greece

After the defeat of Antiochos III and the treaty of Apamea (188 B.C.) the power of Rome in the Greek world was supreme. To this state of affairs some responded by establishing games and temples in Rome's honour and with celebrations of her might in verse, while others demonstrated their appreciation of the new situation in more directly political ways. The former group have in the past attracted the Warden's attention;1 I hope he will enjoy this brief inquiry into some aspects of the latter.

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Polybios and the Embassy of Kallikrates In 180 B.C. Kallikrates of Leontion, ambassador from the Achaian League to Rome, advised the Roman Senate to intervene in the local politics of the democratic states of Greece. He claimed that only by showing their support for those who were willing at every turn to follow the Roman lead could the Romans hope to maintain unchallenged their control of Greek affairs. For this conduct Kallikrates has been variously condemned as a traitor to the Achaian League and to the spirit of Greek independence.2 Recently, however, it has been held that in fact he did a service to the Greeks, especially those of the Peloponnesos. In the years before 180 the Senate had on some occasions allowed its wishes to be thwarted while (p.170) on others it had been relentless in enforcing its demands. This vacillation, it is argued, produced tension in Greece, tension which Kallikrates helped to end by persuading the Senate to make it clear once and for all that no opposition would be tolerated.3 Polybios, to whom above all we owe our knowledge of these years, would not have agreed with this last interpretation. He was critical of Kallikrates, but his criticism did not take the form of the kinds of condemnation mentioned above. As Polybios saw it, Kallikrates' embassy, while producing no real benefit for Rome, was the origin of great misfortunes for all the Greeks.4 In what follows it will be suggested that the benefits Kallikrates is alleged to have produced (for the Greeks) are to a large extent illusory and that Polybios was amply justified in regarding Kallikrates' embassy as a most regrettable occurrence. The decade or so before 180 was not a calm one for the Peloponnesos. Sparta had entered the Achaian League in 192, and almost from the beginning there were many Spartans who were not satisfied with the arrangement. As early as 188 disaffected elements had appeared in Rome to protest the conduct of Philopoimen. In 185, 184 and 183 these and others sought Roman intervention against the Achaian administration which was dominated throughout the decade by Philopoimen (†183–2), Lykortas (Polybios' father), and their followers. Directives were frequently issued by the Senate and its ambassadors which Philopoimen and Lykortas attempted to nullify (more often than not by disregarding them) when they seemed to constitute excessive infringement upon the internal sovereignty of the League and when resistance was deemed possible. Opposed by various Spartan groups on one side and on the other by certain elements within the Roman Senate that appear to have seen evidence of too much independence in the Achaian League, Philopoimen and Lykortas had also to cope with those in Achaia itself who supported the appeals for Roman intervention and counselled closer (p.171) adherence to the wishes of the Senate.5 For a brief moment, in 181, it seemed that Lykortas had triumphed on all three fronts, as a result of a colossal miscalculation by Q. Marcius Philippus. Late in 183 Messene had revolted from the Achaian League, and Philippus thought he saw the way to humble the Achaians, who had disregarded his advice to consult the Senate before proceeding against the rebels. If Sparta were to join Messene, he argued, the Achaians would be forced to beg Rome for help: let the Page 2 of 12

 

Polybios and the Embassy of Kallikrates Senate act so as to bring this about. His policy was adopted. Within a short time the Senate had informed the Spartans that it no longer cared what they did and replied to the Achaian request for help against Messene with what amounted to an open invitation to Sparta, as well as to Corinth and Argos, to sever their connections with the Achaian League.6 The upshot of this was precisely the opposite of what Philippus had intended. Lykortas quickly reduced the Messenians, and soon after that Sparta was brought into the League on new terms by the pro-Achaian group there who had seized power and driven their, and Lykortas', opponents into exile. The success against Messene prompted the Senate to announce that it had indeed been supporting the Achaians all along, and when, in 181, embassies from Sparta and the League arrived in Rome the Senate had no criticisms to offer. A warm welcome was extended to the Achaian ambassadors. Some potential for future conflict, however, remained in a letter sent by the Senate in which the Achaians were asked to restore the remaining Spartan exiles. Yet the request did not seem unalterable. Bippos, leader of the Achaian embassy of 181, reported that the Senate had written the letter not because the matter was felt to be so important, but solely on (p.172) account of the vigour with which the exiles had argued their case at Rome. To Lykortas and his followers it seemed therefore that no further action was required.7 There the matter stood, and it may be that Lykortas' assumption was thoroughly correct. The Spartan exiles seem to have acquiesced when informed of the Achaian decision, and the Romans show no signs of having been prompted by any second thoughts to complain. Others, however, were not prepared to regard the case as closed. In 180 Hyperbatos, then strategos of the Achaian League, reopened the question of the Senate's letter.8 In the discussion that followed Lykortas maintained that the arrangements then in effect were not only satisfactory but immutable as well: at most, ambassadors should be sent to explain the situation to the Romans, who would surely understand that changes were impossible. Hyperbatos and Kallikrates insisted that neither law nor stele should take precedence over the wishes of Rome. In the end it was decided to send to Rome an embassy that had as its appointed task the elucidation of the Achaian case as it had been put by Lykortas. Two of the ambassadors bore names that recalled Achaian power past, Aratos and Lydiades; the third was Kallikrates. It was the last named who addressed the Senate, and (p.173) so far did he abstain from instructing the Senate in accordance with his orders that not only did he make wilful accusations against his political opponents but he also undertook to give advice to the Senate. He said the Romans were themselves to blame for the fact that their wishes were being ignored. Two opposing policies were to be found in all the democratic states of Greece. One maintained that the fulfilment of Rome's wishes must at all times be the overriding consideration, while adherents of the Page 3 of 12

 

Polybios and the Embassy of Kallikrates other held their own laws, oaths and stelai to be worthy of greater respect. The latter, he added, enjoyed a more favourable reputation, more popularity; if the Romans wanted their will done, let them lend their support openly to the former. For corroborating evidence Kallikrates drew from the recent past. The Achaian arrangements for Messene (in which the Senate had acquiesced without complaint) were brought up. His citation of the case of the Spartan exiles culminated in his objection to the stele that had been erected, the stele that contained the terms of the settlement with which the Senate had had no fault to find the year before. Let the Romans take thought for the future, Kallikrates warned in closing. The Senate felt that Kallikrates had advised it well, and then for the first time, Polybios tells us, it embarked upon a course of supporting those who followed its every lead in the various states while seeking to weaken their opponents. For the present, letters were sent concerning the restoration of the Spartan and Messenian exiles not only to the Achaians, but also to the Aitolians, Epeirotes, Athenians, Boiotians and Akarnanians. The Senate's message included advice for the future: there should be more men like Kallikrates. Elated at his victory Kallikrates returned to Greece. He was elected strategos for the following year (by bribery, Polybios adds) and led the exiles home to Sparta and Messene.9 Polybios was sharply critical on three points. He felt that until Kallikrates' embassy the Achaians, loyal allies of Rome, had been able to speak to the Romans on a basis of something approaching equality, that they had been able, by reference to justice and good faith, to persuade the Romans to adjust their position when the need arose. Moreover, according to Polybios, the Romans gathered no real profit from their new policy, ‘but slowly, as time went on, they found themselves with an abundance of flatterers, a dearth of true friends'. For Greece he saw disaster as the result. (p.174) Kallikrates returned home ‘overjoyed, but unaware that he had become the originator of great evils for all the Greeks, especially for the Achaians’.10 Some modern historians, as was noted at the outset of this discussion, have argued that Kallikrates should be seen in a different light, that Polybios was led by his prejudice against the man to obscure the benefits he rendered to the Greeks. It is now time to see whether this view represents a valid assessment of the years after Kallikrates' embassy and of Polybios, or whether, as was suggested earlier, it does not. The interpretation in question has been expressed as follows: Callicrates, in the eyes of most modern historians, was ‘reckoned by later Greeks as the most infamous of traitors’. We may, however, reduce ‘later Greeks’ to the son of his enemy Lycortas; though it is likely there were others who disliked him, there must have been some (in Sparta and Messene, and perhaps elsewhere) who blessed him for the era of peace he initiated in the troubled peninsula. We need feel neither contempt nor Page 4 of 12

 

Polybios and the Embassy of Kallikrates admiration—his motives were no more unselfish than those of many other politicians, but his vision was clearer. There is, in fact, no doubt that he was right and that his policy (carried out, with the moral support of Rome, during the rest of his life) was the only way of ending the increasing tension.11 Kallikrates' achievement, briefly, was to have ‘succeeded in eliminating that alternation [on the part of Rome] between high-handedness and weakness which was keeping Greece in a state of turbulence’.12 One must ask if this view, so persuasively put, is closer to the truth. Was Polybios simply wrong when he called Kallikrates ‘the originator of great evils for all the Greeks’? Was he thinking only of the defeat of the policy espoused by his father and himself, of his own misfortune, of the time when he and hundreds of other Greek statesmen were taken off to Rome as political prisoners at the instigation of Kallikrates and his followers in the other Greek states? Two areas of questions are thrown open, of which the first has to do with Rome. It is a matter of some importance whether the apparent vacillation in Roman conduct is to be attributed to indecision or indifference on the part of the Senate as a whole, or whether one is rather to (p.175) see behind it a conflict of opinions within the Senate as to the best way to deal with the affairs of the Peloponnesos. It has been convincingly argued that around this time (or somewhat later) there was a distinct split in the Senate on questions of policy in Greece.13 Perhaps something very similar is to be discerned in Rome's dealings with the Achaian League in the 180s. Certain Romans appear to have been especially hostile to any manifestations of independent Achaian management of League affairs. Q. Caecilius Metellus had been rebuffed in 185 when his request to call an assembly was (legitimately) denied. He returned to Rome to appear as a hostile witness yet was unable to call forth wholesale opposition to the Achaians.14 Appius Claudius, for his own reasons (which must surely go beyond the fact that he was a Claudius), assumed an inimical posture,15 but the settlement in which he (and Metellus) participated in 183 was by no means unduly harsh on the Achaians: Sparta remained in the League, and the terms of the Roman arrangement were fulfilled without difficulty or audible grumbling.16 One wonders if the Achaians had a helpmate in Flamininus, the third commissioner of 183 and the only one without a record of unabated hostility toward them. He was anxious that the Achaian ambassador then in Rome on another matter should agree to the settlement when it was made; the others had apparently seen no need of this.17 It is, however, the case of Q. Marcius Philippus that seems most clearly to suggest that there is here a political background to the variations of Roman diplomacy. The Achaians had declined to follow his advice to consult with the Senate about the revolt of Messene; it was he who in 182 brought about the reply to the Achaian ambassadors that (p.176) constituted an open invitation to all the cities of the League to revolt and the corresponding statement to the Spartan envoys. Philippus' attempt to discomfit Page 5 of 12

 

Polybios and the Embassy of Kallikrates the Achaians was defeated in the first instance by Lykortas' successes. More notably, the seal was put upon his defeat by the Senate in its response to the Achaian settlement of Spartan and Messenian affairs. Others than Philippus had carried the day in Rome as had others than Kallikrates in Achaia. Neither would rest. Philippus is invoked by Kallikrates in his speech before the Senate,18 and the Achaian seems for a moment more a supporter of Philippus and his diplomacy than anything else. One is tempted to suggest that Kallikrates contributed not to the clarification of a hitherto unclear Roman policy but to the victory of the exponents of one policy in particular. The victory erased their defeat of 181. Far more important is the assessment of the effect of Kallikrates' embassy upon Greece. This should not turn upon the question of whether or not Kallikrates is to be seen as a traitor. It is to be remembered that Polybios does not so describe him. Kallikrates does not figure in Polybios' discussion of treachery, nor does he fit the description of the traitor there given.19 To condemn him as a ‘wretch’20 or as Achaia's ‘Quisling’21 is simply beside the point. He cannot be seen as the first to have poisoned the relations between Rome and the Achaian League. Roman intervention in the affairs of the League had been brought about by the returned Spartans in 188, and their example was followed often in the succeeding years. From that point on (if not even earlier) Achaian sovereignty over the internal affairs of the League was far from complete. This was recognized by Polybios.22 Yet even if Kallikrates' embassy could be said to have brought complete destruction to Achaian independence, this would have to be overlooked if at the same time it produced benefits on a wider scale (that is, for more than a select group of Spartans and Messenians).23 It is difficult to assess the situation in the (p.177) Peloponnesos during the four or five years following Kallikrates' embassy since nothing is known of what happened.24 Anything Polybios had to say is lost, and nothing is preserved in Livy. This enforced silence may conceal only tranquillity, but it should be remembered that Livy does not record Kallikrates' embassy. It is equally possible that these were years of unrest and sharp internal divisions, of which there is no record because they produced no embassies to or from Rome. Neither view is supported by the evidence, for there is none. It is none the less on the wider scale that one must look. Polybios saw Kallikrates as the originator of great misfortunes at that level, and there seems to be no doubt that Polybios was right. Rome, as was noted above, had long since begun to interfere in the inter-state dealings of the Achaian League. Kallikrates succeeded in introducing Roman support and fear of Roman power into the local politics of the Greek states, and he was instrumental in the adoption of intervention in local affairs as a standard of Roman diplomacy. Late in the 180s the Senate had meddled in the internal affairs of the royal house of Macedon, and the disastrous results of the attempt to support Demetrios there should stand as a sign of what was to come in Greece.25 The Senate's warm approval of Page 6 of 12

 

Polybios and the Embassy of Kallikrates Kallikrates' advice did occasion the emergence of others like him all over Greece, and the effects of this are as plain to see as they were inevitable.26 The case of Kephalos the Epeirote belongs to the early phases of the war with Perseus. Kephalos had wished in vain that war would never break out between Perseus and the Romans. Once it had started, despite a long-standing familiarity with the ruling house of Macedon, he urged support of the Roman cause in accordance with the (p.178) alliance of Epeiros and Rome while discouraging excessive subservience to the Romans. For this he was denounced to the Romans by Charops. The latter had as a young man been sent to Rome by his grandfather (the Charops who had enabled Flamininus to turn Philip's position in Epeiros in 198) that he might learn Latin. His policy at the time of the war against Perseus consisted in denouncing men like Kephalos. A short time before this in Aitolia the pro-Roman Lykiskos had secured the deportation to Rome of three of his opponents on the grounds of anti-Roman conduct. Kephalos feared the same and was driven by Charops' accusations to take the side of Perseus.27 The state of affairs in Aitolia itself becomes visible when three Roman envoys visit there in winter 170/69. One of Lykiskos' supporters at that time was Thoas, who had been deported to Rome after Apamea for his part in bringing Antiochos into Greece. His release was later secured by Nikander and Pantaleon. Nikander was one of those denounced by Lykiskos and sent off to Rome in 171. Availing themselves of the presence of the Roman envoys Lykiskos and Thoas tried to do the same for Pantaleon. The latter defended himself and concluded his diatribe against his accusers by inviting the attendant multitude (ochloi) to disrupt any attempt at speech by Thoas and, further, to stone him. The invitation was accepted. After briefly censuring this conduct the Roman envoys departed without a word about the hostages they had come to get. They left the Aitolians suspicious of one another and in a state of complete turmoil.28 In the Peloponnesos, where they had been before, lightly veiled threats against those deemed insufficiently forthcoming in their support for Rome had produced a state of confusion, heightened by the Roman envoys' friendly conduct before the Achaian council.29 From Aitolia they journeyed to Akarnania where the proRomans led by Chremas requested that Akarnania be garrisoned by Roman troops. Their political motives were transparent, their tactics decried by one Diogenes with the support of the ochloi. The Romans yielded to the pressure, sided with Diogenes and left Akarnania.30 Tension and turbulence were in evidence in all the places they visited. There is no reason to think that these phenomena had disappeared during the previous decade. Rather, they had been aggravated by the emergence of the threat of Roman displeasure as a political weapon authorized for use by Greeks. (p.179) After the defeat of Perseus the situation became only worse. The Romans finally came down heavily on the side of their more vigorous supporters. The extent of the denunciations by Kallikrates, Charops, Lykiskos, Chremas, Mnasippos and the resulting deportations need not be rehearsed here.31 Rome rewarded her Page 7 of 12

 

Polybios and the Embassy of Kallikrates favourites by literally removing their opponents. On one occasion at least more violent measures were employed. At the instigation of Lykiskos and Tisippos in Aitolia Roman soldiers, commanded by a Roman prefect, murdered 550 members of the Aitolian council and drove others into exile.32 The way was made clear, and after the Roman armies had left Greece Charops could still sentence his foes to death on the charge of ‘thinking otherwise than the Romans’.33 In Achaia, the intense hatred that grew up against Kallikrates and his followers is well known.34 It is also indicative. Intestine turbulence and bitterness were more widespread than ever and, if we may believe Polybios, Greece found release from these afflictions only with the deaths of the pro-Roman politicians who had emerged after Kallikrates' embassy.35 Kallikrates had led the way, and the Senate had made good its promise to support all those who followed. In the end it was not the deported—far away from it all—who suffered, but those who were left behind. Notes:

(1) C. M. Bowra, ‘Melinno's hymn to Rome’, JRS 47 (1957), 21–8. (2) Such unfavourable assessments of Kallikrates are given by, among others, E. A. Freeman, History of Federal Government in Greece and Italy2 (1893), 512–14; B. Niese, Geschichte der griechischen und makedonischen Staaten seit der Schlacht bei Chäronea III (1903), 59–61; G. Colin, Rome et la Grèce de 200 à 146 avant J.-C. (1905), 233–4; G. de Sanctis, Storia dei Romani IV.1 (1923), 247–8; H.E. Stier, Roms Aufstieg zur Weltmacht und die griechische Welt (1957), 179–84; G. A. Lehmann, Untersuchungen zur historischen Glaubwürdigkeit des Polybios (1967), 284–322. It would not be fair to say of these historians that their views are based upon uncritical acceptance of Polybios' opinion of Kallikrates, as is suggested by R. M. Errington, Philopoemen (1969), 202 n. 1. If they share a fault, it is that for the most part they have focused too exclusively upon Kallikrates' conduct and the Achaian League. (It is especially unfortunate that this seems to be true of Lehmann, but his remarks on pp. 299 ff. suggest that it is.) Niese, although he spoke of ‘betrayal’, was aware of wider ramifications: cf. below, p. 177 n. 26. (3) For this view see E. Badian, Foreign Clientelae (1958), 89–91. Badian's interpretation is followed and extended by Errington, op. cit., esp. 195–205. Cf. also E. Will, Histoire politique du monde hellénistique II (1967), 205–6. A somewhat similar judgment was rendered by Schoch, RE Supp. Bd. 4 (1924), s.v. ‘Kallikrates (7g)’, cols. 859–62: cf. below, p. 176 n. 23. (4) Pol. xxiv. 8–10 for his account and assessment of Kallikrates' embassy. It is to Pausanias, among ancient authors, that one has to turn for violent condemnation of Kallikrates (cf. vii. 10.5, 11.2, 12.2, 12.8). In comparison with this and with his own words on others of the pro-Roman politicians active in the two decades after Kallikrates' embassy Polybios always speaks with notable restraint about Page 8 of 12

 

Polybios and the Embassy of Kallikrates Kallikrates (cf. xxx. 12.3 on Charops, xxxii. 4.1 on Lykiskos, xxxii. 5.1–3 on Lykiskos, Chremas, and Mnasippos together). On Paus. vii. 7.5–16.10 and its source (not Polybios) see C. Wachsmuth, ‘Über eine Hauptquelle für die Geschichte des achäischen Bundes’, Leipziger Studien zur classischen Philologie 10 (1887), 271–97. (5) The most recent and most detailed treatment of this period is that of Errington, op. cit., 133–205 (with Appendices 2B and 9). J. A. O. Larsen, Greek Federal States (1968), 443–60, is briefer but useful. A summary of the exchanges between the Achaian League and Rome is given by J. Briscoe, Past and Present 36 (1967), 11–15. See also Colin, op. cit. (n. 2), 212–41; De Sanctis, op. cit. (n. 2), 235–48. Although it contains errors of detail that have since been corrected, there remains much of great value in the account of Niese, op. cit. (above, n. 2), 35–61. In what follows detailed references to these works at every point will not, as a rule, be given. (6) In 183 Philippus led an embassy to Macedon and the Peloponnesos (see Broughton, MRR I, 379). For his advice to the Achaians, cf. Pol. xxiv. 9.12; his report to the Senate on Peloponnesian affairs and the adoption of his policy: Pol. xxiii. 9.8–14. His machinations are concealed by Livy (cf. xl. 2.7). Errington, op. cit., 186–7, suggests that Polybios laid an ‘anti-senatorial’ interpretation upon the Senate's reply to the Achaian request; this seems excessively subtle. It should be noted that the Achaians asked for Roman help ‘in accordance with their alliance’ with the Romans (Pol. xxiii. 9.12). They had, of course, supported the Romans against Philip and Antiochos and, possibly in 192, against Gauls in Italy (see L. Moretti, Iscrizioni Storiche Ellenistiche (1967), 153–4, no. 60; although 162 is perhaps a more likely date for this inscription, and 122 is a possibility). (7) Reduction of Messene, Roman response, arrangements with Sparta: Pol. xxiii. 16–18.2; cf. Paus. iv. 29.11–12; Spartan and Achaian (Bippos') embassies to Rome and their reception: Pol. xxiii. 18.3–5; xxiv. 1.1, 1.4–7; Livy xl. 20.2; final arrangements for Messene, Bippos' return, rejection of the Senate's request: Pol. xxiv. 2.1–5. The coup d'état at Sparta occurred round the middle of 183; cf. Pol. xxiii. 5.18, 9.1. At no point are we told that Sparta seceded from the League. Polybios implies that in 182 it was open to the Achaians to accept Sparta into the League on terms different from those previously in effect because the Romans had declined the chance to arbitrate that had been offered them (xxiii. 17.6– 18.2; 18.1 for the new stele). The activity of Chairon at Sparta round this time has been a fertile source of problems. While postponing discussion of these until another time, I would suggest that much of the confusion he has caused would disappear were one to retain the reading of Y at Pol. xxiii. 18.4 (and not the correction of Reiske–Schweighäuser printed by Büttner-Wobst; Schweighäuser VII, 533 is circular: for bibliography see the end of Ch. 3 of this volume); this would mean that the Spartan ambassador in Rome in 181 was not Chairon, but Page 9 of 12

 

Polybios and the Embassy of Kallikrates Charon. In this case the embassy of Chairon referred to at Pol. xxiv. 7.1 would be that of 184/3 (Pol. xxiii. 4.5), and his activity at Sparta and imprisonment by the Achaian strategos would belong to 183/2 (the present location of Pol. xxiv. 7, from P and Suidas, is not guaranteed). (8) Pol. xxiv. 8.1. For the year (180), see Errington, op. cit., 263–4, but there appears to be no compelling reason why the embassy of Kallikrates should not belong to midsummer. It is assumed by Colin, op. cit. (p. 12 n. 2), 232, and Niese, op. cit., 58–9, that the Senate sent another letter or otherwise repeated its request, and by Errington, op. cit., 200, that the Spartan exiles had appealed to Rome after their rejection by the Achaians in 181. These assumptions seem unwarranted; there is no evidence for a second appeal or for a second Roman démarche, and it is embassies to and from Rome that are most likely to survive in our record of this period (see, however, the salutary warning of Holleaux, Études V, 132–3). (9) Achaian discussion, Kallikrates' embassy, the Senate's response: Pol. xxiv. 8– 10. Errington, op. cit., 264–5, would date the strategia to 179/8. For the commemoration by the Spartan exiles of their return and of Kallikrates: SIG3 634 (Inschr. von Olympia 300). Paus. vii. 9.6 suggests that some Achaian exiles were restored at this time; cf. Wachsmuth, op. cit. (above, n. 4), 287. (10) xxiv. 10. (11) Badian, op. cit. (above, n. 3), 91 (the quotation is from T. Frank, Roman Imperialism (1914), 199: ibid., n. 3). As to Polybios' account, Badian (loc. cit.) speaks of ‘propaganda’ and Errington (op. cit., 202) of a ‘hostile web of bias and innuendo’ spun by Polybios about Kallikrates' ‘activities and successes’ (cf. also p. 230); similarly Schoch, op. cit. (above, n. 3), col. 862; cf. below, n. 23. (12) Badian, op. cit., 90–1. (13) J. Briscoe, ‘Q. Marcius Philippus and nova sapientia’, JRS 54 (1964), 66–77. The recorded displeasure of the ‘veteres et moris antiqui memores’ (also called ‘seniores’) to the ‘nova sapientia’ of Philippus belongs to the year 171: Livy xlii. 47.4, 9; Diod. xxx. 7.1. (14) Caecilius in the Peloponnesos: Pol. xxii. 10.1–14; Paus. vii. 8.6, 9.1; cf. Livy xxxix. 33.5; Diod. xxix. 17; his opposition to the Achaians: Pol. xxii. 12.8, cf. 9–10; Paus. vii. 9.1; Livy xxxix. 33.5–6, cf. 7–8. (15) Ap. Claudius in the Peloponnesos: Livy xxxix. 35.8–37.21; Paus. vii. 9.3–4; his hostility: Paus. loc. cit. and vii. 9.6; cf. Livy xxxix. 37.19. (16) Pol. xxiii. 4.7–15; Paus. vii. 9.5; cf. Livy xxxix. 48.2–4. Besides keeping Sparta in the League, the settlement required the restoration of Chairon and his group (Pol., cf. Paus. and Livy), the use of foreign judges by the Achaians in cases Page 10 of 12

 

Polybios and the Embassy of Kallikrates involving the death penalty (Paus.), and the rebuilding of the walls of Sparta (Paus.). Nothing further is heard about the last, but Chairon was restored (Pol. xxiv. 7; cf. above, n. 7), and the effect of the second provision can be seen in the fact that the Achaian strategos simply jailed Chairon after the murder of Apollonidas (Pol. xxiv. 7.7). For the use of Rhodian judges by the Achaians in 170/69 see Pol. xxviii. 7.9, with Holleaux, Études I, 441–3, and Larsen, CP 43 (1948), 189. (17) Pol. xxiii. 4.11, if this refers to Flamininus as opposed to the others. Errington, op. cit., 182, sees Flamininus' influence in the continuation of Spartan membership in the League and in the restoration of Chairon's exiles. (18) Pol. xxiv. 9.12. A dozen years later the arrival of a letter from Philippus altered the course of an Achaian debate in favour of Kallikrates: Pol. xxix. 25.1– 2. (19) Pol. xviii. 13–15. For ancient allegations of treachery against Kallikrates, see the schoolboys' taunt recorded at Pol. xxx. 29.7; also Paus. vii. 10.5 (cf. above, n. 4). (20) Freeman, op. cit. (above, n. 2), 513. (21) Stier, op. cit. (above, n. 2), 183; similarly Lehmann, op. cit. (above, n. 2), 306  n. 343. (22) cf. xxiv. 10.9. (23) Two quite distinct notions are involved here: one, that benefits accrued to the Achaians and the rest of Greece as a result of Kallikrates' démarche at Rome; the other, that Kallikrates consciously sought to improve the lot of his countrymen. It is only the falsity of the first that is at issue in this inquiry, and this has nothing whatever to do with Kallikrates' intentions. In regard to the second, the following statement of Schoch is valuable, not least because it separates fact from speculation: ‘Viewed from a strict national standpoint Kallikrates' conduct can scarcely be condoned, yet it must be recognized that he correctly assessed the leading political forces, adjusted his policy accordingly, and perhaps hoped in this way to protect his homeland from a still harsher fate’ (op. cit., col. 862; this is not to agree with Schoch's denial of objectivity to Polybios' assessment of Kallikrates; one may also note that Polybios knew Kallikrates had read the times aright: xxxvi. 13.2). The ‘perhaps’ requires emphasis. The ascription of such public concern to Kallikrates is not based upon any evidence but rests solely upon the belief that Polybios' bias was such that the truth lies precisely in the opposite of what he says. (24) The next notice belongs to 174, when Kallikrates was successful in opposing a proposal that would, if carried, have brought about something of a thaw in the Page 11 of 12

 

Polybios and the Embassy of Kallikrates relations between the Achaian League and Macedon: Livy xli. 22.8–24; cf. xlii. 6.1–2. (25) For the Senate and the demise of Demetrios, see Niese, op. cit., 31–5; Badian, op. cit., 94–5. (26) The rise of a group of politicians who played upon the favour of Rome was remarked by Niese, op. cit., 61, in connection with Kallikrates. Pédech's comment upon the nature of Polybios' assessment of Kallikrates should be noted here: ‘L'archégos est un inspirateur: les résultats de ses actes dépassent ce qu'il a voulu et ils ont été obtenus avec le concours d'intermédiaires’ (La Méthode historique de Polybe (1964), 208). (27) Pol. xxvii. 15; Diod. xxx. 5; cf. Livy xliii. 18.2. See also H. H. Scullard, ‘Charops and Roman policy in Epirus’, JRS 35 (1945), 58–64. (28) Pol. xxviii. 4; cf. Livy xliii. 17.5–6. (29) Pol. xxviii. 3.3–10; cf. Livy xliii. 17.2–4. (30) Pol. xxviii. 5; cf. Livy xliii. 17.7–9. On the situation in Greece in 171–69, see Niese, op. cit., 132–9. (31) cf. Pol. xxx. 13; Paus. vii. 10.7–11; Livy xlv. 31; Niese, op. cit., 182–3. For Paullus' attitude see Pol. xxx. 13.11; xxxii. 6.4–5. (32) Livy xlv. 28.7; the prefect, A. Baebius, was subsequently condemned: Livy xlv. 31.2. (33) Pol. xxxii. 6.2. This uncomfortably open-ended charge and the related one of ‘estrangement’ (allotriotes) became current after the victory over Antiochos and were at first wielded only by Romans. Philip V was the first to realize their force (Pol. xxii. 14.6, xxiii. 8.2). (34) cf. Pol. xxx. 29. (35) Pol. xxxii. 4–5.4.

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Polybius III, Rome and Carthage

Rome, Polybius, and the East The late Peter Derow, Andrew Erskine, and Josephine Crawley Quinn

Print publication date: 2014 Print ISBN-13: 9780199640904 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199640904.001.0001

Polybius III, Rome and Carthage Peter Derow Andrew Erskine Josephine Crawley Quinn

DOI:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199640904.003.0009

Abstract and Keywords This chapter examines Polybius's account of the so-called Lutatius treaty of 241 BC that was concluded at the end of the first Punic War. It also considers the idea that the Ebro River in Spain was somehow an issue between Rome and Carthage early in 218 BC, the contention that Hannibal violated two treaties when he attacked Saguntum in 219 BC, and the origins of the Hannibalic war. Finally, it assesses Polybius's view of Roman behaviour. Keywords:   treaties, Polybius, Lutatius treaty, Punic War, Ebro River, Rome, Carthage, Hannibal, Saguntum, Hannibalic war

This discussion will fall into four sections. The first will be concerned with the so-called Lutatius treaty of 241 B.C., which Polybius records in books 1 and 3, in two significantly different versions. Part II will focus on Polybius 3.21 and the idea that the Ebro River in Spain was somehow an issue between Rome and Carthage early in 218 B.C. Part III will be about Polybius 3.30 and the contention that Hannibal's attack on Saguntum in 219 B.C. involved violation of two treaties, the one made in 241 and the other with Hasdrubal in the 220s, according to which the Carthaginians were not to cross the Ebro River under arms. In Part IV I shall first attempt to bring together what has gone before, to explain (or, at least, to describe) the development and the nature of Polybius' account in Book 3 of the origins of the Hannibalic war. This will lead on to some related, but more general, remarks about Polybius' view of Roman behaviour.1

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Polybius III, Rome and Carthage Part I—the Lutatius treaty It is well known that Polybius offers two versions of the treaty that was concluded at the end of the first Punic War, one in context at 1.62.7–63.3, the other at 3.27.1–6 in the list of treaties he gives there: (p.182) (a) Polyb. 1.62.7–63.3 τοῦ δὲ Λυτατίου προθύμως δεξαμένου τὰ παρακαλούμενα διὰ τὸ συνειδέναι τοῖς σφετέροις πράγμασι τετρυμένοις καὶ κάμνουσιν ἤδη τῷ πολέμῳ, συνέβη τέλος ἐπιθεῖναι τῇ διαφορᾷ τοιούτων τινῶν συνθηκῶν διαγραφεισῶν. [8] ἐπὶ τοῖσδε φιλίαν εἶναι Καρχηδονίοις καὶ Ῥωμαίοις, ἐὰν καὶ τῷ δήμῳ τῶν Ῥωμαίων συνδοκῇ. ἐκχωρεῖν Σικελίας ἁπάσης Καρχηδονίους καὶ μὴ πολεμεῖν Ἱέρωνι μηδ᾽ ἐπιφέρειν ὅπλα Συρακοσίοις μηδὲ τῶν Συρακοσίων συμμάχοις. [9] ἀποδοῦναι Καρχηδονίους Ῥωμαίοις χωρὶς λύτρων ἅπαντας τοὺς αἰχμαλώτους. ἀργυρίου κατενεγκεῖν Καρχηδονίους Ῥωμαίοις ἐν ἔτεσιν εἴκοσι δισχίλια καὶ διακόσια τάλαντα Εὐβοϊκά. [63.1] τούτων δ᾽ ἐπανενεχθέντων εἰς τὴν Ῥώμην, οὐ προσεδέξατο τὰς συνθήκας ὁ δῆμος, ἀλλ᾽ ἐξαπέστειλεν ἄνδρας δέκα τοὺς ἐπισκεψομένους ὑπὲρ τῶν πραγμάτων. [2] οἳ καὶ παραγενόμενοι τῶν μὲν ὅλων οὐδὲν ἔτι μετέθηκαν, βραχέα δὲ προσεπέτειναν τοὺς Καρχηδονίους. [3] τόν τε γὰρ χρόνον τῶν φόρων ἐποίησαν ἥμισυν, χίλια τάλαντα προσθέντες, τῶν τε νήσων ἐκχωρεῖν Καρχηδονίους προσεπέταξαν, ὅσαι μεταξὺ τῆς Ἰταλίας κεῖνται καὶ τῆς Σικελίας. Lutatius readily consented to negotiate, conscious as he was that the Romans were by this time worn out and enfeebled by the war, and he succeeded in putting an end to the contest by a treaty more or less as follows. [8] “There shall be friendship between the Carthaginians and Romans on the following terms if approved by the Roman people. The Carthaginians to evacuate the whole of Sicily and not to make war on Hiero or bear arms against the Syracusans or the allies of the Syracusans. [9] The Carthaginians to give up to the Romans all prisoners without ransom. The Carthaginians to pay to the Romans by instalments in twenty years two thousand two hundred Euboean talents.” [63.1] But when these terms were referred to Rome, the people did not accept the treaty, but sent ten commissioners to examine the matter. [2] After their arrival they made no substantial changes in the terms, but only slight modifications rendering them more severe for Carthage: [3] for they reduced the time of payment by one half, added a thousand talents to the indemnity, and demanded the evacuation by the Carthaginians of all islands lying between Italy and Sicily. (b) Polyb. 3.27.1–6

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Polybius III, Rome and Carthage Συντελεσθέντος τοίνυν τοῦ περὶ Σικελίας πολέμου ποιοῦνται συνθήκας ἄλλας, ἐν αἷς τὰ συνέχοντα τῶν ἐγγράπτων ἦν ταῦτα. [2] “.ἐκχωρεῖν Καρχηδονίους ἐκφέρηι τῶι δήμωι τῶν ῾Ρωμαίων ἢ τοῖϲ ὑπὸ ῾Pωμαίουϲ ταϲϲομένοιϲ, 32 τότε ὁ δῆμοϲ ὁ τῶν Mαρωνιτῶν τῶι δήμωι τῶν ῾Pωμαίων κατὰ τὸ εὔκαιρον βοηθείτω· κτλ. ΘΡΑΚΙΚΗ ΕΠΕΤΗΡΙΣ φιλία καὶ ϲυμμαχία καλὴ ἔϲτω καὶ κατὰ |γῆν καὶ κατὰ θάλασσαν ϵἰϲ τὸν ἅπαντα χρόνον,|πόλϵμοϲ δὲ μὴ ἔϲτω ἡ ϲυμμαχία ἡ ϲυμμαχία Επόλϵμον> (p.278) This is a document of the 160s.26 The evidently similar Roman alliance with Cibyra (OGIS 762) has often been placed in the 180s.27 But we are not limited in the search for earlier instances to surviving inscriptions. The request from the Achaean League to Rome for assistance against the Messenians in 183/2 BC indicates that their alliance with Rome, struck some years before that,28 was of the same form: τῶν δ᾽ ᾽Αχαιῶν παρακαλούντων, εἰ μὲν δυνατόν Page 11 of 16

 

Pharos and Rome ἐсτιν, βοήθειαν αὐτοῖс πέμψαι κατὰ τὴν сυμμαχίαν ἐπὶ τοὺс Μεссηνίουс, εἰ δὲ μὴ, προνοηθῆναι 〈γ᾽〉 ἵνα μηθεὶс τῶν ἐξ ᾽Ιταλίαс μηθ᾽ ὅπλα μήτε сῖτον εἰс τὴν Μεссήνην εἰсαγαγῃ̑ (Pol. 23.9.12). The form of alliance attested at Maroneia evidently had a long history. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that that history goes back (at least as far as concerns the Greek world to the east) to the сυμμαχία between Rome and Pharos and to the morrow of the first Illyrian war. Notes:

(1) Hellenica XI/XII (Paris 1960) Ch. 24, ‘Inscriptions hellénistiques de Dalmatie’ (505–541). (2) ‘Inscription hellénistique de Dalmatie', Opera Minora Selecta I 302–326 (BCH 1935). The text originated as CIG 1837b and had been republished by J. Brunšmid, Die Inschriften und Münzen der griechischen Städte Dalmatiens, Abhandlungen der archäologisch-epigraphischen Seminare der Universität Wien XIII (Vienna 1898) 17–20, no. 4. Given Robert's renewed treatment of this in Hellenica XI/XII 528–537, the text in IG XII Suppl. 200 no longer comes into account. (3) It is mentioned briefly by J.-L. Ferrary, Philhellénisme et impérialisme (Rome 1988) 31 n. 101, but does not figure in the discussions of Roman alliances in E. S. Gruen, The Hellenistic World and the Coming of Rome (Berkeley 1984) 13–53, 731–744, nor in, e.g. N. G. L. Hammond, “Illyris, Rome and Macedon in 229–205 B.C.,” JRS 58 (1968) 1–21 or the generally very full treatment of Rome's Illyrian wars by S. Islami, ‘L'Etat illyrienne et ses guerres contre Rome’, Iliria 3 (Tirana 1975) 5–48. The exception is L. Braccesi, Grecità Adriatica (Bologna2 1977) 322– 337, noticed (in the first edition, 1971: the relevant pages are substantially the same) by Walbank, Commentary III 765 and J. and L. Robert, Bulletin Epigraphique (hereinafter Bull.) 1976, 349; see below n. 12. (4) In September 1975 I was able briefly to examine and to photograph fragment A in the lapidarium of the Dominican convent in Stari Grad (I am grateful to Mladen Nikolanci, then at the Centar za Zaštitu Kulturne Baštine in Hvar, for his assistance, and to the keeper of the lapidarium for his forbearance) and (less briefly) fragment B in the stores of the Archaeological Museum in Zagreb (my thanks to D. and A. Rendić-Miočević for, respectively, permission and assistance in this enterprise). (5) In BCH 1935. (6) Hellenica XI/XII 537–538. (7) Hellenica XI/XII 539.

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Pharos and Rome (8) ‘L'article τὴν сυμμαχίαν est décisif, même si l'on voulait ne pas tenir compte de la restitution’ (ibid. n. 3). (9) Ibid. For this fate of Pharos he cites Holleaux, Etudes IV 89–91 (translated into CAH VII 834–836) and Polaschek, RE ‘Pharos’, 1863–1864, both of whom simply assume it, as have many others since. Errington, CAH VIII2 89–90, is more cautious. (10) 3.16.4 for ἀχαριсτία, on which see Ferrary, Philhellénisme (see n. 3) 119. (11) It is, of course, not impossible that M. Livius Salinator was also there; he is excluded throughout from Polybius's account but certainly shared the command in Illyria: MRR I 219 BC. (12) Braccesi (n. 3, above) sought to locate the Pharian appeal to Paros during the first Macedonian war. With his inference thence that the alliance between Pharos and Rome goes back to the aftermath of the first Illyrian war I am in complete agreement. He does not, however, deal with the epigraphical problems (as seen heretofore), which renders his case weaker than it might otherwise be, and I am led, as indicated here, to prefer a date nearer to 219 itself. Commenting on this section of Braccesi's book, J. and L. Robert remarked (n. 3, above): ‘Il discute sur la date [viz., of the inscription from Pharos] qu'il situerait entre 215 et 205; cette question ne nous paraît pas actuellement susceptible d'une solution.’ I hope that it might do so now. (13) This accounts for most of the numerous references in Livy 24–40. (14) Apollonia: Livy 33.3.10, 42.55.9, 44.30.10; Epidamnos: 42.48.8, 44.30.10; Issa: 31.45.10, 32.21.27, 37.16.8, 43.9.5. (15) Not (necessarily) indicating a treaty: Ferrary, Philhellénisme (see n. 3) 31 n. 101. (16) During the second Macedonian war the Aetolians fought alongside the Romans in the belief that they had an alliance with Rome, as did the Achaeans pending the ratification of their alliance. The Rhodians are the exception. They had long co-operated with the Romans, but they did not, prior to 166, have an alliance with them. Their behaviour in this respect was regarded as noteworthy (Pol. 30.5.6 ff.). (17) Gruen, Hellenistic World (see n. 3) 56 n. 11, remarks on this: ‘[Appian] designates [Corcyra] as Ῥωμαίοιс сυνεμάχει: Appian Mac. 1. Not to be taken as a loose or ignorant designation. Collaboration in war was equivalent to φιλία.’ This is not obvious, and there was in 216 no war on between Philip and the Romans. The involvement of Corcyra in Rome's eastern activities extended to providing a mint for Roman victoriati during the first Macedonian war (Crawford, Roman Republican Coinage (Cambridge 1974) 21, 192); on the ἄρχων Page 13 of 16

 

Pharos and Rome ὁ ἐν τῇ Κερκύρᾳ in 189 (Pol. 21.32.6; cf. Livy 38.11.5), see Walbank, Commentary ad loc. The freedom bestowed upon Corcyra by the Romans (cf. Appian, Ill. 8.22) was proverbial: ἐλευθέρα Κόρκυρα, χέζ᾽ ὅπου θέλειс (Strabo 7, fr. 8). (18) Cf. Livy 24.40. It appears that Apollonia was connected with Rome in a way that Orikos was not (40.7). (19) Livy 42.26.2–7 (a passage of Polybian origin according to Nissen, Kritische Untersuchungen 264–265, 271; cf. H. Tränkle, Livius und Polybios (Basel 1977) 28). At issue were Issa's mainland dependencies: Pol. 32.9.2. (20) Sena Gallia, Hadria, and Castrum Novum go back to the 280s, followed by Ariminum (268), Firmum (264), and, far the most southerly, Brundisium (244); cf. E. T. Salmon, Roman Colonization under the Republic (London 1969) 62–64. The rôle of Roman activity in northeastern Italy and Cisalpine Gaul in generating Roman concern with the Adriatic can scarcely be overestimated, as I shall argue elsewhere in a study of the Roman conquest of Greece (O.U.P.) [editorial note: never completed but see now this volume, Ch. 1, section 1]. Note the brief but very perceptive statement in R. Chevallier, La romanisation de la celtique du Pô I: Les données géographiques (Paris 1980) 70 with n. 2 (cf. pp. 67–74 on the coasts and currents of, esp., the northern Adriatic [on Gallic matters I am grateful to Jonathan Williams], and Strabo 7.317C on the relative inhospitability of the Italian coast as compared to the Dalmatian coast opposite). For purposes of observation and control Issa, the most westerly of the Dalmatian islands (for its rôle in the start of the first Illyrian war, see Phoenix 27 (1973) 118–134 (this volume, Ch. 6); cf. Errington, CAH VIII2. 86–88), and Pharos with its system of watch-towers were particularly well suited. (Another watch-tower, to match the great ‘Tor’ above Jelsa, has recently been discovered at Maslinovik on Hvar; it was built in the 4th or 3rd century BC: see B. Kirigin and P. Popović, ‘Maslinovik. A Greek watchtower in the chora of Pharos’, in J. C. Chapman et al., eds, Recent Developments in Yugoslav Archaeology (Oxford 1988: BAR International Series 431) 177–189. I am grateful to John Lloyd for this reference.) (21) Pol. 7.9.13. The omission of Issa from this list has never been adequately accounted for. (Note that it is not Issa, but Lissos, that figures in Livy's account of the dispersal by Rome of Genthius' realm at 45.26.13: Ferrary, Philhellénisme (see n. 3) 31 n. 101.) I am not concerned here to establish whether or not the Parthini and Atintani had become allies as well. Both had a chequered history of relations with Rome that is not made any clearer by problems of identification (on the Atintani and Atintanes, see N. G. L. Hammond, Epirus (Oxford 1967) 599– 600; on Parthos and the Parthini, cf. Walbank, Commentary on Pol. 18.47.12). A question that must remain open is that of when the Bassanitae (of Bassania,

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Pharos and Rome some four and a half miles distant from Lissos) became socii of the Romans (Livy 44.30.7–8, 13). (22) Cf. Ferrary, Philhellénisme (see n. 3) 27–28 (on which see my remarks in JRS 80 (1990) 198–99). Ferrary does not believe that treaties of alliance were concluded with any of these places (Philhellénisme 29–31; and cf. below and next note) but (rightly) sees no evidence as telling against this. The specific claim of Gruen, that during the period from the Illyrian wars to the war against Antiochus ‘Rome framed only a single formal alliance, that with the Aetolians in 212/11’ (Hellenistic World (see n. 3) 25, cf. p. 17) seems to me, on the basis of the considerations presented here, wrong. He is at pains to show that ‘[treaty relations] never served as a principal apparatus for expansion or imperialism’ (op. cit. 51). That is one thing, and surely no one would see them as ‘a principal apparatus’ (cf. p. 95 for an analogous man of straw: ‘It [φιλία] was never an implement fashioned or reforged by senatorial diplomats to convert Greece into a compliant appendage of Rome's dominions.’) But to deny the very existence of treaties in the later third and early second century is something quite else. (23) Philhellénisme (see n. 3) 24–33. A measure of unclarity arises from his remarks on this passage, which he reckons enables one ‘to distinguish amongst the socii those who were in dicione populi Romani and those who were not’ (p. 32). There would seem to be just two possible translations of the clause si… abstinuisset, the only uncertainty being about eorum. De Sélincourt's Penguin version captures the ambiguity: ‘if Philip abstained from attacking the Romans or their allies or those who were under their control’, but identity of the possessives may be intended. The Loeb of F. G. Moore is clearly commited: ‘in case Philip should refrain from war with the Romans and their allies and those who were subject to the latter.’ (24) Livy's notice has been variously received since Holleaux so stylishly condemned it (Rome, la Grèce…278 n. 1). Gruen (Hellenistic World (see n. 3) 21 n. 42) begins by stating that it is ‘not to be taken seriously’, but goes on to say that ‘[t]he account is either sheer fabrication or the places referred to are Illyrian.’ Badian (Studies 22–23 (PBSR 1952), with notes) and Briscoe (Commentary on Livy XXXI–XXXIV 54–55) were rather less hostile, as is Errington, CAH VIII2, 245. But the cities are not ‘Illyrian'; they are Greek and they are allies. (25) D. Triantafyllos, “Συμμαχία Ῥωμαίων καὶ Μαρωνιτῶν,” ΘΡΑΚΙΚΗ ΕΠΕΤΗΡΙΣ 4 (1983) 414–447; cf. (on context and date) M. B. Hatzopoulos and L. D. Loukopoulou, Two Studies in Ancient Macedonian Topography (ΜΕΛΕΤΗΜΑΤΑ 3) (Athens 1987) Appendix, 101–110; see SEG 35.823. The terms of the treaty are introduced (lines 10–12): φιλία καὶ сυμμαχία καλὴ ἔсτω καὶ κατὰ | γῆν καὶ κατὰ θάλασσαν εἰс τὸν ἅπαντα χρόνον, | πόλεμοс δὲ μὴ ἔсτω, Page 15 of 16

 

Pharos and Rome and the written agreement is called ἡ сυμμαχία (37, 40, 41; it may be as well to recall here that the Pharians referred to ἡ сυμμαχία). In the extract given here, is supplied in line 30 from the parallel phrase in lines 33–34. (26) So the editor princeps and all who have treated the inscription in any detail. Prior to formal publication of the text, Gruen, on the basis of preliminary notices (᾽Αρχ. Δελτ. 1973 (1978) 464 (cf. Bull. 1979, 279); BCH 102 (1978) 724–726), suggested ‘a date no earlier than the mid-140s’ (Hellenistic World (see n. 3) 738– 741). For the 160s see also the arguments of Hatzopoulos and Loukopoulou (n. 25) and of J. Stern, BCH 111 (1987) 501–509 (concerned primarily with lines 1– 10). Other aspects of Gruen's treatment of Roman treaties with Greek cities (Appendix I, pp. 731–744) raise analogous doubts and will have to be dealt with elsewhere. (27) Questioned by Gruen, loc. cit.: ‘But nothing compels us to put it before 167’ (at p. 733). The difficulties involved in providing any firm date for this text were expressed most clearly by J. and L. Robert, Bull. 1950, 183 (p. 196). I shall argue elsewhere that the events adverted to by Polybius 30.5.12 ff. (around 167 BC) provide the most suitable context for the alliance with Cibyra, and for that with Alabanda (reckoned by Gruen, p. 735, to be ‘a chimera'). The date is, in any case, not crucial here. (28) Badian's date of winter 192/1 (JRS 42 (1952) 76–80) commands much support, not unreasonably. But there is weight in Sherwin-White's argument against this kind of delay; he opts for 198/7 or 196 (Roman Foreign Policy in the East (London 1984) 61–62). Gruen, of course, puts it later, not long after 189 (Hellenistic World (see n. 3) 33–34; his discussion of this episode (p. 35) seems not to recognize that the Achaean request was made precisely within the framework of their alliance with Rome).

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RC 38 (Amyzon) Reconsidered

Rome, Polybius, and the East The late Peter Derow, Andrew Erskine, and Josephine Crawley Quinn

Print publication date: 2014 Print ISBN-13: 9780199640904 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199640904.001.0001

RC 38 (Amyzon) Reconsidered J. T. Ma P. S. Derow A. R. Meadows

DOI:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199640904.003.0015

Abstract and Keywords This chapter reconsiders the authorship of Royal Correspondence 38, a Hellenistic inscription found in the Karian site of Amyzon. RC 38 is a letter to the Amyzonians first published by F. H. Marshall, who also drew attention to the fragment copied by W. R. Hamilton at Amyzon and published by Leake. This chapter also examines A. Wilhelm's commentary on the historical context, the take-over of Karia by Antiochos III in 203 BC, as well as the possibility that the author of the letter must be a high-ranking Seleukid official, most probably Zeuxis, the vice-roy for trans-Tauric Asia Minor. In addition, it analyses how Zeuxis addressed the Amyzonians in his letter before concluding with the view that Antiochos III was gaining Karian territory in 203 at the expense of Ptolemy. Keywords:   authorship, Royal Correspondence 38, Amyzon, letter, F. H. Marshall, A. Wilhelm, Karia, Antiochos III, Zeuxis, Ptolemy

I. The Authorship of Royal Correspondence 38 The Karian site of Amyzon has produced a wealth of Hellenistic inscriptions.1 Among these figures a letter to the Amyzonians, now in the British Museum and first published by F. H. Marshall (GIBM 1035). Marshall also drew attention to the fragment copied by W. R. Hamilton at Amyzon and published by Leake (Journal of a tour in Asia Minor (London, 1824) 238 and footnote; also CIG 2899; Amyzon no. 11) and (mistakenly) believed that it might be part of the same document. It must be observed that Marshall reproduced the text of CIG 2899 for a line of this fragment: τὸ μηθενὶ ἐνοχλεῖν ὑμᾶс. ἔρρωсθε, in fact a mistake Page 1 of 14

 

RC 38 (Amyzon) Reconsidered for Leake's version, καὶ μηθενὶ ἐνοχλεῖν ὑμᾶс. ἔρρωсθε. A. Wilhelm gave a new edition of the text with a commentary on the historical context, the take-over of Karia by Antiochos III in 203 B.C. (‘Ein Brief Antiochos III’, AAW, 1920, 40–57 (Akademie-schriften II, 39–56)). Wilhelm's text, with its very full restorations, runs as follows: [Βαсιλεὺс ᾽Αντίοχοс ᾽Αμυζονέων τῶι δή]μωι χαίρειν. ᾼΗμεῖс καὶ τοὺс ἄλλουс μέν πάνταс [διατελοῦμεν εὐεργετοῦντεс ὅсοι α]ὑτοὺс πιсτεύсαντεс ἡμῖν ἐνεχείριсαν, τὴν πᾶсαν αὐ[τῶν πρόνοιαν ποιούμενοι πρὸс τ]ὸ μένονταс ἐπὶ τῶν ἰδίων ἐν τἠι πάсηι ἐνα{ν}4  [ναсτρέφεсθαι εἰρήνηι. ἐπειδὴ] δὲ πρόκειται ἡμῖν καὶ ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν φροντίζειν [τὰ δίκαια сυντηρήсομεν τὰ ὑπάρχο]ντα ὑμῖν τά τε ἄλλα ἃ καὶ ἐν τῆι Πτολεμαίου сυμμαχίαι ὑμῖν ὑπῆρχεν. καλῶс οὖν] ποήсετε ὄντεс εὔθυμοι καὶ γινόμενοι πρὸс τῶι [ἐπιμελεῖсθαι μετὰ πάсηс ἀδείαс] τῶν ἰδίων. διαφυλάсουсι γὰρ ὑμῖν τὴν εἰс τ〈οὺ〉с (p.280) 8[θεοὺс καὶ εἰс ἡμᾶс πίсτιν, εἰκὸс π]αρ᾽ ἐκείνων καὶ παρ᾽ ἡμῶν πάντα сυγκαταсκευ[αсθήсεсθαι τὰ πρὸс ἐπιсτροφὴν? κ]αὶ πολυωρίαν ἀνήκοτοα. γεγράφαμεν δὲ καὶ [τοῖс ἐπὶ τῶν τό πων сτρατηγοῖс? ὅπ]ωс ἀντιλαμβάνωνταί τε ὑμῶν [προθύμωс καὶ μηθενὶ ἐπιτρέπωсιν ἐ]νοχλεῖν ὐμᾶс. vac. Ἔρρωсθε. θρ´ Δα〈ι〉 сίου ιε´. 3. Marshall in GIBM read δ̣ομενον τάс ἐπὶ κτλ; the present reading is by Wilhelm and accepted by Welles and Robert. The stone only shows traces of an apex. 6. [сυμμαχίαι] restored by Wilhelm. Present reading at the end of the line is a ‘lecture de G. Hirschfeld, préférée à celle de Marshall τοὺ〈с〉; vérifiée par Welles’ (Amyzon p. 133 n. 7). The correct reading is visible on Welles' photograph, and, indeed, on the stone (though it is easy to understand how Marshall came to his reading, since there are traces above the iota which make it look like an upsilon); from a methodological point of view, Page 2 of 14

 

RC 38 (Amyzon) Reconsidered it is interesting to note how GIBM misleadingly reproduces Marshall's reading in the authoritative form of the facsimile). 7. The stone has TYOC. 7–8. τὴν εἰс τοὺс θεοὺс καὶ εἰс ἡμᾶс πίсτιν Wilhelm: Welles, in RC, noted that ‘the stock reference to the gods has here an unusual form’; indeed, it probably is not justified here (see below). 9. The spelling was corrected to ἀνήκοντα by Welles and Wilhelm, but the Roberts observed that this is rather ‘un vulgarisme dans la rédaction’, a well-attested phenomenon (Amyzon p. 135 and n. 22). C. B. Welles (Royal Correspondence 38) expressed admiration, but also misgivings about Wilhelm's ‘brilliant and conservative’ restorations. Among other changes, he felt that a mention of the Amyzonian boule should be inserted into the first line: [Βαсιλεὺс ᾽Αντίοχοс Αμυζονέων τῆι βούληι καὶ τῶι δή]μωι χαίρειν (see next section); he also was far more cautious than Wilhelm in filling in the gaps. Nonetheless, there is one set of lines which Welles substantially took over from Wilhelm, lines 7–9, published in Royal Correspondence as follows: [ἐπιμελεῖсθαι…]τῶν ἰδίων. διαφυλάссουсι γὰρ ὑμῖν τὴν εἰс τ〈οὺ〉с 8[θεοὺс εὐсέβειαν καὶ εἰс ἡμᾶс πἰсτιν, εἰκὸс π] αρ᾽ ἑκείνων καὶ παρ᾽ ἡμῶν πάντα сυγκαταсκευ[αсθήсεсθαι τὰ πρὸс…κ]αὶ πολυωρίαν ἀνήκο〈ν〉τα. γεγρ άφαμεν δὲ καὶ. κτλ The Roberts printed Wilhelm's text as Amyzon no. 9, and proposed various changes in matters of detail (pp. 133–136); they, too, accepted Wilhelm's restoration for lines 7–9, which they translated (starting with διαφυλάссουсι) ‘for if you preserve your trust and good faith towards the (p.281) gods and towards us, it is likely that from them and from us, all things pertaining to solicitude and care will be provided to you’ (p. 135).2 Welles sensed something odd about this sentence, and he commented (p. 168): ‘The stock reference to the gods has here an unusual form. Like the gods, Antiochus may be expected to reward faithful service’. It is indeed odd to read Antiochos' speaking of benefactions, not only from him, but also from the gods. What right does he have to make promises on the behalf of the gods as well as on his own? Why should Antiochos associate good faith towards the gods with trust in himself, or compare the rewards from the gods to rewards from himself ? Other instances in royal correspondence of kings speaking about gods strike a different (and less hubristic) note: kings wish to honour gods, or mention their kinship with them, or manifest their piety towards them, or hope for their favour.3 A city might mention divine help for a king, as Ilion did in the context of honours for (quite probably) Antiochos I (OGIS 219, lines 10–11: τὸ Page 3 of 14

 

RC 38 (Amyzon) Reconsidered δαιμόνιον); even this does not provide a parallel for the way which Wilhelm's restoration makes Antiochos III speak about the gods, a casual mention that both he and the gods reward trust in them, as if both king and gods were intimately linked as recipients of human trust and as givers of rewards. The lack of suitable parallels suggests the solution might lie elsewhere. There is nothing within the document which imposes a reference to the gods; nor is the letter necessarily by a king. In fact, a suitable category is that of letters written by a royal official, in which he refers to his royal master as well as himself, in a polar expression (‘him/me’). Olympichos ended a letter to the Mylasans by writing: [καὶ εἰс τὸ λοιπὸν] πειράсομαι сυνκατα сκευάζειν ὑμῖν [διά τε τοῦ βαсιλέωс κ]αὶ δι᾽ ἐμαυτοῦ ὅсα πρὸс τιμὴν καὶ δόξ[αν ἀνήκει], ‘I will try [in the future as well] to provide you [through the king] and through myself with all that pertains to honour and repute.’ The decisive phrase, [διά τε τοῦ βαсιλέωс], is of course a restoration by L. Robert; it nonetheless is a (p.282) very likely one.4 Another important parallel comes from Kildara, in Western Karia: Tlepolemos, a Ptolemaic high-official, writes to the Kildareis: [τά τ]ε παρ᾽ ἐκείνων ὑμῖν ὑπάρξι φιλάνθρω[πα. ἡμεῖс δὲ…]ροι ἐсόμεθα πρὸс τὸ τὴν ἐπιμέλειαν ὑ[μῶν…] (W. Blümel, EA 20 (1992) 129, D 15–16). ᾽Εκεῖνοι in this document refers to Ptolemy III, Berenike (the wife of Antiochos II) and Berenike's son, Antiochos, the baby king at Antioch. Here, the second part of the polar expression is restored, but the restoration is guaranteed by the presence of the first part of a polar expression (παρ᾽ ἐκείνων), followed by a sentence constructed with a firstperson plural verb (ἐсόμεθα). Neither of these parallels offers a compelling match with the text from Amyzon. What the parallels do suggest is a situation which fits the letter to the Amyzonians very well. The author of the letter must be a high-ranking Seleukid official—most probably Zeuxis, the vice-roy for trans-Tauric Asia Minor, who figures prominently in the Amyzonian evidence (Amyzon nos 14, 15, 19). Zeuxis was clearly in the area at the time, more precisely at Alinda, in 202 (Amyzon no. 14); his own presence at Amyzon is proved by the dedication he made at the Artemision of Amyzon (Amyzon no. 1).5 Here, Zeuxis promises benefactions π]αρ᾽ ἐκείνων, ‘from them’, i.e. ‘the kings’, Antiochos III and Antiochos the son; the plural form is well attested at Amyzon (Amyzon nos 12.1, 14.6, 15.10, 19.9). That Zeuxis should write in the first person plural to the Amyzonians is confirmed by his letter to the citizens of Herakleia under Latmos, where Zeuxis writes ‘we’ consistently.6 In the letter to the Herakleians, Zeuxis also writes ‘as we had recovered the city for the king’, ἀνακεκομιсμένων ἡμῶν τῶι βαсιλεῖ τὴν πόλιν (II.8–9): this offers a parallel for the Amyzonians' surrender to Zeuxis (RC 38.2): [ὅсοι α]ὑτοὺс πιсτεύсαντεс ἡμῖν ἐνεχείριсαν. If Zeuxis is the author of the letter to the Amyzonians, referring to the kings Antiochos III and Antiochos the son, various possibilities spring to mind for lines 7–8, for instance: Page 4 of 14

 

RC 38 (Amyzon) Reconsidered διαφυλάссουсι γὰρ ὑμῖν τὴν εἰс τ〈οὺ〉с 8[βαсιλεῖс πίсτιν ?…π]αρ᾽ ἐκείνων καὶ παρ᾽ ἡμῶν πάντα сυγκαταсκευ[…] If the Amyzonians preserve their trust (or perhaps goodwill, εὔνοιαν) towards the kings, then they will receive benefactions ‘from them’ (the (p.283) kings) and ‘from us’ (Zeuxis). One is tempted to think of τὴν εἰс τ〈οὺ〉с [βαсιλεῖс καὶ τὰ πράγματα εὔνοιαν]: the formula is paralleled in the letter to Herakleia (IV. 12: διαφυλάс [сοντεс τὴν εἰс] τὰ πράγματα εὔνοιαν), and in a letter of Antiochos III (RC 44.2: τῆс εἰс ἡμᾶс καὶ τὰ πράγματα αἱρέсεωс), but this might be excluded on grounds of length (see next section).

II. A Text of Royal Correspondence 38 Zeuxis, then, is the author of this letter to the Amyzonians. The next question that poses itself is that of how he addressed them. There are two choices. Either he wrote simply to the Demos (so Wilhelm and J. and L. Robert), or he wrote to the Boule and Demos (so Welles). Against Welles' view that the letter ought not to have been addressed only to the Demos ‘without the council or the officials’ (RC p. 167) the observations of the Roberts seem telling: there is no mention of the Boule in inscriptions of Amyzon of this period, and another royal letter is addressed to the Demos alone (Amyzon, pp. 133–134). On the other side, one might argue that Zeuxis' usage and not that of Amyzon should determine the solution. Not long after this he wrote to the Boule and Demos of Herakleia (SEG 37.859 B.4). But the collocation of Boule and Demos was established at Herakleia throughout the period (SEG 37.857 and, probably, 2.536 (cf. 37.858) ). It seems far more likely that Zeuxis took care to accommodate his own usage to that of his addressees. A further point is at issue. The attribution by restoration of Boule-and-Demos to the Amyzonians involves an assertion about the level and nature of the political development of that people, about the extent to which their political institutions had taken on typical Hellenic forms. This was indeed a time of such development in the inland towns of Karia. At Euromos in the late fourth/early third century B.C. we have Ἔδοξε[ν] Ε[ὐ]ρομεῦсιν and in the second (?) Ἔδοξε τῶι δήμωι τῶι Εὐρωμέων; for the late third δέ[δοχθαι τῶι δήμωι…] appears likely (R. M. Errington, EA 21 (1993), nos 2, 7, 4 respectively). At Kildara in the later fourth century we find Ἔδοξε Κιλδαρεῦсιν, ἐκκληсίηс γενομένηс (L. Robert, Hellenica 8 (1950), 14 no. 11); in the mid-third the Ptolemaic official Tlepolemos writes to Κιλλαρέων τῶι δήμωι (W. Blümel, EA 20 (1992), 127–132). At Amyzon itself from the late fourth and third century we have Ἔδοξε ᾽Αμυζονεῦсιν. ἐκκληсίηс κυρίαс γενομένηс (Amyzon no. 2, cf. 4–6) and ἐκκληсίηс κυρίαс γενομένηс…δέδοχθαι τῶι δήμωι (Amyzon no. 3, which should probably be placed later than nos 4–6 on the grounds (p.284) of formula; and cf. no. 36 (late third ?) ). The standard formula with Boule and Demos appears first in Amyzon no. 22 (‘Mais le temps a passé; Page 5 of 14

 

RC 38 (Amyzon) Reconsidered maintenant les Romains ont remplacé Antiochos III’, Amyzon, 202; so also nos 24, 39, and cf. no. 35; this formula should perhaps be restored in no. 23, line 31: cf. p. 134 n. 9). Nor are these the only styles from the area: for the Hyllarimeis in the early third century we find Ἔδοξεν Ὑλλαριμέ[ων τῆι] | πόλει (P. Roos, MDAI (I), 25 (1975) 339). There is work to be done. Even more clearly there is need for considerable care in these matters. We incline strongly to believe, in view of the evidence available (not least from Amyzon itself), (a) that it would be wrong to insert a Boule into the political institutions of Amyzon at the time of Zeuxis' letter and (b) that it would be right to consider that Zeuxis and others like him were very sensitive in the way they dealt with those who were, or who were coming, under their influence. On the basis of these considerations and what has already been said about lines 7–8, the text can begin to take shape. The size of the missing left-hand portion is fairly well fixed by line 1: not exactly, of course, because the letters are not all of a size (iotas in particular occupy but little space). Apart, however, from lines 1 and 11 and part of line 8, it seems wisest to refrain from restoration.7 Brief arguments will be advanced below in support of this position, but the most important general point, clear from previous treatments, is that there is little that can be restored in this text that would not entail assumptions or decisions about matters of real substance. 1[Ζεῦξιс ᾽Αμυζονέων τῶι δή]μωι χαίρειν. Ἡμεῖс καὶ τοὺс ἄλλουс μὲν πάνταс 2[c. 18 α]ὑτοὺс πιсτεύсαντεс ἡμῖν ἐνεχεἰριсαν, τὴν πᾶсαν αὐ3[τῶν c.14 τ]ὸ μένονταс ἐπὶ τῶν ἰδίων ἐν τῆι πάсηι ἐναν4[c.17 ] δὲ πρόκειται ἡμῖν καὶ ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν φροντίζειν 5[c.11 ὑπάρχο]ντα ὑμῖν τά τε ἄλλα ἃ καὶ ἐν τῆι Πτολεμαίου 6[c.15 ] ποήсετε ὄντεс εὔθυμοι καὶ γινόμενοι πρὸс τῶι 7[c.16]τῶν ἰδίων. διαφυλάссουсι γὰρ ὑμῖν τὴν εἰс τ〈οὺ〉с 8[βαсιλεῖс πίсτιν,….π]αρ᾽ ἐκείνων καὶ παρ᾽ ἡμῶν πάντα сυγκαταсκευ9[c.17 κ]αὶ πολυωρίαν ἀνήκοτα. γεγράφαμεν δὲ καὶ 10[c.18 ὅπ]ωс ἀντιλαμβάνωνταί τε ὑμῶν 11[καὶ μηθενὶ ἐπιτρέπωсιν έ]νοχλεῖν ὑμᾶс. vac. Ἔρρωсθε. θρ´ Δα〈ι〉сίου ιε´ 2. Wilhelm's restorations (based on a longer line) must succeed in giving the sense. It would not be surprising to find Ἕλληναс at the (p.285)

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RC 38 (Amyzon) Reconsidered start of the line (see Amyzon p. 13), but it seems as wrong to restore it as not to restore it. 3. Again, Wilhelm has surely apprehended the sense. Some shorter variation on his αὐ|[τῶν πρόνοιαν ποιούμενοι] would seem to be indicated. 4. No satisfactory solution presents itself. ᾽Ἐνα{ν}|[ναсτρέφεсθαι] (Wilhelm, Welles) is weakened by the rarity of the word, and by the necessity of assuming that the stonecutter has here either abandoned his usual manner of word-division or (the alternative of Wilhelm and Welles) inscribed a nu in error at the end of line 3. ᾽Ἐναν|[τιωθήсεται] (Piejko) is difficult to countenance. That ἐν τῆι πάсηι (3) is completed by εἰρήνηι is attractive but must remain uncertain. The lacuna must have closed with an adverb, adverbial phrase or conjunction of no great length, to precede δέ. 5. ὑπάρχο]ντα, likely preceded by τά, seems necessary. A good deal hangs on the verb that came before: did it involve granting something or reinstating something, and what would the verb imply about the timescale? See below. 6. сυμμαχία has regularly been restored at the beginning of the line, and a reference to the status of Amyzon within Ptolemy's dominion accordingly envisaged. This is, perhaps, not possible. Such was at least the Seleucid way of referring to the Seleucid dominion: cf. RC 11.21–22, πρὸс ἣν ἂμ βούληται πόλιν τῶν ἐν τῆι χώρα[ι] | τε καὶ сυμμαχίαι (and see RC pp. 66–67 and E. Bikerman, Institutions des Séleucides (Paris 1938) 144); RC 12. 9 (τῶμ πόλεων τῶν ἐν τῆι ἡμετέραι сυμμαχίαι), 22–23 (πρὸс ἣν ἂμ βούλητα[ι] | πόλιν τῶν ἐν τῆι ἡμετέραι сυμμαχίαι). However, we do not know if this is how Zeuxis would have referred to the dominion of another king, or indeed whether he would have done so at all. It seems more likely that the reference here is to a document. Were the document a сυμμαχία, or a сυνθήκη, a construction involving πρὸс Πτολεμαῖον would be expected, or perhaps something analogous to what occurs in the treaty between Eupolemos and Theangela: εἶναι αὐτοῖс κατὰ τὰс сυνθήκαс τὰс Εὐπολέμωι καὶ τὰс Πευκέсται γε|γενημέναс (L. Robert, Collection Froehner I (Paris, 1936) no. 52 (Staatsverträge 429), lines 13– 14: see below, note 18). This last might be taken to indicate that a particular text is at issue in Zeuxis' letter too. For the document to which Zeuxis refers as being of or from Ptolemy, we would suggest ἐντολή (cf. RC 30, line 11, with p. 331) or ἐπιсτολή, with a strong preference for the former on grounds of sense and length (see below, n. 17). All this assumes that the Ptolemy here is in fact a king (cf. n. 16 below). The lacuna must have ended with something like Wilhelm's καλῶс οὖν, or διὸ καὶ εὖ (Zeuxis to (p.286) Herakleia: SEG 37.859, D9). This leaves little room for the verb expected after the relative pronoun ἅ in the previous line. Ὑπῆρχεν has been the favoured restoration but seems too long. The same Page 7 of 14

 

RC 38 (Amyzon) Reconsidered consideration militates against γράφεται, vel. sim., which might be expected after ἐντολή or ἐπιсτολή. Ἦν (or ἔсτι) could be considered, which would avoid the infelicity of τὰ ὑπάρχοντα ὑμῖν…ἃ καὶ…ὑπῆρχεν. 7. The sense of Wilhelm's restoration seems necessary and could be achieved by [ἐπιμελεῖсθαι ἀδεῶс], but the restoration does not impose itself. 8–9. The first word of line 8 must be βαсιλεῖс (see section I above). For the next word, the sentiment the Amyzonians are invited to maintain towards the kings, πίсτιν seems preferable (cf. Amyzon pp. 134–135), although εὔνοιαν is perhaps possible. After that there are essentially two choices. One involves Wilhelm's construction with εἰκόс: [εἰκὸс π]αρ᾽ ἐκείνων καὶ παρ᾽ ἡμῶν πάντα сυγκαταсκευ|[αсθήсεсθαι τὰ πρὸс…κ]αὶ πολυωρίαν ἀνήκοτα. The other does without the nicety: [καὶ (?) π]αρ᾽ ἐκείνων καὶ παρ᾽ ἡμῶν πάντα сυγκαταсκευ|[αсθήсεται τὰ πρὸс…κ]αὶ κτλ. There is no obvious way of deciding, unless the latter be judged marginally preferable on grounds of length. The missing abstract could be τιμήν or δόξαν or something else again. 10. The question is about the recipients of Zeuxis' letters, which entails a further question about lines of communication and command. Anything involving τοῖс ἐπὶ…τεταγμένοιс is clearly too long for the space (such as τοῖс ἐπὶ τῶν πραγμάτων τεταγμένοιс, for which cf. RC 31.26, and see E. Bikerman, Institutions des Séleucides (Paris, 1938) 145), and it seems in any case at least as likely that Zeuxis would write to named individuals. There are candidates, most notably Chionis, τεταγμένοс ἐπ᾽ ᾽Αλίνδων and honoured by the Amyzonians for his help in their dealings with Zeuxis (Amyzon no. 14). Along with him there is Nikomedes, named with Chionis in the Amyzonian decree for Menestratos (Amyzon no. 15.11: Menestratos has written often πρὸс Νικομήδην καὶ Χίονιν τὸν ἐπ᾽ ᾽Αλίνδων τεταγμένον), and himself honoured by the Amyzonians (Amyzon no. 15). That line 10 began with πρόс and contained the name Chionis seems very likely, that it contained also the name Nikomedes entirely possible. One might accordingly (and on the strength of Amyzon 15) suggest [πρὸс Νικομήδην καὶ Χίονιν…] (22 letters, of which four are iotas), but this must remain uncertain. 11. Here alone the full restoration pretty well imposes itself.

(p.287) III. The Capture of Amyzon By 15 Daisios, Year 109 SE (c. 24th May 203) Antiochos III had made the city of Amyzon subject to his authority. So much is clear from the letter of Zeuxis to the city. At whose expense, however, was this acquisition made? The first editor, F. H. Marshall, without fully comprehending the content of the letter, regarded Amyzon as being still in Ptolemaic hands at the time of its writing.8 In 1920 A. Wilhelm showed that Amyzon was a Seleucid possession at the time of the letter and took the stone as evidence of an early move by Antiochos III against the Page 8 of 14

 

RC 38 (Amyzon) Reconsidered possessions of the young Ptolemy Epiphanes in Asia Minor. In this he was followed by Welles and the Roberts in their editions of the text.9 Crucial to this question are lines 5–6, but before we turn to consideration of their interpretation, some historical background, ancient and modern, is required. In 1969 J. Crampa published a series of documents from the sanctuary at Labraunda which proved beyond doubt that Olympichos, a local dynast whose seat was almost certainly at Alinda, was the local strategos first of Seleucus II and subsequently, after Antigonos Doson's Karian campaign of c. 227, both Doson and his successor Philip V.10 From these documents and two other stelai from Iasos it seems clear that Olympichos' sphere of influence stretched south and west from Alinda as far as Euromos, Pedasa, Labraunda, Mylasa and Iasos (the last two being free cities, through intervention of Olympichos' superiors).11 But what of Amyzon itself? Topography alone suggests a strong link between Alinda and the sanctuary of Artemis.12 Two (p.288) inscriptions from the reign of Antiochos III confirm this link. The first, Amyzon no. 14 (Oct./Nov. 202), is a decree of Amyzon honouring Chionis, the Seleucid governor at Alinda, for his rôle in the reception of Amyzonian ambassadors to Zeuxis. The second, from the following year, Amyzon no. 15 (Nov./Dec. 201), honours Menestratos, epistates of the Artemision at Amyzon, for his rôle as intermediary between Amyzon and Zeuxis, notably in the recovery of Amyzonian παραсκευή being held at Alinda, apparently as a result of local military activity. ‘C'est naturel, on peut même être assuré que le roi [Antiochos] se saisit d'Alinda avant de s'en prendre à Amyzon’ (Amyzon p. 147). Once the latter had taken place, the people of Amyzon looked naturally to the governor of Alinda for restitution of property and other administrative matters. Given the proximity of these two cities to one another, and the known extent of Olympichos' territorial claims to the south and west, it seems inconceivable that the dynast of Alinda did not exercise control over Amyzon; or, if he did not, that the freedom of the sanctuary was not due to his master Philip, as was the case at Labraunda and Iasos. Two possibilities thus present themselves. Either Amyzon had fallen back into Ptolemaic hands during a period between the fall of Olympichos and the collapse of Antigonid control in Karia, and the arrival of Zeuxis in 203; or, Amyzon was not Ptolemaic at the time of Seleucid takeover and the interpretation of lines 5–6 of our text must be revised accordingly. Two imponderables hamper the first suggestion. First, we do not know the date of Olympichos' death or overthrow. It is not impossible that he was still in place in c. 203, but, while the possibility that he was somehow involved in the events of this year has been canvassed, this can only be speculation (Labraunda I p. 96 n. 44). Second, no literary or documentary sources give any hint whatsoever of Ptolemaic military activity in Karia between December 220, the last dated evidence for Olympichos' command,13 and 203. If the assumption that Amyzon did become Ptolemaic at this period is to be maintained, then one of two Page 9 of 14

 

RC 38 (Amyzon) Reconsidered reconstructions must be adopted. (1) There was an inland military offensive during the reign of Ptolemy Philopator, of which this text forms our sole evidence. The date of this would remain uncertain, but is unlikely to be during the period of the Social War in Greece, in the course of which Ptolemy sought to mediate as a neutral between Philip and the Aetolians (Plb. 5.100.9–10). (2) It was not Ptolemy who was (p.289) directly responsible for the renewal of his relationship with Amyzon, but the Rhodians. Diplomatic inroads into the crumbling Antigonid province in the period between c. 220 and 203 would fit well with other Rhodian activities at the expense of Philip during this period.14 Moreover the issue of alliance with Ptolemy was certainly live in Rhodian propaganda shortly after this. A fragment of a decree from Samos makes it clear that during the period of the Rhodian–Macedonian War (c.201–197) the island was taken from Ptolemy by Philip, only to be restored to Ptolemaic alliance by the Samians, most probably with Rhodian support.15 Firm evidence for Rhodian activity earlier than this and on the mainland against Antigonid interests is not available to support such a hypothesis, however. Or must we revise our interpretation of lines 5–6? The first point to note is that there is nothing in these lines that strictly requires Ptolemy to have been the immediately preceding suzerain at Amyzon.16 Zeuxis seems to be abbreviating his own letter of arrangement with Amyzon by way of invoking the conditions of a previous arrangement with Ptolemy.17 The question which we must ask, but cannot answer, is, did Zeuxis do this because the Ptolemaic arrangement was the most recent, or because it was the most relevant, or perhaps because it was among the documents that the representatives of the city presented to Zeuxis at the time of petition? It may, for example, simply be that the arrangement that had obtained between Amyzon and, say, Olympichos, did not fit the (p.290) style of administration that Zeuxis was imposing in Karia. We might even consider the possibility that on arriving at Amyzon and seeking precedent for any sort of arrangement, Zeuxis could find only a relevant Ptolemaic document on the archive wall.18 It should be borne in mind that we do not know whether Amyzon no. 9 stood alone, or was inscribed below or alongside another text, such as the Ptolemaic document referred to. Other Seleucid inscriptions are found in close proximity to Ptolemaic on the temple walls.19 If Olympichos' day had already passed, then Zeuxis' advance into the mountains of northern Karia perhaps brought direct control back to an area currently in a state of confusion. Conceivably, Zeuxis may have had to deal with some form of Karian uprising; the arrival of Seleucid troops will in any case inevitably have caused disaffection in some quarters.20 Certainly his advance as far as Amyzon had not been without violence.21 Nonetheless, the gain would have been at the expense of the nominal Antigonid control in the Karian province that Philip would shortly prove himself ready to fight to defend. If the Roberts' dating of a text from Labraunda is correct, then these inroads in 204/3 may not have been confined to Amyzon. The inscription appears to contain instructions from Zeuxis Page 10 of 14

 

RC 38 (Amyzon) Reconsidered to his soldiers telling them not to billet themselves ἐ̣ν Λαβραύνδοιс μήτε ἐν τοῖ̣[с ἱεροῖс] | [οἴκ]οιс.22 Labraunda is on the mountain route, ancient and modern, from Alinda and the northern (p.291) sections of the Latmos to Mylasa (Strabo 14.2.23 C659; on the route in modern times, see Amyzon pp. 10–17). The sanctuary high on the mountain side overlooks the plain of Mylasa and the town itself, but half a day's march away. Zeuxis' concern for the holy buildings of Labraunda, particularly, one suspects, the capacious andrones which offered ready-built messes for his troops, displays a deliberate concern for the sensibilities of their users, the people of Mylasa. It is more than likely that at the time of Labraunda 46, the former Hecatomnid capital had fallen under the influence of the Seleucids.23 Against this background arguably must now be set all future discussion of the so-called Syro-Macedonian pact between Philip V and Antiochos III. The date of our letter may still provide a terminus post quem for the conclusion of such a contract,24 but a different light is now thrown on Philip's motive for participation, and a starker contrast placed on what Antiochos was, for the time being, prepared territorially to forgo. Certainty on any of the matters discussed in this section is impossible on the basis of the evidence currently available. Hopefully it is now clear, however, that in some respect, the accepted picture of what happened in Karia in the last decade of the third century must change. Either our picture of the indolent Ptolemy Philopator allowing his empire to slip away must be rejected in favour of an otherwise unattested resurgence of Ptolemaic activity in Karia late in his reign. Or our interpretation of RC 38 must be revised, and with it the view that Antiochos III was gaining Karian territory in 203 at the expense of Ptolemy.25 (p. 292) Notes:

(1) The dossier is entirely republished in J. and L. Robert, Fouilles d'Amyzon en Carie. Tome I. Exploration, histoire, monnaies et inscriptions (Paris, 1983), hereafter referred to as Amyzon. (2) ‘Car si vous conservez votre confiance et votre bonne foi envers les dieux et envers nous, il est à penser que vous seront assurés par eux et par nous tout ce qui concerne sollicitude et considération’. (3) Honours: RC 9.7 (the wish of Seleukos I and Antiochos I to increase the honours of the gods); RC 31.23–24 (Antiochos III offers to help with honours to Artemis Leukophryene); RC 49 (Eumenes II asks for acknowledgement of honours for Athene Nikephoros); RC 70 (Baitokaike). Kinship: RC 22.5 (Seleukos II and Apollo of Didyma); TAM II.266 (Antiochos III and Xanthos). Piety: RC 27.6 (Ptolemy III acknowledges asylia of Koan Asklepieion for the sake of the god and of the city); general piety for τὸ θεῖον in RC 36.6–7 (Antiochos III praising Page 11 of 14

 

RC 38 (Amyzon) Reconsidered Laodike), RC 44. 27 (Antiochos III), 62. 5 (Attalos II). Hoping for divine favour: RC 35.15 (Athamanian kings hope for favour of Dionysos in return for acknowledging asylia); RC 61.20 (Attalos II reflects that if defeated, he may yet fight back, with Roman help and divine favour); RC 63.3 (Orophernes promises benefactions to the Prienians, сὺν [τ] ῆι τῶν θεῶν εὐνο[ί]α[ι]). (4) J. Crampa, Labraunda. Swedish Excavations and Researches III.1. The Greek inscriptions. Part I: 1–12 (Period of Olympichus) (Lund, 1969) [hereafter Labraunda I] no. 4, lines 14–16. The restoration was proposed in Bull. 65, 368 and restated forcefully in Amyzon p. 149 n. 17 (‘Habicht, Gnomon 1972, déclarait notre restitution évidente’). (5) In contrast, there is no direct evidence for Antiochos III being at Amyzon or indeed in Karia. (6) M. Wörrle, Chiron 18 (1988) 423–425, II.8–9. III.11, IV 2, 6, 10; cf also the letter of Zeuxis to a subordinate, SEG 37.1010, line 9. (7) The text was subjected to comprehensive restoration by F. Piejko, Gnomon 57 (1985) 610–612; cf. SEG 38.1049, 41.906 for reference to other and varying restorations by the same scholar. (8) ‘We can see that its tenor is a promise of assistance and protection, and the mention of the name of Ptolemy, of whose possessions Karia formed a portion, leads us to suppose that we have here a promise of support on the part of… Antiochos III in the case of a revolt” (Marshall ad GIBM 1035 (p. 174) ). That there had been a previous period of Ptolemaic control is, of course, beyond doubt: see Amyzon pp. 118–132. (9) Wilhelm, AAW 1920, 51 (= Akademieschriften II 50); RC p. 167, Amyzon p. 133. (10) Note especially Labraunda I nos. 1–3, 8–9 (reign of Seleucus II), 4–7 (reign of Philip V). On the career of Olympichos, Labraunda I commentary passim and pp. 86–96 for synopsis. Crampa's conclusion that he was an independent dynast under Philip has met with little acceptance: cf. Ch. Habicht's review of Crampa, Gnomon 44 (1972) 162–170, 166–167, Amyzon pp. 147–150, S. Le Bohec, Antigone Dôsôn roi de Macédoine (Nancy, 1993) 343–347. For Olympichos' seat at Alinda, see A. Laumonier, BCH 58 (1934) 291–380, no. 1, and Amyzon p. 147. (11) Iasos: cf. GIBM 441 ~ I.Iasos 150, decrees of Rhodes recording a diplomatic mission from the island pressing Olympichos to observe the freedom granted to the city by Philip V, and G. Cousin and Ch. Diehl, BCH 13 (1889) 23–40, no. 1 (I.Iasos 35), a proxeny decree probably for Olympichos, probably from Iasos. For the inference of Euromos and Pedasa, Amyzon, p. 150.

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RC 38 (Amyzon) Reconsidered (12) Amyzon pp. 17, 50, 137. On the route from Alinda to Amyzon, cf. L. Robert, CRAI 1953 6–7 (OMS III. 1528–9) and G. E. Bean, Turkey Beyond the Maeander2 (London 1989), 168–170. (13) Labraunda I no. 7 (Audnaios, Year 3 of Philip V). Though GIBM 441 (I. lasos 150), also from the period of Olympichos' service under Philip, may date as late as 214 B.C. See Labraunda I pp. 95–96 with n. 43. (14) A. R. Meadows hopes to argue this point at length elsewhere. (15) Ch. Habicht, MDAI (A) 72 (1957) 233–235, no. 64. For further discussion of the date and the suggestion of Rhodian aid, see G. Shipley, A History of Samos (Oxford, 1987) 192–194. Cf. Livy 33.20.10–13 on Rhodian concerns in 197: ‘Rhodii dempto metu a Philippo omiserunt consilium obviam eundi classe Antiocho; illam alteram curam non omiserunt tuendae libertatis civitatum sociarum Ptolomaei…causaque libertatis fuerunt Cauniis, Myndiis, Halicarnassensibus Samiisque.’ (16) Omitted here is the possibility that the Ptolemy referred to in line 5 is not a Lagid king at all. The lack of royal title proves nothing, since this a Seleucid document, but while individuals named Ptolemaios are known in the upper levels of both Ptolemaic and Seleucid command, none are known to have been active in Karia at this period. See, for example, M. Segre, Clara Rhodos 9 (1938) 181–208 for Ptolemaios Lysimachou at Telmessos at this time, and C. P. Jones and Ch. Habicht, Phoenix 43 (1989) 338–344 for Ptolemaios Thrasea, a Ptolemaic commander at the time of the fourth Syrian war, but Seleucid strategos of Coele Syria and Phoenice by c. 202–199 at the latest. (17) The nature of this Ptolemaic document is unfortunately unclear: see above on line 6. If ἐπιсτολή is to be restored there, Ptolemy clearly wrote to the Amyzonians themselves at some point on the matter; if ἐντολή, then the document may have been a set of instructions concerning Amyzonian rights, addressed by the king to his local official, and set up on stone by the Amyzonians. For the latter, cf. RC 30, instructions from a Ptolemy to a local official concerning the treatment of Soloi. (18) An interesting parallel is perhaps provided by L. Robert, Collection Froehner I, (Paris, 1936) no. 52 (Staatsverträge 429) the treaty between the Macedonian Eupolemos and the Karian community of the Theangeleis. Eupolemos too shortens his arrangements with the community by reference to an earlier agreement between a Macedonian general and the community: τῶν δὲ δούλων ὅсοι μὲν ἐν εἰρήνηι παρεγένοντο |εἶναι αὐτοῖс κατὰ τὰс сυνθήκαс τὰс Εὐπολέμωι καὶ τὰс Πευκέсται γε|γενημέναс (12–14). Peukestas had probably made his agreement in c. 312 as a general of Antigonos Monophthalmos, Eupolemos probably 20–30 years later (after the intervening rule of Pleistarchos) either as an appointee of Lysimachos, or as an independent dynast. Page 13 of 14

 

RC 38 (Amyzon) Reconsidered On the chronology of these figures, see R. A. Billows, Class. Ant. 8 (1989) 173– 206. (19) Cf. Amyzon nos 6, 7, 14 and 17 (relationship described on Amyzon p. 127). (20) On the later upsurge of Karian unity brought about by the removal of Rhodian domination, see J. and L. Robert, Amyzon pp. 249–250 on Amyzon no. 51, a stephanephoros list commencing [Cτ]εφανηφόροι οἱ γεγονότεс ἀφ᾽ οὗ | [Κ] ᾶρεс ἠλευθερώθηсαν (1–2). Could the removal of direct Antigonid control over northern Karia in the last decade of the third century have led to a similar movement? (21) Note the mention of τὸν περιεсτηκότα π[όλεμον] in the Amyzonian decree for the Seleucid governor of Alinda in Oct./Nov. 202 (Amyzon no. 14, line 13), and the thanks offered to the epistates of the Artemision in Nov./Dec. 201 for his efforts at recovering property plundered from the Amyzonians (Amyzon no. 15, lines 12–14). (22) J. Crampa, Labraunda. Swedish Excavations and Researches III.2. The Greek inscriptions. Part II: 13–133, no. 46 and pp. 61–62 for date and context, following the comments of J. and L. Robert, Bulletin 1970, 553. Cf. Amyzon pp. 139–140. (23) So Amyzon p. 140. Cf. F. Piejko, OAth 18 (1990) 155 for the suggestion that LBW III. 385 (I. Mylasa 24), a grant of ateleia to the city by an unknown individual, may belong to the same year—the author would perhaps be Zeuxis, rather than Antiochos. The possibility may also be considered here that the text published by the Roberts as a letter of Zeuxis in the name of Antiochus to his troops concerning the treatment of the Kildareis may in fact also be from the same period (Amyzon p. 186 (SEG 33. 867; I. Mylasa 962) ). (24) Staatsverträge no. 547. See for example F.W. Walbank, A Historical Commentary on Polybius II (Oxford, 1967) 472. (25) The first section was written by JTM; the second by PSD; the third by ARM. Nonetheless, each commented on the work of the others and contributed significantly to it, so that the whole is a collaborative effort for which all three are responsible. Thanks are owed to Ph. Gauthier, Ch. Habicht and P. Herrmann for comments at an early stage. ARM would like to thank the President and Fellows of Trinity College, Oxford, for a Lingen Grant that enabled him to visit Karia in 1994.

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Bibliography of Peter Derow

Rome, Polybius, and the East The late Peter Derow, Andrew Erskine, and Josephine Crawley Quinn

Print publication date: 2014 Print ISBN-13: 9780199640904 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199640904.001.0001

(p.293) Bibliography of Peter Derow Bibliography references: Bagnall, R. S., and Derow, P. S. (1981), Greek Historical Documents: The Hellenistic Period, 1st edn (Society of Biblical Literature Sources for Biblical Study, 16). Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press. Bagnall, R. S., and Derow, P. S. (eds 2004), The Hellenistic Period: Historical Sources in Translation, new edn (Blackwell Sourcebooks in Ancient History). Oxford: Blackwell. Derow, P. S. (1970), ‘Polybios and the embassy of Kallikrates’, in Essays presented to C. M. Bowra (Oxford: Alden Press/Wadham College Junior & Middle Common Rooms), 12–23. Derow, P. S. (1970), ‘Rome and the Greek world from the earliest contacts to the end of the first Illyrian war’, Ph.D. thesis. Princeton University. Derow, P. S. (1971), review of P. MacKendrick, The Athenian Aristocracy 399 to 331 BC, in Phoenix, 25: 383–6. Derow, P. S. (1972), review of J. Deininger, Der politische Widerstand gegen Rom in Griechenland, 217–86 v. Chr., in Phoenix, 26: 303–11. Derow, P. S. (1973a), ‘Kleemporos’, Phoenix, 27: 118–34. Derow, P. S. (1973b), ‘The Roman calendar, 190–168 BC’, Phoenix, 27: 345–56. Derow, P. S. (1976), review of F. W. Walbank, Polybius, in Phoenix, 30: 308–11. Derow, P. S. (1976), ‘The Roman calendar, 218–191 BC’, Phoenix, 30: 265–81.

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Bibliography of Peter Derow Derow, P. S. (1979), ‘Polybius, Rome and the east’, Journal of Roman Studies, 69: 1–15. Derow, P. S. (1982), ‘Polybius (205?–125? BC)’, in T. J. Luce (ed.), Ancient Writers: Greece and Rome, i: Homer to Caesar (New York: Scribner), 525–39. Derow, P. S. (1984), review of F. W. Walbank, A Historical Commentary on Polybius, iii, in Journal of Roman Studies, 74: 231–5. Derow, P. S. (1989), ‘Rome, the fall of Macedon and the sack of Corinth’, in A. E. Astin, F. W. Walbank, et al. (eds), Cambridge Ancient History, 2nd edn, viii: Rome and the Mediterranean to 133 BC, 290–323. Derow, P. S. (1990), review of L. Thommen, Das Volkstribunat der späten römischen Republik, in Classical Review, 104 (NS 40): 379–80. Derow, P. S. (1990), review of J.-L. Ferrary, Philhellénisme et impérialisme, in Journal of Roman Studies, 80: 197–200. Derow, P. S. (1991), ‘Pharos and Rome’, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, 88: 261–70, pl. 7. (p.294) Derow, P. S. (1993), review of R. A. Billows, Antigonus the One-eyed and the Creation of the Hellenistic State, in Classical Review, 107 (NS 43). 2: 326–32. Derow, P. S. (1994), ‘Historical explanation: Polybius and his predecessors’, in S. Hornblower (ed.), Greek Historiography (Oxford: Clarendon Press), 73–90. Derow, P. S. (1994), review of C. Carsana, La teoria della ‘costituzione mista’ nell'età imperiale romana, in Journal of Roman Studies, 84: 274–5. Derow, P. S. (1995), ‘Herodotus readings’, Classics Ireland, 2: 29–51. Derow, P. S. (1996), ‘Aenianes’, OCD3 23. Derow, P. S. (1996), ‘Aetolian confederacy’, OCD3 32. Derow, P. S. (1996), ‘Amynander’, OCD3 79. Derow, P. S. (1996), ‘Aratus (2)’, OCD3 137. Derow, P. S. (1996), ‘Athamanes’, OCD3 200–1. Derow, P. S. (1996), ‘Atilius Serranus, Aulus’, OCD3 207–8. Derow, P. S. (1996), ‘Censor’, OCD3 307–8. Derow, P. S. (1996), ‘Census’, OCD3 308.

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Bibliography of Peter Derow Derow, P. S. (1996), ‘Centuria’, OCD3 310. Derow, P. S. (1996), ‘Cineas (2)’, OCD3 332. Derow, P. S. (1996), ‘Consul’, OCD3 383–4. Derow, P. S. (1996), ‘Coruncanius, Gaius and Lucius’, OCD3 403. Derow, P. S. (1996), ‘Coruncanius, Tiberius’, OCD3 403. Derow, P. S. (1996), ‘Imperium’, OCD3 751–2. Derow, P. S. (1996), ‘Laelius (1), Gaius’, OCD3 811. Derow, P. S. (1996), ‘Laelius (2), Gaius’, OCD3 811. Derow, P. S. (1996), ‘Magistracy, Roman’, OCD3 911. Derow, P. S. (1996), ‘Mamertines’, OCD3 915. Derow, P. S. (1996), ‘Perseus (2)’, OCD3 1143–4. Derow, P. S. (1996), ‘Philhellenism’, OCD3 1159–60. Derow, P. S. (1996), ‘Philip (3) V’, OCD3 1162. Derow, P. S. (1996), ‘Polybius (1)’, OCD3 1209–10. Derow, P. S. (1996), ‘Popillius Laenas, Gaius’, OCD3 1220–1. Derow, P. S. (1996), ‘Prusias (1) I Cholus’, OCD3 1268. Derow, P. S. (1996), ‘Prusias (2) II Cynegus’, OCD3 1268. Derow, P. S. (1996), ‘Pyrrhus’, OCD3 1283. Derow, P. S. (1996), ‘Scerdilaidas’, OCD3 1363. Derow, P. S. (1996), ‘Sosylus’, OCD3 1427. Derow, P. S. (1996), ‘Teuta’, OCD3 1488–9. Derow, P. S. (1996), ‘Tribuni plebis (or plebi)’, OCD3 1549–50. Derow, P. S. (1997), review of S. Le Bohec, Antigone Dôsôn, roi de Macédoine, in Journal of Hellenic Studies, 117: 234–5. (p.295) Derow, P. S. (1998), ‘Consul’, Oxford Companion to Classical Civilization 191, 195–6.

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Bibliography of Peter Derow Derow, P. S. (1998), ‘Imperium’, Oxford Companion to Classical Civilization 367– 8. Derow, P. S. (1998), ‘Magistracy, Roman’, Oxford Companion to Classical Civilization 443–4. Derow, P. S. (1998), ‘Philhellenism’, Oxford Companion to Classical Civilization 529–30. Derow, P. S. (1998), ‘Polybius’, Oxford Companion to Classical Civilization 554–5. Derow, P. S. (1998), ‘Pyrrhus’, Oxford Companion to Classical Civilization 582–3. Derow, P. S. (1998), ‘Tribune of the plebs’, Oxford Companion to Classical Civilization 744. Derow, P. S. (1999), review of R. W. Wallace and E. M. Harris, Transitions to Empire, in Journal of Roman Studies, 89: 222–3. Derow, P. S. (2003), ‘The Arrival of Rome: From the Illyrian Wars to the Fall of Macedon’, in A. Erskine (ed.), A Companion to the Hellenistic World (Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World; Malden, Mass.: Blackwell), 51–70. Derow, P. S. (2006), ‘A new inscription from Chios’, in G. E. Malouchou and A. P. Matthaiou (eds), Χιακὸν συμπόσιον: εἰς μνήμην W. G. Forrest (Athinai: Elliniki Epigraphiki Etaireia/K' Ephoreia Proïstorikon kai Klassikon Archaiotiton), 95– 102 plus fig. 4 on p. 94. Derow, P. S. (2007), ‘Imperium, imperial space and empire’, in J. Santos Yanguas and E. Torregaray Pagola (eds), Laudes provinciarum: retórica y política en la representación del imperio romano. In memoriam Peter Derow (Revisiones de historia antigua, 5; Anejos de Veleia, Acta, 6; Vitoria-Gasteiz: Servivio Editorial, Universidad del País Vasco/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea, Argitalpen Zerbitzua), 13–22. Derow, P. S. (2009), ‘Why Ancient History?’, in A. Erskine (ed.), A Companion to Ancient History (Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World: Chichester: Wiley– Blackwell), 3–5. Derow, P. S. (2012), ‘Aenianes’, OCD4 23. Derow, P. S. (2012), ‘Aetolian confederacy’, OCD4 31. Derow, P. S. (2012), ‘Amynander’, OCD4 76. Derow, P. S. (2012), ‘Aratus (2)’, OCD4 132–3. Derow, P. S. (2012), ‘Athamanes’, OCD4 193. Page 4 of 6

 

Bibliography of Peter Derow Derow, P. S. (2012), ‘Atilius Serranus, Aulus’, OCD4 199. Derow, P. S. (2012), ‘Censor’, OCD4 296. Derow, P. S. (2012), ‘Census’, OCD4 296–7. Derow, P. S. (2012), ‘Centuria’, OCD4 298. Derow, P. S. (2012), ‘Cineas (2)’, OCD4 319. Derow, P. S. (2012), ‘Consul’, OCD4 368–9. Derow, P. S. (2012), ‘Coruncanius, Gaius and Lucius’, OCD4 387. (p.296) Derow, P. S. (2012), ‘Coruncanius, Tiberius’, OCD4 387. Derow, P. S. (2012), ‘Imperium’, OCD4 730–1. Derow, P. S. (2012), ‘Laelius (1), Gaius’, OCD4 789. Derow, P. S. (2012), ‘Laelius (2), Gaius’, OCD4 789. Derow, P. S. (2012), ‘Magistracy, Roman’, OCD4 886–7. Derow, P. S. (2012), ‘Mamertines’, OCD4 890. Derow, P. S. (2012), ‘Perseus (2)’, OCD4 1110–11. Derow, P. S. (2012), ‘Philhellenism’, OCD4 1127. Derow, P. S. (2012), ‘Philip (3) V’, OCD4 1129. Derow, P. S. (2012), ‘Polybius (1)’, OCD4 1174–5. Derow, P. S. (2012), ‘Popillius Laenas, Gaius’, OCD4 1184. Derow, P. S. (2012), ‘Prusias (1) I Cholus’, OCD4 1231. Derow, P. S. (2012), ‘Prusias (2) II Cynegus’, OCD4 1231. Derow, P. S. (2012), ‘Pyrrhus’, OCD4 1245. Derow, P. S. (2012), ‘Scerdilaidas’, OCD4 1324–5. Derow, P. S. (2012), ‘Sosylus’, OCD4 1386. Derow, P. S. (2012), ‘Teuta’, OCD4 1446. Derow, P. S. (2012), ‘Tribuni plebis (or plebi)’, OCD4 1505.

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Bibliography of Peter Derow Derow, P. S. (2014), ‘Polybius III, Rome and Carthage’, in Rome, Polybius and the East (Oxford: Oxford University Press), (ch. 8). Derow, P. S., and Derow, E. O. (1973), review of A. E. Samuel, W. K. Hastings, et al., Death and Taxes, in Phoenix, 27: 80–8. Derow, P. S., and Forrest, W. G. G. (1982), ‘An inscription from Chios’, Annual of the British School at Athens, 77: 79–92, pl. 5. Derow, P. S., and Parker, R. (eds 2003), Herodotus and his World: Essays from a Conference in Memory of George Forrest. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ma, J. T., Derow, P. S., and Meadows, A. R. (1995), ‘RC 38 (Amyzon) reconsidered’, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, 109: 71–80. Scullard, H. H., and Derow, P. S. (1996), ‘Social wars’, OCD3 1418. Scullard, H. H., and Derow, P. S (2012), ‘Social wars’, OCD4 1377.

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General Bibliography

Rome, Polybius, and the East The late Peter Derow, Andrew Erskine, and Josephine Crawley Quinn

Print publication date: 2014 Print ISBN-13: 9780199640904 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199640904.001.0001

(p.297) General Bibliography Bibliography references: Alföldi, A. 1977. ‘La louve du Capitole’, Hommage à la mémoire de Jérome Carcopino: 1–11. Paris. Amandry, P. 1939. ‘Convention religieuse conclude entre Delphes et Skiathos’, BCH 63: 183–219. Austin, M. M. 1981. The Hellenistic World from Alexander to the Roman Conquest. A Selection of the Ancient Sources in Translation (2nd edn. 2006) Cambridge. Badian, E. 1952. ‘The Treaty between Rome and the Achaean League’, JRS 42: 76–80. Badian, E. 1958. Foreign Clientelae. Oxford. Badian, E. 1959. ‘Rome and Antiochus the Great: A Study in Cold War’, CP 54: 81–99. Badian, E. 1964. Studies in Greek and Roman History. Oxford. Badian, E. 1966. ‘The early historians’, in Latin Historians (ed. T. A. Dorey), 1– 38. London and New York. Badian, E. 1968. Roman Imperialism in the Late Republic, 2nd edn. Oxford. Badian, E. 1971. ‘The Family and Early Career of T. Quinctius Flamininus’, JRS 61: 102–11.

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General Bibliography Bagnall, R.S., and Derow, P.S. 1981. Greek Historical Documents: The Hellenistic Period. Chico, Calif. (now revised as The Hellenistic Period: Historical Sources in Translation. Oxford 2004). Bahrfeldt, M. von. 1901. Der Münzfund von Mazin. Berlin. Balsdon, J. P. V. D. 1953. ‘Some Questions about Historical Writing in the Second Century BC’, CQ NS 3: 158–64. Balsdon, J. P. V. D. 1954. ‘Rome and Macedon, 205–200 BC’, JRS 44: 30–42. Balsdon, J. P. V. D. 1956. Review of Meloni 1955 in JRS 46: 199–201. Bauer, A. 1895. ‘Die Anfänge österreichischer Geschichte’, AEM 18: 128–50. Bean, G. E. 1989. Beyond the Maeander. London. Beaumont, R. L. 1936. ‘Greek Influence in the Adriatic before the Fourth Century BC’, JHS 56: 159–204. Beloch, K. J. 1918. ‘Die römische Kalender von 218–168’, Klio 15: 382–419. Beloch, K. J. 1922. ‘Die Sonnenfinisternis des Ennius und der vorjulianische Kalender’, Hermes 57: 119–33. Beloch, K. J. 1925. Griechische Geschichte, 2nd edn. Berlin. Benndorf, O., and Niemann, G. 1884. Reisen in Lykien und Karien (Reisen im südwestlichen Kleinasien), i. Vienna. Bickermann, E. J. 1945. ‘Bellum Philippicum: Some Roman and Greek Views concerning the Causes of the Second Macedonian War’, CP 40: 137–48. (p.298) Billows, R. A. 1989. ‘Anatolian Dynasts: the Case of the Macedonian Eupolemos in Karia’, Class. Ant. 8: 173–206. Blanchet, A. 1901. Review of Bahrfeldt 1901 in Revue Numismatique, 4e ser. 5: 290–2. Blümel, W. 1992. ‘Brief des Ptolemäischen Ministers Tlepolemos an die Stadt Kildara in Karien’, Epigraphica Anatolica 20: 127–33. Bowra, C. M. 1957. ‘Melinno's hymn to Rome’, JRS 47: 21–8. Braccesi, L. 1977. Grecità Adriatica, 2nd edn. Bologna. Briscoe, J. 1964. ‘Q. Marcius Philippus and nova sapientia’, JRS 54: 66–77.

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General Bibliography Briscoe, J. 1967. ‘Rome and the Class Struggle in the Greek States 200–146 BC’, Past and Present 36: 3–20. Briscoe, J. 1973. A Commentary on Livy, Books XXXI–XXXIII. Oxford. Briscoe, J. 1981. A Commentary on Livy, Books XXXIV–XXXVII. Oxford. Brunšmid, J. 1898. Die Inschriften und Münzen der griechischen Städte Dalmatiens. Vienna. Bung, P. 1950. Q. Fabius Pictor, der erste römische Annalist: Untersuchungen über Aufbau, Stil und Inhalt seines Geschichtswerkes an Hand von Polybius I–II, Diss. Cologne. Burton, P. J. 2003. ‘Clientela or amicitia? Modeling Roman international behavior in the Middle Republic (264–146 BC), Klio 85: 333–69. Carcopino, J. 1961. Les étapes de l'impérialisme romaine. Paris. Charneux, P. 1957. ‘Rome et la conféderation achaienne (automne 170)’, BCH 81: 181–202. Chevallier, R. 1980. La romanisation de la celtique du Pô: Les données géographiques. Paris. Colin, G. 1905. Rome et la Grèce de 200 à 146 avant J.-C. Paris. Cornelius, Fr. 1932. Cannae, Das militarische und das literarische Problem (Klio Beiheft 26, NS 13). Leipzig. Cousin, G., and Diehl, Ch. 1889. ‘Inscriptions de Iasos et de Bargylia’, BCH 13: 23–40. Crampa, J. 1969 and 1972. Labraunda. Swedish Excavations and Researches, vol. III. Greek Inscriptions, Pt 1: 1–12 (Lund); Pt 2: 13–133 (Stockholm). Crawford, M. H. 1969. Roman Republican Coin Hoards. London. Crawley, R. 1876. Thucydides: The History of the Peloponnesian War. London. Cuff, P. J. 1973. ‘Polybius, III, 30, 3: a note’, Rivista storica dell'antichità 3: 163– 70. Dany, O. 1999. Akarnanien im Hellenismus: Geschichte und Volkerrecht in Nordwestgriechenland. Munich. Dao, J. 2002. ‘One nation plays the great game alone’, The New York Times, Sunday July 7, 2002 (from Week in Review Desk; repr. in Le Monde, 14–15 July 2002). Page 3 of 12

 

General Bibliography Dell, H. J. 1970. ‘Demetrius of Pharus and the Istrian War’, Historia 19: 30–8. (p. 299) De Sanctis, G. 1923. Storia de Romani 4.1. Turin. De Sanctis, G. 1967. Storia dei Romani 3.12. Florence. De Sanctis, G. 1968. Storia dei Romani 3.22. Florence. De Sanctis, G. 1969. Storia dei Romani 4.12. Florence. De Ste. Croix, G. E. M. 1981. The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World. London. Dobias, J. 1930. Studie k. Appianovĕ Knize lllyrské. Prague. Dulière, C. 1979. Lupa Romana: Recherches d'iconographie et essai d'interprétation. Brussels–Rome. Dürrbach, F. 1921. Choix d'inscriptions de Délos. Paris. Eckstein, A. 1999. ‘Pharos and the question of Roman treaties of alliance in the Greek East in the third century BCE’, CP 94: 395–418. Errington, R. M. 1969. Philopoemen. Oxford. Errington, R. M. 1989a. ‘Rome and Greece to 205 BC’, CAH2 8: 81–106. Errington, R. M. 1989b. ‘Rome against Philip and Antioch, CAH2 8: 244–89. Errington, R. M. 1993. ‘Inschriften von Euromos’, EA 21; 15–32. Erskine, A. 1994. ‘The Romans as common benefactors’, Historia 43: 70–87. Erskine, A. 2001. Troy between Greece and Rome: Local Tradition and Imperial Power. Oxford. Erskine, A. (ed.) 2003. A Companion to the Hellenistic World. Oxford. Erskine, A. (ed.) 2009. A Companion to Ancient History. Chichester. Ferrary, J.-L. 1988. Philhellénisme et impérialisme: aspects idéologiques de la conquête romaine du monde hellénistique. Rome. Flacelière, R. 1937. Les Aitoliens à Delphes. Contribution à l'histoire de la Grèce central au llle siècle av. J.-C. Paris. Forbes, C. A. 1933. Neoi. Middletown, Conn. Frank, T. 1914. Roman Imperialism. New York. Page 4 of 12

 

General Bibliography Freeman, E. A. 1893. A History of Federal Government in Greece and Italy, 2nd edn by J. B. Bury. London. Fuks, A. 1970. ‘The Bellum Achaicum and its social aspect’, JHS 90: 78–89. Gauthier, P. 1968. ‘L'Ebre et Sagonte: défense de Polybe’, Revue de Philologie 42: 91–100. Gelzer, M. Kleine Schriften 3. Wiesbaden. Ginzel, F. K. 1911. Handbuch der mathematischen und technischen Chronologie 2. Leipzig. Giovannini, A. 1970. ‘Philipp V, Perseus und die Delphische Amphiktyonie’, in Ancient Macedonia I: 147–54, Thessalonica. Grene, D. 1987. Herodotus: The Histories. Chicago. Gruen, E. S. 1984. The Hellenistic World and the Coming of Rome. Berkeley and Los Angeles. Habel, E. 1931. ‘Ludi publici’, RE Suppl. Bd. 5: 608–30. Habicht, Ch. 1957. ‘Samische Volksbeschlusse der hellenistischen Zeit’, MDAI(A) 72: 152–274. Habicht, Ch. 1972. Review of Crampa, Labraunda in Gnomon 44: 162–70. (p. 300) Hammond, N. G. L. 1967. Epirus. Oxford. Hammond, N. G. L. 1968. ‘lllyris, Rome, and Macedon in 229–205 BC’, JRS 58: 1– 21. Hammond, N. G. L., and Walbank, F. W. 1988. A History of Macedonia, vol. 3. Oxford. Harris, W. V. 1979. War and Imperialism in Republican Rome, 327–70 B.C. Oxford. Hatzopoulos, M. B., and Loukopoulou, L. D. 1987. Two Studies in Ancient Macedonian Topography, (ΜΕΛΕΤΗΜΑΤΑ 3). Athens. Hatzfeld, J. 1919. Les trafiquants italiens dans l'orient hellénique. Paris. Heurgon, J. 1957. Le ver sacrum de 217 (Coll. Latomus 26). Brussels. Hill, H. 1952. The Roman Middle Class in the Republican Period. Oxford.

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General Bibliography Holleaux, M. 1921. Rome, la Grèce et les monarchies hellénistiques au llle siècle avant J.-C. Paris. Holleaux, M. 1928. ‘The Romans in Illyria’, in CAH 7: 822–57 (= Holleaux, Études d’épigraphie et d'histoire grecques V. 76–114, Paris 1952). Holleaux, M. 1930a. ‘Rome and Macedon: Philip against the Romans’, in CAH 8: 116–37. Holleaux, M. 1930b. ‘Rome and Macedon: the Romans against Philip’, in CAH 8: 138–98. Holleaux, M. 1930c. ‘Rome and Antiochus’, in CAH 8: 199–240. Holleaux, M. 1938. Études d’épigraphie et d'histoire grecques, vol. 1; all 6 volumes: 1938–68. Paris. Hornblower, S. 1991. A Commentary on Thucydides, 1. Oxford. Islami, S. 1975. ‘L’État illyrienne et ses guerres contre Rome’, Illyria 3 (Tirana), 5–48. Jones, C. P., and Habicht, Ch. 1989. ‘A Hellenistic Inscription from Arsinoe in Cilicia’, Phoenix 43: 317–46. Jonnes, L., and Ricl, M. 1997. ‘A New Royal Inscription from Phrygia Paroreios: Eumenes II grants Tyriaion the status of a polis’, EA 29: 1–30. Kirigin, B., and Popović, P. 1988. ‘Maslinovik. A Greek watchtower in the chora of Pharos’, in J. C. Chapman et al. (eds), Recent Developments in Yugoslav Archaeology (BAR International Series 431), 177–89. Oxford. Kirk, G. S., and Raven, J. S. 1983. The Presocratic Philosophers, 2nd edn by M. Schofield. Cambridge. Krahe, H. 1929. Lexikon altillyrischer Personennamen. Heidelberg. Kubitschek, W. 1907. ‘Eine Inschrift aus Salona’, Jahrbuch für Altertumskunde 1: 78–85. Larsen, J. A. O. 1948. ‘ “Foreign Judges” in Cicero ad Atticum VI.1.15’, CP 43: 187–90. Larsen, J. A. O. 1952. ‘The Assembly of the Aetolian League’, TAPA 83, 1–33. Larsen, J. A. O. 1968. Greek Federal States. Oxford. (p.301) Lateiner, D. 1989. The Historical Method of Herodotus (Phoenix suppl. 23). Toronto. Page 6 of 12

 

General Bibliography Latyschev, B. 1885–1901. Inscriptiones antiquae orae septentrionalis Ponti Euxini Graecae et Latinae. St Petersburg. Vol. 1, 2nd edn, Inscriptiones Tyriae, Olbiae, Chersonesi Tauricae. St Petersburg 1916. Lauffer, S. 1971. Diokletians Preisedikt. Berlin. Laum, B. 1914. Stiftungen in der griechischen und römischen Antike: ein Beitrag zur antiken Kulturgeschichte. Leipzig. Laumonier, A. 1934. ‘Inscriptions de Carie’, BCH 58: 291–380. Le Bohec, S. 1993. Antigone Dôsôn roi de Macédoine. Nancy. Lehman, G. A. 1967. Untersuchungen zur historischen Glaubwürdigkeit des Polybios. Münster. Ma, J. 1999. Antiochos III and the Cities of Western Asia Minor. Oxford. Maier, F. G. 1959–61. Griechische Mauerbauinschriften. Heidelberg (2 vols). Marchetti, P. 1973. ‘La marche du calendrier romain de 203 à 190 (année varr. 551–564)’, Ant. Class. 42: 473–96. Marquardt, J. 1878. Römische Staatsverwaltung 3. Leipzig. Mason, H. J. 1974. Greek Terms for Roman Institutions. A lexicon and analysis. Toronto. Matzat, H. 1889. Römische Zeitrechnung. Berlin. Mauersberger, A., et al. 1956–2004. Polybios-Lexikon. Berlin. Meisterhans, K. 1900. Grammatik der Attischen Inschriften (3rd edn by E. Schwyzer). Berlin. Meloni, P. 1954. ‘Ancora sul calendario romano nell'anno della battaglia di Pidna (168 a. Chr.)’, Latomus 13: 553–68. Meloni, P. 1955. II valore storico e le fonti del libro macedonico di Appiano. Rome. Michaud, J.-P. 1977. ‘Nouvelle inscription de la base de M’. Acilius’, Etudes delphiques (BCH Suppl. iv). Paris. Michels, A. K. 1967. The Calendar of the Roman Republic. Princeton. Momigliano, A. 1966. Terzo contributo alla storia degli studi classici e del mondo antico 1. Rome.

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General Bibliography Momigliano, A. 1975. Alien Wisdom: The Limits of Hellenization. Cambridge. Moretti, L. 1953. Iscrizioni Agonistiche Grece. Rome. Müller, C. 1882. Geographici Graeci Minores. Paris. Musti, D. 1972. ‘Polibio negli studi dell'ultimo ventennio (1950–1970)’, ANRW 1.2: 1114–81. Nachtergael, G. 1977. Les Galates en Grèce et les Sotéria de Delphes. Brussels. Niese, B. 1903. Geschichte der griechischen und makedonischen Staaten seit der Schlacht bei Chäronea 2. Gotha. Nissen, H. 1863. Kritische Untersuchungen uber die Quellen der vierten und funften Dekade des Livius. Berlin. (p.302) Nissen, H. 1891. ‘Die Oekonomie der Geschichte des Polybios’, Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 26: 241–82. Noe, S. P. 1937. A Bibliography of Greek Coin Hoards, 2nd edn. New York. Ochs, P. 1966. ‘Cops of the World’, from Phil Ochs in Concert. Oost, S. I. 1953. ‘The Roman Calendar in the year of Pydna’, CP 48: 217–30. Packard, D. W. 1968. A Concordance to Livy. Cambridge, Mass. Parini, J. 2005. The Art of Teaching. Oxford. Patsch, K. 1900. Die Lika in römischer Zeit. Vienna. Pédech, P. 1964. La méthode historique de Polybe. Paris. Petzold, K.-E. 1969. Studien sur Methode des Polybios und zu ihrer historischen Auswertung. Munich. Petzold, K.-E. 1971. ‘Rom und Illyrien’, Historia 20: 199–223. Piejko, F. 1985. Review of J. and L. Robert, Fouilles d'Amyzon en Carie I in Gnomon 57: 608–21. Piejko, F. 1990. ‘To the Inscriptions of Labraunda’, Opuscula Atheniensia 18: 133–56. Rich, J. 1976. Declaring War in the Roman Republic in the Period of Transmarine Expansion. Brussels. Rich, J., and Shipley, G. (eds) 1993. War and Society in the Roman World. London and New York. Page 8 of 12

 

General Bibliography Richardson, J. 1986. Hispaniae: Spain and the Development of Roman Imperialism, 218–82 BC. Cambridge. Rigsby, K. 1996. Asylia. Territorial Inviolability in the Hellenistic World. Berkeley. Robert, J. and L. 1983. Fouilles d'Amyzon en Carie, I. Exploration, histoire, monnaies et inscriptions. Paris. Robert, L. 1936. Collection Froehner I. Paris. Robert, L. 1937. Études anatoliennes. Recherches sur les inscriptions grecques de l'Asie mineure. Paris. Robert, L. 1938. Études épigraphiques et philologiques. Paris. Robert, L. 1950. ‘Inscriptions inédites en langue carienne’, Hellenica 8: 15–32. Robert, L. 1953. ‘Le sanctuaire d'Artemis à Amyzon’, CRAI 6–7: 403–15. Robert, L. 1960. Hellenica XI/XII. Paris. Robert, L. 1969. Opera Minora Selecta, vol. 1. Amsterdam. Ronne, T., and Fraser, P. M. 1953. ‘A Hydra-vase in the Ashmolean Museum’, JEA 39: 84–94. Roos, P. 1975. ‘Alte und neue Inschriftenfunde aus Zentralkarien’, MDAI (I) 25: 335–41. Sacks, K. S. 1975. ‘Polybius’ other view of Aetolia’, JHS 95: 92–106. Salmon, E. T. 1969. Roman Colonization under the Republic. London. Samuel, A. E. 1972. Greek and Roman Chronology (HdA 1.7). Munich. (p.303) Scardigli, B. 1991. I trattati romano-cartaginesi. Pisa. Schmitt, H. H. 1969. Die Staatsverträge des Altertums III: Die Verträge der griechisch-römischen Welt von 338 bis 200 v. Chr. Munich. Schwertfeger, T. 1974. Der Archaiische Bund von 146 bis 27 v.Chr. Munich. Scullard, H. H. 1945. ‘Charops and Roman policy in Epirus’, JRS 35: 58–64. Segre, M. 1938. ‘Iscrizioni de Licia’, Clara Rhodos 9: 179–208. Shear, T. L. 1978. Kallias of Sphettos and the Revolt of Athens in 286 BC (Hesperia Suppl. xvii) Princeton. Sherk, R. K. 1969. Roman Documents from the Greek East. Baltimore. Page 9 of 12

 

General Bibliography Sherwin-White, A. N. 1984. Roman Foreign Policy in the East. London. Shipley, D. G. J. 1987. A History of Samos. Oxford. Shuckburgh, E. S. 1889. The Histories of Polybius. London. Smith, C., and Yarrow, L. M. (eds) 2012. Imperialism, Cultural Politics, and Polybius. Oxford. Soltau, W. 1887. ‘Die römischen Schaltjahre’, Fleckeisens Jahrbucher 33: 423–8. Soltau, W. 1888. ‘Die Kalenderverwirrung zur Zeit des zweiten punischen Krieges’, Philologus 46: 666–90. Soltau, W. 1889. Römische Chronologie. Freiburg i.B. Stier, H.-E. 1957. Roms Aufstieg zur Weltmacht und die griechische Welt. Cologne. Sumner, G. V. 1968. ‘Roman policy in Spain before the Hannibalic War’, HSCP 72: 205–46. Sumner, G. V. 1972. ‘Rome, Spain, and the Outbreak of the Second Punic War’, Latomus 31: 469–80. Sumner, G. V. 1975. ‘Elections at Rome in 217 BC’, Phoenix 29: 250–9. Tarn, W. W., and Griffith, G. T. 1952. Hellenistic Civilisation, 3rd edn. London. Thomsen, R. 1961. Early Roman Coinage 3. Copenhagen. Tränkle, H. 1977. Livius und Polybius. Basel. Triantafyllos, D. (1973) [1977]. ‘Αρχαιότητες καὶ Μνημεῖα Θράκης’, in Arch. Delt. 28.2 (χρον), 462–76, with plates 417–33. Triantafyllos, D. 1983. ‘Συμμαχία Ῥωμαίων καὶ Μαρωνιτῶν’, ΘΡΑΚΙΚΗ ΕΠΕΤΗΡΙΣ 4: 414–47. Truhelka, C. 1893. ‘Depotfund afrikanischer und anderer Bronzemünzen vom Vrankamen bei Krupa’, Wissenschaftliche Mittheilungen aus Bosnien und der Hercegovina 1: 184–8. Unger, G. F. 1888. ‘Die römischen Kalenderdata aus 218–215 v. Chr.’, Philologus 46: 322–53. Wachsmuth, C. 1887. ‘Über eine Hauptquelle für die Geschichte des achäischen Bundes’, Leipziger Studien zur classischen Philologie, 10: 269–98.

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General Bibliography Walbank, F. W. 1940. Philip V of Macedon. Cambridge. Walbank, F. W. 1944. ‘The causes of Greek decline’, JHS 64: 10–20. (p.304) Walbank, F. W. 1957 (vol. 1), 1967 (vol. 2), 1979 (vol. 3). A Historical Commentary on Polybius. Oxford. Walbank, F. W. 1961. Review of Carcopino 1961 in JRS 51: 228–9. Walbank, F. W. 1963. ‘Polybius and Rome's Eastern Policy’, JRS 53: 1–13. Walbank, F. W. 1965. Speeches in Greek Historians. Third Myres Memorial Lecture. Oxford (repr. in F. W. Walbank, Selected Papers. Studies in Greek and Roman History and Historiography Cambridge 1985: 242–61). Walbank, F. W. 1972. Polybius. Berkeley. Walbank, F. W. 1974. ‘Polybius between Greece and Rome’, in E. Gabba (ed.), Polybe, Entretiens Hardt 20 (Geneva), 1–31; repr. in F. W. Walbank, Selected Papers: Studies in Greek and Roman History and Historiography (Cambridge 1985), 280–97. Walbank, F. W. 1975. ‘Symploke: its role in Polybius’ histories’, YCS 24: 197–212. Walbank, F. W. 1994. ‘Supernatural paraphernalia in Polybios’ Histories’, in I. Worthington (ed.), Ventures into Greek History. Oxford: 28–42 (repr. In F. W. Walbank, Polybius, Rome and The Hellenistic World: Essays and Reflections. Cambridge 2002: 245–57). Walser, G. 1953–4. ‘Die Ursachen des ersten römisch-illyrischen Krieges’, Historia 2: 308–18. Walter, O. 1911. ‘Inschriften aus dem Argivischen Heraion’, Jahreshefte des Österreichischen Archäologischen Instituts in Wien, 14: 139–50. Warrior, V. M. 1981. ‘Livy, Book 42: structure and chronology’, AJAH 6: 1–50. Weinstock, S. 1960. ‘Two Archaic Inscriptions from Latium’, JRS 50: 112–18. Wilhelm, A. 1933. ‘Zu Neuen Inschriften aus Pergamon’, Sitzungberichten der Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Phil.-Hist. Klasse 20: 836–59 = Kleine Schriften Abt. 1, Akademieschriften zur griechischen Inschriftenkunde, 1895–1951 Teil 2. 1895–1937 (Leipzig 1974), 414–37. Wilkes, J. J. 1969. Dalmatia. London. Will, E. 1967. Histoire politique du monde hellénistique II. Nancy.

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General Bibliography Willers, H. 1904. ‘Italische Bronzebarren aus der letzten Zeit des Rohkupfergeldes’, Numismatische Zeitschrift 36: 1–34. Wörrle, M. 1988. ‘Inschriften aus Herakleia am Latmos I: Antiochos III, Zeuxis und Herakleia’, Chiron 18: 421–76. Zippel, G. 1877. Die römische Herrschaft in Illyrien bis auf Augustus. Leipzig.

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Index

Rome, Polybius, and the East The late Peter Derow, Andrew Erskine, and Josephine Crawley Quinn

Print publication date: 2014 Print ISBN-13: 9780199640904 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199640904.001.0001

(p.305) Index Note: bold entries refer to illustrations and tables. Abdera 69 Abrupolis 64 Acarnania (Akarnania) 22, 26, 66, 71, 178 Achaean League 22–3, 26, 32, 38, 40–1, 43, 48, 52–7, 63, 67, 80, 104 Callicrates’ embassy to Rome 172–3, 176–9 dissension fostered by Rome 40, 78, 171, 175–6 divided attitudes towards Rome 58, 170–1 Perseus seeks to re-establish relations with 61–2 resistance to Rome 170 Roman policy towards 175–6 Rome urges restoration of Spartan exiles 171–2 Third Macedonian War 70–1 post-war relations with Rome 77–8 post-war Roman reprisals 74–5 war with Rome 80–1, 103–4 Acilius Glabrio, Manius (cos. 191) 38 Acrocorinth 33, 34, 199 Adriatic: foundation of Roman colonies 22 Roman expansion 21–4 Aemilius Lepidus, Marcus (cos. 187) 48, 52 Aemilius Paullus, Lucius (cos. 219) 272 Aemilius Paullus Macedonicus, Lucius (cos. 182, 168) 43, 73, 74, 75, 76, 192 Aenus 50 Aetolia 43, 48 appeal to Rome 136–7, 138 civil war 62 mistrust of Rome 196 origins of war against Antiochos III 142–4 Page 1 of 13

 

Index Rome's treatment of 137–8 Third Macedonian War 71 Aetolian League 22, 23, 25–6, 32, 33–4 Agelaos of Naupaktos 27 Agron, king of the Ardiaioi 21, 151–2, 166 Alcibiades of Sparta 53 Alexandreia Troas 37, 38 Alexandria 63 American Philological Association 6 Amynander of Athamania 32, 204 Amyzon, see Royal Correspondence 38 (Amyzon) anacyclosis (cycle of constitutional change) 97–9 Anaximander 112 ancient history, Derow on 15–17 Andriscus 76, 79, 95 Anicius Gallus, Lucius (cos. 160) 73, 74, 75 Antigonos III Doson 23 Antiochos III 32, 33, 48 crosses into Greece 36–7, 38 dealings with Rome 203 response to Roman demands 35 Roman demands on 34–5, 36, 133 Roman war against 36–9, 94, 142–4 seeks normalization of relations with Rome 36 Apameia (Apamea), Peace of (188 BC) 39, 47, 63, 169 Apollonia 65, 274, 275 Appian, and First Illyrian War 152–3 brevity of account 154 Issa's role 158–60 Kleemporos 160–1 plausibility of account of 161 sources for account of 157 Aratos 56, 156, 172 Archon 53 Ardiaioi 21, 22 Areus of Sparta 53 Argos 35, 52, 200 Ariminum 22 Aristaenus 52, 53, 58 Athamania 204 Athens 31, 69, 115, 116, 117 Atilius Serranus, Aulus (cos. 170) 65, 66 Atintania 29 Attalos I of Pergamon 26, 28, 29, 30, 31, 248 Aurelius Orestes, Lucius (cos. 157) 80, 103, 104 Baebius Tamphilus, Marcus (cos. 181) 36 Bagnall, Roger 9 Bastarnae 60 Bippos 171 Page 2 of 13

 

Index Boeotia (Boiotia) 33, 38, 42, 48–9, 66, 67, 69 (p.306) Boeotian League 42, 67 Brachylles 33, 49 Brundisium 22, 65 Buckoll, Henry James 9 Buettner-Wobst, Theodor 88 Caecilius Metellus, Quintus (cos. 206) 50, 52–3, 54, 175 Caecilius Metellus Macedonicus, Quintus (cos 143) 79, 81 calendar, see Roman calendar Callicinus, battle of (171 BC) 68, 69 Callicrates (Kallikrates) 41, 42, 56–7, 58, 60, 61–2, 68, 74, 77, 79, 102, 179 achievement of 174 embassy to Rome 172–3 effects of 176–9 Polybius’ criticism of 170, 173–4, 177 urges obedience to Rome 172 urges Roman intervention 169–70, 173 Cannae, battle of (216 BC) 87, 234–5 Carthage 24, 29–30, 61, 140, 148, 186 Lutatius treaty 181–4 River Ebro 184–6 Cassius Longinus, Gaius (cos. 171) 67–8, 69 Castrum Novum 22 Cato the Elder 44, 184, 186, 205 Cephalus 72–3, 177–8 Chalkis 33, 34, 69, 198, 199, 201, 202, 205 Charops 72–3, 75, 78, 102, 178, 179 Chios, inscription from 244, 245–8 commentary on 248–62 context of 257–8 date of 255, 256–8, 261–2 discovery of 243 identity of man honoured 258–61 individual letters 255–6 physical description 245 text of 245–6 Chremas 78, 178, 179 Cirta, battle of 222, 223 Clastidium, battle of (222 BC) 23 Claudius, Appius 50, 51, 53–4, 62, 175 Claudius Centho, Appius (praetor 175) 71, 73 Claudius Marcellus, Marcus (cos. 183) 23, 62, 63 Claudius Pulcher, Gaius (cos. 177) 217 constitutions, Polybius’ theory of development of 97–9 Corcyra 66, 114, 271, 274, 275 Corinth 80, 81, 199 Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus Africanus Numantinus, Publius (cos. 147, 134) 86, 101 Cornelius Scipio Africanus, Publius (cos. 205, 194) 29, 35–6, 130, 133, 144, 223, 224 Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus, Lucius (cos. 190) 38 Page 3 of 13

 

Index Cornelius Scipio Nasica Corculum, Publius (cos. 162, 155) 74 Coruncanius 22, 152, 160 Cotys 77, 102, 146–7 Crete 62 Critolaus 80, 81, 104 Dalmatia 134 Roman war against 78–9, 96, 147–8 Dardani 60 Deinocrates 54 Demetrias 33, 34, 36, 37, 38, 48, 121, 197, 198, 199 Demetrios (Demetrius) of Macedon 41, 51–2 Demetrios (Demetrius) of Pharos 23, 24, 271–2 Derow, Peter 1–2, 4 academic persona 1, 10 on ancient history 15–17 Canadian career (1969–77) 6–9 Derow doctrine 4–6 handwriting 10, 11 influence of 5, 13 lecturing style 11–12 Oxford career (1977–2006) 10–15 political views 11 publications 5, 8–9, 14–15 as teacher 12–13 tutorials at Oxford 12 Diaeus 80, 81, 104 Digitius, Sextus 61 Diophanes of Megalopolis 48, 52, 53, 54, 56, 58 Dolopia 61 Ebro, River 181, 184–6, 187–8 Hannibal's crossing of 185 Egypt 97, 191 Epidamnos 29, 274, 275 epigraphy, see Chios, inscription from; Pharos, inscription from; Royal Correspondence 38 (Amyzon) Epirus (Epeiros) 22, 29, 38, 43, 66, 200 Third Macedonian War 72–3, 75 Eumenes of Pergamon 26, 39–40, 42, 49, 63, 134 charges against Perseus 63–4 Roman rejection of 44, 76 (p.307) Fabius Maximus 235 Fabius Pictor 156, 157, 162–3, 164, 165, 185, 186, 262 Fasti Triumphales 209–10, 217, 219, 222 Fine, John van Antwerp 6n Firmum Picenum 22 Flamininus, see Quinctius Florus 30, 157 Forrest, George 1, 10, 14 Frederiksen, Martin 8, 9, 10 Page 4 of 13

 

Index Fulvius Nobilior, Marcus (cos. 189) 38 Gauls 23 Genthios (Genthius) of Illyria 43, 65, 66, 73, 74, 275 Greece: alienation from Rome 197–9 divided attitudes towards Rome 41, 56–7, 58, 173 doubts over Roman intentions 199–200 effects of Callicrates’ embassy 176–9 establishment of Roman dominion over 39, 43 post-Apameia Roman rule 39–41 resurgent panhellenism 27–8 Roman proclamation of freedom of 33, 34, 48, 195–6, 200–1 limited nature of 200–3 Roman retention of garrisons 199–200 Hadria 22 Haliartus 69 Hamilcar Barca 93, 140 Hannibal 24, 25, 28, 29, 93, 185, 186, 188, 223, 231–2, 234 Hasdrubal 185, 187, 188, 223, 236–7 Hecataeus 107n, 108 Heraclitus 112, 113 Hermocles 259, 260, 261 Herodotus, and historical explanation 93, 95, 107, 108–13, 116–17 conflict theory of world order 112–13 personal motives 113 predetermination 109–10 vengeance and greed 110–11, 112 historiography, Greek 107 Hecataeus 108 Herodotus and historical explanation 108–13 Polybius and historical explanation 92–5, 118–24, 139–40, 146 Thucydides and historical explanation 113–18 Holleaux, Maurice 3, 5, 125 Aetolian appeal to Rome 136–7 First Illyrian War 153n Peace of Phoenice 135–6 Roman expansion 126–7, 134–5, 138 Hortensius, Lucius (praetor 170) 69 Hostilius Mancinus, Aulus (cos. 170) 69, 70 Hultsch, Friedrich 88 Hyperbatus (Hyperbatos) 56, 172 Illyria: emergence of strong state 21–2 expansion of 22 piracy 22, 152 Roman division of 43 Third Macedonian War 73–4 post-war Roman division of 75 Illyrian War, First (229–228 BC) 21, 22–3, 271 Page 5 of 13

 

Index Appian's account of 152–3 brevity of 154 Issa's role 158–60 Kleemporos 160–1 plausibility of 161 relation with Roman annalists 157 sources 157 assessing accounts of 155 Polybius’ account of 151–3 Agron's death 166 chronology 166–7 difficulties with 154–5 explanations of 161–4 importance of war 164–5 relation with Roman annalists 157–8 responsibility for 165 sources 156–7, 162–4 traders’ complaints of piracy 161 Illyrian War, Second (219–218 BC) 24 Polybius’ account of 155 Ionian League 44 Isocrates 147 Issa 22, 78, 152, 158–60, 274–5 Isthmian Games 23, 34 Isthmian proclamation (196 BC) 34, 48, 195–6, 200–1 Iulius Caesar, Sextus (cos. 157) 80, 104 Iuventius Thalna, Publius (praetor 149) 79 Kallikrates, see Callicrates Kleemporos 22, 160–1 Kontoleon, Nikolaos M 243, 245, 254, 258 Kynoskephalai, battle of (197 BC) 30, 33 Laelius, Gaius (cos. 190) 61, 62, 224 Lampsakos 35, 37, 38 Laodice (Laodike) 41, 59 (p.308) Leptines 147 Lex Acilia 212–13, 225 Licinius Crassus, Publius (cos. 171) 67–8, 69, 73 Liguria 67 Lissos 25 Livius Salinator, Gaius (cos. 188) 201–2, 257 nn 3, 4 Livy 25, 60, 62, 63, 66, 72, 77, 177, 197 Macedonian War 30 Peace of Phoenice 29, 135–6 Luce, James 6n Lucretius Gallus, Gaius (praetor 170) 69 Lutatius treaty (241 BC) 192 Polybius’ versions of 181–4 Lycia 41, 59, 62 date of Lycian embassy 214–18 Page 6 of 13

 

Index Lyciscus 71, 78, 178, 179 Lycortas of Megalopolis 48, 53, 54, 55, 56, 58, 86, 170, 171, 172, 176 Lycurgus 99 Lydiadas 56, 172 Lysimacheia 35, 133 Macedon: Perseus restores influence of 41–2 Philip V's aims in Adriatic 24 Roman division of 43, 75–6 Rome's first contact with 24 Macedonian War, First (214–205 BC) 25–9 divisions in Greece 29 Peace of Phoenice 25, 29 resurgent panhellenism 27–8 Roman-Aetolian League alliance 25–6 Macedonian War, Second (200–196 BC) 30–3, 94, 135, 141–2 Roman peace settlement 33–4 Rome's universal aim 130–1, 132 Macedonian War, Third (171–168 BC) 42–3, 60, 65, 67–74 military operations 67–8, 69, 72, 73–4 origins of 94, 144–6 Perseus’ preparations for 65 post-war Roman reprisals 74–6 post-war Roman treatment of Greece 77–82 Roman behaviour during 69–70 Roman diplomacy 70–2 Roman preparations for 65–7 support for Perseus 68 Macrobius 234 Magna Mater, cult of 29 Magnesia-by-Sipylos, battle of (189 BC) 38 Magnesia-on-the-Maeander 28 Mamertines 158, 190 Marcius Philippus, Quintus (cos. 186, 169) 42, 43, 51, 55, 56, 65, 66–7, 70, 71, 72, 76, 171, 175–6 Maroneia (Maronea) 50–1, 277–8 Massinissa 223 Mazin coin hoard 159–60 Megalopolis 78 Messene 26, 40–1, 54–6, 171, 173 Metaurus, battle of the (207 BC) 236–7 Minucius, Quintus 62 Mnasippus 78, 179 Mummius, Lucius (cos. 146) 81 Nabis of Sparta 29, 35, 36, 54, 197, 200 Naupaktos (Naupactus), Peace of (217 BC) 24, 25, 87, 90 Nicaea conference 225–8 Nicanor 132 Nikander 178 Page 7 of 13

 

Index Ochs, Phil 6, 39 Octavius, Gnaeus (cos. 165) 70, 73, 74, 102–3, 147, 155 n14 Orosius 157 Oxford University, Derow's career at (1977–2006) 10–15 panhellenism, 27–8 Pantaleon 178 Parini, Jay 10n Pausanias 52, 78 Peloponnese 26, 40, 52, 54, 55, 63, 70, 79, 80 Pergamon 44 Perrhaebia 62 Perseus of Macedon 41, 52 aims of policy of 66 charged with inciting Bastarnae 60–1 Eumenes’ charges against 63–4 persuaded to negotiate with Rome 66 re-establishes control in Dolopia 61 relations with Achaean League 61–2 restores Macedon's influence 41–2, 58–9 Roman accusations against 42, 66 Roman hostility towards 62–3 Roman suspicion of 60, 61 Third Macedonian War 42–3, 60, 67–9, 72, 73, 74 preparations for 65 support for Perseus 68 Phalanna 69 Pharos 22 alliance with Rome 273–4, 275 in first Illyrian war 271–2 Roman punishment of 272, 273 (p.309) Pharos, inscription from 265, 266 context of 271–2, 273 date of 272 letter forms 272–3 readings and restorations fragment A 268–70 fragment B 270 Roman alliances with Greek cities 274–7 text of 266–8 Philinus, treaty of 190 Philip V of Macedon 23, 24, 30, 274 aims in Adriatic 24 death of 41, 58 embassy to Rome 50 First Macedonian War 25, 26, 28, 29 Nicaea conference 225, 227 ordered to withdraw from cities by Rome 50–1 plans military resistance to Rome 40, 51 Rome's treatment of 50–1, 134 Page 8 of 13

 

Index Second Macedonian War 31, 32–3 war against Antiochos III 49 Philopoimen (Philopoemen) 32, 48, 55, 58, 86, 170, 196 Phoenice (Phoinike) 22, 152 Phoenice (Phoinike), Peace of (205 BC) 25, 29, 30, 135–6 Pinnes 152, 154 piracy 152, 159, 161 in Adriatic 21, 22 Plato 16–17, 91 Polybius: Achaean war 103–4 background and career 86 constitutions 97 anacyclosis 97–9 nature of best 99 Demetrios of Pharos 23 deported to Rome 41, 43, 74, 86 deterioration of Rome 192–3 effects of Roman expansion 16 First Illyrian War 21, 151–3 Agron's death 166 chronology 166–7 difficulties with account of 154–5 importance of 164–5 responsibility for 165 sources for account of 156–7, 162–4 traders’ complaints of piracy 161 on Greek support for Perseus 68 historical explanation 92–3, 94–5, 118–24, 139–40, 146 historical causation 93, 120–1, 139 Histories: chronological framework 88–9 geographical framework 89–90 period covered by 85–6 reconstruction of 88 starting point 91–2 structure of 86–7 surviving quotations and excerpts 87–8 time of trouble 103 unity of subject 90–1 usefulness of 85 honours conferred on 105 Illyrian piracy 22 Isthmian proclamation 195–6 origins of wars 165n Dalmatia 96, 147–8 First Illyrian War 152–3, 165 First Punic War 190 pretexts for 96–7, 148 Page 9 of 13

 

Index Second Macedonian War 94, 141–2 Second Punic War 93–4, 140–1, 186–8, 189–90 Third Macedonian War 94, 144–6 war against Antiochos III 94, 142–4 pragmatic history 91, 92 Roman constitution 97–8, 99–101, 123, 127 Roman expansion 5, 16 consistency in account of 126 Fortune 126 Holleaux's thesis 126–7 inconsistencies in account of 125–6, 139 reasons for studying 85 Roman policy in Greece 40, 41, 56, 57, 102–3 Second Illyrian War 155 Second Macedonian War 31, 32, 94, 135, 141–2 Third Macedonian War 68, 71–2 origins of 94, 144–6 Roman diplomacy 70–1 universal aim of Rome 95, 127–31 content of 131–4 means of obtaining 97, 191–2 order/obedience syndrome 95–6, 131–4, 202 view of Romans 191, 192–3 Popillius Laenas, Gaius (cos. 172, 158) 70, 71 Popillius Laenas, Marcus (cos. 173) 67 Postumius Albinus Luscus, Aulus (cos. 180) 60–1, 67, 275 Praxo of Delphi 64–5 Prusias (Prousias) II of Bithynia 41, 64, 102, 134, 191 Ptolemy V Epiphanes 32 Ptolemy VI Philometor 63 (p.310) Punic War, First 190 Punic War, Second 140–1 causes of 93–4, 186–8, 189–90 Pydna, battle of (168 BC) 43, 74 Quinctius Flamininus, Lucius (cos. 192) 35 Quinctius Flamininus, Titus (cos. 198) 32, 33, 34, 37, 48–9, 52, 54, 62, 175, 192, 198–9, 225, 227 Rammius of Brundisium 64 Rhodes 30, 31, 41–2, 43–4, 59, 62, 65 Third Macedonian War 72, 76 Robert, Jeanne 245, 250, 253, 265 Robert, Louis 243, 245, 250, 253, 265, 270–1, 272, 273 Roman calendar: 190–168 BC 209–19 after 168 BC 220 astronomical synchronisms 210 date of Lycian embassy 214–18 eclipse (July, 188) 213 equivalent dates 209–10, 214–15 Page 10 of 13

 

Index intercalation 211–13, 217, 219 218–191 BC 221–38 African campaign 222–4 Cannae battle 234–5 chronological indications 229–30 edict of Fabius Maximus 235 equivalent dates 222, 229, 230–1, 236 inconsistencies 222 intercalation 222–3, 224–5, 228–9, 236 Lake Trasimene battle 230–3 Metaurus battle 236–7 Nicaea conference 225–8 dating system 210n Rome: alliances with Greek cities 274–8 Dalmatian war 78–9, 96, 147–8 Egypt 97 establishment of dominion over Greece 39, 43 expansion across the Adriatic 21–4 First Illyrian War 22–3 First Macedonian War 25–9 freedom of the Greeks 33, 34, 48, 195–6, 200–1 limited nature of 200–3 Greek policy: divisions over 175 vacillation over 169–70, 174–5 imperialism 58 imperium 31, 35, 38, 76–7, 196, 204–6 order/obedience syndrome 31, 57–8, 95–6, 131–4, 202 post-Apameia rule in Greece 39–41, 47–60 power of 40 pretexts for war 96–7, 148 retention of garrisons in Greece 199–200 Second Macedonian War 30–3 peace settlement 33–4 universal aim 130–1, 132 Third Macedonian War 42–3, 60, 65, 67–74 commanders’ behaviour 69–70 diplomacy 70–2 investigative commission 70 military operations 67–8, 69, 72, 73–4 post-war reprisals 74–6 post-war treatment of Greece 77–82 preparations for 65–7 treatment of hostile people 67 universal aim of 95, 127–31 content of 131–4 means of obtaining 97, 191–2 order/obedience syndrome 95–6, 131–4 Page 11 of 13

 

Index war against Antiochos III 37–9, 94, 142–4 Royal Correspondence 38 (Amyzon): authorship 281–3 capture of Amyzon 287–91 form of address 283–4 readings and restorations 280–1, 282–3 text of 279–80, 283–6 Saguntum 93, 140–1, 185, 186, 187, 188 Sardinia 93, 140, 189, 192 Scipio, see Cornelius Seleukos (Seleucus) IV 41 Sellasia, battle of (222 BC) 23 Sempronius Tuditanus, Publius (cos. 204) 29 Sempronius Gracchus, Tiberius (cos. 177, 163) 77, 217 Sena Gallica 22 Sentinum, battle of (295 BC) 22 Servilius Caepio, Gnaeus (cos. 169) 70 Sicinius, Cn 65 Smyrna 35, 37, 38 Social War 24, 25, 27, 87 Sparta 26, 40, 48, 49, 52–4, 55, 56, 78, 79, 80, 170, 171 Strabo 88 Sulpicius Galba Maximus, Publius (cos. 211, 200) 32, 34 Sulpicius Galus, Gaius (cos. 166) 78 Sumner, Graham 9 Syphax 222, 223 Syracuse 158 Teos 36, 203–4 Teuta, Queen 21–2, 23, 151–2, 165, 271 Thebes 66 (p.311) Thermopylai, battle of (191 BC) 38 Thessaly 35, 38, 62, 66, 68, 200 Thisbe 69 Thoas 178 Thrace 49, 50, 63 Thucydides 17, 92, 93, 107 historical explanation 113–18 Timaeus of Tauromenium 87, 91 Toronto University, Derow's career at (1969–77) 6–9 Trasimene, battle of Lake 230–3 Valerius Laevinus, Gaius (cos. suffectus 176) 62, 63, 64, 274 Valerius Messalla, Marcus (cos. 188) 61 Villius Tappulus, Publius (cos. 199) 32 Walbank, Frank 4, 5, 8, 88, 125, 126, 139, 154, 187, 193, 238 Welles, C Bradford 15n Wevers, John 8 White, Mary 7 Yugoslavia, coin hoards 158–60 Zama, battle of (202 BC) 29, 30 Page 12 of 13

 

Index Zeuxippus 48, 49 Zeuxis 282–3, 284, 285, 289–90

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